Realistically, America needs to transition from oil and coal to more sustainable and decentralized energy production. However, because our government is run from Wall Street, no rational governance for the whole country can be occur.

There was no move toward green technology in the last stimulus, just increased funding of government worker salaries and pensions, proving that no amount of government money can make a green technology happen.

Because all government funding will be consumed by the government itself, it will be up to the private sector to implement any aspects of the green evolution. But because once again this money must come from the short sighted and risk adverse greed of wall Street, it will not happen. They are making trillions on simply moving money around in the worlds economy…there is zero incentive to walk away from an unregulated sure thing, to an expensive maybe.

As a result, asking whats good for America or globe is absolutely pointless and has nothing to do with the Judicial, Executive or Legislative process. Discussing the future or any aspect of governance with regard to the will of the people has become nothing more than irrational babbling.

This book will change nothing except the writers bank balance. But keep trying Mr. Friedman, maybe someday a book will overpower the trillion dollar derivatives market.

Tom Friedman, one of the nation’s leading propagandists for the Iraq War and a vigorous supporter of all of Israel’s wars, has a column today in The New York Times explaining and praising the Israeli attack on Gaza. For the sake of robust and diverse debate (for which our Liberal Media is so well known), Friedman’s column today appears alongside an Op-Ed from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the nation’s leading (and most deceitful) propagandists for the Iraq War and a vigorous supporter of all of Israel’s wars, who explains that Hamas is incorrigibly hateful and radical and cannot be negotiated with. One can hardly imagine a more compelling exhibit demonstrating the complete lack of accountability in the “journalism” profession — at least for those who are loyal establishment spokespeople who reflexively cheer on wars — than a leading Op-Ed page presenting these two war advocates, of all people, as experts, of all things, on the joys and glories of the latest Middle East war.

Friedman argues that when low-skill and low-wage jobs are exported to foreign countries, more advanced and higher-skilled jobs will be freed up and made available for those displaced by the outsourcing. He theorizes that as long as those whose jobs are outsourced continue to further their education and specialize in their field, they will find better-paying and higher-skilled jobs.

He also views American immigration laws as too restrictive and damaging to economic output:

“It is pure idiocy that Congress will not open our borders – as wide as possible – to attract and keep the world’s first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent.”[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/14/friedman

I just spent a week of work in Milan, Italy. I was shocked how far ahead the companies there are in technology, plants, work habits and attitudes…… and their quality of life. And it wasn’t all Italians that I worked with. There were Serbs of all sorts, French, Muslims, and an African.

Keep in mind, energy and materials are vastly more expensive in Europe but their quality of life is much better.

I am tired of all my Conservative friends pounding their chest with “America is the best country in the World” without having ever left the country. We may still be the Best Country in the World but we have to start making it such instead of mouthing it.

Nick

PS: And WOW ! Do they eat better than we do but still don’t put on weight !

Please ask Mr. Friedman to comment on the embedded taxpayer subsidies fossil fuel companies receive to protect production and product transit. Examples include

Please ask Mr. Friedman to comment on the embedded taxpayer subsidies fossil fuel companies receive to protect production and product transit. Examples include, multiple US bases and a carrier group in the Persian Gulf. Shouldn’t private companies pay for their own security detail? I am sure that Xe (AKA Blackwater) would love to get these contracts.

This is the man who is (was) all in favor of exporting our manufacturing base overeseas. His credibility is zilch.
His type are all in favor of free trade but seem to see no need for fair trade.
Sorry, he has little to add to the discussion.

1). The real science shows that implementation of all wind renewable proposals (subsidized) could only account for less than 2% of our energy needs. Admittedly we’re greedy and that has to change along with a complete and substantive revolution of all our educational systems, including adults no longer in schools.

Solar shows somewhat greater promise, but the technology is not ready there either.

The only green program that can work is nuclear and we are GOOD at that.

2). Get out of the Middle East! It’ll blow up. Who cares? Or, make it China’s problem. They have all the money, weapons, and manpower. They are the Superpower.

Here is a revealing chart of weath distribution in the US:

http://tiny.cc/DL8dt

I put this together because the pie chart conceals important data dimensions, as does the bar graph above.

As for the question of wealth distribution generally, all that is necessary is that wealth must not become a vehicle to control society to perpetuate one’s wealth, and poverty must not be so deep that it becomes permanent in a class.

But I fear the US has had it. It is China’s century or two….

Save your breath Tom, we are run by the criminally insane in America.

BTW I know what you are talking about, go to China Americans if you want to see what your money is being spent on.

While I appreciate the bemoaning of the lost of American prestige. The context of the world has changed, unfortunately, our leaders have not recognized this fact. How can we set an example when all we are is the world’s mecenary and spend all our borrowed money on “defense”. A trillon dollars a year.
This is more than all the other countries of the world combined. We have lost our way.

@ mary elizabeth – The internet is 90% lies at best. A Google search will reveal the propaganda and lies that make up the bulk of biased lies that are paid to be presented by the search engine.

If you listened to the opening statement from this guy he is talking about the Bush doctrine of forced hegemony on borrowed money, and a false history based upon patriotic and class bias.

If the ideas and philosophy of this guy were used to run the country it would be a fascist state.

Tom has been a good advocate for the US, particularly regarding a new “moon shot” of becoming the world leader in safe energy technology which would bring America jobs and trade with other companies who can use our new technology. I’d be interested in hearing his comment regarding the the conservative propaganda machine throughout the AM radio spectrum, and on Fox News. With the constant demonizing on a 24 hour basis, creating a culture that does not believe someone can have both a differing point of view AND integrity, it becomes impossible for conservatives to compromise – an absolutely necessary aspect of a healthy democracy.

The sad truth is that we are very close to the end of the American Empire. Our foreign entanglements in war and finance have drained the inner strength of the nation at the same time that we have a complete paucity of political leadership. All empires fail; the only choice we have is in how.

There you have it!. Once again Mr. Friedman suggest a higher tax on energy!. Yes, make the fuel for our economy too expensive and that will create even more jobs..in China!

” Hybrid politics ” as he is describing it is the will of the people being secondary to the will of Wall Street. Thanks for the confirmation of my first post.

In January 2010 I had a different experience. I left my Beijing apartment and took the brand new train to the brand new airport, where I flew to the old Hong Kong airport and took the old Hong Kong subway to an Hong Kong apartment.

A lot of China’s ‘new’ stuff is still very 3rd world. HK is not.

Progress is not all about new buildings.

But – I agree the US is a fat old decaying country where half the population is trying to get someone else to pick up their tab.

I’ve been to China too. The reason that they can get a massive project done quickly is that the government decress that it will be done and for them a few dozen deaths and even more injuries is a rounding error. You can get an awful lot done in an authoritarian society, particularly if it’s a technologically advanced one, and if you don’t care too much about human or environmental degradation. That’s not how we roll.

As Colin G. Calloway says in the closing words of his book One Vast Winter Count, “Recent events have exposed dramatically the fragility of our own power and prosperity … the United States might better be seen as a phase rather than a final solution … The American West remains one vast winter count; we are adding our symbols, but the spiraling calendar continues.”

Thank you Thomas Friedman for your insights and vision! If only we could listen!

boston

Friedman is talking about the majority now identified as “independent,” and wondering how they “get off the ground.” And I’m thinking this lift-off can only be achieved when there is wall-to-wall coverage (in the teeth of the Citizens United Supreme Court case) of every last elected official’s doings, decisions, staff activities in our interest, issues, meetings, I don’t know what all.
And on top of that, in the teeth of Citizens United, independents need to get the pre-primary fermentation out there where we can all understand and help move things along.
Politics depends on the media doing something like that.

Is there a way to tax companies on their income-per-employee? That seems like one way to use tax policy to boost employment.

Mr. Friedman is talking sense – and always has. Americans do not want to listen, much to our detriment. I wish we would all wake up and be constructive, not just complain about where we find ourselves in the 21st century.

Too many appear to be happy being dumb as they want to be. Off-the-wall opinions and “somebody told me” facts that drive discussion and votes support the embarrassing condition of this country’s education and politics. What will it take to get Americans to discard all the bogus partisan rhetoric and smoke and mirror pictures of self-interest we’ve been shown for over a decade and hold feet to fires so the interest and well-being of this country becomes a real priority? Damned if I know and I would like an answer for my daughter. Ren Knopf, Framingham, MA

SImply, here is the issue: our debt and the bulk of our financial commitments(entitlements) are for activities that largely occurred in the past. We have not been investing in the future for a long time….infrastructure, education, basic research. No Company would be in business if they didn’t invest in the future. Companies that borrow to invest in the past go bankrupt…..GM,etc.

From Boston area

I’d like to hear Mr. Friedman make the case that while American political culture – and perhaps democracies in general – tend to be reactive, we can become proactive. I believe that’s the only way to survive.

Tom we are not China. They are not us. They still have billions who live on pennies a day and are living in the dark ages. I don’t disagree with what Mr. Friedman is saying but he does tend to over simplify the Chinese.

The last President to ask us to do something hard was when Jimmie Carter gave his “the energy crisis is the moral equivalent to war” speech.

Where did that get him ???

The American people have to get over themselves and be willing to “lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

Steve in Nashville

Awww, geez, an hour of Tom Friedman?

No, thanks. On Point can and should do better.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/an-idiots-guide-to-tom-fr_b_298371.html

An Idiot’s Guide to Tom Friedman’s Idiocy

Just before the Reagan fantasyland, the pompoms for America and the disgust for any criticism, we had a President who told us what we didn’t want to hear:

The “Malaise Speech”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

Starting with Reagan, we’ve been so busy patting ourselves on the back and systematically trashing anything except individual avarice that … we never questioned consumption, energy dependence and war. We celebrated it.

I heard Tom Friedman state that American workers need to be ten times as productive as workers in China and in India in order to be paid ten times Chinese or Indian salaries. I am not sure whether he’s read Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Nickel and Dimed, on not getting by in America, but she makes the point that American workers ARE more productive than ever, but the profits are going to the corporations, not to the workers.

The centralization of product distribution i.e. Walmart, BJ’s, Home Dept, etc. has killed the Ma and Pa small local stores and services aspect has taken independent ways of making a living and replaces these ways of earning with a greatly reduced low waged job. The way that taxation and rules of expansion for mega-companies squeeze the balance of power of the ordinary American individuals needs to be looked at. It is not realistic to imagine that all Americans or any population of any country want to or can move to an educated level to satisfy America’s need for global involvements.

Friedman is answering my question about global power, needing a shared global conscience. He says China is a “freeloader on the global system,” and is supporting dictatorships in Iran, Burma, etc., and I’m thinking the United States has supported dictatorships, but not exactly blindly. To some extent, yes we support dictatorships to support supply lines (to oil, for instance), but also to counter particular adversaries (notably the Soviet Union).
The fact so many WANT to come the United States suggests that American values have infiltrated the world.

Michigan – “Reaganism” is the problem? Did Reagan ask for a bigger government? So the answer is to increase the size and reach of government and that will solve our problems?

Re Friedman’s comment just now that the Iraq war that he so championed cost us an immense amount of money. He should be reminded that it also cost an enormous number of lives, especially Iraqi lives.

Listening to this interview is painful.

Freedman, and his warped ideology, is the reason the USA is near its end. He was constantly beating the drum for war in defense of Israel’s interests and war profiteers, and now he has the HUTZPAH to offer his lame solutions to the economy.

Trillions that could have been spent to re-educate and improve infrastructure in the USA. Tom Freedman and his gang have bankrupted this country through war and outright theft on Wall Street.

It amazes me that Tom Freedman with anyone who is not a zionist, a neocon, or employee of General Dynamics.

Trillions that could have been spent to re-educate and improve infrastructure in the USA. Tom Freedman and his gang have bankrupted this country through war and outright theft on Wall Street.

Posted by Paolo Caruso

The world that could have been. Makes me weep.

The power structure you have not mentioned is the media. When you have corporate power influencing the political dialog, it is not simply a matter of politicians, but corporate influence on those politicians and the public. We need a truly “fair and balanced” media again as we had before the repeal of the “fairness Act.”

Heidi N., Burlington, VT

The revolution will come from our wallets – not the halls of Congress.

The underlying false assumption by Friedman is that anyone who is profiting from the current system (rigged against the people living in the US) has the same nationalistic sentiments that media propagandists do. If it benefits you reduce human beings to serfdom, what does it matter on what part of the planet they are from?

I love NPR and especailly on point, but we are singing to the choir. I am frustrated that the waves of truthful, non-political – Left or Right that I listen to each day, do not to reach the dragons that support pos-imperial modern feudalism.

I can’t believe Mr. Friedman has gotten the accolades he has. Like others have said, his positions on foreign policy have been wrong time after time. Many of my friends think he’s an intellectual, but I think he’s an opportunist. I agree with his current position (it’s easy to criticize), but why can’t he see that people like him are the ones responsible for the state of our country.
Today’s he’s arguing for a third party, but a few years ago he advocated bipartisanship because that was the only way to get things done.

Tom Friedman is a tool and an apologist for US aggression and Israeli colonialism. Friedman’s also an American liberal’s wet dream, which says a lot about how center right the so-called American left is.

Tom Freidmann is far too conventional in his views. He clings to a past where a tiny elite steered our fate. The Oligarchy placed him to pontificate their interests from the New York Times. His era is nearly passed. Don’t follow this Pied Piper. Elite Finance is dead. Usury’s reign is nearly over.

I have already started to demand that this outlet for communist propoganda be defunded by taxpayer resources.
At last voters are seeing the communist insurgency that is taking place and the true face of the leftist lies. 2012 will be the last of this incidious deciet by you and your handlers. Your programs are filthy with lies and deciet. See ya at the polls:)

The notion that social infrastructure spending in areas such as Social Security and Medicare are the culprits of our bloated deficit situation is a flat-out myth. Any highly productive and generally affluent political economy must do the preventative maintenance necessary to ensure a healthy, trained and deployable workforce and can do so at a cost that is far cheaper than what the inefficient hodgepodge of privatized systems achieve in this country. This basic social infrastructure maintenance requires educating average workers and treating them for TB, strep, a broken leg and measles at a cost which will comprise a relatively low margin of their total income. Why is it that the US is the only industrialized country on earth to require everyone to learn how to read and do sums but refuses to ensure that they and their working parents are treated for basic illnesses without entering into bankruptcy?

The female caller who called in mid-show that named the joint culprits as low taxes (and the lack of Progressivity in the code) and out-of-control Military Spending is right on. The real culprit is indeed military spending: in 2009 the US spent about 7.6 x the amount of the next highest military spender, China, and about 10x the amount of all European nations (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Military Expenditure Database in constant 2008 USD). If we were to slash our military budget in half, we could still be the World’s biggest, baddest, imperialist bully with 3.8 x the spending of the next biggest thug.

As for Health Care: Medicare, Medicaid & CHIP = 21% of the Fed. Budget in 2010, or 16% of US GDP in 2007. Canada and most of the G20 nations, contrastingly, spend around an 11% of GDP on Health Care (OECD Health Data, June 2009). Yet in Sept 2010, the US Census Bureau reported that 50.7 million Americans (16.7% of population) are now without any coverage (up from 46.3 Million of 15.4% of the population in 2007). All of the other G20 nations, contrastingly, cover all of their citizens for most treatments procedures. Even when adjusted for obesity and life-style related mortality, our comparatively low life expectancy bears testimony to this disadvantage.

If we had a single payer system with price controls in the USA (like every one of our competitors, including Singapore, which rigorously controls supply and demand and institutes a sliding payment scale), we’d be able to drastically lower costs via monopsony and drastically expand and improve coverage. In terms of cost & efficacy, all the systems of Western Europe, Canada, Japan, NZ, Aus, etc. are far superior to that of the US. While all of the G20 countries have complete or near complete coverage, they spend, on average, 1/2 or less the per capital what the US spends on Health Care (OECD Health Data 2010). Yet the USA health care under-performs the majority of G20 systems, such that the WHO ranked us at 37 in 2000. Even when completely removing the equity parameter, the conservatively-biased WSJ reckoned that we’d still be at 15th place in 2009.

Higher education is another competitive disadvantage for the US, as all of our G20 counterparts fund or highly subsidize higher ed expenditures. In the US, however, we are laden with uncontrolled higher ed. cost inflation at nearly 10% since the late 1980s, with the result that all but the affluent are laden with decades of student loans – a entry cost into the labor market unknown to the citizens of the other industrialized nations.

We are indeed suffering from the Reagan revolution, which redefined the status quo as a deadly combination of slashing taxes while pumping non-developmental spending in military and corporate handouts and signing carte-blanch off-shoring treaties which have decimated the manufacturing might of the US – precisely the areas in which the strong leaders of the early 21st century world economy, Germany and China, excel. We should 1) return to the pre-Reagan tax code, with some lowering of rates on the lower half of the scale, 2) re-impose protective trade policies on everything but commodities to boost domestic production and consumption, 3) introduce a universal public health system in order to cut costs, expand coverage and improve quality and 4) publicly fund higher education for all who qualify for entry. These policies would raise the standard of living, reverse the rising poverty margin and declining wage trend and begin to restore, rather than detract from American competitiveness. In short: we need to revive the New Deal Coalition in American politics.

What does it say about NYT to have a guy like this working for them ?
He does not know about the history of the second WW.
He does not know about the reasons SSSR collapsed.
(I bet he credits the Great Clown,Reagan,who did more to
ruin this country).
And he does not know the history of the US since the 2nd WW,
and the reasons for this wealth,gained then squandered now.

IT IS LIKE LISTENING TO A PROPAGANDA TAPE THAT SPITS OUT THE
APPROPRIATE SLOGAN OR BRAGGING TO THE APPROPRIATE QUESTION.

For some people democracy is an excuse to say or to air anything.
A great democracy demands great responsibility.

Liberal Nightmares, are you for real?

Amazing. Look up the word Communist.
NPR’s funding is so low compared to the donations from the public and business that it’s laughable that you would even be bothered by it. Try looking up what agri business gets from our taxes and then look at the foolishness of your diatribe.

A correction to what I just posted – meant to refer to public employees who are not covered by Social Security but public pension plans, and so and won’t feel the benefits of the payroll tax cut.

Belmont MA

@Jim Heck (11:02). Your point is valid, but Friedman’s response wasn’t totally tautological. He presumes success of the U.S. wealthy depends on a good quality domestic infrastructure for all. But he neglected the essential global component of U.S. corporate success.

Elsewhere, Friedman’s last point that political influence is still an analog activity, not a digital one, is just cute rhetoric. Campaign finance and electoral reform are needed. Angry visits to our congressional reps don’t help.

Finally, how preposterous of Friedman to suggest not much major good in the world happens without U.S. participation. It’s okay to be proud of the U.S., but not blindly so. Military power and a good film industry do not define greatest country on earth. Let’s both compete AND collaborate. As several have alluded, these days we’re “exceptional” only in our own internationally unaware minds.

I liked the lady’s comments on the air that said that America should not try to be all things to all people. Don’t take me literally on this: Put rather crudely, maybe American students can lead the way in the realm of ideas, whereas other countries can take the lead when it comes to science and math.

I’m not saying science and math aren’t important for our country; they certainly are, but how much can we do in relation to the rest of the world?

China, it seems, is so focused upon development that it does so even at the peril of the environment. America seems more environmentally conscious.

Again, maybe we should try to complement what the rest of the world is doing, without trying to be number one in every area. That still does not detract from our ability to be a great nation.

Harry Toder

It doesn’t matter how much we invent. If people don’t have money to buy them, those inventions will NOT create jobs. As long as the wealthy siphon off a larger and larger portion of the income each year, there will not be enough middle class people to buy enough to create the economies of scale needed to launch new businesses.

Mr Friedman thinks the government owns the income that taxpayers earn. He mistakenly believes that successful Americans will keep working hard to provide government plunder. Instead they will retire or work part time and refuse to fund his Utopia. He can donate his personal wealth to the IRS.

Seems to me that the last tow comments are by people who do not want to pay taxes. Or they think that government is incapable of doing anything right. It’s interesting to note that France which has higher taxes, better living standards, national health care and decent pensions (well this is maybe going to change) is constantly voted as one of the best countries in the world to live in. The US is number 7. Even though the people of France pay high taxes they seem to be pretty satisfied with what they get in return. While we are not. Interesting situation.

Patricia:

I believe there is a sense of collective paralysis in this country, as it is having difficulty adjusting to changes taking place in the world. I also believe that the media has a way of making the situation seem worse than it really is; but this country does have problems which need addressing, such as education, which Mr. Friedman rightfully points out.

“95% of my success depends on the country where I was born.”
Warren Buffett was born in a Germanic country where “interbreeding of cultures or values” was not allowed.
The only way was the assimilation into the Germanic tongue of English, into the Germanic body language, into the Germanic architecture, into the Germanic literature, into the Germanic work ethics, into the Germanic food, into the Germanic ingenuity…
Democracy-shmemocracy, this country was based on neighbors and on neighborhoods. In a way, it still is.
According to Harvard research multiculturalism is counterproductive.
The country is changing because minorities are becoming the majority and they refuse to absorb quickly, obediently and effectively.
Mr. Friedman’s catchphrases are paying well:
“Dummies we want to be.
To pass an American dream to future generations.
Exxon-Mobil is not on your Facebook.
Politics is still analog.
Nobody washed a rented car.”
Tom Friedman is a revolutionary in blah-blah-blah when half-truths are pronounced and sold when connections have been established.
Let him come to Boston and change our city’s condominium industry with its fig leaf of ownership. A pack of lawyers is in wait for anybody who tries to “combine high aspirations with the willingness to sacrifice.” Judges are ready to deal with whistle blowers. Senators are protecting such anti-dwellers organizations as CAI—Condominium Association Institute.
The waste is humongous. Lights and heat blast day and night. Tenants open windows in winter. Disrepair is abounding.
Up to 30% of condo fees go to supervisors without any use for tax payers. Puffed-up rates are the rule.
However if the Germanity of owners is high (owner occupancy is also highly desirable—a mini-neighborhood!) it is possible to run condominiums fairly bending the existing chapter 183 of the MGL in favor of small owners. Some shining examples beacon at the sea of theft.

Dome Adorned With a Golden Pineapple.
(Nope, With a Golden Pinecone!)

I could have passed unnoticed the metal detector since the State House policemen abandoned it and were not visible. But I was not alone and the law-abiding women accompanying me would have stopped this prank or just make a ruckus. So we all waited— patiently, obediently, effeminately, and slavishly.
At last we ascended to the upper hallways by the elevator and stepped onto the ornate floor.

cathedral turned mosque:
faces of saints veiled
by the coat of paint

Some small cubes in the mosaic of the Byzantine-like floor were missing. Instead of replacing them the restoration crew put generous dabs of lacquer into the cavities and the whole floor became glossy but not slippery.
We find ourselves with Thomas Plihcik (Research Director, Joint Committee on Housing, House of Representatives, room 38 in the basement).
Good news first. Condominium owners, who are terrified of medieval reprisals by the property managers and the CAI (Condominium Associations Institute) lawyers, may file their complaints and depositions anonymously. The papers will be stored and open to the public. But in this society of writers who is going to read them? Who is going to act on them? I am afraid, only Thomas and his interns may read the sad pages, if they have time which they don’t.
Still we, the doomed activists are set to start some desperate campaign among look-alike sufferers and even collect neatly made papers from all our contacts and deliver them to

Room 38
State House
Boston, MA 02133.

We also paid a visit upon Laura E. Teicher, Director of Services and Policy Aide, Massachusetts Senate.
She provided us with the texts of the proposed new laws S 654 and S 667 regarding condominium housing. They are not long and allow good reading in elegant legalese. They all contain amendments to the keystone Chapter 183A of the Massachusetts General Laws. MGL cannot be enforced or may be enforced only for a high attorney’s fee, which not many people – they are mostly McLean Hospital patients— have decided to pay so far. Non-involvement rules!
Thus I render the amendments non-binding and utterly useless since they allow wide loopholes for secretive dealings (S 654) and they do not specify who pays for the “alternative dispute resolution” (S 667).
No state law or association by-law enforcement mechanisms are addressed or even mentioned.
Only when the town/city inspectors and auditors get involved may we see some relief in our hijacked buildings which are sailing with us and by us, presumed galley criminals manning the oars. We are whipped but not killed to allow our travel in time.

my own cartoon—
the picturesque pirates
capture the high-rise

We encourage everybody who is able to go to the State House, no appointment necessary. The secretary there reads such nonfiction as Dana Sobel’s Longitude if it may help in any way.
Austrian mountains…
natives don’t need afterlife ,
Valhalla is here!
There are two other venues to be explored (nightmares of summer nights are not useless for inspiration). One way is to go to the Housing Court, a great new building with excellent air conditioners, and start fishing out the kindred souls who appear before clerks of the court and judges to be invariably crushed and humiliated. They even might mumble, “Your Honor, here is the law!” and shake the papers. A judge might have some pity on these truth and justice seekers and advise them in a fatherly manner to get a lawyer. “But, Your Honor, a lawyer wants $250 an hour.
I make $20/hr. How can I get justice?” a pro se litigant would plead heedlessly. “Enough!” Using esquire’s body language the judge dismisses the desperado. (“You got your day in court for your hundred bucks, buddy.
Enough!”) Angling for plaintiffs in the fishbowls of the Housing Court Building is laborious, the statistics of cases is unclear and the disillusioned people outside the court room might be beyond reason. Looking for the home owners who are victimized as defendants may be a better choice. These lunatics had the chutzpa not to pay the ransom money to fiefdoms encrusted in the resplendent fabric of democracy.

balmy afternoon
the hotel heated awning
cnanges climate fast

Let’s turn to the Internet. Google “condo problems” and lawyers’ sites will jump first and foremost. Twenty million entries are to choose from but do not do it. (You may see such pearls as problems with “board managers” while in our neck of the jungle we got boards of trustees which hire management companies.)
Please consider the second venue, the road less taken, namely the direct contact. We should reread Tom Wolfe’s book “Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers” Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1970. It is the story of success of the inner city groups propelling themselves into the City Hall and getting all the help they needed.
We should brainstorm our tilted equations and come up with a new way to reach the hearts of the functionaries who are in power.

summer’s apogee;
the goldfish and I caught
with shortness of breath

Ah, CAI is throwing an “educational” event for the sheep they are prepared to fleece or slaughter. This event will take place in Norwood hotel this month. The post-bubble buyers of condominiums—they are not going to appreciate as quickly as before—are lured in with a free lunch. Let’s go there and play out the following old joke.

Two ships meet at sea. People who are leaving Israel eye the enthusiastic people on board the ship sailing to Israel and shrug their shoulders, “Look at these fools!” The Israel-bound people see the rows of sullen Jews leaving Israel and shrug their shoulders too.

Row, row, your boats! The advantages of condominium housing are here to stay and these advantages often supersede your humongous condo fees, assessments, fines and penalties. As for insults to your intelligence, forget it. Do not fight the system. Take your calculated risk. The federal government supports you! If you think condominium ownership is deceitful, try renting from a fair landlord of bygone era! Later you may be rewarded with subsidized housing…

dreadful old age
it’s frightful and ghastly
well, not for long

One of these days when I get some money to burn, I’m going to rent a car just to take it home and wash it.

Dee was absolutely right.

I am 47 and in college I read Thucydides Pelopenesian war, studied teh rise and fall of the roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and the British empire.

I have believed for 25 years that I am watching the inevitable decline of our empire. My only question has been wil lwe be Rome or Brittian.

Alas, the sort of willful blindness and defensive self ego-stroking that Tom has called out makes us loo ka lot more like Rome…

FRIEDMAN FOR PRESIDENT! (I haven’t even heard the program yet, but should he even run he’d get my vote. Hell, I’d even volunteer!) Ooh–about to start.

As for Thomas F. on the middle-east he’s full of it and is anything but for peace in the middle-east. For anyone that has not read this from Nelson Mandela to Thomas Friedman.

Nelson Mandela

http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/mandella.html
March 30, 2001

To: Thomas L. Friedman (columnist New York Times)
From: Nelson Mandela (former President South Africa)

Dear Thomas,

I know that you and I long for peace in the Middle East, but before you continue to talk about necessary conditions from an Israeli perspective, you need to know what’s on my mind. Where to begin? How about 1964. Let me quote my own words during my trial. They are true today as they were then:

“I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Today the world, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. In South Africa it has been ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. That mass campaign of defiance and other actions could only culminate in the establishment of democracy.

Perhaps it is strange for you to observe the situation in Palestine or more specifically, the structure of political and cultural relationships between Palestinians and Israelis, as an apartheid system. This is because you incorrectly think that the problem of Palestine began in 1967. This was demonstrated in your recent column “Bush’s First Memo” in the New York Times on March 27, 2001.

You seem to be surprised to hear that there are still problems of 1948 to be solved, the most important component of which is the right to return of Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established “normally” and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a “state” but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.

In the last few years, and especially during the reign of the Labour Party, Israel showed that it was not even willing to return what it occupied in 1967; that settlements remain, Jerusalem would be under exclusive Israeli sovereignty, and Palestinians would not have an independent state, but would be under Israeli economic domination with Israeli control of borders, land, air, water and sea.

Israel was not thinking of a “state” but of “separation”. The value of separation is measured in terms of the ability of Israel to keep the Jewish state Jewish, and not to have a Palestinian minority that could have the opportunity to become a majority at some time in the future. If this takes place, it would force Israel to either become a secular democratic or bi-national state, or to turn into a state of apartheid not only de facto, but also de jure.

Thomas, if you follow the polls in Israel for the last 30 or 40 years, you clearly find a vulgar racism that includes a third of the population who openly declare themselves to be racist. This racism is of the nature of “I hate Arabs” and “I wish Arabs would be dead”. If you also follow the judicial system in Israel you will see there is discrimination against
Palestinians, and if you further consider the 1967 occupied territories you will find there are already two judicial systems in operation that represent two different approaches to human life: one for Palestinian life and the other for Jewish life. Additionally there are two different approaches to property and to land. Palestinian property is not recognised as private property because it can be confiscated.

As to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, there is an additional factor. The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system.

The Palestinian state cannot be the by-product of the Jewish state, just in order to keep the Jewish purity of Israel. Israel’s racial discrimination is daily life of most Palestinians. Since Israel is a Jewish state, Israeli Jews are able to accrue special rights which non-Jews cannot do. Palestinian Arabs have no place in a “Jewish” state.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

The responses made by South Africa to human rights abuses emanating from the removal policies and apartheid policies respectively, shed light on what Israeli society must necessarily go through before one can speak of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and an end to its apartheid policies.

Thomas, I’m not abandoning Mideast diplomacy. But I’m not going to indulge you the way your supporters do. If you want peace and democracy, I will support you. If you want formal apartheid, we will not support you. If you want to support racial discrimination and ethnic cleansing, we will oppose you. When you figure out what you’re about, give me a call.

Amazing how the top of the show Tom A. tries to make it that Thomas F. is chicken Little and we all have to listen yet not once commenting on his chicken little attitude on iraq and why people should still take him at face value or believe him.

Tom Friedman is good at analyzing the problem (just about anyone who travels to Europe or the fast-growing Asian countries can do that, really) — but he is a big disappointment in coming up with solutions.

Just telling people that the US is sliding, and we should do A, B & C solves nothing. Those things that need to be done don’t get done because our government is in the grip of the oligarchic interests that have no interest in needed change. The status quo (including the endless wars) works just fine for them.

Friedman didn’t really respond to the woman caller who challenged him on the wars issue. He seems to believe that we need to bomb people in Asia to prevent a nuclear attack. But why are we a sitting duck for a potential nuclear attack, Tom? Tell why! Could it be that we have been throwing around our imperialistic weight for too long, and made ourselves HATED in the Muslim world?

Each week and month that we continue those insane wars makes a major pay-back to us down the road more likely.

Also, how about telling us the whole truth about China? China is growing like crazy, and will leave us in the dust, because they don’t suffer from the delusion that the American-style “democracy” (i.e., oligarchic control of the government) works.

The Chinese government does not allow anyone to control it. Their loyalty is only to their goal of making China succeed as a country. Our government is just a puppet of the rich.

Partial truths will never get us where you want this country to go, Tom.

NPR and THE NEW YORK TIMES, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? have some guts. if you are going to put friedman on the page or on the air, don’t just mention his pulitzer prizes. he was the FIRST, BIG media MAJOR CHEERLEADER for the bush war in iraq and afganistan. he has never apologized or admitted fault for his incredibly bone-headed views. he has questioned the way the war was run, but not the war itself. he talks about the dire state of our economy without admitting the costs and INCREDIBLE INTERNATIONAL STIGMA that these wars have cost our country. to listen to friedman speak with such bombast about the world that he helped create with his nytimes platform is REPULSIVE. “WE NEED TO INVEST LIKE CHINA INVESTS”, but, oh thats right we can’t, BECAUSE WE HAVE DUMPED TRILLIONS INTO WARS WITH NO GOOD REASON THAT HE HELPED MAKE HAPPEN. friedman is intellectually dishonest. he says this is what we need without saying this is the place we are now, and i was the intellectual columnist that put us there. friedman should be as tough on israel as he is on obama. he should admit his INCREDIBLE STUPIDITY ON IRAQ, isreal and his heroic take GEORGE W. BE A MAN. ADMIT MISTAKES AND CORRECT THEM. FRIEDMAN FEELS FREE TO DISPARAGE OTHERS WITHOUT FEELING GUILT. HE IS READY TO BAIL ON AFGANISTAN WHILE REFUSING TO BAIL ON IRAQ. THANKS TOM, FOR USING EVERY LAST G.I. TO PROTECT ISREAL.

For a strong America:

1. Impose $2 / barrel gasoline tax to fund clean energy

2. End corn subsidies so we get leaner and healthier

I’m not much of a fan of Friedman. His dismissal of one caller’s interpretation of the motives of the superrich (“I don’t buy that”) suggests to me that he’ll never see the inegalitarian divide of wealth as a serious problem. He’s too comfy.

Tom Friedman has twice in this show complained about deficient escalators as evidence of American decline. He makes millions of dollars, lives in a mansion and carts around a gut full of American excess. Maybe he should take the stairs.

People in this thread attack Friedman from the left and right and center. I tend to think part of this is he is like Sarah Palin in his ability to make the complicated look simple. A phrase from either Palin or Friedman is often designed to encapsulate a lot, to transmit a lot, and to stick.
Propagandist? To some extent. I actually wonder how audiences all over the world react to his insights/ positions. He certainly travels, and I suspect he has a “message” encapsulated for other countries as well as our own. Maybe the home audience here is not as familiar as it might be.
I would rather he nourish the art of encapsulation, because he is nearer to being “my” propagandist than Sarah Palin is. Much nearer.
AND I have noticed he is over time adjusting his positions. (If you attack him for a position he held four years ago, you may find out he’s switched his stance, it seems to me.) For instance, a few years back he was proclaiming on Charlie Rose that a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine was no longer a realistic possibility because there were so many settlements making mincemeat of the putative Palestinian territories. So I guess he was at that point taking on board Nelson Mandela’s points about how can Israel get away from apartheid. I don’t read his column in the New York Times so I don’t know what his position on that is now. Posters here in this thread certainly seem to be pushing for clarification on his part.

So, the Prius driving billionaire thinks we need to cut SS and he doesn’t think there is a class war going on in America. Here is a memo for Tom, and he doesn’t need to talk to a cabbie to hear it: America is almost flat. The ruling class in this country are near to destroying the middle class. Then jobs won’t need to be shipped to India as there will be workers here forced to work at Indian wage scale.

Mr Friedman said two things that I find astonishing.
(aprox, I don’t have a transcript)
1) We need America as a superpower, because other nations, like china, won’t do the good we do in the world; eg, china gives money and support to brutal dictators like….Saudi Arabia (I don’t think the host caught the irony here, given our huge support for S Arabia)

2) We can have jobs in this country that pay 10X what jobs pay in china if we just innovate….I guess bicoastal flyers like Mr Friedman don’t see the 40 year history of increasing un employment and poverty in this country, since Mr Friedman hangs out only in cool hip spots like SF and NY

Personally, I prefer a R Limbaugh; at least you know what you are getting.

Ezra, I am wondering if Friedman’s success turned into a liability. When his reputation did not precede him, the owner of a small inn could enjoy all of Friedman’s good qualities and not worry about his ability to turn a spicy give-and-take into fodder for a best-selling book. Nowadays, I expect even a non-English-speaking, non-internet-connected ingenue in Lebanon or in the Afghan highlands would sense this man’s stature, sense it by using that human gene that recognizes a man who thinks he has a certain authority in domains beyond our ken. And so the access Friedman once enjoyed would shift. He would have more access in some places, less in others. He is probably tilted to look to confirm various conclusions he has already drawn, for example.

Mr. Friedman’s wars and refusual address the inevitable disintegration of the American empire are what will lead to America’s downfall. The economic burden of maintaining military dominace throughout the world, combined with the suppression and loss of liberity required to maintain such a military state are not sustainable. Instead of spending on infrastructure, education, and the well being of our populace, we spend a trillion dollars per year on the defense establishment. It makes Mre Friedman’s employers and their associates rich but it is bankrupting the othe 98 percent.

I couldn’t agree more with Michael and many others above who called this segment with Tom friedman –
a neocon spin hour…

Many people on the left are still looking to rein in
this propagandist at the New York Times for cheering leading on the Bush Administration’s misled war on
Iraq and then he had the gall to say the failure to
locate WMDs just didn’t matter…..

What Tom Ashbrook sees in this man is so difficult
to see. I have been reading friedman’s columns on
and off for 20 yrs and I am sick he is still on the staff of the New York Times.

He shows no moral leadership in his columns as he
recently suggested the Israelis and Palestinians
“just knock it off”. friewdman made no acknowledge-
ment that Israel is the savage aggressor illegally using US weapons and aid in violation of Federal Laws to suppress and deny the Palestinian people their sovereign and human rights….

Indeed, Tom Friedman doesn’t even reflect the trad-
ition wisdom about violence found in the Two Cats
of Kilkenny as he recently said the Israelis and
Palestinians should fight it….Imagine, suggest-
ing the defenseless Palestinians fight it out with
the bullies and murderers in the Israeli Army…..

Here is that little bit of traditional wisdom that
escapes Tom friedman daily (below) and now he suggest the US get tough…

Well, I heard the greatest answer I believe against being a superpower from Tom’s Ashbrook’s visit to
China when he asked this rather quiet and unassuming Chinese girl about China being a power challeged by the superpower of the US. She replied “Why be a superpower?
Why can’t the US be a power? ”

Two cats of Kilkenny

There once were two cats of Kilkenny
Each thought there was one cat too many
So they fought and they fit
And they scratched and they bit
‘Til (excepting their nails
And the tips of their tails)
Instead of two cats there weren’t any!

The Root of the Middle East conflict…..
by writer and author John Spritler

http://spritzlerj.blogspot.com/2010/06/here-are-notes-i-used-for-my-talk-june.html

Now that billionaire Tom Friedman has been on advocating cuts to Social Security, how about having William Greider on to tell the truth about Social Security, and about the lies our media elites, like Friedman, are spreading.