Friedman responds to Kishore Mahbubani

September 8, 2011

www.nytimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist

The Whole Truth as well as Nothing But

by Thomas Friedman

Published: Sep 6, 2011

Kishore Mahbubani, a late Singaporean diplomat, published a provocative letter in The Financial Times upon Monday which began similar to this:

Dictators have been falling. Democracies have been failing. A extraordinary coincidence? Or is it, perhaps, a sign which something fundamental has altered in a pellet of human history. you hold so. How do dictators survive? They discuss it lies. Muammar Gaddafi was a single of a biggest liars of all time. He claimed which his people loved him. He additionally controlled a flow of report to his people to prevent any alternative narrative receiving hold. Then a elementary cellphone enabled people to connect. The law widespread during large to drown out all a lies which a colonel promote over a airwaves. So because have been democracies unwell during a same time? The elementary answer: democracies have additionally been telling lies.

Mahbubani remarkable which a eurozone project was combined upon a large lie which countries could have financial union as well as mercantile autonomy without pain. Meanwhile, in America, added Mahbubani, right away a vanguard of a Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy during a National University of Singapore, No U.S. leaders brave to discuss it a law to a people. All their pronouncements rest upon a mythical arrogance which recovery is around a corner. Implicitly, they say this is a normal recession. But this is no normal recession. There will be no painless solution. Sacrifice will be needed, as well as a American people know this. But no American statesman dares utter a word sacri! fice. Pa inful truths cannot be told.

Of course, there is a large disproportion be! tween Am erica as well as Libya. We can vote out a liars, distinct sure Arab as well as Asian countries. Still, Mahbubanis some-more aged warrants a little thoughtfulness this week, which coincides with a 10th anniversary of 9/11 as well as a presidents jobs speech. It is a good week for truth-telling.

Can you recollect a last time you felt a national leader looked us in a eye as well as told us there is no easy resolution to a vital problems, which weve gotten in to this disaster by being self-indulgent or ideologically fixated over two decades as well as which right away you need to spend a next 5 years rolling up a sleeves, possibly usurpation a reduce vital standard as well as creation up for a excesses?

For me, this is a many vicious thing to say both upon a anniversary of 9/11 as well as upon a night before of President Obamas jobs speech. After all, they have been intertwined. Why has this been a mislaid decade? An answer can be found in a single elementary comparison: How Dwight Eisenhower as well as his successors used a cold fight as well as how George W. Bush used 9/11. America had to face down a Russians in a cold war.

America had to reply to 9/11 as well as a hazard of Al Qaeda. But a vicious disproportion in between a two was this: Beginning with Eisenhower as well as continuing to a little grade with each cold fight president, you used a cold fight as well as a Russian hazard as a reason as well as motivator to do big, tough things together during home to do nation-building in America. We used it to set up a widespread main road system, put a man upon a moon, push out a boundaries of science, teach new languages, maintain mercantile fortify and, when needed, raise taxes. We won a cold f! ight wit h collective action.

George W. Bush did a opposite. He used 9/11 as an excuse to reduce taxes, to begin two wars which for a initial time in a story were not paid for by taxation increases, as well as to create a dear n! ew entit lement in Medicare prescription drugs. Imagine where wed be today if upon a sunrise of 9/12 Bush had announced (as a little of us advocated) a Patriot Tax of $1 per gallon of gas to compensate for education, infrastructure as well as government research, to help finance a wars as well as to slash a dependence upon Middle East oil. Gasoline in a U.S. upon Sept. 11, 2001, averaged $1.66 a gallon.

But rsther than than use 9/11 to summon us to nation-building during home, Bush used it as an excuse to celebration to double down upon a radical tax-cutting bulletin for a rich which not usually did not spur rising vital standards for many Americans though has right away left us with a outrageous round as well as chain around a ankle. And later, rsther than than asking each of us to minister something to a war, he outsourced it to one-half of one-percent of a American people. Everyone else yall have fun.

We used a cold fight to strech a moon as well as parent new industries. We used 9/11 to create better body scanners as well as some-more T.S.A. agents. It will be remembered as a single of a biggest mislaid opportunities of any presidency ever.

My romantic hope is which upon Thursday Mr. Obama will set an example as well as discuss it a cold, tough law to parents as well as kids. you know. Honesty, you have been told, is suicidal in politics. But as long as each resolution which is tough is off a table, afterwards a delayed national decrease will sojourn upon a table. The open is ready for some-more than Michele Bachmanns fairy-dust guarantee which she can restore $2 a gal! lon gaso line.

For once, Mr. President, lets begin a debate with a truth. Tell us what you really consider will be required to get us out of this stagnation, what kind of collective action as well as common scapegoat will be indispensable as well as because which can lead not only to muddling through, not only to being O.K., though to restoring American greatness.

A version of this op-ed ! appeared in print upon Sep 7, 2011, upon page A35 of a New York edition with a headline: The Whole Truth as well as Nothing But.

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