Category Archives: culture

News Video Roundup

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1/27  Luke Rudkowski of We Are Change interviews Gerald Celente on a variety of topics including economic turmoil, bitcoin and revolution:

1/28 An informative primer from James Corbett on the use of propaganda, false dichotomies and “divide and conquer” tactics by the ruling elite to keep the public powerless:

1/28 Ben Swann on the Grocery Manufacturers Association’s lobbying efforts to create a Federal Ban on GMO labeling:

1/28 Seattle Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s exceptional response to Obama’s State of the Union address:

1/28 An inspiring scene from the underrated “musical documentary” The American Ruling Class (2005) posted by the filmmakers in memory of Pete Seeger:

The Democratic Surround

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On the latest Expanding Minds podcast host Erik Davis interviews Fred Turner, author of “The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties” (2013) and “From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism” (2006). Though I haven’t yet read either book, judging from the discussion and the introduction to “From Counterculture to Cyberculture”, some of the research seems to overlap with revelations in Lutz Dammbeck’s film “The Net” (2003).

This is a keynote presentation Turner gave on “From Counterculture to Cyberculture” as part of The Anthropocene Project 2013-2014 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin:

Legal Pot: The Gateway Drug to State-Run Banking?

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cannabis-bank-of-ganja-4900451

Karen Weise of Bloomberg Business Week recently reported on proposed legislation from Washington State Senator Bob Hasegawa which would create a state-run bank for Washington’s legal marijuana industry. Cannabis businesses are currently forced to rely heavily on cash. Some still go through traditional banks using separate management companies though there still may be risk of asset forfeiture from the feds. As the article below mentions, state-run banks are an effective solution with proven results.

From Bloomberg:

If ever a hippie dream existed, it would probably look something like what’s being proposed in Washington by Democratic State Senator Bob Hasegawa. He wants to open a state-run bank specifically to serve Washington’s newly legal marijuana industry. The proposal would solve two real problems: Pot businesses would no longer be trapped in an all-cash economy thanks to federal laws that prohibit banks from handling drug money, and the state would send less money to Wall Street.

There’s just one state-run bank in the country: the Bank of North Dakota. It uses the revenue collected through taxes and other government income to provide capital for low-interest loans to state residents, including students, homeowners, and farmers. The bank’s operations return millions to the state’s coffers. (It’s worth noting that the bank has nothing to do with pot.)

As the financial crisis caused a credit crunch for borrowers, some citizens and states themselves started looking to North Dakota as a model of how to keep lending afloat. “After the banking crisis in 2008, some farmers came to me from eastern Washington, literally in tears, saying their credit was being cut off,” Hasegawa says.

Heather Morton, who tracks financial regulation at the National Conference of State Legislatures, found bills in six state legislatures in 2010 related to the creation of state-run banks. Interest swelled as the economy continued to struggle and the Occupy Wall Street movement took up the idea of state banks as an alternative to Wall Street. By 2011 the number of states with bills contemplating the creation of their own banks hit 15, according to Morton’s research, before legislation eventually tapered off last year as the economy improved.

In Washington, one of eight states in which legislation was put forward in 2013, the state-banking push predates the advent of a legal marijuana retail sector. Hasegawa’s bill, which he has sponsored for several years, gained support from 44 out of 98 lawmakers in 2012 but was killed in the banking committee. Each year, Hasegawa tinkers with the legislation in response to opponents, who include the state’s banking community, bond brokers, and the state treasurer. The critics argue that the effort is too risky and would diminish competition, among other things. (After lengthy study, a formal commission in Massachusetts recommended against creating a bank there, saying the effort would be more capital-intensive than it’s worth.)

After voters approved legalizing recreational marijuana in Washington last year, however, Hasegawa saw a new opening. Marijuana businesses have had to resort to largely operating in cash and have been agitating for federal authorities to give banks permission to handle pot accounts. Because pot isn’t legal at the national level, federal money-laundering laws prevent financial institutions from handing marijuana-related money.

Hasegawa has submitted a new bill for the 2014 legislative session that would create a state-run bank as the sole depository for the state’s marijuana businesses. Passage of the bill, which Hasegawa knows is a long shot, would provide “a foot in the door” to a broader state-run bank. But even if it fails, the state senator still sees an upside: “It has drawn the debate away from the detractors of the other arguments.” Washington’s legislative session opens on Jan. 13, and recreational sales in the state are expected to start this spring.

Opposition has now “focused on the illegality of marijuana itself,” Hasegawa says, “which makes me think a lot of their other arguments are really just smoke screens.”

Onion Classics

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There’s not many humor sites that skewer American culture as adeptly and consistently as The Onion. I recently delved deep into their video archives where I found a few gems (marginally more absurd than reality):

Whoops. That last clip was actually from MSNBC. Maybe they’re trying to compete with The Onion?

The Psychology of Being a “Non-Conspiracy Theorist”

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by Bernie Suarez

originally posted at Truth and Art TV

There is a brand of people amongst us. They have no name but they exist. They are everywhere, at work, at home, at school, and in the streets, stores, and shopping malls. It is highly unlikely to not know someone who belongs in this category. It’s the so called non-conspiracy theorists. You know, the guy who tries to terminate conversations by alleging that you are nothing more than a “conspiracy theorist” and the information you share is false or not believable. Yes, that guy. Let’s meet face to face with your typical non-conspiracy theorist. We all know them, they often are the ones who hold the “conspiracy” verbal accusation as a valid logically defined argument in and of itself. The logic works like this:

Conspiracy theorist says: “You are claiming that fire alone can cause a building to self-implode, descend at freefall speed into its own footprint? That’s physically impossible, what about Newton’s Laws and laws of thermal dynamics and such? “

Non-conspiracy theorist says: “No, you are wrong because you are a conspiracy theorist.”

And with that, often the non-conspiracy theorist will walk away. What’s happening? They had nothing to elaborate on so the non-conspiracy theorist, whose thinking is engineered and controlled by government, mainstream media and Hollywood entertainment, resorted to a socially engineered answer. For this reason it is fascinating to explore the mindset and psychology of the individuals who take this position in place of a logical stance.

Core defect and twisted meanings

By definition, conspiracy means a group of two or more people secretly plotting (or conspiring) a harmful (or evil) deed against another person(s). This behavior is part of human nature. Humans have been conspiring against each other since the beginning of time. There was a never a time in world history when such an elementary behavior (of conspiring against an enemy) did not exist. Can you find a period in history when a certain human emotional trait or action didn’t exist? Was there a time when the human genome didn’t express jealousy, game playing, free trading, rage, or happiness? As odd or ridiculous as this may sound, non-conspiracists unknowingly subscribe to this logic. If evidence points to a conspired crime, why not treat it as such? Why demonize the very concept of conspiring? This is a core defect in the thought process of non-conspiracy theorists. You can easily identify them by their speech.

What the non-conspiracy theorists doesn’t see is that the battle field is right before them and they have outsourced all critical thought and action to a government thinking service known as mass media. Like being on the playing field in a football field while the ball is in play, without realizing what is happening. You see people waving at you in the stands to get out of the way, but you don’t understand what they are saying so you continue walking on the field with your headsets on. Likewise non-conspiracy theorists perceive all logic and reason arguments and warnings made by the conspiracy theorist as noise. They don’t understand the warning and so they continue living and carrying on with what they are doing. Like the person on the field not understanding the warning being communicated by those in the stands, non-conspiracy theorists cannot receive the basic signals of logic and reason. The headsets adding to the confusion is like the TV and mainstream media news. Since they themselves refuse to look at the evidence, they put their faith in the government and in the mass corporate establishment to safely guide them in their reality. They gain a sense of psychological protection from this overall system. Since the information being believed is almost always artificial they need to hear their own opinions repeated to them by the voices on TV so they can confirm (and re-confirm) their own belief system to themselves to be legitimate. At no point will the non-conspiracy theorist plan a day of research or dedicate a few hours every once in a while to research the topic or put any thought into issues. Information and world problems are but one category in a shelf of categories that make up their lives. The non-conspiracy theorist ignores that government has always implemented social engineering and mass mind control on the general public. In order for the non-conspiracy theorist to confidently walk away from someone who challenges their belief system with scientific facts, they need to have a sustained comfort and assurance that what government and mainstream media is saying is true.

Maintaining the non-conspiracy delusion

The non-conspiracy theorist is thus profoundly psychologically interconnected with today’s mass mind control paradigm. They are a species representing a full byproduct of 21st century social engineering. The doctrine of this type of social engineering, programs its believers to believe that when government and media accuses someone of “conspiracies”, then this accusation is cause for someone being considered diseased. The symptoms being paranoia. But paranoia is based on systematized delusions and delusions are based on false beliefs. A proper exploring of meanings brings us back to proving what is true or false. We come full circle and the spin is over. Non-conspiracy theorists don’t realize they dwell in this circle of misapplied words, never exploring the meanings or doing the work to determine what is true and what is provable.

Non-conspiracy theorists therefore wake up every morning and reach for the mental orientation map known as mainstream media news. Without it they would be disoriented as they would not know what to believe. They actually believe that if anyone was guilty of wrongdoing at the highest level of government someone would speak out every time and everyone would know about it. They ignore that state secrets are the norm and government operations are conducted in secret. They ignore the consequences each individual at the government and military level faces for blowing the whistle. Despite these consequences many individuals at government level still risk it all and do blow the whistle on government. Despite all this the idea of maintaining State secrecy is myth to non-conspiracy theorists. The idea that government would do something immoral, nefarious or criminal is a fiction as well to the non-conspiracy theorist.

The history of war, corruption, tyranny and fascism is incidental, coincidental, insignificant and irrelevant to the non-conspiracy theorist. None of these should be used to gauge the events of our times since history is a thing of the past. Non-conspiracy theorists choose not to connect the historic dots. According to them there is nothing to learn from the history of tyranny and totalitarianism. Anyone attempting to connect the dots is likely a conspiracy theorist. This goes hand in hand with the logic defect we discussed earlier. As the earlier case of the conspiracy theorist having his scientific arguments debunked by virtue of simply being diseased with the accusation of conspiracy theorist. Note, the non-conspiracy theorists use the name as a loaded, proven concept with power to permanently label someone diseased. In this case, attempting to connect the dots automatically tags you as a conspiracy theorist.

As far as non-conspiracy theorists are concerned all critical thought are deferred to the authorities. The scientists do their work and then report the facts to the government and mainstream media who carefully announce to the masses what they should know. Any scientists that speak out and claim to have evidence contradicting government claims must first be endorsed and approved by the mainstream media and government. Without this approval the scientists are marginalized no matter how large their numbers are. Without these ridiculous rules the delusion of being a non-conspiracy theorists cannot be maintained. This is the psychology of tyranny. Tyranny and totalitarianism cannot be implemented without mass mind control. This dangerous group think mentality will ignore all warning signs to help continue advancing the agenda. And so the non-conspiracy theorist is the most important instrument for maintaining control of the masses. Without these non-conspiracy theorist vessels of the global empire, the plan would not be possible.

It is quite possible that years from now the concept of conspiracy will return back to where it belongs right next to other concepts like jealousy, laughter, love, stealing, fighting, friendship, hatred and other human expressions that define who we are. By then perhaps being a friendship theorist, a stealing theorist or a jealousy theorist will be the new propaganda boogie monster term. Or perhaps years from now we will be sick and tired of this vicious cycle of physical and mental slavery. Perhaps people will truly have enough of the control system and will have abolished it by then.

Standing by truth

I am thrilled to be considered a “conspiracy theorist” by those still controlled by the social engineering experiments of the last one hundred or so years. We are proof that humans are able to critically think on their own and prefer to be free. We are the embodiment of the resistance, we never run from challenges and debates, we recreated the media and are responsible for the progressive death of the mainstream media. We choose to give humanity a voice outside of the socially engineered control system. We rely on firsthand accounts, physical evidence consistent with natural laws, factual documents, common sense, high probability, and forensic scientific evidence before jumping to conclusions. We do not rely on name calling to give strength to our position and we stand as a reminder that the human mind will never be completely contained. Unraveling the reality we face became normal for us at some point and the information the non-conspiracy theorists consider scary is common news to those of us name called “conspiracy theorists”.

In order to be considered a conspiracy theorist by the non-conspiracy theorists you must believe that government is corrupt. Believing that others are corrupt does not get you the title automatically. The list of what qualifies someone as a conspiracy theorist has been changing rapidly and today is determined by mainstream media and government in real time. Today, only government and mainstream media gets to decide who qualifies as a conspiracy theorist. The thought process of the non-conspiracy theorist is thus predictable and automated because the agenda being followed by government and mass media is predictable. The mindset is; no research required, if Associated Press, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN or NPR doesn’t agree to report it, then all other sources must be false. This shines a light into the thought process of non-conspiracy theorists.

Impact on humanity

How creepy does all this sound? We often take for granted the thought process required to make someone believe how they believe and the (mainstream media believing) non-conspiracy theorist mentality is quietly as culpable for the condition of the world today as the individuals who actually carry out the crimes that have put us where we are. Little to no effort is put by non-conspiracy theorists to learn about their own social mindsets, social engineering, group think, and government propaganda and mind-control history.

The non-conspiracy theorists are thus arguably indirectly ushering many of the religious and cultural prophesies of the end times and the predictions of the dooms-day prophets. They are proving to be key vessels in the events that are to come. They have already carved their mark in history as supporters of the global empire. Everyone who has played a role in supporting the global empire of the U.S. has already left their mark. Let’s all wait and see how this mental defect will play itself out and what role these non-conspiracy theorists will play in ushering in the final pieces of the global government. Will they be rewarded? Will they support the extermination of all critical thinkers? Will it turn out the non-conspiracy theorists were expressing an alternate DNA or is this idea too far out? Will it turn out they were all part of a larger experiment? Will the final waking up process or critical mass be stomped out by this core of non-conspiracy theorist who blindly believe government programmed lies? Or will they be responsible for delaying critical mass by a certain amount of time.

These and many other questions will be answered in the next few years/decades. Let us not forget the layers of defective logic and blind faith in government required to be considered a non-conspiracy theorist. It sounds bizarre but it’s true. It’s been said that in times of mass deceit telling the truth is revolutionary and never has this been more apparent. Want to make an impact on others? Want to be a giant among men? Then tell the truth and watch the sheep run. There is so much deceit in today’s world that if you blindly reverse everything government and mainstream media says, just by default you would be closer to truth than if you believed some of what they say.

Remember the non-conspiracy theorist who says “someone would have spoken out”? We’ve all heard this excuse. Of course, someone always does speak out, only they call those that speak out, no matter how high in government they are, conspiracy theorists, instead of someone who is speaking out or blowing the whistle. It’s time to memorialize the web of non-logic that qualifies a non-conspiracy theorist and not take for granted what these individuals mean to our battle for freedom and what key role they will play in the final lock-down of what was once a beacon for freedom throughout the world. Even as each of us carries on every day it’s difficult to fathom how the average person you come across who is a non-conspiracy theorist is having such a massive impact on millions of people globally and the direction of humanity as a whole including the overall survival of the human race.

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TSA Threatens Satirist’s First Amendment Rights

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On November 6, 2013 Infowars.com sponsored a “We Will Resist TSA & NSA Tyranny” video contest. One of the participants, Telly “Leatherface” Blackwood, received a call regarding his entry from a man claiming to be from the TSA on Monday afternoon. According to a statement posted with a recording of a follow-up call on YouTube:

I received a call from a man named John on January 19 claiming to be from the TSA and had some questions for me. I asked him to call me back next day that I couldn’t hear him well. He agreed and within an hour or two I download an app so I can record phone calls. Today January 20th around 5:42pm while sitting outside he called back and I was able to record the whole thing. It was a strange call but very laughable. Sounds like one irritated TSA agent had enough of my video.

The contentious video from Blackwood’s comedy group “Off the Hook Television”:

In 2012, a TSA video from Natural News was suppressed by YouTube’s age restrictions (though this reposting got around it):

This is Joy Camp’s submission to the Infowars contest:

Bonus Clip: A new Joy Camp video mocking the contemporary pop music scene:

85 Richest People as Wealthy as Poorest Half of the World

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As World Economic Forum starts in Davos, development charity claims growing inequality has been driven by ‘power grab’

By Graeme Wearden

Originally posted at theguardian.com

The InterContinental Davos luxury hotel in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos

The InterContinental Davos luxury hotel in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. Oxfam report found people in countries around the world believe that the rich have too much influence over the direction their country is heading. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/REUTERS

The world’s wealthiest people aren’t known for traveling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called ‘global elite’ is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world’s population.

Working for the Few - Oxfam report

Source: F. Alvaredo, A. B. Atkinson, T. Piketty and E. Saez, (2013) ‘The World Top Incomes Database’, http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/Only includes countries with data in 1980 and later than 2008. Photograph: Oxfam

The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world, added the development charity, which fears this concentration of economic resources is threatening political stability and driving up social tensions.

It’s a chilling reminder of the depths of wealth inequality as political leaders and top business people head to the snowy peaks of Davos for this week’s World Economic Forum. Few, if any, will be arriving on anything as common as a bus, with private jets and helicopters pressed into service as many of the world’s most powerful people convene to discuss the state of the global economy over four hectic days of meetings, seminars and parties in the exclusive ski resort.

Winnie Byanyima, the Oxfam executive director who will attend the Davos meetings, said: “It is staggering that in the 21st Century, half of the world’s population – that’s three and a half billion people – own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus.”

Oxfam also argues that this is no accident either, saying growing inequality has been driven by a “power grab” by wealthy elites, who have co-opted the political process to rig the rules of the economic system in their favour.

In the report, entitled Working For The Few (summary here), Oxfam warned that the fight against poverty cannot be won until wealth inequality has been tackled.

“Widening inequality is creating a vicious circle where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs from the top table,” Byanyima said.

Oxfam called on attendees at this week’s World Economic Forum to take a personal pledge to tackle the problem by refraining from dodging taxes or using their wealth to seek political favours.

As well as being morally dubious, economic inequality can also exacerbate other social problems such as gender inequality, Oxfam warned. Davos itself is also struggling in this area, with the number of female delegates actually dropping from 17% in 2013 to 15% this year.

How richest use their wealth to capture opportunities

Polling for Oxfam’s report found people in countries around the world – including two-thirds of those questioned in Britain – believe that the rich have too much influence over the direction their country is heading.

Byanyima explained:

“In developed and developing countries alike we are increasingly living in a world where the lowest tax rates, the best health and education and the opportunity to influence are being given not just to the rich but also to their children.

“Without a concerted effort to tackle inequality, the cascade of privilege and of disadvantage will continue down the generations. We will soon live in a world where equality of opportunity is just a dream. In too many countries economic growth already amounts to little more than a ‘winner takes all’ windfall for the richest.”

Working for the Few - Oxfam report

The Oxfam report found that over the past few decades, the rich have successfully wielded political influence to skew policies in their favour on issues ranging from financial deregulation, tax havens, anti-competitive business practices to lower tax rates on high incomes and cuts in public services for the majority. Since the late 1970s, tax rates for the richest have fallen in 29 out of 30 countries for which data are available, said the report.

This “capture of opportunities” by the rich at the expense of the poor and middle classes has led to a situation where 70% of the world’s population live in countries where inequality has increased since the 1980s and 1% of families own 46% of global wealth – almost £70tn.

Opinion polls in Spain, Brazil, India, South Africa, the US, UK and Netherlands found that a majority in each country believe that wealthy people exert too much influence. Concern was strongest in Spain, followed by Brazil and India and least marked in the Netherlands.

In the UK, some 67% agreed that “the rich have too much influence over where this country is headed” – 37% saying that they agreed “strongly” with the statement – against just 10% who disagreed, 2% of them strongly.

The WEF’s own Global Risks report recently identified widening income disparities as one of the biggest threats to the world community.

Oxfam is calling on those gathered at WEF to pledge: to support progressive taxation and not dodge their own taxes; refrain from using their wealth to seek political favours that undermine the democratic will of their fellow citizens; make public all investments in companies and trusts for which they are the ultimate beneficial owners; challenge governments to use tax revenue to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection; demand a living wage in all companies they own or control; and challenge other members of the economic elite to join them in these pledges.

• Research Now questioned 1,166 adults in the UK for Oxfam between October 1 and 14 2013.