March 4, 2010 archive

Enron Fun with Fannie and Freddie

  Let me take you back to Christmas Eve, 2009. It was a time to wrap gifts for loved-ones. That’s how the Obama Administration felt about the financial industry when it lifted all caps in emergency bailout money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That means the taxpayer was on the hook for all losses at these two mortgage giants no matter how big the losses are.

   The move caused a slight stir, but never got the attention of the American public because the announcement was timed to coincide with the peak season of distraction. And so it was forgotten…but not by Fannie and Freddie.

Obama and the Democrats as “Pussies”: A Dangerous Meme

“Why are Obama and the Democrats so incompetent/such wimps/such ‘pussies’?  They control the White House and  both houses of Congress, yet they haven’t even managed to [insert embarrassingly modest and/or reformist liberal/progressive goal here, e.g., “pass health care reform that includes a public option”, “end the Iraq war”, “enact strict regulations on Wall Street”, etc.]! Obama needs to ‘grow a pair’ and start acting more like the Republicans did when they were in power! You know, like a man.  I mean, Bush never cared about bipartisanship and consensus-building when he was president.  He was willing to use his power to enact his agenda, and he did so without giving the Democratic opposition in Congress a second thought.”

The Left’s™ persistent broadcasting of variations on the  Democrats-as-incompetent-“pussies” (Bill Maher’s word, not mine) meme  reeks of a highly sophisticated and finely-tuned advertising campaign. The corporate owners of Brand Left™have so thoroughly saturated the nation with this message that even Apple’s marketing department has started taking notes.

Of course, it is unsurprising when Brand Left’s™ corporate mouthpieces help spread such a patently false characterization of Obama and the Democrats. The Leftists™ that have been anointed by our capitalist dictatorship — Rachel Maddow,  Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore, Ariana Huffington, and Bill Maher (to name a few)- have each done their part to perpetuate this dangerous lie about Obama and the Democrats. One should expect nothing less of such a distinguished cadre of amoral hypocrites.

Despite their faux-leftist rhetoric, they are cut from the same rotting, moth-eaten corporate cloth as Certainly Not News and Fox. The plutocracy has allowed them to express their “left wing” convictions for one primary reason:  A few advertising firms conducted focus groups to figure out what kind of programming would best attract a coveted demographic to various media sources where they could be subjected to target marketing (i.e., mostly white limousine liberals who constantly reiterate their love for National “Public” Radio whenever they are going for progressive realness). Likewise, The Jersey Shore was created so that advertisers could target an equally repugnant demographic.   

Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Baghdad attacks kill 14 as Iraq voting begins

by Salam Faraj, AFP

34 mins ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) – Early voting in Iraq’s general election was overshadowed Thursday by two suicide bombings at polling stations that killed seven soldiers and a mortar attack that claimed the lives of seven civilians.

The blasts wounded 48 people, including 25 Iraqi soldiers, and came despite massive security, with troops, prisoners and the sick casting their ballots ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election.

Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has threatened to disrupt the election by “military means” and 200,000 police and soldiers have been deployed in the capital alone to try to prevent attacks.

Opening Up

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Olympic Dream vs. Vancouver Reality

With the close of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, much of the media was quick to declare them a total success. This goes against the mounds of journalism produced before and during the games by the Vancouver Media Co-op, the city’s newly launched independent media center. Believing that their might be more than one answer regarding the success of the games, and one of those should come from the host communities, The Real News spoke to Franklin López, Video Producer with the Co-op, to find out more about the legacy of the 2010 Olympics for the people of Vancouver.



Real News Network – March 04, 2010

Olympic dream vs. Vancouver reality

Media love-in with Winter Olympics challenged by city’s new journalist co-op

Franklin López is a video producer with the Vancouver Media Co-op. You can find the co-op at vancouver.mediacoop.ca. It is one of a series of similar projects getting started in Canada, currently there are also chapters in Toronto and Halifax. For the co-op’s coverage of the Olympics, go to 2010.mediacoop.ca

Olympic Dream vs. Vancouver Reality

With the close of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, much of the media was quick to declare them a total success. This goes against the mounds of journalism produced before and during the games by the Vancouver Media Co-op, the city’s newly launched independent media center. Believing that their might be more than one answer regarding the success of the games, and one of those should come from the host communities, The Real News spoke to Franklin López, Video Producer with the Co-op, to find out more about the legacy of the 2010 Olympics for the people of Vancouver.



Real News Network – March 04, 2010

Olympic dream vs. Vancouver reality

Media love-in with Winter Olympics challenged by city’s new journalist co-op

Franklin López is a video producer with the Vancouver Media Co-op. You can find the co-op at vancouver.mediacoop.ca. It is one of a series of similar projects getting started in Canada, currently there are also chapters in Toronto and Halifax. For the co-op’s coverage of the Olympics, go to 2010.mediacoop.ca

A Really Silly Diary

Usually I don’t do silly but my copy of the Daily News today has me in stitches. The ‘Topless’ snow lady in New Jersey was finally covered up after getting some frosty looks.

Who did these crazy people from Rahway, N.J think they were? You can’t show a naked lady in a family community.

Finally after a visit from Rahway’s Finest, justice was served. I love the fact that after the neighbor harassment that the cops had a hard time taking seriously, the creators of the naked snowlady picked a bikini top and sarong to mask their crime.

Sometimes art can be so ephemeral.

By Monday, warmer weather had melted the snowlady from a D cup to a C cup and it was taken down.

But the story is a keeper. The Daily News story was pretty good and made all the points I would. I guess kids in Rahway will need to wait until their twenty-first birthday for a visit to the Metropolitan Museum.

OTW: What Did You Learn in School Today?

These children: Granted.

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These children: Pending? Limbo? Repatriated?.

Morning lessons for refugee children
 

Bloggers awake!

Tocque’s outstanding essay on the impotence of political blogging has brought us to a watershed moment on Docudharma. Will this blog continue to be just another breast-beating exercise in group futility, or will we move the first stone to build an effective progressive political movement on the Internet? It is time to stand and deliver. If this blog is not the place to begin the fight against America’s predator elite, then we must find one that is.

Accordingly, I propose:

1. That the members of the Docudharma community recommend candidate targets for direct personal political action.

2. That the members agree, by vote or consensus, on a common target for direct political action.

3. That the Docudharma blog prominently publicize the chosen action and all traffic reference this action.

4. That the Docudharma community reach out to other Internet groups to make common cause in pursuing the chosen direct action.

To begin the dialog, I propose a national boycott of FedEx as a candidate for collective direct action. See this link for the rationale:

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…

The facts are plain. Blogging without direct action is an impotent evolutionary dead-end for Internet politics. We must learn to use the Internet to mobilize EFFECTIVE political action. It is time to awaken from the enfeebling trance of empty emotional blog posting. It is time to take action.

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty: Adventures in looking For the Left

I went out seeking a herd of cats so I could finally meet “the left”. You know ….”the pussies”…..

Because the word “pussy” is not a derogatory term you know. But you knew that right? And don’t you dare get offended. Because it means you are a wimp. Politically correct. Because that is the absolutely worst human trait one can have on the left apparently. Being politically correct. Oh. Sinful. You can be a serial killer and we will lap you up as long as you are not politically correct.

There.Is. No. Left.

It doesn’t exist in the United States. It is a largely and invention of the right to explain all those people who disagree with them.

There are certainly people who espouse leftist ideals/progressive notions/alternative points of view. There are certainly people who engage in community action and volunteer work that could be broadly termed leftist because in one way or another they are oppositional. They wish to oppose current economic and political structures. They participate in blogs which apparently isn’t pure enough to be considered real. They are cowards and slackers because they aren’t bashing heads and blowing shit up.

But we don’t have a left. We don’t have an organization, no structure, no leaders, no official spokespersons. There are various reasons for this a lack of unionization, no funding sources which the right has plenty of, a lack of cohesive identity, a mythical belief in America that class either does not exist or does not matter, divisions in the working class along region, gender, and race. Nobody speaks for me. And nobody speaks for you.

Right now, the left is a unicorn and it is either naive or pompous to start making declarations about who we are. If we exist.

Over at Alternet an interesting article declares that the left is lacking.

There is an astonishing lack of anger among liberals, progressives and radicals who have abandoned emotion to the right.

If DD is any representative sample there are plenty of angry people. There is plenty of be angry about. But we did not abandon that emotion to the right. The right have always been angry. This isn’t something new. They will always be angry. When they have power they aren’t happy. We know many of them either require therapy or have gained nothing from it. And anyway who has insurance if one has any at all that even covers therapy. We are all self medicating these days. Except maybe in movies about select American cities where everybody seems to have a therapist and they still don’t learn a damn thing about themselves.

Examining Happiness Beyond a Gendered Lens

Commentators have variously chimed in over the years, and from a variety of different ideological persuasions, regarding the question of whether the Feminist movement has done women and society at large more harm than good.  Recently, the argument has been couched in terms of whether women’s collective happiness has suffered with increased equality, and as a result, whether efforts towards gender parity are to blame.  Some columnists have returned to the same old arguments against women’s rights that have been used for centuries and others have placed the yoke upon basic human selfishness, greed, and societal narcissism.  I myself fall into the latter category.

To begin my remarks, I don’t honestly believe for a second that Feminism has made women more unhappy, or that somehow the old ways were superior, or even that women are innately less able to survive in a draining world of leap-frog and sharp elbows.  The survey data cited which indicates that basic life satisfaction has declined over time must be qualified first.  It must be noted that so must of the conclusions drawn are made as a kind of blanket accusation upon everyone, when they really only apply to a relatively limited slice of the population—professionals, middle class and above, usually white, highly educated, big city residents.  Yet, since regrettably so much dialogue in mainstream woman-centric media is dictated by the privileged, if not in all mainstream media, the accuracy of the results are taken as gospel and never thought to be extended to anyone beyond the immediate audience.  Who knows if this same attitude pertains to working class women, for example.  

If one is seeking blame, of course, it can be safely assigned to consumerism, which states that one is what one buys, or rather what one wishes to buy.  If one is seeking blame, one can place it upon the shoulders of a kind of toxic materialism whereby some arbitrary standard of living is the ultimate goal.  In that vein, I recall the story of a close relative of mine, who was raised in a family where love was purely conditional, and was only granted at all when she jumped one hurdle after another—first rising up the ladder, then making more money, then accumulating another in a series of never ending status symbols.  The expectation turned into a  sibling rivalry between herself and her brother that led to a most unfortunate competition between them, whereby those who wished to have the affections and blessings of Mom and Dad knew that it only arrived in the form of dollar signs, new houses, new cars, and a thousand others ways in which those who have money flaunt it.  Her case may be extreme, but I think even muted forms of this disease are prevalent among many.

In the column I cited above, Madeleine Bunting writes,

The problem, Twenge believes, derives in part from a generation of indulgent parents who have told their children how special they are. An individualistic culture has, in turn, reinforced a preoccupation with the self and its promotion. The narcissist is often rewarded – they tend to be outgoing, good at selling themselves, and very competitive: they are the types who will end up as Sir Alan’s apprentice. But their success is shortlived; the downside is that they have a tendency to risky behaviour, addictive disorders, have difficulties sustaining intimate relationships, and are more prone to aggressive behaviour when rejected.

The narcissism of young women could just be a phase they will grow out of, admits Twenge, but she is concerned that the evidence of narcissism is present throughout highly consumerist, individualistic societies – and women suffer disproportionately from the depression and anxiety linked to it.

In my own life among young professionals I notice similar findings to that of the survey, but not to such an alarming degree.  The disorders of those who live lives of quiet desperation rarely lend themselves to screaming headlines and panicked rhetoric.  Rather, I see a group of overworked, highly driven, heavily motivated, but overburdened toilers desperately seeking to make a name for themselves.  At this stage in their careers, those in their late twenties pushing thirty like me are on the path towards greater visibility, an increase in salary, and the ability to achieve fullest satisfaction based on the fact that so much of their own self-worth is heavily tied up in achievement.  If they don’t already have a Master’s Degree at this point, they are surely already enrolled and taking courses, or are at minimum making plans to be enrolled somewhere very soon.  Self-worth is a positive thing at its face, but I have always felt it needs to come from within, not from the accumulation of merit badges, skill sets, and embossed pieces of paper.        

Yet, as they put in unnecessarily long hours and place their careers first, many end up also denying their basic needs as humans.  To be sure, I am not arguing that women who put their careers first ought to return to the days of subservient housewifery.  I think that as we have had more equality in the workplace, to say nothing of the rest of society as a whole, the results have been overwhelmingly positive for all.  What I am saying, though, is that letting one’s work consume one’s life is an excellent way to reach burn out and to sacrifice one’s health in the process.  A recent article in Politico detailed the sad demise of a Congressional staffer who put in 100 hour workweeks and eventually perished from the stress of her occupation.  For about two days the topic was incorporated into some modest debate, then everyone moved on to something else entirely.

I firmly believe we are meant to be social with each other, we are meant to date and be in close relationships, and we are meant to find a balance between our obligations and our free time.  I myself have engaged in conversation with many people my own age who haven’t just pushed back the date at which they intend to be married, assuming that they even want to be married at all, they’ve also filled their schedules so full that they simply don’t have time to devote to look for a relationship or to socialize with friends.  Delayed gratification is fine, of course, within reason.  If this were some temporary state of being, much like buckling down at college and studying for finals, it could be excused, but far too many people live their lives as though they are preparing to take their final examinations.  I don’t think the Grim Reaper makes one take the Death Preparation Test (DPT) upon condition of being accepted into the world of the deceased.

We are a highly individualistic people, yes, but I have long believed that this degree of individualism works against us time in and time out.  More recently, the reason we can’t seem to agree upon the most basic of reforms is that too many of us are looking out for number one.  Over the course of my life I have personally observed a thousand inspiring speakers, each saying some variation of the same thing, namely that we have got to think more collectively rather than individually if we ever wish to make the next leap forward.  They have some fine old company in this endeavor, beginning arbitrarily with Jesus, and moving as far forward or backwards in time as one wishes.  And yet, the problem persists.

What is the solution?  Well, solutions are easy enough, provided people adopt them.  Learning that we are finite beings with a finite amount of energy is a beginning.  Closely linked with it is the realization that work ought to be provide us a sense of satisfaction of having achieved a job, a paycheck, of course, and a resulting sense of pride in having done a job well rather than a ceaseless Sisyphean struggle.  Acknowledging that it really doesn’t matter how many committees you happen to be a member of is another.  Recognizing that one shouldn’t settle for good enough while also taking into account that learning how to say no is an essential life skill is still another.  After a time, some people really think that they are their resumes or the letters either before or after their name, and you can be sure they’ll want you to know it, too.  But namely, we’ve got to understand that it’s not about us:  it’s not our careers, or our paychecks, or our starter homes, or the Holy Grail of the corner office someday, or any of these superficial concerns.  

For too many of us, for every step up we take, with it comes the compulsion to accumulate accessories.  Our possessions often weigh us down; they do not enrich us.  Rethinking the idea of achievement and success is where we’re really lacking and until we even consider dipping our toe into the way things could be, expect more unhappiness for everyone concerned.  We might not be equal, but we will be equally miserable until we choose to change.

Purification

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