Danny Schechter
‘We Are Drowning’ On A Road To Nowhere
From Military Resistance: “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.” —Frederick Douglass, 1852
Oil prices are rocketing. Iranian warships are moving into the Mediterranean to shadow the US warships already there. Propaganda news is growing with rumors of Al Qaeda links with Iran, and, then, less speculative news about real links between the terror groups and the armed opposition in Syria.
As Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi puts it, the smell of war is in the air and on the air,
“You can just feel it: many of the same newspapers and TV stations we saw leading the charge in the Bush years have gone back to the attic and are dusting off their war pom-poms.”
The Consummate Special Ops Warrior
William H. McRaven is an admiral in Obama’s Navy. He was a member of Seal Team 3, and oversaw the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
He’s the consummate Special Ops warrior and wants more special ops forces, more drones and, most significantly, more “autonomy” (read, power) to position “his” troops in more places. He is now lobbying to expand his “freedom” by building a bigger personal arsenal of undercover operatives under his command.
The New York Times refers to his guys somewhat vaguely as “elite units” that “have traditionally operated” in “the dark corners of American foreign policy.”
That shines light on it, doesn’t it? What it says is: forget transparency and accountability. The hidden government is always hiding.
These units, like Special Forces, Delta Force, SEALs, and Rangers, often operate outside the chain of command and, as they become institutionally stronger, tend to dominate military decisionmaking.
McRaven’s ambition represents a takeover of the military…
Is The Past The Future? The News Dissector Reports From And On Iran
The TV series House of Lies is about business but it could as easily be about government and foreign policy.
In a recent episode, one of the management consultants pitches a company about the need to launch a new product. She recounts the story of the Polaroid Company known as the Apple of its day, widely admired for the cool design of its instant cameras.
When I lived in Cambridge, Mass., Polaroid was one of the town’s biggest employers, an economic powerhouse.
But soon it was gone. It failed to see new competitive products on the horizon. It only saw the future as its past.
It went bankrupt.
That seems to be the case of our own bankrupt foreign policy that operates with a limited playbook, of negative “options” build around threats, warnings, covert actions and military adventures.
The gap between what we say and what we do has become a chasm, a paper tiger in words…
Meeting Ahmadinejad, Trashing ‘Hollywoodism,’ And Eating Kabob
Tehran, Iran: Iran seems to many to be next in line for the Iraqi freedom treatment, the latest in a long line of “enemy” nations menaced by overt and covert military threats by the United States and its allies.
Tehran. Photo: Maryam Ashoori (CC)
As the psyops operations and media propaganda intensifies, you might think war is imminent for defense and that Iran is doing what countries under threat do in these circumstances—such as mobilizing their people and preparing for a bombing onslaught.
Think again. While I have been told that military targets have been or are being moved around, the atmosphere in Tehran is relaxed with more talk of a cultural battlefield than a military one. There’s a commemoration under way of the 33rd anniversary of the Iranian revolution and an international conference on “Hollywoodism and Cinema” as an extension of an annual Fajr film festival.
And that’s what I am doing here, as a…
Remember Rousseau: Property Rights And Human Rights Are Still At War
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The conflict between property rights and human rights has entered a new chapter. It is a debate that goes back to the challenge by landowners and merchants behind the American Revolution’s war on British control over the colonial economy.
Only today, as those speaking in the name of the 99% challenge the super wealthy of the 1% (actually the .001 %) there is a new battleground in what’s known as the housing market with as many as 14 million Americans in or facing foreclosure.
The defense of property rights is the holy of the holies for the propertied classes with a whole industry set up to enforce their claims of ownership.
We have seen how this plays out with the courts, run by often bought off and complicit judges rubberstamping claims by banks and realty interests even when laws are disregarded amidst fraudulent filings, biased contracts, and phony robot signings. They control the…
Living In A Real World House Of Lies
If you go to the corner of 8th Avenue and 42nd Street near Times Square in Manhattan, just down from the Wax Museum and around the corner from the bus station, and look up, you’ll see an oversized billboard for Showtime’s fast -paced “House of Lies,” a new cable TV series that is more like a realistic docudrama about the world of hard-charging management consultants.
Don Cheadle stars in this tightly written challenge to the popular “Mad Men” glorification of Madison Avenue in the 1950’s, spiced with the insertion of pretty graphic hot sex that makes Janet Jackson’s Superbowl moment seem like it belonged on the Disney Channel. An actor on the series laughingly downplays the explicit physical grappling as “naughty.”
At a time when Mitt Romney, a former management consultant himself in his years at Bain, is running for president, this show offers insight into just how vulgar vulgar capitalism can be.
In one…
Degrade This!
We live in an increasingly degraded country.
Our politics are degraded and a laughing stock to the world. Our military is demoralized and degraded with soldiers urinating on dead civilians and awaiting deployment orders for the next illegal intervention.
Our education system has been degraded with standards falling and pervasive defunding. Our transportation system, ditto.
I could go on, but I don’t have to. We are all living the decline with downward mobility, joblessness and foreclosures, to cite a few trends that make life so miserable for so many.
Now, our godlike financial ratings agencies have decided to degrade nine countries struggling to fix their financial crisis. The decision by Standard and Poors (Best renamed, “It is now Standard to Be Poor”) to downgrade credit ratings for France, Italy, Austria and six other European countries signals those nations that Wall Street has them by the cojones. Their costs for borrowing will go up.
They are…
The A-Z Of Occupation
Every social movement I have been involved with, or covered as a journalist, develops its own language of liberation, its own alphabet, and its own buzzwords, rhetoric and discourse.
Here are some of the key words I heard/retained in covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. I am sure there are many words, phrases, and slogans I overlooked, never heard or forgot. Send your favorites to: dissector@mediachannel.org.
These are words that power a struggle and speak to the internal processes that attracted so many to take part, as well as the issues that drive it and the obstacles that face it. They are some of the phrases, terms, sayings and expressions that the occupiers use in their conversations to define themselves and discuss their mission.
A. Adbusters, Anarchy, Arrest, Activist, Action, Anger, Angry, Atrium, Assembly (Freedom of,) Arab Spring, Autonomy, Anonymous. All Night, All Week, Austerity, Autumn Awakening.
B. Bloomberg, Billionaire, Banker, Bank Transfer, Bankster,…
‘Game On!’
“Game On” was Rick Santorum’s first comment after his “surge” was considered successful with a mere 30,000 votes in Iowa. He inadvertently gave the game away by calling it a game—which is what it is.
Only this game is not just about politics but also about the media. Pseudo-events like this are what the media lives for: it provides something for them to do, and to feel important while doing it. It creates airtime for endless punditry, and a spectacle to liven up a dull Iowa winter.
For Iowans, it’s a chance to “participate” in something that sounds important; for media heads it’s a news routine, a ritual. The media, in effect, provide an infomercial posing as real news.
Yet throughout the weeks of endless around the clock “coverage,” including polling, and analyzing TV ads there’s barely a mention about how the media benefits by creating a phony sense of excitement while generating…
It’s Time To Occupy A New Year
"Plunder" Filmmaker Danny Schechter
Out with the old. I would say good riddance to 2011 even as I fear 2012 may be worse, given the financial trends, social chaos and political idiocy that we confront every day.
Every time I think it can’t get worse, it does.
It seems so clear that the political system is moribund and paralyzed and the economic system may be in worse shape.
A tiny sliver of the 1% may be in charge although not in control. Their own short-term greed makes it unlikely that they can stabilize the system or do any longer term planning. Their Titanic has hit its iceberg. Some new technologies may be keeping it afloat for now but for how long?
We lurch from crisis to crisis in an atmosphere of deep denial.
Obama clearly has no new ideas and the Republican candidates for the most part don’t know what an idea is, as they pander…
Two Icons, Two Deaths, Two Worlds: The Media Simplified Them Both
The world has said goodbye to two leaders who were worlds apart. One was a widely celebrated anti-communist, the other a widely despised communist. However, both the lives and thoughts of the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel, and North Korea’s Kim Jung-il were given short shrift.
The playwright turned President Havel who parlayed human rights activism into becoming Czechoslovakia‘s post-Communist President was a leader for the pro-democracy Charter 77 Movement, not just a Red-hating politician on a power trip.
Yet, the press praised him more for what he opposed than what he believed. The people who loved him adored him for both.
One report: “Thousands of silent mourners have accompanied the body of Vaclav Havel through central Prague as the Czech Republic began three days of national mourning for the icon of the Velvet Revolution.
About 10,000 mourners mostly in black, some carrying Czech or Slovak flags, joined a solemn procession taking the former president’s…
D17: Protests Mark The Third Anniversary of OccupyWallStreet Movement Puts On A “Why I Occupy” Show in Times Square
Saturday marked the third month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. It was also Bradley Manning’s Birthday. It was one of those days that confirmed the validity of the chant: “All Day, All Week, Occupy Wall Street”.
Ok, maybe, it wasn’t a whole week but Saturday felt like a week in one day. The plan for the day, as announced, was to gather at Duarte Park at 6th Avenue and Canal Street to attempt a RE-Occupation of vacant land owned by Trinity Church, more of a real estate company than a house of worship.
For a few weeks, the Occupy Movement had been demanding that the church allow the movement to take “sanctuary” on that land. There were earlier protests and even a hunger strike that made page one of the New York Times. Police in riot gear had ousted the occupiers the last time they tried to take over the space a…
Bull Moose or Bull Sh*t: Is Obama Changing His Stance Towards Wall Street?
Is Obama changing?
Many in the Occupy Wall Street Movement are patting their efforts on the back, and even claiming credit for what looks like a shift by President Obama towards a more engaged campaign discussing economic fairness.
The President’s speech in Kansas was modeled on remarks made by the Republican Bull Moose Teddy Roosevelt in 1910. There’s nothing like quoting a Republican for credible centrist positioning. (Note: he quotes TR, not FDR.)
Will he embrace GOP Pres Eisenhower’s warning about the Military Industrial Complex next?
Unlikely.
Richard Eskow was quick to salute the new Obama:
“Barack Obama channeled one of American history’s truly transformative figures by visiting the tiny Kansas town where Teddy Roosevelt gave his ‘New Nationalism’ speech over a century ago. It was refreshing to see the President invoke his predecessor, who was a powerful and fearless agent of change both inside and outside the White House.
“For the first time the President directly…
Who Is Winning The War on Wall Street? Making It Personal Is One Way To Seize The Initiative
Wall Street has become a battleground, defended by a battalion of New York Cops, and under surveillance around the clock. There’s a war under way after months of protests and assaults by the non-violent warriors of Occupy Wall Street.
So, who’s winning?
On the surface, despite major layoffs and economic setbacks, you would have to say that the epicenter of our financial markets is alive, if not well. The exchanges and banks remain open for business, even if their costs for security are up, and their long-term optimism is way down.
Attempts by occupiers and activists to “shut it down” have so far failed, but they have slowed it down and forced its defenders on the defensive. A sharp critique of out of control capitalism that was barely heard in the media before the movement began. It is now everywhere. The Movement has changed the national conversation.
The gluttons of greed are, at least…
Occupy This: Poetry Survives the Trashing of the People’s Library
Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
One of the clearest indicators of a fascist mentality is its contempt for ideas it disagrees with. The Nazis staged mass book burnings, and some religious zealots followed in their footsteps, in our country, by burning rock and roll records they considered the “Devil’s Music.” The war on Sarajevo began with the burning of its world acclaimed library by right-wing nationalists who found the city too multicultural for their tastes.
Here in New York, our liberal but opportunistically Republican Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, supports the New York Public Library. He also supported the right of that fanatic, fundamentalist minister Terry Jones, to burn the Quran to protest Islam. “I happen to think that it is distasteful. I don’t think he would like it if somebody burnt a book that in his religion he thinks is holy,” he said a year ago, “But the First Amendment protects everybody, and you…
OccupyWallStreet: The Police May Have Seized The Park But The Movement Moves On
It was strange, after all these weeks, to be on the outside looking in at a new set of occupiers that were there because they have the guns and we don’t.
When Mao said that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun” he most assuredly did not have anything like Occupy Wall Street on his mind, but somehow the insight applies. Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park had now been power cleaned and was pristine. More than 200 had been arrested in the takeover that included selective physical violence against resisters. Soon, all the tents were gone: Medical, Media, The Kitchen and The Library, as well as all the work group locations that I showed in my film a week earlier.
Now there were cops in command, barricades on the outside and contractors employed by Brookfield Properties, the Park’s owner, on the inside, looking all corporate and regimented. Activists with badges calling themselves the “99%” were…
Where Will The Next Phase of Occupy Wall Street Take Us?
A week ago, I produced a TV documentary on inside the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York.
It was already somewhat obsolete by the time it aired.
The Park, once a buzzing center of debate and open-air meetings has gone residential in the sense that virtually every square inch of what was a half-acre political terrarium is now dominated by tents, an effort to insure more protection from the elements and some better level of personal security. As private spaces proliferated, public space shrunk.
Now, public health officials are raising the prospect of the spread of germs while violent incidents in other cities have police nationwide threatening to shut down the occupations in the name, of course, of preserving public safety.
The first happened in Oakland, a town with a long history of police violence that was on display when cops overran the camp, seriously hurting an Iraq veteran, and triggering a call…
What Will Happen To OccupyWallStreet If It Loses Its Park?
Zuccotti Park. Photo: David Shankbone (CC)
The tarps are flapping and the tents are not bringing much warmth.
The harsh winds of winter are lashing the encampment at Zuccotti Park, or as many would prefer. “Liberty Plaza,” the symbol of a wannabe revolution against the status quote and powercrats of the American oligarchy.
The hard real-world contradictions of urban life have bumped up against the idyllic hopes of the occupiers as all the urban crises that our society has ignored and neglected surface in that half acre of hope.
There are man/woman handlers and gladhanders, doers and dopers, ragers and even rapists and so many poor with no where else to go. There are cops on the outside (and many on the inside) who plan for and hope for the worse.
This fight is not just the 99% against the 1% because, truth be told, this movement has so far only motivated a minority of…
Hey OWS, What’s Your Agenda?
Photo: Mrwho00tm (CC)
One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an “agenda.”
The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others.
It’s as if the movement won’t be taken seriously by some, unless and until, it enunciates a list of “demands” and defines itself in a way that can allow others, especially a cynical media, to label and pigeonhole it.
Many are just frothing at the mouth for some political positions they can expose as shallow or absurd. Teams of pundits are being primed to go on the attack once they have some bullet points to refute.
(Many police departments don’t need bullet points to go on the attack. They have been having a field day arresting occupiers in many cities, while collecting overtime and readying their own bullets as needed.)
Some on Wall…
