Our Stunted Punditry and Open Thread

 

"Cry Me a River" - Joe Cocker (with Leon Russell on piano)

I was reflecting a little more on my exchange with Glenn Kessler, which made me want to explain a bit more why I become so intensely angry with these folks, to the point where I wish bad things upon them, which is not really a lofty emotion.

I think what triggers this sort of thing in me is the feeling that so many members of the elite journalism crew have no sense of empathy with those less fortunate than them.  The members of Krugman's "pain caucus" live in a world of vicious abstraction, where a bit of "sacrifice" -- by which they mean the loss of social support for retirement and the payment of medical bills -- is somehow ennobling and character building.

Now people with this world view generally have an inability to actually imagine what it is like to be the people who can't pay their medical bills or are looking at an old age (or childhood) mired in poverty.  Why this is so I don't really understand -- but it seems to me to be undeniably true.  And this means that they can view something like the Ryan Plan as though it were like the country joining one of those hard core exercise programs where they whip you into shape in six weeks.  It's an incredibly juvenile world view, but it is one that persists in much of the centrist and right wing media.  

Sometimes the cure for this affliction is to actually endure the experience of ill health or economic insecurity -- a kind of learned empathy via harsh experience.  Otherwise, these people remain smug and comfortable, inured to the pain that their advocacy, including perpetuating false equivalencies, brings about.

And so, in my crude  way, I was hoping Mr. Kessler and others similarly situated would have an experience where they can contemplate what it means to be in ill health and lack the means to be cured, to know the indignity of one's body betraying you, and to grapple with what that means while also having to worry about keeping a roof over one's head.  I am an incredibly privileged person and, as a result, have had the luxury of my family having access to the finest medical care around -- but I try never to forget that privilege and that, but for it, my life and the lives of those I hold dear could be markedly different,   

It would be nice if our opinion shapers could try the same exercise.

     

Comments

[kathy a.]

people of good fortune, who have never met anyone of substantially fewer fortunes, are limited in their ability to imagine what life would really be like if they had drawn a different set of cards. (i think this is also true of some folks who are not that well off, but think all those damned minorities and women should stop complaining, or that the afflicted should just find god, or whatever.)

i don't think one has to actually experience poverty, sickness, being elderly, etc. to appreciate the challenges -- but it helps if they know people in those circumstances, and/or hear their stories, individually and in the aggregate. if they look at the human and practical side, and don't just count these huge challenges to individuals as a collective drag on the economy. if they understand that their own fortunes are a combination of luck and the contributions of others -- there is not one fortunate person on the planet who got there without others.

it's easy to avoid empathy, living in an insulated and fortunate world. those others are just numbers and demographic groups, they aren't real. it's easy to speculate that the others could have made better choices, not knowing the full range of challenges any of the individuals have faced -- kind of a grown-up version of the "stranded on a desert island" fantasy that so fascinates kids.

most voters are not so insulated and fortunate. they have old people, sick people, poor people, struggling people in their families and among their friends and neighbors. they might view other people as undeserving, but usually not their own.

i think you're calling for the pundits to quit this pretense that this is a rhetorical exercise, and to examine the real effects on real people, and lots of them.

[low-tech cyclist]

Used to be just the conservatives that had no empathy for the problems of others. Every now and then, some conservative, or someone s/he knew, would experience a particular problem, and suddenly be all in favor of governmental help for persons with the same problem (e.g. George Will and his Down's Syndrome son) but would inevitably fail to generalize from this to an understanding that people with other problems might need some outside help beyond what private charity could be expected to provide.

I'm not sure when this disease spread to the Villagers in general. My suspicion is that as the chattering classes went from being comfortably well off to being genuinely rich, they largely lost touch with people who had problems that were beyond their resources, but within those of society at large. For them, problems requiring governmental help became rare, isolated events that only needed limited, focused solutions. So surely broad-based programs like Social Security and Medicare could be cut back: everyone they knew was still perfectly healthy at age 70, and more than capable of sitting down at a computer and cranking out 750 words of drivel twice a week.

This is my suspicion, anyway. It's backed by exactly zero evidence. But whatever the cause, the effects are pretty loathsome.

[Brian]

OK, so by the lofty standards of moral perfection, you failed. If I had to choose between someone behaving as you did, and the behavior of the head-up-the-arse, sociopathic, dishonest, elitist turds like Kessler, I'll take you every time. Why? In part, because your anger is rooted in human decency (seems oxymoronic, yes) and a desire for people to stop being such fucking liars. Thier behavior is, well, baffling. I will say, being well-acquainted with several Very Well-Educated Smart People, that some of them are so deeply vested in their own wealthy, privileged, insulated, self-reinforcing world that I do not think they are capable of understanding how deeply immoral and wrong they are. It breaks my heart, and the only reason I (mostly) keep my cool with them I because in spite of all that, they are my friends.

[kathy a.]

brian, friendship is not to be undervalued. nor is basic human decency.

it also gives an opportunity to tell stories, give examples, persuade. help them think about their privilege, think about what they would do if faced with the catastrophes that less fortunate people face. it's helpful to go at this sideways -- anecdotes, news stories, etc. get a conversation going.

[Howlin Wolfe]

If I had Kessler's email address, I'd email him right now to tell him to STFU and call him a pompous asshole crybaby. People like him don't deserve civility when they put that up as a defense to their stupidity. It means they won't change their thinking until someone they respect (a corporate overlord, most likely) tells them to.

[kathy a.]

ltc -- i think you hit on something important about the inability to generalize. that's why we need to keep talking. it's slow going, but i've seen minds changed as people keep talking and thinking about situations they personally never encountered, but that are reasonably close to ones they know.

i can't tell you how much medicare, SS, and medicaid have helped people in my own family. or student aid, which got me and my sibs and my husband through school. and there are many stories i can't tell here about clients and their families, how some social services helped at crucial times, and more chillingly, how they fell through the cracks in disasterous ways.

[Sir Charles]

Brian,

My oldest friend -- a guy I've known since second grade but don't live near anymore -- who leans Republican, sent me an email at one point taunting me about the imminent election of Scott Brown in Massacusetts. I fired back a fairly caustic email, but after that, held my fire in the interest of our very long friendship.

I also have a couple of friends who are more moderate journalists -- in a way that makes me crazy -- and though I get in their faces a bit, I try to back off when it gets to be too harsh.

I think we have to try to preserve our friendships as best we can even in the face of political opinions that leave us vexed.

HW,

Welcome. A lot of people seem to share your sentiments. This post got linked over at Balloon Juice yesterday and the commenters were pretty much in your camp. Made me feel better about my intemperate approach.

[low-tech cyclist]

i can't tell you how much medicare, SS, and medicaid have helped people in my own family. or student aid, which got me and my sibs and my husband through school. and there are many stories i can't tell here about clients and their families, how some social services helped at crucial times, and more chillingly, how they fell through the cracks in disasterous ways.

Without Social Security, my parents-in-law would have had to keep working until their bodies completely broke down. And then without Medicare, they would have probably died soon after. They don't have a great life, but they've got a paid-off house in a passable neighborhood. Without Social Security and Medicare, they'd have nothing at all, assuming they were still alive. And my wife's grandmother's main source of support is the survivor's pension she gets from having lost her husband in WWII.

Without Social Security and Medicare and the VA pension, my wife and I would have had to support them all, and pay for what medical care we could afford, once they were unable to work. Can't imagine we'd have been able to save much money for our own retirement.

I say let's institute a fully auctionable carbon cap-and-trade program, and use the revenues to lower the Social Security eligibility age back to 65. If there's more revenue than that requires, use it to extend the Medicare trust fund's viability another decade or so into the future. And if there's more left over after that, then rebate it to all Americans on a per-capita basis.

Sure, I know none of this would stand a prayer in this Congress. But if the Dems were actually pushing ideas like this, it would sure help their numbers in the next Congress.

[kathy a.]

vote vets dot org has bullet-points on ryan's plan, and is asking to spread the word. essentially, vets and others would be screwed.

ryan's plan is summarized elsewhere as follows: In other words, system-wide health care spending will continue to grow, even with massive cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. The only difference is that those costs would fall on hospitals, insurers and individuals, rather than the federal government. Rather than save the social safety net, Ryan’s plan would price out seniors and poor people once their vouchers/state support ran dry.

To be fair, this is probably the whole point of slashing Medicaid and voucherizing Medicare, since those “savings” are meant to finance Ryan’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

crooks & liars calls BS, citing among other things a CBO report and one from kaiser family foundation about how equivalent care under ryan's plan would cost folks more. bonus anecdote about how private insurance companies are a pain in the ass about payment.

and catch this -- if content is overly-critical of the ryan plan, congressional mailings are being denied franking. more here from those uppity cheeseheads.

[nancy]

My solution to the empathy vacuum exhibited by these rarified puffballs---public transit.
These people ought to try the bus, Metro, whatever, on a regular basis.

Commit to that, and if you're sensible, you'll do some people watching and be forced to reconsider your circumstances. I doubt there's any replacement for it in teaching transient and quick lessons about one's fellows. Our kids learned a lot "on the bus". This is one time when I can agree with Jesse Jackson. "Take the early bus". Not necessarily forever, but at some time, so you learn some compassion.

[nancy]

Well, I guess what I meant by "take the early bus" wasn't so much a solution to, but a prescription for that empathy vacuum.

[kathy a.]

yes, nancy. and volunteer work. everybody loves the idea, but actually doing it helps.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

I actually used to take the equivalent of one of those buses when I was a law student and working at my present firm --way back in 1983-84. It was a cross town bus -- the H Bus -- that took you from extreme northest DC through mainly African American and then Hispanic neighborhoods and then over to the heavily white neighborhoods where I still work and now live.

I was the white guy in a suit on a bus that was otherwise all working people -- a fair number of whom were Hispanic women going to work as maids over in the neighborhood where I work and a whole lot of people who got off at the Washington Hospital Center -- in uniforms of various kind that indicated they too were doing the hard manual labor there. Again, it was a setting where you had to feel your privilege -- and feel a whole lot less like you were the hardest working guy in town, a commond delusion among law students and young lawyers.

[Paula B]

Wasn't it the H2 or H4? Went from RI Ave NE, across Irving St NW and somehow ended up on Calvert Street in Glover Park? Or is my memory playing tricks again?

[nancy]

SC, kathy--Can you imagine Kessler, Friedman, Will, Krauthammer, ever on the bus, or even on the Metro? It's the rubbing-elbows absence that we're experiencing all over the country, I think--I remember my mother telling me, as a little kid, on the buses in Cincinnati, to be respectful to all, no matter what. Never forgot that lesson, but we're now on entirely different "grids" as we go about our lives. I think that's been devastating to the body politic. But we don't talk nor think about that. It's a given.

[kathy a.]

in honor of nancy: another one rides the bus.

[nancy]

oh kathy---- major appreciation. let's hop on. :^))

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

SC et alia:

A little righteous anger is not a bad thing, we could use more of it. Perhaps a lot more. So the pundits have also been bought off, why am I not surprised?

I think it goes way beyond empathy. I am making a far better living than my father ever did. I am making a far better living than most of my peers. But I would not even be on the radar of the likes of the elite classes. The entitled classes. Does anyone here miss the import of the juxtaposition of those terms?

To those who have never even wondered what the real world is like, who have dedicated themselves assiduously to the one consuming emotion of greed, other people who do not move in their circles do not exist. Any more than the inconvenient vermin and insects and germs exist.

It is not worth the thought process to try to figure out what their rationale may be. The only point that is important is that they control far too much, and understand, far too little. They actually believe that money is all that matters. Enough is not a word in their dictionary.

There are plenty of examples of the effects of delusional power when it gets out of control. There are also plenty of examples of processes that involve positive feedbacks that run their course with a chilling inevitability, until they self destruct. And out of the consequent chaos, there arises yet another effort to reach some state of consistent normalcy, some sustainable equilibrium. History of course denies the existence of any such animal.

In my narrow view, SC just received one of those prods that happened to hit a sore spot. I think his reaction was not only appropriate, but understated.

Ideals and abstract concepts of justice and fairness and all are fine and good, until such time as you find yourselves in a life and death struggle with those who care nothing at all for either. The word war has been cheapened in its application to trivial pursuits, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on terror. While there are actual conflicts tantamount to that ruthless and despicable behaivor. There is indeed a war on the so-called lower classes, not just the middle class, but everyone who does not pull down a few hundred million a year. And slowly, or quickly, depending on how nature chooses to befuddle us, that limited and well managed war will become something much more extreme. One day not just SC, but billions of people will realize the causes of their destitution. I didn't realize one or two years ago that greed is an addiction that the more fed, grows more keen.

The storm is gathering.

[Sir Charles]

Paula,

I believe at that time, for my purposes, the H2 and H4 were interchangable. They both picked up at the Brookland Metro and both let me off in Tenley Circle -- the routes were somewhat different in between and they ended in different places -- one might well have ended in Glover Park then.

This was back in the pre-historic days when the Red Line on the Metro ended at Van Ness/UDC. (When I spent my first semester junion year at AU, the Red Line used to end at Dupont Circle, which is alwasy mind boggling to my transit-oriented son). The day the Tenleytown Metro opened was a joyous one for me.

nancy,

No, I can't imagine any of those asshats on the Metro or the bus. Which speaks well for public transportation.

kathy,

Ha. I believe that that is John "Bermuda" Schwartz accompanying Weird Al.

KN,

I love the line "they control too much and understand too little. Consider it stolen. :-)

It's funny because one of the questions I fnd myself continuously invoking -- and it's not really rhetorical -- is when is enough enough? How much shit can you really own and enjoy? How much money can you make before it is utterly superfluous, merely an abstract way of keeping score.

[Sir Charles]

Is anyone else having trouble posting comments?

[nancy]

SC--if there is a problem posting, i believe i explained it last week to ninejean, who thought he'd been banned. probably in the thursday night trail. it is a bit of a strange jam. it does happen, but is easily remedied once you go through the copy/paste in new tab, new comment box exercise.

[Paula B]

there are no saints. The harder they fall:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/17/a_long_way_up_for_dimasi_before_the_spectacular_fall/

[Sir Charles]

Paula,

That's an old story in Massachusetts. Legislative leaders have been sent to jail or forced to step down on multiple occasions over the last forty years. It seems to be a recurring issue with the Democratic regulars who tend to achieve the positions of leadership.

[oddjob]

DiMasi is the third consecutive House Speaker of the Massachusetts legislature to be convicted of committing a federal crime.

[Paula B]

What interested me was DiMasi is a guy who came up the hard way, who understood the hardships we've been talking about in this discussion. Like you say, he's not the first and or last to abuse the power of his office in this or other states. If GOP strategists are looking for ways to deflect damage done to their party's image by Palin, Baumann, Paul, et al, they must think they've died and gone to heaven when they watch DiMasi, Wiener and Edwards self destruct, for chrissake. Why can't the party keep its house clean? How will Dems overcome the legacy of crooks, liars and exhibitionists in their ranks? Scandal is something voters pay attention to, even when they ignore the weightier issues discussed on these pages. The whole thing really pisses me off.

[Sir Charles]

Paula,

Sadly it is often these guys who came up the hard way who feel a sense of entitlement once they get there.

For some reason, and thankfully, the local stuff like this never really resonates in the national political scheme.

There really isn't much of a party mechanism to enforce discipline. Only in the event of a scandal of damaging proportions do party leaders tend to act.

To her credit, I actually think Pelosi is pretty quick to jump on stuff in the House.

[kathy a.]

UN resolution for gay rights.

[nancy]

Maybe they thought no one would notice this since it's Friday afternoon. Very confusing. AARP?

[kathy a.]

nancy, WTF?

[Sir Charles]

They don't see to quite know what they are saying.

Strange tactics. As an interest group I just don't see a lot of upside to this.

[Paula B]

So much bad economic news today, everywhere. With the threat of a global economic disaster looming, maybe this was a good day to co-opt those who have demonized greedy old folks who are sucking up taxpayers' money. If millions of seniors are willing to negotiate (through the AARP), conservatives who vow to dismantle the program could lose some momentum and/or support. If the GOP doesn't take the bait and respond with a reasonable offer, voters will see who is to blame when and if the next generation of seniors lose vital benefits.
Haven't read the NYT story yet, but just heard it on CBS, where Scott Pelley led by inaccurately claiming 20% of the US budget goes to pay for SS, ignoring the fact SS benefits come out of a separate fund and are not part of the working annual budget. But, why let facts get in the way of a good story?

[Sir Charles]

Paula,

Indeed.

It is especially galling given that the SS surplus was used by the Republicans for so many years to help mask the size of the operational deficit.

[Krubozumo Nyankoye]

SC - that would be an intellectual property issue would it not? Expect to be engulfed by waves of Brasilian advogadros waving copyright claims. <\snark> (just in case).

To your larger point I have to say I really don't understand it either. I recall seeing some 20 years ago bumper stickers reading roughly - whoever dies with the most toys wins. That particularly infantile sentiment struck me as advertising one's own inanity. Incredible.

The only problem I have posting is apparently a timeout issue. When I indulge in extensive rants I often get a message to the effect that I can't post. I just revert to the form page, copy what I wrote to the buffer, reload the page and paste my original text into the comment and bingo, good to go. It is some kind of scripting error in the comment form code but I can't suggest any obvious problem with that since I haven't any recourse to a comparable platform. Since we are on this tack though let me ask a question. Do you have any statistics on the overall readership of Cogitamus versus the number of commenters? I am hoping a lot more people read this blog than comment, but that may be a bit optimistic.

Paula B. - I think there is a clear double standard. For one thing the echo chamber is a one way street. If it appears on Faux or the Wall Street Jungle, then the rest of the MSM gloms onto it with the alacrity of the swarms of flies that one associates with feed lots. If it happens to be a supreme court justice doing a mulligan over two decades worth of felonious financial disclosure filings it generates nothing but a tepid yawn.

Oh look, today we have yet another example. Apparently, from what I have found with my very limited access is that the WSJ essentially 'mischaracterized' what AARP said about their change in policy. I recall predicting when News Corp. bought the WSJ that gradually over time the obvious bias of the editorial pages would impose itself on the actual news reporting. This prediction is more obviously true with each passing week.

I am probably pressing the timeout limit on this comment now so I will shut the hell up and see what happens.

OT but I did get some minor good news yesterday, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, I have been advised that I will be going to China again in the near future to try to close the deal on this project, meaning a) that I will eventually get all my deferred pay and b) that I will be able to get the hell out of the jungle and learn to drive again. I hope I can arrange it so that some sorry recent graduates can take over my duties and get some cred here in the bush and I can go home and get to know my SO and renew long moribund friendships.

It would be nice.

Ciao all,

[big bad wolf]

Free KN!

49 more and it's a movement

[oddjob]

:)

[Paula B]

>>>The obvious bias of the editorial pages would impose itself on the actual news reporting. This prediction is more obviously true with each passing week.

Too bad more people don't recognize this phenomenon. It's called Murdochization.

Good luck on your escape, NK! Send a comment on your cell from a traffic jam somewhere, so we know you're back in civilization.

[Sir Charles]

KN,

That's exciting. Although I suspect the driving thing may lose its charms rapidly.

[Sir Charles]

As for our readership, I haven't looked at the figures for a while, but considerably more people read than comment, by a really huge margin. We're not exactly daily kos, but we do get a decent number of people stopping by.

I would encourage any of them who haven't to join the fray here. We always like to hear from new voices to add to our community here.