Posted on 10/23/2007 6:14:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Living in 21st-century America is about -- so I gather, from living there -- leaving behind the awful memories of exploitative acts perpetrated by the old white male ruling caste and, from here on, incorporating into our lives and loves Barack Obama? Hillary Clinton? Barney Frank?
"What about Bobby Jindal?" I would reply. What about the newly elected Republican governor of Louisiana, the son of Hindu immigrants and a convert to Roman Catholicism? And a conservative -- a believer in markets, limited government, intelligent design, the sacred character of unborn life and the power of the Lord God Almighty?
Aren't we going to have to clear a little space for Americans who, like Jindal, age 36, see in America something vital, something wholesome, something energizing and exciting, over against the "colonialist" stereotype the left loves to perpetrate?
You bet. Starting now. Starting with Congressman Bobby Jindal, governor-elect of Louisiana.
A few of us have lived too many years to recommend putting infinite trust in politicians, individually or collectively. What we have also come to understand along the way is the sterility of the appeal to past horrors and misdeeds when, please, give us a break, can't we just get on with life? Do we have to have the Rev. Al Sharpton, The New York Times editorial page, Harvard and the Episcopal Church's national bureaucracy whanging American culture in order to even the score against racism, sexism, age-ism, homophobia, age discrimination and a handful of like afflictions?
Let's look: Louisiana gives its governorship to a Hindu and pro-life conservative -- by a 53 percent majority. Something goes on here. What it is, I think, is the desire to go on -- to get a few things done for a change, such as pull Louisiana out of its moral and economic swamp.
According to "progressive" orthodoxy, Louisiana's present governor, Kathleen Blanco, should be just the ticket: moderate-to-liberal and, better still, a woman. Blanco's trouble was, when Katrina blew in, she fiddled and fumbled. Nor did matters improve during the recovery phase. She lacked, seemingly, the will or the means to counter Louisiana's ages-old reputation for moral and ethical laxity. It was going to take an outsider to lead the state down a new path. Enter Bobby Jindal, Rhodes scholar and whiz kid.
Now by all rights -- if you buy into liberal, aren't-those-Southerners-just-too-much stereotypes -- Louisianians should have shrieked to see a man of Asian extraction asking to be its governor. As in say, Armand, you reckon this guy learned his English taking service calls for Hewlett-Packard?
Not quite, Billy Bob, he learned it in the good old USA, along with some positive traits once associated with citizens of that country, including honesty, ambition and hard work.
Louisiana saw Jindal, heard the words and didn't give a Confederate durn whether his folks were from Mississippi or the Ganges. Gov. Blanco didn't choose to run. The second-place finisher, a Democrat, got just 18 percent of the vote. Louisiana handed its future to an ethnic Indian.
We're seeing the future, and it may or may not work. It certainly isn't the world in which we "older" folk grew up, what with all the international comings and goings. What is entrancing about Bobby Jindal, an internationalist to his fingertips, is his easy appropriation of American ideals and modes. He represents in many ways the hopeful, as opposed to the divisive, character of immigration: the sense that good is good, wherever it originated.
Who knows where all this is going? All we really can know is that, when Louisiana elects a Catholic, abortion-opposing Indian to lead it out of a mess perpetrated by generations of, shall we say, old-style Americans, opportunities of a new sort open up.
Can we someday agree that talent and integrity and vision are the attributes voters want to reward, rather than skill at rekindling burned-out resentments, pounding people for whatever happened, or didn't happen, in another time and place? It could be that the debate begins in Louisiana.
We all know the only reason he won is because Rove had all the blacks killed in LA so his puppets could win.
(In case that person who on another thread wasn’t able to figure out I am being sarcastic....The sarcasm lamp is now lit)
On DU, they have all sorts of wacky theories. Why is it if a republican wins, its vote fraud but if a Dummie wins, everything was on the up and up?
A Republican? I thought the Democrats were in control these days. How does a Republican get voted in with all the anti-war sentiment roiling through the nation? It looks like bad days ahead for the Democrat party.
If he's a convert to Roman Catholicism, then he can't be a Hindu.
Otherwise, it's a good article.
I can only imagine. I am looking forward to PJ-Comix DUmmie FUnnies
That’s right, Bush blew up the levees and personally flooded the 9th ward and sent them all off to Texas so that the oppressors could take over. Its good to see someone else here who understands what’s really going on.
Bobby being called a Hindu is kind of like James Carville being called a human. At one point in their lives it was accurate, at least the Hindu part for Bobby.
I am sure that one will be ripe with humor.
I swear the DU is the reason that aluminum foil prices have sky rocketed.
These people must be covering their whole bodies not just their heads with it.
One of them actually said that Karl Rove was the one who ran the clean up of NO.
And we all know that Karl Rove is the most evil genius in teh world. he made the hurricane happen and then he killed all the democrats!
I think Jindal is a Catholic. I don’t know if he’s a convert or from an Indian Catholic family. There are many Catholics in the most progressive part of India, and in fact there are important Indian clergy in the Vatican now and India will probably be quite significant in the future of the Church.
JINDAL is Punjabi means they are Hindu converts .
Catholics in India have names like FERNANDES ` FERNANADEZ D’SOUZA ` D`MONTE ` D`MELLO ` MENDES ` ALVES ` GONZALEZ `PERRIRA ` ETC .
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