Leslie Griffith

Buddy, Can You Spare a Television Network?

SFgate/Reader Supported News

If the number one cable news television station in America is run by Rupert Murdoch—and it is—then, my friends, it’s time for some serious soul-searching.

Before we embark on that tough journey, let’s first ask ourselves why so many people watch FOX television? It’s clearly news with a bias. So, why put something in your head that only reinforces what you already believe? It’s sort of like eating Fruity Pebbles for every meal—a sickly sweet serving of empty calories. We all know that mixing up the menu leads to a healthy body. The same is true of television news. Except now, the banquet table is nearly bare and agenda-free news is hard to find.

Since FOX’s transformation from carnival sideshow to the center ring of the media circus, the other networks have altered their programming to try to compete with the personality-driven, hyperbolic, opinion-based chatter that made Rupert Murdoch so wealthy. Now, there are simply no alternatives to Fruity Pebbles…except perhaps a bowl of soggy Co-Co Puffs.

That’s why “we the people” need a network of our own.

First, let’s toss those cereal bowls aside and ask ourselves why we are so hell-bent on reaffirming our own feelings with affirmation news? The answer is—we are uncertain and afraid. A steady diet of betrayal and fear has us seeking out the comfort of conformity…and the solace of similar thinking.  But, after years of lowering standards, Mr. Murdoch may be about to save the industry he helped destroy.

The cracks in Rupert Murdock’s empire have already begun to open the gates and overturn the gatekeepers. A people’s network—let’s call it We The People News—would challenge the conventional “wisdom” that has led this country to the brink of economic and emotional breakdown. Much as Ted Turner once did with CNN, the people’s network, WTP, would station reporters around the globe. They would actually live in the country or state from which they report…no more flying in for a day or two during a crisis, and no more jabbering about the celebrity trial du jour.

Instead of corporate cross-promotions or political posturing, the WTP network wouldn’t spend its time puckering up and planting kisses on the pantaloons of those who pay the bills or get paid off by the power brokers. The people’s network would have sound reporting...and be beholden only to an agenda of enhancing the free flow of fact-based information. It would be written without a pre-paid slant and read without showmanship. Sure, there would be all those messy facts to deal with, but the American people would be free to make up their own minds. Reporting and deciding wouldn’t be just a gimmicky slogan. It would be a nightly exercise. 

That’s why we need to borrow a network. It’s okay, they aren’t using them. Not really.

This is the iron talking…and it’s hot. All around the country people are changing the channel. Years of declining ratings tell the story. Can’t you hear the clicking sounds? Or, perhaps that’s the clock.

So, network owners, if you also hear those channels changing, perhaps we could borrow your network just long enough to remind us all of the public service you were supposed to uphold when you got your license to take a bite out of the public’s airwaves. If we get a chance to catch our breath, maybe we’ll see exactly how personality-driven information can harm and distort the priorities of a country. Maybe then fact-starved people would no longer have to spend hours online rooting around the internet for some grains of truth. WTP would revive that old credo of journalism and try to cover all sides of an issue. Maybe then viewers could finally be informed about who is doing what to whom…and, more often than not, what is being done to them.

Reporters at WTP could be the watchdogs they once were, and we now need. Not the sleazy purveyors of rumor, opinion and tabloid scandal that they’ve become.

There is a sad irony in this fine mess Mr. Murdoch has gotten himself into. He will now be tried by the very sort of vicious, no-holds-barred style of tabloid press he helped create in the first place. The consummate snake oil salesman…now judged by the angry masses who bought that oily, insincere brand of Fruity Pebbles patriotism and feckless fear-mongering, and now indicted by the “news” game he helped to rig.

Murdoch’s empire may fall. But the real question is—what will rise from those ashes if and when it does?

That is when we, the people have to make our move and demand something more than just another pretender to the throne. That’s one market we all need to share.

 

 

 

 

Fourth of July, 2011—Running Against the Wind

Reader Supported News: SFgate

 

“I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”

On this Independence weekend, the words of singer-songwriter Bob Seger echo in my thoughts as pivotal moments in American history flood my mind. Flash points ignored until finally forced to deny my own denial.

Juxtaposed with the lyrics of Bob Seger, the poetry of Carl Sandburg push through a tsunami of thoughts. Both Seger and Sandburg issued warnings against disillusionment. Some might say the two don’t deserve to share the same page, and sure, that argument can be made. It’s probably more appropriate to quote Jefferson, Adams and Madison on this Fourth of July weekend. Lofty quotes such as, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” That’s Jefferson, of course. But, today, on this anniversary of our much celebrated Independence, it is Seger and Sandburg whose words are speaking to me.

As the small town parades begin, the batons twirl, the sparklers swirl, and the red, white and blue fireworks fill the sky; these two voices somehow balance me. Yes, that balance is on a very precarious tightrope hanging over a netless expanse.  A tightrope representing what has been sold to us as the “new normal.”

Enter Bob Seger:

And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

We live in a nation born of a small group of revolutionaries determined not be slaves to any monarchy. They were “young and strong and running against the wind.” But, they were also building a nation on lies. While vowing to be no man’s slave, America was built on the backs of the enslaved. And, that is where the hypocrisy began…at the very beginning…and the hypocrisy lives on today.

 

Despite it all, we swore the good-times “never would end.” But, we know now, what we didn’t then.

 

Could the founders have ever imagined the handful of unpatriotic monarchs currently ruling our lives and lining their gilded pockets with our money? With money accumulated from schemes that decimated the nation? And 235 years after the signing of a Constitution declaring all men equal and all religious beliefs tolerable, we must acknowledge that wondrous dream is still deferred. So, on this Fourth of July weekend, let’s heed Carl Sandburg’s advice and not pretend to be too “happy, happy” about it all.

Carl Sandburg asks in “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz”: 

Are you happy? It's the only
way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy, it's a good nice
way to be.
But not happy-happy, kid, don't
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It's the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people . . . bust hard . . . they
do bust hard . . . when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too
doggone happy.

 

This Independence weekend an estimated 16 million  American children are reportedly living in poverty. Millions of middle class families are living in cars and boxes and homeless shelters. They will be on my mind. 

The merchants of war and weapons and death will be on my mind. The Gold Star Families will be on my mind. The relentless Faux News encouraging today’s “fair and balanced” quality of life will be on my mind. Endless propaganda to keep the war machine intact threatens to drown hope like ignored levees. Racism and partisanship and corrupt, corporate-owned politicians destroy America while stuffing already bulging pockets. Politicians sell us a bill of goods, rather than preserving the Bill of Rights. And those same unpatriotic corporations will try to make you feel good by “sponsoring” the Fourth of July fireworks you’ll most likely take the kids to see this weekend.

Independence in 1776 meant rebellion against paying taxes to Britain—taxes that did not enhance America, but filled the coffers of the monarchy. Does this sound familiar?

On this Independence Day weekend, true independence once again means “running against the wind.” It means demanding health, education and housing for everyone who works hard. If not, those who are swept along in the red, white and blue euphoria this weekend, determined to be oh so “happy, happy,” will, as Carl Sandburg cautioned, “eventually, bust hard.”

 

 

 

Journalism 101—How to Avoid Being a Propaganda Tool

Huffpo-ReadersupportedNews-SFgate

 

It’s been a long, slow slide for CNN. The once-proud cable news pioneer has consistently crawled under the media’s lowering bar, but this week it blazed a new trail to the bottom.

In at least one glaring example this week, the CNN editorial staff threw out the basics of textbook journalism in favor of racy innuendo. I don’t blame reporters, I blame their bosses who don’t insist on responsible reporting.

Reporters are pressured to find “edgy” and “sexy” stories to fill the never-ending news cycle. So, reporters make compromises. This week’s most glaring compromise involved two things Americans like to talk about more than just about anything else—Viagra and Sex. I could shout “Viva Viagra” in an attempt to lighten things up a bit…but this story has far-reaching ramifications. It’s no laughing matter.

Here’s a quote from Russ Baker, reporter and editor of the investigative website whowhatwhy.com :

“Last week at WhoWhatWhy we put out an important story about what’s going unreported concerning the bombing of Libya. Now, our concern is about what is being reported. We’re amassing indications that the Libya mass rape story being used to drum up support among NATO allies for continued bombing…may be false. In other words, part of an intense disinformation campaign. And one that is working, with the BBC the latest to buy into it.”

Now we get CNN’s titillating installment, which involves an alleged cell-phone video of a Libyan woman being sexually abused by alleged Gaddhafi loyalists and, for good measure, complete with all the repulsive details and heart-breaking screams. But this is where we have to pay close attention…because the reporter told us in the content of the story that it could actually be nothing more than planted propaganda.

She cautions: "We've been unable to verify its authenticity. We don't know where it was taken, or when, or by whom."

What? Did we read that right?

In any responsible newsroom, that alone is reason enough not to publish the story or run the video. Without confirmation and without knowing where and from whom it came, it is little more than a baseless story with no attribution. In fact, after running the story, CNN is in danger of propagating what appears to have become a massive disinformation campaign to drum up support for a war. And that’s why reporters and editors always ask for multiple sources, direct attribution and some concrete evidence that the story is indeed based in fact. This is chapter one in any journalist’s textbook. It keeps reporters from becoming little more than mouthpieces or stenographers and, Murrow Forbid, from reporting lies.

But this is how most news organizations operate today. They rush to out-titillate the competition without checking the facts and before considering whether or not they’ve been manipulated…and their eye-catching story simply planted.

Obviously, “We the people” need to buy newsroom bean counters a set of journalism textbooks, perhaps highlighting the chapter on how to avoid becoming a tool.

 

Two Thousand Yard Stare

Two Thousand Yard Stare.

SFgate,ReaderSupportedNews

 

“Another friend committed suicide after coming home from Iraq. I spoke at his funeral today.”

The voice on the phone is that of a friend. This friend is a soldier. First an infantryman, then a non-commissioned officer, he’s completed three “tours.” The Pentagon sure knows how to sell wars, doesn’t it? “Tours” are visits to Disneyland-type attractions, not the grinding work of surviving day after day of combat in a harsh and hostile land.

Still dutiful in friendship here as he was in combat there, he is explaining why he has not returned my phone calls. No need to explain, though, why he hadn’t called. One sentence said it all. It told more about Memorial Day than any array of flags, trumpeting songs or red, white and blue picnic napkins ever could. “Write this story down,” I suggest to him. Maybe he could explain to us why so many of the leaders who sent him and countless others into battle went missing when the bugle mustered them to action.

So, he did. And, on this Memorial Day, here is some of what he wrote.

Titled “Red Holes and Black Holes and no ‘Holy Wars’ in sight,” he wrote of the countless days he spent in a dark memorial.

“I have had my reflexes tested as to what my senses can handle. Then I let go rejecting all activity. Then I could take the ability to go numb up another notch. That’s when a dead body became just that. Then, a badly burned dead body captured my attention. Then, the body of a mutilated child, after that, random body parts caught my eye only while trying to figure out what happened to the rest of the body."

As you read on, you see his tolerance for emotional extremes getting higher and higher with each new trauma. And, more than anything, he laments sinking deeper into an incessant, unrelenting survivor’s guilt. Instead of a growing pride in his ability to survive, he drowns in guilt because he lives on while his friends die off…many by suicide after they got home.

“Upon returning to the States…I made sure to have something that was a constant reminder of what they had done. “

That something is a memorial bracelet he wears on his wrist to discreetly remind himself of them and of what they went through. But sometimes that is not enough to stem the tide. The guilt deteriorates his body and mind.

“How do you move on with your life when you feel compelled to dedicate it to the memory and service of those who made it possible for your life to continue? If those of us who survived manage to come to terms with the loss, are we disrespecting the personal sacrifice of those who did not come home?”

He asks himself this poignant question: “Where’s the middle ground between the haunting and the happiness? There are RED HOLES in our hearts…we try to plug them, but fear they will never heal.”

Now he gets to the heart of the matter…the latest suicide of yet another friend.

“He lost the majority of guys in his squad during the deployment, including being shot and having to return to the US for his own treatment. He dedicated his life to helping others, became a humanitarian and yet was never able to get past the loss. These bleeding red holes will always hemorrhage love and pain and leave those of us trying to survive in a constant state of enduring.”

“Are those efforts, sacrifices and gifts given by those fallen soldiers’ just gifts that fall into new blacker holes?”

Through these words he is bleeding out emotionally and there are not enough drugs on the planet to make him feel better.

The final statement of his letter reads: “To get well, one must become unwell.”

But, how can he and thousands of other soldiers ever get well? How will we ever stem the tide of war if we here at home insist on waving flags and celebrating war with saccharine sweet, jubilant, pom-pom waving militarism? Instead of donning a red, white and blue baseball hat on Memorial Day, look long and hard into the eyes of those returning home. There is no color there. And certainly no celebration. Not really. The true cost of war is reflected back at us all by those forced to see the world with that thousand yard stare.

 

 

In Bed with Red

                                                                                                                      Huffpo/RSNS         

Joe McCarthy must be turning over in his grave.

After all, who would have thought capitalism and communism would turn out to be such greedy, self-centered bedfellows?

This convenient marriage has its fair share of problems. Right now, though, America is tossing and turning because it’s having a heck of a time doing what it does best—acting sanctimonious. We are shocked and awed when we hear of human rights abuses in oil rich countries. It’s so easy to say, “Let’s get those so-and-so’s!” But what about a country that owns our debt? Like China, for instance. America, who’s your daddy now? Funny how we can’t complain about the dirty dishes when daddy is paying the bills.

According to an investigation airing tonight on HDNet’s “Dan Rather Reports,” America’s de facto godfather is taking a giant leap backwards in the human rights department. In the meantime, the Chinese government makes capitalist hay. While no one seems to be watching, and with America’s “moral superiority” stripped away, China has once again arrested someone whose voice rose in contradiction to the Chinese government.

According to “Rather Reports,” Chinese artist and well-known dissident Ai WeiWei had the nerve to ask his government to tell the truth about just how many of his countrymen died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. We know now that regulations were lax and buildings shoddy…and that the death toll numbers did not match up. So, Ai, who designed the famous “Bird’s Nest” stadium for the 2008 Olympics, began tallying his own body count and encouraged others to do the same. He honored the dead by listing five thousand names on a Vietnam Memorial-type wall. 

When interviewed for Rather, Ai proclaimed, “Change is in the air. It’s in many young people’s hearts. The most powerful tool to this kind of authoritarian society is to let the truth out.”

Despite Ai’s efforts and optimism, China is, according to “Dan Rather Reports,” heading dangerously backwards.

But what country isn’t?

America’s imperial adventures make China’s human rights abuses harder to stop. China knows America is preoccupied with a messy fight for oil, so China isn’t likely to get those morally superior lectures from America any time soon. Americans may, at times, be obnoxiously self-righteous, but America’s leaders, like China’s, know exactly which side their bread is buttered on. And by whom.  

Rather reports tonight that there’s a surging nationwide crackdown on Chinese anti-government activists. Apparently, the World Wide Web is scaring the heck out of Communist China. Ai was, and we hope still is, a tweeter. Because of that, he is now either dead or in jail. This is when America would normally step in with some power and moral authority to demand Ai’s release. But, from Guantanamo to extraordinary rendition to Abu Graib, all set against the backdrop of the largest class action suit in American history against China’s primary plastic widget peddler—Wal-Mart, America has lost its leverage and its moral authority, throughout the world and especially toward China.

Where would we shop for goodness sakes?

In tonight’s interview, Ai is asked, “Are you scared of anything? Are you scared of them arresting you or taking you away?”

“Of course,” Ai says, “I have to always every day ask myself…how long can I last if I’m in extreme condition such as jail.”

Now that the world’s human rights bar is set so low, let’s begin by praying Ai is merely in jail. If so, there is still hope that he can come out the other side of this alive and intact. Until he tweets once again, perhaps the citizens of America will do what he did. Start taking names and begin raising our voices to meet the power of our convictions.

Sun Tzu and the Art of Knowing

                                                                                                                                     Huffpo/RSNS

 

Sun Tzu understood war.

In the 6^th century BC, the shrewd general and philosopher developed his influential military strategy against the backdrop of China’s “Warring States” era. It is, unfortunately, more applicable than ever. Sun Tzu wrote, “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.”

Let’s read that again.

“It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.”

Would you say America’s military leaders in the Pentagon or the soldiers on the ground “know the enemy?”

My guess is Sun Tzu would say, “NO.”

Abu Graib was the first unheeded wake up call.  How many soldiers died in retaliation…due simply to the depth of American ignorance?

Last week, we learned of a group of American soldiers who call themselves, “The Kill Team.”
The pictures they took, we are told, are trophies that show dead Afghani civilians killed by these American soldiers. The news of what appears to be a horrible crime comes to us by way of Germany’s Der Spiegel.  Since there are no independent, American “boots on the ground” reporters marching alongside our soldiers, it’s impossible to know what really happened. But particularly chilling is the smile on the face of the American soldier standing next to the tortured civilian. The smile is as American as apple pie. The soldier looks as if he’s smiling at spring flowers in full bloom on a sunny day.

How many war stories like this will go untold until we heed Sun Tzu’s warning?

With the suspension of the Geneva Convention, the extension of the Patriot Act and the unwillingness to abandon extraordinary rendition, how can we expect anything other than the dishonorable discharging of our soldiers’ duties?  With the mass media willingly looking in other frivolous directions, how will we ever see fully the depths of hatred?  Without understanding it, the madness on all sides will never end.

“The Kill Team” is not Sun Tzu’s idea of how hearts and minds and, eventually, battles are won.

And make no mistake; Sun Tzu was no Dalai Lama. But he was wise and prescient. For him, logic and diplomacy trumped naked emotional reactions every time.

“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull, and their ardor will be dampened…if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the state will not be equal to the strain.”

The hunt for Bin Laden across Afghanistan’s rugged terrain is a distant memory—a cold case that offers cold comfort to the living and the dead. And the war in Iraq started so long ago, the duplicitous lies that led us there are long since forgotten by those left to fight it.

Lies ruin any attempt at settling disputes, whether they are told before or after the use of force.  The road to contrition…is not rendition…and usually it begins with an apology.  But, here in America those who need to apologize rarely do.  Prison for war crimes is out of the question…especially if the person in question has a father whose name adorns a CIA building.

Sun Tzu again: “Now, when your weapons are dulled, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity…in war, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

Lengthy campaigns are always risky. With so many battles to fight, exit strategies are hard to come by.  So we wait. We wait for this military-loving, empire-acquiring, fight-to-the-death-over-oil country to find another way. In the meantime, Americans subsidize arms dealers who often sell to all sides of any conflict, and the Pentagon and CIA kick up as much dust as needed to justify their existence.

Let’s “We the People” help win these wars the way Sun Tzu advised…by getting to know “the enemy” and, in the process, getting to know ourselves.

America is now at war on three fronts.  It’s been eleven years since American soldiers first set foot in Afghanistan. Eight since invading Iraq. It is time to know ourselves well enough to stop this insanity, bring our soldiers home and begin rebuilding our own worn down, war weary and shell-shocked country.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”

 

Recently,  a military “expert” on NPR could not describe exactly who the Libyan “rebels” are…the ignorance is indeed troublesome. How many times does America have to support some “rebel” group only to have that same group use our own weapons against United States soldiers later? We do not know our enemies.

 

Winning wars is and always has been, predicated on the art of knowing. Simply fighting them requires only that we remain ignorant.

 

 

 

 

Clenched Fists

 

 

                                                            SFGate and ReaderSupported News

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cover of The Economist’s February issue features a drawing of a raised, clinched fist. Held inside that defiant fist are pictures of protesting Egyptians. The image is matched with two words I hope to see written someday on a cover story about America. “The Awakening.”

The details of Egypt’s rise from a long, tyrannical slumber sounded so familiar that, while reading the article, I began substituting the word “America” whenever the author wrote the words “Egypt” and “Middle East.” My mixing and matching was, sadly, all too fitting.

The Economist article begins: “The people of the Middle East (insert “America”) have long despaired about the possibility of change. They have felt doomed to live under strong-men who have hoarded their wealth and beaten down dissent.”  

Sound familiar?

Here are a couple more of the greatest hits you can lip-sync’d from The Economist:

“Egypt (“America”) is young, angry and poor.”

“Can the Generals (insert “American corporations” and their paid-off politicians) resist the temptation to smash workers striking for pay….”

By the final paragraph, the article had reinforced something I’ve already known from experience, but hated to admit. It’s okay for journalists to speak of dictatorships and the corrupt, maniacal masters of other countries. But not America. For the most part, we Americans prefer to flush facts and uncomfortable history lessons down the media’s memory hole. The media, in turn, builds us a culture of reality show distractions, artless illusions, fake agendas and seamless public relations campaigns that masquerade as news. We readily point out the lies and deceit of countries around the globe and, while sitting in idle judgment, refuse to see the broken glass littering the floor of our run-down house. “We are free, but they are not,” we smugly tell ourselves.

Once again from The Economist: “Even in Iraq (insert “America”), which has a democratic constitution and elections aplenty, the ruling party has fought against relinquishing power.”

Welcome to America Baby.

So, who do we shake our fists at? If America has a “ruling party,” it’s headquartered on Wall Street and speculative bankers who collapsed the economy just for grins and amassed enough wealth to make Mubarak blush. Unlike Egypt, we found out we have a whole bunch of Mubaraks.  

Naked short sellers and hedge fund operators continue to scheme, and no one except Ponzi pro Bernie Madoff went to jail. Why did King Ponzi get the paddy wagon? It’s simple. He stole from America’s rich. Don’t mess with them!  As F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “They are not like you and me. They have more money” to hire operatives who destroy truth tellers. It’s a tale told in stark detail by prominent reporters in a book edited by Kristina Borjesson called “Into the Buzzsaw.” 

Echoing back to The Economist:  “Indeed, right now the authoritarians look more likely to strangle Egypt’s (insert “America’s”) economy than the Islamists do. Under six decades of quasi-military rule, its senior officers (insert “politicians”) enjoyed perks and wealth that democracy now threatens to withhold.”  

Yikes, who are they talking about again? Are they sure they didn’t get Cairo confused with Washington D.C?

We know and believe horrible things happen in those other countries. Why? Because they don’t have a free press! They don’t have the rule of law. Those countries have dictators like Mubarak and Gaddafi who, quite literally, get away with murder. Yet, we just cannot believe the same could be true in America where, so far, our dollar dictators walk freely on Wall Street while millions of Americans get kicked out of their homes and thrown out onto Main Street.

How did this happen?

How can we change it?

Without independent, experienced journalists in Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Wisconsin or Washington, D.C., we will never understand how or why events occur. Therefore, they will never end. No context, no perspective, no compassion…no compromises.

The life’s blood of any dictatorship is tightly controlled and manipulated information. Once information cannot be controlled, Katy-bar the door.

So, I leave you with another quote and a question: Who wrote this? Mark Twain? George Orwell? OrwSounds a little like both of them…don’t you think?

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie.”

Reporting the consequences of political, economic, and military lies will lead to America’s Awakening.  Time to wash the sleep from our eyes. 

Good Night for a change

Now that the “all about Keith” show is over and the hysteria died down, it’s time to say “goodbye.” It’s also time to thank him and acknowledge that, sometimes in life, it’s simply time to go. To move on.

America needed bravery exactly when Keith found his voice. America needed righteous anger and Keith struck just the right tone with his nightly comments. He said out loud and on television what many Americans, (including reporters) were afraid to say even in hushed murmurs.  He confirmed our worst fears. We were a country duped by a president who felt “misunderestimated.” Keith often pointed out that our public education system is in ruins and for evidence of such, we need look no further than the previous leader of the “Free World,” or to the Tea Party candidate who first heard about the Separation of Church and State while campaigning for Congress.  It has been a crazy time, but times are changing.

Perhaps Keith knew this.

Truth is, during Keith Olbermann’s final year at MSNBC, we watched the life get sucked right out of him. He became more extreme about most everything and employed the same angry tone all the time. Treason is not the same thing as stupidity. The difference is clear. But, lately, it felt like Keith wasn’t seeing the difference and, rather, just putting on a show…stirring the pot while turning up the heat on the trash talk and waiting for it all to reach a boil.

After 25 years in television news, I know it’s not his fault. Not really. Television quickly turns bravery into arrogance and there’s no doubt Keith Olbermann got a bit snarky and arrogant. But I will miss the Olbermann of old, and I already miss the one of late…the talking head who read Thurber out loud on the air. Anyone who reads Thurber gets the joke.

At the risk of sounding as if I am not grateful, let me say it plain: Thanks, Keith, for helping the nation find its voice.  In honor of tonight’s State of the Union, I’d like to honor you. Now, as the President strikes a conciliatory note and tries desperately to get political opponents to sit together, many Americans no longer want or need “affirmation” television. We need insight from all points of view. If not, we will end up as divided and tribal as the Taliban.

The late great Molly Ivins used to say about campaign finance reform, “We have to get the pigs out of the water to clear up the stream.” Keith would have liked that. Let’s focus on it.

Then after “We the people” get campaign finance reform, so those in power won’t have to (as Molly would say) “Dance with them what brung em.” Next, let’s focus on nuclear disarmament

If words are as powerful as bombs…how about a trade for a trade?

Keith is gone.

Mr. Murdoch it is your move.

Published as 'Olbermann in Exchange for Beck?' at Reader Supported News.org

Waking up on Cold Mountain

SFGate and ReaderSupportedNews

 

Awakenings are hard because they involve taking responsibility.

 

In the powerful words of Ruby, played by Renee Zellweger in the Civil War movie Cold Mountain, “They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say, ‘shit, it’s raining!”’

 

Well, America, It’s raining.

We all contributed to this American storm of hatred. Every time we laugh at our neighbors politics or filled our minds with a steady diet of cable vitriol. Every time a venomous, anonymous note is posted on line it creates more hate. When we refuse to do our homework and look away at irrefutable, but inconvenient evidence, the consequences include anger and hate. When we send our beloved fathers off to fight under false pretenses we leave orphaned children behind. Generational hate spins round and round. Every time we do not defend the defenseless and call heroes—traitors, there is hatred.  Whenever American arms dealers sell weapons to each side of a war,  whole countries end up hating us. Every time American casualties of war are mentioned and civilian casualties are not, we create hostility. In a nation swimming in information without context, the only consequence can be more hate. People often hate what they do not understand. Here are some not so fun facts.  

 

America is the largest maker and exporter of arms in the world. American arms manufacturers make war possible around the globe.  Yet, we still look like deer caught in the headlights when mass killings occur more and more frequently at home. Is there really a difference from out there and in here?

 

Hate is as common as dirt these days, and sometimes the common dirt is divided with uncommon adjectives like “Holy” or “Oil rich.” That’s when the real fighting begins. 

 

Look into the eyes of the little girl killed in Tucson. There is no hate. If only the mainstream media would let us look into the big brown eyes of thousands of dark-haired Iraqi and Afghani children just like her. Multiply her life by thousands of children killed by American bombs often packed with depleted uranium, which explodes with an added bonus, a little chemical warfare-cancer-causing kick.   

 

Cold Mountain reprise:—Ada:  (played by Nicole Kidman) “All this time, I’ve been packing ice around my heart. How do I make it melt?”

 

In the midst of our national grief, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for “a credible military option against Iran.” He added that the military action should be headed by the United States. "You have to ratchet up the pressure,” he said.

 

 

Cold Mountain--Inman: (Jude Law) “I ain’t getting shot again for some cause I don’t believe in.” 

 

 Much like Americans, the Iranian people are living in a country breastfed on secrecy and hate.

 

Cold Mountain—“See, I think there’s a plan, There’s a design for each and everyone one of  us. Bird flies somewhere, picks up a seed, shits the seed out, plant grows. Birds got a job, shit’s got a job, seed’s got a job.”

 

Right now, our job is to give our children a chance to live in peace.

Wiki-Tiki-Tavi? The Mongoose is Loose

SFGate, The Huffington Post, Reader Supported News

In our United States of Amnesia there is a thin, carefully manufactured line between truth and spin, between real and computer generated and, apparently, between heroes and traitors.

Blowing the whistle used to be a good thing.  On the school yard or in the middle of a busy intersection, the yard duty and traffic cop used the whistle to kept us safe. The ear piercing sound meant, “Stop, before someone gets hurt!”

The fact is, today’s heroes are the whistleblowers. We’ve learned about corruption in our banking and investment firms because of them. We learned about BP’s reckless disregard for the environment because of them. We’ve learned about Pentagon waste, Abu Ghraib, domestic spying, and on and on and on.

Each time, someone blew the whistle to stop us from hurting the innocent, the environment and, in some cases, the Constitution. 

Sadly, we rely on these whistleblowers to do the job reporters used to do when they took the time to blow the whistles they found hanging on the Fourth Branch. Now, we rely on brave citizens to do that job and they do so at great risk to their families, their careers and their health. Remember Karen Silkwood? Remember when those tobacco executives raised their right hands and swore on the Bible that their chemically enhanced tobacco was not addictive?  A whistleblower sounded the alarm. 

In covert America, a society now built upon distrust of everyone and everything, our government consistently lets us down by leaving us unprotected…kowtowing to corporations instead of blowing the whistle on them. The traffic cops of industry who used to man federal regulatory agencies have been replaced by lobbyists from the very industries the government was supposed to monitor.

Regular citizens are out of work, tired, broke and confused…perfectly set up for fomenting division and over-stimulating us to the point of fatigue and indifference. Frankly, Americans don’t have anyone to trust, and they know it. How did we get here?  

Consider this: The day after 9/11 a deeply committed group of men took advantage of a devastated nation by opening up a map of the world and deciding where and how to “expand their empire.”  Neocons such as Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld tied the Taliban and the “war on Terror” to a long desired invasion of Iraq! Richard Clarke tried to blow the whistle, but it was too little, too late.

The media whistled through the graveyard instead of sounding the alarm…refusing to take their whistle into the busy intersection where imperialism and the constitution were speeding toward a collision course.

And those few whistle-blowing reporters who saw through the manipulation after 9/11? They usually got fired.  When President Bush smugly mentioned freedom of the press to former Russian President Vladimir Putin, the old KGB veteran laughed and pointed out that Bush got Dan Rather fired. Putin knew exactly how a controlled media works. He controlled one, too.

Now, we have Pvt. Bradley Manning and the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange  doing what reporters should have been doing all along. Out of fear of being fatally scooped, and in the continued hope of keeping America dancing to their jingoism tune, the Pentagon and FOX News are now calling these whistleblowers traitors.

Oh, my heart.  How messed up is this? Julian Assange and Pvt. Bradley Manning—heroes turned into villains by ratings hungry cable clowns in patriotic makeup who juggle the truth, bow to the Pentagon and stuff themselves into a tiny-minded car that only turns to the right. It’s as plain as the nose on Uncle Sam’s face…here in our once honorable United States of Amnesia.

We are told Pvt. Manning is, essentially, in an undisclosed location, which makes one wonder if a water-board might be involved. If this young man is harmed and his rights trampled, then those of us who did not defend him are the ones with blood on our hands. In America, we were once taught that those who told the truth… those who issued warnings, no matter how personally inconvenient…were heroes.  What happened to that American value?

 

Uncle Sam Needs You…to multiply

 

                                                                                                     ReaderSupportedNews

                         

We’ve got a multi-generational ecological disaster in the Gulf, the gulf between the rich and the rest of us bigger than ever, education in the toilet, budget deficits rising, chronic unemployment, healthcare in the tank…and we cannot stop arguing about gay marriage?

Am I missing something?

Maybe it is something so basic, so seemingly banal that we just can’t see the answer.  Maybe it just comes down to numbers. The sort of numbers military planners use when plotting and planning the next round of deployments.

Perhaps the debate about gay marriage has less to do with the sexual behavior of consenting adults and more to do with future military might.

When Uncle Sam says he needs you…what Sam really needs is procreators…couples with willing eggs and legions of fast swimming sperm high-tailing it to the uterus.  Those embryos will be the future soldiers filling boots on foreign battlefields and putting bullets in expensive guns.

America’s birth rate is stagnant. Since we never really heeded Eisenhower’s warning, the Military-Industrial Complex has emerged as one of the few remaining businesses we have.  We don’t make cell phones or cookware or even those plastic American flags we see every Fourth of July.  What we do make is war.  American arms dealers are the number one exporters of weapons worldwide.

 Dealing arms has become an integral part of our gross national product.  The C.I.A, the Pentagon, and arms manufacturers often sell weapons to both sides of political and, sadly, military disputes.  Not surprisingly, Americans have become more and more likely to become targets of political retaliation.  In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration and the C.I.A. armed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Ayatollah’s Iran at the same time…as they fought a brutal war against each other.  Talk about cornering a market!  And, as we’ve known for decades, American dollars helped to train and arm Osama bin Laden’s followers.  Talk about opening new markets!

As Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.”

But it was President Eisenhower who prophesied where we are today.  However, Mr. Eisenhower could have never imagined the current debate and histrionics about homosexuals as a confounding corollary to the profiteering militarization of America.  One thing the arms dealers, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. cannot control is the birth rate.

A new baby boom requires a culture of conception.  A quick look at the checkout stand of any grocery store shows that we have become obsessed with conception.  “Stars” are featured on magazine covers for nothing more than sporting a suspected pregnancy “bump?”  Getting pregnant and having babies is now a Hollywood resume builder.  Why?  Look once again at the UN and C.I.A’s reports on birth statistics worldwide.  Notice who is third on the C.I.A.’s list of baby makers.  None other than Afghanistan!  While confused, disillusioned, over-worked, and economically devastated Americans are putting off having children, the Islamic world marches ahead with the Old Testament directive to “be fruitful and multiply.”

The discrimination and outrage targeting Gays may come down to simple demographics.  Uncle Sam needs soldiers, and you can’t make them.

I wouldn’t have believed this had I not seen this played out in the extreme.  Consider the plight of Romania. In 1966, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu noticed his country had a stagnant birth rate. President Ceausescu knew that to be a player on the world stage, he needed soldiers and a very hard working underclass. Mr. Ceausescu began promoting reproduction at any cost. Homosexuality was illegal.  He outlawed birth control and encouraged lots of heterosexual sex.  When a school girl reached puberty, her sex life was encouraged and documented by the Romanian pregnancy police.  Women who gave birth to five children were deemed heroines of the state.  Those who gave birth to ten were akin to national gods…very tired, worn-out, and impoverished gods. Those couples who did not reproduce were taxed into poverty.  Ceausescu’s plan worked in one sense. Tens of thousands of babies were born. Unfortunately, many Romanian families were too poor to feed their own children.  That’s when the self-proclaimed “Father and Mother” of Romania, Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu, encouraged Romanian families to bring their children to a state-run network of crowded orphanages.  The children lived three and four to a crib in these horrible places, often lying unattended in their own waste…until the Ceausescus were assassinated following a military coup in 1989, and the orphans were released into the streets.

When I reported from Romania thirty years later, many of those orphans, now adults, lived in sewers, drug addicted and ravaged by AIDS. It taught me that government should never get involved with the sex lives of its citizens.

Perhaps cloning is the answer.  Allow science to clone an army. Then homosexuals can lead productive lives without leading reproductive lives.  Would the critics of gay marriage support Patriotic Petri dishes? Maybe if they don’t ask, the government won’t tell.   

Rachel Takes Us Back to the Future

Published at Reader Supported News, The Huffington Post, SFgate, truthout.org

Every June, I leave my Northern California home and head south to our annual Gulf Coast family reunion. I might as well be an alien visiting from another planet. My appearance at these soirees is a bit scandalous because, quite frankly, many suspect that my time in California has turned me gay. 

Why do they think I’ve gone to the dark side? “It’s her square glasses,” one redneck “in the know” told my family. “She’s from Cal-uh-forn-eye-eh and single…at her age!” Well, what better proof is there?!

My smarter than usual smart-ass siblings goad me as they playfully drawl out their characteristically slow pronunciation of California. It’s a knowing self-parody. They suspect Californians see Texans as nothing but fossil fuel guzzlin’, rattlesnake humping hicks. And, it’s true…many Californians do. However, the preconceived notions cut both ways. My Texas friends call just about anyone from California a “socialist” or a “homo.” Suspicion of the “dreaded socialist homo” is why they worry so much about the transformation of my appearance. 

What they don’t know is that my 22 years in television, endlessly coloring my hair and plucking my eyebrows and exercising into a size six has cured me forever of the desire to work hard at looking plastic. Still, though, they wonder…sometimes out loud…why I “let myself go,” which simply means I refuse to wear make-up in the Gulf Coast heat. They think not “gettin’ dolled up” means I’ve gone to the dogs. What my Southern friends cannot grasp is that I am no longer preoccupied with looks because I no longer have to be. I’m no longer in broadcast news.

Enter Rachel Maddow. Rachel’s simple, clean and decidedly muted appearance harkens back to a time when credibility made the newscast what it was, and when sleeveless shirts and mini-skirts were the stock and trade of game show sidekicks and soap opera vixens. She is buttoned-down and smart and knows how to stay out of the way of a story. How does she manage it? Easy, she does not let sex get in the way. Is the hot button issue of “being gay” comforting in some way to viewers? Especially when juxtaposed with the alternatives? Rachel has somehow made it clear her “gayness” is not the sum of her identity. If only the vixens could rely more on grey matter than sculptured legs, perhaps we could take them more seriously.

Sometime during the 80s, “sex sells” crept in from the dark corners of advertising and into the bright lights of the newsroom. By the 90’s, “sex” became an adjective.  “Sexing up a show,” became a newsroom mantra. I heard the word “sex” used so often in the world of news broadcasting, I wondered if we’d become pimps instead of anchors, call girls instead of reporters. 

But there is Rachel, sitting smartly in her square glasses and easily disproving the conventional wisdom. Maybe sex sells some things, but smart sells the news. And the two should not go together. In a masterful stroke of genius, she appears a-sexual by simply refusing to put sex on display.

Normally this formula wouldn’t make corporate stockholders happy. But, Rachel is focus group friendly and demographically delightful. 

Both men and women like her. 

Women watch her mostly because she represents their Jungian shadow self. The good shadow, that is. Smart, funny, sarcastic, playful…Rachel’s the sort of woman other “down to earth” women look up to. She’s un-plucked, unbleached, easy to relate to, and there’s an added bonus. Rachel’s not competing for their man’s attention.

Men like to watch Rachel Maddow for some of the same reasons. They are not threatened by her. They can trust her because she’s not leading with her cleavage. Rachel’s power comes from the synapses between her lobes.

Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and FOX News, has been quoted as saying he is not prejudiced against smart women and that he “lets them ‘do’ the news.” He’s typical of many men and, in a strange twist, some women in corporate news today. Sex sells, and right now it’s selling wars, corporate agendas, disrespect for government, and inane celebrity gossip. 

Rachel gives broadcast news credibility by refusing to make it about her.

There’s no sex for sale on Rachel’s highly successful broadcast. Hey, Consultants…are you watching?

Put reporters on the ground and ground the helicopters

                                           The Huffington Post ,Truthout.org and SFgate                                                                                                                     

Moments after the 1992 not guilty verdict came down in the Rodney King trial, the first violence I witnessed at the Los Angeles county courthouse came from a White man.  He ran out to the courthouse parking lot screaming “You’ve got to be kidding me!?”  He then busted a car window with his well-made briefcase.  It was a sign of things to come.

That night, we’d planned on using CNN’s van to transmit live shots from the streets of Los Angeles back to our Bay Area viewers.  Our best laid plans unraveled as quickly as an angry South Central Neighborhood.  Suddenly, a mob of young people poured gasoline on rags as they made an arsenal of Molotov cocktails.

The CNN crew got spooked, slammed the doors on their “live van” and left us for dead with the crowd. We stayed with the angry mob for 48 hours and saw firsthand that, although the riots may have been sparked by the verdict in the Rodney King trial, King’s memory was little more than a dying ember in a bonfire of misdirected anger and unrequited rage.

The LA riots were about racism double square to the third power—no doubt about it.  The melting pot was boiling over.  White police, Black police, White people, Black people, Korean people, Chinese people, Mexican people, Vietnamese…all the people seemed to have as many grudges as guns.  The black and white racism of Blacks and Whites, stoked by a long history of police brutality, faded to gray during the hours of chaos that followed.  People of different races became targets of arson and random violence.  Economic fault lines rumbled as it became clear other dramas were moving to center stage. A hatred-soaked environment of poverty laid the foundation of anger long before the verdict. The Los Angeles riots had become an all-encompassing, broad brushstroke, time for payback.

The racism blew me away, but it was the legion of television and police helicopters overhead that, quite literally, whipped it all up into a frenzy.  If there was an organizing force to this chaos…a single element egging on the rioters…it was the half dozen noisy helicopters following the roving mobs’ every move.  Like a competent cattle herding dog, the helicopters gathered the crowd and propelled it into a larger and meaner force of nature.

When people on the ground cannot hear themselves think, forget about them reasoning with one another. The war zone feeling of mayhem created by the helicopters practically dares people to become more reckless. The noise drowns out their voices…giving the impression that authority is forcing them to shut up.  What is a person without voice?  There’s no greater sign of disrespect than to take a voice away.

Imagine helicopters so loud your ears ring.  Imagine lights so bright it hurts to look up. Imagine helicopter blades swirling so fast they fan the flames of discontent…herding and goading young people with reality TV culture mentalities to do just about anything to get on camera.

Are you getting the picture?

Bay Area, let’s be smart after this Mehserle verdict.

If local television stokes anger with uncontextualized images, turn off that station forever. Those who run it care more about profit than the communities they promised to inform.

Get experienced reporters on the ground. Keep  the over bearing, loud, chaos provoking helicopters out of the sky. At least we can do that for our beloved Oakland.

 Without all that noise, we might even hear the voices of our future leaders.

 

 

 

 

Goldman Sachs: The Marie Antoinette of Our time!

Published SFgate and Reader Supported News.

"I have ever believed that had there been no Queen, there would have been no [French] revolution.”

-Thomas Jefferson-

Thomas Jefferson said many things in his wide-ranging autobiography, but he rarely spoke ill of anyone. He made a notable exception in the case of Marie Antoinette. In describing the infamous cake-distributor, he painted a biting portrait of the contemptible Queen:

“Her inordinate gambling and dissipations…her inflexible perverseness, and dauntless spirit, led herself to the guillotine…and plunged the world into crimes and calamities which will forever stain the pages of modern history.”

According to Jefferson, Marie Antoinette treated French citizens as little more than lice under her well-powdered wig…until tax collection time, of course.

   

Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein pushes a camera lens away as he finishes testimony before the Senate, 04/27/10. (photo: AP)

Enter Goldman Sachs. A modern day financial monarchy, Goldman acts with the impunity once reserved for kings. Controlling legislators. Electing Presidents. Filling the Executive Branch with well-heeled lackeys, manipulating world markets and betting against the welfare of its own clients…the American people. When their equivalent of “tax time” came, they squeezed the peasants for billions of bail-out bucks.

Marie would be proud.

Is there any end to Goldman Sachs greed? Since the Supreme Court recently expanded a ruling that gives corporations the same individual rights as human beings, I’d like to ask Goldman Sachs…human to human…why they have such disdain for the American people and such a lack of love for the country that made them rich? How do their managers manage to skip merrily along, collecting hundreds of millions in bonuses after breaking the backs of this economy?

No contrition.

No apparent remorse.

Good Ol’ TJ described Marie as “proud, disdainful of restraint, indignant at all obstacles to her will and eager in the pursuit of pleasure.”

It’s eerie how much his Marie matches our Goldman.

They certainly showed no restraint in gaming the market. Sachs knew the market would fail, that’s why they bet against it. This is not an opinion, the emails are there.

Sachs clearly knew Americans would lose their homes. They bet “short.” They counted on it all failing. Come on, charming Tin Men. Where is your heart?

Watching the coverage of the congressional inquiry on C-SPAN, I wondered if, perhaps, this was our Marie Antoinette moment.

Charles Dickens wrote of Americans, “they will believe anything but the truth.” Now, the truth stares us in the face.  It’s an epiphanic moment in time.

Again, remember that those hearings were not mere commentary. They produced evidence. The emails tell Goldman Sachs’ story. It’s right there in writing, even as their pretty lips and forked tongues tell contrition-free tales and contradictory stories. This bipartisan committee worked like good old fashioned gumshoe reporters. They dug up the proof.    

Remember when the leaders of big tobacco raised their hands and swore on the Bible that they didn’t know nicotine was addictive?

This is that moment…double squared.

We cannot afford to ignore it. How many neighbors have had their homes repossessed on your block, Mr. Goldman Sachs? I’ve witnessed two. These neighbors cry as they drive away with the contents of their lives crammed into the back of a car or pick-up truck.  One couple was well over sixty. How do they start over?

I’m not saying we should dislike those golden Sachs boys. We don’t have to hate them. They are just doing what they were taught. But what they were taught was wrong. The story of Jesus in the temple comes to mind. It seems applicable. Jesus ran the money changers (bankers) out of the temple. Why? Because the temple is not to be defiled with commerce of any sort. This democracy is our temple. So, please keep your sullied hands off our Congress, our Treasury Department and our President. Stay away from our temples.

Sachs can and will spin the “Dickens” out of the truth. I heard an interview with one Golden Boy yesterday on National Public Radio that made me laugh out loud. His sleight of hand was masterful!

Because of those hearings and because of Goldman Sachs, we are smarter than we used to be.

Thanks again, Goldman Sachs for the Marie Antoinette moment.

Never Underestimate a Beauty Queen

This piece published in The Huffington Post and SFgate.com

Reporters used to laugh when beauty contestants began saying they wanted to someday be television “anchorwomen.”  They did not say “reporters.” They wanted the lights! They wanted the camera! They wanted the action and attention that comes with “anchoring.”

No one is laughing now, except for those former beauty queens occupying those chairs. Most are smart enough to take the catapulting beauty queen experience off their resumes. Consider this: Would you be willing to don a bikini, stiletto heels and tape your body into perkiness just to parade in front of lusty crowds fawning for attention?

Giving away power and agreeing to be objectified from the “get go,” as Sarah Palin might say, is a form of ambition taller than the Transamerica building.  The comparison is intentional, because it was here in San Francisco that George W. Bush was handed a wedge issue that helped him get re-elected. And, Palin is all about wedges…one in particular. She’s playing the “Sarah the Saint” card, ready and willing to tear an already torn apart county into shreds with an issue that should never be politicized to begin with.

Before getting to that, let’s take a stroll down memory lane. It’s November, 2004 and George W. Bush wins Ohio, pushing the Electoral College count in his favor. Here’s what the New York Times wrote: “Proposed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage increased the turnout of socially conservative voters in many of the 11 states where the measures appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, political analysts say, providing crucial assistance to Republican candidates.”

In Ohio, residents began coming to the polls just before they closed, spurred on by watching gay marriage ceremonies on the nightly news. Those images of men and women rushing to marry their same sex partners got Ohioans fired up and primed to punch any chad located next to Republican names.

Fast forward to Friday as Sarah Palin delivers a mean-spirited address to the all White, middle-aged Tea Party crowd. Following the manic hiccups and incomplete thoughts, she came right down to her own wedge issue—abortion. It’s an oldie. But, in terms of stoking passionate fires, it’s a goodie.

In a new book-- “Game Change”-- Palin is re-named “Saracuda.” The book describes a woman fighting hard not to look like what she is—a woman way over her head and certainly not ready to be president. In the book, Palin is often quoted as saying, “I know, what I know, what I know.” By that she hopes to highlight what she considers her instincts for relating to the people. What Palin knows is that her anti-abortion comments got the most raucous ovations of the night. The beauty queen with the “special needs” child—Saint Sarah—who implies she would have continued with her pregnancy in spite of any dangers related to her advancing age, and no matter how “special” her child’s needs might be. The reasoning is Palineque, taking huge leaps in logic to get to the coveted wedge. Why? Because no one ever knows for sure why such intensely personal decisions are made, but a beauty queen can spot a wedge and an advantage like a Neiman Marcus store. (Palin apparently had Neiman Marcus bags full of clothes all over her hotel room during the campaign.)

Make no mistake; she’s willing to use whatever it takes.  She’s already signed up with FOX News.  So, she’s already got the conservative bully pulpit and the coveted anchor chair.

Writer Len Colodny, who co-wrote “The Forty Years war: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama” said recently on C-SPAN that “Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in drag.” I took that to mean, ambitious without the brainpower, and therefore, easily used by the Dick Cheneys and Karl Roves of this world. The names will be different, but they’ll use her up as “Saint Sarah” and then likely throw her away. From the ridiculous to the sublime:

Sarah—the renegade—is really just another rote. 

 
 

Plucked Peacock

(This piece also published in the Huffington Post 2/8/2010  and at SFGate.com)

We, Comcast  take you, NBC, to be our wedded peacock—to have and to pluck as we see fit.

Let the nuptials begin with a quote from one of Comcast’s current bedfellows. Drum roll please! He’s the king of the threesomes. Hell, he’s the king of the quadruple-somes.  A man who famously brandishes his First Amendment right to say and show anything. A man who will now have indirect access to one of broadcasting’s once honorable “family” networks. Let’s hear it for Larry Flynt!

Felled by a would-be assassin’s bullet, a subsequent stroke and a sub-subsequent addiction to drugs, he’s a surprisingly affable guy, a plucky fellow who keeps rising despite adversity.

Is the drum still on a roll? It should be. Larry Flynt is something of a best man to put these strange bedfellows in context.  He is a man reflective of his country’s inherent contradictions. Many years ago, he boldly showed what no man dared to show before—the “pink shots.” Flynt once took Jesus as his savior, promising to “hustle for God.” Then, presto! He’s an atheist again. He is nothing if not pliable and resilient. Stronger than Mount Rushmore and Rush Limbaugh combined! Unflinchingly pornographic, unapologetic and prolific, Flynt’s corporation produces “about a thousand films a year” for Comcast and others.

Larry laments:  “The world is not what it used to be and will never be that way again.”

By that, he means “innocent.” Flynt’s an expert on lost innocence. He has an infamously high tolerance for helping others lose theirs. But, even he sounded confused by the upcoming 30 billion dollar wedding. He was not, however, objecting at the altar since he stands to profit from the union.              

     ###

So, let us bow our heads in honor of the NBC/Comcast union.

I, Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company and, therefore, one of the largest purveyors of double X pornography in the country…

TAKE YOU

NBC, as our corporately wedded partner, to have and to molt, until stock price death do we part.

It is now NBC’s turn.

I, NBC, promise to cross promote, product place, placate and propagate Comcast's propaganda. And, that’s not all.  We promise to do it with a shiny smile while skipping to Bri-tunes, waving red, white and blue pom-poms and singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

We at NBC have shown that we are a compliant partner, proven to have and hold tightly all unsightly corporate secrets. You see we have been married before.  During that marriage, we learned loose lips sink ships—the military kind—with engines made by our first corporate betrothed, GE. Neither were NBC’s lips loose when the New York Times won a Pulitzer for reporting on the cabal of retired flag officers who worked for defense contractors and pimped the progress of the Iraq war for NBC and other networks while posing as “independent” military analysts. The Bush administration was happy; the Pentagon was happy; and GE and other defense contractors were happy. Brian Williams, a very cool dude, was so happy he was speechless. To this day, Williams has never informed his viewers of the Pulitzer won by the Times or the fact that his “independent “military experts were pimping for God, Country, Bush, and the military-industrial complex. Sometimes words can just fail a guy, even a cool one.

General Electric claims to “Bring Good Things to Life,” and we were a peacock that never tired of parroting that slogan. At NBC we rarely brought bad things to light. Like the fact that General Electric is one of the world’s leading beneficiaries of war. GE makes military aircraft, fighters and tankers, helicopters and surveillance aircraft and bombers. GE builds and tests nuclear bombs, is known for making billions on questionable international arms deals and has a history of large-scale air and water pollution. But never mind all that! Corporate marriage vows, like those exchanged between all brides and grooms, say “for better or for worse.”

Forever faithful, NBC will kiss GE goodbye and be a loyal mouthpiece in its new corporate marriage to Comcast. GE is divorcing itself from the old, tired bird. It no longer needs a marketing network. Perhaps that’s because this bird has been well trained and can be released safely from its gilded cage. And, during wartime, GE’s war record speaks for itself. I guess when corporations buy the line…they get to decide where to draw it. With the bird in hand, NBC was an ally with a far reaching, mouthpiece.  A thirty billion dollar mouthpiece that now will look the other way for Comcast.

So, don’t expect the FCC or any other regulatory agency to stand up and protest. They are bound to smileJ, look away, and permit by demurring.

Larry Flynt might call that a head job.

 Final Marriage pledge:

NBC, the Nothing But Complicit network, promises to never rat on anyone with the potential to deflate its stock prices or the stock of those who peddle in greed, war, spying or sex. Unto Comcast, NBC now pledges its troth.

 ‘Till death, or a better offer, do they part.

Ethics revolution

published by The Huffington Post and SFgate.com

The San Francisco Bay Bridge and an Ethics revolution

The San Francisco Bay Bridge is the artwork right outside my family room window.  But, last night it was Van Gogh without his ear.

It was horrible to find out that two, newly-installed cables broke and that this left the remaining cables straining to hold up tons of  bumper to bumper commuter traffic. Could they hold all those cars with less support or would they snap?

We can safely assume that skydiving without a parachute was not how anyone beginning the commuter slog home from work envisioned ending their day.

Without sounding pushy, don’t you think it’s fair to ask WHY those hundreds of lives were hanging by fewer threads yesterday?

Reporters where are you?

Here’s the dialogue I heard:

Reporter:  Jenny Martinez-Steinberg-Wo: “What happened to the cables?”

Caltrans officials: “Don’t know yet, our investigators will find out!!!“

Reporter:  Jenny Martinez-Steinberg Wo: “Uh, okay.”

Then a short silence and an artless throw back to the studio. No follow up

I’ve been thinking about the mainstream media and its new role in our conformity conscious, televisual world. A world where it is considered rude to ask the “WHY” question, even when lives are in danger. I watched and listened and worried about those commuters, but never saw Caltrans feel any heat from reporters. Amazingly, the only thing I learned from the coverage was that Caltrans and reporters are very nice and get along swimmingly. Caltrans got a chance to give the perfunctory “We’ll be looking into this” public relations response, and reporters met their deadlines. Regarding both Caltrans and the reporters, I wonder if their families had been the ones stranded on the Bay Bridge…held up by fewer cables…if perhaps their questions and answers would have been more relevant?

Here are a few things to consider:

·         Exclusive government bids

·         Inadequate rods and cables

·         Enormous bonuses for Caltrans for finishing the job early.

Let’s take these one by one.

My sources are builders and engineers and architects, and I don’t expect Caltrans to answer any questions honestly right now. But, they should still be held responsible. Reporters have to get their hands on evidence. That takes time.  Blueprints and cable contracts might be worth asking for. Caltrans has to turn them over if asked by reporters, they are public records and, if they have not been altered, will tell us what we need to know.

Exclusive Government Bids: Remember that Caltrans, a public agency, has exclusive rights to award government contracts such as the Bay Bridge to whomever it chooses. Here’s how that works to our disadvantage. No one bids against Caltrans. No scrutiny…no comparisons. We have to depend on the unreliable to keep us safe. I wish the press would point this out.

Inadequate rods and cables?  It is public record Cal-trans hired suppliers who sub-contracted the fabricated steel from China for the New Bay Bridge. Apparently the bids were lower than American Steel fabricators. Did that same steel used in the Labor Day repairs come from the same Chinese source?  We cannot even trust pet food or children’s toys coming from China. And just yesterday it was discovered that toxic sheetrock from China has forced thousands from their homes in the South eastern United states.

Early finish incentives: Caltrans received huge monetary incentives to finish before their scheduled date. Guess what? Lo and behold, twenty-two hours before the designated deadline. Voila! Caltrans took the bonuses and the bows.  Holy bridge over troubled waters! The politicians and the press loved it…praise be to Caltrans. Can you hear me laughing?

Final thought: Remember the New Bay Bridge is built by Caltrans, too. Even as the foundation piles were embedded deep below the water onto concrete blocks, it was reported that the concrete on the new bridge was “adulterated.” That was good reporting at the time, but it was never followed up by public outrage or additional reporting.

And think of this:  Anyone who’s ever seen a concrete block that’s pure knows how tough it is.  “Adulterated” concrete is much weaker because it’s been broken up and used in the past. Re-using concrete saves money. So our new Bay Bridge sits on piles held up by “adulterated,” re-mixed and re-used….concrete.

We need an ethics revolution in this country.  

There are still those who believe American government agencies are there to protect the people. And, there are those who believe the government’s an ATM machine with no limit. If you were sitting bumper to bumper in a very compromising situation last night and still are naïve enough to believe these government officials are looking out for you….I’ve got a couple of bridges you might want to build.   

 

Black-op at Black Rock

 

In all the world only one man challenged the Killing of JFK –Jim Garrison, a bold and dauntless New Orleans, D.A. “It was a coup d’etat,” he told a nation, but how could that be? And, if it was and Americans did nothing, what sort of country are we?

Lord Tennyson was quoted in the lone prosecutor’s closing arguments:

“Authority forgets a dying King,” 

An eternal flame is a much more palatable thing! 

With a Grand Canyon of lies, a president’s life is erased. Whew…glad that’s over. America is once again safe!

That “Magic Bullet” sure did the trick.  And, with Vietnam exploding, military contracts were kept. These were the moments we witnessed our national morality and openly wept.

The unholy trifecta of a Coup d’etat—denial, disconnect, and deliverance—saves the psyches of us all. Oh now, come on, let’s not be glum! Blaming those victimized or those who try to warn us is such delicious fun!

The fearless, you see, are always targeted first. Especially now, after eight years of a Rovian, Cheneyesque morality dearth. Who is left to regard as the salt of the earth?

Dan Rather was the most notable to go, but there were others who spoke and fell, leaving an information vacuum that creates its own distinct uninformed- divisive hell.

Still, Rather was one of the brave few.

For 44 years he made us look at our lives and what our nation might do. Vietnam, Watergate, Afghanistan too. A gift from God’s eyes…the oft-times difficult, painful other point of view.

Rather is the last of broadcasting’s great newsmen. But believing ourselves righteous we fell asleep and, without a shrug, deserted him. We listened when told by tyrants du jour, “there was our national security to keep!” That’s a good enough excuse for most journalists falling to sleep.

But, like Garrison, Rather forged ahead. Challenging those in power…digging up buried bodies no matter who might end up dead.

Rove, the political Gapetto, was just playing around. A frame up is easy when a professional gang bang of puppets rule the town. And planting a document? Heck that’s nothing new. The beauty of it all was everything in the document was essentially true.  Oh, such evils immoral men do.

Now, with one broad brush stroke 44 years of protecting a nation is whitewashed away. So here is what I want us to know today.

We wonder where the press has gone. Did you see what happens when a few among them are strong?

The stakes are so high when the truth becomes a lie. And it’s always about the prophets of profits for America’s military war machine. It grinds on even at the expense of a King. So make no mistake as we blindly forge ahead, that’s why JFK, Bobby, and Martin Luther King are dead.

So now we have some new facts to face.

NBC is the military itself. And CBS is Viacom—a Hollywood movie machine making war look like a dream. And Disney animated the old ABC scene.

Now back to Tennyson’s “Forgotten Dying Kings.”

Do we have the authority to remember a trusted friend? Do we have the right to claim what he’s seen and where he’s been? A man we trusted who had courage and was bold—even when we did not like what we were told?

CBS, the lost child of Murrow, this message is for you. Open the vault and let free a life you want to erase. Dan is part of history, one too perilous not to trace. Why hide his reports from lands near and far? What threat is it to you now that you’ve shown him the door?

Or perhaps in a news industry where entertainment reigns supreme, Viacom fears we’ll remember one of the last of our news broadcasting kings.

Getting closer to a vaccine for HIV

sfgate.com  and The Huffington Post - Sept 24

Dr. Don Francis, San Francisco’s scintillation vial-wielding version of Indiana Jones, is getting ever closer to finding the 21st Century’s Holy Grail.Today, Dr. Francis and his colleges at Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases, a non-profit in South San Francisco, announced they are close to creating a vaccine for HIV.

Working with an international team, GSID has discovered a “boosting vaccine regimen—a “prime boost combination” that appears to reduce HIV infection rate by more than 31 percent. If this works, imagine how many children will not become orphans, or how many family members will not have to grieve the loss of their loved ones. Apparently, San Francisco Jones, who helped discover HIV and AIDS is now determined to swash–buckle this Sybil-psycho, ever-morphing virus into submission for good.

For those of us who once attended several AIDS related funerals a day, this news, coming from a once-vilified savior is nothing short of Shakespearean, but then, drama always follows heroes. 

I was just a young cub reporter when I first witnessed Don Francis’ courage. He screamed from the mountaintops in a herculean effort to explain to anyone willing to listen—AIDS was becoming a deadly beast. He understood its nihilistic capacity long before others did. AIDS and its chameleon-like nature exhausted most epidemiologists, but Francis kept working and learning and chasing this most complicated and illusive retrovirus. As soon as scientists reached an “a-ha” moment, HIV morphed into some new and ever-more horrifying disease. 

Throughout the 80’s and 90’s Bay Area hospitals brimmed with once-vital young men who were quickly reduced to boil covered skeletons with dementia. It was brutal.

But, Dr. Francis fought on, warning those most vulnerable to awake from denial and stop covering their ears. He told them to cover other body parts with latex instead. Because of that warning, he was called a homophobe by some and forced to hire body guards to protect his family.

A critically acclaimed book called The Band Played On was written by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Randy Shilts, who died of complications of AIDS in 1994. The book describes what I witnessed at the time. Don Francis seemed to be taking on the entire world. He battled an indifferent government’s political posturing, a resistant medical community, greedy pharmaceutical companies and Pavlovian reactions from a Gay community who dismissed Francis as just another bigot telling them how to live.

I watched as he ignored it all and fought a good fight to save untold numbers of lives. And, apparently, Dr. Francis still has his bullwhip and tattered fedora hat at the ready. In a world ruled by greed and personal promotion it’s comforting to see “San Francisco Jones” still reaching for the Grail.

Everyone on the planet who is potentially at risk for HIV should thank Dr. Francis and his colleagues, including Carter Lee at Global Solutions. We should all wish for a world where integrity, selflessness, and concern for others are the ingredients that define our heroes. It should not go unnoticed that this and so many other hopeful findings today are discovered by non-profits.  

For anyone who has ever loved and lost someone with AIDS—for those who honor life over profit—it is a bright day indeed.

Weathered Channel

(First published at sfgate.com and The Huffington post August 26th, 2009) I certainly had no idea that two days after writing this Charlie Gibson would be fired. I wonder if editorial decisions such as the one I wrote about below had anything to do with his leaving? We will of course never know.

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The search for a fresh episode of Nurse Jackie left me looking down at my remote for a split second. It took no longer than that to get an injection of America's daily dose of Dick Cheney's patented fear mongering via talking knucklehead, ABC anchor, Charlie Gibson.

In television news everyone knows that the first words out of any anchor's pie-hole are the most crucial, most pertinent words of the newscast. Those verbs and nouns reflect what the editorial management considers to be the most important point to be made that day. ABC revealed much about itself last night.

As a clumsy finger accidentally punched up ABC World News Tonight, my painful, ongoing education in the recklessness of television news broadcasting graduated to a new low.

The long overdue release of CIA torture documents was the lead . . . well, sort of. In advance of the breaking the news, Mr. Gibson offered a pre-lead caveat. It was a quote from the nation's ubiquitous former Vice President and foremost king of national hysteria - Dick Cheney.

This story, about newly released CIA documents, is crucial to maintaining a democratic, transparent, open, accountable government . . . one in which the press is truly free to tell its citizens what the government's doing in their name. It cannot be interpreted by logical minds as anything but an attempt to become wiser, more knowledgeable and, therefore, more free.

But, as usual, up was down and down was up and in walked the unrelenting, omnipresent, Mr. Cheney. He was allowed to speak on the merits of the CIA story before it ran. His words were the first to set the context of the subject and, therefore, the most memorable and powerful.

As always, Mr. Cheney told Americans they were "less safe" now that the torture documents were released. It was no surprise that our national fear monger and professional pot-stirrer told Americans what he always has . . . that we should be shaking in our boots, paralyzed and afraid.

I'd like to refer Mr. Cheney to a quote from one of my favorite Civil War movies, and dedicate these words to his ongoing performance.

"They call this war a cloud over the land. But, they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining.'"

It's raining alright. And Mr. Cheney seeded the clouds and helped deliver the downpour. Now he baits us still . . . with fear of biological and nuclear war.

What Mr. Cheney is really afraid of is prison. If we count the lies he's told, it's nothing less than reckless unprofessionalism to let this man deliver a pre-emptive lecture on any network at any time. Let's count the duplicity, shall we? Although it may be redundant to point out, we cannot allow these facts to swirl down some memory hole. This is particularly true when the masters of news seem to be caught in the hole's gravity.

Mr. Cheney lied to Congress and got Americans into an illegal, self- serving war. He's dodging his own prison cell by screaming "fire" in our crowded, national movie theatre.

As he tells this nation's citizens over and over that they are on the verge of being attacked by Weapons of Mass Destruction, we should ask him if those frightening, silence-inducing WMDs are the real kind or the imagined ones he told us we'd find in Iraq.

And while I am at it, this is a man who committed grievous offenses against his own nation by promoting the outing of a CIA operative whose job was, ironically, but not coincidentally, to look for WMDs!!!

As we finally see a modicum of effort by the mainstream media to focus on stories that shed light on the past nine years of dark secrets . . . why in the world would the one who gets to speak first be the person who made the rain in the first place?!

Charlie Gibson, it seems, should be demoted to weatherman. He certainly knows how to show us . . . even if by accident . . . which way his network sees the wind blowing.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/griffith/detail?entry_id=46298#ixzz0PbiXovO2