"You need to be afraid" It's what ISIS wants (along with Glock-Smith&Wesson-Ruger-Heckler-Koch&Colt)
just found this:
If it's "ahistorical," is it "ahysterical"?
by Tom Sullivan
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It's getting hard to recall a time when the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. A time when a confident America refused to be terrorized. Now (as Digby noted yesterday), conservative pundits stare out of TV screens as if reading from a badly written, made-for-TV script and sternly warn an America already armed to the teeth, "You need to be afraid." It's just what ISIS wants (along with Glock, Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Heckler & Koch, and Colt Industries). And like the Eloi entranced, Americans again trudge numbly down to the gun store.
It's getting hard to recall when Americans weren't so jumpy that they'd go to guns with any stranger over a perceived threat, over any noise in the night (maybe a daughter), and with any actor, state or stateless, who looks at us sideways on the street, because Omigod! American leaders -- trained police too -- weren't that easily rattled. Politicians didn't stare wildly out of TV screens and rave about the gates of hell being unleashed and terrorists coming to kill us in our beds. Those were the poseurs, the weak-kneed, movie bureaucrats we cheered to see finally humiliated and deposed in Act 3 when the real hero stepped in. The one with a quiet strength who could keep his/her cool and act, not react.
The jumpiness smacks of an empire in decline, bereft of self-confidence, desperate to prove to itself through bombing something that it's still got it. It says more about us than about our adversaries.
And it's getting hard to recall a time America wasn't at war with Whomeva.
MORE:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/if-its-ahistorical-is-it-ahysterical-by.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
... as the latest in neocon Meisterspielmeister:
The Pitfalls of Peace
The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth
Tyler Coswen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014
The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.
An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.
The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.
Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.
It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.
War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.
SNIP...
Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.
Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0
The guy seems to specialize in Big Ticket themes:
Just when I thought, maybe, we had reached bottom and were ready to bounce up -- I discovered there may be no bottom -- for me and the large part of the 99-percent.
Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has seen the future and it looks bleak for most of us. Thankfully, those at the top, though, are in for some more good times. He spoke about his findings with NPR's Steve Inskeep. I almost dropped my smartphone into my coffee while texting during rush hour, listening to the report this morning, I was so steamed.
Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse
by NPR STAFF
September 12, 2013 3:05 AM
Economist Tyler Cowen has some advice for what to do about America's income inequality: Get used to it. In his latest book, Average Is Over, Cowen lays out his prediction for where the U.S. economy is heading, like it or not:
"I think we'll see a thinning out of the middle class," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "We'll see a lot of individuals rising up to much greater wealth. And we'll also see more individuals clustering in a kind of lower-middle class existence."
It's a radical change from the America of 40 or 50 years ago. Cowen believes the wealthy will become more numerous, and even more powerful. The elderly will hold on to their benefits ... the young, not so much. Millions of people who might have expected a middle class existence may have to aspire to something else.
SNIP...
Some people, he predicts, may just have to find a new definition of happiness that costs less money. Cowen says this widening is the result of a shifting economy. Computers will play a larger role and people who can work with computers can make a lot. He also predicts that everyone will be ruthlessly graded — every slice of their lives, monitored, tracked and recorded.
CONTINUED with link to the audio...
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/12/221425582/tired-of-inequality-one-economist-says-itll-only-get-worse
For some reason, the interview with Steve Inskeep didn't bring up the subject of the GOVERNMENT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT LIKE IN THE NEW DEAL so I thought I'd bring it up. Older DUers may recall the Democratic Party once actually did do stuff for the average American, from school and work to housing and justice. But, we can't afford that now, obviously.
Oh, the good news is the 1-percent may swell to a 15-percent "upper middle class" while the rest of the middle class goes the other way. Gee. That sounds eerily familiar. Oh..."Commercial interests are very powerful interests" uttered same press conference where Smirko said, "Money trumps peace." Pretty much always the on-message 24/7/366 for most of the last century.
Thank Cass Sunstein our government is sure to tell us the truth. Cough. Horsefeathers.
PS: The great DUer amandabeech points out that Dr. Cowen's George Mason U is working to position itself as a leading center of conservative economic thought. For some reason, conservative economic thought is all that's listened to in Washington anymore.
