Sunday, September 13, 2009

John Hughes Diplomacy

Thomas Friedman, America's most popular maoist, returns to inform us that Iraq and Afghanistan are battered children. But they are not our children! They are, like, Russia's and Saddam Hussein's children. They are Osama bin Laden's children. And we, America, we are the sassy black nun who is a social worker who is their drama teacher who helps them to believe in themselves through the power of music and algebra and gettin jiggy wit it, because they are the future, and then they get the scholarship and Iraq realizes that even though Afghanistan is the nerd they are really in love and in an extended musical montage we all get together and make the best prom ever.

Posted by IOZ at 6:28 AM | email »
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31 comments:

Cüneyt said...

Oh, IOZ! The idiocy of Friedman brought you back to us early; how can I deride it?

But seriously: rightwingers have nothing on establishment liberals when it comes to being oblivious to what we've done. For your film summary to be accurate, Sister America would have to engaged in several affairs with the parents of her charges, all of whom blame the children for their disobedience. Either way, nice to see white man's burden never goes out of style. With that moustache of his, all Friedman needs is a pith helmet.

9:29 AM
Anonymous said...

I like the part where Firedman describes an Iraq whose leaders can't make embarrassing legal cases go away. That's really charming.

9:36 AM
SteveB said...

I like the part where Firedman describes an Iraq whose leaders can't make embarrassing legal cases go away.

You mean like this?

9:57 AM
Kafka said...

Awesome!

10:17 AM
NutellaonToast said...

Friedman's a liberal?

Honestly not being snarky. All I know of him is suck on this and the friedman unit, so I am genuinely surprised.

Oh, and the world is flat. That also seemed conservative.

12:40 PM
Anonymous said...

Where's Kevin Bacon in all this?
-- sglover

1:44 PM
Michael Dawson said...

And Obama is like, totally Ted Danson in blackface at the prom, but Sister America, she doesn't break up with him, she buys him more make-up...

1:53 PM
Anonymous said...

ZOMGliberalssuck! palin2012

1:55 PM
Cüneyt said...

Just a pro-globalization, Calcutta-is-great-if-you-stay-there-five-minutes limousine liberal. He's monstrously wealthy, and it makes being monstrous all the easier. Also a big noisemaker as far as green energy and all that, which he justifies using convoluted use-the-market-to-do-anything logic. Establishment liberal, but liberal all the same. One of the reasons I stopped reading the NYTimes (except when linked by my snarky masters).

4:11 PM
the_system said...

I stopped reading the NYTimes when they put all of their content behind that stupid registration wall.

5:48 PM
Cüneyt said...

Alright. That was the last nail, though. Free shit is still better than paying for shit.

6:13 PM
Bill said...

And Iran is the mean jock who totally treats Iraq like shit but gets his comeuppance at the end?

7:32 PM
Anonymous said...

Friedman's a liberal? Thought he was a neocon.

10:35 PM
Anonymous said...

how is friedman not a liberal?

12:22 AM
stephanie g said...

I hope I'm not the only one who read the last line as "we all get together and make the best porn ever."

5:29 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...

Fifteen! This is it, Dude! Let's
take that hill!

8:17 AM
Cüneyt said...

Well, I think it should be said that, whatever he is, he's an asshole first, but he is very much a liberal who was pro-war and has blamed the Iraqis for their lack of appreciation and for our efforts not being rewarded. He is an imperial liberal who made common cause with the neocon, but I should note that his sort was very, very common in the British Empire; the sweet-talkers (even as I hesitate to call him that) who legitimize the good fight hold one end of the line, while the other is held by the rabid ultranationalists. In America they stage a bit of theater about being in opposition, but in earlier empires their collaboration was open.

His policies are, in many ways, Cold War ones, with globalization and protectionism filling in for Anglo-American capitalism and Soviet communism, respectively. He believes that all the little nations need to line up behind us and appreciate the crumbs that fall from our table. In this, he's in line with a lot of liberal thought that came from the Kennedy administration. He pushes democratic peace and makes a little bit of noise about the Palestinians, or has in the past. He's a waffler, he's not quite sure where he's headed... Need I go on? He's a liberal of the worst sort.

9:23 AM
Cüneyt said...

I'm sorry. Made an error. He pushes capitalist peace theory.

9:25 AM
SteveB said...

Friedman's a liberal? Thought he was a neocon.

Is this the part of the discussion where someone points out that "liberal" has a completely different meaning outside the U.S.?

Because I'm willing to be that person, if necessary.

9:51 AM
Anonymous said...

Actually, if you combine Cuneyt and SteveB, you get something closer to the truth about people like Friedman. Their connection to Kennedy-era Cold War liberalism and their transatlantic cosmopolitanism makes them essentially "liberals" in both America *and* Europe. They exist in the middle part of the Venn diagram of Euro-American liberal "philosophy".

10:42 AM
Klaus said...

Friedman isn't so much a liberal or a conservative as he is a fatuous douche. In this category you can also include virtually every notable American political commentator.

12:39 PM
SteveB said...

Actually, if you combine Cuneyt and SteveB, you get something closer to the truth about people like Friedman. Their connection to Kennedy-era Cold War liberalism and their transatlantic cosmopolitanism makes them essentially "liberals" in both America *and* Europe.

Let me tell you, it's not easy living up to the legend of SteveB that you've got going on in your head. So Kennedyesque! So cosmopolitan! The real thing would only disappoint, so be glad you only know me through my comments.

1:43 PM
Cüneyt said...

Uh, Steve? I don't think anyone was saying that you, or I, for that matter, were this or that. I think Anon 10:42 was talking about what we were saying.

That said, it's an interesting comment. To take your first comment, Steve, I called Friedman a liberal and assumed, because he's an American, that people would take my statement to mean that he's an American liberal. But, while he likes empire just as much as a Kennedy lib, he also likes capitalism or says he does as much as a New Democrat. The fact is that, as Anon 10:42 said, he might be the perfect liberal dick, welcome in both the New York Times and The Economist, which are both, by different continents, called liberal.

The only problem is that The Economist has been more courageous on the gulag and the War on Terror (at least post-Abu-Ghraib) than has been either Friedman or the American liberal establishment.

But seriously, fuck that dude.

3:18 PM
SteveB said...

Oh, sorry, I totally misread that comment. Getting too defensive, I guess.

I'm taking the rest of the day off.

And does this mean I'm not Kennedyesque and cosmopolitan?

5:30 PM
Cüneyt said...

Well, not even Kennedy was Kennedyesque, so I wouldn't worry about it.

6:53 PM
Charles F. Oxtrot said...

Tommy Friedman has been a solid "liberal" for at least 25 years, if by "liberal" one refers to the general tenor of socio-political-economic analysis brought forth by The Grey Old Lady.

Of course one of the things "liberals" love to do when they're in a discussion in which they're holding down the minority position fort is to be equivocal on what is a "liberal" and so the term expands and contracts as is needed to feel included, or excluded, as the issue under discussion may warrant.

10:13 PM
Anonymous said...

Will's Wang says that if you change one letter of "prom", you can make "porn".

10:23 PM
Anonymous said...

more ism schisms.

Friedman is a greenocon and an oligarch, or is it oligargh now.

10:19 AM
Solar Hero said...

Right, I saw "porn" too...

Check out Richard Seymour's "The Liberal Defence of Murder" to abolish confusion about "liberals" that I detect here...

His blog is http://www.leninology.blogspot.com/

Or just listen to our fine thread-masters. They rock.

Imagine if Friedman's salary for one year was divided amongst IOZ's most clever 100 commenters...

5:17 PM
Anonymous said...

Friedman isn't so much a liberal or a conservative as he is a fatuous douche.

Except that douches have their legitimate uses.

3:16 PM
Cüneyt said...

Solar Hero, you've given me quite a dream, and that's a serviceable illustration of why I'm a radical. I'd type up easy editorials for just a few thousand a year, but alas, I guess I can't appeal to the common person like Friedman can.

8:51 PM

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