Uncle Sugar Rorschach

[Joel S. Berson]

At 1/25/2014 10:15 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Mike Huckabee has employed the phrase "Uncle Sugar" in a speech lambasting
>(wait for it) Democrats for "making [women]  believe that they are helpless
>without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each
>month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their
>reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it...."
>...
>The point is that people were speculating about 1. what "Uncle Sugar" might
>possibly mean, and 2. (wait for it) whether it's racist. or 3. (wait for
>it) sexist.
>
>Somebody ventured the opinion that it was a sexist reference to a "sugar
>daddy." Anchor Victor Blackwell said he'd thought Mike was comparing the
>federal government "to a pimp."

Of course it was -- both of the above -- in Huckabee's intent.  He's
using it to add these negative associations to "(present) United
States government", and thus tar the Democrats.


>  Conservatives since McCarthy days have used "Uncle Sugar" derisively  to
>refer to liberal fiscal and welfare policies.
>
>That's because "sugar," in the '40s, was still a familiar synonym for
>"money." Get it? "Uncle Sugar." How clever!
>
>Anyway, Cain of CNN lamented Huckabee's use of "an obsolete slang term for
>the federal government" as the GOP is trying to "improve its brand."  Such
>usage, he said, "reeks of old man."

And "libidinous old man".

Also, I have not heard any commentator -- and I would expect feminist
commentators to -- ask why women's libidos need controlling but men's
do not.  Huckabee I can understand -- after all, to a fundamentalist
women's lust is what lures men into sin.

Joel


>JL

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