What Does Any of This Have to Do with Vietnam, Walter
Many years ago, I managed stores for a mall-based bookstore chain. The stores ran 2000-4000 square feet in size and carried between 3-10,000 different titles. The that’s a tenth of what you’d find in a modern book superstore – in a modern book superstore you’d consider “kind of small compared to some of the others.” Title selection was necessarily limited and lowest-common-denominator-oriented: what would sell to the notional modern suburban hausfrau. Beyond that, for many years the company was run by a man whose declared mission was “to sell books like soap.” The company didn’t just “give the people what they want;” it worked hard to make them want shallow things.
Nevertheless, the place was a blast to work for many years. It was still a bookstore, and pay was lame, so it attracted those of us willing to work for pathetic money to be around books. Also, frankly, people without extraordinary career ambitions. So the cohort of managers tended to be youngish, bright, “edgy” in characteristically Eighties ways. The annual manager meetings were a blast.
A curious thing, though, happened over time, and shouldn’t have surprised me. Over years of attrition and replacement, the store-manager population converged with the customer base. Store managers became older, straighter, less intellectual, more sympatico across dimensions with the readership of a mall-based mass merchandiser. The stores drew their labor pools locally; the new class of hausfrau managers were probably better able to sell to the chain’s chosen demographic because they embodied it. The annual manager meetings became a bit of a snooze.
Sean Scallon wonders why the GOP continues lockstep support for the war in Afghanistan even though it can now fairly be considered “Obama’s war,” and there’s no Republican White House to enforce discipline on a notional dovish wing of legislators. Once upon a time, he says, Republican politicians bragged about ending wars. Even in the 1990s, Republicans opposed Clinton’s various interventions. Now only three GOP reps voted for Dennis Kucinich’s resolution to pull out of Afghanistan.
I don’t think this is a hard problem. The GOP as a party has simply become a nationalist, militarist party. There’s always been a nationalist, militarist strain to it – the central conceptual flaw of Goldwaterism/Heinleinism was that it tried to simultaneously advocated nationalism and “small government.” The GOP spent decades marketing flavors of militarism from anti-communism to anti-terrorism to its base. Not only did the base buy it; the base became the talent pool for the current generation of Republican politicians. They support this stuff because they believe this stuff.
Comment by Joe Strummer —
March 11, 2010 @ 8:42 am
Very nicely said
Comment by Thoreau —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:35 am
And props for a Lebowski title. IOZ would be happy.
Comment by abb1 —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:39 am
I don’t think they can be accused of “anti-terrorism”; they don’t get upset when, say, Iranian revolutionary guards get blown up, or when Israel assassinates some cleric or politician.
It’s just that they can’t function without being involved in an existential struggle against an evil enemy. The usual 1984 stuff.
Comment by matthew h —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:39 am
What has happened is that the GOP has become the party of the Appalachians. That’s the main base and source of income, votes and speakers fees. And as long as it can sustain jobs and incumbency from that base, with all the virtues and vices of that base, including bigoted nationalism.
Comment by Mark Thompson —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:46 am
Have I mentioned that it’s good to have you back blogging regularly again? I haven’t? Well, it’s fucking fantastic.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 11, 2010 @ 10:26 am
Jeez Jim, you’ve been on a roll lately. Kudos for the Ben R post as well.
Also, what Mark Thompson said.
Comment by Mona —
March 11, 2010 @ 2:01 pm
Jim wrote:
Well said, and that comes from one who labored mightily to twist Heinlein into an author I wholly embraced. I remain enamored of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, and I Will Fear No Evil; reread them all at least every 5 years.
But Starship Troopers? Meh.
Comment by Mona —
March 11, 2010 @ 2:02 pm
Eric Martin: I’ve been meaning to tell you I’m delighted you are posting at ObWi.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 11, 2010 @ 4:05 pm
Thank you kindly Mona. Hope all is well with youse.
Comment by Celebrity Gossip Magazine —
March 11, 2010 @ 4:15 pm
Another reason – when you’re unabashedly wh*ring for the top 1%, economically, it’s really important to have some triumphs to take the average Roman citizen’s mind off of the fact that his life sucks.
Comment by Ken Hoop —
March 11, 2010 @ 6:16 pm
The “triumphs,” e.g. of having taken seven years to hand Iraq to Iran and of backing team member Israel against the balance of a world which sympathizes with Islam/Palestinians in the matter are quite illusory and the sapped economy and military should be instructive. But only the Paul libertarians and Buchananite sector of nationalists in the GOP seem to get it.
Comment by P Henry —
March 11, 2010 @ 7:25 pm
Most of the Democratic hawks seem to have moved to the GOP; and most the GOP doves (remember Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Georgie Aiken of Vermont and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky?) have largely fled to the Democrats. Probably not that great of a development.
Comment by Mrs. O. —
March 11, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
I really, really have a problem with the word “hausfrau” as a shorthand term for those with lazy intellects and fairly shallow interests. True hausfraus are anything but lazy. I have to get back to my Nora Roberts novel now.
Comment by Mrs. O. —
March 11, 2010 @ 8:15 pm
BTW, about your return to blogging? About damn time.
Comment by Dog's New Clothes —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:04 pm
I agree with the others about Mr. Henley’s return.
And Big Lebowski references? That’s IOZ’s territory! Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course.
Comment by Mona —
March 11, 2010 @ 9:57 pm
Mrs O.: I wondered whether some would be displeased at the hausfrau word, but really, that is an accurate category of the cohort that keeps the $$multibillion bodice-ripper industry afloat. Not usually the wimmin pursuing advanced degrees in biochemistry or, for that matter, French lit. The term really has nothing to do with how hard a homemaker works, but rather, w/ the way many of them choose to chill.
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 12, 2010 @ 12:40 am
And here I must defend my wife’s reading habits. For serious!
Years ago TNR reviewed one of Prince Charles’s dreary books on architecture and in the course of if compared his intellect unfavorably to Diana’s. “Really bright people,” the reviewer said, “read everything they can get their hands on.” That is Mrs. O. People like her, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and a bunch of female SF fans on the internet who are also unabashed romance readers have helped me overcome much if not all of my prejudices against the genre.
Contrariwise, the “hausfraus” in the main entry were folks who tended to read only romance novels, with maybe a sideline in family sagas.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 12, 2010 @ 10:13 am
But only the Paul libertarians and Buchananite sector of nationalists in the GOP seem to get it.
Well, there are at least a few on the left as well…(Kucinich Dems?)…
Comment by Jim Henley —
March 12, 2010 @ 11:18 am
Hi Eric: I read Ken as talking specifically about who on the Right “gets it,” not as saying that Buchananites and Paulites are the only people who see sense on these issues in the country at large.
Ken should feel free to correct me if I misread him.
Comment by dhex —
March 12, 2010 @ 1:55 pm
“Really bright people,” the reviewer said, “read everything they can get their hands on.”
that’s remarkably silly. i don’t think a singular literary fixation is any real indication of anything but one’s taste in reading materials.
there are some really bright people who only read comics or genre fiction stuff or whatever. there’s some dumbass folk who read a far wider variety. hell, some people just plain don’t like fiction, or just really like only one kind.
i.e. i have a friend who can pull apart anything mechanical and make it work again (and who teaches schoolkids how to make robots) and he reads virtually nothing but comics. i don’t think his life is any less rich than mine because i’d rather be reading ulysses or whatever; it’s just his.
who knows what these hausfraus were doing in their other spare time?
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 12, 2010 @ 3:25 pm
Ah, Jim, you are probably right. Apologies Mr. Ken, sir
Comment by Ken Hoop —
March 12, 2010 @ 7:10 pm
You had it right, Jim. Pretty sure there was (barely heard) talk of a Paul/Kucinich ticket at one time. Or as Eric might have it, Kucinich/Paul.
Comment by Walter in Denver —
March 13, 2010 @ 10:19 am
Whew. For a moment I thought I was being called out.