{"id":806,"date":"2012-03-29T17:21:52","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T00:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/libernetics.com\/?p=806"},"modified":"2012-07-10T13:08:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T20:08:49","slug":"belen-fernandez-the-imperial-messagner-thomas-friedman-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libernetics.com\/?p=806","title":{"rendered":"Belen Fernandez: The Imperial Messager; Thomas Friedman At Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I talk about\u00a0Belen Fernandez’s book, The Imperial\u00a0Messenger: Thomas Friedman At Work<\/a><\/em>, I want to relate a story from my childhood. \u00a0When I was about four years old I was watching a movie on television about the American Civil War. \u00a0I didn’t know anything at all about the Civil War, but I could see there were two sides fighting each other — the “blue” and the “gray”. \u00a0So I asked my mother which were the good guys, and which were the bad guys.<\/p>\n

My mother told me both sides were Americans, and there was no “good-guy\/bad-guy.” \u00a0Now I\u00a0guarantee\u00a0you my mother understood the moral implications of the American Civil War. \u00a0But she also understood that the mind of four year old probably wouldn’t, and she didn’t want me getting into the very destructive habit of seeing people as “good” or “bad” without understanding the context of their situation. \u00a0Much later in life, I saw this quote: “In war, the first casualty is truth.” \u00a0As George Will would say: “well.”<\/p>\n

That brings us round to Belen Fernandez and Thomas Friedman.<\/p>\n

Thomas Friedman is a very, very controversial figure (see Thomas Friedman: In Your Face<\/a>). \u00a0I have reviewed\u00a0The Lexus and the Olive Tree<\/a>, and I am\u00a0finishing up\u00a0a review of The World is Flat. I have read\u00a0From Beirut to\u00a0Jerusalem as well. \u00a0I am\u00a0familiar\u00a0with the\u00a0territory.<\/p>\n

I think Friedman’s writing reveals him to be a silly, self-indulgent and\u00a0pompous\u00a0man, so captivated by the sound of his own voice that he goes off track all too often. \u00a0He strings anecdotes along, connects them with\u00a0unwieldy\u00a0metaphors, supports them with quotes from famous people, and tosses in a few “facts”. \u00a0His constant bashing of Arabs is tiresome, and his pious overtones are boorish. \u00a0He seems to thoroughly lack any appreciation for\u00a0historical\u00a0context. \u00a0The closer you look, the less sense his writing seems to make.<\/p>\n

To put it as Friedman might, you start pulling on one of those threads and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down like the Berlin Wall. \u00a0A few hundred pages of that kind of writing makes for a long read. \u00a0Why anybody takes him seriously is a point I will come back to later.<\/p>\n

He goes to great\u00a0lengths to say very little. \u00a0 His newspaper columns are a little better because they are shorter.<\/p>\n

But he is a\u00a0Pulitzer\u00a0Prize winner, works for the New York Times, gets on Charlie Rose frequently, and I suppose all that counts as success. \u00a0Me? \u00a0Well, not so much.<\/p>\n

Now we have\u00a0Belen Fernandez, a very articulate writer with a keen sense of humor. \u00a0She is a far better writer then Friedman, and in just a few pages of\u00a0The Imperial\u00a0Messenger <\/em>it’s obvious she works hard, way harder then Friedman, to make her points clear. \u00a0She has 50 pages <\/em>of footnotes for a 143 page<\/em> book. \u00a0This is a scholarly intellect at work.<\/p>\n

That’s\u00a0the\u00a0good news. \u00a0The bad news is that it’s not until the last\u00a0paragraph\u00a0in the book that she makes it clear what the value of the book actually is: “speaking truth to the people” and “exposing those\u00a0journalists\u00a0who do not” speak the truth. \u00a0Secondly, and I think worse yet, Fernandez doesn’t actually ever say what is obvious: she is a pro-Palestinian partisan.<\/p>\n

Both of those points are the kind best made in the\u00a0beginning, not buried or left unsaid.\u00a0I don’t care who the author is or the\u00a0topic, a solid dissertation needs the\u00a0central argument to be defined at the start.<\/p>\n

With respect to being pro-Palestinian, I have no ax to grind there. \u00a0As I said at the\u00a0beginning, the whole “good-guy\/bad-guy” thing doesn’t work for me. \u00a0If the Middle East wants peace, than the principle antagonists are going to have to find the right context. \u00a0Both sides are accountable for finding that context. \u00a0“Good-guy\/bad-guy” is no excuse. \u00a0In any case Fernandez should come out from behind Thomas Friedman and tell us what she thinks is true about Palestine.<\/p>\n

Now we come back to point number one: journalists who by intent or incompetence mislead people need to be exposed. \u00a0This is because “the consequences of such bad reporting … justify the killing of innocent people.” \u00a0I’m going to\u00a0reinterpret\u00a0this a bit and give Fernandez and Nir Rosen (who Fernandez was quoting) the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean the following: journalism drives\u00a0decision\u00a0making. \u00a0I know it’s an\u00a0oversimplification, but Ithink it’s what they meant.<\/p>\n

At the very least Rosen and Fernandez are saying that the kind of misinformation Friedman is spreading hides the facts and allows our government to do things in our name that we would oppose, if we knew the facts. \u00a0So: people take Friedman seriously and we get what — the Iraq war? \u00a0And continued war in the Middle-East? \u00a0That’s on him?<\/p>\n

Well what then of the\u00a0availability\u00a0of all that “truthful information in contemporary circulation, accessible\u00a0through the din of\u00a0establishment\u00a0media”? So in one sentence Friedman gets\u00a0criticized for being a\u00a0propagandist, in the next\u00a0sentence we find there are alternative sources?<\/p>\n

No. People in the United States have access to all kinds of information, and elect government officials at every level, and those officials make the laws, set the policy directions, and oversee the people who carry out the directives. \u00a0If you are going to say that misinformation drove those decisions to elect all those officials by all those voters, then make that<\/em> case. \u00a0 Don’t waste time slamming Thomas Friedman when the real issue is American “hegemony” or “imperialism” or whatever.<\/p>\n

Belen Fernandez has done her homework on Friedman’s\u00a0excesses. \u00a0But if Friedman is guilty of stringing together nonsense to misdirect us, Fernandez is guilty of stringing facts together that really don’t get to the heart of the issue. \u00a0Why do people take Thomas Friedman seriously? It’s because it validates their view. \u00a0If that makes him\u00a0influential, so be it. Let’s get on with the business of holding our leaders\u00a0accountable\u00a0for\u00a0making\u00a0better decisions.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, the reason things are the way they are is because both sides are not heard. \u00a0But I don’t think\u00a0Belen Fernandez is helping as much as she could.<\/p>\n