Thomas Friedman is wrong.

He is never monumentally wrong, but he is always wrong. And it’s based on this one thing: he misunderstands the forces around him. He understands what they’re about, what their goals are, and who they effect—so he almost gets there. And then…he screws it up. Staring at the finish line, like the hare, he lets his own ego and self-protective nature take over and destroy his credibility. Thomas Friedman is a man deserving of your pity, not your intellectual support. But I digress, for this is only the preamble.

Two years ago, Friedman shook the world with a book that was part “well, duh!” and part corporate wet dream. The book, The Earth is Flat produced a new set of buzzwords: flat-earth and flatearthers. The principle is simple; due to globalization, the playing fields around the world are driving to a baseline, bringing Western economies down and raising the economies of the so-called Third World. Simultaneously, this effect is being made by what Friedman believes is Western laziness and Global South and Eastern ingenuity. So here is where the zinging conclusion is: the Chinese are right and the American worker is wrong. We should embrace inhumane working conditions and labor laws with a new culture of over-working and over-stressing in an attempt to increase our seemingly disappearing worth ethic or else China will win. Oh, Thomas, I feel for you.

What Friedman and his disciples, the ‘flatearthers’ are encouraging is a truly Western approach to industry and innovation: hard work is always bested by harder work. It is the idea that the solution to every failure is that someone didn’t try hard enough. Sprinkle in a bit of corporate Darwinism (that only the strong survive) and you have cocktail that only Wall Street could love.

But truth is closer than it appears. Friedman never sites Latin America, where the world’s true innovations are taking place. The continent of South America, once proudly holding its own was ravished by American and European financial vultures in the form of the IMF and World Bank since the 70’s and has been a place of U.S.-backed military dictatorships. Then they started rejecting us. They rejected our economic “solutions” (which amounted to blood-letting with leeches—and is archaic as it is barbaric) in favor of sound economic principles and a renewed sense of democracy.

This is the real reason Friedman ignores South America: they recognize that democracy is an effective and healthy system only when freedom and liberty are balanced and when the needs of the republic are the same as the needs of the people. Right now, we should be taking notes from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela, not belittling them while chasing after an unhealthy and unsustainable economic system like China’s. Their growing consumption of resources will shortly outstrip ours, while simultaneously choosing dirty energy over sound alternatives in their growing structure in pursuit of mindless and irresponsible growth.

But where do you think China got this idea? Perhaps the same Wall Street that is encouraging us to out-China China while the Chinese are reading Adam Smith as adapted by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, creating a monster that perpetually eats its own tail. And what would it mean for the psyche of the United States to hand over the reigns of the title “Greatest Superpower” to them? Is this the true reason we have long ago dismissed the idea of developing a successful and affirming society as found in France, Britain, Germany, or the Netherlands, whose productivity AND vacation time both far exceed our own, while offering a generous healthcare system to go with their sensible attitudes toward consumption and procreation? And why we are ignoring the developments to our south that provide a greater accounting of both our founders’ dreams and our founders’ vision through true democratic means and power-sharing? What are we really afraid of? Being wrong for a century or longer? That we aren’t the smartest guys in the room, but the imbeciles that refuse to get our eyes or ears checked?

That’s it! That’s why we like spending nearly 60% of our annual national budget on war and paying off credit cards from China and Saudi Arabia: we have Iatrophobia, a fear of doctors. That’s why we don’t make healthcare a priority and we have tied ourselves to an archaic system that denounces liberty in favor of concentrated corporate greed. We don’t like doctors. We don’t like to here what’s wrong with us. Rush Limbaugh called liberals the “hate-Americans-first crowd” because the idea of self-examination is scary. Bush’s veto of the SCHIP, Newt Gingrich’s victory over “Hillarycare”, pundit cries of encroaching socialism are all responding to our mass Iatrophobia.

So how do we treat this? According to the website, Iatrophobia.com, the traditional treatments are Hypnoanalysis, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and Energy Psychology. I don’t see any of these happening on such a mass scale. However, they do list some useful tips here:

I’ve chosen some of their choicest tips below:

1. In order to combat fear you should take a positive approach and be mentally ready and in control at all times.

6. Don’t be shy or nervous about asking questions. You have a right to know, so ask questions about your exams, especially since some doctors may not tell you unless you ask for the results. Plus, you are paying them a lot of money, so make sure to get the answers to your questions.

7. Do not switch doctors often, you want to stay with a doctor that you can be comfortable with and knows your history.

8. Be honest with yourself that you may need a shot or follow-up visit in order to feel better. This could avoid creating unwanted anxiety.

10. Don’t forget that your doctor is there to help you, not hurt you. Yes, he/she may have to tell you something may be wrong, but he/she is also knows ways to fix problems, make you feel better or at least make you more comfortable. Remember, they are well trained and took at least 8 years of schooling to learn everything they could to help their patients.

12. Always keep your yearly appointments with your doctor. This will ensure consistency and if something is wrong, you might be able to catch it early enough to treat it.

(bold is mine)

Key insights we can take away from these suggestions is that communication and remaining calm are essential. The system is there to help us. And it is imperative that we be honest with ourselves and keep our appointments. If we all pitch in, maybe we can break ourselves of this cunning and debilitating ailment.