---------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** http://www.GOANET.org ****
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support growing the reading habit among Goa's next generation of achievers
Bookworm Library and Magazine
Bluebelle, Tamba Colony, St Inez, Goa
Contacts: Tel: +91 9823222665 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Roland,
Interesting post. Mr. Orme is very much on the ball. Or on a lumpy earth.
Perhaps you are aware of how sanctimonious and utterly callous Thomas
Friedman has been in his free trade zeal. In an CNBC interview in 2006 with
Tim Russet, Thomas Friedman said: *"We got this free market, and I admit, I
was speaking out in Minnesota--my hometown, in fact, and guy stood up in the
audience, said, `Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you'd
oppose?' I said, `No, absolutely not.' I said, `You know what, sir? I wrote
a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn't
even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade." *
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/25/15020/9019
"Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the
metaphorical theme of *flatness* would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It
would be like letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control
room..." --Matt Tabbibi on prefacing his opinions about Flatland
http://www.nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
Marvels of the Global Order: http://www.cfoss.com/wrong.html
There was a time not long ago when our dear desis (in New York) would get
wet just reading Thomas Friedman. A Vasantsena delivered through New York
Times editorials. I knew a few of these masochists. Not only were they
were intellectually lazy (although well educated), but their
economic identities benefitted due to the vibhuti that was Thomas Friedman's
allegorical summations describing India -- its elite order serrying against
the freshly minted riche; its potential within globalization,
flatland/flattening (more like leavening) and who knows what else -- perhaps
the mating habibts of the grey-breasted laughingthrushes! I saw the concept
of Flatland as a code/doublespeak that the peple has been hammered down. But
the bottom line was that his words were high fives in the economic sauna --
a good guide to soaking in the jacuzzi of rapacious capitalism. The title of
the book had folks writhing in the proverbial morluc (epilepsy). Now many
have settled into algor mortis. It was as though a new coordinate system had
been discovered. Fortunately many are a bit wiser but that book is still on
their shelves.
Venantius
____________________________________________________
From: "Roland Francis" < [EMAIL PROTECTED] > pointed out:
The American political analyst Mr. Thomas L. Friedman has described
globalization as having a levelling effect in his book The Earth is
Flat, but Mr. Orme takes the contrary view that "the world is looking
very lumpy. A new bloc of mostly state-directed economies has sprung
up. They don't give a toss for Western capitalism or the 'Washington
Consensus'."
