ROTTING FROM THE TOP

The banks are doing great. The stock market is up 25 percent. Happy Days Are Here Again!

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the White Star Titanic. We are not sinking, there are plenty of lifeboats, please go back to an evening of fine dancing.

If you're happy with that, maybe you shouldn't listen to this edition of Radio Ecoshock. We're going to hear other voices, outside the mainstream box.

Famed ABC producer, author and blogger Danny Schechter will lead off the charge. He claims the financial system is riddled with fraud. We'll hear snippets from insider business Bears Ian Gordon and Meredeth Whitney, the one-woman force who broke out the truth about Bear Stearns. Whitney ends up advocating relocalization, and warning you - that credit card you've counted on may go bye-bye.

Our mystery guest is Ilargi, from the popular financial blog The Automatic Earth. And we have an earthquake from within the Obama Administration itself. Elizabeth Warren heads a Congressional Panel overseeing the TARP funds. She questions the whole program, wondering if Tim Geithner's Treasury has any real strategy. Based on the experience of other countries, the U.S. is going the wrong way down a one way street. Warren sounds like a mother to America, as she explains this whole crisis. You'll hear the best of that.

Here are all the links you'll need for this week's Radio Ecoshock Show:

Danny Schechter's blog: http://www.newsdissector.com/blog/

"Bear Attack" on BBN - 4 financial bears: Nouriel Roubini, Eric Sprott, Merideth Whitney and Iran Gordon. http://www.bnn.ca/8430.html

TARP: Elizabeth Warren Congressional Oversight Panel Chair - April Report shows very different approaches from that taken by Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner. Revolutionary talk from inside Washington in this 8 minute You tube video (easy to understand!)
http://cop.senate.gov/video/index.cfm#tab10

Elizabeth Warren's explanation of the foreclosure crisis - also easy to understand, if very sad.
http://cop.senate.gov/video/index.cfm#tab10 (8 minutes on You tube, and from this government site.

The Automatic Earth blog - headed up by "Ilargi" our final guest on Radio Ecoshock this week.
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/
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READ MORE...

Music: "Happy Days Are Here Again" Ben Selvin and the Crooners 1930 (no copyright)

THE GREEN SIDE OF DOWN

Some big icons like General Motors go crash, but most of it just goes quietly, with little announcement. I'm talking about all the small shops going dark, the once-famous magazines gone and hardly remembered.

Just a couple of years ago, I wished I'd taken videos of some of our major streets. Little malls and corner garages disappeared overnight, replaced with a big hole and a sign advertising Fenway Gardens, another deluxe condo tower. The building boom was disorienting. It's easier now. Nothing new - and the old is slipping away.

I should be happy. Finally the fake consumer world is caving in. People are driving less, to fewer jobs. Did we pull back just at the edge of carbon disaster? Just before the oil ran out? The collapse surprised common people and the Left, who didn't care much about banking and stock talk. Maybe we should have paid closer attention.

You'll hear from Max Keiser, the lefty stock expert who did know, and tried to warn us.

In today's program you'll also hear Professor Lord Anthony Giddens from the London School of Economics. He explores the links, good and bad, between the financial crash and the climate crisis. Lord Anthony also offers up three reasons why humans just don't get the climate predicament. We hear about it, and do mostly nothing. Find out why.

We'll touch on disappearing media and adaptation fairs. A couple of songs but no dance.

But first let's get right to an interview with Stephan Faris, author of "Forecast: The Consequences of Climate Change, from the Amazon to the Arctic, from Darfur to Napa Valley." He's traveled the world only to find that climate disruption is already with us. His new book is one of the must reads of the season.

Most important links for this show:
speech by Lord Anthony Giddens, London School of Economics, February 28th, 2009 on "The Economic Crisis, Climate Change and Energy."

Max Keiser Radiance FM Podcast: "The Truth About Markets" March 28th 2009

Christian Aid Climate Demo (You tube)

“Melting Ice Eco Rap” by Lil Peppi (You tube)

"Morbid Magazines" by Bill Dyszel

More....including a summary of Lord Anthony Giddens' 3 Engines of Climate Defeat, Monbiot, etc

WILL THERE BE RIOTS?

The economy, says billionaire Warren Buffet, has fallen off a cliff.

"The economy, ever since we talked in September, we talked about it being an economic Pearl Harbor, and how, what was happening in the financial world would move over to the real world very quickly. It's fallen off a cliff.

And, not only has the economy slowed down a lot, people have really changed their behavior, like nothing I've ever seen. Luxury goods, and that sort of thing, have just sort of stopped. And that's why Wal-Mart is doing well, and I won't name the ones that are doing poorly, but there's been a re-set in people's minds."

Well, finally. As the Earth is being poisoned and devoured by billions of humans, as people shopped the planet to death, there has been a re-set in people's minds. We all know that needed to happen. We just didn't know the banksters would loot the economy, like Baghdad after the invasion, at the multinational sunset.

The sudden crash has already cause riots in several European cities, including normally quiet Iceland. Are big riots inevitable in the United States? Will the kicked out and cheated suffer quietly without justice?

You are listening to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. We'll talk to Peace and Securities expert Professor Michael Klare. He says America should expect widespread unrest. I'll also interview Jason Bradford, the radio journalist and pioneer of relocalization. We'll talk about alternatives, including the possibility of a food-based currency. In beans we trust.

All that plus uppity women from Britain, a quick shot at the me generation, and yet another dose of horrible climate news.

Before we go further, here are some links from this week's show.

Our first guest, Michael T. Klare

Radio interviews by our second guest, Jason Bradford

Here you'll find the best guests Jason mentioned, including people like Bill McKibben, and Richard Heinberg. Jason also recommended the blog Casaubon's Book with Sharon Astyk


Gaming the Apocalypse from theonion.com

Our featured artist is Joel Plaskett at
http://www.joelplaskett.com/

This Canadian artist just released a 3 CD special called, what else, "3". We hear "Through and through and through."

Read More...are there riots in our future?

TROUBLE AND VISION

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith. In this program we'll explore the big black hole where your dreams of prosperity used to be. Like rescue dogs, we'll sniff around the wreckage for the corpses - and the survivors, the dead-ends and the new paths of living.

In past shows, we've presented top experts and authors. This time around, I just need to thrash this through with some intelligent people. What really is happening with the economy? Does the crash doom us to irreversible climate shift?

We have alternative economic commentator Mike Whitney back on Ecoshock, for a go round on the latest news. I'll tell you about the Global New Deal - or is it the New World Order just dressed up by the same old boys?

Then we'll try something completely different. You and I will chat with a long-time Radio Ecoshock listener about some better alternatives. We'll cover the triple threat from militarism, the collapsed economy, and the fragile climate. I'll ask her: does the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference really means anything? Or should we go for re-localization, and transition towns? All the issues swirling around in my mind, and likely in yours too.

We'll wrap up with another listener question: is laughter really appropriate in these serious times? I'll let a Somalian musician tell us.

Radio stew for an upset bailed out world, this is Ecoshock.

Read more (and get the follow-up links for this show)