Re: excerpt

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Okay, let me know what you come across. I'm going to cobble together some more excerpts this morning and will send them along for you to choose from.

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 12:16 AM, Karen Lancaster <lancaster.karen@gmail.com> wrote:

This doesn't seem like quite the right choice to me. Am going to look at your manuscript tomorrow and will pull some things out/ will call you?

Love you, MSTG.

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Let me know what you think of this as an excerpt.

I'm running out of segues and paragraph transitions at this point. I'm also increasingly irritated by my own writing style.

   Here's some stupid thing that Friedman wrote back in 2002:

September 11 happened because America had lost its deterrent capability. We lost it because for 20 years we never retaliated against, or brought to justice, those who murdered Americans.

    This is nonsense. We bombed Libya and killed Gaddafy's two-year-old daughter in response to the country's apparent involvement in the Berlin disco attack that killed two U.S. troops. Those responsible for the World Trade Center car bombing in 1993 were caught, sentenced, and imprisoned. After the African embassy bombings, Clinton launched some 75 cruise missiles against targets associated with bin Laden. In fact, Friedman even notes this himself in the introduction to Longitudes and Attitudes, where he writes:

Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in the late 1990s. After he organized the bombing of two American embassies, the U.S. Air Force retaliated with a cruise missile attack on his bases in Afghanistan as though he were another nation-state.

    Let's take a closer look at these two assertions:

...for 20 years we never retaliated against, or brought to justice, those who murdered Americans.

... the U.S. Air Force retaliated with a cruise missile attack...

...we never retaliated...

... retaliated with a cruise missile attack...

... never retaliated...

... retaliated...

    So, this other time, Friedman is chastised by a Chinese fellow for chastising the Chinese fellow about the extraordinary levels of pollution being produced by his fellow Chinese fellows. The Chinese fellow was of the position that China can hardly be blamed for following in the footsteps of those Western nations that had themselves dirtied the world via their own industrial transitions:

Eventually, I decided that the only way to respond was with some variation of the following: Youre right. Its your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think America just needs five years to invent all the clean-power technologies you Chinese are going to need as you choke to death on pollution. Then were going to come over here and sell them all to you, and we are going to clean your clock how do you say clean your clock in Chinese? in the next great global industry: clean power technologies. So if you all want to give us a five-year lead, that would be great. Id prefer 10. So take your time. Grow as dirty as you want."

    This is basically the clever and nationalistically aggressive thing that Friedman wishes he had said to some Chinese guy he once met. Also notice how much longer this goes on than it should.

"How do you say 'clean your clock' in Chinese?" Yeah! Take that! Semper Fi!

    Which reminds me that Friedman once ended a column with the words "Semper Fi." I can't even remember which one now. I wish I had been there to see Thomas Friedman wrapping up his column with the words "Semper Fi" and maybe staring at the screen for a few moments afterwards and then sighing in satisfaction.

    Speaking of China, sort of, in 2000 Friedman decided that the regime would soon find itself threatened by a major unemployment crisis caused by an influx of American wheat and sugar into that country. In fact, American wheat and sugar failed to make any inroads whatsoever, while Chinese unemployment figures remained at generally low levels for about seven years.

    Here are some actual sentences Friedman has written:

All the shahs horses and all the shahs men, couldnt put his regime back together again.

Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention.

What if its telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall when Mother Nature and the market both said: No more.

I confess. Im a sucker for free and fair elections.

No, something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting.

    This last example blows my little mind. Why the fuck would you tell your readers to "pull up a chair"? How is the reader supposed to react to the phrase, "pull up a chair?" "Okay, Tom."

    Fuck Thomas Friedman and his readers. I'm going to serve all of my readers some imaginary tea. We're all going to have an imaginary underwater tea party and we're not going to invite Friedman or his degenerate little enablers at The New York Times. Would you like a cup of imaginary tea? If you do not take a cup of this tea I shall become ever so cross with you!