Tom Friedman's Take On "Wimps" and "The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys"
In his Sunday New York Times column, "Real Men Tax Gas," Thomas Friedman had admiring words commenting on the French. Drawing sharp contrast between Americans, designated as "wimps," while the French are lauded for generating some eighty percent of their electricity from "clean" nuclear power plants. In contrast it is pointed out that we haven't built a nuclear facility since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The United States generates 20 percent of its electric energy through nuclear power whereas France's electric grid quotient from "clean" nuclear power is 80%. Friedman's contention, that the paucity of our commitment to nuclear power combined by our lack of gumption to reduce our oil consumption through a gas tax or carbon tax, qualifies us as being wimps. This in sharp contrast to the likes of France, and as also cited in his column, Denmark. That we, in essence have become the "The Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys."
But in making this broad brush judgment a key point is lost. The issue doesn't simply attain to limiting fossil fuel consumption by significantly increasing gasoline taxes, as Friedman suggests. It attains to something much more fundamental. France's governance emanates from an elite corp of public servants, graduates of the "grands ecoles" who run the sinews of the Ministries of State. It has given France a government whose dedication and commitment to the general weal is keenly suited to a fiercely competitive world. Ours, by contrast is progressively dysfunctional, where the electorate has become increasingly powerless, neutered by moneyed and narrow constituencies whose parochial interests are served by an increasingly token government molded to do their bidding and override the general good with growing abandon.
France, has a government with vision, having the welfare of the general public foremost in its sights. Examples of its accomplishments in recent years has not only been a uniquely efficient power grid, but according to the World Heath Organization, France is first in the WHO's ranking of world health systems. This while the United States lingers 37th in ranking. (Behind, with apologies, such countries as Malta, Morocco, Colombia, Cyprus, Costa Rica, and on. I'm sure you get the drift.)
In addition, France has what is generally understood to be the most efficient high-speed rail service in the world, with plans to expand it to the four corners of the nation (please see "High Speed Rail Speeding Ahead at Snail's Pace"). This required years of planning and determination, the kind of vision that once, too many years ago, brought us to the moon. France's high-speed rail network is so successful that Guillaume Pepy, president of the French Rails, SNCF, would comment a year ago that not building a four-track high-speed railway roadbed had been a mistake. Other than the lame Amtrak corridor in the northeast, which is only intermittently conducive to high speed travel, we have none.
Further, the French government's priorities address lifestyle and quality of life issues in a dimension barely understood by those who govern us. Fully cognizant of the importance of Culture and Art in all its disciplines to the full life of its citizens, the French Government's commitment is massive compared to ours where our government grudgingly sets aside slightly in excess of $150 million a year toward the budget of the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Were the budget of the NEA comparable to the budget of France's Ministry of Culture on a pro rata basis, then the NEA's budget would be approximately $9 billion. Yes, the mandates are not altogether the same, but the sums speak volumes.
Culture is integral to the French government's call for better ways to calculate a nation's economic health. It is their contention, with the advent of the financial crisis, that a broader basis of measurement is called for. That the obsession with "gross domestic product" needs be altered to include such factors as health care availability, leisure time, as well as environmental concerns triggered by over consumption. To quote France's head of state, Nicolas Sarkozy, "The (financial) crisis doesn't only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so."
The French government is also aware of the dramatic divergence between the earnings of the general workforce and the egregious excess of executive compensation, and those of bankers and traders who have brought the "free market" to the edge of ruin. Where we have been slow to act, the French government has reacted with vigor and focus, setting forth tough rules and declaring clearly that those banks that do not abide by the new program limiting pay and establishing disclosure rules of bonus payments will be barred from the generally lucrative and supportive government mandates. To that end, Sarkozy stated clearly and unequivocally, "We will not work with banks that do not apply the rules."
But lest this be considered a paean exclusively to French governance, consider China. Here is a society with an elite corps of public servants. Only the best and the brightest from the very top schools gain access to what is today the almost ludicrously misnamed the "Communist Party." As David Brooks, with aplomb and tongue in cheek, appropriately observed in a long ago brilliant New York Times column, "The Dictatorship of Talent," "Imagine the Harvard Alumni Association with an Army... this is a government of talents. It rules the way a wise father rules the family." To further quote Brooks, "In the West there are tensions between government and business elites. In China these elites are part of the same social web, cooperating for mutual enrichment." And by "mutual enrichment" he had the general good of the nation in view, not as here the "mutual enrichment" of Wall Street cronies.
And how does that play out? I can report from personal experience. In 1980 I was in Beijing. I had organized the first sale of a cargo of American produced chemical fertilizer (diammonium phosphate -- don't ask) to mainland China . Beijing was a sea of bicycles, with a sea of mankind peddling away in Mao suits. Perhaps the tallest building in Beijing at the time was the Beijing Hotel whose access was restricted to foreigners and government authorized personnel. Fast forward thirty years later. China is a teeming landscape of modern cities, unruly traffic in spite of a purring infrastructure of roads and rail. In three decades, 350 million people have been brought into the consumer class, an accomplishment of herculean dimensions. Yes, there are issues of civil liberties and pollution. But these are being addressed. China is already lapping the United States on environmental technology and as to Mr. Friedman's lament about America's reticence to build nuclear power plants, know that China plans to build 25 by the year 2025.
All this raises a much more fundamental question: Given our current structure of government and the way it functions, how are we going to compete, and to hold our own in years to come as we go head to head with societies that are far better equipped to deal with the exigencies of the future and the long-term planning that is essential is to meeting the challenges ahead?
We are hardly a nation of wimps. Sadly, we have a government that is barely functioning. We have a government class too readily looking after its own interests and those of their campaign paymasters, rather than the nation as a whole. This has not always been the case. The American people are and have shown themselves to be capable of extraordinary accomplishments throughout their history. But today, in this world, given the leadership of other societies, much needs be done to change the way we govern ourselves and the way our government functions.
Graham Hill: Train Replacing Plane: It's Not Insane
The simplified check-in, security, and city-center to city-center service provided by trains will naturally cause many people to switch from flying.
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A brilliant piece. Effectively communicates the angst so many feel about the country's direction, and the beacon's we can look to guide our ship in the all to present future.
The USA is at a great crossroads. We will take the correct path to renewable energy with or without our dysfunctional government ( it will be less likely to happen without). Or we will bevcome a second rate nation lamenting tour fall from the top of the heap.
Presently, a betting man would put money on the latter outcome because of our Congress.
I'd argue that the fault is less our Congress than the electorate.
In a democracy, folks generally get just about the government they deserve (or are willing to work for).
I would add Vietnam to the discussion. I was impressed with all the investments in infrastructure during several visits there. It seemed like corruption at the top was kept to a minimum. People who defrauded the government were executed!
On the other hand, there is the example of the former Soviet Union and the present Putin government, where the people come last.
Friedman lies about the safety of France's nuclear waste "program" in his 9/19 NYT piece. He claims that the French have "managed to deal with all the radioactive waste issues without any problems or panics."
Au contraire. France now has 840 anti-nuclear groups.
France's long-term waste storage plan is simply a hole in the ground in the village of Bure.
Every year France dumps One Hundred Million gallongs of liquid radioactive waste resulting from reprocessing into the English Channel.
source: Beyond Nuclear organization.
Perhaps you should inform the UK government immediately... 100 million gallons (though the French use litres) is rather a lot
Of course nuclear is dangerous and needs strict scrutiny. Still, 840 groups is about 830 too many. It might be better if they united or formed loose federations, non?....
"Ours, by contrast is progressively dysfunctional, where the electorate has become increasingly powerless, neutered by moneyed and narrow constituencies whose parochial interests are served by an increasingly token government molded to do their bidding and override the general good with growing abandon."
Stop the presses, stop everything, there can be nothing more stunning, especially in a land where I hear so much cackling about "freedom". What is this freedom we hear so much about and how is it serving our interests in Washington? Perhaps we are free, free to be fodder for the whims and machinations of the power elite, the corrupt "corporateer" in waiting, in training, and on retainer whilst supposedly -- serving the interest of the people. Self-interest has eclipsed self-governing in terms of appeal as an approach for longevity. Every woman or man for themselves, unless...
The most significant thing China did was limit its population. First it had the two child policy and then it had the one child policy. Marriages were deferred. This means China has been able to feed one point .three billion people and educate them. It is out of the gate already when it comes to going green.. Interestingly, in the centuries when France was a power, it had remarkably little or virtually no population increase. But America has gobbled up half a continent, overpopulated it, poisoned it and has zillions of religious fanatics who forbid talking about birth control and abortion. Better a baby be born and die in one hour than it be aborted. Better tens of millions have no health insurance and can't afford needed medication than anyone should stop the profiteering of the health insurance companies. I wonder why Madoff had to go to jail and so many corporations can steal the average Joe blind.
when the british were empire building, the americas got the religious fanatics and australia got the criminals.
we got shafted!
d
And China is going to pay dearly when it's working age population retires and there is nobody left to take over or even look after them. It's a demographic time bomb.
The French don't have as many nuclear aircraft carriers, submarines, invisible fighters/bombers or gun deaths as us. What a bunch of wimps.
so that justifies the reason why we are involved in wars everywhere and unable to win any of them.
The smart countries will build solar, wind, and other renewable energy products. These products are far less toxic in the long run than nuclear, no matter what happens. Anyway, there is only so much uranium.
Thomas Friedman's article is mocking the way some Americans talk about France (surrender monkeys). Very funny...ha.
Ever since France has been dumping its nuclear waste off the shore of South Africa the people there are losing their hair and getting sick. So I wouldn't be so quick to champion nuclear energy.
France does have the number one health care system.
France has had high speed rail for decades.
Amazingly enough, next to the United States and China, France spends more on military defense than any other country.
"Ever since France has been dumping its nuclear waste off the shore of South Africa the people there are losing their hair and getting sick. So I wouldn't be so quick to champion nuclear energy."
I live in SA & this is the first I have heard of this. Your source please??
I believe Guitar is referring to the reported dumping off the coast of Somalia, which is of course not part of the country of South Africa.
In another part of Somalia, industrial waste from Europe begun to being dumped just off the coast, because it's expensive to get rid of waste in Europe [whilst] it costs nothing to take it in a boat and dump it outside Somalia. The most incredible thing that was dumped was literally nuclear waste.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/in-defense-of-pirates_b_185450.html
"Yes, there are issues of civil liberties and pollution. But these are being addressed. China is already lapping the United States on environmental technology and as to Mr. Friedman's lament about America's reticence to build nuclear power plants, know that China plans to build 25 by the year 2025. "
What?
China's pollution is so bad it ends up in Los Angeles and it's exciting that they are building 25 nuclear plants? After the govt built schools and they were some of the only buildings that collapsed in the last earthquake that made the news?
Civil liberties?
Who knows? Amnesty International isn't even allowed IN. I didn't want to pay to see the plasticized bodies when they were in town here, who knows where they came from?
Press freedom?
http://www.rsf.org/en-pays57-China.html
Right diagnosis, wrong prescription.
At times of difficulty, there is a tendency particularly in countries whose populations lack maturity and self-confidence to look for a man on horseback. Or perhaps in this case, a cadre of wise technocrats and polymaths.
The problem is that these elites are humans not angels or demigods.. They are subject to the same human shortcomings as our current crop of "leaders". Corruption, influence peddling etc are not unknown in Europe or China. Nor boneheaded ideas and policies.
Yes, our political system is not functioning well.
It’s easy to blame corrupt politicians and influence buying lobbyists. If it's not our fault, then we don't really have to do anything.
But, under our current form of government, we have the power to un-elect as well as to elect. Nothing stirkes terror into a politician’s heart like the unhappy prospect of being separated from the perks and privileges of office.
We can lobby and demonstrate. By and large we choose not to. Unlike the French.
Simply put, we want a free ride but not for the "undeserving" folk among us. We don’t want to sacrifice - so we push problems off to the future.
The answer is to get off our duffs and take responsibility for our fate.
But there’s American Idol, Octomom, Brangelina and so many other more important things to do.
Raymond, this was a great post.
If one does not hold it against him for being a warmongering asshat, Tom Friedman should get credit for a few good points.
One small bone to pick:
Why would you want to quote David Brooks, "In the West there are tensions between government and business elites. In China these elites are part of the same social web, cooperating for mutual enrichment."
Brooks' statement is patently ridiculous!
Our government is hand in glove with business elites! Ya, our elites probably envy the form that it takes in china, but America is getting there as we ignore reguation and rule of law.
Raymond, you have more to say than these mainstream douches will ever have.
One poster already cited the Rocky Mountain Institute's take on nuclear. The fundamental problem is that the containers last for centuries while the waste is hot for millenia. Oh yes, and peak uranium is in 2040 unless we build lots of nuke plants, then it's 2015. "Peak" means declining supplies ever after.
I'll second Learsy's and Friedman's sympathies for the Frenchies. But let's remember that they made Minitel and the U.S. made the internet (a government program, BTW), so we're not such awful dummies that we *always* fall short.
When we were doing early internet here, the French were doing online shopping and train reservations on Minitel.
I will grant neither the US nor French versions of the interweb-like (pneumatic?) series of tubes (hat tip Senator Stevens) compare to what we now have, but as between the two the French version was ubiquitous and functional. What passed here in the U.S., not so much.
And don't forget, people still subject themselves to America Online, which makes Minitel look just fabulous.
Will building more nukes make peak uranium arrive sooner rather than later?
I believe that the key here is that France has an independent, professional public service. They have permanent Secretaries, instead of appointed (political) heads who come and go. This allows for stability and long range planning.
I don't know how, or why, you, Mr. Learsy, wasting you time reading Tom Friedman or then wasting even more time commenting about it. Tom Friedman is a piece of trash and should never be considered as having something value to say. I'm not even sure what he could do to repair his frightful image of establishmentarian bias.
No, just give him 6 more months and Friedman will turn a corner, and (at least arguably) have one might politely call a "thought," albeit with pity and mostly just to be polite.
No really, six more months ...
well said
Thomas Friedman always reminds me of Mr. Tudball, the Tim Conway boss on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW who was always saying "MRS. HIGGINS!"
Just saying 'no' doesn't help. Rehashing one or two examples of human errors that resulted in little or no harm or citing exaggerated statistics doesn't help, either.
The answer to reducing our dependence on oil is to make the transition to electricity. The best, most efficient way to generate electricity is the use of water power. Wind and solar are much better for the environment, but not yet very efficient. Nearly every farm in the center of our country once had a windmill that pumped well water. Nobody complained.
Nuclear power is clean and efficient. And it is safe. Even safe against Homer Simpson. I just wish that we could build more of them and scale them down. The nuclear powerplants used in our nuclear submarines are very efficient, safe even from explosions, and inexpensive. Our engineering mistake was to try to scale them up too much. Keeping them small and simple keeps the temperatures and pressures down and reduces the costs. An added benefit is that cheaper, less potent fuel will work in smaller reactors.
Coal and oil-fired plants will eventually destroy civilization; either through war or global climate catastrophe.
We'll never seen small and efficient nuclear plants in our country. Mostly, it's due to irrational fear of the word 'nuclear'. The 'radiation' word is loaded, too. Too bad.
Electric trains are fast and efficient. So are cars, bicycles, segways, etc.
Even nuclear physicists have grave concerns about the safety and efficacy of nuclear power.
Read "The Nuclear Illusion," a white paper from the Rocky Mountain Institute:
http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNuclIlusion.pdf
See also the website for the Union of Concerned Scientists:
http://www.ucsusa.org/
Amen ... nuclear power plants in France are not even an eyesore. You can drive up the Rhone Valley and barely notice them.
France figured out a almost perfect cookie cutter design and implemented it. How come we cannot do it?
I'll be this destroys the aesthetics a bit, though:
"France: Anti-Nuclear Protester Dies as Train Cuts Off Legs"
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-26468.html
Also, did you know that France has to ship its nuclear waste to Germany, causing lots of protests there?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1112-01.htm
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