S3E4: Barney Frank
On the "complicated" side of "evil and complicated" that makes up our show's motto, we present the story of the gravely-voiced Congressman who blazed trails for gay political involvement at the highest levels of power in Washington, only to spend the latter part of his career selling out the left to finance capital and excluding trans people from fights for non-discrimination legislation. Whip-smart, funny, and always ready with a biting comeback, Barney Frank came to embody the transformation of the Democratic Party away from the working class and towards a suburban party preoccupied with shallow diversity rather than true racial and economic justice.
SOURCES:
Aloisi, James. “Louise Day Hicks: ‘You Know Where I Stand.’” CommonWealth Magazine, October 16, 2013. https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/012-louise-day-hicks-you-know-where-i-stand/.
Battenfeld, Joe. “Barney Frank Resurfaces, to the Dismay of Bernie Sanders.” Boston Herald, January 29, 2020. https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/01/28/barney-frank-resurfaces-to-the-dismay-of-bernie-sanders/.
Chotiner, Isaac. “Barney Frank Is Not Impressed By Bernie Sanders.” Slate Magazine, March 30, 2016. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/03/barney-frank-is-not-impressed-by-bernie-sanders.html.
Cottle, Michelle. “Bailout.” The New Republic, December 3, 2008. https://newrepublic.com/article/62857/bailout.
Dayen, David. Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. New York, NY: The New Press, 2016.
———. “Bank Deregulation 2.0 Is Here.” The American Prospect, July 18, 2018. https://prospect.org/api/content/eaadfd42-4d07-5e1f-b580-4b75f1860cc4/.
———. “Dismantling Dodd-Frank -- And More.” The American Prospect, February 6, 2017.
https://prospect.org/api/content/da53d9a4-10ff-57f6-97d0-a09f91c8cbd4/.
Dedman, Bill. “TV Movie Led to Prostitute’s Disclosures.” The Washington Post, August 27, 1989. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/tours/scandal/gobie2.htm.
Frank, Barney. “My Life as a Gay Congressman.” Politico Magazone. Accessed April 13, 2020. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/barney-frank-life-as-gay-congressman-116027.html.
Geismer, Lily. Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
Henwood, Doug. “Radio Commentary, July 15, 2010.” LBO News from Doug Henwood (blog), July 16, 2010. https://lbo-news.com/2010/07/16/radio-commentary-july-15-2010/.
Molloy, Parker. “What Barney Frank Still Gets Wrong on ENDA.” The Advocate, October 1, 2014. http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2014/10/01/op-ed-what-barney-frank-still-gets-wrong-enda.
Schleier, Curt. “Barney Frank on Being Barney, Not Bernie.” Times of Israel. Accessed April 13, 2020. http://www.timesofisrael.com/barney-frank-on-being-barney-not-bernie/.
Sirota, David. “A ‘Grand Bargain’...For K Street.” HuffPost (blog), December 8, 2006. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-grand-bargainfor-k-stre_b_35853.
———. “Four Reasons to Oppose the Bush-Obama Request for Another $350 Billion Bailout.” Common Dreams. Accessed April 13, 2020. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/01/13/four-reasons-oppose-bush-obama-request-another-350-billion-bailout.
Toobin, Jeffrey. “Barney’s Great Adventure.” The New Yorker, January 5, 2009. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/12/barneys-great-adventure.
Our intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, downloaded from WFMU's Free Music Archive and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Our outro music is by DJ Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.
Image via: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Barney_Frank.jpg/1280px-Barney_Frank.jpg