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April 05, 2010

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Sir Charles

This is of a piece with greater Broderism. We can't have fierce political disagreements because they make the baby David cry.

There's nothing wrong with two political parties differing on basic approaches to problems. That's why we have elections, so people can choose the vision of society that they find most attractive.

What I object to with the Republicans is that they are fucking incoherent liars in matters of policy. If they wanted to just go out there and sell low taxes for the rich, and the status quo on health care as their program, more power to 'em. But don't give me this crap about death panels and socialism.

Samuelson is one of Kaplan Daily's biggest wastes of skin.

kathy a.

my main quarrel is that this column is OF the sewer; no need for tossing.

the grain of truth is that there is a political strand that depends on workin' 'em up to a froth-mouthed frenzy, so they can "feel good" about blasting others and even about blasting changes that will personally benefit them, facts be damned. some decent examples include everything that rush and michelle b. say, and the entire tea party thing.

if one wants to talk about elites and their agendas, one might begin with those who profit financially both from the fomenting of blather, and the maintenance of the status quo -- insurance, banking/financial institutions, pharma, big media, giant industries in general, very rich people.

Gene O'Grady

While I probably have an even lower opinion of Robert Samuelson than the rest of you, I'm curious about the animus toward Midnight Basketball. Seems to me it was an attempt to return to some of the very valuable youth activity that existed when I was a kid and has disappeared as we seek to redistribute society's to the hedge fund guys and sneer at those left behind.

Back before the sociopath Karol Wojtyla moved the focus of the Catholic church from supporting families to sex wars and paying off victims of rape, basketball was kind of a symbol of healthy youth activity, perhaps because it flourished in the ethnic Catholic milieus that didn't play baseball or because back in the good old days it was less commercialized? Or maybe I'm reading too much into the little pamphlet called Saint Bill of New York I rescued from the house after my mother died, in which the three great virtues of Catholic teenagers (male division) seem to be not abusing the homeless, not forcing yourself on unwilling young girls, and not blaming the guy who passed you the ball when you miss the shot.

Sir Charles

Gene,

I don't think l-t c, or any of the rest of us, think badly of midnight basketball. I actually thought it was a great idea. And I was a big hoops player many years and many pounds ago.

I think the point here was that it was the kind of archetypal mini-initiative that was emblematic of the limits of liberal governance in the 90s. It was a worthy endeavor, but not exactly the epitome of an ambitious political agendae.

low-tech cyclist

Gene - more or less what Sir Charles said. To the extent that I was aware of it at the time, I was for it; I was puzzled back then over why the wingnuts had problems with the idea. (The quick, obvious argument for: not every ghetto kid is a gang member or a Good Clean-Cut Kid; plenty are on the bubble, but are going to choose among the non-boring options available when they're hanging out late at night. Hence midnight basketball: something interesting and fun for them to do at the witching hour besides break into cars or become foot soldiers in someone's gang.)

But I was using it as an example of something where the issue became a cultural flashpoint well out of proportion to its likely effects one way or the other. The extent to which Not-Paul's argument has a leg to stand on is in direct proportion to the extent that our politics is about people turning relatively trivial stuff like this into a battle of Good v. Evil.

One thing Not-Paul doesn't even consider is that it may be just ONE side that takes such an issue and turns it into such a battle. Midnight basketball wasn't meant as a big deal by the Clintonistas, it was just one minor Good Idea that might help a bit around the edges. It wasn't the left that turned it into fightin' words.

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