DC JOINS THE UNION, MAYBE; OBAMA OFFER$ A 3TRIL BUDGET
February 27th, 2009 - by: danny
FREE DC: FINALLY MAYBE
HEALTH CARE, HOUSING FIGHTS ON
ANOTHER BIG NEWSPAPER TO FOLD
The economy is worse than was realized by people who are paid to do the realizing. AP reports the disturbing and still most imprecise news. Note terms “was likely much steeper…”
Does anyone really know what’s going on, or do they just not want to tell us?
WASHINGTON — The economy’s downhill slide at the end of last year was likely much steeper than the government initially thought and it is probably doing just as poorly now – if not worse – as a relentless slew of negative forces feed on each other, pushing the country deeper into recession.
American consumers – spooked by vanishing jobs, sinking home values and shrinking investment portfolios have cut back. In turn, companies are slashing production and payrolls. Rising foreclosures are aggravating the already stricken housing market, hard-to-get credit has stymied business investment and is crimping the ability of some consumers to make big-ticket purchases.
Oh Washington, what you give with one hand, you take with the other always compromising, negotiating, and usually making more of a mess than a change. Today the good news was that Washington DC might finally join the United States with its own voting rep in Congress. The Free DC movement has for years lobbied and fought for citizens of the district to have the rights of other citizens. A vote in a Senate Committee will very likely end colonialism inside the US, at long last.
The District will get its rep but the nation won’t get a return of the Fairness Doctrine on radio and TV.
The Senate voted Wednesday 87-11 to prevent the FCC from reinstating the fairness doctrine. The vote was on an amendment, itself amended, to an unrelated bill, the D.C. Voting Rights Act.
Perhaps more significant is that health care is also finally on the legislative agenda but there is no agreement on who will pay or how they willlpay. Its an urgent priority but a tough sell in a place known for lobbying hell: AP reports:
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s prescription for the nation’s ailing health care system comes with Medicare cuts and tax hikes – usually poison pills that doom any overhaul effort in Congress.
But the budget Obama proposed Thursday is not a finished blueprint for overhauling health care. Rather it’s the opening bid in a tough negotiation. Anybody who’s been in a bargaining session knows you never end up with your opening bid.
Obama is asking Congress: If you’re going to cover an estimated 48 million uninsured Americans in the world’s costliest medical system, how do you pay for it?
Obama’s plan would set aside $634 billion over 10 years in a major effort to cover all Americans – a goal that could cost more than $1 trillion. Half the money would come from tax increases on upper-income earners; the other half from cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Private insurance plans serving Medicare seniors would take the biggest hit, but hospitals, drug companies and home health agencies also face cuts.
SAM SMITH IN UNDERNEWS: THE DEMOCRATS’ LOUSY HEALTHCARE BILL & WHY SINGLE PAYER IS BETTER
Physicians for a National Healthcare Plan – Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, will not allow consideration of single payer as an option for reform, and Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is, by all indications, poised to promote the flawed Massachusetts health plan at the national level after months of secret meetings with insurance, business, and pharmaceutical company lobbyists.
While President Obama has acknowledged that single payer is the best option for reform, and while he opposed a mandate requiring all individuals to purchase private insurance during his campaign, it would appear he is poised to embrace the piecemeal, incremental approach that keeps the private insurance industry in place.
John Geyman, MD, Tikkun – The inefficiency and bureaucracy of our 1,300 private insurers are not sustainable. According to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, there are 17,000 different hea1th plans in Chicago.
Private insurers offer much less choice than traditional Medicare; there are near-monopolies in 95 percent of HMO/PPO metropolitan markets, enough to trigger anti-trust concerns by the United States Department of Justice.
Because of costs, about 75 million Americans are either uninsured of underinsured, with large segments of the population forgoing necessary care and having worse health care outcomes; the United States now ranks nineteenth among nineteen industrialized countries in reducing preventable deaths from amenable causes. . .
The NY Times reports: President Obama’s new budget plan tries to trim a deficit estimated at $1.75 trillion for 2009 as it redirects enormous streams of spending.
And speaking of lobbyists, they are working overtime to gut the objectives of Obama’s housing bill. This fight pits democrats against Democrats.
AP: WASHINGTON — A dispute among House Democrats stalled legislation Thursday to let bankruptcy judges reduce the principal and interest rate on mortgages for debt-strapped homeowners.
The measure, backed by President Barack Obama, is the most controversial part of a broader housing package that had been expected to pass the House this week.
It hit a snag after a group of moderates expressed concerns in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats about how the bill would affect homeowners who are still struggling to make their mortgage payments.
The banking industry has lobbied hard against the measure, mounting a successful multimillion-dollar effort last year to kill it.
Others are pushing too – but in another direction. The NY Times reported that bloggers and Labor are going to be lobbying Obama to move in a more progressive direction:
“A group of liberal bloggers said it was teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn.org to form a political action committee that would seek to push the Democratic Party further to the left. ”
CAN WE TRUST OBAMA ON IRAQ?
The Common Ills Blog which turned from supporting my work to turning on it, smartly features a post from Tom Ricks, author of Fiasco, an excellent book on the Iraq War. (He has new one I haven’t read.) I respect his work–he appears in a scene in my film WMD. He has this to say about Obama’s shifting stance towards US troops in Iraq.
“I think there well indeed might be a clash by the end of the year. Obama’s campaign promise to get American troops out of Iraq in sixteen months was a fatuous promise. When Americans heard it, what they heard was ‘I will have no American troops dying in 16 months.’ But it was a false phraseology: “combat troops.” Well, newsflash for Obama, there is no such thing as non-combat troops. There’s no pacifistic branch of the US Army.
Anytime you have American troops out there, there are going to be some of them fighting and dying — in counter-terror missions against al Qaeda, if you have American advisers with Iraqi troops, they’re going to be getting into fights, some Americans will be dying. So I think we’re there for a long time and as long as we’re there — unlike, say, the occupations of Korea, Japan and Germany, American troops will be engaged in combat. General Odierno says in the book he’d like to see 35,000 troops there as late as 2015. Well into . . . it will be Obama’s second term.
So I think that at the end of this year, you’re going to see a conflict. Obama’s going to want to see troop numbers coming down. Odierno, the other big O, as they call him in Iraq, is going to say, “Wait a minute, you’re holding general elections here in December, in Iraq. That’s exactly the wrong time to take troops out.”
HAGUE COURT ACQUITS SERB PRESIDENT IN KOSVO CRIMES
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — U.N. judges on Thursday acquitted former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror against Kosovo Albanians, saying he had no role in what they ruled was a criminal plot to drive ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo.
The tribunal ordered Milutinovic released from custody, but it convicted five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22 years. It was the court’s first judgment establishing widespread Serb crimes in Kosovo.
REPORT FROM IRAN By Mohammad Reza Noroozpour
Here in Iran everybody is getting ready for the presidential election. The reformist, the conservative, the right and the left all are little by little getting together to choose their own president. This time I think the main challenge is between former president Mohammad khatami and the current president. Meanwhile, there is another hope that former, and the last prime minister of Iran, Mir Hussein Mossavi enters the campaign. Some say if he nominates for presidential, it is possible that Mr. Khatami and Mr. Karrobi leave the scene in behalf of him.
Another dilemma in political situation of Iran is that some parts of the Principlist parties who are supposed to back Mr. Ahmadinezhad, might come after Mossavi.
By now the heat of election, is so tangible that almost everybody talk about that.
See the whole Post / →
Bankruptcies Up, Newspapers Down, Nader on Credit Unions
February 27th, 2009 - by: danny
BANKS IN TROUBLE: NO QUICK FIX SAYS SHEILA BAIR
MarketWatch: — Banks insured by the FDIC posted a collective loss of $26.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, the agency said Thursday, as the percentage of charged off loans tied a quarterly record of 1.91%.
The grim results compared to a $575 million profit during the fourth quarter of 2007.
“Rising loan-loss provisions, losses from trading activities and goodwill write-downs all contributed to the quarterly net loss as banks continue to repair their balance sheets in order to return to profitability in future periods,” the FDIC said in a press release.
For all of 2008, 25 insured institutions with assets of $372 billion failed, the largest number of failures since 1993.
Sheila Bair, the agency’s chief, said in a press conference that there will be no quick fix to the banking crisis and that troubled loans will keep rising.”
QUESTIONING BAIR
In December 2007, I heard Sheila Bair, who I later came to see as the best of our public servants on these issues, speaking at the annual conference of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition conference in Washington. I wrote about in this blog and in my book Plunder:
“I asked a question, well actually two. One, how many banks did she think would fail? And secondly, did she support the FBI investigation of mortgage fraudsters? Would she call for the prosecution of the white-collar criminals who engineered the subprime scams that defrauded so many borrowers? She was, I think, startled to hear concerns raised that are usually not part of the ever so polite discourse in Washington, where civility is the currency of conversation.
To my first, she acknowledged that the FDIC has a list of 76 “troubled” banks —but, given her professionally positive outlook, she said she didn’t expect any big disruptions. (Two weeks later, The Wall Street Journal would report that “The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp plans to hire as many as 138 new workers to address the potential for rising bank failures.” Her speech gave no inkling that such a move was in the cards.
She was positive in her prophecies but also quite wrong. (Gerald Cassidy, an analyst for RBC Capital Markets, told Reuters on April 7 2008 that “we anticipate 150 banks will fail over the next two years.” A day earlier, commercial real estate blog reported: “The Real Estate market has hit the wall, as space occupied by retailers fell for the first time in decades. This suggests some major bank failures are just around the corner.”
Later on, on that very same day, we would learn that there was a run on Bear Stearns in New York. It was insolvent and expected to declare bankruptcy the next Monday.
No one in the room listening to Ms. Bair had any idea then of the depth of the crisis to come.
To my second query, about criminality, she was silent. That’s not her job, she said. Obviously she hadn’t heard the slogan I heard relayed on the AMTRAK while training down to DC, “If you see something, say something.”
Last night, NBC’s Brian Williams was on with Jon Stewart. Williams started talking about how serious all this was, and that as many as 200 banks could fail. He said we have never seen anything like this in our lifetimes and than we have to go back to the days of the “Big Man”–i.e. FDR, during the Great Depression, to know what it was like.
At that point Stewart started joking with him about his bank pin code, and the conversation took another less serious turn. Their conversation about the possibility of more bank failures triggered my memory of that earlier exchange with Sheila Bair who has become like that little boy in Holland centuries ago with his finger in the dyke.
MSNBC: Personal Bankruptcies Soar as Recession Takes Its Toll
Amidst the current housing and unemployment crisis, more consumers, unable to keep up with their mortgage payments and crushing credit card debt, are filing for bankruptcy.
Baby Boomers Beware: Your Retirement Money At Risk
Finance: Casino Capitalism.
Ralph Nader: How Credit Unions Survived the Crash
Eighty five million Americans belong to credit unions which are not-for-profit cooperatives owned by their members who are depositors and borrowers. Your neighborhood or workplace credit union did not invest in these notorious speculative derivatives nor did they offer people “teaser rates” to sign on for a home mortgage they could not afford.
Richard C Cook:The U.S. Economy: Designed to Fail
By Richard C. Cook
Neither President Obama, nor his Democratic supporters or Republican antagonists, should feel badly about what is happening. This is because the system they have been given to work with was designed to fail.
Read about a Chicago man who got a $28,000 wireless bill after watching a football game on his computer and how the FCC has issued fines against more than 600 telecom firms for not complying with rules aimed at protecting their customers’ private information.
OPRAHPORTER LISA LING GOES INSIDE A CALIFORNIA TENT CITY
CNBC: A CREDIT CARD CALL TO ARMS
MEDIA
Another Great Newspaper Bites The Dust
Rocky Mountain News closing after Friday edition
DENVER – The Rocky Mountain News will publish its last edition Friday.
Owner E.W. Scripps Co. announced on the newspaper’s Web site Thursday that its search for a buyer for the paper was unsuccessful.
“Today the Rocky Mountain News, long the leading voice in Denver, becomes a victim of changing times in our industry and huge economic challenges,” Scripps CEO Rich Boehne said.
Scripps said the paper lost $16 million last year.
Boehne said the paper’s 230 editorial employees would be paid through April 28.
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE MAY SHUT DOWN
A Great City Forced to Read Flackery
Is the San Francisco Chronicle a news organization or a publicity service?
By David Cay Johnston
See the whole Post / →
Riffing On-Line: Your News Dissector on UFO’s and other Issues
February 27th, 2009 - by: danny
Mike Palacek is a writer who also runs the New American Dream website. Everyday he interviews people he thinks his readers might want to meet.
This past Monday, it was my turn. He sent the questions and I tried to reply.
I thought readers of the News Dissector might enjoy the back and forth.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Danny Schechter, A Real Reporter
“… it seems to be a life time ride for me, growing up as I did in a working class housing project in the Bronx,
imbued with the trade union culture of my dad and grandfather with a pronounced sense not just of injustice but the struggle against injustice.”
“I became more sensitized to the international impacts of our policies and first went to South Africa in the apartheid years and
later reported from the War from North and South Vietnam which showed me how propagandized we were as a nation.
THE
New American Dream
INTERVIEW
DANNY SCHECHTER lives in New York City.
He graduated from Cornell in 1964.
He received a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics. He was a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard, where he also taught in 1969.
He was an adjunct professor of at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia.
He was a civil rights worker and a community organizer in the War on Poverty program. He served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966.
He was a producer for the ABC new magazine 20/20, winning two Emmy awards. He joined the start-up staff of CNN as a producer.
Schechter has reported from forty-nine countries.
He helped found Glovalvision, a New York-based television and film production company. He is also the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, where he writes a 3000-word daily blog entry on media and society.
____________________
The New American Dream Trivia Question:
To win a round button that says, “Bush Is Lying About What He Knew,” be the first one to correctly answer the following.
Danny Schechter would rather be ….
a. Sitting in the front window of Danny’s BarberShop in Guthrie Center, Iowa, reading Reader’s Digest b. Sailing around the world with Ted Turner c. Producing the Rachel Ray Show d. Obama’s second press secretary e. Bicycling to Boise f. Meeting Karl Rove in the alley behind Duffy’s Irish Pub
____________________
NAD: Danny, hello, thank you for taking the time for this.
You were in college during the early Vietnam years, then taught in New York during the later ’60s, in the civil rights movement – and then you get into mainstream media, the big-time of the time.
Wow.
You have been right in the middle of the action, right?
It had to have been fun, right?
I worked in Harlem, Baltimore, and Mississippi.
I was personally exposed to Dr. King and so many of the greats like Fannie Lou Hamer and, yes, even Malcolm X.
It was that movement that politicized me first in High School as a student editor and then later at Cornell University where I studied history and tried to make some.
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Well, Mike, it seems to be a life time ride for me, growing up as I did in a working class housing project in the Bronx, imbued with the trade union culture of my dad and grandfather with a pronounced sense not just of injustice but the struggle against injustice.
That was formative to me.
So I brought those values with me into the activism that defined my youth, especially the Movement of the 60′s.
I worked in Harlem, Baltimore, and Mississippi. I was personally exposed to Dr. King and so many of the greats like Fannie Lou Hamer and, yes, even Malcolm X. It was that movement that politicized me first in High School as a student editor and then later at Cornell University where I studied history and tried to make some.
With the war in Vietnam, I became more sensitized to the international impacts of our policies and first went to South Africa in the apartheid years and later reported from the War in the North and South which showed me how propagandized we were as a nation.
Fun?
Sure I had fun.
I always try to merge my values and my work, not take myself too seriously, and dip into popular culture – music, poetry, boogieing etc.
Yes, and I even inhaled ….
NAD: My wife just came in the door and said that gas is down to $1.60 and that she has heard it will get down to $1.
You are also an economist.
What’s up with that?
Why do prices fluctuate like that? Supply and demand?
Six fat guys squeezing into the back booth at Wendy’s Of Dubai and deciding?
Or what?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
First of all I am not an economist even though I went to the London School of Economics, and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Most of my lessons came in the collage of harder knocks and so like everyone else I am puzzled and outraged about whats going on.
When I worked for 20/20 at ABC – I was there 8 years – I did stories on labor struggles and the S&L crisis and saw how much criminality there is in the economy.
That’s partly why I started digging into the debt issue and made the film “IN DEBT WE TRUST’ (indebtwetrust.com).
When I started working on it, friends thought I was nuts since the economy SEEMED so strong.
When it came out I was called an alarmist and doom and gloomer.
Now we are all alarmed ….
Just today, I saw a piece by a columnist in Holland Michigan who finally saw the film and said: “In 2007 Emmy-winning journalist Danny Schechter (ABC News, CNN) investigated America’s mounting debt crisis in a film everyone should see, “In Debt We Trust.” The film predicted every aspect of our current debt crisis, foreclosures, mortgage scams, too much credit card debt, a federal government that spends money like a drunken sailor.
“President Bush in his last press conference on Jan. 12 said no one saw this financial crisis coming. That is simply untrue. Schechter did, many others did, but it is true that for a variety of reasons President Bush did not see it coming, nor did many members of Congress. There are two reasons for this blindness, denial and the simple political fact that debt is the mother’s milk of our economy.”
So it looks like I went from being a zero to a hero. Smile.
NAD: Would you like to choose one of these to answer, elaborate on?
We don’t ask this to make fun. We ask because we really seek the answers.
– Are UFOs real?
Could be. Think I have seen some?
– Did we land on the moon in 1968?
Think so. I wasn’t there. Was busy that weekend?
– Did Bush knock down the towers?
With his slingshot?
– Was Paul Wellstone’s death an accident?
Have questions …. suspicions linger. I did the film BEYOND JFK working with Oliver Stone in the aftermath of JFK. I still have questions about the Warren Commission. Our company helped with the film 91l: Press For Truth about the farce of the 911 Commission.
– The Oklahoma City bombing? Wasn’t that just another U.S. government terrorist exercise? Or not.
How do I know?
– Waco. We burned kids, right? You can see flames shooting out of the tanks. Or not.
Typical police overreaction. My first radio story was on the Attica Massacre of 1971. Similar mindset.
– Is Bigfoot real?
He swore to me he is. (Although HE struck me as SHE!)
– Is there a God?
In NYC we have alternate side of the street parking – you park on one side one day and then across the street the next. So on Mondays, I am a believer, Tuesdays not.
… What makes you think that?
I am just not touched by the spirit or religion but respect people who are …
NAD: How did you survive the Bush years?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
With great difficulty.
The funding base for our not for profit work has all but disappeared … Getting work – we make documentaries and shorter videos – is harder than ever for all indy media …
NAD: Do you anticipate having to survive the Obama years, struggle through – or do you have hopes for something better?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
You can’t live without hope. I am certainly happy he beat McCain … But the crisis we are in is real and getting worse … One man cannot a a magic wand wave.
NAD: What do you think about the election of Obama? …
DANNY SCHECHTER:
I have just finished a film about the Obama campaign which will be out soon on DVD – it’s called “PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT” and it shows HOW he won – with grass roots activist and internet saavy. It goes into the techniques that were used, not the same old political arguments …
NAD: And … why wasn’t it stolen as well … or was it?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
This is a double negative or is it a triple negative …. Answer: Many reasons…
NAD: Who decided it wasn’t going to be Kucinich or Ron Paul or Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
The voters, that’s who.
NAD: Was it supply and demand?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Too simplistic and mechanistic/reductionist – why do you ask?
NAD: Or six fat guys squeezing into the back booth at Wendy’s of Westchester?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
(Are these these the same guys who were in Dubai last week?)
NAD: What is your most recent book? And can you explain the “financial crisis” to us here in four lines or preferably less?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Last book is PLUNDER: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books available on Amazon) Focuses on Wall Street Crime, Lack of Regulation and Complicity of the media.
See http://www.newsdissector.com/Plunder
NAD: Please tell us more about yourself, the things you have done, what you would like to do, what you did today. What do you eat, what do you smoke, what do you drink.
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Thats all?
Don’t smoke (dad died of Lung Cancer); Don’t drink much save juices (I am so good); Eat too much; slept in this morning and reviewed a cut of a section of the new film I am making based on Plunder.
See the trailer on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jj1kjsZg0g.
If you like it and can help, write, Dissector@mediachannel.org
NAD: What did you absolutely have to get done by noon today?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Slept until noon today – first time in months.
NAD: How about by Christmas 2009?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Can’t think so long term.
NAD: Have you ever been arrested? Been in jail? I don’t see it on your c.v., even though you must have saw jillions of people get arrested during your time.
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Have seen jillions.
Only once at the protest in Maryland at the former segregated Glenn Echo amusement park in Maryland 1963. Have had many run-ins – but I went into media not into affinity groups. Maybe its the same thing.
NAD: Did you just decide it wasn’t for you. Did you have a deep-down understanding, belief that change would happen more efficiently otherwise? Or what?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
No not at all. Change happens through struggle. I have been in the struggle for many decades and am now struggling to get through your questions.
NAD: Oh yeah. Bill Hicks. I just discovered him about five years ago. Did you know about him when he was alive?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Yeah – but I was drawn to others in my day, Dick Gregory, George Carlin et.al
NAD: Wasn’t he saying all the things that indy media types are saying these days, about the media, about government?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
Yes he was … Am I an Indy Media Type? What is an Indy media type? Do we need to think in terms if “types” and stereotypes? Let’s give that a rest.
NAD: What else would you like to add? What else should we have asked?
DANNY SCHECHTER:
In this format, it’s your job to ask, mine to try to answer.
And I have tried. Yes I did.
NAD: Please insert a link here to something you would like linked to, with a brief tag re: where that link goes:
DANNY SCHECHTER:
See my daily News Dissector blog at http://www.newsdissector.com/blog and tell me what you think when you do.
NAD: Thank you.
DANNY SCHECHTER: My pleasure.
Since I am riffing about myself, I thought I would add this select from an essay I did about what I hope to do here at Globalvision.
We are very eager to broaden our reach by networking with the many talented and concerned people whose expertise and experience would deepen the work we do. We want to do more to convey the realities that journalists have of working with institutional pressures that sometimes encourage self-censorship.
We have been thrilled that senior journalists like Walter Cronkite have lent their support. Our Globalvision New Media board is headed by James R, Rosenfield, who ran the CBS Television Network for a decade.
The fact remains that many Americans don’t “get it” because most U.S. media companies won’t do their job and give us a nuanced view of the world. While, thanks to the Internet, many diverse sources of information are available, mainstream media is still the main source of news and explanation for most citizens.
And that media has not changed all that much; despite the media mantra that the “world changed forever,” the media in the end did not change that much. As the Project on Excellence in Journalism reported after an extensive survey:
“Despite the war on terrorism and conflict in the Middle East, the news Americans see on network television has softened considerably since last fall, to the point that it now looks more like it did before the terrorist attacks than immediately after, according to a new study.
“Celebrity and lifestyle coverage, which last fall had all but vanished from evening news and was subordinated even in morning news, has returned to levels close to those of last summer, according to the study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
“Traditional hard news, meanwhile, has shrunk, reestablishing a trend toward the softening of network news evident since the late 1970s.”
There are any number of crucial issues swirling around the current world situation. The problem is that these debates are still flying below the radar of most mainstream media outlets.
This is a time when all views should be reported, discussed and debated. We need to deepen our global conversation. We need more investigations. And we need more diverse voices in the news and more open mindedness about what should be covered by the news.
The media has a major role to play in reminding us all of the many ways in which our lives are entwined and futures interconnected worldwide. Ostriches can put their heads in the sand. Journalists no longer can.
MediaChannel.org started with 20 affiliates. As I write, we now have 993. The hits are multiplying. Interest is growing. Three years ago Media Channel was just an idea. Now it is a vibrant resource for research, diverse views, suppressed news, advocates, activists and journalists.
Can we keep going? Can we learn how to be effective and prevail in our war of ideas? Can those of us who want change and a just public interest work together across boundaries and borders to create a media that is worthy of a just world?
This is a dark time. It is a time of terror, of political pessimism and for many, of personal paralysis.
It is also a time to look for light.
In that pursuit I am comforted and inspired by the empowering truth in these words of James Baldwin, an American writer of color and consciousness: “One discovers the light in darkness; that is what darkness is for, but everything in our lives depends on how to bear the light. It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, there is a light waiting to be found. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.”
Interested in hearing more about the stories of life and times? Check out my books The More You Watch The Less You Know (Seven Stories) and News Dissector (Akashic Books) or see the documentary WORK IN PROGRESS: PUTTING THE ME BACK IN THE MEDIA.
Karl Saw It Koming
The final word, a quote sent in by Joanne Steele by none other than Karl. Marx, not Rove:
“Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism. ( Das Kapital , 1867)
Thanks for joining me. I will be off to a EU Film Festival in Austria next week. Will fill you in on Monday. Have a great weekend. Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org
Sorry for a return to bland old black and white print—but our Dissectrix Cherie Welch is away and I have to go back to fending for and by myself.
At the same time I don’t want to disappoint anyone looking for a more, um, stylish and exciting range of content so try on this modern approach to financial accounting:
Check this out if you dare:
Rock on.
See the whole Post / →
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
read more about The News Dissector →