Friday, June 03, 2005
The stuff of legends
Shannon Sullivan refiled her recall-West petition, and it was approved this time. A group of temporary allies has formed behind her (a bit closer than binocular distance at last) and set up a web page to coordinate the effort. The web page isn't complete yet, but the motives of the main 'insider' are comforting.
Having focused my own binoculars a little better (which isn't an unpleasant task!) I can see why support was so slow to gather. Leaving aside the unique power-hunger motives of the Cowles empire, the pro- and anti-West teams go like this:
Anti: the homosexual activists and their allies (Episcopalians, etc.) who have always hated West because he's conservative. They've just been spoiling for a good chance to ring the hypocrisy bell, and they're enthusiastically clanging it now.
Pro: rather small at this point, since the business establishment and the state Republican 'party' have finally turned against him. His only defenders are the legalists or Philistines, who believe that mechanistic Process is the Lord of Lords.
Sullivan was standing alone for a couple of weeks because her motives were outside the playbooks. She simply didn't want such a man as Mayor.
In an earlier and freer America, Sullivan would have been the subject of folk songs or legends. Now, because her basic motive is unutterable, she gets a reluctant Warholian 14.9 minutes.
[PS: The petition isn't really blank; my TV capture system is just defective!] ¶ 9:08 AM
Shannon Sullivan refiled her recall-West petition, and it was approved this time. A group of temporary allies has formed behind her (a bit closer than binocular distance at last) and set up a web page to coordinate the effort. The web page isn't complete yet, but the motives of the main 'insider' are comforting.
Having focused my own binoculars a little better (which isn't an unpleasant task!) I can see why support was so slow to gather. Leaving aside the unique power-hunger motives of the Cowles empire, the pro- and anti-West teams go like this:
Anti: the homosexual activists and their allies (Episcopalians, etc.) who have always hated West because he's conservative. They've just been spoiling for a good chance to ring the hypocrisy bell, and they're enthusiastically clanging it now.
Pro: rather small at this point, since the business establishment and the state Republican 'party' have finally turned against him. His only defenders are the legalists or Philistines, who believe that mechanistic Process is the Lord of Lords.
Sullivan was standing alone for a couple of weeks because her motives were outside the playbooks. She simply didn't want such a man as Mayor.
In an earlier and freer America, Sullivan would have been the subject of folk songs or legends. Now, because her basic motive is unutterable, she gets a reluctant Warholian 14.9 minutes.
[PS: The petition isn't really blank; my TV capture system is just defective!] ¶ 9:08 AM
