There is definitely a change.
Teacher Brooks says real adults don't play chess. In the Middle East. There's a limit to that complexity thing; try KISS instead (Brooks doesn't say that but he does use "simple" four times.). There's a limit to that pragmatism thing. Do the right thing, he says, do the "moral" (his word) thing, stick to your pluralist values and keep your word. To the Syrian rebels, for instance.
So too, Adult Friedman. "Don't say stupid stuff," his phrase! Tell the truth, call a spade a spade (Call a coup a coup? He doesn't say that.). That big Obama confab on "extremism?" That's an adult table Friedman doesn't think Obama should have set. Me neither! Friedman derides Earnest Josh's parsing of Islam and extremism: This isn't a confab on Islam or even Islamic extremism, it's on extremism, we need a global strategy for dealing with Presbyterian extremism, islamicextremism, extremism wherever it exists among those otherwise peaceful--equally peaceful!--religions.
Fuck that shit! (Friedman doesn't say that). The extremist problem the world faces is within (not with) Islam, Friedman says, it's between the Sunnis and the pluralists. (Those Federalist Society sleeper cells that are everywhere in the Muslim world, yearning to speak freely. Hey! It's a start.) When you start talking like that you come very close to saying that the problem is Islam since Sunnis are 75%-90% of all Muslims worldwide. Obama's focus on the marginalization of Muslims in Europe...Obama needs to defocus, he's seeing too much complexity, he's seeing the trees but not the forest, he's seeing his navel, what he's not seeing is that the problem is within Islam, Friedman says. It is definitely a change.
There is wisdom coming from the adults' table, intelligible to us kids.
Teacher Brooks says real adults don't play chess. In the Middle East. There's a limit to that complexity thing; try KISS instead (Brooks doesn't say that but he does use "simple" four times.). There's a limit to that pragmatism thing. Do the right thing, he says, do the "moral" (his word) thing, stick to your pluralist values and keep your word. To the Syrian rebels, for instance.
So too, Adult Friedman. "Don't say stupid stuff," his phrase! Tell the truth, call a spade a spade (Call a coup a coup? He doesn't say that.). That big Obama confab on "extremism?" That's an adult table Friedman doesn't think Obama should have set. Me neither! Friedman derides Earnest Josh's parsing of Islam and extremism: This isn't a confab on Islam or even Islamic extremism, it's on extremism, we need a global strategy for dealing with Presbyterian extremism, islamicextremism, extremism wherever it exists among those otherwise peaceful--equally peaceful!--religions.
Fuck that shit! (Friedman doesn't say that). The extremist problem the world faces is within (not with) Islam, Friedman says, it's between the Sunnis and the pluralists. (Those Federalist Society sleeper cells that are everywhere in the Muslim world, yearning to speak freely. Hey! It's a start.) When you start talking like that you come very close to saying that the problem is Islam since Sunnis are 75%-90% of all Muslims worldwide. Obama's focus on the marginalization of Muslims in Europe...Obama needs to defocus, he's seeing too much complexity, he's seeing the trees but not the forest, he's seeing his navel, what he's not seeing is that the problem is within Islam, Friedman says. It is definitely a change.
There is wisdom coming from the adults' table, intelligible to us kids.
