In a post that I sincerely hope will be emailed to Mr. Brooks by all his most au courant frenemies, Tom Scocca at Slate discusses the Politics of Entitlement:
“We’re going to be doing a lot of deficit cutting over the next several years,” David Brooks announced, plurally, in their column in today’s New York Times. Little-known fact: the byline “David Brooks” is produced by five guys named “David Brook.” They all get together and agree on stuff!
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David Brooks are very concerned about the budget lately. It is an ongoing theme. Last week, they wrote about why Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels, should run for president—meaning just go ahead and be president, since Brooks don’t care for the whole untidy business of winning votes in elections…
Seriously, you should already have clicked over to read the whole thing, because it is 100-proof awesomesauce with a sidecar of righteous:
The debt—the runaway debt—has nothing to do with morality. Casting the debt as an object of moral concern is the work of minds that have come detached from human experience. The debt is an epiphenomenon. It is the side effect created by the specific moral decisions about what the country wishes to see funded, and how it is willing to fund those things.
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Talking about the deficit is a way of cutting morality out of the discussion. Waste! Mismanagement! Incompetence! Unaccountable earmarks! These things are noise. The actual questions are: is money to be spent on people who do not have money? And where is that money going to come from?
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There are people who do not have money. Some of them do not have money because they are children. Some of them do not have money because they are old or sick or otherwise unsuited for the labor market. Some of them do not have money because the labor market has stopped paying for the work that they know how to do in the places where they live. Robots and other machines can approximate the things these people used to do…
And the final summary paragraph is a diamond sharp enough to engrave its words on Brooks’ well-fed torso, if not his impervious conscience. (No, I’m not quoting — go read it in context.) Several commentors have already pointed out this particular example of Scocca’s excoriating brilliance, but I wanted to front-page it when all of you could enjoy it over your coffee / workout / morning commute. DougJ, I’m sorry, but in the ever-expanding field of semi-professional BoBo-bashing, you’re gonna have to step up your game.
(Cartoon: Don Wright via Gocomics.com)
Quiddity
Brooks has been on a downward slide for months. Or rather, he’s exposed his inner conservative now that the Republicans are back in the saddle in the House. As to his column, there was a lot of concern about the debt, but no mention whatsoever of taxes. Instead, it was cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut …
And a repeat of his “MEH” slogan: “Make Everybody Hurt”
geg6
A great read, Anne Laurie. Thanks for the heads up. The Bobo plural is hilarious. And you’re right that DougJ has his work cut out for him. I look forward to his taking on the challenge.
Oh, and congratulations to the David Kochbot we’ve had gracing us the last few days. He/she has been giving me infinite giggles. If it’s not been Doug, it’s a worthy challenger.
stuckinred
Critters
alwhite
For as long as I have been aware of the Brooks existence people have been writing take downs of them. Smart, honest, fact-filled take downs. The Brooks have changed not one wit.
I did find it interesting that they are opening the door to “eat the old people” the next group to be separated from the herd once unions are dead. This link may have been posted here, if so I apologize but then again if you have not read it you are missing the key to what has been going on for 40 years in America & whos next:
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2010/12/06/turntables/
John Emerson
The reason he says “Make Everybody Hurt” is that he knows that a moderate tax increase will not make the rich hurt much, and since punishment is the goal, why don’t we go after people we CAN hurt?
Joseph Nobles
You were not lying about that last paragraph.
John Emerson
The weird thing about the “eat the old people” meme is that the longer it takes to gut medicare and Social Security, the more likely that the ones hurt will be the ones asking for the change. If it takes 20 years, most of today’s 70 year olds and a lot of today’s 60 year olds will be gone, and today’s 45 year olds will be the ones hit.
Especially since people talk about granddaddying in people who are already retired. So osomeone 45 years old today will pay taxes for the 65 year old’s social security, but when his time comes to collect, will not get his share.
They have to do it that way because they need the 65+ vote, the most conservative vote. So a policy initiative supposedly done for the benefit of young people who believe that old people are getting too much money will actually benefit those old people and harm those young people.
For years I’ve heard people saying “Social Security won’t be there by the time I’m eligible for it”. It makes them feel smart, tough, and cynical. But what they end up doing is supporting politicians who will cut SS and Medicare, but only in the long run — in effect working to make sure that they’ll be cheated, rather than working to make sure that they’re not cheated.
It’s hard to avoid a mix of pity and contempt when you think about people like that, especially since they act so triumphantly brilliant and tough-minded while they’re cutting their own throats.
bob h
The Brooks were a bit deadpan on the subject of Daniel’s own central role in squandering the Clinton budget surpluses and ballooning the national debt.
Benjamin Cisco
Man, that was SHRILL. He’s never going to get invited to the “right” parties acting like that. I loved this bit:
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Begs the question: Will said helicopters be smiling?
Linda Featheringill
Good post!
It brings to mind the question: What is a society?
Gotta run. Everybody have a nice day.
And woof! and meaow! and tweet! to your little friends. :-)
Dr. Wu
Bobo has never been the sharpest tool in the shed, but his obliviousness seems to have been acquiring a more Dickensian tinge in recent months. I have this feeling that he’s about one-bad-golf-game or one-more-snide-comment-from-Krugman-in-the-elevator away from abandoning his pretense of giving a shit about the poor, and going Full Wingnut.
AhabTRuler
@Benjamin Cisco:
No, they will be outright laughing.
Also: Brooks was against Death Panels before he was for them?
Lancelot Link
I bet Brooks reads this, but doesn’t get it.
AhabTRuler
And living as near to Brooks (and Friedman) as I do, some days I have the urge to go to his house and kick his dog and piss on his geraniums.
But of course, I would never actually do that because it would be illiberal.
burnspbesq
Entertainment only. Devoid of substance. And the “Brooks is plural” conceit is sophomoric. Which ensures that many here will find it hilarious.
John Emerson
It’s my understanding that being a conservative Republican was written into Brooks’s job description, so that if he changed his mind he’d be fired. He really reports to Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Dick Armey, the Kochs and various other bigtime behind the scenesn guys, not to Sulzberger.
fucen tarmal
someone needs to gather all the takedowns of the brookses through the years and compile a “definitive treasury of david brooks deconstruction”
then when its all together in one place, the masses, or at least the interested sliver of the masses demand that it be published by the new york times.
David Koch
That David Brooks is a piece of ass.
Southern Beale
Just read the piece, it’s very well done. This part in particular:
But casting the national debt as a moral issue is exactly what Republicans have been doing for the past few weeks as they suck up to evangelical voters. Boehner was in Nashville last weekend speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters talking about how immoral the debt is … so it’s interesting that David Brooks — all 5 of ’em — got the GOP memo. Seriously, this language is straight out of the Speaker’s briefcase. Wonder how that happened.
Other religious folks like Jim Wallis have countered this talking point, speaking about the morality of balancing the budget by cutting food stamps for the poor and education for kids. THAT is immoral.
You know what else is immoral? Running up that debt by starting a war based on lies. THAT is very VERY immoral.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here but nothing chaps my britches more than being lectured on morality by the most craven immoral assholes the country has produced.
Southern Beale
Also this:
Yes. Priceless.
pablo
Uhhh, from the people who have it! Duh.
Sorry more tax cuts is not the answer. You have to shake the money makers.
Sly
“The problem with them and the problem with Limbaugh in terms of intellectual philosophy is they are stuck with Reagan. They are stuck with the idea that government is always the problem. A lot of Republicans up in Capitol Hill right now are calling for a spending freeze in a middle of a recession/depression. That is insane. But they are thinking the way they thought in 1982, if we can only think that way again, that is just insane.”
David Brooks
ABC’s “This Week”
March 8th, 2009
Benjamin Cisco
@John Emerson: __
Is that what they’re calling it these days?
debbie
One of those Victorian automatic writing devices used to connect the great beyond could sub for Brooks.
Ash Can
@burnspbesq: Sophomoric, perhaps, but if a steady drumbeat of commentary like this makes fewer people take Brooks seriously, it’s OK by me.
@David Koch: Actually, he’s the whole thing.
R. Porrofatto
Scocca writes, “employers have largely gotten out of the pension business…”
Sometimes, they instead of just getting out of the pension business, they steal them first. See this article from 2005 which was virtually ignored at the time and since.
Cacti
@Quiddity:
And by “Everybody” he means “Nobody I know”.
Citizen_X
@burnspbesq: Actually, once one troubles oneself to read beyond the first paragraph, it gets pretty serious.
Do you always react to this “humor” thing in such a negative fashion?
Cacti
@bob h:
Daniels is from that special school of fiscal conservatism…where you can misunderestimate the cost of a war by a factor of 16 and still be taken seriously.
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
Killing brown Mooslim people in massive numbers is always, always a moral thing.
Therefore spending countless billions doing so cannot possibly be wrong. Ever.
geg6
@David Koch:
FTW. You’re killing me, dude.
phx
The Slate article has way too much cutesy rhetoric, all the way through.
IMO that’s now what we need. Brooks is not deeply intellectual, but he is serious and his ideas seem to have some credibility, and he’s not a real partisan. I’m not even saying Brooks is right, although I lean that way. I’m saying a more serious effort is needed to take down his ideas, if that’s what you want to do.
At least as much seriousness and thought should have gone into this article as Brooks puts into his.
tomvox1
@R. Porrofatto:
Excellent link!
I remember Bethlehem Steel’s pension abdication very clearly (I think it may have been on 60 Minutes as well) and thinking “Now it will all be 401ks and the traditional private sector pension will go the way of the dodo bird. And what’s going to happen to retirees then?” Oh, and this is what they’re trying to do to public sector employees now! The 19th century is making a helluva comeback…
Dennis SGMM
@phx:
Bwahahahahahaha! Keep it up, you’re hilarious.
Bulworth
That’s pretty classic
A.J.
A good smack-down of Brooks and his pals, but for me, no one – NO ONE – does a better slapdown of Brooks than Driftglass!
A.J.
A good smack-down of Brooks and his pals, but for me, no one – NO ONE – does a better slapdown of Brooks than Driftglass!
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/
Shadow's Mom
Thanks, that was brilliant
Bulworth
And I don’t see any of our elected leaders offering to raise taxes. Maybe the stock market will save us all.
Dow 36,000!!
phx
@Dennis SGMM And “bwahahaha” definitely isn’t intellectual, serious, credible or nonpartisan. I’m positive you can do better.
gbear
@Benjamin Cisco: Did you go read Scocca’s ‘helecopter’ link? I wanted to throw up.
catclub
I thought that Yglesias’s breakdown of what it means for government to be run like a business is relevant.
(Gist – old people SHOULD be turned into soylent green if you run the US like a business. Otherwise they are UNproductive.)
Until it is made crystal clear to more of the public that we are all in this together — i.e. the definition of a NATION.
Cutting off the unnecessary parts will continue to be hte most popular option.
gbear
@burnspbesq: So you don’t think Scocca is serious when he talks about how real people are going to be kicked to the curb and left to die if Brooks gets their way? His point is dead dead serious and shouldn’t be dismissed just because he presents it the way he does. He’s dead on right about all of it.
Elizabelle
David Brooks?
Speak we of the “luminary” who is arriving in Long Beach CA this week as one of the annointed TED conference speakers?
Luminaries get ready to light up TED conference in Long Beach
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_17497211
Hmmmm. McChrystal: brilliant but doubling down on a failed Afghanistan policy. Taymor: brilliant but floundering through current Spiderman on broadway debacle. Brooks: brilliant in his defense of the deserving wealthy, and about to be feted among them.
Elizabelle
@phx:
If you would like to see serious takedowns of Brooks’ ideas, you’re in luck.
Hit the “reader comments” link on his NY Times columns. You will see dozens of better argued posts, most of them correcting the misinformation delivered in Brooks’ column, in sparkling prose that does not stand up to reality.
To his credit, Brooks or his editors frequently “highlight” comments that disagree with or expand on points raised or blown in Brooks’ opinion pieces.
phx
gbear: Scocca’s point, as you say is “real people are going to be kicked to the curb and left to die if Brooks gets their way.” And that point is not even really developed well, you gotta get through the cute rhetorical flourishes, and it’s almost as squishy as the way you expressed it.
Oh, and he did say in effect “We should go the alternative route and raise taxes.” And that’s ALL he said about that.
Scocca’s article might make people who hate David Brooks and wholeheartedly agree with Scocca feel righteous. But the article really doesn’t have any substance.
les
@phx:
It only lacks substance if you agree with Bobo that it’s immoral to be poor, homeless or in any way a burden on your betters; civility consists in agreeing with conservatives; and seriousness consists in maintaining the perks of the powerful. Or, more concisely, you’re a douche.
phx
les: I agree that it’s immoral that we have poor and homeless people. Nobody has to belabor the point to me, and probably not to David Brooks. What you have to do is come up with something serious other than “Just raise taxes.”
Again, I’m not saying Brooks is right. I’m saying people like Scacco (and maybe you) need to get their game up if they are going to influence this discussion beyond snark and ridicule. I believe people who can express themselves coherently and seriously, without rhetoric and undue partisanship, are going to carry the day ultimately, regardless of their ideology.
Peter
@phx: But the thesis of TE article isn’t “this is what we need to do to fix things”. It’s “this is the fundamental moral and philosophical failure that David Brooks continually shills for”. And at that, it presents it’s argument clearly and concisely. What you dismiss as ‘rhetorical flourishes’ are what make it enjoyable to read as well as logically sound.
phx
@Peter: Yeah, I don’t agree that the author supports the thesis that “David Brooks continually shills for fundamental moral and philosophical failure,” but that’s a better defense of the article than others have made. And I figure you’re right, the rhetoric is enjoyable, but I think more for people who are already sold on its content before reading.
More importantly, you didn’t call me a name, you treated me with the same apparent respect that I like to accord to people who honestly disagree with me, and you made something of a real rebuttal.
D Johnston
@phx: If I’m reading this right, your problem is that Scacco uses humor – that killer of political gamesmanship – to make his point. Presumably, then, he should have sat down and written a neutral response to Brooks’s suggestion that we sacrifice the elderly to make our lives better. You know why he didn’t do that? Because what Brooks is suggesting is ghoulish, and one does not reason with ghouls. Anyone who would take Brooks seriously on this point would have to be such a moral horror that there would be no reaching him.
It seems like you’re operating under the Sensible Centrist worldview, where you can persuade anyone of anything using the awesome power of your arguments. The world doesn’t work like that. When someone professes a cruel and wicked idea, often the best way to address it is to make it such a mockery that no one would dare bring it up ever again.
asiangrrlMN
@phx: Then you’re definitely on the wrong blog. My first response to your idea that Brooks isn’t a partisan was the same as Dennis SGMM’s. Bwahahahahahahah! Man’s nothing but a shill and a bad writer to boot. He puts no thought into his op-eds. I could write them for him with my eyes closed. You say that you and Brooks are so very concerned about the homeless, and yet, you are more concerned that David Brooks is being mocked.
And, why isn’t raise taxes a serious proposal? It is a serious proposal, even if it’s the proposal that cannot be named.
I think Scocca is dead-on, and he treats Brooks with the seriousness he (Brooks) should be accorded.
@Southern Beale: Me, too. The sheer hypocrisy of Boehner talking about morality and the future of “our” children pissed me off so much, I blogged about it.
phx
@asiangrrlMN:
1) Your saying David Brooks is shilling for moderates and moderate positions, right? Or do you think he is shilling for extremists or hard rightwingers, such as…
2) Raising taxes could be a serious proposal but it would have to be more than “Just tax the rich” which is what I get out of Scocca’s article. You seem to indicate that you understand that “Just tax the rich” without reference to some cuts and details about that tax increase is a nonstarter.
I wouldn’t have a problem with a serious proposal to raise taxes. There wasn’t one in the article.
Your assertion that Brooks is a bad writer, he puts no thought in, he’s not entitled to seriousness, and Scocca is dead on, that’s all just unsupported detritus, right?
Fleem
I know this thread is dead, but wanted to concur with AsianGrrlMN: Brooks is nothing but a mouthpiece. He’s a genteel version of Glenn Beck.
phx
Fleem, it is dead, but I’m hanging in there – inertia maybe.
But I don’t get that “Brooks is mouthpiece” that so many apparently believe. Help me here. Mouthpiece for who or what, for Glen Beck??? Whatever criticism that can be made of Brooks, “he’s a shill for or mouthpiece for or the same as Glen Beck” doesn’t seem defensible.
GeoX
I think Brooks is WORSE than your Becks, actually. The fact that he’s not literally foaming at the mouth means that he can be as morally monstrous as he wants to be and tools like phx will be convinced that he is a purveyor of Very Serious Ideas that need to be taken Very Seriously.
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
I understand that’s what the Very Serious People said about the Reverend Swift and his “modest proposal”, too.
@phx:
On the other hand, there were those contemporaries who were very, very disturbed by their reading of Swift’s proposal… not because he suggested hunting Irish peasants for sport and eating their babies, but because he suggested those objects of venery and gourmandizing be produced outside the bonds of wedlock.
Comrade Kevin
@Quiddity:
I’d say that slogan should be MEHEM: “Make Everyone Hurt Except Me”.
phx
“Have I ever told you of my theory of reciprocal self-barbarization? If you engage with barbarians on the other side then one inevitably becomes barbaric. If you engage with sane people, one becomes more sane. Progress depends on enlarging the party of sanity.”
– The characteristically sane David Brooks
GeoX
Don’t be an idiot. A sane person would not assert that “the country’s runaway debt is the central moral challenge of our time.” That is either an insane or monstrous thing to say. Regardless, characterizing the speaker as “reasonable” is to laugh.
RalfW
Holy crapcakes, that’s an awesome read. The first sentence of the last paragraph cuts to the very marrow of Brooksian obfuscation via fancy word-choice.
mclaren
For the 21st or 22nd time (I’ve lost count), here are the simple facts about the U.S. deficit and the U.S. national debt:
FACT #1: America’s annual deficit is due entirely to military spending. America currently spends 1.45 trillion dollars on our military, broadly defined to include the official Pentagon budget plus the NRO (military satellites), the CIA (which now runs hundreds of drones armed with Hellfire missiles and fields private armies), the NSA, Xe (AKA Blackwater, which has been revealed as a CIA front by its former CEO, Erik Prince), the VA, military pensions, etc.
If we want to eliminate America’s annual deficit tomorrow, all we have to do is cut back our annual military spending by about 80%. Which wouldn’t change America’s military readiness because our useless worthless military is run by incompetent fringe lunatics and manned by rapists and gang members, and the U.S. Army can’t even win a war against barefooted teenagers in Afghanistan who are armed with bolt-action rifles.
Fact #2: If we cut back our worthless useless military spending by, say, 80% per year, we could run our current deficits and then pay off our entire national debt in roughly 10 years. From that point on, we could run a zero deficit per annum with zero national debt, essentially forever.
This is the reality. Anyone who says that America’s annual deficit and America’s cumulative national debt are due to any other cause than useless pointless insanely wasteful military spending is lying.