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…
Behind The Scenes At OWS With Danny Schechter
Danny “Media Dissector” Schechter (director of Plunder: The Crime of our Time) says that “Behind the scenes of Occupy Wall Street is an organization that is pretty invisible. It is decentralized, it’s bottom up and it’s organized into working committees.” He’s created a video report about it for PressTV:
Why Are So Many in the Media Threatened By Occupy Wall Street?
The other night, I ran into a veteran journalist, a writer who I always considered was among the “plugged in.” Yet when I told him I was reporting on Occupy Wall Street, he plugged out, and stared at me cluelessly.
“What do they want,” he asked, echoing the questioned raised endlessly by TV pundits and editorial commentators. He didn’t seem to know or care who “they” are, or why they have taken to living in parks to make their point. He and his colleagues seem to be saying that to understand what’s going on, it all be first compressed into a press release with bullet points they can simplify further.
“I don’t get it,” he sighed. “Its about Occupying Wall Street,” I replied, “Occupying Wall Street, challenging the power of its economic power. Another blank look …
It’s as if we need our politics to follow a predictable format characterized by legislators playing…
Matt Taibbi: Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?
I have been a fan of Matt Taibbi’s work for quite some time, looks like he is asking the really “big” question in his most recent article (one that Danny Schechter, who Disinformation has worked with, has focused his work upon). I encourage you to read this article in Rolling Stone. Matt Taibbi writes:
Over drinks at a bar on a dreary, snowy night in Washington this past month, a former Senate investigator laughed as he polished off his beer.
“Everything’s fucked up, and nobody goes to jail,” he said. “That’s your whole story right there. Hell, you don’t even have to write the rest of it. Just write that.”
I put down my notebook. “Just that?”
“That’s right,” he said, signaling to the waitress for the check. “Everything’s fucked up, and nobody goes to jail. You can end the piece right there.”
Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw…
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?
Cynthia McKinney
To add to the discussion started by Danny Schechter’s post Does Fascism Lurk Around The Corner In The USA?, here is the beginning of Chris Hedges’ column from March of last year, Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?:
The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and…
Danny Schechter on The Secret Wall Street Bailout
The U.S. doled out $12.3 trillion dollars to finance bailouts, a figure far higher than what was previously stated. Danny Schechter writes in Al Jazeera:
Go, Wall Street, Go!
Never mind the rise in unemployment and foreclosures. Never mind the folks waiting to know if they will get the benefits they need before they are cut off. Never mind the growing gap between rich and poor, and the rapid spread of poverty. (Did you know that inequality in the US is at the highest level of any industrialised country?)
Does any of this matter?
The idea of equality as a social goal is apparently passé. Christmas has a special meaning on Wall Street: It’s bonus time.
Just five too big to fail bankster companies have stashed $90 billion for payouts to prized employees. They know that the beat on The Street is fading, so it seems to be take the money and run time. Incidentally, that…
Good Holiday Reads In A Dark And Depressing Time
My 12 Best Books of Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa About the Economic Crisis That Has Defined Our Times
Back in 2007, just as the markets began their meltdown, I started writing a book I called Plunder to investigate the then emerging economic calamity. I had a well-known agent representing me, and, at that time, had published ten books. My agent warned me that I was ahead of the curve but agreed that the subject couldn’t be timelier.
Before we were through, the manuscript went to and was returned by 30 publishers. I was told that there is only one person that a book like mine had to pass muster with, not an economist, not a book editor—but the book buyer who handles business books for Barnes and Noble. If she/she didn’t like it, forget it. (This was before the bottom dropped out of that company that was later nearly sold.)
So much for their…
Obama’s Burden
With the midterm election less than a month away and the economic crisis unabated, the Obama Administration may be at a crossroads.
The President’s own advisor, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker says the financial system is “broken.” High unemployment is not dropping and home foreclosures are up. The Obamacrats are being blamed for the economic downturn and the economy has become ‘the issue’ of the November midterm elections.
The signs of an economic recovery are hard to see, and tensions with China, a leading trade partner, may be on the cusp of a trade war. Add to this the trillions poured into two wars we are not winning, and you have the elements of a perfect storm that some fear could lead to a depression or even a systemic collapse.
With the President’s popularity slipping and his opposition surging, (at least in the media if not in the streets) the Democrats are…
Marching On Washington: The Joy Of Victory And The Agony Of Defeat As My Feet Hurt And Heart Ached
I have been marching on Washington—and covering marches for more years that I can remember. As a kid, I was part of the original March on Washington back in ’63. It was for jobs and freedom.
The jobs part was soon forgotten when the event was reduced to four words, “I Have A Dream” in the historical memory. Dr King’s hope for a non-racial America was not the only message, but it is all we remember as anthemic and iconic. Also forgotten, it was an expression of a grass roots movement from below struggling against violent and racist opposition. It was there to showcase that movement, not make a movie.
It was well organized but hardly as well-produced as The One Nation Marching Together rally this past weekend. This rally seemed like it was out together by special events specialists, the folks who run political conventions with everyone on message, giant screens, filler…
When The Taliban Calls, Should You Answer?
How can we cover a war when we only cover one side? Do we live in a “Republic of Fear?”
There is a saying I may be twisting in the retelling to the effect of what you do unto others will be done onto you. In Karmic terms, it boils down to what goes around cones around. These thoughts come to mind as I wrestle with a dilemma that seems to be worming its way out of the soil of a country at war overseas and with itself.
Earlier this week, I received a friend request on Facebook from one Abdullah Musafir. He identified himself as from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. His wall was filled with Islamic proverbs and reports on the killing of Western forces and battles with “cowardly terrorists,” i.e., NATO, Afghan soldiers and US Troops. There were reference to the destruction of “puppet” police vehicles and the use…
Bank Failures Show No Sign Of Stopping – Taxpayers Pick Up The Tab
The Wall Street Journal attracted a lot of attention yesterday with the headline “Banks Keep Failing, No End in Sight.” If you’ve been reading Danny Schechter’s posts about the never-ending recession and financial crisis, it may not come as a surprise, but if you drank the “Recession’s Over” Kool Aid being dispensed in Washington, it might surprise you to learn that since big fish Washington Mutual went bust, 279 more lenders have collapsed, and counting:
The largest number of bank failures in nearly 20 years has eliminated jobs, accelerated a drought in lending and left the industry’s survivors with more power to squeeze customers.
Some 279 banks have collapsed since Sept. 25, 2008, when Washington Mutual Inc. became the biggest bank failure on record. That dwarfed the 1984 demise of Continental Illinois, which had only one-seventh of WaMu’s assets. The failures of the past two years shattered the pace of the prior six-year period,…
It’s One Thing To Write About Others Losing Their Jobs, But What Happens When It Happens To You?
"Plunder" Filmmaker Danny Schechter
A Lament For Labor Day
When your life and your work is as entwined as mine has been—fusing the personal and the political over all these years, it may be stretching things to consider yourself unemployed but that’s what I am as Labor Day approaches.
Most of the media focuses on the big companies that have slashed their work forces (even as they hoard cash.) But small companies are also suffering, cutting back, and closing. They don’t get the subsidies or bailouts or the attention.
Companies like ours!
Last May, we decided to close our Globalvision office when the lease was up. Our costs remained too high while revenues had dropped. We realized that we ourselves had become victims of the economic calamity that I had been warning about, and urging who ever would listen to respond to. It was, suddenly, not about someone else’s problems. They had literally come home.
There…
Firedoglake’s Movie Night: PLUNDER The Crime Of Our Time
Lisa Derrick hosted Danny Schechter for a live chat to discuss his movie, at Firedoglake:
How do you steal $196 trillion dollars and get away with it? In Plunder: The Crime of Our Time, journalist Danny Schechter dissects the crime scene, Wall Street.
Schechter goes for the meat of the matter in the mortgage crisis and economic meltdown, starting with pyramid Midas Bernie Madoff’s trial then interviewing those in the know, from economist Paul Krugman to convicted white collar criminal Sam Antar who reveals the intentionally dishonest practices that have resulted in over 10 million mortgage foreclosures.
From the collapse of Bear Stearns to government bailouts, lost homes and Paris, France, as the crisis spreads globally, Schechter explains with humor, insight and outrage the underhanded deals and shady events that ledup to the collapse which affected the lives of potentially billions of
people.Plunder is based on Schechter’s book of the same name and is…
Investigating Economic Organized Crime
The economic crisis needs to be investigated using RICO laws used against organized crime, says Danny Schechter, author and director of Plunder: The Crime of Our Time. Wall Street made billions off mortgage fraud, and all the busts of mortgage lenders in the world won’t get the real culprits.
Schechter joins GRITtv’s Laura Flanders in studio to talk about the unreported story of the economic crisis, which continues to haunt millions of Americans, and which Paul Krugman recently referred to as the third depression.
The Crime of the Century: A Review of “Plunder”
"Plunder" Filmmaker Danny Schechter
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times:
In a just world Michael Moore’s Capitalism would have been released on DVD for a niche crowd of professional weirdos and malcontents while Plunder would have made millions and garnered Academy Awards. Unlike the former which relied on the pulling of emotional heartstrings, sucking up to Barack Obama and Mr. Moore’s usual shenanigans, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time revolves around hard analysis. Plunder provides a detailed summary of the Rube Goldberg machine that collapsed the American economy.
Indeed, the investors who robbed America blind are only one part of the equation. They received a great deal of assistance from the regulatory agency tasked with defending Americans from just such a swindle. Plunder falls short on exploring just how such malfeasance at the highest levels of power is allowed to happen, though it does an admirable job of laying bare the function of such agencies. Similarly, the film…
How To Stop The Economic War Sweeping The World
We are all still stuck in the “big Muddy.” No, not the wars of old or even the oil disaster. The mud I am referring to is more like quicksand and it sucks anyone who wants to look at what happened in the financial crisis deeper and deeper into it.
Soon, you are buried in shifting sea of so-called “exotic financial instruments,” and tranches, derivatives, credit default swaps, naked short-selling, etc and so forth, ad fin item. It’s murkier in there than in the oil-infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Stop, my head hurts.
A far simpler explanation, pervasive fraud and financial crime, has been ignored by most of our economic geniuses. As I made my film Plunder: The Crime of Our Time offering a “crime narrative,” I ran up against the denial that greeted my 2006 film In Debt We Trust warning of a meltdown. Then I was called, a “doom and…
Will Anyone At The Most Powerful Investment Bank Go To Jail?
Will Goldman survive the assault? Will the threat of criminal charges being pursued against the world’s leading investment bank spill over onto others on Wall Street? Is the criminalization of the crisis underway, or is all this just a maneuver?
For the last two years, I have felt lonely and isolated with my calls for a jail-out, and insistence that theft, fraud and crime are at the heart of our economic disaster. I have written two books documenting my contention and just released the film Plunder The Crime of Our Time treating the economy as crime scene.
There are a few other voices out there making a similar claim: Former bank regulator Bill Black; U.S. Senator Ted Kauffman; and even billionaire investor Jim Chanos, among them. Most politicians of both parties and media pundits have dismissed the suggestion, preferring to believe that virtually everyone was to blame and, hence, no one was to…
Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” (On Twitter)
In celebration of this paragon of capitalism, Goldman Sachs, on April 30th we’ll be giving away copies of Danny Schechter’s latest documentary on Wall Street fraud, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time (available now on DVD and iTunes) for those who Tweet the following:
Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” #Plunder #GoldmanSucks #FreeFriday http://bit.ly/cuUXky
(If you haven’t heard of the “shitty deal” yet read here.)
As always the more you Tweet the above phrase, the greater your chances of receiving a copy of Plunder on DVD. Here’s the trailer:
