Here is what The New York Times paid Mr. David Brooks a large pile of money to write today:
Atlantis: A Land of Contrasts.
Noah.
Noah.
Noah.
Noah.
Noah.
Both Sides!
Why won't Obama lead?
What? You think I'm kidding?
From Mr. David Brooks in The New York Times today
Harvey, Irma, Jose … and Noah.
And we're off...
Is there anything we can learn from hurricanes, storms and floods?
People have been asking that question for thousands of years, and telling stories that try to make sense of natural disasters. These flood myths are remarkably similar to one another...
The most famous story, of course, is the biblical story of Noah. As the story begins, the human race is living without law, and as a result is living violently and badly. But there was one righteous man, Noah...
God tells Noah to build an ark...
What does Noah say when he hears this?
Rabbis and scholars have often judged Noah harshly for this...
“Noah was righteous but not a leader,” Rabbi Jonathan Sacks observes...
Noah and his family get on the ark and Noah gently cares for the animals...
What does Noah do now? Once again, Noah is silent...
Once again, the rabbis are critical of Noah’s passivity...
Now God gives Noah a covenant...
Noah is a good man, but his story is a lesson in the dangers of blind obedience...
And here is the key paragraph: the razor in the apple of virtually every single thing The New York Times pays Mr. David Brooks to write:
..That’s because we have trouble thinking about authority. Everybody seems to have an outsider mentality. Social distrust is at record highs. Many seem to swerve between cheap, antiestablishment cynicism, on the one hand, and a lemming-like partisan obedience on the other.
Floods are invitations to recreate the world. That only happens successfully when strong individuals are willing to yoke themselves to collective institutions...
In other words, "Floods...boy, I don't know."
The one salvageable metaphor from this puddle of awful is the image the ark.
Because once again that is exactly what David Brooks and the rest of the Beltway media drivel-mongers are building for themselves and their friends, right out in the open where everyone can see. Another great big Both Siderist lifeboat -- just like the one they built after President Cheney lied us into the wrong war, just like the one they built after the Bush Administration collapsed, just like the one they built after the GOP chose to deal with the election of the first black president with a relentless, unified campaign of slander and sedition -- on which they plan to once again sail away unscathed from yet another catastrophe for which they bear a huge amount of responsibility.
This is what we're up against:
And without massive and concerted push-back, they will absolutely get away with it once again.
crossposted from Driftglass
