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UNCOOKED RICE
As an enthusiastic supporter of the most parochial policies of the Bush era that are cultural poison to the majority of the Afro-American community, Rice's image has morphed into an Afro-American version of Benedict Arnold: Michael Carmichael
All the neocon mirrors are at the cabinet table now but the true face of the administration will no longer be hiding behind the mask of Powell ~ but will be the face of Condoleeza Rice and her soon to be appointed Deputy Sec of State ~ super hawk John Bolton.
Can Rice handle the pressure cooker of a world which largely distrusts the Bush Administration and its neo-conservative preemptive agenda.
Her agenda will be the Cheney/Bush agenda without the moderate influence of Powell and do remember ~ Rice carries the baggage of being one of the primary perpetrators of misinformation for justifying the war with Iraq ~ as well as a troubling bias in favor of Israel's most brutal and repressive policies.
Michael Carmichael, Planetarymovement.org, describes Rice as a privileged child of the Wallace era with no visible role in the civil rights movement. His insightful and scathing commentary is an excellent primer in trying to understand the now clearly defined face of the Cheney/Bush Administration.
Excerpt: " Her religious extremism, her neoconservativism and her personality all mitigate against her ability to bring sufficient depth of vision and empathy for the foreign governments and peoples with whom she must deal as Secretary of State......Her political extremism has alienated her from the vast majority of the Afro-American community in America. Arising from this estrangement from her cultural roots, Rice's global reputation is that of a traitor to the ideals and values of her long-suffering ethnic group ."
Allen L Roland
Condoleezza Rice, Child of the Wallace Era
11/16/04
Condoleezza Rice was the daughter of an ordained Presbyterian minister in Birmingham, Alabama.
Her's was one of the most respected, wealthy and influential Afro-American families in the apartheid Alabama of George and Lurleen Wallace.
The Rice family were that rare breed of middle class Black Republicans, and they had no visible role in the civil rights movement. For this reason, they acquired their reputation as collaborationists comfortably acquiescing to the white supremacist agenda of the Wallace Era.
As a child, Rice's pious father instructed her in the strictest construction of the scriptures, a training that was tantamount to a lifelong indoctrination in that peculiarly Southern form of extremist fundamentalism.
Rewarded for being Republican, Afro-American and female, she swiftly moved upwards through the academic system as America's most visible product of affirmative action. She served in the Bush (41) White House on the National Security staff, where she was regarded as a specialist in the now defunct USSR. After leaving government, she became Provost at Stanford, where she adopted a high-profile and hard-hitting right wing agenda including stern opposition to all affirmative action policies. During her Provostship, she reportedly engineered the departure of Afro-Americans from the faculty who were to be replaced by whites. Because of these and other personal peculiarities, she was thoroughly unpopular at Stanford.
In addition to her ultra-conservative policies, she also worked for the US oil corporation, Chevron. Appointed to the board through her political connections, Rice made a good deal of money and had the well known Chevron tanker named after her.
In the Bush (43) White House, her popularity with the president is attributed to his personal affinity for her ability to justify hard right-wing agendas and her personal religious conservatism. She frequently leads prayer groups in the West Wing and aboard Air Force One. Combining the religious fervor of a charismatic evangelical fundamentalist with the orthodox neoconservative attitudes to foreign policy, she has many comfortable and close associations with the hard right in Israel's Likud Party. Exhibiting what is often seen to be a troubling bias in favor of Israel's most repressive policies, she is universally mistrusted for what is perceived to be her anti-Islamic prejudice.
Her personal life is reported to be ascetic and austere. In Washington, she lives in an apartment at the Watergate and routinely socializes with her mother. She has never been married. According to published reports in Washington journals, Rice has yet to provide evidence of any serious or mature interest in male companionship. As an enthusiastic supporter of the most parochial policies of the Bush era that are cultural poison to the majority of the Afro-American community, Rice's image has morphed into an Afro-American version of Benedict Arnold. Her political extremism has alienated her from the vast majority of the Afro-American community in America. Arising from this estrangement from her cultural roots, Rice's global reputation is that of a traitor to the ideals and values of her long-suffering ethnic group.
Clearly, her first assignment as Secretary of State will be to support the hardline Israeli policy restricting Palestinian rights and repressing their ambitions for a lasting peace, a task particularly suited to her peculiar religious ideology.
In Southern fundamentalism, a well-established canon involves racial disdain for the descendants of Ham, the Biblical justification for racism and white supremacy that is a virulent doctrine amongst the protestant right in the American south, including some ultra-conservative congregations of Southern Presbyterians.
Her religious extremism, her neoconservativism and her personality all mitigate against her ability to bring sufficient depth of vision and empathy for the foreign governments and peoples with whom she must deal as Secretary of State.
Colin Powell's tenure in that office will be remembered as a period of precipitous loss of American standing in the world. The appointment of Rice does nothing to redress the failures of the Powell era, and it may well multiply them beyond even the wildest expectations now surfacing in dreaded anticipation of her arrival at her new desk in early 2005.
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