Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Brothers and sisters, we are here tonight to fight the devil...

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"Brothers and sisters, we are here tonight to fight the devil... "  Anything Goes!


"If she says your behavior is heinous Kick her right in the Coriolanus!  Kiss me Kate

Life often imitates art:

I am currently in rehearsal for a Cole Porter review which, in my mind has become a metaphor for the current  With the Clinton nomination now a forgone conclusion it is interesting to note that at the same time that California was deciding that race I was rehearsing two numbers that seem to speak directly to the campaigns of both major party candidates.

The singular call to the Sanders voters is not that Clinton is a good person or even a good Democrat, but that Donald Trump is a bad person and, well... A Republican.  Benghazi and other bullshit aside, Clinton's record sucks as Thomas Frank clearly point out in his book "Listen Liberal".  In fact, no one has done more to destroy the legacy of FDR than the Clintons and few people
are more responsible for many of the ills of modern America either.  Whether we are talking about the school to prison pipeline, free trade generated economic decay, the housing bubble and banking collapse or the war in Iraq, the Clintons have been the great enablers of Republican neo-con policies in ways that Republican Presidents of the same era could have never dreamed of.  Bill Clinton rose to power by coopting Republican policies better than they could present them themselves.

Only in the convoluted world of modern TEA Party erzatz populism could then, a TV host of a reality show host that elevated social Darwinism to a religion could then turn the tables and coopt real populist (formerly Democratic policies) as those of the Republican party leaving Clinton with what effectively is a more conservative set of positions than Trump.  With perhaps the most anti-populsts, anti-Progressive record, her entire campaign now appears to be that Trump is the devil.

In "Anything Goes" the character Reno sings,

Brothers and sisters, we are here tonight to fight the devil... Do you hear that playin'? 
[COMPANY]Yes, we hear that playin'! 


I've been a sinner, I've been a scamp, 
But now I'm willin' to trim my lamp, 
So blow, Gabriel, blow! 

Oh, I was low, Gabriel, low, 
Mighty low, Gabriel, low. 
But now since I have seen the light, 
I'm good by day and I'm good by night, 
So blow, Gabriel, blow! 
Just declaim a few lines from Othella...
And at the very same time in New York Merril Streep invoking Kiss Me Kate.

 Humorous lyrics portraying two clueless mobsters trading artless advice on how to attract female attention cuttingly mirror the tactics the two politicians are sure to employ to win over the hearts of the American people before the coming election."

Yes, life really does imitate art.
Wherever he is, Cole Porter and his wit are having the last laugh.
I only wish it were funny.