104.7, our local FM talk radio station, just commanded me to get my ass Hannitized. My ass? Sorry guys, I'm like, totally a top. They also have a show called Quinn and Rose in the Morning, and they're constantly advising me to get "Quinnoculated." Are we sensing a pattern here? Why is a conservative talk radio station dedicating so much ad time to promo spots aimed at the IV-drug-using party bottom demographic? Am I missing something?
Anyway, notable apostate Kathleen Parker took a few lines in todays WaPo to aver:
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.While on one hand I sympathize with this, and while I certainly enjoy the oggedy-boogedy branch bit, on the other hand this whole "erstwhile conservative party" thing is a little questionable in my mind. To believe it, you have to conceptualize the Democrats as being historically something like the party of labor interests, the Republicans as being historically something like the party of business interests, and the crazy minority ID-politics types and the oogedy-boogedy faith-healing millenarian types being respectively the infestations that ruined them. Whereas in reality you have two corporate imperialist factions who differ on how best to keep hoi polloi in line, with the Democrats dangling the carrot of redistributive economic justice and the Republicans offering the illusion of social and moral harmony. Republicans never actually deliver a fag-free, abortionless, desexualized, post-Hollywood culture, and Democrats never do much for the downtrodden, but we live in an era of marketing, whatever, forever and ever, shantih, amen.
The laced-up, responsible party that Parker would like to see reborn is never coming back. Conservativism is dead. It could exist only when a landed class of hereditary privilege had political suasion. The decline of the WASP Ivy-League legacy class in America, the rise of new centers of wealth and privilege--these killed conservativism. George W. marked the end, not Sarah P. It no longer has a social order to defend. The oogedy-boogedy types are the GOP now, and the Rockefeller Republicans the parasites. This is why the GOP has instead become a Nationalist party. It has no economic program. Look at the goddamn bailout plan! There are still a few conservatives in America, but no one gives a shit what they think, least of all their own putative party.
22 comments:
"to keep hoi polloi in line" ...
Aww, IOZ, that's cute. Who'da thunk that a bold anarchist like toi would give in to the pop grammarians -- the Edwin Newmans, the William Safires, the Theodore Bernsteins, the John Simons of this world?
Let's have some more speaking in tongues! "Demoniation" was a gift of the Spirit; do some more of that.
Haha! That's actually a copy-n-paste editing error. I count myself a reliable defender of an English article.
Ioz: did you ever think you'd get the opportunity to use oogedy-boogedy and hoi polloi in the same post?!
Only in America.
Also, you're spot on re: the death of the Rockefeller Republicans.
Those were the days my friend....
Mike
And we though Goldwater was S&M....
Good point.
Yes, yes, that's all very interesting, but does Pittsburg have any good Mexican food restaurants?
I'll tell you if you add the H.
Mistah we could use a man like Hoybut Hoovah agaaaaaaain!
I don't buy that you're a "total" top. Not for a minute.
Pittsburg? California? Shit yeah, Super Taco on Railroad, yo. It's "hella" good.
heh. Don't get a lot of opportunity to bust with the East Bay dialect.
Mexico City downtown is good Mexican, run by real-live Mexicans. They mash up younz avocados in a stone mortar right atchyounz table n' at.
Any blood for Smoking Mirror mixed into that fresh guacamole, Ioz?
fuckin' Quinn...that creep can roll, man.
I've been reading your blog for several days now and I've noticed that even though you think you're so goddamm smart you never propose a single solution for anything. That's outstanding. That's the first approach I've ever seen that makes any kind of sense. OT but can anyone suggest which of Vidal's books I should read first? I was thinking of Decline and Fall of the American Empire.
I don't know but watch this video of Vidal being interviewed by David Dimbleby and read this. The old dude just doesn't give a shit what people think about him anymore.
heh, that Gore Vidal clip is awesome
TGPP thank you, excellent. My father loved Vidal's work but I only know bits and pieces. The Independent interview was hilarious, especially since the interviewer seemed to be kind of a schmuck.
Okay, just so we're clear here, "hoi" IS an article.
It's actually just an aspirated oi. Very punk, those Greeks.
Why is a conservative talk radio station dedicating so much ad time to promo spots aimed at the IV-drug-using party bottom demographic?
Shit, dude... After all the bullshit we've just endured, do you even need to ask?
"hoi" is an article, anonymous, but it's a Greek article. "hoi polloi" is now an English idiom, and has usually appeared with an English article -- "the hoi polloi" -- since the 19th century. Even writers who knew Greek added "the".
I see that more recently, some writers have thought "hoi polloi" meant rich elites. It would be funny if that use took over and became standard.
I would just get United States for Vidal.
Post a Comment