The Lexis and the Faux Journalist

The Evangelist of Globalization, Pseudo-Intellectual/Amateur Economist Thomas Friedman is coming to the Twin Cities. Rejoice as this corporatist sycophant trumpets Pre-Emptive War, the munificence of the IMF, and how Americans must adapt themselves to sweatshop labor and wages. I have heard Mr. Friedman speak on C-SPAN on many occasions, but I always dismissed his rants as lapdog drivel. To be fair, Thomas Friedman is arguably the world's most influential and popular foreign-policy thinker and the winner of three Pulitzer prizes.

Mr. Friedman’s most recent accomplishment is the creation of the F.U. or the “Friedman Unit.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_(unit) The “Friedman Unit” wasn’t discovered by a Quantum Physicist at a particle accelerator, it was manufactured by a foreign affairs journalist as an excuse to waste more time in a War with no clear objectives while squandering TRILLIONS of dollars. A Friedman Unit is defined as "a period of time equal to six months in the future." Here are a few examples of the famed F.U. by its progenitor;

"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."(New York Times, 11/30/03)

"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?" (NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)

"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)

"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."(New York Times, 11/28/04)

"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that's my own feeling— let alone the presidential one."(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)

"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."(New York Times, 9/28/05)

"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)

"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it." (PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)

"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."(New York Times, 12/21/05)

"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand." (Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)

"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out."(CBS, 1/31/06)

"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq." (NBC's Today, 3/2/06)

"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us."(CNN, 4/23/06)

"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."(MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)

More recently, other Warmongers have begun to use F.U. (Friedman Units);

I think in the next few months you’re going to know whether or not this is working. They bring their forces in starting February 1st. They bring in another set of forces February 15th. And I think from then on you’ll have a good sense of how this is unfolding. So it’s not as if there is a date, at six months we’ll know and then we have to do something dramatic." (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as reported in Time Magazine, January 12, 2007)

“The political progress that might lead to longer term stabilization just hasn't happened and Iraqi security forces aren't ready to take over. The next six months will be critical.” (Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, December 4th, 2007)

“We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.” (General David Petraeus, NBC’s Today, January 22, 2008)

“Basra is the defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.” (President George W. Bush, Chicago Tribune, March 28, 2008.)

"Success -- the establishment of peaceful, democratic state, the defeat of terrorism -- this success is within reach," said Sen. McCain. "Congress must not choose to lose in Iraq. We must choose to succeed." (Senator John McCain, as quoted on CNN.com, April 8, 2008)

Thomas Friedman’s books “The Lexis and the Olive Tree” and “The World is Flat” have sold millions of copies, and his column is syndicated in Newspapers all over the planet. I have tried to read these texts and am forced to attribute Mr. Friedman’s success to his keen ability to pre-package complex international affairs into emotionally potent over-simplifications. Friedman was ubiquitous while cheerleading for the infallible Bush administration in the build-up to the war in Iraq. He made appearances on Charlie Rose, The Colbert Report, C-SPAN, and wrote a myriad of articles attempting to assemble consent from leftist and centrist media consumers for a Pre-Emptive war.

The counterfeit journalism executed by Friedman and his ilk was wildly successful from a marketing/PR standpoint; Three Trillion Dollars will be wasted on this war in the near future. (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/0393067017). Prior to the invasion of Iraq, messages of alarmist paranoia were massaged into culture through the repetition of talking heads chanting a war-cry in unison on flat-screens across the globe. The brilliance of Friedman is that he is always in lock step with establishment opinions on a wide range of issues, never critical of multi-national corporations, and always applauding their benevolence. He understands that ownership determines content, and when media concentration is what it is…

Aside from his pedoesque mustache’, Thomas Friedman seems like an alright guy if you ignore the real content of EVERYTHING he says and writes. He pedals ideas that are widely promoted and doesn’t challenge many commercially advantageous assumptions. The “Necessary Illusions” that Mr. Friedman espouses are comforting to busy people with kids and mortgages. His prolific output aims to sooth the horrors of sweatshops and the exodus of industry from America in search of more easily exploitable labor. Being a political hack has brought Mr. Friedman great fame and success. An interesting note is that Thomas Friedman’s real wealth comes not from his success as a writer but rather from marrying Ann Bucksbaum, heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. It’s no wonder that Friedman is so adept at representing “liberals” since he married into one of the 100 richest families in the country back in 1978. (http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/1673.html)

What disappoints me most about Friedman is that he is one of the most universally revered journalists alive in the world today. Not because he investigates abuses of power or uncovers rampant corruption in America (Like Greg Palast). His notoriety comes from his greatest failure. Because he fervently advocated the invasion of Iraq uncritically and continues to spin the same message almost verbatim every few months that questionably the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history will be resolved “In the Next Six Months.”