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| FDNY's Moran: "Kiss my royal Irish ass!" |
| 2001-10-22 |
It does occur to me, however, that this current cultural momentâthis moment during which the best, coolest thing you can be in New York is a burly firemen, or else one of the prole cops whom, as recently as early September in some of the more ideologically refined neighborhoods, it was customary to despiseâisnât going to last much longer. Todayâs New York Post reports: âWild applause shook Madison Square Garden when Michael Moran, 38, delivered his in-your-face patriotic message to the terror chief: âKiss my royal Irish ass!ââ (Moran, the Post explains, lost his brother, also a firemen, on Sept. 11.) The Post subsequently asked Moran what heâd do if he encountered bin Laden in an alley. âIâd put my hands around his throat and bite off his nose,â the fireman replied. Itâs going to be interesting to see how long the New York City ruling class puts up with this sort of thing: firemen running around using salty dialect in public and threatening men of color with violence from the Madison Square Garden stage; Irish proletarian behemoths acting all uppity about themselves, swaggering from their traditional reservations in Staten Island and the Yankee Stadium bleachers to impose themselves on the genteel consciousness; working-class cops getting photographed for Vanity Fair and laid every time they walk into a bar. Had Moran threatened to corporally punish bin Laden on Sept. 10, Hillary Clinton would have denounced him, in her Midwestern drone, as a genocidal racist, Mark Green would have suggested prosecuting him in accordance with federal hate-crimes statutes and a deputation of the more freethinking bourgeoisie would have picketed his firehouse and screamed insults at him every time he rolled out of the station on his truck. He might have been forced to attend a course in sensitivity training. How long can this inversion of the New York social orderâthe cops are more beloved than Hillary Clinton, and get to swear at her; the firemen are onstage with Michael J. Foxâlast in New York? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |