From Rolling Stone:
Remember Roger and Me? Remember those two rich old white ladies on the golf course who waxed poetic on the first tee about the despair of laid-off auto workers in Flint, Michigan, talking about how people just need to “try harder” and “keep at it” or whatever to overcome their problems? Well, that same bullshit is on display here in the Times and in a lot of other places lately. In fact, “When it comes to China, we just need to try harder” has to be among the most pervasive and universally-held lies in the American press these days, right up there with, “In elections, any candidate, no matter how poor, has a chance” and “The networks are just giving the people the news they want.”
One of the biggest purveyors of this dreck is arch-capitalist spokesmodel Thomas Friedman, who has spent the last ten years trying to talk himself into the position that having to compete with Chinese and Indian industrial slaves is somehow a good thing for America. Nothing makes Friedman happier than being able to appear before a bunch of old ladies in some cobweb-strewn Midwestern library or Jaycees hall and deliver his favorite faux-homespun platitude about the new global economy, a clunky tale about advice he often gives to his daughters. “Girls,” his story goes, “when I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ‘Tom, finish your dinner. People in China . . . are starving.’ My advice to you now: ‘Girls, finish your homework, people in China . . . are starving for your jobs.’ ” [Full Text]
