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News & ArtsTuesday, January 17, 2012
2012 South Carolina, the State That Can Make Even David Brooks Say This About Republicans...
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:43 AM
I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.
Brooks is about the last pundit in America to wonder this, but anyway, thanks South Carolina!
1
This past weekend in South Carolina I met, among many others, ... a pawnshop manager who supports Ron Paul and said he has clients who buy a new gun every time the government does something they don’t like.
I don't know if that's representational (representative?) of your average white male gun-rights type or not, but it shows how much of a security blanket (and little else) guns are for some people.
3
Hm, it seems Mr. Brooks' statement needs a correction.
"...as it pines for a way of life that never was."
There we go.
"...as it pines for a way of life that never was."
There we go.
4
@3: Came to say the same thing. Everyone's actual memories have been intermixed with fake memories from "Leave it to Beaver", "White Christmas" etc. They all forget those types of shows were so popular because real life actually sucked.
5
@3 Not. It "was." Briefly. For white people. Post WWII.
My old man was the first in his family - a family of dirt poor farmers - to achieve a high school diploma and go on to college because of the GI bill. My mother became a deputy sherif due to the labor shortage of men.
Both of them, and three of us kids, got to travel the world on Uncle Sam's dime. And we got sent to college on what they could save. On an Army Lt. Colonel's salary. You could never do that now.
I bet you most middle class people can trace to that same post WWII time period a whole bunch of milestone achievements. Like first homes owned, first to attend college, etc. It's what set the expectation in the first place.
But we traded actual economic and social progress for lower taxes, material consumption fueled by debt, and traded the responsibilities of citizenship for bloated national "security."
No. The most infuriating fact is there was an American Dream. And with the tax brackets of the 1950's and 60's it could've been more sustainable.
My old man was the first in his family - a family of dirt poor farmers - to achieve a high school diploma and go on to college because of the GI bill. My mother became a deputy sherif due to the labor shortage of men.
Both of them, and three of us kids, got to travel the world on Uncle Sam's dime. And we got sent to college on what they could save. On an Army Lt. Colonel's salary. You could never do that now.
I bet you most middle class people can trace to that same post WWII time period a whole bunch of milestone achievements. Like first homes owned, first to attend college, etc. It's what set the expectation in the first place.
But we traded actual economic and social progress for lower taxes, material consumption fueled by debt, and traded the responsibilities of citizenship for bloated national "security."
No. The most infuriating fact is there was an American Dream. And with the tax brackets of the 1950's and 60's it could've been more sustainable.
6
@4
That's just not true. I mean, sure nostalgia colors peoples perceptions. Times were "simple" when you were a kid - because everything is done for you. That's why appeals to nostalgia works.
But there WAS more upward social mobility in the late 1940's through the early 1960's. That is absolute fact.
Did any of your parents go to college? Okay. So. How far back was it that nobody in their family had a even a high school education?
The idead that there was some magical perfect time is false. But that's not the point. The point is there WAS a time you could expect to do better. Brief as it was. But it was real.
And it should REALLY piss you off that reasons for that potential prosperity ending are being obscured and lied about by the political establishment so they can continue to rob you.
That's just not true. I mean, sure nostalgia colors peoples perceptions. Times were "simple" when you were a kid - because everything is done for you. That's why appeals to nostalgia works.
But there WAS more upward social mobility in the late 1940's through the early 1960's. That is absolute fact.
Did any of your parents go to college? Okay. So. How far back was it that nobody in their family had a even a high school education?
The idead that there was some magical perfect time is false. But that's not the point. The point is there WAS a time you could expect to do better. Brief as it was. But it was real.
And it should REALLY piss you off that reasons for that potential prosperity ending are being obscured and lied about by the political establishment so they can continue to rob you.
7
There is one and only one metric that divides the population into Democrat and Republican. It is not age, race or wealth. It is simply population density.
8
I agree with the sentiment; but the way of life that will never return is a strong middle class. The middle and lower have been merging for 40 yrs straight, conveniently insulating the top. It's pretty obvious by now.
9
@6
If your skin was the right color. African Americans gleaned the benefits of the GI Bill at a far lesser rate than their white counterparts, and not just because they were accepted into the armed forces at lesser rates. (Not to discount this factor, it too loans itself to systemic issues such as lack of access to education/nutrition/etc) African Americans who served were less likely to avail themselves of the GI Bill due to institutional barriers at every step of the way: few colleges would accept them, and the FHA used racial steering and credit redlining to segregate prospective homeowners, destroy their property values and in turn damage their credit ratings.
Worst of all, and I can't believe this isn't recalled more frequently, in the 1950s a college degree was a liabilty for African Americans, they were unemployed in greater numbers than their working-class counterparts who had only a high school diploma, if that.
For further information regarding this sorry state of affairs (and some of the information cited here) I humbly submit Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Colorbl…. A well-cited, well-argued criticism of the myth of "colorblindness" and "hard work" as the solution to America's race-relations and poverty.
...there WAS a time you could expect to do better. Brief as it was. But it was real.
If your skin was the right color. African Americans gleaned the benefits of the GI Bill at a far lesser rate than their white counterparts, and not just because they were accepted into the armed forces at lesser rates. (Not to discount this factor, it too loans itself to systemic issues such as lack of access to education/nutrition/etc) African Americans who served were less likely to avail themselves of the GI Bill due to institutional barriers at every step of the way: few colleges would accept them, and the FHA used racial steering and credit redlining to segregate prospective homeowners, destroy their property values and in turn damage their credit ratings.
Worst of all, and I can't believe this isn't recalled more frequently, in the 1950s a college degree was a liabilty for African Americans, they were unemployed in greater numbers than their working-class counterparts who had only a high school diploma, if that.
For further information regarding this sorry state of affairs (and some of the information cited here) I humbly submit Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Colorbl…. A well-cited, well-argued criticism of the myth of "colorblindness" and "hard work" as the solution to America's race-relations and poverty.
11
In regards to Eli's post, I long ago concluded that David Brooks must be willingly ignorant to come out in favor, as he does, of Republican's disastrous policies. His endorsement of the Paul Ryan plan last year was one of the most intellectually dishonest tracts I have had the infuriating misfortune of reading.
With Brooks, there's never any deeper analysis, any willingness to look beyond the Official Story, structural forces are never anything more than interesting trivia (did you know that physical height closely correlates with executive compensation?) with the gravity and presentation of a message inside a fortune cookie. Read the faux-serious words, pay the bill, and get on with your day.
And from the sound of things:
With Brooks, there's never any deeper analysis, any willingness to look beyond the Official Story, structural forces are never anything more than interesting trivia (did you know that physical height closely correlates with executive compensation?) with the gravity and presentation of a message inside a fortune cookie. Read the faux-serious words, pay the bill, and get on with your day.
And from the sound of things:
My son, whose heroes include John Boehner and Tupac Shakur...The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
12
@10 And you had time to... what, I don't know...shoot the pope? How fucking idiotic of you to just pull some insane inference out of your ass. I think you better just stuff that right back up there where it belongs.
13
@9 Reading comprehension. I said - right in the first line of my first post- "for white people."
It wasn't a statement of endorsement of past racial treatment of minorities. Nor an endorsement of David Brooks. It was, sadly, a statement of fact. 'For white people' there was more mobility.
White people were the the majority. Therefore the point is there WAS mobility for the majority. Some of that may have come at the expense of minorities. how the halt to social mobility has come at the expense of EVERYBODY.
A fact that has been lost in the trickle of idiotic comments from the shut-ins and trolls. Historical revisionism for ideological reasons,, either from Brooks or from pure reflexive web-troll cynicism won't help make things better.
It wasn't a statement of endorsement of past racial treatment of minorities. Nor an endorsement of David Brooks. It was, sadly, a statement of fact. 'For white people' there was more mobility.
White people were the the majority. Therefore the point is there WAS mobility for the majority. Some of that may have come at the expense of minorities. how the halt to social mobility has come at the expense of EVERYBODY.
A fact that has been lost in the trickle of idiotic comments from the shut-ins and trolls. Historical revisionism for ideological reasons,, either from Brooks or from pure reflexive web-troll cynicism won't help make things better.
14
@tkc Sorry, I followed the reply chain rather than look at each ID. Thus I didn't realize that you also wrote that earlier post.
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