Virilio, in his book, “Stategy of Deception” says that in the future (which is now) all elements of society (media, commerce, industry, education, military, etc.) will be employed in the global struggle between nations. Friedman’s support of the Iraq war makes sense from this perspective. What sucks is that if one doesn’t want to have any part in the big game and just remain a civilian then one is screwed since one is not part of the program, so to speak.

http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Deception-Paul-Virilio/dp/1859843018

November 14, 2008 @ 1:50 pm | Comment

that NYT parody is brilliant.. i love that all the links really work!

November 14, 2008 @ 5:09 pm | Comment

I was against the invasion of iraq from the very beginning for 3 basic reasons:

1) saddam was pretty much contained

2) the people who attacked the us were allied with the taliban in afghanistan, needed to stay focused on winning there first, then beef up us border security, and conduct the global police action to dismantle terrorist cells world wide

3) if you want to make iraq a democracy, first you need to find a bunch of iraqis who know what that is and are willing to fight and die themselves to build their own government. you need that before you start planning the actual military invasion. the us needed to build a sizeble organization of ex-pat iraqis with backgrounds in poli sci, gov, economics, history, etc who could form a provisional government before the us invaded the US. that did not happen.

Also one big thing missing is the lack of a sense of shared sacrifice between the american people and the iraqi people. you do not get any sense that we view each other as brothers or allies in this struggle. maybe amongst the military units in iraq there is, but not between the american people and the iraqi people.

the question that mr. friedman is dropping the ball on is:

what now? what do we do now to disengage from the failed policy that led us there and to put iraq into some stable condition that will no come back and bite us later. what do the iraqi’s want now? it is interesting how rarely we see any direct interviews or discussions on prime time media with actual real iraqi’s telling us what they want. i know there is a language barrier and violence. but you would think if we care about iraq and helping them become a democracy that we would be talking to them everyday on talk shows and larry king about what is happening there and what they are thinking about. where are the iraqi george washingtons and thomas jeffersons. how can you expect a democracy to form if there are none.

November 15, 2008 @ 12:51 am | Comment

And now Richard will you finally grace us with a take a stance on all this paranoid material? Or do you prefer to stay out of it ?

I am very surprised about your stuborned silence on these subjects…

November 15, 2008 @ 1:08 am | Comment

Friedman is just another example of the endless array of pundits, constantly wrong, who nevertheless keep their employment because they echo Establishment talking points. The mainstream punditocracy is just a gigantic echo chamber.

November 15, 2008 @ 10:54 am | Comment

Many spies are recruited from the ranks of the Mormons because Mormons don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke tobacco (or anything for that matter), don’t drink coffee, don’t have sex (except with their multiple wives) and, generally never, never “get jiggy wit it”. The Osmunds are Mormons.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa93QDT_5tM&feature=related

November 15, 2008 @ 10:54 am | Comment

In the future, we’ll probably be governed by a corporate elite of aging, ultra-rich lunatics obsessed with their imagined superiority and a fear of death. They’ll eventually resort to bio-technology to prolong their morbid lives. They’ll encase themselves in an intellectual cacoon of sycophants guarded by a pretorian guard of right-wing, lunatic religious nuts convinced that the Judgment Day is coming and determined to see it through. There’ll be a constant, submerged war going on for control of “territory”, not physical land as before, but of “surveillance territory”, the ability to monitor everyone, everywhere, at any time. And the masses will be largely oblivious to it all, and will quickly learn that to get ahead in this world one must “repeat the words”. Success lies in the repetition of the words, not their truth.

November 15, 2008 @ 11:35 am | Comment

“Oab”: And now Richard will you finally grace us with a take a stance on all this paranoid material? Or do you prefer to stay out of it ?
I am very surprised about your stuborned silence on these subjects…

Pardon me? What does this mean? Maybe I was out at events the past couple of day and couldn’t be online? Just because you choose to spend your day glued to this blog doesn’t mean I have to. Please, get a life.

November 15, 2008 @ 2:16 pm | Comment

Sorry Richard, this comment was meant for the thread called “The Thread”. Not related to this post.

November 15, 2008 @ 2:34 pm | Comment

“John” seems a little obsessed with the whole subject. Golly, I wonder why…

November 15, 2008 @ 4:45 pm | Comment

No surprises here, it’s stunning me that since in 2008 people can attack others on such irrelevant subjects.

I will be really harsh here, but in my opinion people like John are just a bunch of caveman. I just refuse to accept that some people are so narrow minded and backward in their thinking. This whole crap about homosexuality is a disease, we should treat them, etc. It’s revolting me to say the least. If such a person would be in front of me, I would probably end up punching him. And I am not gay.

The blog recently is polluted with unjustified personal attacks. And even if I am myself a highly unpopular poster (for different reasons), I will never have respect for people like John, that display an incredible amount of stupidity online. It’s just not acceptable.

November 15, 2008 @ 4:52 pm | Comment

@Richard: I totally missed the URL upon first read of the link… too funny. Was waiting for “the catch”… am a slow one, I.

@Oab: well said (on your latest comment at least ;-)). John’s nothing but a troll. Sad are the lives of such people that they have nothing better to do.

November 15, 2008 @ 5:15 pm | Comment

Right on, Oab. Because aside from being incredibly offensive and ignorant, comments like John’s are also stupid and boring.

November 15, 2008 @ 5:16 pm | Comment

Lost in all this…can we all just give it up (yet again) to the force known as the YES MEN!

Kudos.

Ps. Heard that NYT staffers were involved in the prank, I hope the corporation has a sense of humor and doesn’t retaliate. Corporations being notorious for their sense of humor and sense of irony…

November 15, 2008 @ 6:47 pm | Comment

Sick comment deleted

November 15, 2008 @ 7:33 pm | Comment

lisa, it’s clear that John is a closet homosexual but is still in denial.

November 15, 2008 @ 7:40 pm | Comment

I find this whole Black/White Thang rather confusing.

http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=VYNdai_HH1c&feature=related

November 15, 2008 @ 9:22 pm | Comment

For a sec, I thought it was from Grindhouse…

November 15, 2008 @ 9:33 pm | Comment

Sorry, I deleted a bunch of comments from John and Michael (everyone who saw them knows why) as well as some comments by the regular readers’ who replied to them. Thanks for your understanding.

November 15, 2008 @ 10:56 pm | Comment

I have no idea why this fat bastard is Charlie Rose’s favorite puppy. Fareed Zakaria, Jon Steward’s favorite pet, is another dimwit fair weather mouthpiece. I lost all my hope on these pundits (public intellectuals my ass) after seeing these two clowns on TV again and again.

November 16, 2008 @ 1:16 am | Comment

Wow….I’ve seen comment threads deteriorate here.

Speaking of incompetent globalist Establishment pundits, the Council on Foreign Relations has its China Stimulus paper available online. I myself am completely addled by the possibilities for economic growth and collapse that China offers in the not-so-distant future. I think my position on it will be “mouth hanging open in awe”

November 16, 2008 @ 11:27 am | Comment

Did anyone hear the rumour that Dick Cheney discussed with Joe Biden at their meeting last weeking that he has decided to refund his pay checks for the last 8 years to the treasury department?

November 16, 2008 @ 12:04 pm | Comment

一个国家政府和外国势力勾结，被买办劫持，这个国家就算完了，残废了。你们不管怎么骂
共产党，中国现在完全自主，不被任何外部势力所利用, 是中国人自己的国家。再看看
南美这些什么玻璃猥鸭，愕寡剁耳，痣哩，。这些算什么国家，就是一些妓院。 电影里面一cia特工说得好：“these countries, their regimes change every week.”. “once they suck this country dry, they’ll just move onto the next one.”

还有就是国与国之间没有什么友谊什么道德，都是互相利用互相计算。什么人权，什么
达赖，什么民族独立，什么普世价值，都是大国之间博弈的棋子。共产党这一点看的明
明白白，在这个世界上混，实力最重要。美国也看得明明白白，可是美国包装的很好，
弄几套很漂亮得体的dress吧内在实质的东西包装起来了.可是很多文科的，只看见
dress,看不见dress下面的东西，以为世界上就是这个dress,那就太simple, 太naive.

November 16, 2008 @ 1:48 pm | Comment

HongXing wrote: 实力最重要

Wrong! As Tolstoy said: “Power is Corruption.”

Thus, Truth is most important.

November 16, 2008 @ 2:27 pm | Comment