Whatıs Love Got to Do With It?

From: Peter Smagorinsky (smago@coe.uga.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 07 2004 - 03:09:15 PDT


>>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/> .





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