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Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Hocus Pocus

To the Editor:

Like the magician who tries to convince us he can pull a rabbit out of a hat, Brooks waves his wand in "The Two Cultures," hoping that he can make us believe in an illusion that he has created.

The reality is that liberals are the ones who respond both to the concerns of the people and of the marketplace. It is the conservatives who robotically subscribe to principles like the unregulated free market and the trickle down effect, even as these economic theories are proven wrong time and again, and businesses and individuals in the real world suffer. We are not in this place we now find ourselves because liberals are uncaring and doctrinaire; we're here because they haven't done enough to translate their empathy into action, or their sound economic science into policy. And Brooks' cynical dismissal of science is the same old tactic that many conservatives, faced with a mountain of evidence against their own theories, are using to stall real progress on environmental issues as well as economic ones.

Despite his smoke and mirrors, I, for one, am not fooled by Brooks' hocus-pocus.

-Richie Jay (with some help from dad)

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