http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued? Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd. What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons. A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity? The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it. I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.
Mr Krugman, You didn't let people comment because you're a hate spewing liberal and you don't want to get called on it. Not only are your economic policies dangerous, your politics are shameful.
I think someone who calls himself a "liberal" should be held to a high standard. His words are those of a bitter loser.
It was a unifying event, sorta. Shortly after 9/11, there was a concert to benefit the victims. Richard Gere got on stage and started to rant as lefties do. He got booed off the stage. The rest of the lefties got the hint and bided their time before resuming their rhetoric, which mirrors Krugman's. After a year-plus of public debate, Bush pulled the trigger on Iraq. Congress voted by a huge majority to give him the authority. Public opinion polls showed the people vastly supported the move. The lefties changed their strategy to on of a "death by 1000 cuts.". They publicly rooted for us to fail, and almost got their wish.
I think everyone's tired of commemorating this great conservative event every year. Put it to bed. Let there be no 11th anniversary hoopla. No FBI-engineered fake terrorism threat from some gullible American Muslim teenager, timed each year for Sept. 11, with no threat the rest of the year. Just stop and let a war-weary nation rest. On the 20th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I read the paper as usual, lying barefoot on the floor in a suburb of Honolulu. The Star-Bulletin article was undistinguished. It was a paragraph or two, and not on the front page. That's how to do it.
So in hindsight, do you think it was worth borrowing nearly a trillion dollars from China and investing 9 years of our troops' lives in? If we could go down the exact same path with Iran or Syria for the next decade, would you be all for it?
Fuck commemoration of a day that fundamentally changed the worldview of billions of people around the world...I'm already burned out from Labor Day weekend and planning for Columbus Day and Halloween.
I wonder why the stuff was made. Can you imagine your grandparents buying that kind of schlock 10 years after Pearl Harbor? 10 years after closing Auschwitz? 10 years after MLK or JFK were shot? It's beyond tacky. It's....jesus, I can't even begin....
We borrowed $0 from China. I voted for Badnarik in 2004, who'd have brought the troops home then. I bet your guy wouldn't have. The time for war with Iran was in the 1970s, when they took our embassy and 400+ hostages. I want no part of any wars in the middle east. That said, if we do go, I don't see the point in the "death by 1000 cuts" whining about it. I'd rather suggest we bring the troops home, but as long as we don't, we should try to win.
Because the economy is terrible, and apparently some people will exploit anything to try and keep a roof over their heads? It's one little rack in some store somewhere. Who cares? Krugman's written diarrhea is much more offensive to me than a few misguided people who may want to buy some 9/11 goods. Krugman obviously agrees, since he disabled comments on his partisan rant.
Paul Krugman, who is very smart on international economics, says in that article that instead of celebrating the day of Sept. 11, there should be sorrow as to how we were all exploited. He is exactly right. How did you reason that one out? Then how is it that China can call in our chips any time it wants to fold its cards and go home? They're just toying with us.
