New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argued yesterday (6/13/10) that, when it comes down to it,we’re all to blame for the BP disaster. And that’s not all we’re to blame for:
We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems. We–both parties–created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people’s lives. We–both parties–created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really didn’t have the means to sustain them. And we–both parties–sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price. (Of course, we expected them to take care, but when you’re drilling for oil beneath 5,000 feet of water, stuff happens.)
So apparently “we” are all in “both parties,” and “we” participated in some sort of referendum that endorsed certain Wall Street practices and/or encouraged offshore drilling without meaningful oversight.
It’s also telling that this far into the crisis Tom Friedman still believes that the housing bubble was mainly a problem of selling houses to poor people.
But let’s not sugarcoat things. After all, maybe “we” decided to give him a newspaper column, too.
It’s not just that we created the oil spill. Friedman claims, by way of a quote he endorses from a friend’s letter to the editor of a small-town newspaper on South Carolina, that BP, Transocean, and “the government” are not to blame for it.
What’s Friedman complaining about? He of the unfettered free-enterprise ethos – – his columns and books repeatedly extolling that viewpoint. I hope he’s not advocating government interference with the invisible hand of the market, which balances everything for the best!?!
What’s this “we” stuff???? Honchos in the two parties maybe, but the rest of us?????????
I hope he’s saying what I’m thinking, that our society, regardless of individual ideology, is addicted to oil. Further, we knew this 40 years ago and did nothing of substance, while a majority continue to support offshore drilling, and any/all means to extract every last drop of oil. That is ‘we.’ We have not been the change we wanted to see in the world. Liberals in Priuses (try running one w/out oil?) are part of the problem — can’t really change our own consumption-dominated lifestyles, but have spent 30+ years preaching that the entire nation should do just that.
In that sense, we are ‘we.’
“We” are barf every time we read the New York Times.
@Circumspection: Americans are oil gluttons, no doubt, but I’m sure everyone in the country wants BP and other oil companies to operate safely and sanely, which they do not. Safety standards cost money so most (probably all) oil companies violate them in order to save money. As a result employee are killed in on-the-job accident-related deaths each year. This is the same thing that happened in the gulf, BP by passed important safety procedures in a rush to get the oil out as quickly as possible in order to keep costs down and maximize profits, even if it meant risking their employees’ lives.
I don’t know anything about any “we” but “I” do not want people injured or killed just so I can have the luxury of filling up whenever I want. Besides, it’s all unnecessary; it just costs the oil companies more to get and process the oil safely. That’s not going to significantly delay getting the product to market.
Let’s just hope BP has enough money to pay for the mess they’ve caused – and then go bankrupt.
Conveniently, that column had no comment section for readers to rebut his flawed premises.
to Eldon and many others, it seems to me:
‘we’ yes, its not just the ‘Honchos in the two parties’ that drink bottled water, drive huge cars, want their Walmart air-conditioned and the strawberry shortcake at Christmas. ‘We’ are against every tax (why don’t ‘we’ demand a $5 surcharge on every gallon of gas to pay for the mess we create??). We want our food cheap, in throw-away Styrofoam containers. We use air blowers instead of sweeping the driveway or even hose them down with drinking water. We want lawns. We want throw away diapers, we want a hot shower every day. We have no limit in our quest for wasting every possible resource. And it is not just we in the US, every other nation is trying to emulate this ‘advanced lifestyle’ where every item has to be priced below average and has a life-span of less than a few days. And this is achieved by charging the true cost of run-away consumption onto the next generation.
Yes, WE need to hold BP accountable and they are criminals. Like the financial ‘elite’. But WE also must clean up our own act or the next human made disaster is just a few years away. And given the lack of reaction to this catastrophe, I am not optimistic that WE are up for that challenge!
There’s no doubt the “big guys” on Wall Street and in Washington have done some bad things and bear responsibility for the various messes we are in. At the same time, they do and continue to do what we allow and tolerate. We feel the issues are so big that we can’t make a difference, so we excuse ourselves and do nothing. Placing blame and accountability is fine, but that needs to be a finite process.
The real question is — what are we — each of us — going to do as the system and those who work it attempt to return to business as usual. We each need to be vigilant, to find others of like minds we can work with, and to be vocal and visible. This our country and our and our children’s future — we can’t be ignored if we do our job!
@Frank:
For the planet, our only life support system, there is no such thing as “safe oil.”
We need to start having real conversations about the only actual existential threat to civilization (no, not terrorism, healthcare, debt or immigration): the collapse of the biosphere. 11 dead Americans is good political fodder but in the face of the abyss we’re staring into, the lesser moral concern.
I wish everyone shared my values – that nature and life have intrinsic value, etc – but, at this point, I just wish everyone shared the same perception of reality, and the tremendous challenges we face.
Focusing that perception and taking control of the national narrative should have been Barack Obama’s one and only focus – and his best opportunity to do so wasted away in the first month of the oil volcano.
@Felix: Amen.
The problem with Friedman’s “we are the problem” assumption is that it ignores the long-standing environmentalist oppostion that has always been against drilling and always been for conservation and transitioning to renewable energy – and the moneyed interests who stand in the way of positive change.
The demand for and reliance on oil IS a core problem, but Friedman, and those commentators with similar views, ignores the contigent (mostly on the left) that supports transitioning into a more sustainable lifestyle that requires real public and private investment and cooperation, only to have their voices drowned out by corporate money who are invested in the unsustainable status quo, right-wing idealogues and politicians fed by corporate money.
Yes, there is a problem that many go-with-the-flow Americans are simply apathetic and wasteful and excessive in their lifestyles. And there are those “drill baby drill” Conservatives clinging to a dying model who reject the idea of possible sacrifice on their part. But more harmful than these are the institutions who stand in the way of meaningful change. The dirty energy industries using propaganda and bribery to keep the status quo going, the politicians who give subsidies and tax breaks to polluting industries, and can’t or won’t invest in new technology or efficient infrastructure – despite public support for them.
My god I’m powerful. I run the banks, the mines, Toyota, and BP. The entire economy is all my fault too, for not spending enough and saving enough at the same time.
There are only three suspects. First they blame the corporation, then they blame the government, and then they shift to me. Wow I’m powerful.
I’m encouraged to see that there are those who recognize that this is a problem brought on by individual citizen actions. We could bicycle when possible, walk more often (might put a dent in the obesity problem) and use and support public transportation. Also, because we have NO Campaign Reform, we could learn to look through the Special Interest money / propaganda when we vote. // Jean Clelland-Morin
People like Friedman are the problem; he is wishy-washy and shallow, and a representative of all that is bad about what remains of American credibility. The fact that he is hailed as one of America’s leading journalistic lights is a joke, and reflects very poorly on the country’s intellect.
@Felix: yes.
Problem is, Tom F is not consistent. Recently, he wrote about Turkey, which he thinks is being driven Islam-wards, and lack of leadership hither and yon, USA, Israel, EU, etc. play a role.
Sure.
But when he decries “our” complicity in our own ills, he fails to keep leadership in mind. A great swathe of Americans do not think for themselves, but follow the leadership of others (I believe the bible is the word of god, because the bible tells me so)! And Fox provides the word of god, because Fox tells me so. And Sarah Palin is the best thing to hit America since the transistor.
There is a well-heeled bunch of rich guys paying guys like Dick Armey to provide leadership behind the scenes, and that leadership is malign. It decries and dismisses as unAmerican any attempt to educate along the lines Tom F seems to hanker for, but Tom F will not take on the Armeys, Becks, Palins, et al.
We can stand back and say it is” all” of us that caused this mess,But that is exactly what people like Barney Franks and Dodd(now in charge of the banking reorg.)Want to hear. Because it lets them off the hook.We can not allow it to seep into American minds that on all things there is not a hill of beans difference between politicians.Bull!
Fanny and Freddy- the lib owned and operated socialist nightmare caused the sub prime meltdown.Bush(and I am no fan)tried 27 times to stop or get a handle on this and Franks- Shumman-and Dodd blocked it and promised all was well. Lets not let the argument change so that we believe free market capitalism failed.It did not.It was a government socialist program that started this.Government interference and over regulation in things they had no right being involved in….and UNDER regulation in things they should of been involved in.Freedom and capitalism(really the same thing)have always worked.Socialism….not so much.Our president is now taking us in the direction that has really never worked.So don’t fall for this reframing of the argument nonsense.
michael e:
Talking points of the right. Don’t you ever feel a desire to investigate issues yourself? Look at arguments on both sides? Fanny and Freddy didn’t even begin the subprime mortgage fiasco. Doesn’t the Gulf leak imply a lack of regulation on the part of the government? Your loose use of the word “socialism”–why don’t you find out what it really means? And, after that, ask yourself if Obama is a socialist?
You know, education prevents writers from looking foolish in posting comments on blogs. Why not get educated? And I mean real education, the kind that encourages critical thinking.
friedman is a puffed up sportswriter without the humility of a shirley povich,or roger khan.he would be better suited to commiserations with the eternal brooklyn fans about whether hodges should have held the runner in some long ago game,or whether we “shoulda had spooner sooner.”he is clearly so far out of his depth elucidating,defining and expounding on “our” problems that its thrilling-apologies to lenny bruce-pal,”our” elections are clearly rigged-and those results will be validated by the courts even if that requires that “we ” scrap the constitution.”our” energy policy is hammered out in secret by folks whose contempt for their fellow citizens would probably shock the conscience of jp morgan.whatever we “know”about “our” problems is filtered through a corporate sponsored media which is driven by a cluster ideas which has come to the end of its tether-in the gulf,on wall street,main street,for damned sure in the afghan.
we don’t have a government as much as we have a corporate sponsored entity which provides “us” with government services-don’t worry about socialism -that’s for “them.” buddy,”we ” are rapidly reaching the point at which democratic socialism will be irrelevant.unless our concept of democracy can be broadened so as to deal with the issues in the military/industrial sphere,we are done-we may as well admit it “we ” shoulda had spooner sooner.
To Drosera
Would you consider Harvard or Columbia a good education?That aside, those school actually do not always do so well on critical thinking so maybe you win that argument. Im glad you are arguing Fanny and Freddy’s cause and effect to the sub prime mortgage meltdown.For at least 7 years I was talking to groups about what would happen it these esteemed lib organizations went belly up.People like you were usually smirking in the crowd at the ridiculousness of such claims.People like Franks- Shumman- and Dodd saying “no worries,no worries”.Im glad to see the smirk is still there on your faces long after the horse has left the barn.
Obama is a socialist.PeriodThe only question is has a lifetime of being raised and involved with socialist Marxists groups(don’t make me send chapter and verse of this starting with his own parents) and radicalsh made him a huge socialist working under the radar- or some hybrid flying over.I feel it is the second.You see you cannot transform America and a good portion of her total economy with gigantic socialistic programs and say on the other hand you are a capitalist.Wait I take that back….You could, and you would, if you were in Obamas world.
So Pass on the elitist snobbery and belittling sarcasm.It isnt flying anymore.The horse you put all your money on is a lame swayback.And he is running dead last.
I agree Drosera, michael has some colorful imagery, but very little tied together logic. A common fuzzy thinking problem today. I gather he and his neocon teapartiers decide 1)Obama is bad, 2) “socialism” is bad too, so 3) naturally Obama is a socialist. Therefore anything Obama proposes is not only suspect, but pure evil. And it is all because Obama is a socialist, period.
When I was a child in school, the local bully called me a communist. This was his logic. “Your grampa is a union member. Unions are communist. That’s why I hate you.”
The truth? My grandfather owned a large construction company. He was a sincere Baptist, with a very strong ethical sense of right human behavior. When his carpenters wanted to elect someone to express their side of work issues he felt that was perfectly alright. He was definitely not a communist He probably would have considered himself a socially conscious capitalist. I was too young to know what any of those words meant.
I suspect that is the case with michael e. He is too busy to find out what all those slang words mean. He has heard them used before in a derogative way, therefore thats how he uses them.
Socialist, period.
Donr
Wonder how grandpop would feel about unions no longer having a secret vote for unionization?.How would you like to raise your hand,and be the one to stop the unionization of your workplace in front of union officials?No Don’t pull that stuff that I grew up outside a union background so Im just lost as to how working men live.Would you be surprised that in my immediate immediate family was a leader in a certain union orginization known as the Teamsters?I Grew up in it . I Know it inside out and backwards,so it is doubtful I bad mouthed union folk.How I feel about it good and bad lets save for another time.
If by the common fuzzy thinking problem today you mean that I suffer from a belief that…….”This president is an unqualified man who is printing money so fast it is a blur…..Has shredded the constitution…..Cannot see that we as a country are broke flat busted… That .His only “Fix” to any delemma is to raise taxes and spend more money(that we dont have)on more pie in the sky liberal socialist programs trying to create a huge nanny state.Has not a capitalist free market bone in his bone head…Yeah I just might have that disease.And by the way socialism or communism/Marxism is not slang.It is a political belief system.
Donr…He and his Dems have spent more in his first year than all the presidents from Washington to Bush put together!What dont you see in that?Where is it.Well we cant audit the fed so…..As far as your statements…
1)Obama IS bad….for this country.2)Socialism iS bad…for any country.Never has, and never will work because sooner or later you run out of other folks money.3)Obama is a socialist.Most of the actions he has taken as he steamrollers over the American people are in fact Socialist programs.If you want to call him a progressive I will give you that.Now learn what a nightmare progressives are.Google the progressive party.Then when you hear Obama or Hilary call themselves that……Get ready to give them a way out.Oh they dont really mean that.They must not understand…….Look at every action Donr.They understand perfectly.
I have never called Obama Evil.Out of his depth,over his head,deluded, yes.But evil…no!I wonder though….How do you feel about those tea party people ?People who want a smaller government with less oversight into your life?Who want a return to constitutionalist principles.A return to individual freedoms and capitalist economic principles.Do you think them evil?Do you actually believe tea party folks are not “socially conscious”?