Saturday, February 26, 2005

Chris Rock - The William F-ing Buckley of stand-up

Rock has joked that joining a political party is like joining a gang; of his own political beliefs, he says on crime he's conservative, on prostitution he's liberal. But at bottom, there's no denying the right-leaning strain underlying his social commentary. Even his economic outlook is Republican: Black people, he says, would do well to take their money out of rims and put it into stocks.

Comments:

Well, if he is a right-winger, he certainly is no fan of Dubya.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2005/story/0,15583,1425309,00.html

Often characterised as a right-winger, Rock strenuously resists being pigeonholed. "I've got some shit I'm conservative about and some shit I'm liberal about," he says in the show. "Crime - I'm conservative. Prostitution - I'm liberal." He voted Kerry but expected Bush to win, is loosely patriotic but is understanding of anti-Americanism. "America is the most powerful country in the world and I think every intelligent country should be concerned about what's going on here," he says. "I've got no beef with Brits objecting to our election outcome. I applaud that. I'll tell you right now, Americans don't care about what's going on in other countries." Are they aware that Tony Blair is widely considered to be George Bush's bitch? "Listen, people in America don't know the difference between Tony Blair and Dizzee Rascal!"

The average American brain, he says, is easily distracted - this is what allows Bush to continue his military rampage unabated. In his show, he speculates that "Bush sent that kid to Michael Jackson's house... Bush was fucking Paris Hilton in that video - all to get your mind off the war." Is he really a conspiracy theorist? "I don't know," he says. "But being a black American you know there's going to be a lot of shady dealings going on. You just have to factor that in to everything you do. We are a country with slave owners on our money. I have a wallet full of slave-owners."
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I know a lot of people that would be considered right-wing or at least right-of-center , who aren't particularly big fans of George W. Bush.

I find that generally people in the business of raunchy, offensive comedy tend to be libertarians even if they aren't Libertarians. It's really the only political persuasion that guarantees support for their freedom of expression. Not the "family values" right, not the "politically correct" left.