Good afternoon, everyone...
Nov. 30th, 2007 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdOkay, so, what're we looking at today?
First, Homeland Security is training firefighters to report people who are "expressing hate or discontent with the United States"; according to former FBI agent Mike German, the specific intent is to turn local firefighting services into domestic spies. That's cheery.
Meanwhile, over the last several days, Glenn Greenwald has been savagely (and as far as I can tell pretty much correctly) deconstructing the workings of the national press, particularly the national political press, with very specific and evolving real-time examples. This sort of thing is part of why I have held the "mainstream media" in so much contempt for so long. For a single-post example, you might look at this compare-and-contrast between one major media outlet figure (Lois Romano at the Washington Post) letting herself be used to deliver a fabricated smear-campaign against Barack Obama and another (Michael Cooper in - freakishly - the New York Times, a paper guilty of many, many crimes against journalism) not going along with a similar manipulation. Sadly, the former is far, far more prevalent than the latter.
For another, much more dangerous and extended example, start here, then read follow-ups here, here, here, here, here, and finally, here. Short form: Time magazine's Joe Klein prints specific, provable, outright lies as fact, lies handed to him by a well-known Republican congressman attempting to smear attempts against FISA reforms against warrantless wiretapping of Americans in the US. He then defends having done so, eventually resorting to a non-correction correction which is in and of itself a lie, resulting in the creation of an institutional lie that has been repeated by other media outlets who were foolish enough to trust Time Magazine. You also get some atypically clear views into why all this happens.
This is, sadly, how the media works, and for the most part, it goes unnoted. Currently, thanks to the above deconstruction, you're starting to see some lashback - not in Mr. Klein's latest work, of course, wherein he presents a propagandist's arranged event as a semi-neutral Republican focus group - but in the comments page. At least, for the moment. It may be cleaned up shortly, I don't know. (In this case, Mr. Klein's column doesn't make the GOP look at all good.)
The effective manipulation of this system by the authoritarians and their supporters is part of why you end up with the "opposition" party pulling in Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was involved in perpetuating many of the torture practices in Iraq, to deliver their weekly radio address. This, of course, is yet another part of the institutionalisation of torture in the United States.
On other front, the big economic news is less the continuing spike in foreclosures, but is more the subprime bailout which was discussed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, and at Marketwatch, here. This would lock in the "teaser" rates for many ARMs as long-term rates. I'm still thinking about this development; my initial impressions are that people who bought funds based on the interest gains from home mortgages are getting screwed, and that economic "moral hazard" flags are not just up but are being torn from their flagpoles as this rewards economically bad behaviour and (indirectly) punishes sound borrowing practices. But that's just an initial reaction and given how many different (and conflicting) stories I hear about this bailout, I need more data until I really know. Two divergent first takes: Nouriel Roubini thinks it's necessary and has been arguing for something like it; Kevin Depew is incensed. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Bush and/or his political advisors apparently didn't like the initial reaction to it, and now the White House is talking down the plan to hedge their bets. So who knows what will actually happen.
Either way, it demonstrates the seriousness and depth of this crisis. The credit markets are essentially frozen again, and I don't really see how this helps; it seems to me that in this case, ARMs in particular and lending in general just got a lot more hazardous to the lender, which would intensify a credit crisis, not relax it. If that happens, you're looking at a deflationary spiral. You might ask Japan how much it liked that from 1989 through 2005 or so - it's still trying to shake that off. Sparking off another one isn't going to make anyone any friends at all.
First, Homeland Security is training firefighters to report people who are "expressing hate or discontent with the United States"; according to former FBI agent Mike German, the specific intent is to turn local firefighting services into domestic spies. That's cheery.
Meanwhile, over the last several days, Glenn Greenwald has been savagely (and as far as I can tell pretty much correctly) deconstructing the workings of the national press, particularly the national political press, with very specific and evolving real-time examples. This sort of thing is part of why I have held the "mainstream media" in so much contempt for so long. For a single-post example, you might look at this compare-and-contrast between one major media outlet figure (Lois Romano at the Washington Post) letting herself be used to deliver a fabricated smear-campaign against Barack Obama and another (Michael Cooper in - freakishly - the New York Times, a paper guilty of many, many crimes against journalism) not going along with a similar manipulation. Sadly, the former is far, far more prevalent than the latter.
For another, much more dangerous and extended example, start here, then read follow-ups here, here, here, here, here, and finally, here. Short form: Time magazine's Joe Klein prints specific, provable, outright lies as fact, lies handed to him by a well-known Republican congressman attempting to smear attempts against FISA reforms against warrantless wiretapping of Americans in the US. He then defends having done so, eventually resorting to a non-correction correction which is in and of itself a lie, resulting in the creation of an institutional lie that has been repeated by other media outlets who were foolish enough to trust Time Magazine. You also get some atypically clear views into why all this happens.
This is, sadly, how the media works, and for the most part, it goes unnoted. Currently, thanks to the above deconstruction, you're starting to see some lashback - not in Mr. Klein's latest work, of course, wherein he presents a propagandist's arranged event as a semi-neutral Republican focus group - but in the comments page. At least, for the moment. It may be cleaned up shortly, I don't know. (In this case, Mr. Klein's column doesn't make the GOP look at all good.)
The effective manipulation of this system by the authoritarians and their supporters is part of why you end up with the "opposition" party pulling in Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was involved in perpetuating many of the torture practices in Iraq, to deliver their weekly radio address. This, of course, is yet another part of the institutionalisation of torture in the United States.
On other front, the big economic news is less the continuing spike in foreclosures, but is more the subprime bailout which was discussed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, and at Marketwatch, here. This would lock in the "teaser" rates for many ARMs as long-term rates. I'm still thinking about this development; my initial impressions are that people who bought funds based on the interest gains from home mortgages are getting screwed, and that economic "moral hazard" flags are not just up but are being torn from their flagpoles as this rewards economically bad behaviour and (indirectly) punishes sound borrowing practices. But that's just an initial reaction and given how many different (and conflicting) stories I hear about this bailout, I need more data until I really know. Two divergent first takes: Nouriel Roubini thinks it's necessary and has been arguing for something like it; Kevin Depew is incensed. Meanwhile, Chief Executive Bush and/or his political advisors apparently didn't like the initial reaction to it, and now the White House is talking down the plan to hedge their bets. So who knows what will actually happen.
Either way, it demonstrates the seriousness and depth of this crisis. The credit markets are essentially frozen again, and I don't really see how this helps; it seems to me that in this case, ARMs in particular and lending in general just got a lot more hazardous to the lender, which would intensify a credit crisis, not relax it. If that happens, you're looking at a deflationary spiral. You might ask Japan how much it liked that from 1989 through 2005 or so - it's still trying to shake that off. Sparking off another one isn't going to make anyone any friends at all.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 08:39 pm (UTC)I don't think this is in the least bit new. I've watched crap like this happen for years. I watched crap like this in the early 1990s in science reporting, where not only would stuff be gotten completely wrong, it would be gotten wrong in exactly the way the researchers said not to do. But a couple of things have changed: first, the above; second, things have gotten so crazy and the reporting so very very far from the realities that the stressors are really starting to break things badly. Systemically, even. So you're starting to see this shit leak out.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 09:43 pm (UTC)and I hate moving.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-30 09:52 pm (UTC)Godt dammit things are fucked up.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-01 06:24 pm (UTC)