Friday, May 28, 2004
The Way Forward
Thomas Friedman, in yesterday's Op-Ed column, lays out a thoughtful and innovative series of measures to be taken as part of a forward looking foreign policy, in partial response to the utter lack of vision emanating from the Bush White House.
Friedman takes the all important step from criticism to affirmative proposal, a step that is easy to overlook amidst the charged discourse of an election year in a politically polarized environment. It is much easier to criticize than it is to propose solutions, because solutions are hard to come by while criticism is often obvious, especially when observing the consistently incompetent foreign policy conducted by the Bush administration.
Also of note, Friedman actually proposes some politically sensitive, yet well reasoned, solutions such as a 50 cent "patriot tax" on gasoline, the proceeds of which would be used to help fund the military actions currently under way and also fund research into alternative fuel technologies. This is a similar tax to the one John Kerry supported almost a decade ago, for which the Bush campaign has misleadingly portrayed as his current position. Not that a 50 cent gas tax should be viewed, necessarily, as a bad thing, as Friedman points out.
The column can be found here.
Friedman takes the all important step from criticism to affirmative proposal, a step that is easy to overlook amidst the charged discourse of an election year in a politically polarized environment. It is much easier to criticize than it is to propose solutions, because solutions are hard to come by while criticism is often obvious, especially when observing the consistently incompetent foreign policy conducted by the Bush administration.
Also of note, Friedman actually proposes some politically sensitive, yet well reasoned, solutions such as a 50 cent "patriot tax" on gasoline, the proceeds of which would be used to help fund the military actions currently under way and also fund research into alternative fuel technologies. This is a similar tax to the one John Kerry supported almost a decade ago, for which the Bush campaign has misleadingly portrayed as his current position. Not that a 50 cent gas tax should be viewed, necessarily, as a bad thing, as Friedman points out.
The column can be found here.
