When Sideshow Bob is in court, accused of trying to kill Bart Simpson, the lawyer asks him, “But what about that tattoo on your chest? Doesn’t it say, ‘Die Bart, die?’”
Sideshow Bob responds by saying, “No, that’s German for, ‘The Bart, the.’”
Someone in the courtroom then comments, “No one who speaks German could be an evil man.”
I usually agree with what Friedman usually says when it is outside of his “American value for the world” mode. You know the world would be so much better if everyone thought like us, the Americans. Okay…here’s a cheese burger put down your guns.
Can anyone deny that the it is really “about the economy, stupid” when we talk about China these days.
Even on a microscopic scale money sort of covers up an individuals personal defects.
And if enough of the spoils of that booming economy get shared with US firms that are chummy with Bush and his inner coterie, then Beijing’s leaders will be good for any number of cosy backyard barbecues in Crawford, Texas.
Cranky, his prayer was obviously tongue in cheek, including his line about not meaning it when we called them butchers of Beijing. Friedman wrote a great book on globalization, largely discussing how the world’s economies are all intertwined, and the column you linked to concerns just that – the state of China’s economy, how precarious it is and how if it collapses it will have a major impact on other economies around the world. Which is cause for concern. Look at the Asian economic crisis of 1997 and how so many countries’ economies fell like dominoes. That’s what he’s warning of, which is a valid point.
His article does not concern human rights. That would also be a good subject of discussion, but the fact that he didn’t mention human rights doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about the issue. It just wasn’t the topic of that discussion. Nor does he mention the 3 gorges dam, or suppression of free speech or religion, or eating of civet cats, or bumbling of the SARs epidemic. The fact that he didn’t mention those topics doesn’t mean he’s insensitive to them. It’s just that he was writing about China’s economy, and I felt that he made some good points.
