GDAEman: Matt Taibbi

Showing posts with label Matt Taibbi. Show all posts

May 31, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 31

Second in a series.... (See link to abridged Part I below)

Common Interests on the Left & Right - Part II

Left & Right Populists Working Together: to fix our flawed democracy

What is a "principled" conservative: Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has some thoughts

Audit the Fed: Bernie Sanders leads the Left & Right to push for Senate Unanimous vote on Amendment to "audit the Fed."

Bush war-crimes-Prosecution: Law Professor Francis Boyle describes the complaint he filed in January 2010 with the International Criminal Court

MUSIC: Yankee Network, out of Baltimore, "6 at 65".

Play Episode 31 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 31.

Listen to Part I in the series, Episode 30, (20-minute abridged version):

May 13, 2010

Americans for Finacial Reform

Rolling Stones writer, turned financial system truth-sayer, Matt Taibbi put it this way [1]:

There are about 1800 financial lobbyists wandering DC these days — I was physically bumping into these guys in DC this week in the halls of Hart and Dirksen — while the leading reform groups (like Americans for Financial Reform) have few if any. (AFR, as far as I understand, has no paid lobbyists and just a few dozen volunteers).

With the "Audit the Fed" legislation going to conference committee, where a one-time audit could be converted into a more routine process, now is a good time to support Americans for Financial Reform.

Sources:

1. Matt Taibbi blog post, "Balance in the Washington Post," May 8, 2010.

November 22, 2009

Palin = Soma

Soma is the name of the fictional drug featured in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Soma was a pleasure drug promoted by the "government" to keep the masses distracted. Brutal authoritarian methods were not needed to control the people in Huxley's authoritarian world, because the masses were busy self-medicating with soma, among other diversions.

Palin = Soma. Matt Taibbi has pretty well nailed it, as he often does.

Her followers will not know that she is the perfect patsy for our system, designed as it is to channel popular anger in any direction but a useful one, and to keep the public tied up endlessly in pointless media melees over meaningless nonsense (melees of the sort that develop organically around Palin everywhere she goes). Like George W. Bush, even Palin herself doesn’t know this, another reason she’s such a perfect political tool. Full Taibbi Piece.

Yes. It's not hyperbole to say "We live in Huxley's Brave New World, and Sara Palin is a human form of Soma."

Sources:

Thanks to Pragpro Blog for the lead on this Matt Taibbi piece.

April 1, 2009

Did I Say Matt Taibbi Rocks?

I know this is the 4th or 5th time I've written about Matt Taibbi recently, but he deserves the plaudits. This is just a quick post linking to Dusty's piece on Matt at The Sirens Chronicles.

The relevant links in her piece are captured in the opening paragraph of her post:

Matt’s latest [blog] piece is a wonderful bitchslap of the AIG carpetbaggers. He is responding to the recent NYT OpEd by one of their employees…actually former employee. Executive VP Jake DeSantis.

Matt catches Jake in a contradiction:

let's just say, Jake, that you're telling the truth, that you don't know anything about this toxic portfolio. If that's the case, then why the fuck does anyone need to retain you at an exorbitant salary to help unwind that very portfolio? If these transactions aren't and never were your expertise, then where the hell is your value here?

When I spoke to Christine Pretto, the AIG spokeswoman, and asked about those bonuses, she said that AIG needed to retain people like you in order to take advantage of your "knowledge of these transactions." So if you don't have knowledge of these transactions, what are you being paid for? Your winning attitude?

Matt doesn't usually swear that much in his columns for Rolling Stone Magazine... I guess he's a little pissed off... like the rest of us would be if we understood how seriously we've been bamboozled by the inside-crowd.

March 27, 2009

How Can We Stop the Gang-Rape?

One way to stop a gang rape is to say something rather than standing around dumbfounded. Simply raising one's voice can have a profound effect.

I just sent the following message to Obama at WhiteHouse.gov

Matt Taibbi Writes:

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream.

I feel like we're being gang-raped in the bailout process. Can you stop it?

Psssst... Do Something

Sources:

Rolling Stone, The Big Takeover: The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution, Matt Taibbi, March 19, 2009.

Is this Corporate Fascism?

According to Matt Taibbi's Must Read article, as a result of the financial stabilization process the federal government has been turned

into one gigantic, half-opaque holding company, one whose balance sheet includes the world's most appallingly large and risky hedge fund, a controlling stake in a dying insurance giant, huge investments in a group of teetering megabanks, and shares here and there in various auto-finance companies, student loans, and other failing businesses. Like AIG, this new federal holding company is a firm that has no mechanism for auditing itself and is run by leaders who have very little grasp of the daily operations of its disparate subsidiary operations.

But who owns who? Some people say that the government is nationalizing the banks. To me it looks like the banks have privatized the US government to meet their cash flow needs. Being too big to fail and too complex to untangle, US government, and it's tax-payer assets, is now effectively owned by the mega-financial institutions. The government allows the continued employment of the people who caused this mess, because these are some of the few people on the planet who understand how to untangle the web of shaky financial instruments they've created. The government seems powerless to reverse this relationship.

Tell me we the tax payer are not on the hook to stabilize these corporations, and I'll reverse my statement about the US government being privatized .... I'm afraid the die has been cast. So, that leads to an unnerving conclusion.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Lets not tolerate it.

Psssst... Do Something

Contact the Broadcast Media
Contact the Newspapers
Contact the US Senate
Contact the House of Representatives

March 15, 2009

GDAE Podcast Episode 8

Episode 8 - March 15, 2009

Music by Ryan Harvey about a Swimm'n Hole;
Nancy Pelosi on the Prosecution of Bush administration officials (Rachel Maddow Excerpt);
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on the Depths of the Financial Crisis (Media Matters Excerpt);
E-mails and Protest Placards
Nationalizing banks, a Definition.

Play GDAE Podcast Episode 8 from this page.

Previous Episodes & 60-Sec Promo:

GDAE Podcast Episode 7 March 1, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 6 February 17, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 5 February 6, 2009
GDAE Podcast Episode 4 January 24, 2009
GDAE Podcast 60-Second Promo

Visit GDAE Podcast webpage - CLICK HERE.

GDAEman

May 31, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 31

May 13, 2010

Americans for Finacial Reform

November 22, 2009

Palin = Soma

April 1, 2009

Did I Say Matt Taibbi Rocks?

March 27, 2009

How Can We Stop the Gang-Rape?

Is this Corporate Fascism?

March 15, 2009

GDAE Podcast Episode 8

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