StephenKMackSD's Blog

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/opinion/07brooks.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

‘The Clear and Present Dangers of Socialized Medicine’ is a more apt title for this latest piece of genteel political propaganda, produced by everyone’s favorite ‘rational political conservative’,  Mr. David Brooks. Or is it just another maladroit and backhanded attempt at ‘selling’ the Paul Ryan Medicare voucher plan? Mr. Brooks is eminently rational and reasonable in his way, yet not above the usual fear mongering of dire predictions of imminent insolvency of Medicare, as reported by the trustees of that very agency of government. Mr. Brooks weds this to the misplaced governmental faith in the bankrupt practice of ‘centralized planning’ as antithetical to the great, diverse wisdom of markets, although this constitutes a myth itself.   The touchstone of Mr. Brooks politics, such as it is , is the failed notion  ‘Free Market Economics’ that ran aground in the Financial Crisis of 2008: it’s  bastard child  that piece of  financial wizardry known as ‘the derivative’, the key to the financial transformation of the 21^st Century, or so the propaganda fed by greed went.  Mr. Brooks is shameless in his misplaced faith , his advocacy of a decentralized planning model much like a ‘Free Market’ might have functioned, but emphatically did not: the vicissitudes, the necessities of propaganda are here demonstrated, while Mr. Brooks maintains his cover of bourgeois political respectability. One must at least give credit for the high flown, philosophically hyperbolic title of his latest column, ‘Where Wisdom Lives’ it is redolent with poetic and political potential, both sadly unrealized, as the imperatives of propaganda win out.

Almost Marx         

Dear Tina Brown,

It must be awful dragging that albatross Newsweek around while your little brainchild The Daily Beast flourishes? :  case in point, the reply by  A. Larry  Ross to an unflattering group portrait of the Graham ‘children’, in Newsweek. Is it just a sop to the indignant ‘children’ to forestall a lawsuit? We Americans grew up with Mr. Graham, he was America’s most famous Tent Preacher with pretensions to political/moral respectability. You must appreciate that Mr. Graham represented the aspirations of American Believers, to the cultivation of a well defined, yet non-existent, spiritual center, founded on self-congratulatory public moralizing, within the framework of Frontier Christianity. Ms. Brown, I simply must quote from the long apologia of Mr. Ross, it is irresistible quotable:  

‘If an individual’s reputation involves how he or she is perceived today, legacy is a reflection of how that person will be viewed generations from now. Legacies stand the test of time for select persons, like Graham, who have made a significant impact on their era or culture. They only have meaning when considered in a redemptive-historical context of concurrently operative spiritual, political, and cultural forces, and how that individual influenced behavior, opinion, or history.’

Mr. Ross can ‘lay it on thick’ as they used to say, he definitely earned his keep. One of Mr. Graham’s great talents was for shameless self-promotion, but always in front of the ubiquitous camera. And an addiction to associate himself with powerful, well connected Public Men, of a certain political hue, like Richard Nixon, among others. Hope you find a buyer soon for Newsweek. Thanks for the listening ear!

Literary Hack