Kishore Mahbubani, a retired Singaporean diplomat, published a provocative essay in The Financial Times on Monday that began like this: “Dictators are falling. Democracies are failing. A curious coincidence? Or is it, perhaps, a sign that something fundamental has changed in the grain of human history. I believe so. How do dictators survive? They tell lies. Muammar Gaddafi was one of the biggest liars of all time. He claimed that his people loved him. He also controlled the flow of information to his people to prevent any alternative narrative taking hold. Then the simple cellphone enabled people to connect. The truth spread widely to drown out all the lies that the colonel broadcast over the airwaves.Read the rest.
Mahbubani noted that “the eurozone project was created on a big lie” that countries could have monetary union and fiscal independence — without pain. Meanwhile, in America, added Mahbubani, now the dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, “No U.S. leaders dare to tell the truth to the people. All their pronouncements rest on a mythical assumption that ‘recovery’ is around the corner. Implicitly, they say this is a normal recession. But this is no normal recession. There will be no painless solution. ‘Sacrifice’ will be needed, and the American people know this. But no American politician dares utter the word ‘sacrifice.’ Painful truths cannot be told.”
I resonate with this op-ed piece. Let me know what you think. You may not agree with all his points (I'm not sure that I do) but the larger point should be well taken. There are no shortcuts to get out of a mess.
6 comments:
This piece is intended to reel people in with the "can't politicians just tell the hard truth" line, but it's really just another in a long line of Friedman's attacks on GWB and conservatism in general.
Thinking people don't take Friedman seriously, because he does exactly what he accuses politicians of doing: he distorts the facts for his own self-serving interests.
The main theme "why can't politicians tell the hard truth" is a correct one. But by using half-truths and distortions to attach conservatism, he's merely doing what the NY TIMES editorial page does everyday, which is why few people take them seriously.
As one in a long line of examples, Bush "radical tax cutting agenda" was supported by many Democrats, and just extended by President Obama.
Of course, the article, in typical Friedman style, is unsavory (to say the least) because he uses the 9/11 anniversary to attack GWB.
Other examples of Friedman's errors, distortions and outright untruths are readily available.
Finally, any sentient human has to laugh at the idea that Obama is going to "tell us the hard truth" tonight. No, he's going to do what he's always done, which is to propose more spending (with money that we don't have, which is EXACTLY what Friedman supports, yet EXACTLY what he blames Bush for doing).
Tom Friedman is a partisan joke, and no one should take anything he says seriously.
Moreover, Friedman cites the success of how we "faced down" the Soviets during the Cold War to contract with the War on Terror. But Friedman was at the front of the line in critiquing that very strategy when it was occurring under Reagan. Only now, when the strategy was proven successful is he gushing over it. He's such a dishonest hack.
Finally, I love his "can't someone tell us there are no easy fixes!" line, while simultaneously advocating just that: the 'easy fix' of just taxing the rich and spending more money!
Just so many logical and intellectual failures in this piece that it's hard to limit it to just a few.
I knew this post would garner a vigorous response from you Sife.
sorry :)
Also, if you read between the lines, Friedman's "shared sacrifice" means more liberalism, more government and more distribution of wealth. He blasts GWB for tax cuts, and says that we collectively should expect a "lower standard of living". Nowhere does he even entertain the the possibility that our government has overspent, or that those who have grown dependent on entitlements should expect less in the future.
The underlying suggestion of "shared sacrifice" is that those of us who pay taxes should expect to shoulder the burden.
Also, the fundamental premise that politicians won't tell us the truth is also flawed. If you look around, there are many prominent national figures trying to tell us that America is in trouble. There are all sorts of people telling us that our current path is unsustainable. The left wing is constantly trying to discredit these folks, but the message is definitely there.
Friedman's main point isn't that there aren't shortcuts. Friedman's point is a leading argument to try and get people to accept another Keynesian pipe dream to fix our economy.
Z, you were accurate in presuming that my response to the comments so far would be, "Amen!"
Obama and the left love the "shared sacrifice" line. I guarantee they've poll tested it as being a good phrase for pulling the wool over the eyes of the kind of people Vladimir Lenin used to describe as "useful idiots" -- people who don't think critically, and are likely to buy into carefully crafted, yet deceptive rhetoric. "Shared sacrifice" is a great way to say "socialism" or "communism" without actually having to say it.
If we're gonna talk about sharing, let's "share" social welfare with the arena it actually belongs in. Let's get it out of the sphere of government control and financing, and into the sphere of religious institutions and into the private sector. Government was never designed to do for people what moderates and liberals in America expect of it today (health care, education, entitlements, etc, etc). See Kuyper on "sphere sovereignty."
The US Post Office is the latest example in a laundry list of examples proving why we should not be looking to government to fix our problems, but away from government to fix our problems. The government is virtually inept at doing almost anything in an efficient, fiscally responsible manner.
Are these hard things to say? Yes, but they're getting easier to say, because the people are increasingly aware of their truth. Unfortunately, they're not the kind of hard things Tom Friedman wants to hear.
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