ARE WE GETTING TO THE PEAK OF THE PEAK?

April 22nd, 2008 - by: danny

THE U.S., CHINA, PEAK OIL, AND THE DEMISE OF NEOLIBERALISM

“After centuries of global capitalist accumulation, the global environment is on the verge of collapse and there is no more ecological space for another major expansion of global capitalism. The choice is stark – either humanity will permit capitalism to destroy the environment and therefore the material basis of human civilization, or it will destroy capitalism first.”.

TV MAY BE TRASHING THE DEMS – BUT CASHING IN TOO!

Pennsylvania TV Rakes in Windfall

Their advertising may have started somewhat later than expected, but Democratic
presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are closing out the
race for Pennsylvania by pouring money into campaign advertising.

With the possibility that Tuesday’s vote could yet play a crucial role in the
Democratic race, if not decide its winner, both candidates have been
aggressively upping the ante in ad buys, according to TV station and local
cable ad sales divisions.

As of early last week, with spending continuing if not growing, nearly $21
million had been spent in the state.

Of that, nearly $18 million was spent on advertising, most of it on broadcast
ads, according to TNS Media Intelligence’s Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Comcast Spotlight, the main vehicle for spot cable, got about $3 million.

By the time the race for Pennsylvania ends on Tuesday, the total ad spend there
could approach $25 million.

Robert Parry | US News Media’s Latest Disgrace

Robert Parry writes for Consortium News, “After prying loose 8,000 pages of Pentagon documents, the New York Times has proven what should have been obvious years ago: the Bush administration manipulated public opinion on the Iraq War, in part, by funneling propaganda through former senior military officers who served as expert analysts on TV news shows.”

MICHAEL MOORE ENDORSES OBAMA

I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don’t give a rat’s ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there’s a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word “Democratic” next to the candidate’s name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name under the Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

PROGRESSIVE VICTORY IN PARAGUAY

Lugo Wins Paraguay Presidency

ASUNCION, April 20. – Former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo has become the
next president of Paraguay winning by a comfortable margin Sunday over rival
Blanca Ovelar of the governing Colorado Party.

In his first statement after being elected, Lugo told his followers in the capital: “Today we can say that the small people can also win,” reported AFP.

“Thanks for accompanying us from the beginning of this humble, modest experience,” said the leftwing candidate before a multitude of flags celebrating the election victory.

“This is the Paraguay I dream about, with many colors, many faces, the Paraguay of everyone,” said Lugo, “This Lugo has a heart and he loves you a lot.”

CNN MONEY: THE MARKET’S WORST IS YET TO COME

“The big money on the short side is going to be made when the bullish folks now awaiting the promised land realizes they’re trying to look past not just some small ravine but a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon. Once they understand that, we will see the combination of the stock market, the economy and the real-estate market feed on each other — and we will finally experience the next time down.

“When that will happen is not yet knowable, but as I have said, there is no doubt in my mind that this outcome is inevitable.”

DON’T BANK ON AMERICA

Writing off $1.47 billion in collateralized debt obligations and $439 million in leveraged loans, Bank of AmericaCorp admits to more complicity in the subprime/subcrime crisis.

INSIDE THE SEIU

RESERVE NOTES BACKED BY WORTHLESS MORTGAGE BONDS–WHO WILL BAIL OUT THE FED?

LETTERS: Richard Dechert writes from the Twin Cities

The Times article reveals that Gen. Robert H. Scales, Jr. has been an analyst for Fox News and NPR. The article doesn’t say that any of the pundits has been hired by a PBS program. Gen. Barry McCaffrey has appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; others may have appeared on that and other PBS programs.

Gen. Wesley Clark, cited in Greg Mitchell’s article, is a prominent supporter and advisor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and is being touted as her vice-presidential candidate. Other pundits may be involved in the Obama and McClain campaigns.

This is clearly a story that has “long legs.”

A LETTER FROM MY FRIEND KATI HANNA IN SPAIN

Dear Danny – we’re just about to go back to Ithaca from our two month stay in Europe, first in Cologne, Germany, , & then Spain. Everywhere we’ve gone people have asked us about the election, or commented on it, even our 15 year old granddaughter who’s going to school & living still in Switzerland. She herself had apparently watched a debate between Obama & Clinton & basically wondering if the excitement he generated early on could extend so many months later to the election.

In Spain, Obama is called “El Negro,” that unabashed Spanish way of giving everyone, anyone, a nickname, “un mote,” it’s called, but also always commenting on his intelligence & worldliness. It sounds like condescension in the USA, but here it’s a kind of respect & love, believe it or not. I don’t know what they call Clinton, probably
“Senora Clinton.”

I dread getting involved in the presidential debate. The unabashed ugliness, silliness, stupidity, is overwhelming. We have such important issues to discuss as a people & sometimes I feel (am I getting old?) that time is running out. It’s hard to work up your faith in a democracy where even your vote is not safe. I worry & wonder what Karl Rove is up to now. There is so much pain & loneliness in America right now, you want to tell all those European kids not to run to MacDonald’s, don’t watch TV, don’t eat what TV tells you to eat, don’t think the American way is the best, in unbridled, immoral consumerism, capitalism run amok. English in Spain now is being promoted as a second language!

I keep reading your blogs, can’t always connect with the internet. I got the world flu about a month ago or more, was ungodly sick, like never before, & the thing that got me laughing was your chicken soup story, I loved it, the soup, the computer, the cold you were coming down with, the Danny we love going to pieces!

In some ways I’ve taken leave of American media being away, every time I come in contact with it, I get more alarmed. I miss that great spirit of help & imagination & education which we associate with being an American, innovation, let’s do something kind of attitude, it’s like who are these bastards who think they can take it all away from us. And ruin the planet & the people along with it all. And the twisting of people’s words & actions, it’s goes on & on & seems to be completely senseless. The only solution is to get people to turn their TV’s off & read more.

TED TURNER: STILL AT IT

Almost every day, I find myself offering up reports on how our media cartels and the moguls who run them serve us so poorly, but last night I was reminded of an initiative that deserves respect, as unlikely as it was at the time it was announced. Ten years ago, the often flamboyant Ted Turner, a.k.a. the “mouth from the South,” the founding financier of CNN, and my one-time boss decided to make a political statement to protest the failure of the US government to pay its dues to the UN. When he learned that Washington was in arrears to the tune of a cool billion dollars, he decided he would pay it himself and then sue the government to get his money back. Imagine being in the room when then Secretary General Kofi Anan the call offering the bill.

As it turned out, the UN couldn’t take direct donations and couldn’t afford to alienate its largest funder, and that while the idea was well intentioned it was seen as off the wall. But, calmer heads prevailed and soon Turner was organizing and funding an independent UN Foundation to be run by former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth. That entity, in turn, would “partner” with the UN on concrete projects on women’s reproductive heath, peace, climate change and other issues all under the direction of a board of prominent global luminaries. Turner would also get the tax breaks he had coming to him under the IRS code.

What was dismissed as a joke by some at the time, turned into an ongoing practical and impressive effort.

Last night I chatted with Ted at a 10th anniversary reception for the Foundation’s Board at the Delegates Dining Room at the UN. He spoke of his gift not as philanthropy but an “investment” in a better world. Originally, he was going to put up $100 mill a year for ten years, but since then, they have also raised another half a billion as well and, so, will keep going, perhaps to 2014. A senior journalist who covers the UN for a wire service told me that the foundation has done some great projects all over the world, and is well managed.

Turner’s eclectic internationalist spirit is a thing of the past in a media world that has shifted even more to the right since he was forced out of AOLTimeWarner, a company that has itself changed dramatically. But “Captain Outrageous,” as Ted Turner was once known, is still at it, putting his perhaps ill-gotten gains where his often bold mouth is. He was there last night with the always impressive Catherine Crier, the former Texas Judge who became a CNN anchor and program host.

Of course, you have to go to a party to find out about a project that seems to work in our troubled “planet in peril” (to use a CNNism.) CNN itself was too busy blathering on about our he said/she said election to cover the event. I did run into Warren Hogue the veteran NY Times correspondent who told me he is leaving the paper of record to do peace work, maybe a another sign of frustration with journalism. His “elevation” was first covered, by Maxim’s News Service, not the paper of record.

OFF TO ALMATY

Now I bid adieu. Off to Kazahkstan for a media forum. Leave Tues, back Sunday. Will say hi (or is it high?) to Borat for you and hope to dissect from Central Asia.

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