Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman Infects Readers With 9/11 Dementia
The prize for the worst tweet of the year goes to Paul Krugman.
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In the real world the U.S. reacted to 9/11 by doing extremely bad and ridiculous things as well as this:
In the days, weeks, and months immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Arab-Americans, South Asian-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and Sikh-Americans were the targets of widespread hate violence. Many of the perpetrators of these acts of hate violence claimed they were acting patriotically by retaliating against those responsible for 9/11.
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Just after September 11, numerous Arabs, Muslims, and individuals perceived to be Arab or Muslim were assaulted, and some killed, by individuals who believed they were responsible for or connected to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The first backlash killing occurred four days after September 11.Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot to death on September 15 as he was planting flowers outside his Chevron gas station. The man who shot Sodhi, Frank Roque, had told an employee of an Applebee’s restaurant that he was “going to go out and shoot some towel heads.” Roque mistakenly thought Sodhi was Arab because Sodhi, an immigrant from India, had a beard and wore a turban as part of his Sikh faith. After shooting Sodhi, Roque drove to a Mobil gas station a few miles away and shot at a Lebanese-American clerk. He then drove to a home he once owned and shot and almost hit an Afghani man who was coming out the front door. When he was arrested two hours later, Roque shouted, “I stand for America all the way.”
The next two killings were committed by a man named Mark Stroman. On September 15, 2001, Stroman shot and killed Waquar Hassan, an immigrant from Pakistan, at Hassan’s grocery store in Dallas, Texas. On October 4, 2001, Stroman shot and killed Vasudev Patel, an immigrant from India and a naturalized U.S. citizen, while Patel was working at his Shell station convenience store. A store video camera recorded the killing, helping police to identify Stroman as the killer. Stroman later told a Dallas television station that he shot Hassan and Patel because, “We’re at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate against those who retaliated against us.”
Beyond these killings, there were more than a thousand other anti-Muslim or anti-Arab acts of hate which took the form of physical assaults, verbal harassment and intimidation, arson, attacks on mosques, vandalism, and other property damage.
Instead of "calming prejudice" the GB Bush administration institutionalized hate crimes:
First, in the weeks immediately following the September 11 attacks, the government began secretly arresting and detaining Arab, Muslim, and South Asian men. Within the first two months after the attacks, the government had detained at least 1,200 men.
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Second, in November 2001, the Department of Justice began efforts to “interview” approximately 5,000 men between the ages of 18 and 33 from Middle Eastern or Muslim nations who had arrived in the United States within the previous two years on a temporary student, tourist, or business visa and were lawful residents of the United States. Four months later, the government announced it would seek to interview an additional 3,000 men from countries with an Al Qaeda presence.
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Third, in September 2002, the government implemented a “Special Registration” program also known as NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System), requiring immigrant men from 26 mostly Muslim countries to register their name, address, telephone number, place of birth, date of arrival in the United States, height, weight, hair and eye color, financial information and the addresses, birth dates and phone numbers of parents and any foreign friends with the government.
Besides all that a rather useless security theater was installed at U.S. airports which has costs many billions in lost time and productivity ever since. The Patriot Act was introduced which allowed for unlimited spying on private citizens. Wars were launched that were claimed to be justified by 9/11. These were "mass outbreaks of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence. Many were killed and maimed in them. People were tortured and vanished. All of this happened largely to applause of a majority of the U.S. people which were glued to 24 and dreamed of being "terrorist hunters".
Anyone with a functional memory knows that the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was anything but "pretty calm". It is ridiculous that Krugman is claiming that.
Posted by b on September 11, 2020 at 15:46 UTC | Permalink
next page »I find it a bit humorous b that you are critical of Krugman for his 911 dementia when for years many of us finance types have railed about how morally corrupt the logic and thinking of Paul Krugman is.
Paul Krugman is to economics what Bernie Sanders has become for the purported "left" side of the "right wing" uni-party....a sheep dog for the easily led.
Paul Krugman is an acolyte for the God of Mammon/global private finance elite.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 11 2020 16:05 utc | 2
Paul is getting old. Looks like senile dementia isn't limited to Biden nowadays.
Posted by: Clueless Joe | Sep 11 2020 16:11 utc | 3
it seemed calm to krugman because he's in a social and economic class that lets him avoid what's happening with the unwashed masses. he probably skips the disgusting shoe and nude body scanning ordeal of the average flier and i'm guessing doesn't interact with a lot of store clerks or immigrants. it's all abstract data to his materialist mathematician mind.
i'm also guessing this based on my own experience during 9/11. as it was happening my bimbo boss at the time insisted i come to work - in georgetown which is about 3.5 miles from the pentagon. i decided to show up just to spend 8 hours guilt tripping the bitch but she had closed up and left a note on the door by then. classy! i should have predicted it since the actual owner of the shoppe could be heard screaming and freaking out in the background.
by the time i started walking home again (didn't feel like taking the metro during such an event as bombs on the trains were a strong possibility) downtown and the pentagon area had been evacuated and thousands of people were making a very slow exodus down connecticut ave. most of then seemed perturbed at having to walk and a few (who in 2001 were lucky to have cell phones) were talking about the towers falling like it was an NFL play-by-play. i also vividly recall some yuppie twat on her bike riding on the sidewalk and - even with what was happening - hatefully announcing "ON YOUR LEFT! EXCUSE ME!" to the rest of us mere bipeds. even in a time of crisis yuppies on bikes can be counted on to act like dumb shits.
tl;dr - yuppies are overly comfortable and dead inside so 9/11 didn't quite register with them the way it did in opioid and mountain dew country. also, it's not like their kids were about to spend a few years catching IEDs up the ass.
Posted by: the pair | Sep 11 2020 16:11 utc | 4
@psychohistorian #2
Indeed, although I would note that - at least for me - Krugman has always been a neoliberal shill and a bad economist both in terms of theory and in terms of practice, whereas Bernie talks good but rolls over in the end to the Democrat PTB.
Also: there is not actually a Nobel Prize for economics. That "prize" is a me-too which is administered by a completely different group than the actual Nobels. In fact, said prize is administered as "the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".
Kind of like having a Peace Prize "administered by Lockheed Martin in the memory of Alfred Nobel".
Posted by: c1ue | Sep 11 2020 16:13 utc | 5
Who does this say more about: Paul Krugman or the Nobel Prize?
Posted by: moe lester | Sep 11 2020 15:58 utc | 1
The Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel is not one of the 5 offical Nobel Prizes.
Historian Philip Mirowski, in Nine Lives of Neoliberalism (p. 219-255) traces its inception back to a public relation endeavor of the Bank of Sweden to elevate the orthodox economic profession and upgrade their neoliberal standing through promoting of neoliberal ideas of members of the Mont Pelerin Society.
Posted by: vato | Sep 11 2020 16:28 utc | 7
Great timing Paul!
SBS.com.au began broadcasting a 2020 2 x 2-hour doco on the Shrub Presidency this evening. Episode 1 didn't do Shrub, Cheney or the other Neocons any favors. In fact they stopped only a hair's breadth of calling Al Quaeda > Al CIA-duh.
Stupid is as evil does, or vice versa...
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 11 2020 16:29 utc | 8
You are surely right B, Krugman, who indirectly wants to portray Tronald as a singularly negative acting president, does his cause a disservice with his remarks. But that speaks against Bush junior and not for Tronald.
Posted by: pnyx | Sep 11 2020 16:35 utc | 9
Hmmmm, no question regarding "our" psycho response to 911 by invading Afghanland and later Iraq (!) and the War on Terra, PATRIOT Act and other bipartisan totalitarian responses.
However, re the response of the PUBLIC in general, I frankly disagree. Remember, you are speaking about a nation of 300 million people. Remember also that 3,000 people had been killed in a very public and shocking way by obvious "others." With all of that, the racist reactions of a few thousand fools, very few of them murderous, would be expected in ANY country.
Tell me: if there was a comparable event in Germany where 3,000 people in one of your iconic buildings were killed by, say, a group of Syrian immigrants, pray tell what would ethnic Germans do to the minority population in their midst? What would the govt do to "control" and "prevent" further terror? I would bet it would far exceed the US experience.
Lastly, the war criminal W DID actually take the time to attempt to douse racial fires at the time and talk peace and togetherness. So that part of the tweet is also correct. Imagine if the current president had been in charge then ... one shudders to think.
Posted by: Caliman | Sep 11 2020 16:40 utc | 10
While spreading anger and hate toward Arab people, The Bush Administration rescued the many members of the Kingdom's family from all around the US and escorted their flights out of the US to safety in Saudi Arabia.
Distracting the public big time was Dick Cheney, VP, who insisted from the very next day that the plot to hit the Twin Towers was Saddam's plot.
So, the historical record and US response was skewed from the getgo. AQ and Bin Laden didn't concern the neocons. They wanted the US to go to Iraq again, and this time start a wide war that would spread to Syria and Lebanon and Iran.
It was easy times to spread fear and hate, and Cheney and the war mongers of CENTCOM were riding high. Americans were scared of all Arabs, all Sunnis, all Shiites, from anywhere. They were all the same in the public's mind. Enemies.
It was perfect and has led to 19 years of endless wars. Add ISIS and al Nusra and the Taliban and you have an endless soup of enemies.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Sep 11 2020 16:44 utc | 11
psychohistorian @2--
Must second your assessment of Krugman's abilities and the role he's paid to play. This 8 year-old Hudson essay, "Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders," deprives Krugman of any credibility, yet Krugman has only worsened in his ways since that reaming. More recently in an interview last May, Hudson offered this critique:
"Jim Vrettos: ... Tell us about this so-called bill that’s just been passed. What is wrong with it in your estimation? How does it perpetuate and exacerbate the problem in your analysis?
"Michael Hudson: Well, it’s sort of like Obama’s bailout in 2009 and ’10 on steroids. It’s funny when you read people like Paul Krugman and others Democrats denouncing it all as if it’s a Republican bill, but it’s identical with Obama’s bill and Obama’s philosophy. And it was unanimously passed. Chuck Schumer likened it to Roosevelt’s New Deal. So I think you should think of it as the Trump-Pelosi bill. Trump simply lifted it wholesale from his campaign backers, who basically are the same as the Democratic National Committee.
"The problem is that the bill pretends that by giving money to the banks to lend more money to get the country moving again that’s going to rescue the economy. It’s not going to rescue the economy. The bill injures the economy, because the money ends up with the banks. Part of its $10 trillion – $2 trillion – goes to citizens to spend, but ends up largely being paid to the banks and landlords. Specifically, there is an enormous giveaway that makes real estate tax exempt for the next 30 years."
Then there's this from another discussion just a month previous and tells us all we need to know about Krugman and who he serves:
"Michael] Reality isn’t the aim of their economic models. For instance, just today I saw Paul Krugman on Democracy Now. He said that the reason we’re in a depression is because President Obama did not run a large enough budget deficit! He’s a Keynesian, but goes so far as to insist that debt has no role to play in deflating the economy. That’s largely because Krugman serves in effect as a bank lobbyist – not only here, but in Iceland and other countries. To me, the current economic squeeze is that Obama didn’t let the banks collapse. He kept the bad he debts on the books instead of treating them as bad loans to be absorbed by the banks that wrote the junk mortgages and lost in their speculative gambles.
"[Jim] And ate the homeowners!
"[Michael] Yes. He kept their bad, outrageously priced loans on the books and evicted 10 million families. He called them 'the mob with pitchforks,' and Hillary called them 'deplorables.' That shows you where the Democratic Party is at, and why it was so easy for Donald Trump to make a left wing run around the Democratic Party. That is how right wing Obama was. His legacy was Donald Trump, via Hillary Clinton.
"[Jim] Krugman is the most well-known so-called Keynesian economist in the country, right?
"[Michael] The reason he’s so well-popularized by the pro-financial class is precisely because he doesn’t understand money. So bank lobbyists love him and he’s popularized by the right-wing New York Times. He had a wonderful debate with Steve Keen that anybody can see on Google, where he says that it’s impossible for banks to create money and credit. He thinks that banks are savings banks, and they’re just re-lending deposits. Steve Keen explained what endogenous money is. That’s what we talk about in Modern Monetary Theory. [My Emphasis]
"[Jim] And the Wall Street Journal.
"[Michael] And the Washington Post. They go together. They don’t want economists to be popular who talk about debt and why the debts can’t be paid or the need for a debt write down. Krugman attacks Bernie Sanders as if he is an unbelievable radical for backing public medical care."
And much more is there at Hudson's website dealing with Krugman's incredible shortcomings given the public position he's been allowed to pontificate from. Krugman and Friedman are a matched pair who ought to be cleaning toilets instead of being seen as authoritative figures of any sort.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 16:52 utc | 12
Posted by: Calumny | Sep 11 2020 16:40 utc | 10
'Forgetting' of course that Rumsfeld had the hotline between Air Traffic Control and NORAD redirected to a phone in a locked vacant room in the Pentagon. Hence the delay in notifying NORAD - 'coincidentally' the ONLY time in NORAD's history that a threat relevant to NORAD's specified role had occurred.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 11 2020 17:04 utc | 14
And it ought to be noted that Gitmo is still an operational torture prison that continues to hold people the Outlaw US Empire kidnapped and has never charged with a crime. Yet somehow, the Outlaw US Empire is touted as upholding moral and human rights standards the world is prodded to emulate.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 17:06 utc | 15
I believe Krugman was referring to 11 September 2020, not 11 September 2001 in which case he is quite right.
Not that it makes him any less of a tool of the NWO.
Posted by: Arch Bungle | Sep 11 2020 17:10 utc | 17
To be honest Krugman died a long time ago. There's nothing left inside.
Posted by: so | Sep 11 2020 17:20 utc | 18
After all these years, I just don't know if it was nano-thermite or mini-nuke.
And exact number of murdered people.. not there, it's in thousands, but in ME, it's in millions. Crime of the century.
Posted by: Saraj | Sep 11 2020 17:37 utc | 19
Yes. Reasoned calm – two words that best capture the U.S. reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. That’s why all the decision-making was so good.
Posted by: David G | Sep 11 2020 17:47 utc | 20
Thanks for the reminder....I'm surprised you didn't mention that then-FBI director Robert Mueller was responsible for rounding up around hundreds of Muslims, holding them without charges while subjecting them to Abu Ghraib-like conditions, and that he was then held to be immune from any lawsuits (and received no discipline from the government) for this outrageous conduct.
Posted by: Martin Holsinger | Sep 11 2020 17:47 utc | 21
Little known fact: Abenomics is actually Paul Krugman's policy. Shinzo Abe "secretly" consulted with him his whole reign, on a daily basis.
Yes, you read that right: Paul Krugman effectively governed Japan for eight straight years.
Let's see how his Keynesian ideas performed:
If you read this, you'll quickly realize why Krugman never posts anything about Japan.
@karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 16:52 utc | 12
Thank you for such a good analysis.
I also think he is trying to normalize the current situation.
What fascinates me is that most Americans have no sense of history and have totally siloed their bits of memories. Perhaps they have become sufficient brainwashed to only think emotionally and in the present.
Posted by: Michael | Sep 11 2020 18:13 utc | 23
I'm coining a new term: "Empire apologist".!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 11 2020 17:01 utc | 13
I'll see your new term and raise you a word.
"Crumbling Empire Apologist" more like.
Posted by: David G Horsman | Sep 11 2020 18:24 utc | 24
Well, it's certainly one of the more laughably bizarre comments on the US collective reaction to Reichstag 2.0, b.
I was originally going to type something about the process of turning black into white, and white into black beginning in earnest. With the way events have been playing out in, not just the US but the entire planet, it's more like the ever nebulous "they" are trying to reduce everything to only black and white. Even (or so it seems) to the point of removing the white from and the black from yang. The consequences of that kind of effort are bound to be ugly (two extremes personified by a "woke" psuedo-left and the usual nationalist-supremacist neanderthals; they themselves being so similar to the Greens and Blues of ancient Rome that it's rather alarming, now representing popular discourse).
"That which is not in accord with tao, soon ceases to be" is how the saying goes, I think.
Peace, b. and thanks.
Posted by: robjira | Sep 11 2020 18:30 utc | 25
Funny that a hysterical Covid propaganda site mentions back to the 9/11 days. I recall how they tried to get everyone insane with things like color-code terrorism warnings.
For reason of whatever vagary of mass psychology, it didn't take back then, but it's taken with a vengeance in 2020.
Why have the vast majority of "civilized" persons gone clinically insane, at the direction of what's self-evidently a government-media Big Lie campaign?
As for Thugman, I always hated him and wrote many posts against his lies.
Michael @22--
Thanks for your reply! IMO, the simple answer is two-fold: First, the public's been greatly dumbed-down; Secondly, the citizenry was never told it has duties to perform within the political-economy that go far beyond consuming and voting, with the primary duty being to hold power accountable. At some point near the bottom of the current Depression and loss of Empire the public might finally have a collective epiphany. But at the moment that appears to be a rather unrealistic pipe dream.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 19:08 utc | 28
Our host: "All of this happened largely to applause of a majority of the U.S. people."
But how many will admit today that they were brainwashed into being maniacal fiends lusting for blood? How many of those maniacal fiends are honest with themselves and even remember their fiendishness? It's odd because nowadays I can find almost no Americans who admit being the psychotic freaks that they were back then (and still are today, but that is another matter). Most of the people I ask today claim they protested the war before it was launched, but the vast majority of these people are lying. The antiwar protests in the US were small and insignificant.
I know without doubt that people like Circe and some others who post here such as king donkey rear .org were sitting in front of their TVs and cheering to videos of bombs falling down elevator shafts and killing telecommunications workers at their desks: "Booyah! Take that, Saddam!" I know they fell for the brainwashing then because they still fall for the brainwashing today.
One of the reasons people like Circe want Biden to win is because she wants the empire to persevere. A thousand year reich. One of the big reasons people like Circe want the empire to persist and remain dominant goes beyond the material wealth that it brings them. So long as the empire dominates, then it gets to falsify its own history; casting itself as the eternal hero and all those it slaughtered as villains. Once the empire can no longer force its artificial history of itself on humanity then the truth will emerge: the truth that the American empire was the most vicious, bloodthirsty, and destructive empire in human history. That truth will include the fact that it was the viciousness and monstrousness of the American people themselves that enabled and powered the non-stop bloodbath that the empire engaged in. When the empire finally passes then these scum will no longer be able to feign moral superiority while embracing murder. All of the lies that they tell themselves about themselves will come crashing down.
I can't wait.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 11 2020 19:20 utc | 29
I do remember those 911 reactions as they happened. Here in this small burg of Sacramento one US patriot shot down and killed a Sikh shop-owner claiming revenge for 911. At least he was convicted of first degree murder, but I doubt he is still serving his time.
Posted by: ToivoS | Sep 11 2020 19:22 utc | 30
My Pet Goat (the pet goat(s)
"You're with Us or against US"
"Evil doers"
America Loves a good Revenge story.
Posted by: CitizenX | Sep 11 2020 19:25 utc | 31
CGTN is reporting that the US Treasury has clawed back $4 million from the fund established by the USG to support firefighters involved in 9/11 rescue operations.
If this is true, I can hardly wait to hear the excuse(s) & the name of the more deserving cause to which the money has been diverted.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 11 2020 19:31 utc | 32
GWB calmly ... invaded Iraq resulting the the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's.
He calmly inserted Iran and N.Korea into the 'Axis of Evil' ensuring sanctions lasting until this day that would kill thousands upon thousands more.
This 'calmly' reinforced the meme that Iranians are terrorist nutjobs who are incapable of acting rationally, a meme that is still pushed to this day to justify violence against Iranians despite the fact that Iran helped us enormously after 9/11 in Afghanistan ... https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/iran-united-states-and-operation.html
Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Sep 11 2020 19:32 utc | 33
Glad to see others mentioning that Krugman did not win the Nobel Prize in Economics, because it doesn't exist.
"the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".
Kind of like having a Peace Prize "administered by Lockheed Martin in the memory of Alfred Nobel".
Love it! I've gotta remember that one.
Really, Krugman is a total whore. I mean, before the NAFTA treaty was signed, I wrote letters stating quite clearly why jobs and industries would indeed flee the United States - and I was, of course, totally correct. Krugman simply sneered at as all as "silly" and ignorant of economics - and he and his ilk were totally wrong. And that's just one example.
Honest people still make mistakes - but then they apologize and explain and endeavor not to make them again. Liars make the same 'mistakes' over and over, and never apologize, never explain, but only attack their critics as 'racist' and 'silly' - and if really pressed they will use their powerful patrons to blacklist and destroy the careers of those who point out their falsehoods.
Nice work being a highly paid intellectual whore to the rich and powerful, if you can get it.
Posted by: TG | Sep 11 2020 19:34 utc | 34
Strategic Culture Editorial reviews the 19 year long War OF Terror that was launched to make Clinton's #1 policy goal of Full Spectrum Dominance reality--the policy goal announced in 1996 and then updated and re-announced in 2000. Unmentioned in that editorial was al-Ciada's alignment with NATO and its war on Serbia by supplying terrorists for Kosovo's KLA. It must finally be recognized that Bill Clinton was a very well disguised Neocon like his wife. Recall what's called the Patriot Act was already written and sitting on a shelf at the ready and it was voted on blindly, and that the anthrax attacks were homegrown.
It appears the Deep State has attacked the USA's people twice in two decades--on 911 and with the decision to let as many die as possible by deliberately not doing anything to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and allowing the real economy to atrophy so even more will die in the long run.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 19:40 utc | 35
krugman is a terrible shill for the neo-cons and liberal-interventionists of the 21st century
at my age, I shouldn't really be surprised any more by what american "intellectuals" and "nobel prize winners" say about anything..... but I am.
He's neo-liberal interventionist moron of the first rank, and saying what he did actually normalizes the war mania and war-mongering which has become so staple in mainstream thought and the "think tanks" and is now practically part of the american DNA and "culture".
shame on krugman
Posted by: michaelj72 | Sep 11 2020 19:59 utc | 36
...
It appears the Deep State has attacked the USA's people twice in two decades--on 911 and with the decision to let as many die as possible by deliberately not doing anything to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 and allowing the real economy to atrophy so even more will die in the long run.
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 19:40 utc | 34
Talking about tilting at windmills - I'll never forget Robert Fisk angrily pointing out that the Yankees knew where to find Al CIA-duh because they extended the cave complex at Tora Bora to help Al CIA-duh, equipped with 10,000 US Stinger Missiles, kick the Russians out of Afghanistan in the 1980s!!!
(The Yankees had to wait for 10+ years to invade Afghanistan because it takes that long for Stingers to pass their Use By date)
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 11 2020 20:08 utc | 37
@michaelj72. “krugman is a terrible shill for the neo-cons and liberal-interventionists of the 21st century”
Actually, Paul Krugman was a strong and outspoken opponent of the Iraq War since early 2003 and possibly earlier. He was amongst the few mainstream liberal commentators to take that stand.
Posted by: Rob | Sep 11 2020 20:08 utc | 38
karlof1 at #12
great stuff from M. Hudson, one of my favorite reads these days. Hudson has krugman's number. thanks again for those snippets and the links!
Posted by: michaelj72 | Sep 11 2020 20:11 utc | 39
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 16:52 utc | 12
"... Krugman and Friedman are a matched pair who ought to be cleaning toilets..."
WITH THEIR TONGUES!
The evil that the U$A has perpetrated for decades can not be ignored. Thanks B for calling out that pos Krugman.
Posted by: tucenz | Sep 11 2020 20:14 utc | 40
Stroman: “We’re at war. I did what I had to do. I did it to retaliate against those who retaliated against us.”
Retaliation for a retaliation? How 'bout not initiating aggressions around the world to begin with???
Posted by: Vintage Red | Sep 11 2020 20:21 utc | 41
What ever the public did to badger, discriminate, and threaten, Muslims in America they did...the government went ahead and killed 10 million Muslims and destroyed 9 or 10 countries. The link to these saudis was bin laden. It turns out his group--al kaida--morphed into isis--the partner of the United States, israhell, france, and england. The American sheeple do not know any better. Killing people across the globe by the American government has gone on since the Spanish American War created by the same mentality and group of people still in power.
Posted by: Charles | Sep 11 2020 20:22 utc | 42
Today the world is suffering from a biological 911, perpetrated by the same villains.
Posted by: norecovery | Sep 11 2020 20:36 utc | 43
Re: Caliman | Sep 11 2020 16:40 utc | 10
In todays' Germany, if a massacre as you describe were to occur, the full weight of justice would be felt by those who posted the nationality of the criminals on facebook.
Posted by: otto normalverbrauch | Sep 11 2020 20:36 utc | 44
If MoA readers and commenters were to read the entire series of Krugman's tweets, six in all, they will see mention of how the Bush govt began exploiting the events of 11 September 2001 almost immediately. Though the example Krugman actually uses would make most people cringe at what it suggests about the bubble he lives in and how far removed it is from most people's lives and experiences, and his reference to a "horrible war" does not mention either Afghanistan or Iraq.
It has to be said that Twitter is not designed very well for the kind of informal conversational commentary that people often use it for. But then you would think Krugman would use something other than Twitter to discuss and compare 9/11 with the impact of COVID-19.
The real issue I have with Krugman's Tweet is that he is revising history and bending over backwards to apologise for Dubya in a way to criticise Donald Trump's performance as President.
Posted by: Jen | Sep 11 2020 21:02 utc | 45
Hey b. I know this isn't on point, but I hope you saw the latest https://missionlocal.org/2020/09/ucsf-grand-rounds-regional-covid-updates-low-mortality-rates-and-a-molecular-ppe/UCSF Grand Rounds in which Dr. Monica Gandhi says that “masking may be a poor man’s vaccine.” You bet! Not only are masks cheap, but they're probably a helluva lot safer than the vaccines coming online soon. We had the solution to the virus right in front of our eyes the whole time.
Posted by: Tio Marko | Sep 11 2020 21:19 utc | 46
This is really incredible from Krugman. I think the dems (gonna give them a small 'd' from now on) have realized that chummy relations between the 'you know whos' is going down like a lead balloon with folk who remember back that far, and word is getting around. Maybe the poor guy just decided to do a Trump and stick his foot right into the middle of that juicy cow pattie. That's the only 'out' I can give him. 'Cause he's done it.
Posted by: juliania | Sep 11 2020 21:23 utc | 47
Not only a moral hypocrite, but an incompetent economist as well, like all Nobel laureates.
Posted by: Gatopardo | Sep 11 2020 21:30 utc | 48
Krugman needs to be added to this exhibit next to the FOX personalities:
"A living statue, showing US President Donald Trump desecrating the graves of COVID-19 victims and fallen soldiers, was displayed in New York City’s Manhattan on Tuesday.
"The living statue was performed by actors covered in gold paint and depicts Trump driving a golf cart over the graves, along with Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity in the backseat, appearing to celebrate the president’s actions."
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 21:41 utc | 49
The whole Krugman tweet deserves the evisceration it is getting, but it’s the first sentence that really floors me:
“Overall, Americans took 9/11 pretty calmly.”
WHAT??? On what f*#%ing planet did that happen? The untethering of U.S. “liberal” establishment elites from reality seems complete; I don’t know if it’s reversible.
Posted by: David G | Sep 11 2020 22:12 utc | 50
b "Anyone with a functional memory knows that the U.S. reaction to 9/11 was anything but "pretty calm". It is ridiculous that Krugman is claiming that."
Careful with that axe b, you are talking about Biden's chief economic adviser and likely appointee as Chair of the Fed. How does this look?
Volker
Greenspan
Bernanke
Yellen
Powell
Krugman
What could go wrong?
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Sep 11 2020 22:13 utc | 51
From 2019, Krugman de facto admits he was wrong his whole life. What a tool.
Posted by: Prof K | Sep 11 2020 22:15 utc | 52
#28: "The antiwar protests in the US were small and insignificant."
No they were not. Millions of people demonstrated against the planned war, in the US, in the UK, and around the world. In comparison to the tiny crowds of the current BLM protests, those crowds were immense. However, because the dual-party system was united in angling for war and the CNNFOXABCNBCCBSABC powers that be were all on board, the protests were not covered.
Posted by: Caliman | Sep 11 2020 22:15 utc | 53
What is all important, which Krugman does, and most folks wink and nod at, is the perpetuation of the narrative that 911 was done by Islamic Extremists in the first place and not the New Pearl Harbor crowd for whom folks like Krugman act as gatekeeper.
Posted by: gottlieb | Sep 11 2020 22:31 utc | 54
uncle tungsten | Sep 11 2020 22:13 utc | 50:
Reading Krugman’s columns in 2016, I had a strong to overwhelming sense that this was a person revving up for a spot in Hillary’s White House or cabinet. For some reason it isn’t hitting me as strongly this time around – he may not have as close connections in Biden’s circle – but it certainly would not be a surprise to see him take a turn through the media/government revolving door if Trump loses (though, fwiw, I don’t think it will be a job at the Fed).
Posted by: David G | Sep 11 2020 22:34 utc | 55
Yep. Pretty staggering how a few disgruntled ex-CIA contractors managed to, deliberately or not, help the US Gov't launch the biggest world war operation right under the noses of the brainwashed masses.
99% of Westerners still are clueless as to explaining the last 20 years in a broader geopolitical context.
Posted by: Et Tu | Sep 11 2020 22:48 utc | 56
Posted by: Caliman | Sep 11 2020 22:15 utc | 52
#28: "The antiwar protests in the US were small and insignificant."
No they were not. Millions of people demonstrated against the planned war, in the US, in the UK, and around the world...
We mustn't forget how the vast majority of those who allegedly were anti-war suddenly went totally pro-war silent upon Obama coming in.
But that pales compared to the vile spectacle of all the self-alleged "anti-authoritarians", "anti-propagandists" "dissidents", who suddenly regard the government media as the literal voice of God, where their alleged God speaks of Covid.
His book, End this Depression Now, is pretty weak. He has no theory of why the crash occurred. He critiques the austerity agenda but doesn't understand that government spending CAN create tax liabilities for capital down the road and eat into profits, thus blocking expanded investments and growth. Moronic libertarians hate Krugman just because they are right wing assholes who think, like fairies, that a free market without the state will work fine and self correct. Marx debunked this fairy tale thoroughly in Capital Volume 1, showing that, even if we start with the mythical free market of libertarian morons, capitalism will still operate according to the general law by which concentration and centralization lead to class polarization. In any case, in volume 3 of Capital, Marx develops his laws of crisis, showing that the cycles of expansion and depression under capitalism follow the movements of the rate of profit, which itself is determined by the ratio of the value of sunk capital in production technologies to the rate of exploitation (profits/wages). If the former rises more than the latter, the rate of profit sinks, along with investment, output and employment. Financial crises then set in.
The empirical evidence in the data bears out Marx's theory, not Krugman's dumb notion of aggregate demand, or the stupid libertarian focus on interest rates.
Posted by: Prof K | Sep 11 2020 22:55 utc | 58
Caliman at #52
Perhaps the size of the protests is relative. maches of the early
I went to one of the first anti-Iraq War demonstrations here in San Francisco back in 2003. I thought that it was pathetic; only about 30,000 turned out.
My frame of reference was the anti-Vietnam War marches of the early '70s. About 800,000 in October, 1971, several marches of over 500,000 in the year prior to that.
Compared to hundreds of thousands, 30,000 is paltry, pathetic.
Antoinetta III
Posted by: Antoinetta III | Sep 11 2020 23:05 utc | 59
William Gruff | Sep 11 2020 19:20 utc | 28:
Caliman | Sep 11 2020 22:15 utc | 52:
Russ | Sep 11 2020 22:48 utc | 56:
The pre-Iraq War protests in the U.S. might best be characterized as large and insignificant.
Posted by: David G | Sep 11 2020 23:06 utc | 60
9/11 was the shell game <=recently I read the first of three uses of mini nukes.. the other two were Chernobyl nuclear facility which blew without any discoverable cause, and the recent port attack in Lebanon. But 9/11 was use of force, designed to arouse the emotion of hate and the feeling of out of control circumstantial helplessness <=with intent to impart dependency on government... and if the reading is correct, it was used as an opportunity to test a new secret weapon.
Lawyers, Indian chiefs and corporations used the event to develop another product of the rule of law. <=From hot thin air, emotion generated imagination <=became the crime of Terror. Terror is an emotion, how can it be a crime? but warmed over thin air allows the military, police, secret agencies, and profit seeking corporations and their oligarch owners to cruize the world hunting for opportunities that can be taken (in other words, claim of terror, allows to shut down and take profitable foreign operations competing against an Oligarch enterprise). Merely point a fear tipped finger, at a Oligarch competitor, would make the victim a target of the nation state system.
but the long term purpose of 9/11 catastrophe seems to have been as B has identified.."the criminalization of emotion". Hate is a human emotion how can it, or its induction, be a crime? :" ..Criminalized Hate gives Oligarchic and associated crime families direct access to the government's monopoly on use of force and they used that force to make foreign competition go away, and to make the domestic deplorable stand still while being raped, fleeced, imprisoned, murdered or whatever.
IMO, in order for the world to resolve its conflict, and for the masses to enjoy the right of self determination, is it necessary first to replace the oligarch controlled and owned nations, that comprise the oligarch controlled nation state system, with something different.
Posted by: snake | Sep 11 2020 23:16 utc | 61
Prof K @57--
Nice remarks! Have you read Hudson's recent essay on Polyani, "Debt, Land and Money, From Polanyi to the New Economic Archaeology"?
Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 23:25 utc | 62
Caliman @52
Nonsense. Unlike most others who pretend that they protested America's war against Iraq, I actually organized contingents from my community to go to New York and Washington to protest. I was there. I can say that I've seen bigger protests to oppose zoning changes in small, third tier cities.
I know there were some sizable protests out in some of the American empire's vassal states, but not in America.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 11 2020 23:44 utc | 63
@12 Karlof1
Like you I consider Michael Hudson one of the best economic historians around and certainly the most intelligent commentator. However, one conclusion quoted in your post I found unexplained (forgive my incomplete knowledge): "Specifically, there is an enormous giveaway that makes real estate tax exempt for the next 30 years." Can you (or anyone here) expand what Michael means specifically? How does that work?
Posted by: Patroklos | Sep 12 2020 0:00 utc | 64
We could discuss here all day about the sociological subject of the American people's true positioning in the aftermath of 9/11. It would be, sincerely, a waste of time.
The important thing to grasp over this episode - from the point of view of History - is this: it was a strategic victory for al-Qaeda. The USA took the bait (all scripted?) and went into a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a few years, the surplus the USA had accumulated with the sacking and absorption of the Soviet space during Bill Clinton evaporated and became a huge deficit in the Empire's accounts. Not long after, the 2008 financial meltdown happened, burying Bushism in a spectacular way.
There's a debate about the size of the hole the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan cost the American Empire. Some put it into the dozens of billions of USDs; others put it into the trillions of USDs range. We will never know. What we know is that the hole was big enough to both erase the American surplus and to not avoid the financial meltdown of 2008.
Either the expansion through the Middle East wasn't fast and provided riches enough to keep up with the Empire's voracious appetite or the invasion itself already represented a last, desperate attempt by the Empire to avoid its imminent collapse. We know, however, that POTUS Bush had a list of countries he wanted to invade beyond Iraq (the "Axis of Evil") which contained a secret country (Venezuela). He was conscious Iraq and Afghanistan wouldn't be enough. Whatever the case, he didn't have the time, and the financial meltdown happened in his last year in the White House.
michaelj72 #38
karlof1 at #12
great stuff from M. Hudson, one of my favorite reads these days. Hudson has krugman's number. thanks again for those snippets and the links!
Steve Keen also has his number and Keen is pro capitalist
Krugman is a moron dressed as a weasel sounding like a squawking hen, with the vision of a hemorrhoid.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Sep 12 2020 1:15 utc | 66
The main harsh reaction of G.W. Bush after 9/11 was the formation of DHS and laws to legalize mass national and international spying on anybody with electronic traffic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Homeland_Security#History
They knew who the perps of 9/11 were: their "own" Saudi irregulars in the CIA's US main land training camps, who started practicing on the "wrong"- domestic American- targets. These guys were officially entered without any background checks.
The Bush and Bin Laden families go way back in money making. That is why George had to ponder so long in that Florida kindergarten after hearing about the attacks: he had a suspicion. The Saudi only fly out after 9/11 confirms that.
Posted by: Antonym | Sep 12 2020 1:26 utc | 67
Krugman used to be someone I respected. You can probably pull up his columns from 2001-2002, when he vigorously attacked the Bush administration for its criminal invasion of Iraq. How the hell can he write this with seriousness? But Trump has the liberal establishment in a tizzy, so they have to redefine the Bush years as something they weren’t. He’s The NY Times version of Ellen DeGeneres.
Posted by: Greg T | Sep 12 2020 1:49 utc | 68
William Gruff. Well said. Your comment resonates with me. There appears to be a very inclusive coalition of hyper "never Trumpers" whose assumed moral and intellectual superiority is given endless iterations in a compliant and conspiring media.
The Dems have aggregated many new moving parts into their machine. The neocon orthodoxy is one of the more ominous attachments, but Kruger is a representative of the gilding of the comprador Obama and Bush W. administrations. (One link between all the disparate parts is Jewishness. Seriously, Circe, do you personally know any Jew who would vote for Trump?)
Is this tsunami of propaganda ( and yes, MOA has its resident propagandists) a sign of desperation, and if so, of what? The machine against One Bad Man? Or is this moving machine of Dems-aligned elites trying to protect something?
So back to Mr Gruff and those wars. There's a helluva lot of blood on certain people's hands, and many others get smeared by association. There is simply too much pending for these psychopathic individuals and their machinery of enablers.
Their material comforts are assured. What they are demanding is the Right Side of History! (Yes, Gordon, you can make this stuff up.) They are thoroughly bad people.
On the subject of Krugman, here is a quote from the Official Badman:
"P.K. Is a lightweight thinker who doesn't have a clue. He caused huge economic damage to his followers' pocketbooks".
Posted by: Australian lady | Sep 12 2020 1:55 utc | 69
Paul Krugman Is a pro. Completely owned by Deep State. His purpose is to deflect discussion and prevent questioning the official version of 9/11 , and get people chasing something completely irrelevant. Well done Paul, most have taken the bait.
Posted by: Kay Fabr | Sep 12 2020 2:30 utc | 70
https://soundcloud.com/azuproductions/sun-moon-sect-the-twin-towers
Posted by: 9/11 Truth | Sep 12 2020 2:39 utc | 71
@ karlof1 | Sep 11 2020 23:25 utc | 61 with the Hudson link about Polyani, "Debt, Land and Money, From Polanyi to the New Economic Archaeology
WOW! Quite the read, thanks!
Its nice to know that we have only had this skewed view of social organization for less time than we have had better like the mixed economy of ancient Mesopotamia.
IMO, its not Archaeology that is posited to be new but Economic Architecture. And that Economic Architecture historically has religion or government in charge of it....I vote for government in the future.
I encourage all to read the Hudson piece. I pulled out a bunch of quotes as I went along reading the piece thinking I would quote them here but they don't do the piece justice.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 12 2020 3:14 utc | 72
karlof1 #61
Thank you for the Hudson on Polyani link. Excellent research. That work leaves Krugman in the play pen.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Sep 12 2020 3:22 utc | 73
Posted by: Ilya G Poimandres | Sep 11 2020 17:07 utc | 16 Stupid humans.
By George, I think he's got it!
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 12 2020 3:34 utc | 74
All I really know about Paul Krugman is that everything I read written by him was a tragic waste of my time. That's all for that.
Since this has been the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terror psyop, some issues need to be cleared up. First of all, let's just talk about the Twin Towers aspect. It was not a simple controlled demolition. The towers did not merely collapse -- they exploded from the top down. And only nuclear energy can provide the blast power that manifested in that event. However, I don't think nuclear bombs of any kind could have done it because the explosion did not consist of discrete bursts -- it was a continuous event. I suggest that this could have been accomplished by (sort-of) filling the structure with lithium deuteride (a solid substance). If the this chemical substance is struck by very fast neutrons, the lithium decays into tritium, which then undergoes a nuclear fusion detonation with the deuteride component.
It is difficult to focus fast neutrons into a beam because the bear no electric charge. But it has recently come to light that protons can be accelerated and focused, and then be transformed into a focused, fast neutron beam. So they could just detonate the lithium deuteride by aiming the neutron beam at it -- from top to bottom.
The Deep State has recruited an large army of sociopaths who will never spill the truth. Krugman himself is likely among them. Does Krugman seriously believe that '19 Arabs with boxcutters' brought down those towers? Not hardly. And one other thing:
The sociopaths that did that deed NEEDED TO BE SURE IT WOULD WORK EXACTLY AS PLANNED. Think about that point.
After all these years, I just don't know if it was nano-thermite or mini-nuke. t
Irrelevant. All you need to know is, it certainly wasn't 19 Muslims.
Posted by: pinoch | Sep 12 2020 5:42 utc | 76
Karl Sharro
@KarlreMarks
Overall, I reacted to that tweet pretty calmly
One thing a lot of people have taken pretty calmly is the establishment of a surveillance state. The loss of personal freedoms has been steady since 911. A great deal of people have taken that without a lot of pushback, thanks to a lot of propaganda and fear mongering.
Then I saw this headline. I guess it's ok for my government (5 eyes) to spy on me but not my government's enemies to spy on their citizens.
IBM urges US govt to adopt new controls on facial recognition systems for ‘repressive regimes
The US Commerce Department should adopt new export controls to limit repressive regimes’ access to facial recognition systems, IBM Corp said on Friday, claiming such systems can be used to commit human rights violations.
The company wants the United States to institute new export limits on “the type of facial recognition system most likely to be used in mass surveillance systems, racial profiling or other human rights violations.”
IBM didn't include the US but left the option open to everyone else. Well you never know, Canada could get uppity one day.(that should get a few barflies spitting their drinks!) Well, it did happen to Australia back in the 70's.
This is the real tragedy that those in the "free west" face. Pundits like Krugman will likely accuse China of spying on it's citizens but are mute when a western state spies on its citizens, except when it isn't convenient, like in Salisbury. Salisbury must be one of the most CCTV'd locations in a nation noted for having a shit load of CCTV's. FFS Salisbury is the home of many ex-spies and their handlers. HRM Government didn't have one on the street where Sergei lived. I call that bullshit.
I can't see a way out of the surveillance state that is being set up without the destruction of that technology. It has as much chance as nuclear weapons being abolished. "They" will have meter on your bed one day. And that ball got rolling on Sept 12.
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
https://www.rt.com/news/500470-ibm-us-facial-recognition/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg
Posted by: Tom | Sep 12 2020 7:11 utc | 77
19 years after the biggest lie of the last half century, this powerful long nose was needed to tell us that American policy towards Muslims has been lenient after all.That is why he should be locked up for life in a labor camp as a guilty voice of the deep establishment.
Posted by: LuBa | Sep 12 2020 7:19 utc | 78
But karlof1 @ 12, toilet-cleaning is an honourable and necessary work. Why would economists be fit for that?
Posted by: Rhisiart Gwilym | Sep 12 2020 8:27 utc | 79
I'd have thought B. would mention Amerikastan's wars of imperialist aggression right on top of the list.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Sep 12 2020 9:25 utc | 81
Jihawg ammo with pigs blood? coating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QooaIjfRf4
Trump on how to kill muslims.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBVKO5_em6U
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Sep 12 2020 9:35 utc | 82
@ Snake
Chernobyl nuclear facility which blew without any discoverable cause
you really need to stop with this BS. the cause is very well documented and there was a good series that showed what happened. the port in Beirut was also examined in fine detail. where do you come up with this nonsense?
Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 12 2020 9:55 utc | 83
Arab mass migration started with the Israelis in 1948 after multiple massacres caused one million Palestinians to leave Palestine and the mass exodus continued with the Zionist war on Lebanon which lasted almost 20 years and again caused over one million Arabs to be displaced.
However, the wars waged in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan on behalf of the crazy Zionist Iron Wall Credo of fomenting chaos in the Middle East and forcing Arabs to flee in the millions has caused waves of migration to the point that Arab is now spoken on every street corner of Western Civilization.
Creating a Jewish State in the Middle East was the absolute worst mistake in modern history. Zionists went to the Middle East to wittingly inflict misery there and now on our Western civilization with the massive migration that resulted and has upended our way of life.
9/11 is but symbolic of the catastrophic consequences of the monumental error that was giving Zionism the power to wreak havoc in the Middle East and on Western civilization changing the demographic character of Western nations permanently.
The hatred on both sides West and Arab is a product of what Zionism has wrought. Anglo-Christian civilization has been overwhelmed by Arab civilization thanks to Zionism, a reality intended to force us to turn to Jews as the far better alternative, to prioritize their perennial victimhood, and to give them political and social power to our complete detriment. The Judeo in Judeo-Christian has become far more powerful since 9/11, while the mass Arab migration is destroying our Western culture as we have known it for centuries.
As a Western civilization we have been permanently altered and our power, values, well-being and way of life diminished.
We handed our power to Zionism and this catastrophic change is what Zionism has wrought in the short span of six decades.
9/11 represents total surrender to Zionism and the destruction of Western (Christian) Civilization as it was. We are trapped between the power of Zionism on one side and a culture shock of Arab saturation on the other.
Western civilization is being permanently dispossessed and no we are not the better for it as we decline and become more lost in unfamiliarity in our own land and disconnected with our past.
Our leaders have committed treason.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 12 2020 11:43 utc | 84
I need to summarize into one simple truth: Zionists have involved us in multiple Zionist wars for decades resulting in overnight mass migration and these wars and endless mass migration are destroying us as a civilization, and our treasonous leaders enabled both elements with their ignorant, ingratiating sense of loyalty to Zionism and their fake humanitarianism towards the victims of those wars.
Posted by: Circe | Sep 12 2020 12:15 utc | 85
PeterAU1 @ 81
I’m guessing those bullets and that tactic of trumps would both equally work on Americans, what do you think ?
Black Lives Matter ?
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 12 2020 12:23 utc | 86
Australian lady @68: "Is this tsunami of propaganda... a sign of desperation...?"
I think it absolutely is, but the desperation is over a much deeper dread than just losing another election to the Orange Bad Man. In fact, the hysterical panic following the 2016 elections were not so much about Trump himself, but rather because their perfect and infallible plans exploded in their faces and they don't know why. They still don't know why. Things are failing for the elites in ways that for them are totally inexplicable. The future was going to be a simple continuation of the present, with all of the steps clearly planned out for the "New American Century", like "seven countries in five years" and the development of the neoliberal utopia freed of racism, sexism, and homophobia by lifting model tokens to top visible roles serving the oligarchy. While things had failed for them before, the elites could look at those as minor hick-ups and bumps in the road, but it was still obvious to them which way the road went. The 2016 elections went precisely opposite their plans and expectations, though. That shocked their eyes open only for them to discover that the easy road they thought they were on was nowhere to be found in any direction, and instead they were in an unfamiliar wilderness. It must have been Putin's Soviet mind rays that lured them off the easy and certain path to capitalist paradise! Their entire understanding of the universe was shaken, almost to the point of losing their faith in gravity itself. The way forward for the elites has become an inky void.
I think this is one of the reason Trump wasn't assassinated. The elites simply have no idea what to do after that.
It seems that the neoliberal elites are currently pinning their hopes on the "Great Reset" (Pepe Escobar), but this is silly and like hoping for reincarnation. This, however, is a massive shift from the "Project for a New American Century". It is more desperation hiding behind shiny white plastic.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 12 2020 12:28 utc | 87
I think this will be the most-remembered Twitter-ratioing of 2020!
Posted by: Mr. Nobody | Sep 12 2020 13:30 utc | 88
"And it ought to be noted that Gitmo is still an operational torture prison that continues to hold people the Outlaw US Empire kidnapped and has never charged with a crime. Yet somehow, the Outlaw US Empire is touted as upholding moral and human rights standards the world is prodded to emulate."
Posted by: karlof1 @ 15
Oh so bloody true - once again the Beeb's World Service today (and doubtless NPR itself will speak of it) set about the accusations re the Uighers/re-ed camps/deplorable, inhumane Chinese and some Disney film (Mulan?). Then there was a news item about Iran's execution of a wrestler they had convicted of killing a security guard. The wrestler (with western ears listening) accused the Iranians of torture to get him to confess.
Never mentioned - Guantanamo and its prisoners who have been tortured and are being held till they die, without ever being able to put their case in a genuine, open-minded courtroom (or any courtroom, in fact). Never mentioned - the torture within American prisons: solitary confinement for years; the slave labor that continues in American prisons state, private and federal. Never mentioned, or only in passing, the executions here and their inhumanity let alone their being based on truth.
Never mentioned the treatment of Julian Assange...
Never mentioned the treatment of the Chagos Islanders...
And these only brush the surface of what the US and UK have done to others in other countries, let alone their own, over the decades (let alone centuries)... Notice how unwilling the UK is to accept the return of that young English Muslim woman who married an ISIS bloke...One wonders how keen and eager the US would be to accept home any jihadis and I doubt that they would be allowed to simply re-enter society.
Nope - its the Chinese, the Iranians... (
Posted by: AnneR | Sep 12 2020 14:01 utc | 89
@ 87 WG
.. . because their perfect and infallible plans exploded in their faces and they don't know why. . .The elites simply have no idea what to do
"Hear -hear" for William Gruff who puts that incessant 'Trump Deep State' BS on moa to bed, better than I could.
!!
Posted by: Don Bacon | Sep 12 2020 14:25 utc | 90
Krugman celebrates the demise of the European Gentile in their homelands. Makes total sense why he is pro GWB. W who made the unofficial US policy of invade the world so as to invite the world. Let's face it blowing up a country makes for easier pillaging of its resources. Then you move thr primarily young men migrants, and eventually their families, to American and European communities where no self respecting oligarch and their boot lickers would ever step in. Destruction for all except the money classes. Put in rioting protests for good measure to protect the whole scam by fomenting lots of hate among the little people. Paulie must have a nice stash of tax free cash to go with his kiddie porn for being such a useful minion.
Posted by: Old and Grumpy | Sep 12 2020 14:31 utc | 91
@ 91 O&G
. . . W who made the unofficial US policy of invade the world so as to invite the world.
No, it was a joint operation, formally begun with Clinton's signing of The Iraq Liberation Act.
The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. . . An Act to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq" . . .wiki
Posted by: Don Bacon | Sep 12 2020 14:40 utc | 92
In fact, the hysterical panic following the 2016 elections were not so much about Trump himself, but rather because their perfect and infallible plans exploded in their faces and they don't know why. They still don't know why. Things are failing for the elites in ways that for them are totally inexplicable. The future was going to be a simple continuation of the present, with all of the steps clearly planned out for the "New American Century", like "seven countries in five years" ...BLAH-BLAH
What the F! Trump is an elitist of the worst kind--a Zionist elitist who's moved on to disturb the shet in Venezuela, Iran and China...plus previously Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya Syria. THAT MAKES 7 NOW!
Quit peddling the Trump is a populist non-interventionist snake oil!
Posted by: Circe | Sep 12 2020 14:43 utc | 93
When 9 11 took place the republicans were in govenment, when trumps ft dettrick virus was deliberately spread round the world trump and the republicans again were in govenment,
As far as Trump is concerned it appears not only Black lives don’t matter, but American lives don’t matter black or white. Ditto foreign lives. Is ‘elite lives matter’ a thing ? Yea let’s all protest support and vote that one !
Pass me the sick bucket.
Posted by: Mark2 | Sep 12 2020 14:49 utc | 94
Gruff @87 wrote:
The 2016 elections went precisely opposite their plans and expectations, though. That shocked their eyes open only for them to discover that the easy road they thought they were on was nowhere to be found in any direction, and instead they were in an unfamiliar wilderness.
_________________________
You must be joking. The 2016 elections and what followed couldn't have gone any better for the elites.
_________________________
the hysterical panic following the 2016 elections were not so much about Trump himself, but rather because their perfect and infallible plans exploded in their faces and they don't know why. They still don't know why.
_________________________
They know exactly why Trump got elected. The elites worked very hard to portray Trump as the anti-establishment candidate going up against the corrupt establishment candidate. Actually they did not have to work very hard at all since the American voters are so easily fooled.
But surely your post is intended as sarcasm.
Posted by: jinn | Sep 12 2020 15:02 utc | 95
So an ageing increasingly irrelevant political hack makes a flippant partisan statement on the anniversary of one of the biggest cons in US history, and it is news? Or even something worthy of discussion? Please.
Yes, Krugman seems not to comprehend the death and destruction wrought over the ME as a result of that event as being a glaring rebuttal of his flippant remark, but I will repeat the above: his was just bland (though totally ignorant) partisan sniping.
Just ignore the fucking asshole.
Posted by: vinnieoh | Sep 12 2020 15:04 utc | 96
Dubya did not have to talk trash about "Mooslem Ayrabs." There are plenty of talking heads who are the scum of curdled milk that have risen to the top on Faux News, Faux Business, One Neoconservative Propaganda, and elsewhere to do the honors. It does not take three weeks for them to flip the script as The Saker speculates, for they did it in 3 hours (or less) 19 years ago making millions of Jew haters such as my father and Kurt Saxon into Zionist Jew-loving ass-kissers who want 6 trillion Muslims sent to the gas chamber.
Posted by: William Haught | Sep 12 2020 15:17 utc | 97
And Kamala Harris too:
Kamala Harris on #September11th: ’What our attackers failed to understand is that the darkness they hoped would envelop us on 9/11 instead summoned our most radiant and defined human instincts.’
Right , radiant, like the Liberty Lady with her shining torch at the beginning of Columbia movies. Right, humane like the horrific bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq to hell. The radiance of the bombs could be seen far and wide on television. The bombed people rejoiced for years, pledging endless fealty to the perpetrators of their misery.
Joe Biden and she are planning the US's next wars: Iran, Venezuela, Syria, more. Stay tuned. The California cop is being set lose on the world.
Sorry. I found this in the comment section of Naked Capitalism, Water Cooler, 9/11.
Posted by: Quentin | Sep 12 2020 15:35 utc | 98
jinn @Sep12 15:02 #95
Thank you jinn!
I've been pushing back on Wm Gruff's misconceptions for a long time. (And I'm being kind when I label them "misconceptions".)
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 12 2020 15:38 utc | 99
I'm always surprised that so many people cant accept the simple truth that there are different factions of elites within the US, some of whom (let's call them the American restorationists), but the majority supported Hillary (the Neo-Liberals & Neo-Conservatives). The Elites who support Trump want to recreate the geo-political situation America was in during the 1st half of the 20th Century (specifically the Gilded Age, but they sell it to Trump's base as restoring the 1950s). The big difference between the American Restorationists and the Neo-Liberals is the role of Globalization. Neo-liberals have an imperialist and colonialist view of the world, they MUST expand, penetrate, conqueror and incorporate into every country in order to liberate the wealth of these nations (i.e. steal everything, privatize it, atomize society and turn every individual into a replaceable cog within the divine market economy to suppress labour costs). Conversely, while the American Restorationists are willing to do everything the Neoliberals are, difference is that they see their mission as serving the divine American state (the "Exceptional" Nation).
This is the key difference as the Restorationists are willing to admit that penetrating every market/country may not serve / profit American interests, so there are some places they are willing to walk away from or lines they wont cross. They can't be trusted of course, but they are more rational than the Neoliberals because the Neoliberals are loyal to an ideology, not a state and that ideology REQUIRES them to expand their control (market access). In this sense Trump is the lesser of two of evils but this is what the duopoly party system has created. If Biden wins there will be a open war with Syria to fully penetrate the Syrian economy and loot it, even at the risk of war with Russia. Whereas Trump appears to be happy with stealing only the easiest and profitable portions of Syria with the lesser risk of war with Russia (note: lesser risk, does not mean no risk, this is still extremely risky).
Posted by: Kadath | Sep 12 2020 15:54 utc | 100
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Who does this say more about: Paul Krugman or the Nobel Prize?
Posted by: moe lester | Sep 11 2020 15:58 utc | 1