Tom Friedman wants the US to be like the rest of the world. We won't be. We have too many problems to address in America. From a foreign policy that's been hijacked by two narrow minded religious minorities, to an infrastructure that is in serious disrepair our problems are far too broad and far too deep to be fixed in the near future. It will take twenty years-at least--to climb out of the hole we are in. And that's the problem: instead of looking at facts, facing reality, the elites in America look to Obama for a return to the Clinton-era, but this time it will all be about unity porn and no blowjobs in the Oval Office and no vast right wing conspiracy.
Let's take training teachers for example? Not going to happen. Why? Main reason: Americans do not respect teachers the way they used to. There was a time in America where the teacher was almost as godlike as doctors were in the recent past. A teacher earned a good living, was a respected member of the community and parents listened when their child's teacher told them something. Now, well, I can't tell you how awful American children are, especially when they are overseas. Ignorant, tied to their Nintendos, and coddled they have a disturbing lack of curiousity, preferring American Idol and iPods to the world at large, over even the sandbox--do people even have those anymore--in the backyard.
How about some of Friedman's other pet ideas? Green cards attached to diplomas? Are you kidding? With the anti-Mulsim, anti-immigrant fever that's only going to get worse as the economic crisis deepens do you think Congress would actually have the courage to do something that smart? It's not that American is a really racist society. Obama would not have been elected if we were. It's that "they aren't like us." In other words, little brown people, probably not Christian and if they are they are just lazy Mexicans--mind you, Mexicans are much harder workers than the average American. I defy you to find an American who would pick apples for $20 a day!
But here is the saddest part of Friedman's column:
America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society — in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage.
We have the most open society? Answer: no we don't. Not even close. That would be Northern Europe--and even they have issues. We have a seriously uncurious, narrow-minded and parochial society. Creative? Innovative? No, again. If we do then name me one great thing we have done since putting a man on the moon? (And the internet doesn't count. Why? It was a fluke. Although Al Gore didn't invent it, we wouldn't have it had he not gotten behind it early.) We live by our national myths, myths created in the aftermath of World War II, during a freak aberration in the global economy that left only America standing as an economic giant after the war. Those days are over. But they myths die hard.
We're open to global collaboration? If so, then why aren't we a signatory to the Kyoto Accords or the ICC? We don't give a shit about collaboration, global or local.
Friedman's obsession with a digitized world is horribly skewed as well. Has he seen the slums in Medan, Indonesia, lately? Or how about the political chaos of Thailand, a country that is pretty wired. Does Friedman ever tell anyone about the Koreans, other than the fact that they have the most intense broadband penetration in the world? Does Friedman mention the massive amounts of consumer debt the 20 and 30somethings of Korea have run up in the drive to be like us? I haven't read about it, have you?
Does Friedman tell you about the hundreds of millions of people in India that live far below the already low Indian poverty line? Nope. Does he tell you about the Naxalite rebellion in India? Does he ever mention Bangladesh or the utter dire poverty there? No, but he will tell you about microcredit movement that originated there! Does he tell you how god-awful the infrastructure is in India? Of course not. To tell the truth about India and Bangladesh would ruin his narrative about innovation on the sub-continent. Really, has he ever done business with Indians? (I have and it is far from easy.)
Does he discuss the oppression of the Uighurs or Tibetans in China? Does he tell you about the young women who work 18 hours shifts sewing our t-shirts? Or the young men and women in China who inhale harmful plastic fumes in factories that spew out the molded plastic crap they make for Wal-Mart in China? Of course he doesn't. Does he mention the utter environmental degradation and ruin in China? Hell no. He will tell you that China censors his beloved Times. But he doesn't tell you that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the paragons of American innovation are deeply complicit in this crime against the Chinese. He doesn't tell you so because to do so would have us question our own deeply held and massively incorrect assumptions about our own 'free' media.
Why is Tom like this? I actually believe he doesn't even see it, enamored with and blinded by his own ideas. And that's why I also think he doesn't understand America. He doesn't see the real America. Seriously, how many Americans have ever even heard of the Acela? Or for that matter how many Americans outside of the East Coast even realize that train travel can be a superior and faster form of mass transit than the airlines?
It's called denial, Tom. Both he and the elites in America are horribly in denial about the reality of the economic distress America is in. And they are in terrible denial about the state of mind in America--they believe the shit they spew forth. But it doesn't make it true just because they want to believe it.
Lastly, I don't know about Tom's world, but in my world Americans are outnumbered by at least 25 to 1 in exploring the wider world beyond America's borders. Maybe the ratio is higher with the Davos set, but here in the real world, the backpacker set, which is still a subset of the global elite although few will admit it, we're toast. I mean, seriously, would a good, red-blooded American deign to pay only $5 a night for a room? Would the same American ride a non-aircon bus full of little brown people who chain smoke, pray to Allah and carry rice around with them and squat to shit and pee? Are you fucking kidding me?
Sure, countless people email me and say, I wish I had the money to do what you do. What they don't realize is that they do. What they lack is the curiousity, period. End of story. (And no, I am not tooting my own horn.) But I can't helped but to wonder why I met 5 Dutchmen, 2 Frenchmen, 1 Finn, lots of Brits and Germans and even Italians and never an American.
I meet so few Americans out here it is absolutely pathetic. And I usually don't want to have anything at all to do with those I do meet. Most, but not all, that is. Why do I feel this way? Well, that's a whole 'nuther post.
And America is about to pay a wicked, wicked price in falling living standards for this arrogance and ignorance. It will be a fearsome price.
I know these aren't kind words on Christmas Eve. And I know they are hard truths to accept. And I really do hate to be a pessimist. But in the real world that's just the way it is. We have drowned ourselves in obscene amounts of consumption and debt and have now leveraged out our grandchildren's future. Put simply: we're fucked and it is pretty much all our fault. Ignorance and greed will exact their coin, and that cometh right soon.
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Featured in the Triple Name Club.
www.nopom.info
for a common sense but unique remedy. You will find it remarkable. It explains so much.
Or you can read about it here on Gather under the title Invisible Hand where you can see comments others have made on the work.
As far as traveling the world and being able to afford it. Airfare is near impossible for a single person let alone a couple or family that wishes to travel together. Transportation is expensive. Once at your destination it is possible to live frugally and cheaply but how does one just quit their job to do so. I don't believe saying travel is affordable is an accurate statement.
We have a home made 500 lb sandbox in my back yard with a lid on it. My kids aged 9 and 4 love it as well as the trampoline. In the summer Wii time is limited to 1 hour a day and the rest of the day is spent outside, playing, swimming and jumping on the trampoline.
I see some evidence of changing perceptions, however...mostly by people who have lost their jobs expressing relief at not having to keep up with the Joneses anymore and appreciation for the simple things.
For my part, I am gainfully employed in a field that will benefit from Obama's planned focus on the infrastructure....but all the same, I will be digging up most of my lawn and planting a vegetable garden in early spring. Maybe I can at least help my neighbors if they are less fortunate than I.
That probably wasn't entirely the teachers' fault. I'm sure the money wasn't commensurate with the work and responsibility and I'm sure school administrations took advantage of teachers. However, I did lose a lot of respect for my teachers when they made it obvious that they were going to do the minimum they had to do.
As an adult, the biggest problem I see with teachers is that too many of them have never been out of academia. They go to college. They get a teaching certificate. They get a teaching job. How can you prepare kids for the real world outside of school if you've never been there? At least locally it is difficult to get into teaching if you have been out in the real world. One of my friends has a masters in physics and a doctorate in chemistry. He has been out in the real world and has also taught at the college level for several years. He looked into what it would take to teach high school science. Answer: Three years full time of teaching courses. To which my response is: huh? If you want to teach kids you have to have lived. An awful lot of teachers have never gotten out and done that.
*10*
I know a lot of "ugly Americans", but most of them have never left the US. The Americans I saw abroad were nothing like the lunkheads you describe.
Working at a community college, I see all types of instructors. The most distressing ones are the adjuncts who are teaching a course to pick up some extra cash. They may be teaching at a high school or have several adjunct positions at the various colleges and universities. They tend to be McTeachers. They'll teach the minimum and spend the least amount of time with students. Many students don't realize they're being ripped off.
I grew up hitchiking and staying in cheap pensions or in a car, all through, Spain, France, Morocco and on and on, i would still do it were my physical situation made it easy to get around, but arthritis precludes sleeping on floors in train stations and overnight on the docks of Barcelona trying for the ferry to Ibiza. I hardly ever saw Americans even 35 years ago, being a resident of London then, I didn't care to! Keep on truckin' lad!
I am new here and I'm not sure what you do "for a living" but it is obvious that you pay attention. The U.S. is beyond embarrassing in its/our anti-intellectual stance. I'm finishing a review of a recent book called "Counterknowledge" and I invite you to take a look. I have always rolled my eyes and shook my head at Thomas Friedman. Wilfull blindness is only part of it. He is an out and out boot-licker.
Thanks for the fantastic post!
What all of humanity needs is to take its collective head out of its ass and realize that humanity is the crew of the only [known] spacefaring vehicle: planet earth. We have a finite recycling food system and a limited cargo, and yet we are organized as a crew into an amazingly insane collection of tribes, nation states and other divisive collectives and we fight amongst ourselves for these systems and cargo rather than working together to make the ship run. Collapse of the US may be what is needed for the rest of humanity to get a clue: we have an opportunity to right this ship. We may get another opportunity if we don't take this one. But sooner or later, we'll need to take the life-affirmative step of recognizing we are all in this together, or some other life form will do it and we'll simply go extinct. But as I said, if we do, it will be an insignificant event in the unfolding of the universe and life's purpose.
I found this article
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-2596939_ITM
but it was dated 2001.
Lots of states are in a budget crunch and these programs could have suffered I guess. I still think there is such a need in science that something must be available. One year FLorida (The whole state) graduated one (1) chemistry teacher.
Think I might have been wrong. Today I found out that a nearby county is CUTTING 238 teacher positions. Fast tracking may have fallen victim to budget cuts.
You have too many to comment on, they each deserve an article of their own.
Rather than focus on teachers, the reality is that any profession, doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs diminishes as we become more familiar with them and what they know.
My parents treated teachers with a high reference (one only finished elementary school and the other got her high school diploma in her sixties a GED), I don’t because I learned and saw their feet of clay. So as we become more educated and have access to more information we will defer less to those that have the higher levels of education.
Politicians have lower respect than in my youth, we know more about them. Similarly this is true of journalists, the Sec General of the UN, Kings and Queens, etc. “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
What two or three professions you still have a reference for? Many might say “rocket scientists” (it is commonly a measure of difficulty), even today kids in high school can do the math that was so important to land on the moon. I don’t think there is any profession that has the “respect” or engender the reverence only a decade or so ago.
It simply means individuals need to develop ways to demonstrate what they contribute and simply having a degree is no longer sufficient. And we have to get over there always being right and wrong, winning and losing. No one on earth has the answer because there is no one answer.
Calculus and physics are common in many high schools, even in Michigan. There are rocket clubs all over the country. It isn;t that kids can;t learn and that there aren't teachers willing to teach, it is the expectations of the vast majority of kids to learn. The unwillingness of have the kids sacrifice to study is what slows the educational process. It isn't that the kids are capable.
We do have some people that turn into rather well educated people and they were all kids at one time.
The citizens are addicted to some kind of media because the advertisers have learned how to brain wash everyone. Often, more money is spent on advertising than on product development.
Look at what has happened with the bailouts. The banks and financial companies were just handed a bunch of money, with no strings attached. The auto companies are being told that they shouldn't have corporate jets and that their workers need to make even more concessions. However badly run the auto companies are, they are still making a real product, automobiles. The banks are just lending us fake money. (paper money, digits on a computer) I think it is symbolic of the whole problem that our government is helping out the people who fake their product much better than they are helping out the people making a real product.
One comment about traveling and the other comments are about teaching. Yes, it is wonderful what you are experiencing and discovering about other parts of the world, but not all of us want to let go of our comforts to travel to distant parts of the world. At this point, I enjoy meeting people who come from other parts of the world, but are currently living in the U.S. (like my tennis pro from Zimbabwe and my doubles tennis partner from Sweden, and the beautiful Thai couple that opened a nearby restaurant, and the spiritual man in NYC from Malaysia who owns a wonderful restaurant). Even though it can't possibly be anything like actually visiting their native countries, they offer me some insight into it.
Many years ago when I was in Israel, my friend I was staying with took me to meet her friend who was one of the first Jewsih settlers on the West Bank. She was a young lady, about my age at the time, carrying a huge rifle. Every time I hear about some event in the West Bank I think of that beautiful young lady. I know there is nothing like having the experience first hand in another country, but sometimes priorities change. Right now I am focusing on my business.
Regarding respect for teachers. When I was fresh out of college I taught for 6 months in elementary school. I remember meeting guys who were totally unimpressed, but they were really impressed with some model (even a local garment center model) or some actress (even if she never earned a penny and only took classes). Teaching was not well respected as far back as I can remember. Maybe a long time ago, but only for spinsters.
As far as blaming the teachers for not caring, I took an early retirment after teaching for 25 years at a college in New York City. First, about adjuncts. The adjuncts worked their butts off - and in the end - they did not receive health insurance, they had no pension (only later were they given a pittance of a pension and a much lesser health insurance plan), and they were at the bottom of the list for choice of classes.
Now about teaching in today's schools. I have a friend who is currently teaching in a "good" high school in South Florida. However, he has one honor class and the rest are the lowest level classes. His description of the types of students, their attitudes and what goes on in the classroom is appalling. And he is a great teacher. He was out in the world, having done all sorts of career changes and having made high amounts of money. He tells them wonderful stories and they love him - but he has a principal and an assistant principal breathing down his neck. He has a constant fear of being reprimanded for doing something not according to the agenda.
And - he is not earning enough money to pay his bills. He would not be able to quit and just travel, even at a fare of $800.
I just wanted to say I am finally going through what is now under 5,500 pieces of gather new mail that is in my inbox on here. So with that in mind I have finally come to a piece of mail that was addressed to me in regards this article submission you have created to share with the gather community. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your piece with us here at gather. :o)
And I hope you have a Happy New Year... in 2009 :o)
What a SURPRISE to find this long detailed RANT. ~ L O L.
This is a very negative Article about many aspects of America that are the result (for the most part) of an eight-year DUMBING DOWN of Americans by the Leaders who have been running this Country. And just because the BRIGHTEST STARS of this Country have been hidden, and the POSITIVE ASPECTS of this Country have been obscured, so it shall turn to TRUTH, and what has been hidden shall be REVEALED.
Children are very BRIGHT in America. Because their parents refuse to spend the time with them (or are too self-absorbed with their self-centered lives) to educate them properly is not the fault of Teachers who have to deal with misbehaving children. Because discipline is least on the list of things to do with children ~ as well as teaching them CHARACTER, INTEGRITY, MORALS, DIGNITY, we have what WE have.
PARENTS must get involved with ensuring that TEACHERS are paid well -- That discipline is brought back into the School System. PARENTS need to be at Teacher ~ Student ~ Parent CONFERENCES. This should be MANDATORY. Where are the days where every child STUDIED and was asked how they were doing in school by any adult they came in contact with. Where are the days where the Students taught the Adults the latest and greatest educational discoveries that they were learning in School? Part of that has to do with the ADULTS. Do the ADULTS help their children with SCIENCE PROJECTS these days? Do the PARENTS take the time to get involved with their children's School Activities?
Being busy about the business of whining and complaining and feeling sorry for the state of this Country does not assist in making this Country a better place Sean.
All the same -- this is a good Article, and like someone above stated, it should be broken down into the different areas that you brought up with a PHOTO ESSAY to make it more interesting and INNOVATIVE and CREATIVE and .... You get my point.
Do you care to identify the two religious minorities that you find distasteful?
Yes, I have in the Economist, The Financial Times, the Far Eastern Economic Review, and the Kookmin Bank Annual report. FEER is a Dow Jones publication, which meant it hit wsj.com for wider distribution to Americans. Also, Kookmin (KB) is NYSE traded.
I, also, read about the ROK's promotion of credit cards as a means of moving gray market transactions into the regular market, which would allow the transaction to be properly taxed in FEER.
Perhaps, you need to widen your reading circle. The FT, FEER, and the WSJ Asia are widely available in Asia. (FEER is banned in Singapore.)
You'll find them in AP Calculus classes throughout the United States. If you never met them, then it's likely (a) you were not on the same academic track as they were, or (b) your high school didn't have Calculus AB or Calculus BC, or (c) you didn't go to a U.S. high school.
See the College Board's site http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_calbc.html for a course description.
Perhaps, you're confusing "rocket science math" with La Grangian equations needed for "Cosmological math", which I have not seen in any high school.