George-
Thanks for getting back to me, and sorry for the delay; have been
traveling a bit myself while also working again on a project involving
Tunisia, plus finishing up that book proposal on Anonymous. Regarding
that,
Dan Conaway is now representing me on that and future projects, and I'll
be
in NYC from the 17th to end of the month for meetings with a couple of
the
publishers who have expressed interest, plus a meeting with a Japanese TV
crew and some other things. If you'd be interested in having me do a book
that wouldn't violate any contract I'd be signing on the Anonymous book,
I'd
be inclined to work with you particularly if you're able to bring things
out
quickly and with less red tape than other publishers. Specifically, I
have a
great deal of material I've written for a previous book that I haven't
yet
published, a sort of political humor manuscript in which I analyze the
failures of mainstream pundits such as Thomas Friedman and Charles
Krauthammer. This was to have come out last year, but the small
publishing
house that was to put this out, and which put out my first book Flock of
Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter
Bunny,
has essentially gone out of business. Dodos received glowing reviews from
Alan Dershowitz, Matt Taibbi, Cenk Ugyer, and others; the manuscript of
the
second, unpublished book already has a blurb from Rolling Stone editor
Michael Hastings as well as bestselling thriller author/political
commentator Barry Eisler (who also got us this agent and has otherwise
championed my work for a year now). I'm pasting one of the chapters below
in
case you'd like to take a look at this ahead of further discussion. Let
me
know if you'd like to talk this week or perhaps meet when I'm in NYC
later
this month.
Thanks,
Barrett Brown
*Thomas Friedman*
The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on New Years Eve of 1991,
replaced in large by the Russian Federation. Such a transition as this
was
without precedent. The country itself was still overflowing with
precedent,
most of it terrible.
In December of 2001, Thomas Friedman took a trip to Moscow in order
that the American citizenry might be better informed regarding the nation
with which it had previously been locked into a half-century struggle
that
had ended millions of lives and threatened a billion more. The resulting
column began with two observations; it seemed that "sushi bars are
opening
all over (yes, from borscht to Big Macs to California-Kremlin rolls in
one
decade!) and so many people have cars now that traffic is permanently
snarled."
One could have perhaps ascribed such growth to the 1998 devaluation
of
the ruble, several years of significant increases in the price of oil and
other Russian exports, or to the economic reforms that had been
spearheaded
largely by former Prime Minister Primakov a few years prior to Friedman's
writing, but such things as those lack a certain thematic oomph. The
Russians, Friedman explained, had finally gotten themselves a leader
worth
having in the transformative person of Vladimir Putin. "He's not a
tougher
Mikhail Gorbachev, or a more sober Boris Yeltsin," our columnist told us
then. "He is Russia's first Deng Xiaoping - Mao's pragmatic successor who
first told the Chinese that 'to get rich is glorious' and put in place
the
modernizing reforms to do it." If one was not already convinced that
Putin
is what Friedman said him to be, one had only to read the words that
Putin
would himself have written if Friedman were writing them for him, which
is
exactly what Friedman did:
That is Mr. Putin's basic message to Russians: ''For a decade, we've
tried
every bad idea, from default to devaluation to shock therapy. Now there's
only one idea left: passing real reform legislation so we can get real
investment to build a real modern economy. Because in this world, without
a
real economic foundation, you're nothing. So we're going to focus now on
the
only line that matters -- the line for money.''
Having expressed the Russian president's views and intentions for
him,
the *New York Times *columnist was in the best position to summarize the
significance of the fictional monologue he had just composed. And so he
did
that, too: "This is Putinism: From Das Kapital to DOScapital."
It is fine to know such things or at least believe them, but faith
without works is dead. Friedman therefore ends his column with the
following
call to action: "So keep rootin' for Putin - and hope that he makes it to
the front of Russia's last line."
***
On New Years Eve of 1999, Boris Yelstin suddenly resigned, thereby
elevating Vladimir Putin to the presidency of the Russian Federation.
Within
hours, Putin had signed into law his first decree, which protected
Yeltsin
and members of his family from any and all corruption probes.
Earlier that year, Yelstin had dismissed the nation's most
highly-placed prosecutor, Yuri Skuratov, who himself had been
investigating
Yelstin and others close to him regarding various allegations of
corruption;
$600,000 had made it into the credit card accounts of the president's two
daughters, for instance, having been put there by a Swedish firm which
had
previously won a lucrative government contract and afterwards had its
offices raided by Swedish law enforcement.
A few days after the sacking, Russian state television ran a video
clip of a man resembling Skurativ in bed with a pair of young whores. The
following month, a press conference was held in which it was announced
that
the post-KGB intelligence agency, the FSB, had run an expert analysis on
the
tape and determined the man to indeed be the nation's former top
prosecutor;
it was also alleged that the prostitutes had been provided by leading
figures of the Russian mafia. The press conference was presided over by
two
men: Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin and FSB chief Vladimir Putin.
On June 6th of that same year, Moscow-based journalist Jan Blomgren
reported that top Kremlin leaders were planning to carry out a series of
bombings in Moscow that would be attributed to Chechen terrorists.
On August 9th, Putin was elevated to one of the three First Deputy
Prime Ministerships that existed under Yelstin, who let it be known that
he
intended Putin to eventually succeed him. A week later, Putin was
elevated
again, this time to the position of prime minister. Yevgeny Primakov, the
extraordinarily popular and seemingly incorruptible former prime minister
whom Yeltsin had fired from that position the previous May, was widely
seen
as the favorite to win the upcoming presidential election. In contrast, a
major poll showed Putin receiving about two percent of the vote.
On September 9th, an explosion originating from the ground floor of
an
apartment building in Moscow killed 94 people and injured several hundred
others. An anonymous call to thee Russian news agency Interfax
characterized
the strike as "our response to air strikes against peaceful villages in
Chechnya and Dagestan;" the latter republic had been invaded by a small
force of Islamist fighters led by Chechen militant and political figure
Shamil Basayev during the previous month, prompting a successful military
response by Russian forces. The apartment bombing was immediately
attributed
to Chechen terrorists.
On September 13th, another Moscow apartment was hit by a similar
bomb,
resulting in even greater casualties than the first. Gennadiy Seleznyov,
speaker of the Duma, interrupted the legislative body's proceedings to
announce that he had just been informed of another massive explosion that
had destroyed a portion of an apartment building in Volgodonsk. No such
attack had actually occurred.
On September 16th, another massive explosion destroyed a portion of
an
apartment building in Volgodonsk.
On September 22nd, residents of an apartment building in Ryazan
called
local police after noticing suspicious activity by three individuals who
had
arrived in a car with a partly-concealed license plate. A bomb squad
discovered and diffused an explosive device which their gas sniffing
equipment identified as employing hexagen, the same rare explosive used
in
the previous blasts. The surrounding area was evacuated for the evening;
agents of the FSB arrived to pick up the explosives, which were packed
into
three large sugar sacks. On the following morning, government
spokespersons
announced that the Ryazan police had successfully prevented a terrorist
attack.
Later in the day, police located the car, which had Moscow plates.
Meanwhile, a long-distance telephone operator contacted police after
overhearing a conversation in which the caller reported that local cops
were
sweeping the city; the voice on the other line provided the following
advice: "Split up and each of you make your own way out." The number that
had been called, it was discovered, was to the FSB offices in Moscow.
The three suspects were found and arrested within hours. All three of
them were in possession of cards indicating their status as employees of
the
FSB, and all were soon released on orders from Moscow. The FSB announced
that the foiled attack had in fact merely been a test conducted in order
to
determine the readiness of local investigators and congratulated the
Ryazan
police force for having passed with flying colors. Spokespersons for that
agency claimed that the bags, now in FSB possession, had been filled only
with sugar and dismissed the initial police tests indicating the presence
of
hexagen as an equipment malfunction.
On October 1st, Putin announced that Russian forces stationed in and
around Dagestan had entered into Chechnya in an attempt to establish a
buffer zone north of the Terek River by which to prevent further
terrorist
attacks originating from terrorists based in that country. As Russian
attention came to focus more on the perceived military triumphs that
would
follow, and as Putin came to be most closely associated with those
triumphs,
the prime minister's popularity skyrocketed. Parliamentary elections in
December saw major gains for those parties with whom Putin had publicly
associated himself.
A few days after Putin's sudden elevation, the U.K.-based newspaper
*The
Independent *published excerpts from an interview with Sergei Stepashin
in which the former interior minister and one-time prime minister - the
same
fellow who had presided over the sex tape press conference with Putin
back
in April - revealed that the plan to invade Chechnya "had been worked out
in
March" by key Kremlin figures including himself.
After easily winning the March 2000 presidential election, Putin set
to work reorganizing Russia's institutions. He proposed that the Federal
Council be "reformed" in order to provide himself with direct control of
it,
a move he described as being necessary due to widespread corruption
within
that governing body. In May of 2000, he successfully ended the
independence
of the nation's semi-autonomous state-level entities by dividing them
into
seven regional jurisdictions, each presided over in turn by one of his
own
appointees. By the end of the year, he had also managed to gain effective
control over all three national television networks.
In December of 2001, Thomas Friedman travelled to Moscow and reported
back that sushi restaurants had sprung up across the city and that more
people seemed to own cars these days. He ascribed this economic
resurgence
to "Putinism."
***
Thomas Friedman is among the most respected and widely-read American
pundits working today, which is to say that he is among the most
influential. His books crowd the bestseller lists. His lectures are much
sought out and attended by the economic elite of every city on which he
descends. If one goes home for Thanksgiving and waits around long enough,
one will hear him praised by both elderly old Republicans and elderly old
Democrats. If one meets one's girlfriend's upper middle-class father in
his
den or study, and if this room is composed largely of hardwood paneling
or
furniture or some such, one will find a copy of either *The World is
Flat *or *The Lexus and the Olive Tree*, though usually not both of them.
Friedman's 2003 bestseller *Longitudes and Attitudes* - which is
called that - begins, reasonably enough, with an introduction. The
introduction is entitled, *Introduction: A Word Album*. You've probably
heard of a photo album before, but what's all this about a word album?
The columnist is happy to explain; the book is a composite of columns
that he wrote mostly in 2001 and 2002, followed by a great deal of
previously-unpublished notes from a similar timeframe. My hope is that
this
collection and diary will constitute a 'word album' for the September
11th
experience, he writes. There are many photo albums that people will
collect to remind themselves, their children, or their grandchildren what
it
was like to experience 9/11. These columns and this diary are an attempt
to
capture and preserve in words, rather than pictures, some of those same
emotions."
This is the mentality of Friedman and his readership - that it would
be reasonable to compose a personal photo album about September 11th and
maybe keep it in a special drawer. Eventually, one's grandchild finds the
album while looking for some plaything and, curious, begins flipping
through
the pages, asking what it all means. One tells him the story of how we
had
to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath
a
clear blue sky, perhaps with a romantic subplot thrown in. Afterwards,
the
child ambles off down the hall; one wonders if he understood it, the
significance of it all. But then the child turns around, hesitates a
moment,
and says, "You were all so brave." Then he goes outside, possessed of new
insights both simple and profound, regarding both his country and his
grandparent. A single tear rolls down one's eye as one watches the child
through the window, at play - or perhaps lost in thought? The credits
roll.
***
Contempt for the media is now ubiquitous but largely misdirected to
the extent that these criticisms are based on the view of the media as
some
sort of monolithic entity.
The news media is the product of a million individuals, each subject
to a million impulses. The cable TV news producer in the pink scarf
doesn't
understand what's to be debated on this morning's program and doesn't
care;
she's in the green room talking to another girl from guest booking about
the
latter's old boyfriend and the former's pink scarf. The freelancer on
deadline need not get the feature right if he can just get it done before
the girl he's seeing arrives with a bottle of vodka. The publisher lives
in
the shadow of the father who bequeathed to him the most iconic paper in
America; he knows that many see the paper's recent failures as deriving
in
part from his own; he knows what's said about him in the newsroom; he
will
prove his worth and his dynamism, he thinks to himself, when he gives
William Kristol a column on the op-ed page. Maybe that was too specific.
There is also, of course, the consumer. The woman who subscribes to
*The
New York Times *may or may not read the op-ed page, which is to say that
she may or may not contribute to the paper's profitability - and thus its
continued existence - based on what appears in that section. If she does
read it, she is probably unaware that her favorite columnist has been
demonstrably wrong about many of the most important issues facing both
the
U.S. and the world at large. The columnist's errors have been pointed out
by
several bloggers, but she has never heard of them, and at any rate does
not
bother with blogs as she subscribes to *The New York Times, *which is a
very respected outlet and has been around for well over a century,
whereas
these blogs seem to have come out of nowhere. The columnist, she knows,
has
won several Pulitzers, has written a handful of bestselling books, is
forever traveling to some far-off place. She has formed her foreign
policy
in large part from his writings as well as from the writings of other,
similarly respected journalists, and she votes accordingly.
When systems develop under a free society, no one is minding the
store. Things happen because they happen, and things do not necessarily
happen because they ought to, but rather because they do. The journalist
is
promoted to columnist, the consumer finds the columns to her liking, the
columnist becomes more prominent, the publisher wants columnists of
prominence, the editor is disinclined to cross the publisher and is most
likely an idiot himself, the columnist writes more books, the consumer
buys
them, the columnist's prominence increases, and at some point we have
entered into a situation whereby it is to the advantage of the publisher,
the editor, and of course the columnist to maintain the status quo.
Whether
the columnist deserves any prominence whatsoever does not necessarily
come
up, particularly after such point as he reaches a critical mass of
noteriety. Once a pundit is made, he is rarely unmade.
***
Thomas Friedman is forever calling things things. He introduces his
readers to the concept of 21st century trade thusly: "These global
markets are made up of millions of investors moving money around the
world
with a click of a mouse. I call them the Electronic Herd, and this herd
gathers in key global financial centers such as Wall Street, Hong Kong,
London, and Frankfurt which I call the Supermarkets. He elsewhere
informs
us that he is "a big believer in the idea of the super-story, the notion
that we all carry around with us a big lens, a big framework, through
which
we look at the world, order events, and decide what is important and what
is
not."
Friedman is correct that it is wholly necessary to conceptualize our
data into understandable frameworks in order that we might better
understand
it. But the framework into which Friedman has forced the world is almost
entirely dependent on wordplay, on convenient structural similarities
between unrelated terminology, on rhymes and sayings. In 2000, the
columnist
composed a "super-story" regarding Colin Powell, whose nomination for
secretary of state was expected to be confirmed later in the week.
One way to think about Mr. Powell is this: He spent thirty-five years of
his life with America Onduty, as a military officer. But for the past two
years he's been associated with America Online, as a member of the AOL
corporate board. So which perspective will Mr. Powell bring to his job as
Secretary of State the perspective he gleaned with America Onduty
during
the cold war or the perspective he gleaned with America Online in the
post-cold war?
No serious discussion of Powell's record or policies follows; no
new information is provided; it is never acknowledged that perhaps Powell
is
capable of thinking of the world in both the terms of a military officer
and
the terms of an information-age corporate advisory board member even
though
Powell has clearly served as both of these things. After all, Friedman
has
already coined the term America Onduty, contrasted it with the term
America
Online, and provided some allegedly clever distinction between the two
mentalities represented thereby. We are informed, for instance, that
those
who fall under the category of 'America Onduty' enjoy the film *A Few
Good Men *and see the world in terms of walls and nation states, because,
you see, a character in that very film delivered some line to that effect
and it seems to have made an impression on Friedman. Those associated
with
the 'America Online' mentality, by contrast, enjoy the film *You've Got
Mail *because such people as these understand that the world is now
integrated, and that the receiving of e-mail is a wonderful metaphor for
the
relatively recent dynamic whereby things occurring elsewhere now effect
us
all directly and with complete immediacy ("When a Russian financial
crisis
occurs, we've got mail"). Wrapping up the column, Friedman restates the
question: "So which lens is Mr. Powell wearing the one he developed
with America Onduty, or with America Online?"
Even such an insufferable framework as this would be of value to the
extent that it truly assists in helping Friedman and his citizen-readers
to
understand Colin Powell and the mentalities that inform him, to draw
useful
conclusions from this understanding, and to make wiser and
better-informed
decisions in terms of the manner in which they vote, contribute,
advocate,
purchase, and otherwise interact with the various entities into which
man's
efforts are organized. If the public understanding is increased by
dividing
Powell's consciousness into that of America Online and some variant of
that
brand name and then characterizing in turn each of these mentalities by
reference to concepts from popular films, then there's really no problem
here other than that the whole America Onduty thing is gay.
Suppose, however, that such frameworks as these do not seem to grant
Friedman any particular insight into a particular subject, and in fact
seem
to lead him and his admirers astray. This might indicate to us that such
frameworks are not actually useful, and that those who compose such
frameworks may perhaps not be worth listening to, and that to the extent
that they contribute to the national understanding they have damaged it
in
so doing, and that to this same extent they are responsible for the
astounding errors that have been made in our country's recent past.
Suppose
all of that!
Friedman's frameworks provides him with nothing. What he does is fine
for writing a reader-friendly column in a pinch, but his cute semantic
tricks do not translate into accuracy as much as we might hope that they
would. He was not able to provide any useful predictions regarding
Powell,
for instance, although he certainly tried, announcing in another column
that
"it was impossible to imagine Mr. Bush ever challenging or overruling Mr.
Powell on any issue." Moreover:
Mr. Powell is three things Mr. Bush is not - a war hero, worldly wise and
beloved by African-Americans. That combination gives him a great deal of
leverage. It means he can never be fired. It means Mr. Bush can never
allow
him to resign in protest over anything.
Of course, Powell did indeed leave the administration under
circumstances that we may ascertain to involve either firing,
resignation,
or some typically Washingtonian combination thereof - after having first
been overruled by Bush on several decisions involving the most
significant
question of that presidency. To Friedman's credit, his failed prediction
was
based on the standard media narrative of the time as well as popular
assumptions made solely on appearances, which is to say that it was
sourced.
Elsewhere in this column, Friedman notes that it "will be interesting
to see who emerges to balance Mr. Powell's perspective." That person, who
ended up not so much balancing Powell's perspective as smothering it in
its
crib, was Cheney. The vice president was not exactly a "war hero,"
"worldly
wise," or "beloved by African-Americans," which is to say that he was in
many ways Powell's opposite number - which is to say in turn that
Friedman's
assumptions regarding what sort of person would have the greatest degree
of
influence over Bush were not just wrong, but almost the exact opposite of
the case.
***
As noted, Friedman wrote his sushi-oriented pro-Putin column in
December of 2001. In March of that same year, Friedman had written
another
column on Russia in which he summarized our post-Cold War espionage
efforts
by way of the following framework:
What is it that we and Russians are actually spying on each other about?
This whole espionage affair seems straight out of *Mad *magazine's [sic]
"Spy vs. Spy" cartoon. The Russians are spying on us to try to find out
why
we are spying on them. I mean, to be honest, is there anything about the
Russians today you want to know?
Ha! Ha! I guess not!
We are here confronted with one of two possibilities: either Friedman
does not really mean what he appears to mean by this, or he does. If it
is
the former, then he is wasting our time with nonsense. If it is the
latter,
he is doing something even worse - he is telling everyone who will listen
that it is wholly absurd for the U.S. intelligence community to be
collecting information on Russia's government, its societal trends, and
its
military. In fact, he is indeed telling us the latter, as the next
paragraph
makes clear:
Their navy is rusting in port. Their latest nuclear submarine is resting
on the bottom of the ocean. We know they're selling weapons to Iran and
Iraq, because they told us. And their current political system, unlike
Communism, is not exactly exportable - unless you think corruption,
chaos,
and KGB rule amount to an ideology. Khruschev threatened to bury us.
Putin
threatens to corrupt us.
This person - this extraordinarily influential, respected,
recognized,
widely-read person - had decided that there was simply no good reason to
continue spying on the Russians. Having made such an unusual assertion,
Friedman next notes the following conundrum: "How you pull a country like
Russia away from becoming an angry, failed state, acting out on the world
stage, and make it a responsible member of the world community has no
easy
formula."
We have here two assertions, then. Allow me to organize them into a
list:
1. We have no good reason to be covertly gathering intelligence on
Russia.
2. Unless it is somehow "pull[ed] away" from doing so, Russia is set to
become "an angry, failed state, acting out on the world stage."
Remember that these assertions are both made in the space of a single
column.
The especially attentive reader will perhaps have noticed something
peculiar about the excerpt above, in which Friedman contrasts the Soviet
era to our current one. "Khruschev threatened to bury us," he wrote.
"Putin
threatens to corrupt us." A few months later, of course, Friedman was
hailing Putin as the impetus of positive reform for whom we all ought to
be "rootin'."
In 2008, the large, adversarial, and nuclear-equipped nation upon
which we apparently need not bother to spy launched a military incursion
into Georgia. Friedman responded with a column entitled "What Did We
Expect?" that begins thusly:
If the conflict in Georgia were an Olympic event, the gold medal for
brutish stupidity would go to the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin.
The silver medal for bone-headed recklessness would go to Georgias
president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and the bronze medal for rank
short-sightedness would go to the Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams.
The bronze medal winners, in this case, had advocated NATO expansion
after the end of the Cold War, whereas Friedman and other leading foreign
policy experts, Friedman explains, had opposed such a move on the grounds
that it might antagonize the Russians without providing the West with any
particularly crucial benefits.
The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in Russia was critical in
fueling
Putins rise after Boris Yeltsin moved on.
Let's make a little timeline here:
*December 2001*: Friedman hails Putin as a great reformer for whom we all
ought to be "rootin'."
*August 2008: *Friedman mocks two presidential administrations for having
accidentally "fueled" Putin's rise to power, accusing the foreign policy
teams in question of "rank short-sightedness."
***
Vladimir Putin opposed all inquiries into the Ryazan "training
excercise." Legislators belonging to his de facto political party, United
Russia, each voted in favor of sealing all records pertaining to the
incident for 75 years; two investigations proposed in the Duma were shot
down by way of similar party-line votes. Two Duma members who had served
on
an independent committee created to look into the matter were likewise
shot
down by assassins in 2003. Ooooh, play on words! Sorry.
After revealing that the basement of one of the bombed buildings had
been rented by an FSB officer, and promising to reveal further
information
in court, lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin was arrested on charges of illegal
firearm possession and revealing state secrets. Exiled tycoon and former
Yeltsin administration official Boris Berezovsky held a press conference
in
London in 2002 during which he alleged that the bombings had been a false
flag operation carried out to redirect public anger from Yeltsin and his
inner circle towards Chechnya and to provide a justification for the
re-taking of that territory.
In 2002, Putin finally managed to implement his intended reworking of
the Federation Council in order to strip it of its independence; earlier
opposition was squashed when he threatened to open criminal
investigations
directed at certain key members. The elections of 2003 and 2004 were
deemed
by number of international monitors to have been the most undemocratic in
post-Soviet history; these and other NGOs also complained of harassment
by
the authorities as well as by unknown parties. The nation's television
networks remained under Kremlin control, and independent journalists
critical of Putin and his allies began receiving unusually high numbers
of
death threats and deaths. The war in Chechnya was pursued with brutal
enthusiasm, leaving some 100,000 people dead.
In May of 2004, Thomas Friedman made the following awkwardly-worded
announcement: "I have a 'Tilt Theory of History.'" The particular tilt
theory of history in which he was apparently in possession had provided
him
with a framework by which to assess the past, present, and future of
Russia:
Is Vladimir Putin's Russia today a Jeffersonian democracy? Of course not.
But it is a huge nation that was tilted in the wrong direction and is now
tilted in the right direction. My definition of a country tilted in the
right direction is a country where there is enough free market, enough
rule
of law, enough free press, speech and exchange of ideas that the true
agent
of change in history - which is something that takes nine months and 21
years to develop, i.e. a generation - can grow up, plan its future and
realize its potential.
In 2007, Friedman finally noticed that Russia could no longer even be
termed a democracy and promptly wrote a column to this effect. I will
spare
the reader a long account of the unseemly events that occurred within
that
nation between the time of Friedman's 2004 column and the 2007 column in
which he finally admits to Putin's autocracy; suffice to say that the
political situation in Russia continued to degenerate to such a great
extent
that even Thomas Friedman eventually managed to figure out that something
was wrong.
***
Friedman spent much of 2001 in contemplation of technology. *The New
York Times *sent him off to the Davos World Economic Forum in January of
that year; Friedman sent back a column entitled "Cyber-Serfdom,"
announcing
therein that the internet would soon be replaced by the "Evernet," itself
the next step in the trend towards greater connectivity. But was humanity
walking the dog, or was the dog walking humanity? One might well ask!
2005 loomed large. By that year, Friedman explained, "we will see a
convergence of wireless technology, fiber optics, software applications,
and
next-generation Internet switches, IP version 6, that will permit
anything
with electricity to have a web address and run off the Internet - from
your
bedroom lights to your toaster to your pacemaker... People will boast, 'I
have twenty-five Web addresses in my house; how many do you have? My
wired
refrigerator automatically reorders milk. How about yours?' This thing
that
didn't end up coming anywhere close to happening was of great concern to
the
columnist. "I still can't program my VCR; how am I going to program my
toaster?" Much of the column was presumably cribbed from an Andy Rooney
monologue circa 1998.
Later that year, there occurred an unprecedented alinear attack on
U.S. commercial and military assets. This shifted Friedman's lens back
towards the Middle East, where he would begin sifting the sand in search
of
super-stories. Our protagonist knew the Middle East well, having won two
Pulitzers in recognition of the reporting he did from that region
throughout
the '80s. Back then, the system had identified him as worthy of
advancement,
and today it would call upon him to inform the citizenry's decisions on a
matter of extraordinary importance. The future of the United States and
that
of several other nations was now, to some small but measurable extent, in
the hands of Thomas Friedman.
***
It was a month into the war in Afghanistan. "A month into the war in
Afghanistan," Friedman wrote, "the hand-wringing has already begun over
how
long this might last."
Hand-wringing is something that old ladies do. They are always
wringing their little hands, worrying themselves over some matter that is
actually well under control. Friedman, confident that Colin Powell had
things under control over at the White House, was not so neurotic as to
concern himself with the potential length of a military intervention in
such
a place as Afghanistan. "This is Afghanistan we're talking about," he
explained. "Check the map. It's far away."
While others wrung their hands due to their misinformed takes on the
situation, Friedman expressed doubts based on his knowledge of ongoing
events - though not significant doubts, of which he had few. "I have no
doubt, for now, that the Bush team has a military strategy for winning a
long war," he explained, although one element of the plan did strike him
as
worrisome. "I do worry, though, whether it has a public relations
strategy
for sustaining a long war. Obviously the Powell administration would win
in
Afghanistan, but would President Bush and his top advisors be too busy
winning wars and otherwise attending to their duties to give any thought
to
influencing the opinion of voters?
Just in case, Friedman utilized subsequent columns in defending the
administration's aforementioned "military strategy for winning a long
war":
Think of all the nonsense written in the press particularly the
European
and Arab media about the concern for 'civilian casualties' in
Afghanistan. It turns out that many of those Afghan 'civilians' were
praying for another dose of B-52s to liberate them from the Taliban,
casualties or not. Now that the Taliban are gone, Afghans can freely
fight
out, among themselves, the war of ideas for what sort of society they
want.
As seen, Friedman in those days took to using the terms "civilian"
and
"civilian casualties" in scare quotes, as if such terminology does not
really apply. As dead as these Afghans may be, they do not really mind
being
killed or maimed - this, at least, is how it "turns out," as if Friedman
is
suddenly privy to some new information that confirms all of this. In the
space of two sentences, then, the most respected columnist in the country
has attempted to imply the inaccuracy of demonstrably accurate and
crucial
elements of the question under discussion and has followed this up with a
significant assertion regarding that question based on some unspecified
new
information that plainly doesn't exist. All of this is followed by an
announcement that "the Taliban are gone."
***
In April of 2003, Friedman introduced a new framework by which the
American people might better understand the events of the past few years:
Wars are always clarifying, and what this war clarified most was the
degree to which there were actually three bubbles that burst at the
beginning of the 21st century: a stock market bubble, a corporate ethics
bubble and a terrorism bubble.
The stock market bubble we're all too familiar with. When it burst three
years ago, millions of people all over the world were made more sober
investors. The second bubble was the corporate governance bubble -- a
buildup of ethical lapses by management that burst with Enron and Arthur
Andersen, producing a revolution in boardroom practices.
Bubbles being bubbles, and these bubbles having burst, Friedman
determined that the problem represented by each bubble had thereby become
less of a problem. The pertinent lessons had been learned, most
especially
by Friedman, who identified a common characteristic found among the three
troublesome bubbles:
Like the stock market and corporate bubbles, the terrorism bubble was the
product of a kind of temporary insanity, in which basic norms were
ignored
and excessive behavior was justified by new theories.
Being temporary, the insanity was now presumably over. The bubbles
had
all burst.
A column in which three bubbles burst makes for a fine column indeed,
the number three being of special significance to the human mind: thesis,
antithesis, synthesis; Father, Son, Holy Spirit; the tripod; primes. It
generally takes three elements to establish a pattern, and thus it is
that
in comedy, one tends to find groupings of threes - one sees a pattern
being
formed but the pattern is disrupted just as it is about to be established
for certain, and therein lies the humor. One lists this mundane thing,
this
other similar thing, and OH SHIT THIS FAR OUT THING YOU DIDN'T EXPECT!
Three bubbles it is, then. And they must be bubbles, and the bubbles
must be of a singular nature - each must have expanded by way of, in this
case, "a kind of temporary insanity." Each must have done so in a similar
time frame. Having been bubbles, each must have been expanding previous
to
their popping. Having popped, each must now be on the steep decline. The
resulting framework dictates that the Enron scandal will be followed by a
period of renewed responsibility in terms of corporate governance, that
the
"dot com crash" will prompt investors across the globe to reign in their
exuberance, and that the worst of the terrorist strikes are now over.
If we step outside the framework and into reality, we find that the
world's markets continued to operate by way of the same complex
amalgamation
of investor confidence, concern, anxiety, and especially exuberance that
had
always determined such things. The "revolution in boardroom practices"
was
not so revolutionary as to prevent the nation's financial institutions
from
collapsing so magnificently as to entirely eclipse the petty Enron
debacle.
By any measure other than that of American media attention, terrorism
increased in the years ahead.
There is nothing wrong with frameworks. Our data must indeed be
integrated into such things in order that we might make better use of it.
It
is of no help for us to know every little thing that ever happened
throughout the Roman Empire if we cannot conceptualize these little
things
into larger groupings. And so we look at records of land sales and
determine
with confidence that at some point, a sizable portion of small
landholders
sold off their property to larger farming interests until such time as
the
cities were flooded with landless plebeians. We may call this a
super-story
if we're so inclined; looking back on the subsequent years of imperial
affairs, we can even characterize this whole phenomenon as a bubble that
eventually popped with the onset of urban food riots - but only if there
were considerably fewer food riots afterwards.
Let us say that I am a Roman pundit named Barriticus and I am living
few years after the initial food riots have occurred. When I give my
magnificent oration after first having made love to several high-born
young
ladies of the sort who hardly cut with water the wine they serve at
table,
would it be right for me to characterize the earlier food riots and the
circumstances that led to them as being best thought of as a bubble that
has
popped? Only if there were good reason to do so, such as if the emperor
had
passed an edict barring small landholders from selling their plots or had
arranged for sufficient levels of public grain distribution or both. If,
on
the other hand, I am unable to determine with any certainty that this
phenomenon will not just repeat itself over and over again through
subsequent years, then I ought not call it any such thing, as this would
give a false impression to the citizenry about a matter of extraordinary
importance; they will be left believing that the problem has been
addressed
and that they need not force the state's hand or alter their own
individual
plans for the future. That was kind of a strange example.
Friedman fooled himself into expecting the worst of the terrorist
phenomenon to be over because he was taken in by his own thematics. This
de
facto prediction did not derive so much from rigorous analysis as it did
from the purely stylistic desirability of working three bubbles into a
column instead of two or four, and similarly the rhetorical symmetry of
describing all three of them as bubbles instead of making one of them a
square and another the color blue and another a sex act of some sort.
It is not enough to be wary of forcing a story into an inappropriate
framework to the detriment of accuracy; if one is to fulfill one's duty
as a
commentator, one must also be a competent observer of the world and its
workings. It also helps if one is not so emotionally committed to some
emotionally satisfying narrative that one is prevented from realizing
that
the narrative in question is ridiculous.
On May 30th, 2003, Friedman appeared on the Charlie Rose program to
explain the wisdom of the administration's current strategy in the Middle
East.
I think [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie. I
think that, looking back, I now certainly feel I understand more what the
war was about . . . . What we needed to do was go over to that part of
the
world, I'm afraid, and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there
basically, and take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that
world,
and burst that bubble. . . .
And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going from house
to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying: which part of this
sentence do you not understand? You don't think we care about our open
society? . . . .
Well. Suck. On. This.
That, Charlie, was what this war was about.
We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. Could have
hit
Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.
***
As preparations for the Babylon expedition were underway in February
of 2003, Friedman once again found himself in Davos, Switzerland, where a
meal taken at the Hotel Schweizerhof was interrupted by an intriguing
discovery:
At the bottom of the lunch menu was a list of the countries that the
lamb,
beef and chicken came from. But next to the meat imported from the U.S.
was
a tiny asterisk, which warned that it might contain genetically modified
organisms -- G.M.O.'s.
My initial patriotic instinct was to order the U.S. beef and ask for it
"tartare," just for spite. But then I and my lunch guest just looked at
each
other and had a good laugh.
It would seem that, despite the fact that the management of a hotel
catering to an international clientele had decided to warn customers that
some American meat is prepared in such a way as that they might prefer
not
to eat it, one could also find Europeans acting in an unhealthy manner:
But practically everywhere we went in Davos, Europeans were smoking
cigarettes -- with their meals, coffee or conversation -- even though
there
is indisputable scientific evidence that smoking can kill you... So
pardon
me if I don't take seriously all the Euro-whining about the Bush policies
toward Iraq - for one very simple reason: It strikes me as deeply
unserious.
It does not occur to Friedman that one may find similarly
warning-marked menus in the U.S. and that Americans are themselves
proverbial for their own unhealthy habits; he has found his anecdote, and
thus European objections are "deeply unserious." Friedman does
acknowledge
that there exist sound reasons to oppose the upcoming military
experiment,
though he also adds an important qualifier:
As I said, there are serious arguments against the war in Iraq, but they
have weight only if they are made out of conviction, not out of
expedience
or petulance - and if they are made by people with real beliefs, not
identity crises.
Later that year, Friedman appeared on NPR to give yet another live
rendition of how the Middle East was this big bubble that we had to pop
with
a stick by invading Iraq:
And the message was, 'Ladies and gentlemen, which part of this sentence
don't you understand? We are not going to sit back and let people
motivated
by that bubble threaten an open society we have built over 250 years. We
really like our open society. We mean no ill to you, OK? But we are not
going to sit back and let that bubble fundamentally distort our open
society
and imprison us.'
And that's what I believe ultimately this war was about. And guess what?
People there got the message, OK, in the neighborhood. This is a rough
neighborhood, and sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head
to
get that message.
To Friedman's credit, he didn't start delivering deranged macho
dialogues about how the U.S. was now going from house to house telling
people to suck on things and hitting the Middle East upside the
metaphorical
head with a similarly metaphorical two-by-four until it appeared that the
war had worked out well. During the run-up to that conflict, his
commentary
was notable for its equivocation; he dedicated one column to telling
anti-war liberals why they might be wrong to oppose the war and the next
column column to telling conservatives why they might be wrong to favor
it.
Still, one could watch him develop his Middle East as Bubble
framework
throughout the pre-war period. Liberals, he wrote, "need to take heed.
Just
by mobilizing for war against Iraq, the U.S. has sent this region a
powerful
message: We will not leave you alone anymore to play with matches,
because
the last time you did, we got burned." It's not clear to which period
Friedman here refers in which the U.S. left the Middle East "alone" and
was
burned as a result. The U.S. was instrumental in reshaping the Levant by
assisting in the creation of Israel in 1948, remaining heavily involved
in
that country's affairs forever afterwards; engaged in covert and entirely
amoral operations in Iran throughout the 1950s, during which it assisted
in
the toppling of the country's democratically-elected president and
supported
the installation of the shah, whom it backed until the fellow's death; it
sent Marines to Lebanon, funded Islamist fighters in Afghanistan, sold
weapons to Iraq, and made secret deals with Iran throughout the 1980s; it
jumped right into the fray when Iraq annexed the little kingdom of Kuwait
and threatened to invade the theocratic monstrosity of Saudi Arabia; it
enforced a strict regimen of economic sanctions against Iraq which is
credibly estimated to have resulted in the deaths of over 100 of that
country's children each day; two of its recent presidents maintained
close,
almost familial relations and lucrative business arrangements with the
same
royal family responsible for the de facto enslavement of Saudi Arabia's
women, even as both harangued other nations with free female populations
about human rights; and it has for decades maintained military bases
across
the region. Before all of this, America's closest allies in Europe ruled
over the various Middle Eastern populations for generations and without
anyone's consent. The Middle East had not been so much "left alone to
play
with matches" as it had been burned with cigarettes.
As the war's fortunes ebbed and flowed, Friedman degenerated back
into
what might be politely referred to as "nuance." Liberal bloggers began to
notice that Friedman's televised and print advice to the American people
almost invariably involved waiting for another six months or so, during
which time everything would presumably become apparent:
Weve teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months
really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse
into
three parts or more or whether its going to come together.
There's only one thing one can say for sure today: you won't need to wait
much longer for the tipping point.
What were gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether
we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.
I think were in the end game now. I think were in a six-month window
here where its going to become very clear and this is all going to
pre-empt
I think the next congressional election - thats my own feeling - let
alone
the presidential one.
This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months.
During the next six months, the world is going to be treated to two
remarkable trials in Baghdad. It is going to be the mother of all split
screens. On one side, you're going to see the trial of Saddam Hussein. On
the other side, you're going to see the trial of the Iraqi people. That's
right, the Iraqi people will also be on trial - for whether they can
really
live together without the iron fist of the man on the other side of the
screen.
In 2006, Friedman finally got tired of waiting around and began
calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq.
***
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!
On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 1:48 PM, George Rush
<georgerush100@gmail.com>wrote:
Barrett:
Just got back from Madagascar. Left you a voice mail. You can
reach me at 212-406-0807 or 917-952-4052
Look forward to speaking
George
On Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 3:10 PM, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com>wrote:
George-
Are you free to talk again soon? Give me a call if so.
On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 1:44 PM, George Rush
<georgerush100@gmail.com>wrote:
Barrett:
Thanks for getting back. Just left you a voice mail.. Shoot me an
emaily when you can talk. I'll call you.
George
212-406-0807 or 917-952-4052
On Tue, Jul 26, 2011 at 4:24 PM, Barrett Brown
<barriticus@gmail.com>wrote:
Hi, George-
Just got your message. Any time today would work if you'd like to
call back.
On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 9:30 PM, George Rush <georgerush100@gmail.com
wrote:
Hey, Barrett:
Just left you a voice message. John Penley recommended I call you
regarding book ideas that my partner, Judith Regan, and I have been
knocking
around.
Let me know if there's a good time for you to talk tomorrow or
this
week.
Thanks,
George Rush
212--406-0807
917-952-4052
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302
--
Regards,
Barrett Brown
512-560-2302