There is a time in the life of every writer when you find yourself fearing that you have become a robo call phone machine--repeating the same message over and over with diminishing results.

That's how I felt after eight months of silence after labeling the credit crisis a "subcrime" scandal, lashing out at the fraudulent activity at its core and calling for the investigation and prosecution of wrong doers. Almost no media outlets accepted this way of framing the problem, although, as usual, the British press was ahead of its American cousins in putting the blame on the bankers, not the borrowers.

While We Debate Reverend Wright, The Economy Goes To Hell

New York, May Day: Thomas Jefferson used a phrase in a letter that is still ringing all these years later. Here's his thought, a candidate for "THE WORD" segment on the Colbert Report:

"I had for a long time ceased to read the newspapers or pay any attention to public affairs, confident they were in good hands, and content to be a passenger in our bark to the shore from which I am not distant, but this momentous question like A FIREBELL IN THE NIGHT [caps mine], awakened and filled me with terror."

So many of us were content like that in the years leading up to the slow motion crash that rocked our economy in August 2007, and many still remain comatose like that today.

Almaty Kazakhstan, April 27: Everyone has a memorable moment or special date that marked their political lives. For me, it was April 27, 1994, the day of South Africa's first democratic election when a disenfranchised majority chose Nelson Mandela as its new President. To those that fought so many years against apartheid, it was a political miracle, seen as an almost biblical moment ushering in a new Rainbow nation.

I had a front row seat 14 years ago inside the Mandela campaign, making an insider film that became Countdown to Freedom: The Ten Days that Changed South Africa. It was euphoric, watching so many people who had been oppressed for so long patiently waiting in line to vote, some for hours. They enthusiastically filled out paper ballots, and before the counting was stopped -- a decision made by Mandela's own party, the ANC, so that the whites would not feel totally dominated -- 63% chose the icon that had been a prisoner as their president.

How ironic that in the same week that the National Association of Broadcasters gave actor Tim Robins a platform to challenge media gatekeepers to open the airwaves to more perspectives ABC NEWS gave us all a classic example of how a network can dumb down a presidential debate and turn it into a disgraceful hit job rather than an enlightening hit.

Rather than advance the political high that so many are having with an exciting campaign, it set a new low in TV coverage and was a blow to our political discourse.

Oddly, the other big news revolved around the Pope's visit. Benedict knew how to get attention in the US press--by talking about sexual perversion. What he didn't discuss, and what the media didn't remind us of, was the last concerns of his Saintly predecessor Pope John Paul 11. That Pope focused on a subject that most media outlets cover the least: their own performance.

London, April 14: On the weekend that the Federal Reserve Bank intervened to arrange a bailout of Bear Stearns, the Economist reported it took 50 years to build a modern financial system and it almost collapsed in one weekend.

We are not used to reading such scary analyses about the fragility of the economic order. Later, Fed officials admitted that they acted to save the system, not just one bank, fearing the collapse of any big major financial institution could bring others down given all the ways the banks are entangled with each other.

Just a few weeks later on this Spring weekend, financial ministers from around the world are playing fiscal surgeons. They revved up their ambulances, sirens blasting, and raced to the scene of the 'subcrime.' Its now time for the G7 to squish its collective fingers into a dyke springing more leaks daily. They are now huddling in the emergency room like a trauma team from a special edition of ER.

April is mosquito season in the swamps south of Baghdad. It is said, 'they're thicker than carpets.' Could the return of those locust-like 'carpets' be driving local politicians to distraction? Did Iraqi President Maliki avoid their bite by getting out of town while driving his poorly trained and even more poorly managed forces on to Basra to wipe out Mr. Sadr's uncontrollable militia? (So far, it is his forces that are biting the dust, and deserting in droves, while President Bush remarks on the "return to normalcy.")

To hear Daniel Schorr tell it on NPR on Saturday morning -- the outlet my colleague Norman Solomon now calls National Pentagon Radio -- Maliki acted "on his own" to start the current round of fighting. How did he know that? No source was given, of course, while others more in the know pointed out that he actually acted just after Dick Cheney's visit to lobby (i.e. order) him to impose the oil privatization law that the Busheviks and our oil companies want. Earlier in the week, there was a new study report saying Iraq has bigger oil reserves then was hitherto believed. (I can't believe the CIA didn't know that, can you?)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK: President Bush has finally heard those of us who have been railing for financial reform, and putting Wall Street under what the Jamaicans once called "Heavy Manners," a set of rules and regulations aimed at trying to stabilize the volatile markets and curb avaricious banks who have managed in less than a decade to bring a house of cards down upon themselves and the rest of us.

Suddenly in the run-up to April Fools day, and in rapid order, the 'Lions of Legislation' on the Hill, and the warring candidates on the campaign trail have discovered that the financial system is on the verge of collapse.

It's Not Just Big Banks That Panic In A Financial Crisis

Wall Street has many friends. Its recurring sins and transgressions are pervasive but tend to get a free pass because of the way our society worships markets. Somehow the big boys always tend to take care of themselves. What about the rest of us? In this dramatic economic downturn, can we be secure about our investments, retirement plans, and even the banks that hold our money?

Don't think that you, me, or all of us won't be affected by the financial disaster we keep reading about. For starters, the "experts" expect a 25% drop in housing value. Beyond that, a fall off in share price can put our 401k retirement packages at risk. Already an economist at the Bank of America says that the loss from subprime write-offs and declines in share value add up to $7.9 TRILLION. That estimate is already dated. That's a lot of money!

Why the Financial Crisis Is Not Just About Finances

New York: If you walk through London's High Gate cemetery and wander over to the grave of the late Karl Marx and then listen closely with your ear to the ground, you might hear a repetitive murmur of the phrase "I told you so" in a distinctly German inflected accent.

You might also see the earth moving ever so slightly as what's left of the bones below turn over in the realization that capitalists, not the proletariat, are the ones bringing down the system.

Fellow blogger Ian Williams, a former disciple of the bearded prophet, is now chanting, "Shareholders of the world unite" in recognition of the way the world is changing. The fall of Bear Sterns and the collapse of confidence in our financial system is a profound turning point.

Obscenities have been back in the news lately with the FCC imposing high fines on TV stations for airing programming thought to violate community standards. Even though cable is not part of the FCC's regulatory mandate, perhaps an exception should be made in response to the recent coverage of one of the most shocking obscenities in recent times.

Perhaps the time has even come to fine or ban CSPAN!

The public interest network, born out of a desire by the cable industry to placate Congress and block regulatory oversight by giving unlimited airtime to members of Congress, has now gone too far in outraging the American public.

"The public, fortunately, doesn't understand how bad the situation is. If it did, we might have a real panic on our hands."
-- David Ignatius, Washington Post

Now that this year's Oscars are history, imagine if you will, an awards ceremony honoring not the best of the best but the worst of the worst, not just spinoffs like the "Razzies" (the Golden Razberries) for movies. Who should we single out as the biggest slime balls and sleazoids who caused the most damage to our society in the year gone by?

Can you envision an Academy Award like statuette to "honor" the people we should be despising the most?

At long last, the Democrats are talking about the economy and the need for serious relief and reforms. The reason is simple. The people are feeling the squeeze.

Reports the Baltimore Sun:

“Since January alone, the public’s perception about the state of the economy has plummeted – with just 17 percent calling the nation’s economy excellent or good – down from 26 percent last month. The percentage rating the economy poor has grown from 28 to 45 percent.”

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama now have their instant ten point plans and programs. They have dipped into John Edwards’ tool chest for ideas on fighting poverty and listened to policy advisors who have come up with a laundry list of proposals for stop gap measures from hikes in the minimum wage and middle class tax cuts. All of these proposals will take time to implement and probably will be forgotten by the time one of them becomes President, if they do.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, the world saw a disaster unfold. Homes sank underwater, bodies floated away, and to this day no one has really accepted responsibility while thousands remain homeless. Katrina shamed our nation in a saga spawned by criminal neglect, inept government responses and indifference in high places.

No one with a home in America can ever be sure that a similar tragedy couldn't befall them -- whether through floods, tornadoes, fires or by the severe weather that seems to be worsening in part because of global warming. Now there's a new threat, a wave of foreclosures. Millions are saying goodbye to the "Ownership Society," the so-called American dream.

I have something in common with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. We have all been engaged in community organizing.

The college-age Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis on a community organizer named Saul Alinsky, a brilliant grass roots strategist, the author of a small d democratic manifesto called Reveille for Radicals. The thesis was later defensively removed from circulation when right-wing attackers tried to use it as part of full-court press Clinton bashing. She writes admiringly of Alinsky but criticizes his approach as anachronistic, affirming the need to work in the system, not outside of it. No surprise. (Ironically, her academic advisor was a professor named Alan Schechter, a namesake, not a relative.)

After dragging its G-Man heels for years, someone at the FBI has woken up and realized that laws have been broken by the financial industry. Those violations are part of what led to the economic abyss we are facing. The ever-vigilant bureau that blew its 911 probe has just announced an investigation of 14 unnamed mortgage companies involved in a variety of scams. Talk about going after small fish.

In this week of football mania, what we know and they have yet to learn, is that if you dig deeply, you will soon be playing in a Super Bowl of corporate criminal complicity.

We need a special prosecutor and some zealous investigators who know something about white-collar crime waves. One suggestion: bring back former veteran FBI agent turned whistleblower Christine Rowley, a recent TIME Magazine "Person of the Year," to head the taskforce. Rowley told me she used to work cases like this with the former Rudolph Giuliani, who once made a name for himself as the scourge of Wall Street crime families. (Maybe it takes someone with a Mafia patrimony to know how to smell the scammers and then use RICO anti-conspiracy laws to put them behind bars.) That was before Rudy decided to join another mob - the Homeland Security fearmongers to cash in on 911.

It took almost five years for major studies to come out to confirm what most of us knew a long time ago about Iraq. The conclusion: the lies “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

So now it's "official" with two top journalist organizations documenting that the war in Iraq was facilitated and sold with a whopping 935 misleading assertions. May we ask: Why is it that truth takes so long come out in a land which proudly claims to have the freest media in the world?

The new word of the week is "economic stimulus package." Everyone is for it.

The President wants it if only because he knows a worsening economic crisis will leave his Administration in deep doo-doo, the way it did his dad back in '92. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is all for it if only because all of his rate cuts and "injections" of money into the financial system have not turned the US economy around.

He told Congress Thursday: "put money into the hands of households and firms that would spend it in the near term." This is likely to take the form of tax rebates and direct assistance.

rescue | reskyoō |
verb ( -cues , -cued, -cuing ) [ trans. ]
save (someone) from a dangerous or distressing situation
an act of saving or being saved from danger or distress

Who doesn't love the idea of a dramatic rescue — like saving a child who fell in a well, bringing miners out of danger from a hazardous hellhole, or the courage of that hero who jumped on the subway tracks to safeguard a passenger in the way of a speeding train?

We appreciate rescue helicopters, rescue squads in fire departments — New York has a big fully equipped van called "Rescue One," — or the daily bravery of the Coast Guard plucking unskilled seafarers from turbulent waters. The more risky the rescue, the more we like it.

Why The Economic Crisis Has To Become 'The' Political Issue for 2008

Barrack Obama's Iowa win has forcefully put the words hope and change on the national media agenda. His dynamic personality and uber-organized charismatic campaign galvanized attention and support even as his positions on issues seemed less clear.

The primary marathon continues with a retinue of pollsters and pundits trailing behind a diminishing number of candidates. They never lack in inane commentary or a barrel full of predictions that are rarely as accurate despite sounding so authoritative.

But there's another barrel to consider that's a lot less fun. It won't take us over the falls but, in fact, may lead us to a fall. That's the rise in the price for a barrel of oil and a set of deep economic pressures that will affect the country, the world, and every political race as unemployment goes up along with rising prices.

When that bible of business, the Economist magazine, put Mao Zedong on their cover in a red Santa Hat, I thought it was their way of suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party had become the new stabilizer and bearer of gifts for a western-capitalist system in distress.

Mao fought a revolution for independence from the West, which now seems to have become dependent on loans and finance from his People's Republic.

Mao had always preached, "no investigation, no right to speak," so I investigated further to find an article inside the issue suggesting that "for all his flaws" - like maybe 60 Million or more deaths, 30 million from famine alone -- "Mao was inspiring." An article on "Mao and the Art of Management" calls him a "role model, of sorts."

T'was the Night Before Christmas, a season of closure
We just lost our house because of foreclosure

Clement Moore, the author of the original poem called "A Visit From St. Nick" recited like a mantra at this time of year once lived down in my Manhattan neighborhood called Chelsea. He lived on a farm then but probably couldn't afford today's gentrified rents. He was actually not just a kindly old poet spinning verses for Santa and the reindeers, but a scholar who compiled a two volume Hebrew Dictionary.

Even then, things were not always what they appeared to be.

Then from 200 million throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Mitchell, mighty Mitchell, was advancing to the bat.
(With Apologies to Casey and Ernest Thayer)

The three-worded four-column headline blazing across Friday's front page of USA Today summed up more than one crisis. "A COLLECTIVE FAILURE" it shouted. At first, I wasn't sure what it was about when I first glanced at it in a gas station on the highway. I could see four pictures below it.

I thought it might be the McPaper's verdict on the war or the Bush Administration. But, alas, the photos were not mugshots of the cabal in power from some police station line-up.

So where is this credit crisis going? How will it end? What's the prognosis?

As a citizen of a country without an attention span, everyone wants someone else to play forecaster and tick off what must be done. And they want it quick and simple, even though there are no real quickie responses to a complicated problem. Almost any reassuring sound bite will do. The questions are predicable. What should I do to protect my money? Can't they fix this, after all our economy is supposed to be, oh so, "resilient?"

And yes your government is trying. George Bush doesn't want to leave office with two million families in the streets. He doesn't want a legacy worse that Herbert Hoovers. The loss of the incompletely managed war in Iraq is a tough enough burden to carry around.

BOSTON, MA November 24 2007: You could almost run that old Lone Ranger theme - the famous William Tell Overture - as the soundtrack to the local news stories I watched here in Boston on Thanksgiving day featuring perky local news "correspondents" stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers racing into malls for "midnight madness" sales.

It was, in the words of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, a "shopopocalyse." His crusade against out of control consumption is pictured in the new film "What Would Jesus Buy?," opening at some theaters in LA and San Francisco.

What were they thinking? Did the Democrats who decided to extend the campaign season with a year of frenetic barnstorming really believe that would turn more people on to politics or was it just another fundraising gambit?

As the race drones on, as the mainstream turns into a mudstream, cynicism and tune-out deepen. It's a reaction to what Time Magazine once called, "electotainment," an ongoing televised carnival in an age of hyper partisanship, in which the corrosive spirit of polarization between Democrats and Republicans has now led the Dems to polarize themselves.

The ONION caught the vibe with a headline: "AMERICANS ANNOUNCE THEY'RE DROPPING OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE." Among the factors these satirists hone in on is a lack of stamina for an 18 month marathon horse race and exhaustion with "relentless media scrutiny."