August 21, 2019: Greenland, A Laughingstock, Vandalism By Any Means

Now come reports that our intrepid Caesar wants to buy Greenland from Denmark, perhaps trade Puerto Rico for it.  He has made this country into a laughingstock. 

Poor Disgustus, lost in the imperial past, hopelessly our of place and time. 

The Danes demurred saying that they thought the overture a joke.  Greenland has won home rule decades ago and is now related to Denmark in much the same way as Canada or Australia are to Great Britain, a commonwealth of sorts, but not a territory in the way that Disgustus views Guam, Puerto Rico or American Samoa. 

Disgustus, outraged, cancelled a White House dinner in honor of the Danish ambassador to the United States, further straining our relations with a reliable ally.  All this leading up to a major European meeting of heads of state. 

Vandalism by any means.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

August 17, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, The Worst Generation

In handing out an overall grade of B, David Brooks had, by way of summary, this to say about the Generation of Swine.

“As a generation, boomers have excelled at the material things that make life pleasant, convenient, long and fun.  They have struggled in the realms that other civilizations considered more profound: governance, philosophy, art and public morality”.  (1)

This is simply another way of saying that the Generation of Swine have excelled at nothing other than self-indulgence, and they have done it at the expense of everyone and everything else. 

There are many things that one could have included in this essay, but the pig’s breakfast made of governance by this Generation of Swine is far too serious and threatens to be much more permanent that to blithely kiss them off with an underwhelming blessing and a comfortable B. 

As noted in a previous post (2), historian and philosopher Arnold Toynbee pointed out that when a civilization is overwhelmed by the challenges before it, the likelihood of its demise is certain.  And, as the looming environmental catastrophe approaches, the Generation of Swine have responded with gridlock, denial and not-so-beguine neglect. 

As a final consideration Brooks asks the reader to identify who among the listed is the quintessential boomer.  Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Steven Spielberg, Donald Trump.  The answer is at once obvious and revealing: our very own Caesar Disgustus.  In tRUMP one finds all the characteristics of Boomerism on full display: self-indulgent, lacking interpersonal skills, self-invention, promising to change everything and changing nothing.  One could also add: psychotic, incompetent, corrupt, greedy and a willingness to vandalize our institutions, to tear down without any idea of what is lost in the bargain or how to rebuild.  Narcissism in the extreme.  A generation ripe for manipulation.  The worst generation in American history.

Overall Grade: F

“An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh an laugh”

 ___________

1.     Brooks, David. Op Cit.

2.     See July 28, 2019: Have You Read Toynbee?

August 16, 2019: Generation Of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Manners and Morals.

David Brooks celebrates the manners of The Swine, homing in on, in his words the replacement of “(E)verything that was refined, stuffy, formal and stiff” with the casual.  “The triumph of the casual”, he insists with a straight face, “is good” (1) 

Brooks is here decrying the ‘formalism’ of all previous age.  The idea that one would assume a ‘public’ face is derided in this celebration of the casual.  It used to be that to go into public spaces one would don one’s “Sunday go-to-meeting” attire and assume a public posture.  Now we go to church, indeed, funerals wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages—some obscene.  This, in the view of the libertine is a step forward.  Brooks, blinded by the lights of his generation, cannot see the direct correlation between the wholesale celebration of the casual and the declining comity of our social interactions.  The common denominator is unbridled individualism, celebrating, enshrining and glorifying it at the expense of the greater society.

Watch any film of, for instance, a baseball game or downtown shopping in the 50’s or even the 60’s and you will see men in suit and tie, women in their Sunday finest.  Now one goes to these games to be greeted by beer belching bores dressed in T-shirts, shouting drunken obscenities.  Indeed, at Fenway the crowd once amused itself floating a blown-up sex doll through the crowd.  The replacement of formality with Disco Demolition writ large is hardly something to celebrate.   

Then there are the morals.  Here Brooks, while awarding the Swine his ‘gentleman’s C’,  gets more honest writing:

“In the realm of morals, things are more complicated.  If the ethos of the silent generation was ‘we are all in this together’ and the code was self-effacement (‘I’m nobody better than anybody else, but nobody’s better than me’), then the ethos of the boomer is ‘Do you see how special I am?” 

“Personal freedom has been the master trend for this generation.  That was a legitimate reaction against conformity.  On the other hand, there is more isolation, bitterness and division.  The ethos of the meritocracy filled the values void left by the retreat of any shared moral vocabulary”. (2)

True enough. But the Greeks were wont to point out that the opposite of citizenship is the idiot, those that put personal interest and gratification ahead of the public good.  The pipe dreams of Ayn Rand and the wet dreams of Paul Ryan leave to many behind and are the groundwork for the revolt of the masses.  It is this celebration of the lizard that is the rot upon the republic.

An Br’er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh

Grade: F.

Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1.     Brooks, David.  Ibid.

2.     Ibid

August 15, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Lifestyle.

For some reason David Brooks, evaluating his generation in The New York Times, separates the lifestyle of the Swine from manners and morals.  In his report card on a generation Brooks opines:

“This isn’t even close.  Restaurants are much better now.  Products and buildings are designed in more interesting ways, Coffee, ice cream and all else is far more varied and delicious.” (1) And what grade  gives he his generation? Why an A, of course. 

Rubbish.  Being born in the early sixties and not coming of age until well into the decade, Brooks has no benchmarks from which he can orient himself.   

The food, for instance, is universally appalling.  Ask any visitor to this country.  Everything is full of MSG, polyunsaturated fat, and heart-attack inducing red meat.  The service, in case he hasn’t noticed is awful.  While coffee and ice cream may have improved, the penchant of the Swine for gluttony and self-indulgence is legendary leading to horrific increase in diabetes, heart disease and related illness.

 

And, let’s not overlook the recent trend of lounging on the couch and ordering you’re “Big Mac” from McDonald’s to have it delivered, as well as your other groceries over the internet from your local vendor. 

Grade: F.

August 14, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Technology and Innovation

“In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you”-----Zager and Evan “In The Year 2525

Unless you are infatuated with the internet, it is difficult to award, as does Brooks, a grade of A- to this generation in the fields of technology and innovation.  With the exception of Robert Jarvik’s implantable heart, the contributions of the Swine have been problematic. 

With all due respect to the Luddites, the contributions of the Swine in the areas of technology and innovation have been a mixed bag.  As previously noted in these columns nearly every technological innovation has produced unintended negative consequences.  The auto brought ever expansive movement, but it also brought urban sprawl, the death of the inner cities, pollution, the increase in illegitimate birth rates (e.g. drive-in theatres) and over 30,000 deaths each year attributable to accident.  So, it is with the landmark inventions of this generation. 

Brooks would have us believe that the dawn of the internet is an unmitigated blessing, as is breaking the genetic code.  He didn’t mention artificial intelligence. 

But are they?  The internet has given voice to millions who would otherwise not find a platform.  This blog is one of them.  But it has also given the platform to hate groups, crypto-fascists, racists and others who would otherwise have remained under a rock well shy of the public forum.  Further, the internet has not only enabled corporate America to spy on all of us, follow our every move, open our very bank accounts to piracy, and revealed to anyone willing to pay a few dollars whatever ‘secrets’ one would otherwise harbor, but—in the spirit of the wild west—refuses to reign in on its abuses. 

Further, the poisoning of the public well by anti-social media is joined by the use of the platform by Amazon and others to drive retailers out of business and further concentrate wealth. 

Then, of course, there is the hacking into emails and the meddling in elections—not to mention the hacking into the power and transportation grids by hostile foreign interests. 

The Ayn Rand inspired idiotlogical imperative preventing swift public response to these threats to freedom betrays the lie that the Boomers excel at technology and innovation.  That they have innovated and introduced new technologies is without question; that they know not how to apply it is another matter altogether. 

Indeed, as observers warn that for the first-time technologies—driven by developments in artificial intelligence—threaten to destroy more jobs than they create, and the social costs of technological innovation will only mount.  Indeed, as the social contract is shredded by innovation our life span is beginning to decline despite our creations.  

The facts are that life was much more peaceful and secure before the arrival of these technologies.  Our news was more trustworthy, our politics less fractious, our discourse more civilized, our bank account and personal lives more secure.  We have created the means of our own destruction. They are not to be celebrated.  They are a scourge upon society and a blight upon the landscape. Life was better without them.

Grade F. 

“An Br’er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

*See, Brooks, David.  Baby Boomer Report Card. Ibid.

August 13, 2019: Generation of Swine, Report Card, High Culture.

It is difficult to embrace the union of the Generation of Swine with high culture; it is clearly a contradiction; it is nearly an oxymoron.  But our intrepid essayist, nevertheless, gives it the old Boomer try.  Opining in The New York Times,(1) Brooks’, nevertheless, finds himself here constrained, writing:

“The boomers entered college just as universities were expanding and becoming more specialized and professionalized.  This produced the most educated generation up to that time, but the specialization and ghettoization of intellectual and artistic life took its toll on the nation’s culture.

“It’s not that people aren’t producing good work, but its influence tends to be confined to the academy or specialized subcultures.  Art, classical music and novels have lost cultural influence.  Boomer writers do not play the same roles as Saul Bellow, Phillip Roth, Maya Angelou, Thomas Pynchon, Phillip Larkin, John Updike and Toni Morrison.  Many of the most influential living philosophers are pre-boomer like Amartya Sen, Charles Taylor and Alasdaire MacIntyre. (1)

Brooks is quite right about the specialization of knowledge and the generalization of ignorance, but he forgets that is was the Swine in the first place who, upon being granted entrance to the hallowed halls of academe, demanded that the curricula be transformed from classical into mere vocational education.  Where once was taught history and political economy, we now learn hotel and motel management.  No Latin to be learned here, better yet underwater basket weaving.

Brooks is hard pressed to give the Swine a “Gentleman’s C”—the lowest grade currently granted at our best universities, granting the “Boomers” a mere C-

What he overlooks was the collateral damage done by these swine.  Not only did they proceed to privatize much of our nations education and strip the public schools of much needed funding but they closed the doors behind them when, after having taken advantage of nearly free university education, they cut federal aid forcing their children and grandchildren to gamble that the mountain of debt accrued will somehow pay off in an increasingly hostile economy; making that degree in hotel and motel management as hollow and worthless as their subsequent understanding of how the world is organized.  No, they have traded the family cow for a handful of beans and we are poorer for the bargain, for we now have an orang giant atop the beanstalk threatening to crash down upon the landscape.

An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh.

Grade F.

Impeach and Imprison.

 ___________

1.     Ibid.  See previous posts.  

August 12, Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Popular Culture.

Moving on to popular culture, Brooks once again grants The Generation of Swine a grade of A, citing the likes of Bob Dylan, Steven Spielburg, Meryl Streep, Steven King, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, Ron Howard, Madonna, and Stevie Wonder. 

First, Bob Dylan was born in 1941 making him ineligible by at least a half a decade from inclusion among the Swine.  Ditto Jimi Hendrix who was born a year later.  Ditto the Beatles and Stones and the British Invasion, most of whom were born well before 1946.  But set against the likes of the great vaudeville actors who populated our television screens during television’s “golden age” and who performed live before a national audience, the offerings of the Boomers pale by comparison.  Yes, there were meaningful popular songs written and performed by the likes of Dylan and Paul Simon, but songs like the Sound of Silence, or Dangling Conversation were soon enough replaced on the airways with the likes of  “The Ohio Express’” Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I got love in my Tummy”, or the “Archies” outselling the Beatles and Stones in 1969 with “Sugar, Sugar.” Mindless tripe that reflected a generation.

But then Brooks, born in 1961, was a late Boomer arriving late in the generation.  He missed the mindlessness of Howdy Doody, the crooning of Pat Boone, the milquetoast rhythm and blues of Elvis.  Oh yes, Elvis—old swivel hips whose best work was done before the camera in thoroughly forgettable film.    It took a foreign cultural invasion to shake us loose from this pap, the Boomers had little to do with it and, by the time most of them were reaching the age of majority they were hopelessly lost in the deserts of disco.  From Elvis to Disco, the bookends of a generation.

An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh.

Grade F.

August 11, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Social Movements.

In his essay appearing in The New York Times (1), David Brooks next considers the record of the Baby Boomers as it pertains to social movements, writing that although “Boomers are bad at politics because they distrust institutions”, they nevertheless have been “good at leading decentralized social movements: environmental, feminist, civil rights, LGBTQ rights.”

I’ll give the Boomers credit for the last of these movements, but Brooks otherwise stood history on its head.  Let’s begin with the environmental movement.  This began with the publishing of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” a full half a decade before the Generation of Swine began to exert any political influence and a full decade before the Boomers could vote in any large numbers. In any case, it was Nixon and his generation that gave us the Environmental Protection agency as the Swine contented itself with celebrating a newly established “Earth Day” and then proceeded to consume mass quantities.  And let’s not even mention the current resistance by the Swine to addressing in any meaningful way the environmental catastrophe looming on the near horizon.

 This is also true of the feminist movement and especially true of the Civil Rights movement, both of which were led by men and women of an older generation.  And both of which began to wane at precisely the time the Swine had come to exert its stranglehold upon the body politic.  It is no mere coincidence that the Equal Rights Amendment died an ignominious death precisely when the majority of Boomers could exercise the franchise.  And, it is worth noting, they have done nothing to resurrect the cause.  Likewise, the Civil Rights movement. 

Brooks, for some unfathomable reason, award the Swine a grade of A.  This is laughable.  The Swine fail miserably.  Grade: F.

This is what distrust of institutions produces: Occupy Wall Street, the 99 Per Cent, the Women’s March.  Brooks cites the Tea Party Movement, Gun Rights and the pro-life movement as notable examples of effective decentralized political action.  He is wrong.  All of them are the products of well-heeled political organization funded by major contributors to achieve narrow and self-serving interests, and all of them have severely damaged the social fabric of this country.  Brooks is peering through a narrow ideological lens, clouding his judgment, not understanding that the populism on the political wrong is a faux populism designed to erode governance; a cancer upon the political body. 

Indeed, the Swine, in their headlong effort to repeal the New Deal--if not the entire twentieth century--have done more damage to the institutions of this country than any other.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus laugh and laugh"

Impeach and Imprison

Again, Grade F.

_______________

1.     Ibid.  See previous post

August 10, 2019: Generation of Swine, Boomer Report Card, Politics.

“You wanna change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You ask me 'bout the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.” ---The Beatles “Revolution”

David Brooks, writing yesterday in The New York Times (1), posed the question: “What grade has a generation earned?”  It is an interesting, although deeply flawed, analysis.  Using several criteria, Brooks concludes that the generation following the “greatest” of them all deserves an overall B.  Let’s examine the record once again.

First, on the question of politics, Brooks generously gives the Generation of Swine a C-, reasoning as follows:

“The baby boomer political era began in 1992, with the election of Bill Clinton” Brooks blithely assures us. “In the five years before that, these leaders dominated world politics: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, John Paul II, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand”

“Baby Boomers have been unable to match that level of talent.” (2) Brooks concludes with breathtaking understatement. 

But let’s stop right here.  First, the Boomers didn’t emerge in 1992, but rather in 1968 in the streets of Chicago as they drove Lyndon Johnson from the White House and helped usher in Richard Shithouse Nixon.  Coming into majority and voting in large numbers for the first time, they voted overwhelmingly for Nixon in 1972, despite the efforts of Hunter S. Thompson and “Rolling Stone” magazine to affect a generational ‘revolution’.  In 1980 they disproportionately embraced Reagan and his reactionary politics, setting the tone for the next three decades.  Brooks has it quite wrong, exhibiting a peculiarly narrow reading of the historical record.

Secondly, the Boomers can hardly lay claim to the likes of Mandela, Kohl or Mitterand; and Reagan was, from the standpoint of economics and the damage he did to the underlying safety net and the social fabric of the country, an unmitigated disaster.  Let’s not even mention the dealing with Iran over the hostages, nor the Iran-Contra mess either of which should have had him impeached and removed from office.  No, the Boomers have hardly been the judge of good character, well predating Clinton, the Bushes and tRUMP.  In fact, with the single exception of Obama, every one of them should have been impeached and several imprisoned.

Brooks notes that under the terror of the “Boomers” nurtured as they were on the frauds of Ayn Rand and Henry David Thoreau, “American political institutions have become dysfunctional, civic debate has crumbled, debt has soared, and few major pieces of legislation have passed”(3).  After this damning conclusion, Brooks betrays his Ivy League credentials by nevertheless generously awarding the Swine a ‘gentleman’s’ C-.

“You wanna change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You ask me 'bout the institution
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.” ---The Beatles “Revolution”

The facts are that where once stood Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, the Boomers, after having helped impose Nixon, voted to elevate the likes of Reagan, the Bushes, Clinton and now our Caesar Disgustus into the national pantheon, forever soiling the American political tradition.  Where once stood Sam Rayburn and John McCormick,  the Swine inserted Newt Gingrich, John Boner, and Paul Ryan.  Where once sat Louis Brandies, Arthur Goldberg, Thurgood Marshall and William Douglas, the Swine have gagged up the likes of Clarence Thomas, William Rhenquist, and Brett Kavanaugh.  And, as Brooks rightly points out, the generation—having no idea how we got here—have for nearly half a century waged war upon the institutions of this country.  Our Caesar Disgustus, it has been repeatedly observed in these columns, is not an aberration but instead a consummation of a half century of mischief. A vandalism directed at the institutions of this country by the Generation of Swine, whose performance ranks narrowly above the generation that led the nation to civil war and properly deserves a D-.

“An Br’er Putin, he jus’ laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison

________________

1.     Brooks, David “Baby Boomer Report Card” The New York Times, Friday, August 9, 2019. Page A23.

2.     Ibid

August 1, 2019: Moscow Mitch, Lenningrad Lindsay, No Known Depths

On the very evening that Robert Mueller wrapped up his testimony before two House committees, on the very heel of his warning that the Russians have not only interfered in our elections but are doing so as we speak, Mitch McConnell refused to bring up two senate bills designed to deal with and punish foreign interference. Once of those bills, sponsored by Florida Senator Marco Rubio, would impose sanctions on entities and individuals found to have violated the law. McConnell was having none of it.

Outraged, MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' s host Joe Scarborough went on a long rant calling out the Senate Majority Leader referring to him as Moscow Mitch more than 16 times. The epithet went viral. Soon memes featuring the chinless bastard in a Russian military uniform with a Russian Cossack hat under the heading “Moscow Mitch” began popping up on social media like spring dandelions on a new-mowed law . Soon, McConnell's lapdog Lindsay Graham, who has similarly obstructed the investigations, was tagged with the label “Leningrad Lindsay”, both being mocked and excoriated for being Putin's “Useful Idiots”. Indeed, Dana Milbanks, no raving liberal, was writing in The Washington Post that McConnell is behaving like a Russian asset.

The chinless bastard then went to the well of the Senate to whine, feigning hurt and outrage at being so characterized. How dare the critics impugn his character and his patriotism, especially because he has demonstrated neither.

Oh!, the aggrieved “conservative”. Mitch, thou protesteth thy innocence too vehemently; a demonstration that only betrays your guilt.

In the wake of last week's events the intelligence agencies have revealed that the Russians hacked into the electoral system of all 50 states. Still, McConnell sits like a sphinx, dead to the world, refusing to move.

The question is why? The millions poured through the NRA into campaign coffers controlled by the Majority Leader? The millions more poured into the Republican National Committee implicating the entire ReSCUMlickan Party? The fear that if the truth were known in all it's ugliness, the wretched, rotting edifice that is the GOP will implode in upon itself as even the knuckle-dragging base will become so disgusted that it will finally be repelled by the stench?

I suspect that the full truth is not being told. That the political leadership have forged an unholy alliance in order to keep the facts well under the proverbial rug. The political wrong because the ReSCUMlickans know that if the truth came out it would mean and end to the charade that is Donald tRUMP; the rest of the leadership because the truth would rock confidence in the electoral process to its foundation. Better to simply suggest the bastardy of the president* than to confirm what we all deeply suspect.

But the fog that hangs over the political scene threatens and continues to threaten all political legitimacy, not to mention giving Caesar Disgustus a plausible excuse to declare the returns in next year's election fraudulent and seize power. This can simply be accomplished by doing nothing to protect the system and leaving it open to intrusion by a host of foreign influences. Disgustus can then claim the Chinese or some other foreign power intervened to help the Democrats and, since everyone agrees that this is possible, if not plausible, the fog will become so dense as to hide the worst kind of political villainy.

There are no known depths to the villainy of Disgustus. There are no known depths to the chicanery of Disgustus. There are no known depths to the mendacity of Disgustus. There are no known depths of the criminality of Disgustus.

An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison