Thoughtful Preparations: Media Spin Blog

ClassWar 1

Originally uploaded by Greg Palast.

Why does Yahoo Finance insist on publishing Robin Leach type articles about lifestyles of the rich and famous, and have the audacity to call these people, the other half? Come on now, it’s the upper crust of 5% they are flaunting in the rest of our faces. If you really care, then that is sad, since you probably also wish you could have attended Ken Lay’s funeral with all the trimmings.

When writing a previous review of John Ford’s classic World War II propaganda films, Why We Fight, I was not aware that another newer film Why We Fight was in the works. Well, this has been a season for remakes, why not documentaries too?

The earlier WWII Why We Fight was designed as a nudge to a neutral inward looking United States, whereas the new Why We Fight covers the now well established American military industrial complex. Might as well face it, never mind oil… these days we’re addicted to war.

Some may justify their jobs in the defense business sector; it’s good for the U.S. G.N.P., stock market, ya-da ya-da. As far as I can tell, the Iraq War has been nothing more than a three year economic stimulus package engineered by the Bush administration. Taken a look at a Halliburton stock chart since March 2003 lately? Back in Nixon’s day there was aversion to ending the Vietnam War, because it would hurt the job market with too many baby boomers coming home and competing for a piece of the great American Dream Pie. Chances are we won’t work our way out of this habit until it all blows up in our collective Old Glory faces.

Hey kids, what time is it? If you’re an experienced animation professional, then it’s time to move up as a CG Supervisor all the way to Mumbai, India where the flattened world’s new “baby Pixars” are sprouting up. If you’re really big and smart, you can stay here in the U.S. and recruit someone to do this for you, like Alligator Planet is doing.

Idea merchants producing low cost fresh computer generated feature films are popping up like weeds. Threshold Entertainment with Foodfight! (fall 2006), and IDT Entertainment Yankee Irving (August 2006), who also appears to have bought a piece of Vanguard Animation Happily N’Ever After (fall 2006), Space Chimps (2007) and Ribbit (2008).

The bosses of these studios are lean and mean, reflecting the reality of the working animation professional. A few sample quotes from The Attack of the Baby Pixars article:

“What do we care if a guy is in Van Nuys or India?” says Kasanoff, Threshold Entertainment.

“The studios we deal with are like call centers but with very talented artists. The next Pixar isn’t going to be a big building in Emeryville. It’s going to be groups around the world, networked together.” – Ralph Guggenheim, Alligator Planet

The obvious trend is for less employment opportunities in the United States, especially of the high paying kind unless you start your own venture. Otherwise, better pack your bags and head to the new lands of opportunity: India, South Korea, Australia, Canada or any location where labor costs are cheaper than in the US.

I’ve been out of touch with many of the multi-talented, creative folks I met and worked with on Shrek 2 at PDI/DreamWorks. So, it was with great surprise and delight that I read a front page San Francisco Chronical news story about the friendly, energetic software engineer Reid Gershbein writing and directing an independent film Broken Arrows. The Chronicle knows that eyeballs are attracted to Google, so the headline is more about how the Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are involved in funding roughly 50% of the making of Broken Arrows. Turns out Reid knows them and successfully pitched his story.

The Broken Arrows trailer looks very promising and I’ll be looking forward to seeing Reid’s first film when it comes out later in 2006. Maybe I’ll even be fortunate to get a pre-screening…. hello, Reid?

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All the recent natural disasters, compounded with ongoing International terror strikes and American leadership errors, are giving me a bad case of the Doomsday Blues. Let’s face it, with rampant population and its resulting poverty, global warming and its resulting catastrophes, and WMDs and their resulting mass destruction, it seems like without a whole lot of peace, love and understanding… we’re fucked!

I’ve been writing about the blending of media and politics, and it seems as though some really wealthy, powerful guys are thinking, “Hey, we didn’t amass a big fortune just to have the world blow up in my face!” So, wouldn’t it be great if Bill Gates and Paul Allen used their massive wealth to steer America back on track by the next big election? OK, we should also add Bill Joy, Steve Jobs and their companies to pitch in to redesign a smarter, better Operating System for the USA.

Meanwhile, a group of philanthropic statesmen are really doing something. They’ve organized NTI, The Nuclear Threat Initiative and produced a docudrama Last Best Chance which imagines the results of al Qaeda operatives striking with nuclear weapons. It gives some hope that successful influential people are working on solving hard problems.

A friend who watches precious metals carefully, e-mailed me some warnings about the U.S. economy, as reflected in the rising price of gold, not to mention black gold:

“That gold is above $450 for many days is significant. That was a level that the NY manipulating banks working with the Federal Reserve were able to hold for a long time. Anyone who thought that Greenspan would not raise rates when this major mechanism failed was knaive of hearts and mines.

The whole world is watching as the US flounders in muck like a banana republic, and its president talks about spending vast unexpected sums in addition to huge current debt like a drug addict digging into the home equity line.”

A similar sentiment is expressed at The Binary Circumstance, banner sub-titled, “Things either exist or they don’t”:

“The Bush administration and the Republican Congress do not raise taxes or veto any spending bills which means the only way to pay off the debt is for the government to counterfeit more money.

I think I can hear them starting up those printing presses now.

That means inflation.

Inflation is a hidden tax on wages, savings and the value of the U.S. currency which all decline in relation to hard assets like real estate and gold.”

Here is an interesting article about silver and metal prices by “the Optimist.” He predicts the price of silver will explode.

“For all those readers who have slept through the last week, the Optimist is excited to tell you that the price of gold has surged to $460, its highest price in almost two decades. Speaking of sleeping, however, the price of silver has been disappointingly dull compared to gold. Although everyone knows that silver will more than double from its current price of $7.20, and will eventually multiply by a factor with one or more zeros (i.e., 10, or 100, or 1,000, etc.), the key question everyone asks is when the explosion will happen.”

In a further reality check, the market analysis blog Rampant Speculations’ banner includes a great quote from sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” His article warns,

“The strength in gold and the weakness in high yield bonds of late cannot be good news for the finance based US economy.”

That about sums it up. The only logic I can see behind our leadership in U.S. government is that they prefer fewer rich elite people to compete with.

For historic gold price information, see charts at the Gold Information Network.

“If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
When The Levee Breaks I’ll have no place to stay.”
– (Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant/Memphis Minnie)

Environmental Protection? What Did President Bush Do? Read David Remnick‘s coverage…
(excerpt below)

“In an era of tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush consistently slashed the Army Corps of Engineers’ funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain. This year, he asked for $3.9 million, $23 million less than the Corps requested. In the end, Bush reluctantly agreed to $5.7 million, delaying seven contracts, including one to enlarge the New Orleans levees. Former Republican congressman Michael Parker was forced out as the head of the Corps by Bush in 2002 when he dared to protest the lack of proper funding.”

See also John McPhee’s “The Sunken City”.

Led Zeppelin Lyrics, “When The Levee Breaks.”