Meals From The Marketplace

            “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

-Benito Mussolini

            Adolph Hitler’s first official act as Chancellor of Germany was to outlaw trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike.

            Mussolini and Hitler gave fascism a bad image.  They were dictators who took power by duping the public into believing in their trumped-up claims of nationalistic fervor.  In fact, they were far less interested in the vitality of their countries or their countries’ corporations than they were about their own place in history.  They were megalomaniacs who wrapped themselves in fascism to further their own goals.

            Real fascism is far less interested in, or dependent upon, a singular political leader, and it would not be necessary, might even be counter-productive, to have a megalomaniacal dictator supporting it.

            Fascism can exist in a nominal democracy, so long as the rules of the democracy prohibit any real power from residing in the masses.  In a fascist state, all power rests with the owners of the capital, which, currently, are the mega-corporations of the modern nation state.  These entities owe their existence to the laws that a country adopts regarding the commerce engaged in within its borders. 

            If a country highly regulates and heavily taxes those who engage in business activities, the ability of those entities to become powerful is limited.  Business owners in such countries can still achieve relative individual wealth (depending on the nature of the goods they sell and the competition they face), but they will not gain the kind of power that will limit the opposing power of the non-business owners in the country.

            But if a country doesn’t regulate business owners or tax their profits, the business entities they own will be able to grow in size and power.  The power that results can then direct future government action to the needs of the business owners, rather than the living, breathing citizens of the country. 

            The result, over time, will be the diminution of truly democratic systems in favor of business control.  And in the modern world of business, the corporate structure is the model for business ownership, providing as it does, both immunity from individual liability and the absence of anything remotely akin to a conscience or a human soul.

            If the foregoing description is too theoretical, consider the following facts: Since 1980, U.S. corporations have had far more friendly federal governments than ever before (at least since the trust busting era of Teddy Roosevelt’s administration).  At the same time, the power of unions (one of the principal checks on corporate hegemony outside of direct government involvement) has decreased significantly (beginning with Ronald Reagan’s union busting move against the air traffic controllers early in his administration and now with the anti-collective bargaining legislation recently passed in Wisconsin and under consideration in a number of other Republican dominated states).

            In that same time frame (the last thirty years), corporate wealth has multiplied dramatically.  The owners and chief executives of the nation’s largest mega-corporations have become obscenely wealthy while the once vaunted American middle class has struggled to stay afloat.  To be specific, the wealthiest one percent of the nation’s residents owns 95 percent of the nation’s wealth.

            Remember “trickle-down economics”?  It carried Ronald Reagan to victory in 1980, but it turned out that Reagan’s running-mate, George H. W. Bush, was right when, in a primary debate, he called it “voodoo economics.”  Has anyone with a middle-class income felt the trickle?  Not in terms of real dollars.  Yes, many American families have more income now than they did in 1980, but only because both spouses are now working and only when inflation is not included in the measurement.

            Here are some of the indicators of a country’s drift to fascism:

o Your country’s Supreme Court declares that corporations have the same rights as regular people when it comes to political speech.  Those corporations are then allowed to spend whatever money they want to push whatever political agenda best suits their purposes.  Often that political message is presented in the guise of “freedom” from government interference, as if the freedom thus realized inures to the benefit of the people.

o Unions lose the right to collectively bargain, thereby defusing their most potent weapon against corporate wealth and power.

o The financial markets (stock markets) soar (with top executives becoming billionaires) in spite of devastatingly high unemployment numbers.

o The largest corporations in the country pay absolutely (or almost) no taxes and yet still clamor for even lower tax rates.

o The financial industry demands more deregulation even after it causes the country to come to the brink of a financial meltdown, and it gets much of what it wants from its government.

o Energy companies (those producing oil, coal and related industries) cause environmental and health crises and then claim that they are overly regulated.  Insurance companies call attempts to regulate their practices socialistic.

o Popular media outlets carry the message that any attempts to rein in corporate wealth and power are socialistic and anti-American. 

o The right to vote is curtailed and restricted in a variety of subtle ways (no same day registration, limited vote-by-mail opportunities, challenges to anyone who may “appear to be” an illegal voter, and claims of fraud filed against true “get-out-the-vote” entities who are trying to increase vote totals for anti-corporate interests and candidates).

o The essence of political debate is constantly shifting towards the interests of corporations (with the pendulum always moving to the right, seemingly imperceptibly, but inexorably).

o The middle class is shrinking and the number of working poor and unemployed poor is steadily growing, all while the rich are getting ever richer.

o Taxes are never raised on the wealthy and are often lowered significantly for them, while taxes for the middle class are only marginally reduced.

o Public services are becoming less reliable, if they are provided at all, as local government revenues are often inadequate to provide them.

            If these indicators sound familiar, your country is drifting towards fascism. 

            Fascism doesn’t require a dictator.  An unaware public will do just fine.

            If you are a fan of opera, a fan of theater, a fan of great art, or just like to experience a very special event whenever the opportunity presents itself, you absolutely must go to a performance of the current Capital Stage production of “Master Class,” the Tony Award-winning play by Terrence McNally.  As directed by Jonathan Williams and with a bravura performance by Janis Stevens, this production is as close to perfection as live entertainment can get.

            If that opening paragraph sounds too good to be true, rest assured, it is not an exaggeration.  You won’t see a better performance than Ms. Stevens’ portrayal of the great opera star, Maria Callas, or feel her pathos more fully and appreciate more clearly the sacrifices all great artists make to deliver their artistic gifts to those who can appreciate them.

            The play is unique in several ways.  First of all, there is no real plot.  All the action takes place in a rehearsal studio (great stage set on the diminutive Delta King Riverboat stage by Stephen Jones) where Ms. Callas, in her post-singing-career stint as an instructor to would-be opera singers, is giving lessons.  She is assisted by a pianist (a nice, understated turn in the role by Michael Wiles, who also plays his instrument flawlessly) who offers accompaniment for the students as they sing their arias for their teacher.

            Three of those students are featured during the course of the play’s two acts.  Each, to our ears at least, displayed fine singing voices, but their teacher is interested in more than their singing ability.  She is trying to impart some of her diva qualities to each, and to a greater or lesser extent she succeeds in doing so. 

            Casting the three students was no small task, according to Stephanie Gularte, Capital Stage’s Artistic Director.  But in Wendolyn Cooper (Sophie, the first soprano student), Ian Cullity (Tony, the tenor student), and Laura Pyper (Sharon, the second soprano student), the search quite obviously ended successfully.  All three convey the issues their teacher chooses to tackle convincingly, and, as noted, they sing their arias impressively.

            But the play really isn’t about the teacher’s concerns with their singing.  Her interest is in elevating their appreciation of their tasks as artists.  And it is this aspect of her work with them that takes the play to where Mr. McNally wants it to go.

            Maria Callas was the first real diva of the opera world.  She embodied all the qualities, both on the stage and off of it, that are most commonly associated with the word.  She was remarkably talented, with a voice that was without peer, and she brought to the roles she sang an actor’s understanding of the characters she played. 

            And, she was tempestuous and enigmatic, just as capable of throwing a fit as charming an audience. 

            But there was a darker side to her life, and it is that side that Ms. Stevens, in embodying Ms. Callas, brings powerfully home in the two lengthy monologues, one in each act, that she delivers.

            In these monologues (aided wonderfully by the lighting design of Ron Madonia), she reveals the many pains she endured in achieving her greatness, along with incidents of deep anguish in her personal life that largely revolve around her intimate relationship with Aristotle Onassis (before he married Jackie Kennedy).  The monologues are the heart of the play, and they provide Ms. Stevens with the awesome challenge (if that’s the right word) of playing both Onassis and Callas as she relates conversations between the two.  If you appreciate great acting, you will be in awe of her accomplishment in these scenes.

            But even beyond the depth of understanding we gain of Ms. Callas, “Master Class” provides an enhanced appreciation for the sacrifices required of all great artists in mastering their craft and in communicating that mastery to the public.  In this sense, the play bears some resemblance to what Darren Aronofsky was conveying in last year’s cinematic exploration of the anguish of the artist in “Black Swan.”

            But where that movie was relentlessly dark and heavy, this play is lightened repeatedly with wit and humor.  The comedic lines are truly funny and serve to make all the more real the pain that Ms. Stevens portrays in her character’s monologues.

            See this play! It is everything great theater should be.

            Performances of “Master Class” on the stage of the Delta King Riverboat continue on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 7 pm, on Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm, and on Sundays at 2 pm, through April 10.  Additional information and tickets are available by phone (916-995-5464) or online (www.capstage.org).

            On the night of March 10, as my wife and I watched the immediate and utter devastation that was being caused by the first tsunami to hit the coast of Japan after the 9.0 earthquake had struck just hours earlier, I realized that thousands of human beings were suddenly either being killed or having their lives completely destroyed right before my TV-gaping eyes.

            The reporter on CNN, a smart young woman who was an obvious fill-in since it was past midnight on the east coast (when real news wasn’t supposed to be happening), was trying to make sense of what we were all seeing, but she only spoke of the physical destruction, not of the likely loss of life.

            “We aren’t getting any reports of injuries yet,” she said, hardly daring to sound ominous as she did.  And she was almost effusive in her praise of Japan’s level of preparation for major earthquakes and the tsunamis that can accompany them when they occur under water.

            I knew better.  So, I’m sure did anyone who was thinking at all as the wall of sea literally carried boats, buses, houses, and everything else with it to unfriendly landing spots miles from their original moorings.

            Days later, the first real estimates of lost lives started to be reported.  First it was “in the hundreds”; then it was “over a thousand”; and as of this writing the estimate is “over ten thousand dead, with 15,000 more missing.”  In this case, missing is not a good stat to be part of, what with tons of rubble waiting to be un-piled, its cache of human bodies rotting underneath.

            And then, the following Sunday, our local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, published an article by Joe Mathews and Mark Paul that is an excerpt of a book they have written entitled, “California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It.”  The article only summarized the “how reform broke it” part. 

            The authors’ thesis is that in enacting tax reform back in1978, via the now infamous Prop. 13, the voters set California on a path of destruction that resulted from exactly the opposite goals they had in mind when that proposition was adopted in a landslide, with two-thirds of all voters approving of the mandatory cap on property taxes it imposed.

            Mathews and Paul posit that by denying localities the ability to control their own destiny (through local taxation to pay for things like schools and redevelopment), the voters placed all power in the central government in Sacramento, where special interests held veto power over anything and everything that might otherwise move the state forward.

            It was an unforeseen consequence, at least unforeseen by most of the proponents of the measure (a few of us were voices in the wilderness at the time), and has resulted in tsunami-like damage to the state, which, let’s recall, ranked at or near the top in almost all quality of life categories when the proposition was enacted.

            And last month, as regular readers know, I celebrated my “cure” date, having survived for five years without a return of the neck/throat cancer that threatened my life.  What I didn’t report then was how unexpected the onset of the disease had been.  When I discovered that lump in my neck in the fall of 2005, I was in possibly the best physical condition of my life.  And, I had never smoked and rarely done more than sip a glass of wine every now and then, tobacco and alcohol being the two most common causes of this type of cancer.

            But it was cancer I’d had, and the uprooting of my life that I experienced as a result.

            Tsunamis, tax reform and cancer – What do these three seemingly unrelated things have in common?

            Well, if you have a sense of where I’m going with this, you probably recognize that all three were unexpected, either as to their occurrence or their impact or both.  Japan was supposed to be equipped to deal with the kind of earthquake that hit off of its coast earlier this month.  Indeed, its nuclear power plants were deemed “earthquake-proof,” a sadly ironic miscalculation in light of what is now the reality of their un-safeness. 

            California was supposed to be stronger (or at least not crumbling under the weight of its own inability to make ends meet) after the passage of Prop. 13.  We were the Golden State, the model for the rest of the country, leading the way in reform and innovation.

            And I was never supposed to get cancer, at least not a kind that is normally caused by the very things I’d lived my life avoiding.  From early adulthood, if not before, I had done all the things I was told I should do to assure myself of a long and healthy life.  Cancer was not even a glimmer of a concern. 

            Life is not controllable.  That’s my message.  It isn’t controllable on a macro level, even when the best minds and the best resources are brought to bear, as in a modern, highly developed and efficient country like Japan.  It isn’t controllable on a philosophical/political level, even in a thriving, prosperous place like California was in the late 1970s when a wholly democratic initiative was overwhelming approved by the voters.  And it isn’t controllable on a very personal level, even when a healthy guy with a rigorous workout regimen who has never smoked and rarely drinks is trying to stay free of disease.

            This news, I’m sure you will grant, is not earthshaking (pardon the pun).  That life is not controllable should be self-evident to anyone who looks at the headlines or contemplates even for a moment his or her own existence.  And yet, it also seems to be part of the human condition to seek constantly to defy that reality. 

            And so we pretend we are masters of our destiny.  We make everyday decisions as if they have real consequences, and we debate the merits of legislation as if the fate of the earth depended on which way the vote went.  At our worst, we engage in violent acts against each other, to the point of professing that full-blown war is absolutely justified, even when unprovoked.

            The United States never should have invaded Iraq.  We were fools to think we could control the path of history in that part of the world.  Yes, I’m rambling.  Call it depression. 

            If an outside observer with even a modicum of intelligence were to observe our species objectively, he, she, or it would surely declare us insane.

            Nobody shed a tear for the residents of Kansas City when the NBA franchise that had made that city its home picked up and moved west to settle in the previously unheralded capital of California.  Those Kings were a mediocre team that the fans of Kansas City had shown increasingly less interest in over the latter years of their tenure. 

            In fact, in the end, Omaha had been added in a kind of split custody arrangement: anything to get some fans in the seats and some money in the owners’ pockets (Omaha, Nebraska being as likely a town to introduce professional basketball to as any other in that part of the country).  But by 1983, if not earlier, it was apparent that the mid-west no longer cared about a team that could barely manage a .500 season and had no discernable stars.

            Sacramento was an unlikely suitor, being very much a lazy cowtown at the time with a modest professional orchestra of some note, a summer theater-in-the-round under a tent, but little in the way of sports of any professional stature.  In fact, the college sports offerings weren’t even noteworthy, with U.C. Davis hardly an NCAA powerhouse.

            But a young entrepreneur named Gregg Lukenbill had a vision, and he set about to make it real.  And, sure enough, in November of 1985, in a hastily built arena that barely housed 10,000 crazed, screaming fans, the Sacramento Kings opened the season with a disappointing loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.  Few fans cared.  Professional sports had arrived, and the town was immediately in love with its team.

            Never mind that they stunk and would continue to stink for almost a full decade.  Three years later, a larger, more NBA-appropriate arena was built.  It seated over 17,000 and it was usually, if not always, full, even during the early years of wretched play and even more wretched coaching (Bill Russell and Dick Motta being the exemplars of that characterization).

            Along the way, the ownership changed hands.  The Lukenbill group sold out to a guy named Jim Thomas and he did the same to a couple of brothers.  The Maloofs struck gold with their purchase, it coinciding with the arrival of a bevy of really good ballplayers (brought to the team by a really good general manager, Geoff Petrie). 

            The team, now led by Vlade Divac, Chris Webber, Mike Bibby and Peja Stojakovic, soared in the standings, several times getting to within a game of a championship run.  A pivotal game 6 against the hated Lakers in particular will never be forgotten by many of the faithful, with Kobe Bryant openly cheating by holding Bobby Jackson’s shirt, thereby preventing the speedy guard from scoring a winning basket.

            Ah, but the cycle ran its course, as all cycles ultimately do in professional sports.  The near-great team broke up, with each of the stars either retiring or moving on in free agency or in ill-advised trades (yes, engineered by the same Petrie).  And, after a few years of one-round playoff runs, the playoffs, and dreams of a championship, became a thing of the past.  And, as might be expected, with the return to mediocrity (or worse), the fans found better things to do with their time and money.  The big arena suddenly was half-filled and awfully quiet.

            And that arena, the building that Lukenbill built and that had been considered a palace when first opened, was now an albatross, a dinosaur, a relic.  It lacked capacity (especially for the luxury suites that brought in the big bucks), it lacked the space (for giant concourses to hold all the amenities that also bring in big bucks), and it lacked the luster (the giant entrances and the marble tiles that the newer arenas in the country proudly display).

            And soon the owners were asking for a new, state-of-the-art house for their team, one that could make their continued stay in Sacramento as profitable as a move to another city would produce.

            But building a new arena would mean the city and its residents would have to make some decisions and those decisions would inevitably include some form of tax to pay for the new home.  That stumbling block, added to the equally big problem of finding a suitable location for the new structure, proved to be too much for the city, its elected leaders, and its populace to handle.

            And so, with a bigger city and a newer arena beckoning, Sacramento is about to lose its team.  Barring a breakdown in negotiations between the Maloofs and the folks in Anaheim, the Kings will play their last game at the old arena and in the state’s capital in mid-April.  They’ll finish their last season much as they started their quarter-century tenure in the town, as a miserable cellar-dweller with minimal talent and little hope of immediate improvement.

            But they’ll be moving to a new environment with the hope that they will be greeted as enthusiastically there as they were here some 25 years earlier. 

            It isn’t fair, of course.  It isn’t fair to all the fans who came to love their team.  It isn’t fair to all the workers who gained employment at the arena or to the many businesses that sprung up around it over the years.  It isn’t fair to the city that loaned the team a bundle back in the early years, just to keep the then owner happy.

            But we’re talking about professional sports, and the key word there is the adjective, not the noun.  It’s professional because it’s a business, and until the industry is socialized, teams will come and they will go, based entirely on the profitability of the franchises in the cities where they are located.

            The Kings were profitable for their owners for a time; now they’re not.  Whether they’ll be profitable in Anaheim is something the owners will soon find out.  A few folks in Sacramento may care; most won’t.  Instead, they’ll feel just like those abandoned fans in Kansas City did all those years ago.