FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2023
You can be in my dream, Dylan said: As we first reported on Monday, the extremely young Bob Dylan reported a "crazy dream" in May 1962. He reported his crazy dream on his breakout Freewheelin' album:
One time ago a crazy dream came to me
I dreamt I was walkin' through World War III...
The very young Dylan said that he had gone to a doctor the very next day. The doctor could only tell Dylan this:
He said it was a bad dream...
Dylan reported this crazy dream in May 1962. Thirty years later, Bill Clinton, the still-youthful governor of Arkansas, had a crazy dream of his own.
At that time, it had come to seem that Democrats would never again win the White House. Fulfilling a new type of crazy dream, Clinton won that party's nomination and defeated a sitting president's bid for re-election.
By modern standards, it wasn't a squeaker. The popular vote went like this:
Popular vote, 1992 presidential election
Clinton (D): 44.9 million
Bush (R): 39.1 million
Perot (I): 19.7 million
Subsequent propaganda to the side, exit polling suggested that Perot had drawn a roughly equal number of votes from the two major-party hopefuls.
Clinton won by almost six points. In the electoral college, he won by a very large margin.
In 1996, he won the popular vote by almost nine points. An earlier nightmare was gone.
How had Candidate Clinton managed to do such a thing? We refer you to one part of his 2004 memoir, My Life—and not to the part where he quotes the joke we told Al Gore on the night when Gore conceded the 2000 election.
How had Clinton won the White House? Once again, we refer you to the part of his book where the former two-term president described his home state's Pentecostals.
At the start of the passage in question, Clinton said that he had visited a certain Pentecostal retreat every summer but one from 1977 through 1992.
“Every year I witnessed some amazing new manifestations of the Pentecostals’ faith,” the former president wrote. For our money, that was the point where the potent instruction arrived.
Arkansas' Pentecostals had never tended to vote for Clinton, he said—but he said that he "liked and admired them." In this passage, he started explaining why:
CLINTON (page 251): Far more important than what I saw the Pentecostals do were the friendships I made among them. I liked and admired them because they lived their faith. They are strictly anti-abortion, but unlike some others, they will make sure that any unwanted baby, regardless of race or disability, has a loving home. They disagreed with me on abortion and gay rights, but they still followed Christ’s admonition to love their neighbors.
They disagreed with Clinton regarding abortion rights, but he said he admired them anyway. He had even made friendships among them!
“Besides being true to their faith, the Pentecostals I knew were good citizens,” Clinton wrote. “They thought it was a sin not to vote.”
After describing a compromise he reached with Pentecostal ministers about the licensing of child-care centers, Clinton concludes his rumination about this group of people—people who basically didn't see things the same exact way he did:
CLINTON (page 252): Knowing the Pentecostals has enriched and changed my life. Whatever your religious views, or lack of them, seeing people live their faith in a spirit of love toward all people, not just your own, is beautiful to behold. If you ever get a chance to go to a Pentecostal service, don’t miss it.
By and large, they hadn't voted for Governor Clinton. But he said they'd enriched his life.
We've always regarded that passage as the most instructive passage in this former president's lengthy book. In that passage, Clinton gave voice to a very important personal trait—the ability to see the good in people who aren't members of your political / cultural tribe.
Former president William J. Clinton could have otherized Pentecostals. He could have called them various names, turning them into Others.
He could have called them names; he could have made them Others. That's very much the way our flailing blue tribe tends to function today.
In fairness, it's a part of timeless human nature, but it's also a way to weaken your vision and harden your soul. Also, it's a way to lose votes.
It's a way to make undecided voters feel that they want to avoid you. It a way to keep yourself from seeing a basic fact:
Some of the criticisms of our own tribe aren't completely crazy. Sometimes, people of total good faith just don't see things the same way we blue tribe denizens do.
"We don't have a person to waste," Candidate Clinton used to say. Quite a few undecideds felt he was sincere about that, and they voted our way in those years.
Candidate Clinton left open the doors to an array of people. In his manner, he invited them to clamber aboard the winning Clinton/Gore train.
This brings us back to the extremely youthful Dylan, who'd been having that crazy dream. Just how awful had things become in that young person's dream?
Having just turned 21, he'd dreamed he was walking around New York City after an atom bomb blast. Within his admittedly crazy dream, he'd encountered such nightmares as this:
Well, I rung a fallout shelter bell
I leaned my head and I gave a yell.
"Give me a string bean, I'm hungry, man."
A shotgun fired and away I ran.
I don't blame them too much though.
They didn't know me.
It was almost a moment from our own present day. Hungry, the youngster had knocked on a door, and he'd been met by a shotgun blast from someone who didn't know him.
Later, the dreamer found himself otherized not far from a hot-dog stand:
Down at the corner by a hot-dog stand
I seen a man, I said, "Howdy, friend,
"I guess there's just us two."
He screamed a bit and away he flew.
Thought I was a Communist.
The youngster was reporting a dream in which everyone fled from the Other. Troubled by this, he extended an offer. His talkin' blues ended as shown:
Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody's having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin' around with no one else.
Half of the people can be part right all of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time
But all of the people can't be all right all of the time
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours.
I said that.
So the young prophet's song ended. He'd let the Others be in his dream if they'd let him be in theirs!
Bill Clinton let the Pentecostals be in his dreams for the nation. Today, our blue tribe is strongly inclined to take a different approach.
We're strongly inclined to name-call others—to insist on attributing the worst possible motives and values to everyone not of our tribe. At such times, do the later Dylan lyrics, the lyrics from 1967, possibly apply?
And now the heart is filled with gold
As if it was a purse.
But oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?
In fairness, otherization is bred in the bone. As a component of human nature, it dates way back into prehistory. It's part of our human inheritance.
On the other hand, it tends to be dumb and unattractive, and it's a way to drive people away. As Candidate Clinton helped us see, it's also a way to lose elections, including the one next year.
The heart feels like it's filled with gold when we name-call Others. I'm willing to let you be in my dream, the extremely young Dylan once said.
Hillary felt the same way as Bill. Somerby had nothing but bad things to say about her. And look what he says about Racel Maddow (she stuffs money down her pants). Somerby should live his values.
ReplyDeleteanon 12:32, you couldnt be more wrong. TDH constantly defended both Clintons, and Hilary when she was being lashed at by the so-called liberal media and pundits. He did fault her for that statement she made at some campaign event in someone's house about deplorables. One example out of many, when the Times pjublished that Breitbart journalists report about the uranium, TDH defended her. when she was asked over and over again on 60 Minutes if she thought Obama was a Muslim, and she was ridiculously attacked for the way she responded, TDH, at his best defended her, TEH defended her about the stupid bengazi scandal.
DeleteNo AC/MA. TDH attacked the press over its treatment of HIllary, but he never supported Hillary. He said she was a spectacularly bad candidate and that is why she lost the election (never mentioning Comey or Russians). He has never praised her accomplishments, recognized her sacrifices and public service (even when not first lady), never said she did a good job as Secretary of State, never acknowledged that she is probably the most competent presidential candidate ever nominated (by the consensus of many Democratic leaders). He didn't watch her nominating convention and he supported Bernie even after she was the nominee. TDH said she was imagining things when she talked about Trump's behavior during the debates. TDH may have said that the NYTimes should not have excerpted the Clinton Cash book, but he never said she or Bill were not guilty of anything they were accused of, from her emails (which Somerby said she handled carelessly) to Benghazi, to Comey's final October surprise. Never! And no, Somerby did not defend her conduct re Benghazi -- he has only used her situation to beat up on journalists while making it clear that he had no enthusiasm for her candidacy.
DeleteSomerby defends Trump when he says something stupid, by saying that maybe he actually believes it. Did Somerby ever suggest that maybe HIllary believes that half of Trump supporters are a basket of deplorables? No. He also omitted the portion of her statement that came after, where she clarified what she meant. I remember that because several of us added those follow on sentences in comments every time Somerby incompletely quoted her here, day after tedious day.
You and I may have different ideas of what it means to defend or attack someone using words.
Independents and undecided voters have been breaking for the Dems.
ReplyDeleteClinton liked people and found something to admire in nearly everyone. That doesn’t mean you have to pretend to admire deplorable behavior or agree with lies or wrong opinions. Voters can sense insincerity. So what is Somerby asking for?
Those Dylan lyrics make no sense in this context.
ReplyDeleteIMO it goes back to McCarthyism. The Red Scare was a way that Conservatives could demonize liberals. Any liberal could be demonized by being accused of being a Communist Sympathizer.
ReplyDeleteLiberals took the lesson that it worked. They copied Joseph McCarthy with a Racist Scare. That worked even better than the Red Scare. Anyone who didn't toe the liberal line could be called a racist. My treatment on this blog shows that it's still working.
P.S. IMO that process hurt blacks, because it made it impossible to criticize some counter-productive policies. But, helping blacks wasn't the goal of the Racist Scare. The goal was to elect Democrats.
Oppression of communists is equivalent to calling out racial oppression?
DeleteI understand this is just your opinion, but apparently your “opinion” slept through logic class.
Good for a chuckle, as always David. At least, for the moment, you’ve stopped lying about having a cousin you don’t actually have.
David in Cal,
DeleteHow can anyone call Republicans, who tried to overthrow the United States government, just because black people's votes counted in the 2020 Presidential election "racists"?
I bet if you could investigate these accusers, you'll find out they've been paying attention.
Evidence that liberals don't primarily care about black advancement:
ReplyDeleteX was raised in Harlem. he was a high school dropout. Later, he managed to go Harvard, get a Ph.D. and become a prominent Economics Professor. Y was raised in the segregated South. He was abandoned by his parents. His foster parents kicked him out of their home. Nevertheless, he graduated from college with high grades, attended Yale School and become a famous and successful lawyer.
People who truly care about black advancement would celebrate X and Y and hold them as great examples of black advancement. Instead, liberals sneer at Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas because they're conservatives.
People “sneer” at Sowell and Thomas because they are corrupt, spread misinformation, and support policies that hurt people of color.
DeleteThese are two great examples of how unresolved trauma creates horrible people obsessed with dominance and hierarchy. Indeed, Clarence Thomas famously exclaimed his purpose was to bring misery to liberals. What a guy!
@3:33 since Thomas and Sowell were raised with all the disadvantages of being black, and since they are probably smarter than you, what is your basis for over-ruling their judgments?
DeleteEven the dumbest black kid knows better than to align politically with the Republicans. So, it seems likely that they were adept and taking Republican money back in college, being a token for the Young Republicans or whatever, and sucking up to wealthy people they met there. How else does someone destitute get to Yale? That first bit of corruption may have been the poor judgment that led them to their current scandals (yes, these are scandals because they are engaged in corruption).
DeleteI believe Anita Hill was truthful, especially since there were quite a few other women ready to corroborate her story. That makes Thomas not only corrupt, but a sleaze who harrassed women on his staff. Being black doesn't excuse such behavior, but he seemed to have an idea he was too important to be held accountable, which turned out to be correct when his Republican pals covered for him and put him on the court. Sort of like Kavanaugh. Once they do you a favor like that, they own you, never mind all those spiffy free vacations.
Lots of Republicans think it is "smart" when Trump cheats on his taxes. Trump even said so. Do you, David, think it is smart when Republicans get away with crimes like taking bribes? I find that behavior so egregious that it doesn't even qualify as poor judgment. It is criminal. And it shows that Thomas has no understanding of or love for justice or the law. It seems to be just a matter of what he can get away with and how he can use his position to get ahead. That is bad values. Being poor might have taught him that he was entitled by his suffering to whatever he could grab, and his Republican benefactors would have encouraged him in that view. But suffering doesn't entitled anyone to cheat their way through later life.
You have chosen odd people to "respect," David.
I don't feel like Democrats have any right or room to lecture other people about corruption. So much corruption and sleaziness has been unveiled coming directly from the very top of the Democratic party.
DeleteThe difference is that Democratic corruption is imaginary whereas Republican corruption is real, proven, with actual evidence.
DeleteBlack and white thinking like idealizing Democrats and devaluing Republicans has been described as way to defend the ego after the experience of trauma, especially in childhood.
DeleteThere’s no credible coherence to claiming Republicans have any value to society other than as a case study for social scientists.
DeleteSowell and Thomas do not operate under any ideology, they are just two people obsessed with dominance and hierarchy borne from unresolved childhood trauma; therefore their judgements are not logic based nor evidence based and are reasonably dismissed.
DeleteBill Clinton was a heterosexual, wealthy, white, powerful guy. Of course he had a nice time in a conservative church! Of course he easily made friends with the people there! Of fucking course! That's actually what they worship! Whiteness, masculinity, wealth, power. He was never in their sights. The pipe bombs are not for Bill Clinton. They are for Planned Parenthoods, public libraries and gay bars. "If only you would have met them halfway," Somerby calls to the maimed as they haul themselves out of the wreckage and the EMTs refuse to treat them.
ReplyDeleteHe wasn’t wealthy at the time he met the Pentecostals.
DeleteHe was attorney general of Arkansas starting in 1978. That's power and wealth enough even if he wasn't yet a millionaire
DeleteHe says in his biography that he met them when he was a high school and college student campaigning in the countryside door-to-door for Fulbright. He wasn't rich then.
DeleteHe was rich with ambition which led him to embrace the Third Way political strategy, which involved conning (apparent) suckers like Somerby into thinking that Clinton was genuine in the manner in which he glorified his behavior throughout his life.
DeleteIs Somerby genuinely as naive and excessively literal as he often promotes through his posts? More likely, Somerby is running his own con, and admires Clinton’s tactics.
Clinton wrote his autobiography after his two terms as president. He had nothing to gain by "glorifying" his behavior.
DeleteHe came from the South. The regular strategy was not available to him. No one considers Clinton a con artist except right wingers.
Somerby borrows whatever he wants to use for his own purposes. He does this with Dylan lyrics, with phrases from literature (He likes the opening line of The Lady with the Lapdog, but doesn't care at all about the characters or plot). He has borrowed the word tribe (attributed casuall to anthropology) but originating with conservative political writing. Somerby doesn't care what anything means to anyone else, including Clinton. He doesn't do context.
Anyway, in the quote at issue here, he started attending the Pentecostal retreat he commented on in 1977. The next year he was attorney general. These people love power and wealth and whiteness. Of course he fit in! And he fit in more and more as he went through his life, and wrote his memoir reflecting on how popular he was there. Yea man! It ain't a secret how that works! Everyone who's been to a conservative congregation knows how it works!
DeleteIt sounds like neither Somerby nor Dylan have had any dreams I would want to be included in.
ReplyDelete