What Happened To Oliver Stone? Why Is “Money Never Sleeps” Asleep? Rahmbo’s Exit

September 26th, 2010 - by: danny

LISTEN: My hour-long conversatiion Tuesday with Thorne Dreyer on RAG RADIO in Austin Texas. Engaging.

NEW WEBSITE ON ECONOMIC MELTDOWN—BOOKMARK THIS

JP kaneshida writes: “Love your work and am a fan. Just letting you know about our new site,
“EM08: Economic Meltdown 2008″ which is for *everyday people* to one-stop-shop on meltdown info. In addition, we also provide strategies we feel communities need to at least think about in terms of going forward in hese riskiest of time. A

ProPublica: Watchdog Faults FBI for `Factually Weak’ Basis for Investigating Activists

Chicago Tribune: Anti-war Activists Targeted by the FBI speak out

WHY NO PROSECUTIONS IN FINANCIAL CRISIS:

Finally, the issue is being discussed–albeit only legalistically.

NYT: The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday entitled “Restoring Key Tools to Combat Fraud and Corruption After the Supreme Court’s Skilling Decision.” It will be interesting to see whether the absence of any high-profile criminal prosecutions from the financial crisis will be cited as a reason for Congress to amend the honest services law to reach corporate misconduct that does not involve some form of personal benefit to the defendant. In the Skilling case, the Supreme Court questioned whether a crime involving only a breach of fiduciary duty could pass muster.

DISSECTOR IN THE MEDIA

SIGHTINGS; On Sunday Night, a motorcade pulled up at the Joyce Dance Theater on 8th Avenue. The Barsheva Dance Company from Israel was there. It looked like an Israeli pol left the main car suddounded by a security platoon. But then I heard a crowd booing. I was later told John McCain was there too. Welcome to Chelsea John. (Stephen Colbert just referred to him as a Crimean War Veteran.) I was across the street in front of Pinkberry, all swirled out.

On Monday night, I was way downtown and was introduced to LEVI, Bristol Palin’s ex, the man who kinda took on the former Mayor of Wasila and wants to be one, soon to star in his own reality, or is that surreality, TV series. I do get around.

To book me on media outlets, write: dissector@mediachannel.org. I give good sound bytes.

From: Financial Times on The Rahmbo Record
White House set to change its tone
By Edward Luce in Washington

Some time in the next few days, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s chief of staff, looks almost certain to quit his job to pursue his dream of becoming mayor of Chicago.

Known as Rahmbo by friends and enemies alike and assigned the code name Black Hawk by the secret service, Mr Emanuel’s often capricious style of management has helped define Mr Obama’s rollercoaster ride in the White House during the past 20 months.

Mr Obama recently said Mr Emanuel would make an “excellent” mayor of Chicago. But if Democratic figures inside and outside the White House are to be believed, Mr Emanuel’s pugilistic approach may turn him into a scapegoat for much what has gone wrong, some of it fair, some not.

Mr Emanuel is the target of three types of criticism. First, he is said to be obsessed with the 24-hour news cycle, taking his eye off longer-term goals. “Rahm cannot keep his thoughts focused for more than 10 minutes,” said a former official. “If he spent as much time planning strategy as he does trying to win the news cycle then things might have gone differently.”

Second, detractors say that Mr Emanuel, who cut his teeth in the Clinton White House and formed the basis of the character Josh in the popular West Wing television series, misread the obstructionist mood of the Republican party on Capitol Hill. Time and again on the healthcare debate, cap-and-trade and the $787bn stimulus, Mr Emanuel led the White House negotiations with Republican legislators.

In almost every case Mr Emanuel recommended concessions to the Republicans that achieved no support when push came to vote. The one exception was over the 2009 stimulus bill, which pulled in three Republican votes in the Senate. The net result was to signal that the White House had few red lines.

“Rahm’s approach helped create the impression that the Obama White House had no principles – it was simply transactional,” says a close Democratic observer…..

Watch: Media Gem, Bob Marley interviewed on Five All Night, Live All Night, a show I launched for WCVB in Boston, 1980

A LACK OF FOCUS ON CRIME MARS OLIVER STONE’S NEW WALL STREET, A FILM HEAVY ON ATMOSPHERE, LIGHT ON ANGER

Why is “Money Never Sleeps” Asleep At The Switch?

By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime Of Our Time

The lead headline in the New York Times is “EXTENSIVE FRAUD APPEARS TO MAR AFGHAN ELECTION.” The line below, “A BLOW TO CREDIBILITY,” as if anyone who follows Afghanistan, a country known for blatant and notorious corruption was at all surprised by this latest “blow.”

Today’s “blow” followed an earlier “blow” a few weeks back with the disclosure of the crash of the Kabul Bank with $300 billion still unaccounted for.

In America, another fraud: CNN reported the next morning that the pathetic blonde beauty-celebrity Lindsay Lohan put up $300,000 to get out of jail. That’s the kind of story American media considers worthy of constant “Breaking News” attention.

When will we see the headlines like “EXTENSIVE FRAUD APPEARS TO MAR ECONOMIC RECOVERY” or “EXTENSIVE FRAUD LED TO FINANCIAL COLLAPSE?’

I ask this question, sort of knowing the answer, after two recent back-to-back film experiences.

On Thursday night, I spoke at a packed screening of my film PLUNDER THE CRIME OF OUR TIME that indicts financial crimes and corruption behind the financial crisis. The audience seemed overwhelmingly positive except for one Wall Streeter in the house who insisted that while there may have been “ethical lapses,” no crimes were committed, an expression of a conventional wisdom that most of the media has reinforced without investigating any evidence.

At a reception after the film in suburban Long Island’s Cinema Arts Center, several people told me that one impact the crisis has had on them is sleeplessness because of anxiety over whether will can pay their bills and avoid joblessness or foreclosure.

Ironically, film director Oliver Stone also had sleep on his mind. “Money Never Sleeps” is the subtitle of his remake of the movie Wall Street. To my surprise, the theater was not packed on opening night for a film distributed, ironically, by the money-mad mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corpse. You would think that the outspoken Stone, known for conspiracizing, would be slaying some dragons.

Think again.

After watching the movie, I realized why the right-wing Rupert Murdoch could be comfortable enough releasing the latest from the nominally left-wing Oliver Stone.

The movie built an “explainer” around a love story that in the end was as much as about child-parent conflicts and pretentious philosophizing as the collapse of Wall Street which is treated, ultimately, with a “we are all to blame” viewpoint, In many ways the movie celebrates the brash culture of greed and excess of our era while we watch the return of Michael Douglas’s portrayal of Gordon Gekko, known in earlier times for the slogan “Greed Is Good.”

Now, Stone sees greed everywhere, and there ain’t much we can do about it. A Wall Street insider writes on the Self-evident blog, “the film somehow lacks any relatable misery. The human costs of the larger crisis remain abstract. The traders that the film revolves around talk about the market crash as if they are spectators and not participants.” He concludes, “we produce some beautiful art, but do we ever butcher the facts.”

Gekko does offer some good lines but the movie is more about personal redemption than financial crime. He says, “The mother of all evils is speculation – leveraged debt.” He claims the economy is merely moving money around in circles and the business model itself is like a “cancer.”
True, but he’s more concerned with winning back his daughter’s love.

Personally, I saw many of the stories I report in my film turn up in his – with even the same lines, leading me to unprovable suspicions after having given my film personally to Stone with a request for his help months earlier.

I guess I was naÃƒÂ¯ve. Then again, maybe great minds think alike. Smile. (I do know/respect one of his screenwriters, Stephen Schiff), Clearly, we work in different leagues, and maybe, on different sides.

In an interview on CNN, Stone seemed to argue that free speech is more of an issue than the insolvency of the banks. He became totally obsessed with the rumors that brought down Bear Stearns, an issue I explore in depth.

“What I found out,” he says, “what shocked me back in 2009, was that Goldman Sachs and those type of banks were really going long and short at the same time and were actually selling out on their clients. I thought that was shocking information to me, as well as the power of rumor, which, amazing. We show the power of that and how it can destroy a company.

…I’m not so sure that’s good for the system, although it’s more transparent. But it does lead to circles of viciousness and rumor and hype and a stock, as you know, drops. I mean, look at what happened a few months ago, right? The market just crashed. So what’s going to happen?

It does scare me, and I think it’s the nature of the modern world, I suppose.”

The website Ml-implode.com commented: “There you go, “rumor,” mentioned as a causative factor 4 or 5 times; insolvency/leverage? Zero. Those poor, poor Wall Street banks — they’re victims, you know.”

The movie dances on all sides of the issues actually featuring an on camera cameo by Stone, of course and, Grayon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, who I quote in the my film and book, The Crime of our Time, because he labeled the crisis “the greatest non-violent crime in history” Stone feigns to that view but ultimately rejects it.

Hedge Fund investor Jim Chanos who I also quote, and who has called for the prosecution of wrongdoers, was even an advisor. It seems like he was wanted for his insight more on the atmospherics of the scene, than his demand for more perp walks.

Wall Street 2 features a father-son subtext as the young banker played by Shia LaBeouff watches as his mentor at a firm made to resemble Bear Stearns or, is it, Lehman Brothers commits suicide after the company is brought down by rumors and dirty tricks. In the end he marries and has a son with Gekko’s daughter who, natch, runs a left-wing website.

Their kid is named Louie after The banker who died. Undisclosed is that Stone’s dad who worked on Wall Street was also a Lou. Clearly this movie was as much about the personal psychodrama of Stone’s life as many of his earlier films about the ghosts of Vietnam. His movies about Nixon and W also featured father-son conflicts. The banker who died by jumping into the subway, Frank Langella, recently played Nixon in the movie about David Frost’s interview.

More disturbing was the film’s failure to call for any action. It starts with Gekko getting out of jail and getting back in the industry. So jail, in the end means nothing.

Many Wall Streeters interviewed about the film seemed confused about its message and meandering plot points. Most (including myself) liked the luscious cinematography of New York that even profiled Bernie Madoff’s former office, and featured David Byrne’s great music. Said former banker Nomi Prins who is in Plunder, ” I liked it until halfway through, and then it was a hodge-podge bunch of events.”

The pro-free market Daily Bell wrote; “Always, Oliver Stone seems a propagandist and apologistÃ¢â‚¬Â¦.Would it be any news to him that the United States is over-extended from a monetary and military standpoint? Or that Fed money printing was the proximate cause of the economic crash. It should not be too hard to figure this out.”

Critic Roger Ebert liked the film but added, “I wish it had been angrier. I wish it had been outraged. Maybe Stone’s instincts are correct, and American audiences aren’t ready for that. They haven’t had enough of Greed.”

Was it those “instincts” that led to the pandering, or was it just the logic of the market or Murdoch’s neutering its critical edge with an insistence to “Just tell us an entertaining story if you want this to be big.” He was going to make the film before the crash – when it might have warned us – but waited to try to become the ultimate word.

In my experience, audiences are furious about what’s happened to them and the country. Late last week Paul Volker warned that the financial system is still broken. Others fear another crash is only just a matter of time. This reality is not evident on Oliver Stone’s radar screen.

After my screening, a man named Milton told me he is active in The Democratic Party but that the Deems will not really act against Wall Street. “They don’t have the guts,” he said. Can the same be said about Oliver Stone, who loves the Hugo Chavez’s of the worl d South Of The Border, but echoes CNBC here at home?

News Dissector Danny Schechter directed Plunder The Crime of Our Time. (plunderthecrimeofourtime.com)

Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

MORE ON THE FRAUDS THAT NEVER SLEEP

NakedCapitalism: Florida’s Kangaroo Foreclosure Courts: Judges Denying Due Process on Behalf of Banks

Florida is ground zero of the foreclosure crisis. In addition to being one of the epicenters of the housing meltdown, it has also become the jurisdiction where local lawyers have been the most effective overall in unearthing how servicers and foreclosure mills have engaged in widespread document fabrications and use of improper affidavits to foreclose.

This abuse of contracts and legal procedures matters because the courts are the last bastion of defense of the individual. Even libertarians, who keenly oppose government mission creep, give courts an elevated role as a protector of rights.

NEW YORK TIMES: Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON

Agencies that assessed risk in mortgage pools dismissed evidence that many loans were dubious, according to testimony given to a panel.

OLIVER: THIS IS THE ANGER I AM TALKING ABOUT

MANDELMAN SKEWERS TIM GEITHNER

FU US taxpayers-Citigroup took $45b TARP, can’t give big bonuses, so giving stock

By paying the raises in company stock, not cash, Citi has decided to follow previously issued guidelines that limited salaries to $500,000 for the top 25 executives at financial institutions still receiving large amounts of federal help.

MI-IMPLODE.COM: NORWAY’S CENTRAL BANK SUES CITBANK

“This is what a real adversarial suit against the subprime maven banks should look like; not like a $75M wrist-slap fine typical of the SEC

“… the 221-page complaint goes much further than just the super senior CDO/liquidity put kerfuffle. In fact, it reads like a laundry list of complaints against the US bank – from “unrealistic” CDO models, to Repo 105, GAAP and SEC violations, etc.

“It also names Citi CEO Vikram Pandit and former CEO Chuck Prince, personally (along with some 20 other bank execs).”

LEVINE BREAKING NEWS: U.S. PROSECUTORS PROBE KARZAI’S BROTHER:

The Karzai family’s dealings may be catching up with them. The Wall Street Journal says that federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have opened a corruption probe of Mahmoud Karzai, brother of Afghan President Hamid. Officials tell the Journal that they’re currently debating whether there’s enough evidence to bring charges of tax evasion, racketeering, or extortion against Mahmoud, a U.S. citizen who splits his time between the suburbs of Baltimore, Dubai, and Kabul. “How many people do you think they have on me? Four, five, 10, 20?” Mr. Karzai said when.

LETTER FROM ORGANIZATION OF WASHINGTON MUTUAL (WAMU) BANK VICTIMS

From the Forgotten Victims of Bank Fraud and Foreclosure Fraud:

Thank you for all you are doing to help educate Congress and the people about foreclosure fraud. Please come to our website and explore the facts and law about the criminal conspiracy to use homeowners signatures for Bank Fraud and Securities Fraud.

WAMU was the poster child for RICO Conspiracy. They were aided and abetted by “friends in high places.”

We need a media sponsor, NOT money, to get us out across the nation to find the 1000′s of defrauded WAMU homeowners. We have the truth after many years of investigation and research. WE are all volunteers and WAMU Homeowners who have first-hand knowledge of lending fraud and foreclosure fraud. We are the “experts” in this emerging field!

Please visit:
www.wamuloanfraud.com

Thank you on behalf of the National WAMU Homeowners Support Group.
Rob Harrington

And this just in from David Swanson:

Ahmadinejad Meets With U.S. Peace Activists
By Phil Wilayto, War Is A Crime .org

The News Dissector