Was Thomas Friedman thinking of India?
Here is Thomas Friedman (Advice From Grandma), lamenting about the state of affairs in US of A. Almost every word excerpted below might well have been written for India (emphasis mine).
…What I increasingly fear today is that America is only able to produce “suboptimal†responses to its biggest problems — education, debt, financial regulation, health care, energy and environment.
Why? Because…
Money in politics has become so pervasive that lawmakers have to spend most of their time raising it, selling their souls to those who have it or defending themselves from the smallest interest groups with deep pockets that can trump the national interest.
The gerrymandering of political districts means politicians of each party can now choose their own voters and never have to appeal to the center.
The cable TV culture encourages shouting and segregating people into their own political echo chambers.
A…business community that…only comes to Washington to lobby for its own narrow interests; it rarely speaks out anymore in defense of national issues like health care, education and open markets
These…factors are pushing our system…into the realm of paralysis. To get anything big done now, we have to generate so many compromises…with so many different interest groups that the solutions are totally suboptimal.
…So what do we do?
The standard answer is that we need better leaders.The real answer is that we need better citizens. We need citizens who will convey to their leaders that they are ready to sacrifice…and will not punish politicians who ask them to do the hard things. Otherwise, folks, we’re in trouble. A great power that can only produce suboptimal responses to its biggest challenges will, in time, fade from being a great power — no matter how much imagination it generates.
So true…and so unfortunate that this message is likely to get drowned in tomorrow’s headlines about another disrupted parliamentary session, another celebrity piece of gossip and another corruption scandal.
While going through this article I thought for a short while that I’m reading an article about Bharat and not America.
Seriously the same issues mentioned above are haunting us and if any of our leader promises bring such changes or even tries to do so he is out of power next time. Look at NDA whose 5 years faired better than UPA’s 55 years but people threw them out as an appreciation. I don’t understand the psyche of Bharatiya Citizens.
At times I’m also fearful that same shouldn’t be the case when I’ll enter politics (probably 2014 Loksabha). I do not fear loosing but at the same time I remember political figures with genuine will (like Shri. Arun Bhatia, Shri. Gopinath, Shri. JP, Shmt. Sanyal and many more…).
Amid such adversaries what one (a budding politician) should think and how one should plan activities is a big question, as I’ve no political godfather not even enough money to spend?
This question is worth a lot than just casual discussion.
जय हिंद!
कृषीदेश
So how do we get better citizens unlike most of us who have got the politician we have at present?
Is to ENSURE future citizens do not make the same mistakes by teaching them at childhood to eradicate the poverty of mind.
It’s actually spooky it’s so similar.
Jai
Sandeep, Jai: Yes the similarities are uncanny – and as I mentioned in the title of the post, he may as well be writing about India!
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Ram: Great point…but how do we reach out to the adults? those not currently in school?