Purpose and Context
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Maxine Albro and John Langely Howard, Public Works of Art Project, Coit Tower, San Francisco
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/coit-tower-howard-mural-san-francisco-ca/
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/coit-tower-howard-mural-san-francisco-ca/
The New York Times front- and several page report May 1, 2022 on racist mythologist Tucker Carlson[i] (descended from Henry Miller, who gained ownership of vast tracts of land after the Mexican-American war), made me think about Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897 until his death in 1910, whose “particularly aggressive anti-Semitism” was “central” to his election (Times of Israel).[ii] Even though he tried to move away from “hatred of a minority” in office, that’s how he built his career. Hitler viewed Lueger as a model in Mein Kampf. The simple answer - it’s the fault of those people over there – that appealed to him, now draws many into the pernicious trap of “white grievance”.
Carlson’s “data-driven” business approach taught him to step up what sells and he now has a lock on support from Lachlan Murdock. They see no problem with this route to success, like Lueger. They are dividing the house, and we will all reap the whirlwind they are stirring unless we meet this challenge with effective response. This Times coverage is of historical proportions and should be read by all environmental citizens because what’s coming could be more powerful than heated hurricanes and tornados.
In Wittgenstein’s Vienna[iii] one reads how Lueger became more center-right, as if he were just using the appeal to people’s fears to get into power. Carlson may think of himself as center-right. He began as a libertarian. Now he is leading a cultural war. He reminds us too of Nixon and others who were not devil madmen like Hitler or Putin, but in pandering to the right were great Pandoras (none of them women): people who open the box of social horrors.
If we are to turn back the Nazification of America we should stop anticipating the Night of the Living Dead, viewing Republican voters like zombie followers of leaders with dead souls. We must instead think of other analogies in our effort to free them from the captured herd. Cowboy heroes can help here, resisters of the mob, what Toto the dog does at the end of the Wizard of Oz, the crusty old town liberated by a Barbara Stanwyck vitality or a Gregory Peck integrity – there are so many stories that can inspire us to try to reach those now captured by what was described years ago as The Republic Noise Machine.[iv] A cultural war is being waged against those of us who cling to the American Dream of equality, and we must learn to use stories as do the enemies of democracy.
Carlson’s “data-driven” business approach taught him to step up what sells and he now has a lock on support from Lachlan Murdock. They see no problem with this route to success, like Lueger. They are dividing the house, and we will all reap the whirlwind they are stirring unless we meet this challenge with effective response. This Times coverage is of historical proportions and should be read by all environmental citizens because what’s coming could be more powerful than heated hurricanes and tornados.
In Wittgenstein’s Vienna[iii] one reads how Lueger became more center-right, as if he were just using the appeal to people’s fears to get into power. Carlson may think of himself as center-right. He began as a libertarian. Now he is leading a cultural war. He reminds us too of Nixon and others who were not devil madmen like Hitler or Putin, but in pandering to the right were great Pandoras (none of them women): people who open the box of social horrors.
If we are to turn back the Nazification of America we should stop anticipating the Night of the Living Dead, viewing Republican voters like zombie followers of leaders with dead souls. We must instead think of other analogies in our effort to free them from the captured herd. Cowboy heroes can help here, resisters of the mob, what Toto the dog does at the end of the Wizard of Oz, the crusty old town liberated by a Barbara Stanwyck vitality or a Gregory Peck integrity – there are so many stories that can inspire us to try to reach those now captured by what was described years ago as The Republic Noise Machine.[iv] A cultural war is being waged against those of us who cling to the American Dream of equality, and we must learn to use stories as do the enemies of democracy.
We need fresh injections of oxygen and light into the American polity. We can’t continue like the civilized world just before the World Wars, caught with our defenses down, slow to see the assault building, wishing things would just return to normal. The assault is here. We now have to rapidly boost production and delivery of weapons fashioned from the great historical legacy of democracy and our civic participation. That is where we find the raw materials for rebuilding the arsenal of ideals that can save us.
To take one horrid example of what we face: Carlson may have convinced millions that the city of Lewiston, Maine, has been ruined by accepting Somali refugees, while they have enriched that town. Carlson is simply being ugly. Is it impossible that this cannot be made clear to people? Surely many can be led to understand ugliness, absence of humanity, painfully cruel lies, and their origin in greed. It cannot be regarded as impossible to reach Trump voters. No matter how much we may be appalled by their willingness to believe outrageous outright lies, we must preserve the hope that they can be helped to understand reality and use reason, and depart from the warlike approach so detrimental to our nation.
We have tools we can and must use. The real American Dream is an answer to the ugliness of the Carlson-Murdock era. A government for all of us is still a bright dream. It has worked for hundreds of years and inspired others around the world. We can revive it. It provides us with many keys to unlocking the prison of hatred and division that is being conjured up.
We can preach this but far more effective is to do it. We can come together in so many ways. We can ask the government to act as a convening, nonpartisan entity, to originate and facilitate public interactions for the purpose of regenerating concepts of respectful exchange. We can work to create a society of civic dedication to solving common problems. We can first ask for and then demand if necessary that the government provide funding for nonprofits to foster and operate in this space. The qualification would be experience building community consensus on issues relating to public concerns. So many have done this with mediation, outreach, education, picnics, music, art, essays, public discussion. We can step it up.
Sometimes the government has a heavy-handed, clumsy approach, but sometimes they do well with such missions: think of the art of the New Deal period. When I get to San Francisco I try to visit Coit Tower, not just for the spectacular views of the bay and city, but for the stunning murals depicting workers and real people, a product of the New Deal’s funding of public art.[v] My own experience in government in contentious arenas showed me many opportunities, and while it takes effort to create the shared space, when that effort is made I have seen it work.
The recognition of the value of each individual in the group must be articulated so people see it as a choice, and choose it over the foolish, brittle, absurd system that relies on one leader. What right does one person have to demand loyalty? It goes the other way. We will not get loyalty to us (or the US) unless we demand it. Progressive leaders will fail if we don't make this demand loud and clear.
How do we get the fresh breath of recognition into minds captured by irrational themes that are destructive to politics? To see they serve the interests of would-be oligarchs by believing them? How do we show them we are not their enemies? How do we remind them of the real meaning of freedom? This takes thought and creativity. You can’t always see how you are going to do a difficult thing before you do it.
There’s a moment in the article that indicates a turning point in the history of American journalism:
Earlier episodes almost always included at least one or two guests who disagreed with Mr. Carlson on issues like immigration and global warming.
Now, nearly all guests amplify Mr. Carlson’s narrative.
The piece ends:
If it’s a weeknight, Mr. Carlson will be on. Over the course of an hour, he will look you in the eye and tell you that they want to control and then destroy you.
“They” are you, dear reader, and me.
Since the decline of civics instruction many have called attention to the need for education about our democracy. If you have money, you can give some to foundations that will keep independent journalism alive, that will bring back real information to rural areas, that will untwist the lies that talk radio and Fox News have poured into our social environment, that will counter the well-funded efforts to tell people that their resentments and their fears of immigrants are legitimate because they are the “true” Americans.
If you aren’t filled with money to give away you can support public education, subscribe to good journalism, participate in all levels of government as concerned citizens and experts on our own perspectives and situations, and try to talk to others who need to hear from us. Each of us can find ways to interact and try to reach the ones who are voting, perhaps unwittingly, for the end of that which they think they hold dear, their American heritage. (It’s not in having the chance for you or your group to win over others. It’s in everyone here having the chance to be). Anyone can convene a meeting on a public matter and facilitate civil, open discussion. See if the library or town hall will let you use a room. Set the ground rules for respectful interaction. It will be interesting and can be extremely positive.
Why should we believe that the Republican voter can’t be helped to see the depravity of conscience that manufactures disinformation for their entertainment? We must believe we can reach at least some of them. If we think they are zombies, we may not try.
Pumping the oxygen of civic discourse and the light of truth and reason into the American dialogue is not propaganda. Information based on fact, transparent in origin, is nonpartisan. Facilitation of civil discussions is nonpartisan. Making government fulfill its nonpartisan role and bring us together around the best assessment experts can give us will help mitigate the capture of government. It will remind us of how democracy is an excellent tool for decision-making, for co-existing, for determining how we evolve, if we use it for those purposes. Leaving it to the clashing of competing groups is a primitive stupidity we can abandon.
It should be remembered that after the horrors rushed out of Pandora’s box, the butterfly of hope came out. We can dream of that and plant flowers for it to find. For all living things to be valued society must first grow out of the competitive group phase and accept the fact of an environment made up of individual members requiring respect. This necessity will not likely be grasped unless there is cultural expression that helps those searching for answers to find good ones, and free them from the toxic ones that some unconscionable merchants in mythology are all too willing to give them.
[i] “American Nationalist: How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable News”, Print page 1, May 1, 2022. No byline is given but an explanation of how the Times analyzed 1,150 episodes to document how he “pushes extremist ideas and conspiracy theories into millions of households, five nights a week”.
[ii] Jastinder Khera, “Vienna mayor who was Hitler’s role model becomes magnet for statue protest”, October 9, 2020, citing historian Florian Wenninger.
[iii]Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, 1973.
[iv] David Brock, 2004, detailing how the effort to spread misinformation developed.
[v] https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/coit-tower-murals-san-francisco-ca/. A sign at the site says: “...in early 1934, the building became the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), and offshoot of the Civil Works Administration, one of the ‘alphabet soup’ of federal agencies that put people to work during the Depression. One of the goals of the PWAP was ‘…to support professional artists and thereby create quality art.’”
To take one horrid example of what we face: Carlson may have convinced millions that the city of Lewiston, Maine, has been ruined by accepting Somali refugees, while they have enriched that town. Carlson is simply being ugly. Is it impossible that this cannot be made clear to people? Surely many can be led to understand ugliness, absence of humanity, painfully cruel lies, and their origin in greed. It cannot be regarded as impossible to reach Trump voters. No matter how much we may be appalled by their willingness to believe outrageous outright lies, we must preserve the hope that they can be helped to understand reality and use reason, and depart from the warlike approach so detrimental to our nation.
We have tools we can and must use. The real American Dream is an answer to the ugliness of the Carlson-Murdock era. A government for all of us is still a bright dream. It has worked for hundreds of years and inspired others around the world. We can revive it. It provides us with many keys to unlocking the prison of hatred and division that is being conjured up.
We can preach this but far more effective is to do it. We can come together in so many ways. We can ask the government to act as a convening, nonpartisan entity, to originate and facilitate public interactions for the purpose of regenerating concepts of respectful exchange. We can work to create a society of civic dedication to solving common problems. We can first ask for and then demand if necessary that the government provide funding for nonprofits to foster and operate in this space. The qualification would be experience building community consensus on issues relating to public concerns. So many have done this with mediation, outreach, education, picnics, music, art, essays, public discussion. We can step it up.
Sometimes the government has a heavy-handed, clumsy approach, but sometimes they do well with such missions: think of the art of the New Deal period. When I get to San Francisco I try to visit Coit Tower, not just for the spectacular views of the bay and city, but for the stunning murals depicting workers and real people, a product of the New Deal’s funding of public art.[v] My own experience in government in contentious arenas showed me many opportunities, and while it takes effort to create the shared space, when that effort is made I have seen it work.
The recognition of the value of each individual in the group must be articulated so people see it as a choice, and choose it over the foolish, brittle, absurd system that relies on one leader. What right does one person have to demand loyalty? It goes the other way. We will not get loyalty to us (or the US) unless we demand it. Progressive leaders will fail if we don't make this demand loud and clear.
How do we get the fresh breath of recognition into minds captured by irrational themes that are destructive to politics? To see they serve the interests of would-be oligarchs by believing them? How do we show them we are not their enemies? How do we remind them of the real meaning of freedom? This takes thought and creativity. You can’t always see how you are going to do a difficult thing before you do it.
There’s a moment in the article that indicates a turning point in the history of American journalism:
Earlier episodes almost always included at least one or two guests who disagreed with Mr. Carlson on issues like immigration and global warming.
Now, nearly all guests amplify Mr. Carlson’s narrative.
The piece ends:
If it’s a weeknight, Mr. Carlson will be on. Over the course of an hour, he will look you in the eye and tell you that they want to control and then destroy you.
“They” are you, dear reader, and me.
Since the decline of civics instruction many have called attention to the need for education about our democracy. If you have money, you can give some to foundations that will keep independent journalism alive, that will bring back real information to rural areas, that will untwist the lies that talk radio and Fox News have poured into our social environment, that will counter the well-funded efforts to tell people that their resentments and their fears of immigrants are legitimate because they are the “true” Americans.
If you aren’t filled with money to give away you can support public education, subscribe to good journalism, participate in all levels of government as concerned citizens and experts on our own perspectives and situations, and try to talk to others who need to hear from us. Each of us can find ways to interact and try to reach the ones who are voting, perhaps unwittingly, for the end of that which they think they hold dear, their American heritage. (It’s not in having the chance for you or your group to win over others. It’s in everyone here having the chance to be). Anyone can convene a meeting on a public matter and facilitate civil, open discussion. See if the library or town hall will let you use a room. Set the ground rules for respectful interaction. It will be interesting and can be extremely positive.
Why should we believe that the Republican voter can’t be helped to see the depravity of conscience that manufactures disinformation for their entertainment? We must believe we can reach at least some of them. If we think they are zombies, we may not try.
Pumping the oxygen of civic discourse and the light of truth and reason into the American dialogue is not propaganda. Information based on fact, transparent in origin, is nonpartisan. Facilitation of civil discussions is nonpartisan. Making government fulfill its nonpartisan role and bring us together around the best assessment experts can give us will help mitigate the capture of government. It will remind us of how democracy is an excellent tool for decision-making, for co-existing, for determining how we evolve, if we use it for those purposes. Leaving it to the clashing of competing groups is a primitive stupidity we can abandon.
It should be remembered that after the horrors rushed out of Pandora’s box, the butterfly of hope came out. We can dream of that and plant flowers for it to find. For all living things to be valued society must first grow out of the competitive group phase and accept the fact of an environment made up of individual members requiring respect. This necessity will not likely be grasped unless there is cultural expression that helps those searching for answers to find good ones, and free them from the toxic ones that some unconscionable merchants in mythology are all too willing to give them.
[i] “American Nationalist: How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable News”, Print page 1, May 1, 2022. No byline is given but an explanation of how the Times analyzed 1,150 episodes to document how he “pushes extremist ideas and conspiracy theories into millions of households, five nights a week”.
[ii] Jastinder Khera, “Vienna mayor who was Hitler’s role model becomes magnet for statue protest”, October 9, 2020, citing historian Florian Wenninger.
[iii]Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, 1973.
[iv] David Brock, 2004, detailing how the effort to spread misinformation developed.
[v] https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/coit-tower-murals-san-francisco-ca/. A sign at the site says: “...in early 1934, the building became the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), and offshoot of the Civil Works Administration, one of the ‘alphabet soup’ of federal agencies that put people to work during the Depression. One of the goals of the PWAP was ‘…to support professional artists and thereby create quality art.’”
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