Historical Image of the Day

Now Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney while she was a city councilor, at work with her daughter, 1991

Historical Image of the Day

A mother and her children at the Indian Independence Parade, New York City, 1990

Historical Image of the Day

Fountains at the Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, opened 1998.

Clearly the most efficient use of water in the American West.

90s Rock

Stephen Hyden at the AV Club has started a series thinking about 90s rock and has some really spot-on reflections about grunge. It's a super smart piece throughout, but I want to focus on two paragraphs:

But it would all be ruse. The truth is that I feel little nostalgia for ’90s grunge, and almost no connection to the version of myself that once felt part of the Alternative Nation. I once believed that the rise of so-called alternative music in the early ’90s was the greatest thing to happen in my lifetime—world-changing, no less—but now this notion seems almost too embarrassing to admit in print. Over the years I’ve written these bands out of my personal history: Old concert T-shirts have been worn out or tossed away, CDs have long since been sold off. I remember the ’90s, but it’s like I wasn’t there. Like many people of my generation—including practically every band that was originally associated with the term—“grunge” for me has become something to live down, like cuffed jeans or bad Luke Perry sideburns.

Somewhere along the way, grunge-era alt-rock got tiresome. Today, it’s all but unbearable. Scanning the latest Billboard rock chart, you’ll find bands like Shinedown, Stone Sour, Three Days Grace, and of course Nickelback, who have adopted the pained, groany vocals and sludgy guitars associated with grunge and merged them seamlessly with a leather-pants and soul-patch sensibility that comes straight from hair metal. Unbeknownst to Kurt, Eddie, and Layne, they created a sonic blueprint that would go on to inspire disreputable bands for the next two decades. You can’t blame those guys for inspiring much of what’s awful and soulless about the state of “modern” rock music as we’ve come to know it, but their music is inextricably linked to it nonetheless.

Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains seemed so important to the history of rock and roll in the early 90s. You really felt that a welcome revolution had changed the music--no more did I have to listen to Poison and Motley Crue and Cinderella. Now, I actually didn't much care for grunge at the time. And if it comes on today, I still don't. But I knew it was important and I'd rather listen to it than Warrant any time.

Twenty years later, it's importance can't be denied. But you can sure question it's quality. I can't think of a more important movement in rock history that is less listened to today. Much of it is just not very good. I don't think it's the cheap imitators like Nickelback that are the problem; after all, how many bad imitators of 60s bands have there been? And there's plenty of 90s nostalgia out there.  But it's for different bands in different rock genres. Perhaps someday there will be a grunge revival. It seems almost inevitable. But I don't know. Now that the 90s are memory rather than contemporary, bands like Yo La Tengo seem a lot more remembered than Alice in Chains.

The Battle of Seattle: 10 Years Later

10 years ago today, thousands of activists gathered in Seattle, Washington to protest the meeting of the World Trade Organization. Anarchist-started riots and an over the top police response dominated the news headlines, but it seemed that this event might really change the world. Environmentalists, unions, local activists, and people from the developing world all came to Seattle to protest globalization. We wondered whether a new progressive movement had begun which would provide stiff resistance to neoliberalism.

And nothing happened.

Why did this movement die as it began? It's only 10 years ago, but for something that seemed so important at the time, virtually none of my students have even heard of it, and that includes the more activist students. This was amazing to me when I discovered it, but it makes sense. Why would they remember such an irrelevant event, even if it seemed so important at the time?

A common answer to why turtles and Teamsters alliances disappeared so quickly is 9/11. This line of thought says that September 11 and Bush's war on terror took national attention away from neoliberalism and undermined activists' ability to organize effectively, not to mention. Bush's crackdown on radicalism that created a climate of fear. I don't really buy this. I think it is a factor. But it's not as if the 2 years between Seattle and 9/11 really saw anything happening.

Another answer is that governments and international entities found ways to contain protest. The creation of so-called "free speech zones" and isolating activists into non-threatening zones while holding meetings behind tight security may play a small role, but an effective movement would find away around this, either through massive non-violent demonstrations that would rivet the world's attention, through violence (though this would have been a really bad idea), or through new organizing tactics. None of this happened. A real movement is not dependent on the ability to protest exactly where they want.

I think the far bigger problem is that there was no movement in the first place. That's why the event has quickly become irrelevant. 1990s protest events were an amalgamation of interest groups that occasionally came together. Environmentalists (and 20 different stripes of them), labor unions, food activists, indigenous activists, farmers, peoples from the developing world, and many others all came to Seattle in common cause, but that cause didn't extend beyond the confines of the city. While they might all have opposed free trade as it was defined 1999, they often had nothing in common beyond that.

There was a classic 2004 Daily Show sketch where Stephen Colbert went to the Democratic National Convention, brought activists from different movements into the same room and asked them what John Kerry should focus on first. They all chose their own movement and instantly began arguing. It was a classic piece on the disjointed Democratic Party, but is also a pretty good description of the constituent groups in Seattle.

I think we've moved beyond this a little bit. The Iraq War provided a unifying event that brought progressives of all stripes together. And I think younger people realize the mistakes of the past in building organization and community across traditional lines. The first year of the Obama Administration certainly hasn't reflected discord among progressives over what he should work on--foreign policy, health care, the economy all seem really important. This is less true of the gay rights movement, but then Obama could do real things for them quickly and hasn't to his discredit.

It'll be curious to see how historians see the Battle of Seattle. Will they see more long-term meaning than I do? Or will it seem like an isolated event of the late 90s that eventually led to very little.

Historical Image of the Day

United Farm Workers rally, Washington state, 1990

Historical Image of the Day

For the rest of this week, the images will come from the fantastic new Farm Workers in Washington State History Project website. Check it out for a ton of great images and information.

United Farm Workers rally, Washington, 1992

Historical Image of the Day

Bombing of U.S. embassy, Nairobi, Kenya, 1998

Self Destructive Zones

In what probably was the best song of 2008, Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers wrote "Self-Destructive Zones." It's a song about the grunge scene of the early 1990s and how it all went to hell real fast. I was never a grunge kid. At the time I thought that it was because recent rock just didn't appeal to me, but I think it's because a lot of those bands sucked. Anyway, it's interesting to look back on that time from 15 years out. Maybe these awesome lyrics will start a conversation about that scene and those bands.

It was 1990 give or take I don't remember
when the news of revolution hit the air
The girls hadn't even started taking down our posters
when the boys started cutting off their hair
The radio stations all decided angst was finally old enough
it ought to have a proper home
Dead fat or rich nobody’s left to bitch
about the goings' on in self destructive zones

The night the practice room caught fire
there were rumors of a dragon headed straight for Muscle Shoals
"Stoner tries to save an amplifier"
and it's like the dragon's side of the story is never told
When the dream and the man and the girls hang around long enough
to make you think it's coming true,
it's easier to let it all die a fairy tale,
than admit that something bigger is passing through

The hippies rode a wave putting smiles on faces,
that the devil wouldn’t even put a shoe
Caught between a generation dying from its habits,
and another thinking rock and roll was new
Till the pawn shops were packed like a backstage party,
hanging full of pointy ugly cheap guitars
And the young'uns all turned to karaoke,
hanging all their wishes upon disregarded stars

My Grandaddy's shotgun is locked in a closet
and it never shot a thing that could have lived
An old man decided that you couldn't choose your poison
till you're nearly old enough to vote for him
They turned what was into something so disgusting
even wild dogs would disregard the bones
Dead fat or rich nobody’s left to bitch
about the goings' on in self destructive zones

Historical Image of the Day

Anti-WTO protests. Seattle, 1999

Historical Image of the Day

Makah Indians killing gray whale off the northwest coast of Washington, 1999.

Remember the Clintons

I've been bemused over the past two weeks as people have expressed outrage over the Clintons' tactics. From using race against Barack Obama to trying to steal the Michigan primary, Hillary and Bill Clinton have dismayed progressives.

And people are surprised by this?

I've read many Democratic bloggers, usually of the semi-moderate persuasion, usually in their mid-30s or older, who look back on the Clinton years as good years. They can't believe this is what they are seeing.

But their romanticized view of the Clinton years is off base. Sure, compared to George W. Bush, Clinton looks good. But that's like remembering back to the Millard Fillmore presidency as pretty good while dealing with James Buchanan. Clinton and Fillmore weren't the disasters that Bush and Buchanan are/were. But they sure weren't good.

It's too early for historians to have really looked at the Clinton years. But many commentators blame the lack of progressive legislation on the rise of the Republicans and the 1994 election. That is certainly part of it. But Clinton didn't exactly try very hard either. Between his personal behavior that gave the media and the Republicans more than enough ammo to avoid talking about substantive policy to his policy of triangulation (and the loathsome hiring of Dick Morris as an advisor) to the way Clinton could only seem to function if he was under attack, he sucked. After the summer of 1993, almost nothing good came out of the Clinton White House. When the health care reforms failed and Clinton caved on the gays in the military issue, it was all over. Clinton was fighting for nothing more than personal power.

Thus, a widespread dismay over Clinton and the search for an alternative. Unfortunately, that alternative was Nader.

I am reminded now why I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. There's no question--it was a colossal mistake to support Nader. But I can again understand what drove me to that--the political choices and priorities of Bill Clinton. Hillary doesn't seem different in any meaningful way on this front.

I'll vote for her this time because I am afraid of Roe being overturned after John Paul Stevens dies. But I sure hope to heavens that I don't have to do that.