Re; Dove feathers in the President's mouth etc

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 03:34, Paul Nightingale wrote: 
> I think what I was getting at was precisely Bush's image as a cowboy with no
> class as seen by the Eastern establishment.

Bush IS Eastern establishment--transplanted to Texas--but I guess your
question is, how does the E.E. react to the non-E.E. demeanor . The fact
of the matter is, the E.E. has long since gotten used to being  governed
by politicians who don't measure up to their social standards. Even the
urbane Kennedys never measured up. 

 As a colonial (we're no longer
> even the 51st state) I have an outsider's perception of the north-south
> divide in the US. 

East-West divide I think you mean. North-South is a completely different
divide. 

Bush reminds me a little of the kind of guy Johnny Dowd
> sings about, working-class no-hopers for whom casual violence is the norm.
> You can keep your handgun, but check the American Dream at the door. There
> has to be a reason why Bush kept the image consultants at bay, or hired a
> different set of image consultants altogether. Fom the 60s on, the Hollywood
> Western became more critical of 'the past'; it was part of Reagan's job to
> restore the traditional image sullied by Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid or
> Heavan's Gate, or the liberal culture such films represented; and Bush has
> simply carried on the same job. On one level he must be reassuring because
> he manages to suggest, somehow, that the 60s and 70s didn't happen.

Reassuring to whom. The U.S. is a huge and widely heterogeneous country. Moreover, 
nothing can make us forget the 60s and 70s happened. Just a swing of
the pendulum is all  They'll be back soon enough. Not to say that lasting damage
won't be done by Bush's reckless spending and (un)taxing policies. When wrong
directions become apparent to enough people the repair process can begin. 

> If I return briefly to John Prescott, it's to note the way working-class
> language/accents operate in Britain. They're okay in their place; lots of
> 'educated' (= been to university, or even Oxbridge, which doesn't mean
> intelligent by any means) people either keep or rediscover a working-class
> accent because it signifies some kind of home-based authenticity, a sense of
> place. Television personalities like Michael Parkinson are professional
> northerners: Parky, as he likes to be known, interviews celebrities and
> always, without fail, asks them about their ordinary upbringing (I can't
> wait to see Bush on the show). This cuddly working-class image equates with
> Bush's Texan appeal. However, such accents are ridiculed when the speaker
> somehow threatens the established order (Prescott's nickname at Westminster
> is 'Two-Cars' - it's a longish and pointless story).

You mean ridiculed by Prescott? This seems strange. In America it's not
so much a matter of upper class accent (it can be a southern drawl or a
Western twang) but a characteristic manner of speaking and thinking. One
thing important to it is not getting too excited about temporary shifts
from so called left to so called right. 

> So how does Bush
> threaten the establishment?

Nobody really threatens the Establishment. . 

P.


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