Ronald Reagan and Poetry

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(the image is of a statue of St. Patrick, who was a native of France)




I ran across an interesting site about President Ronald Reagan and poetry, and the site even includes some poetry Reagan wrote early in live, as well as an excerpt from a eulogy for him by Ron Reagan, one that is written in free verse. Here is a link to the site:

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Ronald_Reagan_Poet_and_Poetry_a_Tribute_Retrospective_and_Memorial.htm




The site also includes this information:

In his travels through Ireland, Ronald Reagan once took note of a graveside epitaph at Castlereagh, the place where St. Patrick erected the first cross in Ireland:

Remember me as you pass by,
For as you are so once was I,
and as I am you soon will be,
So be content to follow me.

The site was established by Michael R. Burch.

A Graphic-Novel About Senator Kennedy

A couple recent posts noted a favorite poem and a favorite song of Edward M. Kennedy's. Concerning literature about the late senator, writer Patrick Gavin at politico.com reports that a graphic-novel about Kennedy has been in the works but will now, of course, need to be revised.

The working-title of the novel, to be published by Bluewater Productions, is "Political Power: Ted Kennedy." Bluewater Productions has already published graphic-novels about Ronald Reagan and President Obama. Here is a link to Gavin's article:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26511.html

Anti-American, Un-American, American, Feminist

Congressperson Bachman from Minnesota has raised the specter of certain members of Congress (and of Obama) as being "un-American," or "anti-American," and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin has claimed that the "folks" in small towns love America, whereas, presumably, the folks in cities don't love America. William Bennett, on his radio show, opined that "liberal feminists"don't like Palin because a) she works b) she's attractive and c) she's happy.

Oh, my, there's so much to sort out here, especially for poets.

As a poet and a literalist, I tend to interpret "un-American" as "not-American." In other words, a Swedish citizen or a Chinese citizen would qualify as un-American. However, I am aware that Senator McCarthy defined "un-American" as Communist. I think that definition (his) is too limiting. I think a capitalist who is a citizen of Great Britain could be un-American.

"Anti-American" is more difficult. An anti-American person might be one who disagrees significantly with something economic, social, political, or aesthetic about the U.S.A., or about the Western Hemisphere, which consists of North and South America, and which, bizarrely, is named after an Italian. If one concedes that both the Constitution and American traditions value dissent and disagreement, might one proceed to argue that "anti-American" is "American"?

Meanwhile, Bennett's sentiments constituted a blast from the past, especially the 1970s past, when those opposed to, unfamiliar with, or frightened by feminism liked to caricature feminists as physically unattractive, unhappy ("bitter" was a code-word back then, as was "angry," as in "she [a feminist] seems so angry"), and not traditionally employed.

My definition of feminism is pretty basic. I define it as a perspective that advocates for and values the equal treatment of women in society, economics, politics, and the arts. Therefore, I don't agree with the premise that feminists would be bothered by how attractive Palin is, assuming she is attractive, and I assume she is, within certain conventional boundaries. I think she is a physically attractive person, but I think most people are physically attractive. I don't think feminists would be opposed to Palin's working, although I am reminded of the old joke about a White feminist and a Black feminist converging at a rally; the White feminist says she is protesting so that she can achieve employment (probably middle-class employment). The Black feminist says, "I've always worked"(at jobs that weren't so great).

I think I'm an American, by virtue of having been born in the United States. I think I am anti-American to the extent I disagree with certain policies put forward by the U.S., and with certain aspects of American culture and American history. I don't think I'm un-American, but that's chiefly because I think that term is a smelly red herring dressed up as an adjective.

I'd just add that feminists, be they White, Black, male, female, or whatever, are (in my experience) in favor of employment, physical attractiveness, and contentment. That Bennett thinks otherwise makes me think he is stuck, psychologically, in a place that's about 40 years old.

If he weren't well paid and well employed by such entities as CNN, I might attempt to generate pity for Bill B. It's as if he missed a lot of history. Rip Van Bennett. I suspect Bennett started out as an academic, didn't really like academic work, teaching, and academic pay, and decided to become a professional conservative media performer--not a bad gig in the Reagan and post-Reagan era.

Now, however, the act, the gig, is wearing a little thin. Memo to Bill: "louder, funnier, and more original"--that's what your act needs. But I'm glad you're employed, attractive (in a full-figured way), and happy. A lot of people I know think you're an asshole and a fraud, but I'm not willing to go quite that far. I think you got stuck in a gig, just like the guy who had the plate-spinning act on The Ed Sullivan Show. To be a member of the Punditocracy is to be a citizen in one of Dante's circles of Hell, and I think Bill B. would understand the reference. To change myths, I think the likes of Bill Bennett and George Will sold their souls to the Conservative PR machine and to popular corporate media. The machine and the media have lived up to their ends of the bargain. Bill and George are well paid and well known. However, the part about the loss of the soul is a problem, maybe.

Sarah Palin, Cubist Painting

As Murray Edelman has asserted, politics is largely a matter of spectacle in the U.S. It is often optimally viewed as a performance of one kind or another, and the alleged differences between candidates or parties are often contrived or exaggerated for the sake of the performance, not for the sake of, say, people or problems or "solutions."

Oddly enough, I caught a glimpse of what Edelman means way back when I was 16 and attending something called Boys' State, a kind of mock-governmental conference sponsored by the American Legion. One male per high school in California would converge on Sacramento and play politics, annually, in the summer. We were all juniors in high school.

Ronald Reagan spoke to us assembled high-school junior males (who had just elected, as our "governor" and "lieutenant governor" two African Americans--that says something about the 1970s, but that's another story).

We sat in the auditorium and listened to a warm-up act, and then Reagan arrived: BAM! Photographic lamps went on, TV cameras materialized, he entered the auditorium, surrounded by an efficient entourage, shook hands, smiled, worked the crowed, smiling, smiling, got up on stage, said nothing but said it well, got off the stage, shook hands, worked the crowd, everything being filmed, BAM! out the door. It was a schtick. Of course, I was mightily impressed. He was our governor! But something in the back of my mind told me: I just saw a schtick.

I thought of this when I watched the "debate" between Biden and Palin last night. It was the oddest political spectacle I've seen in a long time, and I think Biden thought the same thing. He looked at Palin sometimes as if she were from the moon, and it has almost nothing to do with politics (in the sense of policy or beliefs or what to do next or yadda yadda). It has to do with spectacle, and it has to do with gender, and something has gone terribly wrong.

I hate pretending as if I know anything about Sarah Palin because I don't know anything about her, really. I do think McCain made a reckless choice when he chose her (that's not her fault). I think it is evidence of an impulsive side he can't control.

But as I watched her last night, I saw an amalgamation of traits, affects, effects, gestures, gimmicks, and tricks that don't add up. Or rather, they add up to a kind of robot badly assembled, or a Cubist painting.

The parts include the following: cute--but a bit too old to be cute (mutton pretending to be lamb); "beauty-contestant"; anti-intellectualism (having knowledge about issues is a symptom of being "elite; when talking to your audience, drop the g from ing in words); put your head down and get through this awful event (she had loaded her rhetorical gun with statements, and she was going to shoot them regardless of what questions were asked); something vaguely corporate ( the suit, the glasses, the coiffure); cheap tricks or worn-out jokes ("There you go again": Reagan's line TWENTY EIGHT YEARS AGO; the "white flag of surrender": that is meaningless); the winking at the camera; the lame folksy reference to extra credit in third grade.

Sarah Palin is whoever she is. I don't know who she is. I'm sure she is someone with a unified personality. But Sarah Palin as political spectacle is a symptom of our political system, and something is terribly wrong. The amalgamation of traits she attempted to hold together with glue and tape during the debate is freakish and bizarre, and it says not all that much about her but volumes about how conflicted and fragmented our society is, particularly around issues of femininity and power. I think she's trying to do some kind of job she's been given, and she doesn't exactly know what the job is, except . . . get out there, make noise, be cute.

Reagan made the schtick work. Countless other politicians have, too. Clinton, Roosevelt, Nixon (until he disintegrated), Carter, Bush I, Bush II, take your pick. It has nothing to do with ideology, beliefs, or policy. It is a performance of a show named "Democracy": whatever.

Biden and Obama make the schtick work. The Clintons, too. The parts seem to cohere. They are at least plausibly familiar or familiarly plausible. McCain, too--except for his strange impulsive side.

In the spectacle of Sarah Palin, the schtick has come undone. I was fascinated by the spectacle of her last night because it suggested how badly politics can go wrong and in how many complex ways it can do so, and once again, I have to say it has little or nothing to do with ideology (I think in many ways Hillary Clinton has had to assemble herself into a Cubist painting, too). Sarah Palin the concocted, "prepped," inappropriately chosen, impulsively selected, hastily assembled political entity is a monstrosity. Who Sarah Palin the actual person is, I have almost no clue. Sarah Palin, candidate? A bizarre assemblage. A reflection of her society.