The comments to this New Deal 2.0 essay highlight one of the many problems liberals face. And this is the liberal habit of issuing extended, attention-seeking manifestos. The desperate apple polishing is unseemly. Every liberal has an FDR essay. We all know that. There's no need to keep elbowing each other to shove them at the teacher. The perfesser knows you're there.
Which brings me to another problem. I have no objection to scholars who take on the didactic chores. Some are talented and it's not an easy task. But to arrange an entire culture around didacticism, with forcible schooling and ankle biting attendance requirements, seriously degrades the concept. Schooling on the foie gras model guarantees antipathy to any educative intent. The frantic apple polishing makes it a disturbing farce.
Comments (10)
Off topic---
Distinguishing between "children's products" and "idiot's products", your Federal government is on the job:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/cadmium-lead-drinking-glasses/
Federal regulators will decide whether the superhero and Oz glasses are "children's products" and thus subject to strict lead limits; if U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission staffers conclude the glasses to fall outside that definition, the lead levels would be legal.
Posted by Boink | November 22, 2010 1:55 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 13:55
That's bad, but think of how much worse it could be if the Republicans took back the country. The poor kids might be forced to drink liquid cadmium, with no debate at all! We should thank god the government at least has the space to study the semantics.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 3:02 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 15:02
Too right, mate!
Posted by Boink | November 22, 2010 5:16 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 17:16
exceedingly nimble squib
moray Al
"frantic apple polishing"
the merit class
blow job
Posted by op | November 22, 2010 6:20 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 18:20
Actually, if I were properly motivated, I could whip up a real humdinger of an FDR essay myself, but the Liberals wouldn't like it as it involves internment camps, the Manhattan Project, the FCC, and Eleanor going around giving speeches about civil rights while Franklin does nothing but send black me off to kill and die in segregated infantry platoons and bomber squadrons.
Honestly, I don't know why Liberals get all misty-eyed over FDR. They're almost as bad that way as they are for Kennedy.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | November 22, 2010 7:26 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 19:26
The myth of the Good King can serve a well meaning purpose, I think. Liberals want to be loved; some, a few of them, want to be worth loving. They also want a hint of noblesse oblige. FDR gave them something concrete to work with; transfer programs, east coast aristocracy. LBJ gets fewer misty eyes because he was a cracker.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 8:44 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 20:44
Owen, yeah, the coy fellatio of the merit class is a spectacle. The rural types call it bobbing for apples, which should bring a blush to cheeks of the apple polishing comment brigades.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 22, 2010 9:57 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 21:57
so much for FDR
more ???
yup :
flugman
on lincoln
next week
same bat time
same bat station
Posted by op | November 22, 2010 11:06 PM
Posted on November 22, 2010 23:06
I think liberals actually love the brilliance of FDR rewarding his enlightened Noble Democrat business pals through schemes which produce "public works" that essentially are make-work, lacking long-term vision other than continuing the subtle caste system of America.
Frankie Delano pretended to care about millions of Out-of-Work(TM) Americans, just long enough to let his pals find ways to make millions off the cheap labor rates that Out-of-Work(TM) Americans are willing to accept.
When large sweeps of the American populace begin understanding the short-term scope of Frankie Delano's grift, they find it easy to blame Free Market Rethuglicans for the idea that Frankie Delano's Valhalla was not perpetuated and expanded. If Frankie Delano were alive today, says Lemuel Liberal and Pontius Progressive, we'd have single-payer health care.
(paid for by Uncle Sam, provided by Corporate Rapists, at 3x the market rate, all bloat and waste not just intact, but made permanent after gross expansion)
Posted by CF Oxtrot | November 24, 2010 11:43 AM
Posted on November 24, 2010 11:43
I think you've nailed it, CF. It's a neurotic dynamic. If one is even notionally left wing, the need is for good jobs, not just any jobs and given the plantation mentality of capitalists, there's a need for a built-in recapture value for the workers.
Addressing that with big trickle down boondoggles only works for so long. The political problem with them should be obvious. Engorging the source of the problems increases their appetites, as well as their ability to sate them.
Posted by Al Schumann | November 25, 2010 4:29 AM
Posted on November 25, 2010 04:29