I went back to my old high school last night, for the first time in thirty years, to see my nephews in “Hairspray,” the Grant High School spring musical this year.  Having only ever seen, of the John Waters’ repertoire, “Pink Flamingos,” I was understandably surprised at the choice.  Wasn’t Divine in that?  Back in my day, we had to censor parts of “Bye, Bye, Birdie,” so I had no idea drag queens were so mainstream these days at the high school level.

Nor did I expect the production to be so, well, good.  In my day, we had a washed-up cocktailhag for a drama director who couldn’t be bothered with, say, relevance or production values, and the result was pretty predictable.  As it turns out, shortly after I left new drama teachers and music directors moved in and turned Grant into something of a theater powerhouse, and it shows; the house was packed on closing night (at $12 bucks a pop) after five previous well-attended shows.  With nearly a hundred kids in the cast, all of whom prove themselves able to pull off huge song and dance numbers together, that’s not only a miraculous feat of cat-herding, but a whole lot of relatives eager to buy tickets.  In my ballet days, we had Nutcracker for just that purpose.

But really….  John Waters?  As it turns out, I shouldn’t have worried.  “Hairspray” is a saccharine treat with a teensy bit of innocuous social conscience thrown in for drama.  In that, it may be Waters at his cleverest.  He takes still-intractable social problems of, race, class, and sexual identity, and teases them up into a cheery 1960′s bouffant for the blue-haired set.  The plot, which involves the heroine, Tracy Turnblad, winning a dance competition by learning from her “Negro” schoolmate how not to dance like a white person, uses her newfound “fame” to try to integrate the American Bandstand-like TV program, is at all times subservient to the catchy and sometimes inspired musical numbers at the heart of the show.

But the interesting part is the drag queen, who in his case turned out to be a kid who grew up across the street from my nephews, and I’ve known since he was a little boy.  Harvey Fierstein played the role on Broadway, and John Travolta (!) played it in the movie, so it’s clearly not intended to be played by a convincing drag queen, and this kid doesn’t try to be.  That’s what made the climactic kiss between “Edna” and her husband, played by my younger nephew, Paul, pictured, a huge crowd-pleaser, instead of the shocker it would have been just a few years ago.  (I did worry about my 85 year old Republican dad,  though, who was in attendance and can see a lot better than he can hear…)

Grant High School hasn’t changed much since I left, at least physically; they haven’t even changed the linoleum in center hall, and I was delighted that I remembered where the bathrooms were at intermission.  But other changes have occurred, and they’re good ones, like this incredible performing arts program.  Unfortunately, the evening was marred by urgent pleas for the reversal of looming budget cuts that would halve the teaching staff dedicated to it.

As generally happens in musicals, the heroine got the boy, her stardom, and all her enemies became friends.  What happens at my old high school remains to be seen.

The reptilian and oleaginous Fox News “Democrat,” Doug Schoen, has taken to the Daily Beast fainting couch, and I for one couldn’t be more delighted.  Deeply alarmed that some annoying facts might be seeping into the rhetoric if not the actions of the presidential candidates, Schoen hyperventilates that “Occupy Wall Street Has Seized Control of This Year’s Political Debate.” Predictably, he sees this as a bad thing. Well boo f*cking hoo.  Here’s Schoen, channeling Aunt Pittypat:

Allen West should take a cue from another House Negro of the racist right, Clarence Thomas, and STFU.  Better to, as they say, keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt.  Today in The Hill, West is given enough rope to hang himself, and unsurprisingly he is left twisting slowly in the wind:

Much has been made of my recent response to a question from a constituent and assertion regarding so-called “communists” in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I am pleased it has inspired so much passionate debate, for that was precisely the point.

In other words, in addition to being a sadistic racist, he also a committed media whore.  Is this news?

When I was studying for my two master’s degrees in political science at Kansas State University and at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff Officer College, the very best professors were those who would begin each lecture with a challenging assertion. It engaged discussion and analysis, and was the best way to uncover the essence of the particular subject of the day.

Them’s some fancy places to get book learnin.’  I guess he didn’t take many writing or poli/sci classes, though, despite his “two,” count em, two, Masters.

As Americans, we must bring to the fore this fundamental discussion of what we want our country to be. Do we veer from our Founders’ vision of a constitutional republic that preserves and protects the individual sovereignty of its citizens, along with the free market and the rights of the several states, or do we continue to slide down this path of expanding the secular welfare state, nationalizing production and enforcing economic equality?

Earth to Allen:  The Founders said little or nothing about the “Free Market,” but they did have a few things to say about “cruel and unusual punishment,” one of your favorite hobbies.  They also spoke of “the general welfare” far too much for your rather odd tastes.  And if anybody’s “nationalizing production” or “enforcing economic equality,” they’re failing utterly.  West clearly flunked history, and hasn’t kept up much on current events in the years since.

My colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus have taken umbrage with my equation of their ideals with those of communists. Why? Why shouldn’t we have this discussion? What part of their agenda are they trying to hide?

One reason not to have this discussion is that you’re a clueless nincompoop.

We must be able to openly discuss how our fundamental freedoms are being slowly chipped away by an over-reaching nanny state that has bit by bit slipped its tentacles into every aspect of our lives, from the types of light bulbs we can use to the size of our toilet tanks.

Light bulb standards were established under George W. Bush, and low-flush toilets have been in place for twenty years, jackass.  Read a newspaper before you write in one.

We must be able to challenge the mandates being handed down by un-elected officials, which threaten our constitutional right to practice religion however we see fit.

Unfortunately, the way you “see fit” to practice your “religion” is forcing it on everyone else, which is only “freedom” in the eyes of God-bothering, authoritarian dipshits like yourself.

We must be able to question tax policies predicated on “fairness” that punish job creators and do virtually nothing to reduce our spiraling debt and deficit.

The lowest taxes on the wealthy in nearly a century CREATED NO JOBS for the entire Bush (mis)administration.  You could be lying, but I’ll be charitable and assume you’re just stupid, which seems abundantly clear at this point.

Specific “party” affiliation is not the point of the discussion — it is rather affiliation with a set of ideals. Conservatives adhere to the ideals of individual responsibility and freedom, limited government, a free market and a strong defense. Those on the liberal left adhere to a collective ideal, directed and controlled by a centralized government to guarantee and enforce social and economic justice.

I see.  The guys who lost two wars, squandered the budget surplus, spied on citizens, tortured people, showered their cronies with Pentagon contracts and what have you, were the good guys.  The ones who balanced the budget, ended the Depression, won WWII and gave YOU the right to vote are the bad guys.  Duly noted.

You can call this what you wish. The esteemed (!) scholar and author Mark Levin calls it “statism.” In our lifetime, the unpalatable and pejorative brands “socialist” and “communist” have been replaced with the more user-friendly “progressive” term.

No, today’s “progressives were once called “liberals,” and before that, “progressives.”  Socialists and Communists called themselves just that.  I don’t know when your “lifetime” was, but it did not take place in the real world.  And Mark Levin is a “scholar and author” in the same way that Dennis Miller is a “comedian.”

But this is not a discussion about labels. It is a discussion far more important and grave, for it affects our nation’s future, our security and each and every one of us. The dialogue must be about the future and direction of these United States. It is about the choice between two futures:  a constitutional republic or a bureaucratic nanny-state.

Oh, you mean a “nanny state” where the government dictates everybody’s sex life?  Where extralegal surveillance, detention, and torture are the norm?  Where artists are smeared and blacklisted for criticizing the President?  I thought not.  You only like nannies when they’re abusive and psychotic.

As a nation, we must directly confront those issues that are most critical. We must be able to openly and candidly discuss how we will move forward to preserve our nation’s greatness, reduce our debt and deficit, put Americans back to work, take full advantage of our domestic energy resources and ensure our security.

Well, not starting wars we can’t win, not emptying the treasury into the pockets of the wealthiest, not cutting government spending in a recession, not despoiling the environment chasing after dwindling, finite energy sources, and not torturing people would be a good way to go, then….  Maybe you’re in the wrong party.

I do not believe we can achieve those goals with larger and larger government, centralized economic planning and redistribution of wealth. Those methods have failed miserably everywhere they are been tried. I will not stand by and watch this nation I love be remade slowly into a government-directed, bureaucratic collective — whether it is termed communist, socialist, progressive or any-other-ist.

Yes, the Soviet Union failed, but Europe did just fine for many years, until it was conned into adopting your delusional ideas.  Here at home, higher taxes on the wealthy and Democratic rule have corresponded with prosperity and rising stock markets and GDP.  Under the GOP, everything goes in the shitter, like recently.

I am not a politician by trade. I learned to communicate on the battlefield, where “nuance” is not at all useful and can in fact be dangerous, if not fatal.

Well, we lost those wars, but you survived; coincidence?

These are dangerous and critical times for our country. We must be unafraid to discuss and confront the challenges we face and ensure we keep our focus on the fundamental issues rather than become distracted by semantics. I gladly welcome this debate in the arena of political ideologies of governance.

If it were a “debate,” you could be easily beaten by a 14 year-old with Google.  Though you say you’re no “politician,” Allen, I can’t imagine any other job for which you’d be remotely qualified.  You’re a halfwit, and in your chosen party, that’s all you need to be.

Even as I’ve been swamped with work and blogging at FDL (I’ll be posting two more Sundays, in addition to my usual Thursdays, I just found out), I’ve become increasingly annoyed with politics, and  as such depressed about the election season now inescapably upon us.  But as if to drop another load of BS into my Augean stables, I keep getting emails from the Obama campaign like this:

Hag –

I have some advice for the two people who will be selected to go to a party for the President at George Clooney’s house:

Choose your guest wisely.

Whoever you pick to join you is going to owe you big time.

P.S. — Regarding your airfare and hotel, we’ve got it covered. Just get your name in the mix today.

Really.  I’m supposed to be soooo excited for an infinitesimal chance at hanging out with George Clooney that I’m going to cough up hard-earned money to support a candidate who is a total embarrassment, and has already cast his lot in so many ways with lots of other people who can actually afford to support him, much more lavishly?  If I automatically got to go for my $15 dollar donation, I might do it, but for the same reason I don’t buy lottery tickets, I see this rather desperate-sounding appeal for the scam it is.

Now, I do like George Clooney and admire (some of) his work, and snooping through people’s houses is both a hobby and vocation for me, so it’s really a no-brainer that I’d be the perfect patsy for such a scheme.  But guess what?  I’d be much more eager to go if that prevaricating House Negro were staying home that night.  Frankly, I’m a little surprised that Clooney is whoring himself out this way for a candidate that must be just as disappointing to him as he is to me.

But the most insulting part of the whole thing is how it’s being sold:  I would be empowered to invite somebody who would naturally be so enthralled that they’d “owe me” either undying adulation, cash money, or sexual favors….  Maybe, if I’m lucky, all three.  The subtext, of course, is that all my other, less favored friends would be so jealous that they would surely resent their exclusion, and might even disown me; is that so great?  Once upon a time, we voted for politicians because they might make all of our lives, at least marginally, better.  Now, it’s who gets voted off the ever-shrinking Island, and given Obama’s shameful inattention to climate change, I mean that literally.  Choose wisely, indeed.

But this is just from today; days before, Obama, who has to my chagrin proven to be anything but a neglectful correspondent, enlisted his much more popular wife to offer me a position (unpaid, evidently), in our one remaining growth industry, being a “fella” of one sort or another:

Hag –

I’m writing because Barack needs you out there this summer.

Through the Organizing Fellowship program, you can work in a full-time volunteer position, learn the principles of field organizing, and then carry out important grassroots activities on the ground.

This summer, thousands of these organizing fellows are going to help lead our grassroots organization — recruiting volunteers and running events to help more people make their voices heard.

Michelle

Alrighty, then.  I was soooo worried that I wouldn’t have anything to do all summer, for free, that I was contemplating being a Wal Mart greeter, and throwing my measly paychecks in the street, for the hope of someday moving up to become a Senior Fella in the more challenging field of Shopping Cart Management.  Nothing personal, Michelle, but since we’re apparently on a first-name basis, your offer sucks, and worse, its pathetic lameness would be dismissed out of hand were it not for the employment crisis your husband has done next to nothing to alleviate.  Imagine Clinton, back during the boom days, expecting people to work for free, in vain hopes of someday paying off their student loans or moving out of their parents’ basement.

And tell George Clooney I had to wash my hair that night; he’ll be disappointed, but he’ll get over it.

Well move over, United Way; there’s a new “charity” on the block.  Of course, ALEC was never a “free market” outfit.  Started in the 70′s by Paul Weyrich, it was just another secretive money-launderer for ideas that could never be sold in the “marketplace” of ideas, but was intended to be an assembly line for the bonkers obsessions of the creepy rich to be rolled out as law.  As a side benefit, it provided a lot of senior fella positions to the worthless offspring of the rich, in hopes of launching political careers for otherwise unemployable dupes who would robotically advance their agenda.  One of these, Molly Bordonaro, was able to nearly grab a seat in the US House representing Oregon, armed with nothing but a rich Daddy and and an internship there.

Somehow, though, ALEC was able to grow itself into a purportedly benign pro-business think tank, at least enough to dupe the most monopolistic and dumbest corporations into funding it. The focus on state legislatures rather than national politics was primarily a business decision; they’re cheaper to buy, and corporate bigwigs are notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to donations of any kind.  This acceptance was certainly good news to its original funders, who were then able to spend their inheritances on their more private pursuits, like vanity publications and religious crusades.

All good things must come to an end, or more precisely, must lay low for the five minutes it takes for the media to find a new shiny object, and so it is with ALEC.  No doubt Pepsi, Kraft, and the rest will slink back into the fold and start writing checks once the whole thing inevitably blows over, as these things do, most likely in time for the next Koch Brothers desert confab.   Don’t think for a moment that anyone involved has suddenly seen the light; they’ve merely retreated to the drawing room while the heat is hurriedly aired out of the authoritarian kitchen.

John Avlon, CNN contributor and  Villager extraordinaire, has made a veritable career out of pushing false equivalencies; he literally wrote the book on the subject, in which he touted, among other things, the risible notion that Alan Grayson was exactly the same as Glenn Beck.  Entitled “Wingnuts,” the thesis of this discount-bin tome was that left and right are equally responsible for the dreaded “partisanship” that goes down so disagreeably with cocktail weinies in the perfumed salons of Washington.  Never mind that Grayson’s inflammatory statements had the notable advantage of being true, while Becks’ were invariably pulled directly from his ass, it was their tone that sent Avlon to the fainting couch.

For months after its publication, Avlon’s relentless book-whoring forced him to shoehorn every current event into a further example of his hackneyed and counterfactual little idea; no Republican pronouncement was too outrageous or horrifying to not have an offhand comment from a Democrat that, to Avlon’s addled mind, matched it perfectly.  Leaving aside the rank idiocy of so many people like Avlon whose lives are dedicated to politics finding actual politics so distasteful, real-world events continued to make him a laughingstock, whether he realized it or not.

Well, the scales seem to have fallen from Avlon’s eyes, finally, and he took to CNN’s website to announce that someone had pumped some oxygen to his brain.  More in sorrow than anger, the teenaged “Senior Political Columnist” set to typing:

The ghost of Joe McCarthy’s ulcerous accusations hung over a disturbingly casual comment this past week by U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Florida.

When asked by a constituent at a town hall, “What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists?”

“That’s a fair question,” West replied. “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party.”

Pass the smelling salts, Miss Mellie, someone’s corset’s laced too tight. Even though Avlon carefully added “ic” to the end of West’s McCarthyite “Democrat,” he surely did so just to be agreeable, if a bit deceptive.  When he eventually came to, he went on:

And not only did West not apologize — or receive significant criticism from his fellow Republicans — his revealing response was to raise funds off it.

Oh, the humanity!  Imagine, Republicans trolling for the filthy lucre from their own absurd allegations.  Fortunately, Avlon was able to dredge up just a teensy false equivalency, perhaps out of sheer force of habit:

To equate liberals in Congress with communists is like equating conservatives in Congress with fascists — something only the most brain-dead Occupy protester would attempt.

As one of those brain-dead Occupiers myself, I would point out for Avlon’s much-needed edification that quite a few conservatives in Congress are fascists;  Allen West is merely one of the more egregious ones.  The 1956 Thorndike American College Dictionary upon which I rely for, well, looking up words Villagers have trouble understanding, defines fascism thusly: A governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism…. emphasizing aggressive nationalism, militarism, and (often) racism.  Sounds a lot like the Republican party to me, but I guess I’m just one of Avlon’s “wingnuts.”

Warming to his subject, apparently having given up on anyone buying his crappy book at this late date,  Avlon goes so far as to admit that both sides don’t, if fact do what he’s been saying they both do, ad nauseam:

But the asymmetric polarization of our politics has made such accusations within the easy reach of politically successful ideologues at unguarded moments.

West’s comments were simply extensions of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s infamous statement in 2008 about how then-candidate Barack Obama — and many Democratic members of Congress — held “anti-American views.”

They really believe this stuff: Anyone who is not avowedly conservative is considered liberal — and therefore anyone who is avowedly liberal is considered communist. This is not a little insane.

I’m thinking that when a Republican audience heartily cheered for someone without health insurance being allowed to die, Avlon realized Alan Grayson had a point.  Better late than never, I guess.  Most deliciously, Avlon then aims his fire at, well, himself, when he writes:

And when a member of your “team” says something extreme, it is either ignored or excused by invoking extreme statements from the other side of the ideological gulf — therefore the conservative response to Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut was to try and make the debate about Bill Maher’s past statements about Sarah Palin.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…..  But kidding aside, Avlon deserves some small measure of credit for reluctantly setting aside his bone-headed centrism, noticing that one party is nuts, and saying so publicly.  Sadly, he then spoils it by lapsing into that most annoying Village excuse for being loudly and repeatedly wrong about everything, “everyone does it.”

But the ratcheting up of rhetoric has been occurring for so long that we almost don’t notice it anymore. This feeds the cycle of incitement that is polarizing our politics. It will only stop when members of the two parties start condemning extreme comments made by members of their own team. And if elected officials start to equate liberals with communists, it is time to break the glass in case of emergency, because we are losing any sense of perspective in American politics.

We?  No John, just you.  But welcome, at last,  to the reality-based community; you might like it here.