{"id":561,"date":"2008-09-17T06:17:48","date_gmt":"2008-09-17T11:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cherrycoated.com\/wordpress\/?p=561"},"modified":"2008-09-17T06:17:48","modified_gmt":"2008-09-17T11:17:48","slug":"friedmans-column-making-america-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/commentary\/friedmans-column-making-america-stupid","title":{"rendered":"Friedman’s Column – Making America Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Friedman’s column of September 13 “Making America Stupid<\/a>” points out the weaknesses and faults of McCain’s campaign and the Republican policies. You’ve got to read it. He counters the the Republican mantra “Dill,baby, drill!” with<\/p>\n

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology \u00e2\u20ac\u201d fossil fuels \u00e2\u20ac\u201d rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology \u00e2\u20ac\u201d renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution \u00e2\u20ac\u201d on the eve of PCs and the Internet \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Typewriters, baby, typewriters.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He also addresses the false-issue culture-war \u00c2\u00a0raised by the Republicans\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how much steel is in Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belly, but I do know that the issues he is focusing on in this campaign \u00e2\u20ac\u201d improving education and health care, dealing with the deficit and forging a real energy policy based on building a whole new energy infrastructure \u00e2\u20ac\u201d are the only way we can put steel back into America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spine. McCain, alas, has abandoned those issues for the culture-war strategy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An concludes brilliantly:<\/p>\n

Sorry, but there is no sustainable political\/military power without economic power, and talking about one without the other is nonsense. Unless we make America the country most able to innovate, compete and win in the age of globalization, our leverage in the world will continue to slowly erode. Those are the issues this election needs to be about, because that is what the next four years need to be about.<\/p>\n

There is no strong leader without a strong country. And posing as one, to use the current vernacular, is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now for the funnies<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Friedman’s column of September 13 “Making America Stupid” points out the weaknesses and faults of McCain’s campaign and the Republican policies. You’ve got to read it. He counters the the Republican mantra “Dill,baby, drill!” with Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[132,231,1449],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-politics","tag-friedman","tag-political-cartoons","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.webliminal.com\/webliminalblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}