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Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

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Instant classic

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I try not to read Tom Friedman, let alone link to him, but tomorrow’s is too good to miss:

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve found the last few weeks in American politics particularly unnerving. Our economy is still very fragile, yet you would never know that by the way the political class is acting. We’re like a patient that just got out of intensive care and is sitting up in bed for the first time when, suddenly, all the doctors and nurses at bedside start bickering. One of them throws a stethoscope across the room; someone else threatens to unplug all the monitors unless the hospital bills are paid by noon; and all the while the patient is thinking: “Are you people crazy? I am just starting to recover. Do you realize how easily I could relapse? Aren’t there any adults here?”

it reminds me a little of:

The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it’s all too familiar. It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?”

Reader Interactions

23Comments

  1. 1.

    eemom

    even a broken bobblebot is right once in a while.

    in other news, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have been spotted galloping in this direction.

  2. 2.

    JGabriel

    Shorter Mustache:

    We are in the midst of a long period of austerity, where all that most leaders will be able to do is cut, fire and trim. But no one should fire Ben Benanke. It’s not his fault.

    Any conflicts of interest we should know about, Tom?

    .

  3. 3.

    Sly

    And some liberal Democrats rejected cutting their favorite programs. Way to take one for the country, guys.

    Maybe their macro feeling is that the country should undergo a megatransition away from always deciding to hurt poor people whenever some asshole complains about the budget deficit.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    @Sly: This sentiment flies in the face of our Puritan Calvinist ethics. People are poor because God determines them to be unworthy, no amount of secular government support can subvert the will of the Almighty. Therefore we must keep rewarding the rich, for they are truly His blessed children. The worst part of all this is the number of people who actually buy that line of bullpuckey.

  5. 5.

    Anne Laurie

    Maybe their macro feeling is that the country should undergo a megatransition away from always deciding to hurt poor people whenever some rich privileged asshole complains about the budget deficit.

    Wouldn’t it be nice?

  6. 6.

    JK

    Doug,

    No matter what you say, Tom Friedman continues to send a thrill up the leg of Charlie Rose. Rose has probably had Friedman on his show more often than any other guest.

  7. 7.

    Sleeper

    It’s the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn’t we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?”

    Well, Pulitzer Prizes also make good paperweights, so they’re not totally worthless. Christ, that line’s even dumber than the one he wrote about being stuck in three holes at the same time.

  8. 8.

    gypsy howell

    Blah blah blah both sides are to blame blah blah blah. Goldman Sachs is bad, but unions are just as bad! Republicans won’t raise taxes, but Democrats won’t cut Social Security blah blah blah.

  11. 11.

    liberal

    Dean Baker, who saw the housing bubble before almost anyone else (with perhaps the exception of Shiller), has a comment on this column by TF.

  13. 13.

    Jamie

    But hey look at the bright side, we’ve got a huge supply of condos no one can afford to live in.

  15. 15.

    Seanly

    @Yutsano:

    When I was a wee lad and my mother described that very sentiment (as a warning), even then I thought that was an abhorrent view. I do want people to take responsibility for themselves and help themselves where they can, but often there truly is no other help beyond the government. I keep hoping that America matures past that puritan bullshit, yet we never do.

    Friedman hits the nail on the head with that description.

  16. 16.

    burnspbesq

    Dead on in every material respect. Anyone who misses the point because it is coming from Friedman should be ashamed.

  17. 17.

    SteveinSC

    @Yutsano:

    People are poor because God determines them to be unworthy,

    My recommendation is that we change and for once be on the side of God. That is to say, we are taxing the wrong people. Taxing rich people is against God’s plan. We should have a tax that goes: The less you make the higher is your tax bill. In that fashion we will tax the poor out of existence and finally achieve Saint Ronny’s “shining city on a hill.” All will be the elect of God and republican nirvana will be accomplished.

  18. 18.

    John Ball

    We should have a tax that goes: The less you make the higher is your tax bill. In that fashion we will tax the poor out of existence and finally achieve Saint Ronny’s “shining city on a hill.” All will be the elect of God and republican nirvana will be accomplished.

    You don’t go far enough. We have to wage war not on poverty–but on the poor themselves! First, relocate them all to some of our more rundown cities. Then bomb. Then send in the troops to mop up any survivors. And the BEST part of the plan is we have the materials to do it, and it entails only a slight alteration of our present practices!

  21. 21.

    Jay in Oregon

    @Sleeper:

    Christ, that line’s even dumber than the one he wrote about being stuck in three holes at the same time.

    I’d ask for a link, but I’m afraid I will see something I was not meant to see…

  23. 23.

    Sleeper

    @Jay in Oregon:

    From a review that Matt Taibbi wrote for Hot, Flat, and Crowded:

    Remember Friedman’s take on Bush’s Iraq policy? “It’s OK to throw out your steering wheel,” he wrote, “as long as you remember you’re driving without one.” Picture that for a minute. Or how about Friedman’s analysis of America’s foreign policy outlook last May: “The first rule of holes is when you’re in one, stop digging.When you’re in three, bring a lot of shovels.” First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you’re supposed to stop digging when you’re in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol.

    Whole review here: http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html

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