Thomas L. Friedman Warns: 'Young People Need To Be Paying Attention'

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Thomas L. Friedman has been talking about foreign policy with his friend Michael Mandelbaum for two decades. Over the past couple of years, though, they started to notice something different about their conversations.


"Every time we started off talking about the world, we'd end up talking about America," Friedman recalled when he spoke with MTV News recently. "And we realized basically that America — its fate, future, vigor, vitality — was really the biggest foreign-policy issue in the world."

The two friends recognized the enormity of the role the U.S. plays in the world — for good or bad. "We're kind of the tent pole that holds up a lot of the global economy," Friedman said. "That tent pole buckles or frays, your kids won't just grow up in a different America; they'll grow up in a very different world. So there's a lot at stake."   More Read

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