Police Brutality Shielded by NPR

Anthony Bologna - NYPD thug

(Update below)
As readers have commented in the Q-Tips section below, NPR is following the rest of the police state media in offering ZERO on-air coverage of the Occupy Wall Street actions in NYC that were launched on September 17, 2011.  This is especially galling now that the police have resorted to basic thuggery against peaceful protesters and have targeted the relatively small and spirited demonstrators with dozens of frivolous arrests.

Activists have identified one of the chief perpetrators of police violence - Anthony Bologna (see graphic above) - and since the NYPD website gives the places where citizens can demand that action be taken against this criminal in uniform, I thought I'd post it here for anyone wanting to email, mail or call:

"The IAB Command Center office is open for complaint, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A complaint may also be called in by phone to (212) 741-8401, by E-Mail to IAB@NYPD.org, or By postal mail to Occupant, P.O. Box 1001, New York 10014; to the Internal Affairs Bureau, located at 315 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013 or in person at any Police Department facility." 

FAIR asks the obvious question of how the media would cover Tea Party extremists in a similar scenario, but - regarding NPR - one doesn't have to wonder: just take a look at some of the enhanced promotions that NPR has given to them.

Given the assault on many of our constitutional liberties and the rise of paramilitary tactics by police forces around the country when confronting dissent, one would think that liberals and progressives would be calling for a boycott of NPR for its near complete lack of investigative work on any abuses of power by US police, military, or corporate forces.  Unfortunately, as in the past, the opposite seems to be the case with individuals and organizations like Free Press reacting to proposed funding cuts to NPR with this kind of misinformation that I recently received in an email:

"Taking down NPR and PBS has been a decades-long goal of political extremists in Washington who are threatened by public media’s brand of facts-based investigative reporting." [my emphasis added] 

Josh Stearns
Associate Program Director
Free Press Action Fund 

If one wants to make the case for preventing government spending cuts to NPR because it represents a victory for the take-no-prisoners brown shirts of the right that is one thing, but to claim that NPR offers anything resembling "facts-based reporting" is such delusional thinking that it would be funny if the reality weren't so downright depressing.

Update, September 28 - NPR's newest tool Ombudsman weighs in on NPR's censorship.  He decides it's not a problem...surprise!

"As ombudsman, I don't weigh in on daily news judgment unless its totally egregious or part of a long term trend, and this one is neither. But the complaints have validity, too."

A Free Market Wall Street Creature His Whole Life

That's how Robert Gross describes Henry Paulson for NPR on Tuesday's ATC. NPR seems to have scoured the landscape for someone with enough chutzpah to sing the praises of Czar Paulson. Voila, they found Gross of Newsweek who thinks Paulson is the "right man at the right time."

Here's Gross' Paulson (or maybe just gross Paulson):

• "...he spent 32 years on Wall Street working for Goldman Sachs - which is really the elite among the elite of investment banks. So he understands the capital markets, what's going on on Wall Street."
• "Paulson has the tools, the experience, the contacts, and the instincts to hammer out these kind of deals involving financial firms."
• "...worked in the Nixon whitehouse...Harvard MBA...investment banker..."
• "...very disciplined, hard working, hard charging...focused on execution, details, getting deals done."
• "...has a great amount of stamina."

Compare this homage to Salon Radio's interview with Richard Sheehan, who tells Glenn Greenwald,

"Paulson was among those that were creating the problem, rather than warning about the problem. In his role as CEO of Goldman Sachs, Goldman -- under his watch -- created a whole lot of CDOs [collateralized debt obligations] that now are under the heading of 'toxic waste.'"

Calm Down Children

This will be brief: mercifully I've cut back on my NPR listening, but the coverage of the financial crisis has been maddening. After hearing Democracy Now!'s excellent feature this morning with Michael Hudson and Nomi Prins I was struck with how uninformative NPR's reporting on the Wall Street meltdown is. My God, they haven't even mentioned the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in their coverage!

Honestly NPR's main message seems to be right in line with administration: calm down, everything's all right. Here's just a bit of what I've heard recently:

On Morning Edition, September 15, 2008: NPR turns to David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal. He says,
"They [things] don't look good, but they don't look as bad as some people anticipated..."
"...it doesn't seem to be the end of the world, at least not this morning."
"...if you have money and are willing to gamble you can make a good deal. When the economy comes back, when this episode ends over as it surely will end some day..."

On Morning Edition, September 16, 2008 Montagne opens with "As dire as the recent news has been, financial advisers say consumers and long term investors should not panic."
Frank Langfitt adds "...but even among the drumbeat of grim news some analysts caution ordinary Americans not to overreact."

All Things Considered, September 17, 2008 · NPR turns to Diane Brady, senior editor at Business Week. According to Michele Norris, "She's here to help us make sense of the government's plans for AIG."
Brady calmly explains that "What they're trying to do here is contain the crisis, that's the big issue."

I have to say the whole thrust of NPR seems to be to try to reassure listeners that - in spite of common sense - things are not so bad. And of course they are not about to address the structural systematic criminality and hypocrisy of the deregulated financial systems that have brought the economy to this point. Also I have yet to hear from one dissident economist who critiques the system. If you have heard one please note it in the comment section.

Invest This!

"One of the most important things that you can teach a young person is _________________."

How would you fill in the blank? I have a few ideas: have compassion, be skeptical of anything government leaders tell you, don't kill people, don't follow orders, find work you believe in, care for the planet, etc.

No way, Steve Mariotti will tell you. According to Steve (of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship) one of the most important things is "the power of compound interest." Man, that's beautiful isn't it! I heard it on NPR's Thursday evening business commercial for Wall Street unbiased report on investing in the stock market for retirement. Oh, for the spirit Abbie Hoffman... In case you are not impressed with compound interest, and maybe even think the whole capitalist project of investing in war and exploitation kind of sucks, NPR has the gall to stick phony, pro-investment words in Einstein's mouth on its web site. If you click on this screen shot

you'll see how they have the bogus Einstein quote on their web version of the story and even on the streaming audio pop-up (Poor Einstein).

To tell you the truth, this story really bummed me out. After hearing it, I felt almost irresponsible for not being out there investing in stocks for retirement; I can only imagine how less left-leaning folks felt. Instead of doing a piece that might question the wisdom of having retirement plans based on the stock market, or probe the very ethics of Wall Street, or put the whole 401K scam in the context of the post-WWII ravaging of the social safety net in the US - what NPR does is a pro-Wall Street guilt trip against the average Jane and Joe who as Michelle Norris says, "are not very good at putting money away for retirement."