Two Pieces in the Times-Picayune On Tremé By David Simon

HBO's 'Treme' creator David Simon explains it all for you 

and

David Simon remembers his friend and HBO 'Treme' colleague David Mills

David Simon - Democracy Now

"As Profit Motive Guts Newspapers, Communities Lose Out"

[ "Testifying before a Senate hearing on the “Future of Journalism,” former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, best known as the creator of the award-winning HBO series The Wire, addresses the decline of the newspaper industry in the age of rabid media consolidation and the rise of the internet. Simon calls for a non-profit model in the newspaper industry, saying “raw unencumbered capitalism is never the answer when a public trust or public mission is at issue.” [includes rush transcript]" ]

David Simon on Capitalism, Alterman on Torture & Fidel on the Summit

Tipped to me by Renegade Eye: Bill Moyers talks with David Simon about The Wire speaking truth to power in the so-called drug war bs, the poor and capitalism. It's a brilliant companion piece to the bs the Obama people are spewing that we should just move on from the overwhelming facts that this nation legalized torture and used it indescriminately as well, and not a single person is being held accountable -- except Lynndie England -- a poor, uneducated, jobless woman. This interview shows, if you ever needed convincing (Ha!) how well prepared Simon is to take on post-failure of the levees' New Orleans and make Tremé.

Obama, intelligent as he is, educated as he is, married to a health professional, must know that we the people CANNOT 'just move on' from something as traumatic to our national body politic as breaking the law and shredding the Constitution, as committing torture, anymore than an affair is something the betrayed marriage partner can just move on from productively without the faithless partner having been held to account at the very least, with real remorse and apology and change of behavior from the faithless partner -- which in the case of the body politic is all our of perverted and corrupted institutions and those who run and staff them.

All mental health professionals say this. Thus the Truth and Reconciliation movement in South Africa, for example. This nation can't be even as honest as South Africa was -- and truly, in New Orleans and Louisiana, it's been an apartheid system forever. The Civil War didn't change that because the Reconstruction military got driven out in a coup and the nation did nothing about it -- did not want to do anything about it, just like now with torture, stealing elections and creating an evil war and destroying the national and global economy. Louisiana re-established that apartheid system very quickly in every part of the state's institutions, and it wasn't even challenged again until the Civil Rights era. The destruction of New Orleans's poor is part of the new re-establishment of Louisiana apartheid.

The Obama response to everything, including what the U.S. has done for two centuries in South America and the Caribbean, "we can't look back, we must move forward," is his verision of Fukuyama's 1992 The End of History. We know how intelligent that was, how productive for the future that worked out.'Moving forward' cannot take place when all the structures, forms and even the actual personages are all still in place. It's same with those who have created that "perspective of some," that Obama labeled it, that the U.S. is a military bully operating for U.S. and multi-national corps' interests, first-second-third-and-only, that tortures, that commits and supports massacres as in Guatamala -- or that we regard and treat 15% of nation as disposable, that torture is something we don't do, but we did, but we don't, and nobody is responsible for it.

That's not a perspective. That is truth. That is history. History that hasn't ended. Not as long as the same institutions, personages, objectives and desires remain in place without any accountability.

Eric Alterman's Altercation & The Nation regarding Pres. O's determination not to give us trials of torturers:

[ "Hey, Mr. President. Put these barbarians on trial and watch me. I'll be the guy out in front of the courtroom with a lawn chair, some sandwiches, and a cooler of fine beer. I'll be the guy who hires the brass band to serenade these criminal bastards on their way off to the big house. I'll be the one who shows up at every one of their probation hearings with a copy of the Constitution, the way crime victims show up at the parole board when their attacker comes up for release. I'll declare a national holiday -- Victory Over Torture Day -- and lead the parade right up whatever gated street it is that Cheney lives on these days. Trust me, Mr. President. I can take it." ]

In Counterpunch, "The Secret Summit" by Fidel Castro:

[ "Neither represented nor excommunicated, only today could I learn what was discussed at the Summit of Port of Spain. They led us all to entertain hopes that the meeting would not be secret, but those running the show deprived us of such an interesting intellectual exercise. We shall get to know the substance but not the tone of voice, the look in the eyes or the facial look that can be a reflection of a person's ideas, ethic and character. A Secret Summit is worse than a silent movie. For a few minutes the television showed some images. There was a gentleman on Obama's left whom I could not identify clearly as he laid his hand on Obama's shoulder, like an eight-year-old boy on a classmate in the front row. Then, another member of his entourage standing beside him interrupted the president of the United States for a dialogue; those coming up to address him had the appearance of an oligarchy that never knew what hunger is and who expect to find in Obama's powerful nation the shield that will protect the system from the fearsome social changes." ]

Shooting Tremé

From the Sunday NY Times Media and Advertising section, "A Disaster Still Raw, Years Later," by David Carr. Much of the column is constituted of an interview with David Simon. A pull, below, the content of which matters all more with the stupidities of the Jindal Gang doing its best to wreck whatever progress has been managed so far:

The emergency has passed, but the crisis remains, abetted by feckless municipal
leadership and a national attention span that is measured in days, if not
minutes. Some events require not just recollection, however, but endless
examination.
The lessons of Katrina and those of the financial collapse that
now commands our attention seem remarkably similar: warnings went unheeded,
hubris obscured the dimensions of a tragedy, and an effective response came too
late. To those who were here after the flood, the epic ruination of an American
city is still something that does not seem real. But it was.
And real is a
specialty of Mr. Simon. During a panel discussion at the Tennessee Williams/New
Orleans Literary Festival the weekend before, Mr. Simon called the decline of
American journalism “heartbreaking.” But you get the feeling that he’s still in
the same business, working with a different and much larger pencil. “The way
people here talk is like gold laying in the street,” he suggested, his voice
filled with wonder.
If the show is picked up this spring, Mr. Simon’s crew
could start shooting the rest of the first season as soon as this summer. But
nothing is going to happen until November — beginning shooting any time before
that would be to go into the teeth of the hurricane season, and the insurance
cost would be prohibitive. New Orleans is a place where vulnerability is a way
of life.

The Wire / David Simon in Britain

Interview and story about Simon and The Wire in the U.K. Guardian here.

The take away:

The key principle of Simon's storytelling was encapsulated in a
remark that caused raised eyebrowswhen he uttered it, late last year, on
BBC2's Culture Show: "Fuck the average viewer."