Didn’t Daniel Patrick Moynihan wear his trousers down around the lower part of his buttocks and made extra money burglarizing homes, selling drugs and pimping hos (or is it hoes)? I’m surprised TNC left out those important details.

Moynihan once said he was told by a former student of his who had become a financial expert in the Reagan administration that Reagan’s military build up was intended to get the US so much in debt that no further social spending would be possible.

Coates is a good fit here at Unz.

Good observations and analyses of the decline and fall and no practical suggestions on what to do about it.

As a movement conservative who worked on Capitol Hill in the 1980s and had friends in the White House, I heard the same kind of thing. I think it was just talk.

Two things you probably wouldn’t believe unless you were there:

First, almost everyone in politics liked Reagan, even if they completely disagreed with him or thought he was out of the loop (which he was, allowing his evil VP to do a lot of damage).

Second, a lot of DC conservatives, including people in the administration, really did believe in the Great Communist Menace. I did. I realize now that it was mostly BS, but back then I believed it.

Coates is a good fit here at Unz.

Good observations and analyses of the decline and fall and no practical suggestions on what to do about it.

Sure, but can he make snide little observations in the comments section?

“There is something strangely alluring and seductive to [black men] in the appearance of a white woman,”

The esteemed speaker seemed to have forgotten the word “fat” before the words “white woman”

Prior to the article by Moynihan, Noam Chomsky speculated along those lines. He said military Keynesianism is preferred because social spending tends to mobilise the population into coalitions that business does not like. The amazing thing to me in things written during the early Cold War is that many economists thought the Soviet Union was going to dominate Europe economically.

Coates’s piece is along the lines of the argument Michael Levin characterised as a plaintiff who sues for injury to his leg, but insists the defendant can not mention the leg. The article is about Moynihan repeatedly mentioning ‘the leg’.

I doubt that he has ever read the comments at Unz. I read quite a few.

In that my comment does not qualify as snide, I suppose any comment that he did happen to make might meet your definition of snide.

no practical suggestions on what to do about it.

Well jail-house wisdom says: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

I think that would go a long way to solving many of the problems.

The article is long on assertion, has some unconvincing anecdotes that as often as not work against the narrative, and is full of non sequiturs. I stopped counting the number of “Fox Butterfield, call your office” passages, in which he notes that crime went down as incarceration went up. It’s a long assertion of “we’re depraved on account of we’re deprived,” but ignores the non-results of several decades of welfare spending.

I note the “community activist in Detroit” pictured is wearing a “Free Herman Bell” shirt. Herman Bell and an accomplice ambushed and killed two New York police officers, one of them black. He was a member of the Black Liberation Army; you can guess the politics of the group by the name. Herman Bell is a model criminal for a life without parole sentence.

(which he was, allowing his evil VP to do a lot of damage).

I have always hated those attempts to absolve Reagan from all the damage he did to this country. Either he was too stupid to be President or he was knowledgeable about the ill effects of these programs and supported them. Either way the buck stops with him.

Every one of our bad economic policies came from his administration – he looked the other way while corporations flooded the country with illegals to destroy wages and kill unions (such as with the IBP meatpackers) then amnestied them with laws that guaranteed an endless supply of more illegals, his administration started the big lie about a tech worker shortage that ended with H-1Bs under GHWB, and free trade agreements were started by him but the Mexicans were hesitant and we needed more Mexican economic crises for GHWB to promise bailouts.

I always laughed at those clowns crying about Clinton, Mena Arkansas and drug running. It seems them and the idiots lapping that up never looked at a calendar to see who was President when Clinton was governor. Now we see the end result of Reagan’s pathological fear of the Red Menace – all those “refugees” he let in that never left have become a beachhead for ever more chain migration from central America.

Levin: In fact—this theme permeates Race—play of the gene card, far from being a gratuitous swipe at blacks, has been forced on defenders of justice by the constant diabolization of whites. It is impossible to be silent when silence amounts to an admission of guilt. When Smith limps into court, berates Jones for breaking his leg, and demands damages, Smith must be prepared to hear Jones deny the charge. Smith has opened the door to alternative hypotheses about the cause of his deformity, for instance that it runs in his family, and he must be prepared to face them. Smith cannot accuse Jones and then call him tactless for pleading innocent—exactly what liberals do when they blame whites for black woes, then call whites who deny the charge insensitive and try to silence them with speech codes. […]

Race notes two commonly neglected reasons why genetic arguments may not be strictly necessary to rebut the compensation argument. First, the suffering of the North and the non-slave-holding South during a Civil War fought to give black slaves their freedom may have made further white sacrifices superfluous (i.e., non-slaveholding whites have already done more than their fair share). Second, subsequent black behavior may have canceled any remaining debt. The high black crime rate and the preference of black offenders for white victims have subjected whites to many more murders and robberies than would have been inflicted by a white subpopulation of equal size. In addition, blacks have marred or destroyed enormous stretches of real property created by whites, as is obvious from a tour of any large black neighborhood. On balance, blacks may owe whites compensation..

I have always hated those attempts to absolve Reagan from all the damage he did to this country.

One of the most damaging items was his collusion with Tip O’Neill to raise the SS tax which has helped to hide the extent of the Federal deficit all these years.

At least the title is more reasonable than last week’s teaser “The Enduring Myth of Black Criminality” linked in https://www.unz.com/isteve/ta-nahesi-coates-is-back/
The main supporting points in the 3 minute teaser video related to the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), perception of MLK as a criminal (1960’s), and current arrest rate and incarceration disparities. It was nice that he actually mentioned one thing that applied to current America, but how he can make any pretense to be a thoughtful intellectual without addressing the relevance of disparities of rates of commission of crimes is beyond me.

The full piece deconstructs a 50 year old report. It is striking that the pathologies alluded to in part VIII “The Negro poor having become more openly violent.” seem as relevant today, but TNC fails to address that while focusing on things like the sexism of Moynihan’s proposals (e.g. “We must not rest until every able-bodied Negro male is working. Even if we have to displace some females.”).

“My previous grade school teacher noted that I should be placed in special education,” Odell wrote in a 2014 letter to his lawyer. “It is unclear what roll childhood lead poisoning played in my analytical capabilities.”

Odell’s words are clearly edited.

Yeah, I was aware of that one but it just slipped my mind, there were so many to keep track of.

Actually, those tax increases were negotiated under Carter to make SS solvent well into the future. However, faced with the fact that his supply side economics wasn’t reducing the deficits like he thought they would he had to raise some taxes. He chose to raise them on labor and not capital even though the lion’s share of earlier tax cuts went to capital. He accelerated the increases that were supposed to be phased in slowly.

For example, one of the anecdotes:

Tonya began using crack. One night she gathered with some friends for a party. They smoked crack. They smoked marijuana. They drank. At some point, the woman hosting the party claimed that someone had stolen money from her home. Another woman accused Tonya of stealing it. A fight ensued. Tonya shot the woman who had accused her. She got 20 years for the murder and two for the gun. After the trial, the truth came out. The host had hidden the money, but was so high that she’d forgotten.

“After the trial, the truth came out” is an exercise in missing the point. She was sentenced to 20 years for murder, not theft. “A fight ensued” glosses over quite a lot, but it apparently wasn’t any sort of self-defense incident. Twenty years for a murder is somewhere close to the mean sentence in the US, and not terribly different from that of the UK.

Coates makes the argument that life sentences are unduly harsh, and that convicts eventually undergo “criminal menopause” and stop their life of crime. Well, Tonya’s sentence is just about right to age her out of the criminal cohort. And let’s remember: she shot and killed someone.

Coatimundi is the darling of white/Jewish/homo Liberals, but big cities made a comeback by locking up a lot of black muscle.

Coatimundi cannot badmouth his benefactors, but he must know that his gripe makes no sense unless we take in consider the neo-Liberal policy of getting tough on crime.

I wonder if his articles are all but ghost written. He just doesn’t seem that smart to me. I notice little things, like when he pronounces “police” as “PO-leece” in his public speaking gigs. He also tends to misuse big words.

Trump knows, the prospects of good paying jobs, or any kind of full time work is a winner with black males eager to make a honest living.

Don’t black lives matter, Mr. Coates? Shouldn’t she do some hard time for killing?

Did anyone read Ezra Klein’s interview of Coates at vox.com?

Money quote…

If you say the problem in the African-American community is a lack of individual responsibility, you’re talking about 40 million people. If you’re saying there’s less responsibility among those people, well, why would that be? And you say, a culture has developed in the last 30 or 40 years. But the problem is the crime rates have been higher in the black community at least since the time we came out of slavery. Was something wrong with the culture of those people, too?

It quickly and easily leads to the idea that something must just be wrong with those people. And I just reject that. I guess I have to reject that.

The second paragraph is a perfectly succinct encapsulation of this man and his sycophants; once you read it going through his million-word essays becomes completely superfluous. I GUESS I HAVE TO REJECT THAT. I think deep down he (and liberals in general) KNOWS everything he writes is BS, but he rejects the obvious out of sheer petulance.

I am sure there will be a Sailer post on this tomorrow, talk about a 50 m.p.h. hanging slider down the middle of the plate just asking to be blasted into orbit.

If they were edited, wouldn’t the editor have corrected “roll” to “role”?

An interviewee wears a “Free Herman Bell” shirt and Fox Butterfield’s “With crime down we need to release more prison inmates” is parroted without irony.

It figures. I suppose Coates also wants parole for Jesse Cooks, Larry Green, and Manuel Moore.

“PO-leece”

He wants to say PO-PO but realizes how dumb that is midway.

With something like a 70% illegitimacy rate among Blacks, can one even speak of ‘black families’? — not to mention a ‘family’ where daddy is behind bars. Also, what percentage of black women with more than 1 child have children with more than 1 male? — that is likely 50+% as well.

In other words, ‘black family’ my ass.

LOL!!

Naw man that’s a pun:Dats how we ROLL nomesayne?

The myth of Black criminality is the equivalent of saying the myth of blue eyed Scandinavians.

Other than his writing, there’s really not much to indicate that he’s all that bright, which ought to tell you something. Coates is probably a recipient of what I call affirmative assistance, a phenomenon that consists of white co-workers, underlings or supervisors helping under-qualified black employees to accomplish things they wouldn’t be able to do on their own. It’s a stealth version of affirmative action, and it probably harms intelligent, competent blacks the most.

It can take several forms, but a lot of it involves cleaning up after sloppy work or helping people to understand something they can’t grasp. The result is the same: an entirely incompetent individual remains in a position for which he or she is grossly unqualified. Most of them would be fired in a month without such a leg up, affirmative action or not.

Out of necessity, I’ve taken part in this myself.

That is a winner with a good number of males of color, little color or no color.

That’s why politicians always slobber jobber about jobs.

This comment leads me to believe that you did not read the article.

LOL, I meant: cleverly edited. Just enough to make him sound articulate, but leaving some glaring mistakes.

In the Atlantic article, there is a dramatic photo of a Detroit black, an “anti-incarceration” activist, who himself has been in prison. He was wearing a shirt that said “Free Herman Bell.” I googled and found out who Herman Bell was.

He, and two friends, tortured and murdered two New York police officers, one black, one white. From an article about Bell’s parole hearing:

Jones was shot in the head and died instantly, but the three suspects took their time with Piagentini — shooting him 22 times. At one point, Bell shot the cop with the officer’s own gun.

Piagentini begged for his life before the end, telling Bell and his cohorts that he had a wife and two children at home.

Bell was arrested about a year later. All three suspects were convicted of the two murders and sentenced to 25 years to life in 1979.

Bell freely admitted he committed the crime, but said at his hearing he was “young and impressionable.” He only got 25 years to life, yet thinks the system is working against him.

One really should be conversant with actual Defense spending before making such an ignorant assertion. In 1960, e.g., Defense spending accounted for over half the Federal budget and over 10% of GDP. The highest level it ever reached in Reagan’s presidency was 6.8% of GDP in 1986.

Of course one could also argue that Defense spending was, perhaps, the most effective social welfare program our government ever devised. Before Affirmative Action a military career was one of the few avenues to a middle class lifestyle for black men.

Much more on Herman Bell at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2988897/Black-Panther-double-cop-killer-sues-freedom-plays-FLUTE-Murderer-demands-parole-changed-fury-victim-s-widow.html

given the current demographic development in the nordic countries blue eyes will be nothing more than a myth soon enough

Are we taking profit from defence R &D funding into account? Lot of private profit came from that corporate welfare funded by the government.

Coates is a good fit here at Unz.

Good observations and analyses of the decline and fall and no practical suggestions on what to do about it.

Yeah, when I think “good observations and analyses,” I think “Fox Butterfield Redux.”

Coates makes the argument that life sentences are unduly harsh, and that convicts eventually undergo “criminal menopause” and stop their life of crime. Well, Tonya’s sentence is just about right to age her out of the criminal cohort. And let’s remember: she shot and killed someone.

A life sentence (even in the literal sense) for murder is lenient by definition. Parity mandates a death sentence. Personally, I believe in adding interest to punishments so criminals don’t break even, but I suppose the death penalty is the limit.

I guess I have to reject that.

Money quote indeed.

I assume it was a lead and butter roll.

“I have always hated those attempts to absolve Reagan from all the damage he did to this country. Either he was too stupid to be President or he was knowledgeable about the ill effects of these programs and supported them. Either way the buck stops with him.”

Reagan experienced brain damage when he was shot, and ideally should’ve been relieved from office on medical grounds (by the Vice-President and the Cabinet, as per the 25th Amendment). If you compare Reagan campaigning for office in 1984, to Reagan in 1980 (or 1976), the difference is like night & day. Seeing how Reagan was shot, just 69 days into his first term, he really wasn’t competent almost the entire time he was President (due to circumstances beyond his control). He was still able to give good speeches, so he was permitted to remain a ceremonial figurehead. Which, in fairness, might’ve actually resulted in a better outcome than a formal G.H.W. Bush Presidency beginning in the spring of 1981.

Which, in fairness, might’ve actually resulted in a better outcome than a formal G.H.W. Bush Presidency beginning in the spring of 1981.

Well considering that a lot of the damage caused by Reagan didn’t really occur until GHWB was President (NAFTA and guest workers) where Reagan only laid the foundation – the big lies about trade agreements being necessary to increase exports and guest workers to alleviate the “shortage” the clock might have run out on GHWB before those crappy ideas got off the ground if Reagan was out and GHWB only had 8 years.

Would we have been as willing to do what we did in central America if GHWB had been President? What about Afghanistan? I don’t think he had the same blind antagonism to any socialist government Reagan did. But we will never know.

As for Reagan’s speech giving showing his deterioration – he was a salesman and little more his whole life. He could hit his mark and repeat his lines. At his age a lot of people go downhill quickly past a certain point. I don’t think it mattered much to his policies because there simply wasn’t much in his head at any time as far as I can remember. He was easily persuaded by simple arguments such as the Laffer Curve and supply side economics, not to mention the neocon world view. I doubt he ever questioned much of anything about his positions or the people in his administration pushing those positions. I don’t think he had the healthy skepticism on policy issues a real leader in the modern world needs.

Is the patriarchal nuclear fambly a feature of West Africa? I was pretty sure marriage there resembles the situation we have now here in the United States, since blacks were liberated from White cultural expectations and were allowed to regress and “be themselves.”

That is to say, in West Africa, nobody knows who dey Daddy is, and women raise their multiple children collectively, gathering what they can to support them. In America Grandmama and Aunties raise them, and they do their gathering on the first of the month instead of in the bush. Like in Africa the males of course engage in tribal bloodshed when they come of age, which I guess passes for civilization.

“Black men find White women strangely alluring.” No shit? Maybe it’s because offspring made with them instantly improve one’s African gene pool by about 40k years? Or maybe it’s because black women are hideous by comparison and look and act like mountain gorillas? Or maybe it’s because fucking the women of your enemies is victory?

Just ask Bill Cosby.

Regan did not experience brain damage when he was shot, he was shot in the ribs, it was James Brady who experienced brain damage.

Oh, don’t be so picky!

“Regan did not experience brain damage when he was shot, he was shot in the ribs, it was James Brady who experienced brain damage.”

I’m aware of what happened with James Brady. Reagan’s blood circulation to his brain (rather than the brain itself) was damaged in the shooting incident, and his brain never got the full blood flow restored. This was not reported at the time, but has been widely reported since. Not getting the full blood flow to one’s brain, leads to brain damage, and reduced mental functioning generally.

“In America Grandmama and Aunties raise them, and they do their gathering on the first of the month instead of in the bush. ”

Very true. Too bad my pockets (and I’m assuming yours as well) are being picked by Uncle Sam so that these dindu-ettes can have their monthly soirees

MarkinLA wrote:
“I don’t think it mattered much to his policies because there simply wasn’t much in his head at any time as far as I can remember. He was easily persuaded by simple arguments such as the Laffer Curve and supply side economics, not to mention the neocon world view. I doubt he ever questioned much of anything about his positions or the people in his administration pushing those positions. I don’t think he had the healthy skepticism on policy issues a real leader in the modern world needs.”

Reagan’s own writings contradict you. He had many writings, radio addresses, etc. over the years. Some of them he wrote out longhand and they were published some years back in a book titled, “In His Own Hand.” They showed he did think quite a bit on the issues facing our nation.

FTR, I am not one of these pathetic Reagan-worshipers. Those folks need to get over him.

Do you have attribution on this? While it would certainly be par for the course that Right-Wing America’s greatest historical icon was brain-damaged AND suffering from alzheimer’s (this is widely accepted) for the vast majority of his term, I have been unable to find anything on the subject.

They showed he did think quite a bit on the issues facing our nation.

Well then that makes it even worse since his policies were so detrimental to the long term health of the country.

While it would certainly be par for the course that Right-Wing America’s greatest historical icon was brain-damaged AND suffering from alzheimer’s (this is widely accepted) for the vast majority of his term…

Widely accepted by fools. There are no indications Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s until long after his second term. Alzheimer’s patients usually live about eight years after diagnosis, and Reagan didn’t die for sixteen years after leaving office.

Cory Booker pushed this article as ‘The Myth of Black Violence’.

Interesting that its going to take 13 episodes to make this case….

Thanks!

I wonder if this article could be used to explain South Africa in the last 20 years as well.
Oh and Zimbabwe.
and…
and…

and…

Alzheimer’s disease

Complicating the picture, Reagan suffered an episode of head trauma in July 1989, five years before his diagnosis. After being thrown from a horse in Mexico, a subdural hematoma was found and surgically treated later in the year.[290][291] Nancy Reagan, citing what doctors told her, asserts that her husband’s 1989 fall hastened the onset of Alzheimer’s disease,[291] although acute brain injury has not been conclusively proven to accelerate Alzheimer’s or dementia.[299][300] Reagan’s one-time physician Daniel Ruge has said it is possible, but not certain, that the horse accident affected the course of Reagan’s memory.[297]