This David Sirota piece explains a lot:
I’ve documented repeatedly how New York Times columnist Tom Friedman parrots the propaganda of Big Money, using his column to legitimize some of the worst, most working-class-persecuting policies this country has seen in the last century - all while bragging on television that he doesn’t even bother read the details of the policies he advocates for. I have always believed Friedman’s perspective comes from the bubble he lives in - that is, I have always believed he feels totally at ease shilling for Big Money and attacking workers because from the comfortable confines of the Washington suburbs he lives in and the elite cocktail parties he attends, what Friedman says seems mainstream to him. But I never had any idea how dead on I was about the specific circumstances of Friedman’s bubble - and how it potentially explains a lot more than I ever thought.
As the July edition of the Washingtonian Magazine notes, Friedman lives in “a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club.” He “married into one of the 100 richest families in the country” - the Bucksbaums, whose real-estate Empire is valued at $2.7 billion.
No wonder he’s so passionate about outsourcing…
That information — especially the part about the
family wealth of $2.7 billion — ought to appear in
italics at the end of every one of his columns.
yes, he is a shill and a knucklehead, but i remember “from beirut to jerusalem” as one of the better books i’ve read about the mideast.
has he changed that much- or am i remembering the book wrong?
still, no argument about your main point- he is an elitist pretending to be a nonelitist, making elitist arguments accusing anti-elitists of being out of touch with what’s good for the masses.
For a good antidote to Tom Friedman and his nonsense, I highly recommend Thomas Frank’s excellent book “One Market Under God”. Frank masterfully skewers Friedman in a chapter entitled, “Sell the Lexus, Burn the Olive Tree”.
“In 6 months” Friedman will come around…
“In 6 months†Friedman will come around…
When he does, the pain from all those monkeys flying out my butt will be excrutiating.