Matt Taibbi Blasts David Brooks: 'Wait Until After The Bodies Were Cold'

trueslant.com:

A friend of mine sent a link to Sunday's David Brooks column on Haiti, a genuinely beautiful piece of occasional literature. Not many writers would have the courage to use a tragic event like a 50,000-fatality earthquake to volubly address the problem of nonwhite laziness and why it sometimes makes natural disasters seem timely, but then again, David Brooks isn't just any writer. Rather than go through the Brooks piece line by line, I figured I'd just excerpt a few bits here and there and provide the Cliff's Notes translation at the end.

Read the whole story: trueslant.com

Comments

[p90xxx]

12:03 PM on 01/21/2010

One thing is for sure- it's going to take a lot of time and resources to recover from this catastrophe. This is why it is so important that we gather as much aid as possible for Haiti while this is still fresh in peoples' minds. Not only do we need to tackle this task of "rebuilding," but when I consider that the state that they lived in previous to this tragedy, I would like to think that we could take it one step further. Sadly, I'm not making money right now and I'm finding it hard to help these people who are in such great need. One thing that found that I could do, and I hope you will do the same, is to follow this link and vote on a facebook competition for a non-profit called Invisible Children. http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/598099

It takes very little effort and can make a huge difference. If they win, they are donating $100,000 to relief in Haiti. They are a reputable organisation and will be sure that the aid gets to the people who need it the most.

[AntiSocialite]

01:00 PM on 01/20/2010

Brooks landed a low blow in comparing the 'stark differences' between the landscapes of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He seems to insinuate that it's caused by deforestation, but totally glosses over the fact that Haiti is on the leeward side of the mountains of Hispaniola and that a significant portion of the country lies in the rain shadow created by the mountains. This is a fact I learned in the 6th grade and even then it was easy to see how large of an effect that has had on the country. After all it's hard to even master an agrarian economy with no RAIN.

[00RM7]

03:14 AM on 01/20/2010

I would like to see David Brooks respond to Matt.
Oh how funny would that be?!?!

[Carolab]

05:08 AM on 01/20/2010

Maybe he'll provide his real pen-is size.

[eshesh]

12:44 AM on 01/20/2010

Matt Taibbi needs to chill out. I consider myself progressive and liberal but his sense of outrage, short-sighted and disingenuous and very very self-righteous, embarrasses me.

His whole style of argument, as evidenced perfectly by the excerpt-followed-by-translation format of his piece, is an exercise in hyper-sensitive socio-political paranoia. Anything that can be taken to be racial/xenophobic/overly-religious/ is blown up beyond all nuance and turned against Brooks to paint him as nothing more than a hateful man with absolutely no well-meaning intentions, as if Matt Taibbi can peer into the heart of men.

Is there a constructive piece of wisdom Taibbi offers regarding the obviously very complex problem of global poverty which Brooks was trying to address? No.Taibbi wasn't arguing with Brooks, he was sucker-punching him by dragging the issue through a mire of faux-morality, a strategy that is all too familiar among the repugs/conservatives which he admonishes so passionately. What Taibbi doesn't realize is that he's just on the other side of that dumbed-down coin.

The absolute fact of the matter is that David Brooks would take Matt Taibbi to school in any contest of intellect or discourse.

[Dnietz]

03:00 AM on 01/20/2010

your last sentence is all the evidence needed that you are not progressive or liberal at all and are only pretending to be

this is a technique that has been used frequently the last couple of years and it is easy to spot now

anyone that suggest the brooks is an intellectual while ignoring the celebrated and courageous work matt has been doing (especially criticizing the most powerful people in the usa) cannot possibly have any progressive ideology. brooks has never said anything reasonable or acceptable by a progressive.

brooks is a uuak job

[DanHasSpoken]

01:50 PM on 01/20/2010

Your post makes no sense. Taibbi's reporting has been brave at times. This piece was cowardly and plain stupid.

[eshesh]

03:33 PM on 01/22/2010

I suppose it's impossible in your mind that someone can both have sound reasoning and rhetorical skills and still have a different political view. I for one don't believe that. I think there are plenty of people I disagree with on fundamental political and social issues who I consider quite intelligent.

You base your entire conclusion (that I must not be progressive) based on the above fact, and ignore any of my substantive criticisms of Taibbi in this instance. It's not about his "courage", it's about his ranting, raving, and finger-pointing which I find devoid of considered analysis.

So to be a progressive has nothing to do with how you feel about specific issues, but whether you automatically take sides with another person's ad hominid attacks simply based on that person's liberal intentions and not the content or quality of their thoughts.

[Carolab]

05:10 AM on 01/20/2010

David Brooks is a clow-n who couldn't even get hired to do children's parties.

He is, in a word, stoo-pid and ever time he appears on TV with Mark Shields he proves it.

So, he's an easy tar-get for Taibbi, or pretty much anyone with a brain.

[iMissMollyIvins]

12:22 AM on 01/20/2010

I'm not sure what Brooks' point is about Voodoo, especially when one considers the fact that 80+% of Haitians are Catholic. Hmm, that might also explain why they have so many kids.

[Dnietz]

03:01 AM on 01/20/2010

as matt said, cultural signaling

they have dark skin

[tralbry]

07:10 PM on 01/31/2010

Haitian Catholic is not the same as US or European Catholic. The former has voodoo elements that the Vatican has traditionally tolerated suprisingly well. Voodoo is a loaded word almost no matter who uses it (unless there's a long expanatory part attached to it), so, yes Brooks took a risk by raising it.

On a post here one time I semi-seriously asked how many zombies there were in Haiti. The reaction was predictable and to be honest, I was trying to be provocative, but not just for the fun of it or to be racist. It had to do with a BBC documentary I'd seen about a documented case of someone who'd been dead, buried and brought back to life by a voodoo priest. I'd understand if you're reaction to this is that I'm nutz but the whole thing is real. It's as real as any magic trick. Someone is "killed" with a nerve toxin that paralyzes them including heartbeat and breathing. They are buried. They are secretly dug up. Since there is no known antidote oxygen is administered to avoid suffocation and hope they recover. (They usully don't recover.) If they do, the priest tells them that they are a zombie.

The neuro-toxin used is Tetrodotoxin from blowfishes, the same fish that Japanese gourmets eat and that sometimes kills them.

My point is this. It's impossible to use words like voodoo in a neutral way. It's as evocative as a word for primitivism as zombie is.

[treat2day]

12:06 AM on 01/20/2010

The movie Avatar had a budget of $400 million and so far grossed $1.6 billion globally. President Obama pledged $100 million to Haiti which is only ¼ of the Avatar’s budget. My point is to put into perspective the kind of reality I live in as a citizen USA. When one movie profits more than aid collected for a natural disaster. Now you have idiots printing cultural differences.

[Dnietz]

03:04 AM on 01/20/2010

i completely agree that we should be going in there with funding that is more around 10 billion

after all, never mind your avatar argument, didn't we just throw away a few TRILLION on fake bank bailouts that we don't know where they went? isn't 100 million something like a CEO's salary/bonus now? didn't the CEO of united healthcare make 750 million just a few years ago?

i'm not worried about avatar

[Palemoon]

11:31 PM on 01/19/2010

Tavi I'm a Fan of Tavi I'm a fan of this user 20 fans permalink

"More human beings died in the Haitian earthquake than died on 9/11."

I like your post. But let me also add. Right now, confirmed d3ath t0lls in Haiti is still around 70,000 confirmed the last I saw. That's way, way, way below the d3ath t0ll from the 2004 tsunami. I'm talking, about a third of what was lost in the tsunami. Right now, Haiti pales in comparison both in size and scope. Sure, the numbers could change, but not the scope.

And yet, i don't recall all major US networks including MTV going out of their way to run a free telethon commercial free to send aid to the victims of the tsunami.

I remember Live 8 and Live Earth, but there was no Live Tsunami concert that I ever saw.

[Mountain Momma]

11:51 PM on 01/19/2010

Google "Tsunami aid: a concert of hope." You'll see all the details. George Clooney pretty much led it, which is why it was no surprise he's organized this one. It was carried on NBC and every channel Universal owns (like USA and SciFi, Bravo, and probably about 10 others).

I remember watching it.

[Palemoon]

05:02 AM on 01/20/2010

I remember that too. But it was a pretty isolated event and only was a 2 hour concert.

What the one happening saturday is about, is going to probably go all night being they have over 100 stars to perform and it starts at 8pm EST and runs until whenever they shut it down. By the way, broadcasting from several places around the world.

http://www.billboard.com/news/hope-for-haiti-telethon-to-air-jan-22-1004059746.story#/news/hope-for-haiti-telethon-to-air-jan-22-1004059746.story

Now, I will ask AGAIN. Why didn't they show this same compassion for all of the other disasters?

[Palemoon]

10:59 PM on 01/19/2010

"We should not go to the people and say, "Here we are. We come to give you the charity of our presence, to teach you our science, to show you your errors, your lack of culture, your ignorance of elementary things." We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn at that great source of wisdom that is the people." --- Che Guevara

That, in essence, is what needs to be done. You can't just throw money at them, build a school, whine about their culture, lack thereof or whatever it is they are doing wrong. First off, you need to go to the people and find out exactly what it is that is wrong. Find out their needs and desires. The people of Haiti know best what is for them, not some tycoon sitting in America. Not even some President of some aid organization.

But then, nobody will like the answer. That's the sad part.

[nyckid]

09:37 PM on 01/19/2010

Hmmm... David Brooks is a 2ionist neocon racist. "nonwhite laziness"

[Dnietz]

03:05 AM on 01/20/2010

that is correct and also not new

fanned

[nyckid]

09:36 PM on 01/19/2010

Hmmm.....Brooks and 2ionist supremacy are two sides of the same coin.

[Tavi]

09:25 PM on 01/19/2010

More human beings died in the Haitian earthquake than died on 9/11.

Yet, when Ward Churchill wrote an essay (not even an article for a major newspaper) probing exactly the same types of provocative questions as Brooks just did -- questioning all the vast social/religious/cultural/military reasons why the tragedy happened -- Churchill got crucified, fired from his teaching position, and endlessly attacked by the right wing.

Just sayin'.

[Bernique]

12:05 AM on 01/20/2010

Tavi --yes, yes, yes.

[Dnietz]

03:07 AM on 01/20/2010

that is because ward criticized (among others) the one group of people in this country that no one is ever allowed to criticize

[miriamfl]

09:13 PM on 01/19/2010

I honestly hope that this small island can be rebuilt but I'm affraid that it won't happen. Imagine New Orleans an island where people cannot leave like they did in New Orleans because many have moved out and have not returned but Haitians can't do that. There are entire towns in New Orleans that have not recovered and it is part of this great country. Imagine not having an stablished well run government or resources and still having to live among the rubble and continue to be dependent on other countries for survival.

[Uncle Bill]

09:12 PM on 01/19/2010

And some whose writing doesn't dissappear down the memory hole.

[poaster]

08:56 PM on 01/19/2010

Text 90909 to "Brooks Bite Me" and $5 will go to help support John Boehner's orange tan.

[AGarcia]

09:18 PM on 01/19/2010

Text 90909 to "Lindsey Graham is the Chicken Lady" and $5 will go to support George Will's toupee collection.

[ErnestineBass]

10:09 PM on 01/19/2010

LOL...I thought Dynel rugs went out in the 70's.

[rudolph]

08:47 PM on 01/19/2010

If Brooks had waited until the corpses cooled, no one would have given a toss. Next week, next week's story.

[Dnietz]

03:09 AM on 01/20/2010

but money is THE most important thing in the entire world to these people, and it just made him and limbaugh sick to see it going there so quickly. they couldn't help themselves.