Krugman-911 Created A Window Of Opportunity & 4 More Yrs For: A FAILED REVOLUTION

[kpete]

A Failed Revolution
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Friday 29 December 2?06


.............Without 9/11, the Republican revolution would probably have petered out quietly, with the loss of Congress in 2002 and the White House in 2004. Instead, the atrocity created a window of opportunity: four extra years gained by drowning out unfavorable news with terror alerts, starting a gratuitous war, and accusing Democrats of being weak on national security.

...............

In the end, Republicans didn't shrink the government. But they did degrade it. Baghdad and New Orleans are the arrival destinations of a movement based on deep contempt for governance.

Is that the end for the radical right? Probably not. As a long-suffering civil servant once told me, bad policy ideas are like cockroaches: you can flush them down the toilet, but they keep coming back. Many of the ideas that failed in the Bush years had previously failed in the Reagan years. So there's no reason to assume they're gone for good.

Indeed, it appears that loss of power and the ensuing lack of accountability is liberating right-wingers to lie yet again: since last month's election, I've noticed a number of Social Security privatizers propounding the same free-lunch falsehoods that the Bush administration had to abandon in the face of demands that it present an actual plan.

Still, the Republican revolution of 1994 is over. And not a moment too soon.

more at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122906F.shtml

[applegrove]

1. Thanks for posting. n/t

[NoAmericanTaliban]

2. Krugman has a point about the counter-rev but it is not over

It is more of a counter-revolution to the 60's era and to the LBJ & FDR programs. To anything progressive. This counter-rev is not over yet & we will be fighting it our whole lifetime. Their incompetency will affect us for years to come and a lifetime for many. Just think of the dead Iraqies and US troops alone.

[NewJeffCT]

3. Not just the incompetency

The highly partisan RW activist judges appointed by Reagan & Bush will be affecting our country for decades to come.

Right now, Republic appointees control the SCotUS by a 7-2 margin. They control every federal court except one (the 9th - any wonder why Republics have tried to break it up?)

Even if we get 12-16 years of Dems controlling the presidency starting in 2008, there will still be Bush appointees on the federal courts, and Alito and Roberts could still be on the Supreme Court.

[Ezlivin]

4. These bastards needed 9/11 so much they MIHOP

Made It Happen On Purpose

They'd like for us to think everyone was just incompetent on that day. A whole lot of incompetent people and not a single one fired/demoted/punished/suspended/given-a-good-talking-to.

And who has reaped the biggest benefits from 9/11?

The American people? No.

The Iraqi people? No.

The Afghanis? No.

Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, Bush, Cheney, et al? Yes.

The PNACers needed a New Pearl Harbor and, wow, it just happened to happen on their watch. What a coincidence.

Just keep watching WTC 7, never hit by an aircraft, collapse just like it was demolished and try to convince yourself that the official story is true: