Leslie Griffith

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Wiki-Tiki-Tavi? The Mongoose is Loose

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 The traffic cops of industry who used to man federal regulatory agencies have been replaced by lobbyists from the very industries the government was supposed to monitor.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?

As we ask ourselves who benefits from this startling exposé of the ongoing debacle called Afghanistan, why not consider those who might be the heroes with have nothing to gain and everything to lose, but still do the right thing.

Uncle Sam Needs You…to multiply

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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.

Come on Home, Van Jones

Published in The Huffington Post and SFGate.com

Oakland is your home. We need you here. Can you ride to the rescue?

Oakland needs a mayor. The recycled ideas and personalities of the past are not working in the present.

Come on home.

The globe is shifting to solar power and you are a widely-recognized patriarch of that movement.

Remember when you said this?

“The green economy should not just be about reclaiming throw-away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown away communities. It should not just be about recycling things to give them a second life. We should also be gathering up people and giving them a second chance.”

If there is any community in need of a second chance, it’s your hometown.

Here’s another quote from you, Van Jones:

“A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs.”

You are not alone in thinking those big thoughts. 

Bright Source, an Oakland-based company, is in a race with China to build the world’s largest solar grid.

The race is on, and the finish line could be right here in the East Bay .

All politics is local.

Come on home to the city where you grew up.

Let’s make the world green with envy.

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 and AT& T, 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/AT&T 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/AT&T threesome.

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

AND

I, AT&T, the world’s largest warrantless wire-tappers outside of China and wealthy financial beneficiary of National Security Council and F.B.I. contracts…

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/AT&T’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/AT&T. 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/AT&T.

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. We know this because of the other wedding bouquets already  thrown. ABC caught one and married Disney. CBS snared another and wed a dashing bachelor named Viacom. With the Big Three owned by entertainment companies or communications companies in cahoots with government surveillance, journalists don’t know whether to break out in song during auditions, or begin using pay phones to avoid surveillance.  Most up and coming “journalists” are so confused about their roles in the Fourth Estate, they’re hedging bets by getting degrees in marketing and advertising as well. 

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/AT &T, 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.