No, No Bobo
Today David Brooks offers the most dishonest, morally-degenerate column I have read in, maybe, years. Srsly. Brooks is so worried about class-based left populism that he’s willing to concede culturally-reactionary rightwing populism “equally” sucks just so he can give the appearance of even-handedly condemning the supposed excess of all populist movements, whose anger and sincerity scare professional gasbags for whom politics is a game. Then he fakey-fakely positions himself as, at the same time, anti-elitist — more bullshit even-handedness — so he can pretend his take is, yes, sensible, centrist, reasonable, disinterested etc. etc. barf. and not what it actually is: an inky-lubed handjob for the wealthy criminal class.
Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds.
David Brooks is among that “some,” but he has his Mr. Pop Sociology hat on here, so he speaks from disinterest and objectivity and.. right.
The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.
Yeah, though racists are more specifically people who say things like… well, like what David Brooks said about Haiti. But that’s neither here nor there; my point is Brooks’s strategery, his affect, and for what ultimate purpose. The first co-opts a liberal point; the second does as well, but is a more subtle (doesn’t immediately ring as phony) “evidence against interest” item than the first, coming from a conservative. Then there’s the third item; ding ding ding; here’s the real “tell”: those who even see class differences are the moral equivalents of racists. And to actively oppose the interests of the opposite class? Hitlerian, presumably.
So, to be Hitlerian: The interest of the wealthy is in opposition to (or, if you like, exploitation of) that of most of the non-wealthy. The lower classes have to pursue their interests explicitly, by raising hell. In contrast, the wealthy interest is pursued “structurally” — or, implicitly in the everyday culture. Because the wealthy have the power, duh. From Brooks’s point of view, this fact can’t be stated without a huge political cost — there’s no way to not appear mean-spirited. There is no equivalence in reality, so Brooks’s solution is to throw the whole class war out as an irrational fraud, based not on poor people’s alleged envy (as per the usual wingnut rationale) but on bigotry. Talk about gall.
[T]hese days populism is in vogue. The Republicans have their populists. Sarah Palin has been known to divide the country between the real Americans and the cultural elites.
And David Brooks has been known to divide Americans into “Patio Men” and “Bobos” and several other moronic stereotypes, compared to which even Sarah Palin’s in-group/out-group classifications are less contrived (and less cynical, too).
And the Democrats have their populists. Since the defeat in Massachusetts, many Democrats have apparently decided that their party has to mimic the rhetoric of John Edwards’s presidential campaign. They’ve taken to dividing the country into two supposedly separate groups — real Americans who live on Main Street and the insidious interests of Wall Street.
That’s what inspired Brooks’s article. He and his Wall Street friends really shouldn’t worry, but any little expression of discontent out there is instantly perceived as Captain Swing on the march to creeps like Brooks.
Parenthetically, I wish he’d name just one of the “many Democrats” who have to “mimic John Edwards.” Of course he can’t; but Brooks does have Rahm Emmanuel’s and Obama’s ear (which says volumes about what kind of people they are, if you didn’t know how worthless they are already), who are emphatically not among those “many Democrats”, and they have his; is this column resultant of a signal received by Brooks, or from him, vis-a-vis the Administration? I suppose it doesn’t matter.
It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.
Again, would that any politician with any power said such things with sincerity. But Brooks’s strawman politicians notwithstanding, it is entirely righteous, which is to say accurate in the synecdoche, shorthand way, to say “Goldman Sachs” is responsible for the economic crisis even allowing for the reasons Brooks states. But part of the schtick of professional whores, pundits and economists of the wealthy criminal class is to pretend that things like economic globalization are mere phenomena, as random and impervious as the weather, and not what they actually are: processes and structures not wholly controllable once unleashed but absolutely products of design and intent.
Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.
You prick.
Brooks lost the plot here — or rather gave it away. Remember that rule I mentioned about how “even-handed” conservatives must avoid appearing mean-spirited in order for their bullshit to fly? Brooks forgot it.
Third, populism is popular with the ruling class.
Only fake populism. Real populism is crushed, often brutally, which Brooks admits later on after masturbating to footage of General MacArthur smashing the Bonus Army.
Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power.
There’s just precious little enough truth in this bullshit to sucker stupid people. Yes, both parties are cynical; their populism is fake, like I was sayin. The real issue here, which Brooks would rather stick his face in Patio Man’s flaming barbecue grill than admit, is that professionals — technocrats — often “liberal” or even liberal (without quotes) if only on social issues, have been co-opted by the moral monsters with the M.B.A.s, the effect being that they all pretty much think alike philosophically and ideologically, and so only partisan, power issues remain to divide them. Incidentally, Dean Baker, one of the few decent economists living, once told me that he’d gladly board the boat if it meant all the other liberal economists would also be shipped to a desert island. With the health care fiasco demonstrating to all the effects of regulatory capture, what is often not discussed is the process, ongoing since the rise of the so-called New Class but lately at epidemic level, of what one might call “credential capture.” Anymore, to be trained as an economist (or journalist, or administrator, or lawyer, or schoolteacher) is to become a conservative, at least on economic and foreign policy issues.
So it’s easy to see the seductiveness of populism. Nonetheless, it nearly always fails. The history of populism, going back to William Jennings Bryan, is generally a history of defeat.
Right, so why would it be so “popular with the ruling class”, you putz? Becuz it’s not — at least, not when it’s sincere.
But it’s appropriate he should bring up Bryan. Like I was saying about credential capture… For at least a generation now, students have been taught to remember only two things about Bryan by liberal schoolteachers: One, that he was a creationist buffoon who capped his career by arguing for the literal interpretation of the Bible in a Tennessee courtroom and, two, that he was a dedicated (but at that time, garden-variety) racist. That these things are true is beside the point, which is that Bryan’s day was ruled by Robber Barons who believed in and practiced the crudest form of social Darwinism, and it was precisely Bryan’s admittedly primitive Christianity that caused him to oppose that system with such fervor. Bryan’s anti-imperialism and anti-interventionism is also rarely if ever mentioned. But then such a lesson might remind restless students of the parallels of Bryan’s era to ours, a real no-no. This is the triumph of Hofstadter at his worst.
That’s because voters aren’t as stupid as the populists imagine. Voters are capable of holding two ideas in their heads at one time: First, that the rich and the powerful do rig the game in their own favor; and second, that simply bashing the rich and the powerful will still not solve the country’s problems.
At last Brooks has written — if not meant — something entirely true! The public does not want the rich merely “bashed”; it wants them taxed, imprisoned, exiled, tarred-and-feathered, doused in diesel and shot by a cannon into the heart of a nuclear reactor.
Political populists never get that second point. They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.
Actually, even the tamest remedy, pushed by such pseudo- or quasi-liberals as Brad DeLong, would do much to effect exactly that: tax them even moderately, get results; tax the living shit out of them, get even better results.
In fact, this country was built by anti-populists. It was built by people like Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln who rejected the idea that the national economy is fundamentally divided along class lines. They rejected the zero-sum mentality that is at the heart of populism, the belief that economics is a struggle over finite spoils. Instead, they believed in a united national economy — one interlocking system of labor, trade and investment.
OMG. Alexander Hamilton, in a classic psychological case of over-identifying with what one is not, was perhaps the most vocal proponent of top-down class warfare in American history. If anybody could be said to have “a personality calculated to make the ill-born froth with Jacobin sentiments”, it was he. No Federalist, not Washington, not even John Adams or Governeur Morris feared and hated democracy (the rabble, the peons) like Hamilton did. As for Lincoln, he was for taxes and Big Government. David Brooks should look into Lincoln’s record as a state legislator in Illinois. But then, that’s what gets me so worked up about columns like this: Brooks is too well-read not to know this shit. He’s just name-dropping, bluffing, being a lying liar.
In their view, government’s role was not to side with one faction or to wage class war. It was to rouse the energy and industry of people at all levels. It was to enhance competition and make it fair — to make sure that no group, high or low, is able to erect barriers that would deprive Americans of an open field and a fair chance. Theirs was a philosophy that celebrated development, mobility and work, wherever those things might be generated.
Why, he makes them sound just like “National Greatness” conservatives! What a coinkidink, amirite?
The populists have an Us versus Them mentality. If they continue their random attacks on enterprise and capital, they will only increase the pervasive feeling of uncertainty, which is now the single biggest factor in holding back investment, job creation and growth.
This takes the “blaming the victims” concept to a whole new level. zOMG! The Bankers’ fears of populist blowback is keeping them from reinflating the bubble! Who, indeed, will cry for the Bankers?
They will end up discrediting good policies (the Obama bank reforms are quite sensible) because they will persuade the country that the government is in the hands of reckless Huey Longs.
If you substitute the phrase “Wall Street” for “country”, which is what Brooks means exactly and is a fine encapsulation of his general POV if you know what I mean and I think you do, you can see that he’s become so hysterical it’s almost a self-parody. Rahm and Barrack and Harry and Holy Joe as Huey Longs! It is too funny forevar!
We here among the multi-generational billionaire class become extremely pained when we see the lower classes trying to create division and hatred by wanting to see some of the fruits of their labors going to, of all people, they themselves. Why can’t we all just get along, and let us ultra-rich types get everything, which is how we prefer it?
As I was saying previously, Nick Kristof may be an egomaniacal jackass with a messiah complex, but d00d is positively a dirty fucking hippie next to Applebees Brooks.
Anybody read MoDo’s column today? Talk about yer Shorter-bait.
Well, that was the smartest blog post I’ve read in a long time and now I’m even more depressed and exhausted than I was, which is a lot.
“The populists have an us vs them mentality”
more like the working classes have finally realised that the capitalist class (or perhaps ‘Big Capital’ in conservative speak) have had this mentality since forever and are beginning to fight back against them. Of course this causes everyone to shit themselves because American workers having any kind of class conciousness is a new phenomenon that might result in rich shitheads becoming slightly less rich (but still shitheads).
Also, my favorite part is where he glosses over the causes of the financial crisis by saying ‘Don’t blame goldman sachs, property bubbles or ridiculous derivative markets, it happened because china something something communism maybe?’. This wave of populism has got him so terrified that he can’t bring himself to criticise wall street in any way for fear of betraying his upper class brothers.
“If you didn’t know how worthless they are already”…
Afuckingmen. This whole post made my day.
The worst thing about David Brooks’ columns is that I can always see his face in my mind and hear his sanctimonious, bullshit-filled voice. I will admit to having yelled at/thrown things at the radio or TV when he has been on.
Two things. First, a quote from Lincoln, that apologist of the ruling class so admired of Mr. Brooks;
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Second, about this,
“Political populists never get that second point. They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.”
And yet, that’s exactly what happened in the New Deal. The rich were taxed out of their Gold Coast mansions with taxes that went up to 70 and 90 percent; that money was redistributed into programs that helped the people; the government protected and promoted unions that would ensure the safety of their members for the first time in history. And not only did that not destroy America, but it led to the greatest sustained economic boom in American history. Why do you think people, even conservatives, pining for the good old days are always talking about the 1950s and not the 1920s?
The upper class stays in power by persuading people that without them, the nation would crash and burn. With the nobility it was divine right and the fact that they were inherently morally superior to the third estate. With the capitalists, it’s the belief that they’re carrying the entire national economy on their backs and that without them the economy wouldn’t work and everyone would be even poorer. And yet, the 1932-1980 era shows that statement to be a complete and utter lie – the elites were “punished” and not only did the country not get worse, it got better.
Amazing what’ll happen when genuine populism is applied.
If they continue their random attacks on enterprise and capital, they will only increase the pervasive feeling of uncertainty, which is now the single biggest factor in holding back investment, job creation and growth.
This was straight off the Blankfein blastfax.
I felt most of Bobo’s column was boilerplate Upper East side dick-stroking, pretending to be ever so gently faux critical of the Establishment without wishing to bite the hand that feeds him. Nothing particularly surprising or original, but well-refined fodder for the gourmet burger canape set wanting their fix of the thinking-man’s li’l Tommy Friedman.
But the Blankfein memo was where Bobo flashed his banana-hammock. Obviously it can’t possibly be teh bankstas’ fault that there’s a shortage of confidence in the economy. Obviously the rest of the world should have kissed and made up with the Fed-bankrolled millionaires and pretended that nothing ever happened in the last two years to question our trust in these gilded Gandhis.
As I was saying, Bobo pitched the thinking man’s Tommy Friedman, gently telling the Establishment that flinging Chateau Lafite dipped poo at each other could foment some trouble – so just discreetly share Chateau Lafite please, and save the poo for the underclass at election time.
And Tommy Friedman duly chimed in today with the low-brow, unsubtle horseshit alternative. Different dog-whistle, same objective: plea to the Establishment to look Serious; and a message to the schlubs – the Unions – that we’re bigger tools so back the fuck off.
I wonder if Bobo thinks his column promotes dynamic optimism instead of combative divisiveness. I mean what he’s really saying is that the real problem is all those people who are blaming others for stuff. Afterall Bobo knows exactly who is at fault.
Incidentally, NYT did some sort of class-based thing half a decade ago that Brooks might want to take a look at. Something about how class mobility in the US is mostly an illusion and that income and wealth disparity is growing at prodigious rates. Findings noticed and agreed with by NPR and the WSJ.
If you want to know if there really are divisions between Wall Street and Main Street, ask Wall Street to live and work on Main Street for a while.
When you said this was the worst Brooks column ever, I thought hyperbole. Wow was I wrong! Crap that sucks. He only seems to accidentally hit the truth.
FYWP.
Just one more bit of fun with Bobo’s closing graf.
Fixed.
The one thing that Great Depression (The Sequel) has illustrated, if nothing else, is that economics IS a zero-sum game. repigs and other anti-American scum always insist it isn’t, but their grasp of real life has always been tenuous.
One Guy Wins, One Guy Loses. Call it the OGWOGL Theory – or better yet, call it the OGWOGL Reality.
When Wall Street bonuses amount to >1% of GDP (as was recently in the news), it means OGWOGL turns into OGWEEL – OGW, Everybody Else Loses.
Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.
Right. That’s what happened. It’s not like two separate administrations from two separate parties didn’t just start shoveling money into the banks and let the home owners drown. No, no, not at all like that.
Christ, am I glad HTML is back to posting.
They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “elites” whether this statement is true, actually. If you define “elite” = “pointy headed intellectual” as the right-wing pseudo-populists do when they rail against elites, then Bobo’s statement makes sense (and Bobo is a wingnut after all, so naturally he’ll use the wingnut definition of “elite”).
The statement makes sense because it’s such wingnut bete-noirs as teachers, professors, et al, who educate our kids, produce a bunch of intellectual property, etc.
But I suspect that Bobo is pretending for the sake of this column to be one of those glibertarian types who actually think that those who provide capital to business interests who license the intellectual property and hire college grads are the ones who build our economy?
Even in Atlas Shrugged, it is clear that the organization making the profits is not who actually created the intellectual property. Pace Rand, AFAIK, her own book might as well argue that capitalist elites actually hinder progress by stealing from intellectual elites who actually produce property.
And the best thing society could do to help Roark is provide teh socialized medicine so Roark could hire assistants without having to pay for health insurance for them.
Seems to me the best way our society can move ahead is to make sure John Galt doesn’t get screwed by his corporate overloards and Howard Roark has a safety-net for him and his employees in case his entrepreneurial dreams don’t quite work out (which will give him to freedom to pursue his dreams).
Of course, Bobo (and the Randroids) would denounce the very policies that would benefit Randian heros as being teh evil populist, class warrior socialism that punishes “elites” whose efforts provide jobs, etc.
…so he can pretend his take is, yes, sensible, centrist, reasonable, disinterested etc. etc. barf. and not what it actually is: an inky-lubed handjob for the wealthy criminal class.
Ah, have you read Carl LUBESdorf’s latest?
I’ve been planning a righteous screedifesto, but making paintshops of Glenn Beck as a hamster was more fun.
~
It was to rouse the energy and industry of people at all levels. It was to enhance competition and make it fair — to make sure that no group, high or low, is able to erect barriers that would deprive Americans of an open field and a fair chance. Theirs was a philosophy that celebrated development, mobility and work, wherever those things might be generated.
Hmmm Bobo … that sounds just like what liberal/progressive policies will do. And yet you call them “left wing populism”?
*
the belief that economics is a struggle over finite spoils
I always thought the talking point of Econs 101 is that economics is the study of limited resources and unlimited wants. Is Bobo an economic illiterate? If so, why should we believe anything he says about economic matters and who is being anti-economic-growth?
HTML! ‘Bout time you got your ass back in here.
Yeah, sure, we may have gambled your mortgages and deposits and retirements into these weird fictional non-regulated investment things supposedly worth dozens of times the entire Earth’s GDP, and the failure of that house of crystal cards in front of a fan eventually started falling until you nincompoops had to give us money to buy more crystal cards, but, hey, didn’t a lot of you commoners buy a big screen TV on credit?
See, we’re really all the same, and in the same boat together, although I mean that metaphorically, of course, since if you ever try to board my yacht in international waters I’ll have you shot and disappeared.
They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.
A politics rewarding the bastards certainly hasn’t worked very well at bringing us those things either.
By the way, the typical research technique used to come to this conclusion is to (a) ask the super-rich, and (b) ask the people hired to represent the super-rich.
Strangely, this research technique often comes up with tax cuts for the wealthy as a promising solution, as well as de-regulation. But they then hire people like Bobo to attempt folksy ways of spinning their greedy shit.
David Brooks is the worst Civilization IV player ever. I tell him that you can’t just build philosophers on every turn. He doesn’t listen so I take a couple of jaguar warriors and smash the shit out of his stupid society.
Wait. Maybe George has summed it up with something something communism maybe? but:
Uh-whuh? This… I… er… um… what?
I wish the PBS News Hour would revamp one more aspect of their format and ditch the predictable Friday gabfest with “Brooks and Done”
Class warfare and divisive populism:
Not class warfare and not divisive populism:
Bingo.
Nice column, HTML. Always good to see your verbose self.
because they will persuade the country that the government is in the hands of reckless Huey Longs
Huey Long wouldn’t pee in no jar!
Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt.
Yes, yes, motherfuckers who created a “count each dollar twice and stick the extra one in my G-string” system solely to further stuff their already Scrooge McDuck-sized coffers are exactly like people who have had to start putting shit on credit because their wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living.
Please, Bobo, die in a fire. Slowly.
I’d like to say David Brooks will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Unfortunatly there’s a whole lot of people that deserve it first, and we’re going to run out of walls.
Maybe this better explains the length of the Great Wall of China.
Holy frijole, can these tools just shut up for one stinking minute? Does the entire universe have to be filled to its edges, 24/7, with their in-defense-of-my-vanity bullshit?
Applebees* Man, put a friggin sock in it. Those whose egos you stroke can do just fine without your annoying-as-all-hell defense, thanks. They’re doing just dandy.
It’s always fun, though, to come across a real rootin’ tootin’ glibertarian who pines for the days of Franklin Pierce. Waltzilla Williams brings up his worship at the Pierce altar every now and then.
* Hey, I’m curious, did Boobo ever own up to this complete pantaloon-soiling? Or his editor, maybe? If anything was a solid microcosm of how out of touch Boobo is with the people he attempts to bullshit over, it was the Applebees fiasco.
Unfortunatly there’s a whole lot of people that deserve it first, and we’re going to run out of walls.
I’m willing to build more walls.
And oh man oh man, is the Mustache’s column full of epic poo:
Maybe it’s just me? You’re starting your column with Maybe it’s just me? This level of hackwork got laughed out of the editing process when I worked at a damn college newspaper.
Congrats to Boobo, Mustache, and the rest of the Krazy Krew for making Paul Krugman, a seething Hillary-bot to the very end, seem like a proper voice of reason. Just…puke.
I’m willing to build more walls.
Best case for the Border Fence I’ve seen so far.
Hey, I’m curious, did Boobo ever own up to this complete pantaloon-soiling?
No need. The Applebees thing rings true and that’s more than good enough for you plebes.
Oh yes, THAT. Obama couldn’t approach people in the alternate universe’s Applebee’s salad bar because derpity derp aloofness or whatever, gonna sink his campaign derpity derp. Well gee, at least that got proven true, yup.
I’d like to say David Brooks will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Unfortunatly there’s a whole lot of people that deserve it first, and we’re going to run out of walls.
Up against a traffic divider, then. Think outside the box, people!
I’d say that William Jennings Bryan great failure was not evolution versus creationism. Since we are still sadly fighting that battle, he can be said to be a hero on the Christian Right for standing up against Darwinism.
What he lost, what we all lost, was that one of the negative things he said about Darwinism was that it lead to Social Darwinism. Nowadays, we have people who are against Darwinism but for Social Darwinism. The worst of both worlds.
Up against a traffic divider, then. Think outside the box, people!
Walls On Wheels.
Lots of em’.
Back to the Wobs.
“The working class and the bosses have NOTHING in common”.
And to riff on F. Scott, not only are the rich different than you and me, they have no idea how anyone who’s not rich thinks and/or lives.
Which is perhaps why people yell a lot about the political process being dominated by the wealthy, other than Bobo’s mysterious inexplicable”populism” driven by leftist hatred of TEH SUCESSFUL.
Shorter Bobo:
“(The Obama bank reforms are quite sensible.)”
I we run out of walls and/or traffic dividers we can stack them up in front of each other and pray for through-and-throughs…
“And to riff on F. Scott, not only are the rich different than you and me, they have no idea how anyone who’s not rich thinks and/or lives.”
Speaking from personal experience, I would have to agree. And from my experience, the more politically conservative Rich Person X is, they less interested he/she is in finding out.
The Applebee’s thing was even weirder — it implied that Obama wouldn’t be seen as ‘cool’ at the salad bar as if there was some theoretical population of people who somehow would be seen as ‘cool’ at a salad bar, you know, a Frank Sinatra rat pack of salad bar attendees.
I see I have been preempted (twice, no less) in linking to that booboos in paradise story. It would have been my only contribution to this thread because I can’t read more than one or two Bobo sentences at a sitting. If you haven’t read it, do so now. Like “tonguejack my shitbox,” a phrase that can not be repeated too often, the article can not be cited too much.
On second thought, I might say something about D-KW’s mom.
PeeJ,
It’s not my mom’s fault that you keep getting preempted – I read that SSRI’s can help with that.
Incidentally, Jigme Khesar’s mother.
And to riff on F. Scott, not only are the rich different than you and me, they have no idea how anyone who’s not rich thinks and/or lives.
I think given the realities of the economy, that rift is drifting downward (or trickling, perhaps?).
Pathetic wastrels like me (and people I know in the same, er, boat) who are unemployed or underemployed find very little sympathy/empathy from those holding jobs. They don’t want to even contemplate the possibility that they might be forced to join the unwashed masses of PWs. So they keep their distance.
Or, to coin a phrase:
I smell fear.
Maybe bobo had to write this column because of the strong signal we Oregonians sent by voting for new taxes yesterday for the first time in forever-and-a-half.
Or, you know, not, because of course people voting strongly in favor of a progressive something that hasn’t happened in far longer than Kennedy held his seat is not a signal in any way whatsoever. Even though I drive a big ol’ truck, nobody listens to me. Maybe ’cause it runs on biodiesel?
I do now have hope for our state though. If you’d asked me yesterday as I was turning in my ballot, I’d have said “fuck no, there’s no way these will pass, but I’ve got to try.” I couldn’t be happier to be wrong.
If I were a social scientist, I would make it my life’s work to understand how Manichaeanism took root in America and never let go. Why is it impossible for these clowns to hold more than two ideas in their heads at once?
Why is “increase marginal tax rates a bit” necessarily “OMG! Class warfare you want to bring back the guillotine you are worse than Stalin why do you want to punish success?!?!???!!!”
FFS, even the bloody Laffer curve had a “lower half” where increasing tax rates led to increased government revenue (by implication: did not sink GDP). Even if they accept Laffer’s lunatic model how do they know that’s not where we are now?
Congrats to Boobo, Mustache, and the rest of the Krazy Krew for making Paul Krugman, a seething Hillary-bot to the very end, seem like a proper voice of reason. Just…puke.
Huh? I am far from an O-bot by my own estimation (eg think the spend freeze was dumb, hate most of his cabinet picks, blame him for too small stimulus ask etc), and I just don’t see Krugman as a “Hillary-bot.”
He was a fan of Hillary, at least relative to Obama, no doubt, but a “bot”? Anyway, most of Krugman’s analysis of Obama has turned out right. He is a chicken shit unwilling to fight the fights that really need fighting, and welcome the hatred that needs welcoming. His heart’s in the right place, but he doesn’t have enough of it.
Yes. A bot. His performance near the end of the ’08 primaries was a disgrace.
But compared to the rest of (brain cell-) murderers’ row on the NYT’s opinion pages, he’s brilliant.
“Why do you think people, even conservatives, pining for the good old days are always talking about the 1950s and not the 1920s?”
1950s?
As of late, I’ve been thinking they wanted the 1850s.
(Or possibly the 1150s–the Golden Days back before the Magna Carta was signed.)
I volunteer to supervise the leg-breakers.
Achance Monday, January 25th at 7:01PM EST (link)
Too old to do it myself, but I sure still know how!
In Vino Veritas
Oh look, it’s Saint Art of the Dancing Badgers. Wonder what he has to say?
…no I don’t.
Achance Tuesday, November 3rd at 9:11AM EST (link) But, mark my words, should we win both these governors’ seats, the first words off the lips of the Republican leadership will be something about after such a long, hard fight, we need to reach out and bring people together. Well, dammit, I don’t want to be together with Democrats and the fools who support Democrats. I don’t want to find common interest with them. I want to throw them into the outer darkness and keep them there forever. I don’t know how anyone could need more proof than we’ve seen in the past nine years that the Democrat party is intrinsically evil and the people who are stupid enough to support them are not fit to exercise the rights of citizenship in a republican democracy.
In Vino Veritas
wordy and histrionic. “inky-lubed handjob,” “Hitlerian”, “accurate in the synecdoche, shorthand way” “you can see that he’s become so hysterical it’s almost a self-parody”. Indeed. Less is more HTML Mencken.
I had a grade school teacher who likened the conscience
Achance Tuesday, November 3rd at 10:46AM EST (link)
to a saw inside your head that had only one very sharp tooth. Each time you did something bad, the saw turned and that tooth bit into you and hurt you. But, after you’d done enough bad things, the saw had turned all the way around and there was nothing left for it to cut. Lots of things are like that; do it enough or have it done to you enough, and it doesn’t hurt any more.
In Vino Veritas
Good ol’ Art.
In whine, there is truth.
Or Twoofie, anyway.
Teh Mother Of All False Analogies:
Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt.
… which corporate culture has actively encouraged since before I was born, equating it with everything from Rugged Individualism to Edgy Rebellion to Our Patriotic Duty … & which said bankers then turned into investment vehicles to rack up even more profits. The playing field is so tilted, it’s basically a cliff at this point: Just Plain Folks who lie about their finances go to jail, whereas Filthy Rich Bastards who lie about theirs go to Bermuda.
Credit-default swaps didn’t just magically spring fully-formed from
Zeus’Greenspan’s forehead – they were invented in an attempt to negate the toxic hangover from a huge credit orgy.The edifying spectacle of CEOs & CFOs mewling hollow mea culpas whilst putting on their “I HAZ A SAD” face on C-Span notwithstanding, I think they’ll happily (& knowingly) do it all over again, & I also think that they really don’t give a fuck whether they get bailed out next time or not – I’m pretty sure they can afford a plane-ticket if they don’t already have their own Lear-Jet, & it’s an ironic coincidence that many overseas tax-shelters have no extradition treaty with the US.
Hmm, exile on the Cayman Islands living like a king, or being pulled out of your flaming limo & curb-stomped on Wall Street – decisions, decisions.
Yeah, but there’s all of a few hundred people
Achance Friday, January 22nd at 2:23PM EST (link)
in the whole damned Country who know that and would say it loud to some useful idiot holding forth about McCarthyism, an evil second only to racism.
In Vino Veritas
Reading David Brooks, or even just gazing at his sculpted bubble-gum visage, fills me with a terrible rage. I’m always afraid to read his stuff for fear of blacking out for some undetermined period of time and waking up in a field somewhere in a flat crater of gore and viscera, covered in blood and bits of chewed-up poorly written protest signs, coughing up moist bloody wads of “Atlas Shrugged”.
Perhaps its just me…
This is it exactly.
More of your brain dead crap, Rat.
The data itself is misleading, for an agenda based reason, but if you read far enough into it, assuming you can read more than a few words at a time, you find that the very product Red Dog produces, zinc, is considered a pollutant.
I think developing Pebble would be a good thing for the state, but apparently you represent the will of the people in SW AK, so you guys can just hang out there unemployed, sleeping til noon or later, playing lots of bingo, and screwing your daughters; gotta preserve that culture, right? And before you utter your usual RACIST!!! scream, just go read the statistics for that wonderland you’re so proud of. Oh, and I know, they’re white man statistics.
In Vino Veritas
What manner of spam troll is this?
Yeah, I for one was leveraged 30x. Good thing that bailout money came through.
“I think [the bankers will] happily (& knowingly) do [CDSes and CDOs] all over again…”
They’re already doing it.
Seekins caught Hell for it, but
he was at least half right with his notion of gag orders on ethics complaints and the like. Any allegation of wrongdoing against a public officer is front page news and that officer is guilty until proven innocent. When he or she ultimately is shown to be innocent, it is in six point on page 83. Ok, where do you sign up to get your reputation back?
Likewise, corruption indictments; a decent prosecutor can, literally, indict a hamburger. And in case nobody has noticed, prosecutor’s motives often have absolutely nothing to do with the pristine pursuit of truth and justice. Most political corruption cases are questions of causation v. correlation. Acme Enterprises gave Rep. Y money, Rep. Y voted for something good for Acme Enterprises. The Sun sets after I eat dinner. Did my eating dinner cause the Sun to set?
This board and the News have already convicted everyone indicted and several that haven’t been. When it is over, few if any will be convicted. Frankly, I don’t have any illusions about the ethical challenges some of them have, but proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is another matter altogether.
“The public does not want the rich merely “bashed”; it wants them taxed, imprisoned, exiled, tarred-and-feathered, doused in diesel and shot by a cannon into the heart of a nuclear reactor…”
Hey, what about Volcanos? Don ‘t forget volcanos when you talk about “rich bashing”. Must have volcanos. Without volcanos, what’s the use of anything?
I volunteer to supervise the leg-breakers.
Achance Monday, January 25th at 7:01PM EST (link)
Too old to do it myself, but I sure still know how!
In Vino Veritas
Dance, badgers, dance!
RIP Howard Zinn, who at one time had a column in the Boston Globe. Suck on that, MoDo! http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/howard_zinn_his.html
Political populists never get that second point. They can’t seem to grasp that a politics based on punishing the elites won’t produce a better-educated work force, more investment, more innovation or any of the other things required for progress and growth.
Yeah, the innovation that created credit default swaps did wonders for the economy.
Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt.
Damn irresponsible peons didn’t give themselves raises for a decade, or got sick- to hell with those idiots!
There is a way, when the rich become too rich.
“Oregon Beer Snob said,
January 27, 2010 at 20:32
Maybe bobo had to write this column because of the strong signal we Oregonians sent by voting for new taxes yesterday for the first time in forever-and-a-half.”
You’ll all be out of a job by the end of the first month, commie libz
Heh–populist.
I’m sure the real populist Jim Hightower would have a little bit to say about that term being thrown around like free money shots.
Bobo reminds me of the guy who walks into a bar wearing the leather pants, a tight jean jacket and a bed hair mop announcing his disapprobation of “all these fucking hipsters.”
shorter David Brooks: I fear that the natives are ready to become restless.
I believe he broadcasts the remorse he feels on some level. But it is obviously not enough to make him stop.
You lost me at “David Brooks”.
Shorter HTML Mencken: David Brooks = concern troll.
(And although I use the “shorter” construction, I mean this as a compliment to the post author.)
But I drive a truck!?! Worship me!!!!1!one!
Second, it absolves voters of responsibility for their problems. Over the past few years, many investment bankers behaved like idiots, but so did average Americans, racking up unprecedented levels of personal debt. With the populist narrative, you can accuse the former and absolve the latter.
Well, sure, but where’s our bailout?
Gee whiz, in both of those cases the bankers are the gatekeepers of credit.
i didnt behave like an idiot and have no debt and a great credit rating so i have moral authority and get to decide. fuck these bankers and do that volcano thing that was mentioned up thread.
Anymore, to be trained as an economist (or journalist, or administrator, or lawyer, or schoolteacher) is to become a conservative, at least on economic and foreign policy issues.
This, sadly, is very true, but I wanted to point out that there are a few of us – okay, maybe just me – who are doing what we can to inject a more liberal perspective into the college economics classes we teach. Of course, I am only an adjunct at a fourth-rate institution at the moment, and I only teach the basic courses, so I am limited in the impact I can have. But I’m trying baby, I’m trying.