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America’s Dying Democracy

America’s Dying Democracy


In the fall of 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, as families grieved and the nation mourned, Washington swarmed with locusts of the human kind: wartime opportunists, lobbyists, lawyers, ex-members of Congress, bagmen for big donors: all of them determined to grab what they could for their corporate clients and rich donors while no one was looking.

Across the land, the faces of Americans of every stripe were stained with tears. Here in New York, we still were attending memorial services for our firemen and police. But in the nation’s capital, within sight of a smoldering Pentagon that had been struck by one of the hijacked planes, the predator class was hard at work pursuing private plunder at public expense, gold-diggers in the ashes of tragedy exploiting our fear, sorrow, and loss.

The World Trade Center's Twin Towers burning on 9/11. (Photo credit: National Park Service)

The World Trade Center’s Twin Towers burning on 9/11. (Photo credit: National Park Service)

What did they want? The usual: tax cuts for the wealthy and big breaks for corporations. They even made an effort to repeal the alternative minimum tax that for 15 years had prevented companies from taking so many credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. And it wasn’t only repeal the mercenaries sought; they wanted those corporations to get back all the minimum tax they had ever been assessed.

They sought a special tax break for mighty General Electric, although you would never have heard about it if you were watching GE’s news divisions — NBC News, CNBC, or MSNBC, all made sure to look the other way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

7 Examples of Demonising Dissention and Public Opinion

7 Examples of Demonising Dissention and Public Opinion

As the Western world powers that be tighten their tyrannical controlling noose on humanity dissention and public opinion has never been so important: -As consistent with the quote from Orwell‘s novel 1984

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

To countermeasure this much-needed dissention and public opinion to raise awareness and free humanity the powers that be have taken a severe stance on punishing those who oppose their views regardless of truth or untruth to advance an oppressive agenda.

So, in response, during these times of universal deceit and oppression, here are 7 examples of unjustly demonising dissention and public opinion.

Dissention, political correctness, suppression, new world order, medical dissention, climate change, mandatory vaccination, Paul A Philips, New Paradigm, raising awareness

1. Medical dissention and the AMA’s gagging orders

To get an even larger slice of the medical monopoly the highly influential AMA (American Medical Association) a wing of the medical/pharmaceutical establishment has announced plans to put in gag orders designed to control and prevent doctors from speaking out publically on ‘dubious alternative medical practices.’  Should doctors go outside of the AMA’s guidelines then they could face having their licenses revoked while being unjustly accused of quackery…

-This unfairly biased stance will even further hit integral doctors offering help and advice on track-record proven effective alternative medical practices.

What has the US come to? People, are you going to allow this suppression of free speech? History has shown us time after time that medical advancements resulting in humanitarian contribution has come from challenging medical orthodoxy.  

Dissention, political correctness, suppression, new world order, medical dissention, climate change, mandatory vaccination, Paul A Philips, New Paradigm, raising awareness

2. Climate change

At a recent talk in Austin, Texas for the yearly South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) Al Gore, former vice-president, made a number of pseudo-scientific statements provably wrong about climate change with all its data manipulation in support of this monumental hoax.

Gore described climate change as ‘settled science’ but nothing could be further from the truth. Climate change is far from settled…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Three Fibs Premier Clark Uses to Sell LNG Dream

Three Fibs Premier Clark Uses to Sell LNG Dream

Sorry, it’s not clean. It won’t pay off. It’s not popular. Here’s why.

Why does Premier Clark keep saying LNG will bring a bonanza of jobs and revenues? Photo: Province of BC Flickr.

The more Christy Clark defends her dream of an LNG industry, the more she turns cold gas into hot air. The B.C. premier’s interview with Andrew MacLeod published last week in The Tyee is a case in point. As MacLeod pressed with many LNG-related questions, Clark resorted to three big, bloated fibs.

Fib #1: LNG is ‘clean’

While making our documentary Fractured Land about fracking in B.C., co-director Fiona Rayher and I journeyed to Cornell University to interview Dr. Robert Howarth. He is a global expert on the climate impacts of fracking.

CLARK’S SITE C INCONSISTENCIES

On the massive, taxpayer-funded Site C dam project, our premier remains where she’s always been: all over the map.

First, she told us the power was needed for the enormously energy-intensive LNG industry.

Then she creatively interpretedthe Clean Energy Act to mean that LNG plants could power themselves by burning some of their own gas, saving them money. That would produce three times the greenhouse gas emissions as would electric power. It also means her previous justification for Site C is gone.

Even BC Hydro recently admittedto the BC Utilities Commission that without powering LNG, we wouldn’t need the electricity from Site C until at least 2029.

This dam is therefore an unnecessary taxpayer-funded boondoggle of at least $9 billion that would flood or disrupt30,000 acres of some of the best farmland left in Canada, while violating First Nations’ treaty rights. — D.G.

We told him our premier has affixed the label “Cleanest Fossil Fuel on the Planet” to B.C. LNG (derived almost entirely from a massive increase in fracking in the province’s northeast).

 

The American Media: Pandering to Bias and Ignorance

The American Media: Pandering to Bias and Ignorance

anderson-cooper-attack-video1

The Texas board of education didn’t find anything wrong with a world geography textbook that said slaves from Africa were workers, but that immigrants from northern Europe were indentured servants.

This is the same school board that five years ago demanded that textbooks emphasize that slavery was only a side issue to the cause of the civil war, and that Republican achievements be emphasized in political science and civics textbooks.

For good measure, the officials also wanted a “fair and balanced” look at evolution versus intelligent design or creationism, and that global warming is only a theory, overlooking substantial and significant scientific evidence.

Because Texas adopts textbooks for the entire state, and there is minimal local choice, publishers tend to publish what Texas wants. The geography book had a 100,000 sale in Texas alone. However, McGraw-Hill, under a firestorm of protest from educators and parents, is modifying the text—African slaves will no longer be “workers” but slaves in the next printing.

Publishers in America, trying to reap the widest possible financial benefit by not offending anyone, especially school boards, often force authors to overlook significant historical and social trends. For more than a century, books which targeted buyers in the North consistently overlooked or minimized Southern views about the Civil War; other books, which targeted a Southern readership, discussed the War of Northern Aggression or the War Between the States.

Almost all media overlooked significant issues about slavery, the genocide against Native Americans, the real reasons for the Mexican-American War, the seizure of personal property and subsequent incarceration of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, the reasons why the United States went to war in Vietnam, the first Gulf War and, more recent, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

6 Positive Signs That Mainstream Media is Collapsing

6 Positive Signs That Mainstream Media is Collapsing

Off-Air Mainstream Media TVThere is an information awakening taking place right now, and mainstream media is being outed for what it really is: corporate and government controlled propaganda. People are turning to alternative news sources more swiftly than ever now, and as a result, the old guard of media is collapsing at free-fall speeds.

Here are 6 positive signs of the collapse of mainstream media:

1. Mainstream Media is Owned by a Handful of Corporations and the People Know It

It’s no secret anymore that nearly everything we see, read, and hear comes from just a handful of mega-corporations. Thanks to the alternative media, it has become a widely known fact that just six corporations control 90% of the media we consume. These big six have the ability to make key decisions and delegate the news to their lower subsidiary companies by cutting out important stories or alternative points of view. People recognize this and are moving over to the indy media as a result.

2. Fox Stops Disclosing Live Viewership Ratings

Fox News, a subsidiary company owned by Rupert Murdoch of News Corp and top mainstream media outlet has just announced that it will stop disclosing its ratings for live TV viewership. They argue that these statistics are no longer relevant because of how many record their television shows, but it is also being seen as a way to hide a decaying audience. Fox will now be repackaging statistics on a weekly basis to make even the most modest results appear positive.

3. 98% of Young Adults Do Not Trust Mainstream Media

A recent poll shows that only 2% of young adults trust the mainstream media to do the “right thing” on a regular basis. This poll, which was conducted at the Harvard Institute of Politics on over 3,000 18-29 year olds, shows that only 2% of young adults trust the media to “do the right thing” “all of the time.” 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Imagine

Peak Oil: Imagine

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Imagine what would happen if citizens took a moment or two to ponder the implications of the nonsense peddled to them daily by those public voices having decidedly different priorities than the public’s continued well-being….

Thanks to investment into supercomputers, robotics and the use of chemicals to extract the maximum from available reservoirs, the accessible oil and gas reserves will almost double by 2050.
Together with the development of renewable resources and nuclear power, the world will thus have more than 20 times the amount of energy it needs to cover its consumption despite growing demand.
‘Energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared,’ said David Eyton, BP Group Head of Technology at the launch of BP’s inaugural Technology Outlook.
‘We are probably nearing the point where potential from additional recovery from discovered reservoirs exceeds the potential for exploration.’
Together with the development of renewable resources and nuclear power, the world will thus have more than 20 times the amount of energy it needs to cover its consumption despite growing demand. [1]

Isn’t that fantastic? We’re using chemicals [mostly undisclosed, of course] to “extract the maximum from available reservoirs” and we don’t even have to explain what that does and does not mean! Double fantastic! As if that’s not enough, no mention of costs, quality, or anything else! Wow!

Better still: by developing “renewable resources and nuclear power, the world will thus have more than 20 times the amount of energy it needs to cover its consumption despite growing demand” and we don’t even have to say a word about those pesky concerns as to having all the necessary infrastructure in place; research requirements and obstacles; funding challenges; worries about nuclear accidents … hell, we don’t have to explain a single issue about how this will all magically fall into place!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

PBS Joins the MSM’s Syria-Russia Bias

PBS Joins the MSM’s Syria-Russia Bias


PBS Newshour is considered high-quality journalism by many North Americans. But is it? A test case is their report on Nov. 24 when a Russian jet was shot down and one pilot killed as he descended by parachute. This was a significant international event and the situation is still dangerous. The conflict in Syria could get even worse. PBS Newshour presented a discussion/analysis of the event with two guests: Nicholas Burns and Angela Stent. The PBS Newshour host was Judy Woodruff.

This critique applies to that one PBS Newshour broadcast but the essential points are true for much of what you see on the program (and across the mainstream U.S. news media). Assumptions and bias regarding the Syrian conflict are pervasive and persistent. So, how can U.S. foreign policy change (or even show some nuance) if the public is continually fed biased and false information from one point of view? Here are specific points:

pbslogo

PBS Newshour selected two analysts with essentially the same viewpoint, representing the U.S. government and military/security establishment:

Nicholas Burns is a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. In early 2003 he urged the “unity” of NATO as some NATO allies expressed doubts about the U.S. the invasion of Iraq. In 2006, he urged punishing sanctions on Iran. In 2011, Burn wrote, “President Obama was surely right to commit the United States, however reluctantly, to the NATO campaign [to overthrow Libyan President Gaddafi].” Burns has a track record supporting Western aggression against other countries. He evidently has learned nothing from the resulting chaos, devastation and death.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media

Research Confirms ExxonMobil, Koch-funded Climate Denial Echo Chamber Polluted Mainstream Media

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) shows that the climate denial echo chamber organizations funded by ExxonMobil and Koch family foundations produced misinformation that effectively polluted mainstream media coverage of climate science and polarized the climate policy debate.

The abstract and full text of the study can be found here: Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate change.

The analysis of 20 years’ worth of data by Yale University researcher Dr. Justin Farrell shows beyond a doubt that ExxonMobil and the Kochs are the key actors who funded the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and ensured the prolific spread of their doubt products throughout our mainstream media and public discourse.

The contrarian efforts have been so effective for the fact that they have made it difficult for ordinary Americans to even know who to trust,” Dr. Farrell told the Washington Post which was first to cover the news of the study’s release. “This counter-movement produced messages aimed, at the very least, at creating ideological polarization through politicized tactics, and at the very most, at overtly refuting current scientific consensus with scientific findings of their own,” Dr. Farrell said.

From PNAS’s press briefing note about the article by Dr. Farrell:

Corporate funding likely influences the nature and content of polarizing texts pertaining to climate change, according to a study. Political polarization has become a hallmark of climate change policy discussion, with multiple groups in various sectors contributing to public discourse regarding climate and energy. To quantify the influence of corporate funding in climate change discourse, Justin Farrell analyzed more than 39 million words of text produced by 164 organizations active in the climate change counter-movement between 1993 and 2013. The author examined the ideological content of the produced texts, as well as the funding behind the organizations that produced the texts.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How you were tricked into supporting the war in Syria

How you were tricked into supporting the war in Syria 

It started in 2006 when the US decided it wanted to oust Syrian President Assad and started laying the ground work. This was proven by leaked Saudi Arabian intelligence cables hosted on Wikileaks. Julian Assange said of the leaks:

“That plan was to use a number of different factors to create paranoia within the Syrian government; to push it to overreact, to make it fear there’s a coup…so in theory it says ‘We have a problem with Islamic extremists crossing over the border with Iraq, and we’re taking actions against them to take this information and make the Syrian government look weak, the fact that it is dealing with Islamic extremists at all.”

The same year, the Islamic State was just a half-baked insurgent group in Iraq. The group would then migrate to Syria, where it was reinforced by battalions of defecting Free Syrian Army troops who were trained by the United States. Many of those claimed to have ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. The Islamic State truly became a child of the United States.

In 2009, the United States began secretly funding opposition groups within Syria and even provided $6 million to Barada TV, a UK-based TV channel, to produce propaganda to support “regime change” inside Syria.

Slowly but surely, the US and its allies put this plan into effect until in March of 2011 spontaneous demonstrations popped up in Syria demanding Assad step down.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

Right Again, Pt. 1

Right Again, Pt. 1

Human nature being what it is, predictably there are those who still harbor doubts about certain issues pertaining to current and future fossil fuel supplies. There is, however, no doubt that there’s an over-abundance of juvenile, fact-free nonsense passing as gospel truth from industry cheerleaders and media counterparts.

To whose benefit these tactics accrue is not at all in doubt, either: it’s certainly notcitizens depending on others to provide them with the facts about and implications of matters outside the scope of their daily responsibilities and concerns.

If consequences to all of us weren’t an important consideration, it would be amusing if slightly annoying to deal with barely-knowledgeable and and even less-honest commentary about vast resources for centuries, yadda yadda yadda.

But a public with little appetite for, interest in, or opportunity to investigate crucial matters on their own continues to be subjected to a steady stream of misinformation, barely-there facts, and and outright lies by a group whose self-serving professional and financial interests leave no room for the public’s well-being—now, or in the years to come.

Tax policy, climate change, energy supply, tobacco, health care … the subject matter may be different, but the tactics are culled from the same Gospel of Deceit and Distraction. The strategy is employed by a large-enough group whose membership is either genuinely daft and thus has no business peddling pseudo-information to an unsuspecting public, or they are woefully short on supplies of integrity and consideration for the welfare of … well, anyone else.

Must be nice….

As Exhibit B this time around, we have this remarkably cherry-picked piece of fluff entitled “Earth Is An Oil-Producing Machine — We’re Not Running Out.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

How the Mass Media Controls Consensus Reality

How the Mass Media Controls Consensus Reality

“The people will believe what the media tells them they believe.” — George Orwell

“It’s not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true.” — Henry Kissinger

“Whoever controls the media controls reality.” — Peter Jennings

“When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.” — Dresden James

In an earlier message I wrote:

“Nothing in the world is as it seems.”

On one level, the ‘theater of illusion’ world we live in believed by many to be true can be mainly attributed to two things.

1.  The hidden controllers running the planet have managed to manipulate the mass media and in effect control consensus reality.

This has been done to produce the desired behavioral patterns; thoughts, opinions, attitudes, social norms… in the masses so that they can be ruled over.

In short, the media is regarded by the hidden controllers  as a necessary tool for a dictatorship.

2. The majority of the human population has allowed itself to be deceived through ignorance, deception, stupidity, chronic apathy or a serious lack of curiosity and questioning, all somewhat bolstered by cynicism… Consumerism rules; as long as their bellies are full and heads filled with mindless entertainment or other gratuitous distraction… they’re happy.

Genetic cloning is unnecessary. Cloning has already been done care of the effects of mass media brainwashing.

Taking the above two factors into account let’s look at just how the mass media controls consensus reality.

Tool for a Dictatorship

The hidden controllers  regard the human population as nothing more than sheep incapable of looking after themselves, needing to be shepherded.

This has been made abundantly clear over the years by spokesmen/agents for the controllers  advocating mind control techniques in the mass media for shaping human thought.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The ‘Anti-Knowledge’ of the Elites

The ‘Anti-Knowledge’ of the Elites

Exclusive: It’s fairly easy to spot the “anti-knowledge” spouted by the Tea Party and the Religious Right’s favorite candidates, but a more subtle form of reality-deprived “group think” pervades America’s elites though it is rarely noted in the polite circles of the mainstream media, writes Mike Lofgren.


In a previous piece, I described how the Republican Party and its ideological allies in the fundamentalist churches have confected a comprehensive media-entertainment complex to attract low-information Americans and turn them into partisans.

The propaganda they are fed has become so disconnected from facts, evidence and logic that it is all too easy to laugh at people operating on demonstrably — and even ridiculously — false premises, such as the notion that Barack Obama, born in Hawaii, is not a natural-born American, or that the Sandy Hook school massacre was an elaborate fake designed to take away the firearms of patriotic Americans.

Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2006. (U.S. government photo)

It would be comforting to believe that somewhere in the commanding heights of our permanent government, there are important players who are serious grownups who know what they are doing. That, at least, is the impression they seek to convey with their sober demeanors, credentials from think tanks or prestigious universities, and the measured, almost soporific testimony they deliver to congressional committees.

Think of Robert Gates, Ashton Carter, Timothy Geithner or Eric Holder. On the surface, they seem the very antithesis of the Tea Party fanatic, gibbering about ISIS training camps in America. The preferred pose of these establishment personages is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well-considered advice based on their profound expertise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BBC Protects U.K.’s Close Ally Saudi Arabia With Incredibly Dishonest and Biased Editing

The BBC loves to boast about how “objective” and “neutral” it is. But a recent article, which it was forced to change, illustrates the lengths to which the British state-funded media outlet will go to protect one of the U.K. government’s closest allies, Saudi Arabia, which also happens to be one of the country’s largest arms purchasers (just this morning, the Saudi ambassador to the U.K. threatened in an op-ed that any further criticism of the Riyadh regime by Jeremy Corbyn could jeopardize the multi-layered U.K./Saudi alliance).

Earlier this month, the BBC published an article describing the increase in weapons and money sent by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf regimes to anti-Assad fighters in Syria. All of that “reporting” was based on the claims of what the BBC called “a Saudi government official,” who — because he works for a government closely allied with the U.K. — was granted anonymity by the BBC and then had his claims mindlessly and uncritically presented as fact (it is the rare exception when the BBC reports adversarially on the Saudis). This anonymous “Saudi official” wasn’t whistleblowing or presenting information contrary to the interests of the regime; to the contrary, he was disseminating official information the regime wanted publicized. This was the key claim of the anonymous Saudi official (emphasis added):

The well-placed official, who asked not to be named, said supplies of modern, high-powered weaponry including guided anti-tank weapons would be increased to the Arab- and western-backed rebel groups fighting the forces of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

MH-17 Case: ‘Old’ Journalism vs. ‘New’

MH-17 Case: ‘Old’ Journalism vs. ‘New’


The first thing any thinking person learns about the Internet is not to trust everything you see there. While you can find much well-researched and reliable material, you’ll also encounter disinformation, spoofs, doctored photographs and crazy conspiracy theories. That would seem to be a basic rule of the Web – caveat emptor and be careful what you do with the information – unless you’re following a preferred neocon narrative. Then, nothing to worry about.

A devil-may-care approach to Internet-sourced material has been particularly striking when it comes to the case of the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. It has now become de rigueur on the part of the West’s mainstream news outlets to tout the dubious work of a British Internet outlet called Bellingcat, which bases its research on photographs and other stuff pulled off the Internet.

President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the situation in Ukraine, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 29, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgins also has made journalistic errors that would have ended the careers of many true professionals, yet he continues to be cited and hailed by the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, which have historically turned up their noses about Internet-based journalism.

The secret to Higgins’s success seems to be that he reinforces what the U.S. government’s propagandists want people to believe but lack the credibility to sell. It’s a great business model, marketing yourself as a hip “citizen journalist” who just happens to advance Official Washington’s “group thinks.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Lies

Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Lies

Over the last few years, a growing number of people have been taking a hard look at what is happening to our planet – historic droughts, rising sea levels, massive floods – and acknowledging, finally, that human activity is propelling rapid climate change. But guess what? Exxon (now ExxonMobil) had an inkling of this as early as 1978.

By the early 1980s, Exxon scientists had much more than an inkling. They not only understood the science behind climate change, but also recognized the company’s own outsize role in driving the phenomenon. Recognizing the potential effects as “catastrophic” for a significant portion of the population, they urged Exxon’s top executives to take action. Instead, the executives buried the truth.

There may be a silver lining to this infuriating story: the recent investigation that exposed Exxon’s deceit could end up catalyzing the action needed to address the looming climate crisis. After all, similar revelations about the tobacco industry – what the major cigarette companies knew and when they knew it – transformed the public-health landscape.

In 1996, a series of lawsuits forced tobacco companies to release millions of internal documents, which confirmed what public-health advocates and policymakers had long suspected: as early as the 1950s, the industry knew that nicotine was addictive and that cigarettes caused cancer. But, to protect its own interests, Big Tobacco deliberately misled the public, doing everything possible to cast doubt on scientific findings that it knew to be accurate. Such tactics enabled the industry to delay, for more than 50 years, regulation that could have saved millions of lives annually.

After the revelations, however, it was clear that the tobacco industry was a malevolent force that did not belong in the policymaking process. With Big Tobacco out of the picture, and armed with evidence of the real effects of tobacco consumption, health advocates were finally able to compel their governments to act.

Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/exxonmobil-scandal-climate-policy-by-kelle-louaillier-and-bill-mckibben-2015-10#TXsGAuoOQLybvj6Q.99

 

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