Letters to the Editor
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Aych...
I used to read the newest first, too, but at some point I switched back to chronological order. I'm not sure why, but it may have had something to do with posting before I'd read enough... honestly, I don't remember why.
I do remember why I used to read them in reverse order, though. It was so I could scroll up from the bottom, and see who had written something before I read it. Now, I recognize the voices more quickly.
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Paul Krugman 3/18/2003 (the eve of war)
The NYTimes hasn't fired him.
But the Sunday morning talk shows haven't been clamoring to book him.
Krugman 3/18/2003:
Things to Come
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 18, 2003[...] Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening.
So now the administration knows that it can make unsubstantiated claims, without paying a price when those claims prove false, and that saber rattling gains it votes and silences opposition. [...]
- - Paul Krugman 3/18/2003
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@ Jkalos
In a word, yes. When the moment comes, though, the choices narrow. Will I publish my dissent, and consequently offer myself up to be shot, secretly put sugar in the party's gas tanks, sneak across the border into neutral X, what?
This, of course, is going on right here, right now. It's not an academic discussion at all, despite fortuitous appearances to the contrary.
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I'm now beginning to believe that he has a reading comprehension issue.
Bucky would be far from alone in that.
From my point of view it is exceedingly difficult to make oneself unambiguously understood. I find GG's prose very clear and yet he is constantly being misread, I see examples nearly every day.
Online communications are fraught with possibilities for miscommunications and misunderstandings. It just comes with the territory of written dialog which is not edited and seldom even proofread..
My own worst writing habit is that I tend to leave words and phrases out, particularly if I'm interrupted while I'm writing (something that happens to me a lot). If it's something tricky I'll proofread but mostly I just hit the publish button when I think I'm done.
There have been a few times when I really shouldn't have been posting, events in my personal life have emotionally colored my postings and I have written things I later regretted. I think that sort of thing happens to most of us.
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Krugman's Blog: "Today, our public discourse is dominated by people who have been wrong about everything."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/all-stars/
March 25, 2008, 10:56 am
All-starsOK, this is pretty dumb.
Hillary Clinton wants a high-level commission to analyze ways to resolve the mortgage crisis — including Alan Greenspan.
Yes, I know people still listen when Greenspan speaks — and John McCain once joked about taking Greenspan’s advice even if he’s dead. But for those in the know, AG is a key villain in the whole affair.
- - Paul Krugman, 10:56 am
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/all-stars/
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/the-age-of-the-anti-cassandra/
March 25, 2008, 12:18 pm
The age of the anti-CassandraReading some of today’s news, it suddenly struck me: we’re living in the age of the anti-Cassandra.
Cassandra had the gift of prophecy — she saw, correctly, what was coming — but was under a curse: nobody would believe her.
Today, our public discourse is dominated by people who have been wrong about everything — but are still, mysteriously, treated as men of wisdom, whose judgments should be believed.
* * *
Those who were actually right about the major issues of the day can’t get a word in edgewise.
* * *
What set me off was the matter of Alan Greenspan; as Dean Baker like to remind us, news analyses of the housing and financial crisis almost always draw exclusively on “experts” who first insisted that there wasn’t a housing bubble, then insisted that the financial consequences of the bubble’s bursting would remain “contained.”
It’s even worse, of course, on the matter of Iraq: just about every one of the panels convened to discuss the lessons of five disastrous years consisted solely of men and women who cheered the idiocy on.
Now, none of this is entirely new. Consider what Keynes said in 1931:
"A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him."
Still, it seems especially extreme now. And think of the incentive effects. What’s the point of taking the risk of challenging conventional wisdom if, even after you’re proved right, only the guys who were wrong get invited to opine on Charlie Rose?
- - Paul Krugman, 12:18 pm
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/the-age-of-the-anti-cassandra/
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@Anonymust
though I'm now beginning to believe that he has a reading comprehension issue.
-- Anonymust
Something like that. He's an odd duck but he's not a bad person. I think he'll settle down. I see it happening already. When I first tried that tac with him, reminding him what he professes and how he rarely practices what he preaches, his response to me was measured and without rancor or vitriol. To me, his arch enemy. I was surprised by that.
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All true, Aych...
and I think you'll find that others here can be very understanding, provided the commenter doesn't become arrogant or defensive and start blaming us.
But that requires a certain amount of self-awareness, and he doesn't have it.
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A "Politics and the English Language" for our time..........
If you liked Orwell's Politics and the English Language check out Euphemism and American Violence in the latest NYRB.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21199
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RMP
I was saddened, but not surprised, at how the MSM virtually ignored Winter Soldier.
My reaction also.