Remember this famous quote?
“I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” -William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley was the son of an oil baron. He was educated in Paris and London and graduated from Yale where he was a member of the elite Skull & Bones secret society. He spoke several languages. He loved classical music and sailing, horseback riding, and skiing. He had almost nothing in common with the average American schlub you’d find in the first 400 names listed in the phone book. Buckley wouldn’t let those people use his plates, let alone consent to be governed by them. But this is the act that people like Buckley put on to appeal to the lower classes who they then use to keep their own taxes low. It is why the Republicans like to nominate morons like Dan Quayle and George W. Bush. They may be privileged sons but they’re as doltish and intellectually incurious as any guy working on his transmission in the front-yard.
It wasn’t until John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his running mate that we saw a genuine self-professed redneck on the Republican ticket. Poppy may have eaten pork rinds and Quayle may have thought they speak Latin in Latin America, but for ignorant you can’t touch Palin.
Speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, Palin claimed that some in the media have tried to portray members of the Tea Party movement as “violent or racist or rednecks.”
“And I don’t really have a problem with the redneck part of it, to tell you the truth. I don’t,” the former vice presidential candidate told the crowd. “That’s fine with me.”
Buckley died in February 2008. It was six months too early to see his dream come true.
I see that Palin is trying to take the racist connotation out of the word ‘redneck,’ but she might want to consider that the Confederate Flag is still the unofficial symbol of self-professed rednecks. Denuding the term of offensive and threatening meanings is easier said than done.
Palin? The best gift the Republicans ever gave to liberal Democrats. So how about laying off, will ya’?
Don’r forget what else she said at the NRA gathering. She was spouting the bullshit non-stop. She said Obama was coming for their guns, despite the fact(which she wasn’t going to mention) that Obama signed a bill okaying carrying guns in national parks.
Cardinal rule of wingnuttery:
“Don’t confuse me with facts!”
Wasn’t Bush, like Buckley, also Skull and Bones? Wasn’t John Kerry, too? I have no doubt Buckley was lying about his actual sentiments. But I must say actual statement might have some merit. Elites have a bad habit of thinking they know what is best for everybody and everyone must be forced to go along for their own good.
OTOH, common people quite often know their limits and so they have no grand scheme to force upon others.
Just a thought.
This administration has a bad habit of giving very little chance to people who aren’t superachievers (meaning that they got into an excelled at the nations most elite universities). I’d like to see some people from Michigan State or Rutgers get a chance. But there’s nothing wrong with demanding your government be staffed with knowledgeable people.
Of course we all prefer advancement based on merit. I think the point behind Buckley’s statement (and I think we both agree he was totally insincere) is that many of us prefer NOT to be lead by people who are
Most neoconservatives in the Bush (and Obama) administrations are smart people who went to fine schools. But they were sure about Iraq and what they professed to be their interests were in fact, not. I only ask that you open your eyes to the possibility that people on the ‘left,’ such as it is in this country, can be exactly the same about different matters.
If you think government is nothing but a useless impediment to the moneyed classes divine rights, I guess you wouldn’t think it would take anybody special to run it. Of course Buckley and his kind were in fact desperate to run it, so the message was really, other than us the rest of the population is interchangeable lumps.
F Buck is THE historical nexus of northeast industrial capitol and resentful post-emancipation whites. It is interesting to compare him to DW Griffith, whose KKK epic President Wilson adored.
His tweedy-waspy affectation was a fascinatingly ugly cultural vestige. It functions as a status-seeking alienation, a kind of calculated resentment of the anglo-imperial cultural power it otherwise seeks, with it’s effortless domination of inferior classes and peoples. It is perhaps descended from and alludes to the self-serving rhetoric of the revolutionary land-owners.
Off topic I can’t deny I enjoyed watching Obama smack around the oil concerns yesterday.
I can only hope he is pushing for an extremely aggressive and unpleasant investigation.
I don’t know how this is going to work for Palin. My brother, the self-described redneck, is proud of his racism; he considers it an essential part of his cultural identity. He also likes being “armed and dangerous.” He’s eager for the day when he can surround himself with a like-minded mob and do actual violence to “n*gg*rs and lib’ruls.” If she persists in trying to separate “violent” and “racist” from “redneck,” he’s going to turn on her and suddenly decide she’s “stupid.”
Nice of you to note that old man Buckley was an “oil baron.” The old term was thief and robber.
Of course, William F Buckley could have overcome all of that evil by picking up coal by the railroad to heat the house of his 8 or 12 brothers and sisters bred by a semi human and his idiot wife.
Worse the piece of filth bred too.
They just discovered that human and Neanderthals bred. Nice to see instant proof.
“they’re as doltish and intellectually incurious as any guy working on his transmission in the front-yard.”
HMMMM.
Somebody’s slip is showing.
nalbar
That guy fixing his transmission is at least curious about how machinery works and how to put that knowledge to practical use. I think that puts him far ahead of drones like W and Palin.
Minor historical note. Until the 1960s, “redneck” was a disparaging term for Southern white tenant farmers and white agricultural labor. Those with sunburned necks and little income. It was one step above “po white trash” and “too sorry to garden”.
from not properly preparing corn:
http://www.naturalnews.com/023580_disease_nutrition_corn.html