On 9/12/11, Barrett Brown <
barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sure thing. I'll be free for most of the time I'm there, but I can make sure
> to be available on the 23rd and 24th if you like. Or if you'd like to pick a
> date that would work better for you, let me know.
>
> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:39 PM, George Rush <
georgerush100@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Barrett:
>> Great to hear you're coming to town. Would love to get together to talk
>> about both book ideas. You want to give me a couple of dates when you're
>> available? Lunch, coffee, drinks, whatever....
>>
>> George
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:21 AM, Barrett Brown
>> <
barriticus@gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> 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 second, unpublished book already has a blurb from Rolling Stone editor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
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Barrett Brown
>
512-560-2302
>