Filed under “self-promotion”
from explodingdog.com
I got a brief mention on New Hampshire Public Radio’s program “Word of Mouth” for one of the production exercises I did last weekend at the Megapolis Festival.
It’s not exactly the most creative example of what I can do (or rather could have done)…but I’ll take the shout-out!
I’ll write more about Megapolis in an upcoming post (spoiler alert: I had a blast), but right now I’ve got to go cut and FTP some tape.
I’m no economist, but instead of giving these banks a “get out of jail free card,” it ought to more like “we’re taking you off death row and putting you on lifetime probation.”
I can understand the need to keep markets liquid for the greater good of the global economy. But I can’t comprehend how anyone can defend, for example, letting executives who were supposedly overseeing these failed banks–people who have already gotten filthy rich off the backs of others–walk away with a single cent of public money. There need to be consequences for bad behavior built into any bailout.
I also have the same kinds of reservations about this bailout bill that I had (and still have) about the awful FISA legislation. Namely, it gives Secretary Henry Paulson sole discretion to use up to $700 billion public dollars as he and he alone sees fit. Again: no oversight, no courts, no questions.
“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
AND it’s being rushed through without close public scrutiny. Patriot Act? Iraq war authorization? Have we learned anything?
Of course the economy is complicated, and I don’t pretend to gave a comprehensive understanding of it. But I do know that complex problems DON’T have one solution and one solution only. There must be real and reasonable alternative solutions to the bailout bill in its current form, but I haven’t heard anyone in the media asking experts what those solutions might be. I also haven’t heard any news reports about the possible consequences of taking on $700 billion in debt–just that whatever they are, it’s not as bad as a global economic meltdown. I need to know what’s in the box before I buy it… Not that we have much choice in the matter.
Last Thursday I edited an audio interview with journalist Seymour M. Hersh. Hersh has an article in this week’s New Yorker about how the Bush administration already has secret operatives in Iran hooking up with dissident groups to try and destabilize Tehran.
As cool as it was to be privy to Hersh’s findings a few days before the official publication date, the story has been on my mind all weekend. This is seriously scary stuff. Almost as worrisome as the approaching conflict itself is the degree to which the media here may either avoid this story or superficially report but play it down. Let us hope–and pray to the higher power of your choice– demand that they take this seriously.
Hersh (who as it turns out is a delightfully brusque character when the tape isn’t rolling–something like a film noir P.I.–and I don’t fault him based on what I’m sure he’s had to go through to tell this and the other important stories he’s broken during his career) had some great lines that I wish could have made in in the final edit, but alas the podcast is designed to get people to read the article, and it’s all in there.
One of the quotes in the final edit comes (via Hersh) from Sec. of Defense Robert Gates during an off-the-record meeting with Congress:
“If we bomb Iran, our grandchildren will be fighting jihadists.”
Got that? It’s Bush’s OWN secretary of defense breaking with the administration and giving his own (off-the-record) opinion on the dire consequences of going to war with Iran.
If there’s ever a time to NOT soften the edges in our reporting on Iran (as if there ever weren’t one), it’s now.