You know, I used to spend time on this blog regularly excoriating the stupendous bullshit that emanated from Thomas Friedman’s mouth. He gave me so many opportunities. Then, I gave up–it just wasn’t worth the time. Truth be told, I stopped reading his nonsense.
I fell off the wagon today. My apologies. Lured in at a weak moment, I stumbled into “How Clinton Could Knock Trump Out”.
There is so much stupid in this column that is not really about Trump but about an old white guy elitist rich guy (Friedman) who trumpets both American Exceptionalism and the “free market”.
Pile of dung words #1:
Watching the convention, you would never know that what also makes America great is that generation after generation, people full of ideas risk their savings to start companies that provide work and paychecks. And only by generating more of these risk-takers will more people get hired for the good jobs Clinton promised.
No, actually, what makes America work–not “great”, because American Exceptionalism is the possession of the minds of the elites and those they want to convince it is real–are the tens of millions of people who march to their jobs every day. They take the biggest risks every day. Without those people, those people with ideas are just jerking off in their living rooms, perhaps reading the extolling words of Friedman.
Pile of dung words #2:
It scares me that people are so fed up with elites, so hate and mistrust Clinton and are so worried about the future — jobs, globalization and terrorism — that a bare majority could still fall for this self-infatuated carnival barker if he exhibited half a political brain.
Oh, boo-hoo. You mean, you see the pitchforks coming for your ass? People are fed up with elites because those elites have bled them dry.
Pile of dung words #3:
And that leads to my second reason for pushing Clinton to inject some capitalism into her economic plan: The coalition she could lead. If there is one thing that is not going to revive growth right now, it is an anti-trade, regulatory heavy, socialist-lite agenda the Democratic Party has drifted to under the sway of Bernie Sanders. Socialism is the greatest system ever invented for making people equally poor. Capitalism makes people unequally rich, but I would much rather grow our pie bigger and faster and better adjust the slices than redivide a shrinking one.
That one was stunning. Hard to know where to begin to take on this amount of stupid. Well, oh, capitalism has done such a great job, uh-huh…the massive seas of unemployed people worldwide and the fouling of the planet by capitalism…please, sir, Mr. Friedman, can we have more, please? This dolt mourns the rejection of so-called “Free trade” because he’s been one of its singular, blind shills for the TPP-type horrors–this has never been about trade versus no-trade, everyone is for trade; it’s been about the rules governing trade and every NAFTA-style deal is about rules protecting investment, capital and corporate rights.
And that “socialist-lite agenda” of the Democratic Party (that literally made me laugh out loud and snort so hard that if I had a cold I would have ejected a wad of mucus…just trying to give a full sense of the reaction, you know?) pushed by Bernie Sanders…uh, that includes things like $15-an-hour minimum wage–you know, below what that great socialist country of… Australia…pays its workers–which would allow people in Friedman’s capitalist wet-dream “growth” scenario to buy shit and a push for a health care plan (single-payer is not in the party platform but the party nominee now says she supports at least the public option which inches along the road to single-payer) that would save hundreds of billions of dollars and actually reduce bureaucracy and regulation.
“Better adjust” the slices…I suppose rich man Friedman is thinking that maybe, as Bernie pointed out, if 58 percent of the income since the recent Great Depression (I hate the term “Great Recession”…”recession” for whom?) has gone to the top one percent, it would be ok if what, only 48 percent went to the top one percent. Of if the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, we could “better adjust” that so those elites only have as much wealth as the bottom 80 percent?
Pile of dung words #4
Sanders had no plan whatsoever for growth.
Actually, with his infrastructure plan, focus on growth that addresses climate change, single-payer health plan that would take out huge inefficiencies in the system, tax hikes to address inequality and $15-an hour federal minimum wage and much more, Bernie’s plan would put more money in peoples’ hands and spur much more sustained economic security (note: I emphasize “security” over the word “growth”…).
The disdain is so clear for the movement that came very close to engineering a fundamental change in America. It’s about fear–Friedman’s fear that his elite status might not endure in a political revolution. Dumb. Wrong.
OK, I now return to my long-time avoidance of this fool’s rubbish.
