I have two questions:

1. Is George HW Bush's jacket flame retardant?

2. Is that Jeb Bush or Peter Brady? I immediately thought of "When It's Time to Change" when I saw him.

My memory may be faulty. But I seem to recall that when George HW ran for congress back in the 60's, holding the coat over the shoulder that way was a kind of "trademark."

Thanks, Charles, that link cracked me up. Good to see that Debutaunt is doing snarkily well, too.

Bill, that's right, George H.W. did pose that way in his congressional campaigns. Must be a family joke. (This looks like it's from 1970 or 1971, judging from the ages of the kids, including the jerky-looking guy in his early 20s, with the cigarette.)

I think someone captured that image off an Austin Powers movie.

For an updated picture and what it may all mean:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_digbysblog_archive.html#116553315080957566

Hullabaloo
Thursday, December 07, 2006

The Aristocrats

by digby

snip

It reminded me of this article by Phil Agre from a few years back ...:

From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people and their allies are the conservatives.

The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. Of course this notion sounds bizarre to modern ears, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Burke. Democracy, for them, is not about the mechanisms of voting and office-holding. In fact conservatives hold a wide variety of opinions about such secondary formal matters. For conservatives, rather, democracy is a psychological condition. People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority are conservatives; democrats, by contrast, believe that they are of equal social worth. Conservatism is the antithesis of democracy. This has been true for thousands of years.

....

There's been a lot of rightwing populist talk in recent years and plenty of econobabble about "the ownership society" and the rest. Modern conservatism's most successful strategy was to merge public relations and politics into a seamless operation in which it could use modern marketing methods to convince people to vote against their own interests.

snip

...............

see:

URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12699486/paul_krugman_on_the_great_wealth_transfer

Rollingstone.com

Back to Paul Krugman on the Great Wealth Transfer

The Great Wealth Transfer

It's the biggest untold economic story of our time: more of the nation's bounty held in fewer and fewer hands. And Bush's tax cuts are only making the problem worse

PAUL KRUGMAN