11.11.2005
Thou Shalt Not Destroy the Center (NYTimes.com)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 11, 2005
Dear God in Heaven: Forgive me my sins, for I have been to China and I have had bad thoughts. Forgive me, Heavenly Father, for I have cast an envious eye on the authoritarian Chinese political system, where leaders can, and do, just order that problems be solved. For instance, Shanghai's deputy mayor told me that as his city became more polluted, the government simply moved thousands of small manufacturers out of Shanghai to clean up the air.
Forgive me, Heavenly Father, because I know that China's political system is hardly ideal - not even close - and is not one that I would ever want to emulate in my own country. But at this time, when democracies, like India and America, seem incapable of making hard decisions, I cannot help but feel a tinge of jealousy at China's ability to be serious about its problems and actually do things that are tough and require taking things away from people. Dear Lord, please accept my expression of remorse for harboring such feelings. Amen.
Well, you get the point. At a time when we are busy lecturing others about the need to adopt democratic systems, ours and many others seem to be hopelessly gridlocked - with neither the left nor the right able to generate a mandate to tackle hard problems. And it is the yawning gap between the huge problems our country faces today - Social Security reform, health care, education, climate change, energy - and the tiny, fragile mandates that our democracy seems able to generate to address these problems that is really worrying.
(More ... Thou Shalt Not Destroy the Center - New York Times) ¶ 21:52
Published: November 11, 2005
Dear God in Heaven: Forgive me my sins, for I have been to China and I have had bad thoughts. Forgive me, Heavenly Father, for I have cast an envious eye on the authoritarian Chinese political system, where leaders can, and do, just order that problems be solved. For instance, Shanghai's deputy mayor told me that as his city became more polluted, the government simply moved thousands of small manufacturers out of Shanghai to clean up the air.
Forgive me, Heavenly Father, because I know that China's political system is hardly ideal - not even close - and is not one that I would ever want to emulate in my own country. But at this time, when democracies, like India and America, seem incapable of making hard decisions, I cannot help but feel a tinge of jealousy at China's ability to be serious about its problems and actually do things that are tough and require taking things away from people. Dear Lord, please accept my expression of remorse for harboring such feelings. Amen.
Well, you get the point. At a time when we are busy lecturing others about the need to adopt democratic systems, ours and many others seem to be hopelessly gridlocked - with neither the left nor the right able to generate a mandate to tackle hard problems. And it is the yawning gap between the huge problems our country faces today - Social Security reform, health care, education, climate change, energy - and the tiny, fragile mandates that our democracy seems able to generate to address these problems that is really worrying.
(More ... Thou Shalt Not Destroy the Center - New York Times) ¶ 21:52
