Peter – Think Chron’s Tom Fleming is a big defender of the Confederacy/States Rights etc. Doubt he has much to offer on the subject of patriotism to, ah, Unionists…
Alexis – Do you know re Alphonso Johnson? – Bush’s HUD man – corrupt (I’m tempted to say of course since just about every Pub head of the HUD has ended up in jail or in disgrace recently) but Johnson was a trip. Beyond Brownie – Here’s the graph from the wiki entry –
Selecting contractors based on politics
On April 28, 2006, Jackson spoke at a meeting in Dallas and addressed the subject of government contracting. He recounted that a prospective African-American HUD contractor had made a “heck of a proposal” and was selected upon the basis of that proposal, but upon thanking Secretary Jackson for being selected the bidder, mentioned that he did not like President Bush. As a result, Jackson said, the bidder who had criticized Bush did not receive the contract: “Brother, you have a disconnect — the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn’t be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don’t tell the secretary.” Jackson asked the crowd, “Why should I reward someone who doesn’t like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don’t get the contract. That’s the way I believe.”[4]
Here’s a short thing re Alphonso – less “objective” but still pretty telling http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/03/7822_bushs_hud_secre.html
Hear you re fears – but Obama couldn’t do worse than W. on this front…
Nahncee – Just words? Look you’ve addressed me a dozen times now – always with utter contempt. Can’t pretend you got under my skin. But the fact that your insults are ineffectual doesn’t mean they’re not acts of contempt. Petty ones addmittedly but acts nonetheless. Now here at the CLub the audience for your acts (and mine) is pretty tiny. But Mac and O are public figures. They’re not like you (or me). Hell it matters when they scratch their asses. And when they give speeches, those are definitely speech-ACTS. O’s words aren’t nearly as cheap as yours and mine. (Though I’ll admit I don’t take mine THAT lightly!) The whole world is watching him.
Maybe that’s just because the world is full of celeb-mongering fools, but is it possible that O has some traction because he’s said things that seemed fresh to millions of Americans? Is it possible that he articulates a world-view that’s has more resonance than your own? On that score, figure you should know that you recently wrote a passage thatmight live in my head a little on down the line. Had to do with your pop at Xmas wondering at the fact he’d managed to hold a familial life together. What the hey – I was never on the bum/lam – but I can surely ID with that emotion. So what’s my point – You told a STORY. That’s what Obama does (often). I don’t believe his narratives or the emotions evoked by them are a con. The stories don’t have an immediate payoff (pace Wretch). Sure I’ll allow O’s anecdotes do usually point Americans in the right (liberal-minded!) direction. But you can hear what’s good in them w/o saying – Hell – I’m going to VOTE for this guy. The stories don’t trump policy. But if you’re listening, they should make it (almost) impossible for you to FEAR him…
Wade – When O became a pol he crossed a line. Did it w/ his eyes open. Bob Moses (that SNCC hero I’ve mentioned would have NEVER gone there.) But – just so you know, I backed the War AND the Surge knowing full well that Bush and the neo-cons knew zip about cultivating grassroots democracy. In fact – they came from a party/elite that had contempt for the whole idea of it!! So maybe you can cut me some slack when it comes to backing O who does KNOW the deal. What it is. As a leader of a massive liberal coalition – a large part of his job will be “fighting fires.” That’s to say – if there is going to be significant change – it’s going to come because O is PUSHED to do the right thing…
J-rod – thanks for the correction re Bush – Got that from F9/11 – Should’ve known not to trust Michael Moore. Here’s a link to a FIRSTer’s sharp critique of Moore – Fhttp://www.nypress.com/17/25/film/ArmondWhite.cfm
Cut and pasting an old piece re Bush et al that makes my other point more forcefully…
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
By Mike Rose
There was a remarkable moment in former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s speech at the Republican National Convention, a moment I keep turning over and over in my mind. It had to do with love. About half-way through the speech – after praising George Bush’s leadership in responding to 9/11 and before an affirmation of the Bush foreign policy doctrine – Giuliani offers the following scene.
Bush is visiting ground zero and is soon surrounded by “big, real big” construction workers. Their “arms are bigger than [Giuliani's] legs, and their opinions are even bigger than their arms.” Using language that Giuliani “can’t repeat”, one of the men begins speaking with deep feeling about the attackers to Mr. Bush, and then “embraced the president and began hugging him enthusiastically.” Giuliani completes the moment by observing this was an act of love.
I don’t know this worker, so I can only imagine what feelings must have been churning inside him, seeking some kind of meaningful expression. And suddenly here before him stands the president of the United States. At ground zero. Overwhelming.
What troubles me, though, what I can’t shake, is the use of that moment by Giuliani – and similar moments by other Republican strategists and speechwriters – to certify George Bush’s deep bond with working people. Giuliani describes the construction worker with genial humor, but if you think about it, the portrait is pretty stereotypical: the big, patriotic hard hat. Joe Sixpack. The working men and women I grew up with were strong, yes, and loyal to country, but they were much more. Smart and skeptical, for starters.
Think, for a moment, of all that you won’t see in these GOP portraits. You won’t see the female cannery worker with injured hands or the guys at bitter loose ends when the factory closes. You won’t see people, exhausted, shuttling between two (or more) jobs to make a living or the anxious scramble for minimal health care for their kids. And you sure won’t see people organizing to improve their working lives.
What a funny kind of love it is that undercuts unions, erodes workplace health and safety regulations, opposes increases in the minimum wage, changes overtime rules. The invocation of love at ground zero – and the replaying of the image – mystifies things terribly. Emotion trumps fact: the awful Republican record on working America. God forbid that the fellow embracing Bush develops, as so many have, serious respiratory disease. He won’t find the administration’s policies hospitable to his plight. He’d better seek instead the much-maligned trial lawyer.
American workers don’t need love from their government, especially this funky seduction. They need opportunity. They need an understanding of their struggles. They need an appreciation of the skill and intelligence they bring to their work. They need enough respect for that intelligence that they’re provided with facts rather than emotion. They need the protections of the secure workplace, of the fair wage, of the union contract. They don’t need a one-way romance, the administration taking the embrace, but returning a deadly kiss.
October 4, 2004
[Mike Rose is author of The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker (Viking, 2004) www.mikerosebooks.com.]
