There He Goes Again
"[A]t least Republicans respect Americans enough to tell us what they really think."
That's not worth dignifying with an insult. But I'll try.
Republicans say that the deficit and debt are existential threats. But if they honestly believed that, they'd support SOME tax increases if only to save the country from ruin. What they really believe is that the social safety net -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- should be dismantled and capitalism left to work its magic unregulated, and the rabble left unprotected.
Bush and Reagan ran up the debt and deficit to create a crisis -- starve the beast, they called it -- so they could dismantle the New Deal. Grover Norquist and his GOP marionettes want to "strangle government in the bathtub," or some weird construction like that.
You Lie!
But no, David, they won't tell us that. Because they don't respect us enough, and because they know they'll be pilloried at the polls.
David, you're still struggling with intellectual honesty. Try harder.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Straw Dog
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/16/opinion/brooks-the-planning-fallacy.html
Brooks writes: "Over the past decades, Americans have developed an absurd view of the power of government. Many voters seem to think that government has the power to protect them from the consequences of their sins. Then they get angry and cynical when it turns out that it can’t."
Says Who?
Oldest trick in the book: Set up a straw dog, and tear it down. What evidence does he have that ANYONE feels the government should solve all their problems?
The problem is just the opposite: Over the decades, the government, a powerful referee when it wants to be, has withdrawn from the arena and let the powerful interests run amok. That's how we got this latest financial crisis, by eliminating regulations, distinctions and protections. That's not creating free markets; that's picking winners and losers.
Loser!
Ultimately, the loser is capitalism, because when the government withdraws as the ref, powerful interests combine and distort the market, and consumers get run over.
The whole argument over lots of government vs. minimal government -- Rick Perry's notion of making the FEDERAL government "inconsequential" in people's lives (never the state gov, of course) -- isn't about left or right or free markets or socialism. It's about protecting capitalism in the long term by softening its roughest edges.
Thrown Under the Wheel
Capitalism has always been recognized as a rough system; it's great if you're among its winners, but it's brutal on the losers, and there will always be losers. No one wants go get rid of it; we just want to make sure that someone is there to help those who would otherwise get crushed under its wheels.
That's what will protect capitalism in the long run by ensuring people don't turn against it.
Brooks, you fool!
Brooks writes: "Over the past decades, Americans have developed an absurd view of the power of government. Many voters seem to think that government has the power to protect them from the consequences of their sins. Then they get angry and cynical when it turns out that it can’t."
Says Who?
Oldest trick in the book: Set up a straw dog, and tear it down. What evidence does he have that ANYONE feels the government should solve all their problems?
The problem is just the opposite: Over the decades, the government, a powerful referee when it wants to be, has withdrawn from the arena and let the powerful interests run amok. That's how we got this latest financial crisis, by eliminating regulations, distinctions and protections. That's not creating free markets; that's picking winners and losers.
Loser!
Ultimately, the loser is capitalism, because when the government withdraws as the ref, powerful interests combine and distort the market, and consumers get run over.
The whole argument over lots of government vs. minimal government -- Rick Perry's notion of making the FEDERAL government "inconsequential" in people's lives (never the state gov, of course) -- isn't about left or right or free markets or socialism. It's about protecting capitalism in the long term by softening its roughest edges.
Thrown Under the Wheel
Capitalism has always been recognized as a rough system; it's great if you're among its winners, but it's brutal on the losers, and there will always be losers. No one wants go get rid of it; we just want to make sure that someone is there to help those who would otherwise get crushed under its wheels.
That's what will protect capitalism in the long run by ensuring people don't turn against it.
Brooks, you fool!
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Hoax of Climate Change?
Whoever said the point of a Green economy was to create full employment? It's to ensure that there's enough energy to sustain human habitation and industry after the fossil fuel runs out.
Have Faith
The same people who believe climate change is a hoax because there's no 100 percent, definitive, scientific proof don't believe in science. But they do believe in the omnipotence of an unseen force somewhere in the heavens for which there is not a shred of empirical evidence, let alone proof.
We're Doomed
We're Doomed
And Obama is an enabler of our destruction by not standing in the way.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Nice Boy, Long Way From Home
Sometimes it’s so hard to know where to begin responding to a David Brooks column. This one's a Dusey.
Whose morality is he extolling? Is Brooks suggesting that young people look to those community oriented paragons of ethics and morality who favor torture, unprovoked war; manipulation of public opinion; aggrandizement of the wealthy; elimination of the social safety net; vilification of racial and religious minorities, the poor and the politically and economically powerless; the apotheosis of guns over public safety; and the exploitation of homeowners?
Role Models?
Whom should those young people emulate? Grover Norquist? Eric Cantor? Jamie Dimon? Newt Gingrich? If so, kudos to those immoral, empty young people for choosing a different path.
If Brooks had any sense of intellectual honesty or political courage, he’d apply his analysis to the grownups who ran this country into the ground, and who are itching for another crack at it.
As for rabid consumerism, puh-leeze. That’s the backbone of this economy. Where’ve you been? The problem we’re having is that people aren’t spending enough on stuff. After 9/11, Bush told us to go shop. I don't recall hearing any acceptance of personal accountability by anyone in the Bush administration for all their failures and missteps.
But 18 year olds are held to a higher standard? Hoo-kay, then.
He a Smart Feller!
This is a classic Brooks column in another respect: its pretentious catalog of references to (mostly) obscure academics and researchers. I counted nine:
Nice Boy, Long Way From Home
David, you’re probably a very nice person. But you’re wildly out of touch and in over your head as a social thinker.
Whose morality is he extolling? Is Brooks suggesting that young people look to those community oriented paragons of ethics and morality who favor torture, unprovoked war; manipulation of public opinion; aggrandizement of the wealthy; elimination of the social safety net; vilification of racial and religious minorities, the poor and the politically and economically powerless; the apotheosis of guns over public safety; and the exploitation of homeowners?
Role Models?
Whom should those young people emulate? Grover Norquist? Eric Cantor? Jamie Dimon? Newt Gingrich? If so, kudos to those immoral, empty young people for choosing a different path.
If Brooks had any sense of intellectual honesty or political courage, he’d apply his analysis to the grownups who ran this country into the ground, and who are itching for another crack at it.
As for rabid consumerism, puh-leeze. That’s the backbone of this economy. Where’ve you been? The problem we’re having is that people aren’t spending enough on stuff. After 9/11, Bush told us to go shop. I don't recall hearing any acceptance of personal accountability by anyone in the Bush administration for all their failures and missteps.
But 18 year olds are held to a higher standard? Hoo-kay, then.
He a Smart Feller!
This is a classic Brooks column in another respect: its pretentious catalog of references to (mostly) obscure academics and researchers. I counted nine:
- Christian Smith
- Kari Christoffersen
- Hilary Davidson
- Patricia Snell Herzog
- Allan Bloom
- Gertrude Himmelfarb
- Alasdair MacIntyre
- Charles Taylor
- James Davison Hunter
Nine citations? In a 15-paragraph column? OK, we get it: You read a lot. You're smart. You like abstruse stuff. You're recondite. But all these citations constitute the mark of a writer who develops his material by reading others’ stuff instead of doing his own living and reporting. It reads like a college term paper.
Nice Boy, Long Way From Home
David, you’re probably a very nice person. But you’re wildly out of touch and in over your head as a social thinker.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
What's His Point?
What's the subtext in Dave's column dismissing Green industry as unable to unilaterally create full employment (Sept. 6, 2011 column)? That climate change is a hoax? Or that the science, as Rick Perry says, is "not settled"? Pardon me, but since when is 100 percent certainty the criterion for public policy?
We weren't 100 percent certain that ...
You see?
We do lots of things that we're not sure -- absolutely, positively sure -- will work. But we do 'em anyway. Like voting. And what a waste of time that's turned out to be.
What if there is global warming?
We'll only know for sure by the time it's too late to do anything about it.
What's the subtext in Dave's column dismissing Green industry as unable to unilaterally create full employment (Sept. 6, 2011 column)? That climate change is a hoax? Or that the science, as Rick Perry says, is "not settled"? Pardon me, but since when is 100 percent certainty the criterion for public policy?
We weren't 100 percent certain that ...
- Saddam had WMD, but we went to war anyway
- the Bush tax cuts would destroy the budget, but Congress enacted them anyway
- a nuclear arsenal would deter the Soviets (we still don't know that they did, but we can probably say that we don't know that they didn't)
- repealing regulations on business will lead to 20 percent GDP growth, 106 percent employment, and the Second Coming of Christ, but there's a lot of agitation for it
- Rick Perry would make a really lousy president, but he's running anyway
- there's an ominipotent, omniscient, ageless, timeless, unseen, bearded being in the sky, but lots of people believe it anyway, despite there being ZERO evidence for it
You see?
We do lots of things that we're not sure -- absolutely, positively sure -- will work. But we do 'em anyway. Like voting. And what a waste of time that's turned out to be.
What if there is global warming?
We'll only know for sure by the time it's too late to do anything about it.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Hitting the Trifecta
In today's column, Dave dissects and dismisses the federal government's support for Green industries by saying it's failed to create jobs in the short term, so let's just all give up and commit suicide. He writes:
"The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated in April 2009 that green jobs could account for 10 percent of new job growth over the next 30 years. Alas, it was not to be. The gigantic public investments in green energy may be stimulating innovation and helping the environment. But they are not evidence that the government knows how to create private-sector jobs." Our emphasis.
Awful Argumentation
Last time I checked, 30 years from 2009 would be 2039, not 2011. That's speeding up the timetable just a bit.
Intellectual Dishonesty
Notwithstanding that closely watched bellewether of public policy the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who ever said that the purpose of green industries was to create jobs in the short-term? Or to create jobs at all?
The purposes of green industry are to ensure there's energy after the fossil fuel runs out; to ensure the environment is at least moderately habitable for human existence and activity; and to keep up with the Chineses, who apparently are outdoing us in this sector.
Obscure References
"In 2009, Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School published a useful book called 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams.' He found that for each instance in which the government has successfully promoted entrepreneurial activity, there is a pile of instances in which it failed."
Yes, we've all read Lerner's tendentious analysis, but what about Kadiddlhoffer's counterargument? What? You haven't read Kadiddlehoffer? And you call yourself informed? Fool.
"The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated in April 2009 that green jobs could account for 10 percent of new job growth over the next 30 years. Alas, it was not to be. The gigantic public investments in green energy may be stimulating innovation and helping the environment. But they are not evidence that the government knows how to create private-sector jobs." Our emphasis.
Awful Argumentation
Last time I checked, 30 years from 2009 would be 2039, not 2011. That's speeding up the timetable just a bit.
Intellectual Dishonesty
Notwithstanding that closely watched bellewether of public policy the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who ever said that the purpose of green industries was to create jobs in the short-term? Or to create jobs at all?
The purposes of green industry are to ensure there's energy after the fossil fuel runs out; to ensure the environment is at least moderately habitable for human existence and activity; and to keep up with the Chineses, who apparently are outdoing us in this sector.
Obscure References
"In 2009, Josh Lerner of Harvard Business School published a useful book called 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams.' He found that for each instance in which the government has successfully promoted entrepreneurial activity, there is a pile of instances in which it failed."
Yes, we've all read Lerner's tendentious analysis, but what about Kadiddlhoffer's counterargument? What? You haven't read Kadiddlehoffer? And you call yourself informed? Fool.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
David Brooks's Struggle With Political Ambiguity
Don't Let the Door Knock Your Ass on the Way Out
From Dave's Aug. 30, 2011, column: "Recently I did a little reporting from Kenya and Tanzania before taking a safari with my family. We stayed in--"
Thank you. Next!
You gotta be kidding with this one.
Not So Communal After All
Dave reminisces about the easy "warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality" of orthodox Lubavitchers. The irony here is delish: He finds conviviality among a weird, narrow religious sect that segregates itself from the rest of the community, and that even segregates itself from itself by gender.
Is Brooks a Closeted Liberal?
That's been obvious for years. He's always pulling his punches on Republican intransigence, but he never really extols the hard conservative line. And he sure ain't no Tea Bagger.
You get the sense from his columns that he's your basic vanilla moderate. That's why NPR loves him for the house Conservative. He's harmless. Not like those wild-eyed wingnuts Bachmann, Limbaugh, Beck and the Pauls.
Today's column, on the family's African safari, is a good example of DB's struggle with his political ambiguity. He's promoting communitarianism and the mixing of the classes, two very unconservative notions. "Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability." Better, he says, to stay at Comfort Inn than at the Four Seasons.
Leaving aside the ferchachta notion that anyone with more than $50 in his wallet would stay at a Comfort Inn, the point here is that he's a nice, harmless mensch. Can't he come out and tell his family about it? If they love him, they'll accept him the way he is. If they don't, fuck 'em.
Obscure References
"[T]he prominent scholars Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson."
Right. We've all read their landmark research on happiness.
Oy vey.
You gotta be kidding with this one.
Not So Communal After All
Dave reminisces about the easy "warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality" of orthodox Lubavitchers. The irony here is delish: He finds conviviality among a weird, narrow religious sect that segregates itself from the rest of the community, and that even segregates itself from itself by gender.
Is Brooks a Closeted Liberal?
That's been obvious for years. He's always pulling his punches on Republican intransigence, but he never really extols the hard conservative line. And he sure ain't no Tea Bagger.
You get the sense from his columns that he's your basic vanilla moderate. That's why NPR loves him for the house Conservative. He's harmless. Not like those wild-eyed wingnuts Bachmann, Limbaugh, Beck and the Pauls.
Today's column, on the family's African safari, is a good example of DB's struggle with his political ambiguity. He's promoting communitarianism and the mixing of the classes, two very unconservative notions. "Often, as we spend more on something, what we gain in privacy and elegance we lose in spontaneous sociability." Better, he says, to stay at Comfort Inn than at the Four Seasons.
Leaving aside the ferchachta notion that anyone with more than $50 in his wallet would stay at a Comfort Inn, the point here is that he's a nice, harmless mensch. Can't he come out and tell his family about it? If they love him, they'll accept him the way he is. If they don't, fuck 'em.
Obscure References
"[T]he prominent scholars Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson."
Right. We've all read their landmark research on happiness.
Oy vey.
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