7/12: Host Douglas Lain has a freewheeling discussion with Steven Michalkow connecting an odd episode of Columbo with psychoanalysis, theology, philosophy, surrealism, “The Prisoner” TV series and beyond:
7/13: On Expanding Minds, author Mitch Horowitz discusses the history of positive thinking, William James and the modern skeptic movement among other related topics:
7/14: On The Progressive Commentary Hour retired US Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson discusses parallels between the build up to war with Syria and build up to the invasion of Iraq followed by Dr. Douglas Hall, Executive Director of National Priorities Project, who discusses the backwards priorities of the federal budget.
7/15: Guillermo Jimenez and Danny Benavides tackle the immigration issue and the escalating “humanitarian crisis” along the US-Mexico border on Traces of Reality Radio:
4/2: Guillermo Jimenez has a conversation with Danny Benavides at Traces of Reality to discuss the drug war, the surveillance state, and the increasing use of violence by the Border Patrol among other topics:
4/2: At Red Ice Radio, host Henrik Palmgren interviews Mark Gray to discuss occult symbolism, synchronicity and geomancy in connection to a number of current events. Mystical phenomenon or pattern recognition gone awry? You decide:
4/3: Dave Lindorff of This Can’t Be Happening interviews Elena Teyer mother-in-law of Ibragim Todashev, the man executed by the FBI during their “investigation” of the Boston Bombing. They reveal many details about the case which were ignored by corporate news coverage:
4/4: On the Meria Heller show, Meria and guest Catherine Austin Fitts deliver useful information on the banking system, investing on priorities and improving one’s lifestyle:
4/5: Computer security expert Conrad Jaeger joins host Greg Carlwood at The Higher Side Chats to talk about the deep web, cyber security and the surveillance state:
1/11 Guillermo Jimenez and writer/activist Larry Pinkney discuss the recent release of Lynne Stewart in the context of past and present COINTELPRO actions against activists at Traces of Reality:
1/13 On the Black Agenda Report they commemorate the life of Amiri Baraka, discuss the war on poverty, important people-powered movements for 2014, failures of the moderate democrats and the International Criminal Court, the Washington Post as CIA asset, and an update on the Dallas 5:
1/13 Guy Evans and independent journalist Rania Khalek discuss positive aspects and limitations of independent media, the school-to-prison pipeline, Nelson Mandela, the NSA and other topics on Smells Like Human Spirit:
1/15 On the C-Realm Podcast, KMO and David J. Blacker explore the themes of David’s new book, The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame. They cover big questions related to technology and economics such as “If public education in the 20th Century was shaped by the needs of capitalist production, what form does education take when what Capitalists really need a growing segment of the population to do is go away?”:
1/16 Another great Smells Like Human Spirit interview featuring former LAPD police officer and whistleblower Michael Ruppert. They discuss JFK, the rise of corporate power, and the future of the surveillance state among other topics:
Though I don’t regularly feature podcasts delving into horror/sci-fi aspects of pop culture or the world of metaphysics and the paranormal, today seems an appropriate time to share a few in observance of Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, Day of the Dead, etc.
10/30 Tim Binnall and David Acord commemorate the 75th anniversary of Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast with an analysis of the program, how it came to be, its importance in the context of emerging technology and the field of media literacy, and how it’s connected to conspiracy and UFOlogy: Show link: http://www.binnallofamerica.com/boaa103013.html
Judging from the last few minutes of this trailer for his film “F For Fake”, Welles himself was involved in perpetuating the mystery and speculation surrounding his War of the Worlds broadcast:
10/30 The always educational “Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know” video podcast covers the origins of Halloween traditions:
There’s been another string of relevant news podcasts in the past few days so it’s time for another roundup post.
Last week Rob Kall of OpEdnews.cominterviewed Peter Ludlow a professor of linguistics and philosophy, on topics including systemic evil, whistleblowers and hacktivism:
From Traces of Reality there were two great consecutive shows. On 9/30 host Guillermo Jimenez interviewed Kevin Gallagher, director of Free Barrett Brown. Brown is the journalist who faces a 105 year sentence, the bulk of which is related to charges associated with pasting a link in a chat room. On the 10/1 episode, Guillermo is joined by Vice President of The Future of Freedom Foundation, Sheldon Richman. They cover topics including the “government shutdown”, the national debt, taxation, private property, the “social contract,” and the fallacy of the “consent of the governed.”:
What kind of link does the government think warrants such punishment? Documents revealing the secrets-sharing relationship between government and private security companies, apparently. That was what Barrett Brown linked to, and was the root cause of his 105 year sentence. Brown is an author and activist journalist best known for his “spokesperson” role for the hacker collective “Anonymous”. He was also a close friend and associate of fellow journalist Michael Hastings, who was working on a story with Brown shortly before his death in a suspicious car explosion. In his last published article, Hastings wrote:
Transparency supporters, whistleblowers, and investigative reporters, especially those writers who have aggressively pursued the connections between the corporate defense industry and federal and local authorities involved in domestic surveillance, have been viciously attacked by the Obama administration and its allies in the FBI and DOJ.
…Barrett Brown, another investigative journalist who has written for Vanity Fair, among others [sic] publications, exposed the connections between the private contracting firm HB Gary (a government contracting firm that, incidentally, proposed a plan to spy on and ruin the reputation of the Guardian’s [Glenn] Greenwald) and who is currently sitting in a Texas prison on trumped up FBI charges regarding his legitimate reportorial inquiry into the political collective known sometimes as Anonymous.
…Perhaps more information will soon be forthcoming.
In 2010, Brown formed his own online collective called Project PM to investigate documents uncovered by Anonymous, Wikileaks and others. Among the documents they analyzed were ones involving the security company Stratfor Global Intelligence revealing close relationships between them, several other security contractors and several agencies of the government (including the NSA).
A recent article by Alfredo Lopez of OpEdNews.com covers the important details about the case and why it matters for all of us who believe in freedom of speech and freedom of information. The following excerpts outline why Barrett Brown’s case may also be of concern for everyone who uses the internet:
To make this personal, do you use links? Or, a less absurd question, are you sure the links you post don’t include criminal information? Today, there are an estimated 4500 federal criminal statutes and that means that, at some point in your life, you’ve probably violated federal law without knowing it. The same is true of the people who posted the material you are linking to. As ridiculous as it may seem, based on the Brown prosecution, you could be charged with a crime without having any involvement in it by linking to material posted by people who have no idea they committed a crime.
For example, here’s the link to the Stratfor files. While it indicates that these linked documents have now been cleansed of credit card information, I can’t be sure of that. Nor do I know that other information the government considers illegal (or may in the future) isn’t in there. I haven’t read all the documents. But based on what prosecutors are saying, if these files do contain information they eventually consider illegal, I could be charged with spreading it.
On the one hand, they attack privacy, which makes the Internet useful for us. Now they’re attacking links, the protocol that makes the Internet…well, the Internet. That’s something we can’t afford to lose
For those who might want to do something about this, there’s a website of people trying to organize a campaign in his support.
At Traces of Reality Radio, host Guillermo Jimenez recently interviewed Christian Stork, author of the WhoWhatWhy article about the connections between Hastings, Brown and Snowden. They discuss Brown’s work and how he became a target of the FBI, how Project PM exposed HB Gary and Romas/COIN, the State Department and their use of “persona management software” and social media “sock puppets,” among other topics:
A number of podcasts have been released in the past week that are extremely relevant and would be of interest to people across a diverse spectrum of worldviews.
8/29/13: A short but perceptive discussion on Syria from James Evan Pilato and James Corbett posted at MediaMonarchy.com.
9/1/13: Modern mystic Neil Kramer shares his unique and uplifting spiritual insights in a conversation with Greg Carlwood and Kyle Prindiville on The Higherside Chats.
9/2/13: The always on-point veteran Panther Larry Pinkney speaks out on Syria and what we can do to affect positive change with host Guillermo Jimenez on Traces of Reality Radio.
9/3/13: Clyde Lewis interviews former intelligence agent and whistleblower Frank G. Ford on Ground Zero.
9/4/13: Henrik Palmgren leads a discussion with independent scholars Joseph Atwill and Ryan Gilmore on the topic of religion as a psychological weapon and its connection to modern war propaganda on Red Ice Radio.
After the Crash 