It's a pity the rest of the world can't vote. Bush will be defeated by a 99%
margin.
David
Carol Macdonald writes:
> 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
> ---------------------------------
>
>
David D. Preiss
home page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~ddp6/
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