Michael Maiello's picture

    Are We Selfish Or Misled?

    One of the things that most irks me about Thomas Friedman, aside from the fact that he's a terrible writer who has somehow won a huge audience, is that he is so willing to blame Americans for their own problems.  This morning, for example, he cites Adam Garfinkle:

    “We’re the most self-indulgent generation in American history,” argues Garfinkle, always demanding more services than we’re ready to pay for. “Too many of us want to be unbound by broader social obligations, but the network of those obligations creates the moral ballast that makes good governance possible.”

    I just don't see it that way.  It would be more accurate to say that we are the hardest working generations in American history.  As measured by productivity and corporate profits, you have to say that what the Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millenials have accomplished is amazing.

    The problem is not that we demand services that we won't pay for.  The problem is that the fruits of our collective labor are granted to the very few and the very powerful.  America's GDP is more than $14 trillion a year and climbing.  The idea that an economy that produces that much wealth can't guaranty comfortable working and retirement lives, with healthcare, for its population, is absurd.  We are not self indulgent, we are being ripped off.

    No member of the Forbes 400 list can claim credit for U.S. GDP.  They contribute, sure, but their work would be impossible without public school teachers, fire and police officers, janitors and executive assistants.

    There's a tendency to "blame ourselves," among mainstream pundits.  It works well rhetorically and makes the columnist seem, somehow, high minded.  But I don't think that Americans today are any more selfish than they have been.  Heck, if you look back to our founders, who owned slaves and thought that only landowners should vote, we are less selfish now.

    Our social programs, in an economy as large as ours, can not only be paid for, they can and should be expanded.  It's funny that Friedman started his column with the only George W. Bush quote worth remembering, about the "soft bigotry of low expectations." 

    That, it seems to me, is America's problem right now.  People work hard but they expect too little in return.  The three generations making America's economy right now should be proud of what they've accomplished and are accomplishing.  They are not selfish at all, they are giving to the world.  It's just that they are not being properly rewarded for their efforts.

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    Freidman frankly seems like a bit of an asshole. More than a bit of one, actually. When I sent this article to a friend, they pointed out that the guy actually adopted the attitude you described when he married a billionaire.

    Americans are actually an incredible people. They all work or hustle on a daily basis in order to not only meet and support themselves but to also do the same for other people.


    I hereby render unto Orion the Dayly Line of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site given to all of him from all of me for this gem:

    Friedman frankly seems like a bit of an asshole!

    hahaahhahahahahahahaah

    If the truth be told, as it were. hahahahh


    Hehe.

    I had a professor who seemed to adore Freidman and basically used him for his lectures. Very lazy teaching, indeed.


    Hey, give the guy a break. It's not easy for Friedman, knocking out those columns with all the fumes from his gilded cage blowing around and giving him a headache.


    Friedman and Brooks must both be satisfying a huge demand in the market place with their regular cries of dismay over the moral failings of of their fellow citizens.

    The orations impart the pleasing sensation of being superior to those who have decided that Tom and David cannot possibly be talking about them. 

    One consistent aspect of their harangues is the note of futility they quietly embrace. If more and more people are becoming selfish jerks, what is the social policy that could change them for the better?

    Maybe the expressions of futility are also demanded by the market place.


    Aahhhhhhhhh the marketplace. hahahaha

     

    The orations impart the pleasing sensation of being superior to those who have decided that Tom and David cannot possibly be talking about them. 

     
    Oh I hereby render unto Moat the Dayly comment of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to him from all of me.
     
    hahahahahahah
    THIS IS PRECIOUS!

    I liked your joining Friedman and Brooks. Now that  seems obvious. But it didn't until I read your saying it.

    I persist in thinking that in discourse : on ATC or the News Hour Brooks  is sincere. Right, no. But sincere.


    I didn't think of the similarity myself until Michael Maiello put the focus on Friedman casting aspersion on our collective moral character.

    One doesn't have to be insincere to be a clueless tool. Insincerity can make one infinitely flexible but being too flexible makes it harder to sound like one believes what one is saying.

    That is why I framed my response in terms of market demand. I don't care about the authors. Who wants this product and why?


    Right again.


    Well put, dude.


    We are in an age where Americans have been purposefully misled by appealing to their selfishness.  That is the cornerstone of GOP talking points;  "It's your money", "Government wants to take away your (fill in the blank)", etc.   The problem is we have been told that we want too much, and not taught that the cost of civilized society requires an investment.  

    The government's funding was crippled by tax cuts that were too deep and too many, and now the blame is being sold as 'Americans want too much.'  Baloney.  We don't want too much. We want what we want to be properly funded.  You shouldn't raid pension plans instead of generating revenue and then tell pensioners that they are the problem.

     

     


    I had a friend who was quite successful in business, who used to tell me; "set your sights high. Figure out what it is you wanted as a lifestyle and plan accordingly.

    Two ways to make money; work longer or charge more.

    We the people know what lifestyle we want. We've worked longer and are falling behind, so we need to charge more for our labor.

    Those of the ruing class remind me of shyster used car salesmen, who brings out the lemon clunker, hoping to lock me into paying a high price, for the auto they want to sell me, the pig they put lipstick on,  not necessarily the one I want. Unless I'm willing to walk away from the deal, they never suggest, the car I really want is available

    The lemon they want to sell me wins them an all expense paid trip; what do they care if I get a bad deal. "Keep making your payments sucker" 

    Next time we get a NEW DEAL "get it in writing" 


    Excellent, Michael.  That tendency to blame ourselves has been exploited to death.  Every right-to-work state got that way by convincing its citizens they didn't need higher wages or good health care.  Representation for workers was okay when we were an industrialized nation but not now.  For some reason, it won't work now.

    People buy that crap, and then, because in their hearts they know it's not right, they try and convince the others who DO believe in higher wages, good health care and worker representation that they're being selfish for trying to rise above peonage. 

    It's crazy, but so far it has worked.  There wouldn't be millions of people voting Republican if it wasn't working.  They'll actually cheer the rise of the one percent and fight their damndest to keep them from having to pay more taxes.  They'll justify losing social safety nets by pretending that people don't actually need them.  And the elitist press keeps it going because they're not willing to get into the trenches to see how real people are having to cope with a society engineered and manipulated by the very rich.

    This paragraph deserves a replay.  It's, sadly, it in a nutshell:

    The problem is not that we demand services that we won't pay for.  The problem is that the fruits of our collective labor are granted to the very few and the very powerful.  America's GDP is more than $14 trillion a year and climbing.  The idea that an economy that produces that much wealth can't guaranty comfortable working and retirement lives, with healthcare, for its population, is absurd.  We are not self indulgent, we are being ripped off.


    You realize that when Friedman says that "we" are the most self-indulgent people...he is using the royal "we" to refer to those pushing back against social insurance benefit cuts, don't you? 

    Friedman writes to and for uber-elites, who know that when he says "we" in this context he isn't referring to them.  He's referring to the "selfishness" of those Americans who, having paid it forward into SS and Medicare to look out for the current generation of retirees continues to adopt the outrageous and downright uppity view that they, in turn, should and will be looked out for by the next generation of workers.  (Of course, that assumes there will be a next generation of workers...but that's another subject for another day. The people he writes for by and large comprise what is on the whole a morally blind and bankrupt, and shortsighted class of economic uber elites who--with some notable exceptions as always--are primarily focused on near-term profits, stock prices, and market share.  Whether these are attained with, or without, jobs to retain an American middle class is not their concern.)

    Friedman might once have understood this.  But he does not appear to understand it now.  He has been via marriage for awhile now a full-fledged member of his primary, exceedingly narrow primary audience. 


    We are both selfish and willingly misled.

    Two weeks ago I was on CBS radio talking about the sequester, but what did the hosts want to talk about? They wanted to know why federal employees shouldn't have their pay cut by 20% - 40%? They didn't want to talk anything else.

    How you can have a reasonable discussion if all anyone wants to talk about is GOP talking points, you can't, and this was a relatively liberal local radio talk show.

    So Americans have been lead to believe that the government workers time is worth nothing, (thanks GOP), but the American people for some reason fall for it hook line and sinker, they literally believe government workers should be paid minimum wage. You only get respect if you work for wall street and are ripping them off royally! American's willfully believe the BS, why, because we are as selfish as we are dumb.

    I mean I had a guy on the ferry, a friend of mine for over 17 years, tell me I was just sucking off the teat of government because my husband has been employed as an Engineer for 27 years by the federal government.  I yelled at him and made him apologize to me, but it is an example of just how dumb we are as a people. We are fucking dumb as rocks.

    Yep it's just how guys like Friedman, Limbaugh, et al make their money, not by proposing solutions to anything, but by pitting us against each other and guess what we fall for it hook, line and sinker every single time, they suck as much as we do, because they are just a reflection of who we have become.


    Galbraith called that "The conventional wisdom"-maybe the term is dying out.

    Everybody is saying it because everybody is saying it. And it's comforting to say what everyone else is saying. And then think it,in part because you've said it.

    (A psychologist friend said " Thinking is verbalizing, sub- vocally")

    It's like the moment when a war is declared- if there hasn't been one sufficiently long so that we've let ourselves forget how monstrous they are. Like London in Aug of 1914 "Oh,oh,oh what a lovely war"! 


    If I walked up and down the road I live on in this trailer park and asked people about Thomas Friedman, they wouldn't know who he was. The few who did probably don't read him enough to even have an opinion. To them he is just a talking head that shows up with a book to sell on Charlie Rose.

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