Kamala Part II

This week, Kamala Harris will accept the nomination as Vice Presidential running mate for Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee.

I was unsurprised to learn that Kamala Harris had been picked as Joe Biden’s running mate. She’s exactly the right kind of corporatist puppet to pair him with.

I can find no moral center in her history or in the behavior I’ve observed from her, other than that of establishment hack and hardline enforcer of the status quo. She will say whatever it takes to gain personal advantage, reverse any policy position, change any alliance as long as her bread continues to be buttered. Back in early 2019, she signed on as a cosponsor of Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill.

In the very first Democratic debate, she raised her hand when the debate participants were asked if they would give up their private insurance and replace it with Mecicare for All (a provision of the bill she sponsored.) By the next morning, she was already walking back her support for M4A, claiming she had raised her hand because she had misheard the question, and that she only supported Medicare for All if it was supplemented by private insurance.

This is Kamala Harris. This is what she does — stand for nothing, shape change to fit her sense of the prevailing winds, cowtow to the monied powers. As of this moment, it’s working for her. While the country is in the throes of buckling to the will of a creeping autocrat, the Democrats, as represented by Kamala Harris and her running mate Joe Biden, are shifting to the right, and more than this, they are working as hard as they can to disenfranchise the left wing of their own supposedly-left-wing party, standing on policy that would have been considered mainstream Republicanism not so long ago.

At this point, it seems likely that she will be the next Vice President of the US. I can’t tell you that I’m thrilled at the prospect. People will respond to this by saying “yeah, but, she’s better than her opponent.” That’s probably true, but I can’t say that I am moved by that recommendation. The Biden/Harris ticket may slow the roll of creeping fascism, but they will not stop it entirely. In my view, they are instruments of the continued advancement of corporate globalism and no antitdote to authoritarianism.

Kamala Harris will not save you.

[ND]

Object 3: Heaven and Hell By Black Sabbath Deluxe Edition CD

My friend James began a project of writing about each Black Sabbath album in order, based on one quick listen to each from Spotify. He was going to do one a day. He’s stalled after their fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I want to talk about Sabbath, but I can’t do a series on every Sabbath album because I would have the same problem as James, stalling out somewhere along the way. I’ll talk about a couple of their albums, though. I present this first commentary as part of my Objects series.

I have been having a bout of obsession with this band. A few months ago I rebought Masters of Reality for the song “Children of the Grave,” which has long been my favorite of their songs. Tucson punk band Just Us covered it, as I recall, bassist Paneen claimed it was “the greatest punk song ever written” and I have to agree with the sentiment if I can’t back it up as a statement of fact.

Around this time (early to mid 80s), I was listen to Heaven and Hell in relatively heavy rotation. I didn’t think abut it from a genre perspective, even with Paneen’s comment in my head, but lately it’s come back to me that there is a significant commonality between what Black Sabbath has always done and what every punk band I’ve ever played in did in terms of attitude and songwriting process. From my far-after-the-fact perspective, I must admit that Sabbath both elevated that ethos and served it well. Lately, I’ve come to think of them as the idealized version of the band I’ve always wished to play in.

Heaven and Hell was the first album the band made after firing Ozzy Osbourne. I was among the many who thought that Black Sabbath was probably over with as of his departure, but this album inpressed me. Reading the liner notes to this edition I learned that they wrote Children of the Sea at an afternoon jam session the first day they met with Ronnie James Dio. They sound like a band reborn. Guitarist Tony Iommi contributes some of his crunchiest riffs here. The material sounds timeless, whereas the two previous albums had sounded like a band working to “update” their sound. You can hear elements of the poppier direction the band had pursued on their previous album Never Say Die in a couple of the tracks on side two, notably “Wishing Well” and “Walk Away” – both of which are fine songs – but the meat here, the content of their rebirth, was the heavier material: all of side one and “Die Young” from side two especially seem to characterize the throughline from the band’s original sensibility and the new chemistry that came with the addition of Dio.

The live material on the second CD here bears that out. All five songs I point to are the material that made its way to the stage and these recordings.

I like having this album as an object again, and the live tracks, including original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward who departed before the band recorded and toured their second Dio-fronted album Mob Rules, are a welcome addition to my collection. The CD has been on my desk since it came out of the shipping package. I fidget with it, looking at the pictures and layout, reading the liner notes. It’s a token of a former time, a reminder of a dream I once held dearly and haven’t quite let go of.

Object 2: Angel Night Light

soft, more monochr

On my upstairs writing desk (yes, I have 2: one for drafting and a “production” one for polishing product) sits this beautiful night light, given to me by my friend Matt. He says he found it at an antique shop in Collinsville, CT.

Angel CLoseup

It’s not only beautiful as an object, but it gives off a mellow, pinkish-yellowis, ambient light. I went looking on eBay and found a similar lamp. As an auction item, it was called “Vintage Cherub Drummer Angel Horn Glass Brass Table Lamp Night Light Electric” (oh, eBay poetry, you are a world unto yourself!) but it’s not exactly the same.

Object 1: Jason Reynolds’ Look Both Ways

Here’s something I haven’t seen many of: middle-grade short story collections.

JReyLBW

My copy is the first edition hardback. I think I bought it from Amazon to be delivered the day of its release, so it doesn’t have the book award thingamy on it. It has a beautiful cover, so I like that my copy is unblemished.

I finished reading it in about three sittings. There are ten stories, all set on the same afternoon just as school is letting out. Each story is about a different kid or set of kids and their walk home. I love Jason’s writing — he has a gorgeous prose voice — or for that matter, speaking voice — let’s just say that a Jason Reynolds reading is a fabulous experience. Plus, also, too, he’s written some of my very favorite children’s books. This one is a very good book. (My favorite of his books is As Brave As You, btw.)

I’m holding on to it — it’s a first edition. Jason teaches at my alma mater, otherwise I might never have read his work. But as it happens, I do know these books, and I am the richer for it.

Kamala

Kamala

There was a time, from about a month before until just after the first debate, when I thought Kamala was a contender. I sure don’t think she is one now.

Tulsi clobbered her at the second debate, it’s true. But that wouldn’t have stopped her if she wasn’t patently phony. Consider her record as Attorney General of California, which is what Tulsi attacked her about. Consider also that she has only been in Washington during the Trump administration, which means she’s only been on the national scene since Rachel Maddow became the Glenn Beck of the center-left. Kamala’s context is, by definition, skewed.

That weird gambit she threw out there at the fourth (and most recent at the time of this writing) debate, when she tried to get Elizabeth Warren to stand with her in her campaign to get Donald Trump kicked off of Twitter was so painful, and perfectly emblematic of what’s wrong with the Democrat’s establishment wing.

She’s just shut down her operations in New Hampshire. I wish I could say that’s surprising, but it isn’t.

In my opinion, Kamala is just a failed poster child of a failed dream: that of the centrist Democrat. What is it with the Democratic party? Why do they think being obviously in the service of the oligarchs works for them? They weren’t always like this. Our only hope as a country is if they stop being corrupt.

Let’s hope they figure that out sooner rather than later.