Dana Milbank grew up in Merrick, New York, a Long Island hamlet that is still over 95% white and which has a median household income of $93,000. He went to a magnet high school, and then to Yale University, where he joined the exclusive Skull & Bones society. After graduation, he quickly landed jobs at the Wall Street Journal and The New Republic. I mention this not to criticize Milbank, who has made the most of being born on third base. I mention it because it helps put in perspective his attitude about the Occupy Movement.
He says that he’s hoping the DC version will gain steam and create a balance to the Tea Party, but all he really wants to do is make the protesters look ridiculous. I will say that David Swanson seems to be intent on making the movement more disruptive and confrontational than their New York counterparts. And it’s easy to be dismissive of these protests, especially when they are not attracting large numbers. I’m guilty of that myself. But you can’t expect someone with Milbank’s privileged background to be on the side of the 99%. At least, not when the shit really goes down. He’s a Bonesman getting a paycheck from Kaplan Test Prep. Nuff said.
It’s pretty plausible for an employed Yale graduate to think that $200,000 a year is ‘not that much’ and actually believe that because he can rub elbows during the day with the billionaires during an interview but then drive home through a middle class neighborhood that somehow that lends understanding of a middle class perspective. Dana defaults up rather than reflecting the other 379 degrees of America.
What always drives me nuts about these protests is the introductory comments that the people are wearing t shirts rather than oxford shirts & ties. The sheer denial of who we 99’ers are is a real slap.
I din’t know he was from Merrick! And Krugman, too. I grew up there. Go cougars.
I will say that David Swanson seems to be intent on making the movement more disruptive and confrontational than their New York counterparts.
And this is a bad thing? The 99% aren’t going to get anywhere by kissing the ass of the 1%.
And it’s easy to be dismissive of these protests, especially when they are not attracting large numbers.
Look around you, Boo. Look at Boston. Look at Denver. You claim they aren’t attracting large numbers, but they have already succeeded in making the mayor of Boston, and the Governor of Colorado(both supposed Democrats), look like blithering idiots, also, too, police state thugs. So, some people in power are crapping their pants already. So dismiss them at your peril.
or of anyone who works fulltme for the PermaGov and its various satrapies. Especially elitist Skull and Boners.
But enough with that “privileged background” shit, Booman.
First of all, I grew up in that town during the late ’50s/early ’60s and brother…it wasn’t all “priviliged” by any means. It was a good 60% what I used to think of as “Brooklyn East.” Brooklyn working class Italian, Jewish and Irish WW II vets took advantage of the favorable GI bill loan structure to buy small homes…many of them along the South Shore of Long Island because it was an easy drive to go visit the family in Brooklyn…in hastily built developments. Now…I don’t know who the Milbanks were or where they lived in that town/how much money they had, but baby…it wasn’t Great Neck, Kings Point or Old Westbury by any stretch of the imagination. It was Fords and Chevys, up and down the line. Kids who made it through Calhoun (A “magnet school? Then? Get real. You lived in the school district, you went to that school or dropped out. End of story.), Mepham and the other adjacent towns’ high schools and into prestigious universities mostly did it on sheer smarts and hard work. Most of my friends in high school did just that…harvard, Yale, princeton, Columbia, Brandeis…and I was about to do so as well before I decided that the Ivy League was as full of shit as was Calhoun, only richer.
Bet on it.
I predated this guy by about a generation but I still have contacts in that area…say Freeport, Roosevelt, Merrick, Bellmore and Massapequa…and now? It’s got a large Hispanic population…mostly Central American…plus Roosevelt and Freeport have had substantial black populations for 70 years or more.
“Privileged?”
I got yer “privilege,” right here!!!
The Joey Buttafuoco/Amy Fisher saga and sad little Lindsey Lohan were more typical of the area than is Milbank’s career as a high-level servant of the establishment.
Bet on that as well.
It was a middle class/lower middle class hellhole, actually.
Yup.
AG
You know your hometown better than me, but let’s deal with some facts. Here’s the latest census data from 2010. There’s 1300 Latinos living there now, mostly Puerto Ricans. That’s up from 842 in 2000. The black population doubled from 127 to 264. Neither number reflects the Merrick that either you are Milbank grew up in though. It was much whiter back then. And, currently, the town has a median income three times that of the country as a whole.
Also, if most of your friends in high school went to top-flight schools, that tells me all I need to know. Only community expectations can create that kind of situation. It doesn’t happen in lower middle class hellholes. Although, it may be explained by the high upwardly-mobile expectations of post-war Jewish community, who had already demonstrated that path by getting out of the City.
Howard Stern grew up down the road in Roosevelt and went to “Eastern Elitist” Boston U, FWIW. I have no idea how that is relevant.
I think your argument is made weaker by knocking his upbringing. I think your argument is made stronger by pointing out how comfortable his life is among the elites he currently rubs elbows with and that neither he nor anybody he spends a typical day with have been hurt one bit by the economic problems of the last five years.
You talkin’ to me?
You talkin’ to ME!!!
Get real.
i live…rent…in a working class neighborhood of the Bronx. My only possessions of any worth whatsoever are a reliable car that will get me to various jobs so that I don’t have to risk the subways late at night or try to use the broken-down public transit infrastructure of the Northeast when I have to work out of the range of NYC’s equally rotten subway system. and about six instruments that I use to make my music. I live month-to month when I am lucky and day-to-day, week-to-week when I am not. The “people that I spend a typical day with”…at least half of whom of whom are black of hispanic… are almost all in exactly the same position as am I. Musical ideologues who are willing to scuffle in order to offer the musical truth(s) of the matter to people like you, most of whom have been so spiritually deafened by the hypnomedia that you think people like Mick Jagger are “musicians.”
You don’t have a clue, Booman’s brother.
Not a clue.
AG
Arthur, you misunderstand me. I am not talking about you. I’m speaking of Dana and how insulated he is from the economy of the nation… at least as it appears to me and IMO. Frankly, you make my point that Dana is less qualified to speak or analyze the nation than you.
I am going to answer these comments in a new article, Booman.
I got whatcha “need to know.” Right here!!!
A Hellhole of the Soul-South Shore L.I., 1956-1963. Bet on it.
You done pissed me off, this time. All you “need to know” is encapsulated in a few dry numbers? Wake the fuck up!!! No wonder you’re still hoping for some sort of Obama Miracle. He and his handlers are pretty good with numbers. Not so good on the ground though.
Bet on it.
AG