Who Will Tell the People? Thomas Friedman NY Times

[EV_Ares]

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

Go to Columnist Page » They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil. Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.” That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from ........

Entire article @ link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html?em&ex=1210046400&en=740ad78e29276577&ei=5087%0A

[Demeter]

1. People Want Revenge, Too. Also Known as Justice

But of course, it's not politically correct to point this out.

[tularetom]

2. Five years ago he was touting the export of democracy to the middle east

The invasion of Iraq was gonna bring down the price of oil and all that shit. He was a regular on all the pundit bullshitfests and they all ate up the load of crap he was serving.

What happened? What was it that finally opened his eyes?

[nuxvomica]

6. He's also an apologist for globalization

It's pretty obvious if you're not Tom Friedman that Tom Friedman play his role in building down this country with his books and articles promoting the interests of corporations and neocons. It took a crowded airport terminal to open his eyes to the problem, it would only take a mirror for him to see part of the cause.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

7. Well, Friedman may have been an idiot, but...

He's not exactly stupid. He, like the Republican I talked to over dinner this week, has had his eyes opened in a most brutal fashion. It's hard for anyone with cognitive abilities, no matter how meager, to ignore the pull of The Coriolis Effect that is presently upon this country.

On the other hand, talk to a psychological therapist and you will hear tales about a lot of people really lacking effective cognitive skills.

[Mojambo]

3. We're weaker because we bought into nonsense from people like Thomas Friedman. n/t

[sammythecat]

22. Exactly. At one time I had a lot of respect for him,

then came Bush, 9/11, and Iraq. Now he's just another self-serving gas-bag in my opinion. He was an influential enabler for the Bush administration. He was a cheerleader for the worst administration in this country's history. He has a lot of making up to do. The past 8 years have been an utter disaster and a lot of the blame goes to him. He was a very powerful and influential voice and many times I just couldn't believe I was actually hearing him say the things he said. He HAD to know this administration was full of shit. He HAD to know. Hell, we knew, so did he.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. I cannot believe I am saying this...

But the progenitor of "The Friedman Unit" has this one exactly right.

[Deja Q]

13. Well, even a broken clock can be right once in a while...

[madaboutharry]

5. You can not have the kinds of

rail stations, airports, educational systems and health care of other nations if you are unwilling to pay the rate of taxes required to maintain them. The republican party and their antipathy towards taxes, their mentality "its my money, I should be able to keep it," and their every man for himself world view has greatly damaged the integrity and strength of this nation, both in its infrastructure and in its spirit. That is really the bottom line.

[Jade Fox]

14. We have the tax money....

if we would just stop putting it down the black hole of endless wars, and into bloated "security" agencies.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-slater/why-war-persists-when-war_b_65003.html

"Only the backward, the ignorant, the fanatical, and the misled engage in war today, for military victory has become meaningless. The United States is spending a billion dollars a week on a war that we won militarily four years ago. War is obsolete because the major threats of violence come not from nations, but from individuals -- tanks and planes can't stop a single terrorist from blowing up a building. Furthermore, no nation today can successfully invade and occupy another without bankrupting itself. With the billion dollars a week wasted in Iraq the United States could have maintained its decaying infrastructure, preserved and updated its decayed and obsolete educational system, created a universal health care system like those of every other civilized nation, taken care of the wounded and emotionally shattered soldiers that Bush so callously dumped into Iraq without adequate preparation, and so on.

Wars always end in making a deal. Leaders on both sides talk tough, slaughter a lot of women and children, wreak a lot of havoc and destruction, and then, when everyone's sick of it all, they sit down and make a deal. When will we learn to skip the preliminaries and cut to the chase?"

[KoKo]

20. Our Tax Money goes to Occupy Iraq and to perpetuate Shell Company Contractors

and Boondoggles to all kinds of Crooks for this War. Friedman knew that....he just likes to keep himself in view as tides turn in opinion. When Friedman speaks the NYT's reading crowd goes into a swoon.

[bemildred]

8. Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy (Paperback)

Friedman is a Johnny come lately here.

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Will-Tell-People-Democracy/dp/0671867407

[Pastiche423]

21. Thank you for that!

When I read the article title, I was expecting William Greider to be the author.

I read his book seven years ago, but need to pick it up again.

[bemildred]

23. Greider has a clue. Friedman does not. nt

[Pastiche423]

24. Yep and William has for a long time

His Who Will Tell the People was published in 1992.

[bluesmail]

9. There's nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Looks like a pile of rubble.

[onethatcares]

10. the waiting lounge in JFK airport is a joke

I don't think I've ever been in a dirtier airside terminal in my life. Sheesh, Venice Italy was amazingly clean as was the airside in Antigua compared to that squalor.

[Marr]

11. Funny-- I don't see any condemnation of globalization there.

What's destroyed this country is the economic con game that Friedman and his predecessors have been pushing for years. Bush-style foreign policy (which Friedman has also wildly supported) has been the cherry on the disaster cake.

I don't think I care to hear that lying fool's ideas about how to fix the nation, when he's embraced all the things that have demolished it.

[lostnfound]

19. I totally agree, except that Friedman is syndicated and there are

many people who read his stuff, so I'm glad he is pointing out something worth while.

He is awful, however.

[Jade Fox]

12. Who Will Tell the Press?

A sanctified member of the national press exits his self-referential clubhouse and encounters reality, the reality the rest of us live every day.

[struggle4progress]

15. Waste money on war and other garbage, organize the economy for the rich,

consolidate media in the hands of a few monster corporations ...

What the fug did anybody expect to happen?

[Solly Mack]

16. Just give it another 6 months

snicker

[sendero]

17. Really..

.... people think we're working through this mess. This mess is in the FIRST INNING.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

18. Almost 22 years ago I went on vacation to Switzerland and

couldn't believe how modernized Switzerland was compared to the US. They had cutting edge technology in their stores. Great kitchen gadgets in cool home stores and herbal remedies in their pharmacies. They Quality of their food was beyond compare. The best produce I ever ate in my life. They used pig shit to fertilize their crops instead of chemicals. They also had a rule that if your car stood at a traffic light for a period of time, it was required you shut your engine. I was also amazed at how many people spoke English. When I returned to my home in NY, I felt like I returned to the provinces.

[KoKo]

25. I have to kick this for the biggest POS from a Spin Artist...who took us to War and Now Blames US

Americans for not having "play stations in airports" like those little kids have in ASIA! GIVE ME A BREAK! :puke:

[vssmith]

26. The powerful people in this country:

Send their kids to private schools -> they don't care about public education
Live in gated communities -> they don't care about police protection
Fly private jets -> the don't care about airports or airline safety
Ride in limos -> they don't care about railway stations

Wealthy people don't live like us and they don't give a shit about us or our problems. Someday when the unwashed masses are climbing over the walls of their gated communities they will find out what Marie Antoinette found out. Aux Barricades!

[scarletwoman]

27. Friedman is an ass. Sorry, Tom, the fact that you happened to catch a fucking clue, doesn't make

you any less an ass.

He should be chained up naked with a bag over his head in Abu Ghraib. Sanctimonious mass-murdering imperialist twit. :grr:

sw