Dive for Your Memory Friday, September 03, 2004

Back again after a layoff. A friend of mine, and constant reader, gave me a little nudge about not posting when so much was going on, and he's absolutely right: I've completely ignored the release of the new Finn Brothers record, which is as ingratiating as anything they've ever done.

But I suspect he was talking politics, and boy if this hasn't been something of a month. I hope you've been reading the blogs at left for breaking analysis. I don't have anything smarter, or more original, to add--except that events have firmed up my plans for November. (This factors in the Israeli "spy," by the way, just in case a stray Paleo out there accuses me of ignoring the issue; hey, how about the reports of the alleged Iraqi mole just arrested in the U.S.? I suspect that won't make The American Conservative anytime soon.)

At any rate, I come out of the convention season with mixed feelings. I find the Democratic party breathtakingly smug and more or less duplicitous in its campaign platform. Or, at least, relentlessly negative: They should run on the old Rufus T. Firefly slogan, "I'm Against It!" (If I remember right, he mobilized quite a coalition to save Freedonia at the end...but then again he went to war unilaterally. Obviously a larval neocon.)

At the same time, I hate the half-measures of my own side on any number of issues, and the muddle on others. I hate that it takes actors and Democrats to state the case for war forcefully; indeed, that this is the first time we've heard a solid reminder of that case in what seems like months. The firmest impressions I took away from the RNC shindig were: We just may have a chance in Novemmber; and I would not only take a bullet for Rudy Giuliani, I would charge an enemy trench for him. (If only he could break the Al Smith barrier. But it'll never happen.)

Oh, and the gulf is growing. Most of New York acted like the Martians had landed this past week. I don't begrudge people their opposition, even their loud opposition, as long as they keep their pipe bombs at home. If you think enough of yourself to get elected president, you have to expect somebody's going to call you a son of a bitch eventually. Memento mori, and all that.

But then I see stuff like this, and I wonder. Excerpted from a mailing list for new CD releases:

STEVE EARLE - The Revolution Starts...Now (Artemis Records 51565) I gotta admit that there is revolution in the air and all around us this week here in NYC with the ridiculous MF Republican Convention broadcasting their bullshit to the rest of the world! That asshole Gulliani is back and kissin' Bush's ass again. So glad to see and hear from (hundreds of) thousands of protesters. They are all over the town, screaming and yelling and pissing off them fascist, overpaid cops. Just trying to do their jobs, yeah so are we. Steve Earle mentions that this the most important election of our lifetime and he is dead right. The whole world is watching, waiting to see if there'll be any reason to have pride in the US in the future, because there is little to be proud of right now. Steve gives us a lot to think about on this disc full of his righteous songs. "Fuck the FCC, the FBI and the CIA", because they control the flow of info and consistently lie to us. Steve strips it down for all of us to see and consider. Questioning what we are told and seeking the truth, no matter how hard it hurts. Nice to hear Emmylou Harris trading verses with Steve on "Comin' Around". I'll leave you with something to consider from Mr. Earle, "The Constitution is a REVOLUTIONARY document in every sense of the word. It was designed to evolve, to live and breathe like the people it governs...Without active participation, the future is far from certain. Without the lifeblood of human spirit, even the greatest documents produced by humankind, are only words on paper, destined to turn yellow and crumble to dust." A strong record for desperate times.


G.K. Chesterton called tradition "the democracy of the dead"--we invite everyone who has come before us to the table as counsel for our decisions. The post above is the democracy of the dopey: consulting with history, yes, but assuming history consists of the years between F-Troop and Adam-12. I will bet you my last dollar that neither the clerk who wrote this blurb, nor the moribund dorfus who recorded this album, has ever in his life questioned what he learned from his revolutionary gurus, nor sought any truth outside of the usual suspects, no matter how hard it hurt. The revolution they're attempting to perpetuate already won, and decisively--and we've been living with the consequences for nearly forty years now. Any chance they'll recognize its failures? Not on your life.

There's no hope in that paragraph, nor in that record. Nobody is ever going to build a society perfect enough to satisfy a record clerk or a millionaire musician. It's fun to raise your fist and say things at the same time as other people (it almost--just almost--takes the place of the church of your choice!) but the perpetual revolution eventually enervates. There's always something else to bitch about. Who can relax?

Sure, conservatives have their fatalism (e.g., dear old Whittaker). But Chesterton, again, nailed the hope at the core of the creed: the "romance" of orthodoxy. Holding to the old truths in a graceless age is an adventure. Tradition itself is revolutionary. G.K. would insist on completing the thought and noting that the Catholic Church is the most revolutionary institution of them all; but I'll let that one pass. It's midnight, and I got shutter trouble, and the baby's coming in a month.

A baby--how's that for hopeful conservatism?

@ 11:03:00 PM,

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