[lbo-talk] How Bush's speech went down in an Elko NV bar

Jim Straub rustbeltjacobin at gmail.com
Wed Jan 10 18:40:12 PST 2007


Elko Nevada is a conservative town in a conservative state. The large majority of our nurse members at the hospital here are Republicans, and the union militants, especially so. This was one of the few places Bush could still 'campaign' in back in November when the tidal wave was cresting, and so he actually came here to speak, coincidentally, on the very day our NLRB election was here. (This almost gave me a heart attack, as all the nurses started making plans to go see him speak at the airport--- "Ahhhh! Our fucking GOTV plan! Ahh! Fucking Bush! Now it's personal! Argh!)

Two days before he came to town, I was driving around to see community leaders with two of the nurses asking em to call the hospital ceo and tell him to stop running his boss fight. And when we were walking out of one state rep's office, one of the nurses says, "Wait a second! You know what we need to do? We gotta get in front of the President! Yeah! He's the pro-union one, right?". Trying not to show any emotion, I nodded no, and changed the subject (two days before a union election is a bad time to take members on about anti-union rightwing politicians they all love--- though whoever reps this shop will have their work cut out for them next november). So sad--- our political culture is so warped in the US, that out in Honkie America, because Bush is the more homespun communicator, there are probably millions of people who think he's the pro-union one! Sigh.

Anyway, point is, Elko is a very conservative place, across classes. But during President Nervous-Rat-Eyes speech tonite, I poked my head into the motel shitball bar to watch for a minute.

The bartender asked me, "Do you think he's speakin from the heart, or did he practice this a hundred times?" It was an interesting way to think about what Bush was saying, not evaluating content or consequences, but rather wondering if after all his evil and failure and idiocy and bloodshed, maybe he really was speaking from the heart. I think it goes to show how much his support always came from his ability to project authenticity, and how such a communication style is more important to much of our population than ideology or actions or even competence.

I said, "I don't think he has what we call a heart, but you're definitely right that this isn't coming from his brain."

She said, "Ha ha! You're right about that!" I think she was going to pour me one on the house but I had to jet.

If Bush has lost the Elko High Desert Inn's bar, I do believe, he may have finally lost Honkie America. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20070110/54d70b85/attachment.htm>



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