Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Robert McNamara

Robert McNamara’s death this week at age 93 brings up a host of emotions that haunt most Americans of a certain age.  His role as the primary architect of American involvement in the Vietnam conflict during the 1960’s will be, despite all his other work, McNamara’s historical legacy.  Reflecting on that role also appears to have been the ethical shadow that preoccupied the latter half of McNamara’s life.

The decision to send half a million American boys to Vietnam in 1965 to fight a major Cold War conflict over a continuing civil war had consequences far beyond that country’s borders over the intervening decades.  The fierce resistance of the Vietnamese, a growing American domestic disillusionment with our involvement, and an increased press scrutiny of the escalation led to a decision by Lyndon Johnson not to stand for re-election in 1968, to the rise of an American political insurgency, to a questioning of an Imperial Presidency, and to the fall of many another American icon.   

The continued war effort after McNamara and Johnson, fought over years of drawn-out peace negotiations by President Nixon and his Vietnam guru, Henry Kissinger, brought forth myriad additional moral questions.   Their ‘larger’ goal— to put an American defeat at a ‘decent interval’ from a drawdown of U.S. troops—finally ended with 58,000 American and two million Vietnamese dead by time the war was over in 1975.  Many of those casualties were taken for peace terms that were already on the table in negotiations begun in 1968.

But despite the compounding crimes of the Nixon years, the Vietnam experience is forever stamped with the brilliant, but calculating mind of Robert McNamara, a young business leader with a background in military strategy and targeting during World War II.  McNamara was a rational numbers man—and everything about America in Vietnam was done by the numbers: casualty counts, troop strengths measured, tons of armaments dropped, dollars spent, lives diverted.  The problem was that the war wasn’t about numbers for the Vietnamese.  For them, it was about fighting for their country.

No amount of rational calculation would have helped McNamara arrive at the simple conclusion he finally saw by the time history had been written about the conflict: that no war can be understood solely as a mathematical and ideological enterprise.  The Americans had only been the last great power to realize that the Vietnamese would not stop fighting for their independence until they had won; Ho Chi Minh’s troops weren’t mainly a faction of a global ideological movement, but primarily a nationalist movement with an ideological and strategic connection to our global opponents.

McNamara’s War, as it became known, was unwinnable by a foreign power and to make matters worse, America’s chosen Vietnamese allies were the most corrupt and least connected to the people of all the forces at play there.  No amount of propping up the likes of Diem, Ky, and Thieu was going to change their distance from Vietnam’s peasants, who were doing most of the dying out in the rice paddies of the country.  But to McNamara, the war was seen as part of a global war against Communism, a beachhead in a greater battle for freedom.  His frame of reference was almost totally at odds with the reality of the situation on the ground in Southeast Asia.

There is evidence that even McNamara had private doubts about the whole adventure.  He claimed to have expressed them to President Johnson in a prelude to the escalation decision in 1965, asking the President to think twice about committing American troops to a jungle war a world away.  But in the end, McNamara fell prey to professional loyalty to the Presidency and the to the institutional belief that he could make a flawed policy work with overwhelming force.  In so doing, he became another of the many American leaders who put their Vietnam qualms aside to achieve a “larger goal.”

The two most important lessons to be learned from the McNamara experience in Vietnam are that war is to be waged only when it is forced upon us, not when it is optional, and that rational calculation is a sad second to a moral compass where matters of life, death, and country are concerned.  Anyone forgetting these lessons is likely bound to repeat the mistakes McNamara made in thinking that Vietnam could be won with numbers and that the Vietnamese would see their best interests in rational compliance with the wishes of a superior force.

Errol Morris, the documentarian whose important film on McNamara, “The Fog of War,” should be required viewing for foreign policy and government students, quoted a 1966 speech McNamara gave in Montreal in his obituary blog on the former Defense Secretary.  The way that McNamara chose to honor rationality and yet to implicitly acknowledge the massive failure men make when placing their larger aims ahead of the means used to achieve them is sadly evident in Morris’ chosen McNamara quotation:

“… All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal but with a near infinite capacity for folly. His history seems largely a halting, but persistent, effort to raise his reason above his animality. He draws blueprints for utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand: his own part-comic, part-tragic, part-cussed, but part-glorious nature.”

(Bill cross-posts at Buck Naked Politics.)

Senator Franken

In the wake of Al Franken’s long-awaited Senate victory in Minnesota, Steve Young has an interesting insight in the Huffington Post that should shed some light on how Franken made the transformation from comedian with a conscience to US Senator.  After all, Franken wasn’t looking to become a politician a few years ago, but after he was moved to write a scathing parody ripping Right Wing talk TV and radio, something happened.

Young has this take:

 

The straw that broke the far right wing's back came in the form of a 2003 law suit where the right-wing elevated the comic/author Franken from comic and author to Michael Moore danger level.
 
Penguin Books published Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," which included a cover photo of O'Reilly and a chapter accusing O'Reilly of lying. The book had sold fairly well, but would have run its course until Fox News, pushed by O'Reilly taking the bait, sued claiming infringement of its registered trademark phrase "Fair and Balanced." A federal judge found the lawsuit to be "wholly without merit" and Fox then filed to dismiss it. With the media attention drawn by the legal folly, Franken's sales and his public image went bonkers. He not only beat O'Reilly and made him appear thin-skinned and toothless, but his books and satirical approach taught the Democrats to fight back creatively. More importantly, he gave open-minded Republicans a bit of the truth behind far-right talk show zealots claims. Claims that had pretty much gone without scrutiny even by the so-called liberal mainstream media who were happy to book people like Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Ann Coulter to get their take on politics.  

(Bill Kavanagh cross-posts at (Buck Naked Politics.)

The Honduran Coup and the U.S.

The question that comes to mind here regarding the recent coup in Honduras is, “What role will the US government play in either restoring democracy or in allowing the Honduran military to rule?”  As most readers know, the history of US support for coups in Latin America is a long and shameful one.  Now that one has taken place during the Obama Administration, we wonder what will distinguish his reaction to it from that of past US presidents.

The Bush Administration supported the last attempted Latin American coup against an irritant of the US, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, in 2002.  Bush’s support backfired when the coup was overturned quickly and decisively by Chavez’ supporters, earning the US further condemnation in the region.  Even stated opposition to coups by the US has historically been halfhearted and sometimes merely a show for international audiences.

 In fact, the joke question one hears frequently in those parts is, “Why has there never been a military coup in the United States?”  The answer is, “Because the United States is the only country in the Americas without a US Embassy.”  Militaries across the region have always taken the pulse of US diplomats before acting to overthrow their governments by coup.  It appears that in Honduras as well, the military calculated that, at worst, the US will not act decisively against their actions.

 So will Obama let the Honduran coup pass into record, even while the country’s neighbors have united to shut down trade and called for the restoration of the elected President?  What means would the US employ to convince the Honduran military, which has historically lived on aid from the US, that their coup must be reversed?  Will the Administration put its prestige on the line to stand on the side of democracy in its own backyard, even as it is powerless to do so on the other side of the globe in Iran?

 We're interested to see.

(Bill Kavanagh cross-posts at Buck Naked Politics.)

Iran's Future

The continuing uprising in Iran is a hopeful sign for that beleaguered nation, but hardly a sure bet that the regime will fall anytime soon.  It’s inspiring that the activism of ordinary Iranians has kept even an old pol like Moussavi from abandoning claims to legitimacy in the face of the overwhelming power of the state.  However, the Revolutionary Guard has the force to make the streets of Tehran unsafe for protest and it is clearly willing to use violence on Moussavi’s supporters— and possibly on him as well.  

The nightly shouts from the rooftops of “God is Great” and “Death to the Dictator” remind the Iranian people that they are not alone but simultaneously that they cannot protest in the bright light of day without severe consequences.  The resistance to the Supreme Leader and to the militarization of Iranian life is now entering a precarious phase, during which reform leaders must decide how to sustain themselves and their movement in the face of increased repression and further violence.

As for Americans who support the Iranian people, there is much we can learn about their country’s history, but little we can do to change it.  It’s instructive to remember that our meddling in Iran has already led to decades of dictatorship there.  In 1953, the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was deposed by a CIA and MI6 sponsored coup.  Mohammed Reza Palevi, known in the West as the Shah, was installed from abroad in what became a brutal 26-year rule against the will of the Iranian people.  The cries of Iranians against the US do not come out of nowhere.

While the 1979 Iranian revolution had the wide support of the people, from socialists to hard core Islamists, theocracy and the exigencies of war with Iraq soon took a heavy toll on more secular groups.  During the 1980’s, religious fundamentalists in Iran tired of the messiness of democracy after the revolution and blood ran in the streets while the Revolutionary Guard accumulated power during Iran’s long war with their neighbor Saddam Hussein.  The dictatorship of the military and the Ayatollahs today stems from that period of reaction and battle.

What happens now?  We don’t know, but we can keep lines of communication open, people to people.  What we can’t do is to ask our government to become involved.  With our country’s history in Iran, the US government can only cause harm to the Iranian democracy movement by demanding it be recognized.  Condemning state violence against protest is about as far as our government should go in inserting itself where it clearly cannot change the balance of power inside Iran.

Gail Collins has this to say about the US Administration’s limitations:

…Obama has to be very, very careful not to offer any kind of encouragement that might lead some of the dissidents to believe that the United States has their back if they take to the streets. That would be incredibly cruel, not to mention dangerous. We all remember what happened to the Shiites in Iraq in 1991 when they thought that the first George Bush would come to their rescue if they rose up against Saddam Hussein.

As people, however, we can help spread news out of Iran and let the sunshine of truth help thwart the repression against the Iranians. It’s not much help to a student being beaten bloody or being shot for his/her resistance, but the ripples of our solidarity may have unforeseen consequences down the line.  Let’s hope that by staying in touch and speaking out internationally, we as citizens can show some small reflection of the courage of Iran’s people as they face their own struggle.

(Bill Kavanagh cross-posts at Buck Naked Politics.)

Employment Disaster

For those who need convincing that the crisis precipitated by the meltdown is still with us, try on these stats for size:

•   Unemployment is currently 9.4%
• 
 Unemployment will soon top 10%, even by the predictions of economists who believe the recession is ending.
• 
 There are 14 million Americans now counted as unemployed.
• 
 There are 30 million Americans who are counted as “underutilized.”

 These are statistics that are derived from official sources.  If one looks at more realistic models that don’t throw out various groups of people no longer even looking for work, or if one doesn’t throw in the armed forces to boost the employment figures, the picture is even bleaker.  It’s worse for young people, men, and—dramatically—for people of color.

 For more on the implications of our current employment disaster, read Bob Herbert today at the NY Times.

(Bill cross-posts at Buck Naked Politics.)  

Looking Forward

There is a tendency in the absence of crisis to believe that things are now working.  A human willingness to look on the bright side is a wonderful thing when applied to making the best of one’s own situation, but it’s dangerous when applied to the macro scale of our economy.  Lately, many of us have stopped worrying about a continuation of the meltdown of 2008, thanks to an odd patchwork quilt of bailouts, managed bankruptcies, and some prospect that a compromised stimulus will kick in soon.  Oh, and not to mention… the fact that our economy has fallen so far that we have a hard time imagining that we haven’t already hit bottom.

 My concern is that we are now at a post-crash stage, but without having put in place many changes that would ensure a sustained recovery, beyond the limping, flatline lack-of-further-disaster we have presently.  It is a relief not to worry that our major financial institutions will continue to disappear daily—and there is some reason for optimism in the decline of the increase (not an actual decline) in the unemployment rate.  But this end to the meltdown does not necessarily portend a beginning of something new and better happening.

 We now have the opportunity to imagine what the US economy should look like some years down the road and begin to work towards it, rather than simply paying lip service to cosmetic reform.  Conversely, we could instead let the folks who had the power to create the meltdown make those critical calls.  The corporate elite had the power over the last several decades—and used it—to turn our country essentially into a giant company that services the rich, mortgages the middle class into eternal financial servitude, and ignores the poor altogether, all the while exporting our manufacturing and skimming foreign natural resources from people overseas.

 This model has failed, disastrously.

 If we want to do the former rather than the latter, we better talk more about real alternatives, rather than simply defending compromise.  We can’t just follow.  The White House can do only so much without pressure from the grassroots.  We’ve already seen too much presidential willingness to water down the stimulus, new financial regulations, and now, possibly, a public health care option.  We hear less than we’d like to about green jobs, real housing solutions, a retooled auto industry producing mass transit, investments in solar, wind, and geothermal energy, and more jobs, jobs, and jobs for the huge and growing number of unemployed and underemployed people in the US.

 We’re not going to get any of these changes, save some cosmetic reforms, unless we are able to wrest the microphones away from an endless debate between the center and the far right. Obama’s plans and actions have been mainly centrist, not truly progressive.  While his instincts may be to aspire to real change, his cautious nature is then to compromise.   Obama wants to get what he considers a consensus enacted, whether that’s regarding health care, the stimulus, the war in Iraq, or reforming extralegal detentions outside the Constitution.

 I’m not saying that the President should commit political suicide and step way out ahead of the people (although he’s got the political capital to do so, on occasion).  What we need is more pressure on Obama— people getting in front of him on the issues, envisioning a better future, and presenting a case for change. Our leaders, even Obama, are essentially timid; let’s face it. As for our media, it’s the nature of the media to embrace any conflict, whether it’s between the far Right and the President or between progressives and the Right.  Why not present the media with the second alternative and give the politicians the option of compromising with us, rather than with the Right?

 Unless progressives treat the present as a continuation of the paradigm that got us into the meltdown of 2008, we will probably look back on 2009 in the years ahead and wonder why things didn’t really change.  The question on the floor is how to focus attention on real progressive proposals—and get them in front of the country, rather than the public hearing only criticism by the Right of any change at all.

 One thing progressives can do is to continue to discuss serious ideas publicly, whether the oddsmakers say they’re viable or not.  Single-payer healthcare should be debated, not dismissed because it infuriates the insurance companies.  More stimulus is still needed and we should say so, not be silent because Republicans are already angry that some stimulus passed during the winter.  Joblessness will soon pass 10%, so why shouldn’t we act to relieve it?  There also needs to be a real debate about rebuilding the financial firewall between our banks and speculative investment activities, like the ones that caused the meltdown.

 The list goes on and on of changes that should be under consideration now, but aren’t yet.  If progressives have a role in shaping the agenda of 2009, it should be to press open the political envelope, before the usual suspects come back to power, insisting that even the meltdown of 2008 was the fault of too much government.

(Bill Kavanagh cross-posts at Buck Naked Politics,  as well as well as here at BBD.) 

Cole on Iranian Election Fraud

Juan Cole’s post and Salon.com article on the fixed election in Iran are both worthwhile reading. There’s lot’s of good detail there on the probably hastily-organized and clumsy doctoring of the results— and why they are so improbable. He sees the “soft coup” holding and Moussavi probably backing down from sending his supporters into the streets.  The memories of the bloody civil strife of the 1980’s are key for his generation of reformers in shying away from direct conflict.

 Cole also notes his support for the Obama overtures to Iran, regardless of the real outcome.

Champagne for Franken?

Finally, it looks like time for Al Franken’s campaign to break out the champagne and get ready to celebrate his election as Minnesota’s junior US Senator.  Politico is reporting that not only will the Minnesota Supreme Court likely rule decisively in favor of Al Franken in the Senate recount case recently brought before it by Norm Coleman, but that it may also predicate its ruling on a lack of supporting evidence.  If that turns out to be the case, the state court may have precluded an appeal to the US Supreme Court by Coleman’s legal team on equal protection grounds.

 According to the Politico article by Michael Falcone:

 Raleigh Levine, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, watched Monday’s oral argument with her colleague, Professor Knapp. Like other observers of the Coleman-Franken fight, she said that the justices seemed to be sending a clear message that the Coleman team had failed to present enough facts to back up their claims about the handling of absentee ballots.

“If that is the basis on which the court makes its decision, to a large extent it insulates the case from the U.S. Supreme Court,” Levine said. “If the factual premise is accepted then you have to wrestle with the Constitutional argument, but if he hasn’t even established that, there’s nothing really for the U.S. Supreme Court to do.”

See Memorandum for more comment.

Ginning Up the Fear Machine

We’ve all seen the Right Wing media talking heads going at Sonia Sotomayor last week for “racism,” concocting the thinnest rationales imaginable to do so.  Small wonder her Supreme Court appointment has the Right totally apoplectic, since Sotomayor appears to be a strong voice for the common man and woman.  The thing that never ceases to amaze is how many racist tropes these knuckleheads manage to incorporate into their cries about her supposed “racism.” 

 Even more repellent lines come out of some hypocritically halfhearted condemnations of the assassination of a Kansas physician by political media midgets who have spent an inordinate amount of energy whipping up the Fox News crowd to know and hate Dr. George Tiller, who might otherwise have continued to live and practice medicine at a women’s clinic in the Great Plains.  It was a truly naseating spectacle to see Bill O’Reilly, who called out Tiller as an “evil” man for performing legal abortions and who made references to “judgment day” awaiting the doctor, excuse his own words and further condemn Tiller’s life and work— immediately after his killing.

 Hatred and intolerance is indeed alive and well in the land of the free.  We ignore it at our peril.  Hopefully, however, the increased level of hateful speech on the Right is a sign of frustration at losing sway over American politics.  The Right must be amazed at how fast and how far the politics of jingoism and division have fallen since the Bush years ended in January.  But make no mistake, we haven’t nearly seen the end of their public lashing out— or their followers violent craziness.  It would be folly to pretend that one election has turned the Right into a gelatinous mass.  I’m sure we’ll see more fallout in the coming months.

 The good news is that the more over-the-top the Limbaughs and Liddys and their lesser chuckleheads are when they spout their nonsense, the clearer their real goals should become to most Americans.  They’re all about the traditional divide and conquer scheme, plain and simple.  Set off one identity group against another, call the aspirations of one belief set antithetical to all other American ideals.  Spread fear.  Then, they isolate public figures who would have us talk across political and racial lines.  The Right calls us “elites” and unpatriotic. Limbaugh and Co work hard to prevent us from seeing the common interests we share.

 Hopefully, the time of the chuckleheads is on the wane.  But history isn’t ever a straight line, even if it does bend toward justice.  It’s worth remembering how hard we all had to work to raise the flag of reality-based politics during the Bush years.  That work remains, even as our hope for real change rises out of the ashes of our economy in the wake of the new laissez-faire era.

 Meanwhile, we look for opportunities to show the greater possibilities that can be realized when American politics looks more like America.  As wise and committed jurists and political leaders from many backgrounds, both genders, and more varied political perspectives join in rebuilding our country after the economic pillaging it’s now surviving, we can hope to forge a stronger democracy and a better common bond with which to move past the divide and conquer crowd.

 Let’s just hope we can get it together fast enough and work smartly enough to meet the many challenges we face.  We’ve certainly got our work cut out for us rebuilding America.

FBI Agent to Testify About Amateur Torture 'Experts' Today

Look for Ali Soufan, who was the FBI’s agent in charge of debriefing Abu Zubaydah until he discovered a coffin had been brought to Zubaydah’s cell by the CIA, to testify today before Congress about the torture techniques that CIA “experts” employed with high-value Al Qaeda prisoners. 

Soufan claims that Zubaydah confided to him that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, once his “rapport building” technique had begun to pay off—and before the CIA’s own outsourced amateur consultants arrived in Thailand to take over with their torturous methods.  Der Spiegel’s article on the CIA's outsourcing of interrogation and torture to civilian psychologists is available at the link.  Many thanks to David Martin, who pulled this article from the internets.

Supporting America's Writers and Artists

These are heady times for political bloggers and journalists.  The President is daily breaking new ground, yesterday a bankruptcy restructuring of Chrysler, today a possible Supreme Court opening, tomorrow, who knows?  The changes wrought by the economic meltdown and by a more progressive approach to dealing with it are extraordinary and are rippling throughout the country. There’s so much to write about, some that’s exciting and much that’s quite disturbing— from the staggering unemployment and residential dislocation across the country to the potential for disaster in developing nations now facing an unprecedented falloff in capital  from abroad.

 The problem, both for journalists and for bloggers, is that we’re all being hit hard by the economic meltdown ourselves, making the act of writing into a financial drain on those we support.  For my own part, I’m responsible for salaries and for keeping up on overhead for office and equipment at my documentary production company.  For many journalists, their means of plying their trade, the newspapers of America, are failing at a record rate.  The bailouts of financial companies and the restructuring of automakers, while tremendous fodder for discussion, are not replicated in our world of the art and media of political and social subjects.

 During the Great Depression, the US government hired many of the best writers, filmmakers, and photographers of the era to document the impact of the economic slide on the people of the country.  The memorable and publicly owned photographs of Walker Evans and Gordon Parks and the prose of the Federal Writer’s Project were but a bit of the product of these programs Franklin Roosevelt’s administration promulgated to keep not just America’s blue collar workers on the job, but also America’s most prized intellects and artists. 

 Might it not now be another moment in American history for the government to infuse the art and trade of comment and image with a bit of public investment?  The addition of some money for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities— even some small bit of capital to disburse to the thousands of journalists, media makers, writers, and artists whose contribution to memorializing our nation’s response to crisis will help guide the way into the future.  Perhaps we should think of it as a stimulus for those who always look to find a way to contribute their insights and visions, but who need just a small bit of support to leverage our talents with the nonprofit community and to wrest further support from individuals.  The imprimatur of the national endowments was once an important gateway for other funders to look towards when supporting projects and artists.

 Over the last few decades of conservative, market-oriented politics, the once proud seed investments the US made in our public endowments for art and the humanities have barely survived.  Filmmakers and artists, writers, and media makers have endured, but have only done so by utilizing the increasingly inexpensive means of producing work: small and affordable cameras, the internet to publish on, and other innovative technological means.  The courage of American artists and the innovations that make American writers available to us are not a limitless panecea, however.  Some financial support is necessary in order to make this work available to the American people— and by doing so, to help rejuvenate the public discussion that comes of a lively American scene of art and comment.

 I haven’t got much more to say on this at the moment.  I need to go put some more CDs for sale on eBay and advertise my edit suite online.  But think about it.  Maybe we should write to our Congresspeople and insist that they remember us, too, when they address the flotsam and jetsam of the meltdown.

... If Treasury Won't Clean Up the Banks Balance Sheets...

If a bank doesn't pass the stress test...could Treasury at least see if we can get a shaman to perform a smudge ceremony in their CFO's office?

Real News Video on Historic Salvadoran Election

The video here tells a bit of the story about the recent election of Mauricio Funes as President of El Salvador.   This historic electoral shift represents the first opportunity for the FMLN to carry out its program in a country ruled by the Right since the bitter decade-long Civil War in the 1980's.

New Times in El Salvador

 Yesterday was a transformative day for the people of the tiny Latin American country of El Salvador.  Eighteen years after the civil war of the 1980s, the nation finally moved past its most brutal era by electing a new generation and context of leadership.  In a campaign characterized by very tough accusations, huge turnout, and high hopes on the Left, Salvadorans elected a former television journalist as their new President.  Mauricio Funes will become the first candidate of the FMLN coalition to head the government since they came out of the mountains and entered electoral politics in the 1990’s.

 Funes is also the first candidate of the former rebels to be recruited from a moderate background outside the party’s historical leadership.  His assurances that a Funes government would not eliminate private property or the market economy, but would instead address market failures and severe unemployment made his candidacy more viable to moderates and less frightening to business than leftist FMLN candidates of the past.

 His campaign included a call to vote against the narrow elitism of the ARENA Party, which has ruled the country since the end of the war and has constantly inveighed against the FMLN opposition as terrorists and followers of Hugo Chavez.  In his speech to the convention that nominated him last summer, Funes said:

 To those gentlemen that are in the government, to those who have kidnapped the apparatus of the state for their own benefit and for that of a few friends, to those who have put their stingy and egotistical self interests above the common interest, I say to you, I insist of you: your time has ended; now is the hour of change.

 Now Funes will have a chance to show what he is made of— and whether the FMLN has embraced change itself.  The new President will take charge of a party which is historically more radical than its new  leader and which has never had to coalesce around a government, but has been always in the opposition.  The new challenges of building an agenda from a position of power will be magnified by the global financial crisis confronting all governments today.

 However this experiment turns out, the fact that Salvadorans have walked away from two decades of  government by the right wing ARENA party is significant.  ARENA consistently ran on references to the  the civil war and by inciting fears that the polarization of society required their strong hand to prevent more strife.  In bad economic times, ARENA ran more against the FMLN than on its own record.  The party even changed its slogan during the last campaign from one that portrayed its good stewardship of government to one that emphasized that “wisdom” required their continued rule.

 Funes has emphasized his similarities in seeking change to the new President of the United States.  His advertisements took on the slogans of Barack Obama and Funes made parallels between the two during the campaign.  Last night, the crowd at his headquarters even chanted, “Yes we could!” as he took the stage to declare victory.  His supporters are hopeful that he will be able to deliver on his promises to revitalize the economy and advocate for the poor in a country with extremely tough economic, crime and social problems to confront as he takes office.

CNBC and Financial Television: Puppets in the Pre-Meltdown Show

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Last night’s Jon Stewart interview with Jim Cramer should be put in a time capsule for future generations to understand the popular culture leading to the meltdown.  It’s not possible to overstate the insanity required to believe that the financial news networks weren’t merely entertaining little puppets in the game the markets had become before it all crashed and burned.  Cramer tries lamely on air to pretend that he’s there at CNBC to expose the game, but it’s clear, even to Cramer, as Stewart rolls tape after tape in which the former hedge fund manager admits to market manipulation that it’s pointless to deny his role in snake oil sales.

 For me, the moment when this crap became too much to bear was when CNBC hugged Maria Bartiromo just that much tighter in the wake of a scandal in 2007.  Bartiromo had been the cause of a business shakeup in which Citigroup executive Todd Thompson was ousted from his position after engaging in a questionable relationship with the financial “Money Honey” and rewarding her with a $5 million Sundance Channel show on Citi’s dime.  While Citi CEO Chuck Prince made his own executive walk the plank for his role, CNBC did just the opposite.   The channel backed Bartiromo, who had been reporting on Thompson and Citi while being offered very special personal perks, including a personal corporate jet flight from China with the executive, who left a gaggle of executives on the ground in Asia to find other flights back to New York. 

 Rather than firing Bartiromo for violating journalistic ethics, the network covered for her, compensating Citi for the flight and downplaying the story, realizing that her association with the CNBC brand was too pivotal to tarnish.  If there ever was a moment to say that the network had crossed the Rubicon and bought the precept that entertainment and profits had completely replaced real journalism, this was it.  Can anyone imagine how acceptable it would be for a political anchor to engage in that kind of relationship with a candidate or public officeholder and then continue reporting on stories that involve that figure?  No matter how far gone mainstream television news is, that still wouldn’t have played as easily there as it did within the corrupt world of financial television news.

 But Cramer and Bartiromo are just the tip of a huge iceberg of entertainment and profit values that lurk beneath the glib surface of financial reporting, particularly financial television reporting.  The hype never stops, making these specialty networks ubiquitous on monitors throughout the offices of financial service companies.  It’s like free advertising for the markets rather than investigative journalism and objective evaluation.  No wonder the companies being reported on feel fine about playing the channels in their workplaces.  

Small wonder these channels never warned of an impending collapse.  They'd sooner have cut off their arms and legs.

 So let’s hear it for Stewart and a little truthtelling about CNBC.  Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air to hear some of the same from within the financial television community itself?

(See Memeorandum for more)