New Year’s Eve Reflections: The Ritual Is Here As Well As The Fear
December 31st, 2009 - by: danny
GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2009 AS THE BALL DROPS AGAIN
The wheel is turning again as it does every year. Times Square will be packed again, despite the terror scare that emptied it of armies of tourists yesterday. They will play the old songs again. The New Year’s Eve ritual will be observed this year, as it has in the past, perhaps with some added punch because 2009 has been such a drag for so many. It is bleak, mid-winter with the arctic air putting a damper on people who already feel dampened.
A song for 2009 this decade, which ushered in the horrors of the Bush Administration:
I know I will.
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking…
And I’ll tell myself, I’m over you
‘Cause I’m the king of wishful thinking.
Better, remove “Jack” and insert 2009:
Malcolm X once told me, and many others, that it all it takes to turn a cup of black coffee white is to add a drop of milk. His metaphor then was racial but the idea is still with us. In an age of trillions spent on national security, does anyone feel secure? All it takes is one person, one snafu, one communications failure and the nation is in a panic. Look at the chaos at the airports after this week’s terror scare. The barn doors are being fixed again but the horses are gone. These incidents are often good for the agencies defending against them – it raises their budgets and insures a compliant public willing to give up privacy and their rights in a futile attempt to stay safe.
Does anyone remember that this was the precise problem the 911 Commission addressed with its call to get security agencies sharing information in the aftermath of the 911 attacks when it was clear the FBI and CIA weren’t talking and, in fact, knew the “bad guys” were here but were too incompetent or bureaucratic to act? Sound familiar? Some things don’t change.
The more we spend on security, the more insecure we are. Despite all the “progress” in Iraq, the bombings and guerrilla attacks keep the country on edge. Ditto for Afghanistan where one more report on the shape of the Afghan Army confirms what everyone already knows: corruption and incompetence is the rule not the exception. The troops we are sending —only 1.3 poised for combat—will do little. They are a sop to the right and the Pentagon, not a serious effort to win a war that’s unwinnable. Just today, one suicide bomber blew up 8 CIA contractors, boldly attacking a secret base. Prepare for more incidents like this one.It is hard to stop people willing and eager to die for their country or religion.
Despite our strength and technology and arrogance, we remain vulnerable, caught up in a paranoid relationship with a diverse world. Our moral compass is skewed, and our repressive modalities unworkable.
Example, Michael Wolff of Newser writes:
“Who are these 4,000 people on the no-fly list? Why wouldn’t the US government want to publish this list and officially and individually identify our enemies? (And, also, give someone the chance to clear his or her name.) I suppose the government might not want to do this because it would, I’ll bet, show that the list, this ultimate bulwark against airplane apocalypse, has been assembled in a disorganized and haphazard fashion. Also, I guess it would give all the threatening people who, because of the US government’s vast disorganization, are not on the list a sort of all-clear…”
And what is the probability of more incidents? Check this out from Undernews:
WHAT’S THE ODDS?
Nate Silver, Five Thirty Eight – Over the past decade, there have been, by my count, six attempted terrorist incidents on board a commercial airliner that landed in or departed from the United States: the four planes that were hijacked on 9/11, the shoe bomber incident in December 2001, and the NWA flight 253 incident on Christmas. . .
Over the past decade, according to BTS, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. Dividing by six, we get one terrorist incident per 16,553,385 departures.
These departures flew a collective 69,415,786,000 miles. That means there has been one terrorist incident per 11,569,297,667 miles flown. This distance is equivalent to 1,459,664 trips around the diameter of the Earth, 24,218 round trips to the Moon, or two round trips to Neptune.
Assuming an average airborne speed of 425 miles per hour, these airplanes were aloft for a total of 163,331,261 hours. Therefore, there has been one terrorist incident per 27,221,877 hours airborne. This can also be expressed as one incident per 1,134,245 days airborne, or one incident per 3,105 years airborne.
There were a total of 674 passengers, not counting crew or the terrorists themselves, on the flights on which these incidents occurred. By contrast, there have been 7,015,630,000 passenger enplanements over the past decade. Therefore, the odds of being on given departure which is the subject of a terrorist incident have been 1 in 10,408,947 over the past decade. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000. [More here →]
A 2005 report by the Center for Disease Control found the following probabilities:
1 in 126 of heart disease
1 in 169 of cancer
1 in 400 of heart disease
1 in 520 of cancer
1 in 1,245 of murder in DC in early 1990s
1 in 2,900 of an accident
1 in 7,000 of an auto accident
1 in 9,200 of suicide
1 in 12,400 of Alzheimer’s
1 in 18,100 of murder
1 in 21,004 of AIDS
1 in 43,000 of a hernia
1 in 88,000 of a terrorist attack
1 in 1,500,00 of a terrorist-caused shopping mall disaster assuming one such incident a week and you shop two hours a week
1 in 55,000,000 in a terrorist-caused plane disaster assuming one such incident a month and you fly once a month
In 2002, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the most dangerous job in America was being a timber cutter. Converting the data, a lumberman has 104 times the likelihood of being killed on a job as you do of being killed in a terrorist attack. A construction worker is 25 times more likely to die on the job than you are of being killed in a terrorist attack.”
None of this matters when fear can be stoked.
The small minded, bully boys have their fingers in the dike and the one option that might resolve all this remains unexplored—pressuring Israel to make a “just peace” deal, negotiating in good faith, seeking political solutions, not military resolutions. The Administration talks about talk but does so little of it. It is as if the system’s way of thinking and doing is frozen in place.
Back in my life, in my hyperactive brain, is a spreading dread despite my perennial optimism. It is hard for me understand the quiet on the western front, the unwillingness to challenge, to raise questions, to sound the alarm. The economy collapses and most of us say nothing. The media is dominated by trivia and non-reality reality and most of us say nothing. We react to the events of the moment, with little energy left over for concerns about places like the Congo, which is not in the news cycle. Perhaps my going there gave me a strong sense of the urgency and the tragedy or so many suffering. As I wrote, if A Qaeda was there, there would be more American engagement.
It’s been a busy year for me. I traveled the world again, finished two films, wrote a book, wrote endless blogs and commentaries, gave speeches, went to conferences, or in another words, did my thing.
I produced a lot but feel as if I changed so little.
The other day I saw the Kennedy Center honor Bruce Springsteen. He was up in the box with Patty and the Obamas. Jon Stewart was eloquent in praising him, and a variety of great artists paid tribute by singing his songs. But somehow it felt more like nostalgia, as if he joined the pantheon of the good and the great but lost his edge as the social critic. That was less true at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame show where he sang his oh-so-still-relevant, “Ghost of Tom Joad.”
I thought to myself of my own stories about his work on 20/20 back in 1986 which, pretty much said the same thing. Also, I thought of my work alongside him on the Sun City anti-apartheid song and video. Bruce, the rock and roll rebel, is now lauded by men in tuxes on the Potomac.
How much longer can I do this? I don’t know.
Globalvision and Mediachannel seems to have lost its luster for many, perhaps because a new generation is on the scene. Perhaps because we didn’t have the resources to hype our work and market it. I have a few disappointments but no regrets. I think my own work is better than ever, and I keep going, rolling that rock up the hill, ringing the bells that still can ring. I keep believing that a small army of volunteers can still turn this around but we have been unsuccessful in organizing one.
I end the year as I began working with cool people. My business partner, Rory O’Connor, David Dregraw and Cherie Welch, our many interns, our book keeper Pat Hortsman, our many friends and collaborators, who are still with us. Its been a long journey, a fruitful journey
If our “dissections” has moved you at all, if it has informed you at all, you have ONE DAY to show it with a tax deductible donation to Mediachannel payable by check to the Global Center 575 8th Avenue, New York, New York 10018.
Happy New Years Eve, New Year’s day, and may 2010 be better than the year we are leaving behind.
It can’t be worse!
DANNY SCHECHTER
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My Last Newscast Of The Year Going By: The Beat Goes On, Stories Of Import
December 31st, 2009 - by: danny
• 8 Americans, 5 Canadians dead in Afghan attacks
KABUL – A suicide bomber at a base in Afghanistan’s volatile east killed eight American civilians, U.S. officials said, the worst loss of life for Americans in the country since October. Four Canadian soldiers and a journalist were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s south, NATO said. [More here →]
KARMA
• Talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh “resting comfortably” at hospital after suffering chest pains.
A right-wing radio host said to be the de facto leader of the Republican Party has been taken to hospital suffering from chest pains. Rush Limbaugh, 58, who is notorious for cajoling and inflaming the largest talk-radio audience in America, was taken to hospital in Honolulu in an ambulance. [More here →]
END OF THE YEAR NEWS OF NOTE
• Who’s Running the TSA? No One, Thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint
• TRUTH OUT: Jason Leopold | AIG Executives Failed to Repay Majority of Bonuses
“Despite previous promises, beleaguered insurance giant American International Group (AIG) has failed to return tens of millions of dollars in bonus payments the firm doled out to executives following the company’s spectacular unraveling and subsequent multibillion government bailout, according to a recent report by the special inspector general for the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).” [More here →]
• Report Says ACORN Didn’t Commit Voter Fraud or Misuse Federal Funding
Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: “The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) did not commit voter fraud, and it didn’t misuse federal funding in the last five years, according to a recently released report prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan investigational arm of Congress.”
• WASHINGTON POST: U.S. taking majority ownership of GMAC
The federal government said Wednesday it will take majority control of the troubled auto lender GMAC, providing another $3.8 billion in aid to the company, which has been unable to raise from private investors the money it needs to staunch its losses. GMAC, which already has taken $12.5 billion in direct federal aid along with other forms of government support, is the largest lender to General Motors and Chrysler dealerships and to their auto-buying customers.
• FIREDOGLAKE ON KUCINICH: I WILL INVESTIGATE FANNY/FREDDIE SCANDAL
Announcing it in a Christmas Eve news dump, think again. Dennis Kucinich just released this statement:
“As Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I’m announcing that the Subcommittee will launch an investigation into the Treasury Department’s recent decision to lift the current $400-billion cap on combined federal assistance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, opening the way for additional, unlimited funds through the end of 2012. This investigation will include the role played by Fannie Mae chief executive Michael J. Williams and Freddie Mac chief executive Charles E. Haldeman in the decision, if any, and will seek to ensure that the additional assistance is used for homeowners and not Wall Street.”
“As Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, I’m announcing that the Subcommittee will launch an investigation into the Treasury Department’s recent decision to lift the current $400-billion cap on combined federal assistance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, opening the way for additional, unlimited funds through the end of 2012. This investigation will include the role played by Fannie Mae chief executive Michael J. Williams and Freddie Mac chief executive Charles E. Haldeman in the decision, if any, and will seek to ensure that the additional assistance is used for homeowners and not Wall Street.”
“Many questions remain unanswered regarding this move by the Treasury. Why suddenly remove the cap? Indications are that Freddie and Fannie, even as millions of Americans lose their homes, have used just $111 billion of the $400 billion previously available to them. Is lifting the cap on assistance a back-door TARP?”
“Additionally, I want to determine whether Fannie and Freddie have a cohesive plan to buy up the under-performing mortgages that remain on the books of the big banks, at appropriate prices, and undertake a massive reworking of the terms of the mortgages so as to stem the foreclosure crisis that continues to plague our country. This new authority must be used responsibly and for the benefit of American families. This cannot be used simply to purchase toxic assets at inflated prices, thus transferring the losses to the U. S. taxpayers and acting as a back-door TARP.”
On Christmas Eve, they also announced $4-$6 million compensation packages for their top executives. But they’ll start foreclosing on homeowners again in January.
• REUTERS: l0 BIGGEST FINANCIAL SCANDALS OF THE YEAR
• IAN WILLIAMS INTERVIEWS JUDGE RICHARD GOLDSTONE ON GAZA
• FLASHPOINTS RADIO (KPFA) FROM THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH
• RELIEF WEB: CRISIS IN THE CONGO
I could go on but I won’t. This is supposed to be a week off. It’s hard for me to pass over important news and commentary but even obsessed news dissectors deserve a rest
Thank you for being here this past year. We mark our official 11th anniversary online on Feb 1st, also the anniversary of the student sit-ins that kicked off the 60s civil rights movement.
Your comments and New Year’s greetings welcome: Dissector@mediachannel.org
LETTER:
Hartley Pleshaw writes from the Commonwealth of MA:
Thank you so much! May the coming year be a very happy and prosperous one for you as well–and for Globalvision. 2010 marks the 40th anniversary of my first hearing you on WBCN. I can’t think of too many people who have been a part of my life for so long. So much has happened since then–including, of course, the death this year of the radio station that meant so much to us all. But, you and Charles and Sam and so many others carry on. THAT’S the real WBCN: not the call letters or the frequency, but the spirit. And it will go on for as long as we do.
No, 2009 wasn’t a vintage year. Obama was a disappointment, but even his meager efforts brought out the haters and the crazies, and showed just how powerful they can be. The unemployment lines grew, the debts exploded, more troops marched off to war. The Empire, it seems, keeps expanding from without, even as it rots from within.
As for the media…why bother? The people who should be chronicling all this now only seem to enable it What’s really depressing is that some of our old friends now flirt with the Dark Side.
Nat Hentoff has joined the Obama-is-Hitler crowd, and contends that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney were basically nice guys who went a little overboard–or is that waterboard? (Hentoff now shares a website with David Horowitz and Ann Coulter; alas, it’s now where he belongs.) And Joe Klein’s heart now melts at the sight of a man in uniform. (Particularly one wearing General’s stars.)
Meanwhile, paradoxically enough, some of yesterday’s Dark Siders continue to give off some much-needed light. The departed Bob Novak may have been a nasty old red-baiter, but he was also a rare mainstream voice for justice for the Palestinians. Pat Buchanan remains, as he has been for the past 20 years, a powerful voice for anti-imperialism. (And by all means, check out the wonderful book “Ain’t My America” by his American Conservative colleague Bill Kauffman; it’s a very lively and entertaining history of the too-often neglected, distorted and ignored anti-imperialist Right.) And from 9/11/01 on, Andrew Sullivan’s blog has detailed in outraged eloquence the crimes of Bush and Cheney, the lies of Sarah Palin and the horror of what contemporary “conservatism” has become. (In other words, Sullivan has become what Nat Hentoff once was.)
Still, as they used to say in the old movies, “We’ve still got each other!” I recently had the great honor of interviewing Howard Zinn for an upcoming magazine article–and wasn’t it wonderful to experience “The People Speak” on the History Channel? (More of that sort of thing, and maybe that channel will actually earn its name.) Amy Goodman and her colleagues at “Democracy Now!” actually give us a newscast with NEWS. (A tip of the cap, too, to the networks who air her, FSTV and Link.) Alex Cockburn keeps Counterpunching away, for which we should all be grateful. Matt Taibbi actually makes me want to read Rolling Stone again, for the first time in many decades. And while Keith Olbermann may be prone to excess, we’re lucky to have SOMEONE call the Dildo, er, excuse me, Dittoheads, and the Fox “News” Channel, to account–with wit and style, no less.
And, last but never least, we’ve got Globalvision. Take a bow, News Dissector, and your Globalvision family. The worse things get, the more we need you.
Happy New Year to you, the most important media observer of our age, and my dear and valued friend.
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Will The Economy Recover In 2010? Don’t Bet On It, Time To Fight Back
December 30th, 2009 - by: danny
it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way —
in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities
insisted on its being received, for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
- Charles Dickens, 1859
The year is ending but the crises that defined the year are not. No matter where you look, the system, the politicians, the leaders are incapable of addressing deep problems. Civil liberties are routinely violated, not only here but in Egypt which gets $3 billion a year from the USA and whose riot cops are attacking international activists including Americans who traveled there to protest on the anniversary of the criminal assault on Gaza a year ago.
• Gaza March Photos; “No More Than 6 People can Assemble” in Egypt
Bear in mind, it was partially repression in Egypt that drove Zwaheri into forming Al Qaeda….Look around—where do you see progress? We bombed Yemen and they tried to bomb us. The President spoke out about what went wrong with that wannabe plane bomber–but please realize that the conspiracy theory of history is not as powerful as the fuck-up theory.
NYT: Two officials said the United States government had intelligence from Yemen before Christmas that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. [More here →]
• Top Republican Myths about the Crotch Bomber Affair
Juan Cole: I hear these on tv or from Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Peter King and Sen. Joe Lieberman.
RELATED: Joe Lieberman: How About Another War?
And then there is our economy — my subject today:
Are we out of the “woods?” Is the economy bouncing back?
As readers know, I have been focused on these issues in the blog, articles and commentaries and in my forthcoming film and book. I hate to be a bad news bear but I am hardly alone. Of course, the progressive economists have been pointing out how screwed up things STILL are, but so is the financial press.
Martin Wolff of the Financial Time writes:
“In an article published in the FT this week, Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, argues that economics has redeemed itself by rescuing the world economy from the crisis. I agree, but only up to a point. Many economists argued that the measures were unnecessary, or even harmful. Moreover, these extraordinary interventions have not returned the patient to health. They have merely prevented him from dying. We now must heal five chronic conditions, instead of survive last year’s brutal heart attack.” [More here →]
“Finally, the financial system remains damaged. Not only does it still own vast quantities of the “toxic assets” its “talented” employees created, but the world is not addressing the structural causes of the crisis. In some ways, the oligopolistic banking system that has emerged from the crisis is riskier than the one that went into it.” [More here →]
Some more:
• Crony Capitalism Still with us
• NakedCapitalism.com: How Not To Solve A Financial Crisis By Edward Harrison
As we head into the New Year, I am trying to look back at the last one with some semblance of a coherent interpretation of events that leads to a strategic vision of the future. I have already touched on stimulus, kleptocracy and crony capitalism as dominant themes for the year 2009.
These posts have been critical of the economic vision presented by the Bush and Obama Administrations. I would stress that I see a lot of overlap in the two Administrations’ economic policies, which is why I use the phrase “the Bush and Obama Administrations” instead of focusing just on Obama.
But, now is the time to offer a review of alternative policy solutions. Bashing policy without pointing to an alternative doesn’t add value. I also believe quite strongly that this exercise will demonstrate that alternative policy solutions did exist — and that they were pointed out at the time. One can only assume that alternative policy solutions were rejected because the Bush and Obama Administrations preferred the solutions they crafted to these. And while, I am most concerned with outcomes, this juxtaposition between what could have been and what is points to the kleptocracy and crony capitalism I mentioned in my last two review posts.
Before I go into my spiel, I want to stress a point I made at the outset of a November post “The less optimistic view of Treasury’s handling of the crisis“:
one doesn’t have to take the view that its efforts to save the banking industry were a deliberate attempt to line bankers’ pockets by transferring money from taxpayers to the banking industry.
I will probably end up flexing my confabulatory muscles like every other pundit out there — making direct or unconscious assumptions about motives, agendas or intent. This is all just speculation — much of it false. It is outcomes that matter, not intentions. And it is the outcomes that leave me unsatisfied with the present policy course.
Change you can believe in [More here →]
• The Baseline Scenario: What The Senate Must Do Now
Charles S. Gardner, a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund argues we must not overlook the importance of extending effective regulation to the nonbank sector.
As Congressional action on financial industry reform shifts to the Senate from the bill passed recently by the House, the urgent need now is to fill the gaps in the piecemeal House approach. Regulators require an airtight scheme giving them clear responsibility plus tools to nip industry abuses early and drain the tendency to crisis out of world finance. This rare opportunity also must be seized to restore the Federal Reserve’s control of the money supply, eroded by decades of expanding credit creation by nonbanks.
So far, Congress has ignored this macro dimension of the reform challenge. Understandably, the House Financial Services Committee focused mainly on the high-profile villains of the financial crisis enraging constituents from coast to coast: obscene pay practices, secret but deadly derivatives trading, the murky role of hedge funds, boundless leveraging of assets, and heedless loan packaging that left the originators both rich and risk free. [More here →]
So there you go. There is no guarantee that what recovery we have will be permanent, no assurance that what seems to have come up won’t go down again.
I have been reporting that all of this is critical to our futures, but so far, there has been little agitation on these key issues. Far too many of us are bystanders, passive onlookers, not engaged citizens.
SOME ARE FIGHTING BACK
Robert Hayes called my attention to this story:
• David and Two Goliaths — A Sebastopol boot maker takes on Citibank and the U.S. government over the legalities of credit card debt By Suzanne Daly
[snip]
“Michael is pushing a big boulder up a steep hill,” says Alan Cone, a civil practice attorney who finds Carnacchi’s case fascinating. “He’s bright as hell, reads tons and prepares his documents well. He has passion, intelligence and a supportable, ingenious argument. And he’s defending himself in court, which is incredibly difficult to do.”
And what’s more, there’s every indication that he might actually have a case.
For five years, Carnacchi had a faultless record with his Citibank credit card account. He had a perfect payment history and was never late with his minimum monthly payment of $213 on a balance of $14,233.54. In December ’07, however, his payment was four days late. When Carnacchi’s January ’08 statement arrived, it showed a new balance almost $600 higher than December had, totaling $14,851.03. Most shockingly, his minimum monthly payment had been increased by 575 percent to $1,224.52 per month, and his interest rate went from 2.99 to 31.24 percent.
He called Citibank, and citing his previous unsullied record, asked them to reverse the charges. He was refused and told that the interest rate could not be adjusted. When Carnacchi pointed out that increasing it was an adjustment, the representative answered that they could increase it but couldn’t decrease it. After a multitude of phone calls trying to negotiate an affordable payment plan, Carnacchi told Citibank that he would make no further payments until they reversed the rates and charges. Three months later, his monthly payment had increased to $3,132.12, almost 15 times the amount of his original payments. He contacted a lawyer, and together they concluded that his options were to declare himself insolvent or fight.
Carnacchi started exploring the very core of U.S. law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A section of the Eighth Amendment prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive fines, and this clause caught his interest. He noted the connection between the U.S. Treasury purchasing $45 billion of preferred stock in Citigroup and using it as collateral for the bank’s bailout money. Citibank accepted the bailout under the Trouble Assets Relief Program, and the sale of the stock effectively made the federal government part owner of the bank.[More here →]
Again, Happy New Year. If you like what we have been doing here. Please consider supporting us right now with a check made out to the Global Center for Mediachannel.org. We are here today, but could be gone tomorrow. Hoping to hear from you. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org
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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.
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