Thomas Friedman Gets A Pie In The Face During Speech At Brown

Watch the video of Friedman getting a pie in the face here.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was attacked with pies in the face by environmental activists during a speech about energy at Brown University yesterday.

The Providence Journal reports that Friedman's message — that responding to climate change will make America "stronger, more innovative, [and] more energy secure" — was greeted by protesters:

Not everyone agrees with Friedman's vision that innovation is the path to climate and energy salvation. Just seconds into his speech, he was interrupted by two environmental activists, who stormed the stage shortly after Friedman stepped up to the microphone, tossing two paper plates loaded with shamrock-colored whipped cream at him.

Friedman ducked, and was left with only minor streams of the sugary green goo on his black pants and turtleneck.

He stood in bewilderment and mild disgust as the young man and woman bolted from the stage and out the side door, throwing a handful of fliers into the air to relay the message they apparently were not going to deliver personally.

"Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face...," the flier said, "because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism's conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand..."

After five minutes, Friedman returned to the stage undeterred, with only faint traces of the green cream on his clothing.

The Brown Daily Herald reports that the students involved have been apprehended but charges are not likely to be brought against them:

After the pie hit Friedman and splattered on his face and torso, the two jumped offstage and ran out of the southeast exit of the building, followed closely by a man trying to catch them. A police officer also ran toward the exit but stayed inside.

The thrower was eventually caught by police, who detained her in Salomon's lobby before moving her elsewhere.

"One of the offenders was apprehended, placed in the custody of the Brown Department of Public Safety and identified as a Brown student," University spokesman Michael Chapman said in a statement released Tuesday night. "The University will review this incident through its non-academic disciplinary system to determine the appropriate response."

DPS Lt. Rick Lombardi told The Herald that no party wishes to press charges. Lombardi would not confirm the student's identity.

Pictures, hopefully, to come...

Related: FNC's Courtney Friel Gets A Pie In The Face

Comments

[greenwashguerrillas]

VIDEO CENSORED BY YOUTUBE AFTER 70,000 VIEWS
now available at www.greenwashguerrillas.org

April 28th, 2008 For Immediate Release: Contact: Colonel Custard (aka the corporate criminal creamer) Greenwash Guerillas: [e-mail] Footage available: www.GreenwashGuerrillas.org
Greenwash Guerrillas Pie Thomas Friedman at Brown University YouTube Censors Video; Pie Thrower Faces University Disciplinary Procedures
"The Greenwash Guerillas chose the harmless and humorous tactic of pie-throwing because our goal was to take this perpetual charlatan off his new green pedestal," said Colonel Custard. "Friedman"s support for coal and nuclear power is as misguided as his counsel on Iraq."

This is the second time Friedman has been hit by a pie. In October 2002, he received a banana pie to his face while promoting his writings on free-market globalization in Boston.

Footnote:
(1) e.g., http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/04/thomas-friedman.html

# # #

[racetoinfinity]

He deserves it for championing "flat earth" so-called "free trade" for all those years, benefiting only his class, the super-rich. Read David Sirota on Friedman; he's part of the corporatist plutocracy turning (trying to turn) the country into a banana republic.

[bbbbmer]

...and then there's his brown nosing of the bush administration's pursuit of this fakakta war for oil... too bad there wasn't any concrete in that pie mix....

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

To me, brown-nosing is agreeing with Bush's rationale for war and supporting it no matter what. Friedman never did that. Do we just have different definitions of brown-nosing, or do you just figure you'll throw some words around and nobody will call you on it? If the latter is the case, you have a great career in broadcast journalism ahead of you.

[anniebee]

dear mr. freidman, i guess we are old enough to know by now that there are fanatical people on one issue or another all over the place. i'm sorry we have to put up with rude people such as they are when it comes to new thought. i'm embarrassed for them because you are full of good thoughts and innovative thinking and i have appreciated your sharing it over many years. their issues seem to be more important than open mindedness and courtesy, one to the other.

[utopianinfenix]

When the issue is the survival of the species and most likely all life on this planet if certain fanatics have their sway, we don't have time for polite, courteous, hanky waving.

"While I certainly don't agree with you, I'll quietly sit here and listen to your pap while the species does the lemming waltz."

There is NO market solution, period. Every business model is based on growth and unlimited growth and finite sysyems have an issue with each other, don't they? Or are you just planning to go to Mars?

With all the "any market" economists.

The only markets that will save us in the future will be the ones within walking distance that say "Farmer's".

It's time for some serious "family planning", to cut the ties to religious institutions that don't understand that, and to lose that insane business plan and de-corporatize.

[mlambert890]

Just be prepared to get as good as you give then. Not everyone agrees with your hysterical and exaggerated view of the situation.

Intelligent people should be able to disagree, debate, and then reach a real and reasonable conclusion that is efficient.

Crazed luantics (you, for example), lash out like immature children when they don't hear what they want to hear and start ranting and raving about the apocalypse like some religious zealot, using that as a rationalization for their bad behavior.

Well congratulations to you and those like you. In the pursuit of your "righteous cause" you look just like the Taliban or the Bush administration to anyone rational.

There was a time when people like you executed people who dared question that the earth was flat or that man wasnt created by intelligent design. Don't think that just because you are, in your own mind, taking a "just and right" position that you are any different than those folks you despise if you condone methods that involve violence (and throwing an object at someone is violent)

Guys like you think they have it all figured out, but in screaming and yelling and never listening, all you really are is full of shit.

[FirstShirt]

Personally, I think people in the spotlight these days should carry a weapon, left wing or right wing. These nut jobs could have had a time with him before the rent a cops could set down their coffee.

[wsblake]

Hey firstshirt.
Your name should be "blackshirt" like the Mussolini thugs who you obviously emulate- go Cheney yourself.

[Kassandra]

Brownshirt is more like it. You know, Hitler's thugs.....

[mlambert890]

I see... so in your mind, it is perfectly ok to throw a pie in someones face then? So this guy is a fascist for suggesting that someone should be able to defend themselves?

You just dont see what a hypocrite you are because you're a blind ideologue. I love how guys like you think its just fine to do WHATEVER the fuck you want, but when someone decides to fight back, you scream "FASCIST!" and "NAZI!"

Actions have repurcussions.

[LeoMarvin]

They chose to make a statement with an act of civil disobedience. That's fine, and they got their message across. Now they should be punished.

[wsblake]

Leomarvin,
You sir are as pompous an ass as was your namesake in the film.

[utopianinfenix]

Leo, are you against whistle-blowing, too.

Punish the truth seekers. Send the dogs in, huh, Leo? Order up the water cannons, quick!

Leo, it's jurisprudence, not juris-punish.

[TheOldSchool]

Amusing as it is to see the pies being tossed at the zionist, Iraq war cheerleader, what truly makes the video priceless is Friedman's reaction to the incident. His every action is one of an egotistical ass who can't believe the hoi polloi were allowed within pie-shot of him. He's so accustomed to the ring-kissing he receives from the likes of Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Larry King.

It's just a pity the pies missed his smug mustachioed mug, and that they weren't filled with something ingredient that was as inedible and disgusting as his own putrid columns in the Times.

Here's hoping these pies were just the first (and most edible) of many yet to come. He's earned them.

[utopianinfenix]

Amen to that!

[curioustorquemada]

Pie in the face?
They missed his face. But they did get him in the back of the head.
But then Marxists do seem to prefer it that way.

[FirstShirt]

Excellent point. These liberal facists would blow you away in a heart beat, don't think they wouldn't. Freedom of thought and speech are anathema to them. They use violence as a tool of policy. What I can't fathom is those progressives who see one form of violence as being a better form of violence than another.

[JerseyLeif]

Exactly when was the last time a "liberal facist" blew away anybody? Name one person. Just one.

And I think the following definition may help you and many other posters on this site:
From Wikipedia:

Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by requiring that individual interests be subordinated to national interests and promoting cults of unity, energy and purity.

Fascists promote a type of national unity that usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, racial, and/or religious attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: patriotism, nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to political, economic liberalism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes.[12] Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, the term fascist is often a slur, used by adherents of some ideologies to describe their opponents.

[utopianinfenix]

Only the one-shirt; Tool? Yep, that's a perfect description, first-person is it? You seem fairly well-handled, malleable. Liberal is the antithesis of closed-mindedness. Freedom of thought? Define that for me, and how you so righteously live within it? There was no violence in their act, was there. Oh, the righteous indignation of having to foot the dry-cleaning bill and harm to the ego, pity the poor child.

Never mind the excremental nature of that sycophants free thought. And exactly when did you last step into that "free market" of ideas and commerce? Try getting an opposing viewpoint on any cable news entity, or entry onto the trading floor of any "free market' commodity.

It's time to deliver us from the corporations and take back America.

[Gilda]

I think we should send them to Guatanamo Bay and do a little waterboarding.

[NoHolyCows]

Friedman was and still is the Neo-Cons. pseudo-intellectual agent in the so-called Liberal Media. Arrogant without reason and shallow beyond disfigurement...

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

I don't get why you're calling him a neocon. I get that he didn't take a firm stand against the Iraq war. But he clearly stated that he thought that saddam had been neutralized and was not a threat or tied to 9/11 (not what Bush/Cheney were promoting ). He has called out the conduct of the war while hoping (as we all have at one point or another) that something positive could come from it. He hoped that the result would be a true democracy in the middle east, but he also noted the reasons that it was unlikely. Are we reading different Thomas Friedmans?

[LeBelAge]

Friedman is a Neo-Con because he supports globalization. There are two parts to neo-conservativism, one is political and the other is economic.

Leo Strauss is the father of the political side of neo-conservatism, while Milton Friedman is the father on the economic side. Through out most of the world the economic side is called neo-liberalism, but that term confuses many Americans who aren't familiar with political science terminology.

The Bush Administration has combined both the economic and political sides of neo-conservativism in an unholy marriage that is taking down the US and has already destroyed Iraq.

[FirstShirt]

Talk about strange bedfellows. Now we have liberal neocons. Isn't that an oxymoron?

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

What lies and fabricated stories?

[gerontion72]

Too bad there wasn't a fist in that pie.

[cla62]

He should have punched the idiots who assaulted him. It would have definately been within the law. Even the female stooge. It's obvious that colleges aren't teaching any lessons in maturity and acting like an adult.

[LeBelAge]

Since when is throwing a pie considered assault?

[nighthawk808]

"It's obvious that colleges aren't teaching any lessons in maturity and acting like an adult."

True. Bush did graduate from Yale, after all, and "adult" isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind when I hear his name. An adult word, yes, but the word "adult", no.

[truthynesslover]

Freidman deserves worse {maybe like being drafted to fight in Iraq?}He is a liar and scumbag and why anyone in his right mind would listen to him is beyond me!

[NoHolyCows]

You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT

[fishsandwichesr2good]

Typical leftists. I really wish someone had kicked the shit out of them.

[LeBelAge]

All the righties in the audience were too cowardly to fight per usual.

[nighthawk808]

Wingnuts don't fight. That's what other people's kids are for (as long as they're old enough to find their way to a recruiting station).

[FirstShirt]

Good point.

All speakers... if you are interested in protecting yourself [obviously security is ajoke] then the next time you speak bring a little tote bag with a small, aluminum kid's ball bat and when the liberal facists come running and giggling to batter you to the amusement of their leftist buds in the audience...

beat the living shit out of them on prime time. Don't forget to give them a good kick as they slither out the door. No doubt still giggling.

[obamagramma]

That was a pie in the face of environmentalists. I deplore that kind of activism & disrespect for free speech.

[LeBelAge]

Oh the faux outrage!

Excuse me? Pie throwing is a not activism. Its a cheap stunt done for laughs.

Considering the kinds of things Friedman's philosophy supports like loss of democracy, slave labor, and forcing millions of people into abject poverty world wide, outrage over a a pie being thrown is pretty comical.

As usual the Cons get upset over pointless things, but have no idea about what's going on in the real world.

[mlambert890]

No idea about "whats going on in the real world"? Now THAT is ironic.

But please.. Enlighten... Explain how Friedman supports "slave labor" Oh thats right. You cant. Not in any rational way. Because you're projecting some of his core beliefs forward to an insane and exaggerated conclusion and then using that as a rational for allowing "open season" on the man.

Its kind of like saying that because someone supports Islam, they support the subjugation of women and the stoning of gays. I mean hey, Islam misapplied can lead to those things just like globalism misapplied can lead to slave labor.

But why deal with nuanced debate and genuine exchange of ideas in search of actual solutions when you can rant and rave and throw pies. That will definitely help move the ball forwad for the human race.