| By Annika - Apr 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Everyone’s favorite mustachioed New York Times columnist received a less-than-warm welcome at Brown University this Tuesday. According to Inside Higher Ed,
Brown University is condemning the actions of two people — at least one of whom is a student — who threw a pie-like substance Tuesday night at Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times who was speaking on the campus. Friedman took a few minutes to clean himself up, but continued his talk…The Providence Journal reported that the incident involved paper plates with shamrock-colored whipped cream.
Shamrock-colored pie-like substance, eh? Along with the pie, protestors threw fliers in the air to explain their pastry-based attack:
Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face because of his sickeningly cheery applause for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand.
Fair enough.
UPDATE: Via Matt Yglesias, check out this video of the dastardly pastry incident.
It's less funny than the anonymous pie-from-the-audience scenario I pictured in my head, and decidedly less fulfilling than publicly besting Friedman's arguments.
!
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Generation Q!? Generation Pie in the Face!
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Colonel Custard (aka the corporate criminal creamer)
Greenwash Guerillas: contact@GreenwashGuerrillas.or g
Footage available: Link
Greenwash Guerrillas Pie Thomas Friedman at Brown University
YouTube Censors Video; Pie Thrower Faces University Disciplinary Procedures
Providence, RI - New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was pied by the Greenwash Guerillas while giving an Earth Day Lecture at Brown University. The Greenwash Guerillas targeted Thomas Friedman because of his support for U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, neo-liberal economic policies that harm the world’s poor, and especially for promoting bogus solutions to the global climate crisis.
"We sought to expose the hypocrisy of allowing Friedman, who is known for his influential support of U.S. wars for oil in the Middle East, to call himself an environmentalist,” explained Greenwash Guerrilla Margaree Little. "He has blood on his hands that no amount of 'green' can wash away."
Little, a Brown University student identified as one of the pie throwers, faces University disciplinary hearings, potentially including expulsion. Colonel Custard, the second pie thrower, remains at large.
Little and Custard jumped on stage as Friedman began his talk, entitled “Green is the new Red, White & Blue.” The talk focused on how green technology and corporate environmentalism can restore the United States to its "natural place in the global order."
They tossed two green-colored cream pies at Friedman and dashed off as leaflets denouncing Friedman were thrown to the crowd. According to the pamphlets, “On behalf of the earth and all true environmentalists – we, the Greenwash Guerillas, declare Thomas Friedman’s ‘Green’ as fake . . . as the cool-whip covering his face.”
The Greenwash Guerillas object to Friedman’s support for nuclear power, coal power, industrial biofuels, and carbon trading markets. "These false solutions are smokescreens, intended to generate massive corporate profits while creating global humanitarian and environmental disasters,” said Colonel Custard.
Video of the pie throwing incident was posted on YouTube, and received close to 70,000 views in 36 hours, making it one of the most popular videos on the site. Without notice, YouTube abruptly censored the video, removing it from the website. Hundreds of news outlets, blogs, and websites had linked to the video. The Greenwash Guerillas have reposted the clip at: Link
"Given the many other pieings on YouTube(1), the removal of the video can only be understood as an act of political censorship," said Little. "One has to wonder whether Friedman, a billionaire with a lot of connections, has more influence than “you” on YouTube."
“The Greenwash Guerillas chose the harmless and humorous tactic of pie-throwing because our goal was to take this perpetual charlatan off his new green pedestal,” said Colonel Custard. “Friedman’s support for coal and nuclear power is as misguided as his counsel on Iraq.”
This is the second time Friedman has been hit by a pie. In October 2002, he received a banana pie to his face while promoting his writings on free-market globalization in Boston.
Footnote:
(1) e.g., Link