David Brooks calls for insurrection in his NYT piece today

[mandyky]

Boy, Bush is in a lot more trouble than people think if Brooks has turned on him. Heard parts of the article on CSpan, don't have a link because I am not a subscriber. But Brook's was bemoaning education and pointed to the lack of upward social mobility.

I wonder who has the job of briefing Georgie boy on some of this stuff. He may not read but I am sure his people are trying to tell him he is losing ground. I see a giant temper tantrum in GWB's future! LOL

[leftchick]

1. they won't tell him shit

he hates bad news.

[marmar]

4. So true...

Shrub reminds me of the mother in the movie "Goodbye, Lenin." She was an East Berliner who went into a coma before the Wall fell and came out of it after Germany was unified. Her family shielded her from the outside world and even kept her from looking out the window to find out that the old Soviet bloc East Germany had fallen, because that would crush her spirit.
It's the same with *. His people shield him from the real world because it's nothing like the one he thinks he lives in.

[Wickerman]

6. Great movie

can't quite agree with the analogy as Mom turned out to be decent (no further spoilers) and HAVE a spirit, unlike Bush**. But yeah, I am with you.

:hi:

[marmar]

8. Very true

The situation was the same, but the people are very different - the mom was indeed a good person, and clearly an impassioned leftist!:thumbsup:

[BrklynLiberal]

10. ot: Your puppy is adorable....

[leftchick]

14. it isn't my puppy

It is a Katrina rescue from NO. They are STILL being rescued and treated in LA.

[BrklynLiberal]

25. omigod.

[rosesaylavee]

2. Brooks has been unhappy since Katrina.

Have been trying to watch him now on PBS Newshour on Fridays. He said at one point how disappointed he was in * and couldn't stand watching news clips of * as he was waiting to go on the air one night. That "now he knows what Mark Shields must feel".

Serious desertion there... but about time for any thinking individual.

[mandyky]

12. Yeah, wasn't he the one who likened Bush to the Wizard

and Katrina as Toto from the Wizard of Oz?

[NewJeffCT]

3. he's just one of them libruls at the Times

how many people in Bush's Base actually read the Times? And, how many think it's just a bastion of the librul elitist establishment.

[LizW]

5. You know, I wonder what people like Brooks thought they were getting

How could they not know the Bushco agenda from the start?

Cheap labor, destroy public education, destroy the social safety net, bankrupt the nation with wars, loot the Treasury for the benefit of private contractors...wasn't this all clear for years now?

No one who has been paying any attention at all could have missed the fact that Bushco is methodically destroying the social and economic fabric of this country.

Why do they act so surprised? Did they think it would never touch them, the affluent elite?

[stevietheman]

19. And the thing is... to many of us... this isn't about politics or some...

kind of political game.

The Bush administration is indeed a danger to the republic, on many levels. And when I say "danger", I mean republic-ending danger. The Bush administration is actively trying to destroy the nation.

This goes WAY beyond partisan politics.

[NJCher]

7. ah, but the visuals

His people shield him from the real world because it's nothing like the one he thinks he lives in.

Maybe. But it that's the case, why does he look so bad?




Cher

[BrklynLiberal]

9. Alternative (free) access to NYTimes OPED columns

http://www.johntabin.com/neverpayretail/

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

20. I don't know if you've checked this link recently, but it's not very good

anymore.

[BrklynLiberal]

26. Explain please.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

30. Basically you can't find the articles there!! Negates the whole point.

[highplainsdem]

28. Tabin just recommends searches now. Try infoweb. Links:

This is the page on Tabin's website where he recommends searching using Google Groups or Technorati:

http://www.johntabin.com/archives/000778.html

He has links to those websites there. I've found Technorati more useful for searching.

I'd also recommend infoweb:

http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb/?p_action=explore&d_search_type=keyword&d_sources=spiked&d_place=NYTB&&f_clearSearch=yes&d_issuesearch=&p_product=NewsBank&p_theme=aggregated4&p_nbid=Q5ER5FWUMTEyNzEzNDYwNi40NzA4MTU6MToxMjpuY2RtaW51dGVtYW4


They don't have the columns the evening before the paper's date, though, as websites searched by Technorati occasionally do.

[SheilaT]

11. I think you're wrong that his people

are trying to tell him he's losing ground. Far from it. They themselves (the inner circle) probably have no real idea how bad it really is. Not only do they never read such things as DU, but I doubt many of them actually read the NYT. The Washington Times, yeah, and the Wall Street Journal.

Keep in mind that wherever Bush goes he's totally in a bubble and only speaks or sees carefully vetted crowds. He doesn't often even have to drive near the hundreds, sometimes thousands of protesters that show up everywhere he goes. Especially if his plane uses a local AFB.

So it's probably much more like Hitler's bunker during the waning days of WWII, when he seemed somehow to believe that all was not lost and that if only the German people had a little more backbone they could defeat the Allies.

[mandyky]

13. Yeah, but I am sure some of them watch CSpan

and to have a journalist who USED TO be a Bush supporter call for an insurrection at the end of an article, is rather extreme.

Dubya sure does remind us of Hitler in so many ways, but Rove must have people with their ears to the ground somewhere. LOL

[paineinthearse]

15. Link? nt

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. NYT Op/Ed has gone to paid subscription and it's getting hard to find

the columns online. The rest of the news is still available by free subscription, so you don't have to pay to read whatever Judith Miller is pimping for the Administration.

[paineinthearse]

23. ummm...I realize that.

As a courtesy, it would have been a nice gesture to include a link. It's very easy to do, especially if one is already reading the article.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/opinion/09brooks.html&OP=512f1944Q2FimQ7C-iQ7EwQ5C77Q7EiQ3ETTQ7Bi)TiT3i7Q3At2t72iT3-Q5C77YwQ25Q5DQ7EDG

If that link does not work, start here - http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html

As Parties Grow Weary, Time for an Insurgency
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: October 9, 2005

Cutting loose from the push and shove of today's weary political titans is strangely invigorating.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

24. Yeah, but no one but "select" subscribers can read the link, so it only

benefits a few.

[leftchick]

27. did you not completely read mandy"s OP?

she is not a subscriber and heard it on CNN.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Bush won't know unless a brave staffer makes a DVD.

[mandyky]

17. I thought the same thing!

LOL

[highplainsdem]

18. I don't think you'd like his "insurrection." Reasons, quotes, & free link

Free Link

Brooks doesn't mention Bush even once in this column. He does complain about DeLay, but he also snipes at Howard Dean. And while he laments that Republicans "lack a coherent governing philosophy," he says the Democrats are "completely bereft of ideas."

The "coherent governing philosophy" Brooks wants is pro-capitalism and anti-entitlement.

If something is going to make American society more fluid and dynamic, then I am for that thing. That's why I love globalization, even while I am aware of its costs. I love the fact that American businesses are going be improved via competition with Chinese and Indian rivals. I love the fact that to compete we are going to have to reform our lobbyist-written tax code into something flatter and fairer.

<snip>

Like Alexander Hamilton, I love the dynamism of capitalism. And like Alexander Hamilton, that doesn't mean I hate government. I love government when it lifts people up to compete. I hate government only when it stifles competition and coddles. I hated the old welfare system, which pushed its victims away from work. I love welfare reform, which encourages work. I hate government that directs ever more money to the affluent elderly, but I would love a government that gave poor children savings accounts at birth, which would encourage them to think about the future and understand that their destiny is in their own hands.

<snip>

I can't believe that over the past 10 years our leaders have done nothing to reduce the growing costs of entitlements. Our preparations for Katrina look like models of efficiency compared to our preparations for the hurricane of debt that is ineluctably gathering force in front of us. I can't believe we haven't learned from Western Europe's plight, as it slowly stagnates under the weight of its own welfare costs.

<snip>

I know, having learned it from Lincoln and Roosevelt, that individual initiative should always be tied to national union. I know we need a national service program to bind our segmented youth through citizenship. I know we need to protect the natural heritage that defines us. I know America has to persevere in its exceptional mission to promote freedom, and the effort to promote democracy in the Arab world is one of the most difficult and noble endeavors any great power has undertaken.

<snip>


So he's pro-globalization, pro-flat tax, anti-entitlement including entitlements for the "affluent elderly" (dismissed in a sentence that suggests all the elderly are affluent), pro-national service (the draft under another name) and pro-"noble endeavors" in the Arab world.

That's an insurrection?

This is the same old pro-corporation, anti-safety net, pro-war GOP creed, fancied up and trotted out as "insurrection."

[mandyky]

21. Yikes, Cspan only read clips and I hadn't read the whole article

He started off on the wrong foot with contrasting DeLay with Dean and went from bad to worse, however It is time for an insurrection! Just not his kind. :)

[SlavesandBulldozers]

29. this is a real gem right here

"I can't believe we haven't learned from Western Europe's plight, as it slowly stagnates under the weight of its own welfare costs."

Is his implication that we are in the financial shithole because of welfare? AAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!! That's classic, he can't really believe that, please God tell me doesn't really believe that and he's just making a satirical joke on wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on Iraq, and then OTHER hundreds of billions on the military.

[wellstone_democrat]

31. Brooks does a good job of *pretending* when needed

but, as you say, look at it closely and everytime its more :
"rugged individualism" (those who don't *have* can die alone)
unbridled capitalism (those who don't have can die alone)

likes the "strong man" leader model always plumping for "a Giuliani" to be in charge of whatever crisis is at hand

his love of globalization always admits there are "costs" but he's secure in the knowledge that the "costs" won't be to him or his kind---nor will national service (his kids will have 'think tank' or congressional aide jobs and yours can go in the Army or work in slums)

Brooks is the master of the "I hate to have to tell the cold truth..."version of conservative clap trap. He LOVES to tell the cold truth about power and how he and his beloved corporations would benefit if the rest of us got in line and were "reasonable"

Tierney is worse but Tierney is actually sort of a moron (and, he's got quite the glamour shot on his column!)