Stetson > Recent Status Updates

I had this booked in Libby for some unknown reason (some rec I can't remember). Didn't realize this would be a gay romance of sorts. Interestingly, it doubles as a historical/political novel of the second Red Scare.

At about one-third of the way through the book, our protagonist Mary meets Mr. Craven, her guardian and host. She has also just began restoring the Secret Garden.

Sotomayor chapter departs from subject to attack how the New Left legal movement evolved and how a much dumber justice than Sotomayor, Earl Warren, indulged it.

Woof ticket

Safire small commentary on Clintonisms is hilarious.

Review coming

She's harder on Paglia than is warranted. Certainly not the figure I'd pin the sexual excess of Boomers on.

Jeffrey Sachs inclusion is interesting especially after such famous figures as Jobs and Sorkin. Summers figures in the chapter who was also probably considered in the same position.

There is a collection of counter-strategies and an addendum of further purported reactionary rhetorical devices at the end of the book.

This is history by successive vignette. It an be hard to track the names along with events and draw connections across the events Duncan strings together. I'm listening so it would probably be easier to track while reading given how similar the ending of many of the names are.

Second bio chapter is on Aaron Sorkin - his misbegotten obsession with TV as a medium of education and persuasion.

The final rule is "Misdirect by blaming a convenient cause"

The list of rules totals to five and none are particularly unique to right-wing rhetoric. Bebout simply just asserts that these techniques are more likely to preserve the status quo ante. He really doesn't produce any evidence of this though.

The first bio sketch is of Steve Jobs. Andrews is more laudatory toward Jobs than one may expect, celebrating him for being a personal force in opposition to what she seems as more stereotypical boomer tendencies. She contrasts Jobs with his successor Tim Cook, to highlight these differences. Despite Jobs' positive qualities and accomplishments (building Apple), his impact was quickly degraded in his early death.

The book is organized like Eminent Victorians, which means it is comprised on biographical sketches meant to illustrate the spirit of the age (in this case a generation that dominated mid and late 20th century America and even early 21st century America. The tone is satirical and rollicking

Feeble rhetorical analysis so far as it just assumes an ethical system friendly to modern Progressive politics. Subsequently, there is no basis provided for the reader to distinguish between why alleged reactionary rhetoric is deleterious.

Three rules so far (none are specifically reactionary):
Define and Disavow
Weaponize Victimhood
Build Reactionary Utopias
Label opponents extreme

The occupational license case study highlights that much of the income inequality that serves as grist for left-wing populist rhetoric, if taken seriously, should be directed at doctors, dentists, and lawyers rather than CEOs and billionaires.

Of course, this is inconvenient for the Marxism of those who engage in left-wing populism.

Critique appears somewhat more nuanced than the blaming of typical culprits: neoliberalism, globalism, etc.

They highlight specific policy areas for improvement while just gesturing at the idea that rent seeking is entrenching and stratifying class and crowding out growth: financial misregulation (debt vs equity funding, moral hazard, etc), IP law expansion, occupational licensing, and local zoning restrictions.