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Let’s stop celebrating a past that never existed. Instead, let’s understand and honor the one that did.

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I first stood at Jamestown as a history-enthralled 11-year-old. The picture of the 17th century ruin of the church tower, abutted to the 1907 Memorial Church, is seared in my mind. I also remember the water lapping at the nearby shore, serving as a reminder that the people at Jamestown had the most tenuous of toeholds on this continent in those early years.

While I didn’t know it at the time, the narratives of life in early 17th century Virginia — told by the guides, the plaques that lined the walls of the 1907 church, and the books I devoured — were incomplete and sometimes egregiously false. White Christian Europeans were the focus. If they were mentioned at all, Native Americans, along with the enslaved African Americans who began arriving against their will at Jamestown in 1619, were small, dependent actors; impediments, if you will, to the greater story of the colonists and settlers and the shaping of what it meant to be an “American.”

Those Europeans were not home. They were the outsiders. Yet we are still fighting over how to interpret their presence in what would become Virginia.

Fifty-four years after I visited Jamestown, the President of the United States stood in the National Archives Museum and called for a “restoration” of “patriotic education” in our schools. A project designed to reverse what some conservatives have seen as a growing emphasis in American public schools on themes of civil rights at the expense of more traditional historical narratives, mainly those revolving around white men. Patriotic education would fit right in with those 1966 interpretations.

Today, thanks to the scholarship of historians, works like the 1619 Project, the explorations of archaeologists, and the education efforts of groups like Preservation Virginia, the interpretations at Jamestown are more richly textured, recognizing the various layers that make up this iconic place in American history. Something worth understanding happened there in the early 17th century. There are stories worth telling and people worth remembering in part for the significance they bring to our lives today. But because history is not what happened, it is a story about what happened, we need to be thoughtful and as truthful as possible in how we craft our narratives of remembrance.

Our recollections need a reckoning and a reimagining. A reckoning with the history that did happen and a reimagining through recovered stories with hope for our collective future.

It may seem strange that someone who has spent more than four decades working to preserve the places and stories from our past finds strength in the belief that America is focused on the work of the imagination, a word that speaks not of past facts but to hope for the future. The writer and social critic Lewis Lapham captures my beliefs about the country’s soul when he writes,

“What joins the Americans one to another is not a common nationality, language, race, or ancestry (all of which testify to the burdens of the past) but rather their complicity in a shared work of the imagination.”

Stories about the past and the places of our lives always seem to be much more on our mind in my native South. Our celebrations and troubles often appear in starker relief. They are imbued in our writing and infused throughout our music. Some are even true. Yet Southerners are not alone in commemorating a past that never existed, while ignoring the one that did.

Marie Howe has said, “Memory is a poet, not a historian.” Neurologists have been saying the same thing now for decades, just not as eloquently. Psychologist and professor Michael C. Corballis notes that our memory…

“was clearly not designed by nature to be a faithful record of the past. Rather, it supplies us with information — some true, some false, and always incomplete — that we use to construct stories. We may well be what we remember, at least in part, but our memories, like clothes, can be selected and modified to create what we want to be, rather than what we actually are.”

In a recent conversation with distinguished Southern historian Edward Ayers, director of the New American History project, he suggested to me that history is not always what it looks like because part of what you are preserving is the memory of what has happened. Stories built on memory can be good, bad, accurate, or wildly false, as Corballis notes. I agree with Ed’s thesis, and with his suggestion that we need to learn how to preserve the “change” that is so much a part of our lives. Preservation at its best should not wallow in nostalgia. Instead, we should work to preserve and honor the stories from our individual and collective memories, seeking the truth through an understanding of how they connect over a continuum of time to help build our personal and national identities.

Many scholars, preservationists, and history lovers — individuals who also love America and its ideals — are working to better understand those stories and memories and tell the truth about our nation’s past. As Ayers considers the half-century of sustained right-wing assaults on historical scholarship, he writes that the charges concern and puzzle him.

“…because they suggest I have been obtuse and perhaps even deluded. As it turns out, I have practiced history for most of the half-century in which these wars over history have been waged — and I have yet to meet anyone who works to destroy the United States. It makes me wonder whether I have been going to the wrong conferences and reading the wrong books…

If this critique had merit, I should have been in the room when the plans were hatched. After all, I sought out the subjects often attacked as the nest of dangerous ideas. I have written books about crime and punishment in the South, about the rise of segregation and disfranchisement, about the Civil War and Reconstruction. Those topics deal with Black people, enslaved and free. They wrestle with lynching and chain gangs. They confront secession and the waging of war against the United States.”

Over a four-decade career in preservation, often facing difficult histories at places ranging from lovingly preserved plantations to the battlefields of great conflicts to formerly unrecognized slave markets, I have yet to find among those pushing for a fuller, deeper understanding of history someone who “hates America.”

We all face choices as to how we express love for one another and for our country. Some come to a point of view and steadfastly defend it, seeking support in those who share that worldview while condemning individuals on a different path.

Others choose to believe that seeking the truth and finding clarity about the events in our past takes work and requires deep listening to those who do not look like us, read the same books, attend the same schools, or share our life experiences.

Patriotism as I envision it involves a willingness to examine, rather than paper over, the troubles in our past. My stories of the places from my history — coming from my very privileged status in the South as a straight, white, Christian, male — celebrate both triumphs and difficulties. But I write them out of a spirit of hope. Hope that is grounded in memory. Hope that is a part of — when I am at my best — a never-ending education and ongoing effort to seek the truth.

When we make the choice to hope, refuse to paper over our troubles, and go down into our figurative basements to work on the often hidden issues that divide us as a country, perhaps then we can move beyond a celebration of a past that never existed and begin understanding and honoring the past that did.

(NOTE: During October, I am writing articles on how history and the places where history happened can help us understand the issues we are facing as a country and a democracy. Besides this story of revealed history, you can find posts on the use of misinformation, wrongful imprisonment and racial violence, religious liberty, and voter suppression, in addition to a book review on how democracies die by clicking on the links.)

More to come…

DJB

Image: Jamestown Memorial Church (credit: Preservation Virginia)

Saturday Soundtrack: Matt Flinner

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Matt Flinner is the top-shelf mandolinist and composer not enough people know. At least not in the way that music fans know that force of nature Chris Thile, or the Energizer Bunny clone Sam Bush, or the genre-bending trail-blazer David Grisman. But musicians have long been aware of this quiet master, who, in the words of the Associated Press, “blurs the lines between jazz and bluegrass, traditional and avant-garde” with the best of them.

Flinner’s website bio showcases just how in-demand he is as a musician.

“Multi-instrumentalist Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Starting out as a banjo prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the National Banjo Contest at Winfield Kansas in 1990, and took the mandolin award there the following year. Since then, he has become recognized as one of the premiere mandolinists as well as one of the finest new acoustic/roots music composers today. He has toured and recorded with a wide variety of bluegrass, new acoustic, classical and jazz artists, including Tim O’Brien, Frank Vignola, Steve Martin, Darrell Scott, the Modern Mandolin Quartet, Dave Douglas, Leftover Salmon, Alison Brown, The Ying Quartet, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, and the Nashville Chamber Orchestra. He has also recorded two Compass Records CDs and toured as part of Phillips, Grier and Flinner with bassist Todd Phillips and guitarist David Grier. His two solo CDs (also on Compass), “The View from Here” and “Latitude,” are now widely considered classics in the new acoustic/modern bluegrass style. His current group, the Matt Flinner Trio (with guitarist Ross Martin and bassist Eric Thorin), has forged new pathways in acoustic string band music with their two ground-breaking CDs, “Music du Jour” and “Winter Harvest” 

Since he began in bluegrass, we’ll start our exploration there as well, with this tasteful version of Bill Monroe’s Tennessee Blues by Phillips, Grier and Flinner. Stick around for the second mandolin and guitar breaks because both are worth it. David Grier and Todd Phillips — long-recognized masters in the acoustic music world — are no slouches on the guitar and bass, respectively. And the entire band has beards which would make any Stanley Cup-chasing hockey team proud.

I first focused on Flinner’s music because of his Music du Jour project and album. As the mandolinist explains in this short video, each member of the trio writes a song each day while the band is on tour. They then perform those tunes that evening. It made for quite the creative challenge, and some wonderful music.

Inferno Reel, which kicks off the Music du Jour album, is a pretty standard bluegrass romp (if you are a top-notch player). It is also great fun.

Stomp Hat, from the same session, heads off into more jazzy territory.

The tunes can come from anywhere and often reflect the mood of the composer on that particular day. In a blog post, Flinner noted that the inspiration for Raji’s Romp came from…

“an interception and touchdown run by B.J. Raji of the Green Bay Packers a couple of years ago, which helped the Packers go on to the Superbowl by defeating the Chicago Bears.  I finally got around to writing my tune of the day after the game was over, and being a Packers fan, I was in a good mood.”

The tune was written on Jan 23, 2011, for a show at Avogadro’s Number in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and is featured on the Winter Harvest album.

Here’s a beautiful two-mandolin arrangement of Flinner’s tune A View From Here, with an extra dollop of St. Anne’s Reel thrown in for good measure. Performed by Matt and Flynn Cohen (of Low Lily) on December 18, 2019, this concert took place at The Parlour Room in Northampton, Massachusetts.

I have heard Flinner live at both Merlefest and Red Wing Roots Music Festival, often playing as a sideman. He’s quiet, so you might miss him unless you pay attention. Flinner is one of the innovative artists found on Compass Records. When live music returns, I recommend you take in a show if he’s in your area. Until then, take the time to get to know him and his adventuresome music.

Enjoy!

DJB

Photo courtesy of MattFlinner.com

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Carter!

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President Jimmy Carter turned 96 years old today, and that’s worth a celebration! It also brings back some personal memories.

The 1976 campaign, when former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter took on the incumbent Gerald Ford, was the first time I was eligible to vote for president. A few weeks before Election Day, I was in Philadelphia as a young college student studying history and historic preservation, attending the National Trust Annual Preservation Conference — the first of 41 I attended over my career.

Philadelphia in 1976 moved me. I loved exploring a real city, a gritty city at the time, with my friends and classmates. It was so different than Murfreesboro or even Nashville. We ate food that had never before passed my Southern lips and heard strange accents that sounded foreign to my ears. I was able to see and touch Independence Hall and Carpenters Hall, iconic places that I had explored only in books as my interest in the past expanded and deepened. Being in the room where the delegates debated concepts such as the self-evident truths of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness made it all come alive.

And the real-time relevance of history and place exploded in my face during that trip. I was there near the end of the presidential campaign, the first time the people would have a voice after the upheavals of Watergate. Jimmy Carter was scheduled for a massive downtown rally late in the week. Several classmates and I wedged our way into the tens of thousands of people who filled four streets that came together at the intersection where the candidate would speak. My heart raced as I heard the roars for that now-familiar Southern lilt coming from a man who in a few short days would be president-elect. My mind thrilled as I realized that here I was, in the city where the concept of a government, deriving powers from the consent of the governed, had its most powerful realization. Somehow, I also understood that, in casting my first vote for president, which went to President Carter, I would soon be a part of what Abraham Lincoln noted was the ongoing fight to see if a nation dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal” can long endure.

Two years later I was living in Americus, Georgia, just ten miles from Carter’s hometown of Plains. I was the first historic preservation planner in a joint program between what were then called Area Planning and Development Commissions and the state historic preservation office. I had moved to a place with a complex history, as histories usually are. Beside the stories of racial injustice and Jim Crow terror, I found the existence of the interracial Koinonia Farm, which began on land outside Americus in the 1940s. The commitment to racial equality, pacifism, and economic sharing brought “bullets, bombs and a boycott” — to quote the farm’s own history — as the Ku Klux Klan and others attempted to force closure of this radically intentional Christian community in the 1950s. They failed, and it is still in existence, as it was when Jimmy Carter was elected president and I arrived in town.

There was a pride in Carter’s life and accomplishment along with a desire to showcase the best the area had to offer. That was one reason I was there, as the rich, layered, and sometimes troubled history was being considered worthy of preservation. I had the opportunity to recognize the places in Plains that were integral to Jimmy Carter’s development, and on one trip to the small town I had the chance to meet Mrs. Carter and tell her of our work. I helped in the early efforts to resurrect one of the triumphs of Americus, the community’s iconic Victorian-era Windsor Hotel, with its mix of tower and turret, balconies, and a three-story open atrium lobby. Joining a small group of local preservationists, we also worked with the city to begin a community development project to preserve and upgrade the simple vernacular homes of the city’s black citizens. Those were great times that I treasure.

Carter’s legacy and impact as president has grown through the years, although he was voted out in the Reagan revolution of 1980. Among the great ironies is that Jimmy Carter, who is universally recognized for the way he lives out his Christian faith on a personal and public level, was targeted for defeat by none other than the Moral Majority founded by the father of the now infamous Jerry Falwell, Jr.. I noted recently in another post that Former President Carter has had what many believe is the most successful post-presidential career in history*, all built around service to others.  His work empowers those who didn’t have the privilege that he enjoyed as a white, male Southerner growing up in the 20th century.  

Wonkette had a wonderful and touching tribute to President Carter today that included the following:

“A spokesperson for the Carter Center in Atlanta said the former president would be celebrating his birthday at home in Plains with his wife, Rosalyn….Back in July, the Carters released a photo reminding folks to wear face masks and to keep each other safe. In March, as the pandemic spread, the Carters sent a message to donors asking them to forgo their next planned donation to the Carter Center and instead give to local groups helping out with the pandemic, because that’s the kind of people they’ve always been: believers in community, and in the power of people to help each other — not just through individual giving, but through making government work for everyone, too.” (my emphasis)

The story also included this skit from SNL, which has some laugh out loud moments and captures a snippet of the craziness of life in the 1970s:

As the Wonkette story notes, Carter was also invoked in the lede of a Washington Post story Monday, following the big New York Times exposé “revealing Donald Trump just plain doesn’t pay income tax.“

“In 1977, President Jimmy Carter had a problem, according to presidential tax historian Joseph Thorndike. Carter’s federal tax burden for 1976 had been zeroed out by a massive investment tax credit he earned for purchasing equipment and buildings related to his peanut farm.

Carter was upset, as he told The Washington Post at the time, because he had a “strong feeling” that wealthy people like him should pay at least some taxes. So he voluntarily paid the Treasury Department $6,000, the equivalent to 15 percent of his adjusted gross income and slightly more than the 14 percent paid by average taxpayers that year.”

God do we miss that type of leadership and character in these troubled times.

Happy birthday, Mr. President! Yours has been a life well-lived. May you continue to live comfortably while you inspire us all.

More to come…

DJB

*Others may argue for John Quincy Adams, who served 17 years in the House of Representatives after losing his presidential re-election bid to Andrew Jackson.  Adams, a fervent anti-slavery Congressman, is credited for the effort that did away with the “gag rule,” which automatically nullified anti-slavery legislation.  Adams suffered a stroke on the floor of the House in 1848 and died two days later.

Photo courtesy of The Carter Center via Twitter.

Dinos on the Montana Landscape

UPDATED: How can I miss you if you won’t go away?

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Editors Note: Originally posted on May 5, 2019, here we are on September 30, 2020, the day after the first presidential “debate”, and this is the “egg on my face” update. Who knew that good old 77-year old Joe Biden would be JUST what the country needed in 2020 to face down a bullying, narcissist, misogynistic, racist con man? Apparently a lot of older, female, and/or black voters who understood that basic decency, competence, and a long career of public service would be an effective counterweight to Donald Trump. So I take back the concerns I was feeling because Biden wouldn’t step aside for the next generation and salute him for his courage and stamina. I feel he’s taking one for the country. While I still think the basic premise of this post holds, I will admit to both exceptions to the rule and errors on my part.

Sometimes it’s hard to say good-bye.

Last week, former Vice President Joe Biden—at 76 years of age and counting—became the twentieth announced Democratic candidate for President.  As many have noted, he’s not even the oldest aspirant in the field. That would be 77 year old Senator Bernie Sanders, running again after coming in second to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in 2016.  Both white males are vying to replace another white male, 72 year old Donald Trump.

So much for the generational change with diverse candidates who look more like America that was to occur when the 47 year old Barack Obama assumed the presidency in 2009.  Not to mention the glass ceiling, which remains very much in place.

Knowing how and when to step aside for a more diverse, younger generation of leaders is very much front page news for the Democratic Party as the nation heads into another presidential election cycle. A recent Suzanna Danuta Walters op-ed in the Washington Post argues that male politicians “have a responsibility—if they really do want a more gender-equitable world—to lean out, work actively to disavow their privilege and pitch in to get a woman elected president.”  A Democratic primary focused on the women and younger, more diverse male candidates would provide choices among those who have experience in executive and legislative leadership, voting rights, criminal and social justice work, consumer protection, financial sector reform, health care, environmental protection, immigration, LGBTQ rights, Hispanic and African American empowerment, local government, the role of the military in today’s world, and international relations.  All are issues of importance to a wide range of Americans.

Politicians have a history of sticking around when others have long moved on to retirement (think Strom Thurmond, for goodness sake) and they certainly have motivations which differ significantly from so many of their fellow citizens.  Nonetheless, suffice it to say there is no “right” answer here.  Looking outside of politics, the preponderance of evidence has led me to believe that the privileged who are aware** of the special standing they have been given because of their gender, race, or circumstances of birth have a responsibility to think carefully about how to support those who do not have those same entitlements.  Even when we believe we have unique qualifications to lead—perhaps especially if we believe we have unique leadership qualifications—we need to consider the benefits of giving others, who bring a different perspective, their opportunity.

I considered appropriate ways to turn over my responsibilities before stepping down from a nonprofit leadership post earlier this year.  Over time, I came to believe that the baby boomers had made our mark on the historic preservation field and should find ways to pass the movement’s future to younger and more diverse generations and their points of view.  As this thought grew, the face in the mirror looked back at me with that, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” look.  Was I good at what I did?  Yes, I believed I was.  Were my perspectives, gained over decades of experience, of value to the field?  Yes, I felt so.  Was I indispensable? Ha! My grandmother’s admonition that, “The graveyard is full of folks who thought the world couldn’t get along without them” was always too fresh in my ears.

Stepping aside to encourage leadership roles for people of different generations, genders, and ethnicities doesn’t mean crawling into a retirement shell and slowly dying.  Mentoring new generations—both before and after transitions—will always be important.  Former President Jimmy Carter has had what many believe is the most successful post-presidential career in history***, all built around service to others.  His work empowers those who didn’t have the privilege that he enjoyed as a white, male Southerner growing up in the 20th century.  It is a model many of us could emulate, no matter our field of expertise.

There’s an old song that goes, “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?”  It is a sentiment that is good to keep in mind when considering how to effectively, and gracefully, step aside before becoming a dinosaur.

Have a good week.

More to come…

DJB

*Perhaps some should say good-bye before extinction arrives (Dinosaurs on the Montana landscape* – photo by Claire Brown). One of the great things about traveling cross country is the wacky art you find along the way, such as the dinosaur sculpture garden just outside of Glasgow, Montana.

**I am very much aware that there are many individuals who do not see how their privilege has set them up for success.  They were born on third base and yet wake up and think they hit a triple.

***Others may argue for John Quincy Adams, who served 17 years in the House of Representatives after losing his presidential re-election bid to Andrew Jackson.  Adams, a fervent anti-slavery Congressman, is credited for the effort that did away with the “gag rule,” which automatically nullified anti-slavery legislation.  Adams suffered a stroke on the floor of the House in 1848 and died two days later.

Installment #2 in The Gap Year Chronicles

Defining our democracy

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“The good things in our nation did not come about by chance, and they will not be preserved by indifference.”

The Rev. Dr. Deborah Meister

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Keeping a democracy takes work.

Disuse of democracy by a careless majority is cause enough for worry in a world of constant struggle between tyranny and freedom. But when that indifference is coupled with a deliberate effort by a wealthy minority to undermine the public good for private gain, we find ourselves at a point where Americans are in danger of having government by the people smothered by an oligarchy focused on the enrichment of the few and the repression of those who disagree with them.

America as an idea is a work in progress, with an eye on the prospects for the future. At our best, we are always growing, always becoming, as we move toward that more perfect union. But we are not always at our best. The history that really happened, as opposed to the history we’ve told ourselves for much of our existence, is that we have not always had the full flowering of democracy that we so proudly celebrate here in America.*

That’s true in part because the presiding oligarchy has never wanted one and has worked to align their personal goals with false definitions of what government by and for the people entails. Those who favor authoritarianism and hierarchy — who favor an America that privileges only those who support their point of view, be it economic or theological — have certainly been working overtime for more than 400 years to institute their vision. If we are to keep government by the people alive in this country, it is important to understand how that minority defines and frames issues as they work to undermine pluralistic democratic rule.

When we think of what use to be called the commonweal, or the good of the people, our mind conjures up liberty, freedom, rights, the public good, and truth. Yet in recent decades, each of those words and phrases has been redefined in ways that denigrate the core concept of community obligations and beliefs so critical to the American experiment.

Let’s begin with liberty.

In a comment to last week’s post, my friend Deborah Meister suggested that, “’Liberty’ used to mean ‘liberty for… [something]’ —- something like, freedom to develop one’s gifts and then to offer them in helping to shape a society.” But today, after a long effort by the oligarchy to move beyond the concept of a common good, liberty is generally understood in our culture as “‘freedom of choice’ (by which its proponents mean freedom of consumer choice) and freedom from constraint. There is a world of difference,” Deborah adds, “between liberty to choose one’s obligations and liberty to ignore them all in favor of an existence centered on self or, at most, on self and family.”

Which leads us to rights.

In a true pluralistic democracy, rights come with responsibilities and are generally practiced with some sense of empathy for fellow travelers in the world. At the very least, rights with responsibilities are seen as the price of citizenship. But with a selfish world-view focused on anti-science, racism, and patriarchy, many of those fortunate enough to live at the top of the pyramid, generally through an unearned privilege such as the accident of birth or race, do not see it as their responsibility to use their rights to show empathy and concern for others. Hierarchy, in this case, suits their purposes just fine.

Some wonder why evangelicals and other conservative Christians support the wealthy oligarchy so passionately. Part of the reason is that evangelicals often believe in a hierarchy of 1) God, 2) man, 3) woman, and 4) child in that order. Some who hold such beliefs easily fall into the trap of believing that giving rights to “others” such as women, people of color, or LGBTQ individuals, takes away their rights and position on the pyramid. This is why those religious communities don’t have any problem with Donald Trump. His enemies are their enemies. His hatred is a feature, not a bug.

That point-of-view clearly confuses the general population. Most of us believe that to be Christian is to “love your neighbor as yourself” with a broad — some would say Christ-like — definition of neighbor. Having grown up in a region where neighbor, for many Christians, had a much more narrow focus, I am here to tell you that what most of us know just ain’t so. Religious rights are seen by these groups as theirs to define, along with the ability to interpret how “others” fit into that worldview.

From a distortion of religious rights, it is a short jump to the contortions around religious freedom.

Similar to the redefinition of “rights”, some evangelical Christians have also reshaped the concept of “freedom” to fit their purposes. When White Evangelical Christians talk about becoming a minority, they believe it creates a universe where there is more for “the others” or “them” and less for “us.” So they talk about Donald Trump restoring their “freedom.” Writing on Religion Dispatches, John Stoehr rightly calls out that type of thinking for what it truly is: utter nonsense.

“What they’re really saying is that the president will prevent people lower down the order of power from achieving more freedom and equality, ‘violating’ their ‘freedom.’ He must do that by any means, even if he confiscates kids from their mothers, bans a world religion, or commits treason. None of that matters as much as maintaining the supremacy of a religious identity…”

Oligarchs and their supporters have also worked to twist the meaning of public and private.

Writing in 2015 about the huge growth in wealth inequality that the gaming of the system has permitted over the past 40 years, social critic Lewis Lapham asks his readers to consider…

“…reversal over the past half century of the meaning within the words ‘public’ and ‘private.’ In the 1950s, the word ‘public’ connoted an inherent good (public health, public school, public service, public spirit); ‘private’ was a synonym for selfishness and greed (plutocrats in top hats, pigs at troughs). The connotations traded places in the 1980s. ‘Private’ now implies all things bright and beautiful (private trainer, private school, private plane), ‘public’ becomes a synonym for all things ugly and dangerous (public housing, public welfare, public toilet).”

This use of words to shape a viewpoint that is authoritarian and against a pluralistic democracy brings us to truth.

We find ourselves at the end of September 2020. Slightly more than a month out from the election. The day before the first presidential debate. A day after details from the president’s long-withheld tax returns came out in a front-page story in the New York Times. And a week after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to fill her seat.

With all of that before us, it is well to remember how the oligarchy attempts to define right and wrong, true and false. It is important, I suggest, to take back the words and narrative of democracy.

The Senate Majority Leader could barely wait an hour after Justice Ginsburg’s death before assuring us all that his lying would ensure that he would attempt to rush through a nomination for a new justice before the end of the Senate’s term on January 3rd and perhaps before the election. And Donald Trump, who has his own issues with the truth, promised to put forward a nomination immediately, which he has now done for Judge Barrett.

It was predictable that Trump and McConnell would move forward with barely disguised glee. They both have long track records proving they don’t truly believe in democracy, only power for the powerful. And they twist words to fit their lies. To understand our true position in this fight, we need to resist against charges of fake news and the manipulation of facts.

One way to take back the narrative is to remind ourselves that the Majority Leader is not so much a hypocrite but rather a bald-faced liar. He is hiding the truth behind his motives. What he really wanted four years ago was to keep President Obama from nominating a third Supreme Court justice, so he made up some bogus argument — twisted words defining a new Senate “tradition,” if you will — to lie about his true intentions. What he really wants in the next two months is for the Republicans to select their third justice to the court in a little under four years, so he makes up another bogus argument to lie about his true intensions. He isn’t being hypocritical as much as he is lying with words whose meaning he changes to fit his purpose of covering up what he really wants to do.

And here at the end of September, we can look at how words are changed to fit a political purpose by considering the president’s twisted explanations and logic around election security. When you are down an average of more than 7% in the national polls, want people to stop talking about your disastrous pandemic response, are captured on tape lying to Americans about the virus, saw the majority of your party in the House of Representatives disappear in a blue wave in 2018, and have driven unemployment to Great Depression levels, what do you do to change the conversation from all your losing?

You do what Donald Trump has done his entire life. You “create a fiction: You tell the world that you are not losing, the other side is cheating, and you will not allow it.” Trump is working, by changing the meaning of words and concepts we all understand, to hijack the conversation. So many gullible Americans bought into his fiction that he was a rich, successful businessman when the first details of his tax return tell us otherwise. And he wants Americans to believe he can strongarm his way into staying in office indefintely.

And that, dear readers, puts us in a very difficult place as the oligarchs who now control a once-great party are seeking to smother democracy.

The response to Donald Trump’s fictional strongman routine or the nonsense of the religious right is not to run around with your hair on fire or to get depressed and not vote. No, the response is to see clearly what Trump, McConnell, and their supporters in the government, right wing media, white evangelical community, and Russia are trying to do. And then you get to work, doing whatever is within your power, to help keep our democracy.

More to come…

DJB

*Yes, I know the difference between a republic, a pure democracy, and a representative democracy.

Image by UnratedStudio from Pixabay.

The warm, intimate, and compelling music of Watchhouse (fka: Mandolin Orange)

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UPDATE: On April 21, 2021, Mandolin Orange sent out an email to their fans to let everyone know that the band’s name had changed to Watchhouse. It is a thoughtful report on how a year in pandemic led to introspection as to where they were as a band and where they were going.

I first heard the North Carolina folk duo Mandolin Orange at the 2014 Red Wing Roots Music Festival and was instantly smitten. I wrote then that singer-songwriter Andrew Marlin and multi-instrumentalist Emily Frantz “crafted songs that were  simple yet compelling.” Over the years the band has continued to produce warm, intimate music even as they became more widely known and played larger venues such as Red Rocks in Colorado and The Ryman in Nashville. Their most recent studio project, Tides of a Teardrop, debuted at #1 on four different Billboard charts ( Heatseekers, Folk / Americana, Current Country Albums and Bluegrass) with Top 10 entries on 5 additional charts. Clearly, Mandolin Orange has a passionate following.

When asked about the band’s unusual name, Emily told an interviewer in 2015, “It’s basically a play on Mandarin Orange, but when we first started playing, Andrew had this little beater, a mandolin that was orange, and I think one day we just sort of thought of that and it stuck.”

Let’s begin our look at their music from those earlier years with the 2014 video of Hey Adam, from the album This Side of Jordan, filmed amidst the evocative artwork and spaces at MassMOCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.

That Wrecking Ball is from the band’s second album on Yep Roc Records, Such Jubilee, released in 2015. For two musicians so young (they are both 32), it is a thoughtful tune about aging and the push back against the ravages of time.

“I’ve just seen that rock of ages
I’ve just held my savior’s hand
We danced on the water with my head on her shoulder
She swore to never let me fall
And wouldn’t time seem so kindly
if every bright eyed girl could be more like you
and shelter me from that wrecking ball
That wrecking ball“

Andrew and Emily played a well-received Tiny Desk Concert last year, with songs from their two most recent studio recordings. Golden Embers and The Wolves are from 2019’s Tides of a Teardrop while Wildfire is from 2016’s Blindfaller. By the time this was recorded, they had been playing together for ten years, recorded six albums, gotten married, and started a family. As Bob Bollen wrote on the Tiny Desk posting, ” “The Wolves is a story song that, for me, tells a tale on an older woman’s life, the “hard road” she’s taken and that feeling of wanting to howl at the moon when all is finally right.” To me, the song and lyrics of Wildfire seem just so right for our times of troubled racial injustice.

“Civil war came and civil war went
Brother fought brother, the south was spent
But its true demise was hatred passed down through the years
And it should have been different, it could have been easy
But pride has a way of holding too firm to history
Then it burns like wildfire”

In their cover of Bob Dylan’s Boots of Spanish Leather, they show the beauty of simplicity. I love their version of this Dylan masterpiece.

While the band has been on a touring hiatus given the pandemic, they released a live album of a February 2020 recording from Austin City Limits earlier this summer. So we’ll end with Hey Stranger from that album, which has, once again, a message for our troubled times.

“Hey stranger, if ever you decide
Giving in to the bottom will ease your worried mind and heavy heart
You’ll see in time
There’s no burden greater in life”

Mandolin Orange is live streaming from their home base on a regular basis, so if you like what you hear in their music, check them out.

Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

Keeping a democracy takes work

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Author, educator, and lawyer Teri Kanefield writes very smart posts about the law, books, and politics on her Teri Kanefield blog.* This morning she posted thoughts on why those who believe in democracy need to educate themselves on what it takes to keep that system of government. To use one of my favorite baseball metaphors, she hits it out of the park.

I’m working on a post that looks at different aspects of our history, but that makes essentially the same point as Kanefield:

“Many liberals and Trump critics have the idea that the United States has always been a liberal democracy — and then along came Trump, pulling the wool over his followers’ eyes and battering our democratic institutions.

In fact, America didn’t start to move toward a true liberal democracy until Brown v. Board, the 1954 Supreme Court case that declared racial segregation unconstitutional. Brown sparked the modern Civil Rights Movement, which in turn gave rise to the women’s rights movement. Liberals cheered these changes. Many did not.

Trump is riding the backlash from those changes.

For most of U.S. history, Americans lived in a hierarchy. Think of slavery, Jim Crow, and women’s place in the home. Until the modern Civil Rights movement, what we now call voter suppression was legal. For most of our history, only white men voted.

A person on Twitter told me, “Things have never been this bad.” People who think, “Things have never been this bad,” have probably never imagined what life was like for an African American woman in 1850. She didn’t even own her own body. Literally. So yeah, for a lot of Americans, things have been much, much worse.”

Kanefield’s entire post builds on the “what you know that just ain’t so” point of view of American history…but she aims her fire for those who believe in democracy. As she says so eloquently, what many see as an arc of history that is always rising, is instead, as illustrated above, a much more “two steps forward, one step back” arc.

Just go read her post. And if you are worried about the peaceful transfer of power next January, I also recommend her take on that issue in The Strongman Con.

Kanefield’s writing ties in well with what journalist and social critic Lewis Lapham wrote back in 1990:

“If the American system of government at present seems so patently at odds with its constitutional hopes and purposes, it is not because the practice of democracy no longer serves the interests of the presiding oligarchy (which it never did), but because the promise of democracy no longer inspires or exalts the citizenry lucky enough to have been born under its star.  It isn’t so much that liberty stands at bay but, rather, that it has fallen into disuse, regarded as insufficient by both its enemies and its nominal friends.  What is the use of free expression to people so frightened of the future that they prefer the comforts of the authoritative lie?”

More to come…

DJB

*Kanefield notes that for the past few decades, “I’ve mostly written for two audiences: Appellate justices and young readers (middle to high school). Most recently I’ve written political and legal commentary for NBC Think Blog, CNN, Slate Magazine…and  a six-book series of biographies (middle grade)….Writing for young readers is much like writing for appellate justices. I know that sounds a joke, but appellate justices want everything broken down and digestible. I won’t carry the comparison too far: Ninth graders are usually more open minded than appellate justices, and a lot more fun.“

A righteous warrior to the end

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who passed away Friday on Erev Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish High Holy Day commemorating the beginning of the new year — was a trailblazer, role model, force for the rule of law, truth teller, believer in democracy, and warrior for gender equality. By any standard, hers was a remarkable life.

Many accounts of Justice Ginsburg’s passing noted that, according to Jewish tradition, one who dies on Rosh Hashanah is a tzaddik, a person of great righteousness.* That seems so right when applied to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Supreme Court justices can be the most isolated and aloof members of our governing elite. But it was not that way with Justice Ginsburg. Her humanness was on display in many ways and in different places, not just in her majority opinions and in those famous dissents for the court. Stories abound of interactions with her, large and small, that had profound impacts on those in her presence. She became “a feminist icon in her octogenarian years for millions of little girls around the world,” a truly remarkable achievement. I was never fortunate enough to meet Justice Ginsburg in person, yet I do recognize how she touched and blessed my life — and the lives of every American — over the years.

There are wonderful tributes in the media and on the internet, and I encourage you to learn more about this remarkable person who helped change the world. If you have the time, stream both the documentary R.B.G. and the biopic On the Basis of Sex. Both films, for me, capture much of why her life matters so much to so many people and to the country at this point in time.

In fighting for gender equality, Justice Ginsburg believed that men as well as women benefited when equal protection under the law applied equally to all Americans. Having been the beneficiary of the work, support, collaboration, and guidance of many women who were able to rise to embrace their talents and make the world a better place in part because of Ginsburg’s landmark legal efforts for gender equality, I recognize and am extremely grateful for that often unrecognized part of her legacy.

Of course, not every man sees it this way, and I’m thinking of two in particular. But men like the top leaders of the Republican party are not interested in gender equality, they are interested in power and patriarchy. So arguments are created by men that attempt to keep women in special roles, to dilute their power and ability to effect change. As two of her former law clerks wrote in the New York Times, “equality did not mean special­ — she would say “pedestal” — treatment for women. Equality meant the same treatment for women and men.” 

“She often used male instead of female plaintiffs to show sex discrimination prevents all people from realizing their full potential. Why shouldn’t a man, for example, receive the same Social Security benefits a woman would receive, so he could stay home to care for his child after his spouse died? She successfully brought that question to the court in the 1975 case Weinberger v. Weisenfeld. She has said in interviews: ‘The aim was to break down the stereotypical view of men’s roles and women’s roles.’”

Ginsburg’s remarkable life and legacy didn’t happen because she was the loudest voice in the room or through cynicism about the world. As her clerks noted, that legacy was shaped “through a remarkable legal intellect, an incomparable work ethic and a powerful vision of what justice and equal treatment for men and women mean in reality.” Her legal impact touched every part of life while she lived her vision of equality “through every aspect of her personal life, too.”

Those of us who believe in equality for all have much work left to do. She showed all of us important ways to achieve those goals. As Steve Schmidt, one of the co-founders of The Lincoln Project, has written in a remarkably frank tribute to a person whose ideas his party battled for many years, “A great champion of freedom has arrived in heaven. Her work is done. Her burden is now ours. Let us honor her legacy by doing our duty.”

Rest in peace, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. May we all be willing to follow the example of your remarkable life and leadership to fulfill the American “dream that the dreamers dreamed.”**

More to come…

DJB

*A reader and friend who is Jewish sent me a couple of suggestions to ensure that my first two paragraphs were correct. I appreciated the education and thought I’d pass along the information to all my readers..

First, when I originally noted that RBG died on the Eve of Rosh Hashanah, he suggested it would appropriate to name that time as “Erev Rosh Hashanah.” An explanation that he supplied from the internet noted that Erev means evening in Hebrew. Days in the Jewish calendar begin as the daylight leaves — as opposed to other calendar systems where a day begins at midnight or sunrise (as it becomes light).

“Because of the intent to make sure some things are done or not done on certain days, there are various ways of measuring or defining when evening has arrived: sunset or the visibility of three stars in the night sky. So, if you want to make sure you do not do something on a certain day, like work on Shabbat, you should stop doing those things as the sun sets. But if you want to make sure the day has arrived, you should wait for three stars.

Erev also has a meaning that is less common these days. In this older meaning it refers to the time before the holiday has actually begun. During this time, one can still do the things that are forbidden or need to be done before the holiday in preparation. In this meaning, it can refer to the day before the holiday or event.“

Second, he noted that while my use of the term “tzaddik” was correct in referring to a person of great righteousness, if I was referring specifically to RBG the correct term would be “tzaddika” or “tzaddikah” because nouns in Hebrew are typically either masculine or feminine depending on the reference. In this case, my reference was more general, so I left it as I had it originally, but appreciated the information.

**Langston Hughes

The acoustic side of Chris Stapleton

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Readers who follow country music know the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Chris Stapleton. But I enjoy seeing those from other genres hearing his “brown liquor” voice for the first time and recognizing both a unique talent and a kindred spirit with whatever type of music they love.*

Born into a Kentucky coal-mining family, Stapleton absorbed a variety of musical influences growing up, including from the incomparable Aretha Franklin who he described as “the greatest singer that ever lived.” That tells you right from the beginning that his tastes are excellent and his standards high. Stapleton toiled in the Nashville song-writing business for more than a decade while also fronting one of my favorite bluegrass bands, The SteelDrivers, from 2007 to 2010. In 2015 he broke through as a solo performer with the award-winning album Traveller, was featured at the 2015 CMA Awards show in a breakout live performance with Justin Timberlake, and hasn’t looked back.

Stapleton’s voice is a treasure, but his songwriting and guitar playing are also top notch. In this edition of the Saturday Soundtrack, I want to focus on the acoustic side of his work, where all three elements of this unique performer shine.

We will begin this Saturday Soundtrack with a SteelDrivers favorite, If It Hadn’t Been for Love, pushed along by Stapleton’s urgent vocals and the terrific fiddle and harmonies of Tammy Rogers. And yes, this is the tune Adele covered in her Live at the Royal Albert Hall DVD. 

Drinking songs have always been a core part of the storytelling appeal of bluegrass and country music, and Stapleton’s time with The SteelDrivers produced several good ones, none better than Drinkin’ Dark Whiskey (as in “Drinkin’ dark whiskey / tellin’ white lies / one leads to another / on a Saturday night.”)

When Stapleton went solo, his wife Morgane joined him as the harmony singer, and their voices are beautiful together. This live version of Fire Away from Traveller is a great acoustic version featuring just Chris and Morgane and a guitar.

NPR’s Tiny Desk concert captured them that same year in an intimate acoustic setting where Stapleton featured two of his electric hits, When the Stars Come Out and More of You in acoustic versions. These are really lovely, and the interplay of the Stapletons’ voices is pure country gold. More of You may be close to a perfect country love song.

I’ll end with what may be my favorite Chris Stapleton tune, Whiskey and You. His voice is perfect for this story of loss and pain. The guitar accompaniment is simple yet haunting. And the writing by Stapleton doesn’t get any better.

“There’s a bottle on the dresser by your ring

And it’s empty so right now I don’t feel a thing

And I’ll be hurting when I wake up on the floor

But I’ll be over it by noon

That’s the difference between whiskey and you

Come tomorrow I can walk in any store

It ain’t a problem they’ll always sell me more

But your forgiveness

Well that’s something I can’t buy

There ain’t a thing that I can do

That’s the difference between whiskey and you“

And then there’s the killer line.

“I’ve got a problem but it ain’t like what you think

I drink because I’m lonesome and I’m lonesome cause I drink“

Followed by the aching chorus.

“One’s the devil one keeps driving me insane

At times I wonder if they ain’t both the same

But one’s a liar that helps to hide me from my pain

And one’s the long gone bitter truth

That’s the difference between whiskey and you“

Does it get any more basic than love, loss, soulful reflection, and hopeful redemption — all wrapped up in that voice? Enjoy.

More to come…

DJB

*Search “Chris Stapleton Reaction Tennessee Whiskey” in You Tube and see all the different singers, vocal coaches, and commentators from hip hop to r&b to soul share their first reactions to hearing Stapleton sing, especially from his live performances. Those reactions are priceless.

Photo of Chris Stapleton by Becky Fluke

The struggle between tyranny and freedom

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America faces great challenges in 2020. It is even tempting to call these times unprecedented, but they are not. Harry Truman, of course, made this point in very plain language:

“It was the same with those old birds in Greece and Rome as it is now. . . . The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”

As Samuel W. Rushay, Jr. wrote about Truman’s understanding of history and the threats to democracy in the 1940s, “(H)is understanding of history provided him with a wider perspective on communism, whose assault on democracy was, in the words of historian Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, the ‘current form of a timeless struggle on earth’ between the forces of tyranny and freedom.”

We have seen that struggle between tyranny and freedom over and over again here in America.

I was reminded of that feature of American life during my summer break, as I read of one particular moment in that struggle as told in Edward Achorn’s fascinating new book Every Drop of Blood: The Momentous Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. Achorn, the editorial page editor of the Providence Journal, brings a journalist’s eye and a storyteller’s skill to illuminate all the capitol’s “mud, sewage, and saloons, its prostitutes, spies, reporters, social-climbing spouses and power-hungry politicians” that came together on March 3rd and 4th in 1865 when Lincoln began his second term in office. He then showcases the activities of these two days “as a microcosm of all the opposing forces that had driven the country apart.”

When the sun broke through and Lincoln spoke on the afternoon of March 4th, he gave what is rightly considered the greatest inaugural address in the nation’s history, and perhaps the finest single speech in the 244 years since we declared our independence from Britain. When most were expecting celebratory words over the coming end of the war, he spoke instead of that endless struggle between tyranny and freedom. In just 701 words, Lincoln made the case that both sides were wrong, and that all the bloodshed that preceded that day and that was still to come may be God’s judgement for our original sin of slavery. Frederick Douglass, one of several individuals Achorn follows throughout the two days, told Lincoln later that evening in the midst of a crowded reception at the White House that it was “a sacred effort.”

Achorn takes the reader through the events of the inauguration, and how it set the stage for Robert E. Lee’s surrender to U.S. Grant on April 9th at Appomattox followed, less than a week later on April 14th, by Lincoln’s assassination on Good Friday. He does this through a group of characters, both famous and unknown. In addition to Douglass, Achorn follows poet Walt Whitman; soldiers’ advocate Clara Barton; Vice President Andrew Johnson, who was famously drunk the day of the inauguration; and Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Lucy Hale, the daughter of a U.S. Senator from New England and Booth’s lover, is also part of the story, as she inadvertently provided the access for Booth to get into the capitol on March 4th and then, fatally, into Ford’s Theatre six weeks later. Her involvement was covered up, probably beginning on the morning Lincoln died during a private meeting between her father and incoming president Johnson. Achorn captures the frenzy, the turmoil, the excitement, and the despair of that time in a remarkable work.

Few could imagine those events, and the country’s response, on the morning of March 3rd. But that is why history is so helpful. Dealing with crises is serious business, requiring our full attention. But as historian David McCullough reminds us, we have dealt with difficulty before. In fact, almost every era has crises to address.

It is important to remember that as we consider today’s challenges, including:

  • The loss of between 20-40 million jobs*** since the pandemic began; and although some have come back, the economy has not recovered from the Great Depression-level losses earlier in the year;
  • The horrific murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man who died in Minneapolis in late May after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost eight minutes while he was lying face down handcuffed on the street following a complaint about a counterfeit $20 bill; an action that launched nationwide protests and confrontations focused on 400+ years of systemic racism; and
  • Amidst cries of fraud and cheating, the Republican party’s most respected expert on election fraud, who has worked on every campaign back to the Reagan years, has written that Trump’s ceaseless cries about the election being stolen from him, “has put my party in the position of a firefighter who deliberately sets fires to look like a hero putting them out.”

All these and more require our close attention, hard work, and focus. Yet it is timely to remember that what we face is not unprecedented. This nation has struggled towards freedom, and fought the forces of tyranny since the beginning of its history. Yes, certainly focus on the work ahead to defeat those who would take our freedom away, but also remember that hope, as I am fond of saying, is grounded in memory.

More to come…

DJB

*By the time you read this, those numbers will be out of date (and, unfortunately, higher in both cases).

**If you think that the number of COVID cases and deaths in the U.S. is greatly exaggerated, then I recommend this explanation.

***It depends on how you count, but the range is courtesy of the conservative Wall Street Journal.