Letters to the Editor
-
Friedman pile on!
WT, you know the best part about Friedman comeuppance? That he has been given his very own terminology for the mindless, kick-the-can punditry that insists repeatedly that Iraq just "needs a little more time:" the Friedman Unit! Measured as 6 months, the ideal metric of time to be added in perpetuity to our efforts each time we reach the end of the last Friedman Unit to find we have gotten nowhere.
In its perfected theoretical form, according to my studied ruminations, the Friedman Unit is best expressed as an indefinite multiplication of itself - the Friedman Exponent (TM): a quasi-mathematical expression of an infinite Friedman Unit of Friedman Units, the ultimate manifestation of the intellectualized permanent deferment of expected gains, a quantity without quantity, a vague statement of precision, a woolly Jedi Mind Trick to mollify the masses that experts have assessed the "obstacles" in Iraq and have determined, assuringly, that all we need is a couple more bloody buckets of good 'ol American resolve and everything will all be ok.
In exactly one Friedman Exponent.
-
@DCLaw1
I didn't watch the Friedman interview. I'm not up to it tonight and with your excellent description and evaluation, I may pass all together. I can only take upset stomachs in moderation or I may get depressed.
-
Riverbend and her book
Much of Riverbend's blog writings were put together in a her book, Baghdad Burning, which I bought. I had been reading her blog regularly when her book came out. She won a prestigious award for the book. Sorry, but I can't remember just now what the award was. But she later wrote that she was very genuinely excited, in her modest and humorous way, about the recognition.
As Ondelette said, don't send wingers to her blog. If you want an example of how well that would work out just read one or two of the ever disengaged shooter's postings on this blog. There used to be an 'anti-riverbend' blog where some dolt told a shit load of lies while taking some of Riverbend's posts out of context. Just another depressing example of the deluded airing their delusions over the internet.
The tinyurl is a link to a substantial amount of excerpts from Baghdad Burning.
http://tinyurl.com/2pkqnv
DCLaw: Yes, the Friedman interview was as painful a thing to view and listen too, in regards to how inept and just awful our media is, as I can imagine.
http://tinyurl.com/2pkqnv
-
Edit
I didn't mean to post the link twice. Both tinyurls are the same link to Riverbend's book excerpts.
-
Friedman units
The only thing that I understood in your last post was Jedi Mind Tricks and bloody buckets. Don't need any further explanation, it would be a waste of your time. I hope that was satire.
-
RMP
A satirist never winks at his audience!
Oh crap, I winked.
-
Yes, DCLaw, I like it
Elect John McCain -- only 200 FU till victory! (The meaning of FU in this context is left to the gentle reader's imagination.)
or
The Friedman Comeuppance by Robert Ludlum
Sorry, DC; I know this isn't a laughing matter.
-
A Clockwork Orange
That's the treatment I would like to see Friedman get..
Strapped to a chair with his eyelids held open, some nasty pentothal/psychedelic iv drip and a non stop video of the horror he cheered on.
Play a little Ludwig van with it too, eh me drooghi?
"The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid ’dens of rime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do no need to raise their voice." -CS Lewis, _The Screwtape Letters_
-
WT
Indeed, John McCain is the human embodiment of the Friedman Exponent. His plans are too Friedmantic for specifics. His resolve is too resolved for details. If Obama is the candidate of Hope, McCain is certainly the candidate of Blind Faith. But who needs sight when we have faith?
And he will surely, to Thomas Friedman's delight, tell the Muslim world to "suck on this."
G'night all.
-
re: Chickens coming home to roost
I believe, sir, that is what most people (outside the bubble) call September 11, 2001. The day the chickens came home to roost.
The response? Closing the barn door aftet the cows had left, then burning down the neighbor's cornfield because, well, because we were P.O.ed, and that fact that we could,
One of those unspeakable, taboo things.
The military, Israel, and the crimes committed in our name . . .
-
There's Really Not Much More To Add
If Americans haven't figured out by now that corporate control of the media is washing away any trace of truth or fairness or accuracy, there isn't much else to say.
I generally like Charlie Rose because he takes the time to examine issues in-depth, unlike the main three info-tainment channels. But what became clear to me, watching this, is that our "journalists" don't seem to have the capacity, the chutzpah, or the intelligence to even know what questions to ask. I think our worldview is so far removed from what is happening and what has happened in Iraq that cognitive dissonance results among the talking-heads about how to adequately cover it. On the other hand, I think serious journalists, like Rose, are probably embarrassed by the magnitude of our failure in Iraq and possibly by the arrogance of the Bush White House (and others) in their insistence that we would be "greeted as liberators."
Another thing that struck me is the point that liberation of Iraqis and removal of Saddam Hussein were byproducts of the occupation, the ultimate goal of which has always been control of the oil. Ted Koppel, to his credit, called this one months ago, although it seemed to get lost in the noise machine.
-
totallyblaze.
it is way past late, and he admits,
yup, totallyblaze realizes too late,
the last wolf-whistle was directed,
to Laura Bush, and it was not right.
-
@totallyblase
Not quite.
The chickens started coming home to roost the day the Iranians took our embassy staff hostage in 1979. Being Americans, we really didn't realize why until 9/11. And 9/11 was intended to get us to overreact and draw us back into the ME so bin Laden could repeat his humiliation and defeat of the Soviet Union with the other great Satan. If they wanted to punish us for past transgressions there were plenty of ways to do that. That's my opinion and Peter Bergen's and Abdul Bari Atwan's, who is the last Western Journalist to have interviewd him over the course of three days spent with him in 1996. It is the opinion of quite a few other people who have actually met with bin Laden or are knowledgeable about him, his ideas and goals and how and what he thinks and why he thinks that way. These are also bin Laden's own words as reported by the people who have interviewed him, like Abdul Bari Atwan and it is even alluded to by the 9/11 Commission from intelligence sources:
In February 2001, a source reported that an individual whom he identified as the big instructor (probably a reference to bin Laden) complained frequently that the United States had not yet attacked. According to the source, bin Laden wanted the United States to attack, and if it did not he would launch something bigger.
It was not just retaliatory. However, bin Laden could have been hoist by his own petard if Bush et al had not taken their eyes off the ball in Afganistan and gone into Iraq. Amateurs. Played like a fiddles.
Osama Bin Laden told me, "I can’t fight the Americans on the American mainland. It is too far. But if I succeed in bringing the Americans where I can find them, where I can fight them on my own terms, on my turf, this will be the greatest success."
http://www.stateofnature.org/abdelBariAtwan.html