January 22, 2018--The March

Saturday's Women's March was again extraordinary. Hundreds of thousands of largely young people, mainly women, turned out in the United States and around the world in all kinds of weather.

Not intentionally, Rona and I got swept into the periphery of it in New York City. We were in the vicinity of Times Square for another purpose and found ourselves . . . marching.

It was a powerful, emotional experience. I know that there has been some backbiting among the organizers who planned and carried out last year's version, held the day after Donald Trump's inauguration-- the size of that march eclipsing the much smaller crowd that showed up for his swearing in, nasty speech, and his still ongoing smarting that his inaugural turnout was by far the largest in history--but no matter. 

It was remarkable, amazing. So much energy, a palpable feeling of empowerment, which of course is the real goal of these marches--women taking more control of their political lives and destiny. 

Speaker after speaker took note of the fact that thousands of women nationwide, at all levels, are signing up to run for office. This suggests that November may be shaping up to be an historical comeuppance for Trump and his cult of followers. 

Say goodbye, Republicans, to your current majority in the House and I suspect the Senate. That would bring about a new day. That would truly be what is most historic about the current situation--new voters and newly activated citizens taking back their country. In perfect irony, they, we will make America great again. 

But besid the possibility that we will be engaged in a major war in Korea come November which will cause many Americans to rally to a president that they otherwise despise, there is another danger--

With the march itself. 

Rather an unanticipated consequence from its very nature--that it is a women's march. 

Though men are welcome to participate, the vast majority of those who marched were women.

If this becomes the electoral face of those who oppose Trump, with Hollywood stars pushing their way into the spotlight, there is the danger of a backlash among moderate, politically independent men who may come to feel excluded by the movement that the march represents. 

These men are needed as part of the coalition that has the potential in November, for all intents and purposes, to end the Trump presidency. To turn him into an instant lame duck. Domestically at least--powerless. 

These are some of the same men, not Trump acolytes, who could not bring themselves to pull the lever and vote for Hillary Clinton. Next time around, we cannot let this happen. They have to feel welcomed, comfortable being lead by women and willing to vote for women for Congress as well as at the state and municipal levels.

We have to write off Trump's 35-40 percent. They are the ones who would support him even if he murdered someone on Fifth Avenue, as he said with insight during the campaign. But to win and thereby rescue ourselves we need the active support of the persuadables. Some of them the old Reagan Democrats. Or their descendants. There are still plenty of them who are swing voters who live in swing states.

So what to do?

For the next march attention should be paid to the sensitivities and vulnerabilities of these men who must become political allies. In the next march they should have some public role to play. The themes to emphasize need to include a portion that are gender neutral--like inequality and our plummeting position in the world. These themes should not be so much about so-called "women's issues." It would be wise to include more that cross genders and are universal.

I understand that these suggestions will not go down well among some or even many, especially coming from a not-quite-dead-yet white male. But if we want to win--and we desperately should--I put these thoughts forward in the spirit of wanting to help.

October 13, 2017--Harvey Weinstein--"That's What Woman Are Asking For."

I've been wanting to write about Harvey Weinstein but pretty much everything I have to say has been said. 

And he is so disgusting, what he did was so disgusting, the world he trolls is so disgusting, the politics of this is so disgusting, that I am inclined to take a pass. 

I don't want to have anything to do with him, even if it's only to write something. I feel that I will be slimed by any involvement.

But when I read what fashion designer Donna Karan said, I couldn't ignore this and leave it to others to rant. 

Self-proclaimed feminist Karan offered the traditional sexist rape defense:

"You look at everything all over the world today and how women are dressing and what they asking by just presenting themselves the way they do. What are they asking for?" 

She answered her own question--"Trouble."

And she is not alone in making excuses for him. Almost everyone in the Hollywood and show business community (I include fashion in that) has for decades been making excuses for him. Even his wife. How could she not have known what a disgrace he is? While his behavior was "secret" she remained with him. When it became public, she took off. More to protect the reputation of her own fashion line than because of her outrage.

One could say pretty much the same thing for most of the B- and A-List stars who were either groped by him or knew about his pathological behavior. They didn't want to spoil the party or their ability to be cast in his movies and make millions a picture.

And what about the politicians? All, by the way, Democrats. They liked to hang with him too and couldn't resist. It took Hillary Clinton six days, six, to express her outrage. And she knows more than anyone else about this kind of alpha-male behavior.

Saturday Night Live ignored this though they have been quick to mock Donald Trump when his grabbing pussy comments went viral or when any GOP congressman got caught fooling around in the men's room.

But Harvey to these bi-coastal elites was too powerful, too much fun to turn away from.

Look, for decades everyone knew what he was up to. As a close friend who is a prominent feature film maker said to me, "What he is has been known for years. It's the industry's dirty little secret. Pretty much all the guys who came to Hollywood to make movies did so to get laid."

I might add, or ran for Congress or the White House. Think Franklin Roosevelt, think Lyndon Johnson, think Bill Clinton, and especially think John Kennedy.

It is just this sort of thing, this hypocrisy that helped elect Donald Trump and will doom Democrats going forward. If there is a going forward. This hits especially hard on liberals because we're supposed to know better. Well, we don't.

This is what the Trump people hate about the rich and famous and powerful--that they're only in it for their own good times. And the cash.

January 11, 2017--Meryl Streep's Golden Moment

Meryl Streep needs to reread her C. Wright Mills if she wants to be the self-assigned point person to defend Hollywood from accusations of elitism.

She seized her lifetime-achievement moment at the Golden Globes on Sunday to not only attack Donald Trump appropriately for his grotesque mocking of a physically handicapped New York Times reporter but also to offer a heartfelt retort to those like Trump who regularly accuse leaders of the entertainment industry of being out-of-touch elites.

She posed and answered her own question--

What is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places. 

I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola Davis was born in a sharecropper's cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy. And Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. 

And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in Ireland I do believe. And she's here nominated for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, and is here playing an Indian raised in Tasmania.

She may think of herself and Sarah Jessica Parker as just plain folks; but to the rest of us, and in Mills' The Power Elite, she and her Hollywood colleagues are solidly part of the elite. In fact, since 1956 when The Power Elite was published, Hollywood stars, sports heroes, and music superstars have become even more elite and influential.

Think Beyonce, think George Clooney, think Bono, think LeBron. And think Meryl Streep with her amazing 30 Golden Globe and 19 Academy Award nominations. And of course her $7.0 to $10.0 million a pop fee for a few months work on a film or two a year.

But as Mills points out money is not the only way to enter the exclusive ranks of the elites. He shows how the "Metropolitan 400" (members of "notable families"), "Chief Executives," the "Political Directorate," and "Warlords," among others, comprise the elite in a country, the U.S., that prides itself as being classless, elite-less.

Another thing Streep failed to note after speaking emotionally and with self-congratulations about herself and an assortment of her fellow performers' modest beginnings is that one needn't be born into the entertainment elite--what Mills calls the "Celebrities," who at the time included the likes of Bob Hope and John Wayne.

Being an elite is less where one begins but where you wind up.

In the case of Meryl Streep and most of the other actresses they wound up on stage at the Globes in $5,000 Valentino gowns and millions in Cartier diamonds. Like just plain folks on a Sunday night in downtown Gary, Indiana.

Most significant, since hers was a political statement, Streep failed to show any recognition of her own exalted status and, politically more important, any awareness of how the Trump electorate is largely made up of people who resent and reject elites of all sorts, from the entertainment industry to the mainstream media to the professional class (especially college and university professors) and of course government officials.

If her plea was in part for unity, these omissions make what she did and said even more divisive. But I'm sure she came away feeling good about herself.

                                         

October 14, 2014--Gwyneth

The "paper of record," the staid New York Times strives to be objective in its reporting. No matter what the right-wing critics say, though there is a liberal tilt to the editorials, in the news reporting, with rare exceptions, they are fair and balanced.

But then every once in a while something so egregious happens that they can't control themselves and the reporting reads like an editorial or is intentionally satirical.

The latter happened last week in a report about an Obama fundraiser out in California at the home of Gwyneth Paltrow.

OK, I'll admit my own bias--I can't stand her: I don't like her acting, I don't like her looks, I don't like her smarmy politics and so I loved the Times' report.

You know, it was one of those events in Hollywood that Fox News delights in trashing--it costs $1,000 to get in, all right, but $15,000 to have dinner with Him.

How much fun can that be? Look at Obama--to stay that skinny he hardly eats anything.

But, as Rona would say, "It's not about the food."

When the formal part of the evening was about to begin, the Times recounted how Gwyneth "struggled to hold herself back as she stood next to President Obama"; but, after composing herself, told the dozens of Democratic donors who had gathered at her Brentwood house, which, to quote the mean-spirited Times, looked "like something created by Restoration Hardware on a multi-million dollar budget," she "rambled on about why she considers herself his biggest supporter [take that Barbra Streisand]" and how his support for women's issues is "very important to me as a working mother."

In full gush, again transcribed by the Timesman on duty, before she turned the microphone over to him, she giggled, "You're so handsome that I can't speak properly."

Nonplussed, Obama took the mike and proceeded to give the same after-$15,000-dinner talk he gave the night before at the home of some Jeffrey or another. About how everything is getting better at home and abroad. Blah, blah.

Come to think of it, maybe he only picked at his baby lettuces, but from this delusional stump speech he must have been hitting the sauce.

Then, in the very last sentence, returning to the passing-the-mike-to-Obama moment, the Times' Michael Schmidt couldn't resist--

"After handing the microphone to the president, [working-mom Gwyneth] sat down next to her two children--Moses and Apple--to listen."

Moses? Apple? On the other hand, what kind of a name is Gwyneth?