Ten Bold Cover Tunes Part V: I Won't Back Down Edition

Note. Prior entries in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Guitar Hero Edition), Part 4 (Dare to cover Johnny Cash Edition) 

This segment of the Ten Bold Cover Tunes series was inspired by the recent "Super Tuesday" primary elections. Former Vice-President Joe Biden, a guy who has been on the wrong side of so many things that have harmed huge numbers of people for so long (corporate trade deals, Iraq War, and bankruptcy protection to name just three of many), had such a great Super Tuesday showing that he's now back as the front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination. 

The last time the Dems nominated a former VP whose main appeal was his "decency" (think Walter Mondale '84), they lost 49 states in the general election. And Mondale's prior baggage was a paper lunch bag compared to the over sized footlocker Biden is carrying around. Which is not to say that Biden cannot win the general election; Mr. Trump's historically unique awfulness makes him vulnerable in ways that President Reagan was not in '84. What's sad is that huge swaths of the Democratic primary electorate have so deeply internalized lesser-evilism as a legitimate electoral option that they cannot bring themselves to vote for what they actually want or need. 

Biden's Super Tuesday ascension was propelled in part by other centrists leaving the race literally the day before the election to endorse him. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar came to the conclusion that their active presence in the race could potentially hand over some victories to Bernie Sanders or even Michael Bloomberg. That Pete and Amy spent over a year getting supporters excited, then backed down immediately as soon as the DNC establishment explained the stakes to them, is not exactly the definition of political courage. 

All of which is not to say that Bernie Sanders is a perfect candidate. He has difficulty reaching out to older voters (who vote in big numbers), and his campaign's promise to attract new and disenchanted voters seems hollow at this point. But the good thing about Bernie is that, even at 78 years old and with two stents in the ticker, he doesn't back down. In fact the only hope right  now for people who want to see the Dems nominate someone who stands for things that most Dems say they believe in is to not back down. 

So for all of you out there fighting for more than pathetic business as usual, this rant is for you. Let's start with Tom Petty's original classic: 

#10: Jason Aldean: Aldean's version was performed live on Saturday Night Live, and proceeds from the recording went to victims of the horrible Las Vegas massacre.

#9:  Becca VanderBeck, Matthew Heath, and Noel Goff. I think Becca VanDerbeck's vocals on this cover hint at the vulnerability in the lyrics that's not immediately obvious on a surface level reading or listen.

#8: Lullaby Players: If you want to explain to young children the importance of being resilient and staying true to yourself, try accompanying your pitch with the Lullaby Players' version of "I Won't Back Down" playing in the background.

#7: JohnnySwim and Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors: Given the tragic tornado activity that hit Tennessee this week, this cover of the tune from a group of Nashville based musicians takes on added meaning.

#6:  Rebel Featuring Sam James. This is almost like a Club version of the tune, good if you're in the mood to tap your feet.

#5:  KT Tunstall, Mike McCready, and Leah Julius. The artists recorded this song as a "loud shout of support to all the people all over the world marching, protesting,and standing up for equality." Bravo.

#4: Reel Big Fish. If you like ska music, you will love this cover. The opening bass line by itself is worth the price of admission.

#3:  Anya Marina. In the last four years I've lost my mom and mother-in-law, both of whom continue to impact me greatly. Love the fact that Anya features her mom in the video.

#2:  Los Ciegos del Barrio. This band of all blind musicians know what it is like to have to struggle for acceptance and a place at the table. Their version of the tune is explicitly dedicated to the youth of the world, especially those victimized by gun violence. Powerful.

#1: Johnny Cash: The Man In Black somehow finds a way into just about all of these Bold Cover Tunes rants. I've said it before: no artist in history was able to take complete artistic ownership over other peoples' songs as well as Cash. He did it again here, belting out a version of "I Won't Back Down" that became a standard for others to follow. Amazing.

To get back to the primaries: if like me you are horrified by the turn the race has taken, the answer can't be to despair. The mainstream media will continue to tell us that we have to vote and act out of fear, that we have to share their warped sense of what a "safe" candidate is, and that we have to accept lesser-evilism as a legitimate political strategy. 

We can't continue to be suckered into that nonsense. 

We have to stand for something better. 

And when we say we won't back down, we have to mean it. 

The Sanders Campaign Should Welcome Mainstream Media Hostility

As Bernie Sanders continues to perform well in Democratic Party primary contests, so-called "liberal" media platforms like MSNBC are finally starting to warm up to the idea of a (gasp!) democratic socialist as nominee. MSNBC's coverage of the Nevada primary relied on a motley mainstream crew including a lamebrain (Chris Matthews), a losing candidate who is now somehow an expert on how to win (Claire McCaskill), and a has-been living in the 1990s (James Carville) to lament Sanders' victory. The broadcast struck viewers as so over-the-top awful that the network the next day was forced to air a pro-Sanders voice. That voice was  writer Anand Giridharadas, who was allowed on-air to refer to Matthews, McCaskill, Carville and others as "Out of touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy." 

Soon after, MSNBC pundit-host Chris Hayes delivered what sounded like a grudging acknowledgement that Bernie's lead "should not be surprising" since he's doing all a candidate needs to do to win a Democratic party nomination: winning state primaries, raising enough money to compete, and building a multiracial coalition. Significantly, Hayes' statement avoided the typical MSNBC and CNN tripe about Sanders; to wit, the moronic theory that his candidacy  benefits from "Russian interference in our elections." (I wonder how the Russiaphobes explain Bernie's defeat in South Carolina. Did Putin take the day off?). 

There are Sanders' supporters out there working hard to get more balanced treatment for their candidate on CNN, MSNBC, and mainstream media in general. My own view is that these efforts are misguided and counterproductive for three main reasons: (1) mainstream media SHOULD be hostile to Bernie Sanders, (2) in a time of tribal politics it's not clear what if any impact mainstream news and punditry has on elections, (3) an insurgent campaign like Sanders' probably benefits from being subject to mainstream media hostility. Let's examine each. 

Mainstream Media SHOULD be hostile to Bernie Sanders 

Unlike Donald Trump, who frames mainstream media as a hate object for political gain, Bernie Sanders' approach to media is simply an extension of his general critique of how corporate interests work in opposition to the interests of the population at-large. In his plan for rebuilding an independent press, he said the following: 

*At precisely the moment when we need more reporters covering the healthcare crisis, the climate emergency, and economic inequality, we have television pundits paid tens of millions of dollars to pontificate about frivolous political gossip, as local news outlets are eviscerated. 

*Today, after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download. Given that reality, we should not want even more of the free press to be put under the control of a handful of corporations and “benevolent” billionaires who can use their media empires to punish their critics and shield themselves from scrutiny. 

*We need to rebuild and protect a diverse and truly independent press so that real journalists can do the critical jobs that they love, and that a functioning democracy requires.

CNN and MSNBC are owned by Warner Media and Comcast, two enormous and profit-driven conglomerates that are poster children for pretty much everything wrong with mass media today. The best that could be said of either is that they are probably not as bad as the Fox Corporation. Given what those megacorps represent, and given what Sanders stands for, is it really odd or unusual that CNN and MSNBC products would be hostile to him? 

In no way am I suggesting that corporate media owners send directives to network hosts to bash Sanders or any progressive candidates. Such directives do not need to be sent because the news producers, directors, and on-air talent of such corporate entities know the rules of the game. Like Lee Strasberg's character in The Godfather Part II, participants in this media hit job rationalize that "this is the business we have chosen." 

Tribal Politics and the Impact of News and Punditry 

Even if the mainstream media were more fair to Sanders, it's not clear what difference that would actually make in terms of voter behavior. Writing in the New York Times, podcaster Steve Phillips makes a pretty convincing case that the "demographic revolution" going on in our country right now is highly supportive of the kind of politics represented by Sanders. Moreover, we're living at a time when people who identify with a party label are not easily budged from it. Consequently, it is difficult for Phillips to imagine a scenario in which Mr. Sanders loses ANY of the Democratic base that supported Hillary Clinton: 

The empirical evidence shows that there is no need for alarm about Mr. Sanders being the Democratic nominee, and even some cause for confidence. If you want to engage in theoretical thought experiments, a useful exercise would be to ask how many people who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 would switch their votes to back Mr. Trump just because Mr. Sanders was the nominee? Common sense suggests that the answer is infinitesimally small.

Some Sanders supporters sincerely believe that fairer media treatment would put even the hardcore Trump voters in play. They believe that Sanders' message of working class economics, uniting across racial lines, bridging the urban/rural divide, and expanding the social safety net would be persuasive to MAGA hat wearing Trumpers if reported on fairly. Maybe so, but scholarly and other investigations of the Trump base suggests otherwise. University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana Mutz's scholarship on "Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote" helps elucidate the the ideology found within the Trump base that makes such appeals fall on deaf ears. As summarized by journalist Rebecca Ruiz: 

Mutz found no evidence that personal economic anxiety, represented by indicators like worry about retirement savings, medical bills, and education expenses, predicted greater support for Trump. . . Meanwhile, Trump's supporters favored a smaller safety net, which suggests they're less concerned about how people will fare when they face dire financial straits.

One particularly telling factor did increase the likelihood of support for Trump: believing that white people are more discriminated against than people of color, and believing that Christians and men experience more discrimination than Muslims and women.

For links to similar studies, see Mehdi Hasan's excellent summary in the Intercept. 

For an anecdotal yet highly insightful look at the hard core Trump voter, I recommend writer Monica Potts' "In the Land of Self-Defeat" from the October 4, 2019 New York Times. Ms. Potts went back to her hometown in rural Arkansas (over 70-percent of the population went for Mr. Trump in 2016) and became dispirited by the quality of the debate over funding a local public library. She concluded that NO Democrat will win these folks back with promises of expanded government spending:  

Economic appeals are not going to sway any Trump voters, who view anyone who is trying to increase government spending, especially to help other people, with disdain, even if it ultimately helps them, too. And Trump voters are carrying the day here in Van Buren County. They see Mr. Trump’s slashing of the national safety net and withdrawal from the international stage as necessities — these things reflect their own impulse writ large. 

They believe every tax dollar spent now is wasteful and foolish and they will have to pay for it later. It is as if there will be a nationwide scramble to cover the shortfall just as there was here with the library. As long as Democrats make promises to make their lives better with free college and Medicare for all sound like they include government spending, these voters will turn to Trump again — and it won’t matter how many scandals he’s been tarnished by.

While I do not believe that Sanders or any candidate should simply write off these voters, I think it's silly to believe that mainstream national news and punditry will shift their views in any significant way. What's really needed in such communities is not more or even better television, but more local organizing by people committed to the region and in it for the long haul. That won't be easy, especially as opportunities for young people in such regions continue to disappear. Perhaps the Democratic National Committee, instead of plotting ways to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, should dedicate resources to creating Americorp style opportunities across the land. The DNC perhaps could implore the Michael Bloombergs and Tom Steyers of the world to spend their billions not on hopeless ego-driven campaigns, but on programs that would support the ability of youth organizers to spend five years working on civic engagement projects in local communities. 

Hostile Media Benefits Insurgent Campaigns 

There's an insurgent quality to Mr. Sanders' campaign that resists calls for moving to the center. As I've argued in a previous rant, Sanders is not interested in the left/right "triangulation" that has marred our national politics for generations. For the mainstream media as represented by CNN and MSNBC to become less hostile to him means making him more "centrist." That is, showing that his programs really are not all that radical, and that he's really not all that different from your typical Democrat. Clearly the Democratic National Committee, like their RNC counterparts in bed with the one-percent, will find Sanders palatable only if he demonstrates a willingness to accommodate the oligarchs--or at least not be such an open threat to them. 

Speaking just for me, should Bernie Sanders somehow get the nomination, the only way he absolutely loses in the fall is if the campaign is stripped of its insurgent spirit. While the core base of the Republicans and Democrats have already made up their mind on how they're going to vote in November, the independents and nonvoters that Sanders is trying provoke into the ballot box have zero interest in mainstream "moderate" candidates. To the extent that the mainstream media transforms Sanders into "just a more left-wing Democrat," and to the extent that he himself muffles his insurgent instincts, he loses. 

When you start to see CNN and MSNBC being nice to Sanders, recognize that it is NOT because of some new commitment to fairness. Rather, it's to take the teeth out of the campaign and recast it as somehow within the boundaries of some corporate approved definition of the "mainstream." 

In The Devil's Dictionary (1911), the great writer Ambrose Bierce defined "radicalism" as "the conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today." There will come a time, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, when health care as a guaranteed human right, powering the world with renewable energy sources, living wages for all full-time workers, and other policies now deemed radical will seem so obvious that people will wonder why they were resisted so long. But to get to that point, activists have to be willing to face hostility from a mainstream media propped up by powerful opponents of those same policies. To win the White House, Sanders and his supporters need to welcome that hostility, not fall into the trap of watering down the message for better coverage. 

If Ambrose Bierce were around today, he'd have little difficulty recognizing the abuses of the mainstream press. 

Mike McCabe Unscrews America

Author/activist Mike McCabe answered a few questions for my State of the State blog for the Oshkosh Independent.  You can find it here. 

Below:  McCabe's recent interview with journalist Neil Heinen.

Related: 

• United Against Hate: An Interview With Mike McCabe
• Mike McCabe for Governor? The Blue Jean Scenario
• Millennials Respond to Blue Jeans

Ten Bold Cover Tunes, Part IV: Dare To Cover Johnny Cash Edition

Previous Editions of Ten Bold Cover Tunes:
Part I  
Part II
Part III: Guitar Hero Edition

In this next installment of the Ten Bold Cover Tunes series, we recognize artists who dared cover a song written by and originally performed by Johnny Cash. I say "dared" because Mr. Cash was one of those rare artists of such distinct vocal quality and overall style that it's almost impossible to imagine a cover of any of his tunes that would even come close to the original. This is quite a contrast with Cash's own covers of other artists' tunes (think of his versions of  Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down" and Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus"), in which The Man in Black so completely took control of the songs that they pretty much became his.

The late Johnny Cash wrote some brilliant original songs over the course of his long career that are totally identified with HIM. Any artist attempting to cover these songs must truly be BOLD

None of the covers identified below actually surpass Cash's original. Some are in fact quite a bit inferior. But what I hear in all of them is a great love for Johnny Cash, and a willingness to risk ridicule to perform that love in public. For me, that's pretty bold.

Without any further adieu, our ten bold covers of Johnny Cash Tunes

#10:  Frank Zappa's Cover of "Ring of Fire." Okay, "Ring of Fire" was technically written by June Carter Cash, but there does exist some credible evidence that Johnny at least co-wrote it. 

In the late 1980s, Frank Zappa toured with a band that produced some remarkable live recordings, including 1991's "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life" (on which "Ring of Fire" appears). The way Zappa told the story, Johnny Cash was actually supposed to perform the song with the band at a concert in Germany, but June Carter Cash got sick and so Johnny cancelled. Zappa's band performed it anyway, doing it in reggae style with some amusing Cash-imitation vocals. My favorite part is the always ironic Frank Zappa blurting out "Johnny will never know what he missed" near the end of the tune. 

#9: Everlast's Cover of "Folsom Prison Blues." The great alternative rocker Erik Francis Schrody (Everlast) is one of the only singers alive who could tackle such a distinctly Cash song and give it a fresh touch. The official video cleverly splices video of Cash and his audience with Everlast. I suspect Johnny would have appreciated the effort. 

#8: Halsey's Cover of "I Walk The Line."  Johnny Cash purists might find this cover hard to take, as Halsey pushes herself as far away from the original as one can get. The first time I heard her version I did not quite know what to make of it, but it got more interesting and difficult to ignore with each listen. Johnny's original in 1956 was a kick in the ears to a music audience hypnotized by pop music mediocrity, while Halsey's cover is 21st century hypnotic. 

#7: Jorma Kaukonen's Cover of "When the Man Comes Around." Jorma Kaukonen is best know for his guitar playing with the Woodstock era Jefferson Airplane and then Hot Tuna in the 1970s, but he's had a remarkable solo career. His cover of Cash's Bible-inspired classic "When the Man Comes Around" has a kind of haunting quality to it that somewhat channels the Airplane's acid rock classic "Surrealistic Pillow." 

#6:  Charlie Robison's Cover of "Don't Take Your Guns To Town." Charlie's cover appears on "Kindred Spirits: A Tribute to Johnny Cash"--an album featuring a variety of better known artists like Dwight Yoakam, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. I give Charlie kudos for daring to tackle one of Johnny's signature country tunes, performing it with a subdued vocal and catchy guitar/organ combo that makes it a very fitting tribute indeed. 

#5:  The Secret Sisters with Jack White Cover of "Big River." If someone told you that a couple of country singers would team up with indie rocker Jack White to perform a Johnny Cash tune, you'd probably predict some chaotic fun. That's in fact what we get here: The Secret Sisters give "Big River" a vocal treatment right out of the old "Hee Haw" show, while Jack White uses the recording session as an opportunity to work out on his guitar with a ferocity characteristic of the early White Stripes albums. 

#4: D.O.A.'s Cover of "San Quentin." When Johnny Cash performed "San Quentin" live at the song's namesake prison, the anti-authority lyrics inspired a spirit of defiance among the inmates. Hardcore punk rock is primarily about defiance, and thus punk rockers D.O.A sound completely at home with the tune. 

#3: Norah Jones' Cover of "Cry Cry Cry." Specifically, the version of the song Norah performed at Miller Park in Milwaukee as part of the 25th anniversary of Farm Aid. The soulful voice and subtle guitar channel Johnny Cash quite poignantly. 

#2: Ry Cooder's Cover of "Get Rhythym." The remarkable Ry Cooder (ranked #31 in  Rolling Stone Magazine's list of greatest guitar players) performs one of Johnny's most ebullient songs quite ebulliently. 

#1: The Crash Test Dummies Cover of "Understand Your Man." Truth be told, the bass-baritone vocal style of the Dummies' Brad Roberts makes him uniquely qualified to cover Johnny Cash tunes. In this heavily engaging effort, Roberts goes into full Cash mode, purposely making the bass parts even bass-ier in a way that succeeds in making fun of both Cash AND himself. I'd love it if Roberts would do an entire album of Cash covers. 

Impeachment Vote: A Resolute Romney Takes His Oath Seriously

Today Mitt Romney was the only Republican in the United States Senate to vote to convict and remove President Donald Trump from office. Watch his speech below for his reasoning, and/or read this interview Romney did with journalist McKay Coppins.

In essence, Romney was the only Republican member of the Senate to have what I call a "Margaret Chase-Smith Moment," a rare act of going against the "team." He will of course be trolled on social media, by all sorts of hacks and probably the president too. I wouldn't even be surprised if some Utah Trumpers launch a recall movement. Such are the times we are living in.

We're also living in a time when oaths are not really meant to be taken seriously. An oath today is more like a New Year's Resolution: a pledge that I really mean when I say it, but know deep down I probably won't keep it. And besides, who the fuck cares anyway? 

Romney today put loyalty to his oath ahead of loyalty to his team, and in the upside down country we are living in, HE will be thought as doing something strange or radical:

In the last several weeks, I have received numerous calls and texts. Many demand that, in their words, “I stand with the team.” I can assure you that that thought has been very much on my mind. I support a great deal of what the President has done. I have voted with him 80% of the time. But my promise before God to apply impartial justice required that I put my personal feelings and biases aside. Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented, and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history’s rebuke and the censure of my own conscience. 

The fact of the matter is that what is strange, or at least what ought to be perceived that way, is the manner in which Senator Romney's Republican colleagues placed their allegiance to a MAN ahead of their allegiance to the Constitution. 

History will look kindly on Romney for his action today. And he might not even have to wait that long to be vindicated. More and more information about Mr. Trump will continue to be released, and it is only a matter or time before his most vociferous defenders will be running away from their vote.  

So today we saw a resolute Mitt Romney, a man that somehow never emerged during the presidential campaign of 2012. Apparently he did not want to be a Michael Cohen; the president's now jailed former fixer who came to understand how his blind following of Mr. Trump resulted in him selling out his conscience at every turn. Cohen warned Senators of the dangers of going down that path with the president.  

Romney today was the only Republican to heed the warning. Perhaps more would have done the same if they took their oaths seriously. 

Censored in 2019: Minimizing Omnicide

Following the lead of Project Censored, I like to do an annual column on what was (in my view) the most censored story of the previous  year. Censored 2020 (Seven Stories Press) names the "Justice Department's Secret FISA Rules For Targeting Journalists" as the most censored story of 2019. 

Founded in 1976 by Dr. Carl Jensen of Sonoma State University, Project Censored remains a vital advocate for media literacy, rigorous journalism, and speaking truth to power

What I've always appreciated about Project Censored is that it frames censorship not merely as an effort by governments to silence citizens, but more importantly as a failure of the so-called free press to create a sense of urgency for stories that often carry life and death consequences.Project Censored writers understand that underreporting, ignoring, and/or misrepresenting critical stories is much worse than formal state censorship in the sense that the latter is relatively rare while underreporting and other "soft" methods of censorship are the norm.  

The horrific fires still raging in Australia (27 million acres burned and at least 1.25 BILLION animals killed) are the most unfortunate example of the consequences of what happens when a life-and-death story is inadequately reported for many years. University of Sydney Ecologist Chris Dickman states what should be--but tragically is not--obvious to most people by this point in history: 

"What we're seeing is the effects of climate change. Sometimes, it's said too that Australia is the canary in the coal mine with the effects of climate change being seen here most severely and earliest, as well. We're probably looking at what climate change may look like for other parts of the world in the first stages in Australia at the moment."

Perhaps the most powerful response to the Australian travesty so far is from University of Sydney Sociologist Danielle Celermajer. She argues that as of yet there has not existed an agreed upon term to describe the true nature of modern environmental devastation. "Ecocide," the killing of ecosystems, for Celermajer does not go far enough. She suggests "omnicide"--the killing of everything--as a term that should strike ethical human beings to action in the same way that "genocide" does when we become aware of its existence. (Celermajor is not the first scholar to employ the term omnicide. In 1990 Lisl Marburg Goodman and Lee Ann Hoff released a book that used omnicide to describe the consequences of nuclear annihilation.). 

Professor Danielle Celermajer argues that the term "omnicide"--the death of everything--should be used to describe the extent of environmental devastation occurring in the world today. She asserts that media industries aid and abet omnicide in a variety of ways. 

Celermajor acknowledges that the responsibility for omnicide is "various and layered" and as such not a simple case of pointing to one bad actor. Significantly and accurately, she identifies media as one of the primary bad actors aiding and abetting the crime of omnicide:

"We can identify the media owners who sponsor mass denial of the scientific evidence of the effects of a fossil fuel addicted economy on the climate. The same media owners who deploy the tools of mass manipulation to stoke fear, seed confusion, breed ignorance and create and then fuel hostile divisions within communities."

The mass denial of scientific evidence has been in place for a long time. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate that Dr. James Hansen's June 23, 1988 testimony before the US Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee was the first clarion call necessary to provoke action on global warming. Did the mainstream media at that point treat the issue as an emergency worthy of nonstop coverage until global leaders could be compelled to take meaningful action? 

No. Global warming instead has been underreported, ignored, and (especially in the United States) misrepresented. In Europe, the United States and Australia there emerged a "climate denial industry" with extensive reach in mainstream media. In Australia, the Rupert Murdoch press has played an active role in downplaying any link between bushfires and climate change. 

Last year the Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation started a "Covering Climate Now" initiative designed to get journalists to remember their "Paul Revere responsibilities--to awaken, inform, and rouse the people to action." 

Given the standard climate censorship of 2019 and the thirty-plus years of mostly pitiful coverage of the environment, it's not clear that any journalistic initiative is enough to get us caught up to where we need to be to confront the gravity of the omnicide facing us. But I guess we have to start somewhere. 

The 2019 Tony Awards

Welcome to another edition of the Tony Awards! Annually since 2002 I've dedicated one column to naming what was, for me, some of the most outstanding journalism and/or commentary of the year. I operate from no automatic set of criteria when deciding what media to honor, but in general I am drawn to:

• insightful works that shed light on some important public issue.
• creative works that deserve a wider audience.
• informative works that provide eye-opening education on a difficult topic.
• courageous works that speak truth to power.
• humorous works that skillfully provoke laughter and thought at the same time.
• local works that promote community and civic engagement.

I would like to dedicate this year's Tony Awards column to the memory of the late journalist William Greider. A former editor and journalist for the Washington Post, Greider died at the age of 83 on Christmas day 2019.  He wrote a number of important books, but his Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American Democracy (Simon & Shuster 1992) remains, for me anyway, a classic examination of how our government was taken over by the very interests it was supposed to be regulating. The politicians did not listen to Greider, and of course the situation has become much worse. 

The late William Greider's 1992 Who Will Tell The People: The Betrayal of American Democracy described the forces impacting government dysfunction in the United States. Greider's "speaking truth to power" style is unfortunately rare in modern mainstream journalism. 

Now let's get to this year's Tony recipients. If you don't like my list, the solution is simple: come up with your own! 

*Best Local Journalist: Miles Maguire. With this third consecutive Tony Award, Dr. Maguire has become the Bryan Cranston of the local press. (Cranston won three consecutive Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Walter White in Breaking Bad.). It's amazing that one person with a blog (The Oshkosh Examiner) can produce high quality, rigorous journalism that is more useful and credible than anything produced by the region's profit-driven newspapers, radio stations, and television networks. 

Miles Maguire's Oshkosh Examiner blog is a vital source of credible reporting in the Oshkosh region. 

A 2019 study by the Knight Foundation found that sixty percent of Americans believe that the local media do a "fair" or "poor" job of holding leaders accountable for their actions. My guess is that if every city and town had a Miles Maguire, the perception of the media would be much more favorable. 

*Best Media Criticism: William Arkin's Letter of Resignation from NBC News. In early January of 2019, NBC national security analyst William Arkin resigned from the network, and released a 2,228-word letter explaining why. In the letter he called the mainstream press "prisoners of Donald Trump," lamenting the stories missed due to the daily Trump obsession. More important, Arkin called out the huge error made by NBC in its uncritical promotion of national security state actors (generals, former CIA agents, etc.) to the status of mainstream media pundits. 

Bill Arkin's resignation letter from NBC expressed frustration at the network's inability or unwillingness to cover national security affairs truthfully and free from the influence of national security state actors. 

That "liberal" news organizations ended up embracing the chief architects of the disastrous national security policies of the last twenty years--in some cases even making these shady characters into anti-Trump "resistance" fighters--might go down as the single worst programming decision ever made by mainstream news outfits. Back in the day the national security establishment had to engage in behind-the-scenes manipulation of journalists and news executives to frame the major stories of the day. Now they do it right out in the open, often on stations supposedly representing some kind of small-d democratic opposition to the neo-fascist tendencies of the Trump Administration. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi put it: "The cause of empire has been cleverly re-packaged as part of #Resistance to Trump, when in fact it’s just the same old arrogance, destined to lead to the same catastrophes."

*The Tell Us Something We Don't Already Know Award: The Washington Post's The Afghanistan Papers. So it turns out that for pretty much the entire duration of the war in Afghanistan, government and military leaders have repeatedly announced progress, while off the record admitting the complete failure of the operation. I'll bet you're surprised, eh?

The Afghanistan Papers is award worthy not because of any new revelations, but because it confirms what critics of the war have been saying for years. Post journalists released six articles based on the revelations ("At War With The Truth," "Stranded Without A Strategy," "Built to Fail," "Consumed By Corruptions," "Unguarded Nation," "Overwhelmed by Opium"), all of which confirm the bleakest estimates of what has been going on over there for almost two decades. 

Someone in a position of power needs to apologize in public to Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis. Some of you may recall that in 2012 Davis put his reputation and career on the line when he released the report "Truth, Lies, and Afghanistan" in the Armed Forces Journal.  Everything Davis concluded in that report about the deception of the war planners has been validated. He concluded that report by saying, "The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start." Seven years later, the Afghanistan Papers requires the same conclusion, though given our overall apathy it is not clear to me that WE actually "deserve better," though the Afghan people certainly do. 

*Best Wisconsin News Site: The Wisconsin Examiner. Back in August I wrote about the Wisconsin Examiner for the Oshkosh Independent. Thanks to the Wisconsin Examiner, Wisconsinites FINALLY have a daily news source rooted in the Fighting Bob LaFollette tradition of searching for the truth and then speaking that truth to power. Sign up for the newsletter here. 

*Seriously Fun Baseball Site: Jomboy Media. Thanks to Jimmy O'Brien ("Jomboy"), I had more fun following baseball in 2019 than at any time since the 1970s. Jomboy takes video and audio feed from games and offers "breakdowns" of what we are seeing and hearing. What I find appealing is Jomboy's almost deadpan style as he narrates situations that are sometimes absurd. And it's not all just entertainment: Jomboy's video sleuthing has provided important evidence to show how the Houston Astros used a video system to steal pitch signs in 2017.  

Not surprisingly, the higher ups at MLB have threatened to shut Jomboy down (or at least make it more difficult for him to use video clips), even though it's pretty clear that what he does helps baseball connect to a younger, more social media savvy fan base. 

*Investigative Journalism of the Year. The Guardian's "How Monsanto's 'Intelligence Center' Targeted Journalists and Activists."  For more than twenty years, journalist Carey Gillam has been researching and reporting on the safety (or lack thereof) of the nation's food supply. As she dug into the topic, she learned of the disturbing ways in which science is corrupted for the benefit of corporate chemical producers. Her great 2019 book Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science, details her experience with uncovering Monsanto's attempts to marginalize any critique of their cash cow herbicide glyphosate (i.e. Roundup). The World Health Organization classifies glyphosate as a "probable human carcinogen."

As revealed in the Guardian piece, Monsanto has actively tried--in deeply deceptive ways--to discredit journalists like Gillam and activists (like rock singer Neil Young) who have cast doubt on the safety of their toxic product. Says Gillam in the Guardian piece: “I’ve always known that Monsanto didn’t like my work … and worked to pressure editors and silence me, but I never imagined a multi-billion dollar company would actually spend so much time and energy and personnel on me. It’s astonishing.”

Though Monsanto has now lost three jury trials that charged them with malice in the way they minimize the toxic qualities of glyphosate, they continue to wield enormous power in the halls of Congress. 

*Musical Activist of the Year: Mavis Staples. At the age of 80, that blues/soul great Mavis Staples is still recording and performing is amazing. That her performances and recordings are keeping the spirit of activism alive in a time when all of our freedoms are under threat is inspiring. In 2019 she released "Live in London" and "We Get By" (studio recording), both of which feature Mavis' powerful vocals communicating themes of love, hope and change in the face of despair. 

Honorable Mention: The Who's "Ball and Chain." Rock gods The Who in 2019 released their first studio album in thirteen years. In their 50+ years of recording and performing, the Who have occasionally made political statements, though I would argue the bulk of the band's output dedicates itself to an exploration of guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend's various neuroses (NOTE: It is entirely possible that ALL rock-and-roll is primarily a vehicle for working out the artists' neuroses). But in their 2019 album, the Who feature an overtly political song, "Ball And Chain," that makes a statement about the continuing nightmare at Guantanamo Bay. It is quite possible that Townshend saw the New York Times article on "Guantanamo Bay as Nursing Home," in which we learn disturbing details of the methods the CIA has used to keep us safe: 

"Mustafa al-Hawsawi, 50, a Saudi man accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers with travel and expenses, has for years suffered such chronic rectal pain from being sodomized in the C.I.A. prisons that he sits gingerly on a pillow in court, returns to his cell to recline at the first opportunity and fasts frequently to try to limit bowel movements . . ."  Bet that makes you proud to be an American, huh? 

It's also worth mentioning that in terms of energy, melody, and vocals, "Ball and Chain" holds up rather well against the band's classic recordings of the 60s and 70s. Always nice to see old guys still rockin'! 

Journalistic Achievement of the Year: The New York Times' The 1619 Project. Appearing originally in August in the New York Times Magazine, the 1619 Project is a series of essays and other works designed to reframe the experience of slavery in the United States from the arrival of the first slaves from West Africa in 1619. The Project is supervised by award winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones is the driving force behind The 1619 Project, an effort to rethink the role and legacy of slavery from the pre-revolutionary colonial years until today. Not surprisingly in our social media age, the Project has generated intense angst from people who have not even read it. 

The Project has been attacked by scholars and pundits from across the political spectrum, on factual and ideological grounds. Unfortunately, we live in a time when many people will read criticisms of works before they engage the work being critiqued, to the point where they will feel confident lambasting or praising something that they have no intention of actually reading. Here's my suggestion: READ THE 1619 PROJECT. (If it's behind a paywall you should be able to find it in your local public library.). I find it to be an achievement not because I agree with all of the authors' linking of our modern woes to the legacy of slavery, but because it is a rare example of a mainstream news source providing a credible, serious challenge to conventional thinking on matters related to our national character. I find it amusing that critics of The Project are worried that it will be used as "propaganda" in the nation's public school history curricula, as if what has passed for American history teaching all these years has been anything BUT propaganda. (See James Loewen's classic Lies My Teacher Told Me for some insight as to just how awful K-12 American history textbooks have been over the years.). 

Movie of the Year: Dark Waters. I've never given a Tony to a movie before, but Dark Waters so brilliantly portrays the (literally) toxic results of what happens when profit driven corporations face limited push back from a compromised government and impotent media that it became almost impossible for me not to recognize it. Based on the real life story of Rob Bilott, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare," the film has put the toxic chemical PFAS on the map and might hopefully lead to more activism designed to hold corporate polluters accountable.

There you have the 2019 Tony Awards, the last for this decade. Interested in learning about all the award recipients from the 2010s? Follow the links below. 

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018