Nuff Said: Bush At The UN On Tuesday, Sept 25

MOBILIZING FOR DEBT RELIEF
WITH THE TV ACADEMY IN MICHIGAN
HUGO TV IN VENEZUELA

I spent another week crusading—bringing my film In Debt We Trust to audiences around the city and the country. It’s an uphill and often discouraging battle that sometimes feels more like a downhill fight. So many people are so beleaguered by everything they have to do in their lives, and so distracted by all the media they consume, that its hard to focus on the news in front of them, even a threat to their own personal economic security, much less the deeper issues that I seem driven to try to explain.

On the one hand I know that the issues of credit and debt are not going away anytime soon and nor is the Credit crisis. But will progressives every hear fire bell in the night and get engaged? These problems of debt and rip-offs by banks is not going away.

‘Fear’ is still affecting world financial markets, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in an interview released on Sunday. in which he also backed France’s candidate to head the IMF.The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend that it’s not getting better anytime soon. “It’s tempting to hope the worst is over,” was the commentary in a report called “NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET. I know many of the people reading it in that paper can afford to stay in those woods. The Journal says: “It could take months to get back to normalcy.”

“Normalcy?”

Are these normal times? I don’t think so. (They use normalcy to mean a market that just goes up making the rich richer.) It hasn’t been “normal” for a long. long time. Last week, on Wednesday I did a small screening in Astoria Queens to a peace and justice group which showed the film at a social center for gay and transgender teens. It was an interesting mix but it seemed to resonate with everyone.

On Thursday I was out in East New York, a far more depressed community where foreclosures are pervasive. The turnout was smaller suggesting to me that the organizers have not yet found a way to mainstream the issue, to get people to care about what’s happening to their neighbors and neighborhood. To see how serious this problem is in New York—and how criminal—check out this investigative article and the shocking chart that accompanies it from the NY Daily News:

On Friday morning, I was part of a “credit-card” summit with Robert “Credit Card Nation” Manning at the Church Center in New York (aka “The God Box”) where money managers for various religious denominations were very impressed, bought DVDs, but there was no money forthcoming to keep our outreach campaign going and growing.

Sadly, may be at the end of the road with our campaign at the very moment when the story and issue are poised to explode into public awareness. Now we are appealing for donations to sustain the stopthesqueeze.org website. Does anyone believe in organizing any more–or is politics only to be done online or via media ads?

What has to happen before more people recognize the gravity of the situation? Do we have to have a full-fledged depression? In the last week, the dollar hit new lows while everyone knows that the interest rate cut will send prices up? Tens of thousands lost their jobs in the finance industry.. Foreclosures are at record levels. And, yet, most of the media still downplays it, and most of the progressive community ignores it.

Yikes.

BACK IN MICHIGAN

And speaking of media, on Saturday I spoke at the Michigan chapter or the National Academy of TV Arts and Sciences, the people who give the Emmy Awards. Even though I have four of them, I don’t have much respect for them after having served as an Emmy judge. I reported on what that was like at the time—judging documentaries by just looking at a few minutes.

I rarely get invited to TV industry events anymore, perhaps because I am seen as a turncoat or maybe my anger at the devolution of TV News is so obvious that they just don’t want me around. (Ironically, I will be at the National TV Academy News Emmy presentations tonight because a film I worked on, and that ran on HBO, The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl, is up for two awards. Good luck to Producer/Directors Ahmad Jamal and Ramesh Sharma.)

This Michigan event took place at the Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, an impressive structure without too much substance in it like the man it honors.

The museum had a piece of the old Berlin Wall in it and a replica of Ford’s Cabinet Room in the days when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and Alan Greenspan head if the Council of Economic Advisors. Rummy was also part of the crew. That was not exactly a pro-freedom crowd. There was no mention in the Museum of the Indonesian genocide in East Timor, an event that occurred with Ford’s concurrence.

I was on a News Ethics Panel and spoke about the way economic issues are covered on local news, mostly not at al. Yes there are “tips” on financial planning but not much more and some in the room admitted that this is a bit of a lapse in Michigan, a key Capitol of Foreclosures in America. These folks were not defending the status quo. In fact, you could sense the unease beneath the surface.

A TV General Manager at a local station dismissed network programming she called “crap” and referred to herseld and her colleagues as “Sheep” when it come to challenging power. Another producer at a local Fox affiliate denounced all the celebrity news and trashy cell phone footage that they are now running. “One thing is for sure,” he said,” it’s not news.” Later he explained that most of the people running the programming are kids just out of school who know nothing about the community. That’s why, he said, they give away tires and Van Halen tickets in the middle of newscasts. He seemed disgusted.

WITH HELEN THOMAS AGAIN

I only had time to show the trailer of my debt film, because most of the audience and I wanted to hear from another panelist—the great Helen Thomas, who hails from Michigan and was the group’s honoree. She was, as usual, on target, in condemning the lying at the White House and the complicity of the press corps there. Her ethics goes back to Journalism l0l—be accurate, be skeptical, and be brave. And brave she was. I will bet Gerry Ford would have turned in his grave right outside the Museum if he knew his nemesis Helen Thomas was in “his” museum. In her lively remarks to the dinner, Thomas mentioned that Ford, with whom she had a good relationship, had once compared her questions to “acupuncture.”

In her speech she roundly condemned the media coverage of the war and the war itself. She called for peace and concluded “let it start with us.” She received a standing ovation that was well deserved. She was also very warm towards me and remembered our Mediachannel Media Freedom award that we bestowed on her a year ago. Viva Helen!

Also on the panel was the assistant News Director of the ABC affiliate in Flint which recently lost a law suit for showing something they shouldn’t have. Flint, is of course, Michael Moore’s hometown. I asked her if she had seen “Roger and Me.” Yes, she responded, “part of it.” I asked if her colleagues hated him. “Yes they do,” she replied.

“Do they think he was inaccurate?” I asked. “They know he was,” she responded. Clearly MM is a touchy subject in these parts, not exactly a unifying figure especially with his tough criticisms of what’s happened to Flint, although I flashed back to his film’s treatment of a local sheriff who spent his days throwing terribly poor people out of their homes and dumping their possessions on the street.

That was haunting—and prescient in light of what is happening today in Michigan. The Detroit Free Press reported last week: “Michigan ranked sixth nationwide with 15,565 properties in some stage of the foreclosure process in August. That’s an 11% increase over July figures and a 126% jump from August 2006, according to RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based foreclosure web site.”

Earlier, in the day, a research professor from Hofstra explained that TV remains the dominant media medium in America, that people watch on average 4 hours a day, and that local news remains among the most watched programming. He also noted that 40% of the people in survey say they would like to assemble their own newscasts and that 60% want it to be more interactive. Not exactly a big vote of confidence.

No sooner did the event end that I went to my room at the new upscale JW Marriot built by the owners of Amway in time to see a rerun of Dan Rather’s recent interview with Larry King. He explained why he was suing CBS News, charging that Viacom and the CBS brass fired him under pressure from the White House after he exposed Bush’s military record.

DAN RATHER’S COMPLAINT

When CNN was carrying this show, CNN Headline News—for “balance” no doubt—how brave they are—was carrying Glenn Beck’s smarmy denunciation of Rather laced with ridicule and arrogance. By the way, I don’t think one network journalist has had the guts to support Rather who hopes to get the truth by forcing Viacom and CBS executives to testify under oath and then cross-examine them. I don’t think the Courts are likely to even hear him. For more on the issues, read the book by Mary Mapes—his producer. Also read this analysis on DailyKos that offers background that the likes of Glenn Beck predictably ignores.

Back in New York, I took a cultural break to go with Producer Ramesh Sharma to a celebration of India called India At 60 at Lincoln Center. The dancing was amazing and the energy impressive. The host reminded the audience that India won its independence through a non-violent struggle. Many ministers from the government and even a Bollywood star was in the house. And so was NY Senator Schumer who was asked to make a few remarks as a friend of India. He praised an Indian-American staffer –I guess to show the audience how cool he is—and then a donor or his who told him about the event. The donor was the founder of the Bombay Palace Restaurant in Queens where Schumer bragged he used to go for the $6.95 Buffet with free Nan bread. What an embarrassing and idiotic thing to say, although it got a laugh. My friend was not laughing He told me that the donor who is a big giver to Schumer and Hilary Clinton was wanted in India for owing miney to a bank, What does he sound like?—and got off because of political connections in the USA. Do I sense another scandal coming?

I missed the season premiere of 60 Minutes when I got home but I did receive a letter that Jackie Newberry of Houston wrote in disgust to the program gods at CBS.

Honest to Pete. I am not an admirer of the President of Iran. He does not have the power that the American journalists seem to give him. There is much more power in the imams and the people. Mr. Pelley’s condescending attitude belied his claim that he was “just a reporter”. I myself have a difficult time coming up with anything I like about Bush. And I am not in the minority. I regard someone’s
religiosity based on their actions not empty words. More lives have been extinguished and savagely disrupted because of Bush than this Iranian. This was poor lazy journalism with little evidence of preparation. It was a wasted chance to do much better than this result. Shame on 60 Minutes. Dan Rather could do better.

Saturday was also my daughter’s birthday. Whenever I moan about whats happening in my world, I think of hers and she’s doing great. Happy B DAY SDS.