I don’t always do wonderful people on their birthdays. I do terrible people too like John Wilkes Booth a couple of weeks ago. But at least Booth was young and very possibly psychotic. Today, I’m going to talk about that great villain who wrote the words we all learned in grammar school:

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

That’s right, Patrick Henry was born on this day in 1736. And he was passionate about liberty. Well, he was passionate about the liberty of rich white men like himself. Hey, come to think of it, he was a modern day libertarian! I’ll admit, my main problem with him is that he was a slave owner and I just think that slavery is such a no-brainer, especially in the United States where it was explicitly racist. You couldn’t have white slaves in the 18th century, so they must have figured out that if you are a whole man (instead of only three-fifths), slavery was wrong.

He wasn’t born to slavery. Like modern libertarians, he was just willing to twist all logic into knotts in order to justify his own privilege. So he married into slavery and then bought more and more slaves. Life, you see, was not so sweet as to be purchased at the price of slavery, but life was very sweet when you practiced slavery. Rock on! Long live the rich white man!

But what really bugs me is that school children are told about this “great man” when he was against our very own Constitution (as are most modern libertarians). But then finally, he supported the Federalist Party, because they were the aristocratic party. No champion of the common man he!

It is not surprising at all that the conservative evangelical Christian Patrick Henry College took its name from him. He wasn’t especially known as a Christian. He was just a rich white man who used fear of slave and Indian revolts to push for revolution. Good choice guys! Your college is a true testament to your namesake.

Happy birthday to the awful, liberty-hating Patrick Henry!

I’ve been a fan of Stephen Schwartz for a very long time. I don’t think his importance in musical theater is fully appreciated. He, and not Andrew Lloyd Webber, was really responsible for modernizing musical theater. And, of course, whereas Webber has a very shallow well of melodies, Schwartz is very deep indeed. His first musical was Godspell, which I saw as a kid, but hadn’t thought about much until recently. So I just watched the 1973 filmed version of it. And it is very touching. It is a story of Jesus that I can get behind.

Of course, it is hardly accurate. Jesus in the Bible is not a very pleasant guy. You know all the things that people are saying about Glenn Greenwald, snarkily observing him “telling bold truths that the corrupted partisans are too blind to see, in a manner that in no way is sanctimonious, is an inspiring example for us all”? Well, that’ kind of Jesus in the Bible. And he’s not very nice or happy. He’s always scolding the disciples. I mean, if he ain’t the son of God, you would never want to hang with him.

But the only time the Jesus of Godspell gets really upset is in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then it is clear that he is feeling very vulnerable—not so keen on dying for everyone’s sins. Otherwise, Jesus is absolutely the guy you want to hang out with. Sure, he’s a little preachy. But he’s fun and he explains what’s important in life. And they all play and act and dance and have puppets.

There are some very interesting aspects of the film that I’ll bet really bug the more conservative of the Christians. For one thing: Jesus is not resurrected. But the disciples carry his body off as they sing and dance. From this, I take it that it is the message, not the resurrection that matters. It’s a kind of Gnostic approach to Christianity and salvation that I’ve always preferred. The whole “just believe in Jesus and you are redeemed” has always struck me as more Tinkerbell than any kind of a adult theology.

There’s another Gnostic aspect of this where Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. The sheep go to heaven and the goats go to hell. But at the end, he comes back and tells all the goats to come with him. Not a proper reading of the Bible, I would say. But one most people would prefer: God gives the bad people a good talking to, and then we all get on with everlasting life.

Another interesting thing is that John The Baptist and Judas Iscariot are combined in one part. And the way it is played is rather like the Gospel of Judas, which had not been discovered until after this film was made. After Jesus is dead, John/Judas is the head pallbearer on the right hand of Jesus. And this leads to a very thoughtful ending where the disciples joyously sing and dance as they carry Jesus down and empty street. They turn a corner and the camera follows but long after them. Once we see around the corner, they are gone and the street is filled with people, going about their usual business.

What are we to make of this? To me, it is that Jesus’ message lives on. But it is drowned out by the banality of everyday life. Since the film was made (Four decades ago!) things have changed. Christians have become much more vocal. Or at least, a certain kind of Christian has become much more vocal. And they are not banal. If I had one word to describe them it would be: angry. Or perhaps: hateful. And I’m not here to tell you that this is the wrong reading of the Bible. But there are a lot of Christians out there (quieter Christians) who interpret the Bible the way Godspell does. I can’t imagine a Universalist not loving the message of this film.

In addition to all this, the songs are great. They are quite varied. The whole thing is very much like Pippin, which Schwartz also wrote. It is quite a joyous film. You ought to check it out if you have any interest at all. Here is a compilation of scenes set to “We Beseech Thee,” which is not in the film, but was in the play. It is sung by Jeffrey Mylett, who is in the film, but I assume the recording is from the original cast album:

Over the weekend, Martin Longman, as part of his usual duties at Political Animal wrote, I Am Optimistic About the Senate Races. I am not quite as optimistic as he is, but I still tilt in his direction, so I thought it would be useful to go through his argument.

Let’s start with the bad news. He has given up on Tim Johnson in South Dakota. But he is also quite gloomy about John Walsh in Montana and Natalie Tennant in West Virginia. I think he’s being way optimistic on these last two. The Upshot provides a great comparison of five groups who are handicapping the election: The Upshot itself, 538, Cook Political Report, Rothenberg Political Report, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Of all three races, the best prediction for Democrats is Rothenberg, that finds Montana a toss-up—and if you go to their site, you’ll see even it thinks it tilts Republican. Anything can happen, of course, but this is a clear -3 for the Democrats.

Now we get to the more winnable races. First up, we have good ol’ Mark Begich of Alaska. Everyone seems to agree that this one is a straight tossup, except (strangely) 538, which gives a slight advantage to Begich, even though they still think the Republicans have the edge in keeping the Senate (or at least they did back in March when they last calculated it). Similarly, pineapple crusher Kay Hagan of North Carolina is looking the same, although The Upshot is slightly bullish on her. For Longman, this means we’re going to keep these seats. For old statistical me, I think it means we’ll keep one of those seats. So that’s a likely -1 for the Democrats.

He also noted:

That’s putting far too good a spin on these races. 538 (which is out of date, but still) and Rotherberg both have these races leaning Republican. And Longman is putting way too much emphasis on that one poll. The Upshot only gives Landrieu a 41% chance right now. Again, I’d split the difference and give the Democrats a -1 on this. That puts us at -5 thus far—one less than the Republicans need to take over the Senate.

Longman also takes it as a given that the Democrats are going to take Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, and New Hampshire. I tend to agree, and I have to say that I don’t understand why people give Mark Udall such a low chance. The best is 61% from The Upshot. But I think that the Democrats will manage to keep all those seats. But if the Democrats lose just one of those seats, the Senate goes red.

There is one other element here. There are two Republican seats that could go blue. The first is Georgia, which I wrote about this weekend, Could Michelle Nunn Win in 2014? On that race everyone gives the advantage to the Republicans. But I’m encouraged in this race. Nunn polls especially well against Kingston, and he seems to be the guy that the Republicans want to nominate. In the end, it is all going to come down to turnout. But I really do think that Nunn could pull this one out. Still, the best you could say is that it is a tossup.

The other Republican seat is just too delicious: Kentucky, where the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for election. At this point, everyone agrees that McConnell has a big advantage over Alison Lundergan Grimes. But McConnell is not well liked in the state, and if Grimes can find an issue that resonates with the voters, she could win. Thus far, she seems to be getting some traction with the Medicaid expansion. Other than the true believers on the right, I don’t think McConnell’s position on that issue makes much sense. “Why do you want to deny healthcare for poor people and not stimulate the Kentucky economy?” Still, you have to say this one is McConnell’s to lose.

Right now, The Upshot give the Democrats a 58% chance of keeping the Senate. And their likeliest scenario is exactly what I’ve just outlined: 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate. Given the Democrats hold the White House, that means they would have control of the Senate. Much will happen in the next five months though. I’d like to think that the economy will continue to improve. That makes many of the marginal Democratic candidates far more competitive. If that happened, it could easily end with the Democrats only losing one seat: 54-46 Democrats. But if the economy tanks, I think you have to assume the Democrats losing seven seats: 52-48 Republicans. But that’s likely the worst we would see.

It doesn’t look like the catastrophe for Democrats that many Republicans are expecting, even under the worst conditions.

I have the worst headache I can remember having, so it’s kind of hard to write. So forgive me if this is short. Last year, the birthday post was about Isabelle Carre, who I have such a crush on that her picture in on my computer desktop. But I don’t have much to add about her. It has been hard to get her films on DVD. But after I write this post, I may just get back into bed and watch Romantics Anonymous.

John Fogerty is 69 today. He is such an amazing talent. Bruce Springsteen called him the “Hank Williams of our generation.” That’s about right. Everyone remembers him from Creedence Clearwater Revival, but his work has been remarkably consistent. Like most writers, those earlier songs were raw because he hadn’t yet fully developed his own style. The problem with a fully developed style is that your work is not as universal.

But first, let’s listen to what is still my favorite of his songs and one of my very favorite rock songs ever, “Fortunate Son.” What I most like about it is its pure populist anger. Compare it to the supposed populism of the Tea Party where all the anger is focused on the poor. To them, the fact that most of our elected officials in Congress are millionaires just means that they are better. The fact that government policy takes money away from the poor and gives it to the rich is just great. They’re mad at hell and they don’t know what it is they’re mad about. Fogerty is mad that poor boys are the ones sent off to fight and die in wars. And that’s even more true today than it was then.

Fogerty is unusual in that he almost never writes love songs. But this song, “Broken Down Cowboy,” from his 2007 album Revival is just that: a love song for his wife of 23 years, Julie Kramer:

Happy birthday John Fogerty!

Maybe I’m just an iconoclast and everything else follows from that. But I’ve caught a bit of this three part series that The History Channel is doing, The World Wars—I assume for Memorial Day. But the little I’ve seen has been nothing short of pathetic. It is all the usual stuff with Neville Chamberlain portrayed as weak—completely disregarding the thirty-year rule and what we learned about his administration in the late 1960s. I wrote about this to some extent before, so I won’t belabor the topic, Neville Chamberlain Was Right.

But what most annoys me is the presentation of Winston Churchill. You would get the idea that Churchill won the war based on nothing but his will power. And of course, Churchill, a war monger always, was not surprisingly always pushing for more military funding. That’s all fine, but at the same time, the depression was still on and Keynes had not been fully embraced. But based upon the series, you would think that Chamberlain was doing nothing but fighting against Churchill, even though we now know he was engaged in a very large (but not large enough) buildup of the military. But then Churchill is in charge and announces, “Stay strong and carry on!” And victory is theirs!

What really bugs me about it is that it is totally the “great men” theory of history. This is about the most brain-dead approach to history I have ever seen. When I was younger, I used to wonder, “Who thinks this kind of claptrap?” And then I started reading Ayn Rand and I found out. It’s all this Nietzsche superman stuff with neo-Romantic ideas as though Agamemnon was a real guy. I remember Rand writing something along the lines of, “Who do you think does these things?!” The idea is that, well, of course, Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany. But that isn’t the point. The point is that there are social and economic pressures that bring men like Hitler to power. This is why I’ve always thought the “go back in time and kill Hitler” game was stupid. If it hadn’t been Hitler, it would have been someone else. He might have been better than Hitler, he might have been worse. But something bad was going to happen.

The third episode is tomorrow night. I will have to avoid seeing even a minute of it because I know it will make me apoplectic. Because I already know the narrative. Two of the “great men” are George Patton and Douglas MacArthur. So it will be Patton’s tanks and Churchill’s iron will that defeat Germany with a minor assist from Stalin. And MacArthur and two atomic bombs defeat Japan. Even though we know it was basically the Soviet Union that defeated Germany, allowing England to survive to claim victory. And as I discussed last year, it was Stalin’s re-declaring war on Japan that caused that nation to surrender.

I’m sure the show will do a more evenhanded job than it would have done in the 1970s, when I used to hear that World War II didn’t start until the United States entered it. But it is still the case that it will be a whitewash where the good guys (Churchill and Patton) and the good nations (England and America) defeat the bad guys (Hitler and Mussolini—I haven’t heard Hirohito mentioned) and the bad nations (Germany and Japan). Stalin was as great a villain as Hitler, but given he was on our side, they’ll have to hedge. And since Americans now seem to believe the only thing wrong with Fascism is that it was antisemitic, it’s hard to hate Italy very much.

This isn’t history. This is just bedtime stories for a nation that doesn’t want anything complicated and certainly doesn’t want to consider anything that might chip away at our myths. After all, before the rise of Nazi Germany, America was the big country for eugenics. We conducted a far bigger genocide on the native peoples here before Hitler was even born. The point isn’t that we are especially terrible. The point is that history is a mess and there’s lots of blame to go around. And what is the point of trying to understand history if you are just going to turn it into trite stories that make you feel good? Just read Pride and Prejudice instead.

Paul Krugman’s column on Monday was, Europe’s Secret Success. It is about how even though the European Union is a monetary mess, its economy is doing rather well. Of course, you would never know that from reading or watching mainstream American news. Because everyone just “knows” that Europe is collapsing because of its generous welfare states. This why Americans so often know things that just aren’t true.

This idea that welfare was destroying Europe never made any sense. The northern nations were doing the best and they were the ones that had the most generous welfare programs. Greece, the country doing the worst in the European Union, had a rather stingy welfare state. The same is true of the other “problem” countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal. I think this all comes back to our Calvinist tendencies that we must all suffer for our sins. So the idea is that having a strong welfare state must be bad because it doesn’t cause people to suffer.

Of course, this just happens to be what the power elites want to hear. They want low taxes and low inflation and high unemployment. All of those things help them because the more desperate the working classes are, the better for the rich. It still amazes me, because we nominally live in a democracy and there are so many poor people.

Let’s consider France, because I love France and for whatever reason, most Americans have a problem with the French. France has a very big welfare state and they have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. But in the past, they didn’t have a terribly vibrant economy. But for the past decade and a half, our economy (in terms of being good for workers) has been going down and their economy has been going up. This great graph is from a Krugman blog post, Cheese-eating Job Creators. It shows that now (and for some time), France is employing a far higher percentage of its working age population than the United States:

What is happening in France is what conservatives in this country claim they want to be happening here. That was what supply side economics was all about, right? It wasn’t supposed to be about making the rich richer; it was supposed to be about growing the pie and making everyone richer; jobs for everyone! Except that it was a resounding failure as I discussed in part recently, Reagan’s Legacy: Tax Cuts for Rich, Tax Hikes for the Rest. But don’t expect them to look at France or Germany or Sweden or the Netherlands and think, “Maybe we should try that!”

For me, this is very personal. My business partner Mikhail and I are working on a great new high tech gizmo that I believe will revolutionize the extreme sports industry. But because of my just scraping by with my various gigs and his enormous workload at a very famous high tech firm I guess I shouldn’t mention, we haven’t even been able to test the system for almost two months. Having something like a guaranteed income would allow us to be more entrepreneurial, not less.

But most conservatives know nothing about business—the closest they come is finance, which is a part of business, but isn’t anything without people like us who are actually making things that people want to buy and use. And they have this idea that the only way to get people to start businesses is to make it like a tightrope act over the Twin Towers: if you succeed, you are set for life; if you fail, you are dead. That’s not the way that works the best, because for one thing, careful people like Mikhail and me, don’t thrive in that environment, even though we have a great deal to offer the world.

Just in terms of creating jobs though, America is terrible. Here is a graph from economist Antonio Fatas that I’ve altered to highlight just how badly America does at keeping its people employed:

The power elite of this country should be embarrassed by this. Most especially the conservatives should be ashamed, and yes, I do include Bill Clinton in this, because like all the New Democrats, he’s an economic conservative. But instead, both parties of the United States stand around and look for better ways to take more money away from the poor who actually spend it and push the economy along, and give it to the rich who just sit on it. In a hundred years, historians will look back and say, “What were they thinking?” But I know what they are thinking: they are thinking that all that matters is taking care of their own class. Keep interest rates low so the stuff they own doesn’t lose value. Keep taxes low so they can keep as much of their money as possible. And keep unemployment high so that workers are so desperate they will work for little and never raise a fuss for fear of losing one of the few jobs around.

That’s modern America. Yesterday, an online friend criticized me for my rhetoric about the “political nonsense that’s tearing us apart.” Wrong! What’s tearing us apart is an ever widening gap between rich and poor that is allowing the rich to call all the shots. We don’t get policy that is best for all of us. We get policy that is best for the power elites. And I don’t care that the Tea Party folk think I’m being mean when I point out that they are a bunch of fools who vote against their own interests because the power elites can play them like a fine violin. This is my country too and the rich are destroying it, just as many of the founders—most notably Thomas Paine—feared.

But at least we still have equality of the kind a great Frenchman once told us: