{"id":23390,"date":"2011-10-10T06:07:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T11:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=23390"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:50:08","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:50:08","slug":"over-entitled-overeducated-white-people-for-bigger-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=23390","title":{"rendered":"“Over-Entitled, Overeducated White People For Bigger Government”"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Van Jones yapped about the “American Autumn”, I’m sure he didn’t bank on Mark Steyn\u00a0running with the analogy<\/a>;<\/p>\n

In case you don\u2019t get it, that\u2019s the American version of the \u201cArab Spring.\u201d Steve Jobs might have advised Van Jones he has a branding problem. Spring is the season of new life, young buds and so forth. Autumn is leaves turning brown and fluttering to the ground in a big dead heap. Even in my great state of New Hampshire, where autumn is pretty darn impressive, we understand what that blaze of red and orange leaves means: They burn brightest before they fall and die, and the world turns chill and bare and hard.<\/p>\n

So Van Jones may be on to something! American Autumn. The days dwindle down to a precious few, like in whatever that old book was called, The Summer and Fall of the Roman Empire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I get the feeling an awful lot of the attendees at “Occupy Minnesota” treated America as a recycling project; if you’re done witn it, try to find a way to re-use it…<\/p>\n

But better yet is his description of the “protesters” themselves…:<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ll forgive a plug for my latest sell-out to my corporate masters, in my new book I quote H. G. Wells\u2019s Victorian Time Traveler after encountering far in the future the soft, effete Eloi: \u201cThese people were clothed in pleasant fabrics that must at times need renewal, and their sandals, though undecorated, were fairly complex specimens of metalwork. Somehow such things must be made.\u201d And yet he saw \u201cno workshops\u201d or sign of any industry at all. \u201cThey spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going.\u201d The Time Traveler might have felt much the same upon landing in Liberty Square in the early 21st century, except for the bit about bathing: It\u2019s increasingly hard in America to \u201csee how things are kept going,\u201d but it\u2019s pretty clear that the members of \u201cOccupy Wall Street\u201d have no plans to contribute to keeping things going. Like Michael Oher using his iPhone to announce his ignorance of Steve Jobs, in the autumn of the republic the beneficiaries of American innovation seem not only utterly disconnected from but actively contemptuous of the world that sustains their comforts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contempt for the creative class?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yeah, Steyn’s got a point.<\/p>\n

\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Van Jones yapped about the “American Autumn”, I’m sure he didn’t bank on Mark Steyn\u00a0running with the analogy; In case you don\u2019t get it, that\u2019s the American version of the \u201cArab Spring.\u201d Steve Jobs might have advised Van Jones he has a branding problem. Spring is the season of new life, young buds and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[327,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-activism","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23390"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49789,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23390\/revisions\/49789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}