U.S. infrastructure is crumbling and David Brooks has at his fingertips the wrong answer why.
At the Campaign for America's Future, Dave Johnson
dismantles the latest David Brooks nonsense:
The New York Times’ David Brooks writes today in “The Working Nation“: ”Western economies delivered broad and growing prosperity for the middle class. This nurtured a general faith in political institutions and culminated in the democratic triumphalism of the 1990s.” But now government is not delivering, he writes. The result, he says, is that the middle class is hollowing out, earnings are stagnant, there is not enough work, people are left without purpose, morale and faith in government and institutions has plummeted.
The labor force participation rate is at its lowest in decades. Millions are in part-time or low-wage jobs that don’t come close to fulfilling their capacities. Millions more are in dysfunctional or unhealthy workplaces, but they don’t feel they can leave because they don’t think there are other jobs out there that pay the same amount.
So far so good…
Oh My God!
Then Brooks lays out his prescription to fix the problem and the only possible reaction is, “Oh my God!”.
It begins with this stunning statement: “The country is palpably in the middle of some sort of emotional recession. Yet over the past five years, the political class has done essentially nothing.”
The “political class?” And then he writes this:
…there’s a completely obvious agenda to create more middle-class, satisfying jobs. The federal government should borrow money at current interest rates to build infrastructure, including better bus networks so workers can get to distant jobs. The fact that the federal government has not passed major infrastructure legislation is mind-boggling, considering how much support there is from both parties.
“Both parties” support maintaining our infrastructure? Oh my God! It was the strategy of the Republican party to block exactly this so they could campaign on a theme of “Obama’s failed policies”! And for decades it has been the strategy of the conservative movement to make government fail and thereby turn people against government. They are succeeding, the success worries Brooks, so he points his finger at … “the political class.”
Oh my God! Brooks is not witnessing a failure of “the political class” to act, he is describing the success of conservatives and the Republican Party in shaping the current election environment using obstruction and demoralization as a strategy. [...]
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos the day after this date in 2002—Politicizing intelligence gathering:
So you're a Bush Administration official looking for a reason—any reason—to invade Iraq (say, Donald Rumsfeld). You ask your intelligence agencies (CIA, DIA, NSA, etc.) for confirmation that Iraq has ties to Al Qaeda. The agencies mine their assets, review their data, train satellites and listening devices and whatever other exotic technologies they may have on the Iraqis and scattered Al Qaeda members.
And after analyzing everything, they conclude there are no ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
This is a setback. You can't give the real reasons for an Iraq invasion—oil, political gain, and revenge for daddy's assassination attempt. You just HAVE TO HAVE evidence linking OBL to SH.
So what do you do?
Well, given that this admininstration is the most intensely political in the history of our fair nation, you simply follow from the Rove game plan -- you create a new "intelligence agency" and fill it with political appointees who will confirm whatever lies the administration spews. […]
So to clarify, the CIA (and other intelligence agencies) gather the information. They then interpret it. But if the administration doesn't like that interpretation (e.g. Hussein and OBL hate each other and would never work together), the new agency can take a look at the info and arrive at a more "acceptable" conclusion (or in Rumsfeld's words, "assist policymakers in assessing the intelligence they receive").
The gods save us from this cabal.
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On
today's Kagro in the Morning show: Updates from Ottawa.
Greg Dworkin was called away, presumably for a NYC-area Ebola-related emergency. Cruz staffer shows it's hard to know when a kook is joking. Chuck Todd says "disqualified" language was "sloppy." In a related story,
Armando passes on
Steve Singiser's take on the failed OR-GOV analysis. FYI: Canadian vs. US gun laws. Ernst's gimmetarian gun line, analyzed. Lead exposure's links to impulse control problems & violent crime. So where are people being exposed to the most lead? Gun ranges. Chiquita Brands is looking to pull off a tax inversion. Fine! See if we topple any more foreign governments for you!
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