The US media and the French referendum

"Thomas Friedman of the Times made perhaps the most contemptuous and ignorant of all these attacks on the French voters in his June 3 column, headlined, “A Race to the Top.” Writing from Bangalore, India, Friedman sneered that “French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day. Good luck.”

Hailing Bangalore as “the outsourcing capital of the world,” Friedman added, “The dirty little secret is that India is taking work from Europe or America not simply because of low wages. It is also because Indians are ready to work harder and can do anything from answering your phone to designing your next airplane or car.”

Friedman concluded, “this is a bad time for France and friends to lose their appetite for hard work—just when India, China and Poland are rediscovering theirs.”

In the course of Friedman’s absurd depiction of the Indian masses as wildly enthusiastic over the ruling elite’s repudiation of Indian “socialism” and its attack on previously established social protections, with Indian workers chomping at the bit to be super-exploited by native entrepreneurs and global corporations, the Times’ columnist noted in passing: “Sure, a huge portion of India still lives in wretched slums or villages...”

Such casual indifference to the horrific poverty that grips hundreds of millions of Indian people bespeaks a level of intellectual and moral depravity that requires little additional comment. Suffice it to say that Friedman has the same attitude to the conditions facing workers in France, or in the United States."

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who become violently sickened by the articles written by Enduring Friedman.