It’s too nice a Friday afternoon to waste time fisking another of the exercises in bathos that is a David Brooks column. So, to offload the pleasure to the friendliest snarling pack of jackals you’ll ever meet, here’s an amuse bouche for you to masticate.
The left is nostalgic for the relative economic equality of that era. The right is nostalgic for the cultural cohesion.
The exercise: in how many ways is this brief passage a steaming pile of horse-shit?
There’s much more at the link, though none of it truly worth minutes you could use usefully — say reorganizing your socks.*
So bash a way on our BeauBaux, and anything else that catches your fancy.
*I’ll say this — Brooks does make an awkward nod toward reality at the end of the column — but from a foundation of argument so desperately avoiding the actual matters at hand as to be both incomprehensible and utterly unpersuasive. Such is life, when the entire edifice on which you’ve built a public persona as collapsed around you.
Image: Richard Waitt, The Cromartie Fool, 1731
Yutsano
That is the biggest wasabi root I have ever seen.
Keith G
Instead of that type of torture, I have been catching up on tech news. My favorite headline so far:
Google patents pedestrian flypaper for self-driving cars
Tom Levenson
@Yutsano: ;-)
schrodinger's cat
Uriah Heep Brooks leaves out what happened in the late 70s, the rise of Reagonomics. We got rid of the policies one by one that gave rise to the post war middle class, and the middle class has been dwindling ever since. Its not that mysterious, actually.
geg6
OT: Been busy all afternoon. What’s going on at the White House?
JPL
@geg6: A person was shot by the Secret Service, after refusing to put down a weapon. It was outside the south gate. At this point, they are just making sure, the person was alone.
JPL
Since I refuse to read David Brooks, I’m just going to guess that somehow Obama is the blame.
Ruckus
It must not be all that fun when the political party that you’ve been blowing for decades finally tells you that it has every disease that you don’t want to know about, let alone catch and that you probably should go see a doctor for immediate verification that you have caught every one of them, at least half of which are not curable or even treatable.
Amir Khalid
@geg6:
CNN has a story. Secret Service shot a man with a gun at a nearby checkpoint; CNN is trying to reconcile conflicting info on the location of the checkpoint.
SFAW
All of them, Katie?
Hoodie
@JPL: No, it’s more that everything revolves around the failure of poor people to go to church, their desire to have sex, and their nasty habit of shopping at Walmart because they don’t have any money. This is typical:
It’s warmed over Murray.
Thoroughly Pizzled
The tedium of reading the same David Brooks column over and over again is alone enough to flabbergast me that anyone enjoys his “work.”
Alex.S
1. By ignoring minorities entirely. The only way to look at that statement is assuming that we should look at just white men from the 50s and 60s.
2. The left is nostalgic for the union membership of that era.
3. The right is nostalgic for a cultural landscape dominated (as in, there were no alternatives) by middle to upper class white men. There was a lot of other cultural stuff happening in that era that could not be considered part of “cultural cohesion”… but since it wasn’t on the mass media, it doesn’t count for Brooks.
chopper
that’s the worst painting of robin williams I’ve ever seen.
burnspbesq
Not playimg. I object on principle to any further beating of the plaque that shows where a dead horse once lay. More importantly, it’s just not fun anymore.
Matt McIrvin
As long as for “relative economic equality” you read “relative economic equality for white men”, and for “social cohesion” you read “rule by white men”, I think it’s pretty much OK.
Major Major Major Major
I haven’t given Brooks much thought since I stopped driving and listening to him on NPR*.
*Don’t correct me about PBS/NPR/PRI crap please, we all know what I meant :-D
Hoodie
@Hoodie: If you want a better read, check out Edroso on the Facebook powwow with the conservatives seeking affirmative action for stupid people.
Ohio Mom
Today I saw my first Trump bumper sticker. It was on a somewhat beat-up Lexus (I know, that seems like a contradiction but the car had little dents sprinkled about), and the driver was going just a little too fast for a suburban sub-division.
So all my prejudices confirmed.
Trollhattan
The National Academies has published “Phase 2” of “Lessons Learned from the Fukushima Nuclear Accident for Improving Safety and Security of U.S. Nuclear Plants:” The report is as wordy as the title and while I’m as much a nuclear physicist as I am an NBA center, I can understand enough to chill me to the (hopefully not contaminated) bone.
The pdf is free, the dead tree book is fifty-nine bucks. Enjoy!
ET
1. The cultural cohesion the right reminisce’s about is white centric with men at the top.
2. The economic equality may have been “better” than it was during the Gilded Age and “better” than it is now, but was by no means anywhere close to be even relatively equal.
Trollhattan
@chopper:
And I was thinking Jerry Garcia lived a lot longer than we realized.
Major Major Major Major
@Ohio Mom: More like Trumper sticker!
singfoom
Jesus, I don’t even want to read it. At this point every brooks column should have a sub-head that reads. Mental Masturbation for a blinkered past that never really existed
bemused
@Hoodie:
I’d recommend Brooksie read Hand to Mouth, Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado but it would probably just confuse the psuedo sociologist.
boatboy_srq
@Hoodie: I do love how for Brooks “buying on the cheap” is a choice and not a necessity dictated by purchasing power plummeting thanks to GOTea policies.
? Martin
Indeed, liberals are wildly nostalgic for the massive monies that black people could expect to earn in 1955. That said, I’m pretty sure the GOP is actually looking for the same level of cultural cohesion that whites-only establishments could achieve.
chopper
@Ohio Mom:
the other day i saw a truck with a Bernie! sticker right next to another one that said “Do I Look Like I Give A Shit?”.
and i thought, now right there, that pretty much explains it.
boatboy_srq
@Major Major Major Major: You mean distinguishing between Pablum Broadcasting System, Now Presenting Republicans and Presenting Republicans Incessantly? Because it seems that’s what they’ve devolved to in the absence of public funds and through the influx of Koch/Walton/Monsanto/ADM/Exxon dollars.
maryQ
I pretty much loathe Bobo, and of course by “people” he always, always means white middle class and affluent people, even when he pretends to be talking to folks at the Applebee’s salad bar. But I don’t think this is one of his egregiously wrong columns.
What gives?
Gin & Tonic
Top line in my Google News feed: “Trump tells NRA Clinton will abolish 2nd Amendment.”
The Constitution: how does it work, Donnie?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s become pretty obvious, he has NO CLUE.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Don’t they have an over-the-counter ointment for “social cohesion?”
Schlemazel Khan
@Gin & Tonic:
She will destroy it the same way Lincoln destroyed slavery! Get elected, the assholes lose their shit & do stupid stuff until the decent people smack the living shit out of them.
To the ammosexuals not professing your love of guns strongly enough is an offence against the 2nd amendment.
Trollhattan
Attention unemployed miners, there will soon be jobs available in the tunneling and shoring trades. Watch Craig’s List for whatever state will be hosting this guy.
andy
@Ohio Mom: I saw my first on a big white pickup. Again, prejudices confirmed!
bemused
@andy:
A white pickup? Real American males don’t buy white pickups, not in my neck of the woods.
Major Major Major Major
So I think dogs think they’re little people with fur and cats think we’re big cats with opposable thumbs.
SiubhanDuinne
Looks like Mary Fallin, for a change, did the right thing and vetoed the Oklahoma abortion bill.
(Edited to correct spelling of the governor’s surname.)
schrodinger's cat
@Major Major Major Major: Cats think we are big ungainly kittens that can’t hunt.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodinger’s cat: right now my cat’s doing a good impression of the Yawfle.
Mike J
Copper river is in. What side dish do you suggest?
Chris
@Gin & Tonic:
Donny, you’re out of your element!
Roger Moore
@Trollhattan:
Shut them down before the incompetents running them kill us all. That’s the lesson I learned.
BillinGlendaleCA
@andy: The only one that I’ve seen is on one of my neighbor’s silver big(and loud) pickup.
Betty Cracker
@andy: We’ve got Hillary and Bernie stickers on our massive F-250. Must confuse the hell out of people…
NotMax
Brooks: Shill waters run shallow.
? Martin
@SiubhanDuinne:
Bet anything she only did it to keep her in the running for VP.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Mine is flat black and loud as shit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin:
How would that help? Remember, we’re talkin’ the GOP here.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
Mine seems to be convinced primarily that I am a source of cuddles and pets. I guess he knows about the food thing, too.
NotoriousJRT
Cultural cohesion is the new white male supremacy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: The noise from his upsets my cocker.
NotMax
@raven
And old enough to begin receiving mail from AARP.
;)
Trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Regrettably, that’s just step 1. All that spent fuel in all those pools represents a big [yoooge] safety liability.
I can see the cooling tower tops of our area’s now-closed plant from my office. Fortunately, all the spent fuel is now in dry cask storage, which is a lot better than sitting in the pools. I understand Texas wants to store it. I accept.
raven
@NotMax: Hell yes, 1966! But, of course, the running gear is all less than 10 years old and has no mileage.
Mike J
Redshift
Hoo, boy, Virginia Republicans continue their tradition of having terrible targeting and data. I just got an email invitation to a “Victory Party” for a candidate running in the Republican primary in my district. “Victory Party” is kind of confusing because the primary isn’t until June. Later in the email it calls it a “Victory Fundraiser,” which I guess makes a bit more sense.
I couldn’t resist having a look at his website. Since it’s a solidly liberal and heavily Democratic district, he’s unsurprisingly claiming he’ll provide “leadership” on issues like climate change and jobs, and hoping no one will ask what he’ll do about the leadership of his party that is working against his stated intentions.
Finally, while his website is very slick and nicely designed, it doesn’t appear to actually say anywhere what day the primary is, or actually ask people to vote. Good luck with that strategy, dude!
Trollhattan
Ladies and germs, I give you @DungeonsAndDonalds.
Schlemazel Khan
@Betty Cracker:
back in 76 we couldn’t get a babysitter so we brought out 6mo son to the precinct caucus. The fetus fetishist all assumed we were one of them, they were not happy to learn we were supporters of safe, legal abortions. It is not always safe to assume someones political preferences.
NotMax
@raven
Dunno if you saw it when asked earlier, but have you seen Kilo Two Bravo?
Not the type of film I’d normally choose, but the near universal accolades piqued interest enough to pop it into Netflix queue.
Schlemazel Khan
@NotMax:
They also stagnate and provide a home for insects and mold.
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: And, of course, don’t read the comments, sigh…
AdamK
@Brachiator: They do! It’s made from the distilled life experiences of black people.
NotoriousJRT
@? Martin:
My thoughts exactly.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mike J:
The REpublicans have said they are completely OK with eliminating ‘negro’ and ‘oriental’ as long as they are replaced by ‘colored’
Miss Bianca
@Trollhattan: OK, I dont even play D & D – didnt back in the day either – and I still find that hilarious.
gene108
@NotoriousJRT:
It is a bit more than white male superiority. It is also about crushing non-conformance.
We generally are more tolerant of folks with tattoos, multiple piercing, differently colored hair – such as green or purple – then we were, when I was growing up in the 1980’s.
I don’t see the same pressure to conform or die, which was probably a lot stronger in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Mnemosyne
I think the blind squirrel that is Bobo may have found a small nut there. We have several examples on this very website of white dudes who are vocally nostalgic for the New Deal but can never manage a coherent response to the people who point out that the New Deal was deliberately designed to primarily benefit white men and everyone else got screwed to some extent.
So as a this is what some self-identified liberal white dudes say statement, he’s not totally wrong.
scav
Lord, that did seem a lot of Mommy Mommy I don’t want to know there are other people different than me in the world, make it invisible again and return me to the soul-nurturing world where I was the center of your attention and caring!
daves09
@BillinGlendaleCA: Because she realizes it would be enjoined five minutes after she signed it-and with OK’s budget in the shape it is, another dumb ass million dollar law suit could break the bank.
But I’m sure there’s already a * she’s a baby killer* twit storm.
NotMax
TCM reminder – 8 p.m. Eastern today, the strange film misleadingly titled Lolly-Madonna XXX. Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan, Jeff Bridges, Randy Quaid.
Schlemazel Khan
@Trollhattan:
I love “The Art Of the DM”
Ruckus
@gene108:
I remember that you could be or look as different as you wanted to, as long as no one could tell that you were.
Major Major Major Major
@Trollhattan: Being a white man in this country is like having a +15 BAB, rolling a 5, and thinking you rolled a natural 20.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Chris:
Shut the fuck up, Donnie!
NotMax
@Ruckus
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same
Gaardian
Let’s see, that one statement:
1) Bobo reiterates the same fundamental confusion which underlies a lot of his columns. He mistakes, intentionally or not, white supremacy for cultural cohesion. It’s easy to say and even believe that a culture is coherent, when one small portion of it is in control of all media, governmental, and financial institutions. It’s even easier when that small portion expresses a common purpose of staying on top. Although he get’s points because, while obfuscated, this is factually accurate. Conservatives are really, really nostalgic for white supremacy!
2) There was factually very relative economic equality if you count people not as white as the driven snow is at the Aspen Institute on a cold winters day. Because if you want to talk about 1960’s income gaps, that would be a great place to start. It’s true that particular gap is closing, but in it’s place is one that was put in place by conservative economic policies.
3) Fournierism, both sides are guilty! It would be nice to have an economic system that hasn’t been ravaged by 40 years of supply side idiocy. Does that qualify as nostalgia ? Not so much. Perhaps there exists here an underlying acknowledgement from the new Applebee’s Salad Bar Bobo 2.0 that conservative economics have destroyed the country. Haha, just kidding.
All in all, 3 isn’t to bad, unless there’s a Where’s Waldo of wrongness that I’m missing, this seems right down the middle of the plate for Bobo wrongness.
Miss Bianca
@Schlemazel Khan: I was shocked to look at that photo on the cover and think – oh yeah – there was a time in his life when The Donald was almost handsome.
@NotMax: Great, now I want to watch Weeds again…
Major Major Major Major
@gene108: A friend shared a thing on FB that said something like “back in the day a neck tattoo meant “stay away from me, I’ve killed a man” and now it means “let me tell you about my vegan bicycle!”
gene108
@Trollhattan:
{{{golf clap}}}
The Twitter is well played.
Though I disagree D&D 5.0 is taking people away from Pathfinder. Like the Bush, Jr. years, the damage of 4.0 will take many long years to undo.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mnemosyne:
I am nostalgic for the New Deal era, not because us oh-fays got better than minorities but because it was real progress and a huge sea change in America for the better. Yes, it was incremental and yes, minorities got the short shrift but it laid the foundation for a better deal for everyone in the future. In 40 years I hope those alive will look back & say the same for ACA. ACA is not very good, I would go as far as to say it does not help enough people enough. But I would have said that about several New Deal acts. But I do wish we could have an FDR again, a guy shut down by the USSC and Congress because his proposals are out front of what the powers that be will permit . . . oh, wait
gene108
@Schlemazel Khan:
I like Trump’s “gold plated” 21-sided dice. I want one.
Jeffro
@Trollhattan: ‘instant follow’
Schlemazel Khan
@Miss Bianca:
Now I am not a good judge of male pulchritude but to me that aint it. Maybe I am influence by knowing his ugly is not skin deep but goes clear to the bone or maybe it is my testosterone but nope. YMMV
Brachiator
@BillinGlendaleCA: RE: The Constitution: how does it work, Donnie?
He’s got more than a clue. He knows exactly how to play to the crowd. From an NBC story on this:
And what is his actual record on the issue?
I’m surprised he didn’t shoot a volunteer from the audience.
singfoom
Nevermind.
Gelfling 545
@Gin & Tonic: About the absolute only amusing thing about a Trump win would be if there were a photographer present to get pictures as he is informed that item after item on his proposed agenda is not actually something the president gets to do. Of course it would be all down hill on a rough road from there.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: He knows how to work a certain type of crowd — no one is disputing that. How the Constitution and US government work? Maybe not so much.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator:
Playing to the crowd, while it may get him elected, does not imply that he has a clue to how the Constitution works. In fact his rhetoric proves my initial point.
ETA: As usual, Betty said it better?.
schrodinger's cat
@Schlemazel Khan: I have to agree. Not handsome.
Immanentize
@Gelfling 545:
No it wouldn’t. This is emotion — animal brain — not reason. He would have a (white male) crowd pleasing snappy put down for each “barrier” and then he would use force to achieve his outcomes. History speaks to us if we will listen.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: When Trump was young and newly famous, some of the magazine profiles said he looked like Robert Redford. In hindsight, he looked more like an earlier Tucker Carlson.
NotMax
@Miss Bianca
Just for fun, a blast from even further in the past.
Who’s that on the right?
Mitt Romney, on the day he and his dad the governor of Michigan visited the ’64 – ’65 NY World’s Fair.
(They’re standing on the apron of the landing pad of the heliport.)
Immanentize
I wish Adam were around, because I am beginning to understand that famous Bush lackey/aide (attributed to Rove) quote which gave rise to “the reality based community” concept:
It is about OODA loops. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_78.htm
I think Hillary is smart and powerful enough to create her own OODA loops. But while Sanders persists, there is no such possibility and Trump is just seizing on audience biases — not creating realities. There actually is plenty of time post-convention — we are still in the political junky phase. All most people know is that it is likely to be Hillary against Trump.
Let the realities begin!
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
@BillinGlendaleCA:
If he gets elected, why would it matter that he doesn’t know how the Constitution works?
Immanentize
@NotMax: I got lost at the ’64 worlds fair. I stopped to look at a transportation diorama while my family continued on. Afterwards, I was raised by wolves in the Bronx….
Schlemazel Khan
Some boob in Oregon is not going to be happy:
There was just a sign that Putin’s grip on power is slipping
Gelfling 545
@Immanentize: The rough road I was speaking of is for the country, not DT.
Immanentize
@Gelfling 545: Then I agree completely
Mnemosyne
@Schlemazel Khan:
I don’t necessarily have a problem with a New New Deal, with the understanding that it will be inclusive this time.
But people who look back nostalgically on the old New Deal tend to overlook the fact that it was literally purchased with the lives of African-Americans, because the devil’s bargain that FDR made with the Southern Democrats was that they would vote for the New Deal if he blocked federal anti-lynching legislation. And he did. So there are black folks alive today whose family members died so white people could have a New Deal.
This is why saying “New Deal” to African-Americans is not the instant rallying cry that it is for white people. They hear that, and they wonder how they’re going to get screwed *this* time.
debbie
This longing for the cultural cohesion is crap. There never has been any cohesion.
By the way, does anyone else think of South Park’s Mr. Mackey when they hear Trump’s promises? Trump’s “okay” is edging closer and closer to Mackey’s “m’kay.”
Matt McIrvin
@Immanentize: The only World’s Fair I ever visited was the 1982 one in Knoxville (and just a few years ago I finally visited Epcot, which is kind of like a second, larger 1982 World’s Fair that never ended).
But my grandfather went to the 1933-34 Century of Progress fair in Chicago. He said it was the only good thing about living in Chicago at the time. He was impressed by probably the most famous tech exhibit, the demo of television.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Immanentize: Hey, I was there too! Maybe I saw you at Dinoland!
(I was about 4 at the time… ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: That is so cool. I certainly was not alive then, but how cool would it be to see TV for the first time? It would have been Dick Tracy and possibilities and scary ghost/soul stealing all at once. A lot of good it did us….
Trollhattan
@Schlemazel Khan:
He can always hold out hope for a replacement who’s more Stalinesque.
Does Betty own a boat? If so, Never get off the boat!
Maybe they can eat the pythons.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
I’m hoping I’m right, but I really like that the Hillary campaign is emphasizing things like “love and kindness” to counter Trump. I really do think that the people most likely to rally around a Scary Daddy figure are conservative white men, and there just aren’t enough of them to win a nationwide election anymore.
I truly believe we can win this thing and squash Trump like a bug if we stick together and get our voters to turn out. It worked in 2008, it worked in 2012, and it will work this year as long as people don’t panic.
Immanentize
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:I was 4 too!! It all seemed so amazing, colorful, and BIG!
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Is that at all watchable?
Says the woman who watched Beach Party last night. I thought Mankiewicz were being disingenuous when they said the film was supposed to bypass the older generation. Obviously Cummings and Malone were included for the oldsters. And he was damn good, too!
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
that should read “Mankiewicz and Corman”
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: I agree with you about the working together and the positive message! I always thought (now) President Obama should have used “Love Train” for his campaign song. But for Hillary, I pick Nick Lowe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAqAmLSIGU8
“Where is the sweet harmony?”
debbie
Good news! The Republican OK governor vetoed that ridiculous abortion bill that passed yesterday!
Immanentize
@efgoldman: 4 to the Grand Central, of course…..
NotMax
@gogol’s wife
In the sense of solid actors striving to overcome the inherent weakness and oddity and infused violence of the production, yes. Once, anyway.
From the contemporaneous NYT review:
gogol's wife
Okay, I’ve asked this before and no one bit, but is anyone else addicted to Rory Scovel? The NYTimes started this with me. The comments on this YouTube are a succinct summary of his appeal: “A young and equally funny Slavoj Zizek.”
WaterGirl
@Schlemazel Khan:
Huh. And here I thought they were completely OK with it as long as we are eliminating all the actual ‘negro” and ‘oriental’ people, not just the use of those names in laws.
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
Yeah, I think I’ll pass. I couldn’t stomach Tobacco Road, so this probably isn’t for me.
gogol's wife
Oops, sorry I didn’t realize it wasn’t an Open Thread. I have nothing to say about David Brooks, sorry.
Immanentize
@gogol’s wife: everything one says is about He, Trump — just ask him.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Took the 7 to Grand Central, then the 4 to Mosholu Parkway, silly!
That was after taking in a game at Shea (may it RIP), of course.
Immanentize
@SFAW: A better route. Ah, Shea!
patroclus
David Brooks is a putz. But the bigger news is that Bernie Sanders had a long talk with Dick Durbin today and Durbin reported that he was positive, without a doubt in the world, that Sanders was going to endorse Hillary and play team ball when the ego tour (er, campaign) is finally over. And Durbin is likely to be Majority leader (if the Dems can take the Senate), so this is obviously a part of the deal – Sanders keeps his seniority and committee rank as a Dem, if he plays ball.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
From Flushing. not To Flushing
ETA: Or did you mean “Grand Concourse”?
Immanentize
@SFAW: OK OK I was four and with friggin’ wolves! remember?
Schlemazel Khan
@Mnemosyne:
Ah, my misunderstanding then, sorry. Yes, despite the golden hued memories the New Deal was only as much as the COngress, the courts and the public would permit. It was just that the disaster of GOP rule made people willing to go so much further than ever before. I don’t think Obama & ACA can compare but then again FDR did not have to battle FOX and talk radio almost single handed
Immanentize
@Schlemazel Khan: Also, the New Deal happened when the worst tragedy of financial collapse beggared (and killed) tens of thousands. I am really not looking forward to that Cloverfield.
NotMax
@SFAW
Quicker to sneak across the Whitestone Bridge in the dead of night, when only one tollbooth is open.
;)
eclare
@patroclus: I thought Schumer was in line?
SFAW
@Immanentize:
No, last night’s Nats-Mets game was a rout. By the evil team.
Immanentize
@SFAW: PS — my favorite colleague, my “work spouse,” grew up a block off the Grand Concourse. She has the greatest tales of the neighborhood characters, but the saddest and funniest are about the Holocaust survivors.
Immanentize
@SFAW: You are faster than my editing foo.
Timurid
chopper
@Mike J:
gin?
jl
That column reads like someone turned on a random Brooks column sentence generator and let it run until it spat out 750 words. Then turned it off.
Immanentize
Found this — I was separated from my family in #131 —
https://incidentaltravellers.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/new-york-worlds-fair-1964-1965-pamphlet-plan-of-the-fair.jpg
patroclus
@Mnemosyne: Well, I disagree. Rayburn’s Securities Act protects African American investors just as it protects all other investors. Rayburn’s FDIC Act protects depositors equally. Rayburn’s Motor Carrier Act was the law construed in Boynton v. Virginia which broke down the bus segregation and triggered the Freedom Rides. Rayburn’s Public Utility Holding Company Act empowered the SEC to give the Death sentence to publically regulated corporations that don’t act in the public interest and gave non-discriminatory equal access to utilities. Rayburn’s Federal Power Commission provided electricity to all as did Rayburn’s Rural Electrification Act. Rayburn’s Commodities Act protected commodity investors without discrimination. Rayburn’s NASD Act (really the Maloney Act) protected investors in OTC stocks on a non-discriminatory basis. As did the Holding Company Act, the Investment Advisors Act and the Investment Company Act. African Americans have the same rights under the Administrative Procedure Act as do all others. And to top it all off, the vast expansion of the Commerce clause of the Constitution – all enacted by Rayburn, is the very basis on which all Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act are held to be constitutional. The New deal did NOT leave African Americans out and that is why they all switched to FDR and the Dems during that period. You have a few examples – I have a LOT of examples. Sam Rayburn was from Texas and he was NOT a segregationist (privately).
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Well, at least the wolves had their shit together. If you had taken the 5 the wrong direction, you could have ended up in Flatbush.
@NotMax:
I guess that kind of makes more sense, seeing as how the MTA cops don’t like non-service dogs on the Subway. As long as the wolves didn’t take a wrong turn and end up on Hazen St.
patroclus
@eclare: Schumer thinks Schumer is in line. Durbin is the #2.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Thanks!!!
singfoom
@patroclus: Oh please oh please oh please let us take back the Senate and make Durbin majority leader…. Then Durbin might reintroduce https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s323
Yes, it’s a niche bill, but it’d be a huge help to the small population that it would help. Immunosuppressives are expensive.
joel hanes
@maryQ:
I don’t think this is one of his egregiously wrong columns.
Well, for one, Walmart is a cause of the “fragmentation” he decries, not a symptom.
The small town in Brooksie’s head had a Main Street filled with small, inefficient prorprietor-owned retail establishments that offered a modest selection at a middling price. Walmart purposely and ruthlesslessly drove such places out of business, through an entire suite of tactics, most of which are too well known to require recounting here.
Perhaps one of the less well known is the way Walmart treats suppliers: demanding sell-it-to-us-at-or-below-cost-and-make-your-money-elsewhere wholesale prices, take it or leave it, after a humiliating sit in a waiting room of hard chairs just to emphasize the power imbalance. No mom-and-pop retailer could buy the same goods at anything like the same price, so they could not compete.
So the inefficiencies went away. Unfortunately, money staying in the community is one of the parts of that inefficiency. Etc. etc. god I could go on forever and probably will unless I stop here
joel hanes
@Timurid:
The left is nostalgic for the relative economic equality of that era. The right is nostalgic for the racism.
A palpable hit.
patroclus
@singfoom: Durbin is a very good Senator. He voted against the Iraq war (unlike Schumer), he voted for the Iran deal (unlike Schumer), he’s an original co-sponsor of the Dream Act, and he’s a co-sponsor of the bill you mentioned. Schumer gets a lot of press – Durbin’s #2 and next in line. And if he brokers the deal with Sanders (like he apparently did TODAY) to keep him inside the tent, he deserves even more kudos!
grandpa john
@Gelfling 545: Yep, truely amazing the number of people that know so little about how our government works and that congress is the one who gets to spend money, and pass laws
Villago Delenda Est
So, apparently, relative economic equality and cultural cohesion might be correlated? Is this what Brooks is implying? This means the right, in its insatiable greed, works against its own desired goal, while the left is happy with cultural cohesion as a pleasant byproduct of economic equality?
Gosh, it looks like one side has its head up its ass, doesn’t it, Brooksie, you fucking amazing cranial rectal inversion example, you.
NotMax
@Immanetize
Heh. Had totally spaced out that there was an exhibit named “Festival of Gas.”
Which did include an eatery.
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife: Oh, come on. All threads around here are open threads. There are no thread police, except among the commenters. About the only thing that will get you banned is blatant racism or sexism, as UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH has discovered on numerous occasions, but they boy can’t learn, it seems.
gwangung
@patroclus: Are you forgetting there’s the law as written? And there’s the law as administered.
eclare
@patroclus: Thanks for the info! Don’t know much about Durbin, except he was an early supporter of Obama, but I know enough about Schumer and carried interest to know that I don’t like him. Whew!
ETA: although I would still take Schumer over any Republican any day, and twice on Sundays.
patroclus
@patroclus: Further, the Civilian Conservation Corps did not discriminate based on race. The National Youth Administration did not discriminate based on race. The PWA, the WPA, the NRA, the AAA, the highways built, the dams constructed helped all people. The Gold Reserve Act did not discriminate. The Johnson Act did not discriminate. The Wagner Act did not discriminate. The war-time FEPC actively undid discrimination. And there are many more examples, Before FDR, there were only Republican African Americans elected to the Congress – in 1934, Arthur Mitchell was the first AA Dem ever elected, followed by many others, including Adam Clayton Powell.
jl
@joel hanes: I agree. To the extent that random string of sentences has any argument at all, it seems to be following the line that the economic and social dislocation we face is some ineffable byproduct of changes in cultural norms and increasing indivdual freedom. That is the argument of the books Brooks cites. As Krugman argues, Brooks is reversing the causal flow, and mistakes causes for effects and symptoms.
And some of it is just fatuous nonsense. Sure, we increased imports because people like buying cheaper stuff. But the high dollar policy (a favorite of Wall St.) and its interaction with recent financial crises, meant that it was very difficult for workers in the US to find work in growing export sectors for US products. Because there were no growing export sectors to replace lost manufacturing of cheap stuff. That happened because of bad international macrofinance and monetary policy, and one that just happened to be very advantageous to the US financial industry. Not because of some cultural imperative or changing norms prompting the ‘lesser people’ in the US to buy more cheap imports.
Cacti
@patroclus:
I was very disappointed that Chuck Schumer was picked over Dick Durbin to replace Harry Reid as the Dem Senate leader. He’s been one of the best Dem Senators for a long time.
patroclus
@gwangung: I don’t think so. As administered, all of the laws I summarized were either administered immediately on a non-discriminatory basis or were late forced to do so by court actions (initiated either by African Americans themselves – as in Boynton and Mitchell, or by the regulatory agencies). Through private rights of action, African Americans and others were empowered to bring suits to force non-discriminatory compliance. Yes, some times, it took a bunch of years (Boynton took 25), but it laid the groundwork for the civil rights actions in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The New Deal was the first time since Reconstruction that African Americans (and others) were directly benefited by federal government action. African Americans realized it at the time and gave us Arthur Mitchell and Adam Clayton Powell – as Dems – and said so long to the Percy DePriests of the world.
patroclus
@Cacti: The vote hasn’t taken place and won’t until Harry Reid vacates the position. Many assume that Schumer’s got it – they’re wrong. Durbin is #2 and is in line and if he truly brokered a deal today with Sanders, he’s likely a shoe-in.
Cacti
@patroclus:
Your mouth to FSM’s ear.
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: THIS. They just cannot seem to grasp that we will never cohere as a society IF MOST OF US ARE POOR! They get rich and flee from TEH POORZ and then have the nerve to complain that we think they’re elitist fucks.
Seriously. I have a Master’s degree and I almost have a second one, and I am more financially successful than a large majority of Americans, and I have a good career, AND I STILL EXPECT TO STRUGGLE MY WHOLE LIFE.
Immanentize
@patroclus: Agreed. The New Deal, as flawed as it was, was the turning point from Republicans to Democrats for the AA community (together with WWII). This famous image from a member of the navy during FDR’s funeral train through Georgia was not just agitprop:
https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/150330-warm-springs-fdr.jpg?quality=75&strip=color&w=1680
Immanentize
@Cacti: Please make it so.
Soylent Green
Fixt.
patroclus
@Immanentize: There were some flaws, to be sure. They didn’t enact the anti-lynching bill (until 1968) – now known as the Hate Crimes Act. The FEPC was just temporary and it took until the 60’s to get the EEOC. Bus de-segregation took until 1960-61. Social Security had to be vastly expanded in the late 40’s (and thereafter). School desegregation had to be done by the courts and Ike in 1957. But the non-discriminatory precepts in Rayburn’s Acts eventually took hold and laid the groundwork for later more aggressive action in the 1960’s. AA’s knew it at the time. The Feds were trying to do something. And that picture as well as many others (especially with Eleanor) told the tale.
Millard Filmore
@Gin & Tonic: Abolish the 2nd amendment … Hey! Obama was supposed to do that, and then get himself anointed, or maybe elected, to a third term. Incompetent twit, never finishes anything.
grandpa john
@Immanentize: The funeral train came up through the area where I lived in SC and I remember vaguely, (I was 9 at the time), pictures in the local paper of people both black and white, standing beside the track wiping tears as the train passed by
s
Villago Delenda Est
@Millard Filmore: I’m still waiting for my commission letter appointing me to be Kommandant of a FEMA camp for tea baggers and sovcits.
Doug
Friends don’t let friends read David Brooks.