Looking over my daily internets, I see that reaction to David Brooks' odious paean to authoritarianism has spread across the web like pneumonic chlamydia.
Cool!
It seems that Senior Huffpo writer and former "Reason" Magazine editor Radley Balko has "destroyed" David Brooks in the greatest David Brooks vivisection ever.
No. Wait.
Matt Welch, current "Reason" magazine guy has written the best Libertarian David Brooks vivisection ever.
No. Wait.
Charlie Pierce over at "Esquire" has written the most awesome David Brooks vivisection ever.
No. Wait.
Atrios has written the sharpest David-Brooks-vivisecting haiku ever.
Hey look! Over at the Atlantic, Robert Wright did a David Brooks drive-by and din't hardly use no swears at'all!
Meanwhile, "Reason" magazine guy #2 links back to Reason magazine guy #1 who links back to the Ur "Reason" magazine guy here in the best damn cyclotronic, in-group, Libertarian traffic-driving David Brooks vivisection ever....Brooks's column was about how recent monuments--the Vietnam Memorial, the Martin Luther King monument, etc.--don't hold a candle to the monuments of yore: Lincoln, Jefferson, etc. And, since this was a David Brooks column, the demise of monuments had to reflect an even larger trend: the demise of respect for authority.In defense of Brooks (it's a job somebody's gotta do), he wasn't quite counseling indiscriminate respect for authority. He thinks we should respect " just authority" (which I gather means authority imbued with justice, as opposed to meaning mere authority). So the column wasn't authoritarian in the strict sense.Still, it did exude a certain impatience with people who don't fall in line....
While "Mediaite" scours the web for the best of the best and rounds up the best of...well.... OK...it's just Radley Balko, but still...
"A Tiny Revolution" has a funny vivisection of Mr. Brooks using the venerable "Aristocrats" joke, which amused Digby and caused her to wonder why "no one has ever though of that before".
Golly, I wonder that sometimes too...
And that, dear readers, is the sum total of what the Netterati talked about when they talked about the internet's premier deconstrutors of David Brooks' odious paean to authoritarianism.
/pause/
So...
/pause/
Sure is a lot of weather we're having these days.
PS. If any of these worthies want a crack at a boy-howdy, slam-dunk of a howlingly-perfect David Brooks story, for the low-low price of $100 - $249 you can purchase a single "Friends-level" membership to the Chicago Humanities Festival where you will have a ringside seat for Mr. Brooks' presentation at the CHF's venerable --
(drum-roll please)
-- annual Franke Lecture on Economics.
No kidding.
Previous Franke Economics Lecturers have included:
Paul Krugman -- 2006 .For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Brooks' work, he is infamous for, among other things,
Jeffrey Sachs -- 2008.
Robert Reich -- 2009.
Jared Diamond ("Guns, Germs, and Steel") -- 2011.
- being regularly and spectacularly wrong about everything to do with economics and,
- getting publicly spanked for being regularly and spectacularly wrong about everything to do with economics by people who actually know something about economics, including the CHF's 2006 Franke Lecturer on Economics, Dr. Paul Krugman, who has won a Nobel Prize for Economics.
- I do not have the money and do not work for any institution which will underwrite my expenses.
- If do find myself with scratch enough for a trip back upstate to Chicago in the Fall, it will be to attend the 70th annual World Science Fiction Convention and have a few beers with old friends, not to waste an evening listening to Mr. Brooks pull economic fairy tales out of his ass.
- According to Teh Internets, I do not exist, which would make dressing appropriately for the event a challenge :-)
7 comments:
Hey driftglass, I know yu are the wellspring of Brooksiana Well, I invented Nobama in 2008. I saw it coming but not the extent of its pathology. I'm a faithful reader and listener but you'll never get the credit you deserve and if you think 50 is old try it at 66, and be thankful for Fran.
I linked ya, driftglass.
Of course, I hardly exist meself.
~
digby added the appropriate links.
Surely fame and fortune will follow!
..after thunder's link, I mean. who is that digby fella?
Wish you would start a side blog about science fiction.
I prefer your Aristocrats joke better, which should go without saying.
That said, at least Digby linked back to ya. She's a swell gal.
Now, let's get you a spot on MoJo. You're voice would add a lot to the discussion, not to mention the quality. But I digress.
driftglass - When I need to read someone tear Brooks a new one, and I mean an all-out, epic takedown, I go to you. I fear that you will never get the intertubes recognition that your exquisite disembowelments warrant, and it must get to you, but know this: as difficult as it may be to toil away without the credit you deserve, you are the go-to guy for me and a lot of others when we need a venomous, articulate voice to answer that insidious douchebag when he rears his good-for-nothing head. Again, only you can do it for me.
Shorter Driftglass from the Past: Dear God, why isn't anybody picking up on my issue?
Shorter Driftglass Now: Dear God, why are people picking up on my issue?
If most of a liberal's existence is spent out in front of the rest of Murica trying to drag them, inch-by-inch, closer to justice and progress, and being shat on the whole time for their efforts and called Communist Negrist Kenyans, I think we should just be happy that some movement is in fact happening.
You deserve to be on the New York Times, honestly. We'd sure as hell start presenting a better picture to the rest of the human race.
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