{"id":70427,"date":"2008-12-26T14:37:38","date_gmt":"2008-12-26T14:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/12\/26\/thomas-l-friedman-america-the-decrepit-et-la-fin-des-haricots\/"},"modified":"2008-12-26T14:37:38","modified_gmt":"2008-12-26T14:37:38","slug":"thomas-l-friedman-america-the-decrepit-et-la-fin-des-haricots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2008\/12\/26\/thomas-l-friedman-america-the-decrepit-et-la-fin-des-haricots\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas L. Friedman, America the decrepit<\/em> et la fin des haricots…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas L. Friedman, America the decrepit<\/em> et la fin des haricots…<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

\tDe temps en temps, Thomas L. Friedman<\/a>, artiste bien connu de l’enchantement am\u00e9ricaniste et commentateur d’opinion tout \u00e0 fait conforme du New York Times<\/em>, sort de sa ligne directrice et ronronnante pour s’exclamer \u00e0 propos de l’Am\u00e9rique qui ne va pas bien. Aujourd’hui, c’est-\u00e0-dire ce 26 d\u00e9cembre 2008<\/a>, le th\u00e8me est tentant. Ainsi, Thomas L. Friedman exhale-t-il sa fureur contre America the beautiful<\/em> transform\u00e9e en America the decrepit<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl nous raconte, Friedman, un tr\u00e8s r\u00e9cent d\u00e9placement en Asie, avec retour \u00e0 la maison, d’un monde l’autre, du Moyen \u00c2ge \u00e0 la modernit\u00e9 et retour \u00abIt actually started well, on Kau Sai Chau, an island off Hong Kong, where I stood on a rocky hilltop overlooking the South China Sea and talked to my wife back in Maryland, static-free, using a friend’s Chinese cellphone. A few hours later, I took off from Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbLanding at Kennedy Airport from Hong Kong was, as I’ve argued before, like going from the Jetsons to the Flintstones. The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3. (Couldn’t we Americans at least supply foreign visitors with a free luggage cart, like other major airports in the world?) As I looked around at this dingy room, it reminded of somewhere I had been before. Then I remembered: It was the luggage hall in the old Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport. It closed in 1998.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbThe next day I went to Penn Station, where the escalators down to the tracks are so narrow that they seem to have been designed before suitcases were invented. The disgusting track-side platforms apparently have not been cleaned since World War II. I took the Acela, America’s sorry excuse for a bullet train, from New York to Washington. Along the way, I tried to use my cellphone to conduct an interview and my conversation was interrupted by three dropped calls within one 15-minute span.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bbAll I could think to myself was: If we’re so smart, why are other people living so much better than us? What has become of our infrastructure, which is so crucial to productivity?…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBref, l’horreur dans America the decrepit<\/em> Le gros Thomas va si loin qu’il en arrive \u00e0 se regarder dans un miroir et \u00e0 y voir GM en personne, avec ses pertes mirifiques et sa main tendue pour obtenir ses $15 milliards ou \u00e0 peu pr\u00e8s pour pouvoir se payer la soupe popu’. Look, look<\/em> \u00e0 ce que nous confie Friedma, plein de verve et de fureur: \u00abFor all these reasons, the present crisis is not just a financial meltdown crying out for a cash injection. We are in much deeper trouble. In fact, we as a country have become General Motors as a result of our national drift. Look in the mirror: GM is us.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFort bien dit, et qu’y pourrait-on trouver \u00e0 redire? Mais, avec Friedman, c’est quand m\u00eame toujours la m\u00eame chose; lorsqu’il se lance avec ivresse dans un article un peu moins apolog\u00e9tique de l’Am\u00e9rique pour entretenir sa libert\u00e9 de jugement qu’il porte en sautoir, la chute est courue d’avance. L’Am\u00e9rique, chute, chute, chute, et, au dernier moment, ouf !, sauv\u00e9e par sa vertu fonci\u00e8re, retenue par une bretelle ou l’autre, libert\u00e9 d’expression ou d\u00e9mocratie exemplaire, au bord du pr\u00e9cipice. Avec Friedman, la vertu fonci\u00e8re de l’Am\u00e9rique arrive toujours \u00e0 temps, comme le 7\u00e8me de cavalerie pour sauver les braves \u00e9migrants encercl\u00e9s par les f\u00e9roces Apaches qui pr\u00e9tendaient les emp\u00eacher de faire fructifier leurs terres (dito<\/em>, celle des Apaches).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAinsi en est-il, cette fois encore, dans la dialectique du bon Thomas L. Friedman. \u00abAmerica still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society – in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. China may have great airports, but last week it went back to censoring The New York Times and other Western news sites. Censorship restricts your people’s imaginations. That’s really, really dumb. And that’s why for all our missteps, the 21st century is still up for grabs.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tEffectivement, il reste la libert\u00e9, m\u00e8re de toutes choses dans America the decrepit<\/em>, qui nous sauvera finalement, en nous donnant ce que la Chine censur\u00e9e et archi-censur\u00e9e ne peut nous donner: la lecture en toute libert\u00e9 du New York Times<\/em>, y compris les articles du gros Friedman. \u00abCensorship restricts your people’s imaginations<\/em>\u00bb, chers lecteurs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tEffectivement, suite, avec nos gros sabots c’est bien l\u00e0 o\u00f9 nous voulions en venir. Au moment o\u00f9 voici l’apologie de la libert\u00e9 de paroles et d’information qui survient au bord du pr\u00e9cipice, selon la narrative<\/em> de Thomas L. Friedman, pour sauver America the decrepit<\/em> d’un sort affreux et la relancer dans le paradis des lendemains qui chantent, William S. Lind nous confie<\/a> que le Pentagone, pour assurer ses lendemains qui chantent \u00e0 lui, et ses fins de mois par la m\u00eame occasion, n’a trouv\u00e9 de meilleur moyen que de censurer pour ses centaines de milliers d’employ\u00e9s l’acc\u00e8s au site du Center of Defense Information, qui a l’impudence de diffuser des informations sugg\u00e9rant que le Pentagone pourrait et devrait \u00eatre r\u00e9form\u00e9. (\u00abInterestingly, the site is blocked on U.S. Department of Defense computers.<\/em>\u00bb) Les fonctionnaires du Pentagone int\u00e9ress\u00e9s pourront toujours demander \u00e0 tel ou tel site chinois de les diriger vers le site du Center of Defense Information parce que, \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, Thomas L. Friedman n’est pas au courant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tMis en ligne le 26 d\u00e9cembre 2008 \u00e0 14H35<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas L. Friedman, America the decrepit et la fin des haricots… De temps en temps, Thomas L. Friedman, artiste bien connu de l’enchantement am\u00e9ricaniste et commentateur d’opinion tout \u00e0 fait conforme du New York Times, sort de sa ligne directrice et ronronnante pour s’exclamer \u00e0 propos de l’Am\u00e9rique qui ne va pas bien. Aujourd’hui, c’est-\u00e0-dire… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4366,7999,1268,3100,3287,3050],"class_list":["post-70427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-america","tag-decrepit","tag-friedman","tag-information","tag-liberte","tag-the"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70427\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}