ZEROX IS THE LATEST

MILLIONAIRES IN HIGH PLACES

SALUTING TIM WHITE

Zerox this: Now its Xerox as the corporate scandal rolls on with more brand name companies under scrutiny with a friend of mine quipping that greedy American businesses will undo U.S. society far more effectively than Al Qaeda. As US airspace over prominent US monuments from the Statue of Liberty to Mt Rushmore is shut down in anticipation of a new wave of July 4th terror threats, and computer company execs warn of cyber attacks (”It is inevitable that we are going to get hit and get hit in a big way,” predicts Michael Capellas, President of Hewlett Packard), there seems to be more anxiety about the daily bombshells about corporate malfeasance.

BANKS DESPAIR, TONY SOPRANO MAY HAVE TO COLLECT

The banks who financed World Com are in a pickle, facing requests to give them more money inorder to get some of the old money back. And the New York Post tells us that fired World Comm CFO Scott Sullivan is busy — finishing his $15 million mansion in Boca Raton Florida. We also learn this AM that there is a media industry fallout on another scandal — the bankruptcy of Adelphis, the cable company, which owes $171 million to creditors including cable companies like HBO, MTV and Showtime.To illustrate this story, the Post uses a photo of fictional mafia boss Tony Soprano from the HBO series. The truth is that these corporate rip-offs make Mafia criminals look like amateurs. Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times today that “sach of the big business scandals uncovered so far suggestsa different strategy for executive self-dealing.”

As we think about the role of big money in the economy and politics, I was struck by an item in the new IN THESE TIMES which reports that the Guiness Book of World Records has established that President Bush “assembled the wealthiest cabinet in American history by appointing more multimillionaires to top posts that any previous president.” Of 16 cabinet members 13 are millionaires. I learned that Secretary of State Colin Powell has assets of $ l8.6 million, not bad for a career military man. (Speaking of IN THESE TIMES, a mediachannel affiliate by the way, a new book “Appeal to Reason”edited by Craig Aaron from Seven Stories Press collects 25 years of ITT stories. The book is introduced by Robert McChesney with a foreword by founder James Weinstein. Disclosure: I wrote a column on the media for the Chicago based publication in the 70’s.)

ISRAELI WINNING? US LOSING?

The Israeli army continues to batter Palestinians in Hebron as the Sharon led reoccupation of the West Bank is now complete. President Bush’s new policy postion of virtually unqualified support for Israel is being challenged in the British press. Here are two views. The first from the Times, a Murdoch owned newspaper. Here is Anatole Kaletsky:

“America has spent most of the past decade lecturing the rest of the world on how to run its affairs: telling the Arabs to replace their leaders, the Japanese to restructure their industries and the Europeans to reorganize their societies and ways of life. Now this hubris is making way for nemesis.

For most people around the world, the most important event in America this week was President Bush’s speech on the Middle East. There was a chillingly Orwellian quality to his proposal that Palestinians should vote for leaders approved in advance by Israel and Washington. For Mr Bush, however, this week’sMiddle East challenges paled into insignificance beside the challenges from Wall Street. To judge from his brief appearance on TV from the G8 summit in Canada, the accounting scandal at WorldCom aroused much deeper emotions in Mr. Bush than any event in the Middle East and, in a way, this order of priorities was understandable. The adage that “the business of America is business” has never been truer than it is today. Washington is run by an Administration that looks, behaves and thinks exactly like the board of a Fortune 500 company.”

FISK: THAT “VISION THING”

The Independent’s Robert Fisk zeroes in on the reasons that the “Bush doctrine” is unlikely to work.” George Bush Junior gave up last week. After all the blustering andgrovelling and the disobeyed instructions to Israeli Prime Minister ArielSharon and all the hectoring of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and all the”visions” of a Palestinian state, the President threw in his hand. Therewill be no Middle East peace conference in the near future, no seriousattempt to halt the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, not awhimper of resolution on the region’s tragedy from the man who started the”war for civilisation'’, the “war on terror'’, the “endless war'’ and, mostrecently, the “titanic war on terror'’. Mr Bush, his ever moreincomprehensible spokesman Ari Fleischer vouchsafed to us last week, “hascome to some conclusions”. And - this really took the biscuit - “when thePresident determines the time is right, he will share it”.

“I love the idea of this increasingly incompetent strategist on Middle Eastaffairs quietly weighing, like Frederick the Great, the odds on the rightsof three million Palestinian refugees to return, the future of Jerusalem,and the continued growth of settlements for Jews on occupied land - only todecide that these weighty matters of state must be withheld from his loyalpeople. After lecturing the pompous and pathetic Arafat on his duties toprotect Israel it only took an Israeli shell fired into a crowdedPalestinian market - another of those famous Israeli “errors” - to shut Bushup again. Just a week ago, as we all know, Mr Bush had another of his famous”visions”. They started in the autumn of last year when he had a vision of aPalestinian state living side by side with Israel. This particular visioncoincided quite by chance, of course, with his efforts to keep the Arabstates quiescent while America bombed the poorest and most ruined Muslimcountry in the world. Then this dream was forgotten for a few months until,earlier this year, Vice President Dick Cheney toured the Middle East to drumup Arab support for another war on Iraq. The Arabs tried to tell Cheney thatthere was already a rather dramatic little war going on in the region. Andwhat happened? George Bush suddenly had his vision thing again.”

US MEDIA AND AFGHANISTAN

In Afghanistan, the new government is debating what to do about a Cabinet position for women. An Ammunition dump blew up, reportedly injuring 50. How to assess the US role there? Steve Rendell of FAIR assessed it this way on a recent Counter/spin program:

“The New York Times reported on June 16 that FBI and CIA investigations ofal Qaeda conclude that the US war on Afghanistan did not have the effect ofdiminishing the threat of terrorist attacks. As a matter of fact, ‘the warmight have complicated counterterrorism efforts by dispersing potentialattackers across a wider geographic area.’ The effect has been described ashitting a beehive with a baseball bat.

“You could say that hindsight is 20/20, but the fact is there were manypeople who argued strongly that the war was not going to reduce terrorismeven before the bombs began to drop–it’s just that those voices werenowhere audible in the mainstream media debate. Certainly not at the Times.A FAIR survey of the Times’ op-ed page for the three weeks following Sept.11 found that the paper ran 12 opinion columns calling for a militaryresponse. How many columns argued for nonmilitary solutions–that might nothave had the negative impacts that we’re now hearing the war had? Zero.”For more on this, check out THE SILENCE OF THE LIONSby Paul Rodgers on opendemocracy.net, He asks,”what has become of al-Qaida? Are GeorgeBush’s policies and rhetoric playing into their hands?”

AFRICA DAY AT THE G-8

Yesterday was Africa day up at the G-8 meeting in Canada. CNN reports: “Aid agencies say a new African development plan announced at a summit of richnations fails to provide a solid commitment to help the continent break freefrom poverty.” Jim Cason elaborates on allafrica.com, a vital source of Africa news:

“South African president Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian head of stateOlusegun Obasanjo arrived in Calgary, Canada this week to lobby theworld leaders gathering for the annual Group of Eight - or G-8 –summit to deliver on promises of more foreign aid and investment forAfrica, faster debt relief and lower trade barriers for African goods…

“This is the first time that leaders of countries that are not part of theG-8 have been invited to attend these meetings, and there have beenconsiderable expectations in Africa that the world leaders gathering inKananakis would approve an “Action Plan for Africa” that offeredspecific assistance to encourage the Nepad agenda. But theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the crisis in theMiddle East have edged other items onto the agenda. Adding to thepressure, the three-day meeting has now been collapsed into lessthan two days. Canada’s intention that the Summit would end with aunified pledge of dramatically increased development aid tied toNepad have been essentially abandoned because of pressure fromthe U.S. and Japan….”

MEDIA NEWS: HONORING TIMOTHY WHITE

Topping the media news this morning is one obituary and one threatened one. All of us at Globalvision mourn this morning at the news that Timothy White, a legendary writer about music and musicians and the editor of BILLBOARD died yesterday after a heart attack in the office building where he worked and also houses MTV. Tim was a friend of ours, a polished writer who wrote brilliantly about Bob Marley (”Catch a Fire”) and a new book “Music to My Ears.” Condolences to his wife Judith Garland and their twin sons. Years back, we had hope to work with him on a TV series that never came to pass, but deeply regret his passing….Perhaps it shook me up especially since it happened on my birthday….Also I must note the death of John “The OX” Entwhisle, the bass player of the WHO. One of his albums was called “Smash Your Head Against the Wall.”

Also, today, there is a death watch for Mediachannel affiliate SALON.com, the feisty online publication which rcently told the SEC it risks closure if it can’t find more financing. It has accumulated $76.6 million in losses over the last seven years.

ITALY: CRITICS SQUASHED

From Italy comes word of new government attempts to squash dissenting views. AP reports:” The Italian opposition and the journalists’ union denounced the removalfrom state TV of two well-known personalities who criticised PremierSilvio Berlusconi.

“State-run RAI has presented its lineup for the next season which doesnot include talk shows featuring the left-leaning political commentatorMichele Santoro and Enzo Biagi, one of the biggest names in Italianjournalism. Italian news reports quoted Fabrizio Del Noce, news directorof RAI’s main channel, as saying the shows were pulled because of poorratings.

“Opposition members, the journalists’ union and the commentatorsthemselves all said it was a move by Mr Berlusconi to silence dissent.”It’s a shame if they think they’ll drive out different opinions”, saidFrancesco Rutelli, head of the center-left opposition coalition. “Butit’ll backfire, because the Italian people are mature.”

FALUN GUNG TARGETS CHINA CABLE

Falun Gong reports that its practitioners have managed to get messages on another cable system in China. “In the past six months, the Falun Dafa Information Center has confirmed that Falun Gong practitioners in China have - on seven separate occasions - overridden state-run cable television signals with footage revealing the truth about Jiang Zemin’s persecution of Falun Gong and demonstrating the true nature of the practice. ” (China meanwhile came under fire from the UN for its inept anti-AIDS efforts. The UN says that China faces an aids epidemic of “titantic proportions.”

….Variety reports that Public Service broadcasters in Europe are being ordered to make their finanials public: ” The European Commission is set to act against six member states thathave failed to apply a law requiring financial transparency forpubcasters.”

CELEBRITY MATCH: COURIC v COULTER

Critics of the republican hard right seem to have been thrilled by a recent confrontation on the Today Show between host Katie Couric and guest Ann Coulter, a prominent rightist pundit. I cribed this item from the Not My President email list: ”

“Katie Couric took right wing fanatic Coulter to the mat this morning. Blasting her for mis-quotes in her(Coulters) book. Couric managed to get Coulter to ‘marry herself’ to Falwells comments that 911 was because of fags and the ACLU.

Katie basically took her apart, piece by piece, a full slam dunk!

There is a video available on this link, I recommend hi-speed connect though: http://msnbc.com/news/763069.asp (the video is about halfway down on the page). If you cant get the video they should have a transcript up by tonight …Katie rocks!”

THE DAY AFTER

And personal thanks to all of those who so kindly called or sent in birthday greetings or asked about my dad who is doing better. I usually wouldn’t make such a fuss but this was a big one, and with all that is going on, we do have to embrace life and its infinite possibilities. May I just quote one of many emails — this from Shebar Windstone who frequently takes me to task for missing one story or another, and sometimes getting it wrong. I do so because independent producers like ourselves are all too accustomed these days to getting turndowns and rejection letters. Letters like hers keep us going:

“!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!etc That’s an exclamation mark for every candle on your cake & feather in your cap, plus a few extras to ice the cake. You may be another year older & another year poorer, but for every gray hair (or lost hair) & wrinkle there’s a major accomplishment in news, media, politics, the Net & social change — a lot more to celebrate than most of us have. I’m surprised you have the strength to blow out your candles. But you’ve more than earned a big blow-out bash. I hope you have a great day, & many more!” And the same to all of you, and to journoagitator Greg Palast who turns 50 tomorrow, and to all of of us getting wiser…

MEDIACHANNEL ON C-SPAN: I will be interviewed tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM (EDT) on CSPAN talking about Mediachannel. Tune in. And keep your emails coming to dissector@mediachannel.org