Manhattan D.A. chips away at protesters’ rights

Posted on October 26, 2011 by oddmanout215

Last night Keith Olbermann asked something I’ve wondered about since the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters began several weeks ago with beatings and arrests in Manhattan, and mass arrest-by-trickery at the Brooklyn Bridge:

“At what point did we all decide that you had to have a permit that designated where you could and could not protest?”

“We” never made this decision, as Olbermann knew before asking the question. Rather, issuance of permits is a law enforcement tactic increasingly being used to undermine our First Amendment rights of assembly and petition for redress of grievances. The tactic is often predicated on the notion that public parks and plazas and streets aren’t really public at all, except during those hours when police choose to allow people to use them.

Olbermann’s guest, attorney Yetta Kurland, noted the illegal containment methods used on protesters at the Republican National Convention in 2004 as a turning point in NYPD efforts to chip away at protesters’ rights.

Olbermann reminded viewers that cops around the country are using trumped-up anti-camping regulations to attack or intimidate OWS protesters, and he noted that Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. has come up with a new dirty trick to discourage protests. Vance has offered to drop charges against 340 people arrested during OWS protests if they don’t get arrested again within the next six months.

In short, anyone who hasn’t noticed democracy in America is in big trouble is either an idiot, a recluse, or too corrupt to care.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Occupy newsrooms. Use all those empty desks.

Posted on October 25, 2011 by oddmanout215

For as long as I can remember Gannett was known as an outfit that skimped on news coverage by using skeleton crews of reporters and editors, for no other reason than to further enrich the owners of the Gannett company.

Good job by David Carr in nailing Gannett and reminding us that reporters and editors who work for the corporate media, whether they realize it or not, are in the same predicament as the unemployed and underpaid who have taken to the streets:

Almost two weeks ago, USA Today put its finger on why the Occupy Wall Street protests continued to gain traction.

“The bonus system has gone beyond a means of rewarding talent and is now Wall Street”s primary business,” the newspaper editorial stated, adding: “Institutions take huge gambles because the short-term returns are a rationale for their rich payouts. But even when the consequences of their risky behavior come back to haunt them, they still pay huge bonuses.”

Well thought and well put, but for one thing: If you were looking for bonus excess despite miserable operations, the best recent example I can think of is Gannett, which owns USA Today.

The week before the editorial ran, Craig A. Dubow resigned as Gannett”s chief executive. His short six-year tenure was, by most accounts, a disaster. Gannett”s stock price declined to about $10 a share from a high of $75 the day after he took over; the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000, resulting in a remarkable diminution in journalistic boots on the ground at the 82 newspapers the company owns.

Carr recounts similar bad news about The Tribune Company, owned by the execrable Sam Zell, who put thousands of journalists out of work and ruined some top-tier newspapers through his greed and stupidity, meanwhile paying out huge bonuses to remaining managers.

The story is only slightly different in Philly, where I live, and all over the country. Newspapers are having a tough time transitioning to the digital age, and their worst enemies are their owners.

As for Carr’s semi-facetious notion of “occupying” the newsrooms… Well, there certainly would be plenty of room in most newsrooms these days if protesters chose to camp out in them.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, Philadelphia, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Will the circle jerk of one-percenters be broken?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by oddmanout215

Members of outlaw motorcycle gangs used to call themselves “one-percenters,” meaning they were in the tiny minority of Americans who are unabashed sociopaths. However, when we hear “one-percenters” these days, the reference usually is to establishment types who are obscenely wealthy and powerful and, arguably, much more sociopathic than outlaw bikers.

Here is economist Joseph Stiglitz describing the odious gang of one-percenters that runs our country:

The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government, by removing limitations on campaign spending. The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift – through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price – it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

Stiglitz ends his piece on an optimistic note. He reminds readers that one-percenters, in various countries and eras, often forget “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” They become too complacently greedy and eventually spark a populist backlash. In contemporary America, the backlash may have begun with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t go near the wood-er, quack quack

Posted on October 23, 2011 by oddmanout215

One of those bizarre amphibious “duck boats,” jammed with tourists, cruised past me on South Street today. The tour guide, using a mic and amp system, was shouting, “Pay attention, I’ll tell you how to speak Philadelphian. One, two, three… Yo cous, how ya doin’, wadda ya say?”

If I was on the boat I would have replied, “I’m OK, cous, but don’t go near the wood-er. I don’t wanna get drowned-ed.”

I know, bad joke. I’m just hoping the duck-boat people and the tugboat operators on the Delaware River have their act together, and I’m glad there haven’t been any more unfortunate accidents on land or in the water. One improvement — the tours aren’t half as annoying to locals as they used to be, now that passengers don’t receive their “duck call instruments” until after the rides are finished.

Posted in Philadelphia | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar…

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

The perfect Saturday night song if you’re looking to sit at a bar and drown your lust for someone, or to start a fight if you can’t drink enough to drown it.

I don’t sit at bars anymore, but I often feel nostalgia for the self-lacerating insanity of the ritual described above. You know how it is with romantics.

Muddy Waters was one of the only vocalists I can think of who could do justice to “Just To Be With You,” recorded in 1956. Little Walter’s harmonica sounds like a giant keyboard in a juke joint the size of a cathedral.

The title of Scott Spencer’s novel A Ship Made of Paper — about crazy love, of course — is from this song:

On a ship that’s made of paper,
Oh yeah, I will sail the seven seas.
Fight a shark with a toothpick,
Crawl home to you on my knees.
There ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar,
Oh yeah, baby, just to be with you.

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, pop music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Has America begun to ‘get’ Bernie Sanders?

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

To understand how right-wing the major political parties in America are, it helps to read the foreign press. This from The Guardian:

… [Bernie Sanders’] beliefs… would fit comfortably in the middle left of Britain’s Labour party or Germany’s SPD. But it is impossible to over-state just how much of a political death sentence being called a “socialist” – never mind actually proudly proclaiming it – usually is in America…

After all, many elected Democrats shy away from the “liberal” label out of a fear of being demonised as left-wing extremists. Yet, even though political opponents have accurately called Sanders a “red,” and the New York Times once derided him as “a strange bird out of Vermont,” Sanders has flourished.

Indeed, he says his beliefs chime far more with Americans than people think. “All I can tell you is that in every poll I have seen if you ask people: do you think the wealthiest people in this country should pay their fair share of taxes? Then the answer is: yes, they should,” he said.

He rattled off a long list of other issues in the same way, posing a question on an issue and then answering it for the voters in the affirmative: cutting excessive military spending, not cutting social security, creating well-paying jobs in America, closing corporate tax loopholes.

This list sounds familiar to anyone who’s following the Occupy movement. No wonder The New York Times isn’t calling Bernie a “strange bird” anymore.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

A word about our former torturer-in-chief

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

After posting about bringing Dick Cheney’s former ally and fellow war criminal to justice, I saw this item:

A raucous group of protesters gathered outside a Surrey, [British Columbia], hotel Thursday, hoisting colourful cardboard placards, shouting into megaphones and looking and sounding much like the masses who have converged for Occupy rallies in cities across Canada. But unlike their counterparts, this group had a single, united objective – to secure the arrest of George W. Bush.

… Amnesty International, along with several other peace and human rights organizations, contend Bush should be tried under Canadian and international law for war crimes, including torture. They point to what they call the illegal invasion of Iraq and his administration’s admitted use of techniques like waterboarding as evidence of crimes

Meanwhile, Toronto Star was bringing hopes of arresting Bush in Canada back down to earth:

No doubt many Canadians would be happy to see Bush hauled before a court. But it is up to the U.S. and its credible legal system, not the wider world, to deal with this matter. That’s codified in the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court, and in the Convention against Torture.

If the U.S. is unwilling or unable, complainants have recourse to the ICC itself, even though the U.S. is not a party to the statute. The ICC can look, for example, into the dubious practice of “extraordinary rendition” if crimes were committed in countries that are party to the statute. Uninvolved parties such as Canada have no cause to get involved until every other avenue has been exhausted.

The Star has some of its facts straight, but I take issue with its use of the word “credible,” and its opinion that Canada “has no cause” to become involved. Bush canceled a trip to Switzerland last winter because he feared possible arrest. There is nothing credible about Barack Obama’s justice department or his decision to ignore his predecessor’s war crimes.

Bottom line: Lucky Libyan rebels — lucky because NATO fought their war for them — cornered Moammar Gaddafi in a drainpipe. American soldiers found Saddam Hussein in a spider hole. The ICC will never arrest Bush as he’s “clearing brush” in Crawford, TX, but maybe it can nab him as he steps off an airplane outside the United States. That goes for Bush’s shadow boss Cheney, too.

However, as John Wayne and Buddy Holly would say, “That’ll be the day.”

Posted in Iraq war, mainstream media, Obama, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Gaddafi nailed because he had no nukes

Posted on October 21, 2011 by oddmanout215

What is this thing called... realpolitik?

You may have read my bogus exclusive in August — a letter from Moammar Gaddafi to Dick Cheney, appealing for rescue from Libyan rebels who brought down Gaddafi’s government after British, French and American air forces, in classic colonialist fashion, crippled his army.

As you know, Gaddafi is now officially kaput. Apparently, his plea fell on deaf ears, even though he reminded Cheney in his letter that the two of them were former allies, as well as fellow war criminals and torture advocates, and should look out for one another when the chips were down.

Near the bitter end, when Gaddafi and his bodyguards was preparing to break out of Sirte, he sent one more dispatch to Cheney that my sources managed to intercept:

Dear Dick,

It looks as if the sand fleas will feast on me after all, and I suppose this is a good thing, under the circumstances. My Amazons have deserted me. I’m down to my last pinch of pharmaceutical meth, and sub-Saharan crank does not cut it, any more than this third-rate kif from Timbuktu.

I suppose you weighed all your options, to use the insipid American phrase, and decided to leave me twisting in the desert wind rather than come to my aid and answer all those awkward questions concerning our relationship, conducted mostly through your — how do you say it? — your point man, Richard Perle, who worked to help “burnish Libya’s image” back in 2006.

It is clear now that my big mistake was letting you and your British friends trick me into dismantling my nuclear weapons program in return for your false promise to supply me with “conventional and non-conventional military equipment.”

What the Prophet said is true: Do not trust fellow war criminals, even those who are your friends. The moral of this story, as you Americans like to say, is that only countries with nuclear stockpiles are truly safe from the crusaders. Our friend Kim Jong Il has starved millions but your infidel fighter-jet pilots steer clear of North Korea lest he incinerate your allies to the south. I guess I never quite got the gist of what you call realpolitik.

If you see Condi, say hello for me. I miss my Nubian queen even more than my Michael Jacksonian palace and wardrobe.

See you in hell.

Moammar

Posted in humor, Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

NYT’s Keller wrong about Iraq, wrong about OWS

Posted on October 21, 2011 by oddmanout215

Many of us waited years for Bill Keller to own up to his key role in helping legitimize the disastrous Iraq War, but it never happened. So it’s no surprise that, instead of admitting he wrongly supported deregulation of the financial services industry, he chooses to ridicule the long-overdue public backlash against Wall Street crooks:

Funny, he doesn’t look like Marie Antoinette. But when former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller asks his readers if they are “bored by the soggy sleep-ins and warmed-over anarchism of Occupy Wall Street,” it displays the arrogance of disoriented royal privilege.

Perhaps his contempt for anti-corporate protesters was honed by the example of his father, once the chairman of Chevron. In any case, it is revealing, given the cheerleading support that the Times gave to the radical deregulation of Wall Street that occurred when Keller was the managing editor of the newspaper.

As the Times reported on its news pages in 1998, heralding the merger that created Citigroup as the world’s largest financial conglomerate: “In a single day, with a bold merger, pending legislation in Congress to sweep away Depression-era restrictions on the financial services industry has been given a sudden, and unexpected, new chance of passage…”

… One would think that the failure of The New York Times to cover this sorry tale as it was unfolding would leave Keller with some humble understanding of why protesters, undeterred by rain, should be celebrated rather than scorned. But such accountability has hardly been a hallmark of those in the media or in business and political circles, who with few exceptions got it so wrong.

It’s a law of nature: The most arrogant and rigid-minded fools are also the fools who are least likely to apologize for major errors, or even acknowledge them.

Posted in economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Fox balks, NPR fires somebody

Posted on October 20, 2011 by oddmanout215

It’s easy to joke about the level of self-censorship at NPR, as I did recently, but hard to exaggerate the uselessness of a news operation whose managers constantly bend to kiss the asses of the right-wingers aiming to kill government funding for public media:

Freelance broadcaster Lisa Simeone was fired from public radio program Soundprint yesterday after NPR took issue with her role as a spokesperson for the Occupy DC protests, despite the fact that she is not officially employed by the organization.

Simeone’s conflict with NPR was first reported by Roll Call and eventually ended up on Fox News before she was officially fired, evoking another infamous NPR termination. “The whole thing, right down to the firing-by-phone-after-pickup-from-Fox, has echoes of the Juan Williams debacle,” wrote Politico’s Keach Hagey, “and is likely to worsen public radio’s political woes, even if Simeone was not an NPR employee.”

Soundprint isn’t actually produced by NPR and airs on affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C., but WAMU news director Jim Asendio said that the station shares NPR’s code of ethics, which states that “NPR journalists may not engage in public relations work, paid or unpaid,” excepting “certain volunteer nonprofit, nonpartisan activities, such as participating in the work of a church, synagogue, or other institution of worship, or a charitable organization.”

As James Poniewozik pointed out last winter, one of the many ironies of the right’s war on public broadcasting is that eliminating government funding won’t kill “liberal programming” on “well-funded public outlets” in big population centers, but it might destroy public TV and radio outlets in sparsely populated areas.

Poniewozik noted that government-funded public broadcasting has already been neutered by the wing-nuts:

I actually do believe that public broadcasting — all of it — would be better, braver and more interesting if it had the independence that came from being entirely separated from the government and thus politics. But I can afford to believe that: I live in New York.

One of the problems is how to find a way to fund local public media in all parts of the country, not just areas densely populated enough to survive on donations from listeners and viewers.

Posted in Congress, mainstream media, Politics, taxes | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment