Bomb Plot?, The Election Is Just A Day Away, Comments on Sanity Rally
October 31st, 2010 - by: danny
POLITICS AS A BUSINESS. In case you missed my commentary on AlJaeera.net I will also be contributing to special coverage at Progressive Radio Network.com after 9 PM.
I will be speaking at Union DOCS, 322 Union Avenue, Brooklyn Tuesday night on the nature and impact of campign advertising on a panel.
This Election Day, UnionDocs teams with Cinebeasts to present a special two-part event that celebrates the special affinity shared between candidates and cameras.
The first half is a smattering of classic campaign commercials, ranging from the Eisenhower days to the wealth of populist YouTube-targeted spots from this year’s midterms. Featured spots include a feelgood ’70s Coke commercial (with Richard Nixon as the punchline!), Reagan’s morning-workout worthy “Morning in America” anthem, and Wesley Clark’s 5 seconds of Outkast commentary. The Red Phone, the Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, Jesse Helms’ “Hands” — they’re all here.
The second half is dedicated to Brian Springer’s 1995 documentary Spin.
Spin by Brian Springer
WSWS: U.S. election campaign ends amid deepening economic crisis
The campaign for the midterm US election Tuesday is coming to an end under the shadow of an intractable and deepening economic crisis and the evident inability of the Obama administration to develop any policies to overcome it.
NY TImes: Conservative Donors Lay a Base for 2012 Elections
Buoyed by the impact that their anti-Democratic campaigns have had, two large, new conservative groups are planning to keep pushing their agenda.
Holly Sklar, Common Dreams: Wall Street Has Already Voted
Before Wall Street drove our economy off a cliff,
bullish Citigroup strategists dubbed the United States a
“plutonomy.” They said, “There are rich consumers, few
in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of
income and consumption they take. There are the rest,
the ‘non-rich,’ the multitudinous many, but only
accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national
pie.”
Campaign For America’s Future: LAT speculates that non-voters will outnumber voters: “According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, there likely will be more non-voters this year than voters. Indeed, turnout in midterm elections typically is less than 40% of the voting-age population. The survey shows that those who choose not to exercise their franchise likely will be younger, less educated and more financially stressed than those who call themselves likely voters … those who choose not to vote could be considered more liberal than those who do .
FT: Rousseff wins Brazilian presidency
Dilma Rousseff of the ruling leftwing PT won a comfortable victory in Brazil’s presidential run-off election on Sunday, beating her rival José Serra of the centrist opposition PSDB
The America’s Program says the media was her biggest opponent:
Victory was not easy. The second-round campaign debate centered on abortion, religion, scandals, and a mainstream media deliberately set on defeating the left-wing front-runner.
Experts warn that a media oligarchy continues to wield tremendous influence in Brazil’s politics, largely unchecked. But a growing media democracy movement and especially the use of Internet communication–blogs, websites and Twitter–played a huge role in this election to offset the traditional influence of the mainstream media.
THE Bomb Plot???
Yemen releases female suspect. Her identity Had Been Stolen.
CLG: Suspicious package to U.S. not from Yemen: Yemenia Air Cargo Director
Mohammed al-Shaibah, Air Cargo Director for Yemenia Airways said to Yemen Post, “No UPS cargo plane left Yemeni lands over the land 48 hours. These accusations are false and baseless.” He added, “No UPS or DHL cargo packages heading to Chicago through Yemen took place in the last 48 hours as well.” “All packages are checked very carefully in Yemen, and there is no evidence to prove that this package came through Yemen.”
UAE rejects US claims on Flight 201 30 Oct 2010 The United Arab Emirates’ Civil Aviation Authority has rejected claims that a US-bound Emirates’ flight from Dubai contained “suspicious” parcels from Yemen. Fighter jets were scrambled on Friday to accompany an Emirates plane into New York’s JFK airport after a security alert, US media reported. Emirati authorities, however, said flight 201 carried no ‘suspicious’ cargo from Yemen as claimed by US-Canadian military agency NORAD. UAE officials rejected the claim and said the plane was not a source of threat.
Gitmo News/Al Jazeera: A former child soldier in Guantanamo Bay has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing an American solider on an Afghan battlefield.
But Omar Khadr will only serve eight years as a result of a plea bargain struck with the US military tribunal trying him.
If Khadr is granted repatriation to Canada, as his legal team say they will be requesting, he will only serve one more year in the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab reported from Toronto.
“His lawyers have promised that they will be applying for this repatriation, and if he is brought back to Canada, he will very likely serve the remaining seven years here,” Tyab said.
“There is a chance that if Mr Khadr is indeed brought back to Canada in around 12 months from now, he may only serve a third of this seven-year sentence and be released.”
Glenn Greenwald: Why Is Assange Still Alive? He also reports that a young man waterboarded his girlfriend to see if she was cheating on him.
WAR ON IRAN PROPOSED AS WAY TO SAVE US ECONOMY
Washington’s blog via Naked Capitalism.com
As many writers have documented, the corporate media is usually pro-war. See this.
And so Washington Post hack David Broder’s op-ed arguing that war with Iran will save America’s economy is not all that surprising.
Of course, China and Russia might not sit idly by and let their ally, Iran, be attacked. So there’s the wee complication that bombing Iran could start WWIII.
And, of course, attacking Iran would increase the level of terrorism.
But forget politics and national security.
Broder is also plain wrong on the economics.
In a blog entry entitled “Has David Broder Lost His Mind?,” Foreign Policy managing editor Blake Hounshell writes that Broder’s proposal is “crazy for a number of reasons.”
One is that markets don’t like tensions, and certainly not the kind that jack up oil prices. Second, World War II brought the United States out of the Great Depression because it was a massive economic stimulus program that mobilized entire sectors of society. Today’s American military has all the tools it needs to fight Iran, and there isn’t going to be any sort of buildup. Hasn’t Broder been reading his own newspaper? The Pentagon is looking to find billions in cuts as it confronts the coming world of budget austerity.
And as I have repeatedly pointed out, “military Keynesianism” — that is, launching wars to stimulate the economy, doesn’t work.
Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has said that war can be very bad for the economy.,,,”
David Broder is revered as the DEAN of American political writers, not as a military expert.
Jimmy Carter on Fox News and Barack Obama
Real News Network: Obama’s Economic Policies Failed, GOP will be worse
FRAUDCLOSURE
Mandelman: Foreclosure Fraud. We Are All At Risk
e/
Ml-impode.com “Just in case you’re one of those not yet at risk of foreclosure, and therefore don’t think that what you’re hearing about today impacts you, I can assure you that you’ll change your mind about that soon enough, because as it stands the fraud perpetrated here is going to impact everyone in this country for… oh, I don’t know… let’s be optimists about this and call it the next 50 years. I assure you that no one is getting out of this one unscathed.”
Ellen Brown: HOW CHINA BUYS OUR DEBT WHILE BURYING ITS OWN
China may be as heavily in debt as we are. It just has a different way of keeping its books — which makes a high-profile political ad sponsored by Citizens Against Government Waste, a fiscally conservative think tank, particularly ironic. . . .
Israeli police shoot “hated” Arab legislator in back
Protest met with rubber bullets
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
Jonathan Cook reports on the shooting in the back of Israeli Arab MP Haneen Zoubi by Israel police who used special paramilitary forces against an Arab demonstration provoked by ultra-right-wing Jewish extremists staging a march through an Arab town in northern Israel.
Israeli police on 27 October injured two Arab legislators in violent clashes provoked by Jewish right-wing extremists staging a march through the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.
Haneen Zoubi, a parliament member who has become a national hate figure in Israel and received hundreds of death threats since her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in the summer, was among those hurt.
On The Sanity Rally: Reports and Your Comments
Press Release: Washington, D.C. — With thousands of young voters attending Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”, a social media straw poll shows that fans of the Comedy Central sponsored event overwhelmingly prefer Sanity in their politics to the politics of Fear.
After over 10,000 votes had been cast and counted, Sanity garnered 62.3% of the vote in a landslide victory over Fear, which received a paltry 37.7%. Votes were tabulated using SMS text messages captured by a Google voice number as well as through an iPhone application created by 3Advance, LLC
Daily Beast: Sanity Won Out in D.C. (Tina: A Day Earlier, your lead article called the rally “ridiculous.”)
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s dueling rallies in Washington on Saturday produced clear-headed dialogue and huge crowds estimated north of 200,000. The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz reports that the spectacle may not have had the biting edge of its hosts’ late-night comedy shows, but the crowd was mostly young, mostly well-behaved, and mostly intent on having a good time rather than, say, stomping on a protester’s head. The Daily Beast’s Benjamin Sarlin notes that the rally was far from a strictly college-age affair.
The Daily Bell, “Free Market” online newsletter:
The crowd at the mall for Stewart’s speech was of course peaceful and even good-natured. But the elite in our view very much fears the growing tide of frustration in America and is counting on Jon Stewart and others to make the case for civil restraint and tolerance. In this sense, there is no doubt that Stewart’s speech was a kind of promotion, the presentation of a dominant social theme. His speech, the rally itself, is testament to the kind of optimism that America has been famous for. The basic thrust was that people should simply calm down, take a deep breath and work together to solve problems without demonizing each other….
“This is the backdrop you have to acknowledge when listening to Jon Stewart’s speech. He urges people to work together and use the legislative process to make things better. But it is ‘working together’ within legislative parameters that have made things worse to begin with. The Anglo-American power elite thoroughly controls the emotional process at this point. The only thing they fear its logical de-legitimization. That is why such a reasonable speech is actually a clever reinforcement of the status quo — a status quo the elite, which seeks world government of some sort, badly wants to maintain.
“Anyone who thinks this speech is something other than a kind of delaying tactic, a plea for people to give the current system more time is not seeing it for what it is.”
“WANKATHON?”
Mark Ames writes on Alternet:
“Jon Stewart Rally: Just an Exercise in Gen X Self-Indulgence?
In the depths of America’s decline, Liberals couldn’t muster up a get-together for anything better than a mock-in meant to prove we’re less stupid than the other side.
Maybe what’s happening in America today will seem funny to some other culture in some future time — how it happened that in the depths of America’s decline, Liberals, the great opposition to everything mean and ruthless in this culture, couldn’t muster up a get-together for anything better than a mock-in. Led by a clown.
I confess, I couldn’t hack it. I came to the rally — saw those two pastry chefs from the Mythbusters show get all the Liberal Elites to hold a post-modern human wave, an ironic human wave allowing all the self-conscious Liberal Elites to play like Real America, while salvaging their vanity because it was all ironic and post-modern… And to make sure that everyone knew they were not really human-waving but rather meta-human-waving, the Mythbusters duo deconstructed the human wave. And all the Liberal Elites smiled and laughed knowingly, because all 150,000 were in on the biggest inside-joke wankathon in American history. And that was it for me — I was outta there….
Your Letters:
emcye wrote:
“In a turbulent socio-political climate, the role of ‘gas-letters’ is essential and protected. Before the balloon of unrest gets too hot and inflated, fills and bursts, let out enough air to quell any momentum for revolution. Stewart and Colbert do manage to fit that role so tidily. I can’t say for certain that they’ve deliberately staged themselves as modern court jesters, but they are fitting the bill. And appearing as the voice of reason fills a cavity, but isn’t liberal media toothless, as it is?”
Abby Smith writes:
“I just returned from Washington tonight….don’t ask me why I felt compelled to show up to this rally….I was actually signed up to help with phone banking tonight to pull out the vote in various different states, but instead I gave my time and body to this Colbert/Stuart Media event…..very disappointing (for ME).
First off….very badly organized…I was there in a motorized scooter and there was supposed to be a special section set up for people with disabilities…..but it was soooo crowded, I couldn’t FIND it and at some points, it felt very scary…like I could have been trampled…..And in general there just were Not enough volunteers (at Our rallies, they would have been called “marshals”, but I realize, that in the context of THIS event, that would be considered too militaristic).
The CONTENT of the event: there WAS NONE!
How sad is the state of the left (as in what in the blazes is Left of the LEFT?) that if you wanted to go down to Washington to TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE TEA BAGGERS your only option was to be a PROP for John Stuarts A-Political fest…..SCREW HIM and COLBERT (whom I usually love) – THEY SQUANDERED an opportunity and wasted our time. So do you think ANY teabaggers were put in their place by today’s DC rally? I think not.
I asked other people there: What woulda happened if Jon had asked his adoring fans to all join phone banks thoughout this last week — and literally contribute to “pulling out the vote!”? What IMPACT would THAT have had? Or any number of Alternative things — even, Having the event in Washington, but instead of pulling off typical Daily Show nonsense, make some of your satire BITING. (Like when he used that Brit guy commenting…..I forgot his name right now).
I loved the fact that he invited Cat Stevens (now YUSEF) to sing “PEACE TRAIN” but when Yusef barely got through 2 verses they had OZZIE OSBOURNE interrupting him to Create a comedy sketch. Bad judgment call, I believe, and VERY DISRESPECTFUL of Yusef!!!! I wonder if he Knew about this in advance, and if Not, I wonder how He felt about this…..
The rest of the music SUCKED, in my humble opinion. That musical Duo between Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock was musically pleasant enough, but lyrically offensive. There was NOT ONE SONG that contained any sharp satire or sincere meaningful lyric.
Jon Stuart kept his promise; THERE WERE NO POLITICS…..so why have a fuckin’ rallly? To sell more……(popcorn, coke, and T-shirts commemorating this event????)
When on line for the bus returning to the city, I verbally interviewed several other NYC returnees…..we had a few mild disagreements as to whether today’s rally was worth it.
(after all it was very effortful for me to pull off a round-trip to DC in one day…..and it also cost me $80 !). These folks insisted that Jon delivered What He Promised: NO POLITICS. They also went on to illuminate and echo Jon’s point about Not the Right and Not the Left. These fellow bus wait-ees went on to say that the importance is to STOP THE YELLING…..that Keith Olberman is As Annoying as Glenn Beck. Oh my god…..NOT TO ME!!!
So thank you, mother nature (I’m an athiest), that I was able to get in around 3 solid hours of sleep on the bus ride home. I so needed it…..and it cut down a good percentage of the depression I would have been steeped in today had I been awake ruminating on all of the above…and the guilt I felt at having made the wrong decision as to how to spend my TIME yesterday….I would have felt my time was better spent making those “get out the vote” phone calls with Move-On…..
My paranoid alter ego has been toying with the idea that Jon and Stephen have been secretly captured by the Tea Baggers and got 2-3 hundred thousand potential activists and diverted their energies….at this Critical time….Right beFore the election, to do….basically…..NOTHING.
Thanks a LOT guys……
To ME this “RESTORE THE SANITY and/or Bring Back Fear” event marked a Pathetic moment for the American Left — it seemed to mark the Official Indicator of there being No Left Left and that Now this NON-Revolution– This Mindless Cooptation of our righteous anger WILL be Televised.”
Christine Casner commented on your post.
“I watched the rally from mostly a perspective of enjoyment & givin’ tea heads the raspberry (just a little bit). Mostly it a welcome respite from the craziness & the crazies! I enjoyed myself and tried not to read much into it; I am simply too exhausted from endless days, weeks, months, years and decades of you-know-what. Thanks for asking, Danny.”
” Danny…..what you do is essential & very necessary! Peace, Chris”
El Fra writes:
“I agree with Abby Smith completely – and I watched it on C-span (yes, the whole thing). Did not the producers of the show, realize that people mostly came to the event because they were looking for a cohesive moment to speak to the frustration about the country being hammered day and night with absolute nonsense (political and otherwise)? The whole show was disappointing and I kept waiting for Jon to break out of what was a very bleah rhetoric and get to the point.
On My Piece on Politics As A Business”
Phil Rockstrohwrites: So you’re telling us, Danny, that our current representatives are more suited to sitting in a telephone “broiler room” hawking aluminum siding than serving the greater good? It appears what we have, at present, is a Glengarry Glen Ross Congress.
William Shanley writes:
I disagree with your statement that there’s nothing the president can do to fix the economy and it’s the second time I’ve heard you say it. All Obama has to do is do what FDR did through emergency powers. Massive public works projects, arresting banksters and holding them accountable, instituting a Tobin tax on an emergency basis on all fictitious capital transactions… do what China’s doing, for God sakes. Instead, he’s doing precisely the opposite. He’s letting the oligarchs continue to strip mine and loot country and the treasury. A moratorium on home foreclosures. Instead of the banksters getting it for their overseas investments, 0% interest for small businesses and city bonds. The list is endless. A freeze on DOD spending, which now account for 54% of Federal budget when including wars and cost of vets, until review.
MORE TO WORRY ABOUT
John DiNardo writes:
If you choose to prepare for calamities soon to devastate your
town, your neighborhood, your dwelling, your family, yourself,
you might wish to subscribe to Nancy Lieder’s newsletter.
Through her newsletter, I learned of the ominous warning from
the Inuit people: *Earth is Wobbling. The Sun is rising at the
wrong position on the horizon.*
Despite our mutual disagreement on some points, Nancy Lieder
has been presenting some excellent reports about the intensifying
traumatization of Planet Earth by the massive brown dwarf star
which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had
actually announced that it had sighted (see the landmark Washington
Post front page report of December 30, 1983). Since this official
U.S. Government announcement (having realized that this gigantic
brown dwarf star is being gravitationally drawn inexorably toward
our Sun) the ruling elite’s National Security Agency has placed a
shroud of silence over any further news reportage on the subject.
Yes, this celestial cannonball was accelerating toward us 27 years
ago, and though the shallow-minded would scoff at such “old news,”
the thoughtful would sit up in alarm to realize that this massive
brown dwarf star’s incoming velocity, and its resultant molesting
forces upon Planet Earth, must be much greater now than they were
27 years ago, since the universal law of gravitation states that the
attracting force and acceleration between two masses increases
exponentially as the two masses draw closer to one another.
Here is the video clip from the Inuit people of the Arctic region.
Steven G Erickson writes:
The mainstream media and campaign attack ads are corporate
propaganda. Politicians are bought and paid for by the banks and corporations.
Politicians servicing constituents do so at their own peril. The biggest sign
of the times is the obvious rigging of the courts.
In Memorium: Former John F. Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen dies at 82
In Memorium: Basil Davidson, British writer on African Liberation, at 95
Your comments Always Welcome. Write Dissector@mediachannel.org
See the whole Post / →
Sanity Anyone? ASSESSING JON STEWART (RT), POLITICS AS BUSINESS (Al Jazeera)
October 29th, 2010 - by: danny
Are We Saner Today Than We Were Yesterday? Could the Rally Have Done More to Connect with the Political Crisis? What now?
“Stewart Speaks: “This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times – not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.
But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke.
The country’s 24-hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen – or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.
If we amplify everything we hear nothing.‘
Some Photos To Share on Facebook.
Share Your Reactions On The Sanity Rally And March For Fear.
The Sanity Rally came and went. I was really hoping it could spark more than it did, given the failures of the left including the One Nation rally, and the implosion of the Democrats who seem to be running more on whats wrong with their opponents than what’s right with them.
Stewart often knows how to read the zeitgeist and expose the contradictions. The idea that he and Colbert were willing to leave the safe routines of their studios to go public was gutsy. I had hoped to be there but now am I am glad i watched on TV because I fear –and that’s my fear Stephen–nothinhg will come from this Mall Moment with all of its shticks and clever moments.
It was on target when it comes to the outrages of cable TV but a bit too formulaic in tossing in activsists (ie marxists) with the crazies on the right as if being nice and getting beyond our prejudices is enogh to prevail in this moment of exreme political polarization and right-wing relentlessness.
We needed more that a gathering of the tribe and a political Woodstock. I liked the music and some of the humor but it wasn’t enough. Many of the fans came in hopes of making a statement and getting recharged before next week’s erection; They were an audience, not really particpants in any unfolding process. There was barely a call to vote and get out the vote. Why?
Bob Parry asked, “Whether Stewart’s rally will have any lasting effect is another question. Is it possible that many Americans don’t want to be sane? Or put differently, are they addicted to the crazy?
Is watching the madness of Glenn Beck simply too much fun for many? Are Rush Limbaugh’s rants a way for listeners to feel better about their own personal grievances, by blaming the hated “liberals” or the “minorities” or some other scapegoats?”
Jon took us to the edge and left us there.
Politico: The rally was a comedic success but not necessarily a Democratic one.
I loved that A German car company was sponsoring this effort to sanitize America.
New York Times: At Rally, Thousands – Billions? – Respond
Crowds joined Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.”
Washington Post report: Ho-Hum
The Guardian (UK) The targets were a lazy media and overheated debate,
WATCH: I AM INTERVIEWED ON RT ABOUT JON STEWART
New York Times, Yves Smith: How The Banks Put The Economy Underwater
Big News Sat: “Credible Threat” Pronounced. Suspect: Al Qaeda in Yemen
WP: Obama: Suspicious packages are a ‘credible terrorist threat’
Two packages mailed from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago contained explosive material and represented a “credible terrorist threat,” President Obama said Friday, as authorities focused their investigation on an increasingly lethal affiliate of al-Qaeda.
NYT: U.S. Hunts for More Suspicious Packages
The two packages seized in Britain and Dubai contained PETN, the same chemical explosive used in a foiled Christmas Day bomb plot last year. That plot was also hatched in Yemen.
Is the pre-election timing, or this disclosure on the day of the march for fear at all suspicious? Did the US expect that its escalated bombing attacks in Yemen would not lead to attempts at retribution? War is never a one way street.
About Those Packages That “credible terrorist threat” – coming just before Election Day.
By Ann Althouse
I didn’t know what to say as the story was unfolding yesterday. I had the thought – and I immediately censored myself – what does this have to do with Election Day?
The Real News Reports on Yemen
LISTEN: HERE’S THIS WEEK’S NEWS DISSECTOR RADIO SHOW WITH ELLEN BROWN, GREG PALAST, AARON KROWNE AND DISSECTRIX CHERIE WELCH.
Download this episode (right click and save)
NACLA: Bill Clinton Accused of Promoting Sweat Shops Over Homes in Haiti
READ: MY LATEST OPINION COMMENTARY ON THE AL JAZEERA ENGLISH WEBSITE
CASH AND CARRY: THE BUSINESS OF AMERICAN POLITICS AND POLITICS AS A BUSINESS
By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime Of Our Time
New York: We live in a country in economic distress. Millions are out of work and cutbacks in public services are pervasive at the city and state levels. The ‘great recession’ is deep and could go deeper. Most families are tightening their belts and in some cases at the breaking point because their benefits have run out and money is so hard for many to find.
Hard to find, perhaps, for the people, but, curiously, not for their political representatives, their nominal public servants. Despite the fact that popularity for politicians, especially members of Congress, is at an all time low, campaign contributions are at an all time high. (A recent poll showed a majority of Americans want to toss out all incumbents)
The Washington Post reports, “House and Senate candidates have already shattered fundraising records for a midterm election and are on their way to surpassing $2 billion in spending for the first time, according to new campaign finance data.
To put it another way: That’s the equivalent of about $4 million for every congressional seat up for grabs this year.”
Think of that number, think of all the pressing needs in this country, and the world, and weep. But also think about why politics is so associated with, and seemingly dependent, on big bucks.
Some critics seem to believe there is no way to stop these practices because “the beast” must be fed.
“Candidates are raising more money in 2010 than ever before, and spending it at a much quicker pace than 2008,” said David Donnelly, director of the, Public Campaign Action Fund’s Campaign Money Watch project. “With all the attack ads, candidates have to spend more time dialing for dollars and less time talking with voters. They have to feed the beast — the endless raising and spending for campaigns — that is devouring our democracy.”
“Devouring” is a term often associated with beasts.
Donnelly adds, “Regardless of the outcome next Tuesday, the winners will be the big donors.”
There has been a big debate this year about the role corporations and to a lesser degree; unions have played in financing campaigns. The recent Citizen United Supreme Court decision makes it legal not to disclose where the money is coming from.
It’s been said that business is taking over politics.
As Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics which tracks political money, writes:
“When tens or hundreds of millions of dollars are targeting these midterm elections and our votes, but their origin is unknowable, one has to wonder whether someone isn’t trying to pull a fast one on us.
OK, so we get a disclaimer naming the coalition that runs an ad. Maybe that disclaimer names a group with some vague, innocuous-sounding moniker. Or it’s a group signaling that it has many “citizens” or “Americans” behind it. However, these groups often have no publicly known members, donors or contact info.”
Many are up in arms about the latest wave of “secret money,” some perhaps from overseas – including charges in one race in Washington State that the Saudis are involved.
The group Climate Action Network Europe released a new report revealing the effects of Big Business – all the way across the ocean – trying to weaken US environmental laws by backing climate change denialists.
They reported in part:
“Big European emitters Lafarge GDF-Suez, EON, BP, BASF, BAYER, Solvay and Arcelor-Mittal supported climate change deniers in the US Senate in 2010 for $107,200. Their total support for senators blocking climate change legislation in the US amounts to $240,200, which is almost 80% of their total spending in the 2010 Senate race. This is why those funds are seen as systemic. This amount is higher than the same type of spending of the most notorious U.S. climate denier and Tea Party funder: Koch Industries ($217,000).”
Overlooked in all the hoopla is the fact that American politics has itself become a business with a vast network of professional fundraising companies, consultants, advisors and ad agencies profiting from the services they provide in the competitive business at the center of all this. These people run permanent campaigns throwing fundraisers, parties and creating “giving” opportunities.
The politicians don’t just hire others. They spent much of their own time “dialing for dollars” as one Congressman I know well told me, in small rooms in the basement of the Congress where phone banks exist to call prospective donors from vast lists.
“Sometimes I just want to quit,” said my college friend.” I didn’t come to Washington to become a begger, but that’s what I do, harassing people I don’t know and don’t know me to give. Every Member does it because we all live in fear of the other party funding a primary race or buying ads to discredit us. We have to be ready to fight back.
The Post reports that Congressman is in the forefront of this effort to keep their jobs and influence. It’s not just about their salaries but their potential to supplement what the government pays them with outside donations.
“As of last week, House and Senate campaigns reported taking in more than $1.5 billion, exceeding the total collected by congressional candidates in 2006 and in 2008, Federal Election Commission data show. Most of that money already has been put toward advertising and other expenses.
The Public Campaign Action Fund, a watchdog group, will release a study Tuesday predicting that House candidates alone could spend nearly $1.5 billion by the time the dust settles on Election Day. The calculation is based on previous elections in which about half of a campaign’s money was spent in the final month of the contest.”
These candidates also have to kick back portions of their largesse to fund their own parties, helpers and bureaucracies. Many seem to see the campaign trail as a fundraising trail, speaking for fees and generating media visibility that they then can monetize with direct mail solicitations.
In some cases their donors and their lobbyists and well-funded think tanks even do their legislative work that in many by helping draft bills and orchestrate the political agenda. These “donations” of time are not considered contributions and also not reported making the cost of maintaining the political establishment much higher than funds raised in political contributions.
The political elite spends a disproprtionate amount of their time insuring that they remain the political elite. This focus on raising money often undermines time spent on raising awareness. It in turn leads to a reliance on bring guided by polls, not convictions.
No wonder this has been called “the best election money can buy. Donors and the recipients of their largesse are not naïve. They know that when a politician takes money, there is an expectation of some quid pro quo. This money may not buy the politicians outright, but only rent them for a key vote or two.
Politics is about the never-ending fight over the allocation of resources, deciding what gets funded in the federal budget and then who gets the contracts. It is far more about serving interests than ideology or constituents. Millions of jobs are at stake in federal allocations and most companies have separate divisions, with plenty of former politicians on the payroll to help them win contracts through what is euphemistically called “public affairs.”
All want to be insiders, but, to achieve that status, they need access to politicians to do their bidding, to set up meetings, make key introductions and win business that is always rationalized in terms of the jobs, never the profits, that are generated.
On the day the latest report on new records being set in political donations was published, there were reports of Afghan president Hamid Karzai admitting he has received “bundles of cash” from Iran.
The story seemed so crude, so “Third World”, so corrupt.”
Until, that is, you look closely at politics as an industry in the USA where checks and electronic transfers are routine and make it easier to move money around so you don’t need paper bags and shady bagmen to carry them.
In the case of Afghanistan , a few days after this disclosure made news, another reported that $18 billion in US reconstruction aid to American companies – the stuff of endless hours of lobbying – can now not be accounted for. Where did it all go?
That’s first world corruption with a capital C.
News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org and wrote “The Crime of Our Time” about Wall Street as a crime scene, and as a companion to his film Plunder (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com)
Al Jazeera is not responsible for the editorial opinions in this piece. I will be offering commentary on Election night on Al Jazeera English TV. I will also be participating on an election night special on the progressiveradionetwork.com. Al Jazeera is still controversial in the Arab world as it is in the USA.
On Election night I waill also be at a panel discussion and screening in Brooklyn:
Cinebeasts: Campaign Spots & SPIN-
An Election Special
Tuesday, November 2nd at 6:30pm. $9 suggested donation, or $8 with proof of voting.
The films will be followed by a panel discussion on the evolution of political media language, featuring David Bushman (curator-in-chief of the Paley Center for Media) and “News Dissector” Danny Schechter.
WP: Homeowners Blindsided in Mortage Mess
NakedCapitalism.com: State Attorney Generals Could Bring Change
Will State AGs in Shining Armor Slay the Bank Dragons?
Joe Nocera has a very hopeful piece at the New York Times on the potential scope and impact of the investigation by all 50 state attorneys general into the robo signing scandal. Nocera stresses that the leader of this effort, Tom Miller of Iowa, and a core group of assistant AGs with long standing working relationships, are using the probe into what banks would have you believe are mere paperwork problems to delve into more serious abuses, with an eye to forcing the servicers to make serious loan modifications:
And best of all, they have a very clear idea of what they are trying to accomplish. They don’t want to merely reform the foreclosure system (though that would be nice, wouldn’t it?). Nor do they particularly want a big financial settlement, which would be meaningless for a giant like Bank of America.
Rather, they hope to use their investigation as a cudgel to force the big banks and servicers to do something they’ve long resisted: institute widespread, systematic loan modifications.
Scary New Wage Data by David Cay Johnston
Now for some really scary breaking news, from the latest payroll tax data.
Every 34th wage earner in America in 2008 went all of 2009 without earning a single dollar, new data from the Social Security Administration show. Total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined, but at the very top, salaries grew more than fivefold.
Not a single news organization reported this data when it was released October 15, searches of Google and the Nexis databases show. Nor did any blog, so the citizen journalists and professional economists did no better than the newsroom pros in reporting this basic information about our economy.
LETTER FROM SCOTLAND
From The UK: Parliament Square Anti-War Protest Goes On. Main Organizer In Hispital.
When I was in London a few trips back, I met Brian Haw who had moved a tent and some signs into the Square in front of Parliament to protest the Iraq war. I was impressed by his dedication and stocktoit ness. Scottsh activist Paul O Donnell who introduced me to him, reports that Brian is in hospital:
“Brian went in to hospital on September 23rd with a tumour on his lung – he is still in hospital for tests and treatment. He remains in good spirits and hopes to return to the campaign in Parliament Square when is he is better. In the meantime the campaign continues with Brian’s colleague Australian born Barbara Tucker keeping up the fight opposite the House of Commons. She has been there for nearly 5 years with Brian — since December 2005. She has actually been arrested more times than Brian — 39 in all — sometimes without a warrant. Here is a video of one of her arrests, Brian is featured as well:
That’s dedication.
LETTER FROM Margaux LaCoste In France:
hey Danny!
I was reading this week Telerama’s magazine, and I had the good surprise to see they quoted you in an article ” Fox News, the information anti-Obama”. here’s a link to the article online : http://television.telerama.fr/television/l-info-anti-obama,61843.php
it’s on the paragraph right under the last video :
« Faux, réagit Danny Schechter, observateur critique des médias américains. Rien n’est neutre. Dès l’émission du matin, la chaîne définit l’agenda du jour et la manière dont les événements vont être traités. Et cette vision va être reprise en boucle par tous les autres shows. »
here’s a quick translation: they are talking about Fox News and neutrality:
” False, react Danny, critic observator of the american media. Nothing is neutrual. Startind with the morning show, the channel choose the agenda and how the news are going to be used. and this is is vision that’s going to be picked by all the other shows.”
And From Kristin Perry in The USA:
Mr, Schechter, I didn’t know who you were–but saw your movie Plunder and thought it was great. Correct analysis–even before the recent stuff with foreclosures. So, glad to keep reading your stuff and following what you do. Good luck.
Comments: Dissector@mediachannel.org
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Trick or Treat?: Cholera Spreads in Haiti, Sanity Rally, 18 Billion Unaccounted for in Afghan War
October 28th, 2010 - by: danny
News Dissector Radio Today Friday ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com 12-1 PM Guests: Journalist Greg Palast, Financial blogger Aaron Krowne (Ml-implode.com and disssectrix Cherie Welch. Tune in and call in.
New review of my 2008 Book PLUNDER:Investigating Our Economic Calamity
DRAGON WLL BE AT SANITY RALLY
Eddie Becker: If you are in DC this Weekend for the Stewart/Cobert rally -you won’t want to miss this. Behind the scenes look – Direct from Burning Man it’s ABRAXAS the 50 foot dragon that seats 70 – will lead feeder march from Columbia Heights Metro – Gather Saturday, October 30, 2010 – 9:00am
HAPPY HALLOWEEN:
UTICA, New York – For a sizeable number of U.S. adults, ghosts are more than just pranksters in costume for Halloween.
A Zogby Interactive poll found that 37% say they believe in human or animal ghosts, 23% believe they have been visited by a dead relative or friend, and 20% say they have seen or heard a ghost. Another 22% say that while they have not experienced a ghost, they know someone who says they have. It is a topic which seems to capture the imagination of respondents, as three in ten say they are interested in the supernatural.
The poll also asked about participation in Halloween activities, with 87% of people with children saying their kids dress up in costume and 71% trick-or-treat from house to house. Serial killers (such as Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers) costumes were chosen most scary by 35%, with the walking dead and zombies next at 22%.
Cholera Menaces Port Au Prince
Al Jazeera reports; “here are increasing fears that a cholera outbreak in Haiti, which has already killed more than 300 people, could take hold in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“We have been monitoring very closely the spread of this disease and it has been seen to get closer and closer to the capital,” Al Jazeera’s Seb Walker, reporting from Port-au-Prince, said.
“Just about 24 hours ago, the UN announced that there were 174 suspected cases in that town [Cite Soleil]” in the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area.
Health officials have been concerned that the disease, which causes diarrhoea, vomiting and severe dehydration, could reach the capital where hundreds of thousands of people are living in makeshift camps following an earthquake in January.
Our correspondent said neighbourhoods such as Cite Soleil, with “appalling sanitation levels”, had been a concern ever since the first cholera cases were reported last week.
“Officials say they still haven’t found confirmed cases of cholera in the metropolitan area, but some doctors say that may not be the case.”
http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Billions-lost-in-tangled-records-730120.php”>
$18 BILLION IN US RECONSTRUCTION IN AFGHANISTAN UNACCOUNTED FOR–AUDIT
The U.S. government knows it’s awarded nearly $18 billion in contracts for rebuilding Afghanistan over the past three years, but it can’t account for spending before 2007.
Thousands of firms received wartime contracts, but according to a report released Wednesday the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) found it too difficult to untangle how billions of additional dollars had been spent because of the U.S. agencies’ poor record keeping.
The finding raises doubts about whether the U.S. government ever will determine whether taxpayers’ money was spent wisely in Afghanistan.
“Data got better from 2007 on,” said Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman with SIGAR, “but it remains to be seen whether we’ll ever know how much U.S. agencies spent overall.”
Overall, the U.S. has set aside about $55 billion for rebuilding Afghanistan, but that includes agencies’ budget for staff salaries, operations and security. SIGAR couldn’t parse how much was spent on contractors alone.
RAPE, MURDER IN UN CAMBODIAN DETENTION CAMP
Cambodians beaten, raped and killed at illegal detention camp funded by UN
‘Undesirables’ are swept from the streets before being detained without trial, say human rights groups
Foreign Policy: BLOOD ON OUR HANDS?:
Newly released war documents show how the U.S. military, in cable after grimcable, painstakingly chronicled Iraq’s descent into bloody Shiite-on-Sunniviolence. So why did top officials deny the obvious? By Ellen Knickmeyer
Is It Wrong to Kill U.S. Soldiers on Your Xbox?
Our Disaster
Nouriel Roubini Predicting a Fiscal Train Wreck
Post Election GOP War on Financial Reform
Quote of the Day From Naked Capitalism.com
Make no mistake folks, there’s a criminal element atop our financial industry, who operate with both the complicity and culpability of much of our political class. Until we reform our politics and the financial industry, we will not have economic vitality. And we will not have reform, until it is demanded and undertaken by the American people. That is where we are.
Joe Costello, who ran communications for Jerry Brown and, Later, Howard Dean:
David Leonhardt has a piece in the New York Times on how the economy is hurting Obama and the Dems. It’s one of those articles that illustrates that when you’re reading the NYTimes, sometimes you need to check to see if you accidentally clicked over to The Onion.
Here’s what The Onion is reporting in one first page headline:
Democrats: ‘If We’re Gonna Lose, Let’s Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We’ve Made’
MULTI CULTURAL NEWS: Juan Williams Signs New Deal With Fox News
One day after getting fired from NPR, Juan Williams signed a new multi-year deal for an expanded role on Fox News. More »
AFL CIO BLASTS THE BANKS ON VALUATIONS
The Daily Bail by DylanRatigan
William Black: “There Is Bank Fraud Everywhere And BERNANKE Leads The Cover-Up,” -
Peter White, TruthOut :Foreclosuregate Explained: Big Banks on the Brink
Scandal is spreading across Wall St. like a very bad case of
poison ivy. A rash of fraudulent home foreclosures has
exposed some of the nation’s biggest banks to an even worse
condition … bankruptcy.
Until late 2007, the money boys on Wall St. made a bundle in
the housing market. After the bubble burst, they were just
itching to cash in on the down side, calling in all those
bad loans they made and selling off millions of repossessed
homes. According to RealtyTrac, Inc., which compiles such
data, lenders foreclosed on 3.2 million properties in the
last three years, 288,000 in the last quarter, the highest
number on record.
THE BOOT
Michael Moore boots it:
There she was, thrown to the pavement by a Republican in a checkered shirt. Another Republican thrusts his foot in between her legs and presses down with all his weight to pin her to the curb. Then a Republican leader comes over and viciously stomps on her head with his foot. You hear her glasses crunch under the pressure. Holding her head down with his foot, he applies more force so she can’t move. Her skull and brain are now suffering a concussion.
The young woman’s name is Lauren Valle, but she is really all of us. For come this Tuesday, the right wing — and the wealthy who back them — plan to take their collective boot and bring it down hard on not just the head of Barack Obama but on the heads of everyone they simply don’t like.
Teachers union? The boot!
Muslim-looking people? The boot!
Thinking of retiring soon? The boot!
Living in a house you can no longer afford? The boot!
Doing a bit better with your minimum wage? The boot!
Stem cell research, the bullet train, reversing global warming? Ha! The boot for all of you!
What is the uprising in France about? Read this important piece in LeMonde Diplomatique.
Stephen Leahy: IPS’ Runaway Global Economy Decimating Nature
NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 28, 2010 (IPS) – One-fifth of all birds, fish and animals are threatened with extinction – as many as six million unique and irreplaceable forms of life – an authoritative new assessment warned Wednesday.
Deforestation, agricultural expansion, overfishing, invasive alien species and climate change are the specific causes, but the main engine of destruction is an economic system that is blind to the reality that there is no economy or human well-being without nature, experts here say.
“Without global conservation efforts the situation would be massively worse,” noted Simon Stuart, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, which launched the study at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan.
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, it is the most comprehensive assessment ever done of the world’s vertebrates – mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fishes – Stuart said.
In Memorium: Nestor Kirchner, Former President of Argentina
Kirchner Rescued Argentina’s Economy, Helped Unite South America
By Mark Weisbrot The Guardian Unlimited (UK)
The sudden death of Nestor Kirchner is a great loss
not only to Argentina but to the region and the world.
Kirchner took office as president in May 2003, when
Argentina was in the initial stages of its recovery from a
terrible recession. His role in rescuing Argentina’s economy
is comparable to that of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great
Depression of the United States. Like Roosevelt, Kirchner
had to stand up not only to powerful moneyed interests but
also to most of the economics profession, which was
insisting that his policies would lead to disaster. They
proved wrong, and Kirchner was right.
Tax The Sunset Strip?
Billboard Tax Initiative going on LA ballot
Come March, West Hollywood residents will decide whether to tax the companies responsible for the many billboards that litter the Sunset Strip. The West Hollywood City Council has certified the Billboard Tax Initiative, which will be placed on the March 2011 ballot, a controversial plan that’s drawn both support from area residents and outrage from local developers and, surprise, billboard companies. The 7 percent tax on ad revenue received from the leasing of billboards, tall walls and video signs would be deposited into a general fund for city services. It’s separate from another initiative being put in front of the general Los Angeles City Council for a 12 percent tax; that, too, could end up on the March ballot. Analysts expect that if the tax initiative is passed, it will be challenged in court.
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Hereandthere/Huge-stink-over-Marie-Claire-fatties-blog.asp
Letter From Deborah Davis:
Dear Mr. Schechter,
You seem to get what’s going on in the corrupt financial world Americans’ live within, but it’s still much worse than you realize. Would you like a face on it?
No one wants to talk or write about what has happened to me or I’m sure many more Americans whom have since just died in the streets from starvation because of the same reason.
My situation is worse than the Bernie Madoff issue if you can believe it. I say this because as a sixty-one year old single woman with no family, who has had eighty million dollars embezzled from my named Trust by a combination of Trustees, financial elite, my attorney and a couple of national banks, I am silenced. Right where they want me.
My story is like Doris Duke and if Dominick Dunne were still alive, I’m confident there would be a lifetime movie made about my life. A life full of love, laughter, children and accomplishments. But behind my back, all these financial elite were laundering my money into their pockets while tampering with the account statements and lying to me at annual meetings about investments, taxes and how to make my portfolio grow.
When I was about twenty-one years old, (1969) my parents both died the same year and by 1979 I was worth close to six million dollars. Of course my assets were being cared for by the elite of the elite. Justice Kennedy, my attorney, also a relative of mine advised that I create a trust to protect my assets, which I did.
In 1997 my husband of twenty-four years tried to kill me, when I survived, he comendeered my family to have me committed to a mental hospital. I was proven to be sane. By 2000 my whole family abandoned me. In 2004, I found all the answers I was deperately seeking….I learned that my named Trust assets had been, skimmed and embezzled, the funds laundred into my husbands business. I understood why my family dumped me from their lives. I was really worth eighty million dollars but it was all gone except for seven hundred thousand dollars which had been frozen during my devorice, which by the way I found out later was just another ploy to force me to take out a loan, so the bank could continue to destroy me. There was no reason to freeze my funds.
My divorce attorney advised that I take out a small loan so I’d have money to live on and manage by new business.
I still had two multi-million dollar homes owned outright by my Trust, so I put them on the market. I created and built a business with my business partner, Larry. Things were going well while I hired a California attorney to file a lawsuit to retrieve my assets and by this time another suit against KeyBank who was committing federal crimes and felonies against me.
I reported all these federal crimes to three Attorney Generals, the US Attorney General, the FBI and all the financial watchdogs in the country starting in 2004. They ignored me.
Meanwhile the attorney I hired to file my suits wasn’t showing up in court; withholding evidence from the Judge and allowing discovery time to pass. Plus, he was busy committing more federal crimes and felonies as well as ethical violations against me. Soon he evicted me from my two million dollar home… stealing half of my belongings. The bank foreclosed on my other home while breaking almost every federal banking law there is. One of these crimes was foreclosing on a home in a trust using a personal loan which I was paid up on a year in advance and my home still had a million and a half dollars of equity in it.
All this cost me fifteen million dollars.
By this time I was penniless, while Larry and I lost our business because of this legal mess which was no fault of my own, other than trusting the people I loved and my attorney whom I was expecting were still behind the scenes colluding to finish me off financially.
Now both Larry and my credit is destroyed unlawfully because of my mess and the loss of our business
I wrote all the authorities again adding now the California State Bar concerning the California attorney. Attorney General Brown sent me to the Orange County District Attorney who sent me to the Anaheim Police Economic Crime Unit. Months and months later I receive from the California State Bar in writing, “We don’t have the resources to charge this man.”
Mind you this California attorney, who committed all these crimes against me has also been found to be practicing law under thirteen counts of advertising fraud for thirty years. Not to mention he destroyed my Trust case because he didn’t show up in court so the Judge dismissed it.
The Anaheim Police wrote me in July 2010, (I’ll paraphrase) “This isn’t serious enough for the APD to investigate but we’ll keep your file in case someone else complains.” Come on, come on, come on. This is outrageous and I believe no one will do anything because I’m a single woman with no family whom they expect will just die in the streets.
Today, Larry and I are together, each others greatest support and if I’ve learned anything I know what real love is finally. But because none of the authorities, which our taxes pay to protect us, will investigate this outrageous heist of my assets and the crimes of KeyBank and others, Larry and I have had to sell everything we ever owned. We can’t retain employment, have bank accounts or cash a check. We live in a tent now and have been homeless for two years. The other culprits to this are Paine Webber, the National Bank of Detroit, (Chase), McDonald Investments and Trustees.
I’ve learned to accept how greedy and ugly this world can be and even can accept the loss of my family. However, the federal crimes and felonies being committed by banks, brokerage companies and the financial elite against the consumer leaves me speechless. Then the authorities will do nothing. No wonder this Country is such a mess.
There is no way our economy will improve amidst the foundation of financial and government committing crimes against the public. Dah!
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About Danny Schechter
Danny Schechter is an Emmy award winning journalist, television producer and independent filmmaker who also writes, blogs and speaks about media issues.
His latest film is PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time.
Mr. Schechter is NOT the Godfather of Soul.
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