THE LAST OF THE NEWS DISSECTOR BLOGS FOR NOW
May 28th, 2010 - by: danny
THE LAST OF THE NEWS DISSECTOR BLOGS FOR NOW
June 1: RT INTERVIEW ON ISRAEL’S MEDIA WAR TO SILENCE OPPONENTS OF GAZA SIEGE
LISTEN: This week’s NEWS DISSECTOR RADIO SHOW PODCAST on the economy and a sex scandal.
I knew it would come to this sometime. Nothing lasts forever. And even though we want to keep Mediachannel alive as long as we can, and even as we shutter our Globalvision office this weekend and go virtual, it will be either a road to further marginalization or perhaps a new way forward to free us from crushing overhead.
As Murray Kempton once wrote, ‘We were only part of our time.’
This is the second time I have put the New Dissector to rest. Back in 1977, when I left WBCN Radio as a full timer, I went “straight” only to find that everyone still called me by by media nom’d guerre, news dissector anyway. Somehow the “brand” stuck. When I began reusing it with this blog, it felt like the right thing to do.
And I have given it my best, day in and day out for ll years. In that period, I won many frends and collected many enemies, some of whom just can’t transcend their angry resentment and bitterness to knock a man when they think he’s down. Actually I am not. I ready to for a new challenge.
A Luta Continua. La Lutte Continue. Onward.
As I wrote earlier, there is a time for everything. My brother, Bill, is a Thoreau scholar and sent me what the one of America’s greatest writes had to say when he left Walden Pond. I hope you don’t mind my running it again.
“Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours…”
And so I have. I know how volatile and unstable gut-free media institutions can be. I worked at a number of local TV stations. CNN was a big leap out of Boston and into Big media before joining ABC News for 8 years. All of those jobs came to an end, either when the management pulled the plug or I did.
What a blessing to have had your own company to pursue the issues you care deeply about, to try to marry money and meaning.
Globalvision is still an idea whose time has not yet come and may still be coming. We need global networks. We need more collaboration and sharing across borders and boundaries. We need to work with the world, not on it in a spirit of mutual solidarity. We always need more media diversity and international cooperation. We need to work on projects that help illuminate the times as Edward R. Murrow pointed out:
“I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry’s program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is–an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.”
We didn’t achieve all of our dreams, but wow, what we did achieve was pretty amazing:
Eyewitnesses to the end of White Rule in Africa, to traveling with Nelson Mandela and the Dali Lama, to working with some of the greatest musicians and artists in the world, to investigating weapons of mass deception, deceptive elections, the prospects of reconciliation, promoting human rights, unmaking financial crisis, and now, exposing crime on Wall Street.
We used our skills to try to promote the values we believe in – equality, peace, racial, gender and social justice, human rights, and economic fairness, on and on.
I am grateful to have adventured to more than 65 countries. I have been exposed a wide range of cultural expressions and inspiration. We worked with people we respected and were often trusted with unusual access.
And we were able, until the financial crisis caught up with us, to make a living doing what we love while also promoting change.
Not every project worked. Not everyone we worked along side were happy with our ideas, drive and style. We had many disappointments and a few betrayals from people we trusted and cared about.
Life is like that. You never know what will happen unless and until you try. Nothing comes to a dreamer but a dream as the cliche goes…
I am sure we could have done it better than we did. But it is what it is. On balance, we have good reasons to be proud or our achievements, and who can forecast what will come next? I worked on the inside for a major media company and did not regret leaving. All is so often unpredictable, and flux. Luck and opportunity are rare but there. When the far better endowed Bill Moyers went, we knew our time was coming.
To all who worked with us, we salute you with abiding appreciation even if your experience was not always what you wanted it to be.
To all who funded us or encouraged us, we say thank you.
To our families who put up with us, to the relationships we lost and the new friends we met, namaste.
We couldn’t please everyone and most of the time, we didn’t even please ourselves. Trust me, no one is more self critical than I am. It’s hard to keep pushing the rock up the hill and then have to get out of the way when it come rolling down, heading for your head.
If you think running a media company with different values is easy, or playing at capitalism without capital try it. Many have and are long gone.
I was especially blessed to have so many readers and colleagues who respected our work, and wished us well. There were the inevitable cynics who sniped at us from their angry caves of self-righteous anonymity. Thanks for the opportunity to learn about what happens to people who descend this way and good luck to you, too.
CLINTON, ALMA MATER, THY NAME WE SING
Last night, I had a taste of the world I came from — the working class Bronx.
I went to a reunion of many classes at DeWitt Clinton High School, a boys school when I went there but now happily mixed.
Some of the guys who I worked with on the student newspaper were there along with a loud chorus of younger students graduating into a much tougher world than the one that awaited us.
The Bronx accents were thick but the optimism was infectious. Our time there was a half a century ago but it felt like yesterday. It always does.
I went back to Clinton for a a auto-biopic, ‘A Work In Progress,’ that I made with editor/producer Marie Sullivan and where I spoke about that school and our faculty advisor, Lou Simon, who inspired me to try journalism for a career. There are a few clips from the film on Google Video.
Tomorrow, yes, tomorrow, as another song has it, is only a day away.
I am still schlepping stuff home from what is now a mostly empty office. As my business partner for all these years, Rory O’Connor, quipped: “It took us 23 years to build and we had to tear it out in a week.” Read his take: Moving & Moving On: It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
And so we did with special thanks to:
Angela, Pat, Nilese, Glenn, Sean, Scott, the two Celines, Stan, Allene, the mighty Margaux, Salome, William, Michael and far too many others to list for helping us pack up to move on. You know who you are and the difference you made.
Again, much deserved props to the techno-wizardry of David DeGraw, founder member of AmpredStatus.com and author of, ‘The Economic Elite versus the People of the United States of America,’ for all of his talented and dedicated work in getting Mediachannel done and out to you 5 days per week plus creating the new Globalvision.org site, coming online very soon.
And, to my dissecrtix, the talented Cherie Welch, who came out of the blue, and who brought a whole new ray of sunshine and aesthetic to the blog, which she frequently edited and produced in the middle of the night — and I still haven’t met her, vis-à-vis.
It has been said, ‘Welcome frustration for it means things are about to change.’
THE BIGGER THEY ARE, THE HARDER THE FALL
Associated Press: NYC adviser to Snipes, Stallone, other celebrities is charged in $30 million fraud case by LARRY NEUMEISTER
NEW YORK (AP) – A financial adviser to celebrities including Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone was arrested Thursday on charges that he carried out a $30 million fraud on his clients, using some of their money to purchase a lavish Manhattan apartment.
Kenneth Starr, 65, of Manhattan was charged with wire fraud, investment adviser fraud and money laundering and was awaiting an initial court appearance in federal court in Manhattan.
Also arrested in the probe was former New York City Council President Andrew Stein, who was charged with making false statements in a filing with the Internal Revenue Service and making false statements to a federal officer. [More here →]
Here’s another passionate send off from journalist Hartley Pleshaw in Massachusetts.
Dear Danny:
At this sad time for all of us who care about alternative journalism, I won’t dwell yet again on the tragic death of Globalvision. You already know how those of us who love and care about it feel about its sad demise. Suffice to say, there will be a huge, gaping hole in the lives of all of us who scan our emails every morning to see and hear what you have to say. It will be a very hard habit to break. I’m afraid that there will be no rehab programs or 12-step solutions for us Globalvision addicts; maybe, that’s just as well. Maybe our permanent withdrawal symptoms won’t be cured until Globalvision, or something like it, reappears in our lives–and maybe, just maybe, that’s as it should be. This is one addiction from which withdrawal won’t feel easier or better with the passage of time–which, in this case, should be seen as a sign of health, not sickness.
The sickness is evident enough, elsewhere. But, we’ve been down that road so many times before, and will be again. For now, if I can, I’d like to end things on a positive note.
On behalf of all your readers, listeners and film goers, I want to thank you for devoting the last forty years of your life to caring about how the rest of us get our information–which, of course, is simply another way of saying that you cared about the rest of us. No, you didn’t do charity work in the traditional sense, but your refusal to play the traditional media game when it would have personally benefited you speaks for itself. Unlike so many others, you didn’t give up, sell out or burn out. Everything you said or did had a social purpose or meaning.
Unlike so many idealists or self-proclaimed rebels of years past, you didn’t come to do good, only to stay to do well. While times and circumstances changed (as they always do), you remained professionally and–far more importantly–morally consistent. I will let others debate whether such an institution as Globalvision could have ever survived in today’s world, or whether it, or something like it, can ever rise again. But there is no debate about this: you did your part, every day of your working life. For my part, I have been privileged to have been a witness to your work almost from the beginning. (Sadly, I missed your LSE years, to say nothing of your noble work at Clinton High.) From WBCN in 1970 to now, you’ve been there for all of us who were lucky and aware enough to appreciate what you were doing. Globalvision may have ended, but that appreciation never will.
And so, let me say it for us all: Thank you, Danny Schechter, for all you’ve done. (A shout-out to Rory and all your colleagues, too.) Maybe a noble, heroic and self-sacrificing career isn’t something you can literally take to the bank (alas), but you can certainly take it to your heart and soul.
Yours in Eternal Appreciation, Your Friend, Hartley Pleshaw
No Wonder Phil Ochs Sang: “I Ain’t Marching anymore.
**MEDIA ADVISORY — MEDIA ADVISORY — MEDIA ADVISORY**
6TH ANNUAL NATIONAL MEMORIAL DAY PARADE PRESENTED BY BOEING
Washington, D.C. — Join nearly 300,000 Americans in honoring those who have served and sacrificed in the sixth annual National Memorial Day Parade. Marching bands, veterans units, and uniformed military personnel from around the country will march down Constitution Avenue in the largest Memorial Day parade in the nation.
The parade will feature a special tribute to the U.S. Marine Corps and will be led by Grand Marshal General Peter Pace, the only Marine to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Military supporters Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna will once again join the parade, along with former Marine drill instructor and actor R. Lee Ermey. Also participating is R.V. Burgin, the Marine Corps veteran portrayed in the HBO miniseries, The Pacific and Anthony Kearns of the famed Irish Tenors, singing Amazing Grace.
How about a tribute to two-time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient, Major General Smedley Darlington Butler USMC, Retired?
OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS:
Globalvision is going virtual. We are closing our offices at 575 8th Avenue at the end of this month. Our new postal address will be: P.O. Box 677, New York, NY 10035. Our company started operating in a shared space in Soho in l987, then opened what was described as a “loft-hovel” in Little Italy, then moved to classier digs near Union Square. From there, it was up to a real HQ in the heart of Times Square, and then, after our building was gentrified into posh condos, to this outpost in the noisy belly of the Garment District. Soon, in our latest incarnation, we will receive mail in Harlem and then go covert, perhaps to one of those secret locations Dick Cheney boasted about.
Yes, we have, for decades, been globalvisioning downtown, uptown and midtown—all around the town (and world) really. Now, we enter the “post office” and postoffice phase in a new zip code.
Follow me on Twitter (Dissectorevents) and Facebook. We also have a PLUNDER movie page on Facebook, the PLUNDER web site and a new Globalvision.org web site.
Write: dissector@mediachannel.org
CAUTION: You may not want to play this out loud at work as it contains a graphic word. h/t to Facebook friend and activist Linda Saloff.
See the whole Post / →
Can Democracy Survive The Media? Is Ours Done? Are We?
May 27th, 2010 - by: danny
DeWitt C: Where It Began
Tonight is a special night for me. Just as the sun seems to be setting on my media career as I have known it, I will be getting together with the crew of the very first media institution I worked for and then edited: The CLINTON NEWS, the student newspaper at DeWitt Clinton Height School in the Bronx, an award winning newspaper with many prominent alums in the news biz. It was my training ground in journalism. We are having a reunion in the boogie down Bronx, of course, and I will tell you all about it on the morrow.
I will be hosting News Dissector Radio on ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com 10 AM to 11 AM EDT.
HOW DO WE ARREST THE DECLINE IN OUR DEMOCRACY?
BOMBING OIL WITH MUD
THE CIA’S GAY PORN TAPE
With only two News Dissector blogs to go, I will, eventually, begin this one with a quote from Sam Smith’s Progressive Review on the decline in our democracy as the elites that rule us and strategize about how to impose their agendas.
A useful metaphor might be the term “TOP KILL,” which is the strategy the geniuses at BP deployed today to bomb the ongoing oil leak with thousands of barrels of MUD. They call it “mud” but it is really a heavy oil they use in the drilling process. Problem is, no one is sure if it will work, and if it doesn’t, it could make things worse by leading to more cracks in the reservoir and more gushers. This “leak” could go on FOR YEARS.
Mud is, also, another metaphor of relevance. In a law suit against subprime lenders in the Wells Fargo bank, documents were put in evidence showing that these scammers referred to their customers i. e., victims, in communities of color as “Mud People.”
Honest, they did.
Meanwhile, in Haiti, children without food are eating “mud Pies” for what little nutrition they can squeeze from the earth. ”
• NY Times: Days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP officials chose a type of casing for the well that it knew was the riskier of two options, according to a BP documents. [More here →]
An announcement this morning:
• WP: President Barack Obama plans to announce at a midday news conference–His first in months (DS) Thursday that a moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling permits will be continued for six months while a presidential commission investigates, a White House aide said.
Controversial lease sales off the coast of Alaska will be delayed pending the results of the commission’s investigation, and lease sales planned in the Western Gulf and off the coast of Virginia will be canceled, the aide said.
President Obama heads to Louisiana on Friday but many say he is very late in showing up at the scene of the catastrophe. This disaster is being called his Katrina. The Administration’s response is not exactly awe-inspiring. See items below:
• HuffPo: James Carville To Obama: Tell BP ‘I’m Your Daddy’ And Take The Lead In Response
• Politico.com: Ken Salazar backs continued drilling
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar plans to reiterate his support for continued offshore drilling Wednesday on Capitol Hill, while defending the administration’s response to the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in front of increasingly skeptical lawmakers. [More here →]
• FoxNews.com: Interior Secretary Takes Fire From Congress Over Agency’s Criminal Offenses
As members of the agency that oversees offshore drilling confront a potential criminal prosecution for a variety of offenses ranging from lax enforcement to watching porn and coming to work high, the administration official charged with its oversight faced a barrage of criticism on Capitol Hill Wednesday. [More here →]
• DailyKos: Interior: Fire Salazar, Clear Out ex-lobbyists and GOP
Secretary Ken Salazar has shown himself to be a friend to the oil and gas industry by some of his votes: 2005, voting against fuel efficiency standards in cars and against removing tax breaks for oil companies; 2006 voting to support removing protections against drilling off the Florida coast. But what is most disturbing is how he has simply been hands off in office allowing Bush era regulations to stand and in the current crisis over the BP drilling catastrophe, he has allowed BP to call the shots on everything from how to deal with the problem to access to information. Obama must show that he is going to not only protect the environment but to use law that dates back to Nixon to enforce standards of practice and the right to know of citizens. [More here →]
Blast From The Past:
The Death Penalty for Corporations Comes of Age by Russell Mokhiber, Business Ethics
In two surprising recent cases, a law school professor and a circuit court judge seek to revoke the charters of corporate lawbreakers. We know what the death penalty for individuals means: Commit an egregious crime, die at the hands of the state. What does it mean to talk about the ”death penalty” for corporations? Simply this: Commit an egregious wrong, and have your charter revoked. In other words, lose the state’s permission to exist. It’s an intriguing concept, because most of us never think about corporations needing anyone’s permission to exist. But they do.
Throughout the nation’s history, the states have had — and still have — the authority to give birth to a corporation, by granting a corporate charter, and to impose the death penalty on a corporate wrongdoer by revoking its charter. Activist-author Richard Grossman points out that in 1890, for example, New York’s highest court revoked the charter of the North River Sugar Refining Corporation — referring to the judgment explicitly as one of ”corporate death.” It was once widely understood that the states had this power. ”New York, Ohio, Michigan and Nebraska revoked the charters of oil, match, sugar and whiskey trusts” in the 1800s, Grossman wrote in the pamphlet, ”Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation,” co-authored with Frank Adams.
For many decades now, this vital power has lain dormant in the public mind. But a small group of activists led by Grossman is hoping to resurrect it. They believe that to stem the tide of growing and unaccountable corporate power, it’s not enough to rely on regulation, litigation, legislation, and law enforcement. Grossman and his Cambridge-based Project on Corporations, Law and Democracy want citizens to reclaim the power to put corporations to death. Although Grossman has written and lectured extensively on the topic, few have taken him seriously. In an interview recently, he admitted to having only eleven citizen activists in his group.
Enter Loyola Law School professor Robert Benson. Benson had never heard about the corporate death penalty until he read Grossman’s work. Then, a few years ago, Benson invited Grossman to Los Angeles to speak before the law school, and afterward the two struck up a conversation. Benson was looking for a way to bring corporate wrongdoers into line, and charter revocation struck him as something that might work. He decided to try it — in a big way.
On September 10, he and a coalition of more than 30 public interest organizations filed a petition calling on the attorney general (AG) of California to revoke the charter of Union Oil of California (Unocal). In social responsibility circles, Unocal is best (or perhaps worst) known for its controversial Burma pipeline, being built by a consortium co-owned in part by Unocal and the outlaw military regime there. [More here →]
Now, back to that quote:
WHEN THE TOP CAVES IN by Sam Smith
“What corporate America wanted was nothing less than the Third Worlding of the US, a collapse of both present reality and future expectations. The closer the life and wages of our citizens could come to those of less developed nations, the happier the huge stateless multinationals would be. Then, as they said in the boardrooms and at the White House, the global playing field would be leveled.
Once having capitulated on economic matters, Americans would be taught to accept a similar diminution of social programs, civil liberties, democracy, and even some of the most basic governmental services. Free of being the agent of our collective will, government could then concentrate on the real business of a corporatist state, such as reinforcing the military, subsidizing selected industry, and strengthening police control over what would inevitably be an increasingly alienated and fractured electorate.”
And alienated and apathetic many of us have, indeed, become. How else to explain the lack of a mass response to the worse economic crisis since the Depression! OMG!
Here’s a press release that came to the Dissector’s inbox in line with this suggestion that democracy is on the way out, no doubt from a group on the right:
Voter Apathy and Disinterest — Is the Media to Blame?
As widely reported, a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that only 22% of American citizens trust their government. What’s missing from these reports, however, is any mention of how the issue of government accountability is impacting voter turnout. Over the past 40 years, research shows that members of Congress are elected by a mere 22% of the eligible voters in each district or state. The media seems hesitant to show how distrust in government impacts voter participation — many eligible voters simply shrug their shoulders and say “why bother?” when queried on why they choose not to vote.
The problem stems from the media being at odds with the structure of the Constitution, which gives power to the people first, representatives second, and the president last. Instead, the media places an inordinate amount of importance on the role of the president that many of the electorate feel the only important vote is cast in presidential election years. In fact, the media goes even further by referring to members of Congress as “lawmakers” or “leaders” instead of, more correctly, as state and local representatives beholden to the people.
The press, embraced in the Constitution as the unofficial fourth branch of government, is failing in its job. The media today fails to fully inform the public, fails to regard the proper structure of the U.S. Constitution, and utterly fails to treat the turnout problem as the crisis it is. With the people continuing to receive irresponsible information at the local level during election time — or no information at all in many cases — how long can the United States remain a free, functioning constitutional republic?
Good question.
We are in an age of manipulated information, which is why we started Mediachannel.org in the first play in an attempt to sound the alarm. But today, the real news is happening behind the scenes, often inside the media itself. Check this story out about the company I once worked for —before its death by Disneyization.
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–The insider trading scandal that erupted at The Walt Disney Co. (DIS) on Wednesday led to more speculation that the media giant is considering a sale of its ABC broadcast network, although the company denied that negotiations are taking place.
Shares of Disney rose 2.3% to $33.07 Wednesday after reports that Bonnie Hoxie, administrative assistant to Zenia Mucha, the company’s head of communications, was arrested in Los Angeles along with her boyfriend, Yonni Sebbag. The two were charged with trying to sell insider information …”
No wonder news organizations have so little respect. And please don’t tell me all of this is “ok” because we now have social media Read this and weep:
LOS ANGELES and LONDON: Edelman’s fourth annual “Trust in the Entertainment Industry” survey shows the majority of respondents view social networks as a “source of entertainment,” with a stronger value proposition than television.”
RELATED:
Pew Knew: Mainstream Media Drives Social News by Melinda Gipson
More than 80 percent of news that’s shared in the blogosphere and on social sites derives from a handful of news sites — the BBC, CNN, NYTimes.com and the Washington Post — reports Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism annual tracking study. In fact, more than 99 percent of news-related stories linked from blogs came from “legacy outlets such as newspapers and broadcast networks.”
It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that at a time when relative upstarts like John Battelle’s Federated Media celebrate its five-year anniversary by banking “high eight figures” in annual revenue through social conversation, that the very news organizations from which the conversational fodder derives still find it hard to fully monetize this traffic? [More here →]
So many media soldiers – like us, by the way—are down if not out. Along with the economy, I might add:
Headline: Dow closes below 10,000 as late-day slump takes stocks into red. And while that was happening, progressives are trying to assure an open and accountable process in Congress so that what remains of value in the Financial Reform Bill is not gutted completely in meetings behind closed doors.
Progressives Demand: No Behind-Closed-Doors Deals On Wall Street Reform
The industry is working overtime to dilute bill in the reconciliation process. It is even generating studies to tell us that that is what we want with studies like this. It was no surprise that they would not tell me who financed the “study.”
NEARLY HALF OF AMERICANS PREFER LESS GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY REPORTS NEW GfK SURVEY — Study reveals current opinions break away from political stereotypes
NEW YORK, May 26 2010 — GfK Financial Services, a division of GfK Custom Research North America, today announced highlights from a new OmniWeb survey that reveals almost half of Americans (42%) prefer the government take a less significant role in the financial services industry. Comparatively, only 26% of respondents say they’d like to see more government involvement.
This study seems to me to be total propaganda, given that an earlier survey found 82% of the American people want a crackdown on Wall Steet.
HOW THE ADMINISTRATION SNEAKILY USED ANTI-POPULISM TO PLEASE WALL STREET
James Kwak writes on BaselineScenario.com:
“That’s one passage from John Heileman’s juicy article in New York Magazine. It provides a lot of background support for what many of us have been thinking for a while: the administration is happy with the financial reform bill roughly as it turned out, and it got there by taking up an anti-Wall Street tone (e.g., the Volcker Rule), riding a wave of populist anger to the point where the bill was sure of passing, and then quietly pruning back its most far-reaching components. If anything, that’s a testament to the political skill of the White House and, yes, Tim Geithner as well.”
He then argues that the Wall Street CEO’s are NUTS:
“Forget the whole issue of whether they should be grateful to Obama for first saving their banks from collapse and then toning down the reform bill so it (a) doesn’t break up their banks, (b) doesn’t meaningfully prevent them from engaging in proprietary trading, (c) says nothing of substance about compensation, (d) doesn’t set any hard capital requirements, (e) . . . The fact that they can see the policies this administration is pursuing and somehow think they are “anti-wealth” or “anti-capitalist” is as close to proof as you will find that they are deeply stupid, blinded by their self-interest, or both.”
HuffPo: Obama Deficit Commission Member Calls For Pentagon Audit
A leading Republican on the president’s deficit commission has called, informally, for an audit of the Department of Defense, arguing that without a true sense of what is being spent and where, it will be impossible to achieve significant budget savings
In a detailed, wonkish and occasionally fascinating 10-page letter sent to commission Chairmen Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles on Wednesday, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okl.) laid out a host of areas where the Pentagon’s fat could be trimmed.
“The single most important step,” however, he concluded, “is to better understand how the Pentagon spends its money.” [More here →]
Now, on to some world news of note.
InformationClearingHouse.info: Why Did North Korea Do It? by Kevin Drum
May 26, 2010 “Mother Jones” – -I haven’t been posting about the North Korean situation, but I’ve been following it with considerable interest ever since the start. And the biggest question all along has been: Why? Even by North Korean standards, torpedoing a South Korean ship is nuts. What on earth were they thinking?
US Special Forces Pave the Way for a Military Strike on Iran By Giles Whittell and Michael Evans
Such plans “are always going to be under serious consideration,” Anthony Cordesman, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said, “because you are dealing with a serious threat”
What Iran’s Press TV Is Saying—and What I Am Dissecting on its Fine Print program.
CBC: Nuremberg: It’s Lessons For Today! The Film The Pentagon Doesn’t Want You To See!
Warning – These videos may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
Now, consider this letter. All may not be as bleak as it seems:
Peggy Luhrs writes from Burlington:
Dear Danny,
I have enjoyed, if one can say that about learning more about disasters, your news dissector blog and much of the work you do. But I write today because of the talk of apathy and lack of organizing in the letters section.I read so much on progressive blogs about what the right is saying an doing. The major media has figured out the best way to quash the left is to disappear them, one wonders when the left will catch on to this tactic.
There is, in June, a US Social Forum in Detroit. I went to their web page and found well over a hundred pages of workshops at least a dozen to the page. This is over a thousand excellent workshops on topics relevant to unions, workers, people of all colors, women, the lgbtq community and more. So thousands of activists are coming to Detroit. Lets focus a bit more and give some publicity to what is happening. It might just catch on. Are we just afraid of the disappointment of connecting and the realities of face to face relationships?
There are people organizing and doing, not enough yet, but if we keep our eyes on the bad guys all the time we lose sight of the prize as the relevant song says. I think we are all getting pretty clear that those running the show don’t know what they are doing except grabbing up as much of the loot as possible but we need some focus on where we’re going, how to get there and what we are doing now that works. Media seems to grab everyone up in this trap of focusing on the spectacle. We need to undo the spectacle and bring people back to reality. Can’t eat money, breathe money or plant in it. Draw the connections between the banks and the wars and the oil. But lets see more of what people are doing to supplant and oppose it.
And, then, there’s this, from the late, great Flo Kenedy: “If you think there is too much apathy, you’re probably sitting on it.”
Today’s advice from DXM:
as you all are pulling together the mediachannel website (format), you might find a way to post a link to David DeGraw’s AmpedStatus. while I claim no expertise on aggregated news sites, David’s is closer to what I imagine the best to be than anyone else’s. I only wish he could make it into a daily (update) of the top headline or two of interest to me. Of course News Dissector, Juan Cole and Tom Engelhardt are must read sites. You will do your mediachannel readers a great service to heed this unsolicited advice
The veteran Radio Talk show star Jay Diamond has a kind word: “Been meaning to wrote for awhile, to tell you how much I regret your closing the office for awhile.
I hope we can stay in touch because you’ve been an inspiration and model that has helped me grow.”
Stephen Goldstein writes from Boston:
Danny:
I haven’t written in a while, though I follow daily the slow dissolution of Media Channel office and closing of the office. I am terribly sorry this is happening. The blog and Media Channel is a vital life line for information and dialogue and simply finding reassurance we are all not crazy while watching every nightmare we predicted 30 years ago, and ecological disasters we never imagined unfold or unfold again and again.
Today, James Carville, of all people, is saying what is on a lot of minds. Where is the ‘Agent of Change’ when a leader is need to intervene in a disaster?
I want to make a donation today to the News Dissector and Paypal would only allow a $5 monthly donation. I wanted to send $50. as a lump sum. Should I do it to Media Channel or News Dissector and, if the latter, how do I?
You and everyone else can donate to The Global Center. Mark “Mediachannel.org” on your check. Send it to: Global Center 575 8th Avenue New York, New York 10018. It will be forwarded. Globalvision is not gone, just our office is going. Once we get all our tapes and equipment out of the dust bowl our office has become, we can focus on what we can do next. Thanks to all who have written or called to wish us well.
Your help, ideas, and support are still welcome.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP DEPARTMENT!
Guardian: CIA’s secret Iraq weapon revealed: a Saddam gay sex tape
Bizarre US plots included exploding cigars to kill Fidel Castro and fake video of Osama bin Laden’s campfire drinking.
“In their time, America’s secret agencies have tried some outlandish schemes to attack their country’s enemies, including, most famously, an attempt to do away with Cuba’s Fidel Castro by using an exploding cigar. But in a scenario more the preserve of careless Hollywood starlets such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, the CIA appears to have plotted to undermine Saddam Hussein with a gay sex tape.
According to the Washington Post’s security blog, some of America’s spooks believed that shooting a fake video of Saddam cavorting with a teenage boy might destabilise his regime in the runup to the US-led invasion in 2003. “It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera. Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session,” the Washington Post quoted one former CIA official as saying. [More here →]
OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS:
Globalvision is going virtual. We are closing our offices at 575 8th Avenue at the end of this month. Our new postal address will be: P.O. Box 677, New York, NY 10035. Our company started operating in a shared space in Soho in l987, then opened what was described as a “loft-hovel” in Little Italy, then moved to classier digs near Union Square. From there, it was up to a real HQ in the heart of Times Square, and then, after our building was gentrified into posh condos, to this outpost in the noisy belly of the Garment District. Soon, in our latest incarnation, we will receive mail in Harlem and then go covert, perhaps to one of those secret locations Dick Cheney boasted about.
Yes, we have, for decades, been globalvisioning downtown, uptown and midtown—all around the town (and world) really. Now, we enter the “post office” and postoffice phase in a new zip code.
Follow me on Twitter (Dissectorevents) and Facebook. We also have a PLUNDER movie page on Facebook and a new Globalvision.org website. This blog will continue for this merry month of May. And then? Write: dissector@mediachannel.org
Tomorrow , the News Dissector blog bids adieu for awhile. Call it a hiatus. Your thoughts about the future are welcome just as is my gratitude in the present to Cherie Welch, David DeGraw, and our co-founder, Rory O’ Connor, who worked with us on a regular basis as well as to all of our contributors and supporters the world over. May the mannah fall and morning come. We haven’t found a merger partner yet but we may …
See the whole Post / →
Hail, Hail Mikael Blomkvist: Investigate Like Him, Ideas For Stopping The Spill
May 26th, 2010 - by: danny
Carville’s Oil Outburst To Obama — Day 37:
“These people are crying, they’re begging for something down here, and it just looks like he’s not involved in this.”
His voice rising, Carville cried out, “Man, you got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving! We’re about to die down here!”
Later, Carville said the administration needs “to launch a criminal investigation — the Attorney General needs to investigate criminal negligence on the part of BP and what went on at MMS (the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling). There’s a thousand things that he could do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something, people are dying.” [More here →]
GOOD NEWS: LORI BERENSON TO GO FREE IN PERU AFTER 18 YEARS
The parents of the American political activist who insisted she was falsely convicted of supporting a terrorist movement write: “On May 25, 2010 a Peruvian judge, after carefully studying Lori’s application for what in Peru is termed “conditional liberty” (parole), determined that Lori has earned her freedom. Lori and her son Salvador will be leaving prison in a few days and moving to an apartment in Lima.
Parole requires individuals to live within the city in which they were incarcerated (Lima, in Lori’s case) – we do not know if there are exceptions for foreigners or whether Lori will be permitted to travel to the US while on parole. Parole in Peru is based on good behavior, work and study. In September 2009 Lori officially filed her application under a Peruvian law which established eligibility after serving 75% of her 20-sentence, less time off for work and study…”
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BP?
SOME REPUGS TURN ON FOX NEWS
MILITARY ESCALATION UNDERWAY
Today’s a big day in Bookland. The National Book Expo is packing them in at the Javits Center
Here in New York, the press is going gaga (not Lady Gaga, just gaga) over the publication of the third novel in the Millennium series by Swedish writer and journalist Steig Larsson, whose third book, already a hit worldwide “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” comes out in the US.
It’s billed like a Harry Potter coming out party for adults. There was a profile of him and the freinds and family members fighting over his legacy in Sunday’s NY Times magazine, and articles galore today. I actually read the book months ago in its English edition. A friend in Denmark turned me on to the series, and I already saw one film based on the work. Other movies are in the works and out in Europe. 4 Million copies of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo have sold in the USA. Not too shabby.
The book is being hyped as an unusual crime story featuring an investigative reporter who befriends a quirky and tattooed computer hacker. It’s filled with plots and subplots and is hailed as great storytelling, which it is.
What attracted me to the book is not what is driving the hype about the oh-so-cool twists and turns.
The author, who died somewhat mysteriously in 2004, is focused on an issue that should be familiar to readers of my blog and other work: financial crimes– even if most people don’t always know how their lives have been shortchanged by an economic collapse induced by crime. That’s the issue that motivates the trilogy’s fictional hero, Mikael Blomkvist.
The financial crisis that has swept the world may have started on Wall Street but has brought down governments and shredded economic security worldwide. It led to the loss of millions of jobs, homes and hope as foreclosures grow, credit tightens, and communities are devastated. One estimate of the damage: $197 trillion
This is why I identified with Blomkvists’s fictional mission because, in some ways it mirrors my own, and captures my own frustrations in a media world for which “the C-word” —standing for financial crime – seems to be an anathema.
Larsson describe Blomkvist’s “contempt for his fellow financial journalists based on something that in his opinion was a plain as morality. The equation was simple, a bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculators should not keep his job. A managing director who plays shell company company games should do time,…the job of the financial journalist is to expose those who created interest crisis and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinize company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the littlest steps out of line of Ministers and members of Parliament.”
Sound familiar? It’s the turf I explore in my film Plunder. Just had a call from a MoveOn organizer in Florida who is doing a screening in early June in Boca Raton. If this subject interests or outrages you, help me get the word out and schedule screenings where you live. Write to me at: dissector@mediachannel.org.
Now on to the nooz
WP: White House officials say President Obama will travel to Louisiana Friday to assess the efforts to stop the oil leak there. It will be his second trip to the region since the leak began.
TheEconomicPopulist.org: Much Ado About Oil Submitted by Robert Oak
We’re in horror. We’re helpless, dependent upon continual press releases and attempts while real solutions to stop the leak are dismissed.
The next attempt is a top kill, which is to push drilling mud and cement into the leak hole. This latest attempt is high risk and could make the leaks worse. Realize this is 5,000 feet deep in the water, with corresponding water pressure in addition to a massive gushing oil plume. The damaged blowout preventer is 5 stories high. Blasting fluids with high pressure, twice as dense as the surrounding water, has the potential to create another hole if the blowout preventer has weakness in the metal or other interactions. Ugh, my sympathies to the engineers. This has never been tried in water. [More here →]
TheEconomicPopulist.org: The White House, Big Oil, and the “American Power Act” Submitted by Michael Collins
This analysis looks behind the scenes at how the ban on offshore drilling was lifted and what that had to do with the ultimate prize for big oil, the American Power Act. It focuses on the current administration. That in no way implies that the problem originated in January 2009. The out sized and destructive influence of the oil monopoly has been with us for since the 1870′s. [More here →]
BrilliantAtBreakfast: How Does an American Power Act?
“And if the BP rig disaster doesn’t show the endless compliance and forever put to rest the illusion that Congress and the administration will ever enact real reform and regulation over these world-eating corporations, nothing ever will. And the tragedy is that it doesn’t even matter which party is in power. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss and they both smell like sweet light crude.” [More here →]
OpenSecrets.org: BP Enjoys Lobbying Strength, Close Ties to Lawmakers as Federal Investigation Looms
BP CRIMES?
A document obtained by The Daily Beast shows that BP, in a previous fatal disaster, increased worker risk to save money. Are there parallels with the Gulf explosion?
This is a story about the Three Little Pigs. A lot of dead oil workers. And British Petroleum.
From the minute the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded, BP has hewed to a party line: it did everything it could to prevent the April 20 accident that killed 11 men and has been spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico ever since. Some critics have questioned the veracity of that position.
Now The Daily Beast has obtained a document that goes to the heart of BP procedures, demonstrating that before the company’s previous major disaster – at a moment when the oil giant could choose between cost-savings and absolute safety – it selected cost-savings. And BP chose to illustrate that choice, without irony, by invoking the classic Three Little Pigs fairy tale.
EXCLUSIVE: This internal BP document shows how the company took deadly risks to save money by opting to build cheaper facilities for workers. The company estimated the value of a worker’s life at $10 million.
TalkingPointsMemo.com: Obama And GOP Senators Clash At Private Meeting
Senate Republicans used a lot of words to describe their meeting with President Obama today: “audacity,” “nerve,” “frayed,” “testy” … you get the picture. Obama and the GOP Senate caucus, meeting together for the first time in a year, discussed bipartisanship as well as some of the more pressing issues of the day. According to the AP, the “eruption” began when the President promised to meet the GOP halfway on a number of issues.
“I told him I thought there was a degree of audacity in him even showing up today after what happened with financial regulation,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) told the AP. “I asked him how he was able to reconcile that duplicity, coming in today to see us.” [More here →]
President Obama will request $500 million in extra money for security at the U.S. border and will deploy an additional 1,200 National Guard troops, according to an administration official. The decision comes as the White House is seeking Republican support for broad immigration reform this year.
CommonDreams.org: Liberated from Libertarianism: Rand Paul Runs and Hides from… Rand Paul by David Michael Green
Maybe we can finally have a serious discussion in this country about the lunacies of libertarianism. I doubt it. This is, after all, America. I doubt we’d know an intelligent political discourse if it whacked us upside the haid. But now we have Rand Paul, son of Ron, marching toward the United States Senate, with a mission to “take back our government”. Oh boy. [More here →]
A GOP REP. TURNS ON FOX NEWS AS IT FLAMES RIGHT
GOP Rep. Slams Fox News: ‘I Don’t Know What They’re Doing At Fox News, But They Should Stop Smoking It’ h/t Michael Chambers, Las Vegas
This morning, Fox and Friends characterized Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act as a “$165 billion bailout” of union pensions. “It has been decades since you’ve seen an administration so prone to the influence of unions as this one is. I’m not going to say this is owned by the unions, but their influence on this administration is simply enormous,” Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney claimed of the legislation, which is actually designed to partition “specific types of union pensions that are deemed to be insolvent.” Later in the day, the network went after House Republicans for co-sponsoring similar legislation in the House. On America Live with Megyn Kelly, the network showed a chart of the nine Republicans supporting the measure and questioned their sanity.
This didn’t go over well with Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), a co-sponsor of the House measure, who took to the floor this afternoon to criticize Fox for its coverage. “I think as a Republican, I’m supposed to love Fox News and hate MSNBC,” he began. “Now, I’m going to tell you, I do hate MSNBC, but something just happened on Fox News that compelled me to come to the floor”:
LATOURETTE: They’ve run this diagram and it really is a, I think, blaspheming my good friend Pat Tiberi from Ohio and indicating that there are nine Republicans supporting a bill that will bail out unions. Well, that’s nonsense and I don’t know who the pin head and weenie is at Fox News that decided to put that story together. But the true facts of this piece of legislation are as follows. This bill will save the taxpayers by saying to those corporations that have union pension plans, if you find yourselves in a bind, rather than thrusting that upon the taxpayer, it spreads out over five years the ability to bring those pension plans up to speed. That’s good government, it’s a good bill. It’s a good Tiberi bill and I don’t know what they’re doing at Fox News, but they should stop smoking it and get back to reporting the facts.
LaTourette may soon regret his remarks. Last month, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) criticized Fox News for pushing misinformation about health care reform, but later walked back his comments after being confronted by host Neil Cavuto.
JOBS? GOOD LUCK
American Priorities: Jobs Bill Vote Delayed As Leaders Hunt For Votes
Vote on $200B jobs and tax changes bill delayed as House leaders try to lock down support. CQ: “…with revenue estimates still in flux and negotiations continuing with the Senate, House leaders are planning to wait until Wednesday … Concerns from deficit-wary moderates about the bill’s cost – particularly the price tag on a provision that would prevent a significant cut in doctors’ reimbursement rates under Medicare – remains a key sticking point.”
Jobless aid extension doesn’t cover those unemployed for more than 99 weeks. HuffPost’s Arthur Delaney: ” In some states, laid-off workers can receive checks for 99 weeks — and that’s all they’re going to get. This bill isn’t for the ’99ers’ and there’s no proposal on deck to give them additional weeks of benefits.”
$23B in state aid to prevent mass teacher layoffs is in “jeopardy,” reports Politico: “…there are signs that the price is too high, and the measure is meeting such resistance among Senate Democrats that [Sen. Tom] Harkin may back down for the moment to expedite action on the underlying [war spending] bill.”
REAL NEWS: FORMER BANK REGULATOR BILL BLACK ON FINANCIAL REFORM AND FRAUD
Who He Is: William K. Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, teaches White-Collar Crime, Public Finance, Antitrust, Law & Economics. A former financial regulator, he held several senior regulatory positions during the S&L debacle. Black is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One (2005) which focuses on the role of “control fraud” in financial crises. Black developed the concept of “control fraud” – frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a “weapon.” Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined.
FROM THE NEW BOOK: THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS: The Great Depression of the 21st Century, by Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall
“The meltdown of financial markets in 2008-2009 was the result of institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation. The “bank bailouts” were implemented on the instructions of Wall Street, leading to the largest transfer of money wealth in recorded history, while simultaneously creating an insurmountable public debt.
With the worldwide deterioration of living standards and plummeting consumer spending, the entire structure of international commodity trade is potentially in jeopardy. The payments system of money transactions is in disarray. Following the collapse of employment, the payment of wages is disrupted, which in turn triggers a downfall in expenditures on necessary consumer goods and services. This dramatic plunge in purchasing power backfires on the productive system, resulting in a string of layoffs, plant closures and bankruptcies. Exacerbated by the freeze on credit, the decline in consumer demand contributes to the demobilization of human and material resources.”
Bloomberg Business Week: KILLING THE BILL?
House Democrats Target Senator Lincoln’s Swaps-Desk Proposal
May 25 (Bloomberg) — A group of U.S. House Democrats is strategizing to strip the most contentious derivatives language from legislation to overhaul the financial-regulatory system.
Representative Michael McMahon, a New York Democrat who played a role in shaping the House derivatives language passed last year, said he will work to remove a provision in the Senate legislation that would force commercial banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to move their swaps- trading operations to subsidiaries.
“My position is that it should come out now,” McMahon, one of the lead derivatives negotiators for the self-described “moderate, pro-growth” New Democrat Coalition, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “The House bill is based on principles on how to reduce risk and make the system more transparent, it’s not based on wiping out the system or destroying the system and that’s what the provision does.”
Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Democrats shepherding the legislation through Congress, said last week they expect to have a final financial regulation bill signed into law before the U.S. July 4 holiday.
To do that they must resolve differences between the two bills without alienating enough lawmakers to threaten final approval. Among the major differences to be resolved is the plan for tightening regulation of derivatives, financial instruments based on the value of another security or benchmarks such as stock options. Bets by banks and other financial companies on derivatives accelerated the global credit crisis in 2008.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank is against diluting this and other tough provisions:
Robert Reich writes: “The most important thing to know about the 1,500 page financial reform bill passed by the Senate last week – now on he way to being reconciled with the House bill – is that it’s regulatory. It does nothing to change the structure of Wall Street.”
New York Magazine: “Obama Is From Mars, Wall Street Is From Venus: Pschoanalyzing the Relationship Between Obama and Wall Street”
Great quote: ‘Obama Has A “man crush” on Tim Geithner’
FT: Berlin poised to extend short selling ban
The German government is planning to ban the naked short selling of all German stocks listed on the country’s exchanges in a sweeping enlargement of last week’s contentious bar on the naked short selling of some securities.
Your Thoughts On These Issues:
Alan McDonald comments: “Danny, there will be no reform —- dictates the EMPIRE.”
Ken Weinberg, writes from Thousand Oaks CA:
“There can never be true justice in this country until white collar crimes are treated with the same severity as street crimes. Why is it that someone who holds up a convenience store is sentenced to years in prison while someone in the corporate world who destroys millions of lives never sees the inside of a courtroom?
Society’s ills can never be treated as long as criminals like the CEOs of British Petroleum and Goldman Sachs and Massey Energy and Countrywide are allowed to continue their dirty work without fear of punishment. The only thing that will stop these predators is a real revolution — million-man marches on Washington and on Wall Street, and a whole bunch of high profile perp walks.”
WP, Walter Pincus: Weapons of Mass Deception Have Not Gone Away.
Pentagon tries to steer media coverage on Iraq
The Pentagon may be sharply reducing its combat forces in Iraq, but the military plans to step up efforts to influence media coverage in that country — as well as here at home.
NOT SO COOL RUNNINGS
CNN: Assault on suspected drug lord’s compound in Jamaica kills 27, wounds 31, police say.
WSJ: NORTH KOREA TO CUT TIES WITH SOUTH
North Korea said it will cut off all ties to South Korea, going well beyond the penalties that Seoul imposed on it a day earlier for its apparent role in the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
IPS: Kim Jong-Il: Right-Wing Mole?
Kim Jong Il must work for the American Enterprise Institute. Or maybe it’s the Heritage Foundation. The North Korean dictator doesn’t talk much about his non-resident fellowship at a right-wing U.S. think tank. It might not go over well with the Politburo in Pyongyang.
But actions speak louder than words.
North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean ship that went down in March in the Yellow Sea near the maritime border between the two countries, is just what the right-wing doctors have ordered. Japan was looking a little squishy on the Okinawa base issue. China needed some reminders about just how rogue its erstwhile ally really is. And South Korea’s conservative President Lee Myung Bak wanted confirmation that his containment approach to the north was justified.
Right on cue, Kim Jong Il torpedoed a South Korean ship, killing 46 sailors. The incident plays so much into the hands of North Korea’s adversaries that some analysts have looked for other culprits, including friendly fire from either South Korea or the United States. While such speculation is interesting, it seems rather farfetched. In this age of WikiLeaks, it’s hard to imagine a successful cover-up of such friendly fire. And the evidence implicating other actors is circumstantial, to say the least.
Mark Manzetti, ICH, ‘US to Send Secret Military Teams to Iran‘
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.
Roger Cohen, ICH: U.S. Moves Goalposts On Iran And Changes Uranium Details
I believed Obama was ready to think anew on Iran. It seems not. Presidents must lead on major foreign policy initiatives, not be bullied by domestic political considerations, in this case incandescent Iran ire on the Hill in an election year.
Andy Borowitz: WHAT TO DO NOW ABOUT THE OIL SPILL
Experts Propose Plugging Oil Leak with BP Executives, Submerging Execs Could Be ‘Win-Win’
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — At a conference of oil leak experts in Washington today, attendees proposed plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with executives of BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic spill.
“We’ve tried containment domes, rubber tires, and even golf balls,” said William Cathermeyer of the National Oil Leakage Institute, a leading consultancy in the field of oil leaks. “Now it’s time to shove some BP executives down there and hope for the best.”
Submerging the oil company executives thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface could be a “win-win” situation, Mr. Cathermeyer said.
“Best-case scenario, they plug the leak,” he said. “And at the very least, they’ll shut the fuck up.”
YOUR LETTERS
Anne Haggerty writes:
Hi Danny-
I’m very sad and disappointed to see you go. Your efforts have been honorable and I have appreciated your writing, intellect, and insight. I’m ashamed that more people did not find your cause worthy and your opinions of value as I have found them to be especially necessary in view of our “media”.
I have been trying to figure out where the complacency comes from, and I honestly don’t know. Maybe the population has become too big for activism, just too many people feeling disconnected from one another for any of them to get together. I do know the country is in real trouble from many standpoints, but this goes missed, and when the country’s serious troubles are pointed out, no one seems to acknowledge them. Sometimes I feel like I am alone in my concerns as I am sure you must from time to time.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I greatly appreciated what you did and what you tried to do. Keep doing it! Don’t let them get you down. People are listening.
Best Wishes, Anne Haggerty — Chicago, IL
MEMORABILIA?
Thanks To DXM for offering practical suggestions. Any takers out there?
“first you need to find a reliable librarian who will take good care in archiving your “memorabilia” and teaching materials. Allen Ginsberg’s papers from 1944 to 1991 are archived at Columbia.
you’ve heard of the Colombia School of Broadcasting, never mind, and Columbia University’s radio instruction at the Columbia School of Journalism and the Roone Arledge broadcast studios…
There, might be a starting point, at least of an idea of where to start even though Columbia University is as establishment as it gits – all the more reason you and the librarian have a case to make as to why your influence in the (teaching) process is needed IF the price and perks are right.
Great News From my Old friend, Media Activist Jerry Starr::
At this time, I feel great – in active remission from the October 2008 diagnosis of stage 4 cancer of lungs, ribs, brain, and spine with maybe a year to live. I dropped from 180 pounds to 140. Now I’m feeling good at 160 – walking 1-2 miles every other day, sitting at computer again, eating & drinking my fill, etc.
I just came across the Giraffe Project release (I’ve been friends with Ann Medlock since 1970) and see you are as timely and trenchant as always. (DS: I have not seen that release.)
High five my friend. Keep up the great work.”
NEWS NOT REALLY IN THE NEWS FROM HARPERs.ORG
Thirteen million viewers tuned in to watch the series finale of “Lost,” in which Kate chose Jack. Witnesses saw an unidentified man run off the edge of the Grand Canyon, and the opening of a Moscow metro station named for Fyodor Dostoevsky was delayed when people complained that the platform’s mosaics (which include a man striking a woman with an axe and a man holding a gun to his own head) were too depressing. San Francisco courtrooms were flooded with two inches of raw sewage after inmates flushed a bedsheet and two orange jumpsuits down the courthouse toilets, a 35-year-old mother died of massive blood loss after doctors failed to notice the broken-off handle of a toilet brush lodged in her buttocks, and a gang of teenagers forcibly tattooed a 14-year-old New Hampshire boy’s buttocks with the words “Poop Dick.”
Scientists in Germany announced that a 30,000-year-old siltstone phallus, the world’s oldest sex toy, was also used to start fires. Austrian traffic authorities revealed that they had hired a full-time team of druids to drain “negative energy” from accident-prone areas, and British police debuted a five-gear pedal-powered patrol car with a roll bar, siren, flashing blue light, and a top speed of 20 mph, to be used to combat “antisocial behavior.” “It makes me look cooler,” said policeman Keith Waller.”
That’s the dissectable news for now. I will be blogging tomorrow and Friday and then assessing what I do and where I go next. Happily, Globalvision is laboring on.
Your help, ideas, and support are still welcome.
OUR NEW MAILING ADDRESS:
Globalvision is going virtual. We are closing our offices at 575 8th Avenue at the end of this month. Our new postal address will be: P.O. Box 677, New York, NY 10035. Our company started operating in a shared space in Soho in l987, then opened what was described as a “loft-hovel” in Little Italy, then moved to classier digs near Union Square. From there, it was up to a real HQ in the heart of Times Square, and then, after our building was gentrified into posh condos, to this outpost in the noisy belly of the Garment District. Soon, in our latest incarnation, we will receive mail in Harlem and then go covert, perhaps to one of those secret locations Dick Cheney boasted about.
Yes, we have, for decades, been globalvisioning downtown, uptown and midtown—all around the town (and world) really. Now, we enter the “post office” and postoffice phase in a new zip code.
Follow me on Twitter (Dissectorevents) and Facebook. We also have a PLUNDER movie page on Facebook and a new Globalvision.org website. This blog will continue for this merry month of May. And then? Write: dissector@mediachannel.org
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 →