Carol et al., I just want to stress that Mike Rose wrote the piece; I
forwarded it. p
At 07:11 AM 10/8/2004 +0200, you wrote:
>Peter-I have forwarded your piece to like-minded people here. We are all
>deeply concerned about the outcome of Nov 2nd.
>
>Carol
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Vera P. John-Steiner [mailto:vygotsky@unm.edu]
>Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 12:07 AM
>To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Re: Whatıs Love Got to Do With It?
>
>Peter,
>Thanks, a wonderful piece, Vera
>
>Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
>
> >>> Here's a brief essay I wrote for First of the Month, a quarterly on
> >>> politics
> >>> and culture based in New York. I think you'll approve. Feel free to
> >>> pass
> >>> it on to like-minded folk. I'd love to make some tiny, tiny
> >>> contribution to
> >>> this election.
> >>>
> >>> Mike
> >>>
> >>> Whatıs Love Got to Do With It?
> >>>
> >>> Mike Rose
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> There was a remarkable moment in former New York mayor Rudy
> >>> Giulianiıs 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 Bushıs 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 ³big,
> >>> real big² construction workers. Their ³arms are bigger than
> >>> [Giulianiıs]
> >>> legs, and their opinions are even bigger than their arms.² Using
> >>> language
> >>> that Giuliani ³canıt repeat², one of the men begins speaking with deep
> >>> feeling about the attackers to Mr. Bush, and then ³embraced the
> >>> president
> >>> and began hugging him enthusiastically.² Giuliani completes the
> >>> moment by
> >>> observing that this was an act of love.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I donıt 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 canıt shake, is the use
> >>> of that
> >>> moment by Giuliani-- and similar moments by other Republican
> >>> strategists and
> >>> speechwriters-- to certify George Bushıs 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 wonıt see in these
> >>> portraits. You wonıt see the female cannery worker with injured
> >>> hands or
> >>> the guys at bitter loose ends when the factory closes. You wonıt 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
> >>> wonıt 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 the
> >>> facts, the awful Republican record on working America. God forbid
> >>> that the
> >>> fellow embracing Bush develops, as so many have, serious respiratory
> >>> disease. He wonıt find the administrationıs policies hospitable to his
> >>> plight. Heıd better seek instead the much-maligned trial lawyer.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> American workers donıt 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 theyıre provided with facts rather than emotion.
> >>> They need the protections of the secure workplace, of the fair wage,
> >>> of the
> >>> union contract. They donıt need a one-way romance, the administration
> >>> taking the embrace, but returning a deadly kiss.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> To appear in First of the Month (fall, 2004). See
> >>> www.firstofthemonth.org <http://www.firstofthemonth.org/>
> >>> <http://www.firstofthemonth.org/> .
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Mike Rose is author of The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the
> >>> American Worker (Viking, 2004) www.mikerosebooks.com
> >>> <http://www.mikerosebooks.com/>
> >>> <http://www.mikerosebooks.com/> .
>
>--
>---------------------------------
>Vera P. John-Steiner
>Department of Linguistics
>Humanities Bldg. 526
>University of New Mexico
>Albuquerque, NM 87131
>(505) 277-6353 or 277-4324
>Internet: vygotsky@unm.edu
>---------------------------------
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