The Hippies are Coming!

The Hippies are Coming!

Somewhere under the full moon and at the stroke of midnight as specified by ritual handed down to him from the High Broder himself, David Brooks is sacrificing a labradoodle on the altar of Demulcent, God of Mediocrity, to give thanks that the Hippies have finally arrived.

Now, at last, he can impute imaginary agendas and motives to an identifiable group of people who have done what David Brooks has always been far too gutless and craven to do; comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable:

"A group that divides the world between the pure 99 percent and the evil 1 percent will have nothing to say about education reform, Medicare reform, tax reform, wage stagnation or polarization."

Just as Mr. Brooks did long, long ago in a time lost to history and memory when he was a loyal, Bush-regime dead-ender, bravely sending other people's children off to die in Operation Endless Clusterfuck (from the Weekly Standard, 2002:) --

For example, on September 19, a group of peaceniks took out a full-page ad in the New York Times opposing the campaign in Afghanistan and a possible campaign in Iraq. Signatories included all the usual suspects: Jane Fonda, Edward Said, Barbara Ehrenreich, Tom Hayden, Gore Vidal, Ed Asner, and on and on. In the text of the ad, which runs to 15 paragraphs, Saddam Hussein is not mentioned. Weapons of mass destruction are not mentioned. The risks posed by terrorists and terror organizations are not mentioned. Instead there are vague sentiments, ethereally removed from the tensions before us today: "Nations have the right to determine their own destiny, free from military coercion by great powers. . . . In our name, the government has brought down a pall of repression over society. . . . We refuse to be party to these wars and we repudiate any inference that they are being waged in our name." The entire exercise is a picture perfect example of moral exhibitionism, by a group of people decadently refusing even to acknowledge the difficulties and tradeoffs that confront those who actually have to make decisions about policy.

-- Mr. Brooks has once again chosen to use his national media platform to paint a group that he clearly despises from head to toe with every peacenik, tree-hugging boogieman caricature that has terrified him since before he was in long pants.

Now, at last, he has "pierced anarchists" to mock and counterpoise against the "Tea Party-types" which, if you remember, he was lauding just last year with trademark Brooksian assmouth Democrats-are-always-to-blame dissembling:

One of the odd features of the Democratic Party is its inability to learn what politics is about. It’s not about winning arguments. It’s about deciding which arguments you are going to have. In the first year of the Obama administration, the Democrats, either wittingly or unwittingly, decided to put the big government-versus-small government debate at the center of American life.

"Just as America was leaving the culture war and the war war, the Democrats thrust it back into the government war, only this time nastier and with higher stakes."
...

"This produced the Tea Party Movement — a characteristically raw but authentically American revolt led by members of the yeoman enterprising class."
...

Another chance to abuse his power and unload his barely sublimated Inner Wingnut rage against anyone who threatens his cozy and orderly oligarchy with tough questions, and then park them across the table from the sociopaths who rule his GOP so he can give both of these equally naughty, disobedient children -- "the pierced anarchists camping out on Wall Street or the Tea Party-types" -- a Very Serious lecture on the virtues of Centrism.

Don’t be fooled by the clichés of protest movements past. The most radical people today are the ones that look the most boring. It’s not about declaring war on some nefarious elite. It’s about changing behavior from top to bottom. Let’s occupy ourselves.

I was afraid I would have to raid my reserve of specially fortified adjectives to give Our Mr. Brooks' latest "Both sides do it" establishmentarian claptrap a proper burial, but it turns out that Paul Krugman, in writing about the same general topic for the same newspaper, has saved me the trouble:

...
What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage.
...

Marie Burns continues beating the pinata down in the NYT comment section:

...
I guess you're speaking of yourself, Mr. Brooks. Clearly, you have identified yourself with the "Big Thinkers" of whom you write. The problem is that the Big Thinkers have been thinking up stuff that has tossed the American dream down the rathole of history. Occupy Wall Street is seeking a new generation of Big Thinkers -- people who think for them -- that is, people who devise policy for most of us rather than for a few of us.

This new generation of thinkers would leave you outside the gate, Mr. Brooks. We've heard your ideas for decades now, and we've seen how well they work. Your ideas, born of a conservative movement to save us from ourselves, has sapped the country of its power. I know you One Percenters don't like to acknowledge that the power in this country is its people. We are the workforce. We make things go -- till you and your supercilious friends (George Will, can you hear me?) got together to chat about the unwashed masses and how you could best chain them to low-paying, unsatisfying jobs that gave them and their children no hope for the future.
...

And Gemli of Boston bats in third position:

I'm proud to support a grass roots movement that can provoke such loss of equanimity in our usually placid columnist, who is adept at stuffing his prose with an insidious subtext that lures in the unwary reader to imagine he's writing about African safaris and ethics when it's just conservative cant in a mustache and an overcoat. The vitriol nearly oozes from the page as he writes about this small ball, inconsequential, unworthy sideshow, hardly worth the effort, and did he mention how trivial they are, and pierced?
...

Comments ranged from disgust (of the "Jesus Christ you fucking tool" variety) to incredulity ("Why don't you understand, David...?")

Of course, David understands the situation perfectly well because, like Tom Friedman, David is and always has been an unabashed lackey of the same "nefarious elite" he so desperately wants us to ignore. Stooging for their interests and deliberately deflecting, demurring, deferring and dismissing anyone or anything that runs contrary to his employers' interests is how he makes a living. And it is measure of the core civility of the 99% and their faith in democracy that the worst fate Mr. Brooks and his fellow conspirators will likely ever face are a few harsh words on a few blogs and in a few comment sections

instead of this.

Like Tom Friedman, he is a constant advocate for a political ideology which is entirely based on ludicrous half-truths and lies.

Like Tom Friedman he is very bad writer.

And like Tom Friedman, David Brooks has been given an apparently unassailable position-for-life at the very pinnacle of American journalism which his mingy talents do not come within a fucking parsec of meriting. Which, as anyone from Chicago will tell you, means there is some other factor -- some other "clout" -- at play.

Last evening on her cable teevee show, Rachel Maddow spoken eloquently and frustratedly about the mainstream media' "old boys network" who endlessly excuse and ignore what Republican's are actually doing in favor of the Republican's own favorite fairy tales of what they doing.

Asketh the Slayer:


"Why don't we look at what they do...instead of what they say their they're* doing."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

That is, in my estimation, the single most important question out there today, because behind it lurks the names of specific individuals who decide every day whether or not their media corporations will report on or ignore today's round of Republican lies.

Specific individuals who decide every day whether Tom Friedman and David Brooks are out on their talentless, dissembling asses or whether they will continue to be the King and Queen of the Villager Prom.

specific individuals who can and should be held to account for their individual decisions.

It would be very nice if the world knew the names of the individuals who make those decision.

And how they could be reached for comment.

Fundraiser is on and the dough goes here!

* Thanks stickler! :-)


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