re: #55 Barrett Brown

Which bolt and which lightning? I had to make an early announcement of Project PM due to something which happened earlier this week regarding Wikileaks, though a more comprehensive (and reader-friendly) manifesto will be going up soon; are you referring to something else?

Regarding Friedman, you write: “He’s an extraordinarily sloppy fellow with an unfortunate tendency towards hypocrisy.”

Sloppy, yes, indeed. And one of the greatest patters-of-self-on-back since Francis Fukuyama.

But I don’t think hypocrisy is his major failing. He’s far too self-enamored for that. His greatest weakness, the thing to which he is most prey, is sheer silliness.

Here’s my 2001 Amazon review of his ridiculous book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization.”

Gotta getta Lexus (or be run over), March 23, 2001

What a marvelous concept, “the golden straitjacket” reaching “critical mass”! How lucky we are to live in an age when gifted seers can mix such delirious metaphorical cocktails and have the op-ed establishment purvey them as divine elixir! “One size fits all” is fine, if the size happens to be yours, right? Why shouldn’t you be comfortable on the bed of Procrustes if you can snuggle down in it without doing violence to your physique? As for those poor benighted countries whose olive trees get in the way of the roads a Lexus needs to roll down on its triumphal tour of the globe, they’ll soon learn to appreciate the blessings of universal Americanization. Once those stupid trees are lopped down and the highways plowed through, the “slow world” will forget all about its futile particularism! And then the prophet of Foreign Affairs (soon to be renamed simply “Affairs”, since, after all, the walls have come tumbling down) will be hailed as the oracular flag-bearer of the glorious New Dawn. Thank you for ripping the scales from our eyes, o wise and beneficent one. We’ll stop complaining at once, and learn to love the Lexi…

What Friedman requires is not debunking, but good old-fashioned butt-thrashing mockery. Do let me know if you’d like my assistance. My nick is blue.