tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post2843764859617070966..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: The Trumpification of One Small TownJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-29132128697118147102020-10-26T19:16:33.213-04:002020-10-26T19:16:33.213-04:00He was an amateur. Talk show hosts like Geraldo, ...He was an amateur. Talk show hosts like Geraldo, Jerry Springer, and Jenny Jones turned it into a sport. Socially acceptable sadomasochism.Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-19261078714977815292020-10-26T16:00:38.419-04:002020-10-26T16:00:38.419-04:00@Shadow
Oh no, not Don Rickles! What a priceless ...@Shadow<br /><br />Oh no, not <i>Don Rickles</i>! What a <i>priceless cultural treasure</i> we would have missed out on! The world has such a <i>shortage</i> of middle-class white men performing comedy based around being insulting and/or disrespectful, particular when it comes to people like ethnic minorities! Glad we dodged <i>that</i> bullet, eh?G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-7474353311956884012020-10-25T16:29:36.327-04:002020-10-25T16:29:36.327-04:00David,
We would never have heard of Don Rickles i...David,<br /><br />We would never have heard of Don Rickles if not for socially acceptable sadism.Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-21365391587127439682020-10-25T10:05:53.309-04:002020-10-25T10:05:53.309-04:00@Shadow
Yes, I love that quote from Rorty, which ...@Shadow<br /><br />Yes, I love that quote from Rorty, which I remember from this much-cited column from Jennifer Senior (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/books/richard-rortys-1998-book-suggested-election-2016-was-coming.html). Like Senior, I especially like Rorty's phrase, “socially accepted sadism,” which he uses elsewhere for a lot of that Rat Pack-era casual insult humor (including, e. g., whites wearing blackface for Halloween). His overall diagnosis (as described by Wikipedia) of the problem comes down a bit too much to familiar nostalgia for the kind of words Ted Sorensen used to put in JFK's mouth, but those paragraphs are simply brilliant.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-62421400795080524862020-10-25T08:59:44.453-04:002020-10-25T08:59:44.453-04:00From Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country&quo...From Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country"<br /><br /><i>[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.<br /><br />At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here may then be played out. For once such a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.<br /><br />One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. [Terms of abuse against African Americans and Jewish Americans] will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.</i><br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achieving_Our_Country<br />Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-34533172976656571792020-10-24T17:43:33.647-04:002020-10-24T17:43:33.647-04:002/2
All of that said, there's also an uncomfo...2/2<br /><br />All of that said, there's also an uncomfortable truth we need to face. Not every small town in America is worth trying to save. That's just the cold, hard reality.<br /><br />There's only so much that can be done in some places. Some towns are just too isolated these days, too far removed from the broader surrounding economy, with too little population, and too little reason for people to want to move and live there.<br /><br />When you've got a town up in the hills that only even exists because it was built to supply labor to a coal mine, and that mine is now empty and worthless, how can the town reasonably be expected to survive? We can't transition every dying coal town into a modern high tech economy of some kind.<br /><br />When you've got a remote fishing village somewhere on the coast of New England that only ever existed because there was a fishery there that has now been depleted through overfishing, what hope do they have to not disappear? We can't turn every "quaint" little fishing village into a tourist destination or what have you.<br /><br />When people live somewhere ONLY because there is a resource that can be extracted, and that resource either runs out or becomes obsolete, the town no longer has a reason to exist, and it quite naturally disappears. Look at all the 'ghost towns' left by the gold rush. Look at abandoned settlements all through history.<br /><br />Some towns and cities have more going for them, and can stay afloat. If they're big enough, have enough other reasons for people to keep living there, or if they can relatively easily transition to a different kind of economic basis, they remain.<br /><br />But we have to accept that there are going to be rural Americans who we will need to try to convince to abandon their dying towns and move elsewhere, to places which are more sustainable, where they can live lives that have futures. And that means spending taxpayer money - offering to buy their homes at generous prices, offering them retraining programs to help them transition to new skills and careers, offering them financial assistance in every field to help make moving to a new place easier.<br /><br />And we need to actually DO these things, and not just make empty promises which we can't or won't deliver on.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-27162146809283630682020-10-24T17:43:12.692-04:002020-10-24T17:43:12.692-04:001/2
America has a problem with not wanting to hel...1/2<br /><br />America has a problem with not wanting to help people who need help.<br /><br />We have a lot of small towns that are unsustainable as they currently exist - their economies rely overwhelmingly on things like coal, or manufacturing plants, or other industries that are fading in this country, and have been for a long time.<br /><br />And the thing is, we know we can't bring back coal. We know we don't even want to. Technology advances, things become obsolete, and the world is better for it.<br /><br />But our big problem is that we don't help people transition away from those failing economic foundations. We practically don't help people, period.<br /><br />We hate to have the government spend taxpayer money on those in need - in part because we have an idiotic, cruel, and selfish culture that demonizes the poor, and believes that bad things happening to people is proof that they are bad people. We hate the idea of giving free housing to the homeless, free food to the hungry, free healthcare to the sick, et cetera. We feel they somehow "don't deserve" help.<br /><br />Meanwhile, we don't bat an eyelash at the government spending trillions of tax dollars on guns, bombs, mayhem, and murder. But we resent the idea that we might spend taxpayer money on helping our own people lead better lives. What insanity.<br /><br />~~~<br /><br />Lawrenceburg, Indiana should have been given so much more help than they've received. But they weren't. And the reason they weren't is because of cynical political game-playing, and the immoral behavior of politicians on both sides.<br /><br />Bill Clinton should never have promised to help those people if he couldn't actually deliver - any idiot could tell you that would bite the Democrats in the ass down the road. Talk about taking a massive long term loss for a tiny short term gain.<br /><br />But also the Republicans are largely to blame, as they have for decades staunchly opposed government aid to people in need at all levels, and imposed a chilling effect on liberals who might otherwise attempt to get help to Americans in need. The American left is hesitant to propose broader measures of assistance, because they're worried about the political optics of doing so. They know that if they offer too much, the right will reflexively attack any such generosity and many American voters will resonant with such an attack. Put simply, they can't afford to help people, because then they'll lose more elections.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-42535276710881651802020-10-24T15:45:57.346-04:002020-10-24T15:45:57.346-04:00@pootrsox
It looks like we are both being hoisted...@pootrsox<br /><br />It looks like we are both being hoisted on the petard of Blogger! Much mutual forgiveness on the part of the humans is in order.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-32941193783815988802020-10-24T13:49:54.565-04:002020-10-24T13:49:54.565-04:00Bah! My tablet anonymized my comment!Bah! My tablet anonymized my comment!pootrsoxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05975929246429466067noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-85099793669334943502020-10-24T13:49:09.638-04:002020-10-24T13:49:09.638-04:00David, I forgive you your typos and concur with yo...David, I forgive you your typos and concur with your surmise.<br /><br />Those who already feel threatened by their lack of achieving some mythical version of the American dream would be shocked, angered, and even more deeply threatened by the ascension of a man of African descent. Imagine how they'll feel about Kamala.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-36327225798303147732020-10-24T12:16:33.861-04:002020-10-24T12:16:33.861-04:00failure of THE sort of promises. One mistake, and...failure of THE sort of promises. One mistake, and you need an editing function. Two mistakes begins to look like carelessness.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-84617251422310510982020-10-24T12:12:33.959-04:002020-10-24T12:12:33.959-04:00it's a blight on OUR history. Oh, Blogger.it's a blight on OUR history. Oh, Blogger.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-78489425107744385802020-10-24T12:11:48.333-04:002020-10-24T12:11:48.333-04:00The neocons may have killed a bit of America's...The neocons may have killed a bit of America's soul with their invasion of Iraq and use of torture. It's a blight on a history that we've never really reckoned with. But something happened during the first two years of Obama's presidency that may have caused deeper, longer-term problems. Was it Obama's embrace of neoliberalism (Larry Summers, a soft approach to an errant Wall Street, etc.)? Yes, possibly, and certainly in part, I would say. But I'm struck at how rapid the hostile reaction against him was. By 2010 the Tea Party was the dynamic political force in flyover America. That's too fast for the failure of sort of promises Clinton was making in this town in 2008 to take effect. So, while I don't much like neoliberalism, I wonder if the reaction against him that leads to Trump, the really emotional anti-liberalism ("make liberals cry"), etc., may have been driven in part by popular rejection of Obama in principle (and yes, much of that would be about race, IMHO) and in part by conscious Republican decisions about how they could recover from the 2008 defeat and the rejection of Bushism.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14456987412710878404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-24564724938027254932020-10-24T11:48:13.794-04:002020-10-24T11:48:13.794-04:00"In 2017, in this county, there were 80 opioi..."In 2017, in this county, there were 80 opioid prescriptions for every 100 residents."<br /><br />Ouch!!!!Shadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05353532874773316117noreply@blogger.com