EVENTS: CRAIG FERGUSON, GREAT PUMPKIN WALK 22 FILM: “JACK GOES BOATING,” “IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY” 32 URBAN JOURNAL: ARE VOTERS FIT TO VOTE?
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THEATER REVIEW: “ONE MAN BAND” AT DOWNSTAIRS CABARET 24 CHOW HOUND: TALA VERA, CORK & FORK 11 CROSSWORD, mr. wiggles 43
RON CARTER • THE PACK A.D. • deanna witkowski • CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE • HIGH ON fire • subsoil • and more music, page 12
OCTOBER 13-19, 2010 Free
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Greater Rochester’s Alternative Newsweekly
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Vol 40 No 5
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News. Music. Life.
It’s an unnecessary scene, but a delicious one.” MOVIES, PAGE 33
Rare organ rediscovered. NEWS, PAGE 4
Preview of congressional elections. NEWS, PAGE 6
The Ying Quartet on its new line-up. CLASSICAL, PAGE 21
VOTE NOW: Best of Rochester Final 4! 2010 BALLOT, PAGE 31
COVER STORY | BY RON NETSKY | PAGE 8 | ILLUSTRATION BY MAX SEIFERT
Labor’s love lost
When did the Democratic Party lose blue-collar workers? According to Cornell University’s Jefferson Cowie, it was the 1970’s perfect storm of economic crisis, the rise of identity politics, and the decline of class politics. In the 1970’s, Cowie says, politics shifted from an economic platform to social and racial issues. As Democrats began bringing more women, minorities, and youth to the party, Republicans took advantage by appealing to the working class. Nixon brilliantly reached out to the “silent majority,” mostly white
males, on cultural values, on patriotism, on the war, and on machismo. Cowie traces the roots of blue-collar conservatism in his new book, “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class.” The book also deals with the 1970’s more liberal outlook on labor. Today, Cowie says, Democrats tepidly represent working people’s economic interests, while Republicans aggressively represent their cultural interests. Nobody, he says, aggressively represents labor’s interests.