Well, this is not a book review, but rather a small intro into a new book which is now at #4 on the
Amazon bestseller list.
It's called "Empire of Debt" by Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin. Now, I'm not formally plugging it as an employee (They're the founders of the company I work for, Agora Publishing, in Baltimore) but as a fan of how great it is, especially given the subject matter. I think you all would love it.
If you've read it, feel free to post some of your favorite passages. Bonner and Wiggin go to town THRASHING everyone from the bushCo empire-loving whack jobs to our good friend and GOP-lite propagandist, Thomas Friedman.
Regarding the latter clown, here are some samples from page 264 that are right on:
But we enjoy Friedman's commentaries. The man is too clumsy to hide or disguise the awkward imbecility of his own line of thinking. The silliness of it is right out in the open, where we can laugh at it.
Regarding his war cheerleading, the authors get it so right about the buffoon, you'd think they were regular readers of KOS...
Friedman urged the Bush administration to attack Iraq. But the man has a solution fo revery problem he causes. "So how do we get the Sunni Arab village to delegitimize [we love these big word-every one of them hides a whole dictionary of lies, fibs, prevarications, malentendus, misaprehensions, miscalculations, guesswork, hallucination, conceit, and mendacity] suicide bombers?
Simple. Propaganda! "The Bush team needs to be forcefully demanding that Saudi Arabia and other key arab allies use their news media, government, and religious systems to denouce and deligitimize the despicable murder of Muslims by Muslims in Iraq.
That ought to do it. What is wrong with the Bush team? Why didn't they think of that? "Forcefully demand" that the Arab states do more propaganda. Yes, problem solved.
By the way, your authors have no position on foreign policy. We only notice that the people who do have them are idiots.
This passage is even funnier...
Still we are not going to criticize Friedman. There is no sport in it. The poor fellow is evidently handicapped. He only sees things in two dimensions, like a drawing by a five-year-old with only one eye.
And on his child-like acid-trip musings, they have this little zinger:
He seems to have a one-eyed proposal each week: a "Reform Revolution"; (whatever oxymoronic thing that is); "nation building"; "a Manhattan project to develop a hydrogen-based energy economy"; a "National Commission for Doing Things Right"; a "Patriot Tax of 50 cents a gallon on gasoline; a "Reform India" proposal; and many others too numerous and absurd to mention.
Anyway folks, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT so check it out!