Newshoggers Archive: Golf As Political Subtext

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Golf As Political Subtext

By Cernig

Here's an interesting report from Reuters: the South Korean President has told his offcials to stop playing golf while his country weathers a turbulent economic period - because it's an elitist smack in the face to the common people who can't afford exorbitant golf fees and their mortgage payments.

"Golf is not bad but ... as prices are unstable and the economic situation is not getting better, President Lee thinks they need to consider public sentiment," Yonhap news agency quoted a presidential Blue House official as saying.

President Bush, of course, also gave up golf for a while - probably because of a dodgy knee but he said it was as a means of sharing the sacrifice of troops at war (no, really!).

How about John "Eight Houses" McCain?Well, he promotes golf gear with his name on it from his campaign website instead.

The man who told people they should miss a vaction or tighten their budget to make their house payments has no conception of their struggles. He and his wife have private planes, seven car garages on their McMansions and a $273,000 a year domestic servant wageroll so that someone other than he or his wife will find his ties for him. He pays more for housekeeping than the average house is worth ($218,000). McCain spent over five times as much on servants as the typical household earns in an entire year. And since Arizona is a joint-property State, his excuse that it all belongs to his wife is just spin.

McCain even managed to get Bush to go back on his golf embargo and thus disrespect the troops - at a golfing fundraiser for the McCain campaign.

What a difference between McCain and the South Korean leader President Lee Myung-bak. One understands the common people, the other doesn't.

Which brings me to the music running through my head today. Pulp: Common People.