December 16, 2010, America *&^%'n A
The Grey Lady treats us to the comedy stylings of Tom "the billionaire" Friedman. The title is a reference to the former President of Costa Rica imploring the world (that would be, of course, the United States) to "do something" about climate change, because there is no "Plan B" for the planet; Friedman conflates this to note there is no "America B" (forgetting that, of course there is an America A and B: the America A of the uber-privileged people sitting on mega-millions, such as... Tom Friedman himself.,. and the America B of the rest of us, where even the supposedly affluent "middle class" know that they are a paycheck or an illness away from disaster, and the less than affluent "middle class" have already had at least one such hit...)
Anyway, today's monologue tells us that the (inevitable, not to mention self-inflicted) collapse of American hegemony will screw with United Fruit ExxonMobil the "world stability" that has been inflicted by American military aggression, and such screwing will only benefit the forces of (1) China, a nasty totalitarian regime that gratuitously invades countries sitting on oil or oil pipeline routes, maintains garrisons in over 140 other nations, kidnaps people from around the world solely on the basis of their religion and throws them in dungeons in Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq and God knwos where else and pretends to afford some of them due process of law jails whistle-blowers and doesn't go to Nobel Prize award cemeremonies it doesn't like and shit, and (2) Julian Assange, who publishes embarrassing e-mails that the Imperium doesn't want out there...and according to Friedman, they are pretty-much equally bad.
Man, you just can't make this shit up. Honestly... the America that gets in the faces of the entire planet with an over-deployed military paid for by borrowing from our supposed rival super-power in China, thereby generating enemies who on rare occasion will actually inflict some damage here, causing an inevitable over-reaction that causes us to generate more enemies at incredible cost, lather, rinse, repeat... is not exactly the "stabilizing force" and all-around-good-thing that Friedman insists it is... now is it? I'd much rather live in Julian Assange's "anarchy" world, where the smug have to watch their asses lest they be "embarrassed," thanks. Christ. That's what the leading public intellectual internationalist at our purported "paper of record" thinks is anarchy.
Reason number 6483 of why we are SO fucked.