
##4088950 Culture &; Civilization </p> pre-formatted table ONCE philosophers , theologians , and poets asked the question : What is man ? These days , cognitive scientists have taken over the job . Want to know what makes humans unique -- why we create music , worship God , fall in love , provide for our children , feel despair ? Ask the brain scientist . Earlier modern revolutions in human understanding made their leaders and explicators world famous , even to those who had no idea what those leaders and explicators were talking about -- think of Freud or Einstein . That kind of fame has not yet come to the captains of the cognitive revolution , as cognoscenti sometimes refer to the transformation in scientific thinking about the human mind . The wider public , the same sort of people who once tossed about the terms " Oedipus complex " and " theory of relativity " after reading about them in Time , is largely unaware of the cognitive revolution . </p> The field is often said to have originated in the 1950s , when the linguist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rules giving us the ability to generate infinite numbers of phrases and sentences . But it took decades of methodological and technological advances -- the MRI machine , which gives scientists the power to watch the brain in action , came into wide use only in the 1990s-for the field to gain a real cultural presence . Public ignorance of the brain theorists in their midst can also be chalked up to the fact that cognitive science is not a single , unified discipline . It encompasses ethology , evolutionary psychology , computer science , neuroscience , behavioral economics , anthropology , and even chemistry . </p> And finally , not many people who understand the amygdala and hypothalamus also write about them in ways the public can understand , much less enjoy . Most of what we hear on the subject veers between impenetrable academic papers and gee-whiz , **33;33197;TOOLONG enthusiasm . ( As I write , the American Museum of Natural History in New York is advertising an exhibit called " Brain : The Inside Story . " " Play Computer Brain Games ! ... Walk Through a Giant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ -- Oliver Sacks , Malcolm Gladwell , and Jonah Lehrer ( the author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist ) -- who have written gracefully and knowledgeably about cognitive science . But their work hardly adds up to a cohesive picture of the field . </p> David Brooks 's new book , The Social Animal , tries to fill that gap and offer a thoroughgoing portrait of what brain science can tell us about contemporary American culture and politics . Brooks , the New York Times columnist and author of two previous books of " comic sociology , " is not entirely successful at the hugely ambitious task he has set for himself ; it 's hard to imagine anyone who could be . Nevertheless , he has written a fascinating interpretation of a discipline with immense power over our current way of thinking . </p> Brooks is especially interested in what cognitive science can tell us about success and happiness in our own society . To explore that question -- and to keep us scientifically challenged readers happy -- he attempts his own experiment , a literary one . Rather than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us with a test case in the upbringing , education , and development of a fictional couple named Harold and Erica , blessedly successful members of America 's educated class . </p> Harold grows up in a stable , loving home , gets a degree in global economics and foreign relations , runs a historical society , writes commercially successful biographies and histories , and works for a D.C. think tank . Despite a mentally unstable single mother , Erica will start her own consultancy business , become the CEO of a media company , and take a high-level staff position for a successful presidential candidate . Brooks may take things too far when he has her become secretary of commerce , but you get the idea : these are meritocratic stars . </p> What can the cognitive revolution tell us about people like this ? Brooks begins by reviewing infant brain development . Adapted by millions of years of evolution , the infant brain intuits patterns and creates models out of the galaxies of sensory data exploding around him . This learning is an actual physical process . The baby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through connections called synapses . Humans develop hundreds of trillions of those synapses ; one scientist imagines them as " a football stadium filled with spaghetti . " The neurons store information . This means that experience is actually written into the baby 's -- in this case , Harold 's -- brain . </p> Yet for all his innate cleverness , child Harold is a bit of a wild man . He is easily distracted and bounces from one thought to another like one of his rubber balls . This is where nurture makes the difference . The bedtimes , the daily routines , and the nightly homework insisted upon by a determined mother teach Harold the orderliness and self-control that will bring him success in school and in life . His parents are well-off , but they do n't just provide him with computers and private schools ; as Brooks demonstrates in detail , " they pass down habits , knowledge , and cognitive traits . " </p> Indeed , like all humans , Harold and Erica are " social animals . " By this , Brooks means something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ together . The brain is actually molded by interactions with other people . Human infants are born with " mirror neurons " ; that 's why babies imitate the faces and sounds of those around them . Infants also internalize the attentiveness of their mothers . In the 1950s , the British psychologist John Bowl-by theorized that children of mothers attuned to their own moods are more resilient and develop greater capacity for emotional bonds , and there is now abundant research suggesting they are more likely to thrive as students , spouses , and parents . Parents themselves unconsciously imitate the patterns of their own childhood , patterns that have been handed down over generations . Erica 's mother 's family is Chinese , for instance , while her father 's is Mexican . They do not explicitly teach the girl their values and different habits of sociability ; but unconsciously , Erica so successfully assimilates these attitudes that they come to feel as natural as breathing . </p> In Brooks 's telling , then , cognitive science yields a brain nothing like the mechanical and autonomous information processor stripped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discipline influenced by artificial intelligence . Humans are inevitably and beneficially guided by emotions and unconscious associations . Most of us already suspect that subterranean life drives our sexual and romantic desires . Experts fill in the details . When encountering the opposite sex , hormones like testosterone and oxytocin bathe our brains ; when we fall in love , we get high on dopamine , much the way addicts do on cocaine . Cognitive scientists believe because we are driven by a brain adapted to the early human environment , men equate female beauty and " fertility cues " -- symmetrical features , full lips , and a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 , the approximate dimensions of both Playboy bunnies and prehistoric fertility goddesses . Since men can tend towards violence and promiscuity , women are less visual and more guarded when choosing a mate . Both women and men prefer kindness in a spouse , but women are aroused by male status -- though Brooks does not apply this rule to Erica , whose ambition and achievements far exceed her husband 's . </p> Unconscious feelings are not limited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climb through the world of business and politics , Brooks is sharply critical of technocrats , planners , management experts , IQ hawks , and even writers of the French Enlightenment for their excessive faith in human rationality and calculation . Reason is not like a " captain sitting in the cockpit making decisions , " he writes . Moral emotions and intuitions , some of them innate , some of them a product of individual experience , some primitive , some culturally adaptive , saturate the most methodical decisions . Policymakers generally fail to factor in subjective life . Experts have assumed we could educate kids about the risks of drugs and unprotected sex , for instance , so they could make " good decisions . " But the good decider " has rigged the game " ; her judgment is already infused with moral leanings that reduce temptation . </p> Brooks wields his trademark comic sociology to mock modern society for overvaluing professional achievement and academic prestige . In one hilarious riff , he describes " the Immortals , " older plutocrats who ride mountain bikes on roads near @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of beautiful younger women . The result is a " weird genetic phenomenon in which their grandmothers looked like Gertrude Stein but their granddaughters looked like Uma Thurman . " Our heroes , Harold and Erica , are better than this . The aging Erica realizes that her ambition has made her neglect the " deeper " sides of herself , and so she sets out to educate her emotions , traveling , listening to music , reading novels , and ( in another stretch ) taking up woodworking . Pondering his life , the elderly Harold is humbled to recognize that he , that is , " the voice in his head , " the knowing , conscious self , is as much servant as master of his being and that the individual is part of a " never-ending interpenetration of souls . " </p> In other words , Brooks sees cognitive science as a source of wisdom about who we are and how to live . What is man ? He is genes and hormones and ever-firing synapses , to be sure . But he is also evolved emotion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ theologians view man as locked in a battle between reason and emotion , civilization and instinct , society and the individual , or as Freud might have put it , the conscious and the unconscious , the ego and the id . The Social Animal concludes that these conflicts are illusory . Instead , reason is informed by moral emotions , civilization channels instinct , culture sculpts the individual , and the unconscious educates the conscious . Human flourishing is not found by the triumph of one side over the other ; happiness is holistic . Likewise , Brooks sees no necessary divide between science and religion . " The brain was physical meat , " Harold , his mouthpiece , realizes in his last days , " but out of the billions of energy pulses emerged spirit and soul ... . The hand of God must be there . " </p> This final observation will doubtless make some scientists ' brains explode , to choose a relevant metaphor . The scientific community has not always greeted Brooks 's columns on the kinder , gentler , and more spiritual brain with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political animus , or genuine misinterpretation on the layman 's part is hard to determine . Suffice it to say that his approach to the field is unusual . Cognitive scientists are almost by definition materialists ; many of them believe that the brain 's evolved physical activity puts an end to the idea of a soul . It 's no accident that a number of today 's most vociferous atheists are comrades in the cognitive revolution . Sam Harris is a neuroscientist , Richard Dawkins an evolutionary biologist , and Daniel Dennett a philosopher much influenced by cognitive studies . </p> Some criticism of The Social Animal will be deserved , regardless of the book 's scientific accuracy . Brooks 's novelistic format tries to marry humanities and science , but the experiment has mixed results . At its less satisfying moments , The Social Animal reads like the 4 a.m. mind-racing of an idiosyncratic honors grad student ; using insight from cognitive science , he expounds on love , politics , Plato , charter schools , Coleridge , Alexander Hamilton , the intensity of life in the Middle Ages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrative method Brooks has chosen leads him to gloss over uncertainty . Cognitive science is a young , changing discipline subject to human error and ambition ; only recently , a Harvard evolutionary biologist has been accused of fabricating data about animal cognition . More generally , some research cited in the book might follow thousands of subjects over a period of years , while others ask a series of questions of a couple of dozen college students on a single afternoon . Brooks does n't warn us about the latter . </p> Perhaps the field 's greatest uncertainty is the question of how brain activity relates to consciousness , or the mind/body problem . Scientists can explain how different parts of the brain operate when we perceive , think , remember , or desire . They can watch those parts of the brain in action . What they ca n't do is tell us how all that activity adds up to an " I , " a unified , aware self . Through Harold and Erica , Brooks avoids confronting this failure . Creative license gives him the power to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ </p> Cognitive science is radically reshaping the way we think about ourselves , and The Social Animal offers unique insight -- and comfort -- about the conclusions it draws . </p> KAY HYMOWITZ is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute . Her new book , Manning Up : How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys , will be published this month by Basic Books . </p> " Indeed like all humans , Harold and Erica are " social animals . " By this , Brooks means more than that people like to hang out together . The brain is actually molded by interactions with other people . " </p> Man has been viewed by philosophers and theologians as locked in a battle between reason and emotion , civilization and instinct . The Social Animal concludes that these conflicts are illusory . </p> Reviewed by KAY HYMOWITZ , Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute </p> 
##4088951 CONSERVATIVES , ELITES , AND POPULISM </p> ON FEBRUARY 19 , 2009 , when the finance commentator Rick Santelli indulged in a rant against the newly unveiled " stimulus " bill on the CNBC cable network and called for a demonstration in Chicago modeled on the Boston Tea Party , he fired a shot heard round the country . Santelli 's diatribe was focused on the fact that Americans who had played by the rules , had saved much of what they had earned , and had paid their bills on time were being required to bail out fellow citizens who had gotten caught short in purchasing a domicile they could not afford or while speculating in real estate . In the weeks that followed , ordinary citizens spontaneously gathered in towns and cities across the continent to organize Tea Parties in protest against what they took to be an unjust redistribution of wealth from the industrious and the rational to the greedy and improvident . The mainstream media treated them with contempt , and most Republicans kept their distance . Leading Democrats denounced them as frauds and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the president of the United States used the obscene epithet " teabaggers " to refer to them , however , the adherents of what was coming to be a full-fledged movement -- the Tea Party movement -- stood firm . And in the course of the summer of 2009 , as Americans began to grow fearful of the scope and intrusiveness of the Obama administration 's health-care proposal , that movement 's numbers grew . In August 2009 , when congressmen and senators held town halls to discuss the proposed bill , ordinary Americans showed up in droves ; and , to the evident dismay of their representatives , they bluntly spoke their minds . </p> By January 2010 , when the unknown Republican Scott Brown defeated the well-known Democrat Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts race for the seat in the Senate once occupied by Ted Kennedy , it was clear that the Tea Party movement was destined to become a powerful force not only within the Republican Party but in the country as a whole , and patronage-minded Republican senators and congressmen who hoped to be re-elected in 2010 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who were not quick to do so soon came under fire . A three-term senator from Utah who failed to take note was denied his party 's nomination for re-election at the state 's Republican convention . A senator from Alaska , the scion of an entrenched political dynasty and a member of the Republican leadership , suffered the same fate in her party primary . In Delaware , a popular nine-term congressman who had served two terms as governor lost his party 's senatorial primary to an insurgent who had never held political office . In Kentucky , the same fate met its secretary of state . In Florida , a former-state senator came from nowhere ( the first poll had him at three percent ) to force a popular sitting governor to abandon his quest for the Republican senatorial nomination . And in the Republican senatorial primaries in Colorado and Nevada , Tea Party-backed insurgents defeated a lieutenant governor and a former party chairman . </p> It is perfectly understandable that Republican regulars were thwarted in the primaries , that Democrats were defeated in the midterm elections , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of political influence should find these developments disconcerting . It is equally understandable that those who find unpalatable either the Tea Parry 's approach or some of the more colorful and/or questionable candidates to emerge victorious as a consequence of its rise might consider this leaderless and inchoate force 's impact worrisome or even frightening . In point of fact , however , this sort of upheaval is nothing new . Such forces have risen periodically throughout the history of the United States and have their antecedents in 17th- and 18th-century England . </p> IN HIS 1748 Spirit of Laws , the great political philosopher Montesquieu attributed the recurring turmoil that had long beset England to the separation of powers between the executive and the legislature . The Tudors for the most part had been able to sidestep the problem in the 16th century because Henry VIII and his children had sufficient wealth in the lands he had seized from the Catholic Church to cover most of their needs . But their Stuart successors in the 17th century found that those resources had been largely exhausted ; and to cover their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were compelled to have frequent recourse to Parliament for revenue . </p> To their dismay and that of their ministers , what soon came to be called " the Country " rose up in high dudgeon time and time again to denounce on the floor of the House of Commons what was perceived as favoritism , corruption , arbitrary rule , conspiracy , and papist predilections on the part of a Court thought to be intent on encroaching on the rights of ordinary Englishmen and the prerogatives possessed by Parliament . These tensions produced the English civil war of the 1640s , the execution of Charles I in 1648 , the rule of the Rump Parliament and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s and 1650s , followed by the Restoration of the monarchy in 1658 , which was in turn followed 30 years later by the Glorious Revolution . </p> By the time Montesquieu arrived in England , things had settled down . The political tensions that had periodically given rise to turbulence and bloodshed were now being resolved peacefully through electioneering and balloting , and monarchs now found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ confidence of Parliament and were not simply tools of the Crown . </p> Montesquieu found the dynamics of English politics both instructive and amusing . " The hatred " that had long existed between Court and Country he regarded as a permanent feature . This hatred " would endure , " he observed , " because it would always be powerless , " and it would be powerless because " the parties " inspired by the separation of powers would be " composed of free men " who would be inclined to switch sides if either the executive power or the legislative power appeared to have " secured too much . " </p> The English were a commercial people who lived in what Montesquieu called " a republic concealed under the form of a monarchy . " The regime under which they were reared , being neither republican in the classical sense nor genuinely monarchical , did little to inculcate in them a spirit of self-sacrifice and even less to inspire in them a love of honor and glory . Instead , it left Englishmen to their own devices ; and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to succumb to the restlessness and anxiety that Montesquieu called inquietude . In such a nation , he remarked , the charges lodged by the party that stood in opposition to the executive branch " would augment even more " than usual " the terrors " to which a people so disposed were naturally prone , for they " would never know really whether they were in danger or not . " </p> Ordinarily the legislature , which enjoyed the confidence of the people , would be in a position to moderate their fears . " In this fashion , " Montesquieu noted , when " the terrors impressed " on the populace lacked " a certain object , they would produce nothing but vain clamors &; name-calling ; &; they would have this good effect : that they would stretch all the springs of government &; render the citizens attentive . " </p> And if the terrors fanned by the party opposed to the English executive were ever " to appear on the occasion of an overturning of the fundamental laws , " he observed , " they would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long , one would see a frightful calm , during which the whole would unite itself against the power violating the laws . " </p> Moreover , he added , if such " disputes took shape on the occasion of a violation of the fundamental laws , &; if a foreign power appeared , " as happened when the arrival of the Dutch political and military leader William of Orange in 1688 triggered the Glorious Revolution , " there would be a revolution , which would change neither the form of the government nor its constitution : for the revolutions to which liberty gives shape are nothing but a confirmation of liberty . " </p> Over the past generation , historians have tended to interpret the American Revolution similarly as a clash between Court and Country . The pattern described by Montesquieu was duplicated in colonies such as Virginia , Maryland , Massachusetts , and New York in the 17th and 18th centuries . Moreover , the charges leveled against King and Parliament by the American colonists in the period stretching from 1762 to 1776 were a compendium of those lodged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ; the opponents of the Long Parliament , the Rump Parliament , and Oliver Cromwell ; the proponents of the Glorious Revolution ; and those who subsequently became disgruntled under the rule of William of Orange following his installation as William III and the creation of William and Mary , Anne , and their Hanoverian successors George I , George II , and George III . </p> The same pattern manifested itself also in the political disputes that followed the founding of the United States . To be sure , when Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the first American political party , they did not accuse Alexander Hamilton and those who came to be called the Federalists of papist predilections . But they did assert that the economic program proposed by Hamilton in his capacity as George Washington 's secretary of the treasury amounted to a conspiracy to overthrow republicanism in America and consolidate power in the hands of an irresponsible executive indistinguishable from a monarch . That is why Jefferson spoke of the election of 1800 and his own ascendancy to the presidency as a second American revolution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sprang up against the so-called " Tariff of Abominations " shortly after its passage in 1828 . Andrew Jackson articulated much the same argument in the battle he undertook in his second presidential term ( 1832-36 ) against Nicholas Biddle 's proposal for a rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States , and so did Abraham Lincoln and his fellow Republicans in their quest in the late 1850s against what they called " the slave-power conspiracy . " </p> One could hear echoes of these earlier controversies in the campaign mounted against the railroads and banks by the People 's Party in 1892 ( the force widely considered the originator of what has come to be called " populism " ) , in the presidential campaign undertaken by the insurgent Democrat William Jennings Bryan in 1896 against the tight-money fiscal policies that he said were crucifying America on a " cross of gold , " and in Franklin Delano Roosevelt 's assertion at the Democratic Convention in 1936 that " a small group " of economic royalists was intent on concentrating " into their own hands an almost complete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ money , other people 's labor-other people 's lives . " And , of course , it is a similar suspicion that has given rise to the Tea Party movement . </p> Consider what Barack Obama and the Democrats did over the past two years -- with their so-called stimulus , health-care reform , and reform of financial regulation . Each initiative involved the passage of a bill more than a thousand pages in length that virtually no one voting on could have read , and no one but those who framed it could have understood . Each involved a massive expansion of the federal government and massive payoffs to favored constituencies . And each was part of a much larger project openly pursued by self-styled progressives in the course of the last century and aimed at concentrating in the hands of " a small group " of putative experts " an almost complete control over other people 's property , other people 's money , other people 's labor -- other people 's lives . " Without quite knowing whom they are evoking , Tea Partiers are inclined to say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do not put a stop to what is going on , " for too many of us life " will be " no longer free " and " liberty no longer real " -- for otherwise the bureaucratic busybodies ensconced in Washington will deprive us of the means by which to " follow the pursuit of happiness " as we see fit . </p> The only difference is that FDR 's assertions demonizing the " economic royalists " were demonstrably false , and when the Tea Partiers make comparable claims today , they are , alas , telling the truth . </p> American liberty is more fragile than we are inclined to suppose . The Framers of the Constitution were well aware that the republics of ancient Greece and those of medieval and early modern Italy were situated on diminutive territories . They knew that Rome 's expansion had eventuated in Rome 's loss of liberty , and they understood why Montesquieu had initially argued that a republic could not be sustained on an extended territory . A government set at a considerable distance from the people over whom it rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of sight and out of mind , beyond reach and beyond control . This the Framers understood . They took heart , however , from the French philosopher 's suggestion that a federation of small republics could overcome this geographical imperative . They were reassured by his tacit acknowledgement that , by way of the separation of powers , the " republic concealed under the form of a monarchy " that had emerged in Great Britain had overcome this imperative as well . And they themselves observed that the religious and economic diversity that had followed from America 's territorial extension were successfully subverting the force of faction . </p> In the early 1790s , however , when James Madison began thinking about the political consequences inherent in the ambitious program of economic development charted by Alexander Hamilton , he had occasion to reconsider Montesquieu 's warning . He believed that " a consolidation of the States into one government " was implicit in Hamilton 's assertion of federal prerogatives . And he feared that such a consolidation would neutralize the expedients suggested by Montesquieu and instituted by the Framers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course , which , it must be owned , is the natural propensity of every government . " </p> First , Madison thought , the separation of powers could give way to centralized administration of the sort that typified despotism . If federalism were subverted in this way and the national government by one means or another took over the prerogatives of the states and the localities , the legislature situated in the new nation 's capital would quickly prove to be incompetent " to regulate all the various objects belonging to the local governments , " and this " would evidently force a transfer of many of " those objects " to the executive department . " </p> Second , Madison contended , because the state and local governments are close to the people -- in sight and in mind , within reach and control -- they and not the federal government are the natural instruments of civic agency . If , however , they were made to be dependent on and subject to the national government , they would cease to serve this function , and the sheer size @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ popular political action . It would prevent the exercise of " that control " on the national legislature " which is essential to a faithful discharge of its trust , since neither the voice nor the sense of ten or twenty millions of people , spread through so many latitudes as are comprehended within the United States , could ever be combined or called into effect , if deprived of those local organs , through which both can now be conveyed . " In such circumstances , Madison warned prophetically , " the impossibility of acting together , might be succeeded by the inefficacy of partial expressions of the public mind , and this at length , by a universal silence and insensibility . " It was the absence of effective popular checks that would leave the national government to a " self directed course " </p> Madison , Jefferson , and their heirs in the Jacksonian period were arguably wrong about the political consequences implicit in the program proposed by Hamilton in the 1790s and revived by Henry Clay in the late 1820s . Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans implemented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American System , and that policy did not have the consequences that Madison , his associates , and their heirs feared . But the prospect that Madison imagined is , in fact , the prospect the world 's most venerable democratic republic now faces . </p> Over almost a century , under the influence of the Progressives and their heirs -- the proponents of the New Deal , the Great Society , and Barack Obama 's New Foundation -- we have experienced a gradual consolidation of power in the federal government . Legislative responsibilities have been transferred to administrative agencies lodged within the executive -- such as the Environmental Protection Agency , the Federal Communications Commission , and the vast array of bodies established under the recent healthcare reform -- and these have been delegated in an ever increasing number of spheres the authority to issue rules and regulations that have the force of law . </p> In the process , the state and local governments have become dependent on federal largesse , which always comes with strings attached in the form of funded or unfunded " mandates " designed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Civic agency , rooted as it normally is in locality , has withered as the localities have lost their leverage . The civic associations so admired by Alexis de Tocqueville have for the most part become lobbying operations with offices in Washington focused on influencing federal policy , and many of them have also become recipients of government grants and reliable **34;33232;TOOLONG of federal policy . </p> The Tea Party movement is , however , testimony to the fact that all is not lost . When confronted in a brazen fashion with the tyrannical impulse underpinning the administrative state , ordinary Americans from all walks of life are still capable of fighting back . It is easy enough to mock . Like all spontaneous popular movements , the Tea Party has attracted its fair share of cranks : it would have been a miracle if it had not attracted those who are obsessed with the question of Barack Obama 's birth certificate or the heavy-handed and ineffective procedures adopted by the Transportation Security Agency . </p> BUT IT should be reassuring rather than frightening to the American elite that at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nervous and watchful when a presidential candidate who has presented himself to the public as a moderate devotee of bipartisanship intent on eliminating waste in federal programs suddenly endorses " spreading the wealth around " and on the eve of his election speaks of " fundamentally transforming America . " It should be of comfort to them that a small-business owner in Nebraska believes he has reason to express public qualms when a prospective White House chief of staff , in the midst of an economic downturn , announces that the new administration is not about to ' let a serious crisis go to waste " and that it intends to exploit that crisis as " an opportunity to do things you could n't do before . " And it should be a source of pride to elites that the philosophical superstructure of the United States demonstrated extraordinary durability when a significant number of their fellow citizens refused to sit silent after an administration implied the inadequacy of the founding by promoting itself as the New Foundation , and after the head of government specifically questioned the special place of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . " </p> Most important , it should be humbling to those elites that ordinary American citizens choose spontaneously to enter the political arena in droves , concert opposition , speak up in a forthright manner , and oust a host of entrenched office holders when they learn that a system of punitive taxation is in the offing , when they are repeatedly told what they know to be false -- that , under the new health-care system that the administration is intent on establishing , benefits will be extended and costs reduced and no one will lose the coverage he already has -- and when they discover that Medicare is to be gutted , that medical care is to be rationed , and that citizens who have no desire to purchase health insurance are going to be forced to do so . </p> In 1776 , when George Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights , he included a provision reflecting what the revolutionaries had learned from the long period of struggle between Court and Country in England and in America : " that no free government , or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but by a firm adherence to justice , moderation , temperance , frugality , and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles . " What we are witnessing with the Tea Party movement is one of the periodic recurrences to fundamental principles that typify and revivify the American experiment in self-government . </p> These developments are never exclusively salutary . The people sometimes err , as Montesquieu understood and as , I believe , has happened with considerable frequency in our nation 's past . But as Thomas Jefferson observed in the wake of the rebellion mounted by Daniel Shays in 1786 , if the " turbulence " to which popular government is " subject " is regrettable , " even this evil is productive of good . It prevents the degeneracy of government , and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs . " In Europe , Jefferson explained , " under the pretence of government , they have divided their nations into two classes , wolves and sheep . " He feared that the same would in time happen in America . If the people in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affairs , you and I , " he wrote to one correspondent , " and Congress and Assemblies , judges and governors shall all become wolves . " </p> From the outset , Jefferson feared that in this country the government would eventually find its way to what his friend James Madison would later call a " self directed course ! ' It was with this unwelcome prospect in mind that he asked , " What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve their spirit of resistance ? " In the end , then , one does not have to agree with the Tea Party movement in every particular to welcome its appearance . </p> PAUL A. RAHE is a professor of history at Hillsdale College and the author , most recently , of Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty and Soft Despotism , Democracy 's Drift . </p> BY JANUARY 2010 , WHEN THE UNKNOWN REPUBLICAN SCOTT BROWN DEFEATED THE WELL-KNOWN DEMOCRAT MARTHA COAKLEY IN MASSACHUSETTS , IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT WAS DESTINED TO @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WHEN JEFFERSON AND MADISON ORGANIZED THE FIRST AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTY , THEY ASSERTED THAT HAMILTON 'S ECONOMIC PROGRAM AMOUNTED TO A CONSPIRACY TO OVERTHROW THE REPUBLIC . </p> WITHOUT KNOWING IT , TEA PARTIERS ARE EVOKING FDR . THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT FDR 'S ASSERTIONS DEMONIZING " ECONOMIC ROYALISTS " WERE FALSE , AND WHEN TEA PARTIERS MAKE COMPARABLE CLAIMS TODAY , THEY ARE , ALAS , TELLING THE TRUTH . </p> THE TEA PARTY PROVES THAT WHEN CONFRONTED IN A BRAZEN FASHION WITH THE TYRANNICAL IMPULSE UNDERPINNING THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE , ORDINARY AMERICANS FROM ALL WALKS OF LIFE ARE STILL CAPABLE OF FIGHTING BACK . </p> IT SHOULD BE HUMBLING TO ELITES THAT ORDINARY CITIZENS CHOOSE SPONTANEOUSLY TO ENTER THE POLITICAL ARENA IN DROVES AND OUST A HOST OF ENTRENCHED OFFICE HOLDERS . </p> By PAUL A. RAHE , Professor of history at Hillsdale College </p> 
##4088952 CONSERVATIVES , ELITES , AND POPULISM </p> ONE OF THE MANY strategic errors made by the Obama administration in the early days of 2009 was its decision to take on talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh -- though it was , perhaps , hard to blame the president and his people for trying . After all , they were riding the wave of a big electoral win and feeling pretty invincible , with large majorities in both houses of Congress and a messiah in the White House , and Limbaugh had just stunned the country , days before Obama was inaugurated , by summarizing his feelings about the new president in four simple words : " I hope he fails . " Limbaugh impatiently brushed aside the happy talk about compromise and bipartisan cooperation and scoffed at the claim that Obama was a pragmatic , post-ideological , post-partisan , post-racial conciliator and healer . Instead , he saw every reason to believe that Obama would aggressively pursue a leftist dream agenda : an exponential expansion of government 's size and power , a reordering of the American economic system , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power . Limbaugh was not alone in such views , but he was the only major figure on the right willing to stick his neck out at a time when the rest of the nation seemed dazed into acquiescence by the so-far impeccably staged Obama ascendancy . </p> Such was the mood of the moment that it seemed a sullen breach of etiquette to utter any such criticism . In any event , the White House quickly concluded that Limbaugh 's statement was a rare blunder and that hay was to be made of it . What better way to sow division among the Republicans , and confine them to a tiny corner of American political life , than to identify Rush Limbaugh as the " real head " of their party and brand him as an unpatriotic extremist and sore loser -- or , in the light-touch description of longtime Clinton adviser Paul Begala , as " a corpulent drug addict with an AM radio talk show " ? If they could succeed in this angle of attack , they would kill two birds with one stone , marginalizing their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ embarrassment and internal squabbling . Each Republican would face a choice of embracing the glittering " new age " of Obama and gathering a few scraps from beneath the Democratic table or following Rush into the fever swamps of an embittered permanent minority and getting nothing at all . </p> THE DEMOCRATS ' strategy backfired . Limbaugh 's vocal opposition to the stimulus package , which he dubbed " Porkulus , " helped galvanize a unanimous Republican vote in opposition -- an astonishing achievement of partisan unity that would be repeated in subsequent lopsided votes on health care and other issues -- and would lay the blame for these failed policies entirely on the Democrats ' doorstep , culminating in a huge and decisive electoral pushback against the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections . The question of whether Limbaugh was or is the " real leader " of the Republican Party suddenly became far less interesting to the White House and its friends in the media , perhaps because the answer was turning out to be something different from what they had expected . Limbaugh had goaded them into elevating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other putative " leaders , " they blinded themselves to the spontaneous and broad-based popular revolt that was rising against them . </p> In retrospect , the amazing part of the story is how thoroughly the White House misunderstood Limbaugh 's appeal , his staying power , and his approach to issues . It also points to a curious fact about Limbaugh 's standing in the mind of much of the American media and the American left . Even though they talk about him all the time , he 's the man who is n't quite there . By which I mean that there is a stubborn unwillingness , both wishful and self-defeating , to recognize Limbaugh for what he is , take him seriously , and grant him his legitimate due . Many of his detractors have never even listened to his show , for example . Some of his critics regularly refer to him as Rush " Lim-bough " ( like a tree limb ) , as if his name is so obscure to them that they can not even remember how to pronounce it . </p> In short @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he clearly is . Instead , he is dismissed in one of two ways -- either as a comic buffoon , a passing phenomenon in the hit parade of American pop culture , or as a mean-spirited apostle of hate who appeals to a tiny lunatic fringe . These two views are not quite compatible , but they have one thing in common : they both aim to push him to the margins and render him illegitimate , unworthy of respectful attention . This shunning actually works in Limbaugh 's favor because it creates the very conditions that cause him to be chronically underestimated and keeps his opposition chronically off-balance . Indeed , Limbaugh 's use of comedy and irony and showmanship are integral to his modus operandi , the judo by which he draws in his opponents and then uses their own force to up-end them . And unless you make an effort to hear voices outside the echo chamber of the mainstream media , you wo n't have any inkling of what Limbaugh is all about or of how widely his reach and appeal extend . </p> The influence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rush Limbaugh is unarguably one of the most important figures in the political and cultural life of the United States in the past three decades . His national radio show has been on the air steadily for nearly 23 years and continues to command a huge following , upward of 20 million listeners a week on 600 stations . The only reason it is not even bigger is that his success has spawned so many imitators , a small army of talkers such as Sean Hannity , Mark Levin , Michael Savage , Laura Ingraham , and so on , who inevitably siphon off some of his market share . He has been doing this show for three hours a day , five days a week , without guests ( except on rare occasions ) , using only the dramatic ebb and flow of his monologues , his always inventive patter with callers , his " updates , " song parodies , mimicry , and various other elements in his DJ 's bag of tricks . </p> He is equipped with a resonant and instantly recognizable baritone voice and an unusually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of political issues and political personalities , and -- what is perhaps his greatest talent -- an astonishing ability to reformulate complex ideas in direct , vivid , and often eloquent ways , always delivering his thoughts live and unscripted , out there on the high wire . He conducts his show in an air of high-spiritedness and relaxed good humor , clearly enjoying himself , always willing to be spontaneous and unpredictable , even though he is aware that every word he utters on the air is being recorded and tracked by his political enemies in the hope that he will slip up and say something career-destroying . Limbaugh the judo master is delighted to make note of this surveillance , with the same delight he expresses when one of his " outrageous " sound bites makes the rounds of the mainstream media , and he can then play back all the sputtering but eerily uniform reactions from the mainstream commentators , turning it back on them with a well-placed witticism . </p> There are countless examples of his judo skills at work , but perhaps the most spectacular was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sought to humiliate Limbaugh only to have the humiliation returned to him threefold . Limbaugh had a caller who complained that the mainstream media would not interview " real soldiers " in Iraq but instead sought out the disgruntled . Limbaugh , in agreement , cited the case of Jesse MacBeth , an Army enlistee who had failed to make it through boot camp but lied about his lack of real military service in order to speak credibly at anti-war rallies . Limbaugh called MacBeth , accurately , a " phony soldier . " But his statement was quickly pulled out of context by Media Matters , one of the Democratic groups that monitors Limbaugh 's every word , and was reframed as a swipe at all soldiers who had misgivings about the war . Limbaugh was denounced in the House for " sliming " the " brave men and women . " Reid used the occasion to address the Senate and deplore Limbaugh 's " unpatriotic comments " for going " beyond the pale of decency " and then wrote a letter to Limbaugh 's @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But Reid overplayed his hand . Far from running from the controversy , Limbaugh embraced it . He read Reid 's letter on the air , revealing it for the dishonest and bullying document it was , and then , in a stroke of pure genius , announced that he would auction it on eBay and give the proceeds to a military charitable foundation . The letter was sold for $2.1 million , and Rush matched the contribution with his own $2.1 million . Reid could only express his pleasure that the letter had done so much good . He had been flipped onto his back . </p> GIVEN Limbaugh 's talents and achievements , one would have thought that even his detractors would have an interest in knowing more about him : who he is , where he came from , and why he has acquired and kept such a large and devoted following . But in fact , there has been a remarkable lack of curiosity on that score and little incentive to go beyond the sort of routine demonization that only strengthens him . It was not until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and work , by the journalist Zev Chafets , appeared in print. * As Chafets reports in the book 's acknowledgments , it was not easy finding a publisher willing to take on such a book , unless it had the words " idiot " or " liar " in the title , since , as one friend explained it to him , " I have to go out for lunch in this city every day . " So call it a politically correct lack of curiosity , then ; but whatever the reason , it has meant our missing out on a fascinating story of a very American life . </p> But not missing out entirely , since much of the story comes across in Limbaugh 's own account of himself on his show . Anyone can figure out from listening to the show that he was and is a quintessential radio guy , a product of that fluid , wide-open , insecure , enterprising , somewhat hardscrabble , somewhat gonzo world of the AM radio disc jockey , in which salesmanship and showmanship were two names for the same @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were the most predictable element of life : " packing and unpacking , town to town , up and down the dial " in the words of the theme song of WKRP in Cincinnati , the 1970s TV sitcom that captured some of the knockout zaniness of that world . Limbaugh was smitten early and permanently with the romance of radio and never really wanted to do anything else with his life , including bothering to go to college , let alone taking on his birthright , the leadership of the family law firm . </p> It was a business one could learn only in the doing . While still in high school , he started working at KMGO-AM in his hometown of Cape Girardeau , Missouri , spinning discs in the afternoons under the name " Rusty Sharpe . " Later , he was " Jeff Christie , " morning-drive DJ on WIXZ-AM in McKeesport , Pennsylvania , where he hosted " The Solid Rockin ' Gold Show . " There was a move to Kansas City , where he would eventually begin dabbling in political discussion , and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ footsteps of the unpleasantly provocative Morton Downey Jr . and was able to do politically oriented talk as a solo act without guests and using his own name , finally developing the bombastic Limbaugh persona ( " El Rushbo " with " talent on loan from Gawww-duh " ) and the familiar epithets ( " Feminazis " and " Environmentalist Wackos " ) applied to his designated opponents . In Sacramento , he perfected his formula and proved a great success , tripling Downey 's already sizable audience and attracting the attention of syndicator Ed McLaughlin , who in 1988 brought him to WABC in New York to do The Rush Limbaugh Program , 21 years after those first broadcasts back at KMGO . </p> On arriving in New York , Limbaugh immediately set to work building his affiliate network and his general visibility , charging forward indefatigably on all fronts at once . He wasted no time plunging the show into the 1988 presidential campaign , branding Michael Dukakis " The Loser " and assigning him update theme music drawn from the Beatles ' " I 'm a Loser , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not what I appear to be , " a dig at the Massachusetts governor 's futile effort to disguise or downplay his liberalism . He began giving one-man " Rush to Excellence " tours around the country . These efforts paid off very quickly . By 1990 , the radio-show audience had hit 20 million ; his first book , The Way Things Ought to Be , was released in 1992 and sold 2 million copies in six weeks , making it at that point the fastest-selling volume in publishing history . </p> But he really hit his stride with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 . The two men seemed to have an elective non-affinity , perhaps because they were both baby-boomer know-it-alls from the same general region of the country ( Limbaugh from southeastern Missouri , Clinton from Arkansas ) , and perhaps because Limbaugh 's unprecedented and growing influence was so intensely and visibly annoying to the ambitious young politician . Clinton , after all , had come into office borne on a wave of mainstream hosannas , and expectations were high after the 12-year Republican control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a serious obstacle to him every step of the way , proving to be a major force in rallying public opinion against Clinton 's own healthcare overhaul and helping to lay the groundwork for the anti-Clinton 1994 electoral tsunami . The newly elected Republicans even made him an honorary member of the freshman class of 1995 , an honor he coveted , even though he has always thought of himself as a conservative rather than a Republican . </p> For some time , the early Clinton years represented Limbaugh 's high point . Clinton pushed back , effectively ( if outrageously ) associating Limbaugh and talk radio with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and winning re-election in 1996 in a walk , running against an aging and ineffective Bob Dole . That did not mean that Limbaugh let up , and the events surrounding Monica Lewinsky in 1998 gave him a rich new target , as did the electoral chaos of 2000 . But a cluster of personal issues , including charges relating to the abuse of prescription drugs and a catastrophic loss of his hearing , all seemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There was a noticeable ebbing of energy in the show at times , and it was not immune to the fracturing effect the Bush 43 presidency had on conservatives , with internal differences emerging on issues ranging from the prescription-drug entitlement to the Iraq war to immigration reform . </p> But all that seems to have changed , and Limbaugh clearly has the wind at his back again with a newly growing audience . Like the radio guy he is and always will be , he is a survivor . He has wisely chosen to avoid television for the most part after a syndicated television show successful with audiences ( and produced by Roger Ailes in the early 1990s in a warm-up for Ailes 's unprecedented triumph as the creator of the Fox News Channel ) proved less so with advertisers . Events , too , have moved his way . The abject failure of the John McCain campaign vindicated many of Limbaugh 's longstanding complaints about the more moderate wing of the Republican Party . And the rise of Obama has proved nothing less than a godsend for him -- @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunity it presented . </p> OCCASIONALLY , Limbaugh will talk on his show about radio , past , present , and future , and you understand that his great success is no accident . Able to draw with minuteness on more than four decades of work experience , he has achieved a comprehensive and detailed grasp of the technical , performing , and business dimensions of the industry , all of which give him an unmatched understanding of the medium and its possibilities . But it is more than a wonk 's understanding . He has a deep-in-the-bones feeling for what is magical about radio at its best -- its immediacy , its simplicity , its ability to create the richness of imagined places and moments with just a few well-placed elements of sound , its incomparable advantages as a medium for storytelling with the pride of place that it gives to the spoken word and the individual human voice , abstracted from all other considerations . He probably also understands why he himself is not nearly so good on TV , faced as he is with the classic McLuhanesque problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He also understood why predictions of radio 's demise have repeatedly been proved wrong , why AM radio has lent itself particularly well to the kind of simple and easy interactivity on which talk thrives , and why the movement of talk radio into the AM band would have the same revitalizing effect there as an urban homesteader turning a decrepit old townhouse into a place of elegance and commodity . AM radio was supposed to have died off years ago due to its weak and tinny sound . But the takeover by talk in the early 1990s , primarily due to Limbaugh , managed to transform a decaying and outdated infrastructure into the perfect vehicle for the medium 's own aspirations . </p> It could not have happened without the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 . Interactive talk of one sort or another had been around since the earliest days of radio , and there had been , of course , plenty of local talk shows , mostly conservative in flavor , on many stations . But the Fairness Doctrine kept them within bounds , obliging stations holding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a controversial issue and to provide coverage to issues of local importance . They imposed these requirements on the ground that channels were limited and so it was necessary to ensure that they served the larger public interest . </p> But with the vast and rapid growth of cable and satellite television and radio and other new media , this requirement no longer made any sense . The doctrine was abolished , and the way was opened for a show like Limbaugh 's to go into national syndication . His show could never have been sustained with the doctrine in place , a fact that has helped fuel the occasional expressions of Democratic interest -- most recently coming from Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois -- in its reinstitution . </p> It would be hard , though , to accomplish that without sparking something like an actual revolt in this country . Talk radio is , implicitly , talk-back radio -- a medium tuned into during times of frustration , exasperation , even desperation , by people who do not find that their thoughts , sentiments , values , and loyalties are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media . Such feelings may be justified or unjustified , wholesome or noxious ; but in any event they are likely to fester and curdle in the absence of some outlet in which they can be expressed . Talk radio is a place where people can go to hear opinions freely expressed that they will not hear elsewhere , and where they can come away with a sense of confirmation that they are not alone , are not crazy , and are not wrong to think and feel such things . The existence of such frustrations and fears are the sine qua non of talk radio ; it would not exist without them . </p> But that is not all . Without Limbaugh's/influence , talk radio might well have become a dreary medium of loud voices , relentless anger , and seething resentment , the sort of thing that the New York screamer Joe Pyne had pioneered in the 50s and 60s -- " go gargle with razor blades , " he liked to tell his callers as he hung up on them -- and that one can still see pop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it might have descended to the sometimes amusing but corrosive nonstop vulgarity of a Howard Stern . Limbaugh himself can be edgy , though almost always within PG-rated boundaries . But what he gave talk radio was a sense of sheer fun , of lightness , humor , and wit , whether indulging in his self-parodying Muhammad Ali-like braggadocio , drawing on his vast array of American pop-cultural reference points , or , in moving impromptu mini-sermons , reminding his listeners of the need to stay hopeful , work hard , and count their blessings as Americans . In such moments , and in many other moments besides , he reminds one of the affirmative spirit of Ronald Reagan and , like Reagan , reminds his listeners of the better angels of their nature . He transmutes the anger and frustration of millions of Americans into something more constructive . </p> The critics may be correct that the flourishing of talk radio is a sign of something wrong in our culture . But they mistake the effect for the cause . Talk radio is not the cause , but the corrective @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Rush Limbaugh , along with others of his talk-radio brethren , a problem of long-standing in our culture has reached a critical stage : the growing loss of confidence in our elite cultural institutions , including the media , universities , and the agencies of government . The posture and policies of the Obama presidency , using temporary majorities and legislative trickery to shove through massive unread bills that will likely damage the nation and may subvert the Constitution , have brought this distrust to a higher level . The medium of talk radio has played a critical role in giving articulate shape and force to the resistance . If it is at times a crude and bumptious medium , it sometimes has to be , to disarm the false pieties and self-righteous gravitas in which our current elites too often clothe themselves . Genuinely democratic speech tends to be just that way , in case we have forgotten . </p> *Rush Limbaugh : An Army of One , Sentinel , 240 pages . </p> Wilfred M. McClay is the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Report of our Death was Greatly Exaggerated ' : The Conservative Resurgence " appeared in the November 2010 issue . </p> EVEN THOUGH THEY TALK ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME , HE 'S THE MAN WHO IS N'T QUITE THERE . THERE IS A STUBBORN UNWILLINGNESS TO RECOGNIZE LIMBAUGH FOR WHAT HE IS , TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY , AND GRANT HIM HIS DUE . </p> ANYONE CAN FIGURE OUT FROM LISTENING TO THE SHOW THAT HE IS A QUINTESSENTIAL RADIO GUY , A PRODUCT OF THE WIDE-OPEN , INSECURE , ENTERPRISING , HARDSCRABBLE GONZO WORLD OF THE AM DISC JOCKEY . </p> LIMBAUGH REALLY HIT HIS STRIDE WITH THE ELECTION OF BILL CLINTON IN 1992 . THE TWO MEN SEEMED TO HAVE AN ELECTIVE NON-AFFINITY , PERHAPS BECAUSE THEY WERE BOTH BABY-BOOMER KNOW-IT-ALLS . </p> TALK RADIO IS TALK-BACK RADIO -- A MEDIUM TUNED IN TO BY PEOPLE WHO DO NOT FIND THAT THEIR THOUGHTS , SENTIMENTS , VALUES , AND LOYALTIES ARE FAIRLY OR EVEN MINIMALLY REPRESENTED IN THE " OFFICIAL " MEDIA . </p> WITHOUT LIMBAUGH 'S INFLUENCE , TALK RADIO MIGHT WELL HAVE BECOME A DREARY MEDIUM OF @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ IT MIGHT HAVE DESCENDED TO THE CORROSIVE NON-STOP VULGARITY OF A HOWARD STERN . </p> By WILFRED M. McCLAY , SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga </p> 
##4088953 IN NOVEMBER 2010 , British retirees Paul and Rachel Chandler were released after a year of captivity at the hands of Somali pirates . " We are happy to be alive , happy to be here , desperate to see our family , and so happy to be amongst decent , everyday people , " a smiling Mrs. Chandler told journalists in Mogadishu . The Chandlers are the lucky ones . Right now , more than 600 foreign nationals remain in captivity in Somalia . Since most are crewmembers on commercial merchant vessels , the price of their freedom will most assuredly be higher than the reported $1 million exacted as ransom for the Chandlers ' release . Even more troubling is the growing body of evidence that these pirate ransoms may be funding the next generation of Islamic militants in the graveyard of the last large-scale U.S.-led intervention in Africa . </p> In 2008 , Somali pirate militias were reported to have collected up to $150 million in ransom payments . The total of ransoms paid in 2010 will surely dwarf those of previous years . Key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ location , opportunity , and profits . For the Somali perpetrators of hostage terrorism , piracy is a low-risk , high-reward enterprise made possible by multiple targets of low-hanging fruit : unprotected , slow-moving commercial vessels . Based primarily in the Puntland region of northeastern Somalia , pirate militias are tactically positioned to disrupt navigation in the Gulf of Aden , one of the world 's most important strategic waterways . Twelve percent of the world 's oil passes through the Gulf , which links the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean . Flanked on one side by Somalia and on the other by Yemen , the Gulf is the main maritime corridor through which Middle Eastern oil reaches the West . It is also one of the busiest sea-lanes in the world . </p> Somalia 's pirate militias pose a threat not only to worldwide commerce but also to global security . As Somali pirates gain strength at sea , they strengthen their position on land . A fragile transitional government propped up by the international community is under threat from two directions . From the south , the al-Qaeda-backed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Transitional Federal Government in the cause of global jihad . In the north , pirate militias have all but wrested control of the province of Puntland from the central government . The potential for collaboration between the cash-strapped but powerful al-Shabaab and the wealthy , strategically positioned pirate clans of the north makes Somalia a new frontline in the global war against Islamic terrorism . </p> Somalia , a simmering cauldron of anarchy for two decades , has been credibly described as hell on earth . Since 1991 , when the authoritarian regime of General Mohammed Siad Barre fell , Somalia has been gripped by internal warfare . Hundreds of thousands have been killed in the ongoing internecine conflict between clans and Islamic militants , and more than 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes . In the absence of any coastal authority to protect Somalia 's fishing rights , and faced with ecological disaster in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami , fishermen in the northern province of Puntland began turning to piracy as a means of survival and retribution . Reports document Robin Hood-like accounts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ caught by foreign trawlers in Somalia 's territorial waters . But what they found in the safes of commercial vessels was far more valuable than the marine catch in the hold , and so the criminal cottage industry expanded . Pirates began preying on other seafaring vessels , hijacking larger boats for use as " motherships " to go after bigger targets : internationally flagged commercial freighters and tankers hundreds of miles out at sea . </p> Somalia 's pirates are not merry bands of lucky amateurs . They are organized militias with informants in foreign ports , and networks of ransom negotiators , money launderers , and arms runners abroad . Moreover , there is mounting evidence of collaboration between militant Islamists and pirate militias . While al-Shabaab initially viewed pirate militias as dangerous territorial rivals , they have begun to enter into a tentative alliance . Pirates supply al-Shabaab with cash and smuggled weapons in exchange for training and the use of ports in al-Shabaab-controlled territory . Al-Shabaab operatives , many educated abroad in al-Qaeda training camps , are able to provide pirates with the advanced tactics needed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global shipping companies . </p> Somalia 's pirates and jihadists may seem like strange bedfellows . To pirates , hostages are worth more alive than dead ; a dead hostage will not fetch a hefty ransom payment . But to organizations like al-Shabaab , hostages are frequently worth more dead than alive . The torture and execution of hostages makes for chilling physiological " psyops " against infidels and serves as a rallying cry to fellow jihadists . But with ransoms of upward of $10 million being paid out to pirates , it is only logical that a cash-starved al-Shabaab would also turn to piracy as a source of revenue for their costly insurgency . </p> As the interests of pirates and jihadists converge in Somalia , the similar challenges they pose become all the more clear . Both groups are effectively stateless and lawless . They engage in active hostilities without regard for the laws of war or the protection of civilian life and property . For these reasons , pirates have existed in a legal category unto themselves for more than 2,000 years : hostes humani generis , enemies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and its terrorist affiliates as hostes humani generis have failed , international law as it applies to pirates remains largely unchanged . The trouble is that the modern state system lacks the resolve to apply it . Whereas the Romans used to crucify pirates and the Carthaginians used to flay them alive , the UN Security Council 's crowning achievement in its campaign against piracy is a recent report detailing the successful " business model " adopted by Somali pirates ( or , as the report termed them , " shareholders " ) . With enemies like these , who needs friends ? </p> From a legal standpoint , pirates exist in a state of war against all . Consequently , every state has a right under international law to prosecute pirates in its domestic courts . However , not every state has the political or judicial will to exercise universal jurisdiction over pirates . Since 2009 , the international community has foisted the burden of prosecuting Somali pirates on Kenya and the Seychelles , thus preferring to treat a global threat as a local nuisance . Australia , Canada , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ European Union contributed funds to establish a high-security courtroom in Kenya for the purpose of bringing captured pirates to justice . The courtroom opened in June 2010 . Five months later , the High Court of Kenya at Mombasa put a quick end to the international community 's strategy of judicial outsourcing by ruling that it lacks jurisdiction to adjudicate acts of piracy committed beyond Kenya 's territorial waters . </p> It is not difficult to imagine why , purely as a matter of judicial policy , the Kenyan courts would disavow jurisdiction . No matter how secure a courtroom the international community wishes to build in Nairobi , it will not protect Kenya from the overflow of violence and terrorism from Somalia . More than 100,000 Somalis have sought refuge in Kenya , and al-Shabaab has sworn jihad against the Kenyan government . For Western powers to demand that a vulnerable state wage a judicial war against piracy on their behalf is , to put it politely , unreasonable . For the West to do so while its own nationals languish in captivity is , to put it bluntly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ international community has ignored Somali piracy altogether . The U.S. Navy and the European Union Naval Force have been conducting active operations to deter and repress Somali piracy . Reports of their successful interruption of pirate attacks abound , from 2009 's dramatic rescue of the captain of the Maersk Alabama by Navy SEALs to the successful protection of humanitarian aid ships by the European Union 's naval contingent . But without sufficient support on land , many of their victories at sea have been Pyrrhic . When pirates are captured , they are generally handed over to local East African authorities that lack either the capacity or the will to prosecute them . Though in October 2010 , the Somali government and the African Union Commission asked the UN Security Council to impose a full blockade on the Somali coast to curtail piracy and the influx of foreign fighters and weaponry , Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded with only a pledge to continue international engagement in Somalia with a ' light footprint . " But as conditions in Somalia deteriorate , it is hard to imagine a lighter footprint than the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Department 's response to piracy off the Horn of Africa has been no more decisive . Secretary of State Hillary Clinton summarized the U.S. government 's approach to the crisis as follows : " We may be dealing with a 17th-century crime , but we need to bring 21st-century solutions to bear . " She was only half right . The " solutions " being brought to bear by the United States and the international community are decidedly au courant : institutional reports , diplomatic conferences , and multilateral handwringing . But the underlying problem is hardly as quaint as the secretary of state suggests . Instead of cutlasses , muskets , and cannon , these pirates are armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles , automatic weapons , and rocket-propelled grenade launchers . They are backed by regional magnates willing to front the resources necessary to fund and sustain a hostage-taking operation , providing everything from food to cell phones to qaat , a local narcotic . </p> The ambivalent legislative response by the United States government to piracy has likewise been confounding . At present , ransoms paid to pirates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Horn of Africa . It is assumed that companies will simply insulate themselves against such costs with insurance . A recent Congressional Research Report offers something that looks disturbingly like money laundering as an option for dealing with piracy . It suggests that the federal government might opt to reinsure shipping companies in the event that private insurance proves insufficient to cover the cost of ransoming mariners . So while the federal government will not pay ransoms directly , it might pay shippers to pay insurers to indemnify ransom payments to pirates . Although maritime insurance rates have so far increased tenfold in response to Somali piracy , the federal government apparently does not think this cost sufficiently high to warrant intervention . The pirates of Jefferson 's time on the shores of Tripoli should have been so fortunate . </p> Yet as ties between Somali pirates and al-Shabaab grow closer , it will become impossible for the U.S. to treat ransom payments as mere transaction costs . In April 2010 , President Obama issued an executive order banning the transfer of funds to a list of named individuals and one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . The named entity is al-Shabaab . </p> Piracy off the Horn of Africa is not just a maritime problem . It is a problem of lawlessness that begins on land , moves out to sea , and is felt the world over . The response of the international community in dealing with it has been wholly inadequate . In fact , in the absence of a coherent response to the problem of piracy , Somalia 's Transitional Federal Government has begun accepting donations from an as-yet-unnamed Muslim state for the establishment of a military force to combat piracy in Puntland . Punt-land , which is believed to be rich in natural gas and oil deposits , is a strategic area for more reasons than piracy alone . The mysterious nature of these donations is somewhat troubling , as it could hinder the growth of a transparent , independent government in Somalia . </p> At this point , however , the absence of any effective legitimate authority in Somalia is a greater threat to the growth of transparent , independent government in that country than anything else . Piracy and al-Shabaab @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1990s and early 2000s , and now they are fueling a new fire . Two forms of hostage-terrorism -- one for profit and one for ideology -- are finding common ground in their mutual utility . Allowing this connection to proliferate will not only shatter any hope of a free and stable Somali state ; it will also create a new sanctuary from which Muslim extremists can project jihad abroad . And all the while , the humanitarian crisis in Somalia continues to deepen . </p> The spread of piracy has been treated more as a nuisance to be endured rather than as a deadly cancer that must be extirpated for the sake of both Somalia and the rule of law . For all the lip service that has been paid in Washington and other capitals to this issue , addressing it has never been any government 's priority . That must change . The absence of decisive Western leadership has allowed the problem to fester . Somali piracy has become one of the most dangerous fronts in the struggle against the financing of international terrorism . Pirates must now be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ operatives . </p> There must be a recognition that the beginning of the solution here , as it has been with every past successful campaign to wipe out an outbreak of piracy , whether in the Caribbean or along the North African coast , is to be found in a military response . While a full-scale blockade of the entire Somali coast may not be practicable , even with a reinforced Western naval presence in the area , stepping up the scale and the frequency of patrols will begin to lower the odds that are presently stacked in favor of the pirates . </p> Equally important is the need to create a reliable judicial process that will prosecute captured pirates and impose sentences that will signal to ordinary Somalis that piracy is no longer a livelihood with great rewards and few costs . To accomplish this , an international tribunal for the adjudication of captured pirates must be established. * </p> The presence of a well-funded , ably staffed international tribunal to adjudicate acts of piracy will render the efforts of multinational naval patrols all the more effective . The streamlining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the overall incidence of piracy and , in so doing , cut off one of al-Shabaab 's funding streams at its source . The international community will thereby begin to eliminate two of the greatest threats to the establishment of stable , legitimate , independent government in Somalia . Above all , it will break down the stranglehold that al-Shabaab has on humanitarian aid and make possible a material improvement in Somalia 's ongoing humanitarian crisis . </p> More than a decade of half-measures and hand-wringing on the part of the international community has done little to improve the lot of Somalia or ensure the freedom of the seas in its environs . If anything , conditions in the state continue to deteriorate while the world looks on . But the cost of this feckless response to piracy has been greater than the damage to one country or even the toll it has exacted on international shipping . Allowing Somalia to become the stronghold of what must increasingly be seen as a new variant on the Islamist terrorist network that is already in a state of war with the West would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ link between these two forces is not soon broken , the consequences will be incalculable . Seen from the perspective of an Islamic world that is testing the will of the democratic West to prevail over terrorism , the spectacle of captured pirates being allowed to slip through the cracks of international law is proof that Islamists are poised to prevail . Just as the " broken windows " theory of urban policing illustrates the importance of not letting any crime go unpunished , so the West must see piracy as a potent threat that must be vanquished and not merely a series of human-interest stories about released hostages ; otherwise the problem will only fester . Even worse , despite the unique nature of Somalia 's problems , the West 's inability to cope with the pirates will come to be seen as a new model of success for terrorism . </p> The international community has at its disposal many of the tools needed to clear the way for Somalia 's rehabilitation ; it has only to find the resolve to use them effectively . Continued maritime patrols on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are the critical first steps in this process . But until Western political leaders recognize that Somali outlaws are not merely an annoyance but a deadly peril to international law and stability that must be defeated at all costs , we must expect that the toll of blood and treasure exacted by this new breed of pirate will continue to grow . </p> * The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea , a UN organ established pursuant to the Third Law of the Sea Convention ( LOSC ) , is the most logical umbrella organization for such a tribunal , as it already has jurisdiction over acts of piracy under the LOSC . While it has yet to exercise that jurisdiction in matters relating to Somali piracy , the Hamburg-based tribunal is well equipped to do so . </p> TARA HELFMAN teaches law at Syracuse University College of Law . Dan O'Shea established and served as the coordinator of the Hostage Working Group at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq . He is the president of Daniel Risk Mitigation Inc. , a fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . The authors would like to thank Wing Commander Paddy O'Kennedy of EU NAVFOR for providing them with current data on the capture and arrest of pirates . </p> Pirates supply al-Shabaab with cash and smuggled weapons in exchange for training and the use of ports in al-Shabaab-controlled territory . Al-Shabaab also trains the pirates in tactics . </p> The " solutions " being brought to bear by the United States and the international community are au courant : institutional reports , diplomatic conferences , and multilateral handwringing . </p> Piracy has been treated as a nuisance to be endured rather than as a deadly cancer to be extirpated . Pirates must now be treated with all the seriousness with which we treat al-Qaeda . </p> By Tara Helfman , Law at Syracuse University College of Law and Dan O'Shea , President of Daniel Risk Mitigation Inc . </p> 
##4088954 ABRAHAM LINCOLN was a Communist . But you knew that , did n't you ? Our 16th president 's bicentennial birthday , celebrated in 2009 with great fanfare , brought forth traces of an oddly far-left Lincoln , an image harking back to American Communism 's mid-20th-century heyday . </p> A special edition of PBS 's Bill Moyers Journal featured actor Sam Waterston reciting Lincoln-related literary passages . Viewers were treated to the words of Walt Whitman and Frederick Douglass , and also to lines from " Homage to Neruda , " Allen Ginsberg 's adaptation of an ode to Abraham Lincoln by the Stalinist poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda . " Let the Railsplitter awake ! " cried Waterston . " Let Abraham come back , and lift the axe in his city against the new slave-makers ! " </p> Few recall this 1948 poem equating modern capitalism with slavery , which is probably all for the best , aesthetically speaking . Historically speaking , the poem is an entree into a not entirely forgotten time : the Popular Front period of the 1930s and 1940s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before -- or since , for that matter -- radical leftism and flag-waving patriotism went hand in hand in America . Though the merger was the result of an edict issued from Moscow , it was one that American Reds ( to use the terminology of the time ) enthusiastically embraced . To be sure , such thinking -- and the curious promotion of Lincoln and the American Founders that went with it -- had a limited shelf life . It waned as our World War II ally , the USSR , became our Cold War adversary . And yet , strange to say , nearly two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union , the cultural emanations of its admirers live on . </p> The Lincoln bicentennial demonstrated this . Trotted out for the 2009 celebrations was a 1942 radio opera about the martyred president 's cross-country funeral cortege . Folk singer Pete Seeger , age 89 and once one of the country 's most prominent Communist Party members , was on hand at New York 's Riverside Church to introduce students from the Aaron Copland School of Music @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with music by Earl Robinson , a self-described " working-class Communist composer . " Better known was another piece from 1942 , Aaron Copland 's Lincoln Portrait . Originally composed to urge the Allies to victory over Hitler 's Germany , the Lincoln Portrait graced the bicentennial programs of half a dozen orchestras around the country . Copland , a beloved American composer , had a rather Red 1930s , having belonged then to the Workers ' Music League and the Composers ' Collective , an offshoot of the International Music Bureau of the Communist Party of the United States of America ( CPUSA ) . </p> As the historian David Herbert Donald once noted , all political groups in the United States , wherever situated on the ideological spectrum , must set about " getting right with Lincoln " or resign themselves to marginalization . Few tried harder than the CPUSA to get right with Lincoln . </p> IT IS an interesting irony that at patriotic points in our collective calendar , we often tap into the pop culture of the Popular Front period to express our national ideals , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ " freedom " and " equality , " idolized one of the most unfree and unfair governments in history . Younger generations may wonder -- at least the conservatives among them occasionally do -- about the vaguely left-wing inflections of this tune or that revival of a Broadway show . A look back at this episode in American culture will dispel the mystery . </p> Utopian dreams are attractive , in any age , to those who traffic in ideas . The 20th century seems to have had more than its share . From the moment the Bolsheviks triumphed in Russia in 1917 , they sought the support of European and American intellectuals . Calamity assisted their efforts . Western democracy 's failure to prevent the untold carnage of 1914-1918 and the Great Depression a decade later prompted an unusually large number of intellectuals to cast a hopeful eye toward the Soviet experiment . The socially conscious novel , play , concerto , and song came into vogue in the 1930s . The previous decade 's big works of fiction had been about flappers and others in the " smart set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about banks depriving poor sharecroppers of their land ( The Grapes of Wrath ) . </p> Many if not most " socially conscious " artists and writers , while sympathetic to Marxism , did not join the CPUSA . Its orbit widened , but it was still exotic . Communists saw a chance to break out of the political wilderness when in 1935 Moscow sought to broaden the Party 's appeal by declaring a " united front " or " popular front " against the rise of fascism . The head of the CPUSA , Earl Browder , responded with an ambitious program of implementation . His widely distributed pamphlet announcing that " Communism Is 20th Century Americanism " inspired his fellows to pitch their politics to the mainstream by identifying the workers ' revolution with American history , American ideas , and American political heroes . A coterie of liberals was receptive to an invitation couched in such affirming and familiar terms . To them , a broad coalition against the rising threat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy seemed to make sense . </p> Browderism 's first public-relations manifestation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Comintern in 1936 to fight against Francisco Franco 's forces , were dubbed " the Abraham Lincoln Brigade " -- or , as they called themselves , " the Lincolns . " By 1939 , Browder 's campaign was in full swing , with the CPUSA convening Lincoln-Lenin rallies and setting up adult-education centers : the Tom Paine School in Philadelphia , the Samuel Adams School in Boston , the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago , and the Jefferson School of Social Science in New York . -That year , Howard Fast -- a winner of the Stalin Peace Prize who would later break with the CPUSA -- published Conceived in Liberty : A Novel of Valley Forge , followed a little later by Citizen Tom Paine . The conceit was that , since America and the Soviet Union were hostile to Old World aristocracy , the next step was natural : to imply a strong kinship between the American and Russian revolutions . </p> Musicians and songwriters did their part , rummaging through American history and legend for fodder . Both Valley Forge and Gettysburg were in " Was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Walter Lowenfels , a staffer of the official CPUSA newspaper , the Daily Worker , and Pete Seeger 's mentor , the singer Lee Hays . Aaron Copland made extensive use of folklore in his ballet Billy the Kid . Copland brought into the classical repertoire that epic contest between the hammer-wielding laborer and the mechanized drill , " John Henry . " ( His version is still popular : the conductor of a youth orchestra in Florida cheerfully introduced it to a recent audience as " a political statement about McCarthyism and the oppression of the machine . " ) The above-mentioned Earl Robinson -- whose best melody is " Joe Hill , " a perennial favorite of the labor movement , about a union organizer who was executed on a murder charge -- recorded old tunes like " Jefferson and Liberty " and composed new ones about John Brown , Horace Greeley , and Molly Pitcher , the water-carrying heroine of the War of Independence . </p> Robinson ( 1910-1991 ) was a Seattle-born composer , arranger , choral director , and performer on piano and guitar , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 1930s and Hollywood in the 1940s . Throwing himself into what he called " our efforts to Americanize the movement , " he ended up creating two classics of the golden age of radio . His " Ballad for Americans , " a sensation when it went out over the CBS network in 1939 , gave Bing Crosby a major hit on Decca Records . It was featured at the 1940 Republican National Convention and appeared in the MGM movie Born to Sing , in a production number choreographed by Busby Berkeley . Robinson 's " The House I Live In , " recorded by , among others , Paul Robeson , Eddie Fisher , and Connie Francis , became the theme song of a famous Frank Sinatra movie short for which Sinatra and Robinson shared a special Academy Award in 1946 . Abel Meeropol , a CPUSA member who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Allan and later adopted the two sons of convicted Communist spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg , helped write the lyrics . </p> Part of Robinson 's Americanization crusade was to make himself -- at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lincoln . However , to review some of the music he wrote or co-wrote is to see that " getting right with Lincoln " did n't necessarily mean getting Lincoln right . " Abraham Lincoln , " pairing Alfred Hayes 's folksy lyrics with Robinson 's incongruously modernist-sounding melody , traces Lincoln 's life in six stanzas . " A great big giant of a man was he , yes sir ! " goes this odd folk song from 1938 . Robinson recalls in his memoir scouring the CPUSA pamphlet announcing the Popular Front and discovering , to his delight , a passage that General Secretary Browder had excerpted from Lincoln 's first inaugural address : " This country with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it ... . Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government , they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it , or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it ! " This became the song 's refrain . ( The exclamation point was added . ) </p> No , it is n't particularly catchy when set to music . Highlighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fellow travelers -- of putting Lincoln on the side of mass insurrection . In fact , the president-elect had meant something else : that the right of revolution was reserved for those whose rights were being denied by their government , and the slavery defenders who seceded from the Union did not qualify . ( In that same speech , Lincoln declared : " Plainly , the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy . " ) The song " may have gone a little beyond Lincoln 's original intention , " Robinson sheepishly admitted . He recalled Orson Welles , the film director who was at the time a bigwig in theater and radio , introducing a choir performance of " Abraham Lincoln " at a CPUSA fundraiser and heralding it as a thrilling example of " militant music . " The assembled listeners " almost fainted , " said Robinson , upon hearing the 16th president portrayed as a government-toppling radical . </p> A revolution-friendly Rail Splitter was also on display in The Lonesome Train , the folk cantata that was broadcast over the radical radio station @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In this 25-minute radio opera -- with music by Earl Robinson and words by Millard Lampell , based on material from Carl Sandburg 's biography of Lincoln -- a spectral President Lincoln passes among humble denizens of towns and cities across the United States . It was the ubiquitous Waterston in the role of Lincoln who spoke the following line in the WBAI production : " Well I 'll tell you ma'am , it seems to me the strongest bond of human sympathy , outside your family of course , should be the one uniting all working people of all nations , tongues and kindreds . " </p> This plug for international proletarian solidarity was fashioned from Lincoln 's words . Again , it is telling to restore the words to their context in Lincoln 's 1864 " Reply to the New York Workingmen 's Democratic Republican Association . " He was talking about a tragic incident known to his correspondents : a public disturbance that saw laborers murdering other laborers . " It should never be so , " wrote Lincoln . " The strongest bond of human sympathy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all working people , of all nations , and tongues , and kindreds . " </p> What you would never suspect , hearing Robinson 's cantata , is that President Lincoln evoked this agreeable image of the " strongest bond " to admonish the recipients of his letter . He went on : </p> pre-formatted table This remarkable passage -- ample demonstration that not all " men of the people " are fans of the class struggle -- held little interest for Robinson 's friend Lee Hays of the Almanac Singers , who was the one to suggest the " strongest bond " sentence be put in the cantata . According to Robinson , he and Hays and their cohorts " thrilled to the apparent Soviet success in collectivizing agriculture . " They were not in the business of acknowledging the Lincolnian view ( which is also a Washingtonian , Madisonian , and Lockean view ) that one 's labor is a form of private property and that diligent labor leading to the accumulation of property is an essential of a free society . American Communists celebrated Lincoln for ending slavery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his anti-slavery view . </p> Such a purist was Robinson that he tried to stop his own works from being performed by politically incorrect people ( such as those odious Republicans at their convention ) or at politically incorrect times -- namely , when the CPUSA turned pacifist , suspending its anti-Fascism campaign from August 1939 until June 1941 in deference to Stalin 's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler . Carl Sandburg tired of Robinson 's insertion of the Party line into musical pieces on which the two men collaborated . The poet finally groused to the composer that the latter bore no resemblance to Eugene V. Debs , who was admirable for having refused to " take orders from the Moscow Vatican . " </p> In the 1950s , Robinson ran afoul of the counter-subversives . Anti-Communists protested the use of a recording of The Lonesome Train in suburban New York schools . The FBI tailed him , and he was blacklisted , which meant few would hire him for artistic projects . But if his Lincoln work got him in trouble , it also eventually came to his rescue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least to the extent of being the toast of Springfield . Illinois 's Republican governor Otto Kern summoned him that year to be official historian for the cultural program that the state of Illinois put on for the centenary of Lincoln 's death . Robinson got other big-historical-moment sorts of assignments every so often : he was commissioned to create a " documentary musical record " of the astronauts ' landing on the moon in 1969 . And during the United States 's bicentennial , his composing-talents were in great demand . That chapter of his memoir is entitled " 1976 : My Year . " </p> The prominence accorded Communists like Robinson during the 1940s and 50s owed much to the efforts of Pop Front liberals . Movers and shakers like the radio writer , director , and producer Norman Corwin had put Robinson and others to work at major media outlets . The fellow-traveling Corwin was a programming powerhouse at CBS , where he produced Robinson 's Ballad for Americans and The Lonesome Train . Corwin , who recently turned 100 , was a household name before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most enduring work is the oft-performed stage play The Rivalry , about Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas . That play was written in 1958 , well after his Pop Front ardor had cooled ; he broke with the Communists when they supported Kim Il-Sung 's invasion of South Korea . </p> It was during the fight against Hitler 's Germany that Corwin 's morale-boosters filled the airwaves -- from We Hold These Truths , a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights that aired just after Pearl Harbor , to the special program that CBS rushed onto the air on May 8 , 1945 , Victory-in-Europe Day . " Corwin 's ' little guy ' was American for ' proletariat , ' " says the narrator of I Married a Communist , the Philip Roth novel set in the Popular Front era . He was talking about the famous V-E Day program , which was called On a Note of Triumph . </p> It began : " Take a bow , GI . Take a bow , little guy . The superman of tomorrow lies at the feet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it kids . This is the day . All the way from Newburyport to Vladivostok , you had what it took , and you gave it . And each of you has a hunk of rainbow ' round your helmet . Seems like free men have done it again ! " </p> The show was rebroadcast a week after V-E Day by popular demand . Roth would praise its script as " poeticized vernacular " and the " high demotic poetry that was the liturgy of World War II . " But not everyone liked On a Note of Triumph . Writing in Harper 's magazine at the time , the historian Bernard de Voto called it " windy , opaque , pretentious , and in the end , false . " Not debatable , in any case , is that it is a prime example of Pop Front-ese . Note the pairing of a New England port with a Russian port . And the false implication that the terrible losses inflicted on Russia by the German war machine were the sacrifices of a free people rather than a people oppressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ historian David Everitt writes in his 2007 book , A Shadow of Red , Norman Corwin 's anti-fascism , laudable in itself , spilled over into a wartime infatuation with the Soviet Union . Everitt points to the Corwin-directed program " Concerning the Red Army , " which ended in a paean to Josef Stalin . And to the Corwin series Passport for Adams , in which an American journalist visiting Russia was assured by Soviet officials that German prisoners of war were being looked after with tender care when , in fact , only a tiny percentage survived captivity . Everitt , as he quotes from that 1943 script , waxes sardonic : " ' We treat them humanely because we believe in human dignity ... and in international law , ' says this representative of the nation that invented the Gulag . " </p> Yet Corwin would emerge nearly unscathed from the postwar backlash against Communism . Red-hunters called him out for his pro-Soviet views , but he was not , according to his biographer , denied gainful employment as a result . After radio , he wrote for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the University of Southern California . Those claiming him as a role model have included Philip Roth , Ray Bradbury , Robert Altaian , Norman Lear , Larry King , and Charles Kuralt , who said , of the writers of his generation , that " we are children of Corwin . " Writing well into his 80s , he was still the go-to guy when a major event like Y2K rolled around . As 1999 drew to a close , National Public Radio broadcast his " Memos to a New Millennium , " with Walter Cronkite narrating Corwin 's 28-minute summation of the previous thousand years of human history . </p> Even more prone to turn up on somber or important occasions is the work of Aaron Copland . Although his Lincoln Portrait was yanked from the program at President Eisenhower 's inauguration for political reasons , his Fanfare for the Common Man was performed at President Reagan 's inauguration . In the sensitive time after the attacks of September 11 , Bob Dylan began his concerts by piping in recorded excerpts of Copland . </p> " One picks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , " says Abe Lincoln in the play that Norman Corwin wrote on the centennial of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858 . Many mid-20th-century American artists and writers did not pick carefully . Corwin , though , righted himself by choosing the democracies over the North Koreans in 1950 , and Copland was another who separated himself from a Popular Front that was foundering on the shoals of the Cold War . Their political profiles resolved quietly into that old-school media liberalism that is so familiar to us today . It 's a liberalism whose adherents think of patriotism as not altogether a bad thing , so long as it is in the right -- by which they mean the left -- hands . </p> The zealotry that characterized the Popular Front , the capture-the-flag fervor that ended up embedded in our popular culture , is an unrepeatable phenomenon . Michael Moores , Tony Kushners , and Oliver Stones there may be , but we are not likely ever to see creative types strap on the yoke of political-party discipline the way the Pop Fronters did . Nevertheless , the effects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political attitude common in the films , plays , and broadcast media of today is a descendant of the rigid leftism that once ruled the arts . The contemporary view does not entail blindly defending an evil empire as of old . It does , however , define equality as economic leveling and wisdom in international affairs as U.S. deference to others . The Red-tinged Lincoln who popped up during his bicentennial may be a weird apparition , but he tells us more about our own world than we may realize . </p> LAUREN WEINER has written on the history of American Communism for First Things , the Weekly Standard , the Baltimore Sun , and many other publications . </p> Communists saw a chance to break out of the political wilderness when in 1935 Moscow sought to broaden the Party 's appeal by declaring a " popular front " against the rise of Fascism . The CPUSA responded with an ambitious program . </p> Highlighting this passage had the virtue -- for Communists and their fellow travelers -- of putting Abraham Lincoln on the side of mass insurrection . In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Communists were not in the business of acknowledging the Lincolnian view that one 's labor is a form of private property and that diligent labor leading to the accumulation of property is an essential of a free society . </p> Norman Corwin would emerge nearly unscathed from the postwar backlash against Communism . Red-hunters called him out for his pro-Soviet views , but he was not denied gainful employment as a result . </p> The effects of this long-past historical moment are still felt . The political attitude common in the films , plays , and broadcast media of today is a descendant of the rigid leftism that once ruled the arts . </p> By Lauren Weiner </p> 