The world according to Thom Friedman

It always amazes me that certain writers seem to have carte blanche when it comes to publishing. Take for instance New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman has never seen an instance of globalization that he didn't jump up and begin cheerleading for. With his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (which could be called Globalization for Dummies), Friedman postulates inane scenarious about exploitation the world over--basically, any form of offshoring, out-sourcing and labor transfer that robs workers of living wages is good for the burgeoning global economy.

In reviewing Friedman's latest atrocity, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, writer Amitabh Pal points out numerous flaws in the book, including his woeful use of metaphors.

From Pal's review in The Progressive, "His cheesy style gets in the way of his main point: Technological forces—such as the Internet and outsourcing—have altered the nature of the workplace so fundamentally that they have changed the world. This, Friedman argues, has affected everything ranging from the way you order burgers at drive ups (the orders are often taken at some remote location) to the way cartoon movies are made (teams in Bangalore, India, are frequently doing the animation) to the way computers are fixed (UPS runs a repair facility for Toshiba)."

Friedman is an all-too-obvious example of the technocrats and lackeys who carry the water for their corporate bosses. Meanwhile, honest Americans are facing the specter of declining real wages, loss of adequate health coverage and an ever-shrinking piece of the middle class pie. Rather than journalists-in-name-only like Friedman championing their cause, he'd rather keep whistling to the bank while economic nincompoops keep buying his dumbed-down schlock.

The last crusade

"On some positions, cowardice asks the question, 'is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'is it popular?' But conscience asks the question 'is it right?' And then comes a time when a true follower of Jesus Christ must take a stand that's neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take that stand because it is right." - Martin Luther King Jr

Noted evangelical Billy Graham has reached the end of the line as far as his crusades go. Graham, known to some as “America’s pastor” has said he’ll retire after a 60 year career that saw him toe the line and promote the status quo for the likes of pro-war presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Like many American icons that have reached the status of rock star, Graham has been granted a virtual free pass by the media on his farewell tour. I’ve seen reports on both local and national stations that afforded Graham a status that I don’t think he deserved. Newspaper coverage likewise has been superficial; making no mention that Graham was a water carrier for those in power.

For instance, in 1989, it was revealed that Graham had sent a secret memo to Nixon dated April 15, 1969. After meeting with Vietnamese missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand, this supposed "man of God" said that if the peace talks in Paris were to fail, Nixon should step up the war and bomb the dikes. Such an act, Graham wrote excitedly, "could overnight destroy the economy of North Vietnam".

Graham had no qualms about advocating a policy to the U.S. Commander in Chief that on Nixon's own estimate, would have killed a million people.

Apparently doing the Lord's work also pays quite well, as a 2002 990 form shows the evangelist receiving a salary of nearly $200,000 per year and additional allowance of $233,000, while working about 10 percent of the time. Interesting stewardship of money given by many hard-working and honest people, thinking that their donations were for something other than keeping a semi-retired preacher well-stocked in assets.

Unlike Jesus, who he spent a great deal of time talking about, but apparently missed the significance of who the Bible represents him to be, Graham was as comfortable in corporate boardrooms and presidential suites as he was in the pulpit. Traveling with all the latest in comforts and technological trappings, Graham epitomized an American Xianity, sold out and defanged, providing support for military intervention and indiscriminant killing and maiming of innocents the world over.

I find it laughable when large numbers of people affiliated with organized religion deplore the so-called unfavorable treatment that religion and Xianianity supposedly receives in the “liberal” mainstream media. This supposed liberal bias, if it was in fact present, would have ripped Graham and made mention of some of the things I’ve written about. These are well-known and available for anyone who wants to take a stab at journalism.

Instead, these so-called haters of religion have fallen all over themselves trying to out fluff one another. Graham certainly was a popular man and preached a popular version of a cross-less Xianity—one that plays well in a country wedded to military might and selective morality—it’s just that for those of us who see Jesus as more than another excuse to bomb innocent people, Graham comes across as just another preacher given over to mammon and fame.

Apparently Graham’s son, Franklin is poised to take over the mantle of Graham’s substantial empire. The younger Graham, who drew the ire of the Islamic world for comments he made about Muslims after 9-11, proves the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Interestingly, Franklin receives an estimated $600,000 per year from his father's evangelistic organization.

It appears that the gospel (at least an Americanized version) is no longer the offence that it once was, at least during Jesus' day. It's also ironic that one of America's last prophetic voices--that of Martin Luther King, Jr.--found that speaking out against empire brought you a bullet instead of accolades.

Losing what made us great

Whatever your idea of America was/is, there were elements in its past that made the mythology of our exceptionalism and superiority attractive. Not only attractive, but an argument could be made that America's "goodness" was very real and tangible. For close to three decades following WWII, America created a middle class and an economic climate of opportunity that allowed many to begin to have a "better life". Tax policies and other government policies were not weighted to benefit only the wealthiest of our citizens.

Fast forward however to our present day. Arlie Hochschild has an article picked up by AlterNet, as well as other progressive outlets that illustrates the cruelty of the Bush administration and their policies of reverse Robinhood-ism.

Hochschild uses the analogy of a chauffeur to illustrate the current administration's lack of empathy for anyone but their own. And who are their own? Wealthy, multi-millionaires--men (and a few select women, I guess), predominantly white, who care little about distributing their wealth, but hoard it and actually continue to confiscate additional wealth from those below them on the socio-economic ladder. Robbing from the working-classes and the poor, in order to add even more to their overstocked coffers. You can say what you want about the so-called "robber barons" of the previous century--the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Mellons and Morgans--but they at least had some capacity for largesse and endowed many communities with parks, libraries, museums and other amenities that were accessible for all citizens, not just the uber-wealthy. Contrast that with today's wealthiest Americans--driving Hummer's and other behemoths, buying up our open spaces and restricting access to the hoi polloi. This is certainly the case here in my home state of Maine. But I digress; back to the article at hand.

Hochschild begins,

Let's consider our political moment through a story.

Suppose a chauffeur drives a sleek limousine through the streets of New York, a millionaire in the backseat. Through the window, the millionaire spots a homeless woman and her two children huddling in the cold, sharing a loaf of bread. He orders the chauffeur to stop the car. The chauffeur opens the passenger door for the millionaire, who walks over to the mother and snatches the loaf. He slips back into the car and they drive on, leaving behind an even poorer family and a baffled crowd of sidewalk witnesses. For his part, the chauffeur feels real qualms about what his master has done, because unlike his employer, he has recently known hard times himself. But he drives on nonetheless. Let's call this the Chauffeur's Dilemma.

Absurd as it seems, we are actually witnessing this scene right now. At first blush, we might imagine that this story exaggerates our situation, but let us take a moment to count the loaves of bread that have recently changed hands and those that soon will. Then, let's ask why so many people are letting this happen.

Lest you think that this is just another case of knee-jerk liberalism, belly-aching about those hard-working business folk, just reaping the benefits of the free market, here are some stats for you to mull over:

• On average, the 2003 tax cut has already given $93,500 to every millionaire. It is estimated that 52% of the benefits of George W. Bush's 2001-03 tax cuts have enriched the wealthiest 1% of Americans (those with an average annual income of $1,491,000).
• On average, the 2003 tax cut gave $217 to every middle-income person. By 2010, it is estimated that just 1% of the benefits of the tax cut will go to the bottom 20% of Americans (those with an average annual income of $12,200).
• During at least one year since 2000, 82 of the largest American corporations -- including General Motors, El Paso Energy, and, before the scandal broke, Enron -- paid no income tax.

Consider this additional tidbit of information courtesy of Hochschild's excellent article:

For every decade in the 150 years before 1970 -- including the decade of the Great Depression -- real earnings rose. As University of Massachusetts economist Rick Wolff points out, however tough a man's job or long his hours, he could usually look forward to a bigger paycheck.

But after 1970, the real earning power of male wages -- and I focus here on men, for they are the closer fit to the profile of the chauffeur -- stopped rising. Their dream was linked, it turned out, to jobs in an industrial sector that been automated out or outsourced abroad. Their old union-protected, high-wage, blue-collar jobs began to disappear as new non-union, low-wage, service-sector jobs appeared. Indeed, the man with a high-school diploma or a few years of college found few new high-opportunity jobs in the much-touted new economy while the vast majority ended up in low-opportunity jobs near the bottom. As jobs in the middle have become harder to find, his earning power has fallen, his benefits have shrunk, and his job security has been reduced.

So what was the result of this phenomenom that Wolf illustrates? First of all, life at home become tougher. The hallowed example that many on the right cling to of the domestic model--a single breadwinner (Dad) going off to work, while Mom stayed home and provided a home that was nurturing for Junior and Buffy.

But Wolf shows that this isn't the case any longer, as the "squeeze" made it necessary for Mom to take a job.

Citing Wolf, Hochschild writes, "Wives took paid jobs -- and this in a society that had given little thought to paid parental leave or family-friendly policies. For men as well as women, hours of work have increased. From 1973 to 1996, average hours per worker went up 19%. Since the 1970s, increases have occurred in involuntary job loss, in work absences due to illness or disability, and in debt and bankruptcy. The proportion of single mother families rose from 12% in 1970 to 26% in 2003."

I'd urge you to spend some time this weekend, reading the entire article from start to finish. It's illustrative and IMHO, very accurate. It also shatters the myth of President Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and any connection his followers mistakenly attribute to him of being like the Jesus of the Bible.

A new look

Some funky things kept popping up in my last template for Words Matter. Having had the old design long enough to grow tired of it, I decided to change the look just a bit. Unfortunately, in doing so, I've lost all my links, so I'll be adding them back as time permits.

Well, I'm off to my Twilight game tonight to see if my Patriot Mutual squad can make it two in a row.

Energy policy

The U.S. Senate is debating an energy bill. If your morning paper is as uninforming as mine is, you probably found little or nothing about it.

U.S. energy policy is one of the most important issues affecting Americans. Some would argue that it is the single most important issue affecting our bloated, consumptive way of life. Regardless of one’s political persuasion, it behooves all of us to learn about some of the issues and pay attention to the debate.

The current bill, at over 1,000 pages, touches almost every corner of life in our country. Unfortunately, much of past policy has resulted in $500 billion in subsidies given to old paradigm energy industries such as coal, fossil fuels and nuclear. Contrast that with only $25 billion subsidizing renewable and alternative energy options.

Unbelievably, this morning, one segment on C-Span’s Morning Journal had a rehashing of the debate of whether nuclear energy is an option. With a spokesperson from the Nuclear Energy Institute obfuscating the issues brought by Navin Nayak of the Public Interest Research Group, I was just shaking my head that arguments refuted 25 years ago about the viability of nuclear energy, are still being debated.

Ultimately, regardless of one’s stand and orientation on energy, our current consumption of energy and reduction of demand must be a prime pillars in the debate if we ever are able to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. If we want to bring our troops home from Iraq, we can’t be driving SUV’s and other gluttonous consumers of petroleum.