In fact, making the world safe for Coke, Windows, McDonald's and other multinationals seems to be the driving force behind the globalist agenda. Opponents, on the other hand, are branded isolationists, a term so uncool that the Big Media Cartel likens it to political neanderthals.

"Americans were ready to pay any price or bear any burden in the Cold War because there was a compelling and immediate sense that their own homes and way of life were at stake," continues Friedman. "But a large majority don't feel that way about North Korea, Iraq or Kosovo... That's why Americans are in the odd position of being held responsible for everything, while being reluctant to die for anything."

You got that right, pal.

Dying for NATO or the United Nations just doesn't sound that exciting. But, who knows? With a little more brainwashing by Friedman and his ilk, the possibilities are endless.

NO REALPOLITIK IN FRIEDMAN'S WORLD

Interestingly enough, Friedman counts Lawrence Summers, US Treasury Secretary, his friend. Summers himself is a Bilderberger, an attendee of the super-secret Global Politburo, which meets on a yearly basis to plan the direction of the world's economy and God knows what else. Meetings are strictly off the record, closed to journalists, and on the QT.

Friedman likewise makes no mention of the Global Power Elites and their highly questionable agenda of global command & control economics. As far as he's concerned, the Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations, Royal Institute of International Affairs, and the literal swarm of tax-free fronts like the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and so on, are not even relevant to the global economy. He pointedly ignores them, although he does mention in passing the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Instead Friedman tries to amuse -- and impress -- his readers with anecdotes about his exotic adventures in far-off places. Since he is a good storyteller, you can assume that the behind the scenes manipulations of realpolitik are just not that interesting.

SHINY HAPPY GLOBALISTS

His totally goofy book title "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is supposed to reference an epiphany he received in Japan in 1992 when he visited the Lexus luxury-car factory.

"It struck me then that the Lexus and the olive tree were actually pretty good symbols of the post cold war era," he writes. "Half the world seemed to be emerging from the cold war intent on building a better Lexus... And half the world -- sometimes half the same country, sometimes half the same person -- was still caught up in the fight over who owns which olive tree."

In other words, the smart worker bees were plugging into the global economy selling luxury cars to those who could afford them, while the stupid worker bees were still trying to carve up the land according to their antiquated notions of nations and ownership.

Silly peasants. When will they learn?

Friedman is also very creative in his own twisted way. He invents cutesy terms like "Golden Straitjacket" which means conforming to draconian IMF policies without a whimper.

Friedman's other term, "Electronic Herd," refers to global speculators who invest in whatever at the speed of a keyboard click.

The schmuck probably meant to say "digital goyim," but that was probably too politically incorrect even for his publishers. According to Friedman, then, an investor is just another head of cattle looking for greener pasture.

Friedman doesn't disclose whether the very title of his book, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is the result of some very shrewd product placement.

After all, he could have called it "The Infiniti and the Olive Tree" and who would have known the difference.

THE BRADY BOND SCAM

Friedman's book is a fascinating stewpot of misinterpreting problems, solutions and results. For instance, in describing the so-called "Brady Bond" scam in which individual investors paid dearly for the bad judgments of major investment bankers, Friedman calls it "democratizing investment".

He positively glows as he writes that "suddenly you and I and my Aunt Bev could buy a piece of Mexico's debt, Brazil's debt or Argentina's debt -- either directly or through our pension and mutual funds."

Talk about spin. Instead of just banks holding bad paper, it was "diversified" so that the "little people" could throw their own good money after bad -- just like the Big Boys. Except nobody bails the "little people" out when they default.

Does Friedman not understand that it's just a matter of spreading the risk and the potential for default? Or is he playing dumb?

After all the US Government sponsored bankers won't bail you out like they did with Long Term Capital Management.

GLOBAL CASINO? WHAT GLOBAL CASINO?

With nary a peep about speculation in the global casino, Friedman ignores the dangers of globalism, like overleveraging non-existent assets (derivatives).

In fact the likelihood of a financial contagion of bad bets cascading domino-like in a global market freefall is barely mentioned. He even pooh-poohs these dangers by writing that "the paranoid illusionist believes more than nothing -- he believes that there are hidden debts and off the books liabilities all over the place."

Hey pal, ever heard of the trillion dollar per day off balance sheet derivatives market?

Friedman also ignore other dangers of monoply capitalism, i.e. globalism, including the cartelization of commodities and global price-fixing, but does admit that the "scary truth is we don't fully understand what it means to be interlinked."

"If you talk to Wall Street investment banks today they will tell you that the thing that absolutely took them by surprise in the market melt-down of August- September 1998 was how much more interconnected the system was than they realized," writes Friedman. "

"None of their risk models which were based on past correlations between investments and certain events had anticipated the sort of chain reactions that in 1998 made a mockery of the whole concept of diversificatio," he continues.

"Companies that thought they were diversified by investing in different financial instruments with different maturities, in different currencies, in different markets, in different countries found out quickly that all their investments were part of one big interlinked chain from which they could not escape when markets started to nosedive."

Yikes.

GLOBAL ELITE RULES

Let's be frank.Friedman is an anti-populist and a false prophet of a false religion.

But is he really the Karl Marx of Globalism? Only time will tell. He does, however, seem to be in love with another term he invented -- DOSCapital 6.0

He also conspicuously quotes Rockefeller asset Fareed Zakaria, editor of the CFR organ "Foreign Affairs". Zakaria is also a command and control globalist who told Friedman, "That's why it's not enough to just harness the market; you have to regulate it. But to regulate it, you need elites who are ready to protect things from the market..."

OK, you proles, repeat after me: "You need elites. You need elites. You need elites."

"It is usually only elites, secure in their own wealth, who are ready to worry about these things," continues Zakaria. "The Rockefellers helped set up the national park system in America. The Metropolitan Museum was founded by great capitalists who said we need a museum that has nothing to do with the market."

Who knows?

Maybe the globalist go-fers like Friedman and Zakaria never heard of tax write-offs.

Just remember -- Friedman's book "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" is like a commercial. "American Hubris. Don't Leave Home Without It."

When Friedman sez, "Shut up and eat yer globaloney," he sounds like he really means it.

But then it's all in a day's work, when you're an overpaid media lapdog like Friedman...