In a moving and beautiful ceremony held atop Lower Manhattan’s
gleaming, 120-story-tall Freedom Tower, the nation commemorated the
10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by raising a glass to the stable
democracy of Afghanistan and to a decade of unprecedented peace and
prosperity across the globe.
Yea, I laughed too. But mid-laugh I remembered that, contrary to virtually everyone, that last decade was a decade of unprecedented peace and prosperity across the globe. Americans fought two ugly wars and endured two recessions. But mankind is doing amazingly well.
All we lack is a moving and beautiful ceremony to crown our achievements.
READER COMMENTS
Hume
Sep 14 2011 at 11:17am
What about Africa?
Scott Scheule
Sep 14 2011 at 11:40am
What is this Africa you speak of?
PrometheeFeu
Sep 14 2011 at 12:46pm
The scary part for me is that I read the blurb before I saw the link to the Onion and I did not doubt for one second that it was true. It seems so depressingly plausible that some polticians would pat themselves on the back for the handling of the Afghan war, 9/11 and everything that has happened in the past 10 years.
Noah
Sep 14 2011 at 2:09pm
Unprecedented peace, yes.
Unprecedented prosperity no, since “last decade” includes 2008-10.
Lorenzo from Oz
Sep 15 2011 at 1:54am
Noah: seems pretty good if you are Chinese, Indian (or Australian, but there are not that many of us). So, yes, unprecedented prosperity.
infopractical
Sep 16 2011 at 1:06pm
Yes, excellent relative peace and prosperity on a global scale. My only quibble is whether or not our global economic success really will survive much longer. It’s unclear as to whether we’re selling forward the pain.
Chris
Sep 16 2011 at 10:58pm
According to the PDF-linked Brookings study, the global poverty rate is now 15% – the same as in the United States. Can that be correct?
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