Thomas Friedman is a Liberal Fascist

New York Post ^ | 09/09/2009 | Jonah Goldberg

[fiscon1]

Mark beat me to it, but I must put in my two cents. Thomas Friedman writes:

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically

[FourPeas]

When I read Friedman's article, I could imagine Goldberg's head explode. Either that or he was rejoicing b/c Friedman is the best advertising for his book Goldberg could ask for.

[GeronL]

Thomas Friedman comes right out and says it. Its what they want. This is the end game of what they desire for America.

[dotan]

I love this review of Friedman:

... This would be a small thing were it not for the overall pattern. Thomas Friedman does not get these things right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. 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. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue: Friedman will have him spout it. And that's guaranteed, every single time. He never misses.

On an ideological level, Friedman's new book is the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit. If its literary peculiarities could somehow be removed from the equation, The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is ...

http://nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

[arthurus]

Yo don’t need all those words to say what can be summed up with “Thomas Friedman, writing in the NYT...”

[beethovenfan]

Friedman and Krugman - two pompous asshats.

[vg0va3]

That explains a great deal.

Thomas Freidman says,”One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.”

He continues, “Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist”

So that is the difference. To Friedman, a socialist kills his enemies, forces abortions and oh yeah, locks up dissenters. Since Obama has not done any of the above he is just a centrist.

Dumb ice.

[GOPJ]

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.

Yep, the Chinese can send thousands of washing machines out of villages that don't have running water and count it as sales. They can tear down one bridge and rebuilt that same bridge 20 times and have it show up in good industrial numbers. But it's a lie. Communist command economies can just "make it up" to be impressive. And some fall for it... Then again the New York Times fell for the collective farm bit - and millions starved to death...

[Tallguy]

Friedman doesn’t realize that the “enlightened political leader” is one who you agree with. It’s a fearsome thing if you get caught on the wrong side of the enlighted ones. Amazing that such a smart guy can’t figure such a thing out.

[nmh]

http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

http://nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

One should work! ;)

[Hacklehead]

Thomas Friedman welcomes his new Chinese overlords and would like to remind them that as a trusted newspaper columnist he could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground salt mines.

[VeniVidiVici]

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.

I believe they said that about Hitler too.

Hey Friedman!! Ring any bells?!!

[MarkL]

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically

Hmmm... Political "reeducation" camps, slave labor, forced abortions, nearly every sort of human rights violation that make what was done at "Club Gitmo" which these libtards decry, look like a summer holiday. Yup, just the sort of thing these libtards would love to set up here in the States.

Mark