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Alfred Gingold and Helen Rogan

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from: Alfred Gingold

The Assault on Un-Americanism

Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001, at 2:23 PM ET

It's no more surprising that RR would write favorably about the Weather set than that he would write about it at length. Concision is not the strong suit there, but never let it be forgotten that RR was one of the few, the proud few, to realize from the very start just how dreadful Seinfeld was, and for that we are forever in his debt.

Nor is it surprising that hatred for them lives. In my theater days, I once directed a play whose cast of four, I realized when it was too late to do anything about it, included two wives of blacklisted entertainers and one friendly witness. One of the blacklisted wives had to play the long-married, loving spouse of the friendly witness. The poor guy had hardly been a rabid anti-commie; in the '50s he was a Broadway gypsy with Canadian citizenship, and he would've been deported if he'd refused to name names--names that had already been named over and over. And it was all 25 years before rehearsals for my stinkin' play! And still that damn actress wouldn't look the guy in the eye, which lent a distinct coolness to the scenes of connubial solicitude. The other woman, whose name was Kate Harkin and whose husband was Zero Mostel, was no less grudging, but more sanguine. When Zero was approached about working with Jerome Robbins on Fiddler on the Roof, she told me, he said, "I'll work with him, but I won't shake hands with him."

Seems to me that hatred of '60s radicals is much like the anti-communism of the '50s (and later) in that both are responses to "un-Americanism," which is a pretty vague sort of political threat. I think it was the historian David Caute who said that the assault on un-Americanism was a continuation of World War II by other means. It's surely hard to see how either a bunch of leftie actors ('50s) or skulking hippies ('60s) could mount much of a threat to the republic.

But I fear we're due for a fresh dose of blather about "our values" now that the prez is heading back to D.C. with his batteries recharged and insufficient leverage to put his schemes--excuse me, I mean his initiatives--through without actually having to sell them to those little people in Congress. Oh well, I'm used to him in his business suits, smiling beadily, handing out nicknames to one and all. (Why, oh why, is that considered a sign of personal charm?) His eyes usually look dead and unresponsive, especially when listening to others, but at least he appears in his element. Every time I saw those photo ops of him doin' chores on the ranch, wrangling his chainsaw, tiny head in enormous hat, I cringed and thought of that joke about the similarity between Stetsons and hemorrhoids: Sooner or later every a__hole gets one.

the breakfast table
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from: Alfred Gingold

The Assault on Un-Americanism

Posted Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001, at 2:23 PM ET
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Alfred Gingold has written eight books (including three with Helen Rogan) and for numerous magazines and Web sites. Helen Rogan, his wife, is the executive editor of My Generation, the AARP's magazine for baby boomers, and has written books and magazine articles.
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Reader Comments From The Fray:



[Notes from the Fray Editor: Reparations and museums were the hot topics here. There was news from Tony Adragna that there is an African-American museum in DC. Elusive Fray poster Amyntas started a splendid discussion on reparations and taxcuts here, featuring posts titled "A nonsensical argument" and "Typical disingenuous twaddle." A high moral tone, and criticism of young women, were the common themes in two posts: a most unusual view on the Chandra Levy affair, here, and one on Tea Leoni here.]


The ambiguity of the reparations debate is what I like most about that entire issue. Whether reparations ever get paid or not (I suspect that they won't), to the extent that national attention gets focused on this issue, we'll be talking about basic moral issues.

Any serious discussion of this issue will involve questions of duty and obligation, culpability, history, values, rights and wrongs. In short, it will be (finally!) a public debate worthy of a democratic nation. Whatever conclusions we reach, either individually or as a nation, it seems likely that we will be better for having thought about these matters in depth

--Thrasymachus

(To reply, click here.)


 The CD-ROM thing is scary. How's Bloomberg going to top it? Will he try to make his hologram appear in all our living rooms?

--Claude Scales

(To reply, click here.)

 (8/28)

Didn't it ever bother anybody else that the Weathermen took their name from a line in "Subterranean Homesick Blues" that implied that a weatherman is superfluous under the circumstances? Is this part and parcel of the Marxist-v.-Leninist- historical-determinist conundrum? (i.e., that if historical/economic forces are pushing toward an inevitable result, why do they need me to help them along? As it is sometimes put, if Marx didn't exist, it would be unnecessary to invent him.) That felt good--somebody call me a jackal, it really brings me back...

--Ex-Fed

(To reply, click here.)


 I happened to walk by the site of the Village explosion the morning of the event. The exposed apartments, with their wall clocks and tables precariously clinging to the ordinary around the gaping proof of anti-civic rage; the apartments seemed like a stage set for some kind of apocalyptic Beckett drama. The scene was mute, webbed with the yellow crime scene tapes of the municipal police. A mix of fear and curiosity animated the passers-by. I stood and stared, hearing the news in bits and pieces. Suddenly I noticed a sign, hand lettered, pinned to the police sawhorse. I looked closer and saw a few others, same hand, same posting method. In repeated, and therefore intentional orthography, the phrase "nothning is free" was scrawled in black marker on typing paper.

The phrase burned itself into my subconscious. I have never seen it since, nor heard it mentioned in the context of the Weathermen or other underground groups.

Nothning is free. Even if it has escaped justice. Especially if it has escaped justice.

--Zeitguy

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 (8/31)





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