Good Riddance to the Summer of ’11; Your Letters on My Take on Obama
August 31st, 2011 - by: danny
The News Dissector blog is a bit long today because I have been inundated by responses to my essay on Obama. Thanks to all who write. I will share more comments tomorrow!
Good Bye and Good Riddance
Let us bow our heads and say a solemn farewell and good riddance to the summer of 2011 that gave us all a disturbing view of what faces these disunited states in the years ahead,
The planet checked in at summer’s end with warnings that we had to check out: an earthquake followed by a hurricane with volcano warnings, devastating floods and damages in the billions, costs that just add to the bigger bill coming due from the wars without end, and political stalemate without a solution.
The mighty Ayn Rand-quoting Tea Party Army ‘deployed’ all its power of intimidation to insure that Congress would remain paralyzed, and cutting costs which also meant cutting jobs and slicing hopes for any improvement in the economic decline.
It was the summer of politicians cutting their noses to spite their faces, months of trench warfare by GOP kamikazes on suicide missions.
Their bluster and bragadacio did not a job create but it has had a disproportionate effect thanks to spinelessness in high places:
Yet. by the end of this month, one poll revealed, “Four of the announced GOP candidates are tied or ahead of President Barack Obama, with Romney the only one with a lead beyond the poll’s margin of error.:
OMG, Good Golly Miss Molly: It may all be coming down.
It was the summer of economic collapse following an irresponsible downgrade provoked by hard headed right-wing extremists in suits. The market volatility that followed in its wake swept across Europe which now menaces the global economy. We are in collapse mode.
It was the summer of DSK and The Maid with the Frenchmen exonerated without a trial thanks to a million dollar defense and a woman who couldn’t sustain a credible story to the satisfaction of prosecutors. (Who rarely use that standard in other cases!)
Meanwhile, financial criminals went free on Wall Street while the president and his bundlers gave them a pass,
The living wasn’t easy in this summer of depression for many and luxury life styles for a few.
The Great War on Terror seems to have captured Libya’s sweet oil when the brutal leaders in Yemen, Syria and Bahrain go free,. As the people in Somalia face another famine, and Israel delays yet another peace deal, and as China tightens its opposition to human rights while one of its artists gives us a statue of Dr. King for the Washington Mall, its back to hypocrisy and indifference as usual.
The great hopes of years past slip away to be replaced by fear and trepidation,
CNBC: Full Fledged Crisis Ahead?
FEMA: ALMOST BROKE
M-L Implode.com: Wealthy Use Auctions to Sell U.S. Mansions as Homes Languish on the Market
Real estate auctions, long used in the sale of foreclosed properties, are becoming more popular among wealthy homeowners to drum up interest for mansions that have languished on the market after the housing crash. In exchange for a quicker sale, many sellers are accepting price cuts of 50 percent or more.”
Guardian: Middle class slipping into homelessness.
The Raw Story: Col. Wilkerson: If someone will ‘“Pinochet”‘ Dick Cheney, I’ll testify.
We Have Been Here Before by conflict resolution Guu Johan Galtung* – TRANSCEND
At the time of writing what BBC and NATO call the Final Chapter is being written in the Libya-Gaddafi tragedy. Like the final chapter for Yugoslavia-Milosevic, for Afghanistan-Omar, for Iraq-Saddam, for War on Terror-bin Laden; get The Bad One. There will come more final chapters in this neo-crusade. Like in the 1090s crusade, orthodox Christians were also target of their “mission”.
We do not know how this “final chapter” will read, but, will use past experience as a guide to the chapters beyond. This is a trivial but quite useful approach. As somebody said, who does not learn from history will relive it, first time as a tragedy, then as a farce.
After destroying Gaddafi symbols there will be a ceremony celebrating NATO victory-all know who brought down Gaddafi. So vulgar as to fill an aircraft carrier with heads of government and state-a Sarkozy, a Cameron, a Stoltenberg, a Berlusconi, key bombardiers-in-chief-declaring Mission Accomplished, and lining up for oil contracts promised, like Bankrupt Big Brother, BBB? Hardly. There will be some European style to the ceremony. They may even drop that part and go straight to the routine conference, like Petersberg I for Afghanistan-drafting a constitution, setting dates for free elections and-if captured alive, the West’s International Criminal Court routine for Gaddafi.
Before that there will be massive burning of Libyan uniforms and “loyalists” dressing up in everyday garb preparing for the long haul. After a week, a month, a year, ten years-who knows-there will come the wayside bombs; the sabotage of pipelines, of refineries; the inability of the Benghazi clan with adherents to counter the Syrte clan with its adherents. The drift toward NATO occupation with ground forces, of course to train the new Libyan army. Ever more drones and Apache helicopters. In short, everything normal.
Today: New York Times reports rivalries among rebel factions and tribes undermine their unity.
Frank Rich, If The Terrorists Lost, Who Won?
News You May Have Missed from Harper’s.org
An Iowa woman was fined for a towel assault on a salon
worker after being denied a bikini wax because she was
intoxicated, federal agents raided two Gibson Guitar
factories in Tennessee in search of illegal wood, and a
Nashville interstate on-ramp was briefly closed after
four canisters of bull semen fell from a Greyhound. “The
bus did not know it lost its load,” reported
WKRN-TV
strong>BAMMING BAM: Commenting on Your Comments On My Comment
Yesterday, I published a piece about how I felt I had been seduced by the idea of Barack Obama, and reflected on why I supported him in 2008.
Some comments on Facebook were disdainful and hyper-critical, one even suggesting that my support for him made me culpable in war crimes. The thrust of other comments was how could I —and presumably the millions who voted for him,— be so naïve and stupid.
In my article, I wrote that many of us will vote for him. I didn’t say I would but many readers seemed to have read that into that statement. I was speaking of many Democratic voters. You will note I criticized today’s rebels becoming tomorrow’s rationalizers.
One comment chastised me for explaining why I didn’t think Hillary Clinton was a real alternative. A recent article in the New York Times Magazine by a Hillary booster concluded in some detail that had she been elected she wouldn’t do much that was different from Obama & Co, In any event, she joined the Administration and has not been critical publicly,
I don’t want to refight the 2008 “change” election, but I do want to make two points.
All politics is not partisan or electoral. Unfortunately, to many the horse race is all that matters,
I disagree and have spent a considerable amount of time and effort making two films, and writing three books about the economic crisis. I have argued in countless articles, essays and commentaries that the fight for economic justice is what matters. I have also criticized progressives for not being more active on that front and prefer to spend too much their time bashing right-wing politicians and lining up behind Democrats.
Secondly, we all have to be judged by what we do, not just what candidates we vote for . I am a partisan of grass roots political action, not Party controlled and media mediated campaigns, with their polls, superficial soundbites and manipulation.
I, like many, had hoped for a different outcome after 2008, but I don’t have what eggs I own in the Obama basket,
Change has to come from below and political activists need to oppose institutional power not just individual politicians and their media boosters.
My orientation is explained in more depth in my work on the origins of the financial crisis, the film, Plunder The Crime of Our Time, and the companion book, The Crime of Our Time. Those works are not kind to the president’s policies.
Some of Your Letters
Ray McGovern, a retired intelligence professional of conscience who briefed Presidents writes:
“great piece on believing and then pain!!!!!!!! really good thanks, ray.” You can read Ray’s writings on his new website: raymondmcgovern.com
Rupah Shah writes:
I have just read your article (on Obama)…… absolutely great. I could not articulate like you but you have written exactly how I feel. However, I for one am not going to vote for him again unless he does something spectacular to prove he is what he made us believe what he was.
Esti writes:
Yes, yes, yes. it is so astute, describes my evolution (it began with
his appearance at AIPAC during the campaign, but i buried the twinge of
warning and moved on hoping for the best) and i agree with all of it
and have much more to add. i have decided that i will not vote for
Obama again no matter who the republicans nominate.
things are really bad, eh?
Mel L. O’Cat writes:
I read your essay, “Oh, The Pain…” with some interest
until I reached the paragraph excerpted below. Then
I wondered, why bother writing the essay at all? What’s
the point of dissecting and complaining about the
betrayals if you’re just going to vote that son of a bitch
again?
The two party system has brought America to the edge
of ruin, partly because every four years people vote for
the lesser of two evils — essentially no choice at all.
For me, the time has come to reject both of these degraded,
corrupt gangs of thieves and liars. I’ll vote for a third party
regardless of the consequences. In fact, I welcome the
consequences. Four more years of Barack? That’s the
same as four more years of Bush Jr. except that all of the
blame for what happens will properly be assigned to him
and to the Democrats. And then what choices will you have
in the voting booth?
Eric Remington, among others seems to think I am voting for Barack Again.
I wrote this comment in response to your essay, Barack’s Betrayals Offer Lessons We Can’t Deny, on ReaderSupportedNews.
I doubt they will print it. You should; especially if you are voting for Obama.
You should also ask yourself why you missed a necessary step in the political process. One that addresses your expressed concerns, as a solution.
That is Primary Elections: the only elections with choice.
If you are simply suggesting that others, like you, will rationalize their dispair over what we have for the alternative, but not you. I am only half-right in my insolence.
Hopefully this is printed, as to express proper contempt, for your essays failures, and not for what, was otherwise, well written.
——————————————————————–
What a waste of time.
This guy has the nerve to insult his “not so smart” brethren at Harvard.
You can keep your miserable company, and you don’t need to explain why they are not so smart. They must have gotten A’s in your class.
Are you kidding me with this crap?
I guess this is a case of do-unto-others, … but what did I do to you?
Where is the strength? The insight? The Harvard standard?
Or is this it? Just suck up the reality. Mope and bear it?
I thought, for a moment, that at least the professors get it.
But alas, no.
This to you, Einstein.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS.
The only elections with choice.
My God.
BRB. Have to vomit.”
Pana writes: “Right on!
I too was duped.
Thank you for your article. It expressed my sentiments exactly.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan
Maxwell Aley writes;
Thanks for your mea culpa. You speak for most of us who are politically aware on the left. Chris Hedges said it in ” the Election March of the Trolls”, and I felt even grimmer. However, I, for one, will not vote again for Obama. I cannot in good conscience whatever the pragmatic course might be. Obama has deceived us and will continue to do so as the Orwellian face of the ruling class. We cannot serve the cause of needed transformation of this society and culture by voting for him again.
Although voting is an important part of the game, it is not the most important part. The movement is what counts, and the defeat of Obama by one of the Republican Trolls will help to highlight the problems we face and is an opportunity to organize and advance the real change that is needed. Let’s talk now openly about what is needed, namely, a real democratic socialist program (let’s make the term acceptable in the debate) starting with taxpayer funded election campaigns and the call for federal job programs, single payer health insurance, free public education all the way from K-12 through technical schools, college and graduate school, the restoration of progressive taxation right up to 90% at the highest bracket, the replacement of the the Federal Reserve by a Federal National Bank with branches everwhere, an effective anti-trust program, the social ownership of the most important industrial activities, starting with the armaments and military contractors businesses (take away the profit aspect), severe cuts to military spending and limit to only essential national defense, withdrawal from most of our foreign military bases, etc, etc.etc, complete reform of Wall Street (if not a replacement).
I think we can develop about ten key issues that will meet the needs of our country and our working people. And let’s hammer those points during the election campaign to show that neither of the two presidential candidates are on point. And we’ll vote for the candidate who adopts our program.
We have a large number of politically and socially concerned groups, including the unions; if we can help to pull all of ourselves together we can accomplish a stunning defeat of the Democratic Party and its Obamas and Pelosi’s and Bacus’s, et al, and we will prove that the the Republican president to be elected would be illegitmate. We”ll take it from there.
Let’s make this election the catalyst for real change in good old USA. What do we have to lose? “Only our chains?”
Murray Polner writes:
Bravo! As a lifelong antiwar liberal, I wrote a similar piece about Obama and his foreign policy back in March 2010 for The American Conservative magazine.
You liken him to Hoover. He reminds me of James Buchanan.
Marianne Thompson writes
I completely agree with everything you said in your article about Obama
and the pain of believing in him. Courageous of you to write this. I just
as completely disagree with you going to vote for him
again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What you don’t realize is both parities
are in the pickets of the same crooks and voting for Obama again in light
of what you wrote is betraying your own conscience. Marianne
Anne Peticolas writes from Austin Texas:
Well, you can vote for him – but I can’t and won’t. And I think it’s a big mistake. (like you , I was fooled before, and did vote for him – never again).
And whenever I get mail from Obama for America, I write NO WAY, ARE YOU JOKING? and enclose a column like yours – postage-paid at their expense.
It breaks my heart when I remember the Pete Seeger song at the inaugural – and the hopes we had –
It’s not good enough to be a slightly better bad person, and at least more Democrats might FIGHT the other terrible candidate . . . as they should be fighting this awful man.
Not voting for him, urge you not to.
Ric writes:
“Yet, at the same time, many of us who now know how we have been used,
will vote for him again, because, as he rightly calculates, there is no
one else, and the alternative is even worse. Watch and weep as today’s
rebels become next year’s rationalizers.”
No. No more. If there is no one else, then no one will get my vote. If
the alternative should win, then perhaps the kick in the face that the
“alternative” gives to the public might make that public aware of just
how badly they have failed to act as responsible citizens, and then, and
only then, might we have a chance to turn away from the foulness of the
right.
No. No more. Come what may, no more. There comes a point where personal
integrity, when dignity, demands to be listened to and acted upon. Now
is the time, and if the act required is even the small one of refusing
to vote for liars and cheats and incompetents again, then so be it. No.
No more.
–
Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.”
Barb BF writes:
I was not betrayed…after reading Larry Pinkney’s articles on Obama in 2008…I voted for Nader. I knew he had no chance of winning…but I kept remembering..the lesser of 2 evils is still evil.
Jerry Policoff writes:
Great piece Danny. It closely parallels my own feelings. I also had major issues with Hillary, but Obama left me a bit uneasy as well. That possible CIA connection bothered me, and his relationship with companies like Exelon did as well. He also gutted an Illinois healthcare bill that was assigned to his committee when he was in the Legislature. It was originally intended to morph into a single-payer law, but he gave all the special interests a seat at the table and turned it into a bill any health insurance executive could love. I originally supported Edwards and then turned to Obama, but I was never anything close to an Obamamaniac. I was hoping he would prove my misgivings to be unwarranted. Instead he is far worse than I ever imagined he would or could be. I think the Wall Street interests personified by the Hamilton Project groomed him for the job, and he has not disappointed them. The Hamilton Project was originally designed to weaken the influence of progressives on the Democratic Party, and Obama has not only shown himself not to be a progressive, but to actually have disdain for us.
Danny, Rob Kall (who I understand is a friend of yours), and I and a few others have been talking about the possibility of starting a movement not unlike the “dump Johnson” movement launched by Al Lowenstein back in 1967. We feel the signs are starting to emerge that Obama, much like LBJ, may well be unelectable in 2012, and that in the interests of the Democratic Party and the country he should step aside and not run for re-election. The fact that Lowenstein was able to pull it off may also convince people that we can too. Yes, I know we ended up with Nixon, but if Bobby Kennedy had not been assassinated things might have turned out differently. What are your thoughts? Would you be interested in participating or in helping us spread the word? Rob has been running an interactive poll on this at Op Ed News, and so far 784% of participants want Obama to pull out of the race. Last week’s AP poll indicated that 28% of Democrats want to see Obama primaried and 49% of registered voters do not believe he should be re-elected. I think those numbers will grow
Guy Cottman writes from Dubai: “I thought you article on Barack Obama was spot on.”.
Elizabeth Axtell writes:
Obama’s presidency has not only been a disappointment, it has been a
disaster. I will not vote for Mr. Obama in 2012; I will vote third
party or write in a name. Time for folks to say, THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!
Gene Schulman writes:
“Okay, it’s my gut. But it’s an educated gut. Yes, it would seem unlikely with such a large war chest. But I have a theory. Not a conspiracy theory, mind you, unless we can believe just one person can conspire. Like you, everyone else thinks I’m a bit quirky when I talk about this, and would not think of conspiring in my fantasies.
I believe Obama was picked to run the first time with a specific job of convincing the American people that after eight years of Bush, policies would change. And America would become a “kinder and gentler” place. He, and his oligarchic promoters did a good job, and Obama was elected. But once in office he would resort, under cover of that reputation, to continuing the same policies that prevailed under Bush. It has taken a long time for that to become evident, but evident it is becoming as each new day dawns, with each new scandalous act: health care, continuation and expansion of the wars, unqualified support for Israel, collapsing economy and transfer of wealth to the elite. I think Obama has done an excellent job for the role he was given. However, now that his mask is slipping, I believe he will not be able to pull it off again, and I think his handlers think that too. So here is what happens: the real political power in this country do not want the Tea Party set to win this election, which is possible as Obama loses following. He elects (is chosen) not to run for a second term; a replacement is chosen – maybe Hillary or some other insider – who wins, because all the corporate money will go into a PR job like the last one, convincing everyone that change is again on the way. Bingo!
And the horror show continues ………………….
Lyman writes:
Where is the outrage from America? Where are those Liberals who backed Obama? Where are those with enough courage to confront these lunatics of the GOP? My fingers are worn to the bone from writing to Paul Krugman and his ilk. Pundits pour from the news and opinion channels with their frothy diatribes each attacking the other.
Are we so blind that we can’t see the subterfuge? This is what the far right want. This is victory for them. They enjoy sticking it to Obama who is comfortable ingratiating Boehner every time he gets a slap in the face. How Christian can one get? Let’s have a little more of the tossing of the money changers out of the temples. I’m not so young that I don’t remember the effects of the last depression. I’m a war baby. I remember ration stamps and the absence of meat. People younger than me have no such experience and mores the pity.
This mewling and puking generation is about to face a rude awakening. The rich will still have theirs. They always do. But the riches will dwindle to millions instead of billions. How very sad.
There is no rumbling in the streets. Pitchforks are still in the barn. Most of the current gen-x and gen-y kids have no idea what I’m ranting about. Their only retort is ‘What’s your problem, Jack?’ Some are even happy with their McJobs thinking that it’s only temporary. Come daybreak and they face the fact that this is it and then the tears begin to fall. But will it be too late? Will all those jobs that could have been now all be overseas?
Or am I closing the barn door too late? We are the Third World and don’t even know it.
The Tea Party that Liberals all thought was such a joke, is having the last laugh. They may be idiots, but the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The King of Hearts will be some loud mouth nitwit who has mustered the anger of tax payers into thinking that government is a bad thing. The sadness of the that assumption is government has done little to dispel the rumor.
I want to continue, but my rage is subsiding. Please continue your good work. You are needed.
Your comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
See the whole Post / →
Bamming Bam: Oh, The Pain Of The Believer And The Decline Of The Obama Illusion
August 30th, 2011 - by: danny
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times “Is there such a thing as a global mood? It certainly feels like it. I cannot remember a time when so many different countries, all over the world, were gripped by some form of street protest or popular revolt. 2011 is turning into the year of global indignation.”
Essay: Oh, The Pain of The Believer: Barack’s Betrayals Offer Lessons We Can’t Deny
By Danny Schechter
Journalists are not supposed to have political opinions, and yet we all do. Our “biases” are usually disguised, not blatant or overtly partisan, and can be divined in what stories we cover and how we cover them,
Even ‘just the fact’s ma’am,’ journos for big Media have to decide which facts to include and which to ignore.
Our outlooks are always shaped by our worldviews, values and experience, not too mention the outlets we work for.
Which brings me to the challenge of seeking truth and recognizing it when you see it.
I have to admit that I was seduced by the idea of Barack Obama.
The idea of a black President, the idea of a young President, the idea of an articulate President, and the idea of a man married to such a stand up women from a working class family was hard to resist.
Here’s a guy who seemed really smart, not just because he went to Harvard but because professors there I liked were impressed with him. (I taught at Harvard, and know very well how not so smart many students there can be!)
In the end, it doesn’t mean much, but in that period he lived about a block away from the House I once shared on Dartmouth Street in Somerville.
Was that a degree of separation?
He had also been a community organizer, starting in politics at the grass roots in Chicago. I also worked at Saul Alinsky-style organizing and even knew the iconic organizer personally.
Was that another degree?
He’s invoked the spirit of the civil rights movement but was not part of it. He treated Dr. King as a monument before the new memorial was conceived, embracing him as a symbol of the past, not a guide to the future.
He took an anti-war stance on pragmatic grounds only, preferring Afghanistan to Iraq. He hasn’t extricated us from either battlefield.
His strategy borrowed heavily from the Bush Doctrine. What’s the difference, really, as US troops now intervene worldwide and Guantanamo remains open for business?
There was a lot I didn’t know. I didn’t know the backgrounds of those that groomed him and funded him. His relationship with the centrist DLC was murky as were the details on the services he performed for a shadowy firm, Business International, said to have CIA links.
There were those who warned, but I guess, I didn’t want to listen.
Why? I didn’t want to reinforce my own skepticism and sense of despair. I feigned at being hopeful even as I took quite a few critical whacks at his positions in my blog. His deviations from a liberal agenda and his paens to the “free market” were considered necessary for his “electability.”
I was also influenced by the euphoria for him overseas that had become infectious but has since soured.
To be honest, I was so disgusted with eight years of George Bush for all the right reasons that I wanted him gone full stop, as did millions of Americans.
Hillary didn’t appeal to me, not because she’s a woman but because of her slavish affinity for the Israel lobby and middle of the road Democrats. (Yes, Obama, did his mea-culpa to AIPAC too!)
I was denounced as a super sexist by a few for not buying into her centrist Clintonista crusade.
She had gone from a student advocate to part of a ruling family; he went from bottom-up activism to top-down elitism.
When she joined his “team,” you knew they were always in the same league.
When the right bashed him for associating with radical Bill Ayers, who I knew, it made me suspect he might even be cooler than I thought, even as he raced to distance himself. His membership in Reverend Wright’s church hinted at a deeper consciousness until he buckled in the media heat and threw the man that married him under the bus.
And yet, I wanted to believe because I needed to believe, needed to believe it was possible to change the American behemoth, to believe that, as he kept saying, “it could be different this time.”
As the late writer David Foster Wallace put it, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult life…there is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship… else (what) you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough.”
So, in a sense, I became a worshiper like so many, not of the man or the dance he was doing in an infected political environment, but because I convinced myself that I worshiped possibility, that there are times when the unexpected, even the unbelievable occurs. I had seen Mandela go from prison to the presidency of South Africa.
History happens.
After all, how does a progressive blast a candidate who has Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger singing the uncensored version of “This Land Is Your Land” at his inaugural?”
Yet, there was always a nagging question: was he with us or just co-opting us?
Yes We Can?
Slowly, despite the glow and the aura, deeper truths surfaced, realities I had winked away. Its not surprising that his mantra has gone, as the Washington Post reports, from the “fierce urgency of now,” to “ Be patient, democracy is big and tough and messy.” Now journalists who supported him use terms like “wimpy,” “meek,” “anemic” and “tone deaf” to describe his discourse.
Yes, I knew, I may have been rationalizing a false god, who was only another, if more attractive, politician who says one thing and does another in a political system where power, not personalities prevail.
Like many of his predecessors he would be “captured” by the power structures, by the military men and contractors at the Pentagon and the money men on Wall Street.
He was in office but never really in charge. Clearly, he didn’t have the votes to enact a real change agenda. But that was because his own party was long ago bought and paid for.
He never had a chance, even if as I wanted to believe, he wanted one. He said he wanted to be transformational figure but the system transformed him—and quickly.
Everyone runs “against Washington,” even a Senator, who was part of it.
And so I held my nose and voted, hoping against my wiser instincts. I even made a positive film about the campaign that showed how he used social media and texting to mobilize new voters. When I tried to get a copy to the White House, through an insider there, I found they couldn’t be less interested.
By then, he had gone from playing the “outside game” to opting into the “inside game” built around compromise in the name of “pragmatism, or ‘getting it done,” in his words. In the end he was a rookie who may have outsmarted himself or just served the interests who put him there.
He couldn’t dump his most passionate and issue-oriented followers fast enough.
While his backers were still hot to trot, he became cooler toward them, and, in effect, repudiated them with few progressive appointments. He put on his flag pin and relished the symbolism of the “office.” He became the master of the uplifting speech disguising a quite different policy agenda.
He spoke for the people but served the power. His wanted the other side to love him too, even as his stabs at “bi-partisanship” proved non-starters.
When you lie down with those “lambs,” (or is it snakes?) you betray not only supporters, but their hopes. FDR was soon spinning in his grave.
I am not surprised that knowledgeable critics of his economic policies not only consider him bull-headed and wrong, but, actually corrupt, aligned and complicit, with the banksters who are still ripping us off. No wonder he’s ”bundled” more donations from the greedsters and financiers this year than in 2008! No wonder, he turned his back on consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren and is trying to kill prosecutions of bank fraud in high places.
Christopher Whalen who writes for Reuters say there will be a cost for his doing nothing, “The path of least resistance politically has been to temporize and talk. But by following the advice of Rubin and Summers, and avoiding tough decisions about banks and solvency, President Obama has only made the crisis more serious and steadily eroded public confidence. In political terms, Obama is morphing into Herbert Hoover.”
Yet, at the same time, many of us who now know how we have been used, will vote for him again, because, as he rightly calculates, there is no one else, and the alternative is even worse. Watch and weep as today’s rebels become next year’s rationalizers.
It reminds me of when activists were asked to vote for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 with the slogan “Part of the Way with LBJ.” That way ended with an endless escalation of war in Vietnam, and guns trumping butter. Sound familiar?
The search for truth and reality has hit a wall but has to continue. The lessons need to be learned. We have to say we were wrong, when we were, not in our beliefs, but in pinning our hopes on a shrewd, ambitious, and double-faced political performance artist.
While people who still back him dismiss the accusation that’s he’s a hidden socialist, Kenyan, or space alien, all too many suspect he may be a secret Republican. He is who he is, aloof, cautious, and a man in the middle. He’s staying there.
Let’s give David Foster the last word.
“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness,…
… It is about simple awareness – awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over…”
Filmmaker and News Dissector Danny Schechter edits the Newsdissector.com blog. He directed “Barack Obama: People’s President” (2009) for a South African media company.
Obama Ratings Fizzling
UTICA, NY–Majorities of likely voters continue to disapprove of President Barack Obama’s job performance (60%) and say it is “time for someone new” (55%) in the White House.
Among those who do approve of Obama’s performance, 34% say they are disappointed by the president, but don’t want to undermine him by saying they disapprove.
The job approval and re-election results in the Aug. 25-29 IBOPE Zogby interactive poll are little changed from the last similar survey conducted Aug. 2-4.
Washington Post: For millions, recession is the new normal
For millions, the recession has become permanent, no longer a crisis to endure so much as a reality to accept; and, a record number of people exist on the fringes of the workforce.
Dean Baker: Don’t Expect Much From Obama’s Job Message
Obama Names New Economic Advisor #3: ‘Obama nominates Alan Krueger as his new chief economist’
National Journal: Alan Krueger’s appointment to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers will strengthen Obama’s much-depleted economic team, but don’t expect him to radically shake up the administration’s approach to job creation. In truth, his success in the job will depend instead on Krueger’s ability to focus Obama’s efforts on a relentless campaign to address sky-high unemployment.
Katrina: Six Years Later
Recovery’: Black death, devastation and depopulation to “build back better”
6 Years After Katrina, Lower 9th Ward Still Bleak
Six years after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast,the New Orleans the Lower 9th. black neighborhood hardest hit is still a ghost town. Redevelopment has been slow in coming, and the neighborhood has just 5,500 residents – one-third its pre-Katrina population..In the Lower 9th Ward, the fire station for Engine 39 hasn’t been rebuilt…firefighters use a trailer. Schools and churches are boarded up. Scores of houses still bear the familiar “X” spray painted on doors and the front of houses to designate a building had been searched… The only difference is they are faded now. But politicians, investors and celebrities continue to promise a better future … for the area that hasn’t had one supermarket in 20 years…Developers hope to get federal hurricane recovery low-interest and forgivable loans…Other parts of New Orleans have flourished thanks to federal recovery dollars that have brought new businesses, schools and streets. Entrepreneurship and civic engagement is up, city schools have shown test-score gains and the middle class is growing, according to a new report by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center tracking the city’s recovery…Not everyone is convinced.
David J. Livingstona Wisconsin-based grocery consultant who studied the New Orleans market, said the Lower 9th Ward is too depopulated to support a supermarket, questioned whether the Lower 9th Ward can ever be a lively spot for commerce…
CLG: SeizeDC! After much deliberation, the CLG has decided to postpone Seize DC until the spring of 2012. We believe that more time is necessary for the protest momentum to build in light of austerity measures and extended and intensified military interventions and wars. Please remain on the Seize DC protest alert list and stay apprised of plans as they develop for a spring Seize DC protest.
Other stories of interest
Der Spiegel Via Huff Post: Wikileaks Inadvertently Leaks Documents Naming Names
Other recent leaks from Wikileaks (Electronic Intifada)
Special Wikileaks revelations coverage:
Special treatment gives Israeli mobsters free access to US soil: WikiLeaks
Did Wikileaks just reveal the US blueprint for Libya?
Dissector Interview on Press TV on the Islamaphobia Report
What is True?
News Via NATO re events in SIrte, Libya: “Print
BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO says Libya’s warring sides in the Gadhafi stronghold of Sirte are now engaged in “discussions.”
Col. Roland Lavoie also says NATO’s role will continue as long as civilians in the country are under threat, although the area around the capital Tripoli is now “essentially free.”
He spoke to reporters Tuesday near Naples, where NATO’s Libya operation is headquartered, and by video link to journalists in Brussels, as well.
News About Sirte Via Russia: Protecting Civilians? Bombing Continues
For the third day in a row, NATO aircraft are conducting massive missile and bomb strikes on the city of Sirte, home town of Muammar Gaddafi, not allowing anyone to escape. The city perimeter is surrounded by rebel check points, behind which there are special forces units from Britain, France, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
The exit from the city is completely blocked. Neither women, nor children are allowed to leave. Men, captured attempting to leave the town together with their families, are shot. Their families are sent back into the city under bombing. There is practically no way to bury the corpses, stated in a letter that was received at Argumenty.ru this morning. The writer is a former officer in the Soviet and later Russian special forces, who is now in Sirte.
The former officer of the Soviet, then Russian special forces, a retired lieutenant colonel Ilya Korenev, whom [Argumenti.ru] have earlier called a “source”, and who is close to Colonel Gaddafi, decided to mention his name in the letter.
In the city until now no troops, rebels or special forces have dared to enter. In the night there were many small provocations in order to try to establish the locations of the government troops. Several small squads of rebels tried a probing action in the night to reconnaissance, but were destroyed. At the same time in the air at that time was a remote-controlled reconnaissance spying aircraft (UAV) “drone”, which exposed the city’s defense. After an hour air attacks took place on these plotted points. However, defenders of the city have already left their positions to other locations, writes the lieutenant colonel.”
Gareth Porter, IPS, Hariri Bombing Indictment Based on Flawed Premise
WASHINGTON, Aug 29, 2011 (IPS) – The indictment of four men linked to Hezbollah in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri made public by the Special Tribunal on Lebanon Aug. 17 is questionable not because it is based on “circumstantial evidence”, but because that evidence is based on a flawed premise.
The evidence depends on a convoluted theory involving what the indictment calls “co-location” of personal mobile phones associated with five distinct networks said to be somehow connected with the plot to murder Hariri.
The indictment, originally filed Jun. 10, says that, if there are “many instances” in which a phone is “active at the same location, on the same date, and within the same time frame as other phones”, but the phones do not contact each other, then it is “reasonable to conclude from these instances that one person is using multiple phones together”.
Military Resistance: Controversy Over Approved Shoes For US Army
Aug 29, 2011 By Lance M. Bacon – Staff writer, Army Times [Excerpts]
An Army message about footwear certainly stepped on some toes.
The wear of shoes that feature “five separate, individual compartments for the toes” is prohibited in All Army Activities message 239/2011. Such shoes “detract from a professional military image,” the message said.
Soldiers are not allowed to wear them with the individual physical fitness uniform or when conducting physical training in military formation.
When Army Times first reported the rule, it drew an immediate response from runners.
Many said the Army was forfeiting safety and performance for aesthetics.
The decision was made by Sergeant Major of the Army Raymond Chandler and his board of directors, which is composed of key command sergeants major.
“The decision was based on the lack of conformity with the Army’s conservative professional appearance,” said Hank Minitrez, a spokesman for Army G-1.
More commentary on Hurricane Hype (Undernews): Category 5 coverage of a Category 1 storm
Too much of the on air reporting of Hurricane Irene sounded like the news folk were reading from a thesaurus entry for the word “disastrous” and coming up with a new synonym every other sentence. It is true as Nate Silver argues, that the coverage in size was not extraordinary, but the coverage in tone certainly was. Like everything else in contemporary American life, we seemed to have lost any sense of subtlety and gradation.
Will Bunch, Philadelphia Daily News – As the cleanup from Irene’s whirlwind weekend visit continues today in Philadelphia and elsewhere on the Eastern Seaboard, the cyclone leaves behind a Category 5 controversy.
You can certainly argue that Irene wasn’t overhyped, since the storm caused at least 18 deaths, widespread flooding and power outages for more than 1 million customers. You can also make the case that more people might have died were it not for the unusually expansive evacuation orders and the media coverage that they received.
On the other hand, the nonstop TV hyping of worst-case scenarios even after more-responsible forecasters saw as early as Thursday that Irene would not be a major hurricane caused millions to expect something far, far worse – “the East Coast Katrina,” or maybe the water wall from The Ten Commandments – than what showed up.
Longtime media writer Howard Kurtz, now with the Daily Beast, nailed the disparity when he said that although Irene did prove to be a Category 1 storm, causing significant disruption, it received Category 5 coverage into the weekend.
RSN: New Audit Shows Federal Reserve Spent 16 TRILLION on Secret Bailouts.
And Finally:
‘Michele Bachmann: Hurricane Irene Is God’s Warning To Washington; Campaign Says She Was Joking’
The News Dissector Blog and Globalvision Inc. are seeking interns and volunteers interested in contributing to our work and learning about digital journalism and filmmaking.
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Chasing Madoff Again, Other Views on Libya, White House Protests, “Honoring” MLK
August 29th, 2011 - by: danny
To paraphrase Marat Sade, the hurricane came and the hurricane went and unrest and anxiety turned back into discontent.
New York City survived. Yes, there was lots of property damage up and down the East Coast, especially in New Jersey and in suburban communities. There were massive evacuations, untold damage still to be assessed and over 20 dead. Clearly, it was a devastating storm but far less, happily, than many media accounts wanted us to believe.
Questions are being raised about why zoning authorities allow continuing construction in coastal areas prone to severe weather.
Will there be any investigation into probable links between severe weather and climate change? IHT reports: ‘On a longer time scale, I think — but not all of my colleagues agree — that the evidence for a connection between Atlantic hurricanes and global climate change is fairly compelling,’’ said Kerry Emanuel, an expert on the issue at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This not what the media focused on. Speaking of media, did you see this? Ugh!
The president says, “Its Not Over Yet.” Is it ever? Condolences to all families who lost loved ones.
Trauma in Tripoli
Another city in another part of the world may not be surviving very well.
The Mail & Guardian reports from South Africa : Tripoli runs out of food and fuel
“Fighters pushed increasingly leaderless regime gunmen to the outskirts of Tripoli on Saturday, as shortages of fuel and water paralyzed the city.”
Also, later News: “Libyan rebel forces were converging on Muammar Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte on Monday, hoping to deliver the coup de grace of their revolution.”
History, as we know, is written by victors, and in the case of Libya, the coverage has not exactly been balanced. Far from it, Truth was the first casualty there as it is in every war. A popular uprising was aided and abetted by nearly six months of bombing and external military intervention.
Remember when it was suggested, it would be over in a weekend? That was 7459 NATO air strikes ago. (Remember, too, the US was not exactly a hands-off player. It is a big financial backer and orchestrator of NATO.)
Other views on Libya not in media because they are in part about the media::
Charles Glass, London Review of Books, It’s Not Over Yet
Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney who visited Tripoli writes:
“…the true peace people in this country have revealed themselves by their willingness to step forward and be counted against this war in the very midst of the worst deceit and demonization ever. NATO war crimes are being excused, discounted, or covered up by those who posed as supporters of justice and peace. It is never OK to bomb people. And it is never OK to ask the peace-loving people of this country to sacrifice Social Security and Medicare and education and housing–and I could go on and on–so that war profiteers can fatten their ill-gotten coffers.??
I agree with Stephen Lendman and others who have written that the war propaganda against Libya reached heights higher than that for the war against the Iraqi people.
The deceit continues to this day from the most respected “news” outlets. Now, we know them as what they really are, too.??Here are a few items that I had to wake up early to get to you before I board the plane for my next destination: it seems that the “Mighty Wurlitzer” could use a tune up because it has even ratcheted up a notch in its noise factor with this war. Watch the BBC descent from journalism to the absolute lowest depths with this.
Glenn Ford of Black Agenda Radio writes:
“The story is not over – not by a long shot – but the saga of the Libyan resistance to the superpower might of the United States and its degenerate European neo-colonial allies will surely occupy a very special place in history.
For five months, beginning March 19, the armed forces of a small country of six million people dared to defy the most advanced weapons systems on the planet, on terrain with virtually no cover, against an enemy capable of killing whatever could be seen from the sky or electronically sensed. Night and day, the eyes of the Euro-American war machine looked down from space on the Libyan soldiers’ positions, with the aim of incinerating them. And yet, the Libyan armed forces maintained their unit integrity and personal honor, with a heroism reminiscent of the loyalist soldiers of the Spanish Republic under siege by German, Italian and homegrown fascists, in the late 1930s.”
Dennis Kucinich, NATO should be tried for War Crimes.
Gadaffi Should Be Tried, at a minimum, for Bad Taste: He apparently had a crush On Condi Rice (Slate) He, too, as been accused of ordering brutality against civilians and diverting the country’s resources into his own accounts.
CHASING MADOFF
I went to see the new documentary, Chasing Madoff , at a theater closest to Bernie’s old neighborhood on New York’s Upper East side last Friday (BH—Before the Hurricane) because I though there might be quite a few “interested parties” in attendance.
I wasn’t disappointed. There were “victims” and plaintiffs there. Unfortunately the film explained very little new about how Bernie carried out his Ponzi scheme and got away with it. In fact, it wasn’t about Madoff at all, but Harry Markopolos, the Boston based financial accountant and analyst who waged a ten year campaign to get the SEC to crack down on the crooked “financier.”
Even though the doc paints him as a hero, he says clearly that he isn’t, in part because he considered his efforts to unmask him a failure. He worked for years with two of his close colleagues at A New England Hedge Fund and a supportive investigative journalist from Forbes who “exposed” Bernie back in 2001 but without any impact,
The rest of the media did not pick up the story, and when pressed, some responded by saying there was no “new news peg.”
Harry’s personal story is hyped up a bit because he believed Madoff and friends would kill him if they could because so much money was involved. He comes off as a bit of a psyscopath, more than a bit paranoid, or “realistic”, depending on your point of view, and gets a gun license, learns to shoot, and even vows to Kill Madoff first if he does send his dogs after him.
He comes across as a man on a mission, obsessed and outraged by the lack of response by the SEC. He is more than driven. An interview with his mother confirms this zealotry is not just a political with him but a personality trait.
We also learn that his crusade was not always unself-interested, His company had assigned him to compete with Madoff but the product he came up with was legal but risky and, in the end, had no market,
Many in the industry had suspicions about Madoff but would still rather work him believing that their money was safer in his hands. Harry was a frustrated wannabe competitor at first, but then, as rejections by the press and the market mavens continued, he became more and more determined to bring Madoff down.
The story is way over hyped up with fancy editing, motion graphics and special effects, overdone in an attempt to add drama. What I learned is there probably more of a market for a film that pits a good guy against a bad guy than a more detailed investigation of the kind I offer in Plunder The Crime of Our Time. I also cover Madoff and use some similar material although I was surprised they missed the audio of Bernie’s courtroom confession. (You can hear it the song Plunder, written by Polarity 1.)
But, then, there was an unexpected surprise. Instead of the filmmaker, Harry himself showed up to do the Q & A. After watching him on the screen for over an hour, here he was in person—bouncing around taking questions and giving short but punchy sound bites that offered more info on financial crimes including tantalizing claims of major new investigations underway at the SEC.
l. asked him if Madoff’s recent interview for a book written by a Times reporter was credible in which he claimed that other banks were complicit with him. He claimed later that Madoff shouldn’t be believed but in this case he confirmed that he was right and that many big banks were in business with him, in Europe and the US, including JP Morgan Chase.
In the doc, they show the logos and exteriors of a number of banks but the film doesn’t explain why, He said he believes the banks are “too big to prosecute.”
He claimed that one reason that Bernie turned himself in was because he feared retaliation from “the Russians and Colombians”—presumably gangsters—who he cheated. He calculated that he would be safer in a prison cell. He was also protecting others from various feeder firms and his own operation who were part of the came.
He seemed to have opinions on everything but when I asked him about links to Israel—where the local press confirmed there were many participants his scheme, he said he knew nothing about it
He suggested that the Madoff family was involved because they invested little and took a lot.
He believes that the SEC has been reformed and indicated they have some major investigations under way.He also said that he is working on a number of big cases but didn’t reveal what they were.
In earlier public statements, he revealed a major pension fund fraud. USA Today reported his saying, “State Street and Bank of New York each stole billions of dollars from pension funds around the country, three-tenths of one percent off every transaction,” he said.
Pension funds are often major players in international investments and need foreign currency to complete those overseas transactions. Banks typically supply those currency services as part of a package of services for the pension funds’ business.”
When asked what we can do about all this corruption, he urged the audience to voted independent because he believes both major parties are corrupt to the core.
I saw the film with June Golden who comments:
“The only other thing that struck me was everyone–in the film and then in the audience–kept trying to call him a hero. He kept demurring. Correctly. He is an Honest Man. He was also a frustrated competitor, a competent accountant, a good Catholic school boy, and a good soldier. Unfortunately, he was a little too dull for mainstream media to buy his story.
He was correct to be scared and courageous to be dogged. But, as he rightly asserts, he did not prevail. Truth did, well, some truth somewhat, nudged along by the collapse of the stock market. That’s the only reason Madoff got exposed finally.
So what did this all show us. We need more honest men, greater vigilance of financial “managers”, better accounting practices, and lots of luck. We need to follow the money–earlier. We need more crusading journalists/newspapers/news dissectors willing to investigate and keep yelling until someone finally pays attention. We need to watch our asses and everybody else’s. We need to stop waiting for the lawyers.
Watching the film painstakingly tell Harry’s story you can’t help but suspect that the next would-be Madoff scumbag might just be lurking right outside the theater, hoping to get away with the one thing most of his co-conspirators did: huge crimes and no punishments. That made this experience really unsettling.”
NYT today: Banks Squeezing Consumers, Facing Problems
As Fortunes Dim, Banks Confront a Leaner Future
As government lifelines fade and a second recession seems increasingly possible, banks are finding their growth constrained, even as they add new costs for consumers.
ZNET, Media Benjamin, Commemoration for Dr. King An Embarrassment
The ceremonies for the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC were kicked off on August 24 at an event billed as Honoring Global Leaders for Peace. But some of those honored are a far cry from King’s beloved community of the poor and oppressed. The tribute to peacemakers, organized by the MLK National Memorial Foundation, was mostly a night applauding warmakers, corporate profiteers and co-opted musicians.
The night started out with great promise when MC Andrea Mitchell mentioned Dr. King’s brilliant anti-war speech Beyond Vietnam as a key to understanding the real Dr. King. And sure, there were a few wonderful moments—a song by Stevie Wonder, a speech about nonviolence by the South African Ambassador and a quick appearance by Jesse Jackson in which he managed to spit out a call to “study war no more.”
But most of the evening’s speakers and guests of honor had little to do with peacemaking. One of the dignitaries thanked at the start of the program was Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, representing a country that uses $3 billion a year in precious U.S. tax dollars to commit war crimes against Palestinians.
Must read: Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America from The Center for American Progress
Amy Goodman, Truthdig, D.C. Protests That Make Big Oil Quake
The White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they’ll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
A “keystone” in architecture is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the arch together; without it, the structure collapses. By putting their bodies on the line–as more than 200 have already at the time of this writing–these practitioners of the proud tradition of civil disobedience hope to collapse not only the pipeline, but the fossil-fuel dependence that is accelerating disruptive global climate change.
Bill McKibben was among those already arrested. He is an environmentalist and author who founded the group 350.org, named after the estimated safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 350 ppm (parts per million-the planet is currently at 390 ppm). In a call to action to join the protest, McKibben, along with others including journalist Naomi Klein, actor Danny Glover and NASA scientist James Hansen, wrote the Keystone pipeline is “a 1,500-mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet.”
The movement to oppose Keystone XL ranges from activists and scientists to indigenous peoples of the threatened Canadian plains and boreal forests, where the tar sands are located, to rural farmers and ranchers in the ecologically fragile Sand Hills region of Nebraska, to students and physicians.
Asked why the White House protests are taking place while President Obama is away on a family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, McKibben replied: “We’ll be here when he gets back too. We’re staying for two weeks, every day. This is the first real civil disobedience of this scale in the environmental movement in ages.”
RIP, Stetson Kennedy, 94
The LA Times wrote about this writer who I was honored to meet and infiltrated the KKK: Kennedy wrote that he gained entrance to the Klan by posing as an encyclopedia salesman and using the name of an uncle who was a Klan member. The book was rereleased in 1990 as “The Klan Unmasked.”
“Exposing their folklore — all their secret handshakes, passwords and how silly they were, dressing up in white sheets” was one of the strongest blows delivered to the Klan, Peggy Bulger, director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, told the Associated Press in 2007.
Letters:
Da’ud C Mohammed writes”
Did you hear the one about the dumb ass surfer who died?
I wanted to comment on your Libya discussion last Friday. Libya is a
neocon-PNAC and Israeli-Military Industrial Complex (defense
contractor) operation; i.e., GHWB-CIA (same) as usual, as inherited
from the same clowns that brought us Iran 1952, and Iraq 2003. The
latter: Operation Iraqi Liberation, or “oil” backfired – giving it
all back to the Iranians who turned out to be Fascist-types the likes
of Nazi Germany circa 1933. Not necessarily dangerous to the region
or to the rest of the world, Russia will see to that, but a menace to
ordinary Iranian people. There was an article this ayem about Iranian
lesbians. No picnic. So, what’s knew? The GHWB-CIA has co-opted NATO,
speaking of dangerous to the region and the rest of the world. Libya.
Syria. The Iranian people have about as much chance of stopping the
Iranian (substitute “Islamic”) Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) as the
rest of the world has of stopping the empire as defined by Tom
Engelhardt’s Chal Johnson at tomdispatch.com.
Of course, from my new way of looking at it, if we can topple the
Wall Street banks, we can cut off the funding to Israeli-Military
Industrial Complex (defense contractor) operations, and “empire” too?
Probably not. At least we have a better understanding now of who
we’re up-against and what’s up-against us.
OK. gotta go now, to watch Anderson Cooper standing out in your NY
rain…
Evan writes:
This is the first time I’ve ever sent a letter in support of an argument ever. Your (or invariably whichever assistant reads this) article was fantastic in al-Jazeera. I’ve worked in government and the media and recently started a game where I read a headline from The Onion or CNN and ask my neighbor which outlet wrote the headline (success rate is about 50-50). Either way, keep on keeping on!”
Ben McCall writes:
Enjoyed the article on Media Choice.
The worst of Democracy is it must make the clearly obvious mistake.
The best of Democracy is it will fix the error after it has been made.
Thus the Republican agenda will ride us into a deep Depression with intellect and reason sitting on the sidelines. The best that can happen in 2012 is to have a Republican President along with Republican majorities in both houses. When the economy craters, the Republicans will be relegated to a very minor party, and sanity will begin to fix the problem.
But other issues will likely compound the pending downslide that a simple change in political wisdom cannot readily address: First, climate change, already in effect but denied strongly on the Right, will devastate large swaths of immediate agricultural production, sending millions into starvation existence worldwide.
Second, and even more critical, best estimates for worldwide oil reserves suggests 40 years max, and then we are out of oil. However, it won’t take 40 years for the price of oil to escalate to the point where economic activity is critically hindered as supply diminishes and demand increases, and the cost of extraction skyrockets – unless anyone thinks that squeezing oil from shale will be the same cost per barrel as a good old fashioned gusher.
Where an oligarchy wins (China) and a democracy loses (U.S.A) is in the political inability to foresee the coming disaster, and do something about it. We are confined to short term economics based entirely on the four-year election cycle.”
So I am back from what was to be a media fast, surviving first an earthquake and then a hurricane. As a result it was hard to observe it fully.
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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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