Shepherd
01-14-2008, 11:22 AM
Following is a rough draft of an article that I began this morning and plan to begin sending to my editors tomorrow. I welcome any critical comments on how to improve it.
Thanks, SB
Media Finally Admits to Recession:
What’s Next?
ROUGH DRAFT: Pre-Publication Criticisms Solicited,
to [email protected]
By Shepherd Bliss (900 words)
“Recession Has Arrived,” a Jan. 13 banner headline proclaims in the New York Times-owned daily newspaper here in Northern California. As usual, the corporate media--even with all its substantial resources--is far behind the times, its readers, and the online press.
The lead paragraph seeks to soften the bad news by adding “mild” before that dreaded word “recession.” On the following day the New York Times itself reports, “There are plenty of recession naysayers,” which is more evidence of our uncertain futures.
“The recession probably took hold in Sonoma County sometime in summer or fall,” the Press Democrat reports. So why not report it then as an emerging trend?
Months ago I submitted articles to the Press Democrat documenting that a recession was developing and possibly heading toward a depression or even economic collapse. I wanted to report the news of my studies and give readers a heads up so they could make personal adjustments. Those articles were widely published online and in local weeklies and monthlies, but the daily would not touch them. They do, however, wonder why their subscriptions are falling, as the economy falls. If they were to report the truth, that would help.
A recession can be troubling enough to working people, but “What’s next?” is the big question. Are we headed toward an economic depression? Or even a collapse? Such words do not even appear in the two Jan. 17 articles. Do not expect the corporate media to inform its readers. It is more intent on supporting business-as-usual and advancing its pro-growth ideology. Meanwhile, the Republic languishes.
The standard line by media economists is that the economy will turn around sometime later during 2008, or 2009 at worse. Perhaps. “Economy ‘hanging on by its fingernails’ but growth predicted in ‘09” reads the daily’s downcast then upbeat, contradictory sub-headline. When one hangs on a ledge by their fingernails, a fall is more likely than a recovery. We will need more than our fingernails and even full hands to make it through this economic slide.
The US economy does tend to be resilient and can weather storms. But lets consider what is already battering the US economy, even if no great surprise occurs, especially during the turbulent months before the presidential election.
The mortgage and credit crises are being blamed for the recession. Actually, they are symptoms of much deeper structural problems. What has been described as a “false economy” has been growing for years in the US. “Wealth” has become more on paper than real. US citizens routinely spend far beyond their means, which stimulates what could soon become a crash. “Consumer spending” is what the corporate media lauds, but if that spending is based on credit rather than money that one has, the chickens will soon come home to roost.
Among the many contributing causes of the failing US economy are the following: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draining resources; the lessening supply of oil—the basis of industrial society--and its rising cost; increasingly chaotic climate changes; crises in banks and other financial entities; high unemployment; behavior that is causing people around the world to lose faith in and respect for the US; a worsening dollar; declining consumer confidence.
Some corporations--such as arms dealers and the Blackwater mercenaries--profit from such developments and would benefit from even greater catastrophes. But most of us suffer and are likely to suffer even more.
So what can one do? I would not venture a solution to such a profound problem. But I do want to suggest responses. Perhaps authors who have been sounding an alarm about Peak Oil have been correct, and industrial society is heading toward collapse? It’s a good time to read Richard Heinberg’s new “Peak Everything,” James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency,” and Matthew Simmons “Twilight in the Desert,” as well as others who have been studying these issues for a while.
Given the media’s proven willingness to conceal the truth of how bad our economy is, it would be important to increase conversations about the economy among not only economists but among the rest of us. The economy is simply too important to leave to economists.
One way to communicate is through the new Phoenix Conversations, established online by the Co-Intelligence Institute (CII). “There is a growing sense of crisis that neither mainstream leaders nor the public quite know what to do with,” according to a recent mailing from CII.
“We don’t know what will happen,” CII writes, rather than making premature predictions. They also emphasize the importance of people with diverse views communicating, even finding ways to disagree and stay in conversation and think along a “wide spectrum.” They call for us to “start really thinking together across boundaries, stimulating each other’s thinking, cross-fertilizing ideas, even collaborating—because all of us are smarter than any of us.” CII suggests that people “explore various scenarios together.”
The goal of the Phoenix Conversations “isn’t to plan, so much as it is to become more fluent and flexible in navigating an unknown, unknowable future together.”
Further information can be obtained by sending an email to [email protected], which will soon also have a website. The CII website is https://co-intelligence.org.
(Shepherd Bliss, [email protected], teaches at Sonoma State University and has contributed to over 20 books, most recently to “Sustainability” (www.hopedance.org).)
Thanks, SB
Media Finally Admits to Recession:
What’s Next?
ROUGH DRAFT: Pre-Publication Criticisms Solicited,
to [email protected]
By Shepherd Bliss (900 words)
“Recession Has Arrived,” a Jan. 13 banner headline proclaims in the New York Times-owned daily newspaper here in Northern California. As usual, the corporate media--even with all its substantial resources--is far behind the times, its readers, and the online press.
The lead paragraph seeks to soften the bad news by adding “mild” before that dreaded word “recession.” On the following day the New York Times itself reports, “There are plenty of recession naysayers,” which is more evidence of our uncertain futures.
“The recession probably took hold in Sonoma County sometime in summer or fall,” the Press Democrat reports. So why not report it then as an emerging trend?
Months ago I submitted articles to the Press Democrat documenting that a recession was developing and possibly heading toward a depression or even economic collapse. I wanted to report the news of my studies and give readers a heads up so they could make personal adjustments. Those articles were widely published online and in local weeklies and monthlies, but the daily would not touch them. They do, however, wonder why their subscriptions are falling, as the economy falls. If they were to report the truth, that would help.
A recession can be troubling enough to working people, but “What’s next?” is the big question. Are we headed toward an economic depression? Or even a collapse? Such words do not even appear in the two Jan. 17 articles. Do not expect the corporate media to inform its readers. It is more intent on supporting business-as-usual and advancing its pro-growth ideology. Meanwhile, the Republic languishes.
The standard line by media economists is that the economy will turn around sometime later during 2008, or 2009 at worse. Perhaps. “Economy ‘hanging on by its fingernails’ but growth predicted in ‘09” reads the daily’s downcast then upbeat, contradictory sub-headline. When one hangs on a ledge by their fingernails, a fall is more likely than a recovery. We will need more than our fingernails and even full hands to make it through this economic slide.
The US economy does tend to be resilient and can weather storms. But lets consider what is already battering the US economy, even if no great surprise occurs, especially during the turbulent months before the presidential election.
The mortgage and credit crises are being blamed for the recession. Actually, they are symptoms of much deeper structural problems. What has been described as a “false economy” has been growing for years in the US. “Wealth” has become more on paper than real. US citizens routinely spend far beyond their means, which stimulates what could soon become a crash. “Consumer spending” is what the corporate media lauds, but if that spending is based on credit rather than money that one has, the chickens will soon come home to roost.
Among the many contributing causes of the failing US economy are the following: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draining resources; the lessening supply of oil—the basis of industrial society--and its rising cost; increasingly chaotic climate changes; crises in banks and other financial entities; high unemployment; behavior that is causing people around the world to lose faith in and respect for the US; a worsening dollar; declining consumer confidence.
Some corporations--such as arms dealers and the Blackwater mercenaries--profit from such developments and would benefit from even greater catastrophes. But most of us suffer and are likely to suffer even more.
So what can one do? I would not venture a solution to such a profound problem. But I do want to suggest responses. Perhaps authors who have been sounding an alarm about Peak Oil have been correct, and industrial society is heading toward collapse? It’s a good time to read Richard Heinberg’s new “Peak Everything,” James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency,” and Matthew Simmons “Twilight in the Desert,” as well as others who have been studying these issues for a while.
Given the media’s proven willingness to conceal the truth of how bad our economy is, it would be important to increase conversations about the economy among not only economists but among the rest of us. The economy is simply too important to leave to economists.
One way to communicate is through the new Phoenix Conversations, established online by the Co-Intelligence Institute (CII). “There is a growing sense of crisis that neither mainstream leaders nor the public quite know what to do with,” according to a recent mailing from CII.
“We don’t know what will happen,” CII writes, rather than making premature predictions. They also emphasize the importance of people with diverse views communicating, even finding ways to disagree and stay in conversation and think along a “wide spectrum.” They call for us to “start really thinking together across boundaries, stimulating each other’s thinking, cross-fertilizing ideas, even collaborating—because all of us are smarter than any of us.” CII suggests that people “explore various scenarios together.”
The goal of the Phoenix Conversations “isn’t to plan, so much as it is to become more fluent and flexible in navigating an unknown, unknowable future together.”
Further information can be obtained by sending an email to [email protected], which will soon also have a website. The CII website is https://co-intelligence.org.
(Shepherd Bliss, [email protected], teaches at Sonoma State University and has contributed to over 20 books, most recently to “Sustainability” (www.hopedance.org).)