We have free will, a majestic gift of choice coupled with conscious awareness at a level that seems to be unique to creation. All of creation has its own vibrational attributes, but humanity has been gifted in a very special way. Whether we utilize this gift consciously or not appears to be the dilemma we’re faced with.
Yet we seek an escape from this life, a place of refuge. Ironic. Or is it a sense of knowing that something more real and wonderful exists?
There’s much talk about portals, energy vortices, jump locations and wormholes. Where we’re trying to go to is a fundamental issue. The point is, how and where do we find a place of transition to other circumstances? Is it activism? Is it our personal way of perceiving reality?
Or both?
Do we already have access to this other reality? Has escape always been the default position in this accosted world resulting in religion and sequestered lives driven by survival and an engineered sense of scarcity? Is this what has happened to the stand and fight mentality?
Does Humanity Get What It “Deserves”?
This is a huge question. Not just the karma issue, but the even deeper innate mechanics of the Universe. If Universe is perfect in every way, everything we’re experiencing is “justified”. Has humanity allowed itself, yes allowed itself, to be so degraded that its very decrepit condition invites and encourages predators?
To continue the analogy, are the parasites and viruses “going for the whole enchalada”?
Pretty serious stuff to consider, especially in the light of society being a reflection or reinforcement of anything imposed upon it. The question remains; does a dying body politic invite the very influences it eschews?
The Universe is Reflective
What we impose comes back. What we are willing to receive is another factor. But just imagine we’re abutted with a huge energetic field, ready to do our bidding. An extremely empowering notion. No matter what is living in this force field is considered fair game for such a Universal force. As an independent resource we should revel in such an idea.
Most profoundly, this “field” reflects our intentions and desires.
Now picture a human race that is enthralled with its own survival, under similarly subjected conditions. But they’re under attack. Where will they place themselves in the scheme of things? Will they realize their condition, or relinquish their autonomy for something that seems to save them?
Taking It Lying Down Is a Choice
A dead or dying organism invites parasites of all kinds. This is the current state of our world. As perverted, drugged down and immune deficient humanity glides into their brave new world of somatazation, we see the growth of the totalitarian police state.
We’re inviting it. By our acquiesced degradation.
A dead animal, or human, decays at an accelerating pace. Parasitic organisms move swiftly to devour and do away with the dead corpse. It’s natural. So the degradation of ethical and spiritual aspects of human culture. As we lay down, we accept the seemingly inevitable. A terrible vortex to find our collective selves, but we are there apparently, circling the drain.
This discourse may seem to meander, but it has its purpose.
Our Aliveness is the Key
An alive, resilient body is not a target for disease. The dead and dying are. The overall diseased “body politic” today is a sitting duck for control and manipulation. Ours is to keep alive and activating.
As synchronicity has it, as I was pondering these thoughts, I walked past a dead animal under a tree by the roadside. It was infested with hungry insects devouring the food. The next day all that was there was the fur. They work fast once the subject has succumbed.
Will humanity succumb? It doesn’t look good from a macro perspective. But I know individually the awakening is creating health and wellness at an enormous rate. Will it be in time?
“Radio Free Albemuth” happens to be my favorite Philip K. Dick novel, so I’ve followed the development of its cinematic incarnation since hearing a production company bought the movie rights nearly a decade ago. As one of the lucky few who has seen an early rough-cut (and has seen nearly every other feature length film based on a PKD novel) I can say with authority that it’s one of the most faithful PKD film adaptations yet. For fans of the novelist, it will probably stand among the ranks of “A Scanner Darkly” and “Blade Runner” but the film should appeal to many non-fans as well because:
Stories set in dystopias are all the rage. The alternate reality America depicted in Radio Free Albemuth is particularly compelling because of its similarity to our own.
For those not into sci-fi, it’s also a political/psychological thriller with themes of friendship, sacrifice and spiritual awakening.
Though not as polished as Hollywood productions with higher budgets, the indie film aesthetic meshes well to the story’s setting (and author’s sensibility) adding to its sense of authenticity.
Radio Free Albemuth has been in ‘radio silence’ mode while we were in the midst of negotiating relatively complex distribution strategies for the film – and completing the unexpectedly difficult and technically complex “delivery” of the film.
But “delivery” is complete – And we finally have definitive news to announce…
JUNE 27th –
In 1905 – Russian sailors mutinied onboard the Battleship Potemkin (the basis for Sergei Eisenstein’s landmark film
in 1929 – the first color television was demonstrated
in 1942 – FBI captured 8 Nazi saboteurs from a sub off Long Island, New York.
1967 – The world’s first ATM is installed in London.
1969 – Police raid Stonewall Bar in Greenwich Village, NY, hundreds of gay patrons protest against police for 3 days
1990 – Salman Rushdie, condemned to death by Iran for his novel The Satanic Verses.
Birthday of anarchist Emma Goldman, blind-deaf author Helen Keller, and the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, and…
In 2014 – the day that Radio Free Albemuth will open in theaters in at least ten cities across the United States. Also the same day that Radio Free Albemuth will be available across a wide array of Video on Demand Platforms in the U.S. To be followed by the DVD release and an exclusive subscription streaming window to be announced shortly.
This is a day that both RFA filmmakers and Philip K. Dick fans have been waiting for patiently – (and sometimes not so patiently!)
The first and most important of several deals with partner companies has been signed – and the ink is not even yet dry on the page. Our theatrical booking for the initial ten city release and digital sales partner will be a Los Angeles based company called Freestyle which has overseen the release and digital sales of other indie films such as Bottle Shock, Me & Orson Welles and The Illusionist.
More details will follow shortly about other distribution partners – and hopefully news on the international front.
Many thanks to all our Distribution Kickstarter Backers, Slacker Backers and Philip K. Dick fans and people who saw Radio Free Albemuth at film festivals for your support, sharing and enthusiasm. We can’t do this without you!
We’ll be asking for your help in the weeks that follow to make this an unprecedented grass-roots success in bringing the vision of Philip K. Dick to the widest audience possible. You can start now by sharing this announcement on social media, signing up on our mailing list and liking Radio Free Albemuth Facebook page.
You can also support the filmmakers through the purchase of items related to the film (available after the theatrical release) on this site: http://www.radiofreealbemuth.com/
Only in Obama’s America could something like this bit of ‘news’ be sold to the masses of asses by a corrupt cadre of state-corporate media that long ago chucked their first amendment responsibilities into the crapper to become careerist pressititutes riding on the rogue government gravy train. Those economic sanctions that have hurled at Russia with as much real effect as Zell Miller’s legendary “spitballs” now are getting some real clout as the punishment towards the reincarnated red menace grows a set of teeth. McDonalds, the tip of the spear of the corporate American imperial conquest of the world is closing locations in Crimea. This comes much to the delight of moronic consumers of the cable ‘news’ tabloid infotainment that poisons their minds as surely as the artery clogging food at Micky D’s does to their bodies. It is a sardonically funny real life example of the thoroughly dishonest rhetoric of that pathological political cynic and closet Bircher Paul Ryan’s “full stomachs and empty souls”speech to the low-hanging fruit at the recent CPAC soiree. Nothing could be more ironically truthful of the state of the American “consumer” today, whether it be focus group tested bullshit or cheap fast food that is being devoured.
Boy that is going to show Putin. I can practically see William Kristol, the Kagan Brothers, John McCain and the rest of the neocons popping the champagne corks over this latest fusillade of indignity. Considering the insane levels of hubris, delusion and arrogance among the “end of history” crowd I can really imagine that they think that depriving Russians of greasy, unhealthy American fast food is going to ignite their desired color revolution that will bring about regime change in Russia. What a bunch of reckless and dangerous dummies and Obama and his Skull and Bones stooge John Kerry are no better. With the latest edition of the impossible dream of Israel accepting a peace deal with the Palestinians now going up like a flaming bag of dogshit John Kerry has officially become the grand marshal of the US fool’s parade. My God, what a mind boggling fiasco of a first year on the job in thoroughly screwing up everything that the stammering ass from Mass got involved in, wasn’t John Bolton available? Good God Obama, did it ever dawn on you that there was a reason why the Republicans supported Kerry for the Secretary of State gig? How is that “Team of Rivals” thing workin’ out for you now?
The news of McDonalds pulling out of Crimea is already being picked up and fed through the echo chamber with the launching pad being th neocon transmission station at the Washington Post. While it hasn’t reached the columns of the A team of propagandists over at Pravda on the Potomac, namely neocon war wench Jennifer Rubin and Charles “Dr.Strangelove” Kraüthammer some so-called Russian expert named Kathy Lally is practically peeing in her pants with glee while blogging:
Talk about a Big Mac attack. Here’s a sanction with some real bite to it.
The three McDonald’s restaurants in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that has been abruptly annexed by Russia, are now closed. The Ukrainian branch of McDonald’s, based in Kiev, said in a statement Thursday that they had been closed for technical reasons, perhaps referring to the difficulty of supplying your restaurants when they turn up in a foreign country overnight.
Although the United States has imposed financial and other sanctions on Moscow because of its Crimean takeover, American businesses have been left free to operate in Russia. McDonald’s said the closing was temporary, but its offer to move employees to other jobs in mainland Ukraine – and give them a three-month rent payment – made that assertion sound less than persuasive.
Crimean officials tried to minimize the enormity of being forever deprived of the seductive phrase, “Would you like fries with that?”
My fellow Americans, this is how low that we have sunk in that the closing of McDonalds restaurants in Crimea has become to this point the most kick ass club in the bag in terms of all of those threatened economic sanctions that have been endlessly threatened by Team Obama. Oh, and Mighty Taco has banned Putin from eating in any of their restaurants, I am sure that he is already on the phone with his military commanders to get the fuck out of Crimea asap. This coordinated onslaught of Russia bashing is all so ridiculous that it has descended into parody, I cannot even watch my local news anymore without being blasted with propaganda and last night there was a plea for bay area residents to adopt those stray dogs that were being hunted down to be killed prior to the Sochi Winter Olympics. It never ends as we continue to slouch towards Idiocracy, on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last week much to the delight of a woeful nation of TV addled zombies the reigning queen of American ignoramuses that is Sarah Palin was trotted out to partake in a Putin skewering skit , the woman is a national embarrassment yet in a rotting empire where celebrity is the coin of the realm has become mainstream. It is as if the entire nation is slowly being sucked into the vortex inhabited by such morons and is becoming nothing more than a cartoon version of itself.
Likely to further inflame tensions and up the insanity level is the outstanding denunciation of one Russian political figure who administered a classic smackdown, according to a story in The Guardian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov mocked the current state of lunacy:
“Clearly, the US leadership is really annoyed, and cannot come to terms with the new situation, which has arisen in large part due to the deliberate line taken by the US and its allies in Europe to prepare anti-Russian forces to take power in Ukraine,” said deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, in an interview with Interfax.
“Trying to demonstrate how unhappy it is with the exercise of free will by the population of Crimea and the decisions we took related to it, Washington is ruining contacts even in places where continuing dialogue is in their own interests.”
In addition to sanctions against a number of businessmen and politicians considered to be close to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the US has responded with other measures, including cancelling all co-operation between Nasa and the Russian space agency, except for joint work on the International Space Station.
“The situation is turning into a joke when, for example, meetings between meteorologists are cancelled,” said Ryabkov.
“What can we advise our American colleagues? They should get more fresh air, do yoga, eat healthily, maybe watch some sitcoms on television.
“This is better than getting themselves and others all worked up when they know very well that the train has already departed and that childish tantrums, tears and hysterics will not help things.”
HEAR! HEAR! Enough is enough of this silly horseshit. It’s long past time for the adults to intervene, stick a pacifier into Obama’s pie hole and send Kerry, Powers, Nuland, Rice and the neocons to go and sit in the corner until they can behave in the mature manner that should be expected of statesmen and stateswomen. Oh, and take bad ass Billy Kristol out to the wood shed and give him the type of serious spanking that would give David Vitter a hard on. America is the petulant spoiled child of the world and it is embarrassing to be an American these days due to our tantrum throwing political class. For Christ’s sake, listen to rational war criminals for a change like Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and just ignore the diaper-dumping piss babies like Kristol and the rest of his wretched gang of misfits when it comes to Russia.
Maybe the neocons can take solace that McDonalds has suspended operations in Crimea, thereby depriving the citizens of the Russian territory of the crappy food that is a major contributor to a plague of health problems here in The Homeland where we are number one – in obesity. Like the rest of our sick national obsession with being that oh so exceptional people the brainwashing that is used by McDonalds in targeting advertising to children is essential in the indoctrination process. Just like the pledge of allegiance which is something that has no place in a “free” country and more appropriately belongs in the same types of authoritarian states that are defined by the criteria that is steeped in the same hypocrisy that is being peddled to justify the new Cold War.
“The Fries” – Mr. Lif (remixed by Jeremy R. Stern aka Abdul Malik)
4/2: Guillermo Jimenez has a conversation with Danny Benavides at Traces of Reality to discuss the drug war, the surveillance state, and the increasing use of violence by the Border Patrol among other topics:
4/2: At Red Ice Radio, host Henrik Palmgren interviews Mark Gray to discuss occult symbolism, synchronicity and geomancy in connection to a number of current events. Mystical phenomenon or pattern recognition gone awry? You decide:
4/3: Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening interviews Elena Teyer mother-in-law of Ibragim Todashev, the man executed by the FBI during their “investigation” of the Boston Bombing. They reveal many details about the case which were ignored by corporate news coverage:
4/4: On the Meria Heller show, Meria and guest Catherine Austin Fitts deliver useful information on the banking system, investing on priorities and improving one’s lifestyle:
4/5: Computer security expert Conrad Jaeger joins host Greg Carlwood at The Higher Side Chats to talk about the deep web, cyber security and the surveillance state:
From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, and the North; from Seattle to Genova, and the War on Terror in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq, The Fourth World War is the story of men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war.While our airwaves are crowded with talk of a new world war, narrated by generals and filmed from the noses of bombs, the human story of this global conflict remains untold. The Fourth World War brings together the images and voices of the war on the ground. It is a story of a war without end and of those who resist.The product of over two years of filming on the inside of movements on five continents, The Fourth World War is a film that would have been unimaginable at any other moment in history. Directed by the makers of This Is What Democracy Looks Like and Zapatista, produced through a global network of independent media and activist groups, it is a truly global film from our global movement.
For English speakers, portions of the film may need translation, activated by clicking on the “CC” button on bottom right corner of the video (on some mobile device browsers the function can be found on the upper right corner).
Some might argue they’ve been FUBAR for some time now. Most of the world knows that power corrupts and the rich (as well as the national security state which protects their interests) are above the law. By paying off the right law makers and law enforcers they figuratively and sometimes literally get away with murder. Now, thanks to two recent court rulings, the wealthy in the U.S. are free to lavish unlimited bribes on politicians and can get away with not just murder but child rape. These are the types of stories that corporate media shills don’t want you to know, but with the internet more people than ever are becoming aware (and justifiably outraged).
DuPont Heir Avoids Jail Time for Raping His Children
Weeks ago, we published a report about a member of the DuPont family with a prolonged history of sexually abusing children. The man in question, 47-year-old Robert H. Richards IV, confessed to molesting both of his children and managed to avoid jail time because the judge said that he would not hold up well in prison.
At the time that we reported this story, it was ridiculed as “conspiracy theory” or “sensationalism”, by people who did not want to believe that this type of blatant systematic corruption exists.
However, now that the mainstream media has finally begun to pick this story up, it has gone viral and sparked outrage world wide.
Richards is a member of both the DuPont family, who built the worldwide chemical empire, and the Richards family, who co-founded the prestigious corporate law firm Richards Layton & Finger.
Richards was able avoid any jail time, thanks to his overpriced lawyers and the prestige of his families. In 2008, Richards confessed to the fourth-degree rape of his daughter, and only received probation. Then years later in 2010, he confessed to sexually abusing his son when he was just a toddler. Now this information is finally coming to light as the result of a civil lawsuit that was recently filed by his ex-wife.
Kendall Marlowe, executive director of the National Association for Counsel for Children, told The News Journal that sex offenders are jailed for the safety of the children they threaten.
“Child protection laws are there to safeguard children, and adults who knowingly harm children should be punished,” she said. “Our prisons should be more rehabilitative environments, but the prison system’s inadequacies are not a justification for letting a child molester off the hook.”
It is actually shocking that the mainstream media has picked up this story at all. There is a deep history of crime, corruption and pedophilia among aristocratic families. Luckily, stories like this are actually beginning to get mainstream recognition, but it is unfortunate that most people out there won’t believe that a story is credible until it is seen in one of the state regulated, corporately owned news sources.
John Vibes is an investigative journalist, staff writer and editor for Intellihub News where this article originally appeared. He is also the author of an 65 chapter Book entitled “Alchemy of the Timeless Renaissance” and is an artist with an established record label.
Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery, Money is Speech
It was bad enough when the Supremes declared corporations were people in the infamous Citizens United decision. Now they have decided that money is free speech. In other words, money is to be given the same constitutional protection as free speech. The Washington Post explains it this way:
A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns.
The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections.
“If Citizens United opened a door,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in reading his dissent from the bench, “today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate.”
So there it is, the final nail in the coffin to free and fair elections. Bye-bye campaign finance rules. “We the people” is now “we the wealthy.” The First Amendment protection of free speech was designed by the framers of our Constitution to protect our right to express our political opinions and exchange information and ideas without fear of governmental reprisal. By definition, it gives this right equally to every American citizen. Now the Roberts Court has decided, a la Orwell, that some people are more equal than others. If James Madison wanted to equate money with free speech, he would’ve drafted it into the Bill of Rights back in 1787. He must be flipping in his grave. His protection of all citizens has become a guarantee that the vast majority of us will no longer have any say in our electoral process.
This decision must make billionaires like Sheldon Adelson laugh so hard they spit gold coins out their noses. Now Adelson can select from a bevy of eager Neocons up on his auction block. And the brothers Koch can purchase any candidate they think will best do their bidding on Capitol (Capital?) Hill. And the 99% of the rest of us? Well, we will march lemming-like to the polls and pull the lever for whichever corporate candidate the 1% has purchased and placed on the ballot. Our elections will now be about as free and fair as those in N. Korea.
What was that Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence? Something about what must happen whenever a government becomes destructive of our unalienable rights . . . .
One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we’ve become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting.
As in the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, the onlooker who declares the obvious– in this case, that the stock market is rigged–shatters the consensus lie. In the current saga, author Michael Lewis plays the role of the truth-telling boy, and everyone who went along with the fiction that the Emperor’s high-frequency trading finery was resplendent is revealed as credulous, complicit or worse.
Interestingly, Mr. Patterson outlined the solution that the heroes of Lewis’ book ended up pursuing. Here is a Q&A I conducted with Patterson in September 2012:
CHS: While there are various regulatory “tweaks” that could be put in place, I wonder if we don’t need a more fundamental “re-set” that asks what role the market should play in finance and the economy inhabited by everyday investors.Scott: I think there are a lot of people in the industry wondering about whether there needs to be a massive overhaul. But it’s probably not a good idea for that to be imposed on the market by the SEC. The uncertainty would be potentially destabilizing. And I just don’t see it happening.
I think the change needs to come from within the market and needs to be imposed by its most important users–I mean, not the high-frequency traders, who are running the show at the exchanges in many ways–but the institutions, the giant mutual fund companies, the pension funds, the long-short hedge funds. They need to exert pressure on the exchanges to stop giving advantages to high-frequency firms.
If we pull back from the media frenzy about HFT, we find the market is rigged in many other ways. The Federal Reserve’s policies, stripped of Orwellian mumbo-jumbo, are all about rigging the market to go in one direction–up.
Consider this chart, courtesy of long-time contributor Harun I., of the Dow Jones Industrial Average: I call it the tale of Two Dows. In the Great Bull Market of 1982 – 2000, a market fueled by an extraordinary economic expansion, the DJIA gained an average of 610 points a year.
In the anemic “recovery” of 2009 – 2013, the DJIA gained an average of 2,500 points per year. While the Fed rigged the 1990s Bull Market with low interest rates and other policies, it pulled out all the stops in the last five years:
The stock market is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s being rigged. For a taste of what’s rigged, ask yourself this question: if Mr. Elite Insider perpetrates a scam, and Mr. John Q. Citizen breaks similar laws, is there any difference between the treatment each receives?
Let’s go even deeper and ask: why is looting legal, even though it is obviously crooked? Why is high-frequency trading legal? Why is it legal for the Fed to offer money at 0% to its buddies but not to Mr. John Q. Citizen?
Why is it legal to issue student loans to future debt-serfs that is unlike all other debt in that it cannot be discharged in bankruptcy?
Since the legal looting continues unabated regardless of what party or toady is in office, then what actual difference is there between the Demopublicans and Republicrats?
It’s not just the stock market that’s rigged–the entire Status Quo is rigged. There are two sets of laws and two sets of opportunities: one for those holding the concentrated wealth and power, and the other for the rest of us debt-serfs.
If the system isn’t rigged, then why are insolvent banks and bankers protected from the creative destruction of capitalism that befalls John Q. Citizen when his risky bets go bad? Why do we as a nation keep insisting the Emperor’s new clothes are splendid when he is in fact parading around buck-naked?
One has to wonder why we are dodging this truth about what we’ve become: a nation that turns a blind eye to skimmers, scammers and legal looting. Perhaps, in Joseph Conrad’s phrase, we hope to escape the grim shadow of self-knowledge. Here is the passage from Chapter 7 of Lord Jim:
I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn’t know how much of it he believed himself. I didn’t know what he was playing up to–if he was playing up to anything at all–and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.
After the Crash 