HOW INFANTILE IS AMERICAN SOCIETY?  Last night’s CBS “Business Update” (in the midst of its “60 Minutes” program) featured three items: 1.) The New Moon teen vampire movie led the weekend box-office receipts; 2.) Cadbury shares hit an all-time high; 3.) Michael Jackson’s rhinestone-studded white glove sold at auction for $350,000. Some in-house CBS-News producer is responsible for this fucking nonsense. How does he or she keep her job? Is there no adult supervision at the network?

Meanwhile, over at The New York Times this morning, Paul “Nobel Prize” Krugman writes:
“Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts; the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.”

Disclosure: I’m not one of the economists that Mr. Krugman talks to (nor am I an economist). But it’s sure interesting to know that the ones palavering with Mr. Krugman imagine that that the US can possibly return to an economy based on the fraudulent securitization of reckless debt. Does Mr. Krugman think that the production housing industry can resume paving over the nether exurbs with half-million-dollar houses (to be bought with no money down loans by the sheet-rockers working inside them)?

Does he think all those people receiving cancellation notices from their credit card issuers are in a position to flash their plastic at the Gallerias this Friday? Or ever will be again?  Is he perhaps misusing the term “recovery?”  After all, that is generally taken to mean resuming a prior state, which is, in turn, presumed to be a healthy prior state.  Is that what the economy of the past decade was?  And, incidentally, what exactly is a “consumer?”  And why, at the highest levels of journalism in this land, do we refer to citizens that way?  As if the American people have no other purpose except to buy things? Or is that the only way an “economist” can imagine them?

I’m sorry to burden the reader with so many questions, but the idiots running the mainstream news media in this land are not doing it and somebody has to.

If a “recovery” is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?

What’s going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy.  The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction.

Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.

The main “historic circumstance” mandating these changes goes under the heading of “peak oil.” We’ve come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine “growth” in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible.  Offsetting this decline in oil energy “input” with “alt.energy” is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera – the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.

We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life – in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other’s dangerous fantasies.

If we don’t attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate – and I use the word “dis-integrate” with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart – our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.

At the moment, banking is disintegrating.  It’s happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in “Wile E. Coyote” suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.

It’s important to remind readers that so-called “capitalism” is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology.  It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil.  All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it.

In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild – just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.

We’re now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first.  They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that “globalism,” in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement – making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. “Globalism” now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.

At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America’s leadership has dedicated itself to the worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what’s embodied in the foolish term “recovery.” The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don’t want to be crushed by history. Go back to the top of this blog and look at the things we pay attention to. Aren’t you ashamed?

I thought this column by Thomas Friedman was admirably simple, and helpful in thinking about America’s future. (here) He points out that while many people see China ascendant and the US on the downhill side, China has its own problems–an authoritarian government that censors the Internet and jails its dissidents. (He didn’t mention China’s demographic future, but that’s a big worry too.) Meanwhile, America still is a wide open society that loves imagination and entrepreneurship. He thinks that’s the best quality to bring to the economy of the 21st century.

His worry, which I share, is that we may be losing our ability to govern ourselves well–by which he means, the ability to find workable solutions to basic problems like health care and global warming. Politically, we seem to be stuck. That’s why the promise of Barack Obama was so exciting, and his failure would be so depressing. Because if he can’t move things forward under current conditions, who can? Really, who? And if we as a country can’t find answers to basic issues, what’s our future?

In a globalized world, two key factors — imagination and good governance — set prosperous nations apart from their rivals. That, at least, is what Thomas Friedman claims in his most recent column. The United States, Friedman writes, possesses the “open, free, no-limits, immigrant-friendly society” necessary for innovation to take place – a stark contrast to China, where political dissidents do jail time and Internet sites are censored. Yet the United States is quite obviously lacking in good governance. While our leaders may not agree on health care or financial regulation, few would deny that our health care system is broken or that capitalism has run amuck in recent years.

So what went wrong? In accounting for America’s bad governance, Friedman points to several culprits: the influence of money in politics, the gerrymandering of political districts, cable TV news, unending political campaigns, groupthink on the Internet, and multinational corporations. America is, in short, not polarized so much as Balkanized, and money increasingly decides which voices get heard.

Friedman’s diagnosis of the problem seems to me correct. I’m not sure, however, that the solution is as simple as he makes it. Friedman writes:

The standard answer is that we need better leaders. The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice, even pay, yes, higher taxes, and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things.

Undoubtedly, we need better citizens. Yet, in order to have better citizens, we need better governance. It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario. The more corporate lobbyists influence public policy and the outcome of elections, the more citizens tend to withdraw from politics – which, in turn, makes the lobbying problem even worse. Similarly, if better governance dependence on a well-educated citizenry, it is essential that citizens have access to responsible media outlets. But a FoxNews or MSNBC is driven less by a desire to educate than by ratings, with the result that extreme — and often ill-informed — views are much better represented than subtle analysis. Citizens can’t insist that the media adhere to higher standards if they are not aware that higher standards exist in the first place. So instead, we devote our energies to debating whether the Tea Party protesters are racists (they aren’t) or health care reform will result in death-panels (it won’t).

The second half of Friedman’s solution is as troubling as the first. Friedman urges citizens to pressure political leaders to raise taxes in order to “do the hard things” – leaving no room for the possibility that “better” citizens might be something other than “liberal” citizens. Friedman begins with a populist sentiment (“we need more engaged citizens”) and transitions – unannounced — into the liberal sentiment (“we need to pass Obama’s agenda”). Either America needs health care reform, cap-and-trade, and financial regulation above all else or America needs more civic participation. The latter will not necessarily produce the former. (I wish it would.) In this respect, Friedman’s solution is a part of the problem, which is the assumption on the part of everybody that no reasonable person would disagree with me, and that the influence of money is pernicious only when it conflicts with my agenda.

Early in March, Thomas Friedman spoke to a sold out audience at Portland State University about his latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – And How it Can Renew America. He focused his lecture – which was really just an hour-long description of his book – on the big, broad theme of ‘the Energy-Climate era’ we live in.

In the book he describes five big problems – energy supply and demand, petro-dictatorship, climate change, energy poverty, and biodiversity loss. He explains – in great detail, over many chapters of the book — how each of these problems has been growing  more serious for many years, and how they have reached a ‘critical mass’ or a ‘tipping point’ in the last few years.

Friedman is very America-centric.  He seems to believe that America – and only America – can solve the world’s environmental problems.  But he does recognize (and illustrates it rather humorously) that the rest of the world does not always agree with him.  He started his lecture the way he starts his book: with an advertising slogan appearing on a billboard in South Africa by Daimler promoting the Smart “forfour” car.  “German Engineering, Swiss innovation, American nothing.”

Friedman ended his lecture the way he ends his book:  with a story from a eulogy given by Amory Lovins at a memorial service for the environmental pioneer Dana Meadows. Lovins describes an email that he received from Dana about a father home alone with his daughter.  ‘He was trying to read the paper but was totally frustrated by the constant interruptions.  When he came across a full page of the NASA photo of the Earth from space, he got a brilliant idea.  He ripped it up into small pieces and told his child to try to put it back together.  He then settled in for what he expected to be a good half-hour of peace and quiet.  But only a few minutes had gone by before the child appeared at his side with a big grin on her face.  ‘You’ve finished already?’ he asked.  ‘Yep’ she replied.  ‘So how did you do it?’  ‘Well, I saw there was a picture of a person on the other side, so when I put the person together, the Earth got put together too.”

It’s a good story and it reflects Friedman’s optimism that we humans can solve these global problems.  It also reflects the beauty of the organization I work for, ELAW, which is a global network of environmental and human rights advocates:  Connecting people – putting people together –  might be the best way to protect our planet.

Thomas Friedman brought us one of the best opinion pieces that I have read in a long while yesterday. It seemed to be inspired by two things, the prominence of Sarah Palin in the news lately, and the struggle of climate bills to pass legislation. He didn’t specifically mention Palin, which was nice to see, but he referenced her notorious catch phrase, “drill baby drill.” The reason this article was so good was that it was a near perfectly sound logical argument. He laid out a straightforward case to explain why alternative energy and climate bills are good, regardless of one’s stance on global warming or off-shore drilling. He showed the hypocrisy of the proponents of keeping oil as the primary source of energy, and he did it in a fashion that was structured so well that it is almost impossible to miss his point. Opinion-based journalism in all areas is missing the logical connection in argumentation. Arguments are made but proper reasoning is lacking, Friedman got past this. Here is an excerpt from his piece:

So, as I said, you don’t believe in global warming? You’re wrong, but I’ll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away. But if you also don’t believe the world is getting more crowded with more aspiring Americans — and that ignoring that will play to the strength of our worst enemies, while responding to it with clean energy will play to the strength of our best technologies — then you’re willfully blind, and you’re hurting America’s future to boot.

I strongly suggest giving the article an entire read through.

I don’t know what to believe, but I’ve determined it doesn’t really matter.

Does carbon affect the world’s temperature? And if so, how much? If a lot, is it a problem? And if it’s a problem, is it a big one? If it’s a big one, can we fix or reverse it? If the former, at what cost — at a cost greater than that we’d bear by living with the problem? And if the latter, again, at what cost? And — perhaps most important of all — is technology already moving us quickly along Green Street anyway, at such a clip that overbearing government action would be redundant at best and unnecessarily self-destructive at worst?

There are too many questions here and no one is smart enough to know all the answers.

Many who answer the first question affirmatively say that, though the science is there, its implications aren’t: a warmer globe isn’t that big a deal. Still others say it’s a problem, it’s a big problem — but there’s little to nothing we can do about it. And still other believers who say it’s a big problem and there’s something we can do to fix or reverse it say there’s no way we could possibly afford to do so.

Wow. What a mess. So is there a way around the science? Some sort of common ground outside the problem that might make it easier for those of us who lack climatology degrees? I believe the answer is yes.

Whether Thomas Friedman is right that global warming is a problem worth making a huge fuss over — and therefore whether the science is there — is totally irrelevant: there are too many other good reasons to get off the slick stuff that powers our cars and the sooty stuff that warms our homes. Both are dirty, unhealthy, and too many of our enemies comprise the group with the largest stores of oil for it to remain safe economically and in terms of our own national security for too much longer.

In short, man’s impact on global warming is irrelevant. There are too many other settled, noncontroversial reasons to find a better, cleaner way to power our lives.

Conservatives like to say the world is cooling. They think they’re clever. All this cooling trend could mean is that the models didn’t predict some other factor that’s now masking the warming effects of carbon, and when this other variable’s effects wear off and the world is that much more carbony and the world warms all over again, but this time much more because we will not have slowed carbon output down—then what? Then what will conservatives say? It’s time to forget about the science; I repeat, no one knows what the hell is going on in the air up there. We should consider ourselves lucky that there are good reasons to kick the carbon habit, forget about the debate and whether it’s over, and then do what we can to assure that Democrats don’t blow this with yet another terrible solution or set of solutions.

Instead, what we conservatives should do is admit that the science might be there and then ask the public whether the way liberals plan to deal with the science is prudent – or at least more so than other sensible solutions. Conservatives should focus exclusively on the fact that what the liberals propose to get us off oil and coal amounts to a cure that’s worse than the disease. Taxing carbon is just plain dumb economics, not to mention that there are more constructive ways to expedite oil and coal’s extinction.

The first solution is nuclear power. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a climate-change believer and longtime nuclear-power advocate, says we could reach what the Kyoto Protocol (way back in 1990) set as its goal for 2030’s carbon limits by building 100 new nuclear plants and electrifying half our cars and trucks.

Think about that.

By doing these two simple things, we can accomplish in the next 20 years what Kyoto hoped it could accomplish in 40.

And that’s the difference between the liberal and conservative approach (not just here; this is a systemic, holistic difference between the two schools of thought). Taxing and punishing an economy into compliance is much harder and takes far longer than simply creating positive incentives to encourage our economy to move in a smarter direction.

But what I believe doesn’t really matter. Democrats are hellbent on steamrolling the economy into submission to Mother Earth, whether that’s the best solution or not to a problem no one is 100% sure even exists.

“Globalization involves the inexorable integration of markets, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before – in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations, and nation states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than before, and in a way that is also producing a powerful backlash from those brutalized or left behind by this new system.”

(A note from Robert:  During this month we are promoting our Brazil contest, we present the following story from redd-monitor.org).

Why did Conservation International invite Thomas Friedman to go to Brazil? By Chris Lang, 12th November 2009  Friedman  Thomas Friedman’s most recent column for the New York Times comes from Tapajós National Forest, Brazil. His trip was organised by Conservation International and the Brazilian government (Friedman doesn’t say who paid). Conservation International could not have chosen a better journalist to back up their pro-carbon market ideology. Friedman, author of The World is Flat and Hot, Flat and Crowded, firmly believes that markets are the solution, regardless of the question. Even better, Friedman is incapable of putting forward an argument. He doesn’t even try. He simply makes statements and assumes that because he’s made them they must be true. His latest offering “Trucks, Trains and Trees“, reveals his genius for taking a complex issue and rendering it as complete gobbledygook.  Friedman’s story is straightforward enough: Man flies from the USA to the Brazilian rainforest. The rainforest is full of trees. Saving the rainforest will allow man to continue flying.  Matt Taibbi, the journalist who recently described Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid“, points out that Friedman doesn’t actually do anything except write books and newspaper columns. “So in my mind it’s highly relevant if his manner of speaking is fucked,” Taibbi writes. Taibbi has taken apart Thomas Friedman’s manner of speaking on several (very entertaining) occasions.  “No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over,” Friedman starts his article. The statistic he’s talking about is the “roughly 17 per cent” of global emissions coming from deforestation. That statistic doesn’t bowl me over. It became a cliché several years ago. Clearly, Friedman hasn’t heard this statistic very often, which perhaps indicates how much research Friedman did before writing this article. Last week, Friedman’s friends at Conservation International signed a statement that states “The best current estimate would be about 15% if peat degradation is included.” Without peat degradation (Friedman does not mention peat in his article) the figure is more like 12%.  Friedman continues:      “It is going to be a long time before we transform the world’s transportation fleet so it is emission-free. But right now — like tomorrow — we could eliminate 17 percent of all global emissions if we could halt the cutting and burning of tropical forests.”  To Friedman, then, “right now” is the same as “like tomorrow”. Perhaps he’s never had to negotiate with a five year old child who is threatening to throw his wallet down the toilet. Otherwise he would recognise the difference between “Give me the wallet, right now” and “Give me the wallet, like tomorrow”.  Friedman can see no way to change the world’s transportation fleet overnight, so he suggests we forget that inconvenient source of emissions. But stopping deforestation? Easy. So why don’t we do it “right now – like tomorrow”?  In the next sentence Friedman explains what we have to do to stop all deforestation:      “to do that requires putting in place a whole new system of economic development — one that makes it more profitable for the poorer, forest-rich nations to preserve and manage their trees rather than to chop them down to make furniture or plant soybeans.”  So all we need is a “whole new system of economic development”. Why didn’t Friedman tell us how to stop deforestation decades ago? Friedman, the great proponent of globalisation and neo-liberalism, has gone anti-capitalist. No really. Here’s what he says next: “Without a new system for economic development in the timber-rich tropics, you can kiss the rainforests goodbye. The old model of economic growth will devour them.”  The genius of Friedman is that just as we’re trying to wrap our heads around whatever it is he’s talking about, he throws a Friedmanism at us. “The only Amazon your grandchildren will ever relate to is the one that ends in dot-com and sells books.”  I suspect that the vast majority of the grandchildren of readers of the New York Times relate to the Amazon rainforest through books, TV programmes and the internet. Most of them will not be invited by Conservation International to fly there. How does anyone “relate to” an ecosystem covering 5.5 million square kilometres in nine countries? What is Friedman talking about?  Taibbi makes fun of Friedman’s ability to screw up, not sometimes, but always: “He has an anti-ear, and it’s absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius.” Taibbi’s right. Why on earth did Friedman add the words “and sells books” to the end of his sentence about the Amazon? How many readers of the New York Times don’t know that the website Amazon-dot-com sells books?  Friedman tells us he’s gone to Brazil “to better understand this issue”. But Friedman writes by talking to himself. Here he is flying over the Amazon:      “Flying in here by prop plane from Manaus, you can understand why the Amazon rainforest is considered one of the lungs of the world. Even from 20,000 feet, all you see in every direction is an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops that, from the air, looks like a vast and endless carpet of broccoli.”  Who considers the Amazon rainforest “one of the lungs of the world”? Friedman isn’t telling. Trust me, Friedman says, if you flew over the Amazon, then you too would know why the Amazon is considered to be one of the lungs of the world.  But if the Amazon is one of the lungs, where is the other one? The Congo, Indonesia, Siberia, Canada? How much forest do you need before it becomes a lung? How many lungs does the world have?  Friedman tells us he flew over “an unbroken expanse of rainforest treetops”. Crikey. What did Friedman expect to see while flying above the biggest area of rainforest in the world other than treetops? Skyscapers? Spaghetti junction? The Star Ship Enterprise?  The combination of “vast and endless” is another Friedmanism. The Amazon is vast, but it is not endless. If Friedman thinks it’s endless, that’s because he’s forgotten that when his plane took off from the USA, he was not in the Amazon rainforest.  Here’s what Friedman learned when his plane landed (he doesn’t tell us how the plane got through the unbroken expanse of treetops, or the endless carpet of broccoli, but apparently it did):      “What you learn when you visit with a tiny Brazilian community that actually lives in, and off, the forest is a simple but crucial truth: To save an ecosystem of nature, you need an ecosystem of markets and governance.”  Friedman doesn’t tell us what he saw or heard in the community to reach this conclusion, apart from one villager who told him “We were born inside the forest. So we know the importance of it being preserved, but we need better access to global markets for the products we make here. Can you help us with that?” (That, incidentally, is the only quotation in the article from anyone living in the Amazon.)  Friedman does not explain what on earth he’s talking about when he says “an ecosystem of markets and governance.” Perhaps this is the “new system for economic development” that he mentioned earlier on. José María Silva, vice president for South America of Conservation International, tells Friedman that “You need a new model of economic development — one that is based on raising people’s standards of living by maintaining their natural capital, not just by converting that natural capital to ranching or industrial farming or logging.” So now we have Friedman and Conservation International saying the same thing about economic development. On planet Friedman, that makes it true. No need for anything pesky like arguments or evidence.  Friedman tells us that “Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples. Another 19 percent of the Amazon, though, has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers.” He doesn’t tell us where those numbers come from, he just tells us that 38% of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest is still “up for grabs”.  Then Friedman reveals that he’s not gone anti-capitalist after all. In fact, his “whole new system of economic development” looks a lot like CO2lonialism:      “The more we get the Brazilian system to work, the more of that 38 percent will be preserved and the less carbon reductions the whole world would have to make. But it takes money.”  This, then, is Friedman’s solution. Brazil has to stop deforestation so that the rest of the world can carry on polluting.      [W]e need to make sure that whatever energy-climate bill comes out of the U.S. Congress, and whatever framework comes out of the Copenhagen conference next month, they include provisions for financing rainforest conservation systems like those in Brazil. The last 38 percent of the Amazon is still up for grabs. It is there for us to save. Your grandchildren will thank you.  Needless to say, Friedman doesn’t explain how “we” are supposed to influence the U.S. energy-climate bill or the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Or what “we” are supposed to do to “save” the 38 per cent of the Brazilian Amazon that is “still up for grabs”.  Trading forest carbon, which seems to be what Friedman is proposing as a solution (although not explicitly), would create a vast loophole allowing business as usual (at least for the countries and corporations that can afford to buy the carbon credits – the same countries and corporations that created the climate problem in the first place).  On planet Friedman, as long as the “vast and endless carpet of broccoli” is still there, there’s no need to “transform the world’s transportation fleet so it is emission-free”. And on planet Friedman there’s no meaningful discussion of the issues involved. Presumably that’s why Conservation International invited Friedman to go to Brazil.

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Friedman shares the following statistic in his latest Times column:

Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year. The amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, all those cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo.

We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year, and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change.

- Gyro

HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 12. November 2009

Ich weiß nicht, ob ein Redakteur beim The Scotsman beabsichtigte, diesen Artikel über Benjamin Netanjahus Besuch im Weißen Haus als Nachricht, Kommentar oder irgendetwas Undefinierbares dazwischen abzufassen, als sogenannte „Nachrichtenanalyse“ oder ähnliches.

Aber ich weiß, dass das Ding in der Sparte “Nachrichten International“ steht. Ben Lynfield schreibt:

Vor dem Treffen mit US-Präsident Barack Obama am Montag im Weißen Haus hielt Israels Premierminister, Benjamin Netanyahu vor amerikanischen jüdischen Führungskräften eine Rede mit den üblichen Wunsch-nach-Frieden-Klischees, ohne zu berücksichtigen, dass es jahrelanges leeres Gerede über Frieden ist, während Israel sich hinter seiner Besatzungspolitik verschanzt und mehr Land an sich reißt, was Abbas’ Eintreten für Verhandlungen vor seinem eigenen Volk unglaubwürdig macht.

Ich würde nicht mit der Wimper zucken, wenn es sich hier um einen Gastkommentar oder eine ausgewiesene Analyse handelte.

Aber wenn The Scotsman das hier als objektive, akzeptable Nachrichtenarbeit ausgibt, kann ich den gleichen Schund über palästinensische Medien bekommen, wo es weder Vortäuschung noch Erwartung fairer Berichterstattung gibt.

UPDATE 13.00 Uhr: Dies hier könnte ein Beispiel für eine künstlich erzeugte israelische “Glaubwürdigkeitslücke” sein, wie Haviv Rettig Gur aufdröselt:

Die wahrscheinlichere Ursache für diese Skepsis scheint das Bestreben zu sein, israelische Unnachgiebigkeit aufzubauen, um die gegenwärtige palästinensische Handlungsunfähigkeit – hervorgegangen aus internen politischen Aktivitäten der Palästinenser – dazu auszunutzen, zu Verhandlungen zu gelangen.

Diplomaten (und, wie auch bei Thomas Friedman, die ihre meiste Zeit mit ihnen verbringen,) sind es nicht gewohnt, einen „Konflikt“ zu erkennen, in dem die taktisch schwächere Seite auch die kriegführende ist. Mit einer PA, die den totalen Stopp des Siedlungsbaus als Vorbedingung für verlangt, wetteifern Diplomaten, eine äquivalente israelische Abneigung gegen einen Frieden zu finden.

Gurs Einschätzung ist es wert, gelesen zu werden [In Englisch].

It will probably come as no surprise to the DBIH readership that I generally despise self-important columnists who portray themselves as profound and innovative when they’re just taking things that are totally common knowledge and making them sound cool by using a thesaurus and random cultural references. Obviously, at the top of the list is Maureen Dowd, who is both a screeching harpy and a ginger-by-choice (fun factoid: she has a bright pink jukebox in her living room, which is clearly visible from the street. Maureen: the jukebox does not match your decor. It’s not kitschy, it’s ugly, like your face.)

Also on the list is Thomas Friedman, partially because he has a moustache, partially because he’s one of the worst offenders of “making common knowledge sound exciting by saying really stupid things.” Thomas Freidman- we all know globalization exists. It’s really no longer interesting to talk about how there are McDonalds everywhere (except ICELAND, but they don’t have an economy so no money for Big Macs).

Look at this guy.

Yet, as of late, I’ve found myself having what I like to call “Tom Friedman moments,” just to be facetious. Here’s one, presented in the form of a particularly epic g-chat conversation between Jappy and me. (NB: names have been changed. also, I might have edited the conversations for clarity, and to make us sound less stupid.)

Afrika: have arrived at s$$. i love this place

Jappy: I’m in s$$ too

Afrika: ITS LIKE WE’RE IN THE SAME PLACE

Jappy: hahahahahah

IT IS

Afrika: sitting in starbucks on different continents

that are exactly the same

we’re probably looking at the same art right now

Jappy: we probably are

Afrika: creepy

i just tweeted at thomas friedman about us

Prediction: This will replace the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum once the UK is forced to send them back to Greece.

Yes, there is a Starbucks in the Forbidden City. No, this is not a sign of the incoming downfall of Western Civilization. Sometimes, people just need a latte.

Washington Post:  “White House communications director Anita Dunn will step down from her post at the end of the month and Dan Pfeiffer, her deputy, will take over, according to sources familiar with the move.”

• Yes, she took over on an “interim basis,” but it’s not a coincidence she is leaving the White House a month after attacking Fox News. I find it odd that Obama never really talked about the clash at the time and still has yet to speak out on it.

• Take away: Obama doesn’t want to start a war with Fox News, though Fox might want him to.

MSNBC: “A memorial to honor a Sept. 11 victim from a small northwestern Connecticut town has been halted by the unexpected conflict arising from his father’s insistence it say his son was murdered by “Muslim terrorists.”

• First of all, why would anyone want to acknowledge how your son died on his memorial, let alone who killed him? I thought the purpose of a memorial was to remember those who have fallen (in this instance), not how they fell.
• I agree with the town officials. Here is the winning quote, “James was a lovely young man.  Something that would memorialize him rather than focus on the horror of that time would be so much better.”
• Since 9/11 and Muslim terrorists were mentioned in the same sentence, Fox News had to come to the rescue. Bill O’Reilly supports the father and considered staging a march.
• Take Away: I don’t see this being a major story without O’Reilly yapping about it.  This is how pundits have become psuedo-journalists. They find stories that the mainstream media do not cover, blow them out of proportion, and lather them in their opinion.

New York Times: “Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials.”

• Blackwater, no matter how many times it changes its name,will always carry a bad connotation, and this latest story won’t help. A report on corrupt contractors on the same day we celebrate our great veterans is a disgrace.

• Take away: Private contractors have been bad news, are bad news, and will always be bad news.

• Further Reading: The Imperial Life in the Emerald City.  Details the “Green Zone” and the contractors that work there.

Good Editorial in the New York Times: Discusses how the Interstate highway system is a great natural resource.

Thomas Friedman’s Editorial in the NYT: Typical Friedman column with stats and an anecdote about deforestation in Brazil.

As anyone who has been involved in peace-making efforts between Israelis and Palestinians knows, there comes a moment where you are compelled to say “fuck it.” This is the moment when you say to yourself: “Let’s be honest, this peace-process is an exercise in futility. These people deserve each other. I am going to wash my hands clean of this mess. Fuck it!”

Yesterday, Thomas Friedman had his own “fuck it” moment. He shared it with the world, arguing in the NYT that until Israelis and Palestinians reach a mutually hurting stalemate, until both parties prove they really want peace, the United States should remove itself completely from the peace process.

Have a read:

Today, the Arabs, Israel and the Palestinians are clearly not feeling enough pain to do anything hard for peace with each other — a mood best summed up by a phrase making the rounds at the State Department: The Palestinian leadership “wants a deal with Israel without any negotiations” and Israel’s leadership “wants negotiations with the Palestinians without any deal.”

It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

If we are still begging Israel to stop building settlements, which is so manifestly idiotic, and the Palestinians to come to negotiations, which is so manifestly in their interest, and the Saudis to just give Israel a wink, which is so manifestly pathetic, we are in the wrong place. It’s time to call a halt to this dysfunctional “peace process,” which is only damaging the Obama team’s credibility.

If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties, then I say, let them enjoy it. I just don’t want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore. We need to fix America. If and when they get serious, they’ll find us. And when they do, we should put a detailed U.S. plan for a two-state solution, with borders, on the table. Let’s fight about something big.

Against the assessment of his national security adviser, the president will reportedly increase the U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan by 34,000 in 2010.

President Barack Obama could announce he will send another 34,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan after completing a week-long trip to Asia and a Nov. 23 meeting with NATO allies, Jonathan Landay reports at McClatchy.

Officials within the military and the Obama Administration confirm the plan will add:

• One Marine and three Army brigades, totaling up to 23,000 combat and support troops;
• 7,000 troops to “man and support a new division headquarters for the international force’s Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar”; and
• Up to 4,000 additional trainers

Though the plan falls well short of the request following the assessment of General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who said the situation was risking “mission failure” without a full-scale counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. The “low risk option”, he reportedly said, would be an increase of 80,000 troops. , Mr. Landay reported October 16 with Nancy Youssef.

Officials told them “his medium risk option” was an increase of 40- to 45,000 troops with around 20,000 being a “high risk option”. They added that the U.S. can only send an additional 30,000 troops “without putting excessive strains on the Army and Marine Corps” and report that Gen. McChrystal says that such a plan would not suffice.

Saturday’s report adds, with Nancy Youssef and John Walcott contributing:

Coalition forces now include 67,000 U.S. and 42,000 troops from other countries. The Army’s counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan’s population would require about 600,000 troops.

Although the administration privately is holding out little hope of persuading Canada or the Netherlands to abandon their plans to withdraw combat troops, much less getting additional allied troops, it wants to avoid creating the impression—at home and abroad—that the U.S. “is going it alone” in Afghanistan, said one military official.

In an interview with The New York Times, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, “complained that the American administration is leaving its NATO allies in the dark about its new strategy”, McClatchy adds.

The Administration also wants “time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress—which must agree to fund the administration’s plan—that the war, now in its ninth year and inflicting rising casualties, is one of ‘necessity’, as Obama said earlier this year”.

General James Jones, national security adviser to the Administration, told Der Spiegel, this weekend: “Generals always ask for more troops…. You can keep on putting troops in, and you could have 200,000 troops there and Afghanistan will swallow them up as it has done in the past.”

Instead of a nation-building mission, Gen. Jones said the focus should be “a better plan with the allies to gradually turn over responsibility for the country to Afghan institutions and organizations in as short a time as possible”, adding: “And we will put much more emphasis on battling corruption and putting competent and honest people in positions of authority. We will be working with our friends and allies to do that.”

“Other military officers, particularly in the Army, warn that committing more troops to Afghanistan could risk ‘breaking’ the force by reducing the time soldiers can spend at home between deployments, overtaxing equipment and destroying families,” McClatchy reports. “Those problems could worsen if Iraq’s January elections are delayed or disrupted, and with them the administration’s timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from that country.”

The Administration made it clear that withdrawing was not an option on the table. The only alternative to a COIN strategy—focused on aiding the Afghan government in establishing its monopoly on power and “winning the hearts and minds” of the local population—was a counterterrorism (CT) strategy, proposed by Vice President Joe Biden, to focus on targeted assassinations stretching into Pakistan.

The assassinations would target leaders of the Taliban and al-Qa’ida, according to intelligence and committed by unmanned aircrafts (drones). The Administration has committed more airstrikes in 2009 than the Bush Administration did in the three years prior—greatly increasing the civilian casualties, aiding militant recruiting and further dividing the population away from sympathizing with ISAF.

Early on, it seemed this proposal was not taken seriously. The rhetoric just wasn’t as blunt as the president saying a “drastic reduction in troops” was “not an option”. Officials and experts have all predicted the president would add at least 10- to 15,000 more troops, but nowhere near 80,000 to find what’s been called a “middle ground”.

The mainstream poli-intellectual class is generally only criticizing policy, not ethics. They don’t form opinions as the ‘op’ in ‘op-ed’ would suggest. They identify two, maybe three, common threads that seem to be regurgitated most and pick a bandwagon. The so-called ‘realists’ usually deviate by immediately brushing off the most extremely hawkish ‘option’ as devoid of reality and the most ethical as… devoid of reality. Only their opinion, the most controversial of the three, said in a calm tone, in true reality [sic].

David Ignatius at The Washington Post (WaPo), reporting from Afghanistan, strongly supports a heavy increase in troops: “I think he should add enough troops to continue the mission he endorsed in March to ‘reverse the Taliban’s gains‘ and improve security in Afghanistan’s population centers. I don’t know whether the right number is the roughly 40,000 that Gen. Stanley McChrystal has recommended, but it should be the minimum number necessary.”

Thomas Friedman at the NYT was, surprisingly, more realistic that usual: “We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.”

Fareed Zakaria, international editor of Newsweek, is predictably following the lead of Thomas Ricks, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Mr. Ricks and his cronies are pushing a COIN-CT hybrid—population control in the urban areas and targeted assassinations in the rural areas and Pakistan.

“I think Gen. McChrystal’s plan, which calls for a major troop increase in order to carry out a counterinsurgency campaign, is better than any alternative I can see (especially a return to whack-a-mole counterterrorism, supposedly advocated by VP Biden),” Mr. Ricks wrote at The Daily Beast.

“In other words, let the Taliban try to set up bases in these remote areas with prickly locals. NATO forces can then periodically disrupt the Taliban rather than the other way around,” Mr. Zakaria follows-up in his Newsweek column, after Mr. Ricks gave his take on Mr. Zakaria’s CNN Sunday program, the week before. “In fact, the crucial judgments that have to be made involve what the troops will do and how much of Afghanistan to cover. Ricks said to me, ‘Why not do the Petraeus plan [counterinsurgency] for the major population centers and the Biden plan [counterterrorism] for the rest of the country?’ That sounds like a middle course that is smart and practical, which might need some more forces or perhaps can make do with the almost 100,000 already there.”

And there you have it. ‘Realpolitik‘ in action. CNAS is the new PNAC.

There’s an opinion missing from the intellectual circle jerk, though…. The people who actually own the land ISAF is occupying: the Afghan people.

“If the foreign forces are not seen so by Afghans already, they are on the cusp of being regarded as occupiers, with little to show people for their extended presence, fueling wild conspiracies about why they remain here,” Alissa Rubin reports at the NYT (on Saturday, when no one reads it).

Sean Smith of the London Guardian spent a month with U.S. troops and saw the Afghans make it very clear they want the troops to leave (7:09):

C.I.A. and military officials have confirmed that Ahmed Wali Karzai, provincial council chairman of Kandahar and brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “gets regular payments from the [Agency], and has for much of the past eight years”.

“He helps the C.I.A. operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists,” the report added.

A top former Afghan Interior Ministry official familiar with Afghan counternarcotics operations said that “a major source of Mr. Karzai’s influence over the drug trade” is “his control over key bridges”, making him “able to charge huge fees to drug traffickers to allow their drug-laden trucks to cross the bridges”.

One has to ask about the ones who have been assassinated by U.S. forces from leads out of the C.I.A. The poppy fields selected to be incinerated. The traveling factions hunted down.

The targets chosen by Mr. Karzai to ’supply information’ to the C.I.A. are obviously the people not paying the taxman. The U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime reported the Taliban is also collecting taxes. Of course, the Karzais want a surge of foreign forces. They want to knock out the tax-collecting competition like any mafia called a “government”. And as the Karzais receive more beef, the resistance polarizes: it significantly fights back which begs for more C.I.A.; or goes away and the Karzais get their opium monopoly.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to the Carter Administration and architect of the mujahideen insurgency to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is largely critical of the U.S. self-defeating strategy.

He notes to al Jazeera that the 2001 U.S. invasion started with the Air Force, a small number of Special Forces troops in the hundreds that sustained a larger partnership with homegrown resistance—mostly, cynical druglords whose interests were plundered by the ruling Taliban—and there was little resistance from the locals after the small Taliban ruling faction was overthrown. But now, the U.S. troop levels are over 60,000 and the “military commanders are telling us we’re not winning. What’s that tell you? Where’s the resistance? Obviously, it’s from the Taliban.”

But it’s not “The Taliban”, as in those overthrown in 2001. He continues: “It’s Afghans. Afghans who increasingly identify themselves with something they were pleased to be seen overthrown eight years ago. That’s a bad trend.”

Asked if the U.S. is following a trend similar to that of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan—which led to the U.S.S.R. demise—in the 80’s, he replies, “I’ve been saying that for three years.” Last month, he said it was due to the “Afghan perception that [U.S. troops] are foreign invaders“.

The U.S. and U.K. presence in Central Asia is largely due to its natural gas resources and Afghanistan is necessary for a pipeline, former U.K. ambassador Craig Murray says.

“Enron acquired Uzbekistan’s natural gas rights. Turkmenistan, next door to Uzbekistan, has even more natural gas, incredible amounts of natural gas,” he says. “The natural gas reserves of Turkmenistan are equal in worth to the oil reserves of Iraq, if not greater. But you can’t get it out. There’s no way out of Central Asia for this oil and gas, except through Russia, and the Russians won’t let it go to the West, or through Iran, which the Americans aren’t keen on. The only way to get it out would be to have a pipeline going over Afghanistan.”

He added: “There are so many lies about Afghanistan. It’s about money, it’s about oil, it’s about drugs, it’s about the abuse of human rights, it’s about degradation, and it’s about all of us paying, through our taxes, for wars which benefit a tiny clique.”

I contribute my eating disorder to many different factors, but I would say that the biggest player in the game would be not feeling good enough. Like all overachievers, growing up, I never felt good enough. I have mostly learned to do what I’m good at in order to actually feel good enough. Which is incidentally why I am writing this blog right now- because I am just feeling terribly insecure and not good enough.

Earlier today, at the HCC southwest campus there was a sort of panel/discussion of the book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman. My humanities teacher was on the panel, and told our honor’s class that if we went and wrote a summary of the discussion that we could get extra credit. Now, all of our classes are at the Central campus, so we’d have to commute over there between classes.

Let me backpedal here for a moment- I can’t say that I have really made any good friends in the honor’s program. I like everyone and all, but I do feel terribly left out. So I decided, today, that I would try and get some friends to ride with me to the discussion, so that I could try and build some relationships. I thought that maybe the reason I wasn’t making any friends was because I needed to make more of an effort, so I decided to make the effort. In fact, this morning, I got up early to clean out my car to impress my new friends, whoever so chose to ride with me.

After our History class, we were all talking about who was going to the discussion and someone offered to give people rides, so I decided that was the perfect time to speak up as well. I said, “Ya, I can take some people too.” We were all sort of looking around, so I only let it hang in the air for a moment before moving on. Nobody accepted my offer, but I was determined to find some friends to ride with me.

As I was walking to my car, I walked slowly, hoping someone would catch up with me, and I could extend the offer. Nobody did, but I decided to swing by the Honor’s Lounge to see if anyone there was going and wanted to ride with me. There was nobody in there; I’m assuming they were already heading to the conference.

I almost didn’t want to go to the discussion, but I decided to go. More often than not, when I decide that I don’t want to do something that I know I really want to do, I regret greatly if I don’t do it. I decided to drive alone, in my clean car, if nothing but for the extra credit.

When I got to the conference, there were dozens of round tables set up, and I searched earnestly, yet quickly so as not to appear desperate. When I realized that I didn’t recognize anyone, I walked up to a table and asked the girl sitting there, “Can I sit here?” extending my arm to the chair next to her.

She looked up at me and 3 seconds went by, which is a long time to not get a response, so I said, “O sorry. I’ll just sit somewhere else.”

And she said, like you would say to a homeless person or someone else that you feel sorry for, “No, you can sit here.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

I decided to go to the restroom and hoped that when I got back, I would recognize someone.

I came back to the room, looking around for someone I recognized. Then, suddenly, one of my fellow honor’s classmates waved at me, so I went to sit at the table she was at. She was sitting with our professor and some other professors as well as the leaders of our Honor’s Society chapter. I felt sort of uncomfortable sitting there because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance to jet out early because I was sitting right up front. I didn’t mind though because she had waved me down; she pursued me. She was my confidant.

However, moments before the discussion started, she got up from the table, with no explanation and went to sit in the back. I wanted to look back at her to see where she was sitting- where I could move to that was safer. But I couldn’t look back now; I would appear even more desperate and lost than I already was: sitting at a table with everyone that was soon going to be on stage.

I pictured it: everyone at my table going up on stage; me: sitting at the table alone.

“I didn’t know the table was reserved,” I would say with my eyes as everyone wondered why I was sitting by myself.

“I was practically invited to sit here, but then my invitee left me for people who are more fun.” I explained in the hypothetical situation in my mind: trying to fight back loneliness.

I can’t remember the last time that I’ve had a best friend. “boo hoo,” I know. Poor, pitiful me. But today was the embodiment of the rejection that I have always felt by friends that I’ve had. Sure, I was their best friend for a short time, but I was always left for the more-fun, party girl. It sounds so high school- and maybe that’s because this was when it happened.

It sounds so pitiful, and I hate writing this, “Feel sorry for me” complaint, but sometimes you just feel so alone, you know? I have Sergio, and he’s my best friend. But there’s just something so terribly depressing about going out alone or even staying in alone with he’s on tour, recording, etc.

What’s worse is that I don’t know how to make friends. I have dreams about having girlfriends to go and have drinks with or go shopping with. But if I hang out with anyone when Sergio is busy, it’s my mom. Who, ironically, was my reason for feeling not good enough for the first 18 years of my life. But now, aside from Sergio, she’s the only person that I feel good enough when I’m around.

I know this pity party is so self-indulgent, but after feeling so bad all day, indulging myself in the blog is the only thing that makes me feel better.

During my long week of ill health, I cleared out most of my DVR, including the several episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher. Maher is a fifty-fifty pundit–he has just enough information to ask questions, to make a joke or two, but never enough to be truly informed. That being said, he sure can build a panel.

On 10/02/09, Maher had a panel that included Thomas Friedman. (Download it here, subscribe to the audio podcast via iTunes or here.) Friedman is a columnist for the New York Times whose subject, generally, is economics as well as foreign policy. He had a very insightful take on suicide bombers, and Islam, and the Muslim world:

Thomas Friedman: I mean, just remember that a lot of the suicide bombing that’s going on today is inside of Pakistan, and is Sunnis against Shiites. It’s inside Iraq, Sunnis against Shiites. I think foreign policy is part of it, I think that’s one of the things that feeds it. I think that, also, religion is something that feeds it. But to me, it’s–another part of this is a deep sense–it goes back to the religion–is that these young men are raised with the view that they have the most–that Islam, and this is not a criticism–is that Islam sees itself as the most perfect expression of God’s monotheistic message.

If I were to put it in computer terms, Islam sees itself as God 3.0. It sees Christianity as God 2.0. it sees Judaism as God 1.0, and Hinduism as God 0.0. And I think part of the dissonance, Bill, is that when they come here or to Europe, in their identity they have the most perfect system. But in real life, their countries are economically behind, in terms of education [they're] behind. And there’s a real dissonance: if I have the most perfect operating system, why am I behind?

And I think that produces a lot of rage too. It is about foreign policy, it is about what we do. And it’s also about how much they hate their own government, who also keep them down, oppressed, behind.

Is he right, do you think? Or is that too simplistic?

Author: Matt Lehr
Source: ezinearticles.com

I originally decided to take on “The World is Flat” due to the recommendations it received from, Find Email, a few other books I was reading.I believe two or three other authors made reference to the book and it led me to realize that I also needed to read this work as it was coming so highly recommended.The book was introduced to me as an understanding of outsourcing, Find Email, in the 21st century and a chance to learn the details about how others were properly utilizing a cheap Indian labor force.While this theory is discussed in detail, “The World is Flat” turned out to be so much more than just a “how to guide” to outsourcing.I quickly learned that that the book was about the development of the flat world, the factors, Find Email, that flattened it, and all the resulting effects that has had and will have on modern America.

Before jumping into all the factors that helped to create a flat world,, Find Email, Friedman discusses the key development that truly led us to the mass communication system we currently live in; fiber optic cables.He comments that during the internet, Find Email, bubble in the early 2000’s that growth potential seemed limitless to investors and high tech companies and this led them to lay billions of dollars of underwater fiber optic, Find Email, cable across the world.So much of this cable was laid and when the dot com bubble burst, suddenly the value of all these cables was, Find Email, basically zero.Most of the companies and investors, Find Email, in these projects went bust, yet the result left thousands of miles, Find Email, of cables stretching across the world. Others were able to buy up this equipment for pennies on the dollar and suddenly the transfer of information across the world was virtually free.Friedman explains this in detail, and how this is the ultimate, Find Email,, Find Email, factor which led to the flat world and created the true outsourcing opportunities we have today.

The interested thing about outsourcing is this; many people have always believed that it was something reserved for major corporations and the super rich, with time to invest in the research and development of an overseas, Find Email, team.What Friedman highlights, and I have personally discovered, is that in a flat world, this is no longer the case, Find Email, .Outsourcing has been reduced to be both affordable and easy for the everyday man and now we all have the ability to move labor overseas.This brings, Find Email, us to the first major point of “The World is Flat”, outsourcing, Find Email, for everybody.

Outsourcing for everybody, as I like to call it, is exactly what it sounds like.From doctors to lawyers, from house cleaners to landscapers, and from sales to customer support, there is a way to outsource any aspect of your job or of your company.Modern day technology coupled with some American based companies, have really, Find Email, brought this fact to light.These American based companies have pre-assembled team in places like Bangalore, India, and you can contract out the work through them.With one phone call or email, these companies will find, Find Email, and assign someone in India to be your virtual assistant based on the task at hand.Is your accounting firm overworked and in need of help?Well dial up an assistant in India to start putting together all the tax returns for your clients.Even with their growing economy the fair wage scale in India is still far less than in the US.Most likely what you will find is that you can pay someone half the price, to do twice as good a job.Friedman points out that if you think this, Find Email, scenario sounds ridiculous, think again, as the majority of accounting firms are already doing exactly this.

So how can this benefit you?Well I have discovered a completely online based system similar to those described in “The World is Flat”, called Odesk (www.odesk.com).Odesk is essentially a Craigslist and Facebook crammed together to build an outsourced labor force.People from across the globe post their, Find Email, hourly rate online with their specialties, and buyers can sort through them and message them if they are interested in their services.With the, Find Email, amazing speed of the internet and services like Skype voice chat, it is both free and immediate to have a chat with someone in India.Simple as that, find someone, Find Email, you like, and then hire them through Odesk.All payments are directed through the system and you have an outsourced worker with good skills at a fraction of, Find Email, the cost of the American equivalent.This is outsourcing in a nutshell, and it lies at the fingertips of everyone today.

Another huge factor discussed in the “World is Flat” is open source software.For those not familiar with open source software, it is basically free software that you can download or access using the internet.One of the most widely known examples of open, Find Email, source software is Mozilla Firefox web browser.What this means is that a group of people (thousands and millions), Find Email, all contributed to the building of the browser and it is available for free by the general public.As opposed to a company like Microsoft which builds Internet Explorer and wants to charge money for it or only,, Find Email, Find Email, makes it available to Microsoft customers.

This concept may be hard to grasp at first, how can people afford to participate in Open Source software and how does it really get created, Find Email, . Basically it starts with a small group of people dedicated to creating the best possible product. These people create the basic product and post it online for others to view and edit.As more and more people download it, and add something to it, the product begins to grow exponentially.Soon enough you can have thousands of people working for free to help make the product the best it can, Find Email, be.The result in most cases is a product that is far superior to anything one company can build, as a company will be limited by the amount of employees they have.Meanwhile the open source software, Find Email, is limitless to the number of people contributing.Currently open source software is beginning to take over, as open source versions of, Find Email, word documents, photo editors, web browsers, web site programs, and video editors begin to pop-up.Open source software seems to be leveling the playing field and playing into direct completion to some of the big time players in the software world such as Microsoft and Adobe.

Basically Friedman explains that, Find Email, the whole open source movement is another, Find Email,, Find Email, large factor contributing to creating a flat world.A world in which information transfer is available at the speed of light and access to the entire world is seamless.A world in which your job in America can be replaced by someone else in China and India.A world in which access to information, software, and hardware is getting cheaper and cheaper, and is actually free in many, Find Email, cases.All factors which have lead to the current flat world we live in according to Friedman.

The topics thus far are really only the tip of the iceberg, Find Email, presented in his book.I strongly recommend reading it as it is both a history lesson on America’s continual evolution and also a factual presentation of the technological age we live in the current business society.This is only part 1 of my breakdown of “The World is Flat”, so be sure to check out Part 2 to hear more about the book and also my analysis on the effect of outsourcing on our current economy.

Matt Lehr
http://www.mattlehr.com

I lavoratori creativi, gli innovatori, quelli che non si limitano a svolgere solo il lavoro che arriva sulla loro scrivania ma hanno l’abitudine d’immaginare nuove opportunità e nuovi modelli sono gli “intoccabili”, i lavoratori che molto difficilmente saranno espulsi dalle aziende anche in tempi di crisi.

Formazione, creatività, adattabilità, intraprendenza sono le caratteristiche per rimanere in corsa. Più dei master e della “collazione” di diplomi.

 Questo è quanto afferma Thomas Friedman giornalista del New York Times, vincitore del premio Pulitzer.

Il rapporto con il proprio lavoro spesso è difficile, soprattutto quando c’è il rischio di perderlo.

Quello che puoi fare è sconfiggere l’insoddisfazione cambiando atteggiamento, trasformando il modo in cui reagisci rispetto a ciò che ti accade e ciò che devi fare.

Reinterpretando in una prospettiva più ampia e lo scopo ultimo del tuo lavoro, trasformando la tua attività nella tua vocazione. Come? Ecco alcuni consigli che trovi nel libro “L’arte della felicità sul lavoro”: cogli il significato più ampio della tua attività,  riconosci l’effetto positivo del tuo lavoro sugli altri, pensa a come contribuisci con la tua attività al benessere della gente.

Oggi il rischio di perdere il lavoro è più alto e chi perde il lavoro spesso perde la propria identità. Come si fa a sfuggire da questo pericolo?

Occorre imparare a diventare “intoccabile” mettendo creatività e intraprendenza in ciò che fai e imparare a  convivere con l’incertezza della realtà lavorativa di oggi e ad assumere un atteggiamento positivo, concentrandosi sulle opportunità e sulle sfide. Occorre espandere la propria immagine sul lavoro e al di fuori di esso per non confinare la propria identità all’attività lavorativa.

Il lavoro rende felici se in qualche modo contribuisce alla felicita ed è d’aiuto agli altri. Si è felici e si ricava felicità dal lavoro tanto più si riconosce e si attribuisce densità di significato e produttività al lavoro. Ma la felicità non la si raggiunge solo tramite il lavoro. Personalità, interessi, disposizione, contesto sociale influenzano la capacità del lavoro di fornire soddisfazione. Maggiore è la capacità di riconoscere le opportunità nelle difficoltà e trovare soddisfazione nelle sfide, maggiore è la soddisfazione che si trae dal lavoro. Tutti gli aspetti della vita sono collegati tra loro, i vari fattori, valori, atteggiamenti, lo stato emotivo possono egualmente contribuire. da una parte. al senso di appagamento sul lavoro, dall’altra, alla soddisfazione e alla felicità nella vita.

 “Più riduciamo la distanza fra chi siamo e cosa facciamo e più il nostro lavoro sembrerà facile e ci renderà felici.”

 Dalai Lama con Howard C. Cutler
Saggi Mondadori
Acquista on line il libro
Acquista on line libri del Dalai Lama

Today’s New York Times column by Thomas Friedman (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/opinion/01friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) offers President Obama a very public lesson in remedial rhetoric, and ordinary readers a cheat sheet on what the President really means to say when he delivers one of his “eloquent” speeches.

First off let me say that I have never been persuaded of the President’s much-insisted upon “eloquence”: President Obama has no familiarity with metaphor, allusion, or any of the manifold devices of a good writer or speaker. And personally I find it difficult to listen to what he’s actually saying because his herky-jerky caesuras force me to listen for the next odd or inappropriate pause in his discourse. A speaker our President is not.

Apparently Friedman knows this too, because his what-the-president-really-means column is, in fact, an apologia for the President’s deficiencies in communication. The translation Friedman offers of the President’s words sends not a tingle up my leg but a chill down my spine. Friedman says, explaining the meta-narrative that unifies the President’s speeches and policies: “What is that narrative? Quite simply it is nation-building at home. It is nation-building in America.” Later on in his essay Friedman elaborates: “One of the reasons that independents and conservatives who voted for Mr. Obama have been so easily swayed against him by Fox News and people labeling him a ’socialist’ is because he has not given voice to the truly patriotic nation-building endeavor in which he is engaged.” [Emphasis added.]

Let’s digress momentarily to parse Friedman’s own rhetoric. He makes a false assumption about those independents and conservatives who voted for Obama in the presidential election, when he dismisses them as having been “easily swayed against [the President] by Fox News and people labeling him a ’socialist.’” Do all of these independents and conservatives watch Fox News? Doubtful. Highly doubtful. Have they all turned “against” the President. Again, not likely. And by Friedman’s own logic here—i.e., accepting the false assumption as true—one might assume that this same group of voters was as easily swayed to vote for Obama by his pretty face or his melting-pot ancestry than by his political beliefs, which Friedman finds so hard to discern. End of digression and back to the chilling import of what Friedman contends.

Since when is nation-building the province of one man? And just how is a nation that has operated under the rule of law for nearly two and one third centuries in need of “building”? In exactly what way does a nation that lays claim to a body of literature, art, music and education that extends centuries more back from the implementation of the Constitution need a make-over? What one-man renovation is required for a nation with an electorate that provides the means for peaceful, lawful transfer of power at regular intervals? In other words, what the hell is Friedman talking about?

Friedman characterizes President Obama’s attempt to nation-build as “truly patriotic” and offers universal healthcare, upgraded education and green jobs as examples of what patriotic nation-building means. Surely he does not mean the divisive bill currently in Congress—you know, the one that ignited the rhetorical war that pits those who prefer “tea-partier” against those who insist upon “tea-bagger”? Surely he does not mean wresting education from the local control of parents and community and handing it over to distant desk jockeys? As far as green jobs go, in a nation looking at ten percent unemployment, do we really care about the color of our employment opportunities?

Friedman does President Obama no favors by accusing him of nation-building within their own country. Here’s how Wikipedia defines “nation-building”:

“the process of constructing or structuring a national identity using the power of the state. This process aims at the unification of the people or peoples within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth.”

And here’s an excerpt from the précis the Rand Corporation uses to describe its monograph The Beginner’s Guide to Nation Building:

“Nation-building involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort … to promote political … its neighbors. This guidebook is a practical ‘how-to’ manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, … police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development.”

I’ll stop at two because I hope you’re getting the idea. And the chills.

From the new guys:

Obsidian says it’s much easier for women to get laid.

Double-Minded Man muses on his former life as a nice guy.

Sonic Charmer notes the correlation between progressivism and whiteness.

Genius comments on Israeli girls’ lack of femininity, pens a guide to men’s room etiquette, and shares my taste in sexytime music.

Gerard O’Neill writes on the consequences of a potential “grey flight” from Ireland.

Indomitable Thoughts revels in kicking women off of the pedestal.

And the rest:

Cless Alvein coins a new term for our sexual dystopia.

Prime relates what Dr. James Watson has taught him.

Chuck writes on the feminist conspiracy to destroy organized sports.

Dave from Hawaii shares his thoughts on the death of femininity.

Novaseeker reports on two related cases of feminist kvetching.

Roissy takes those who doubt the power of game to task.

The Elusive Wapiti argues against government marriage.

Zdeno pens another guest post at 2 Blowhards on fixing the university system.

Al Fin reports on Europe’s demographic future.

Alpha Dominance details how women misrepresent themselves in order to get men to commit.

11minutes explains why sluts are shamed and studs are saluted.

Anakin Niceguy says there is no such thing as involuntary celibacy.

Alex Birch tells guys to man up and inveighs against Randism.

Frank Azzurro reviews Total Recall.

Φ gives his thoughts on the biopic Notorious.

Fabius Maximus analyzes the collapse of the Old Media.

FeministX tells us why she hates sports.

Fishersville Mike compares Doug Hoffman to Barack Obama.

Three posts from Girl Game: Aoefe talks about kissing, Bhetti writes on temperateness and tempestuousness in relationships, and LovelySexyBeauty analyzes the bitch shield.

Trumwill argues against following your dreams.

Khankrumthebulgar muses on Gore Vidal calling Roman Polanski’s victim a “hooker” and other issues.

Dennis Mangan presents evolution as a asset for reactionaries.

HVanDerMerwe explains why you shouldn’t marry women over 25.

OneSTDV writes on left-wing pessimism.

Rake analyzes a day game approach.

Pons Seclorum criticizes Glenn Beck’s characterization of Theodore Roosevelt as a progressive.

Roosh outlines eighteen reasons why guys don’t get laid.

Talleyrand retells two conversations he had with two different older men.

Alkibiades explains why there is a sexual double standard.

Ben Leonard writes on how sterilization is driving us towards an androgenous world.

Chip Smith questions the facts of the Bill Sparkman murder.

J critiques Kevin MacDonald’s analysis of the Frankfurt School.

Assanova calls it quits.

Hugh MacIntyre posits the possibility of a Scottish independence referendum next year.

Slumlord talks about the limits of game.

Dylan Sauders lists the mistakes guys make on Halloween.

Eric Disco explains how to get women to chase you.

G Manifesto distinguishes between “pure game” and “tricking.”

Guy White rolls out a myth-smashing four-part series on Jewish power in the U.S.

The Audacious Epigone presents more evidence that women don’t care about non-biological science.

Tucker Max speculates on why I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell bombed at the box office.

Andromeda argues for the legalization of prostitution.

Archivist writes on how feminist beliefs enable rape.

Robert Franklin reports on the effects of fatherlessness on animal brain development.

Marc Rudov says why the GOP should try to appeal to men.

Agnostic gives a perfectly rational reason why straight guys should hate gay men.

Robert Greene releases an free e-book summarizing his newest release, The 50th Law.

Cassandra Goldman shows how laws designed to protect adolescents end up hurting them.

Emach states why China will not become a superpower and takes down the feminist absurdity of hyphenated names.

Larry Arnhart writes on Darwinism and human rights.

Silas Reinagel details how women are responsible for the current divorce epidemic.

John Robb gives advice to inquisitive youngsters.

Half Sigma opines on Judaism.

Joe Bageant contrasts the American and Mexican work ethics.

Karen De Coster blogs on the Gardasil and Cervarix scam.

Robert Higgs reports on the problems with democracy.

Mark Richardson states that feminists focusing on sex liberation are fighting a losing battle.

Will Grigg writes on how Obama is wrecking America.

John Dolan trashes Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree.