See No Evil: The Fraud of Not Seeing Fraud, Respones To My Labor Day Lament

September 6th, 2010 - by: danny

AN INSPIRATIONAL TED TALK ON EXPERIMENTS IN FIGHTING POVERTY

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

WP: Breaking News Alert: President of ABC News resigning

David Westin, the longest serving network news chief, announced Monday night that he is resigning as president of ABC News after a tough year that included anchor changes on every broadcast and cutting a quarter of the staff.

As you cut others, so you will be cut.

RT EXPLORES STUDENT LOAN WOES. I AM QUOTED.

SEE NO EVIL: NEW FILMS, FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY AVOID FRAUD WHILE BANKSTERS CHEER WHEN CHARGES ARE DROPPED

By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime Of Our Time

Ben Affleck’s next movie, the Town, is set in Charlestown Mass, known for the battle of Bunker Hill and dubbed in the past by tabloid TV as “hell’s half acre” for all the crimes that take place there. The film, a cops and robbers tale, focuses on a gang that robs banks with extreme violence. Its ads refer to Charlestown as national capitol of bank robberies.

Actually the take by the gangsters there doesn’t come close to the amount of money stolen BY “Banksters” and banks on Wall Street.

Movies like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (2) “Money Never Sleeps” delves into the Street’s well-mined culture of greed, with the Director, perhaps chastened by the criticisms of his recent political travelogue in South America, assuring the NY Times it’s not a “Michael Moore movie” whatever that means. Presumably it’s not explicitly political. (The Wall Street Journal called my film Plunder “the Anti-Wall Street Film That’s Not Just for Michael Moore fans.”)

A new studio backed documentary by Charles Ferguson about the financial crisis is titled Inside Jobs. It’s more about the business collapse than the crimes that caused it.

At the same time in a land far away, in Afghanistan, a country being introduced at gun point and drone attack to the wonders of Western Capitalism, a run on a big bank in Kabul has created a financial crisis that the owners of the Kabul bank, looted by its owners , say could lead to a “revolution.”

“If this goes on, we won’t survive,” says one of the men at the top. Reports say that some $300 billion dollars is missing.

Like their American counterparts, now the Kabul banks wants a Washington bailout. Reports the Wall Street Journal, “Its executives seemed to have followed the western play book for ruining their bank.” They insiders gave themselves clandestine loans like many US lenders did. Have we seen this movie before. In the 90′s, my partner Rory O’Connor and Eric Nadler did an expose of the corrupt Pakistan based bank BCCI for FRONTLINE.

In banking, justice has been redefined as “just-us” as Ben Bernanke of The Federal Reserve Bank tells the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, as the NY Crimes (my name, not theirs), reported, “and he said Americans were justifiably angry that bankers ‘who drove their companies into a ditch with off with lots of money.” He also admitted that he failed to see the flaws of the system.

Bernanke did allude to “innovations” that provided lenders with an “unfair advantage,” the closed he came to referencing the way borrowers were ripped off. He spoke about laws when it came to the Fed’s legal authority, but not to the way Wall Street and the mortgage people who he acknowledged worked for them flouted the law.

The Commission has its own “flaws,” failing to see or investigate this pervasive fraud at the heart of the crisis. Economist Michael Hudson notes, “I believe that the beneficiaries were fraudsters, and that the system cannot be saved. Trying to save it by keeping the debts in place — and letting Wall Street banks “work their way out of debt” at the U.S. economy’s expense — threatens to lock the economy in a chronic debt deflation and depression.”

In its hearings on the fall of Lehman, the Commission cited emails advising against helping the bank whose bankruptcy accelerated a major financial collapse. They were written by Jim Wilkinson, then chief of staff to ex-Goldman CEO and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. What the Commission did not reveal was Wilkinson’s personal history of fraud as the head of the GOP operatives whose “riot” stopped a vote recount in Miami Dade in 2000, and then, in 2003, as the head of the Coalition Media Center in Doha called an “information deprivation tank” by critic Michael Wolf for all the lies about the coming Iraq War that were disseminated there.

Talk about fraud! Here’s one operative who went from voter fraud to political fraud to financial fraud.

So even as popular culture and an angry public see the Wall Street as a den of thieves, the people who are supposed to prosecute financial and White Collar Crime do not.

They have been getting some of the perpetrators to fork over multi-million fines t get out of jail rather than toss their asses behind bars.

Last week, Moodys, the rating agency partially owned by the “Oracle of Omaha,” billionaire Warren Buffet, and which dished out triple A ratings like candy for “asset backed securities,” (ÃƒÅ¸with no assets behind them) was told by the SEC it will not be prosecuted. The Securities and Exchange Commission cited “jurisdictional reasons.”

These agencies were not being regulated when they misrepresented the value or the derivatives and “structured investment products” they were selling so a Regulator claims to be powerless to hold them accountable

Many banks bought this junk based on Moody’s reputation. In the end, they lost billions. They were also conned and lied to. The consequences: NONE. (One of the Ratings Agencies, Fitch, disclosed that 80% of the packages of mortgages they examined were fraudulent.)

80%!

The ratings agencies were not alone among those forgiven for their crimes. None of the big brand name banks are being prosecuted including the insurance giant AIG that proudly and profitably wrote credit default swaps on this crap.

Henry Blodget who was excommunicated as a Wall Street trader for his own excesses and dishonesty justifies all this:

“No criminal charges will be filed against Joseph Cassano or anyone else at AIG, lawyers have announced.

At first blush, this sounds outrageous–yet more failure to punish those responsible for the financial crisis–but in at least one important respect, it’s very good news.

Criminal charges against Cassano and other AIGers would have been greeted with near-unanimous applause, no matter how flimsy the case. Prosecutors who brought the charges would have been acclaimed for their toughness and heroism–and, even if the case eventually failed, would long since have moved on to the more lucrative side of the business (defense). Politicians would have cheered the toughness of the new regulatory regime. The public would have felt that in some small measure, justice would have been done. And so on.

So why is it good news that charges weren’t filed?

Because, despite crawling all over AIG for two years, Federal prosecutors apparently didn’t find enough evidence to hang criminal charges onÃ¢â‚¬Â¦Being short-term greedy, betting the farm, and destroying your firm, it turns out, wasn’t against the law.”

Of course not, because the laws were rewritten with lobbying by the financial industry before this recent crime spree. They security laws now have impossibly high standards for conviction. Yet the prosesceutors didn’t consider bringing a RICO action to prosecute the interconnected crimes of the Finance. Real Estate and Insurance companies.

I asked Aaron Krowne who edits the respected financial site ML-Implode about Blodget’s rationalization.

“My take is that RICO-style actions would be needed, as you say,” he wrote me. “The crime was the pattern. In most cases, no specific black-letter statues were violated at the high level (though they may have been violated at lower levels, i.e. with mortgage transfers and such.

Also, criminal prosecution should look inward to the regulators. AIG may have been regulated by the flimsy OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision) in the US, but that doesn’t mean the OTS has no responsibilities.

That’s the real rub. At the top of the pyramid, there is no enforcement, since it would require asking the enforcers to police themselves. (I’ve run into this in very literal terms in my HUD whistle-blowing/litigation)”

Like a fish, the rot starts at the head.

So the banks that robbed themselves, robbed each other, financed what the FBI calls a “mortgage fraud epidemic,” while gouging their customers with excess fees, phony charges and inadequate monitoring of fraud in individual accounts, are getting off scott-free.

Well not exactly free, after after having been given bailouts and loans for almost nothing that they can then pass on loans at higher fees to you and me. Despite it all hundreds of banks are waiting to fail.

They remain a business that gives us the business with little accountability or transparency.

Ain’t nothing free about this free market.

News Dissector Danny Schechter directed the film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time, and wrote a companion book. (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

A NOTE TO READERS ABOUT MY LAMENT FOR LABOR DAY

Now allow me to confess to being overwhelmed by the many responses I received to my Labor Day Lament commentary. I didn’t write it it in a bid for sympathy or a pat on the back. but to try to reflect on what’s been happening to me and, I know, so many others.

Personal stories often touch people–and this one seems to have had that effect.

I am not looking for donations – although a patron of means would not be refused. Without support, this website and oher independent media will soon be a memory. Smile.

I realize that in so many ways, I am probably better off than many. And, in fact, I am also aware that nothing lasts forever and I may just be in a new phase, to put it optimistically. Thanks to all who wrote and who said kind things. It is true. Writers and media people like myself easily feel isolated, cut off from the more active community we would like to be part of. Bruce sings about that in Dancing in the Dark:

“I’m dying for some action
I’m sick of sitting ’round here trying to write this book
I need a reaction
come on now baby give me just one look”

In the spirit of keeping this conversation going, I am sharing just some of your reactions. Many more are posted on the many websites that picked it up. Some came in via Facebook.

My only practical appeal I would make for those of you with the interest and time, I do need help setting up screenings in communities, local theaters, on campuses. Unions and activist groups of my film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time about the crimes of Wall Street. You can find out more on our website plunderthecrimeofourtime.com, or write to dissector@mediachannel.org.

One event coming up in New York: The Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn will be screening my film on Friday September 10th. The new updated edition of my Book THE CRIME OF OUR TIME comes out this month from Disinformation Books and I am looking for opportunities to speak about it.

Thanks to all who were moved to write.

Danny

El Fra writes:

“Did you see the “summation” regarding what was actually paid out in the bail out? Some 10 trillion and more? And we prosecute Martha Stewart? and not, the real culprits in this rape of the taxpayer.

Jim Dodds writes:

I am even older than you Mr. Schechter and experienced the rise of corporatism to replace fascism, communism and capitalism and all pretenses of democratic government since the 1930′s. John Pilger’s essay on Murdochracy came closest to acknowledging a plight so serious it apparently defies conscious acknowledgement. We plod along to voting booths on election days as if those slips of paper or electronic registrations would make a difference. We have writers demanding societies free of currency or revamped political systems of all kinds to rule sovereign nations that could more truthfully be called business areas in a worldwide transnational economy ruled from boardrooms. It is truly horrifying to know that wars fought for freedom or any noble cause were only ever really fought for economic reasons, profit. The difference between the wars of our ancestors and those causing death and destruction today is that war has become as multinational as the corporations that require wars in which even armies are privatized. Weaponry has also changed; we can now maim the unborn using plutonium coated ammunition or obliterate humanity atomically even though the aim could have been to dispose only of “useless eaters”, nomenclature courtesy of the University of Chicago School of Economics. To solve a problem first define the problem.

Quote by the cultural Marxist Raymond Williams: “To be truly radical is to make hope possible, not despair convincing.” I will work harder at the former.

So will I, best wishes,

Joel Swadesh writes:

Just a note to say that I’m sorry that this has happened to you. I have appreciated your writing and only wish that funds were limitless so that I could support it.

One thing: even though political writing is your passion, consider taking other work if it presents itself or if the conditions of following your passion become too onerous. We live life once (well, unless the Hindus are right), and it should be lived both to accomplish and to enjoy. Our parents’ generation allowed their work, including political activity, to consume them. The reality is that change comes only when people who haven’t been involved come off the sidelines, and they are coaxed off the sidelines by disaster, not by media.

Just a thought. I’ve found that as I left behind my life’s passion, I have found other important and satisfying things to do.

Best wishes.

Timothy Maloney: They Will Know You When You Are Dead

I’ve been reading your stuff for a number of years, and printing and saving occasional pieces.

In my files, you are on record, and also on record all over the world, it appears (e.g., South African ambassador), as a voice in the wilderness.

Now you can rest a bit, knowing that you told the truth and fought the good fight.

A generation from now (two generations?) historians will reference your stuff. “Some observers were aware and alerted their fellow citizens” – that will be their judgement.”

Jo Lee Loveland commented.

“I get a sense that we on the Left are just beginning to find our song….We can’t fight fire with fire re far right, cause their tools lack integrity, and whatever else can be said about the Left (& I can & often do say plenty!)I think one verse we share is a search for integrity. My sense is our song has about 5 – 6 organic verses (core messages) that we need to sing now, together. I was struck on Anniv. of King’s speech remembering how we used to cross arms and hold hands in huge circles that got bigger and bigger, and always seemed to have room for more. I’m sensing we are ready for that kind of unity again, and as Michael says, “we have our voices if we can be heard and use them”….

Rupa Shah writes:

It was very touching and I have wondered how an ORDINARY AMERICAN is able to survive the current economic situation and job market. It is really sad.

Wonder, if you got a chance to see FT interview Roubini?

I hope, things improve because we need people like you to keep us informed about what is happening to our country. Thanks.

Marylyn Anderson from Rochester NY:

What a piece you wrote: A Lament For Labor Day. We need to know this! I am touched beyond words. Wish I was the “angel” flying in to help you. You do and have done such good work.

Here in we have the Mott’s strike. They will march at the front of the LD Parade tomorrow.

But you are right, a tough time it is. There is a Brecht poem. It is: ” To Those Born Later” from the Svendborg Poems and Satires 1936-38.

The first line is: “Truly I live in dark times”

Brecht gets it right.

Norm King writes

“Thanks for breaking your back–gee, too bad we can’t afford health insurance!

Linda Pease writes:

Hey, Danny. I just had to say hang in there. I read your piece at Consortium News, and while you’ve been on a wild ride, you are still doing excellent work, and it’s being recognized in the world at large. What’s that saying — a prophet is never lauded in his home town? Something like that..!

Whatever that caring gene is, I fear I’ve been struck with it, as well. I can’t bring myself to pursue a career in corporate America, knowing what I do and feeling compelled to share it. I maintain a low level job, however, because I cannot afford to be without a regular paycheck. I know what it’s like to realize your life has been your work, but you don’t have enough people in your life to share it with.

In any case, consider me a virtual friend. I love all you do and fully support your noble mission. I’m sure many others share my feelings, but may not reach out. But you do make a difference. It’s all worth it. So few are awake, but more at least stir in their slumber every year. Something is slipping through, in a good way.

Take care, and thanks for decades of activism. May you survive a few more!

Steve Moll writes from Sonoma California:

Danny, I’m an aging 58 year old former antiwar/environmental/education activist from the early seventies… Your article touched me personally (A Lament for Labor Day….) I read a tremendous amount daily…searching for truth and excellent analysis…. I recognize MANY writers after all these years and I always made sure to read you whenever I saw your byline….Thank you for all the great stuff…the insight Best Wishes on your new directions…

Beth Holden writes:

Danny,

Your post is very moving and makes one, once again ask ‘what the hell
is wrong with people?’

You are so right that the left is full of people who complain and
accuse but don’t take positive action.

I’m not an experienced organizer or a business person, but it seems to
me the obvious thing is for people to get together over the basics:
building houses and growing food. What would happen if 100 unemployed
people stopped waiting for things to get better and decided to join
forces and create a different life for themselves; buy some cheap
land, build and grow?

This is vague and sounds unrealistic, but I think we need at least to
understand why it seems so.

We have been trained to distrust each other. We are all waiting for
some hero (Obama? Give me a break!) to lead us to safety and comfort.

How about doing a survey, you know, Danny Schechter talks to everyone
on the street and asks “What do you think needs to be done?” Whatever
people would say would have to be informative. What fantasies do they
have. Why are they so passive? Are they waiting for the second
coming? Do they think the system is faulty or do they just struggle
with personal guilt?

Beth

Kim Wozencraft commented on your status.

Kim wrote:
“10effin4 on that, Danny. Put The Suits in the slammer and see how well they do with their fancy paperwork inside the walls.”

Aaron Iehi: “Prison sentences for regulators who ignore whistleblower data!”
.
Maggie writes from Scotland:

Hi Danny,

I’m sitting here in Scotland having just read your article on http://consortiumnews.com/2010/090310a.html and I just have to email you to say thank you for doing what you do, for not giving up despite the economy.

I’m sorry your business is suffering and just wanted to say so. I’m sure you’ll take some time-out to reflect, rest and think. People like you and Amy Goodman are offering hope to people, far more than you think. And the hope comes from having the the mist blown away. By all of you at Grit TV and Ring of Fire and all the other people working hard.

All of you have a hard battle to fight. Like me, a lot of people have been working hard but with a sense that something is just not quite right. We’d get home from work exhausted, eat and get some sleep before starting all over again. If we tried to discuss it with colleagues or friends, we became the one who didn’t understand, the Scrooge characters in the room. Most people have no time to take it further and investigate by themselves, to hunt down the answers. We didn’t have the time, and we didn’t know where to begin looking. So many of us didn’t have much time to even watch TV. When we did it was the news headlines, and maybe a comedy to cheer ourselves up.

Just think about all those people on anti-depressants over the past decade or so. They were not paying attention to the world, they were working themselves into ill health and then taking care of themselves, with no space to really look around.

People here in the UK have stopped buying newspapers for a reason. Because we knew it was rubbish and we grudged the time. Have you seen the UK newspapers?

Now its different. So many have lost their jobs. The world is falling apart. More people have more time. And we are slowly finding the sources of information, the understanding of what is going on, why and what we have to fight against.

It’s difficult. We listeners, watchers and readers aren’t experts. The vast majority of us have little idea about global economics, politics, etc. The elites can afford to pay for the smoke the need to hide behind. Professional, magician smoke. It brainwashes. For those of us who sense the nonsense, we can so easily be discouraged. We don’t have unions, at least not much here in the UK anymore. We have spin. Who do we believe?

It takes a while to dig, to find alternative views because we don’t know what it is we are looking for. You are the source. Amy Goodman is the source. Jeremy Scahill is the source. Greg Palast is the source. Real News, GritTV are the sources.

For those who have lost their jobs, they will begin to search for an explanation why they have lost their jobs and why they havent’ found a new one, why they are working like crazy yet can’t afford a roof over their heads. They will find you, looking for answers. Without you our world will go down, not on. So don’t be down and don’t ever give up. Unfortunately, they don’t have the money to pay you.

For my entire life, I’ve had my head buried in science books learning my trade and clinging with my passion for biological systems. For about a year I’ve been learning about the world instead, angry with myself for neglecting the importance of democracy. For a year I’ve been following you, Democracy Now!, Real News, Grit TV. Since the day David Cameron moved into No10 Downing Street, I’ve not watched BBC. I can’t bear it. It literally sends me to hide under the duvet crying. So now all my news comes from you guys with a bit of Al-Jazeera and some Russia TV thrown in too – it is more in depth, more analytical, rational. And so full of gumption. Just from you guys I’ve learned more about the world than I ever did from the BBC. It sends me on searches, helps me understand, and prompts me to dig deeper into subjects, to think about what is going on.

For example, I would have no idea about the history of Haiti without you all. I had no idea who Aristide was and the problems the Haitians have faced for so long, yet I’m one of the allegedly smart ones around this part of my town, the book worm, the one who has been to University!

American politics are global politics, American issues are global issues and you have a global audience. Grow that audience. During the elections the population of this planet knew the outcome would be important globally, for ever one of us even we world could cast not one vote.

May I suggest a kind of coalition with organistions such as Al-Jazeera? We have digital TV here in the UK. Al-Jazeera now broadcast between 6 pm and 11 pm on their alloted channel. Why not share the channel, broadcast American indy news while they are off-air? Maybe even staellite around the world? Or is that not possible? I’d love to see and hear so much of the shows I’ve listened to broadcast here in Europe. We Brits are sorely lacking an education on so many global issues!

I’m thankful I found you all. I’m thankful for the education and hope you will continue to do so for a very long time.

You are the mass movement, small but growing and developing. You are the people holding up the lantern in the darkness, clearing the mist.

Keep safe, busy and passionate and I’m sure your future will be rewarding,

Anthony John Sloan writes from South Africa

You’ve probably heard it all about one door closing and others opening and all that. I just want to say i have respected your work and activism throughout the years.

For the past 7 years i have been in Cape Town doing what i do and all that. Many doors have opened down here after my little incident with the Virgina Beach undertow.

A huge door was opened as i was approached by Idasa (an NGO) here in South Africa. It has been very rewarding. ….., you are very well respected in this part of the world. Maybe you really do need to be more global….

Anyway, i just wanted to touch base and wish you the best of everything.

Last note: there is something so special about us Bronx Boys who came of age in the 50′s and 60′s…and you are one of the most special of the lot.

Jan Arnold writes:

Hi Danny–Good writing (Lament for Labor Day and the Media), personal and political, about a bad situation, uniquely yours and yet so much in common with so many. Despite all we did and all we tried to do (and are still trying to do) and despite all the bright spots in some ways, economically, things have just been getting worse and worse for decades…despite all the great analysis people have contributed…so many things you said resonated with me. I retired voluntarily from a Civil Service job, so economically I’m fine, but so many disappointments as the protest movements we need do not materialize, and so many friends, and children of friends, in real economic trouble.

This isn’t much help, I know, but anyway, I ordered your book…

Richard Pietrasz writes: I was making similar $ in a similar job until it went bust in the 90s, too. Fortunately, I was not a big spender. Unfortunately, there is a movement to pay for the wars by taking SSI benefits away from us. They already have several years of them from all of us, which adds up to a big bundle.

Jerry Hoyt writes:

Read your Recession Snuffs out…..

Seems like I was reading something I would write… Short quick paragraphs, almost as if you were talking with me.

It’s odd for me. I can’t put together long paragraphs…….. it appears you are short there too.

Oh well. Can’t imagine what it would be like to be 60 again. Strong. Able to outwalk any teenager. Mental cells yet to fray.

Oh well…. I take comfort in knowing there are at least 10 more years to go.

Go well you youngster.

Farmer in Oklahoma

Virginia Mary writes:

“Eloquent. The stock market is fixed, and the richest get special software programs with additional ways to bid faster, calculate futures, find back-door ways to negotiate the system that regular people cannot do. The system is rigged for the financiers, they have racket upon racket for enhancing their profits. Information is leaked to those with connections….and Congress knew and did what about it?”

Mary Magnuson of Brookfield, WI. writes “wow.”

Powerful piece in Global Research – thanks for all that you do, Danny. Keep doing it.

Elaine Kost writes:

Couldn’t read your Labor Day post without a comment and a long distance hug.

Thank you for all that you have done. We are the Kost’s, and followers of all of you who have opened our eyes and hearts.

I retired in 2008 (30 years with Ma Bell), got my lump sum and ran, 30 years to the day. We heeded warnings from the Ruppert’s, Heinberg’s, and Simmons as well as viewing many documentaries, yours was one we took our daughter to see at Comic Pizza in Eugene, Oregon…In Debt We Trust. Now we live on savings $500-$1000 a month, as I’m only 51 and won’t touch my IRA until it’s time. Why pay the penalty, right? We grow 60% of what we eat, and don’t leave home much. We totally understand the “all work and no play”. I think that will be one of our major downfalls as humans…the ability to work hard. Most people don’t understand the effort it takes to sustain oneself. It’s always been “cheap or free”!…

This Labor Day we’ll be thinking of the Open Houses that we had this weekend as our farm is up for sale. Sad….like closing your office and dusting off the shelves hoping there is still some wood left underneath it all. Maybe what we need is to pull our resources together, purchase property and begin to enjoy what we have left! Too much work for us to continue to do alone.

Here are a couple of links if your interested in reading our “sad story”.

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/205/66/

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/421/65/

http://www.mudcitypress.com/mudkost.html

You are appreciated! Thank you,

Comments on the comments? Write: dissector@mediachannel.org

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