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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Open Thread: Noreen Malone Is Smarter Than Ron Fournier

Open Thread: Noreen Malone Is Smarter Than Ron Fournier

by Anne Laurie|  August 27, 201312:01 am| 38 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Open Threads, #notintendedtobeafactualstatement

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Okay, my dog is smarter than Ron Fournier, but this is hilarious:

Millenials Will Run for Political Office, Like it Or Not
Ron Fournier, a Baby Boomer writing in the Atlantic, is worried about what will happen when millenials are in charge of the political world. “[T]hey have no patience for inefficiency, stodgy institutions or the status quo.” This is, apparently, a bad thing. “Consider what they could do to politics and government,” he warns direly.

Fournier talked to some 80 millenials for the story, but quotes mostly fellow non-millenials, like noted youth-whisperer Michael Steele… He quotes stats that show young people think politics are too partisan and that politicians are motivated by selfish reasons and that our political system seems ill-equipped to effectively deal with the current problems facing the country.

This is more or less what any sentient being who has followed the political debate over the past few years would think, and that’s why the argument Fournier builds to—that millenials are a mass of secretly libertarian nihilists who, when given our chance to govern, will instead opt to continue starting companies and looking for private sector solutions—irked me….

Read the whole thing (it’s not long).

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Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 12:15 am

    Since this is an open thread, here’s a great piece by Juan Cole on Obama’s rotten choices in Syria which also highlights how wrong Bill Clinton is on Syria:

    [Bill] Clinton compared what the US could do in Syria to Ronald Reagan’s effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. But that covert operation of giving billions of dollars and high-tech weaponry to Afghan jihadis was a huge catastrophe, contributing to the creation and rise of al-Qaeda and setting the background for the emergence of the Taliban. It surely would have been far preferable to let the Soviets try to build a socialist state in Afghanistan, as they tried in Uzbekistan. The whole thing would have fallen apart in 1991 anyway. (There is no truth to the notion that the Afghanistan war bled the Soviet Union or contributed to its collapse. Soviet military spending was flat in the 1980s). The Reagan jihad destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan and left us with a long term terrorism problem. We let the Soviets alone in Kazakhstan, and we never worry about today’s Kazakhstan.

    Obama’s gotten a total shit sandwich when it comes to foreign policy during his time in office. He inherited two clusterfuck wars and then the Middle East erupted and Russia decided to return to the cold war. And while he has made mistakes, I continue to thank God that we did not end up with these issues under Bill’s terms in office or under President Hillary. They both have poor foreign policy judgement.

    As for Syria, it looks limited bombing would be the best of all the shitty options. I realize that means another month of MSNBC declaring that Obama is initiating Iraq War II like they did with Libya, but doing nothing sets a bad precedent and anything else would cause longterm problems in the region.

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    August 27, 2013 at 12:23 am

    I’m out. Everything I’ve read today has irritated me, down to and including trivial crap like seeing millennial misspelled all the way through this stupid article about stupid Ron Fournier from the “serious” New Republic. Grumble.

  3. 3.

    mclaren

    August 27, 2013 at 12:24 am

    @askew:

    Obama’s gotten a total shit sandwich when it comes to foreign policy everything including domestic policy, economic chaos, social upheaval, global meltdown, and foreign policy during his time in office.

    There. Fixed that for ya.

    That said, I still say Obama has a simple easy set of choices when it comes to foreign policy.

    [A} Shut down the endless pointless unwinnable foreign wars, including the insane drone attacks; or

    [B] Continue to trash America’s reputation and soft power worldwide and generate legions of new terrorists by bombing and drone-murdering thousands upon thousands of wedding parties and innocent children and old men, all the while pissing away trillions of dollars for no reason while enraging and disgusting every sentient human being who is not onboard with the Project for a New American Century.

    Not a hard choice, folks.

  4. 4.

    Keith P

    August 27, 2013 at 12:26 am

    “Baby boomers drive like this. Millenials drive like *this*!”
    I’ll categorize this as Fournier getting out years of pent up aggression due to The Greatest Generation giving him and his fellow boomers shit for being lazy, no-good bums, dagnabit.

  5. 5.

    Splitting Image

    August 27, 2013 at 12:33 am

    I’ll make it simple. Some millennials are going to go into government, others will work their way up the ladder in existing companies, and others will start their own companies. There. Thread over.

    What I would really like to see happen, however, is people going into fields where they feel that they can make a difference or set a good example. What I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of people go into private industry so they can bitch about the public sector, ask for government handouts, or both, or they go into government so they can either privatize it or “run it like a business”. Similarly, people who work in state governments seem to spend more time talking about what the federal government ought to be doing than doing their own jobs, and people in the federal government are insistent that whatever they are supposed to be doing ought to be left to the states. Never their minds on where they were. What they doing.

    I’m not sure if this will change in the coming generation or ever, but damn I’d be mighty glad to see it happen.

  6. 6.

    Bruce Lawton

    August 27, 2013 at 12:38 am

    As a pre-boomer of course I feel the country has gone to hell since the kids took over.

  7. 7.

    Jamey

    August 27, 2013 at 12:50 am

    @askew:

    As for Syria, it looks limited bombing would be the best of all the shitty options.

    I think doing nothing is the best of the shitty options. Reading shit like this is what led me to this conclusion.

    At some point, I want the line in the sand to be the “fuck-you” line that says “I’m the president and you cannot bait me into starting another war because it will help you achieve an erection.”

  8. 8.

    ricky

    August 27, 2013 at 12:59 am

    Anybody who thinks there is really something magical which guides you and makes you share somthing in common with millions borns in a similar period that may span well over a decade is as stupid as Ron Fournier. Frankly I’d be more wary of putting another batch of Gemini in charge.

  9. 9.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 1:09 am

    @Jamey:

    I think doing nothing is the best of the shitty options. Reading shit like this is what led me to this conclusion.

    At some point, I want the line in the sand to be the “fuck-you” line that says “I’m the president and you cannot bait me into starting another war because it will help you achieve an erection.”

    Limited bombings isn’t starting a war. And doing nothing basically sets the precedent that the world community will ignore chemical attacks by governments on their own people.

  10. 10.

    Mike in NC

    August 27, 2013 at 1:15 am

    Who’s even slightly surprised that a shitstain like Fournier would pick Steele as his go-to fellow Republican genius on all issues?

  11. 11.

    Luthe

    August 27, 2013 at 1:21 am

    @Splitting Image: I’d love to do so. I have a degree in doing so. And you know what? PEOPLE AREN’T HIRING.

  12. 12.

    wetcasements

    August 27, 2013 at 1:27 am

    I’m 39. I thought my Pavement-listening, slacker-ass Generation X was supposed to be the ones who dropped out of the system to live alternative lifestyles wearing our flannels and combat boots and floral-print dresses.

    It’s still all bullshit, but at least younger Americans are waking up to the fact that the Boomers have directly declared war on their economic futures and livelihoods.

    Wish my generation hadn’t been slow to realize that game was fixed in favor of a generation who basically got free educations and actual pensions.

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    August 27, 2013 at 1:29 am

    Some will run for office; some won’t.

    Some will be successes elsewhere in life; some won’t.

    Some will drink/drug themselves into oblivion; some won’t.

    Just like every other generation.

    Big whoop.

  14. 14.

    Jamey

    August 27, 2013 at 1:36 am

    @askew I politely disagree. “Limited bombings” are great … unless you happen to be on the ground at or near the target of one.

    And the deterrence factor you speak of? Wasn’t that one of the causes trotted out to grease the skids for war with Iraq? Why didn’t that prevent use of same weapons in Libya?

    Beside the empty promise of “limited bombings,” I think that goading the US into a response to chemical attacks in Libya serves many purposes, none of which is saving actual Libyan lives. The David Blair article in The Telegraph [that I linked to] made this point abundantly clear–it’s more of “Suck on This.” Lastly, for every relative tactical success (e.g., Bosnia, 1995), there are countless other instances where bombing alone failed to reach its objectives. And if this happens, then what? The line moves: “We’re willing to wage a pushbutton war, but lack the resolve to yada-yada…”?

  15. 15.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 1:39 am

    @Jamey:

    And the deterrence factor you speak of? Wasn’t that one of the causes trotted out to grease the skids for war with Iraq? Why didn’t that prevent use of same weapons in Libya?

    Except Obama doesn’t equal Bush. Obama doesn’t want to go to war in Syria and the international community has been committed to stopping governments from using chemical weapon against their own people. And Libya was a success in that it stopped the mass slaughter of millions of Libyans by the government and it was down without any boots on the ground.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 27, 2013 at 1:39 am

    @askew:

    And doing nothing basically sets the precedent that the world community will ignore chemical attacks by governments on their own people.

    Well, doing nothing was good enough for St. Ronnie of Reagan.

    Saddam Hussein’s government officially blamed Iran for the attack. The international response at the time was muted and the United States even suggested Iran was responsible.

    Doing nothing is always an option. Maybe not the right option, but still an option. Also too, why is nobody calling for the Chilean Armed Forces to get involved? That said, I think we can trust Obama to not let us get bogged down in some other country’s civil war.

    I hope.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    August 27, 2013 at 1:40 am

    @wetcasements

    Wish my generation hadn’t been slow to realize that game was fixed in favor of a generation who basically got free educations and actual pensions.

    baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. The oldest are now 67, the youngest 49.

    If that is the group you think are beneficiaries of “free education and actual pensions,” I sincerely hope the sky is a pleasing color on your planet.

  18. 18.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 1:47 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Well, doing nothing was good enough for St. Ronnie of Reagan.

    I don’t think we want Obama to follow any of Reagan’s foreign policy choices. I am hoping that the international community will find a solution without having to resort to bombings at all, but it isn’t looking likely.

  19. 19.

    NotMax

    August 27, 2013 at 1:52 am

    @askew

    First question is, bombing of what? Information on locations of internationally designated chemical munitions is sketchy at best, and bombing them in situ – guess what? – releases the chemicals.

    Bombing of government/military installations outside of cities and large towns? Roughly half of the populace still supports (or pays lip service to supporting) the Baath government (for a variety of reasons, including not being desirous of an Islamic-focused regime gaining power). That’s a lot of hearts and minds.

  20. 20.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 1:56 am

    The Juan Cole article I linked to outlined where they could do bombings and you are right there are very few places they can bomb without hitting civilians or releasing chemical weapons. But, it is about the only thing they could do without getting seriously involved. I guess they could do sanctions against Syria in response do the chemical weapon attacks. Not sure if they would be effective though.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    August 27, 2013 at 2:00 am

    @askew:

    I don’t think we want Obama to follow any of Reagan’s foreign policy choices. I am hoping that the international community will find a solution without having to resort to bombings at all, but it isn’t looking likely.

    Most definitely agree. But I have even less faith in the international community than I do in the Republican party.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    August 27, 2013 at 2:07 am

    @Askew

    Well, I do read Juan Cole daily, so am familiar with his sometimes blinkered prescriptions.

    Absent a vote from the U.N. in support, the risk/benefit ratio of bombings by the U.S. tips heavily in the wrong direction. With a U.N. vote, there is at the very least a face-saving manner of squelching escalation.

  23. 23.

    Arclite

    August 27, 2013 at 2:12 am

    like noted youth-whisperer Michael Steele

    Okay, that killed me. Still chuckling.

  24. 24.

    askew

    August 27, 2013 at 2:15 am

    @NotMax:

    I’d be shocked if the U.S. went it alone with any decision. I think it is more likely to be an international coalition of some kind. The UK and France are the ones pushing for a response. I am guessing Obama will say they have to lead it much like Libya.

  25. 25.

    NotMax

    August 27, 2013 at 2:29 am

    @askew

    Libya had the cover of the Arab League’s prior assent, and the additional cover of Qatari participation.

    Qatar is kind of preoccupied with doings in Egypt right now, and at any rate would most likely balk at direct martial action that as a corollary impacts Iran.

    France’s calls, IMHO, reflect most on the memory (both actual and political) of Syria’s status as a former French mandate.

  26. 26.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    August 27, 2013 at 2:33 am

    @wetcasements:

    Oh, I get it: “The cliché view of my generation is bullshit, but it’s totally true about all the others!”

  27. 27.

    mdblanche

    August 27, 2013 at 3:07 am

    All of Ron Fournier’s bugaboos are the ones I’ve learned to recognize as the hallmarks of a Republican too embarrassed to admit it but not embarrassed enough to do anything about it.

    As for Syria, I’m wondering how much of this is being driven by our allies. The UK and France have been more hawkish than the US for the past few years, spillover into Turkey is always a risk and that could draw NATO in, and Israel might start a new push for a strike on Iran if they can claim an American red line is no longer a good enough reassurance. It doesn’t help that by now the region has gotten itself diplomatically tied in knots. And we’re still stuck playing the indispensable nation until we can find some other sucker to take on that role. Something tells me Chile’s not gonna volunteer.

  28. 28.

    sm*t cl*de

    August 27, 2013 at 3:33 am

    One wonders how the world got through those perilous times, decades ago, when Fournier’s generation were not in power and were impatient with inefficient institutions and the status quo.

  29. 29.

    Anne Laurie

    August 27, 2013 at 4:32 am

    @sm*t cl*de: Never trust anybody under thirty fifty, dude.

  30. 30.

    Dave

    August 27, 2013 at 9:38 am

    This is just dumb. He interviews kids a at a frikken MOTU prepschool and draws sweeping conclusions. The narrowness of his reach is almost Brooksian.

  31. 31.

    nemesis

    August 27, 2013 at 9:54 am

    When one takes a close look at what my generation has done to the world, well, the fear of millenials is laughable.

  32. 32.

    DanF

    August 27, 2013 at 10:02 am

    “Get off my lawn! God damn millennials.”

  33. 33.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    August 27, 2013 at 10:49 am

    One wonders how the world got through those perilous times, decades ago, when Fournier’s generation were not in power and were impatient with inefficient institutions and the status quo.

    Before the Boomers, there was Nothing.

  34. 34.

    JAFD

    August 27, 2013 at 11:06 am

    IMHO, Syria is a mess, and none of the US’s options – including doing nothing – seem promising

    Second, methinks that those young’un’s whom Fournier thinks will be ‘millenial libertarian nihilists’ – if they are going into the job market in the next few years, the ‘kids’ may be flocking to take the Civil Service entrance exams, and in a decade or so we’ll be thinking of ‘the govvnmnt’ as an elite organization, staffed by the best and brightest among us.

    Geezers like me remember the years of our youth when the public service was filled by children of the Depression, and those propounding the incapacity of democratic government would have been laughed out the back door.

  35. 35.

    someofparts

    August 27, 2013 at 11:31 am

    So our Lizard Overlords will be elbowed out of the way by Whippersnappers?

    Where do I sign up to help?

  36. 36.

    someofparts

    August 27, 2013 at 11:35 am

    @NotMax:

    Yeah. We are squatting on those government jobs because we need the pensions. Honestly, if we could retire we would!

  37. 37.

    JustRuss

    August 27, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    @NotMax:

    baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964. The oldest are now 67, the youngest 49.

    If that is the group you think are beneficiaries of “free education and actual pensions,” I sincerely hope the sky is a pleasing color on your planet.

    I’m 50. I paid about $1000 a year in tuition to attend the University of California. Community college cost about 50 bucks a semester in fees. Not free, but orders of magnitude cheaper than college today. As for pensions, well, OK. Hopefully mine will still exist in 13 years when I’m eligible, but it’s not looking good.

  38. 38.

    GregL190

    August 27, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of Libertarianism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.

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