Intimations of Recession

Paul Krugman

These are the dog days of summer, but there's a chill in the air. Suddenly —
really just in the last few weeks — people have starting talking seriously
about a possible recession. And it's not just economists who seem worried.
Goldman Sachs recently reported that the confidence of chief executives at
major corporations has plunged; a clear majority of C.E.O.'s now say that
conditions in the world economy, and the U.S. economy in particular, are
worsening rather than improving.

On the face of it, this loss of faith seems strange. Recent growth and jobs
numbers have been disappointing, but not disastrous.
But economic numbers don't speak for themselves. They always have to be
interpreted as part of a story. And the latest numbers, while not that bad
taken out of context, seem inconsistent with the stories optimists were
telling about the U.S. economy.

The key point is that the forces that caused a recession five years ago
never went away. Business spending hasn't really recovered from the slump it
went into after the technology bubble burst: nonresidential investment as a
share of G.D.P., though up a bit from its low point, is still far below its
levels in the late 1990's. Also, the trade deficit has doubled since 2000,
diverting a lot of demand away from goods produced in the United States.

Stop Media Consolidation in New York

Robert McChesney

The Federal Communications Commission and industry lobbyists are trying to let huge media companies get even bigger by resurrecting the same rule changes that millions of Americans rejected in 2003.

Recently, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin began the process of relaxing ownership rules. If he prevails, we will see the further demise of local news, independent voices and critical journalism.

In 2003, your letters and calls stopped this nonsense. Now we need to do it again.

Tell the FCC that Big Media is Big Enough

knabb@bopsecrets.org writes:

Colbert Skewers Bush

Ken Knabb

Comedian Stephen Colbert's keynote speech at the White House Correspondents'
Association dinner last Saturday may represent a new stage in the crumbling
of the Bush regime's image from within the dominant spectacle itself. The
following link gives a Windows Media clip of the last 15 minutes —
here . The entire talk
(about 25 minutes) can be viewed in three parts here —
here .

It's a bizarre experience because most of the audience was decidedly not
sympathetic. Not only was Bush himself sitting a few feet away at the same
table along with various other political bigwigs, but the major portion of
the audience was the very journalists who with rare exceptions have treated
the Bush regime with kid gloves over the last five years, and who were
satirized almost as scathingly as Bush himself. So some of Colbert's
funniest remarks are received with a deafening silence, and the rare moments
of laughter are brief and uneasy, the audience obviously not having expected
such a scandal and wondering how they were supposed to take it.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"V For Vendetta Is about Anarchy"

aforanarchy.com

Anarchists: This Friday marks the beginning of our most important opportunity in decades to communicate with millions about the possibility of a world without capitalism or coercion.

On Friday, March 17, 2006, the long awaited film version of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, V for Vendetta, will premier throughout the US. V for Vendetta is the story of an anarchist who dismantles a fascist state through propaganda of the deed, inspiring the masses to revolt with a vision of building an anarchist future.

The book’s protagonist does not simply promote vague anti-authoritarianism or nondescript appeals to “question authority” but explicitly and compellingly calls for the masses to eliminate the state and replace it with anarchy.

Unsurprisingly, this radical message has been lost in the translation to Hollywood’s watered-down film version. Warner Bros. presents a hero rebelling against fascism and advocating “freedom”, yet never suggests that until the state is destroyed, no one will truly be free.