". . . a republic, if you can keep it."
“The owner of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times has been hit by the industry-wide slump in newspaper advertising revenues throughout 2008. Tribune is owned by real estate billionaire Sam Zell, who borrowed heavily to buy the firm in June 2007. Under US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection law a firm can keep trading while it aims to sort out its finances.” (Read more from news.bbc.co.uk)
I’m a blogger. Hear me roar!
See Also:
–Newspapers Struggling, Profits drop 20%
“In a new column by this best selling hero of all serious media, we finally have a easy to read explanation of the financial crisis—namely the nerds on Wall Street were just plain dumb, or to use an overused term, “stupid.”
. . . .
“. . . overrated dopes who had no idea what they were selling, or greedy cynics who did know and turned a blind eye. But it wasn’t only the bankers. This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics.”
Tom then lays out who was complicit in all this—with nary a mention of the media that spent years hyping the “financial innovation on Wall Street.” His answer: all of us. Everyone, he concludes, was involved so you can’t really blame anyone, much less prosecute the fraudsters and, to use an FDRis, “banksters” who bamboozled the gullible and laughed all the way to the bank or their high priced condo—which ever came first.
“This financial meltdown involved a broad national breakdown in personal responsibility, government regulation and financial ethics., ” he divines.”
“So many people were in on it: People who had no business buying a home, with nothing down and nothing to pay for two years; people who had no business pushing such mortgages, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business bundling those loans into securities and selling them to third parties, as if they were AAA bonds, but made fortunes doing so; people who had no business rating those loans as AAA, but made a fortunes doing so; and people who had no business buying those bonds and putting them on their balance sheets so they could earn a little better yield, but made fortunes doing so.”
America: confess your guilt. Because as long we all did it, as long as unsophisticated borrowers and subprime victims are treated in Friedman speak as equally to blame with shrewd lenders pedaling products they knew were unaffordable, then no one can ever be held responsible. To him, the bankers and brokers were not driven by avarice and self-interest but by ignorance and idiocy. How patronizing!
. . . .
Who are the Stupids here — the people who are losing everything or the media wise men who turn their eyes and pens away from examining the crimes of Wall Street who write in well polished generalities that seem critical at first reading, but then reveal themselves as totally superficial?
Can it be that people who live in big houses, can’t see or FEEL the pain of the people shackled by debt in smaller abodes down the street, the folks who are just waiting for the sheriff to toss them out?
Tom Friedman lives in one of those very big houses — you can see it on the Internet at sustainelane.com — but he also purports to be guided by a moral compass even as he blames us all for the sins of a few, concluding:
“That’s how we got here — a near total breakdown of responsibility at every link in our financial chain, and now we either bail out the people who brought us here or risk a total systemic crash. These are the wages of our sins.”
One sin Tom doesn’t comment on is the failure of our media to do a better job of assessing how that irresponsibility was permitted, even encouraged, and who should be held accountable.” (Read more from globalresearch.ca)
Greek violence spreads as riot police battle protesters across Europe Riots sparked by the death of a Greek schoolboy who was shot by police spread across Europe last night. (from mailonsunday.co.uk)
Greek violence spreads across Europe Suspected anarchist protests which have dogged Greece for the last week spread outside the country today, with mobs causing violent scenes in Italy, Spain, Russia, Denmark and Turkey. Greek diplomatic missions were vandalised in the attacks, while police, local authority and media representatives were also targeted in what appeared a co-ordinated escalation. The upsurge took place as protests continued in Greece following the killing last Saturday of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. (from independent.ie)
Me: Hmmmm. Which is more likely: Big media is minimizing the deeper unrest and discontent behind the riots, or that kid whom the cops killed was REALLY REALLY popular?
Week of Greek rioting taps into wider discontent (from news.yahoo.com)
Me: Duh!!!!! One week into the riots, and only now do we hear that maybe, just maybe it’s about more than one young man’s death.
The Greek police officer in this AP photo was ultimately unhurt: 
I like the analysis at theIrishBulletin.blogspot.com: Torching banks? Clashes near Parliament? Attacking diplomatic vehicles? Yesterday, I heard that ten banks had been attacked, and it seems strange that all of this is happening solely over last Saturday’s shooting. Indeed, it is a perfect pretext for the Greek authorities and the media – not to mention their counterparts over here – who fear that their cosy relationship with the international clique of banking criminals may result in them hanging from shiny lamp-posts from Washington to Dublin to Sydney.
Okay, I want to be careful about overstating the significance of a single study (thanks for the hint, Esoteridactyl). My goal is not to condemn all gobal warming believers, and certainly not to condemn environmentalist. (I consider myself one.) My goal is to expose what I believe to be government-and-media-backed hysteria, and the possibility of it being leveraged for profit and power by our ruling elite.
I’m curious about the Exchange Traded Funds GWO, which seems to relate to Global Warming, and GRN which seems to relate to Carbon Trading. I’m no expert and would welcome any comments pertaining to how these work. It certainly isn’t a bad thing to invest on what you believe the future might bring, but it’s important to be mindful that profit and power might color people’s intentions.
“A detailed analysis of black carbon — the residue of burned organic matter — in computer climate models suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions. . . . The researchers found that carbon dioxide emissions from soils were reduced by about 20 percent over 100 years, as compared with simulations that did not take black carbon’s long shelf life into account. The findings are significant because soils are by far the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide, producing 10 times more carbon dioxide each year than all the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities combined.” (emphasis added) (Read more from sciencedaily.com)
Al Gore will launch the international soil monitoring league. We’ll be taxed in its name. Their central planners will supervise the filling of rockets with dirt and launch them into outter space. . . or else we will be doomed! Doooooomed! DOOOOOOMED!
SEE ALSO:
The price of dissent on global warming
“WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn’t believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.
According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming, I’ve not been allowed to make a television program.
My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: “I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?”
It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children’s program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn’t think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn’t doing that. . . .
Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that’s not global warming. They’re drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.
So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore’s biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.
Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. . . .
I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I’ve been saying for 35 years.
Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.” (Read more from theaustralian.news.com.au)
I’ve had it. God Damn, Mother fucking NPR. Backstabbing, propagandist mother fuckers……
So there I was – driving from NYC to Iowa. (I’m blogging from a hotel in Ohio right now.) I tune to NPR. Those fucking, fucking, fucking, propagandist bastards. Traitors. How the fuck do you call Bernanke a free-marketer??????? Bernanke’s job has been to SET THE INTEREST RATE AT WHICH BANKS BORROW. His job is to say, ‘let’s create an economic bubble and set a low interest rate,’ or ‘lets flood the economy with cash,’ or ‘lets slow the economy by tighten up the money supply.’ This is the OPPOSITE of a free market.
Typical of Big Media coverage, they focus on one tree in the forest and use it to say Bernanke is a free-marketer – he didn’t regulate derivative markets and people acted irresponsibly. This is such BULLSHIT!!!! It makes me furious because it’s so deceptive – there’s just a hint of truth in it – enough to make my liberal friends believe and obey. They’ll drop their pants and open their wallets and say: “Please save us, dear Government. Government, only you can help. Save us from these evil capitalists. More government. More!!! More!!! Take my money and save me! Please, Government. We’ll do anything you ask!!!”
The hint of truth is that banks and traders indeed behaved irresponsibly. So What? That doesn’t make Bernanke a free-marketer for not reeling them in.
If we had free markets, interest rates would be set by banks negotiating with each other over how risky the loans are.
If we had free markets, there wouldn’t be a FED.
If we had free markets, Bernanke would be out of a job.
If we had free markets, government wouldn’t have warped investment in favor of super-risky housing loans.
If we had free markets, we wouldn’t have been riding the bubble of a bullshit economy for the past few decades.
If we had free markets, the bubble wouldn’t be popping – it would never have existed.
If we had free markets, all those incompetent (by some measures, corrupt) bankers whom Bernanke failed to reel in would have put their banks out of business several times over.
If we had free markets, we wouldn’t have bailed out the incompetent banks with the competent people’s money.
If we had free markets, the incompetent banks would be bought up by the competent ones for whatever the competent ones negotiated.
If we had free markets, government wouldn’t overpay for worthless bank assets with OUR MONEY.
If we had free markets, we might even have competing currencies, so we sound money believers could do our own thing as the government destroys our dollar in pursuit of global hegemony.
This crisis was caused BY GOVERNMENT. Now they’re blaming free markets and proposing MORE GOVERNMENT as a solution. The fucking nerve of these people. They cited today’s (November 10th’s) market fluctuations as evidence that free markets don’t work. WTF!??!?!? Not only did we just take $700 billion dollars away from the competent people, and give it to the incompetent, but the fuckers at NPR go on to blame the ensuing confusion and fluctuation on free markets!!! HA! You can’t make this stuff up.
They had a discussion as if the failure of free market economics was a given – the axiom from which all thesis must now derive. They said Milton Friedman has been refuted and economists are now “working behind closed doors,” to come up with more accurate theories.
The evidence??? Some dickhead talked about how markets behave “irrationally,” like when there’s a car accident on one side of the road, and traffic in both directions slows down. First of all, both directions of traffic slowing down for an accident is completely rational. Human curiosity? People wanting to understand the dangers of the world? Second of all, what the fuck does this example have to do with anything?????!!!!!
At that point my soul was in such agony, I had to switch off the radio. Those God damn, bastards.
This isn’t news. It’s psychological operations targeting the American people.
Even on 20/20!!! (Expect a producer to get fired.) This analysis is neither rigorous nor insightful, but I’m impressed and delighted that the message is making inroads into Big Media.
–Verizon shuts down access to Usenet
“Verizon has announced that they will be stopping access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas including the very popular alt.* groups that have been around since the late 1980s.
Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe said only a select few newsgroups/discussion groups would be offered to customers going into the future. It appears the decision is in response to political ‘strong-arming’ from New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who wants strong restrictions on all newsgroups.
Cuomo added that his office had found child porn on at least 88 newsgroups, although that percentage is tiny compared to the over 90,000 newsgroups that exist.”
–Free Nationwide Wi-Fi Network To Censor Political Websites
“Two competing parties, M2Z Networks and the FCC, are jockeying for the rights to roll out the network, but both have already stated their intent to install filters that block out pornography and anything else deemed ‘harmful’.
According to a Daily Tech report, ‘Both proposals stipulate that any free wireless offerings have mandatory content filters, preventing users from viewing any material that ‘would be harmful to teens and adolescents,’ including pornography and anything ‘contemporary community standards� deem as obscene. Free-speech advocates call this condition unconstitutional.'”
I predicted this in my Five Predictions for 2008.
“The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical ‘note’ to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives.
Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have ‘no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States.'” (Red more from MSNBC)
Okay, multiple choice. This is primarily:
a) a distraction from the fact that the $700 billion has been stolen by banks hasn’t helped.
b) preparing for the day when torch and pitchfork carrying citizens arrive at Federal buildings to inquire about their money. This type of news will allow them to more easily be associated with terrorists.
c) attempting to shift the debate toward security, the issue on which McCain best competes with Obama.
d) preparing to convince America that the “terrorist attacks” about to occur, which will keep Bush in office, or prevent Obama’s election, or result in martial law, or further expand government power, are the work of bearded men in caves.
e) other. (please specify)
P.S. The FBI’s mandate is to regulate interstate commerce. How did everything become their business?
“A decision, made under pressure from Congress and investors, to steer Fannie Mae into dangerous corners of the mortgage market proved to be disastrous.” This article is sickening. Typical of big media propaganda, they even personalize an executive, saying how he wanted his son to be proud of him. (Read more from NY Times)
The NY Times says nothing about the millions of dollars in campaign contributions made to Congress.
“Hollywood may benefit from the proposed $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial system, the Los Angeles Times said late on Wednesday.
The plan which was endorsed by the U.S. Senate would provide tax breaks worth more than $470 million over the next decade for movie and TV producers that shoot in the United States, the paper said.
One provision in the bill would provide film and TV producers with the same tax deductions that American manufacturers such as General Motors Corp and Boeing Co receive for making their products at home, according to the paper.
. . . .
Additionally, the tax package lifts the budget cap on the existing tax deduction, which was limited to movies that cost less than $15 million to make — in effect excluding most studio films, which cost a lot more, according to the paper.” (Read more from news.yahoo.com)
Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota, ex Navy Seal, Vietnam Veteran, Demolition Expert and an avid spokesperson for 911 Truth participates in a very tense Q&A with reporters: (See video at thestateoftruth.com)
“Yesterday, McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace dismissed the fact that Gov. Sarah Palin has yet to take any questions from the press. ‘So what?’ she scoffed. Today on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, campaign strategist Rick Davis suggested Palin might never sit down for an interview if, he said, it’s ‘in our best interest’ to keep her away from the media.” (Read more from thinkprogress.org)
It is definitely in the best interest of the campaign to keep Palin away from the press and away from the people – McCain too.
I’m no fan of Russia. In fact, I’m somewhat obsessed with the excesses of the Soviets, Holodomor, etc. But the unanimity and savagery with which Big Media has condemned the Russians, makes me think they’re at least partially innocent – for once. Whenever Big Media tells you to hate someone, you should seek other sources. In this case, the Indy press has been quick to point out the rest of the story.
The rest of the story is well expressed in yesterday’s “Blowback From Bear-Baiting” by Patrick Buchanan:
“Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia’s invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. . . Saakashvili’s blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili’s army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.
Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi, and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.
Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and John McCain, and America’s lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.
Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.
American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight – Russia finished it. People who start wars don’t get to decide how and when they end.
Russia’s response was “disproportionate” and “brutal,” wailed Bush.
True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more “disproportionate”?
Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?
Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?
When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?
Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of whom viscerally detest Russia?” (Read more from antiwar.com)
Spinning the issue:
–Georgia loses the fight with Russia, but manages to win the PR war.
–From the Jerusalem Post: “As the Russian bear plunges its claws into the heart of its much smaller neighbor Georgia. . . .”
–From BBCnews: “[Ossetians] are very clear who they blame: Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili, who sent troops to re-take control of this breakaway region. That effort has clearly backfired. The pro-Russian sentiment I experienced on my last visit four years ago has become far fiercer as a result of this conflict.”
–Bush Says Russia Must Stop ‘Bullying’ Georgia.
–from NY Times: “Russians Push Past Separatist Area to Assault Central Georgia”
–from CNN: “Commentary: Russian bombs’ message is ‘this is for America'”
–from Al Jazeera: “Russian forces sink Georgian ships”
–from Pravda.ru via indybay.org: “Georgia’s Aggression and Atrocities: US presidential runoff John McCain said that Russia should not interfere in the conflict in South Ossetia. The pro-Georgian propaganda in the US media testifies to the same opinion. It brings up the idea that the Georgian aggression against the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia has been coordinated with the US administration.”
–Despite our call for peace and a unilateral ceasefire separatists continued the shelling of Georgian villages,” it quoted Mamuka Kurashvili as saying. “We are forced to restore constitutional order in the whole region.”
–Hezbollah Leader Nasrallah: ‘Failed’ IDF generals caused Georgia defeat in war.
The US connection:
–Both McCain and Obama’s advisors want war in Georgia
–McCain Adviser Was Lobbyist for Georgia
–Troops from Atlanta will train in Republic of Georgia(Jul 14)
–U.S. Military Instructors Command Hirelings in Georgia (Aug 11) “Thousands of mercenaries are fighting for Georgia in this burning conflict with South Ossetia. They are commanded by the U.S. military instructors, RIA Novosti reported with reference to a high-ranked officer of Russia’s military intelligence.”
–US troops still in Georgia (Aug 12)
–U.S. to take control of Georgian ports: Saakashvili (Aug 13)
The Israel Connection:
–Georgia president denies Israel halted military aid due to war
“‘The Israeli weapons have proved very effective,’ he said at a press conference at his office. When asked whether the Israeli arms played a role in the military successes he claimed the Georgian army had achieved, he joked: ‘Are you asking me as a representative of Elbit or of Israel Aerospace Industries?’
To a reporter’s question about Jews who have fled the fighting and come to Israel, he said: ‘We have two Israeli cabinet ministers, one deals with war [Defense Minister David Kezerashvili], and the other with negotiations [State Minister for Territorial Integration Temur Yakobashvili], and that is the Israeli involvement here: Both war and peace are in the hands of Israeli Jews.’
Yakobashvili is actually not an Israeli citizen. Saakashvili’s statements are part of his government’s attempt to bring other countries into its war against Russia.”
–exerpt from Haaretz.com: “Brig. Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch was the commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ Galilee Brigade when reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hezbollah on the northern border, sparking the Second Lebanon War. He operates a privately-owned Israeli military contractors that recently trained Georgian security forces .”
About Ukraine:
–Ukrainians wonder what Georgia crisis means for them
–“Ukraine threatened to blockade the Russian Black Sea Fleet yesterday in an act of solidarity with Georgia that risked escalating the conflict.” I worry this escalation, along with the issue of Sevastopol might bring Russian “peace keepers” to Crimea.