ltr not sent re: Seamus Tansey

Re: The recent tiff in Irish Traditional Music Circles over Seamus Tansey, the flutist, pulling a King Lear on a young woman melodeon player he was scheduled to play with, who 1) didn't provide a mic for him 2) told him to tune up, twice declaring he was "flat" 3) had never heard of him. So he sent her family a letter in which he ratcheted up the bile to the extreme, calling her a conniving little "bitch", ambitiously massacring Irish Traditional Music. The letter was private, but the response was not. Her family brought the letter to the airwaves, and on popular radio show both the young woman (Jenny Langston, or something like that) and Tansey had it out. She had righteous indignation on her side and scores of callers coming to her defense. Tansey was came off like a sputtering pompous id-jit. Nevertheless, the mob nature of the thing prompted me to write to ITRAD saying that in such a situation an individual was right to defend himself, whatever his flaws, against the levelling tribunal nature of such an arrangement, egged on by a venal radio host. To which I got a response from a guy named Jim Carroll saying basically, that Tansey represented the tradition and behaved like an asshole, therefore deserved his dressing down. To which I penned this response, but never it sent it, since frankly it's not great and just further inflamed things. Nevertheless I'll keep a record of it here:

"We have a man who's done a shameful thing. And we have the aggrieved woman demanding justice. So far, so good. Then we have a third party, the radio personality, who eggs the man on, who prods the shameful thing be read in its entirety (listen to the prodding he does after the first paragraph is read). The man is then pilloried before the nation. Does the punishment fit the crime--a private feud of his own concocting, something stewed over, worked up to in an addled, self-amplified misdirected rage against impiety incarnate in this unwitting young female melodeon player? Call after call dresses the man down, a storm of righteousness and indignation. You can hear the crowd rising to its feed applauding the one who can brandish the word "asshole" with jus the right nuance. Oprah meets Irish Traditional Music. Thanks be to God the tradition is too wily to be "represented" by any one soul."

don't fear jumping into the water

that is way more than half the battle in most things

the nader factor

I voted for Ralph last time and probably will this time, hopefully persuading a Ralph-leaning person in a swing state, which is what I did last time. I think there’s a better than 50% chance Ralph will be an even bigger spoiler for the Dems than he was last time, particularly tragic since he HAS proven them to be big fat hypocrites with respect to ballot access. They have put huge resources into trying to stop him. I know it’s a pragmatic move—it certainly is for the Republicans to help him—but it’s not only corrupt, it actually has turned more people to Nader—the kind of people who are indignant at the Democrats’ hypocrisy. If Kerry and McAuliffe had been smart they would have simply tolerated him on the ballot of all 50 states; this would have made it much harder for him not to stand by his quasi-endorsement of Kerry months ago when he called him “presidential”. But now Nader’s just pissed off—he’s lost not only Chomsky and the celebs but Kerry hasn’t returned his calls for months. I do support Nader’s ultimate goal, corrosion of the 2-party system; but like many I think this country will be unrecognizable after another 4 years of Bush. Nader may be the ultimate hero in the end. If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water he’ll jump out, but if you just gradually turn up the heat he’ll acquiesce to boiling to death. By so enraging half the country, another 4 years of Bush may ironically lead to enough people leaping out the pot sooner. But it’ll be Nader’s Calvary for the moment. Do you know that the current requirements for a 3rd party candidate in the debates—as determined by the privately owned and funded Commission on Presidential Debates—is a shown 15% polling in 3 mainstream polls. Unless you have the money to buy the kind of coverage from the networks that can even interest pollsters in polling to find out your support—as Ross Perot did—it’s really a Catch-22. If Nader had been in on the debates last time, he would have been more than just a nuisance “spoiler”, he would have had the kind of legitimacy that would have rallied the lily-livered celebs and intellectuals to his side this time and would have built on it here for next time, when he might have really reached the tipping point. As things have played out, if Bush wins this election he’ll be crucified instead, maybe even literally. It’s hard to say where the rage falls harder for many liberals, on Nader or on Bush. I suspect Nader, because it’s fundamentally self-hate—always more virulent.

The "Entitlements" of Man

The corporate (and predominantly now Republican) agenda is to work to disenfranchise people from their rights as human beings. Yes, something that nefarious. Perhaps not realized in so many words, at least by most, but the move to define certain rights as "entitlements' and to disparage that term, effectively disparages rights. Language co-opted in this way ends by convincing people that rights are products of the welfare state. Hence the "owernship society" currently being touted. If this rhetorical feat can be pulled off, it'll make the criminalization of the term "liberal" look like child's play. In an "ownership society" the idea of rights, of debts to our fellow human beings, debts of compasssion and recognition of their full and equal humanity--these collapse before the idea that the amount you own is the sole criterion of worth and right. It's might makes right, pure and simple. The American experiment unravelled at last. Untied States of America.

bloody grin

I won't be caught grinning for not having tried.

manipulation

the refusal to manipulate, whether in convesation or acquaintance, has slowed you, made you ponderous, appear confused and to equivocate. The admixture of uncertainty, guilt, shame and the thought that you really ought to be politicking just makes you a grinner. get back to what was honest and worthy in all of this and strip out the half-hearted political nature of interacting