…………Norman Solomon, who started my day by providing a hearty laugh. And a great dose of truth.

I think Friedman, The Master of Glib, means well, but his power to set the nation’s intellectual agenda about the nature of globalization is, well, woefully disproportionate. And, and Solomon points out, his lack of concern about oppressed peoples and others who will not be saved by the “new” (?) world capitalism is disturbing, to say the least.

Channeling Thomas Friedman
by Norman Solomon

Published on Monday, October 23, 2006 by
CommonDreams.org

Get ready for a special tour of a renowned outlook,
conjured from the writings of syndicated New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman. As the leading media
advocate of “free trade” and “globalization,” he is
expertly proficient at explaining the world to the
world. If we could synthesize Friedman’s brain waves,
the essential messages would go something like this:

Silicon chips are the holy wafers of opportunity. From
Bangalore to Bob’s Big Boy Burgers, those who
understand the Internet will leave behind those who do
not.

I want to tell you about Rajiv/Mohammed/George, now
doing awesome business in Madras/Amman/Durham. Only a
few years ago, this visionary man started from scratch
with just a vision—a vision that he, like me, has
been wise enough to comprehend.

So, Rajiv/Mohammed/George built a business on the
digital backbone of the new global economy. Now, the
employees fill orders on a varying shift schedule, and
time zones are always covered. Don’t ask what they’re
selling—that hardly matters. They’re working in a
high-tech industry, and the profits are auspicious.
This is the Future. And it is good. Fabulous, actually.

Traveling the world as I do, I understand that the
world is best understood by people who travel the world
as I do.

The future is innovation across borders. The
entrepreneur who finds a good Web designer on another
continent really impresses me. Have I mentioned yet
that the Internet really impresses me? It really does.
Those who aren’t suitably impressed by IT will be left
behind.

As a journalist who visits one country after another, I
feel intoxicated by the Internet. And why shouldn’t I
be upbeat? I’m not one of the dead-end-job workers who
can look forward to mind-glazing drudgery in front of
computer screens as far as the eye can see.

For me, and for investors and managers who take me
around, what’s not to like? Commerce is about selling
things, providing services, expanding markets. All that
is so good.

Let’s face it—at this point I’m a rich guy, and I
work for a newspaper run by guys who are even richer
than I am. They’re gaga about what we like to call
globalization. So am I. We’re a perfect match.

As a matter of fact, just about any big media outlet in
the USA is run by managers who work for owners who’re
gaga for globalization. We don’t mention that there are
significant limits on our enthusiasm. Of course we
don’t want to globalize labor unions! We don’t want to
globalize powerful movements for environmental
protection! We don’t want to globalize movements
against war!

Speaking of war: I cheered the invasion of Iraq and
kept applauding for a long time afterward. I lauded the
war effort as glorious and noble—and, on the last
day of November 2003, I even likened the U.S.
occupation of Iraq to the magnanimity of the Marshall
Plan.

And if U.S. troops had been able to kill enough Iraqi
troublemakers early enough to quell the resistance, I
would have remained an avid booster of the war. There’s
no business like war business—that’s why I recycled
my clever slogan “Give war a chance” from the 1999 air
war on Yugoslavia to the 2001 military assault on
Afghanistan.

But I like winning. That’s why I kept praising Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he looked like a winner,
and now I keep deploring him because he looks like a
loser.

Overall, I get to boil down the world to metaphors of
my own choosing. If I were one of the
anti-corporate-globalization people and I used the same
kind of simplistic metaphors, I’d be the object of
derision and scorn. But I’m not—so get used to it!

 

Never let it be said that leading U.S. pundit Thomas
Friedman has to live with the consequences of his
punditry. I think great thoughts, and I’m seriously
glib about them, and that should be more than enough if
the world is smart enough to grasp the opportunities
that are low-hanging fruit of the digital age. I can’t
expect everyone to get it, but at the very least they
should try.

The paperback edition of Norman Solomon’s latest book,
“War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep
Spinning Us to Death,” was published this summer. For
information, go to http://www.warmadeeasy.com/ .