The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion

We'll be reading Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes through the end of September.

This thread can be used to give book reviews as well as for a general discussion of the book. Please feel free to start a new discussion in the book club folder if you'd like to focus on specific aspects of or ideas from the book.

I finished the book the other day, and I have to say Mr. Hayes makes a point that I try to make to my conservative family and friends all the time, and that is the tea party and occupy wall street movements are both movements (aimed at the same institutions) to change our political climate. However, how they imagine the outcome is very different. Does anyone else believe this as well?

Having never read the book, I don't know. But I think they attack different institutions as the Tea Party is attacking all the institutions involved in the social safety net.

Maybe I am way out on cloud 9 but why wouldn't some one think "how they imagine the outcome is very different"? or are you asking if people don't believe they are both movements targeting the same institutions?

Yes, that's a better way of putting it. It seems to me that tea party memebers attack "big government" while promoting an environment for "free market" style business. Where as the occupy wall street memebers seems to be attacking "big business" and their currpot practices. And as Chris Hayes points out, big business and big government involve the same individuals. Bascially, they need each other, so both groups are attacking the same people... just at diffrent institutions.

You have a point. They may be attacking some of the same people, but their agendas are different. The Tea Party wants the government to stop having any social programs so that rich people can get richer. The goal of the Occupy people seems to be pretty nebulous but their mind sets seems to be to distribute America's wealth more fairly so that the people in the bottom three fifths can have decent lives.

I think both groups say they want people to act more responsibly, the tea party idea is that we are only responsible for the consequences of our actions towards ourselves, the Occupy Wall St wants people acting responsibly to mean that we are responsible for the consequences of our actions towards other people. This includes how business and government interact with people.

Regardless of what the tea party leaders say the rank and file of the tea party don't want to give up or have their social security or medicare benefits reduced. They probably would like less people to have access to it.

They also don't want the agricultural subsidies or disaster relief reduced. They want some safety net programs, probably what they need the most.

Their stance on healthcare seems to be based on the idea that you don't need more comprehensive health insurance if you already have it and you don't need health insurance if you don't have it and are not sick. You also don't need it if you can't afford it.

The tea party members are in favor of eliminating all controls and restraints on any business, they also want a physically smaller government that would basically serve their needs. The irony here is that most tea party members would not benefit from an uncontrolled business environment.

Unless you are fabulously rich, everyone wants lower taxes. Having people, businesses, whatever pay a "fair share" is something most people support from any party. Defining a "fair share" is a big problem.

Poor people use the infrastructure, rich people make money off of the infrastructure.

The problem is that when the lower income people and higher income people, businesses, whatever are all taxed at the same rate, that can not supply the monies needed to maintain and upgrade the infrastructure that everyone uses. The bulk of the infrastructure maintenance and upgrade money has to come from the rich. Even now under the current tax codes the infrastructure is not maintained or adequately upgraded.

I don't think that's true. I'm hardly fabulously rich but I would be willing to pay higher taxes to support health care for people who can't afford it and to make sure that people with pre-existing conditions have access to it. By the way, my son just got state health care because he has a pre-existing condition. Private insurance companies refused to insure him. Although he's been out of college eight years, he couldn't have any. Now thanks to the Affordable Health Care Act, the state insurance was made more affordable and accessible and he was able to get it. It only covers him in catastrophic situations but at least we don't have to stay awake worrying what would happen if he got seriously sick. Thank God!

That is good that you got the insurance, in CT we still can't get anything yet for unemployed uninsured at reduced rates until the end of the year and that is only the starting date for some kind of program that is hard to find any real information about. We should know by the end of 2013 because I believe that is when you need to have something or you get billed for not having any.

I would guess at the most only 50 percent would be willing to pay higher taxes, just going by the standard polarization of issues on anything. That does not mean they will though, only saying that you will pay them and paying them is two different things, so I would suspect the actual percentage is much lower.

If the linkage was direct such that people were told their yearly taxes would go up $200 a year and for that you would get a health insurance policy that covered everything including dental, eyes care, hospital, homecare, etc, I believe most everyone would gladly pay it.

As far as paying higher taxes that would rebuild the infrastructure, they would have to be much higher to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time. I have included in my idea of infrastructure physical structures as well workers such as police, fire both local and forest, paramedic, public works, public transportation, education, power, basically all the stuff that is getting cut back now because of reduced tax revenues. I don't know where to include healthcare which by itself is consuming an ever increasing percentage of the available cash and showing no signs of backing off in its demands for a continued increase in funding.

He is employed and has been since graduation but not at jobs with benefits. Getting individual insurance is difficult for anyone with a pre-existing condition. In Illinois, there used to be a lottery and long waiting list for insurance for those who aren't insurable. Since the Affordable Health Care Act was passed, Illinois has made the state insurance more accessible and less expensive.

Going broke from health costs is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States. We are 24th among developed countries in the general health of our citizens and we are the only one without National Health Insurance. This law will not insure everyone but it will be a vast improvement. The Tea Partyers seem dead set against it because of their aversion to the government doing anything to further the well-being of its citizenry.

Not My Problem

The medical industry is just another bubble waiting to burst. Secure in the knowledge that the services it provides can never be looked on as non essential, oblivious to the fact that just about every other industry that uses electronics has been able to supply much more for much less. Instead for every new process there is a new way to charge people. In 1960 the amount spent on healthcare was 5 percent of GNP, in 2009 it was 17 percent, heading to 20 percent of the GNP by 2019.

So some people like the idea of limiting health care to people to limit the cost of healthcare.

I have found that I know people who seem to think this is not such a bad idea. To make matters worse, they don't care that they have health insurance courtesy of the company they work for while others can't get it where they work. They see increases on the order of a few dollars a month while the self insured see increases of 100 dollars at a clip and see nothing wrong with that either. And none of them are tea party people.

So far the US has evaded the fate of having a multitude of political parties forming a temporary ruling coalition always on the verge of dissolution.

Small independent political parties rise and fall on the strengths of their leaders, usually not lasting. Parties like the dems and repubs are so top heavy with leaders they can lose countless numbers of leaders due to everything from scandal to elections, and still keep going on and on. The tea party seems to be an across the board collection representative of most of the demographics of the country as a whole. And being relatively leaderless, they are immune to the loss of their leader as a reason for fading into obscurity.

The tea party may not be alone. Perhaps the green party will overcome its aversion to politics as it finds itself slowly accumulating cash due to the slow motion success of alternative energy.

Unfortunately it will be awhile before I buy the book at $12 plus shipping. Having looked at several reviews, it would appear to me to be old news.

Chris Hayes has one of the best--possibly the very best--shows on MSNBC, but it's on Sat/Sun so early that nobody in California is awake to watch it!

And he'll be on the MSNBC coverage of the convention this week, so if you enjoy the book, you might enjoy hearing him. He's very thoughtful, doesn't just repeat talking points.

Shelley
Rain, A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.com

Shelley wrote: "Chris Hayes has one of the best--possibly the very best--shows on MSNBC, but it's on Sat/Sun so early that nobody in California is awake to watch it!..."

that's why god invented DVRs

Yeah, I've never managed to watch Chris's show live. Once in a while, I start before it's done, but there's no way I'm getting up at 7am on a Saturday or Sunday just to watch a TV show.

I'm about a third of the way through the book, and I'm seeing the themes in the book in his comments on the show. Not that that hurts anything at all.

i think Chris Hayes is one of the best guys in news right now. his panels never (at least as far as i've seen) deteriorate into name-calling, yelling, and all that other stuff you see on other panel shows. very "civilized," if i can use that word.

Naomi, I'm smiling at your comment. I must worship at the wrong place, because my god has not yet awarded me the precious DVR.

I'm hoping MSNBC will wake up (no pun intended), see what a prize they have in Chris, and put him on at a time when Californians are out of bed.

Shelley, Rain: A Dust Bowl Story
http://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.com

I love Chris. I love that he is intelligent and that he has a forum. I love that he does excellent and accurate research.

But I dislike books like this. There has truly been epic instances of corruption in the last decade from elites who some appear to have done so with self-justifications of 'I'm smarter and richer'. But I think it's due more to corruptibility and then an ensuing small guilty conscience attack follows so they justify it by their position in society, by some. It's proof that more safeguards, watchdogs, analysts and auditors with authority and power are needed. George W. pretty much finished gutting federal government of its auditors, and government watchdog departments still have not recovered. It's worrying.

But the getting away with corruption, in my opinion, comes and goes in cycles, and it happens because people in position to be or act corruptible do, and the more they can hide it, the more they steal or take. Internal morality is a muscle for most that needs exercise, and most need a watchful buddy for maintenance.

I am a child of the sixties, a protester of the Vietnam War and an old style feminist. I understand about framing an argument, and that's what this book is trying to do, maybe for today's liberal activists. To me, it sounds overcooked and strained, making linkages between scandals from this decade and the upper crust elite mindset that don't exist in such dramatic numbers or strength.

i am a mixed race, economically poor female, and I know the poor make horrendous choices in their lives that are disgusting and abhorrent, if forgivable or understandable. But you don't have to be an elite to be disgusted, or wonder if because you wouldn't have made that choice you are a better person or smarter. I still believe in equalizing the opportunities and education and supporting the poor with housing/food/training/health care benefits as much as possible, and I think it's shameful how Americans have stepped away from that aspect of American belief.

I remember a Republican joining with us mostly liberals in a classroom for non-teachers to learn how to use a 'Each One Teach One' literacy program for adults. I asked her why she was here, and she said, "So they get off their asses and get a job and reduce my taxes by paying some of their own!"

Well. She turned out to be a good amateur teacher. So, I guess if this book motivates people or starts the conversation...

Shelley wrote: "Naomi, I'm smiling at your comment. I must worship at the wrong place, because my god has not yet awarded me the precious DVR.

I'm hoping MSNBC will wake up (no pun intended), see what a prize they have in Chris, and put him on at a time when Californians are out of bed..."

(i'm glad you got that i was being ironic.)

i agree about MSNBC. i'm not actually *UP*, either, when his show starts. i usually record it, wake up at some point while it's on and watch from the middle, and go back to the beginning later. a strange way to watch it, but i'm not going to get up that early on a weekend.

Poor people are not responsible for the technology that is changing the world, rich people are and elite people are. As to whether the technology is a good idea all depends on how it is used start to finish.

People do not seem to realize that being smart or intelligent has nothing to do with test scores or how much money you make.

Want to play a test? Take a person groomed on super markets, a store for every kind of desire, smart phones, shelters with piped in power and fresh clean water, drop them off in a jungle complete with bugs, wild animals, unknown plants far away from anything civilized and see how long they last.

And yet there are people successfully living there who don't have the kind of stuff this civilization is made of. By successful I mean they are alive at the end of the year, have families and a true understanding of their local environment that is worthy of a college degree.
Until these two types of situations are acknowledged as being equal, nothing lasting will be accomplished. Apocalypses are self-inflicted.

The people with tiny carbon footprints do not leave a heritage that poisons the land when they are gone. It is true that they can leave a physically stripped land, but that condition won't last, the land will recover, poison free.

The "smart" people with the big carbon footprints are leaving behind a slew of substances that can’t be absorbed back into the environment without some kind of negative impact now, later and much later.

The "knowledge" we acquire is used to make money by any means possible.

The bottom line is that the types of substances we use to make money have to be handled responsibility and they are not. Handling things responsibly is how you get graded in the real world. You don't get a letter grade, you leave an impact mark. There are too many substances to know about so there is no way to know who or what to support. People may think that acting responsibly for the moments they are alive is enough to insure success of this civilization but it isn't. People want all the benefits and none of the responsibility of even asking what does this really cost.

People like to think they can cruise along and pick and choose their battles and do their bit to make things work out in the long run. Well Mother Nature has got some bad news for us all.

The microbe world will fight amongst themselves, even kill each other but they have one motto after being in existence for 3 or 4 billion years, share the genetic experiences that make one successful, share and share alike, share every gene one can that let's one survive a little bit longer, a little bit better, and if you can't share with another microbe get another microbe to act as a go between to make sure everyone shares all the genetic experiences.

At the same time, you can kill your neighbor microbe for any reason, you can take your fellow microbes food source away, take their source of energy away, poison the other microbes well water. It's all okay in reproduction and war because at the end of the day there will be more microbes better equipped to handle tomorrow and at the same time make the world a better place to live in for everyone.

And who knows why but these microbes, they all seem to be getting updated with the latest genes that attack big creature hearts, lungs, kidneys, etc. So your chances of getting some exotic complication keep getting better as more and more of these different microbes keep getting updated with the same new genes that accidentally kill big creatures.

These genetic advances are used by these microbes to get ahead in their life and it is only by chance that their genetic advancements kill us. We are the source of these genetic changes as we change their environment and we facilitate their distribution using the souped up speed of commerce gone wild. So at the end of the day any of 50 different shades of microbes will all be to give you the same sendoff message. As we work to lengthen our lifetimes we also work to shorten them.


The bottom line is we don't share everything to insure everyone's survival.
And there is a price to pay for that.