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September 6, 2006

condi condi condi

Condi, in the New York Daily News:

Secretary of State Rice compared the Iraq war with the American Civil War, telling a magazine that slavery might have lasted longer in this country if the North had decided to end the fight early.

"I'm sure there are people who thought it was a mistake to fight the Civil War to its end and to insist that the emancipation of slaves would hold," Rice said in the new issue of Essence magazine.

"I know there were people who said, 'Why don't we get out of this now, take a peace with the South, but leave the South with slaves?'" Rice said. [full story][via atrios and the Carpetbagger]

Leaving aside the patently absurd historical comparison (justifying the Iraq war by comparing its critics to apologists for slavery is the height of moral hypocrisy... and political panic), it is interesting to note that Condi's comments came in Essence. She specifically crafted this patently ridiculous argument for a black audience, suggesting the Secretary of State buys into the racist, right-wing mythology that black folks are sheep prone to unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to certain code-words, "slavery" apparently being a Susquehanna Hat Company-type trigger that leaves us uncontrollably frothing at the mouth.

Rice's comments also just go to show that no talking android, no matter how craven or sold-out, can resist switching codes and evoking metaphors rooted in the traditional black political consensus when forced to address black audiences. These are folks who, in every way possible, at every possible turn, have chosen their own careers and the rewards of white patronage over the health of their community, and yet stick them in front of a black crowd and suddenly they're eager to connect, evoking conceptual frames (like the fight for equal rights) that they've otherwise worked so hard to disassemble.

One minor nit to pick with our friends at the Carpetbagger, tho. They write:

Maybe Rice thought that Essence's circulation is small enough that these comments wouldn't cause a stir.

Hey friend: Essence is not only the leading publication for black women, it's owned by the same people who own CNN, making it part of the major media octopus. Relative size of circulation has no bearing on how and why she said what she said..

The Bushites fully expected this line of argument to get out into the general mediastream. Equating anti-war politics with apologia for slavery is just another part of the ongoing campaign to make opponents of an illegal, ill-advised war out to be the enemies of freedom, truth and apple pie and so on. It's just another trial balloon in the endless quest for new justifications for the same failed policy. These people are monumental fuckers.

Posted by ebogjonson in Iraq, politricknal sciences, talking androids, on September 6, 2006 11:15 PM

Comments

Posted by: belledame222 at October 4, 2006 8:15 PM