Josh Marshall - "What If There's Nothing We Can Do?"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/what-if-theres-nothing-we-can-do

"Thanks for all the thoughtful replies you sent about my piece on Democratic politics and the seemingly unscalable cliff face of wage stagnation that has afflicted the country for roughly four decades. I want to follow up on that post by posing a troubling possibility. What if there is simply nothing we can do?

That is a rather stark possibility. And let me start by saying that I not only hope this is not true but I also don't think it's true - at least not as an absolute. But let me raise the possible analogue of the great crime wave of the mid-late 20th century, which I've discussed at length before. As we've discussed (and as you can see in the chart at this point), the US murder rate started climbing in the mid-1960s and climbed until the mid-1970s. It bobbed a bit up and down from there. But stayed there at very high levels through the early 1990s when it began to plummet. It stabilized in the late 90s and then started falling again a little less than a decade ago and it's still fallen.

As wrote last year, none of the policy measures which are often credited with the decline in the political arena or public press really add up as the cause of the decline - not mass incarceration, not Compstat or broken windows. The truth is we simply don't know why it happened or why it ended. I don't deny that any of these policy moves had any effect. It seems clear that changes in policing in New York City got slightly ahead of the wave of falling murder rates. And New York has remained a leader in this respect. But the similar drops, virtually everywhere else in the country, make it clear that something much bigger was afoot than changes in policing strategy in a single city.

One of the weirdest developments in recent years is increasingly persuasive evidence that society wide lead poisoning may have been a critical driver of the entire thing. Whatever the causes, the rise of crime, particularly violent crime and the ultimate violent crime of murder had huge and lasting effects on American society. Not just the impact of the victims but huge corrosive effects on society at large"

snip

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In interesting read, esp in light of some of the more thoughtful OPs posted at DU since the election. I am not sure what I think about it...will return to it and read it again later tonight.

[ms liberty]

1. Interesting...KR&B. n/t

[KoKo]

2. Lead Poisoning?

Josh has "Jumped the Shark."

Gotta tell you I was one of the first persons on his blog...when it started out and corresponded with him for a couple of years...off and on and then...he had his car stolen..misplaced...whatever in an Parking Grarage in NYC.....and he was never quite the same. Marriage and Kids change people...but that Stolen Car.....

Whatever...I read his blog for awhile through his changes as he got a lot of funding allowing him to expand his Blog and hire more and more people. He became ...well...more and more corporate MSM as it went along...for whatever reason.

After awhile I stopped reading it.... It just wasn't the same as his EARLY "Muckraking Days" and I always wondered why...but, then as time went on...I sort of assumed it was a "change" of some kind.

Always will hold a soft spot in my heart about him for TRYING as one of the first "Truth Teller Blogs."

BUT........I don't read him anymore...except if someone on DU posts an article that I'm interested In...and links to it. But...I don't go there, anymore, as a "Must Read" Blog for Dem Progressive News.

Nuff Said.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. It certainly is a very curious one - jumped the shark is a fair assessment.

I put it here as a "good read" for just that - a curiosity that those who frequent his site need to read and assess.

I like your comments on it. thanks.

[MH1]

4. Um, yeah? Society-wide lead poisoning actually is a theory.

And a thing, that happened.

Marshall is basically leaning on the not-bizarre theory that widespread lead poisoning (which clearly happened in this country) caused the trend of violence which then tapered off as the poisoning stopped, because we banned lead in paints and gasoline. (He should have linked to a good explanation of the theory, but it isn't exactly fringe.) His thesis here is that this widespread violence then caused widespread distrust, which is what we are battling now in our political situation. "What if there's nothing we can do" refers to the intractability of addressing societal problems when there is such pervasive distrust.

Eh, sorry if that isn't very clear but I'm already past my usual alcohol consumption. And it's time for a refill.

p.s. note also that Europe "got the lead out" a few decades before the U.S. did. That could explain a few things.

[phantom power]

5. the wave coincides well with the rise and fall of environmental lead from gasoline

It's a real theory, and not one Marshal came up with.