Category Archives: society

Dead Men Walking? French Police Release Photos of 2 Likely Patsies

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Source: 21st Century Wire

French Police are now on the move now, hoping to get today’s shooting suspects in their sights.

After today’s fatal attack in Paris – at the offices of French political magazine, Charlie Hebdo, the French police have released the  identities of 3 suspects, including photos of two.

Hamyd Mourad, 18 years old, is said to already be in custody after turning himself in to police, while the other two suspects, brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, are said to be at large.

DEAD MEN WALKING: French Police released photos of the brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34.

DEAD MEN WALKING: French Police released photos of the brothers Cherif Kouachi, 32, and Said Kouachi, 34.

According to French news agency AFP, police have issued arrest warrants for brothers Cherif, 32, and Said, 34. They have appealed to the public for information but warned that the men were “likely armed and dangerous”.

According to AFP, “after seeing his name circulating on social media”, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad has since surrendered to local police at 23:00 local time and taken into custody late Wednesday evening.

Other reports reveal however, that Mourad was in fact in class while the shooting was taking place in downtown Paris. It is more likely then that student Mourad has in fact turned himself in to police in order to avoid harm. If you follow the trending French hashtag, #MouradHamydInnocent,  it is said to have been started by Mourad’s classmates who say he was with them at the time of the attack. It’s worth pointing out straight away, that if police have mixed-up their first ‘suspect’ (which it appears they have), then this lowers the likelihood that their other two ‘suspects’ are genuine.

Multiple US and European media agencies, including CNN, are now announcing that at least one of the suspects was already “under surveillance” by French anti-terror authorities, and that his file was “shared with US security officials” as well. If this is indeed the case, then it’s highly improbable that the suspect would have staged his attack so easily. Once again, official admissions practically cancel out the official narrative.

Back in late September, French security officials suffered a huge embarrassment after three male ‘terror suspects’ who were on their way back from Turkey and Syria were allowed to walk free after landing at Marseille International Airport. All three were said to be “well known to French counter-terrorism officials” and were long been “under surveillance”. Some suspect that these were working with the security services, but that their cover may have been blown.

This latest revelation with the Paris Shooter suspect also matches the modus operandi of the likely informant, Sheikh Monis from Sydney’s Siege before Christmas, and also that of FBI informant, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, of Boston Bombing fame.

If this story plays out like previous high-profile ‘terror’ scenarios, then expect that both brothers Cherif and Said will go the way of the Tsarnaev Brothers, from the 2013 Boston Bombing. The fate of older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was recruited by US security services as a federal informant before the alleged bombing took place, was tragic. It turns out that Tamerlan was alive and well while initially in police custody – a fact blacked-out by the US media, but reported here at 21WIRE. Later on it appears that he was in fact killed in police custody before his mutilated body was dumped off at the local morgue.

As 21WIRE reported at the time, younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev narrowly escaped with his life during arrest, and was most likely severely injured while in custody.

Like with the Tsarnaevs, when authorities release the photos in public, it almost guarantees that the suspects will never make it out alive, and hence, will never tell their story in public.

Cherif and Said could very well be ‘dead men walking’ now, as police almost certainly be shooting to kill.

READ MORE PARIS SHOOTING NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Paris Shooting Files

(As with most recent crimes attributed to groups or individuals before any hard evidence is presented, we need to question the official story and also ask ourselves: who benefits?)

11 Predictions Of Economic Disaster In 2015 From Top Experts All Over The Globe

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By Michael Snyder

Source: Economic Collapse Blog

Will 2015 be a year of financial crashes, economic chaos and the start of the next great worldwide depression?  Over the past couple of years, we have all watched as global financial bubbles have gotten larger and larger.  Despite predictions that they could burst at any time, they have just continued to expand.  But just like we witnessed in 2001 and 2008, all financial bubbles come to an end at some point, and when they do implode the pain can be extreme.  Personally, I am entirely convinced that the financial markets are more primed for a financial collapse now than they have been at any other time since the last crisis happened nearly seven years ago.  And I am certainly not alone.  At this point, the warning cries have become a deafening roar as a whole host of prominent voices have stepped forward to sound the alarm.  The following are 11 predictions of economic disaster in 2015 from top experts all over the globe…

#1 Bill Fleckenstein: “They are trying to make the stock market go up and drag the economy along with it. It’s not going to work. There’s going to be a big accident. When people realize that it’s all a charade, the dollar will tank, the stock market will tank, and hopefully bond markets will tank. Gold will rally in that period of time because it’s done what it’s done because people have assumed complete infallibility on the part of the central bankers.”

#2 John Ficenec: “In the US, Professor Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio – or Shiller CAPE – for the S&P 500 is currently at 27.2, some 64pc above the historic average of 16.6. On only three occasions since 1882 has it been higher – in 1929, 2000 and 2007.”

#3 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, one of the most respected economic journalists on the entire planet: “The eurozone will be in deflation by February, forlornly trying to ignite its damp wood by rubbing stones. Real interest rates will ratchet higher. The debt load will continue to rise at a faster pace than nominal GDP across Club Med. The region will sink deeper into a compound interest trap.”

#4 The Jerome Levy Forecasting Center, which correctly predicted the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble in 2007: “Clearly the direction of most of the recent global economic news suggests movement toward a 2015 downturn.”

#5 Paul Craig Roberts: “At any time the Western house of cards could collapse. It (the financial system) is a house of cards. There are no economic fundamentals that support stock prices — the Dow Jones. There are no economic fundamentals that support the strong dollar…”

#6 David Tice: “I have the same kind of feel in ’98 and ’99; also ’05 and ’06.  This is going to end badly. I have every confidence in the world.”

#7 Liz Capo McCormick and Susanne Walker: “Get ready for a disastrous year for U.S. government bonds. That’s the message forecasters on Wall Street are sending.”

#8 Phoenix Capital Research: “Just about everything will be hit as well. Most of the ‘recovery’ of the last five years has been fueled by cheap borrowed Dollars. Now that the US Dollar has broken out of a multi-year range, you’re going to see more and more ‘risk assets’ (read: projects or investments fueled by borrowed Dollars) blow up. Oil is just the beginning, not a standalone story.

If things really pick up steam, there’s over $9 TRILLION worth of potential explosions waiting in the wings. Imagine if the entire economies of both Germany and Japan exploded and you’ve got a decent idea of the size of the potential impact on the financial system.”

#9 Rob Kirby: “What this breakdown in the crude oil price is going to spawn another financial crisis.  It will be tied to the junk debt that has been issued to finance the shale oil plays in North America.  It is reported to be in the area of half a trillion dollars worth of junk debt that is held largely on the books of large financial institutions in the western world.  When these bonds start to fail, they will jeopardize the future of these financial institutions.  I do believe that will be the signal for the Fed to come riding to the rescue with QE4.  I also think QE4 is likely going to be accompanied by bank bail-ins because we all know all western world countries have adopted bail-in legislation in their most recent budgets.  The financial elites are engineering the excuse for their next round of money printing . . .  and they will be confiscating money out of savings accounts and pension accounts.  That’s what I think is coming in the very near future.”

#10 John Ing: “The 2008 collapse was just a dress rehearsal compared to what the world is going to face this time around. This time we have governments which are even more highly leveraged than the private sector was.

So this time the collapse will be on a scale that is many magnitudes greater than what the world witnessed in 2008.”

#11 Gerald Celente: “What does the word confidence mean? Break it down. In this case confidence = con men and con game. That’s all it is. So people will lose confidence in the con men because they have already shown their cards. It’s a Ponzi scheme. So the con game is running out and they don’t have any more cards to play.

What are they going to do? They can’t raise interest rates. We saw what happened in the beginning of December when the equity markets started to unravel. So it will be a loss of confidence in the con game and the con game is soon coming to an end. That is when you are going to see panic on Wall Street and around the world.”

If you have been following my website, you know that I have been pointing to 2015 for quite some time now.

For example, in my article entitled “The Seven Year Cycle Of Economic Crashes That Everyone Is Talking About“, I discussed the pattern of financial crashes that we have witnessed every seven years that goes all the way back to the Great Depression.  The last two major stock market crashes began in 2001 and 2008, and now here we are seven years later.

Will the same pattern hold up once again?

In addition, there are many other economic cycles that seem to indicate that we are due for a major economic downturn.  I discussed quite a few of these theories in my article entitled “If Economic Cycle Theorists Are Correct, 2015 To 2020 Will Be Pure Hell For The United States“.

But just like in 2000 and 2007, there are a whole host of doubters that are fully convinced that the party can continue indefinitely.  Even though our economic fundamentals continue to get worse, our debt levels continue to grow and every objective measurement shows that Wall Street is more reckless and more vulnerable to collapse than ever before, they mock the idea that a financial collapse is imminent.

So let’s see what happens in 2015.

I have a feeling that it is going to be an extremely “interesting” year.

Maui is winning the war against Monsanto

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By Michelle Kennedy Hogan

Source: Inhabitat

Maui is winning the war against Monsanto, according to an attorney for the Sustainable Hawaiian Agriculture for the Keiki and the Aina (SHAKA) Movement. On November 4, Maui voters approved a measure that would ban GMOs in Maui County. But earlier this year, Hawaii Judge Barry Kurren ruled that only states, not counties, can ban GMOs, saying that county laws are pre-empted by state law so they are “invalid.” Monsanto, Dow and others sued to stop the legislation, hoping that Kurren would rule the same after the Maui initiative passed, but Kurren decided to pass the case onto Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway after public pressure mounted against him. Now the Maui ban on GMOs can move forward, marking a definitive win for the people of Maui.

According to the Natural Society, “until at least the fall of 2011, Judge Kurren’s wife, Faye, was a trustee of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a 6-billion-dollar environmental group.” TNC specializes in working with mega-corporations, who donate major money, in return for receiving TNC’s “good housekeeping seal of approval” as friends of the environment. “In 2011, TNC leveraged a blockbuster deal with Dow Chemical. Dow pledged a $10 million donation. In exchange, Dow could forthwith use the TNC logo on its site and all its products. Among TNC’s council are businesspersons from Monsanto, Coca Cola, and of course, Dow. Among TNC’s corporate funders are again – Dow, Coke, DuPont, and Pepsi,” according to Natural Society.

In addition to striking down GMO bans, Kurren also recently struck down Ordinance 960 – a pesticide and GMO regulatory bill – in Kauai. Kurren was to be the presiding judge in the Maui County case, but knowing that Kurren has multiple ties to Big Agriculture, the people of Maui County pushed back. Many thought that the case could not be won, given Kurren’s past rulings and Big-Ag ties, and that Maui county would not be able to uphold the ban on GMOs on their island.

RELATED: How Monsanto is turning an island paradise into a GMO wasteland

Originally, the SHAKA Movement agreed to allow a magistrate judge to preside over the case – in this case, it was Kurren. Once the SHAKA Movement found out Kurren would be in charge of their case, they withdrew their approval. Kurren then relinquished the position to Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway.

Having a different judge – a judge without known ties to the financial dealings of Monsanto and Dow Chemical – could have huge implications for the GMO ban and lead Maui to a win over Monsanto. The ruling further allows Maui County to file their own motions and respond to motions filed by the plaintiffs, according to SHAKA attorney Michael Carroll. If the law stands as voted, only the Maui County Council will be able to lift the ban on GMOs in their county.

The Boston Bombing Trial Starts, But Answers Aren’t on the Docket

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By Russ Baker

Source: WhoWhatWhy

We do not know what will come out of the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but one thing we are pretty sure of: we will not get the real, complete story of what actually happened.

Keep this in mind: the prosecution’s job is not principally to fully explain the background of a crime that was committed. It is to convince a jury to convict. Also, in cases such as this, where a lot of questions about security state operations have been raised, the prosecution, as an arm of the federal government, will be under strict orders to win its case without unduly exposing “sources and methods.” That’s a  polite way of saying, “let’s keep the skeletons in the family closet.”

Lead defense counsel Judy Clarke’s job, and her historic role in past cases, has been to do whatever is necessary to ensure her client avoids the death penalty. Meanwhile, the defendant’s job, right now, is to do what his lawyer tells him. It’s not his job to object or say, “Hey, there’s more to this story.”

Clarke’s interest in exposing the truth is strictly limited to: A) using the threat of embarrassing the government or B) casting doubt on its narrative solely as a bargaining chip to keep her client off death row. She has no particular mandate to find out what really happened. Even by her own pronouncements, Clarke either believes her client is guilty or, perceives that the only practical way forward is to accept that her client will be found guilty.

So don’t hold your breath for explanations to some of the questions we’ve raised. They include:

-What actual evidence exists that these brothers made such a sophisticated bomb—which some experts say they could not have? If not, then they had help and did not act alone, as the government insists. Aren’t the identities and roles of other possible players germane?

-What actual evidence exists that these brothers had bombs with them—and detonated them? Pictures of the backpacks that exploded to some people don’t look like the ones the brothers were wearing.

-What actual evidence exists that these brothers shot and killed an MIT police officer? We’re told that video cameras captured the act, but we’re also told that the video doesn’t make a positive ID.

-Did they actually carjack a man, and if so, for how long and under what circumstances? As we have reported, the purported victim, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, substantially changed his story of what happened.

-Why did the brothers’ uncle, who was the son-in-law of an important CIA official, quickly announce (within hours of their death/apprehension) his suspicion that his nephews were indeed the Boston bombers, despite the fact they had never done anything like that nor indicated that they may do such a thing?

-And what about the other CIA associate, a college professor and former case officer who corresponded with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev about Chechnya? Soon after the bombing, the professor, Brian Glyn Williams, was quoted as saying “I hope I didn’t contribute,” an apparent reference to Dzhokhar’s alleged radicalization.

-Why did the FBI seemingly ignore warnings from the Russians that the elder brother was involved in radical activity?

-Why did the FBI harass rather than seek to obtain information from crucial witnesses?

-After being warned by the Russians, why did the FBI fail to monitor Tamerlan when he left the country to travel to restive regions of Russia where Islamists were active? And then how was it that an alert for him was lowered just before he re-entered the U.S.?

-Why has no one been allowed to talk to Dzhokhar to find out his version of events?

-Will the authorities ever explain why so many things that were leaked by the government to prejudice the public (and the jury pool) turned out to be untrue? The claim that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was guilty in a triple homicide in Waltham, Mass., is just one example. The police never questioned Tamerlan about the slayings, even though they knew he was close friends with one of the victims.

-Will the conflicting and dubious explanations about the FBI’s shooting of an unarmed Ibragim Todashev, friend of Tamerlan, in his Florida apartment while being interrogated, be resolved?

-What about claims that there were drills going on during or around the time of the Marathon—and why were there bomb-sniffing dogs at the finish line? Even the cautious Boston Globe noted that officials had planned a training drill eerily similar to what actually happened.

These are some of the things any fair-minded, thoughtful person would like to know.

But the whole thing appears to be sealed, a done deal. We’re hoping for revelations at the trial. But we aren’t expecting too many. The authorities don’t think we need to know much about our country and its doings in that shadowy arena called “national security.” So the chances of them wanting to enlighten us are depressingly slim.

Image Credit:
Boston Bombing. Photo collage by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy adapted from photos in the public domain or Creative Commons: Street Scene – Wikimedia, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – Wikimedia, White House meeting – Wikimedia, Police – Flickr/A Name Like Shields…, Vigil – Flickr/Mark Zastrow and Tamerlan Tsarnaev & Ibragim Todashev – DonkeyHotey paintings.

E-Cig Users and Vapers Need to Join Anti-Drug War Movement

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By Tony Newman

Source: Drug Policy Alliance

New Year’s Eve is around the corner and no doubt millions of smokers will make resolutions to quit.

Many smokers would love to give up the habit. But smoking is an incredibly hard addiction to quit. Many heroin users say it is harder to quit smoking than quitting heroin.

Thankfully, there is an exciting new tool that is helping millions give up on smoking: e-cigs and vaping. Stand on the streets of most major U.S. cities for five minutes and you will see people walking by with an e-cig instead of a cigarette hanging from their mouth.

It is encouraging how fast e-cigs and vaping have taken off. Smokers aren’t stupid. When offered a safer alternative, millions have chosen it. The fact that e-cigs can be purchased at most delis and stores makes it easy for those who want to reduce the harms associated with smoking.

Instead of praising the great news that millions have stopped smoking, too many in the health and anti-smoking fields beat the drums against e-cigs and vaping. Opportunistic politicians and anti-smoking lobbyists ignore emerging evidence that vaping is vastly safer than smoking, and instead are trying to equate the two activities.

City after city has passed anti-vaping laws akin to anti-smoking statues. Cities have prohibited where people can vape, and are currently trying to ban flavors that vapers say helps them quit. Legislation is also in the works to raise the age so people under 21 can’t use e-cigs.
E-cig users should be worried and they should be pissed.

They should be worried because people are going make it harder and harder to vape. And vapers should be pissed because these “health” advocates are trying to take away their tools that can literally help save their life.

It is time for smokers and vapers to join the growing anti-drug war movement. Smokers and vapers may not think about it, but they are also drug users and they are being demonized and threatened like other drug users. And vapers may not know it, but they are also harm-reductionists.

Harm reduction is a major philosophy of the drug reform movement. Thanks to harm-reduction activists we have clean syringe programs that have prevented hundreds of thousands of people from getting HIV.  We have passed laws that allow people to call 911 when witnessing an overdose without fear of being arrested.  And have expanded access to naloxone, that reverses overdose.

But there are too many backward-thinking politicians and uninformed folks who have tried to block such programs by using the same flawed logic that it sends the “wrong message.”

E-cigs and vaping is the most mainstream example of harm reduction in our society right now. It’s something that can save more lives than any other harm reduction practice in our society.

But there will be reactionary folks who will try to ban vaping and e-cigs like they tried to ban clean syringes.

Vapers need to fight for their rights and their lives. They need to join our movement and say we are not going to allow misinformed, judgmental folks to take away their e-cigs. There are millions of vapers who could be a powerful political voice.

Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance has a powerful message when he talks about the cost of a slow learning curve. It took the U.S. 20 years to get behind syringe exchange programs, even though much of the rest of the world had embraced it and the evidence was crystal clear that syringes reduced HIV while not increasing drug use. Because of this slow learning curve, 100’000’s of people needlessly got HIV and died.

This is our moment to organize and fight for e-cigs and vaping as a life-saving harm-reduction practice.

A slow learning curve is not something we can accept.

Tony Newman is the director of media relations for the Drug Policy Alliance.

Transcending The Soul Hackers

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By Daniel Spaulding

Source: 21st Century Wire

With the closing of another year marked by media hysteria, the narrative that the crazed hermit North Korean regime orchestrated the hacking of the Japanese-owned Hollywood company Sony, thereby assaulting our precious freedom to crank out cultural subversion, has quickly begun to fall apart.

From the beginning the story never held neither consistency nor any forensic evidence. Yet the notion that ruthless Korean dictator Kim Jong Un wants to keep them from the movies, the modern substitute for the West’s emptying churches, has sent cable news consumers into a panic.

Elusive North Korean hackers have joined ISIS, Ebola, and a resurgent Russia on the ever- lengthening list of threats that government and media tell us we must fear. As it stands now, with the script quickly breaking down, the media and government (really two tentacles of the same power structure) are bound to quickly divert attention elsewhere; a new national security villain will be constructed and dangled in front of the attention-deficit public.

Meanwhile in France, several young radical Muslims have been attacking their host society, attempting to murder French police officers and Christmas shoppers. As has become standard fare in our era of political correctness, the French government quickly sought to dismiss the cosplay jihadists as having nothing to do with terrorism, casting them instead as a random assortment of mentally ill individuals senselessly lashing out. Similar ISIS-inspired escapades by marginal, ressentiment-driven characters have transpired in recent months, not only in France, but also in Canada, the United States, and Australia. Government authorities in these nations were equally quick to dismiss such attacks by self-styled holy warriors as aberrations that should not be seen as part of some wider pattern, lest the West’s entire secular multicultural project come under deeper scrutiny.

It is in this environment that the 20th century German philosopher Josef Pieper observed that while modern man is “looking out for the powers of corruption in a mistaken direction,” the lords of the technocracy “establish their rule before his eyes.” Modern man is diverted down a multitude of false paths toward dead ends, but he remains all too often oblivious to what is happening right under his very nose. His ignorance, often willful, lends strength to those who would seek even more power to control and manipulate him.

So while the public is held in a state of anxiety over North Korea and other manufactured phantoms, media reports have surfaced (and not for the first time) revealing that US police departments are utilizing their position in the new security architecture to scan and monitor social media and other online activities. In his endless benevolence, Big Brother is peering over your shoulder in order to develop a color-coded “threat rating.” Hence, as the 20th century science fiction writer Philip K. Dick foresaw, the age of “pre-crime” is upon us. As is normative in our times, the blatant power grabs of the surveillance state go mostly unnoticed and unprotested by the masses.

There is a serious disconnect between what the elite tell us we must fear and the “threats” they themselves utilize. While do-it-yourself jihadists (often themselves manipulated by domestic intelligence agencies) and other manifestations of underclass violence are brushed aside, those who dare openly express their dissatisfaction with the policies of our beloved rulers risk finding themselves listed as threats by the surveillance state. Leviathan grows ever larger and more pervasive in the name of security, only to use its power not against actual threats, but those it claims to protect. The Swiss philosopher Éric Werner provides some illumination here:

The current function of the police is not to fight insecurity. It is, which is quite different, to control and monitor people. Not just some people, as claimed by authorities (offenders, criminals, terrorists, etc.), but all of them. Even if the whole country turned into a no-go zone, the surveillance society would keep functioning… We do not develop the surveillance society in the fight against insecurity; rather, insecurity is used as an excuse to justify the surveillance society.

He further notes that the ruling politicians and bureaucrats’ real fear “is not insecurity, but rather potential retaliations against insecurity.”

We must ask what that oft-used buzzword “freedom” actually means in the modern West. For many, the ability to stream an inverted universe of pornography, or order off of Pizza Hut’s “subconscious menu” from their iPads – is enough assurance that they are still free, but the ever-expanding Leviathan state and the spread of vapid consumerism should give us all more than a moment’s pause. If freedom is reducible to a dazzling array of consumer options and self-gratification, why is that worth dying for? We must strive toward being higher than the perpetually consuming, soulless homo economicus.

In order to resist and confront the forces arrayed against him and to achieve a higher freedom, man must begin with repentance and spiritual reformation. His soul must be cleansed of sloth and apathy, as well as the other enslaving vices that leave him open to fear, manipulation, and despair; or as Ernst Jünger put it, one “must be free in order to become free.” The German adventurer further said that for the spiritually free man, “this world filled with oppression and oppressive agents,” will only “serve to make his freedom visible in all its splendor.”

The great Russian thinker Nicolas Berdyaev, who himself openly defied the murderous Bolsheviks who overran his homeland, taught that the “victory over slavery is a spiritual act,” and that “social and spiritual liberation ought to go hand in hand.” Repentance and spiritual resistance are the first, and most important, steps in confronting the powers of our age.

Author Daniel Spaulding earned a BA in English literature from Bridgewater State University. He currently works and lives in Seoul, South Korea. He enjoys reading philosophy, history, politics, and science fiction. 

 

Saturday Matinee: Putney Swope

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Putney Swope: Most under-rated cult film of the 1960s?

By Richard Metzger

Source: Dangerous Minds

Robert Downey Sr.‘s Putney Swope is an unusual film that splits audiences into two camps without breaking a sweat: those who absolutely love it and think it’s an unheralded masterpiece, and those who utterly loathe it (Check out Amazon reviews!) A third and far larger category would be comprised of everyone who’s never even heard of this odd little gem in the first place. Back in the early 80s, when super rare cheap to license cult films would often appear on some schlocky video label long before some mainstream films became available Putney Swope would often show up in the “Midnight Movies” or cult films section of video rental shops. After that it more or less disappeared until it came out on DVD. Every once in a while it’s on TV, too, but it’s still, sadly, Putney Swope is not a widely known film.

The Coen Brothers, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle and Paul Thomas Anderson are all known to be big fans of the film. Jane Fonda declared it a masterpiece to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show in 1969 and the Beastie Boys have sampled from it and rapped about it. Anderson even lifted a scene from it for Boogie Nights.

The first three times I saw Putney Swope I thought it was an incredible masterpiece. I was stunned by it. I laughed out loud. I sobbed. It was amazing. It was profound and symbolic of everything! Then again, the first three times I saw the film I was ridiculously high on LSD and I watched it over and over again, by myself, three times in the same night!

When the acid wore off I still thought it was a great and profound film, perhaps just not as great. That didn’t stop me from being an evangelist for this weird little movie, which satirized race, how race was portrayed in advertising, race in the workplace, black militants, white privilege and corporate corruption (there’s even a hint of Orwell’s Animal Farm in it), to all of my friends. Man did I force this film on a lot of (grateful!) people. I’ve easily seen it 30 times.

The plot goes something like this: Arnold Johnson (who later played “Hutch” on Sanford and Son) is Putney Swope, a middled-aged black man who works at a Madison Avenue advertising agency with a bunch of corrupt corporate buffoons. When the founder of the agency dies mid-speech, the board holds a vote to find his successor while his body goes cold on the table. Everyone writes down a name on a piece of paper. They are informed that they cannot vote for themselves and so each man tears up his ballot. They cut deals with each other and then all vote for the one guy who they think no one else will vote for either, Putney Swope, the only black guy.

So Swope becomes the new CEO with a landslide. His motto is “Rockin’ the boat’s a drag. You gotta sink the boat!”  He promptly fires all of the white executives (save for one), renames the agency “Truth & Soul” and hires a young, idealistic and politically militant black staff who want to tell the actual truth in advertising. “Truth & Soul” refuse to take accounts from cigarette manufacturers, liquor companies or the war machine. They become so successful that the government becomes alarmed. Eventually everyone becomes corrupted, even Putney himself, who takes to dressing like Fidel Castro.

That’s about it, plot-wise, but a lot of stuff happens in Putney Swope that would be difficult to try to describe here. The film is mainly in black and white, but the commercial parodies are in color. Antonio Fargas Jr. (“Huggy Bear” on Starsky & Hutch) has a memorable role as “The Arab,” Putney’s Muslim advisor and prankster Alan Abel is also seen in a cameo role. Putney Swope has great lines like “Anything that I have to say would just be redundant”; “A job? Who wants a JOB?”; and “Are you for surreal?!” that have been quoted over and over again (at least in my house). The US president and his wife are played by midgets who engage in a threesome with a photographer. There is a Mark David Chapman-type weirdo hovering around. It’s hard to describe, you really just have to see it. I think Putney Swope is one of the great, great, great American counterculture films of the 1960s. One day. I predict confidently, it will be seen as the equal to Easy Rider or Five Easy Pieces. I’m surprised that French cinemaphiles haven’t discovered it yet… but they will. They will.

This probably isn’t the best way to watch the film (grab the Putney Swope DVD on Amazon)  but DO watch the first scene up to the point where Putney takes over the advertising agency. If that doesn’t make you want to watch the rest, I can’t do much for you…