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Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" -- "I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!" |
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Monday, April 19, 2004George W: The rich, privileged WASP Condi always dreamed ofAtrios links to an interesting story about how Condoleezza Rice, at a media dinner, slipped and said about George W. Bush, "As I was telling my husb--," then corrected herself and said, "As I was telling President Bush." Quickly, go to Eschaton and scroll down to the (unrelated) photograph that Atrios posted alongside the quote. While Bush is either whispering in Condi's ear or giving her a polite peck on the cheek, she appears to be swooning. No one is saying those two are having an affair. But I've thought for a long time, and if my links were working I could go back and find a post, that Rice has crush on Bush (that is doomed to be unrequited). It all started when I read that Rice views Bush with something akin to awe, that she looks up to and admires him in a way that actual heroes -- such as Martin Luther King, Bob Dylan, Chuck Yeager and President David Palmer, for example -- often inspire. See, if you regard George W. Bush with reverence -- I'm not saying if you support him or voted for him or think the war in Iraq was a good idea -- I'm saying if you regard him with awe, you are fucking loony toons, and I will go through on a case by case basis and prove this to be correct. Line 'em up! And I'll go through one by one and determine the pathology that has led you to this faulty conclusion. I am always highly skeptical of black Republicans. And it's worse if, like Condi, you're a female black Republican. This is the party that fought the advancement of your rights tooth and nail, a party that espouses policies that negatively affect your fellow blacks at every turn* and you're going to say, "Sign me up"? I don't fucking think so. Condi came from a family that raised itself up and provided her with the disciplined background that allowed her, through hard work, to assert her natural talents and succeed at the highest level. So she figures everyone else ought to be able to do the same thing. But what if your parents were alcoholics and beat you? I'm going to get into it. This line of thinking is so faulty, I can't get into it right now. Anyway, Rice's hero worship of Bush is precisely the thing that exposes the irrationality of her belonging to the club of the Republican Party. George W. Bush isn't a hero! He's been given everything. She doesn't want merely to succeed to the highest degree on the level playing field. She wants, perhaps unconsciously, to become or associate herself with the elite for whom the field is tilted. The apotheosis of her climbing from nothing to the highest levels of political power would not be to take her example of success and make it possible for everyone else, to try to improve the American democracy as other black heroes have done, but rather to join or merge with or marry into the elite that try to thwart that progress, to move among and become the monied few who have rigged the system. So, in conclusion, that is why I dislike Condoleezza Rice. *Have you seen "Unprecedented," the documentary about the Florida election debacle? Purging (mostly black) felons from the voter rolls, while intentionally setting the net as wide as possible to catch as many "false positives" as possible? What about, and this wasn't in the film, setting up roadblocks on election day in black areas? What about old Strom Thurmond and his legendary filibuster against civil rights? But that's not still happening today, you say? Then you don't read the news. Remember Trent Lott being stripped of his Senate Majority Leader badge for his, uh, questionable remarks at Strom's birthday party? What about, as I mentioned the other day, environmental justice, how blacks and Latinos wind up in inordinate numbers living near toxic sites because they have neither the money to move away nor the political muscle to do anything about it? What about affirmative action? Clearly hundreds of years of slavery and another hundred years from 1865 to 1964 of oppression ought to be compensated for somehow? What about GOP tax policies that seek to increase the tax burden on the working and middle classes? The list goes on and on and on. .: posted by hornswaggler 1:50 PM| |
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