The Blog

Mark McLaughlin: Occupy Wall Street: RIP

2012-02-10T20:14:02Z

Occupy Wall Street is not a political movement. OWS is a satire created by a Canadian media property that exploited blogs, social media and mainstream news media to generate momentum. The movement may never die. RIP refers to the mainstream attention that the media and politicians gave to this movement.

The Beginning

The OWS idea was created by Adbusters in July of 2011.

This is a Canadian magazine that spoofs commercialism and promotes anarchy. Many news articles attribute the creation of OWS to Adbusters. For example, MSNBC wrote... "First proposed by anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters earlier this year, the Occupy Wall Street movement started gaining notable Internet "buzz" on Sept. 10..."

The Search for "One Demand"

The magazine is the parent of a blog that signs off with "for the wild, Culture Jammers HQ" -- all of the blogs from this group are content within the Adbusters magazine website.

These self-named Culture Jammers posted a blog on July 13, 2011 announcing the Twitter hashtag "#occupywallstreet" and launched the movement with this idea: "are you ready for a Tahrir moment?" The headline defined the reader the blog was targeting: "Alright you 90,000 redeemers, rebels and radicals out there..."

The goal:

On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.

The self-stated plan was to build momentum and then figure out what the "one simple demand" would be in time for the first demonstration.

... we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future ... and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen.

The Event Without the One Demand

The buzz around "Occupy Wall Street" took off around Sept. 10.

On September 15, 2011, with the event just two days away, the blog wrote an open letter to "patriots, rabble-rousers, revolutionaries." The title was "Hey President Obama, Get Ready for our One Demand." The problem was that nobody had yet come up with the "one demand" that would rationalize the rebellion.

What if, try as we might, we just can't come up with only one demand? Well, then maybe we can decide together on an END THE MONIED CORRUPTION OF AMERICA MANIFESTO -- a rousing compendium of our most urgent demands. And on the seventh day of our occupation we publicly deliver our manifesto to the White House and to the American media, letting Obama know that we won't leave Wall Street until he responds.

The OWS movement shifted towards coming up with the "one demand" AFTER everybody was embedded in their tents. The Canadian Culture Jammers caught fire with people who wanted anarchy for the sake of anarchy.

Zucotti Park Becomes Counter-Culture Chic

OWS became cool. Media coverage exploded. Politicians started to co-opt OWS for their own agenda. Yet, each politician and pundit who dove in, seemed to back away quietly.

Even Michael More backed away. On December 1, one of the bloggers on Mr. Moore's website who was "embedded" in Zucotti park wrote about a girl named Ketchup:

Ketchup, a petite 22-year-old from Chicago with wavy red hair and glasses with bright red frames, arrived in Zuccotti Park in New York on September 17. She had a tent, a rolling suitcase, 40 dollars' worth of food, the graphic version of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and a sleeping bag. She had no return ticket, no idea what she was undertaking, and no acquaintances among the stragglers who joined her that afternoon to begin the Wall Street occupation. She decided to go to New York after reading the Canadian magazine Adbusters, which called for the occupation, although she noted that when she got to the park Adbusters had no discernible presence.

Uh oh! This embedded journalist who was there to promote OWS was posting blogs that actually brought the whole purpose of the protest into question.

We are the 99%

During these weeks, this tiny slice of the population stumbled onto the notion that "We are the 99%." On October 7, a website went up that re-crafted the Declaration of Independence into "The 99% Declaration." This manifesto is the only after-the-fact rationalization for OWS. The irony of this small group calling itself the 99% is satire at its very best.

Things Get Ugly

Zuccotti Park became a tent city with health risks, violence, drug use, exploitation and rape. OWS became an endorsement that this kind of behavior was just what America needs.

Zucotti park was cleaned out early in the morning on November 15th. Protestors were going to be allowed back in quickly after the clean-up but the protestors got a court order that delayed their own return.

Mayor Bloomberg declared:

In the future, protesters and the general public will be welcome there to exercise their first amendment rights and otherwise enjoy the park but will not be allowed to use tents, sleeping bags, or tarps, and going forward must follow all park rules.

The protestors reaction was to go to court because they claimed that all of their behavior, like using tents, was protected under the 1st Amendment.

The next day, November 16, 2011, the Culture Jammers issued "Tactical Briefing #19":

"Now begins the second, visceral, canny, militant phase of our nonviolent march to real democracy."

It takes a great satirist to put "militant phase" and "nonviolent march" into the same call-to-action. This sentence is so beautifully crafted that few readers noticed the oxymoron.

The blog went on to say... "We will turn this winter into a training ground for precision disruptions -- flashmobs, stink bombs, edgy theatrics -- against the megacorps and the unrepentant 1%." The vast majority of Americans are being encouraged to terrorize a tiny minority part of the population for no clear reason.

OWS now occupies the courts with individual cases too numerable to track. These are trials where individuals are defending themselves or law suits because the police acted without sufficient provocation. The foundational court case about free speech has been quietly withdrawn without fanfare.

Occupy Wall Street: RIP

RIP is a misnomer. Adbusters is targeting rebels, redeemers, radicals, rable-rousers and revolutionaries. Their audience has found something that they feel legitimizes their instincts to act out without a clear purpose. They are never going to go away as the latest blog from Culture Jammers HQ confirms. It's called "Tactical Briefing #25, Showdown in Chicago."

Here's the warning for Chicago:

And if they don't listen... if they ignore us and put our demands on the back burner like they've done so many times before... then, with Gandhian ferocity, we'll flashmob the streets, shut down stock exchanges, campuses, corporate headquarters and cities across the globe... we'll make the price of doing business as usual too much to bear.

RIP is about the end of the desire by mainstream media pundits and politicians to stay on board. The creators of the movement were satirists who are very talented at farce and this is a tribute to their talent. But, that is what OWS is.

The term for phony grass roots movements is Astroturfing. OWS was one of the best Astroturfing campaigns of all time.

It's unfortunate that the farce continues to propagate real violence. OWS events must dissolve into violent clashes or run the risk of being like the tree that falls in the woods.

The hangover we are left with is a new impulse to divide the U.S. population up into a group that is 1% and another group that is 99%. One of the brilliant aspects of the construction of the Constitution is that it protects the rights of minorities. It seems that minority rights no longer apply to people who fall into an unpopular "1%."

The OWS story is a story about modern media in all of its messy glory. Adbusters has raised the art of lampooning to a level that Mad Magazine or even Saturday Night Live never imagined.

Charles Garcia: Will Hispanic Voters Swing the 2012 Race?

2012-02-10T18:44:00Z

This post originally appeared on CNN.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush recently argued in an op-ed that Hispanic voters will represent the margin of victory in the 15 swing states that will decide who will win the race for the White House. Is his political intuition right? And if it is, how do both parties significantly increase their chances of winning the Hispanic vote?

Determining what qualifies as a swing state is not an exact science, but the best estimate nine months out is as follows: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The key for political parties is registering Hispanics to vote. According to the U.S. Census, 84 percent of Hispanic registered voters reported voting in 2008. In North Carolina, not generally considered a "Hispanic state," from 2000 to 2010 the Hispanic population grew 111 percent. Between January 2008 and November 4, 2008, Hispanic voter registration in North Carolina grew by 62 percent, from 42,000 to 68,000. Obama won the state by only 14,177 votes. Since then, Hispanic voter registration in North Carolina has nearly doubled to 130,615.

According to the U.S. Census, in 2010 there were 492,330 Latinos of voting age in North Carolina, representing a clear opportunity for both parties. In a tight race, Hispanic voters could be the margin of victory in 12 of the 15 swing states. (For more state by state data, click here)

Three important points about Hispanic swing voters:

Hispanics lean Democratic, but it's not a base Democratic vote. Hispanics cast their ballots on issues and in favor of the candidates rather than for the party, much like 40 percent of the population, which is now considered independent.
Campaigns need to communicate to Hispanics in both English and Spanish. A strategic move behind President Obama winning 67 percent of Hispanic vote was his campaign's outspending McCain in the Spanish language media by five to one.
Hispanic adults are more engaged in the social Web than non-Hispanics, over-indexing as creators, critics, collectors, joiners in and spectators of social networks.

In addressing the concerns of this demographic, no candidate can ignore the issue of immigration reform, particularly when it comes to young, first-time voters. Each month 50,000 Hispanics in the United States turn 18. These young voters power Latino social networks, connecting on Facebook and tweeting voters across the country. Imagine the response when the hardworking mom or dad of these young voters is called a "criminal" by a candidate.

A recent Pew survey found that Latinos, by 91 percent, support legislation known as the Dream Act that would give legal status to illegal immigrants who earn college degrees or serve in the military for two years. Imagine the waves across social media when the Dream Act is not aggressively pursued or summarily dismissed.

And immigration -- and its power to alienate or attract voters -- is the key for both parties, not just Republicans. Yet, so far for both parties, immigration has been kryptonite. President Obama broke his promise to introduce an immigration reform bill during his first year in office. He deported 1.2 million Latinos, including 46,000 parents of American citizens. His draconian policies left thousands of frightened children languishing in foster care, which brought an onslaught of negative Spanish-language media. Heading into the presidential campaign, President Obama's approval rating among Latinos has plunged 36 points since April 2009 -- from 85 percent to 49 percent, according to a recent Pew survey.

Obama's potential opponent, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, wants to make life so unbearable for Hispanics working here illegally that they will "self-deport." Passing apartheid-like laws to pressure Hispanic undocumented workers to leave the country is central to Romney's platform. Witness the laws passed in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina, whose chief architect, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, happily endorsed Romney, advises the campaign and acts as a surrogate.

To win over Hispanic voters, both President Obama and the GOP nominee need to smother the kryptonite that the issue of immigration has become with a lead blanket of comprehensive immigration reform, supported by strong majorities of Hispanic swing voters and a majority of independents and the general public. Tackling this issue in a thoughtful manner is supported by strong majorities of Hispanic swing voters and a majority of the general public. Only then can the conversation between Hispanic voters and the candidate really begin.

In the 2008 election there was a 30 percent swing of Hispanic votes away from the Republican Party's share of the vote in 2004. This swing vote was enough to elect Barack Obama to the White House and turn six states -- Colorado, Florida, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Virginia -- from red to blue. Any candidate or campaign that ignores Hispanic swing voters does it at their peril.

Trita Parsi: Are We on the Brink of War With Iran?

2012-02-10T17:00:00Z

This post originally appeared on The Nation.

Only 12 minutes into his presidency, Barack Obama reached out to the Muslim world and Iran, offering America's hand of friendship if Iran would in turn unclench its fist. Yet three years later, we are closer to war than we were in the last years of the Bush administration, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta telling the Washington Post there is a "strong likelihood" of an Israeli strike this spring. How did we get here?

Conventional wisdom in Washington is that Obama's diplomacy with Iran failed. It did not. As I argue in my new book A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran, it was prematurely abandoned. Obama's intention was genuine, but his vision for diplomacy was soon undermined, for four reasons: pressure from Israel and its powerful allies in Congress, and to a lesser extent from Saudi Arabia and France, to adopt a confrontational policy; the June 2009 election mayhem in Iran and the subsequent repression and human rights abuses, which hardened the regime in Tehran and narrowed Obama's space for diplomacy; Obama's early adoption of a contradictory "dual track" policy, combining diplomacy with escalating pressure on Tehran; and Obama's unwillingness to create more domestic political space for diplomacy by challenging a status quo in Washington that is set on enmity.

The Netanyahu government and its Washington allies compromised Obama's vision in four ways. First, they insisted that diplomacy be given an unrealistically tight deadline of 12 weeks. Second, although Obama was potentially willing to accept enrichment of uranium on Iranian soil under strict inspections, Israel demanded complete dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program, an unachievable objective that rendered diplomacy dead on arrival. Third, the Israelis and their hardline U.S. allies pushed for sanctions before diplomacy was even tried. Obama pushed back at first, but after the Iranian election scandal, the pro-sanctions camp got the upper hand.

And fourth, the Israelis opposed Obama's view that demilitarizing the atmosphere would help convince Tehran that America was serious about diplomacy. "My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us," Obama told the Iranians in his March 2009 Persian New Year video. "This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect." Israel, on the other hand, believed Washington must repeatedly emphasize that the military option remained on the table so Tehran would not see the United States as weak. Thus, when Obama pursued diplomacy, the Israelis sought to undermine him by increasing their militaristic rhetoric.

Over the past three years, Obama has yielded on almost all these points.

Even before succumbing to Netanyahu's pressure, however, Obama had adopted the dual track policy, a holdover from the Bush administration pushed strongly by Israel and France, which set the stage for the ensuing stalemate. That policy assumed that diplomacy with Iran could succeed only if coupled with significant escalating pressure. Vali Nasr, an Obama official who recently left the administration, has said that the current stalemate is a consequence of adopting this "failed assumption."

Since Obama abandoned diplomacy in November 2009 and activated the pressure track, relations have steadily deteriorated. Both sides have escalated bellicose rhetoric, and both have rejected the other's offer of talks. In the late summer of 2010, Obama began sending military signals, combined with increasing sanctions, to give Tehran the feeling it was facing the threat of attack. The intent was not to start a war but to drive the situation to the brink of war to maximize U.S. negotiating strength and extract concessions from Iran.

This is an extremely risky policy. At best, the United States can control its own actions within this dynamic. But it cannot control Iran's reactions or how Tehran reads Washington's military signals. As a Pentagon official told me in 2010, the administration is very frustrated that its intercepts of Iranian communications in the Persian Gulf reveal that Tehran consistently misreads America's signals.

Adm. Mike Mullen, weeks before leaving his post as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed to this risk. "We haven't had a connection with Iran since 1979," he said. "Even in the darkest days of the cold war, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don't understand each other. If something happens, it's virtually assured that we won't get it right -- that there will be miscalculation, which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world."

Moreover, the White House either cannot or is not willing to spend the political capital necessary to control Israeli actions. A policy aimed at reaching the brink of war can easily be manipulated by a state that has publicly voiced its preference for military confrontation. In this explosive atmosphere, Israel can manufacture a small spark that could trigger a catastrophic conflict.

I do not believe that the Obama administration wants war with Iran. It is pressing Israel hard not to attack, knowing well that the political cost for Israel -- given the overwhelming, uncritical support for Israeli war fever on Capitol Hill -- is minimal in a U.S. election year. But a policy of brinkmanship may beget a war, especially when not coupled with a much firmer, more sustainable -- and unapologetic -- diplomatic track.

The Iranian nuclear dilemma is not easily resolved, but neither is it of unprecedented complexity. Humanity has resolved tougher problems. The obvious solution is to accept limited enrichment on Iranian soil under the strictest IAEA inspections, with a transparency and verification regime that renders militarization of the program virtually impossible.

The difficulty is not necessarily in defining a mutually acceptable solution as much as finding a path to that solution. As Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, recently said, "If there is strong political will and mutual confidence being established, this issue could be resolved in a few days." He added, "The technical disputes are not so big. The problem is mutual confidence and strong political will."

But strong political will is exactly what has been missing in Washington and Tehran in recent years. It's what prompted Obama to give in to Congress and Israel and adopt a misguided policy, and what caused the divided leadership in Tehran to fear compromise more than escalation. It is lack of political courage that has permitted this looming confrontation. Only courage and will can bring us out of it. The question is whether Obama can muster that will in an election year when any compromise is bound to be cast by Republicans as a betrayal of Israel.

This post appears in the February 27, 2012 edition of The Nation.

Jeff Reeves: Confessions of a Wall Street Reactionary

2012-02-10T16:05:00Z

Apple is bigger than Exxon Mobil -- and now Apple is about to hit $500 a share! The Dow is approaching 13,000! Unemployment is at a three-year low!

All those things sound grand, right? But in reality, not a single one of those numbers means a darn thing -- at least, not without context.

At risk of revealing that the emperor has no clothes, let me clue you in to a dirty little secret about the financial media: We're short-sighted, number-junkie reactionaries. We tout numbers like they matter, when sometimes they don't. We avoid in-depth analysis in favor of numbers with a lot of zeroes after them. We are, by and large, lazy and uncreative creatures.

So do yourself a favor and don't place too much weight on the aforementioned data points bandied about in a vacuum with no background. Sad to say, but often financial reporters dig so deep into the data points that a big-picture view of the situation is overlooked. All you get is a zoomed-in, HD-quality close up of a single pore or pimple or wrinkle on the face of the situation.

I say "we" because I'm guilty of this as much as anyone. I try my best to fight such things, but the old urge to talk about Dow 13,000 is becoming too much for me to bear. It's a round number, with three zeroes! It's a number that hasn't been attained since before Lehman went bust!

It has to mean something, right? Time to write a story!

Or not.

You see, investing -- and by proxy, reporting on finance and investing -- is all about long-term trajectories and context. If it were simply as easy as looking at one number, everyone would be a millionaire.

Let's look at the S&P 500. The benchmark index is still down 13 percent from its 2007 peak. If your portfolio is underwater -- or even if it's flat after five years -- you're probably not setting off the fireworks. Sure, short-term strength is nice to know about... but what's your 401(k) or IRA going to do in the next seven months? What's the outlook for the next seven years?

The headline numbers are also poor substitutes for sentiment about the macroeconomic conditions. When the market was down 100 points in 2011 and then up 200 points the next day, are we to believe that optimism and pessimism over the global economic outlook was whipsawing around at the same pace? They weren't -- but stocks were.

It's human nature to want to read into the data, to find some cosmic meaning there. But sometimes, numbers are just numbers.

Take Apple and its share price. Who cares if it hits $500 or not? Google (GOOG 0.00%) is actually already "higher," at $600. What's really impressive to people isn't Apple's share price now but where it came from -- a mere $200 at the beginning of 2010. Those are some impressive gains of about 150 percent! Go back 10 years, and you get a staggering 4,000 percent jump!

Of course, those gains are hardly unmatched. Take Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, up 5,740 percent since early 2010. Not only has it trounced Apple in that period, it has lapped Apple's 10-year return in just a fraction of the time.

Rental cars aren't nearly as sexy as iPads, however, and a $76 share price isn't exactly a number that people get excited about.

How about the nonsense that "Apple is bigger than Microsoft and Google COMBINED!"

Well, by market cap, maybe. That's a simple calculation of share price times shares outstanding. You'd think Apple is a killer that's unrivaled by any company, tech or otherwise.

Not so much when you look beyond market cap. Take revenue: Apple is part of the $100 billion club, and that's an impressive feat. But its sales are just a quarter of those recorded annually by Exxon. Exxon is dramatically bigger than Apple, measured by profits and sales. Another boring company, Walmart also blows away Apple, with $420 billion in sales.

Does the sheer size of Exxon or Walmart make it a buy? No way. Walmart has struggled significantly when it comes to increasing sales -- and that's the problem. Growth is what counts, not some silly headline about size. Or shares price. Or whatever.

Unemployment is the really sticky one. We're so eager for progress that we tout a tenth of a percentage point dropping off the headline number, when millions of Americans remain unemployed, underemployed or have just plain given up looking for work. Oh yeah, and the headline unemployment rate is still almost double pre-recession levels.

Look around and ask your neighbors if they are stuck in a job they hate because they don't see any options, or whether they have gotten a raise in the past few years. Or if they have been laid off despite the rosy headlines. That's a much better metric.

I know many folks in financial media can't resist horseracing two numbers. We love to see which figure is bigger. We love to compare current numbers to the ghost of numbers past.

But at the end of the day, they're curiosity pieces and not much more. The real challenge in this market isn't a deciding which stock or stock price is bigger, or keeping track of random figures that end in zeros.

The challenge is finding context in the data, and plotting future trends.

Keep this in mind when you hear stories about Apple's market cap. Or the number of days that make up the current S&P winning streak. Or Facebook's IPO size. Or Starbucks at an all-time high.

You get the idea.

Write Jeff Reeves at editor@investorplace.com.

Astrid Caldas: Shooting the Messenger Is Not the Answer

2012-02-10T15:48:53Z

Note to readers: This post builds on the one taken down last week. Many apologies.

Yet another blog post commenting on the WSJ debacle about non-climate scientists' opinions versus climate scientists' opinions got me thinking (again) why the conversation about climate change is so charged. There are always conflicting opinions on many issues, especially those that have the potential to affect our way of living. But when a vast majority of specialists around the world agree on something, I would argue that they probably have a basis for that. Freedom of speech is an important part of the democratic process, but it should be used to bridge paths and not divide them. Having strong opinions about something is certainly warranted, and debate is welcome. However, it seems that when it comes to climate change, some not-so-civil behavior has become acceptable.

Just in the past couple of weeks, various articles have decried the personal attacks climate scientists have been receiving, simply because they do science that some people do not agree with or choose not to believe in. These articles (examples here, here, and here) describe (some in detail) what types of threatening emails and other acts climate scientists are being subjected to. Emails saying "I know where your kids go to school" and "you are nothing but a liar" are disrespectful at best and harassment at worst, which is unacceptable in any context. Why do some people feel the need to resort to personal attacks about climate?

A lot of misunderstandings about climate science stems from the scientific method itself. Science is almost never certain -- it mostly deals with probable causes and certain relationships, some stronger than others. In the case of climate, there is a rather large amount of uncertainty related to the actual warming we will see, since it largely depends on what people do in the coming years, but there is no uncertainty that it is getting warmer. This post gives a good analogy of climate science, in that it is not a house of cards that if one card (or fact) falls, the whole thing collapses. Rather, it is more like a jigsaw puzzle, where some pieces may be missing, and some may be in the wrong place, but one can still see the big picture. Why is it then, that so many people cannot see the jigsaw picture?

There are various reasons why one doesn't believe in global warming, and this post does a great job explaining the different types of climate change denial. There are those who follow a common human tendency to interpret the facts in a manner that agrees with their social (or political) group, in an unconscious behavior that leads to acceptance in that group. A recent study stating that media coverage and information from politicians and advocacy groups are among the most prominent drivers of the public perception of climate change seems to largely support this rationale (comments on that study here). But then there are those who consciously choose to not believe, purposefully "creating doubt about climate change, lobbying and campaigning against efforts to reduce the risk or even just to adapt to its effect". Somehow I don't see people in this group changing their rhetoric, and unfortunately, they are primary drivers of climate change perception. We are indeed stuck. How can we move from here?

Because move we must. In the end, this is not about what people think of carbon-reducing measures or lifestyle changes. It is not about the accuracy of climate models. This is about the real facts. The proof that temperatures are going up is here. Not accepting it is akin to looking at your thermometer before leaving the house, seeing it is 80 degrees out there, but putting on a heavy coat anyway -- and then sending an offensive email to the thermometer manufacturer. That's what the attacks on climate scientists amount to. The scientists state their findings, and are not responsible for the temperatures going up -- we all are. So it's up to us to fix our mess, and shooting the messenger is not a good strategy to accomplish that.

Bob Burnett: The GOP Problem: 'It's Halftime in America'

2012-02-10T15:22:00Z

This year's Super Bowl program contained a commercial "It's Halftime in America", featuring Clint Eastwood. Initially this seemed to be a public service pep talk for the nation, then a promo for Detroit, and it turned out to be a Chrysler ad. The commercial outraged Republicans. It's an indication of their core problems in the 2012 presidential contest.

In the ad Eastwood observed that it was halftime in the football game and "It's halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they're hurting. And they're all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback. And we're all scared, because this isn't a game." He acknowledged Detroit had been through a lot. "I've seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. And, times when we didn't understand each other. It seems like we've lost our heart at times. When the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead. But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one. All that matters now is what's ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And, how do we win?"

Republicans reacted as if they had been sucker punched. Karl Rove went on Fox News decried the ad and accused Obama of "Chicago-style politics." (By the way, Clint Eastwood is an Independent who supported McCain in 2008.)

"It's Halftime in America" contained three themes that promoted Obama's message. The first was the game is not over, America's best days are not over. Eastwood said, "The people of Detroit... almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again... Detroit's showing us it can be done."

In his State of the Union address, President Obama used a similar frame, "Think about the America within our reach... An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded. We can do this. I know we can, because we've done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known."

The second theme was that progress has been made. In Eastwood's case he said, "Motor City is fighting again." The government bailouts of the auto industry saved 1.4 million jobs and the big three companies are again making a profit.

In his State of the Union remarks, Obama made the same point:

In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs. And we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect. Those are the facts. But so are these: In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s.

After the speech, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 243,000 jobs had been added in January.

The third theme was the American people have to work together. Eastwood observed, "...after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that's what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can't find a way, then we'll make one."

In his State of the Union remarks, Obama echoed this:

No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team... And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong.

Republicans are angry about the "It's Halftime in America" ad because it flies in the face of their negative themes: Obama has failed; America has gone in the toilet; and the only way to dig ourselves out of this hole is to place our faith in corporate America. Republicans will have an uphill battle selling this to voters.

Whether or not they have seen the Eastwood ad, Americans don't believe the Republican message. They don't believe that Obama has failed; they feel he has done as much as he could to clean up the mess Bush left him, considering Republican obstruction. Further, Americans don't believe that the U.S. economy is in the toilet. They identify with the people of Detroit who fought back. We believe it's halftime for America and our best days lie ahead.

Finally, voters don't believe that the solution to our problems is to do what Republican suggest: place our faith in the 1 percent. Americans agree with Obama: "As long as we are joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, and our future is hopeful."

Joseph F. Coughlin: Got Happiness? Where Marketing Meets the Science of Well-Being

2012-02-10T14:42:10Z

Are you happy? Have you noticed the number of companies that are no longer promising the best quality, experience or even the best price for a product or service as the reason to give them a try? Instead they appear to be offering something we used to think money couldn't buy -- happiness. Retailers, manufacturers, service providers all want you to know how they bring more than just "good things to life," they can make you happy too.

Here are just a few examples:

Campbell's Soup is now making your happy place anywhere you have your soup. Offering a "smile in every spoonful" Campbell's is blending healthy with happiness. On a recent walk through Best Buy I read a commanding sign "Buyer Be Happy." Coca-Cola is offering more than refreshment, now I can -- "Open Happiness." And it is not just 'stuff' that promises to make me happy, services can be downright giddy too. Few people who fly often equate flying with happiness, but JetBlue brought enough innovation to its service that you don't just fly -- you "jet."Their promos onboard and on roadside billboards now promise you will "jet happy."

Happiness is far from new to marketing. Marketers have always used unstated but ever-present cues to elicit emotion to connect with and commit the consumer. Feeling down, 'retail therapy' will make you happy. Shopping for 'I gotta have' items will provide happy relief. Getting 'I wanna have' will produce happy satisfaction. Today there is the expressed promise of happiness stamped on the ingredients label of nearly every product, service and experience. But marketers may be doing more than giving happiness a push, they may, in fact, be touching a powerful generational cord of personal well-being.

The science of well-being has developed rapidly in recent years. Beyond the traditional considerations of physical health, well-being now includes multiple dimensions that capture the whole person. Happiness is certainly a prominent theme. Perhaps the best developed measure of well-being is the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The Index bases its assessment of America's well-being on a daily survey of 1,000 people collecting data on six dimensions:

Life satisfaction -- how is life today and how do you think it will be five years from now?
Emotional health -- have you experienced happiness, stress, sadness, anger, etc. today or recently?
Physical health -- how is your energy level, have you slept and rested well, are you managing chronic disease(s), does your physical health get in the way of daily activities?
Healthy behaviors -- are you eating well, exercising, not smoking, etc.?
Work environment -- how happy or satisfied are you with your workplace?
Basic access -- do you have access to basic needs, health services, clean food and water, feel safe, satisfied and happy with where you live, etc.?

After four years and more than one million survey responses a pattern emerges. Little surprise, younger adults ages 18 to about 25 years old report a high state of well-being. After 25 years old, however, young adults experience lower well-being leveling off until about age 37. But at about 37 years old most of us descend into a statistical trench for nearly 20 years. The lowest state of well-being is reported by adults 37 to nearly 60 years old. Got happiness? For middle-aged adults -- they may be fresh out. Even adults ages 65 and older report well-being that rivals and surpasses older teens. Interestingly, elder consumers 75-plus report the highest state of well-being of any age group despite chronic diseases and the associated challenges of aging.

So what's up with middle age? There are names, bad jokes, attitudes, conditions and very real medical explanations for midlife blues -- but what is not lost on marketers is that adults in midlife have the largest proportion of discretionary income of any age group. They are also more likely to be the key influencer (often the financier as well) of what their children and elderly parents buy. Moreover, midlifers (older Gen X and younger baby boomers) are more likely to buy high style, high tech -- and given their lower state of well-being -- may be willing to pay a high price for happiness.

Marketing happiness has potential but is not without peril. Older Gen X and younger baby boomers may buy once, but once disappointed a product or service may pay dearly for not delivering to a discerning and inpatient midlife consumer. Delivering on the promise of happiness requires understanding what might be leading to diminished well-being and how the product, service or experience fills the void or provides temporary relief well beyond the thrill of the retail kill. Among the reasons midlife consumers may have lower states of well-being is they are busy -- sandwiched between kids, career, aging parents and all the things called life in between. For them, Starbucks delivers a moment of peace in an otherwise crazed day. Amazon's smiling logo is about making life easier and for stressed midlifers that means happier. BMW promises to deliver joy in an otherwise frustrating daily commute. Creatively mapping happiness to what influences well-being across the lifespan may make more than a good jingle, it makes good strategy -- done correctly it might deliver a few smiles too.

Jason Apuzzo: The Most Provocative Filmmaker in the World: A Conversation With Mads Brügger on The Ambassador

2012-02-10T14:33:34Z

His documentaries have been among the most provocative films featured in the Sundance Film Festival over the past several years. Bolder even than Sacha Baron Cohen, he's punk'd both the North Korean communist government and now, in his new film The Ambassador, the Central African Republic and the corrupt diplomatic culture that supports it.

He's one of Europe's funniest and most controversial filmmakers, although most Americans haven't heard of him -- yet.

The name of this lanky, cerebral enfant terrible is Mads Brügger.

In Brügger's previous film The Red Chapel (read the Libertas Film Magazine review of the film here), winner of Sundance's 2010 World Cinema jury prize for documentaries, the filmmaker pulled off one of the most dangerous and politically provocative stunts in cinema history by infiltrating North Korea as part of a fake socialist comedy group. Operating under the watchful (and vaguely confused) gaze of the North Korean government, Brügger's cameras proceeded to document the bizarre, Orwellian nether-world of today's Pyongyang and its frightening cult of the 'Dear Leader.'

In his new film The Ambassador (read the Libertas Film Magazine review of the film here), which recently screened at Sundance, Brügger now attempts an even more complex and daring stunt by purchasing a Liberian diplomatic title and infiltrating one of the most dangerous places on Earth -- the Central African Republic (CAR) -- as an ersatz Ambassador. His purpose? To expose the illegal blood diamond trade -- and the corrupt world of CAR officials, bogus businessmen and shady European and Asian diplomats that it benefits.

Like a tragicomic version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, The Ambassador takes viewers into a rarely-seen world of European influence-peddlers who exploit the African continent -- and the amoral retinue of African officials, petty businessmen and hangers-on who are complicit in the exploitation.

Along the way Brügger and his hidden cameras have close encounters with everything from an obese ex-French Legionnaire heading the CAR's state security (who is assassinated shortly after talking to Brügger), to armed militias in the middle of Africa's 'Triangle of Death,' to a diamond smuggler with a secret child bride and potential terrorist ties, to a tribe of inebriated pygmies organized by Brügger to staff a match factory.

It all makes for a potent, carnivalesque and politically incorrect experience -- and one that exposes the mutual racism (of Europeans toward Africans, and Africans toward Europeans) that makes central Africa such a hotbed of corruption and violence.

In the midst of all this is Brügger himself -- a tall, soft-spoken Danish journalist (and son of two Danish newspaper editors) with an ironic sense of humor and an uncanny ability to transform himself into the kind of diffident European grandee that African officials are accustomed to exploiting -- and being exploited by -- well into the 21st century.

Along with my Libertas Film Magazine co-editor Govindini Murty, I sat down with Brügger at the Sundance Film Festival to talk about his funny, horrifying and highly controversial new film. With a shaved head, and wearing a skull ring from DC Comics' The Phantom, Brügger arrived looking very much the part of an experimental European director.

Apuzzo: What got you interested in [corruption in the Central African Republic] as subject matter for a film?

Brügger: I like doing films that divert from their own genre. I wanted to do an Africa documentary without all the usual semiotics and codes of the generic Africa documentary. You know -- NGO people, child soldiers, HIV patients, and so on. But also I wanted a film where you would meet all the people you usually don't get to see - you know, the kingpins, the players, the ministers who live a very secure and comfortable life away from the scrutiny of the media. So I thought that if I could purchase a diplomatic title, I could gain access to this very closed realm of African state affairs and politics. It's pretty much a 'let's-see-what-happens' project. Once we set off to do this, who will we meet? What kind of people will I run into?

Apuzzo: How did you prepare to become a corrupt European diplomat?

Brügger: [Laughs.] I prepared for almost three years, because I wanted to really go into detail with my persona. I would go to receptions, embassies in Copenhagen, especially the Belgian embassy because they have a lot of African diplomats coming there. I noticed all the telltale signs, the do's and don'ts of how diplomats behave and carry themselves. For instance, when they're having cocktails they like to fold their napkin into a triangle and then wrap it around the glass. I think it's because they don't want to leave fingerprints, but I don't know for sure. [Laughs.]

The most popular cigarette amongst African diplomats are red Dunhills. The most popular liquor is Johnny Walker Black Label. You know, things of that order. At the same time, I also wanted my 'character' to be packed with various archetypes, and characters from comic books: Dr. Müller in Tintin, Bernard Prince (a Belgian comic book hero), even the Man with The Yellow Hat from Curious George.

Apuzzo: I thought that one of the key things that sold the character, so to speak, was his personal narcissism - in terms of the clothing, the demeanor, the portrait that you had of yourself in the diplomatic suite. Was that narcissism a key component of how you interacted with people there?

Murty: In other words, was that narcissism a way of interacting or seeming believable to people of the tyrannical mindset -- since narcissism is a key element of tyranny?

Brügger: Exactly. There's narcissism in it, but also: you know the theory about 'mirror neurons'? That when you're meeting somebody you start emulating them, on an unconscious level.

I think it played out well -- that by looking like something from a Graham Greene novel from the '60s or '70s I would attract people who are on to the same fantasies that I display, which is what I think happened. I was the ultimate fantasy of a white businessman-diplomat, because Africans themselves also have fantasies about white people. Usually they deal with these scruffy-looking NGO guys in sweaty T-shirts. I thought that if I would look very rich, very well-off, very eccentric, I would make African ministers think: if he looks like that he has to be very rich, very powerful, probably also very naive and idiotic. But that's OK. You know, 'we will not kill him - we can use him.' So there's also a survival strategy in it.

Apuzzo: Two really key figures out of the whole film were 'Dr. Eastman,' who is this sort of secretive, shadowy European figure pulling the strings and selling the diplomatic titles - and also Emperor Bokassa [former dictator of the Central African Republic], whom you mentioned you had a personal fascination with.

Brügger: Yes, very much so.

Apuzzo: Emperor Bokassa representing the worst of 1970s-era African despotism ...

Brügger: ... and madness.

Apuzzo: And with 'Dr. Eastman' almost representing the European side of that madness, almost like an Ernst Blofeld or a Bond-villain.

Brügger: Exactly.

Apuzzo: It seemed that what allowed you to get away with what you did was that you were fulfilling stereotypes and fantasies that a lot of Africans themselves had about white European businessmen.

Brügger: Yes, it has a lot to do with 'magical thinking,' which is something very important in Africa. Bokassa, as you know, he was the ultimate expression of this particular kind of madness. He was this carnivalesque figure trying to emulate Emperor Napoleon. He had this Napoleonic coronation, costing the national GNP times one hundred.

Murty: You had some footage of it in the film.

Brügger: Yes, it really is unbelievable. That, of course, also has a lot to do with this very painful relationship of the 'colonial master' with its subject.

What's so interesting is that there is this Werner Herzog film called Echoes from a Somber Empire, and he went in the early '90s to the Central African Republic together with a journalist named Michael Goldsmith, who was almost beaten to death by Bokassa, personally. And they go back to re-track the history of Bokassa - and at the end of the film, we learn that Michael Goldsmith is now dead because he had gone to Liberia to cover the civil war where he gets killed. So there are some very interesting intertextualities between [Herzog's] film and my film.

Murty: You briefly alluded to Conrad's Heart of Darkness in the film. You said that if the Congo is the 'heart of darkness,' then -- and you put a humorous twist on it -- then the Central African Republic is its 'appendix.'

Brügger: Yes, exactly.

Murty: So much of what Conrad depicted seems to still be existing in Africa today, over a century later. Were you consciously thinking of Conrad and what he depicted as you set out on your own journey?

Brügger: Look at the Head of State Security [the obese ex-French Legionnaire shown in the film]. He's like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. He is in 'the horror,' you know. [...]

It's a total dog-eat-dog world, and the new boss on the block is definitely going to be the Chinese. They are all very worried about the Chinese. They were personally telling me, you know, 'be careful about the Chinese.' And I would ask, 'but where are they?' 'Are they here at all?' And they would say, 'yes, they are here -- but they are very sneaky. We never see them, but they are here.'

Apuzzo: I wanted to ask you about that, because there was a statement you made in the middle of the film about a 'new Cold War' between the U.S. and China. You're obviously very concerned, having done The Red Chapel, with communist tyrannies, and so forth. Do you actually think there's a coming Cold War between the U.S. and China?

Brügger: I think that could very well be. Just look at what China's doing now in the Pacific ... and the scale of what they're doing in China is mind-blowing -- how much money they're bringing in, how many natural resources they're bringing in. They're bankrolling, for instance, Mugabe -- who is like an African Hitler, basically. He is the devil incarnate. By buying his diamonds, they keep his regime going -- which is criminal, I think.

For me, the defining moment with Sino-African politics is China inviting [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir to Beijing. He is a wanted criminal, wanted for crimes against humanity [the Darfur genocide], and yet they take him to Beijing and treat him with a state banquet, which is really depraved. And for sure there are tensions in Africa between the West and China, and they will become worse, I believe.

Apuzzo: Changing subjects, there's this idea we have in the West nowadays that it is the West that is exclusively victimizing Africa. And you depict quite a bit of that in your film, obviously. But it seems that the breakthrough of your film is in showing how through these despotic tyrannies Africans also victimize themselves.

Brügger: About 8 million people were killed during the time of Belgian rule, but what is going on today has a lot to do with what Africans are doing to themselves. Also, you know, they have this 'zero-sum' thinking. So if it's going well for you, an African would tend to believe 'something is going wrong for me.' It's not possible for you to do good, without somebody else doing bad. So they will start to envy you, and hate you. And that kind of thinking, you know, really destroys a society.

Murty: One of the other things that was heartbreaking was that scene where M. Gilbert is being confronted by his wife at the diamond mine. There's some sort of a fracas, and he says: "don't shame me in front of the white men." That was a very interesting moment, that there's still this sense of inferiority vis-a-vis 'white' culture, and a feeling of subservience, and how that mindset is hard to break.

Brügger: It has to do with how complex a thing racism is in Africa - because there's white vs. black racism, but there's also black-on-black, black-on-Chinese, blacks being racist toward white people ...

Apuzzo: Tribal rivalries ...

Brügger: ... tribal rivalries, which are also tearing countries apart. So it [racism] is really a very sinister thing in Africa.

Apuzzo: I want to ask you about your relationship with the pygmies. [Brügger employs members of a pygmy tribe to work in a match factory that will serve as the cover for his attempted diamond smuggling in the film.] What was that actually like behind the scenes?

Brügger: Pretty much as it was in the scenes. Actually, I think they were severely damaged from binge drinking. They do drink a lot, the pygmy people, at least in the vicinity of Bangui. But we were, of course, worlds apart. There wasn't much that connects me with a pygmy. What is there to talk about, you know?

Apuzzo: Let me tell you something that I found interesting about their [the pygmies] presence in the film -- that reminded me of something in The Red Chapel. In The Red Chapel you went over to North Korea with the handicapped comedian, Jacob Nossell -- and the thing that occurred to me watching The Ambassador was that you were actually depicting in both films how handicapped people, or the weak, the infirm -- how they end up being treated in these despotic societies. The way that the pygmies were outcasts from society, just the way your friend Jacob was treated in North Korea.

Brügger: That's true. When North Korean people met Jacob, in that regard he was like the black swan. They would ask him if he was drunk, or if he was sick, because they'd never seen a person with his kind of handicap before. As with Albert and Bernard [the pygmies in The Ambassador] and with pygmies in general, they are outcasts, they are abused, they are looked down upon, there's a lot of racism regarding pygmies. And there are these horrible occurrences in the Congo where rebels have killed and eaten pygmies - it's atavistic, to get part of their 'magical powers' inside them. So, you know, the ones paying the highest price for dysfunctional African states are the pygmies.

Murty: It's interesting how so often in societies that live according to mythological thinking the outcast figure -- the sacrificial figure, as it were -- is also considered the figure who can bring magic, and who must be controlled or exploited in some manner. I guess the pygmies were those figures in that community. I just feel very sad for the pygmies, themselves. [...]

You also bring up the fact that it's next to impossible to do business there. For people who are well-meaning, Western people who want to do development in Africa and help -- the whole idea of development being that you don't give people hand-outs, but you build things so they can run them themselves ...

Brügger: That doesn't work there.

Murty: Is there any hope? How will things improve there?

Brügger: I think it's a situation of utter despair. Some of the diplomats in Bangui told me they believed that within the vicinity of 15 or 20 years the country will no longer exist, because they can barely uphold their own sovereignty. They only have two thousand soldiers to protect an area the size of Texas. They have the Lord's Resistance Army there - this crazy, border-crossing, rebel group headed by a transvestite wizard called Joseph Kony. You have two or three different rebel groups. You have highway robbers from Chad.

Apuzzo: On that point I wanted to ask you something that was touched on in the film - the possibility of M. Gilbert's terrorist ties or connections ...

Murty: ... to an organization that was one of the funders of Hamas.

Apuzzo: What did you make of that?

Brügger: Hassan el Bakas? Well, I discovered for sure that Hassan el Bakas exists, and he's a real figure, so that checked out -- what the State Security guy was saying. And that he is a very shady and sinister guy. [...]

Apuzzo: Who are your favorite filmmakers?

Brügger: Werner Herzog, of course. A Swedish director called Roy Andersson, he's not very well known outside of Scandinavia. Lars von Trier, he's really a master. Todd Solondz. I like his sense of humor; I really like the film Palindromes -- I think it's his best film ever.

Murty: What about classic Danish filmmakers? For example, Benjamin Christensen in the '20s made Haxan/An Account of Witchcraft and Magic through the Ages, and then also Dreyer, The Passion of Joan of Arc ...

Brügger: Of course Dreyer is on my list, you know, he was probably the biggest Danish filmmaker ever.

Apuzzo: This is the second film in a row you've done, the purpose of which is to expose corruption. Is that how you conceive your mission as a filmmaker and as a journalist?

Brügger: Of course, journalism and humanism go hand in hand. And I think of them as very humanistic films- - almost to a spiritual level.

Murty: In your films, underneath all of your satire, and your exposure of the horror of what you're seeing -- you have a deeply humanistic vision, a sense of outraged morality at your core. Of course, coming from northern Europe, there's a humanistic tradition that goes back to Erasmus ... I see your films and I also think of paintings by Brueghel or by Hieronymus Bosch in terms of the grotesque human behavior you expose. Do you see yourself as part of that tradition?

Brügger: Well you know [looking abashed], I don't think of myself in terms of Brueghel and the classic painters, but Denmark is in many ways the ultimate expression of humanism -- which you can also feel in the way Danish people trust the state. Danish people believe that people of authority are like The Smurfs. Benevolent people. [Laughs.] But that is because there is so much trust among citizens in Denmark, among citizens and the authorities. It's one of the least corrupt societies in the world, you know.

At the same time, it's also a very matriarchal society. Most of the schooling system, the universities, are defined by and led by women. And this creates a situation in which a lot of men of my generation have problems with authority. I sure do. That also in many ways defines the kind of journalism that I do.

Murty: Were there other things in your upbringing that shaped your particular vision as a filmmaker - in terms of either you family, or your education?

Brügger: Well of course my mother and father being journalists ... My father was the editor-in-chief of Denmark's biggest business daily, the Financial Times of Denmark, while my mother worked for twenty years at Denmark's biggest tabloid, exposing scandals about politicians. In some ways I am a synthesis of this - the tabloid/yellow press thinking, and the more traditional business journalism. In a way, it is a strange mix of Borat and The Economist.

Murty: You mentioned the humanistic vision of your films - but also about the spiritual element, as well. What is your own spiritual inspiration as you tackle these very difficult subjects?

Apuzzo: In other words, what sustains you as you descend into hell?

Brügger: [Laughs.] In Danish we have an expression, "to do the white cut." That is a Danish expression for a lobotomy. It is also a metaphor, to "give yourself the white cut." ... It's an act of letting everything else go. Just doing it.

Murty: Almost like a Zen-type moment. Entering the void. Losing your mindfulness.

Brügger: Yes, going 'all-in.' Without any considerations of what will happen to you, what will happen to other people, just doing it. So when I'm in it, I'm 'all-in.'

Michelle Chen: In Year of Uprisings, Reporters Brave Crackdowns from Wall St. to Tahrir Square

2012-02-10T13:30:48Z

You wouldn't think handling a notebook or a camera could be a hazardous line of work. But according to the latest global Press Freedom Index, abuse and oppression of reporters has made journalism an increasingly risky job in many countries. The past year has even left a notable taint on the U.S. press, despite the country's mythos as a beacon of free expression.

While the United States certainly hasn't descended into the ranks of the most oppressive regimes, the watchdog group Reporters without Borders observes that in 2011 the political barriers and outright attacks facing reporters had led to a steep drop in the rankings--27 places down, to number 47:

In the space of two months in the United States, more than 25 [journalists] were subjected to arrests and beatings at the hands of police who were quick to issue indictments for inappropriate behaviour, public nuisance or even lack of accreditation.

The most high-profile violations of press freedom took place during the Occupy protests, as reporters were abused by police and otherwise stonewalled by authorities.

Ever-faithful to his 1% cronies, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg moved swiftly to restrict press coverage of Occupy Wall Street actions, barring journalists from Zuoccotti Park. Authorities justified the "media blackout" by insisting that the purpose was "to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press." The safety assurances presumably weren't much comfort to the many reporters who got roughed up and arrested while trying to do their jobs.

But as usual, the crackdowns only challenged activists to push back more fiercely as digital images and reports of police brutality and oppression went viral. And much of the heavy lifting was accomplished by a deft, if somewhat chaotic, grassroots media sphere.

Josh Stearns at Free Press tracked dozens of arrests across several Occupy cities through Twitter dispatches.

From cartoonist and journalist Susie Cagle (an occasional contributor to In These Times), who was arrested during the Occupy Oakland strike actions and "held for over 14 hours":

#occupyoakland cops pointing at me, oh great...

#occupyoakland arrested in wagon now...

#occupyoakland I am out and charged. I had my press pass in full view at arrest. One OPD officer recognized me, knew my comics."

And as New York City cops rounded up protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, Alternet's Kristen Gwynne chronicled via tweet:

Trapped with hundreds of people on the Brooklyn Bridge. Cops making mass arrests. We can't move....

Just got out of jail...Still love #OccupyWallSt

But the narrative arc of the Occupy crackdowns on both journalists and protesters reflects a much bigger back story: The political establishment understands the power of the press to foment rebellion, but it does not understand that the media are constantly adapting and growing more polymorphous, and thus harder to crush.

However, while the Occupy-related arrests were a major factor in the lower ranking, the organization also noted failures to address other longstanding press freedom concerns.

Reporters Without Borders' (RWB) D.C. Director Delphine Halgand told In These Times, "this big decline [in ranking] is also due to old concerns we have and which weren't addressed by the Obama administration." These include excessive limits on access to government information (despite the guarantees of the Freedom of Information Act), the lack of a legal protections for confidential journalistic sources; and threats to Internet freedom posed by the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation.

Halgand added that the drop in the index should "play the role of a wake-up call to remind the U.S. [it is] a strong democracy, where the freedom of expression is guaranteed by the U.S. constitution, and journalists have to be able to do their work freely."

But violations in other regions documented by RWB are more troubling, especially in a year when anti-authoritarian popular uprisings were the main headline.

Though the Egyptian Revolution seeded hopes of social transformation across the region, the media activists who stormed Tahrir Square have been clawed back by the military regime, with similar backlash in Bahrain and Yemen.

In 176th-ranked the Syria, "total censorship, widespread surveillance, indiscriminate violence and government manipulation made it impossible for journalists to work," according to RWB. And before Arab Spring-style protests could blossom in Asia, authorities nipped dissent in the bud:

Many arrests were made in Vietnam (172nd). In China (174th), the government responded to regional and local protests and to public impatience with scandals and acts of injustice by feverishly reinforcing its system of controlling news and information, carrying out extrajudicial arrests and stepping up Internet censorship.

There were also some mild successes, such as some improvement in the autonomy of Tunisian journalists following the overthrow of dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The number of nations in Africa ranking in the Top 50 inched up (despite greater polarization between the best and worst performers on the continent).

Beyond that, the numbers in the index shouldn't obscure the countless breakthroughs led by bloggers and other digital activists who laid the social groundwork for dissent movements--the collective impact of which proves greater than the sum of its parts.

Despite the gaps and pitfalls that beset the Arab Spring countries still enmeshed in pro-democracy struggles, Hagland said, "the media are playing a crucial role... And even if journalists or bloggers are arrested, often they are playing a huge role in the uprising."

Glibly dubbed the "Year of the Protester" by Time magazine, 2011 exposed gaps between the 1% and the rest of us in the economy and civil society, bringing new risks for reporters as well as triumph for emerging media formats. In many cases, members of the media themselves became the news. Yet many ordinary people too became the media. In the United States, amateurs stepped up when conventional journalists failed to do their job of exercising freedom of expression to serve the public interest.

And that's where the real spotlight should be: No one should be punished for telling the truth, whether it's their job to do so, or simply their responsibility as citizens.

Cross-posted from In These Times.

Bob Cesca: The Bob & Chez Show 2/9/12

2012-02-10T13:13:21Z

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This week's show highlights: Contraception and Catholics; The New Obama-Muslim Meme; The Republican War Against Women Continues; Feminism Twitter War; Roland Martin Suspended and Erickson Still Employed; Homophobia; Media People Say Stupid Things; Ron Paul to Kill National Parks; Americans Screwed Themselves; and much more! RSS Feed

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The Bob & Chez Show is a spontaneous, entertaining and unfiltered one-hour political discussion between Huffington Post bloggers Bob Cesca and Chez Pazienza. We cover the news media, presidential politics and whatever else is happening in the world, including our personal lives and pop culture.

Mitchell Bard: GOP Construction of a Fictional "Obama" Has Taken a Turn to the Absurd

2012-02-10T03:56:29Z

Bill Maher, in relaying his last "New Rule" on the Jan. 27 episode of "Real Time," returned to an argument about the GOP presidential race that he has advanced regularly:

"You know, Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he's an Islamo-socialist revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet, Saul Alinsky! And this is how politics has changed. You used to have to run against an actual candidate. But, now, you just recreate him inside the bubble and run against your new fictional candidate."

(You can watch the clip of the whole "New Rule" here or read the transcript here.)

Maher isn't really exaggerating. Contrary to the fictional stories told by Republicans, the president has cut taxes (taxes are lower under Obama than they were under Ronald Reagan, and the tax burden on Americans is the lowest it's been since 1950), raised the military budget, been more aggressive in fighting Islamist militants than his predecessor (bin Laden and numerous dead Taliban and al-Qaida leaders would attest to this fact if they could, as well as all those hit by increased drone attacks, not to mention--although they're not Islamists--Qadafi and all the Somali pirates who have met their demise on the business end of American military hardware), and has not proposed or supported any anti-gun legislation (instead, signing a bill that included a Republican amendment allowing guns in national parks).

Andrew Sullivan did a great job in January of laying out the Obama created by the GOP and then showing how the facts spoil the Republican fiction.

And, to be clear, we're not just talking about fringe right-wing attention-seekers making stuff up about Obama. The GOP presidential frontrunner (is he still?), Mitt Romney, accused Obama of "putting free enterprise on trial" and delusionally claimed:

"President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others."

Apparently, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy makes you an opponent of free enterprise, and continuing the bailout of the banks makes you a proponent of wealth redistribution.

(And if Rick Santorum is now the front-runner, which I don't buy, well, he makes Romney look clear-eyed regarding the president. According to Santorum, Obama wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, has "overt hostility to faith," has failed to fight "militant socialism," defunded abstinence-only programs because he wants "people to be in poverty," etc.)

But even as commentators start to note the GOP effort to create a fictional Barack Obama, it looks like Republicans have decided to double down on the stupid. That is, they have strayed from plausible lies (lies that, to the uninformed, could feel true) to absurd ones.

For example, on Tuesday, Sean Hannity made the ridiculous comment that Osama bin Laden's death "wouldn't have happened if he [Obama] had his way."

Really think about what he said for a second. When SEAL Team Six went into Pakistan to take out bin Laden, who gave the order? Here's a hint: He has an oval-shaped office in the White House. If Obama didn't want bin Laden killed, bin Laden would still be alive.

(Oh, and you'll notice the president didn't ask for Pakistan's permission to breach its borders, nor did he offer any apologies for doing so.)

By now, the story of the bin Laden mission is well known. Success was not assured. The president weighed all of the information at his disposal, which had been accumulated from years of bin Laden surveillance since his inauguration, and he took a calculated risk to approve the mission. According to Vice President Biden, when the president's senior advisers made their final recommendations, nobody (with the exception of CIA Director Leon Panetta) gave an unqualified yes. Most waffled. Biden offered a solid no. But the president opted to go forward.

If the mission had failed, Hannity would have surely placed the blame on Obama for making a reckless decision. But it worked. And now he's saying the president didn't want it to happen?

To throw a little more absurd syrup on top of the bat-s%#t-crazy sundae, remember that Obama didn't just succeed in getting bin Laden; he made it a priority, unlike his predecessor, who said,

"I really just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you."

In short, Hannity says the president who prioritized finding bin Laden and made the difficult and risky decision to take out the al-Qaida leader (something the previous president couldn't be bothered with) didn't really want to kill him.

This is the level of absurdity to which the right has sunk in creating a fake Barack Obama.

Maybe this is all a good sign. Maybe, despite gains in the 2010 midterms (when the Republicans successfully created a fake health care law: Death panels! Care for illegal immigrants! They're taking your Medicare!), the GOP doesn't think it can beat the real Obama in November. Or maybe Republicans are worried by the numerous instances of buyer's remorse since November 2010, with successful candidate and statute recalls in Wisconsin, Ohio and Maine, as well as recent polls showing the GOP in trouble in Ohio and Obama doing relatively well in the battleground states.

Whatever the reason, the American people may be easily fooled at times, but nobody outside of the right-wing echo chamber will believe that Barack Obama didn't want to kill bin Laden. (That's even less believable than the idea that the guy who opted to fight in Vietnam and was awarded three purple hearts was a coward, while the guy who pulled strings to get into the National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam was a courageous leader, right?)

The Republican construction of a fake Barack Obama has gone off the rails. I hope the GOP keeps it up, as it only helps Obama's chances in November.

Gregory Cendana: Bringing Our Communities Together: What Can Be Learned from the GLAAD and Roland Martin Situation

2012-02-10T01:17:00Z

There was a lot for me to think about after this year's Super Bowl: the ads that aired, the comments that were made, and particularly the responses to the comments that rocked the nation.

After many days of reflection, and seeing many events unfold, including the recent suspension of CNN contributor and TV One host Roland Martin, I felt the need to articulate my thoughts in a more constructive and forward-thinking manner.

There is a lot to be taken from Roland Martin's suspension from CNN, and it shouldn't just be him learning a lesson.

As a young, openly gay, Asian man, I have experienced bullying and the impact violence can have in one's life -- because it affected mine. Believe me, I agree with many that the tweets following David Beckham's H&M ads were homophobic and perpetuated the type of violence many of us are working hard to free ourselves from.

However, there's a story to be told about the way our "movement" goes about holding people accountable and building allies in our quest for true equality. Can we truly celebrate the suspension of one of the few people of color from TV? For many people, Roland Martin is their news and the perspective that shines light on how they view the world.

There are many elected officials, entertainers, news anchors, and faith leaders who advocate for homophobia and violence to our communities. Where is their accountability? Where are the petitions and energy poured into holding those people accountable according to our standards of justice? We talk about not being treated with double standards, yet we sometimes force them onto others. We need to do better. We have to be better.

This apparently wasn't the first time Roland Martin said something homophobic. Were there any efforts to engage in a conversation with him any of those other times? Could we have turned such an important figure into an ally or stronger advocate for our issues?

All I know is that the attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender folks are also being felt by immigrants, women, students, working-class families, and so many others that we have no choice but to come together in order to defend what is left, or we will see decades of struggle reversed.

Conservatives know how to divide and conquer our communities -- and we fall for it every time. In the amount of time and energy we have spent tweeting about the suspension of Roland Martin, which is most likely not going to last, the next attack on Planned Parenthood or labor unions is being waged.

This is not to say we are close to seeing a world where we are all being treated equally and fairly. This is also not to say we shouldn't hold people accountable or call out inappropriate language, because we should.

But until we break down the silos and see that a number of issues we care about intersect, we will continue to miss out on opportunities to build an inclusive and cohesive movement. In this political moment we must be more strategic and mindful about how we are engaging potential allies and the analysis on who is really on our side.

As a movement, we need to lead with more love and compassion. I'm tired of working from a place of reaction and fear. I'm in this fight for my family, my community, and my friends, and I'm in it for the long run. The world I envision isn't possible unless we can all be our full selves and not have to apologize about the identities that we hold. But my world also allows for folks from all communities, especially the underrepresented ones, to come together and strengthen our movement through love.

Let us take a moment to reflect, and figure out how we can build a bolder, more visionary, and necessary agenda together.

Rebecca Gill: Unusual Suspects Want to Ban Page 3

2012-02-10T00:00:00Z

On Monday Dominic Mohan was recalled to the Leveson inquiry where he defended Page 3 as a "British institution". Unfortunately he missed the all important word 'was'- it was a British institution - and not a particularly good one at that.

Platform 51 commissioned a nationally representative poll over the weekend which showed that almost twice as many women would support a ban on topless pictures of female models appearing in daily newspapers as would oppose it. In a country where many people feel uneasy with the word 'ban', these results are certainly striking.

The word and the question can conjure up ideas of banning all pictures of naked women in national newspapers even when they may be justified in the context of an article such as a feature on how to check for breast cancer. Those who oppose Page 3 are unlikely to be concerned with this - what people are concerned about are images presenting women as nothing more than sex objects.

It is easy to assume that it's just women who feel uncomfortable with Page 3, but that isn't the case - almost a third of men said they would support a ban too.

One of the charges levelled against those who oppose Page 3 is that they are being prudish or don't get that's it's just a bit of harmless fun. Strikingly, when Clare Short dared to first raised the issue of a ban on Page 3, 25 years ago, The Sun's response to her concerns was to accuse her of being "fat and jealous."

Thankfully these results suggest that things have moved on since then. It is in fact the group in society that is usually considered to be the least prudish and uptight that shows strong opposition to Page 3 and would go as far as banning it; the research shows that many more young people, both men and women in the 18-24 age group are in favour of a ban than 45-54 year olds.

From our work with women and girls in Platform 51 centres, we know that provocative, titillating images of women like those on Page 3 can make them uncomfortable, negatively affect their self-esteem, limit their aspirations and expectations and can have an impact on how some men treat them. We know from working with younger girls and women that these images can have a big impact on them growing up.

There is also a concern that children have access to these images unfiltered and unmediated and the impact this has on how girls view themselves, and how boys view girls. Whilst there are organisations like Platform 51 who support girls and women to build their confidence and self-esteem, it would be easier if these images were not there in the first place.

These serious objections to Page 3 are perhaps well rehearsed. But what our polling shows is that many people, far from viewing 'institutions' like Page 3 as harmless fun, in fact see Page 3 as an outdated 'institution' which is, frankly, a bit embarrassing and needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Ira Chernus: Why Would Israel Attack Iran, Really?

2012-02-09T23:00:05Z

Just days after the New York Times Magazine's lurid cover story, "Israel vs. Iran," the Washington Post struck back with a two-fisted effort to win the "most dire prediction" contest. The Post's foreign policy pundit David Ignatius wrote a widely-circulated column claiming inside information: U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June." The next day the Post's front page headline warned ominously, "Israel: Iran Must Be Stopped Soon."

Both stories reported that the Obama administration opposes any Israeli action, just like the Bush administration before it. The risks to U.S. interests are incalculable, as the Pentagon and State Department have been telling us for years.

Yet both stories added a new note: Israel might strike without U.S. support or permission. "The administration appears to favor staying out of the conflict unless Iran hits U.S. assets," Ignatius wrote.

Of course the U.S. is already in the conflict, as the Iranians know perfectly well. Israel's ability to strike depends largely on its high-tech weaponry, paid for by the $3 billion a year coming from Washington. With that kind of money flowing -- plus U.S. diplomatic support, which many in Israel see as their last barrier against international isolation -- the Obama administration has powerful leverage to stop any Israeli action that threatens U.S. interests.

When the administration tells the Washington Post that the U.S. is unhappy but helpless, it's obviously looking for deniability if the attack occurs. But it's also a clear signal to the Israelis: Though we could stop you, so far we have not decided that we will. This is a major shift in the message coming from Washington.

Why now? Ignatius put it delicately: "Complicating matters is the 2012 presidential campaign, which has Republicans candidates clamoring for stronger U.S. support of Israel." Obama, the Republicans, and the mass media all assume that a red light from the White House to the Israelis would hurt the president on Election Day.

Why should the voters punish a president for insisting that U.S. interests must come first and for preventing an attack that would probably cause a spike in gas prices?

The two WaPo articles offered an important clue. One mentioned Israeli warnings about "an existential threat to Israel." The other called this "a time when their security is undermined by the Arab Spring."

For decades, American voters have been inundated with news stories reporting supposed threats to Israel's security as if they were objective fact. Rarely do our mass media allow any questions about, much less objections to, the myth of Israel's insecurity. At least two questions are urgent now:

Even if the Iranians did manage to make a handful of nuclear weapons, why should we believe they would ever use them against Israel? They know that Israel already has 100 to 200 nukes of its own, enough to destroy every major city in Iran, and is perfectly prepared to use them. Iranian leaders have not given any evidence that they're interested in committing national suicide.

And why should we believe Israel was better off before the Arab Spring, when its neighbors were all dictatorships, breeding grounds for popular anger that could easily turn (or be manipulated) against outside enemies? Governments that better reflect public sentiment are more stable and reliable for their neighbors to deal with. In fact, the Arab Spring movement is having a moderating effect on Islamist politics, as both the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are now demonstrating.

Read the references to Israel's insecurity in the two WaPo articles more closely, and a third question arises: Do Israelis leaders seriously believe that their national existence is threatened?

The front-pager says:

Israeli officials warn that beyond posing an existential threat to Israel, Iran's possession of a nuclear weapon could trigger a regional nuclear arms race in the volatile Middle East and alter Israel's strategic position in the region.

Since Israel brought nukes into the Middle East decades ago, its concern about a "regional nuclear arms race" is code for other Mideast nations getting nuclear capability. "Strategic position" is code for Israel's current absolute military domination of the greater Middle East, symbolized by its sole possession of nukes. It's that symbolic as well as very real domination, not its national existence, that Israel is at risk of losing.

"Symbolic" is the right word when it comes to nuclear weapons because Israel's nukes don't have any practical value. Israel doesn't need to use its nukes; it has shown itself more than capable of winning any conventional war against its neighbors. And the U.S. has guaranteed that Israel will stay far ahead in the high-tech conventional arms race.

If Israel did use even one nuke against a conventional attack it would probably lose the last shred of its dwindling support around the world, including most of its support in the U.S., and end up isolated, a pariah in the international community. That's the greatest nightmare for most Israelis.

The Israelis are considering an attack on Iran, fraught with immense dangers, so the Jewish state can keep its symbolic status as the region's only superpower.

David Ignatius confirms this view in his reference to Israel's supposed insecurity: "Israeli leaders are said to accept, and even welcome, the prospect of going it alone and demonstrating their resolve at a time when their security is undermined by the Arab Spring."

Resolve to do what? To do whatever it takes to maintain military superiority. But superiority is useful only if it's publicly demonstrated from time to time. Symbolism is the key to a sense of national power.

If these WaPo journalists are right -- and my forty years of studying the issue tells me they are -- what really makes Israeli leaders feel insecure is their fear of not having their power respected. To gain that respect, they'll talk endlessly about their planning to attack Iran. Perhaps one day they'll do it, as long as Obama doesn't raise the red light.

The main thing holding him back is election-year anxiety of his own, fueled by the millions of voters who honestly believe that Israel's existence is constantly in peril. Why shouldn't they believe it, when the journalists they depend on for their information repeat that myth endlessly, while they hint at the full truth only in rare sentences that get lost amid the flood of words that evoke fear.

But how tragic that a president has to worry about voters punishing him if he puts U.S. interests above Israel's desire to symbolize its military strength and resolve.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and the U.S. on his blog.

Danielle Moodie-Mills: The "Roland Effect": Why Words (Tweets) Matter

2012-02-09T22:46:25Z

"If you don't have something nice to say... then say nothing." This is an old adage we teach young children. Why? Because as adults we know that words matter, and if we've learned anything at all from the recent spate of anti-gay bullying incidents, it's that words can cause much deeper suffering than we ever imagined.

So when a celebrity, pundit, or politician uses his or her soap box and access to thousands, if not millions, of people irresponsibly, it rightfully causes havoc -- which is exactly why Roland Martin is on the hot seat right now.

While the Super Bowl commercials were in full swing on Sunday, Martin, a CNN and TV One commentator, tweeted to his 94,000 Twitter followers that "If a dude at your super bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, slap the 'ish out of him!"

Really, Roland!?! Oh, but it gets better. He also tweeted, "Ain't no real bruhs going to H&M to buy some damn David Beckham underwear!"

Real bruhs? What exactly is a "real bruh?" Was Martin not so subtly implying that a fashion-forward man who cares about what he wears is not a "real" man? That would be quite hypocritical, never mind bad for business, coming from the man who has parlayed his love of wearing silky pink ascots into a side hustle selling them.

So what did he mean, exactly? Since his tweets caused quite the stir, Martin has found himself among the likes of Don Imus, Tracy Morgan, and a host of others, issuing a half-hearted apology with one foot in his mouth, after the damage has already been caused. He stated in his apology that he was not implying anything about anyone's sexuality but insisted that he was talking about soccer. This misinterpretation of his words would be easy to understand if in fact any of his derogatory tweets actually mentioned the word "soccer" -- but they did not.

There's no mistaking the tone of Martin's tweets, which have enraged the gay community. They clearly suggest that "dudes" who are attracted to images of David Beckham in his underwear are gay, and that being gay is an offense punishable by a beat down.

Perhaps Martin truly believes that you can haze-the-gay-away. After all, he does support his wife's pray-the-gay-away therapy, and came to the defense of Tracy Morgan who "joked" about killing his son if he found out he was gay.

His beliefs aside, Martin's tweets are not simply a poor choice of words. They are reckless! They perpetuate stereotypes of masculinity in general and black masculinity in particular, which are degrading to anyone that doesn't conform, especially gay people. Moreover, Martin's not-so-subtle attacks on gay men that he shares with his largely black fan base, puts black gay and non-gender-conforming men directly in the line of fire of the "real bruhs" that would follow his advice and do them harm.

The black gay and transgender community already suffers high rates of violence and hate crimes. Late last year for example, Robert Champion, a young black gay drum major from Florida A&M University was hazed to death by his bandmates, some likely "real bruhs." The District of Columbia and other major cities have seen an overall spike in attacks again black gay and transgender people. Flippant tweets like Martin's, whether intentional or not, ultimately give license to these perpetrators and all but validate their acts.

These crises and others affecting the black gay and transgender community are no laughing matter. According to a report entitled "Jumping Beyond the Broom" released by the FIRE (Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality) initiative at the Center for American Progress:

Black gay and transgender Americans in particular experience stark social, economic, and health disparities compared to the general population and their straight black and white gay counterparts. According to the data we currently have, families headed by black same-sex couples are more likely to raise their children in poverty, black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, and black gay and transgender youth are more likely to end up homeless and living on the streets.

Martin, a champion of the black community and their issues, should be working to address these, not demonize those who are vulnerable. Instead he propagates a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy" within the black community and suggests that anyone who falls outside of acceptable "blackness" should be ostracized at best, and physically assaulted at worse.

President Barack Obama best addressed such slanderous ideas of blackness in his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech where he called on the black community to eradicate the notion that black youth carrying books are somehow "acting white." Martin, who's currently pursuing a master's degree himself, would surely find this notion of "acting white" equally troubling. Yet he has no qualms in applying such irrational logic to his disdain of gays, a double standard that taints the black community.

Martin's megaphone is huge, reaching millions each week, and he has a responsibility to be a lot more thoughtful about what he says and where he says it.

Many are stating that Martin shouldn't have been suspended from CNN yesterday. Some have even gone so far as to call his suspension a "digital lynching". Instead I think of it is an extremely important teachable moment. Long gone are the days where racist and sexist jokes would be laughed off and homophobic ones are no different -- we don't live our lives like the characters of Mad Men anymore and there is a reason for that. When hateful comments go undisciplined it allows people to think it's OK to discriminate as long as their hatred is followed by a punch line.

The struggle for equality and the safety of LGBT people in this country is no laughing matter!

Nonetheless, his actions have opened up the opportunity for much-needed dialogue on the trappings of stereotypes of black masculinity and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy" on gay and transgender people within the black community that both desperately need to be addressed.

If there is nothing else that we have learned from the tragic suicide of Carl Hoover Walker the 11-year-old African American boy who was incessantly harassed about his perceived sexuality, and ultimately took his own life, is that sticks and stones aren't the only things that hurt. Words wound deeply, and they do indeed matter.