Chasing the Vultures Away
Posted on | April 16, 2010 | 3 Comments
The vultures are picking at the bones again:
“Two French photographers immortalize the remains of the motor city on film”.
That’s how Time magazine describes a recent photo series by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre titled “Detroit’s Beautiful, Horrible Decline”.
I’d like to know who appointed these editors coroner, anyway? Where I come from, which happens to be Detroit, anytime you are immortalizing somebody’s remains, they are dead.
D'nea Photo: Bruce Giffin
In this case I find it odd to send in two French photographers to conduct the forensics and perform the cultural autopsy. Who are these guys? How long did they spend in the city? What do they even know about Detroit?
Their photograph of a grand old theatre with its roof collapsing is certainly striking. Only problem is that it could have been taken 25 years ago. In fact, it was. When I was the editor & publisher of the Metro Times in the 80’s, we paid photographers to break into abandoned theatres across downtown to rally the community to save these civic treasures. Yes, we lost some like the United Artist and Michigan. But we also saved the Fox, the State, the Gem and the Grand Circus, all in the same neighborhood.
If Time wanted to show the world some images of Detroit, maybe they could have contacted an actual local photographer. There are many great ones.
Take Bruce Giffin for example, whom I worked with for many years. Bruce’s powerful, respectful photographs from the streets of the city are deeply moving. They are authentic–I doubt if he jumps on the first plane to Paris after a photo session.
After all the political rhetoric, all the corporate funded white papers and messed up mainstream media coverage, Detroit is the truth. Detroit is the end result of a global economic system unfettered by labor or environmental standards. The city is the deadly consequence of capital freely moving across the planet, forever in search of a lower common denominator of working conditions, pollution and corruption.
Add an utter lack of vision (and too often integrity) on the part of the local business and political leadership and the result has been an urban implosion unmatched in scale and depth anywhere in the United States. The amount of suffering and heartbreak is so acute and so real that it can take your breath away.
Untitled Photo: Bruce Giffin
So does Detroit still matter? Or should we just bulldoze what is still standing and scatter the remaining residents across the country like the Bush administration did to the victims of Hurricane Katrina? Blame it on the post-industrial hurricane called global free market capitalism.
Part of the answer lies in the city’s history. Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the industrial age with people starting automobile companies in their garages instead of tech companies. The world may not have defeated fascism and genocide without the “Arsenal of Democracy” running full tilt with countless women doing the heavy lifting. It was the place, more than any other, that gave real power to working men and women through collective bargaining. It was a crucible of Black pride and Black political power. And Detroit is birthplace to some of the best R&B, blues, jazz, rock & roll and hip hop the world has ever heard.
DO NOT underestimate the capacity of this city to achieve great things.
I would argue that Detroit not only still matters, but it is at this moment the single most important city in North America. Detroit is coming to a neighborhood near you–it is an early warning of what urban communities across the US and far beyond are facing as those post-industrial, peak oil hurricane winds gather strength.
Thing is, there is a flip side to Detroit’s devastation. With the disinvestment and abandonment of the city at such an extreme and criminal level, the usual entrenched interests are far weaker and less capable of controlling the landscape. Call it the VOID. No where else are the opportunities to re-invent, re-think, re-build and re-imagine a major American city greater than Detroit today.
With the city’s current leadership hypnotized by what they see as a civic death spiral, new leadership is coming from the place it always does in the end–from the bottom up. This new cycle is a grassroots affair with an astonishing number of people fashioning solutions and affirming life. There are now eight hundred community gardens on abandoned lots, peace zones for public safety, green retrofitting of empty houses, new open source media projects and an exploding hip hop and poetry scene.
This June, as many as 10,000 people from around the world will be convening in Detroit for the US Social Forum. They are organizing around the statement: “Another Detroit is Happening.” and have chosen the city because it is ground zero in today’s global financial meltdown.
As far as I’m concerned, Detroit is ground zero for the sustainability movement as well. Green celebrities, high-end eco fashion and $125,000 electric sports cars–they are all good. But today’s hip “green lifestyle” is overwhelmingly a white, academic, upper middle class phenomenon. I honestly don’t understand how so much passion and energy can yield so few results and be so disconnected from most people’s lives.
The Green movement can never succeed without placing social justice at its very heart. Sustainability will never gain real traction in North America without coming to terms with how it can engage with communities of color, those with lower incomes and people who are struggling. How do we make sustainability relevant to those losing their jobs, losing their homes?
Eunice Photo: Bruce Giffin
What we need now is a collaborative effort that could echo around the world. An Urban Green Lab. What possible better stage than the 11th largest city in the United States which is experiencing Depression-level economic conditions? Let’s take sustainability home. Collectively we have everything the people of Detroit need to build their city anew. Their solutions are likely to be the very same solutions every community will need in some form in the years ahead.
Can you imagine if the socially responsible business community via Social Venture Network, BALLE and SOCAP, powerful membership organizations such as the Sierra Club, NRDC, Greenpeace and the Nature Conservancy, sustainable urban planning departments, student environmental organizations, activists in food security, renewable energy, green building, new media and alternative currencies, were to come together in a shared commitment to the people of the city?
The result would be a wonder to behold–a high profile act of justice and compassion and a powerful validation of the elusive promise the environmental movement has always held. A gift from our brains, our hands and our hearts.
Let’s be clear: The people of Detroit don’t need anyone to “save” them. But they sure could use a little help.
Grassroots organizations such as Detroit Summer, Friends of Detroit, Michigan Welfare Rights, Community Food Security Network, Boggs Center, 1515 Broadway, Earthworks Urban Farm, Hush House, Heidelberg Project and East Michigan Environmental Action are doing unbelievable things with few resources. To their credit, national organizations such as The Apollo Alliance, Green for All, Bioneers and the Green Party are all active in southeastern Michigan but none of them appear to fully grasp the opportunity in Detroit.
Barack should come too. The world is going to wake up sooner than it realizes and find that it desperately needs an electric grid and transportation system that runs on renewable energy. From a karmic perspective as much as a practical one, what better place for the United States to take all that talk about building a green economy and put it into practice than the city that put the internal combustion engine on every street?
Ignore the mainstream media. Detroit is not about architectural ruins. The future of Detroit is happening in plain sight. The people of the D are re-imagining their lives and their city in fresh and courageous ways. They are on the front lines and there is a lot to learn from them.
Tags: Apollo Alliance > BALLE > Bioneers > Boggs Center > Bruce Giffin > Detroit Summer > Earthworks Urban Farm > EMEAC > environmental movement > Friends of Detroit > global economy > Green for All > green movement > Green Party > Greenpeace > Heidelberg Project > Hush House > Michigan > Michigan Welfare Rights > Nature Conservancy > NRDC > peak oil > post-industrial > renewable energy > Romain Meffre > Sierra Club > SOCAP > Social Venture Network > sustainability > Time Magazine > US Social Forum > Yves Marchand
Sarah Palin, Treehugger and Planet Green. Strange Bedfellows? You betcha.
Posted on | March 30, 2010 | No Comments
What do Sarah Palin, Treehugger and Planet Green have in common? A lot more than I would have imagined a week ago.
Last Saturday evening the very Green and caring Discovery Channel sent along a World Wildlife Federation tweet that urged “Don’t forget Earth Hour/8:30 local time”. I felt all warm and fuzzy.
I imagine that sometime soon Discovery Communications, owner of the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, Animal Planet, Planet Green and green digital media pioneer Treehugger will be sending along another helpful message. Something like “Don’t forget to tune in to tonight’s premiere of ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ in HD.”
Discovery is reportedly paying Palin over $1 million an episode for an exclusive eight part series on TLC, produced by reality TV veteran Mark Burnett of Survivor and Apprentice “fame”.
In the words of Discovery Communications COO Peter Liguori, the series will “…reveal Alaska’s powerful beauty as it has never been filmed, and as told by one of the state’s proudest daughters.” Liguori, former president of entertainment for a unit of Newscorp, joined Discovery in January 2009 and also serves as chairmen of Discovery’s content committee.
Palin’s environmental track record
has been the subject of endless commentary and is reason enough for Discovery to shun this questionable “opportunity.” What is even more disturbing is the fact that she has now placed herself at the very heart of what is an increasingly ugly and dangerous social movement which seems on the verge of moving from violent rhetoric (much of it Palin’s own) to actual violence. To stand with Palin at this moment in American history, providing millions of fresh dollars and an additional platform to her, is a clear political act. They were so determined to do this that they even had to prevail in a bidding war with A&E.
We all need to take a realty check when it comes to Discovery Communications and its family of media assets. I understand that Discovery is a large publicly traded corporation with various properties that have been carefully designed to exploit various niches. But there is no question that the company has attempted to position itself as an environmentally sensitive thought leader, making much of its 2007 purchase of Treehugger and the 2008 launch of Planet Green.
When a company very publicly builds its business on environmental values in an effort to achieve some sort of competitive advantage, that’s fine with me if those values are for real. “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” suggests that Discovery is more about Greenwashing than Green.
I am hardly the only one who is disturbed by this move by Discovery. But few seem willing to make a connection between this decision and their Green brands. In the end, all of the dollars sloshing around Discovery, whether related to Palin, Treehugger or Planet Green, contribute to the same corporate bottom line. If a profit is made at say Treehugger, those funds could be used to pay Sarah Palin. If the Palin series makes money, it could be deployed to cover Planet Green’s losses. To suggest that shared ownership and shared bottom lines don’t really matter in the media world, is naive.
I will be the first to say that Treehugger and Planet Green have been valuable players in the wide but generally very thin green media landscape. In particular, I have long admired Treehugger’s vision and vitality.
But I dropped by Treehugger’s homepage today to see whether they had the institutional transparency to allow the large Treehugger community a chance to participate in the Palin debate raging outside its gates. They did and they didn’t. To their credit they are allowing some discussion to surface back in their forum, safely out of sight of most of their visitors. There is not a peep on Planet Green.
I suspect no one is angrier at the Discover/Palin deal than those dedicated staffers at their Green brands. I also do not doubt that for them to speak out right now would result in their firing. But that is exactly the point, isn’t it? There is a difference between a corporately controlled green media company and the many authentic independent media voices out there reporting and writing about the environment and sustainability. I include a few of the latter on my blogroll.
OK.
In the spirit of “maybe I’m missing the point,” I would like to make some helpful suggestions for other great Discovery shows by Sarah Palin: For Animal Planet, how about “The Thrill and Compassion of Aerial Wolf Hunting,” for the Science Channel: “Profiles in Courage: Climate Change Deniers Speak Out,” for the Military Channel: “Reload!: Democrats and Other Traitors in the Crosshairs,” for Planet Green “The Growing Threat of Buluga Whales, Polar Bears and Sockeye Salmon,” for Investigation Discovery: “Expose: Obama’s Secret Socialist Masters,” for Discovery Kids: “Does Your Teacher Support a One -World Government?” and for Discovery Health: “Obamacare: How to Prepare Your Grandparents for their Death Panel Interview.”
Tags: aerial wolf hunting > climate change > Discovery > Environment > Fox > global warming > green > greenwashing > Mark Burnett > Newscorp > Obama > Peter Liguori > Planet Green > Sarah Palin > Treehugger
The New Green Republican Party
Posted on | March 1, 2010 | No Comments
Sen Lindsey Graham--"I am now semicool."
Thomas L. Friedman is so desperate for a sliver of sunlight after Copenhagen and the Obama administration’s utter lack of progress on climate legislation at home, that he has penned a rather breathless op-ed in the New York Times– How The GOP Goes Green.
Let’s be clear. The GOP will not be going green, in any way I understand that term, anytime soon. But what Friedman is actually saying is that there is some meaningful movement on the Republican side of the aisle toward supporting a real energy bill. Which is more than we can say for the entrenched energy state Democrats who are blocking progress at every turn.
It seems to me that the remarks of Lindsey Graham, the increasingly independent-minded senator from South Carolina, should be viewed as one of the more encouraging developments for the domestic environmental movement in a long long time.
Graham essentially told Friedman that he has seen the future and as things now stand, he doesn’t see the GOP on the right side of history on several issues including the environment:
“These young people grew up with recycling and a sensitivity to the environment — and the world will be better off for it. They are not brainwashed. … From a Republican point of view, we should buy into it and embrace it and not belittle them. You can have a genuine debate about the science of climate change, but when you say that those who believe it are buying a hoax and are wacky people you are putting at risk your party’s future with younger people.”
I gather Lindsey may have gotten a chilly reception on some college campuses lately and his polling on the issue even in the deep South is looking like trouble. This is really a testament to the thousands of college level green activists and the national organizations and funders who have been supporting them all these years. Maybe, just maybe they are starting to turn the tide when the good senator from South Carolina begins to have second thoughts.
In supporting a carbon tax, Graham may actually be more progressive on climate change than some conservative energy state dems like Byron Dorgan, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu.
“Cap-and-trade as we know it is dead,” Friedman quotes Graham as saying, “but the issue of cleaning up the air and energy independence should not die — and you will never have energy independence without pricing carbon. The technology doesn’t make sense until you price carbon.”
I have long had misgivings about cap-and-trade. There is no reason to have confidence that such a market-based approach would be undertaken with the necessary transparency and regulation to be done right, leaving it vulnerable to abuse and the gaming of the system. Goldman Sachs and other wall street players are already well positioned to benefit if cap-and-trade is brought to North America. The eventual result could very well be yet another financial scandal, this time setting climate change efforts back at a critical time.
A carbon tax is a far simpler and more direct approach. Make polluters pay and then sit back to watch the real magic of the marketplace kick in as CEO’s proceed to move their operations away from carbon generation as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, the breathless aspect of Friedman’s report is in the timing of all this. Graham may claim it is politics that is driving his shifting views on this issue, but it is precisely politics that makes progress unlikely any time soon. Does anyone think that enough Republicans will cross the aisle to pass a real energy bill with a carbon tax in front of the mid-term elections this November?
Doing so would hand the Obama administration and the Democrats a major accomplishment and much needed momentum to take into November. No Republican is that green.
Tags: cap and trade > carbon tax > climate change > Democratic Party > energy bill > Environment > global warming > GOP > green > Lindsey Graham > Obama Administration > Republican Party > Thomas L. Friedman
Burning Down Your Neighbor’s House
Posted on | February 28, 2010 | No Comments
In a fascinating commentary in the Financial Times recently, James Rickards discusses the current Greek fiscal meltdown. In How markets attacked the Greek piñata, Rickards calls the process of pushing out spreads and calling in margins “… not much more than a floating craps game in an alley off Wall Street.”
While instructive, Rickard’s piece caught my attention for two reasons. First, he is the former general counsel of Long-Term Capital Management. You may remember LTCM as the now legendary hedge fund that blew up in the late 90’s, a pioneer in the too big to fail game and an early guest at the piñata party. It was subsequently rescued by a group of banks and investment houses in an operation run by the Federal Reserve.
But what I really found compelling is the clarity with which he describes a critical element driving the process of the manipulative use of credit default swaps as some sort of new insurance vehicle against financial loss. Of course CDS are at the center of the trillions of dollars of bad debt that is in the process of destabilizing the world economic system. These financial weapons of mass destruction, as Warren Buffet once called them, lack both transparency and regulation.
Rickards points out that for 250 years insurance markets have operated in the same way: buyers of insurance have to have an insurable interest in what they are insuring. “Your neighbour cannot buy insurance on your house because they have no insurable interest in it. Such insurance is considered unhealthy because it would cause the neighbour to want your house to burn down – and maybe even light the match.
“When the CDS market started in the 1990s,” writes Rickards, “the whiz-kid inventors neglected the concept of insurable interest. Anyone could bet on anything, creating a perverse wish for the failure of companies and countries by those holding side bets but having no interest in the underlying bonds or enterprises. We have given Wall Street huge incentives to burn down your house.”
With the stakes moving from mere billions to potential trillions of dollars in profits, the most powerful masters of the universe who took Lehman Brothers down now seem to be setting their sights on entire countries. Ireland, Portugal and even Italy and Spain may be next, shaking the Euro and the EU to their very core.
Those who suggest that the debt crisis of 2008 is over are most certainly mistaken. We are early in the de-leveraging process, with much more pain ahead. And with dozens of American states and cities teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, the piñata party may be returning to our own backyard.
The con is still on
Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone continues to do a fine job of chronicling the ongoing Wall Street con. In Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle, he argues that that same cast of characters are setting us up for another crash.
