Saturday, December 13, 2008

One Bazillion Points to Colin Powell

Gen. Colin Powell may have a bunch of stains on his conscience regarding the run up to the Iraq War, but he gets a lot of redemption for one line in this interview with Fareed Zakeria:
When [Gov. Palin] talked about small town values are good -- well most of us don't live in small towns. I was raised in the South Bronx, and there's nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx.




This anti-urbanist streak of the GOP is not just anti-liberal ("San Francisco Values" -- though that's also code for anti-gay). It's also both implicitly anti-Black, casting itself against the dark faces of the inner city, and anti-Jewish, as Jews are predominantly centered in and around cities and are the quintissential embodiment of the "cosmopolitanism" that Rudy Giuliani (of all people!) railed against at the RNC. Yet we cower to the idea that being from Wasilla, Alaska, makes one better than someone from Bethesda, Maryland, or the South Bronx, New York. It's good to see Gen. Powell take a stand against that fundamentally divisive and anti-patriotic sentiment.

4 comments:

The Gaucho Politico said...

I find the whole "small town" and agrarian centered attack to be offensive on many levels. I agree that it is also a racial thing especially as the antebellum south is the traditional agrarian ideal that seems to center in that narrative. The RNC tries to enshrine the church going god fearing person who lives in a small town and watches HS football on friday nights. I did not grow up in a big city but i def dont fit that small town stereotype.

Colin Powell has made some important points fighting against the divisive rhetoric of the gop. his mtp endorsement of obama was also notable for the push back against the anti-muslim rhetoric.

Superdestroyer said...

Powell was a quota black for the Repubican Party and his son was a quota black for the Republican Party. After Powell's failure as Secretary of STate, he should have had the decency to go away and keep his mouth shut.

Now, Powell is arguing that the Repulbicans need more quota blacks and need to become DEmcoratic party lite in order to stay relevant.

Powell is smart enough to realize that Republicans have zero chance of appealing to blacks, Hispanics, Jews,or Gays no matter what they do.

What Powell should realy be talking about his how the U.S. will function as a one party state and who will the U.S. maintain a system of racial spoils when non-whites are the majority.

And last, the most important question is whether the U.S. will be able to produce the economic output needed for the welfare state when whites are an aging minority.

PG said...

I'm starting to appreciate superdestroyer's overt white supremacy. Most conservatives have learned to cover themselves by at least saying "whites and Asians" when talking about groups they're willing to deem economically productive, so they can pull out statistics about how whites and Asians are the two racial groups with higher rates of income and lower rates of poverty. But superdestroyer just lets his white supremacist flag fly freely. We should all feel some respect for him as a representative of a dying aspect of the GOP -- the white supremacist who doesn't pretend otherwise.

Unknown said...

Hell, I'm not going to complain too loudly about the urban-demonization tactic. The numbers show us how counterproductive that is for the GOP.