Tess Hadley's The Past is What Patchett's Commonwealth Could Have Been!

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THE PAST  (2015/16)

By Tessa Hadley

HarperCollins, 311 pages.

★★★ ½

Tessa Hadley's The Past invites comparisons to Ann Patchett's Commonwealth, as both novels deal with deeply dysfunctional families–the first set in England and the latter in the United States. Of the two, Ms. Hadley's book is far more interesting. That's ironic given that The Past deals with stereotypically English folks who think all manner of things but never dare to express them openly. It's doubly ironic in the sense that Patchett's book is sweeping in its coverage, but Hadley compresses her action into a single three-week timeframe. She succeeds where Patchett fails, however, because her dysfunctional family suggests themes that extend beyond personal narcissism. 

Not that there isn't plenty self-absorption on display within the Crane family at the center of Ms. Hadley's novel. It follows four siblings, partners, and hangers-on who gather for the family's yearly sojourn to their family homestead: Kington, a rambling cottage in the English countryside that they (fail to) maintain as a second home in the country several hours from London. It came to the family via their grandfather, the Rev. Grantham Fellowes, the imperious poet/intellectual who was once the village vicar of a now faded Victorian seaside resort.

Hadley's novel has been praised for its Chekov-like touches–especially its portrait of how small personal tremors elevate to what appear to protagonists to be earthquake proportions. The Past is a simple title, but it's also what they novel is about–in this case how the past is the uninvited and omnipresent guest at Kington. The Cranes are people who are so stuck in patterns they simultaneously replicate and dislike. In the very worst English style, they are people who think of changing their lives, opt to muddle through, and call it tradition. Harriet is a burnt-out activist working with asylum seekers and dressing like what she is: an ageing and lonely Tree Hugger. Alice is also fading–a failed actress but active drama queen whose forced optimism drives everyone crazy, as does her refusal to confront her age-inappropriate coquettishness. It is its own statement that she brings with her to Kington a Pakistani twenty-year old named Kasim. They're not lovers; he's the son of her ex-lover and no one can fathom why she brought him. (Kasim is also out of sorts, but he's not sure why he's there either!) Then there's Franny, with her two children: sweet, gullible Arthur, aged six; and eleven-year-old Ivy, a monstrous spoiled princess the likes of which you'd like to lose in the woods. Franny might be called the most "sensible" of the Cranes, except that she's married to rock n' roller Jeff, who is usually physically and emotionally absent. By default, well-heeled businessman Roland is seen as the most successful, though he comes with his third wife, Pilar–an exotic Argentine émigré–and Molly, his sixteen-year-old daughter to his first marriage. 

Do these sound like people with whom you'd like to hole up for three weeks? The only things they have in common is angst, a propensity for making a hash of their lives, an inability to make hard decisions, and an endless capacity to fret over everything! What are the odds of spending three weeks in idyllic tranquility? In what functions as an intercalary section, we also learn that the siblings' parents weren't very good at taking control of their lives either. All of this has the potential to be as frustrating as one of those interminable novels from one of the Brontes where Fate and Desire are no match for Duty, were it not for Hadley's clever use of metaphor.

Pilar and Kasim are outsiders and is often the case, it takes such people to shed light on personal foibles and customs that are simply old, not time-tested. They can see what the Cranes cannot: that Kington is a moldy pile of rubble that's as past its prime as the adjacent resort. In like fashion, Molly and Kasim heighten the clash between past and present and highlight how old patterns are crumbling like dry English biscuits in the face of technology and postmodernity. 

The Past isn't always gripping reading, but Hadley does a fine job of making us feel the weight of boredom, the inner workings of conflicted minds, and the capacity for self-deception and denial. Not much happens in these three weeks and that's the point–with lives in stasis, a nudge can feel like a right cross to the jaw, and a spontaneous expression of emotion or desire can become a crisis of epic proportions. I won't promise that you'll like the Cranes–though you might pity them–but I can say that they represent types that invite self-assessment and cultural analysis. Are our patterns what sustain us, or are they like Kington's loose wallpaper: held up by hope and temporary patches?

Rob Weir

20th Century Women a Surprise Delight

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20^TH CENTURY WOMEN (2016)

Directed by Mike Mills

A24, 118 minutes, R (language, sexuality)

* * * *

I often rail against movie trailers because they tell us so much of the film that we’ve essentially already seen it by the time we plop ourselves down in the theater. The trailer for 20^th Century Women suffers from a different shortcoming: it suggests a frothy lightweight comedy for a movie that is actually far weightier.

Annette Bening’s name has been bandied about for an Oscar nomination for her role as Dorothea Fields and it would be well deserved if she gets one. It's 1979 and Dorothea is  55-years-old and dwelling in a slightly-more-than-a-fixer-upper Victorian in Santa Barbara, California. She’s also the single mother of 15-year-old Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) and their semi-bohemian existence is kept afloat by Dorothea’s design job and the rent/sweat equity of two boarders: William (Billy Crudup), a forty-something former mechanic/commune dweller, and 23-year-old Abbie (Greta Gerwig), a photographer compensating for depression induced by hard knocks through immersion in the punk rock scene. Our final principal cast member is 17-year-old Julie (Elle Fanning) who, though a few years older, has known Jamie since grade school and considers him her best friend and Platonic lover and sneaks into his bed—to talk and sleep. This is a terrific ensemble and sets the stage for all manner of generational misunderstanding, especially of the tweener kind. Dorothea was born in the Jazz Age, came of age during the Depression, became a woman in the shadow of Rosie the Riveter, and experienced the Beat generation firsthand. She's a not-always-comfortable in her own skin mix of swing, sultry jazz, Birkenstocks, chain-smoking nonchalance, and parental worry. How does a single woman on the cusp of old age teach her teenage son how to become a man when his youth was that of the Vietnam War, the end of Flower Power idealism, and the emergence of stagflation angst? Her plan—as ill-conceived blueprints often are—seems logical: enlist the aid of an ex-hippie (William), a Gen Xer (Abbie), and a slightly older tweener (Julie) to help Jamie's transition. What could go wrong—other than the fact that Jamie hasn’t requested any intervention, or that maybe Jamie’s erstwhile role models have their own baggage to haul? Or the possibility that maybe Dorothea isn’t as well adjusted as her son?

There are a few very silly and trite sections of the film, but when Director Mike Mills, who also wrote the script, is on the top of his game, 20^th Century Women offers superb slices of history and zeitgeist. The film makes very smart use of period music and newsreel footage to flesh out characters and their worldviews. Kudos also for the most effective use of voice-over montage since Amelie and for stylish Instagram-like camera work that uses light streaks and kaleidoscope effects to turn road trips into psychic journeys. Mills succinctly grounds his characters and is very adroit at capturing the chaos and confusion of the late 70s, right down to splits within the punk community between hardcore DIY devotees of Black Flag and cerebral “art fags” who idolized the Talking Heads. Check out a tone-perfect capture of 70s schizophrenia in a scene in which a group f people gather to watch Jimmy Carter’s 1979 “Crisis of Confidence” speech. “That was beautiful,” proclaims Dorothea. “He is so screwed,” replies everyone else. Cut to a clip of Reagan.

Bening is terrific in this film: unflappable, opinionated, stubborn, and witty on the surface, yet vulnerable, clueless, and uncertain inside. Gerwig is superb as a lost young adult who isn’t sure if she wants to be cuddled like a child, or kick out the jams in sullen rage. Young Zumann bears watching, if for no other reason that he wasn’t completely overshadowed by the amazing Elle Fanning, a force of nature who maintains her cool exterior and sparingly doles out hints of her deeper self. She too deserves Oscar consideration. Ignore the trailer and enjoy this one, folks. Lots to think about!

Rob Weir

    

A Survivors' Guide for the Trump Years: Sanity and Strategy

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Saturday saw ebullient push-back against the roll-back-the-clock Trumpeteers. Now comes the challenge of keeping up the pressure, lest last weekend turn into flame-less smolder. Some thoughts on what to do next:

Chill a Bit

Righteous anger inspires but without time outs, burnout will occur before the first daffodil blooms in Boston. Four ways to do this:

            1. Find your peeps and embrace the bubble. I marched with more 10% of my town on Saturday and it was only that low because another 10% was watching and at least that many were elsewhere. We felt lucky to live in a place of so many like-minded people. Critics would say I live in a "bubble," as if that's a bad thing. Nope! In these times you need a bubble where you feel validated and supported. The goal is to expand the overall number of bubbles across America. Ignore those who call you "out of touch." That shouldn't be hard. Do you want to live in their alternative?

            2. Turn off your TV and unplug your radio:  Swearing at your TV and shouting at your radio? Turn them off. Read more. I did this during G. W. Bush's Reign of Stupidity. It improved my attitude and made me better informed. If you can't stand the very sight or voice of the latest POTUS by Chicanery, reading is an emotional distancing tool. Plus, do you really need me to tell you that TV news is as shallow as an Arizona creek in August? Sadly, as sacred as NPR is for some, the fact remains that this is not the liberal NPR of your youth. Since the 1994-96 Newt Gingrich reign of terror, NPR has run scared, ever fearful that a conservative Congress will yank its funding. Don't watch. Don't listen. Read—but stay away from the Internet discussion boards, which will also make you nuts.

            3. Don't Give Trump the Attention He Craves:

Think it through. We know that King Donald of Orange doesn't give two toots of a broken horn for anyone other than himself. He is the living proof of Oscar Wilde's witticism, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about." So don't talk about him publicly. Oppose policies, but make Trump a walking dead man. Say "I oppose the plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act" but not, "I oppose Trump's plan." Never say, "President Trump." Don't put his name on your protest signs. Don't patronize anything that has He Who Shall Not Be Named's face on it. If asked about him, shrug your shoulders and say, "Who?" You can also hurt the Trump brand via disinvesting and/or boycotting companies and celebrities that support him. Grab Your Wallet updates such a list regularly. 

            4. Ignore the White Trashlash: This is my term, but feel free to appropriate it.. Identify the Deplorables and isolate them. Among those unworthy of breath expenditure are: racist hate-mongers, Confederate wannabes, the keep-away-from-my-Uzi crowd, the dig-and-drill set, anti-science lunatics, bomb-the-Third World imperialists, and those who'd feed the poor to the dogs if it meant their taxes went down.

You won't sway them; don't waste energy trying. Take solace that the trashlash is on the wrong side of history. The Census Bureau estimates that by 2044, just 27 years hence, the US will be a minority-majority nation. Future historians are likely to interpret the 2017 election as the political Battle of the Bulge for White America monoculturalists. One popular weekend slogan held, "Make America Think Again." Let's call out willful stupidity and not worry about hurt feelings. This is America, not an episode of Mr. Rogers. These people are not your friends

Win Some New Allies

It is, though, a very bad idea to assume that every white person is part of the trashlash! A yuge hole can be poked in the Orange Crush if more attention is paid to the working class. You know Trump doesn't give a rat's elbow about these folks, but neither do most Democrats. Both parties are controlled by the pampered: the GOP by an economic elite and the Democrats by professionals and intellectuals. To recapture wage earners Democrats need to stop looking at how globalism swells their stock portfolios and pay attention to how job loss and sinking wages affect people in the parts of town where they never hang out. Building allies with labor, community advocacy groups, and working people is the first step in isolating the trashlash.

Less Clinton and more Sanders is the ticket. Start talking to blue-collar folks—dialogues, not lectures! Validate their anger, but challenge how they've directed it. How hard is it to make workers distrust their bosses? Put some faces on the bosses behind the bosses and the people who ship their jobs overseas.

Rethink and Link, or Sink

Reframe the game. It is (way) past time to put identity politics to rest. Practice this phrase until you can say it without stammering: "The rights of all Americans." Good! Now STFU about your pet cause because what many people hear is: "I want special privileges for me and mine; to hell with you and yours."  People on the Left can't get out the way of their own rhetoric. As a result, for millions have come to think that Affirmative Action means "anti-white;" feminism is "anti-male," LGBTQ is "anti-straight," etc. None of that is true, but particularism is the path to stereotyping and backlash. If you cherish your cause but don't link it, it will perish. Think I exaggerate? How the hell did anti-abortion activists became "pro-life" rather than "anti-choice?"

Start talking in broader categories. Link reproductive rights, marriage, and sexual identity to the broader issue of privacy. Lots of people uncomfortable with transsexuals are even more uncomfortable with the government regulating Internet access or regulating  "private family matters." How about bundling women's equality, a workers' bill of rights, health care, a living wage, and minority civil rights under the broader umbrella of fairness for all Americans?  See the difference? (You'd better, or you're talking only to yourself.)

Only Fight Battles you Can Win

Another vocab word to learn: compromise. Sanity begins with accepting that some things are going to change. For example, there will be changes in immigration policy, so get over it. The good news is that there is plenty of wiggle room between draconian Deport/Build the Wall and the fantasy Lalala Welcome Them All camps. Aside from Argentina, almost no one has an accept everyone policy (and even Argentina has some restrictions). The World Court recognizes that nations have the right to set and enforce immigration policy, which is exactly what is done.

I admire the big hearts of the Sanctuary movement but though it might be sad commentary, the United States already has one of the world's most liberal immigration policies. Don't believe me? Pick three of four places, research what you'd have to do to immigrate there, and explore what would happen if you were detained as an illegal. U.S. policy is a mess in many ways, but not many nations ignore illegal immigration to the degree we do. We need something like the Dream Act to address past inadequacies of the law, but it's not unreasonable to assert that a reformed law should be enforced. It is, however, unreasonable to think the public will accept blind acceptance of anyone–be they immigrant, refugee, or tourist. So compromise a little instead of expending anguish over fantasy. 

Think Globally Act Locally

Your local and state leaders can be pressured, even if they are Republicans. Many are just as nervous as you about D.C. firebrands on issues like health care. If Congress dismantles the ACA, millions will lose coverage immediately and tens of millions more will follow when price caps disappear and insurance premiums skyrocket. Guess who will bear the brunt of figuring out what to do with patients without insurance? Hint: It won't be the US Congress. Think locally and make sure those concerns reach Washington faster than the Acela.

Also make certain local reps hear your concerns. Start now—the entire House of Representatives is up for reelection in 2018. Let reps know they won't have your vote for a regressive agenda. Put pressure on the Senate as well. Republicans will need 60 votes to avoid filibusters and the only way they can get them is to flip at least eight Democrats. If you have a Democratic senator, hold that person accountable. If not, badger Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to crack the whip and maintain party discipline.

Millennials Must Lead

This will be hard for seasoned activists, but recruit and cede control to youth. Message to Millennials: Put on your Big Boy/Girl/Whatever Pants and lead; this is your hunt more than anyone's. If you want reproductive rights, get organized. If you hope to see a Social Security check, make noise now or there won't be any cymbals to crash when you start turning gray. Maybe you're in great health right now, but if you think you'll ever get sick, you'd better care about the health care system. Infrastructure? Ponder the fact that many cities use sewer and water treatment facilities built in the 1930s! Scores of Flints are on the verge.

See "Rethink and Link" above, or your concerns will be buried one by one. Sorry, but you need to stop worrying about micro-aggression because you're facing  macro now. There's a bigger storm raging than campus debates over who gets to use which bathroom, what gender adjectives are acceptable, and dining hall offerings. If it seems like I'm being mean, toughen up because you ain't seen nothing yet. Start a Millennial new New Left. Opposing the Orange Snollygoster needs Millennial energy and commitment.  

Don't Forget to Laugh

In the difficult days to come, joy and laughter will keep us in touch with our better angels. Enough said. 

Ann Patchett Commonwealth: Less Than the Hype

COMMONWEALTH (2016)

By Ann Patchett

HarperCollins, 322 pages.

★★

A few weeks ago, I noted in a Richard Russo review that he was one of the few writers whose work has never disappointed me. Ann Patchett was on that list as well–until I read her highly touted but overrated Commonwealth.

One of the most quoted passages in literature comes from Anna Karenina. Tolstoy wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Patchett's contribution to this adage is to modernize Tolstoy by showing us an unhappy blended family, largely through the eyes of six stepsiblings. It's a sprawling novel that covers 50 years, but opens in 1971, when a lawyer named Bert Cousins crashes a christening party at the home of Fix Keating, a cop he barely knows. Soon, though, it's not baby Franny that transfixes Bert–it's Fix's gorgeous wife, Beverly. Patchett recounts this very unorthodox christening in a 32-page opening sequence that sets the table for the dissolution of both the Keating and Cousins marriages and the knitting of the two Keating and four Cousins offspring into two dysfunctional units–the one headed by Fix in California, the other by Bert in Virginia. Tragedy and unhappiness eventually pass to a third generation–along with reflection, guilt, and hints of minor redemption.

Commonwealth has been praised to the skies–perhaps because we're supposed to think that anything that deals with relationships is automatically weighty. Sorry, but I was bored out of my skull. The opening sequence put me in mind of the kind of literature Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923) used to write and I tried (and failed) to appreciate: the mundane as high drama. Patchett's novel is semi-autobiographical. I don't wish to belittle her personal pain, but there is often a tendency for individuals to think that their families are more fascinating than they really are. Tolstoy is so often quoted because his remark rings true, but you'll note that he did not say that every unhappy tale needed to be told.

If anyone could make us care about the Keating and Cousins clans, it would be Patchett. She is an enormously talented writer and there are passages of Commonwealth that are so finely crafted that one can't help but admire them. The problem isn't the prose; it's the material. I get her riff on commonwealth: Virginia the old ideal of gentility and manners, California the golden land of opportunity and reinvention. I also get that Virginia is a metaphor for when appearances are more performance than substance, and that California reminds us that the things that glisten are frequently gilded, not gold. I'll even concede that it was clever to situate the Keating-Cousins drama within that framework. Perhaps we could even see Commonwealth as a sort of unmasking: families as they are rather than the postcards they're supposed to be.

Okay, but I simply didn't care. Put plainly, there wasn't enough virtue in the characters to make me feel that they deserved much happiness; nearly all of them were consistently unlikable. Where I was supposed to see family dynamics, I saw narcissism; where I was supposed to empathize with the characters, I felt deep impatience of the "Oh-for-heaven's-sake-get-over-yourself" variety. It returns, in my view, to that Mansfield-like opening. Tolstoy drew us into the not-so-nice Oblonsky/Karenina families the same way that Edith Wharton did with the Archer/Olenska romance in The Age of Innocence–by sketching characters with enough external glamour and uniqueness to make them memorable. Ms. Patchett has done this in the past–the inmates in the home for unwed mothers in The Patron Saint of Liars; the thrown-together hostages of Bel Canto; the gay necromancer in The Magician's Assistant; the tropical locales of State of Wonder….

I suppose one could read Commonwealth as a thoroughly contemporary novel and praise its verisimilitude. Yet its central banality remains. Count me among those who read to be transported somewhere far more interesting than suburbia or that den of mediocrity and self-pity called the American middle class. If I wanted to contemplate ordinary misery, I'd muse upon scenes from own biography.

Rob Weir  

Lion an Affecting Film

LION (2016)

Directed by Garth Davis

Weinstein Company, 118 minutes, Not-rated (in English, Hindi, Bengali)

* * * *

Unless you swore off movies two decades ago, you know the East-meets-West genre—the one in which some circumstance (comic, tragic, romantic) thrusts postindustrial Westerners into close contact with someone darker-skinned with a different world view. Distrust, misunderstanding, and broad humor eventually mutate into acceptance and/or respect and/or friendship/love. British directors, in particular, find the urge to use Pakistani and Indian actors as irresistible as the American compulsion to have characters shoot each other. Lion is different—a film that stands high above the pride of cookie cutter banality.

Maybe it helps if the story is true. This one is based on an autobiographical book by Saroo Brierly that covers his life from ages five to thirty. Young Saroo (Sunny Pawar) spent his first five years in a Bengali-speaking peasant village with his mother (Priyanka Bose) and older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate). Theirs is life at the margins—the sort in which the two boys hop freight trains and poach coal to trade at the local market for two small bags of milk that their mother will use to make their evening meal. But Saroo is content, as long as he gets to follow his brother around like a faithful puppy. He even begs Guddu to let him go along to a nearby city for an all-night job.

That’s where the trouble begins. Saroo can’t stay awake and Guddu can’t walk away from a job that helps put food on the brazier. Guddu tells Saroo to sleep on the train station bench and await his return. One of the many things director Garth Davis does well in his directorial debut is convincingly take us inside the mind of a five-year-old. At what point does a small boy imagine he has waited long enough and set off to look for his brother? Saroo searches the cars at the railhead and is trapped when the doors lock and the train begins to move. It is the start of a journey that will take him more than a thousand miles from home—to Kolkata. Put yourself in Saroo’s sandals. He can’t even ask a policeman for help as they speak Hindi there, plus the cop probably wouldn’t care—India has an estimated 30 million street children. Plus, it’s Kolkata—a chilling mise en scene for the first half of the film. The city may have its charms, but what’s depicted here invokes the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Saroo becomes one of Kolkata’s street children—dodging all manner of dangers—until he’s scooped up and deposited in an orphanage so vile it would have made Charles Dickens sick. He still speaks only rudimentary Hindi and he’s still five. He is asked: “What is your mother’s name?” “Mom,” he replies—a single word that will tear out your heart. You want cultural misunderstanding? When Saroo asks a caseworker if they’ve looked for his mother, she indignantly tells him they published his details in a Kolkata newspaper read by many millions. Umm… Did it not occur to her that a Bengali-speaking boy probably isn’t from around those parts? Or that, like most peasant women, maybe his mother is illiterate? Watch out for young actor Sunny Pawar, who is cute as a button but also exudes precocious acting chops—a bit like Dev Patel, who made his acting debut in Slumdog Millionaire and plays older Saroo in Lion.

Young Saroo’s life takes an unlikely turn when John and Sue Brierly (John Wenham and Nicole Kidman), an Australian couple living in Tasmania, adopt him. We watch him and another boy try to shed their Indian skins and adapt to Aussie ways, then the film jumps ahead twenty-five years. Saroo (Dev Patel) has more than adapted. Although he hangs out with some other Indian lads at college in Melbourne, he has a white girlfriend (Rooney Mara), has lost patience with his brother’s bad behavior, and when asked by his peers who he favors in a cricket test match between India and Australia he replies, “Australia, of course.” But a small trigger sets off something deep inside and Saroo finds himself obsessed by his birth family. Here is where Davis shows a remarkably light touch. He does not opt for any sort of clichéd search-for-roots sentimentality—Saroo doesn’t want to be Indian; he’s consumed by the sad thought that people have wondered about him for twenty-five years. John and Sue are his mom and dad as far as he’s concerned, but he needs to see if it’s possible to find his birth mother. But remember—he was five when he left and his only firm memory of his hometown is a non-descript concrete water tower. He has no idea of what his town was named. Can he find out in the age of Google Earth and online archives?

Both halves of this film are deeply affecting. Patel has grown into a strikingly handsome young man and as an actor has begun to shed the frippery displayed in earlier films such as the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel franchise. Lion surprises you at numerous steps, probably because the things we see really happened and life isn’t subject to script-washing. It is easily the best new film I’ve seen in the past few months. Check it out—you may be traumatized in places, but you’ll leave the theatre satisfied. By the way, you’ll need to stay for the credits to find out why the film is named Lion.

Rob Weir    

A Progressive Platform

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In recent posts I’ve outlined a possible Democratic Party makeover that shifts left and runs contrary to head-in-the-sand Democratic leaders who think the party needs to be more “mainstream,” a code word for “conservative.” Follow that hidebound advice and Progressives will take down the party faster than the GOP.

Let me make it stark: Progressives are done with the Democratic Guilt Trip. Every time an election comes around Democrats insist we “must” vote for them, or the country will be taken over by the Neanderthal Right. Then they get their butts kicked by the Neanderthals. Progressives are done taking the blame for liberal ineptitude. The time for guilt trips, fear-mongering, pandering, and shifting the blame is over.  Eugene Debs said it best: “I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it than vote for what I don’t want and get it.”

I get asked how Progressives are different from liberals. Here’s a 30-point Progressive agenda. Unrealistic? As opposed to what? All those things Democrats haven't enacted since LBJ? Democrats can either lead or get the hell out of the way. I am not optimistic about  the Democratic Party's willingness to change, but if Democrats want to keep Progressives, below are some of the directions they should be heading.

1. Free trade and free labor, or neither. It’s insane that goods move across the globe without restriction but workers can’t. What would Chinese steel factories look like with an influx of American-born workers? Can’t imagine this could ever happen? It was the way of the 19^th century industrial world and the practice didn't end at the behest of wage earners.

2. Passage of a Workers’ Bill of Rights whose codes are prerequisites to most favored nation trade status. The current Hobbesian “race to the bottom” must end.

3. Forbid the export of new technology for 20 years. We’ve had four major recessions since 1980. Among the reasons is the export of the very sector that was supposed to take up the postindustrial slack: the high tech sector. We invented the computer revolution—and allowed investors to send it to Asia. Medical technology and green energy advances loom. Keep them here.

4. Strong anti-offshoring laws that penalize companies that close American plants and send them out of the country. Tax loopholes encouraging this should be closed. Slap a pre-tax import on the percentage of offshore production of U.S. firms. That is, if Ford makes 30% of its vehicles abroad, 30% of Ford’s total fleet is subject to an import tariff. By the way, know who sells the most American-made cars in the USA? Toyota!

5. Anti-raiding laws that prevent states from stealing jobs from other states. A first step would be enacting prevailing wage laws that mandate, for instance, that Tennessee auto workers must be paid the industry standard for all autoworkers.

6.  Living wage laws instead of a minimum wage. It’s morally unacceptable when full-time workers cannot survive on their compensation.

7. Repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act and all right-to-work legislation. Workers will never have dignity until there are countervailing forces to what is currently unchecked corporate power. Unions should be automatically certified when a majority of workers sign cards in favor. RICO laws should be applied to union-breaking consultants and tactics.

8. Enact minimum corporate and wealth taxes. These should be based on net worth, not current- year “earnings.” The latter have become little more than accountant tricks. There is no justice to allowing figures such as Donald Trump to avoid paying taxes. How about mandatory audits for all rich individuals and companies posting losses? Make them open the books.

9. Enact carbon taxes and end all tax write-offs for coal, gas, and oil exploration. Invest the tax revenues in green energy research and development.

10. Enact a national infrastructure improvement bill. Establish oversight committees to monitor cost control. Progressives are sick of hearing that there’s no money, given that much of the current national infrastructure was built during the Great Depression!  

11. Enact a Value Added Tax (VAT) to generate more revenue for social services and infrastructure improvement. Also slap heavier taxes on unimproved property—an old Henry George idea that would encourage development and penalize speculation.

12. Eliminate most tax deductions and return to a for-real graduated income tax scale.

13. End tax-exempt status for churches, colleges, and all other agencies not involved in direct services to disadvantaged people.

14. Eliminate most social/welfare services by enacting a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) for all Americans that is pegged to the cost of living. This income should be tax-free, as should be all income that replicates that amount. Taxes kick in when that level is exceeded. For instance, if the GAI is $40,000, individuals can earn another $40k above it, thereby exempting $80,000 from income taxes.

 15. Free universal health care for all Americans. No one should profit from human illness, nor should health care be subject to market forces.

16. Repeal the current cap on Social Security taxes. This would make the system solvent into the 23^rd century. It would also fund an expansion of Medicare to all Americans.

17. Hard-fast separation of church and state. Limit public displays of religion. Treat all religious public advocacy as political advocacy.

18 Pass a National Hate Crimes Act that removes such acts from state and local control and prosecutes allegations in federal courts.

19. Repeal the 1994 Communications Act and forbid media moguls or conglomerates from operating more than one media outlet within a given region. Open competition to all comers, including competitive cable and telecommunications carriers within the same market.

20. Pass an Accuracy in Media Act that authorizes the FCC to suspend the license of media that do not engage in fair and balanced coverage. Establish truth panels to insure accurate coverage.

21. Pass a new Glass-Steagall Act to re-regulate the banking industry and end reckless speculation in mortgages and questionable investment instruments. Cap interest rates on student loans.

22. Pass an Equal Rights Amendment to make gender discrimination actionable.

23. Establish age 75 as the mandatory upper-range retirement age for all federal employees, including members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.

24. Overturn the Citizens United decision. Corporations are not people and big money democracy is an oxymoron.

25. Enact a National Privacy Act that protects reproductive rights, sexual freedom, marriage rights, and other personal freedoms that do not endanger the public.

26. Require all lobbyists to appear before an ethics panel before they are authorized to approach members of Congress. All lobbyist pitches should be subject to public sunshine legislation and severe penalties should be put in place for secret lobbying.

27. Enact a national educational curriculum and mandate a per pupil spending floor. All districts within a state must rise to that floor before any district can go above it.

28. Consumer laws should be strengthened, including laws forbidding animal testing and inhumane treatment of animals.

29. Reform the War Power Act and require Congressional approval before the president can take military action for any reason other than a direct attack on the United States that threatens national survival.

30. Dramatically decrease defense spending by shifting the emphasis to homeland security and ending unilateral military ventures abroad. Cancel expensive military weapons systems and focus only on those necessary for defense. Redeploy military personnel to American cities by creating a U.S. version of the Carabinieri. Place urban police departments under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security and require joint military/police patrols and crime investigation. The constant recycling of military personnel would greatly reduce police corruption and military involvement would beef up law enforcement in high-crime and gang-ridden areas.

Sleeping at Last: Music to Ease Your Soul and Help Humankind

SLEEPING AT LAST

The Spring

SleepingatLast.com

★★★★★

Forget the five-star rating for a moment. Every now and then something comes along that restores your faith in humankind. This is one of those projects. Before you listen to this music, go to YouTube and spend 20 minutes watching the video that explains what inspired it. Take a box of Kleenex, as you will witness things magical, soul stirring, and heart breaking. The first notes you hear will sound like a gentle rain. They come from "Atlantic," the opening track of The Spring and the track snippets are interspersed throughout. Watch and then read my review.

Feeling better? Sad? Inspired? You'd better be feeling something, friend, or you've lost your humanity. Let's talk about the "band" and then the music from The Spring. First, Sleeping at Last isn't really a band per se. It started as a three-piece post-punk band in Wheaton, Illinois back in 1999, but these days it's the handle for solo projects launched by Ryan O'Neal (no–not the actor). Some of you may have heard their music in the background of episodes of Grey's Anatomy. When the original trio broke up, O'Neal moved more deeply toward a style of music sometimes labeled "emo." That's short for emotional and it is used to describe a very expressive and lush music–"emotional hardcore" according to some definitions. In other words, it's aimed at getting you in touch with your feelings, not your feet. Some would call it "New Age," but even a casual listen to The Spring reveals that Sleeping at Last doesn't quite fit that bill–New Age is often more overtly spiritual, tends to rely more on electronic sounds, is meditative in quality, and is rooted more in jazz; emo is a subgenre of alt.rock, prefers live (not remixed) instrumentation, has stronger melody lines, and is less interested in making you feel relaxed. There's no denying the lullaby-like qualities of Sleeping at Last, but there's also (if I might) an emotionally unsettling quality about many of the tunes.

I adore O'Neal's projects and I'd listen to him play music about cleaning out the fridge, but The Spring ought to be nominated for an Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian prize. He enlisted cellist Sharon Gerber (Celloasis) to add sonorous bottom to his piano, and Ms. Gerber brought along her daughter, Anya, an accomplished violinist who is all of twelve! If you've watched the video, you know that The Spring is part of a campaign to bring clean water to the 666 million global citizens who lack it. You also know about charity:water, the foundation started by former music promoter Scott Harrison, and were probably pretty moved by his biography, until he topped it by telling you about MercyShips, upped the ante by showing you what it means to lack clean water, and knocked you off your pins by telling you about nine-year-old Rachel Beckwith.

Because The Spring is about water, O'Neal's keyboard playing has a liquid quality. They drip on "Atlantic," rush and gush on "Clean Water," and build slowly on the soundtrack–as if they are percolating from deep underground and burst to the surface as Gerber's cello swells and surges. The goal of each track is to be both beautiful and set a mood;  many are short so that we can keep our thoughts focused on the project rather than the musicians. Let's do both!  "Enabling Environment" is just one-minute long. It's bright and upbeat, but it's also loaded with a double meaning: Nature provides, especially when humans assist. There are two tracks that evoke Rachel Beckwith, the 40-second ambient "Rachel," with its angelic vocalizations in the background, and "In Her Honor," which is both emotive and energetic–like a nine-year-old with a big heart. This is simply a gorgeous album from start to finish and it's fine if sometimes you play it just to zone out and maybe even nod off for a few moments. But let's remember that it closes out with "Transformations," which is somber, quiet, and reflective. It is the sound of sadness leavened with hope and melancholy bathed in beauty.

Rob Weir