Tag Archives: corporate media

Headline News: US Congress Member Speaks the Truth on CNN

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In a time when politicians are expected to lie and corporate news networks more often than not self-censor (if/when covering actual news), it’s indeed a headline story when a member of congress speaks the truth on a corporate cable news program. Not surprisingly for those who’ve followed her career, the refreshingly honest words came from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Gabbard was one of the first female combat veterans and became the youngest woman elected to a U.S. state office (as Representative for for Hawaii’s 42nd House District ) at age 21 in 2002. In 2004, Gabbard deployed with her Hawaii Army National Guard unit for a 12-month tour in Iraq where she served in a field medical unit as a specialist with a 29th Support Battalion medical company. Upon her return from Iraq in 2006 Gabbard served as a legislative aide for U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka in Washington, DC. During this time she attended the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy and finished as the distinguished honor graduate in March 2007  (a first for a woman in the Academy’s 50-year history). From 2011 and 2012 Gabbard served in the Honolulu City Council and in 2012 became the first American Samoan and Hindu member of the US Congress. On October 12, 2015 Captain Gabbard was promoted to Major at a ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the same day she was disinvited by the DNC from the Democratic presidential debate for publicly stating she wanted to see more debates. Gabbard has been politically outspoken as a pro-choice and same-sex marriage supporter and has advocated for alternative energy, Native Hawaiian rights and a return of the Glass-Steagall Act. She has also opposed the use of drones to kill U.S. citizens.

As cynical as most of us should be about politics and government in this day and age, it’s promising when individuals who seem to have the honesty, intelligence and work ethic to be a true leader rise through the ranks. It’s especially hopeful for those who’d like to see more women in positions of power (other than Hillary, Palin, Fiorina, etc), regardless of whether improved leadership does anything significant to fix the current system.

Statements from Gabbard in the CNN segment that may startle those who habitually get news from corporate media include:

“The U.S. and the CIA are working to overthrow the Syrian government of Assad…

…while Russia, a long-time ally of Assad for decades now, is working to defend or uphold the Syrian government of Assad, and this puts us in a position of a possible direct head-to-head conflict with Russia as long as the U.S. and CIA continue down this path.”

(H/T: Truthstream Media)

The Crisis of the Now: Distracted and Diverted from the Ever-Encroaching Police State

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By John W. Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk: culture-death is a clear possibility.”—Author Neil Postman

Caught up in the spectacle of the forthcoming 2016 presidential elections, Americans (never very good when it comes to long-term memory) have not only largely forgotten last year’s hullabaloo over militarized police, police shootings of unarmed citizens, asset forfeiture schemes, and government surveillance but are also generally foggy about everything that has happened since.

Then again, so much is happening on a daily basis that it’s understandable if the average American has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the “events,” manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork and keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from reality while the government continues to amass more power and authority over the citizenry.

In fact, when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this. As investigative journalist Mike Adams points out:

This psychological bombardment is waged primarily via the mainstream media which assaults the viewer by the hour with images of violence, war, emotions and conflict. Because the human nervous system is hard wired to focus on immediate threats accompanied by depictions of violence, mainstream media viewers have their attention and mental resources funneled into the never-ending ‘crisis of the NOW’ from which they can never have the mental breathing room to apply logic, reason or historical context.

Consider if you will the regularly scheduled trivia and/or distractions in the past year alone that have kept us tuned into the various breaking news headlines and entertainment spectacles and tuned out to the government’s steady encroachments on our freedoms:

Americans were riveted when the Republican presidential contenders went head-to-head for the second time in a three-hour debate that put Carly Fiorina in a favored position behind Donald Trump; Hillary Clinton presented the softer side of her campaign image during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon; scientists announced the discovery of what they believed to be a new pre-human species, Homo naledi, that existed 2.8 million years ago; an 8.3 magnitude earthquake hit Chile; massive wildfires burned through 73,000 acres in California; a district court judge reversed NFL player Tom Brady’s four-game suspension; tennis superstar Serena Williams lost her chance at a calendar grand slam; and President Obama and Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg tweeted their support for a Texas student arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.

That was preceded by the first round of the Republican presidential debates; an immigration crisis in Europe; the relaxing of Cuba-U.S. relations; the first two women soldiers graduating from Army Ranger course; and three Americans being hailed as heroes for thwarting a train attack in France. Before that, there was the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse; shootings at a military recruiting center in Tennessee and a movie theater in Louisiana; the Boy Scouts’ decision to end its ban on gay adult leaders; the first images sent by the New Horizons spacecraft of Pluto; and the victory over Japan of the U.S. in the Women’s World Cup soccer finals.

No less traumatic and distracting were the preceding months’ newsworthy events, which included a shooting at a Charleston, S.C., church; the trial and sentencing of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; the U.S. Supreme Court’s affirmation of same-sex marriage, Obamacare, lethal injection drugs and government censorship of Confederate flag license plates; and an Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia that left more than 200 injured and eight dead.

Also included in the mix of distressing news coverage was the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in police custody and the subsequent riots in Baltimore and city-wide lockdown; the damning report by the Dept. of Justice into discriminatory and abusive practices by the Ferguson police department; the ongoing saga of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account while serving as secretary of state; the apparently deliberate crash by a copilot of a German jetliner in the French Alps, killing all 150 passengers and crew; the New England Patriots’ fourth Super Bowl win; a measles outbreak in Disneyland; the escalating tensions between New York police and Mayor Bill de Blasio over his seeming support for anti-police protesters; and a terror attack at the Paris office of satire magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Rounding out the year’s worth of headline-worthy new stories were protests over grand jury refusals to charge police for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown; the disappearance of an AirAsia flight over the Java Sea; an Ebola outbreak that results in several victims being transported to the U.S. for treatment; reports of domestic violence among NFL players; a security breach at the White House in which a man managed to jump the fence, cross the lawn and enter the main residence; and the reported beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff by ISIS.

That doesn’t even begin to touch on the spate of entertainment news that tends to win the battle for Americans’ attention: Bruce Jenner’s transgender transformation to Caitlyn Jenner; the death of Whitney Houston’s daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown; Kim Kardashian’s “break the internet” nude derriere photo; sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby; the suicide of Robin Williams; the cancellation of the comedy The Interview in movie theaters after alleged terror hack threats; the wedding of George Clooney to Amal Alamuddin; the wedding of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt; the ALS ice bucket challenge; and the birth of a baby girl to Prince William and Kate.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, these sleight-of-hand distractions, diversions and news spectacles are how the corporate elite controls a population by entrapping them in the “crisis of the NOW,” either inadvertently or intentionally, advancing their agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.

Professor Jacques Ellul studied this phenomenon of overwhelming news, short memories and the use of propaganda to advance hidden agendas. “One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones,” wrote Ellul.

“Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but he does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man’s capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandists, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks.”

But what exactly has the government (aided and abetted by the mainstream media) been doing while we’ve been so cooperatively fixated on whatever current sensation happens to be monopolizing the so-called “news” shows?

If properly disclosed, consistently reported on and properly digested by the citizenry, the sheer volume of the government’s activities, which undermine the Constitution and in many instances are outright illegal, would inevitably give rise to a sea change in how business is conducted in our seats of power.

Surely Americans would be concerned about the Obama administration’s plans to use behavioral science tactics to “nudge” citizens to comply with the government’s public policy and program initiatives? There would be no end to the uproar if Americans understood the ramifications of the government’s plan to train non-medical personnel—teachers, counselors and other lay people—in “mental first aid” in order to train them to screen, identify and report individuals suspected of suffering from mental illness. The problem, of course, arises when these very same mental health screeners misdiagnose opinions or behavior involving lawful First Amendment activities as a mental illness, resulting in involuntary detentions in psychiatric wards for the unfortunate victims.

Parents would be livid if they had any inkling about the school-to-prison pipeline, namely, how the public schools are being transformed from institutions of learning to prison-like factories, complete with armed police and surveillance cameras, aimed at churning out compliant test-takers rather than independent-minded citizens. And once those same young people reach college, they will be indoctrinated into believing that they have a “right” to be free from acts and expressions of intolerance with which they might disagree.

Concerned citizens should be up in arms over the government’s end-run tactics to avoid abiding by the rule of law, whether by outsourcing illegal surveillance activities to defense contractors, outsourcing inhumane torture to foreign countries, causing American citizens to disappear into secret interrogation facilities, or establishing policies that would allow the military to indefinitely detain any citizen—including journalists—considered a belligerent or enemy.

And one would hope American citizens would be incensed about being treated like prisoners in an electronic concentration camp, their every movement monitored, tracked and recorded by a growing government surveillance network that runs the gamut from traffic cameras and police body cameras to facial recognition software. Or outraged that we will be forced to fund a $93 billion drone industry that will be used to spy on our movements and activities, not to mention the fact that private prisons are getting rich (on our taxpayer dollars) by locking up infants, toddlers, children and pregnant women?

Unfortunately, while 71% of American voters are “dissatisfied” with the way things are going in the United States, that discontent has yet to bring about any significant changes in the government, nor has it caused the citizenry to get any more involved in their government beyond the ritualistic election day vote.

Professor Morris Berman suggests that the problems plaguing us as a nation—particularly as they relate to the government—have less to do with our inattention to corruption than our sanctioning, tacit or not, of such activities. “It seems to me,” writes Berman, “that the people do get the government they deserve, and even beyond that, the government who they are, so to speak.”

In other words, if we end up with a militarized police state, it will largely be because we welcomed it with open arms. In fact, according to a recent poll, almost a third of Americans would support a military coup “to take control from a civilian government which is beginning to violate the constitution.”

So where does that leave us?

As legendary television journalist Edward R. Murrow warned, “Unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”

Why Hillary Won the Debate (Even though She Didn’t)

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By Gary Leupp

Source: Dissident Voice

CNN and Facebook co-sponsored last week’s Democratic presidential frontrunners’ “debate.” After the event, CNN conducted a poll. “Who won the debate?” it asked. The result: 83% Bernie Sanders; 12% Hillary Clinton.

Facebook also took a poll. “Who do you think won?” Over 79% responded, “Bernie Sanders.”

The CNN editors’ take? “CLINTON’S CONFIDANT SWEEP.”

Slate conducted a poll. “Who won the presidential debate?” asked the magazine. 75% of respondents said Bernie Sanders; 18% gave it to Hillary Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton won,” reported Slate “senior writer” Josh Vorhees exuberantly. “She just needed to be solid in the debate. Instead, she was spectacular.”

Spectacular! with 18% of Slate’s own polling numbers. Go figure.

“Who do you think won?” asked Time Magazine. The response?  Bernie Sanders: 70%, Hillary Clinton 16%.

The Time headline:  “CLINTON IN CONTROL.”

Are you disgusted yet? This goes far beyond distortion, and far beyond the tampering with facts that characterized Soviet-style reporting in Izvestia and Pravda in the decade before the USSR collapsed. This is in-your-face rejection of empirical reality, to say nothing of an insult to the viewers polled. The entire mainstream news media is complicit.

Imagine if the “free” press—free to publish whatever its corporate editors want, including even the truth, at their discretion—had sought to spin this story differently.

“POLLS SHOW BIG WIN FOR SANDERS,” CNN might have proclaimed, between commercials.

“A great night for Sanders,” Slate might have announced.

“SANDERS TROUNCES CLINTON,” Time might have acknowledged.

But no, and this is par for the course. The TV cable news anchors took ages to concede that, well, yes, maybe Jed Bush—despite his solid RNC support and Wall Street’s firm endorsement—is not the inevitable GOP candidate. They’ve had to acknowledge that (for whatever reasons) Donald Trump’s actually striking a much deeper chord than warmonger Dubya’s little brother among likely voters.

But they’re stubbornly refusing to recognize some things they don’t want to see—things that don’t follow their script.

They don’t understand that people in their twenties who constitute the 75-year-old Sanders’ support base have no problem with “socialism” but rather have lots of problems with Wall Street. These “millenials” are even—horrors!—increasingly inclined to question the national god of capitalism itself. It has fewer positive connotations to them than it did for their parents who grew up during the Cold War and were subjected to its particular brainwashing agenda.

That’s the sort of brainwashing that allows Trump, a demagogue preying on the most abjectly ignorant to tell cheering crowds that he calls Sanders “a ‘socialist, slash, communist,’ okay? ‘Cause that’s what he is!”

‘Cause that’s what he is! Sanders is a communist. End of story. End of rational thought.

I myself am not a Sanders supporter. He’s nowhere nearly left enough for me. But then I’m not a supporter of the whole bogus, skewed, money-driven two-party electoral system itself, which seems designed to hoodwink people, channel their energies into itself, and then produce disillusionment soon after the election, as the elected official reneges on promises and proved to be anything other than a harbinger of “change.” The system is wired to then hoodwink people again, re-channel their energies (again back into itself), bouncing people back and forth between two hopelessly corrupt parties that are really two factions of a single corporate party.

The system tells us, “If you don’t vote, you have nothing to say” and reduces political involvement to endorsing one of its (safe) choices. It excludes from the debate stage even the discussion of needed radical change. The electoral process is designed to keep you out of the street (where history is really made) and lead you into a box, like a confessional booth or a porno video cubicle, a private space in which you’re touched by something greater than yourself and leave with a sense of gratification. You were a good citizen. You exercised your precious right to VOTE and did your part!

Casting that ballot in private is supposed to make you feel good about yourself, as a participant in the state. It’s supposed to make you think that, since you actually participated in the construction of the existing polity, when you talk about what it does, you can accept personal responsibility for its crimes.

For example, you might say: “We shouldn’t have invaded Iraq.” In doing so you implicitly include yourself—despite your disagreement—among those who actually did the vicious deed. I prefer to say, “Leave me out of that ‘we,’ since I had nothing to do with it. I fought against it, tooth and nail, attending every anti-war demonstration I could and railing against it to all who would listen.”

“Well, our government did it,” you might correct yourself. “We voted for it.” But I will reply I didn’t; I stayed at home on election day, 2000. It’s like I was invited to a party that day, and disliking all who’d be there, I politely declined to attend.

When you vote, you vote not so much for a person as for the system itself, validating it and the rules surrounding the procedure. Casting the ballot is the state’s highest ritual, the individual’s most intimate connection with the state. It makes you feel one with it. It’s rather like taking the Holy Communion at mass. You’re swallowing something, and making a statement of faith: I believe in this system!

This (corporate) system you vote for, every time you vote at all, commands the (corporate) media to such an extent that it can do what we see in the reportage cited above. It can turn reality on its head and get away with it, whether it’s shaping public opinion about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, a Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. successes against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Syrian “moderates” gaining against Assad, or victory in a farcical televised debate.

Whatever you think about Sanders, is it not outrageous that the mass media can obscure his plain victory in that exercise as a triumph for Hillary Clinton? Even a “spectacular” win? Isn’t it clear that she was pronounced the victor not because she actually won out over Sanders but because powerful people steering the “free” press needed her to do so?

As PR/disinformation master Karl Rove once put it (and this should be repeated as often as we repeat that wonderful quote from the imprisoned Goebbels at Nuremberg about using fear to build mass support for war): “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

It’s not a sentiment unique to Republicans. Recall how, during the 2012 Democratic national convention, the crowd clearly voted down the inclusion of a line supporting Jerusalem as the eternal, undivided capital of Israel in its platform. The change required a two-thirds majority of the vote, according to party rules. At least half the delegates voted against it.

Still, the convention chairman to the outrage of many present announced (after some hushed consultation) that the “Ayes” carried the day. So much for democracy at the “Democratic” Party’s convention.

The mainstream press, by and large, wants Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for president. Wall Street’s leading candidates are Jeb Bush and Clinton; both are beloved of big money and either one will do. Sanders (even though in office he would likely buckle to their will, the same way Greece’s “socialist” Alexis Tsipras buckled to the IMF and European Central Bank) is anathema to Wall Street. And the connections between Wall Street, the Washington power elite, and the press are—to use the Chinese expression—as close as lips and teeth.

Finance capital rules the world and will do so until the “millions and millions” Bernie keeps talking about find some way to effectively challenge it.

Thus Sanders could not win the debate, even though he did. And Hillary was destined to win the debate, even though she didn’t. Get it? And isn’t it great you have the right to vote for her?

 

Gary Leupp is a Professor of History at Tufts University, and author of numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu. Read other articles by Gary.

The Golden Era Of Knowledge Resistance Is Upon Us

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By Bernie Suarez

Source: Truth and Art TV

With the recent Virginia shooting false flag incident now blown wide open it occurred to me recently that humanity is in the middle of an era of all-time highest abundance of knowledge and information.  We are swimming in knowledge thanks to the internet and technology. This knowledge is easily available to almost anyone in a moderately developed country. Even children have access to this abundance of knowledge. Used properly, the technology and information available to us today gives humanity the tools it needs to overcome and even replace the dying new world order empire seeking control of it.

That’s the good side of today’s technology, knowledge-sharing and information available to humanity. Here’s the dark side of the story however. With much knowledge comes much responsibility and intellectual expectation from the species. Given how much knowledge there is available to humanity, we must face objectively what is transpiring before our very eyes. A large percentage of humans are still blinded by the controllers because they are deliberately resisting this otherwise easily available knowledge and this almost unique first-of-its-kind level of resistance seems to be at an all-time high.

I say “resistance” because more than ever before in the history of mankind humans can rapidly educate themselves about almost anything. Anyone can easily get past the information bottleneck of mainstream media and do their research and discover how real the globalist new world order plans are. After all, they are not even hiding their intentions. Ask yourself why would they publish the Project for a new American Century BEFORE 9/11 telling the world what their intentions would be? How is it that we have access to ‘Operation Northwood‘ documents clearly outlining the controller’s plans for staging false flag terror attacks throughout the U.S. to use as a pretext for war, yet people still think this is not possible? They’ve admitted Vietnam was a war based on a lie but does anyone care? Crisis actors are now regularly being used to stage sloppy staged shootings but many refuse to look into this too deep for fear of what this new knowledge will require of them. Thus today it requires more mental energy to fend off the knowledge that is easily available at everyone’s fingertips. People are apparently willing to put lots of energy into resisting this knowledge just to preserve their paradigms.

Consider that today’s generation has easier access to concrete proof of false flags faster and more accurately than at any point in history. Much of this information can be obtained in almost real-time. Today, unlike any point in history, people who are privileged to this surreal flow of amazing information simply ignore the information like its not there. This unique engineered modern day complacency and resistance to easily available knowledge I believe is very special and must be pointed out to understand where we are and what possible solutions will work best.

Think about that next time you hear people still clinging on to government engineered “official story” lies, false flag events, planned agendas and propaganda. One of the reasons people cling to government lies and resist easily available truth and knowledge is because people don’t want to believe things are that bad. They would rather believe that government is looking out for the greater good of the people. They don’t want to believe anything that will compromise their view of the world and their paradigm about life. Paradigms are very real and many refuse to change how they think to accommodate a new paradigm. They will ignore logic, avoid tough questions, even ridicule the messenger to protect their belief systems and all of these examples are forms of resistance to knowledge.

Cognitive dissonance is at an all-time high. More than ever, people prefer to keep the conversation light. They just don’t want to discuss “conspiracies” or government corruption for fear of getting into an unwanted debate. So in order to avoid a debate or conflict over a political issue it’s better to avoid the topic. Today many work places expect their employees to avoid discussions about controversial topics because it’s not good for the work place. This is an institutionalized resistance to knowledge and it’s all deliberate and engineered. This resistance is cognitive dissonance at a mass scale.

So, although many people are waking up to the nature and true meaning of current and political events both domestically and globally, there is a great sifting going on and more than ever people are resisting simple truth that would have easily persuaded and awakened the average person many centuries ago if they had the same available information in their time. Thus, I believe this is widening the knowledge gap within the species and this knowledge gap widening is part of an intellectual and consciousness extinction phenomenon that I believe is happening. Sadly, many humans are deeply mentally tangled in the matrix of lies and will likely die in the matrix never having understood how or why they died. Like sheep led to the slaughter.

You may wonder, how did we get here? Perhaps due to several factors including that today, propaganda is much more sophisticated and thus more effective. We have sophisticated sensationalized mass media, advertisements, billboards, radio, TV, Hollywood movies, video games, news papers, magazines, social media, cell phone apps and more. All of these sources of information are well equipped to manipulate the human mind especially knowing that today people are subjected to these devices and distractions every day.

Solutions

You may be thinking, what can we do about this mass resistance to knowledge seen today. For one, keep the information awareness circulating. Don’t get too worked up every time they execute another false flag. Instead see the false flag from the point of view of the usual script blueprint they implement almost every time and do your best to share the information with those who are still living in the matrix of lies. Then move on and continue focusing on viable solutions for the problems we face.

Still running into people clinging on to government “official stories” on one false flag event after another? Realize who you are. Remind yourself that truth exists on its own and it’s not up to you to convince anyone, just show them the truth and let them recognize it for themselves. Realize we are living in an era of unusual resistance to knowledge because this resistance is engineered. Realize that it’s not about you winning an argument or convincing others of your personal point of view. It’s about putting out the objective truth and hoping people see the bigger picture for their own survival benefit. You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

I believe understanding this engineered resistance to common knowledge we see today is a big part of the puzzle in terms of staying mentally healthy and staying focused on solutions. It’s all about keeping things in the right perspective and maintaining your own personal mental, emotional, spiritual and physiological balance.

Realize that for as much as people resist knowledge and information freely and widely available to humanity today, there is a constant hope and positive outlook that is burning in our hearts that reminds us that we may be part of an inevitable and important mass human awakening phenomenon.

Also lets consider that this knowledge resistance is equivalent to the diver who is too afraid to jump from the high diving board for fear of what will happen if he does. All those people who are afraid of giving up their current paradigms wouldn’t be if they were assured that everything was going to be all right.

Finally, realize that as things get worse many more people will be inclined to want to change their paradigms for a better one. That is why we need to offer hope to others. It’s not enough to point out false flags and focus on the fear and government corruption. We must answer back with some kind of solution and hopeful strategizing. Deliberate knowledge resistance is best met with the fewest amounts of words. Show someone the truth don’t debate with them so much. Allow them to believe whatever they want and move on after telling them what they need to hear. It’s not about convincing these people or winning an argument, it’s about being mentally stronger, more assured and wiser as you expose the other person to objective truth. It’s about staying focused on the bigger picture not about burning energy to fix someone else’s resistance to truth.

Bernie Suarez
Creator of Truth and Art TV Project

Bernie is a revolutionary writer with a background in medicine, psychology, and information technology. He has written numerous articles over the years about freedom, government corruption and conspiracies, and solutions. A former host of the 9/11 Freefall radio show, Bernie is also the creator of the Truth and Art TV project where he shares articles and videos about issues that raise our consciousness and offer solutions to our current problems. His efforts are designed to encourage others to joyfully stand for truth, to expose government tactics of propaganda, fear and deception, and to address the psychology of dealing with the rising new world order. He is also a former U.S. Marine who believes it is our duty to stand for and defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. A peace activist, he believes information and awareness is the first step toward being free from enslavement from the globalist control system which now threatens humanity. He believes love conquers all fear and it is up to each and every one of us to manifest the solutions and the change that you want to see in this world, because doing this is the very thing that will ensure victory and restoration of the human race from the rising global enslavement system, and will offer hope to future generations.

Arcadian Gates by T.A. Wardrope: Dystopia on the Fringe

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51J0Tmr3+IL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_By Brian Whitney

Source: Disinfo

T.A. Wardrope‘s new novel, Arcadian Gates, tells the story of how ten years ago, the entire nation was struck by a chemical weapon which destroyed most people’s memories. Akiry, a young woman who makes her way smuggling amongst the lower caste of the rebuilt country, is haunted by dreams of a daughter she otherwise does not remember. As civil war erupts in the city around her, she takes the last chance she has to find the truth about her daughter and her past.

We talked to author and Disinfo contributor T.A. Wardrope about his new book.

T.A., Thanks for talking to me. Can you tell me a little bit about what inspired Arcadian Gates and what your process was writing it?

The book began as a short story in a writing workshop. I had fun with it and so I just kept building it forwards and backwards for quite a few years. There was a substantial amount of world building that was a byproduct of writing Akiry’s story. Next thing I knew I had a book with a glossary and a map on the inside cover.

The story itself evolved as I tried to understand Akiry’s relationship to the world around her. I wanted a dystopia that was drawn from the lore and theories that Disinfo readers would recognize. Fringe stuff that you might hear about on Darkness Radio or Art Bell’s classic Coast to Coast AM. There’s kind of a unified conspiracy theory under the whole thing. A substantial amount of Terence McKenna and William Burroughs influence too. I joke that it is my “Streets of Fire”; one book that has everything I enjoy about science-fiction in the mix.

In your book almost an entire nation loses its memory due to a chemical weapon. Memory is always a fight, even in the best of times, it can be tricky and elusive, can you touch on how the loss of a nation’s memory changes everything?

Oh, I think we can just look around. I think that part of the book comes from a place of satire or critique. Americans, in particular, are very good at forgetting the lessons of the not-so-distant past. This bizarre hyper news cycle is a particularly troublesome symptom of this. By making something so very important for a few days, nothing becomes important at all. It’s very Orwellian.

But within the Administrated Republic, the weapon’s effect allows for a constantly shifting narrative of history. It’s the least subtle method of the winner defining history. Practically speaking, families are separated, identities destroyed, and personal empowerment disintegrated. It’s very hard for people to trust who they are if they don’t really know their past. Plus the shared experience allows for national community and a national wound that is easy to use as needed. Again, we can look at our recent history for evidence of that. That Administrated Republic just takes all of this to the next level of control. They had their reasons, though. I wanted them to be much more authentic than your standard dystopic power state. I had as much writing their side of things as I did the roughnecks in Akiry’s world.

You seem to have the chops of someone who has long been a student of the Sci-fi masters. What writer influenced you along your path?

Oh, thank you. There’s a solid foundation of Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury and David Drake. But the actual authors who had a direct influence on how I thought about the world of Arcadian Gates would be people like Philip K. Dick, William Burroughs, Samuel Delaney, J.G. Ballard, China Mieville, Moebius, Alan Moore, Robert Anton Wilson and Margaret Atwood. My program advisor at Hamline, Lawrence Sutin, is a PKD scholar so his input was especially helpful. I am a student of cinema too, so there’s plenty of influence from that realm. Some folks have asked me to write a screenplay version, but the book seems basically unfilmmable to me. Movies about underdog drug dealers don’t get the kind of budgets it would need to get made correctly.

Are there lessons to be learned from the Dystopian world that we see in Arcadian Gates?

I see it as satire in the tradition of 1984, Brave New World or We, so the lessons available in the story are just as evident in the world around us now. I think that one reason dystopia was so popular with young readers is that the world around them is a dystopia in many ways and fiction just distills that into a less confusing form. Arcadian Gates isn’t a YA book, by any means, but every part of it is drawn from history or historical theory. I didn’t write it for a particular moral, though, I wanted to keep it focused on how one woman navigates this world and how her actions reverberate throughout that world. I suppose the lesson is that history is a collision of millions of stories driven by many more decisions and desires. Akiry’s journey is one of those stories.

What are you up to next?

I am working on a pair of books drawn from the Sirius Business blog that runs here on Disinfo. One of those will actually be in the same continuity of Arcadian Gates. There will be a sequel to Arcadian Gates, as Akiry is just getting started. In between the books there are some short stories written that are both in continuity and some not at all related. Those could wind up in a collection at some point. Finally, I’m doing some more world building for a project that is firmly grounded in the horror side of things. Sometimes I wonder if I love the development stuff too much, even the shorts have considerable background to them.

More info on all of this stuff will pop up on social media. I’ve got more things planned in support of Arcadian Gates, too. Readings and maybe some convention visits. Being an indie author requires a having a finely honed sense of the balance between creative work and promotional work. I’ve still got a lot to learn in both of those aspects, I think. I’ll be learning advanced time engineering. Whiskey, too. Plenty of whiskey.

Where is Neo When We Need Him — Paul Craig Roberts

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By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

In The Matrix in which Americans live, nothing is ever their fault. For example, the current decline in the US stock market is not because years of excessive liquidity supplied by the Federal Reserve have created a bubble so overblown that a mere six stocks, some of which have no earnings commiserate with their price, accounted for more than all of the gain in market capitalization in the S&P 500 prior to the current disruption.

In our Matrix existence, the stock market decline is not due to corporations using their profits, and even taking out loans, to repurchase their shares, thus creating an artificial demand for their equity shares.

The decline is not due to the latest monthly reporting of durable goods orders falling on a year-to-year basis for the sixth consecutive month.

The stock market decline is not due to a week economy in which after a decade of alleged economy recovery, new and existing home sales are still down by 63% and 23% from the peak in July 2005.

The stock market decline is not due to the collapse in real median family income and, thereby, consumer demand, resulting from two decades of offshoring middle class jobs and partially replacing them with minimum wage part-time Walmart jobs without benefits that do not provide sufficient income to form a household.

No, none of these facts can be blamed. The decline in the US stock market is the fault of China.

What did China do? China is accused of devaluing by a small amount its currency.

Why would a slight adjustment in the yuan’s exchange value to the dollar cause the US and European stock markets to decline?

It wouldn’t. But facts don’t matter to the presstitute media. They lie for a living.

Moreover, it was not a devaluation.

When China began the transition from communism to capitalism, China pegged its currency to the US dollar in order to demonstrate that its currency was as good as the world’s reserve currency. Over time China has allowed its currency to appreciate relative to the dollar. For example, in 2006 one US dollar was worth 8.1 Chinese yuan. Recently, prior to the alleged “devaluation” one US dollar was worth 6.1 or 6.2 yuan. After China’s adjustment to its floating peg, one US dollar is worth 6.4 yuan. Clearly, a change in the value of the yuan from 6.1 or 6.2 to the dollar to 6.4 to the dollar did not collapse the US and European stock markets.

Furthermore, the change in the range of the floating peg to the US dollar did not devalue China’s currency with regard to its non-US trading partners. What had happened, and what China corrected, is that as a result of the QE money printing policies currently underway by the Japanese and European central banks, the dollar appreciated against other currencies. As China’s yuan is pegged to the dollar, China’s currency appreciated with regard to its Asian and European trading partners. The appreciation of China’s currency (due to its peg to the US dollar) is not a good thing for Chinese exports during a time of struggling economies. China merely altered its peg to the dollar in order to eliminate the appreciation of its currency against its other trading partners.

Why did not the financial press tell us this? Is the Western financial press so incompetent that they do not know this? Yes.

Or is it simply that America itself cannot possibly be responsible for anything that goes wrong. That’s it. Who, us?! We are innocent! It was those damn Chinese!

Look, for example, at the hordes of refugees from America’s invasions and bombings of seven countries who are currently overrunning Europe. The huge inflows of peoples from America’s massive slaughter of populations in seven countries, enabled by the Europeans themselves, is causing political consternation in Europe and the revival of far-right political parties. Today, for example, neo-nazis shouted down German Chancellor Merkel, who tried to make a speech asking for compassion for refugees.

But, of course, Merkel herself is responsible for the refugee problem that is destabilizing Europe. Without Germany as Washington’s two-bit punk puppet state, a non-entity devoid of sovereignty, a non-country, a mere vassal, an outpost of the Empire, ruled from Washington, America could not be conducting the illegal wars that are producing the hordes of refugees that are over-taxing Europe’s ability to accept refugees and encouraging neo-nazi parties.

The corrupt European and American press present the refugee problem as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with America’s war crimes against seven countries. I mean, really, why should peoples flee countries when America is bringing them “freedom and democracy?”

Nowhere in the Western media other than a few alternative media websites is there an ounce of integrity. The Western media is a Ministry of Truth that operates full-time in support of the artificial existence that Westerners live inside The Matrix where Westerners exist without thought. Considering their inaptitude and inaction, Western peoples might as well not exist.

More is going to collapse on the brainwashed Western fools than mere stock values.

Closing the Doors of Perception

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By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”  -William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

We, the people, are the foundation of a vast human pyramid, at the top of which comfortably rests a world elite that manipulates the human population and world events to broaden and maintain their power. The main agents of this global cartel are the banking elite, the military industrial complex, the medical establishment, the mainstream media, the entertainment industrial complex, and the hundreds of corrupt and co-opted world governments that act as henchmen and watchdogs for the unelected world rulers.

Over our heads they hang the constant specter of war, financial collapse, terrorism and pandemic disease, and to keep us from reacting to their deeds they enlist evermore advanced forms of mind control, biological control and social engineering.

The key to their dominance over the human race is the management of public perception, and how the public mind, in turn, affects the individual mind. Reality for us is very narrowly defined, which magnifies the perception of division between human beings, between humans and nature, and between individuals and their own true spiritual nature. As such we are all too easily sidelined or conquered altogether, and doomed to toil as relatively well-off slaves in their matrix of control, constantly struggling with and murdering each other.

They recruit us to enforce this prison of the mind on ourselves, and are creating a rising class of those who willingly support them in their efforts. The rest of us are merely subjects of their tyranny, whether we acknowledge it or not, and until a major cultural upheaval occurs, there is little chance of liberating the human race. Thus we must for now focus on liberating the individual and freeing human consciousness.

This realization is a powerful motivator, for it challenges all life-loving, courageous and compassionate people to hastily wake up, discover who we really are as spiritual beings having a human experience, and then become the best possible version of ourselves so that we me may contribute to the awakening and help to cast light on that which thrives in shadows.

“Sometimes I think this whole wide world is one big prison yard. Some of us are prisoners, the rest  of us are guards.” – Bob Dylan

Slamming the Doors

To gain administrative access to our consciousness and constrict our perception to such a narrow band, our vibration is kept humming along chaotically in the lowest possible frequencies of fear, panic, anger, blame, hate, uncertainty and limitation. To parry this onslaught, it is essential that we recognize the many negative influences that invade our minds, bodies and spirits, and fortify ourselves against the shallowness and negativity being marketed to us at every corner.

The mind is the agent of the spirit, and the body is the vehicle of the mind. By attacking first the body, the mind and spirit are thus duly compromised.

We are under continual barrage from industrial environmental pollution, toxic pesticide-laden and overly processed foods, DNA altering genetically modified organisms and vaccines, chemtrails, radiation, EMF’s, pharmaceuticals and so much more. The body’s immune systems are quite capable, but the deliberate trashing of our environment, food supply and health is one of the foremost challenges we must overcome in order to be able to move beyond the limitations imposed upon us. A full rejection of these pollutants (as best as is possible) is warranted in order to detoxify the body, decalcify the pineal gland and prepare the body to support the mind and spirit in its natural evolution of consciousness.

Stress is the weapon of choice for the elite, and the stress of living sedentary, material-driven, worker-bee lifestyles in pursuit of manipulated currencies keeps us focused completely on our personal interests and affairs, and always in competition with our neighbors, peers, friends and family. When our mind and spirit falter and our mental health suffers, we are herded to the clinics for mass-produced psychiatric evaluations that aim to hook us on psychotropic medications which numb us to life’s beauty and keep us entranced in the day-to-day work of supporting the economy with our time and energy.

Human imagination is crushed as today’s children are hammered with rigidity and mind-numbing repetition from an early age, and with the introduction of Common Core, our education system has become even more intolerant, close-minded and non-sensical. This system produces conformists who are good at following directions and working hard for material and superficial rewards. The ability to think clearly, focus, and imagine new possibilities are absolutely critical to understanding who you are, and to understanding your inherent power and flexibility as a human being.

The law and those who enforce it are there to add to the stress and confusion of living in the matrix, and the law is used overtly to cut us from organic and chemical substances which have the potential to help us quickly see through the grand illusion that is crafted for us. Human consciousness, however, naturally pushes to thrive, grow and expand, and as such it has triggered a wave of interest in the spiritual gifts of iboga, ayahuasca, psilocybin and shamanic medicine traditions. We have open access to alcohol, pharmaceuticals and are deliberately over-exposed to other consciousness debilitating substances like aspartame, fluoride, and high-fructose corn syrup, and there is an abundance in availability of parasitic street drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth-amphetamines.

Government plays the roles of spy, censor and thought police, thus robbing the psyche of the freedom of the exploration of thought. Religion seeks to homogenize spiritual experience and externalize divinity. The mind worms of the entertainment-industrial complex pollute the psyche and suck away our precious time by hammering us with insane amounts of celebrity worship and trifling entertainment options, usually in the form of sit-down-and-watch programming that lulls the mind and sub-conscious mind into deep, hypnotic states of trance and suggestiveness. Television has become a theater of the absurd, and constantly works at further blurring the lines between reality and false-reality, tinkering with our ability to accurately perceive the difference between the important and the trivial.

The dogs of war and the military industrial complex are there to enrich the elite while dominating the poor and insubordinate. They heavily propagandize our world to create the perception of constant threats, working to corral us into the narrowest possible ‘us-versus-them,’ reptilian modes of consciousness, and to distract from legitimate issues and concerns.

Heavily beaten down by all of this, most people seek security in the comfort of being part of a collective, some sort of like-minded group, no matter what it may be. As survival mechanisms, people attach labels to themselves and embellish their egos, picking teams and choosing sides, following the leader wherever he may go. Some join the Democrat team or the Republican team, some side with their particular race, some take trivial associations like sports teams and university associations far too seriously. The divisions among us are are driven into the collective conscience which wields heavy influence over the individual by way of peer pressure and conformity. The result is robotic closed-minded madness.

Your Task at Hand

It’s simple to control someone’s reality when you have unlimited resources, a sophisticated media apparatus at your fingertips, and a monopoly on currency and security. Doubly so when you can dumb people down with toxic lifestyles and mindless distractions. The point of this conversation, however, is to promote the simple idea that awareness offers opportunity, and when we acknowledge the many limitations which are criminally placed on most of us here on earth, we give ourselves the creative freedom to seek out and discover ways of being and living that defy heavy currents of conformity.

It is now your personal responsibility to do your best to mitigate the effects of your exposure to all of this insanity, and to fortify yourself physically, mentally and spiritually. By doing so, you’ll quickly become a wizard of sorts, someone who develops a new kind of immunity to the insanity and toxicity of modern life. You’ll become resilient and fearless, a new kind of warrior, if you will. Take this message with you and detox, purge, cleanse, renew, revitalize, reconstruct, restart, and re-awaken yourself, so that the infinite and wonderful experience of being a human being, alive on this amazing planet at this particular time, will not have been stolen from you.

The top of a pyramid is an insignificant part of its structure when compared to the base, for, if even one cornerstone crumbles the capstone itself falls.
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist esoteric arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. His remarkable journey of self-transformation is a testament to the power of the will and the persistence of the human spirit. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.

Mainstream Media Stock Prices Collapsing as People Choose Internet Over TV

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By Nick Bernabe

Source: AntiMedia.org

The long-term decline in viewership for America’s big TV outlets is finally starting to catch up to their stock prices. Since 2009, media stocks have been some of the best performers in S&P 500, but the last few days have seen $50 billion wiped from these companies.

According to Bloomberg, “Ignited by a plunge in Walt Disney Co., shares tracked by the 15-company S&P 500 Media Index have tumbled 8.2 percent in two days, the biggest slump for the group since 2008…In just five stocks — Disney, Time Warner Inc., Fox, CBS and Comcast Corp. — almost $50 billion of value was erased in two days. Viacom slid 14 percent on Thursday alone, its biggest drop since October 2008.”

Stock analysts say the reason behind the drop is simple on the surface: many of the media companies missed their profit projections, prompting investors to drop their stocks. Disney has lowered its growth projections for its sports brand, ESPN, while Viacom reported lower revenues than expected, which triggered a sell-off.

However, there is a larger trend at play here—one that the mainstream media—which is owned by these very companies facing the stock beat-down—doesn’t want to talk about. People are simply outgrowing the old media paradigm, and instead, are turning to the internet for both their news and entertainment at a break-neck pace. As we reported last month, Netflix will have more viewers than ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox by 2016.

Viewership of television media is dropping — and it’s left the old media scrambling for answers. According to the Huffington Post,

“Though overall video viewing is up thanks to a plethora of new online services, fewer people are sitting down in front of a television set and a growing number of households — roughly 2.6 million, or 2.8 percent — are becoming ‘broadband only,’ forgoing cable and broadcast signals altogether. In the third quarter of 2014, the average viewer watched 141 hours of TV a month, down 6 hours from the same time last year, and a full 12 minutes less per day.

Digital, on the other hand, has shown strong growth over the past year across all age groups, with viewership up 53 percent among people 18-49, up 62 percent among people 25-54, and up 55 percent among those 55 and older since the third quarter of 2013.”

In the past, TV news outlets relied on a virtual monopoly between the big six companies that own 90% of the media to make their numbers. This left viewers with no choice but to consume media from one of these companies if they watched TV.

But now, as people have multiple sources and choices of news thanks to the internet and independent media, the monopoly is coming under pressure. Aging generations, which will probably never break their TV habits, are now the only reliable audiences for the likes of CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS, and the rest of the mainstream media. Members of the internet age would rather have choices and read or watch news from sources they both trust and believe in. This is major problem for the old media, as poll after poll has shown eroding trust in the big six. According to Gallup polling numbers, Americans’ confidence in the media’s ability to report “the news fully, accurately, and fairly” reached an all-time low of 40% in 2014.

RELATED: Six Non-Corporate News Outlets You Should Be Following

The reason for the falling ratings and trust in the media is not mentioned in the poll, but one could speculate that younger generations have become disillusioned by endless war mongering, partisanship, racial bias, politician and police worship, reality TV, and celebrity media frenzies that have become the trademarks of TV news. However, one thing is clear: television media will soon suffer the same fate as the near-extinct newspaper industry—barring some unexpected miracle—and that is a positive development for the well being of the political and social conversation in America. America’s new media is becoming more like America as a whole: diverse.