"Flat"...ulence

I've been listening to "The World if Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005)," by foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman. It is 15 CD's read by Oliver Wyman.

"The World is Flat," is a catch phrase created by Thom to explain simply what is happening with globalization. He means that the world is becoming more homogeneous and thus more folk are becoming interconnected from all over the world with new technology.

I enjoyed this book at first, hearing the interconnectedness of all the various nations in this insane world of new technology. How work is being created in areas where there was none. The facts on the ground are pretty interesting; laying of fiber optic lines, the dot com boom to bust, the infrastructure that set up outsourcing, etc.

But then Thomas gets into this corporatization party-line analysis of the whole situation that given the facts since 2005 seems on the verge of ridiculous.

He also starts handing down this message that sounds rather like, "if you poor folk would just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, you could jump on the globalization bandwagon and become fabulously wealthy like all the other folk who have jumped on it." Can you say, BULLSHIT! That would work in a world of infinite resources. Infinite growth on a finite planet. But he doesn't talk about these things. He barely talks about any of the negative effects of globalization. He does have a lot of cute little catch phrases in this book like "where were you when the world went flat?," "glocalization (act locally, think globally...about how you can hop on the globalization band wagon)," etc. It would seem that he says these things in a way to catch the readers eyes without really explaining the whole picture. Without much, if any, REAL analysis of the negative things that happen with globalization. To hear Thom talk about globalization, you'd think it was the best thing since the orgasm!

I'm only on disc 13, but Thom did finally get to talking about what happens to those not so lucky, or, if you will, unable or unwilling to jump on the globalization band wagon. He finally did start talking about the negative things around disc 12, but he isn't talking with the people that it effects. He talks with those who have successfully jumped on the bandwagon stating that those that aren't on board are simply jealous of those who are. Thus, since they didn't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they are left behind to live in poverty.

THANK GOD for John Perkins! The day before yesterday, one of the loaders of the trucks I drive did a ride along with me to see what he and his colleagues put us through. I didn't want to bring him in on the middle of "...Flat," so I stuck in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World (2004)," by John Perkins. Thank you for the reality check, John! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! At points when I was about screaming at the FLATulent analysis of "...Flat," I'd think of this book.

"...Economic Hitman" is about the work done by John and others to bring the economies of other nations to their knees by encouraging vast loans that they would be incapable of paying back and thus could be held in the imperial grip of the American Corporatcracy. The U.S. could then steal labor, resources, votes in the U.N., etc., through extortion by leveraging these loans.

John mentions such crimes as murder, genocide, assassination, environmental destruction, corruption, rape, etc. The real darker side of globalization covered up as simple jealousy thus far in "...Flat."

John went all over the world and he describes how he made economic forecasts of how the engineers for the company he worked for could design structures for infrastructure that would make a nation fabulously wealthy and self-sufficient. The nations would then take loans from the IMF and World Bank for billions of dollars and be incapable of paying them back after dams and other infrastructure were created. Thus, these nations would be held hostage to do the bidding of other nations. The taking of "a pound of flesh," was how John put it.

John also describes the history of it, mostly starting with the work of Kermit Roosevelt in successfully removing the Mossadeq government from Iran in the '50's and putting in the pro-American Shah who became one of the most heinous criminals in current history according to some of the people that lived under that monster. But the Shah gave America what it wanted, and thus, he was great in the eyes of the American corporatocracy.

These things you don't hear about in Thom's book. You don't hear interviews with women like Vandana Shiva or Arundhati Roy talking about how the new world infrastructure and predatory lending practices have lead to the destruction of the farming community in India. Nor will you hear about Monsanto and other food corporations taking over the farming in India. You won't hear John Perkins talking about how the oil industry destroyed the environment in Ecuador. You won't hear the voices of the indigenous Africans around the Niger Delta and the destruction of their environment and thus their culture at the hands of the oil industry.

You will hear about how great Bill Gates is in offering so generously some of his millions to the African people in search of a cure for various forms of Malaria. But wait, oddly, I didn't hear how any of this is reaching the BLACKS in Africa. I heard how a $230,000,000 grant has gone into research to drug companies to create a vaccine under the pretext of somehow getting it into the hands of the primitive clinics in Africa to help the people there. No mention of using that money to help create a healthier infrastructure in Africa. No mention of helping create a situation where Africans can create their own sovereignty. The only place I heard that money went to is to research and how Bill Gates praised his own philanthropy.

Thomas Friedman does finally mention around disc 12 the numbers in jobs created by the call centers in India. 0.02% jobs have been created by the call centers. Only 2% of jobs in India are created by globalization. There is so much more in the forecasting arena I could discuss here, but how much more is going to bore you?

Here are some current negative aspects of globalization:

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a direct effect of globalization.

The increase in immigration from the south caused by NAFTA and GATT and not "Mexicans" wanting to steal our jobs.

The banking crisis caused by predatory lending.

And the list goes on and on.

If you want to read this book, "...Flat," by Thomas Friedman, I'd suggest balancing it with some John Perkins, Derrick Jensen, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, etc. to add a little REALITY flavor to the mix

Don't worry about the bootstraps...Haliburton holds the patent on those and doesn't charge too much for you to pull on them.