The New York Times Won’t Report The News

The New York Times (and liberal media generally) have two ways of dealing with news they don’t like.

Stories can be ingeniously “spun” so their significance is dimmed. The  main facts might be mentioned; but the emphasis is expertly shifted and important details are placed toward the end. Opposing testimony is featured throughout. The “spun” story, a murmur of its prior self, is then buried on a back page.

A more radical, more Orwellian technique is to pretend that the story never happened. News is thus “disappeared.” Savor the irony. A vast organization–allegedly set up to find news–ends up functioning as a screening device to identify undesirable stories and hide them.

This second technique seems more commonplace and reckless in the Obama era. Previously, the Times could ignore a story, confident that few people would realize it hadn’t been covered. In the age of the internet and the New Media, the Times has to know that a big portion of the population will hear about significant stories. Bizarrely, the Times doesn’t seem to care about its own declining prestige.

Here then are three big stories NOT reported in the New York Times.

1) Hollywood Heroine. During the 2008 primary season, Bettina Viviano, a producer with serious film credits, was deeply involved in the campaign to nominate Hillary Clinton. She was typical of thousands of smart professional women who assumed that Hillary would be the nominee; and they wanted to be part of the process. Shockingly, they discovered that politics is a rough game indeed when played by the gang from Chicago.

Bettina Viviano witnessed intimidation, fraud, anything you can think of that gangster politicians have done throughout history. Viviano and colleague Gigi Gaston decided to make a documentary about this tainted primary. The title is “We Will Not Be Silenced.” Two things happened: lots of people had grim stories to tell; and great pressure was brought to shut down the project. Indeed, it was put on hold during 2009.

In the spring of 2012, Viviano decided she couldn’t remain silent. She wrote some articles, gave some interviews. She’s an impressive witness and tells a fascinating story. She argues that had the primary been conducted legally, Hillary would have been the candidate. More surprising to many is Viviano’s comment that everyone in the campaign assumed Obama was ineligible, and that Bill Clinton would step forward at the proper time to dismiss Obama’s legitimacy. He didn’t do this, Viviano said, because he was threatened. Anyway, at risk to her career (at least), Viviano told a detailed story that unfolds over months and now years. This is not some little anecdote but a big slice of American political history that should have been served up on the front page of every paper in America: INSIDERS SAY OBAMA MACHINE STOLE NOMINATION.

It’s far more significant than anything we heard about Herman Cain; but the Times covered Herman Cain in scores of stories, smirking, scorning, chortling (in a tone the Times would call “racist” if the subject were Obama.)

But if you go to the New York Times now to learn about a far more important chapter in our history, here’s what the search engine says: “Your search - bettina viviano, hillary clinton - did not match any documents.”

2) “America’s Sheriff.” This nickname tells you that Joe Arpaio is a national figure, and that probably millions of people know about his activities. He held a press conference on March 1, 2012, to announce that Obama’s newest birth certificate was most likely a forgery. Later in the year, July 17, he held a second press conference to announce there’s no doubt: the official White House birth certificate is a digital forgery. This is a huge story with many unique features, just what journalists used to hunger for. There’s only one investigation by a law enforcement group into this birth certificate, and only one nationally famous sheriff. Not to mention, somebody in the White House is committing forgery.

The Times touched on this story a few times fleetingly, with no detail or forensic curiosity. At present there is a long biographical sketch of Arpaio, about 1500 words, on the Times website, with this single reference: “Mr. Arpaio has waged an increasingly bitter dispute with the Obama administration, including questioning the president’s birth certificate and portraying the civil rights investigation as politicized.”

This is almost comedy journalism. As Arpaio himself has mentioned, if a reporter wants to win a Pulitzer, all he has to do is refute the sheriff’s investigation.

3) Handicapper. Wayne Allyn Root is, according to his August 6 article and video, “one of the most accurate Las Vegas oddsmakers and prognosticators.” Furthermore, Root was in Columbia’s Class of ‘83, the president’s class. Root notes that virtually nobody  remembers seeing this guy. But the real question is how does a student with mediocre grades, a fondness for reefer, and not much money manage to attend several Ivy League schools? Root plays the biggest hunch of his career, claiming that Obama had all his records sealed because he most likely attended Columbia as a “foreign exchange student.” In that classification, Obama did not need good grades, money, or even to attend class.

Rush Limbaugh read the entire column on the air. Root’s prognostications went viral. At that point, the Times should at least report the story. If they could refute Root’s analysis, why not do it?

This story, of course occurred a few months after another equally huge story that Obama, on his literary agent’s website, said he was from Kenya. This claim remained on the web for more than 10 years. Meanwhile, the president’s birth certificate has been denounced as a fake. A Republican politician would not survive two days with these convergent accusations hanging in the air. The Times would report them in banner headlines.

Times search engine reports: “Your search [last 12 months] - wayne allyn root - did not match any documents.

Where the president is concerned, the Times sees no evil, hears no evil, and reports no evil. The wider tragedy is that this faux-newspaper dictates what all the lesser papers will bother to report. Check your local paper: did it report these stories?

People should be asking when did “media whore” become a tautology? Once upon a time, media whore referred to people who would do anything to be mentioned in the news. Now the phrase better refers to media that will do anything to avoid mentioning the news.

Education is my main beat; I think of this as an education story. The media won’t report facts. Schools try not to teach facts. There almost seems to be, throughout our society, what Martin Gross called “a conspiracy of ignorance.”

The Zionist Caricature

Could it be that Zionist-caricature Alan Dershowitz has resorted to comedy as he desperately tries to win his battle against me and my book?  What else could explain this intellectually retarded Zionist mouthpiece’s repetition of the same old lies? A few years ago Norman Finkelstein established that Dershowitz is a plagiarist, but now Dershowitz extends this infamous title – Now, he’s actually plagiarising his own phantasmic fibs!

Just a week before Hanukah, fancying himself as a bit of a music critic, Dershowitz described me as an ‘obscure saxophonist’. This was amusing enough, but yesterday Dershowitz elaborated on his notion of ‘obscurity’. In an embarrassingly unimaginative andvindictive article he called Chicago University Professor of Philosophy Brian Leiter a “relatively obscure professor of jurisprudence”. For a native English speaker (and a Harvard Professor) Dershowitz sure has a limited English vocabulary.

Professor Leiter’s crime was obvious enough: he stood up for freedom of expression and open debate. He defended Professor John Mearsheimer who has endorsed ‘The Wandering Who’ and refused to bow to vile and relentless Zionist pressure to withdraw his praise for the book.

To read Professor Leiter’s article click here.

Ethnic cleanser advocate Dershowitz writes. “Without bothering even to read Atzmon’s book, Leiter pronounced that Atzmon’s ‘positions [do not mark him] as an anti-Semite [but rather as] cosmopolitan.’ Leiter also certified that Atzmon ‘does not deny the Holocaust or the gas chambers.’ Had Leiter read the book, he could not have made either statement.”

Dershowitz sure has some chutzpah, since it’s actually he who didn’t read ‘The Wandering Who’.   If he had, he would have seen that in the book and in all my writing I neither deny nor do I affirm any historical aspect of the Holocaust, gas chambers or the Judeocide in general. Instead, I insist that history cannot be sealed by laws. I also insist that intellectual curiosity and our knowledge of the past cannot be vetted or confined by anyone, let alone such morbid minds as that of Dershowitz himself. Open society is about the openness to think freely and to express those thoughts.

Dershowitz’ continues “Atzmon himself credits ‘a man who…was an anti-Semite’ for ‘many of [his] insights’ and calls himself a ‘self-hating Jew’ who has contempt for ‘the Jew in me (him).’ If that’s not an admission of anti-Semitism, rather than ‘cosmopolitanism.’”

But is this really an ‘admission of antisemitism’? Let’s examine Dershowitz’ intentionally lame, convoluted and misleading argument. To start with, the ‘Antisemite’ whom I indeed follow, is Otto Weininger, one of the most influential intellects of pre- WWII Europe. But, it is not Weininger’s alleged ‘antisemitism’ that I follow as I clearly note in my book, but actually Weininger the genius philosopher. It is also true that I am a ‘self hater’ and even a ‘proud self hater’ – an intellectual position still legal in the West. It is also true that I oppose the ‘Jew’ in me, but how does that make me into an antisemite? By opposing the Jew in me, I oppose only an ideology.  Basically, I reject all the symptoms Dershowitz and other Zionists manifest in every and each of their relentless Judeo-centric hasbara campaigns i.e. supremacy, duplicity, brutality, vindictivess, ignorance and arrogance.

Furthermore, I do not and cannot oppose or hate the ‘Semite’ in me. This is simply because there is no such a quality in me. Unlike Dershowitz and his Zionists ilk, I do not think in racial terms. I am honest enough to admit that I am no ‘Semite’ and that my ancestry lies not in Palestine. I am probably some kind of Khazarian mongrel – as is Dershowitz and most European Jews.

Dershowitz continues, “Leiter went so far as to condemn those who dared to criticize Mearsheimer for endorsing Atzmon’s book, calling their criticism ‘hysterical’ and not ‘advance[ing] honest intellectual discourse.”

Professor Leiter is actually spot- on in here. Prophetically he manages to describe Dershowitz’ tantrum – the Zionist advocate is clearly hysterical as he tries desperately to block intellectual debate and exchange. On numerous occasions I have invited Dershowitz for a debate, but it seems the Zionist caricature would not or could not take the risk. Dershowitz is evidently as much a coward as he is a loudmouth.

Towards the end of his rant as Dershowitz reaches his climax, Professor Leiter becomes just a category namely ‘the Leiters’.   “The Leiters of the world”, says Dershowitz, “are an important part of the reason why anti-Semitic tropes are creeping back to legitimacy in academia.” This has left me puzzled. What about the ‘remote’ possibility that it is actually the Dershowitzes of the world who, by their misbehaviour and by their support of the criminal Jewish State, are bringing shame and even disaster, God forbid, on the Jews? I cannot understand how one of America’s alleged ‘leading lawyers’ can fail to see that his shameless behaviour may well be the root cause of the rapidly emerging anti-Jewish feelings in America and beyond.

But it seems as if Professor Leiter, Professor Richard Falk, Professor Mearsheimer and myself are not alone. According to Zionist-parody Dershowitz, we are in a good company. Leading Republican Candidate Ron Paul has also found his way into becoming a target for Dershowitz’ impotent rage. Paul is accused of being affiliated with, guess what, ‘anti semitism’ and ‘holocaust denial’.

http://youtu.be/GdDJvJJsVsU

For some reason, Dershowitz, one of the most despised Zionists ever, seems to believe that he holds the moral high ground. “Shame on them!” he proclaims referring to Professor Leiter and  Ron Paul.  Well, Dershowitz must know quite a bit about shame – He sure brings a lot of it on himself and on every Jew and Zionist foolish enough to associate with him and his message.

To read a complete deconstruction of Dershowitz’ lies click here.

To read the Dershowitz attack on Rep Ron Paul Professor Leiter and myself click here.

A Christian Palestinian Gandhi Responds to the GOP

Newt Gingrich claims the Palestinians are not just an “invented people” but also “Terrorists. They teach terrorism in their schools”.

Newt also stated “It’s fundamentally time for somebody to have the guts to stand up and say, enough lying about the Middle East.”

In solidarity with “enough lying” and because it’s not my revolution unless I can laugh I’ll begin with Jon Stewart’s nailing of the pandering from the GOP:

Naim Ateek is a Palestinian Christian who became a refugee in 1948 and he founded SABEEL after the first Palestinian intifada [translates to: rise up and cast off] that erupted on December 9, 1987.

The theology of SABEEL rose out of the oppression of Palestinians by the state of Israel and is rooted in righting the injustices inflicted upon the indigenous people of the Holy Land.

SABEEL seeks to unite the World Wide Body of Christ to the suffering of their sisters, brothers and cousins in the dysfunctional family of Father Abraham.

SABEEL is a global ecumenical Christian organization that collaborates with Muslims, Jews and any other faith and those without who work together for peace by seeking justice in the Holy Land: equal human rights for all and an end to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

Rev. Ateek teaches that when the Bible is correctly read it points to a God of justice and God seeks the liberation of all people.

SABEEL addresses in particular the Christians who have been misled and misinformed by an heretical and anti-Christ theology, such as Christian Zionists like the GOP candidates who support the ongoing 44 years of military occupation, The Apartheid Wall and the illegal settlers but they have no eyes to see or ears to hear their Palestinian sisters and brothers in Christ, who are known as The Forgotten Faithful.

SABEEL’s theology is based on Jesus’ example of non-violence and on what Jesus taught: that one must forgive to be forgiven, one must pray for and do good towards ones enemies-NOT to impose sanctions, bomb, torture or occupy them!

Jesus’ death on the cross is in vain unless his follower’s comprehend he was saying ENOUGH with the violence of man against man! It is to END with my broken body!

Over a thousand years prior, in Genesis 9: 5-6, it was written:

“And from each man, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has man been made.”

The 6th Commandment is ”You shall not murder.”

SABEEL also reminds us that God is not a racist, does not play favorites, nor loves any ethnic group over any another.

SABEEL sees Jesus in his divinity and in the fullness of his humanity and I add that the term Christian was not even coined until three decades after Jesus walked the land where he promised the peacemakers are the children of God.

Jesus was a Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior and he was born, lived and died under a brutal  Military Occupation and his follower’s were called Members of The Way.
Author and Feminist Theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether explains SABEEL developed “an anti-imperial theology. It stands in the tradition of the anti-imperial theologies of Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament, and applies this critique of ancient empire to modern empires, such as the American empire. It rejects a Son of David imperial Christology, rooting itself in a Suffering Servant Christology of the early Church, in its non-violent way of the cross.  It is a theology that aims at reconciliation and peace, through a social, economic and political transformation of relationships between Israel and Palestinians that makes it possible for these people to co-exist in genuine justice.”

In November 2008, I attended SABEEL’s 7th International Conference in the Holy Land: THE NAKBA:  MEMORY, REALITY AND BEYOND, Read more… 

During that conference Reverend Ateek also guided me through his boyhood village which had became 100% Israeli in 1948 when the Zionists came and forced all the Palestinians to flee under threat of death.

Ateek’s father was the town’s only and very successful Jeweler. His response to the Israeli soldiers who ordered him to vacate his home immediately and board a bus that would make the family into refugees was, “Naked I came into this world and naked I will leave it.”

In his book, “A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation” Rev. Ateek wrote:
“The Christian faith points to two superior levels that can lead to reconciliation and forgiveness and repentance is a precondition; it must precede reconciliation and forgiveness. Repentance calls for the admission of guilt, crime and injustice.

“In the conflict between Israel and Palestine, repentance would correspond to an admission of guilt by the government of Israel of the injustice it has dealt to the Palestinians in its confiscation of land, violation of human rights, and its systems of domination and oppression.

“There is the divine paradigm of revolutionary forgiveness even when no admission of guilt [is expressed]. Christians are suppose to practice forgiveness of others because it is how God deals with us: as God forgives continually, we must forgive others.” [Ateek, Page 183-184]

That kind of forgiveness is radical and revolutionary and exactly what Jesus demonstrated as he hung upon the Roman Empire’s Cross of capitol punishment after he quoted from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus ended with a plea for reconciliation: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” [Luke 23:34]

Way past time for Christian and Mormon politicians to act upon the simple truth that only the truth can set US free and only justice can bring a secure peace for all the people of the Holy Land.

“Justice is done when international law is implemented. So long as the injustices persist, hate and its derivatives have the upper hand…justice and peace begins when the oppressor becomes aware of its violations of the other’s humanity. Justice is done when the international community, through nonviolent methods, forces Israel to put an end to its injustice…justice tempered by mercy and compassion. The doing of justice must not crush the enemy but hold the enemy accountable…no hope for change is possible until the occupation ends.” [Ateek, Page 185]

The essence of Christianity is to bear witness to what Jesus was always on about; forgiveness and love.

“Christians must condemn violence and terrorism whether it is recorded in legendary stories or in history being written today. We condemn suicide bombings as a crime against God. It is a crime to shed another’s blood; it must also be equally criminal, if not more so, to shed ones own blood. Those who love God do not kill themselves for the sake of God. Nothing justifies the killing of people.”[Ateek, Page 123-124]

“No hope for change is even possible until the occupation ends!

“The first step is to confront and analyze the roots of the conflict and its development…to move toward a solution in Israel-Palestine, the illegal Israeli occupation must come to an end and Palestinian violence must stop…Justice will be done when international law is implemented…Once justice is done, peace will not be far off.” [Ateek, page 185]

The last time I saw AReverend Ateek was on October 5, 2009 in D.C. at a SABEEL conference. I was already convinced there was no need for me to take my 8^th reality trip through the West Bank to investigate and report because:

“Enough with the analysis! We are dying in Palestine and everything is clear! We need an American Intifada [Arabic for rise up and cast off]. We must continue our work here in D.C. and empower the UN; the conflict belongs there and USA policy must be changed. And yes we can do it because our God is a God of Justice, Hope and Love.”

In 2011, I became a candidate for US House of Representatives, Florida District 5.

On November 3, 2006, Ateek addressed over 330 international ecumenical Christians who had gathered in Jerusalem at the Notre Dame Conference Center for SABEEL’s 6th International Conference: The Forgotten Faithful.

He sent chills through me when he stated, “Israel will not survive unless it does justice! The situation is deteriorating and we must frustrate Israel’s plans and actions because they are not built on justice. All we are asking for is that they honor International Law! Israel is afraid of International law and this proves something is very wrong with Israel. We want Israel to live in peace and with security. The only way is honoring International law. That is the bottom line and what we work and pray for.”

Reverend Ateek’s classic “Justice and Only Justice” laid the foundation of a theology that addresses the conflict over Palestine and explores the political as well as the religious, biblical and theological dimensions. From a position of faith, Reverend Ateek seeks solutions based on justice, peace, nonviolence and reconciliation.

On November 8, 2006 Reverend Ateek informed me:

“In Israel officially speaking of Palestinians is taboo: we are referred to as Arab Christians. When I say the Holy Land I include both Israel and Palestine. Ultimately only God knows about the future of Christianity in this place. We live in the scientific world and God has given us wisdom, knowledge, technology to be used for good and our future and destiny are in Gods hands.

“There are many red lights; external and internal dangers. What can we do at the grass roots level? The Palestinian Christian community must rise above petty denominational differences. The impending dangers force us to ask what can we do, what must we do?

“There is no future in isolation or passivity. Our futures are all linked together. There is an urgent need to articulate and work with other faiths, especially Islam. Our future depends on good relations with all our brothers and sisters. We need a Committee of Christian and Muslim leaders to dialogue and work together to confront militant extremist fundamentalism.

“Our relation with Israel is the most important issue for there can be no peace without justice. There can be no effective policy without ending the occupation in accordance with all UN Resolutions. The city of Jerusalem must be shared and there must be a just solution for refugees.

“Pressure on Israel must be done with nonviolent needs and the way is the way Christ taught: nonviolent and forgiving. The achievement of peace is not the end; but the beginning of reconciliation. The survival of Christianity in the Holy land is through true democracy. We must avoid the minority complex. We cannot depend on the good will of people in power. We want to be protected by a constitution with full citizenship and nationality must be combined. Only in Israel is there a distinction between nationality and citizenship. Only good democracy can guarantee all citizens are treated equally under the same law.”

“What can the West do? There is an urgent need for education about the roots of Christians in Palestine and to challenge the myths. Seek out Palestinian Christians in your midst and relate to them. Be aware of Palestinian concerns for justice and human rights. Work for a just solution of the conflict, which is equal human right for all. Support projects to increase the Christian witness: visit the Holy land and meet with Palestinian Christians. Forge closer links with churches in the West and in the Holy Land. Challenge Christian Zionism. Think Creatively!

“In the beginning the Jesus movement was very small. It began with 12 committed citizens. It began with love and Christ addressed his followers: FEAR NOT little flock! You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. To capture the essence of what Christians should be is to be salt and light. You don’t need a lot of salt to add flavor and even a small light can illuminate the way for many.

“To be salt and light is to be truthful, honest, have integrity and to be of service and do it with humility. Salt affects change: it is active, never passive. To be a light is a global challenge and when the light is seen clearly so is the glory of God. Sabeel means the way, and the way is to love all your neighbors and labor on with God.”

Israel has no constitution but does have a Declaration of their Establishment:

“On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.” – May 14, 1948.

And what a wonderful world it will be when Israel honors its original promises and words and American politicians told the truth and everyone listened to what the many Palestinian Gandhi’s are talking about:

http://www.palestiniangandhiproject.org/

Hollywood Unraveling the Fabric of Society

Liberal Hollywood is intentionally corrupting children’s morals via the movies and TV programs they produce for public consumption.  Dictionary.com defines the word intentional in this way: done with intention or on purpose.  In my opinion the harm Hollywood is doing to the minds and hearts of the next generation, which includes people of faith, is on purpose — and it’s criminal.

In my last article, Kids are being exposed to shocking levels of sexual content, I alerted parents to one of the plot lines in the popular TV show ‘Glee.’:

Fox Entertainment’s prime time Emmy nominated musical series ‘Glee’ is viewed by tens of thousands of teens, especially girls.  On November 8 the hit show featured two high school age couples losing their virginity.  One couple was heterosexual, the other homosexual.  Not surprisingly the ‘gay’ couple was featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly with the headline: Gay Teens On TV – How a bold new class of young gay characters on shows like ‘Glee’ is changing hearts, minds and Hollywood.” The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) nominated ‘Glee’ for best TV comedy series that promotes homosexuality. 

The Parents TV Council recently alerted the public to the Worst TV Show of the Week. Guess which TV show they picked?  Yep, ‘Glee.’  Here’s why:

In a previous episode, Puck expressed his infatuation for Shelby in a fantasy-musical number of Van Halen’s “Hot for the Teacher.” In this episode, he basically serenades her with his classroom rendition of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One.” Shelby rebuffs his advances until a medical emergency sends her reeling. Puck comes to her rescue, comforting her at the hospital after her adopted daughter (Puck and Quinn’s child) needs stitches due to an accidental fall. Suddenly, in Shelby’s vulnerable state, Puck ends up in her bed. Post coitus, Puck tells her, “You know, the advantage of a relationship with a younger dude is that I still got four more rounds in me before I need a steak sandwich and a Coke Zero.” Shelby immediately regrets what they’ve done and ushers him out.

Student-teacher sexual abuse has been spotlighted in the news lately due to recent legislation passed in Missouri designed to curtail contact between students and teachers via social networking. The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, named after a student who was repeatedly assaulted by a middle school teacher, was signed into law in July, and has prompted school districts across the country to reconsider their social networking policies amid a rash of high-profile allegations of sexual misconduct between teachers and students. Just this past October an Ohio gym teacher, Stacy Schuler, was convicted of sexual battery for having sex with five male students.

Against this backdrop, the Puck-Shelby storyline is the height of irresponsibility. The show tries to skirt the legal issues by stating that Puck is 18 years old. But the show glosses over the inherent power imbalance of a student-teacher relationship. Regardless of who is the aggressor, any sexual relationship between a high-school student and a teacher is exploitative. (Online source) 

You ask, why would the producers/writers of ‘Glee’ make light of a teacher and a student having casual sex?  The answer is obvious.  These people have no scruples!  They couldn’t care less if young people in middle school have sex.  The producers/writers simply lack a moral compass.  You’d think adults would be aware of the downside of immature teens engaging in sexual relations.  Does it not occur to them that market share and advertising revenue isn’t worth a story line that potentially will result in girls 15 and younger becoming pregnant?

At a very young age an unwed pregnant girl whose lover wants no part of the mess they’re in is forced to make some life changing decisions that require maturity beyond her years.  Decisions such as: 1) Should I abort my baby; 2) Should I go through with the pregnancy; 3) If I go through with the pregnancy should I then allow a couple to adopt my baby;  4) Should I keep my baby and raise it myself; 5) Should I drop out of school.

Is it possible that this actually does occur to Hollywood elites but for them it’s all about pushing the envelope, making oodles of money, receiving awards — and most importantly, becoming famous.  After all, it’s famous faces that get splashed across the covers of magazines, right?

There are other ramifications when teens engage in casual sex.  For example, the ones who have loose morals are far more likely to contract diseases such as HIV/AIDS, human papillomavirus (genital warts or HPV), genital herpes, Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

Instead of encouraging young people to abstain from having sex, Tinseltown’s message to them is to practice ‘safe sex.’  In other words, use a condom.  Problem is most teens (and a large number of adults) are unaware that condoms do not provide 100% effectiveness against some STDs.

So – is it any wonder that 25% of American teenage girls ages 14-19 have at least one STD?  Currently there’s no cure for HPV.  Moreover, this dreadful virus can lead to cervical cancer!  Girls who have sexual intercourse before the age of 18 are unaware that they have an increased risk for developing cervical dysplasia which can lead to cervical cancer.  That’s not all.  Giving birth before the age of 16 increases the risk of developing cervical dysplasia.  And for all you Gardasil fans, the vaccine protects against the types of HPV infection that cause most cervical cancers but it does not protect against all infections.  Here’s more bad news.  Many STDs have vague or no symptoms.

As if the health risks aren’t bad enough a recent study conducted by Ohio State University College of Medicine reports that teen sex may impair brain development!   The study reveals, how social experiences during adolescence when the brain is still developing can have broad consequences. … Specifically, the animals that mated earlier in life had higher levels of depressive behaviors, changes to the brain and smaller reproductive tissues compared to those that had intercourse later or not at all.

“Having a sexual experience during this time point, early in life, is not without consequence,” study co-author John Morris, a doctoral student in psychology at Ohio State, said in a statement. (Online source)

Those who work in the entertainment industry are most responsible for sexualizing young people so I find it ironic that they promote safe sex!  Earth to Tinseltown !  The so-called safety measures are not all that safe. And we now learn that teen sex may affect brain development!

Brent Bozell wrote a piece titled Hollywood’s Soda-Pop Statism.  Bozell informs us that on a far left blog, former entertainment executive Laurie David offered this pre-holiday piece of encouragement:

“Thanksgiving Conversation Starter: Is It Time to Ban Soda Ads on Prime Time Television?”At the same time that the broadcast networks are allowing – even advocating – the removal of all limitations on nudity or profanity on TV, at any hour of the day, David is most upset about those old polar bear ads for Coca-Cola:

“Knowing what I know now about the effects of sugary drinks on children, the image of kids chugging down a Coke (or in this case polar bear cubs) evokes the same feelings I’d get if they were taking a deep drag on cigarettes.”

One wonders if a high school student engaging in sex with his/her history teacher would evoke a raised eyebrow from Laurie David.  One also wonders if she’s concerned that students are learning about ‘gay’ sex despite the fact that sodomy is a high risk behavior.

Instead of children learning reading, writing and arithmetic in our tax funded public schools, teachers all across America are mandated to teach children that sodomy is “normal and natural.”  Many Students graduate from high school unable to spell simple words or write a basic sentence, yet valuable class time is taken up to teach them the ends and outs of oral and anal sex?

Borrowing again from my last article, some of the health risks I pointed out inherent in ‘gay’ sex bear repeating.  For one thing, the homosexual community is the most severely affected by HIV/AIDS and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been steadily increasing since the early 1990s.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report titled HIV among Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men, in 2006 homosexuals accounted for 53% of all new HIV infections in the U.S.  And Lorie David worries about youngsters imbibing soft drinks?

Getting back to ‘Glee’ the executives and sponsors of the show need to tune into the news once in a while. The program that spotlighted a teenage student having sex with his adult teacher was aired about the time that the story of former football coach Jerry Sandusky’s arrest for alleged child rape was making headlines.   Which begs the question: Why is ‘Glee’ playing with fire by showing teacher-student sex?  Okay, the student was 18. But a senior in high school nonetheless.

Hollywood…pushing the envelope…breaking taboos… desensitizing the public…tearing down the moral construct this country was built on…mocking the traditional family…rewriting history…disrespecting Judeo-Christian values…even blaspheming God.  Where do they plan to go next?  Could it be the normalization of pedophilia?   No, they wouldn’t go that far, would they?  Former child star Cory Feldman told CBS that pedophilia is Hollywood’s biggest problem.   (Online source)

The larger question is why do people, especially those who self-identify as Christians, allow the entertainment industry and product advertiser’s filth into their homes?   I believe it is because many parents are clueless as to what their children are being exposed to.

The apostle Paul wrote, And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Rom 12:2)

There’s not enough space to cover what perverts are doing behind the scenes to normalize pedophilia.  For those who want to know more about what the pervs are up to read Janet Shaw Crowse’s article Normalizing Penn State Pedophilia.

Being an outspoken Bible-believing Christian I’m bound to receive a flood of emails from pedophiles who feel the need to point out that Jesus Christ never mentioned the sick twisted perversion of man-boy sex (homosexuals use this argument too) so I’ll address what the Bible says here.

First off, the Apostle John states that Jesus said many things that were not written down (John 21:25).  For example, our Lord didn’t mention abortion, homosexuality, rape, incest, or cannibalism.  However, just because he didn’t address every sin throughout the Bible doesn’t mean He would approve.  Secondly, Jesus considered the writings of the Old Testament to be both trustworthy and authoritative.  Thirdly, Jesus addressed sex outside of marriage in Matthew 19:4-6.  He said marriage is between one man, the husband and one woman, the wife.  The bottom line is that the Bible condemns sex outside of marriage.

That said, anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that adult-child sex is an egregious sin.  Men and women who rob children of their innocence for their deviant self gratification should not be free to prowl school yards for innocent victims.  Moreover, anyone with an ounce of common sense will acknowledge that child rapists must be incarcerated.

I’ll close with some sage advice from Sam Blumenfeld in ‘Does God Exist?’:

“Imagine an America in which every child has a Bible and can study it in school! Do you think we’d have the moral chaos among teens we have today? That ought to be the great task of Christian missionaries today: to put a Bible in the hands of every child in America. Some won’t read it. But many others will.”

Recommended Reading:

A True Greek Tragedy – Odyssey of the EU

The cradle of democracy is under attack. The Inherent Autonomy of the human spirit is at stake. What was won at the Battle of Thermopylae, was lost in the banksters board rooms that control the EU. The fluidity of this definitive game of chicken, poses the beheading of the rooster and the scorching of all the hens. This journey into Land of the Lotus Eaters, not only needs to blind Polyphemus, but must destroy his New World Order father, Poseidon. The designed destruction of democratic authority is meant to eliminate any referendum on the EU despotism. The phony debt instruments caused the Greek default, that will soon spread the planetary misery, on the rest of us. Western civilization’s birth, owes homage to the Greek principle of individual autonomy. Its demise is a product of the inherent betrayal of humanity by the forces of financial exploitation, that exemplifies 1 Timothy 6:10, For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils .Prime Minister George Papandreou’s gambit calling for a Greek referendum on the draconian EU extortion is proof positive that state sovereignty is dead. It failed because the EU cabal would not allow self-determination. Servicing the debt is the supreme dictate. The analogy of the arrogant and obnoxious Antinous wooing Penelope as a right of entitlement, applies. The righteous outrage of Odysseus’ arrow shot through the throat of all the EU suitors, also applies. Today’s script does not fit the noble triumphs of Homer’s epic. The banksters are more powerful than the intervention of Athena.

How quickly the defiant Greeks were put back in line. The video Greece To Let The People Vote On EU Bailout turned into Greek Government Teeters, Lawmakers Urge PM to Resign.

 
The Globe and Mail reports, Greece backs off referendum, dealing blow to euro-zone equality,

“In an effort to avoid a financial catastrophe, Europe’s leaders persuaded Athens late Thursday to back away from a referendum, but the result, which involved threats to expel Greece from the euro zone, has destroyed any sense of democratic solidarity uniting them.”

“This is obviously a decision the Greeks have to make,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said, “but I think the strong preference of everybody around the G20 table would be for progress to be made toward the package the European Union put together last week,” rather than a referendum. “I think that’s a strong preference.”

In one rare spark of insight, the progressive statist proponent Robert Reich actually asks the proper question, Greece’s Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance?

“Shouldn’t Greek citizens make this decision for themselves?

Of course, if Greek defaults on its loans, global investors (fearing that a default in Greece sets a dangerous precedent) may yank their money out of Italy. This would almost certainly bust several big European banks – and generate panic on Wall Street. That’s why Tim Geithner has been pressing Europe to bail out Greece.”

Patrick Henningsen writes in the article, Another military coup in Greece – can you blame them?

“If the government is in danger of collapse, then Greece could be looking at a genuine military coup d’etat.

This theory has gained credence since Athens announced a wild reshuffle, sacking its military leaders in every branch of the forces on Tuesday. The defense ministry confirmed that Greece’s state Security Council replaced the heads of the general staff, the army, navy and air force, and discharged a score of army and navy officers.”

Alas, the gallant crew of Odysseus are all dead at the hands of a vindictive Poseidon. The EU cannot tolerate adventurism and needs to make kings into beggars.

The EU Cyclops not only wants to devour the Greeks, but also wants to imprison the next generation for future meals. The central banksters act like the six-headed monster Scylla. They seek perpetual serfdom and a burden akin to Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the eternal hill. Welcome to the realm where the suffering of Tantalus, eternally punished with hunger and thirst, surrounded by water and tempted by grapes, is now commonplace for the Hellenian slaves. The plight and trials of Odysseus become universal under the global gulag of debt created tyranny. The rule of compound interest is the ultimate peril from the gang of suitors that court the hand of Penelope, not for partnership bliss, but for control. Doom them to the bowels of Hades. All Greeks are now Ithacans.The neutralization effort for a popular vote and a plan for a caretaker government, demonstrates the financial muscle of the shadow gangsters that run the EU experiment. Yet, this last minute stopgap measure, is but a temporary band-aid on a terminate patient.

International Bankers hold the entire world hostage to a debt financial system designed to control all global economies.

This debt slavery is reason enough to sink the EU. When will the entire world revolt against the elites?

 

Press TV viewpoint and the video on the Greek PM wins vote of confidence, is revealing.

Papandreou gave an address to parliament for more than half an hour, saying that “immediate elections will be catastrophic,” but he would be prepared to negotiate a power-sharing settlement, the state-run BBC reported.

Papandreou said the economic bailout deal for Greece currently on offer by the European Union had to be accepted, and it would be “historically irresponsible” to lose it, though he is “past caring about his power and post.”

Greg Hunter of USA Watchdog forecasts, “You cannot tell millions of Greeks there will be a vote on a massive debt deal and then say just kidding, not going to happen. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle. I predict there will be a vote by the Greek people one way or another. It will be a nice, neat nationwide referendum or protests in the streets.”

Michael Hudson provides a forceful analysis in a Democracy Now video, Wall Street v. Greece: G20 Opens as Greek PM Pushes For Referendum on EU Bailout Plan. Contrast this liberal interpretation with Mad Max Keiser’s outburst calling a talking head – toady for the globalists. “Sounds like a Nazi collaborator defending a rapist”, in Greece run by financial terrorists defined the nature of the combat. Both share the same viewpoint that a forced Greek austerity only benefits the banksters.Wheeling raw power has seldom been so clear. When Hank Paulsen threaten the U.S. Congress with martial law or approve the TARP theft, he wanted a mere $700 billion bailout. The stakes are raised; Greece must surrender the entire country to the master of the real and only true global empire. As the mass media spins the bleb of populist democratic clout, as a horrific thought, the vultures swarm for the pickings of the choicest Greek islands.

Euripides’ style of Greek Tragedy, as the interpreter of this type of divine comedy, best reflects the psychopathic impulses within the EU charade. The play Bacchae has the god Dionysus, the personification of the liberating spirit of wine and revelry, responds to doubters of his divinity. He claims that he has “driven the women of Thebes mad and sent them to the hills around the city, where they wear the animal skins of bacchants, priestesses of Dionysus, carry the ivy-entwined thyrsus (a symbol of his worship), and dance and sing hymns of praise to the new god.”

To worship Dionysus, the Chorus sings, followers need only to crown themselves with ivy, wear deer skins lined with goat hair, carry the branches of oak and fir trees, delight in the bounty of the vine, and make ritual animal sacrifices. If they do, the land will overflow with natural beauty and riches—fawns and goats, wine and honey.

Contrary to the characterization that the Greeks are lazy, need to suck it up, institute higher taxes, start embracing thrift, restraint and frugality; the central banksters are the true dispensers of greed and drunken lust of power. The four horsemen of the Acropolis hangs over all of the EU, not because of Greek defiance, but because they will not yield to the armies of the financiers.

In the article, EU Bonds Rollover Debt with a Chinese Bailout, published on September 18, 2011 predicted, “Greece is the Sarajevo in the start of the next currency world war. A containable matter ready to snowball into a full-scale mobilization of competing factions, poses the unwinding of world markets.” Now you see this confrontation erupting into open warfare, not through a face off from phalanx corps, but in the struggle to prevent the collapse of the global debt created fiat currency model.

Learn the lesson that Euripides taught in Bacchae. Pentheus, the king of  Thebes, stands as a symbol in the play for all those who opposed the cult of Dionysus and denied the erratic, emotional, uninhibited longings within all human beings. The criminal banking institutions that want to exemplify Dionysus’ god like supremacy, needs to be defeated. In ancient times, a Pentheus or an Odysseus could wield the sword and destroy the beasts. Today, only the strength of a united world body of individual citizens, exercising civil disobedience, can bring down the evil banking system.Those corrupt uninhibited longings exist in all of us, because of our fallen nature. However, the globalists have weaved a system of universal slavery based upon their manipulation of money. They can be defeated. Have the courage of a Greek hero and take control of your own destiny. This tragedy is an existential test. Appreciate the absurdity of compliance with the New World Order, and apply comic relief, to those who follow commends of the EU Poseidon ship of state.

The Walls in Bethlehem, Baghdad and Afghanistan

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters speaks about his passionate campaign for the rights of the Palestinian people and why, more than 30 years after he wrote the globally-acclaimed album ‘The Wall’, he is focusing on another wall – the Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank:

Riz Khan – Walls of division

Ann Jones, humanitarian aid worker and author of Kabul in Winter recently wrote from Kabul, Afghanistan:

“I’ve come back to the Afghan capital again, after an absence of two years, to find it ruined in a new way. Not by bombs this time, but by security.The heart of the city is now hidden behind piles of Hescos giant, grey sandbags produced somewhere in Great Britain. They’re stacked against the walls of government buildings, U.N. agencies, embassies, NGO offices, and army camps (of which there are a lot) — and they only seem to grow and multiply…What’s called security generates fear.

“How Lies Begat Illusions Begat Lies…you can’t understand the Taliban without knowing about America’s covert operations in the region in the 1980s.Back then, President Ronald Reagan’s administration, mainly through the CIA, used the Pakistani Intelligence services to fund, arm, and train Afghan and foreign Islamist jihadis to defeat the Soviet army in Afghanistan. Pakistan subsequently used “channels built with U.S. money” to install in Afghanistan a friendly government — the Taliban.

“Later, after the George W. Bush administration invaded the country and the U.S. ousted the Taliban, it installed Hamid Karzai as president and returned many of the old Islamist jihadis to power in his government. Thus, this peculiar, well-established fact underlies the current war in Afghanistan: the United States sponsored both sides.

“Only the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has called, year after year, for a moral accounting. Its surveys of Afghan citizens consistently find that the people want lasting peace, and to attain it, they would prefer some sort of truth and reconciliation procedure, like the one that took place in South Africa, to cleanse the country and set it on an honest intellectual and moral footing.

“As I write, 4,000 newly arrived U.S. Marines are trudging through the blistering heat of Helmand Province to push back the Taliban so local Pashtuns can turn out to vote next month for Karzai, their fellow Pashtun. What’s wrong with this new Obama strategy? For one thing, in some areas the local Pashtun population has instead turned out to fight against the foreign invaders, side by side with the Taliban (who, it should be remembered, are mostly local Pashtuns). They’re as fed up as anybody with the puppet Karzai. Like millions of other Afghans, they say Karzai has done nothing for the people. But saddled with history, Karzai remains the horse the U.S. rode in on.” [1]

The Hescos of Afganastan and the twelve foot high concrete walls in Baghdad that divide the Sunni and Shia populations-see video here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/17/baghdad.city.of.walls are dwarfed by the 30ft high concrete ones in the ‘Holy’ Land; which is in pieces, Bantustans.

All the builders of these barriers and walls claim that they are democracies and that the walls are all about Security.

All builders of these barriers and walls exhibit the schizophrenic discipline of thinking two contradictory truths at the same time. Coined by George Orwell in “1984″ as ‘doublethink’ the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry of Truth fabricates lies and the Ministry of Love tortures and kills any it deems threatening. Most threatening of all for Big Brother are those with independent thought.

In 2007, Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, argued that at the height of the 2003-07 economic boom, the military industrial complex was driving Israel’s tremendous economic growth, and Israel had the largest GDP growth of any Western country.

Klein theorized that the source of Israel’s tremendous economic growth in the past five years cannot be attributed simply to its encouragement of high tech entrepreneurship and basic science. Its success must be understood, rather, as a product of its ability to use the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a laboratory for defense industry innovation — and to showcase their wares.

“Young Israeli computer scientists and engineers gain their training in the military, and then go on to start the kind of technology companies that have proliferated wildly in Israel and whose products are much sought after abroad. The entire Israeli hi-tech sector and not just military technology per se, is thus an outgrowth of Israel’s hyper militarization. The Israeli economy’s tech sector grew by 20% in 2006 alone, and Israel is now the foreign country with the second most US stock exchange-listed companies. Klein’s point that Israel’s military-derived technologies are an economic growth-driver because they can be tested in situ is correct, but it is insufficient for describing the magnitude of the military’s tremendous penetration of the country’s economy. Palestinians under occupation can indeed be seen as human ‘guinea pigs’ and not just merely military targets, as Klein claims, but the society’s militarization is far more profound than even she suggests.

“After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel’s economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and “suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom–a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war…Israel now sends $1.2 billion in “defense” products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999…That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world…Much of this growth has been in the so-called “homeland security” sector.

“Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion–an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are …precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror.’”

Israel’s policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories are also “laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinians–whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling “Hamasistan”–are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs.”[2]

In July 2005, the International Court of Justice released its Advisory Opinion on the “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

This opinion detailed the court’s findings that the Wall violated Israel’s obligations under international law, that the Wall should be removed, and that Israel ought to lift its travel restrictions on Palestinians. Today, construction of the Wall continues and Israel’s restrictions on Palestinians have only intensified, and we the people who pay taxes in the USA provide “$1.5 million per mile [to construct] the Israeli wall that prevents residents from receiving health care and emergency medical services. In other areas, the barrier separates farmers from their olive groves, which have been their families’ sole livelihood for generations.” [3]

On page one of Jeff Halper’s, Obstacles to Peace, A Re-Framing of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, he wrote, “Missing from Israel’s security framing is the very fact of occupation, which Israel both denies exists…and that ‘security’ requires Israel control over the entire country…rendering impossible a just peace based on human rights, international law, reconciliation.”

International Law also states that military occupation is to be temporary and by what RIGHT can any State claim to put up a WALL on somebody else’s property?

1. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175096

2. http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=198

3. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Page 43, Jan/Feb. 2007

Interview with Erri De Luca

Erri De Luca is an internationally-renowned Italian poet and writer. “Corriere della Sera” literature critic Giorgio De Rienzo has called him “the writer of the decade”. He started writing since he was 20; however, his first book was published in 1989, when he was 39 years old. Upon graduating from high school in 1968, he joined the newly-established far-left, extra-parliamentary organization of Lotta Continua. The political activities of the organization were terminated early in 1976. Erri De Luca speaks several languages, including English, French, Hebrew and Yiddish.

He is the author of several books including “Montedidio” which has won him The Prix Femina award. Erri De Luca has translated several books of Bible into Italian, including Exodus, Jonah, Ecclesiastes and Ruth. His works have been translated and published in various countries such as Spain, Iran, Portugal, Germany, Holland, USA, Brazil, Poland, Norway, Danmark, Romania, Greece and Lithuania.

De Luca joined me in an exclusive interview and answered my questions on his works and his views on literature, culture, politics and society.

Kourosh Ziabari: What made you interested in literature for the first time? You published your first novel when you were 39; however, you had experienced various professions and jobs before that. You experienced carpentry, masonry and apprenticeship and then moved to writing. What were the first motives which moved you towards literature?

Erri De Luca: I owe my approach to my father’s library. I spent my childhood in a small room with books to the ceiling, I slept surrounded by books. I’ve been reading and writing since I was a kid, books have been the best company. I published my first book late because I wasn’t looking for a publisher. I wrote and write personal stories, always with me telling the story and I thought these would never interest anybody else.

KZ: Our world is filled with materialistic approaches to life. Morality is losing its place in the interpersonal relationships. People disregard the principles of honesty and decency very easily. Is this world compatible with the ideal world which you have portrayed for yourself?

EDL: I’m used to sit at table for lunch where one eats the fruit of one’s work. At these tables, which are the majority on the planet, my principles are not ideals but daily practice.

KZ: Naples is the prominent setting of your novel. Its people speak a variety of Italian language which is even unintelligible to a number of Italians. What’s the significance of Naples for you? How do you seek your desires and ambitions in this ancient city?

EDL: Naples is my place of origin and  Napolitan my mother tongue. Italian came later, with books and conversations with my father, who wanted to teach me perfect Italian. In Naples, I had my sentimental education – not to love, but to the sentiments of compassion, anger and shame which are the fundaments of any human being. Naples is not a birth town, but it is a “cause town” and I am one of its effects.

KZ: You speak several languages including French, English, Hebrew and Yiddish. How is the sense of being a multilingual writer? Jock London believes that every book is a gateway to a new world. Do you agree that every language is also a gateway to a new world? With several languages which you know, do you usually feel that you live in different worlds?

EDL: I learnt languages to read them rather than to speak them. My desire was to follow the authors of pages which touched me in their vocabulary and their combination of syllables. Thus I find a personal extract, a glass [of wine] and I go directly to the source. The world which attracts me is that of an author rather than of a people. That’s why I’m not interested in geographically visiting countries whose language I know. I can read in Russian out of love for its poets and writers but I have no desire to find myself in Odessa or Moscow. With the languages I have learnt I have no need to move from where I am.

KZ: Some people believe that the Iranians and Italians are very similar to each other. They say that among the European citizens, Italians are the most similar to Iranians. This similarity can be found in the appearance, social interactions, character and dispositions. Have you ever noticed any similarity between the people of Italy with the oriental nations?

EDL: I find common ground with all people with feet in the Mediterranean Sea. I recognize all trees, goats, dry walls and wrinkled faces. For thousands of years we have mixed, via invasions, immigration, epidemics, wars. Iran and the East are a key premise of our civilization, the first layer, the first seed of our bread.

KZ: Iran and Italy are home to two of the most important ancient civilizations in the world; Persian Empire and Roman Empire. Although the political developments have separated the two countries, how can the cultural ties serve to bring the two nations together and benefit them mutually?

EDL: Iran is the most important country in world politics today. Iranians must know that their decisions with respect to pacific development will be decisive for the next decade. Iran is today, even more than in the past, on the front lines of history. Everything that happens in your country will affect the four corners of the horizon [the rest of the world]

KZ: An Iranian critic of your novel has said that the bitter comedy of your novel “Montedidio” is inspired by Italo Calvino. What do you think about it? Has Calvino ever inspired you in your writings?

EDL: I am not a reader fascinated by Calvino or by 20th century Italian literature in general. I know I owe much to Napolitan literature, its theater, its songs, and to other foreign litteratures which educated me in my youth thanks to my father’s choices and tastes.

KZ: In your short story “The Trench”, you’ve tried to show the difficulty of earning a living and portrayed the complexities a low-ranking laborer faces in dealing with a low-rate job. In one part of your story, the protagonist states: “why in the world should a human being have to earn bread for his children with a noose around his neck? For me it was a question of pride, but for him it was only bread, and still he had to soak it in that salty water of ours, which tasted so much like tears.” I think it’s the essence of your story. What’s your own idea? Why is our life intertwined with difficulties and complexities so inextricably?

EDL: I write stories of my life and the one you bring up is simply a tale of a slice of experience on a construction site in France. Nothing to add, maybe something to take out. My life shares with the majority of other lifes, anonymous and normal. The fact that I am able to write stories does not change that biographic fact. I am someone from the ground floor and my stories are the same.

KZ: Have you ever had the ambition of winning the Nobel Prize in Literature? What do you think about this award? Has it been always awarded to those who deserved it?

EDL: Often, the Academy has rewarded names unknown to me and I was able to discover them thanks to these choices. So I enjoy their literary tastes, most of the time. For my part, I don’t think that I am under consideration for the Academy.

KZ: Dario Fo was the last Italian writer to win a Nobel Prize in Literature. What do you think of him and his works?

EDL: Dario Fo is an international personality, one of the few Italian personas appreciated worldwide, and he deserves the honor conferred by the prize.

KZ: How much time do you dedicate to studying the world’s literature? How many books do you read in a year? Do you have a special criterion for the geographical distribution of the writers of whom you read novels and literary works? How much time do you spend on reading Italian literature?

EDL: During the day, the time to read and write is squeezed in a small space. I read old works, poetry from all over the world and I don’t follow Italian literature.

KZ: Are you among those thinkers who believe that artistic work is solely produced for the sake of pleasure, or the art itself? What’s the ultimate objective of art? Is it aimed at entertaining the addressee? Is it aimed at creating cosmetic beauty? Which sort of literature do you prefer; a literary work which is created for pleasure or a literary work which is admired for its moral points?

EDL: Literature is for me the best dialogue. I prefer it to any other art form. It should keep its reader company, save him time, be worth the time spent with a book. Literature’s sole responsibility is to create desire to reopen the book. In difficult circumstances, under dictatorships, it can also have the responsibility to save speech. In jail, a book is a fortune and a huger capital for resistance.

KZ: And my final question. What’s your recommendation for those who want to become professional readers of literature? What are the best ways for comprehending the essence of a literary work, whether it’s in the form of poetry or prose? How can a good reader relate to the core of what the writer intends to convey?

EDL: A book is always half of the trip from a writer and a reader, who must complete the work by mixing it with his/her life, moods and needs. A book is a meeting, with no utilization guide, and thus always different, failure or success. Every book is ultimately led by its reader, linked to his/her experience, friendly to his/her human adventure to enrich it. No formula and no advice – “have a nice ride reader” is what I tell myself when I open a page and begin to read.

Julie Sabbath Goy Burchill

In her desperate attempt to smear Lauren Booth,Independent writer Julie Burchill, a devout Zionist, proves how deceiving British multiculturalism is.

Indeed the Zionification of this Kingdom has left this country in a disastrous ethical limbo.

“Last year I took the first steps towards converting to Judaism; also last year, I abandoned my attempt”, says Burchill.

But I guess that Burchill didn’t really have to convert — She is obviously far more Jewish than anyone I can think of. Burchill can teach Rabbi Ovadia Yosef what self-love is all about. She can teach Paul Wolfowitz, David Aaronovitch and David Miliband what moral-interventionism stands for. She can give  Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman a crash course in Hasbara.   Burchill can lecture Zionist slander operators on how to spread venom.

But most significantly, she displays an astonishing command of Jewish humour. Burchill is indeed very funny.

Jewish humour is a pretty simple concept : it is based on self-mockery mixed together with the absurd. Thus we have Woody Allen presenting himself as an alpha male Schwarzenegger type, and through self deprecation, Larry David would appear to challenge our tolerance of the ultimate form of Jewish rudeness.

And then we have Julie Burchill presenting herself as a veteran Sex bomb –  funny indeed.

Jewish humour though, is, in practice, a camouflage: through comedy, funny Jews manage to live in peace with their symptoms. But sometimes, even the best of Jewish comedians fail to provide the goods, as Woody Allen and Larry David may have learned.

It is pretty astonishing to witness the amount of poison that pours out of Burchill against Booth, a fellow journalist who recently converted into Islam: it is even more astonishing to find such a level of islamophobia and  personal attack on the pages of a respected British paper. In the past, I certainly saw this kind of vile personal slander on Jews only  blogs.

But I have never seen anything similar on paper, let alone in a British paper.

I guess that the Zionification of Britain is beginning to take a heavy toll on our cultural and public life.

Would Booth have to go through such a slanderous campaign  if she had converted into Judaism? I don’t think so. Would anyone in  the British press dare remind us, for instance, that it is actually Judaism that calls on its followers to “pour their wrath on the Goyim?”  No one would remind us that the crimes that are committed on a daily basis  by the Jewish state, are actually implied by certain interpretation of the Old Testament, namely the Zionist interpretation.

British multiculturalism is indeed a funny concept,  it basically means tolerance towards everyone except Muslims.

I would prefer to spare you from reading Burchill’s personal attack on Booth (much of which reminds me of an old Jewish mother’s Passover dinner tantrum) but, I will review some of her argument, because it is apparent that the logic she employs is symptomatic of both Neocons and Zionists in Britain and in America.

“There is one religion which proscribes its followers under threat of death from rejecting it, and that is Islam” says Burchill :  Yet if there was any truth in such a statement, our streets would be soaking with the blood of ex-Muslims. This is obviously not the case.

Whilst we are on the subject of proscription, restriction, revenge and forgiveness in religious precept and religious tradition, I am sure that  Burchill learned in school about Jesus : whilst the man didn’t actually reject Judaism, he did suggest to his fellow Jews to love their neighbours.

That was enough  to nail him to the cross. I guess that Burchill doesn’t know   that the word Yeshu- Jesus in Hebrew-is the abbreviation  for the Hebrew phrase “may his name and memory be blotted out”. Seemingly, Rabbinical Jews are yet to forgive Jesus.

But maybe we should leave Jesus’ crucifixion aside. Many contemporary Jews rightly argue that they have nothing to do with this crime. Yet, I do wonder whether Burchill has heard about Israeli PM Yitzchak Rabin, and the Talmudic Rabbinical ruling that led to his assassination. Igal Amir, the young student who took Rabin’s life, had come to believe that Rabin was a ‘din rodef’, meaning Talmudically, a ‘pursuer’ who endangered Jewish lives. Under din rodef, Amir would be justified in ‘removing’ Rabin from being a threat to Jews.

As far as Rabbinical  Judaism is concerned, one doesn’t even have to reject Judaism in order to be murdered.  It is enough that a Rabbi or a great Cohen tags  a Jew as a ‘din rodef’ in order for another Jew to complete the job.

But let us return to Burchill’s ad hominem argument against Lauren Booth – next, she turns her attention to Booth’s work for Press T.V.

“It’s hard to know where to start when describing the sheer ickiness of Booth,” says condescending Burchill. “That she works as a paid stooge for the murderous Iranian regime’s television channel has to come pretty near the top.”

As tragic as it may be, it is actually Britain and the British (rather than Iran and Iranians) who are directly complicit in a colossal criminal war that has lead up to date to  1,421,933 fatalities in Iraq alone.  It is pretty fascinating that ‘nearly converted’ Burchill would denounce the Iranian regime as murderous while it is evident  that Britain was taken to the Iraq  war by a government that was funded by the Zionist lobby, led by no other than fund raiser,  Lord Cashpoint Levy.

In fact, more than ever,  we need Press TV  in the UK, for the Iranian TV channel is the only broadcast in Britain to deliver a full coverage of Israel’s colossal crimes.   In case Burchill has managed to forget, at the eve of  Operation Cast Lead, when the BBC was quick to follow IDF ‘instructions’ and evacuated its reporters from Gaza, it was Press TV that stayed behind and  delivered live footage of the Israeli massacre. It was Press TV rather than BBC, SKY or ITN that broadcasted in real time UNRA shelter shelled with white phosphorous.

We need Press TV, and we need many more Lauren Booths to practise real journalism instead of Zionised comedy. We need Press TV and Lauren Booth exactly because the British press and people like Julie Burchill have so evidently failed.

Burchill is not just a devout Zionist and a Neocon, she is also a sincere feminist. She doesn’t like Islam, and she doesn’t hide it either. She doesn’t approve of regimes that “uphold the punishment of death by stoning for adulteresses”.   For those who fail to remember, it was also so called ‘feminists’ who were the first to campaign against the Taliban  in the mid 1990’s, just to  prepare the ground for the American invasion.  I am almost taken in by Burchill’s caring for Muslim women;  yet, I wonder  how come the ‘women’s right campaigner’ fails  to  show the same care for Palestinian women  who are  often enough bleeding  to deathin  Israeli roadblocks.

When it seems as if Burchill runs out of Necoon slogans, she then takes the gloves off and pulls the chicken out of the boiling soup :  Booth ,according to  Burchill, is so “jaded that she can only get a kick from self-denial.”  But may I point out to Burchill here,  that conversion is actually the exact opposite of ‘self-denial’. It is actually all about the ‘self’ being ‘spiritually awakened’ out of a state of denial, an experience that may be foreign to ‘nearly converted’ Burchill.

However, Burchill’s feeble accusation of ‘self denial’ does ring a bell here; it does sound familiar: It is after all, common amongst Jews and within the Zionist fold to label their dissident voices as being ‘self haters’.

As I mentioned earlier on, Burchill didn’t have to convert: the Jewish philosophy and manners are apparently deeply engraved within her soul. It spills out  in each of her sentences — and it is far from being attractive.

But I guess that at a certain stage Burchill just couldn’t hold it together anymore. She wanted Lauren Booth to simply shut up. She suggested that Booth treats herself “to a full-face and – most essentially – mouth-covering burka”. All of a sudden, Burchill, the liberal impostor, the one who just a few lines before was rallying for freedom of Muslims, gays and women, has revealed her true face: in Burchill’s world, women and homosexuals should be free — but Muslim converts better shut up.

Can anyone explain this discrepancy?  It is no wonder that Neo-conservatism and  moral interventionism are such a disaster.  There is not a single shred of truth, coherence or consistency in them. They are, in fact, simply a pretext for Zionist expansionism.

This is unfortunately the true meaning of the current western brutality. It obviously didn’t take me by complete surprise then, when I found out that Julie Burchill was also a supporter of the war in Iraq.

But, as one would expect, Burchill’s poisonous outbursts are followed by some tender ‘light waves’ of self-love: Israel was named recently as “the eighth happiest country in the world – coming in above Britain and the US”, says the proud Zionist enthusiast.

And I am now more concerned than ever : If Israelis can be so pleased with themselves at a time when their army locks millions of Palestinians in concentration camps with no food or medical supplies, it really says a lot about the Jewish State, the Israelis — and it says a lot about Sabbath Goys like Julie Burchill.

I am afraid that we are dealing here with a morbid psychotic ideological collective.  I wish I knew how to help them — or at least how to save the rest of us.

Interpreting Jon Stewart’s Politics

Any criticism of Jon Stewart must begin with enthusiastic praise: his Daily Show is where millions of people go for important news that is purposely ignored by the mainstream media. Consequently, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have become icons of the political Left.

During the Bush administration, their shows highlighted the lies and hypocrisies used to engage in foreign wars while destroying the civil liberties in the United States; Colbert’s speech at the White House Correspondence dinner — with Bush present — will go down in history as a moment of great courage and confrontation between a satiric comedian and a war criminal.

This incident, combined with the consistent exposing of lying politicians and the biased mainstream media, have earned Stewart and Colbert deep political respect.

It’s in this context that their rally in Washington, D.C. — the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear — must be viewed. Millions of people were eager to see how Stewart’s and Colbert’s politics would manifest themselves in a political rally. To them, the rally was not a joke. The mainstream The New York Times is correct in saying:

“…it is perhaps a measure of the volatility of American politics that a television comedy show was able to tap something deep among American voters, who turned out in the tens of thousands on Saturday to add their voices to a national political debate that some said had left them behind.”

and:

“Though it was billed as a gathering for civility — a party on a sunny Saturday for people to enjoy thoughtful conversation — for participants it was a serious political affair.” (October 30, 2010).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/us/politics/31rally.html?_r=1&hp

Stewart’s message was not a joke either. The rally was thus far the clearest expression of his political thought. The essence his political message was conveyed by a song performed by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow (Stewart introduced the pair’s song as being in sync with the purpose of the event). The chorus of the song includes the following lyrics:

“Yelling on the left/Screaming on the right/ I’m sitting in the middle trying to live my life.”

This “middle” is where Jon Stewart’s politics lie, between what he sees as an unreasonable left and right-wing of the political spectrum; a theme repeated throughout the event.

Later in the rally Stewart played a video compilation of left-wing and right-wing pundits, screaming insults at their political opposites. Stewart portrays his politics as an alternative — a rational-thinking middle-ground.

To prove his moderate politics and to fend off right-wing criticism,
Stewart draped American flags around the stage and had musicians perform patriotic songs, including America the Beautiful and the National Anthem.

Sadly, Stewart went overboard to prove he wasn’t overly progressive, when he specifically denounced Marxists as “attempting to subvert our constitution [?] ” — an example of McCarthy Red-baiting at its worse.

Stewart’s rally strongly implied that instead of political conflict, everyone should join him in the reasonable political center. One of his concluding remarks was: “It’s a shame we can’t work together to get things done.”

If only politics were that simple.

In reality, society is torn apart by economic and social inequality, dominated by giant corporations that benefit from low wages and foreign wars. These same corporations — owned by super-rich individuals — also benefit from the lies, anger, and insanity broadcast by the mainstream media. The phenomenon of scare tactics directly benefits giant corporations who want a subdued populace so they can pursue their business-friendly agenda.

Stewart does his audience a great disservice by not recognizing the profit-motive behind the right-wing fear-mongers, who are paid large salaries by corporations to divide and confuse working people.
We are instead led to believe that simple “insanity” is why our mainstream media allows figures such as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin to preach hate and nonsense to millions of people.

In fact, these right-wingers are given such large venues because their politics are in line with the foreign and domestic policy interests of a number of very rich people who own TV channels and other corporations.

Stewart’s rally signaled — whether consciously or not — a degree of political backpedaling on his part. During the Bush Administration, Stewart and Colbert’s shows were incredibly radical, given the political circumstances; they exposed lies that cut deep into the Administration’s heart. It was at this time that Stewart became globally famous, as millions around the world looked to his show to challenge the false narrative broadcast by the Bush government.

The Daily Show changed considerably when Obama became President. The criticisms became more mild mannered, even as Obama continued essentially the same policies as Bush. When Obama recently appeared on Stewart’s Daily Show, not one question was asked about Obama’s wars, while Obama was allowed to speak endlessly about all the great things he was doing for the country, in effect papering over his complete lack of action to create jobs.

Whether he acknowledges it or not, Jon Stewart is a political figure adored by millions on the left and ruthlessly hated by those on the right. The middle-ground that Stewart would like to base his politics on survives only in his head, and in the heads of others who would like to ignore the very real conflict between giant corporations versus tens of millions of working people.

Sides must be taken in this battle. But instead, Stewart preaches from the sidelines with a message that says, “No such battle is taking place.” Unfortunately for Stewart, the politicians and mainstream media that he regularly thrashes fully embrace this perspective, for their own benefit.

BoucherCon: David Baldacci, Martin Cruz Smith & 1,000 middle-aged ladies

I love to read — and murder mysteries are my favorite things to read in the whole world. So when a huge murder-mystery writers’ and readers’ convention came to San Francisco this year, I just HAD to go. And BoucherCon didn’t disappoint. For four whole glorious days, I got to absolutely wallow in the literary nuts and bolts of who-killed-who.

I got to ask Joseph Finder, a mega-blockbuster big-selling author who is also an expert on Afghanistan, “If you were to write a Who-Dun-It about Afghanistan, what would be the plot and how would you solve that particular mystery?”

Finder gamely replied, “I’d make it into a comedy of errors. The Afghan government is not doing what you think it is doing and everyone else is also being fooled.” Yeah, especially the average Afghan and us taxpayers — at this point, we seem to be playing the role of the corpse.

And I got to ask Martin Cruz Smith, “How in the freak did you learn so much about the inside workings of a Russian fish-factory ship?”

“Because I was no longer welcome in Russia at the time I wrote ‘Polar Star,’ I figured that I’d just go up to Dutch Harbor in Alaska and see if I could sneak onto a Russian factory ship there. Those ships are like a small floating piece of Russia. When I wrote the Russian government for permission to board one, they replied that there wouldn’t be one up in Dutch Harbor for another four months. So, knowing the Russians like I do, I immediately hustled right up there. And I was able to get aboard one and even take photos and make notes. But when the captain found out that I had come aboard, I thought I was going to be in big trouble — but instead he just asked me to join him for dinner.” Cruz Smith is welcome in Russia now, BTW.

But most important of all, I got to ask David Baldacci a most burning question: “How come, if you have sold millions and millions of copies of books that expose the CIA as basically an above-the-law group of paid assassins — and millions and millions of Americans have read your books — then how come nobody in America seems to be trying to put a leash on the CIA?”

“I don’t know why that is. But all I can do is to just keep writing and hope.”

For two of the four days that the BoucherCon was in San Francisco, I was forced by circumstances beyond my control to bring along my two-year-old granddaughter Mena. I myself was completely enthralled by BoucherCon. Mena, however, was totally bored. Sure, she tried really hard to be a good girl for me — but she’s a freaking two-year-old after all. She can’t even read Janet Evanovich yet let alone Laurie R. King, Lee Child, Rhys Bowen or Denise Mina (all of whom were there BTW — except for Janet Evanovich, unfortunately. I would have asked her to autograph all 20 of her books, which I currently own most of).

When I first arrived at BoucherCon, I noticed that approximately three out of four of the murder-mystery fans in attendance were middle-aged ladies. “Aha,” I thought to myself, “look at that! There are rooms and rooms full of possible grandmothers here! Surely I can get some sympathy for having had to bring along my granddaughter — and maybe possibly even get some help.” Sigh. What alternative planet had I been living on? These middle-aged-lady mystery readers were definitely NOT maternal.

And on the last day of the convention, they staged a fancy awards brunch in the Hyatt Regency Grand Ballroom — but I was still stuck with young Mena. What to do? I brought Mena along. She sat quietly through a seminar featuring Susan Dunlop and Robert S. Levinson on the subject of writing books set in San Francisco as opposed to writing books set in Los Angeles — like the sweetheart that Mena really is. But when the time came for the super-finale fancy brunch, Mena staged one of those humongous uncontrollable scary melt-downs like only a two-year-old can.

So here’s Mena, rolling around on the floor of the Grand Ballroom, kicking and SCREAMING!

And here’s me, embarrassed beyond belief, trying to shrink into the woodwork and pretend that I’ve never seen this child ever before in my life.

And here’s a whole ballroom full of 1,000 middle-aged potential grandmother types — staring at me in HORROR, as if I personally had just bumped off Sherlock Holmes.

Finally, one (1) very kindly middle-aged lady did try to help, but by that time Mena was totally in wigged-out-semi-epileptic-craziness mode and practically bit her. OH NO!

At last some saintly waitress strode over and humanely handed me a cup of hot coffee — and Mena wore herself out. “Can we eat now?” Mena asked prettily, in that totally innocent way that only two-year-olds who are just recovering from the fit of a lifetime can pull off. “I’m hungry, Gaia.” I just be you are.

Who Owns The Media?

The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read

From: The Economic Collapse…

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the “big six” absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.  But even those areas of the media that the “big six” do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States.  Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.

But it is the “big six” that are the biggest concerns.  When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think.  They don’t call it “programming” for nothing.

Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media.  But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people….

In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].

–Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi

Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest.  Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com.  The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own….

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1

News Corporation

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan

CBS Corporation

CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network

NBC Universal

Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video

These gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively tell the truth to the American people.  Rather, the primary purpose of their existence is to make money.

These gigantic media corporations are not going to do anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest advertisers (such as the largest pharmaceutical companies that literally spend billions on advertising), and one way or another these gigantic media corporations are always going to express the ideological viewpoints of their owners.

Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should not be trusted.  According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream media (57%) is at an all-time high.

That is one reason why we have seen the alternative media experience such rapid growth over the past few years.  The mainstream media has been losing credibility at a staggering rate, and Americans are starting to look elsewhere for the truth about what is really going on.

Do you think that anyone in the mainstream news would actually tell you that the Federal Reserve is bad for America or that we are facing a horrific derivatives bubble that could destroy the entire world financial system?  Do you think that anyone in the mainstream media would actually tell you the truth about the deindustrialization of America or the truth about the voracious greed of Goldman Sachs?

Sure there are a few courageous reporters in the mainstream media that manage to slip a few stories past their corporate bosses from time to time, but in general there is a very clear understanding that there are simply certain things that you just do not say in the mainstream news.

But Americans are becoming increasingly hungry for the truth, and they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dumbed down pablum that is passing as “hard hitting news” these days.

Mind Control Theories and Techniques used by Mass Media

From: The Vigilant Citizen…

Mass media is the most powerful tool used by the ruling class to manipulate the masses. It shapes and molds opinions and attitudes and defines what is normal and acceptable. This article looks at the workings of mass media through the theories of its major thinkers, its power structure and the techniques it uses, in order to understand its true role in society.

Image source deesillustration.com

Most of the articles on this site discuss occult symbolism found in objects of popular culture. From these articles arise many legitimate questions relating to the purpose of those symbols and the motivations of those who place them there, but it is impossible for me to provide satisfactory answers to these questions without mentioning many other concepts and facts. I’ve therefore decided to write this article to supply the theoretical and methodological background of the analyzes presented on this site as well as introducing the main scholars of the field of mass communications. Some people read my articles and think I’m saying “Lady Gaga wants to control our minds”. That is not the case. She is simply a small part of the huge system that is the mass media.

Programming Through Mass Media

Mass media are media forms designed to reach the largest audience possible. They include television, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, records, video games and the internet. Many studies have been conducted in the past century to measure the effects of mass media on the population in order to discover the best techniques to influence it. From those studies emerged the science of Communications, which is used in marketing, public relations and politics. Mass communication is a necessary tool the insure the functionality of a large democracy; it is also a necessary tool for a dictatorship. It all depends on its usage.

In the 1958 preface for A Brave New World, Aldous Huxley paints a rather grim portrait of society. He believes it is controlled by an “impersonal force”, a ruling elite, which manipulates the population using various methods.

“Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses.”
- Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World

His bleak outlook is not a simple hypothesis or a paranoid delusion. It is a documented fact, present in the world’s most important studies on mass media. Here are some of them:

Elite Thinkers

Walter Lippmann

Walter Lippmann, an American intellectual, writer and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner brought forth one of the first works concerning the usage of mass media in America. In Public Opinion (1922), Lippmann compared the masses to a “great beast” and a “bewildered herd” that needed to be guided by a governing class. He described the ruling elite as “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond the locality.” This class is composed of experts, specialists and bureaucrats. According to Lippmann, the experts, who often are referred to as “elites,” are to be a machinery of knowledge that circumvents the primary defect of democracy, the impossible ideal of the “omnicompetent citizen.” The trampling and roaring “bewildered herd” has its function: to be “the interested spectators of action,” i.e. not participants. Participation is the duty of “the responsible man”, which is not the regular citizen.

Mass media and propaganda are therefore tools that must be used by the elite to rule the public without physical coercion. One important concept presented by Lippmann is the “manufacture of consent”, which is, in short, the manipulation of public opinion to accept the elite’s agenda. It is Lippmann’s opinion that the general public is not qualified to reason and to decide on important issues. It is therefore important for the elite to decide ”for its own good” and then sell those decisions to the masses.

“That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach.”
–Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

It might be interesting to note that Lippmann is one of the founding fathers of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the most influential foreign policy think tank in the world. This fact should give you a small hint of the mind state of the elite concerning the usage of media.

“Political and economic power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a “ruling elite” that controls most of U.S.-based multinational corporations, major communication media, the most influential foundations, major private universities and most public utilities. Founded in 1921, the Council of Foreign Relations is the key link between the large corporations and the federal government. It has been called a “school for statesmen” and “comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes. The creation of the United Nations was a Council project, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”
- Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

Some current members of the CFR include David Rockefeller, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, mega-church pastor Rick Warren and the CEOs of major corporations such as CBS, Nike, Coca-Cola and Visa.

Carl Jung

Carl Jung is the founder of analytical psychology (also known an Jungian psychology), which emphasizes understanding the psyche by exploring dreams, art, mythology, religion, symbols and philosophy. The Swiss therapist is at the origin of many psychological concepts used today such as the Archetype, the Complex, the Persona, the Introvert/Extrovert and Synchronicity. He was highly influenced by the occult background of his family. Carl Gustav, his grandfather, was an avid Freemason (he was Grand Master) and Jung himself discovered that some of his ancestors were Rosicrucians. This might explain his great interest in Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology and symbolism. One of  his most important (and misunderstood) concept was the Collective Unconscious.

“My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”
- Carl Jung, The Concept of the Collective Unconscious

The collective unconscious transpires through the existence of similar symbols and mythological figures in different civilizations. Archetypal symbols seem to be embedded in our collective subconscious, and, when exposed to them, we demonstrate natural attraction and fascination. Occult symbols can therefore exert a great impact on people, even if many individuals were never personally introduced to the symbol’s esoteric meaning. Mass media thinkers, such as Edward D. Bernays, found in this concept a great way to manipulate the public’s personal and collective unconscious.

1955 Time Magazine cover featuring Carl Jung. Looks a little like Avatar, doesn’t it?

Edward  Bernays

Edward Bernays is considered to be the “father of public relations” and used concepts discovered by his uncle Sigmund Freud to manipulate the public using the subconscious. He shared Walter Lippmann’s view of the general population by considering it irrational and subject to the “herd instinct”. In his opinion, the masses need to be manipulated by an invisible government to insure the survival of democracy.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.”
- Edward Bernays, Propaganda

Bernay’s trailblazing marketing campaigns profoundly changed the functioning of American society. He basically created “consumerism” by creating a culture wherein Americans bought for pleasure instead of buying for survival. For this reason, he was considered by Life Magazine to be in the Top 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century.

Harold Lasswell

In 1939-1940, the University of Chicago was the host of a series of secret seminars on communications. These think tanks were funded by the Rockefeller foundation and involved the most prominent researchers in the fields of communications and sociological studies. One of these scholars was Harold Lasswell, a leading American political scientist and communications theorist, specializing in the analysis of propaganda. He was also of the opinion that a democracy, a government ruled by the people, could not sustain itself without a specialized elite shaping and molding public opinion through propaganda.

In his Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Lasswell explained that when elites lack the requisite force to compel obedience, social managers must turn to “a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda.” He added the conventional justification: we must recognize the “ignorance and stupidity [of] … the masses and not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests.”

Lasswell extensively studied the field of content analysis in order to understand the effectiveness of different types of propaganda.  In his essay Contents of Communication, Lasswell explained that, in order to understand the meaning of a message (i.e. a movie, a speech, a book, etc.), one should take into account the frequency with which certain symbols appear in the message, the direction in which the symbols try to persuade the audience’s opinion, and the intensity of the symbols used.

Lasswell was famous for his media analysis model based on:

Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect

By this model, Lasswell indicates that in order to properly analyze a media product, one must look at who produced the product (the people who ordered its creation),  who was it aimed at (the target audience) and what were the desired effects of this product (to inform, to convince, to sell, etc.) on the audience.

Using a Rihanna video as an example, the analysis would be as follows: WHO PRODUCED: Vivendi Universal; WHAT: pop artist Rihanna; TO WHOM: consumers between the ages of 9 and 25; WHAT CHANNEL: music video; and WHAT EFFECT: selling the artist, her song, her image and her message.

The analyzes of videos and movies on The Vigilant Citizen place a great importance on the “who is behind” the messages communicated to the public. The term “Illuminati” is often used to describe this small elite group covertly ruling the masses. Although the term sounds quite caricatured and conspiratorial, it aptly describes the elite’s affinities with secret societies and occult knowledge. However, I personally detest using the term “conspiracy theory” to describe what is happening in the mass media. If all the facts concerning the elitist nature of the industry are readily available to the public, can it still be considered a  “conspiracy theory”?

There used to be a variety of viewpoints, ideas and opinions in popular culture. The consolidation of media corporations has, however, produced a standardization of the cultural industry. Ever wondered why all recent music sounds the same and all recent movies look the same? The following is part of the answer:

Media Ownership

As depicted in the graph above, the number of corporations owning the majority of U.S. media outlets went from 50 to 5 in less than 20 years. Here are the top corporations evolving around the world and the assets they own.

“A list of the properties controlled by AOL Time Warner takes ten typed pages listing 292 separate companies and subsidiaries. Of these, twenty-two are joint ventures with other major corporations involved in varying degrees with media operations. These partners include 3Com, eBay, Hewlett-Packard, Citigroup, Ticketmaster, American Express, Homestore, Sony, Viva, Bertelsmann, Polygram, and Amazon.com. Some of the more familiar fully owned properties of Time Warner include Book-of-the-Month Club; Little, Brown publishers; HBO, with its seven channels; CNN; seven specialized and foreign-language channels; Road Runner; Warner Brothers Studios; Weight Watchers; Popular Science; and fifty-two different record labels.”
- Ben Bagdikan, The New Media Monopoly

AOL Time Warner owns:

• 64 magazines, including Time, Life, People, MAD Magazine and DC Comics
• Warner Bros, New Line and Fine Line Features in cinema
• More than 40 music labels including Warner Bros, Atlantic and Elektra
• Many television networks such as WB Networks, HBO, Cinemax, TNT, Cartoon Network and CNN
• Madonna, Sean Paul, The White Stripes

Viacom owns:

• CBS, MTV, MTV2, UPN, VH1, Showtime, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, TNN, CMT and BET
• Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films
• Blockbuster Videos
• 1800 screens in theaters through Famous Players

“Disney ownership of a hockey team called The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim does not begin to describe the vastness of the kingdom. Hollywood is still its symbolic heart, with eight movie production studios and distributors: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, Buena Vista Home Video, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Buena Vista International, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures.

The Walt Disney Company controls eight book house imprints under Walt Disney Company Book Publishing and ABC Publishing Group; seventeen magazines; the ABC Television Network, with ten owned and operated stations of its own including in the five top markets; thirty radio stations, including all the major markets; eleven cable channels, including Disney, ESPN (jointly), A&E, and the History Channel; thirteen international broadcast channels stretching from Australia to Brazil; seven production and sports units around the world; and seventeen Internet sites, including the ABC group, ESPN.sportszone, NFL.com, NBAZ.com, and NASCAR.com. Its five music groups include the Buena Vista, Lyric Street, and Walt Disney labels, and live theater productions growing out of the movies The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and King David.”
- Ibid

The Walt Disney Company owns:

• ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, A&E, History Channel
• Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Film Corp., Dimension and Buena Vista International
• Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers

Vivendi Universal owns:

• 27% of US music sales, labels include: Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Island, Def Jam, MCA, Mercury, Motown and Universal
• Universal Studios, Studio Canal, Polygram Films, Canal +
• Numerous internet and cell phone companies
• Lady Gaga, The Black Eyed Peas, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Jay-Z

Sony owns:

• Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics
• 15% of US Music sales, labels include Columbia, Epic, Sony, Arista, Jive and RCA Records
• Beyonce, Shakira, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera

A limited number of actors in the cultural industry means a limited amount of viewpoints and ideas making their way to the general public. It also means that a single message can easily saturate all forms of media to generate consent (i.e. “there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”).

The Standardization of Human Thought

The merger of media companies in the last decades generated a small oligarchy of media conglomerates. The TV shows we follow, the music we listen to, the movies we watch and the newspapers we read are all produced by FIVE corporations. The owners of those conglomerates have close ties with the world’s elite and, in many ways, they ARE the elite. By owning all of the possible outlets having the potential to reach the masses, these conglomerates have the power to create in the minds of the people a single and cohesive world view, engendering a “standardization of human thought”.

Even movements or styles that are considered marginal are, in fact, extensions of mainstream thinking. Mass medias produce their own rebels who definitely look the part but are still part of the establishment and do not question any of it. Artists, creations and ideas that do not fit the mainstream way of thinking are mercilessly rejected and forgotten by the conglomerates, which in turn makes them virtually disappear from society itself. However, ideas that are deemed to be valid and desirable to be accepted by society are skillfully marketed to the masses in order to make them become self-evident norm.

In 1928, Edward Bernays already saw the immense potential of motion pictures to standardize thought:

“The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world today. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation. Because pictures are made to meet market demands, they reflect, emphasize and even exaggerate broad popular tendencies, rather than stimulate new ideas and opinions. The motion picture avails itself only of ideas and facts which are in vogue. As the newspaper seeks to purvey news, it seeks to purvey entertainment.”
- Edward Bernays, Propaganda

These facts were flagged as dangers to human freedom in the 1930′s by thinkers of the school of Frankfurt such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. They identified three main problems with the cultural industry. The industry can:

1. reduce human beings to the state of mass by hindering the development of emancipated individuals, who are capable of making rational decisions;
2. replace the legitimate drive for autonomy and self-awareness by the safe laziness of conformism and passivity; and
3. validate the idea that men actually seek to escape the absurd and cruel world in which they live by losing themselves in a hypnotic state self-satisfaction.

The notion of escapism is even more relevant today with advent of online video games, 3D movies and home theaters. The masses, constantly seeking state-of-the-art entertainment, will resort to high-budget products that can only be produced by the biggest media corporations of the world. These products contain carefully calculated messages and symbols which are nothing more and nothing less than entertaining propaganda. The public have been trained to LOVE its propaganda to the extent that it spends its hard-earned money to be exposed to it. Propaganda (used in both political, cultural and commercial sense) is no longer the coercive or authoritative communication form found in dictatorships: it has become the synonym of entertainment and pleasure.

“In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies — the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”
- Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World

A single piece of media often does not have a lasting effect on the human psyche. Mass media, however, by its omnipresent nature, creates a living environment we evolve in on a daily basis. It defines the norm and excludes the undesirable. The same way carriage horses wear blinders so they can only see what is right in front of them, the masses can only see where they are supposed to go.

“It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society.”
- Jacques Ellul

One of the reasons mass media successfully influences society is due to the extensive amount of research on cognitive sciences and human nature that has been applied to it.

Manipulation Techniques

“Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.”

The drive to sell products and ideas to the masses has lead to an unprecedented amount of research on human behavior and on the human psyche. Cognitive sciences, psychology, sociology, semiotics, linguistics and other related fields were and still are extensively researched through well-funded studies.

“No group of sociologists can approximate the ad teams in the gathering and processing of exploitable social data. The ad teams have billions to spend annually on research and testing of reactions, and their products are magnificent accumulations of material about the shared experience and feelings of the entire community.”

- Marshal McLuhan, The Extensions of Man

“It is with knowledge of the human being, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his automatisms as well as knowledge of social psychology and analytical psychology that propaganda refines its techniques.”
- Propagandes, Jacques Ellul (free translation)

Subliminal Perception

“Subliminal perception is a deliberate process created by communications technicians, by which you receive and respond to information and instructions without being consciously aware of the instructions”
- Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

“The techniques of psychotherapy, widely practiced and accepted as a means of curing psychological disorders, are also methods of controlling people. They can be used systematically to influence attitudes and behavior. Systematic desensitization is a method used to dissolve anxiety so the the patient (public) is no longer troubled by a specific fear, a fear of violence for example. [...] People adapt to frightening situations if they are exposed to them enough”.
- Steven Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

Occult Symbolism in Pop Culture

Metropolis – a movie by the elite, for the elite?

Contrarily to the information presented above, documentation on occult symbolism is rather hard to find. This should not come as a surprise as the term “occult”, literally means “hidden”. It also means “reserved to those in the know” as it is only communicated to those who are deemed worthy of the knowledge. It is not taught in schools nor is it discussed in the media. It is thus considered marginal or even ridiculous by the general population.

Occult knowledge is NOT, however, considered ridiculous in occult circles. It is considered timeless and sacred. There is a long tradition of hermetic and occult knowledge being  taught through secret societies originating from ancient Egyptians, to Eastern Mystics, to the Knights Templar to modern day Freemasons. Even if the nature and the depth of this knowledge was most probably modified and altered throughout the centuries, mystery schools kept their main features, which are highly symbolic, ritualistic and metaphysical. Those characteristics, which were an intricate part of ancient civilizations, have totally been evacuated from modern society to be replaced by pragmatic materialism. For this reason, there lies an important gap of understanding between the pragmatic average person and the ritualistic establishment.

“If this inner doctrine were always concealed from the masses, for whom a simpler code had been devised, is it not highly probable that the exponents of every aspect of modern civilization – philosophic, ethical, religious, and scientific-are ignorant of the true meaning of the very theories and tenets on which their beliefs are founded? Do the arts and sciences that the race has inherited from older nations conceal beneath their fair exterior a mystery so great that only the most illumined intellect can grasp its import? Such is undoubtedly the case.”
- Manly P. Hall, Secret Teachings of All Ages

The “simpler code” devised for the masses used to be organized religions. It is now becoming the Temple of the Mass Media and it preaches on a daily basis extreme materialism, spiritual vacuosity and a self-centered, individualistic existence. This is exactly the opposite of the attributes required to become a truly free individual, as taught by all great philosophical schools of thought. Is a dumbed-down population easier to deceive and to manipulate?

“These blind slaves are told they are “free” and “highly educated” even as they march behind signs that would cause any medieval peasant to run screaming away from them in panic-stricken terror. The symbols that modern man embraces with the naive trust of an infant would be tantamount to billboards reading, ‘This way to your death and enslavement,’ to the understanding of the traditional peasant of antiquity”
- Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare

In Conclusion

This article examined the major thinkers in the field of mass media, the media power structure and the techniques used to manipulate the masses. I believe this information is vital to the understanding of  the “why” in the topics discussed on The Vigilant Citizen.  The  “mass population” versus “ruling class” dichotomy described in many articles is not a “conspiracy theory” (again, I hate that term), but a reality that has been clearly stated in the works of some of the 20th century’s most influential men.

Lippmann, Bernays and Lasswell have all declared that the public are not fit to decide their own fate, which is the inherent goal of democracy. Instead, they called for a cryptocracy, a hidden government, a ruling class in charge of the “bewildered herd.” As their ideas continue to be applied to society, it is increasingly apparent that an ignorant population is not an obstacle that the rulers must deal with: It is something that is DESIRABLE and, indeed, necessary, to insure total leadership. An ignorant population does not know its rights, does not seek a greater understanding of issues and does not question authorities. It simply follows trends. Popular culture caters to and nurtures ignorance by continually serving up brain-numbing entertainment and spotlighting degenerate celebrities to be idolized. Many people ask me: “Is there a way to stop this?” Yes, there is. STOP BUYING THEIR CRAP AND READ A BOOK.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.”
- Thomas Jefferson

Related Documentation

Download “Propaganda” By Edward L. Bernays free E-book in pdf from knowledgefiles.com

When Insiders Expose the Ugly Side of the Entertainment Industry

From: The Vigilant Citizen…

This article documents some of today’s well-known artists who have gone on record and spoken about the dark side of the entertainment industry. Some of the industry’s biggest stars, including Dave Chappelle, Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan, have hinted at the true nature of the business in their own words. Here are some of my findings.

Throughout my articles, I discuss many dark aspects of the entertainment industry. Some of these aspects are so awful and improbable to the average reader that they become hard to believe, especially when the information comes from an anonymous blogger such as myself. Some actual celebrities have however gone on record with some truths on the industry. Those rare outbreaks are rarely publicized but, they are available online. So, for this article, I’m letting the insiders do the talking. Who is better placed to talk about the entertainment business than the entertainers themselves, those who have experienced first hand all facets of the business?

Although most artists will not use the terms “mind control” or “occult initiation,” they are explaining, in their own words, the strange realities they are witnessing. These are some videos I’ve found.  I hope they’ll work for everyone.

Warning: Some of these videos are disturbing or contain foul language.

Dave Chappelle

This stand-up comedian, screenwriter, producer and actor is most famous for creating Chappelle’s Show, a ground-breaking sketch comedy television series which ran on Comedy Central until 2006. The DVD set is currently the all-time best-selling DVD for a television show, having sold more than three million copies. Its early success prompted Viacom (Comedy Central’s parent company) to offer Chappelle a $55 million contract for the production of two more seasons of Chappelle’s Show. The production of season 3 was extremely difficult, however, as Chappelle did not like the direction the show was taking. He even referred to it as being “socially irresponsible.” Chappelle also had troubles coping with the pressure coming from network executives to compromise and dumb-down his show.

On May 2005, Chappelle abruptly left the production of season 3 of the show and traveled to Africa. A media frenzy ensued, fueled by speculation and rumors of Chappelle “going crazy” and being on drugs. Upon his return, Chappelle was interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio in December 2005. He discussed many subjects, including his reasons for leaving for Africa. In this next portion of the interview, Chappelle describes in a very vivid matter the “sick” nature of Hollywood.

Keep in mind the portion of the interview where Chappelle talks about Mariah Carey and her losing her mind. She and her “handler” Tommy Mottola will again be mentioned by another fairly known celebrity later in this article.

In an interview with Oprah, Dave Chappelle shares his own theory concerning black comedians being forced to cross-dress at one point or another during their career.  The following video compares Chappelle’s story with 2Pac during the filming of Poetic Justice.

Selling One’s Soul to the Devil

“Selling one’s soul” can be defined as allowing one’s integrity, values and moral code to be defiled in order to obtain riches and success. Considering the occult aspect of the industry, “selling one’s soul” can take a more literal meaning, as there exist actual ritualistic initiations and obscure secret societies working in the shadows. Some artists, who have been more or less in contact with that darker side of Hollywood, have spoken on the subject in their own words.

In the next video, model and actress Melyssa Ford discusses the price of fame in Hollywood.

In the next video, singing legend Bob Dylan explains on 60 Minutes the reason for his longevity in the music business.

What is Katy Perry referring to in this next video? Is “selling one’s soul to the Devil” the folksy way to say I’ve been initiated into the Illuminati industry?

Michael Jackson

Who better than the King of Pop to speak the truth about the music industry? I’ve been asked numerous times about Jackson’s involvement in the Illuminati industry and the causes of his death. I’ve never attempted to write an article on the subject, as his career was incredibly long and filled with astounding events and requires more than just a summary survey.

What is obvious, however, is that MJ, in his last years, was becoming increasingly outspoken on the shady dealings of the music industry. Indeed, it seems the man who was the ultimate Illuminati slave was attempting to break free. In June 2002, Michael Jackson, gave an unexpected speech about the dark side of the entertainment business.

Jackson directly points to Tommy Mottola, the ex-president of Sony Music and the ex-husband of Mariah Carey, who was less her husband than an actual mind control handler. Did “the Devil” get back at MJ for speaking the truth?

Is there a symbol of MJ’s ritual sacrifice on the omniously titled “This Is It” released by… Sony?

Monarch Programming Caught on Tape

Sometimes without even knowing it, celebrities expose the ugly side of the entertainment industry through their actions. I have discussed in numerous articles the existence of mind control in entertainment industry and its symbolism in popular art, and people have asked me if the artists I discuss are actual mind control victims or if they are just performing art that incorporates mind control symbolism. It is obviously difficult to determine which celebrities are actual victims of monarch programming  but some rare footage has appeared showing some celebrities switching mind-control “alters” or personalities. Those videos are quite a disturbing display, but reflect the unfortunate reality of the mass entertainment industry.

Anna Nicole Smith

In the next video, model and actress Anna Nicole Smith is filmed while one of her Monarch alters is switched on. In this disturbing home video, filmed by her handler Howard K. Stern, Anna-Nicole is completely dissociated and child-like.  Media outlets claimed Anna Nicole was under the influence of drugs during the taping of the video, which was probably the case. Drugs alone cannot explain her state of mind, however, as there are obvious symptoms of profound psychological trauma.

Anna-Nicole Smith has clearly an “alter” personality switched on who firmly believe that a doll is actually a real baby. The clown makeup (probably ordered by Stern himself to give the video more impact), reinforces the concept of alter personality in a sick display of manipulation by a handler. Notice in this CNN report that Geraldo refers to Smith as being “in character,” another term to explain an alter personality.

This video only reports one of the many bizarre events toward the end of Anna Nicole Smith’s life. Her entourage and environment was totally foul. It is not a coincidence Smith often posed as Marilyn Monroe during her career: Monroe was the original “mind controlled” sex-symbol.

Looking at the circumstances surrounding the death of her 20-year-old son Daniel in 2006, we can find another example of the trauma-based mind control Anna Nicole was subjected to. The death indeed appears to be a ritual sacrifice. Daniel died in Anna Nicole’s hospital room, right in front of her, only three days after she gave birth to her third baby. Here’s how the authorities described Daniel’s death.

“It would appear from our report that the mother had gotten up, saw him in the chair and he appeared to be sound asleep. She tried to wake him up, he was unresponsive, and she sounded the alarm.”
- Source

After witnessing the miracle of birth, Anna was forced to witness the death of her son in her own room. Daniel death was later attributed to the “presence of three types of prescription drugs in his system” and was considered “suspicious”. The event caused a violent trauma in Anna Nicole, and reports say she was then heavily sedated. She then dissociated from reality (the goal of Monarch mind control programming) and even lost memory of the event.

“The devastation and grief over Daniel’s sudden death coupled with the sedation has been so extreme that Anna Nicole experienced memory loss of the event,” attorney Michael Scott said.
- Source

This is just an example of the disturbing events surrounding Anna-Nicole Smith’s life. Many more details could be discussed in a later article perhaps.

Britney Spears

In this 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer, Britney seems to momentarily switch alters in what seems to be a “mind control glitch”.

The episode of her breaking down and shaving her head might have been an attempt to break free from her mind control manipulation. Reality is indeed WAY stranger than fiction.

In Conclusion

What more can I say?

Welcome to the Jewish Comedy Club

Last weekend the American National Security Adviser, General James Jones, spoke at the 25-year anniversary gala of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy*. Mindful that the crowd consisted of many Jews, General Jones believed would be an appropriate, friendly gesture to launch his speech with a Jewish Joke. He was obviously wrong.

Jones failed to realise that as much as Jews love to tell jokes about themselves, they are pretty circumspect when others have a good time at their expense. It didn’t take long for the head of the notorious Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman, to deliver a clear message to General Jones: if you want to join our comedy club you better be a Jew.

The following is the transcript of General Jones in his attempt to deliver a kosher joke:

“A Taliban militant gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a store run by a Jew and asks for water.

The Jewish vendor tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The Taliban begins to curse and yell at the Jewish storeowner. The Jew, unmoved, offers the rude militant an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water.

The Taliban keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”

As it happens, General Jones is a devoted supporter of Israel. By telling the above joke Jones aimed to please his Zionist audience with what he regarded as an amusing  juxtaposition of Jewish ‘shrewdness’ together with savage Taliban ‘naivety’. Moreover he tried to convey a message of an American-Jewish bond premised on the notion that the Taliban warrior is not just America’s enemy; but is also an enemy of the Jew.

Israeli Ynetnews reported today that, though the joke was well received by the participants, some Jewish community leaders pounced on the remark: “ADL says joke in which Jewish merchant swindles thirsty Taliban fighter inappropriate and stereotypical”.

Clearly Abe Foxman and some other Jewish ethnic leaders were not impressed. Seemingly they didn’t approve of the ‘Jewish swindler’ stereotype. Interestingly enough, in the joke the Jewish vendor doesn’t cheat, there is no fraud. In the joke the Jewish merchant doesn’t try to obtain anything by means of deception. In the joke a merchant  may trick a Taliban fighter to buy a tie but there is no swindle.

However, as much as there is no ‘Jewish swindling’ in the joke as the ADL suggested, there is plenty of it in American mainstream news. Tragically enough we recently met far too many Jewish fraudsters, swindlers and organ traffickers whether it was Madoff, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers or many. Those who follow the news from Israel learn daily about the institutional corruption and swindling scandals in the Jewish state.

Seemingly,  Foxman and other Jewish leaders demanded General Jones apologize for something that they see in themselves, rather than something the General himself suggested or said.

However, a deeper reading of Jones’ joke reveals the embarrassing fact that it is not the ‘swindling’ attempt that reflects so badly on the Jewish tie vendor. It is actually the lack of human compassion. In the joke the tie vendor would not give water to a thirsty man who lost his way in the desert. In the joke, greed eclipses humanity. As much as this idea depicts a pretty harsh stereotypical reading of Jewish identity, such an interpretation is reasonable and even legitimate considering the crimes against humanity performed by the Jewish state in the name of the Jewish people. The starvation of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza is one example of such a lack of humanist consciousness. Again. I wouldn’t think that this is what General Jones had in his mind when telling the joke. However, it is more than likely that once the Zionist crowd stopped chuckling, they grasped the similarity between themselves and the Jewish vendor.

A further critical reading of Jones’ joke would also bring to light a sharp criticism of Jewish tribal brotherhood in the context of Western politics. In the joke two Jewish brothers look after each other regardless of any human or universal concern. In the joke, two Jewish merchants collaborate in the torture and exploitation of a thirsty man in the middle of the desert. It is a blatant tale of tribal nepotism. Again, considering the extensive and relentless work done by Jewish lobbies to support their brothers in Israel and bearing in mind the endless Neocon attempt to drag us all into wars, Jones’ joke should be taken as more than a whiff of witty criticism.

Abe Foxman has managed to terrorise General Jones into submission. He may have succeeded in diverting the attention from the moral of Jones’s joke into just another meaningless debate about anti Semitism. However this joke, like almost any other Jewish joke, is a glimpse into Jewish identity and Jewish politics. Moreover, Abe Foxman’s reaction provides us with a spectacular insight into Jewish political morbidity.

Needless to say that Jones was quick to apologize. He also said that the Joke distracted from the larger message he carried that day, “that the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security is sacrosanct.”

The General’s submissive response leaves me wondering about America’s commitment to itself. Clearly by rushing to appease AIPAC and ADL, General Jones ended up in a similar position to his fictional Taliban fighter who was begging two Jewish brothers for a sip of water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmUb_cXI5aI

* The Washington Institute- an independent think tank widely seen as being pro-Israel, was founded by Jewish donors who are now on the institute’s board.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1165212.html

Mommy, Mommy! Why Am I Fat?

Malnutrition comes in a delightful assortment of colorful flavors nowadays. But poverty and obesity are a correlation that Americans find hard to swallow.

“Genetics and family history can predict whether you will become obese but then so can your ZIP code,” says Adam Drewnowski, world-renowned leader in innovative research approaches for the prevention and treatment of obesity, and Director of the Nutritional Sciences Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. In December of 2003, Drewnowski said, “If poverty and obesity are truly linked, it will be a major challenge to stay poor and thin.” [1]

In a more recent interview regarding her new “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama argues: “A recent study put the health care cost of obesity-related diseases at $147 billion a year. This epidemic also impacts the nation’s security, as obesity is now one of the most common disqualifiers for military service.” [2]

It seems morbid that national security is Michelle Obama’s primary concern regarding obesity in American children. After all, raising healthy American children to become dead American soldiers doesn’t seem like a viable health care objective. But aside from that, poverty is directly correlated with obesity in Americans of all ages. So isn’t American poverty an even worse security threat than American obesity?

Through the magic of photography, Ken Burns’ productions of “The Civil War” and “The National Parks” comprise an epic pictorial scrap book of American History, spanning more than 150 years from the early 1800s through the 1960s. But in all those pictures of millions of typical Americans, there is no sign of obesity, except occasionally amongst the extremely wealthy. So, comparing those pictures to more recent audience footage from any “Blue Collar Comedy” tour, it’s easy to see that American obesity is a relatively new phenomenon, imposed over the past 30-years or so.

Are most Americans fat because they are typically more affluent now than in past generations — or is it because the American food supply has been poisoned with chemical additives that make cheap trash more accessible and flavorful than more expensive and more nutritional food choices?

While American society has become abundantly more affluent over the past quarter century, most of that gain has been concentrated amongst a shrinking upper class minority of people whose incomes are derived primarily from ownership, not from wages. In response, the FDA has prescribed additives like monosodium glutamate and high fructose corn syrup for American workers that are in debt up to their eyeballs because they haven’t had the purchasing power to pay for healthy food since the 1960s.

The result is that deep-fried fast foods and chemically-charged, frozen garbage tend to be cheaper, more flavorful and conveniently microwavable than fresh and more nutritional, albeit less exciting, food alternatives. Efforts to improve sales by enhancing cosmetic appeal require even the ‘fresh foods’ found in the meat and produce departments of most grocery stores to be chemically treated, artificially retarding the discoloration inherent in the natural decomposition that results from the death of any plant or animal. Moreover, genetic modifications tend to compromise nutritional quality for the sake of increased production, distribution and sales of dead plants and animals that comprise the general inventory of every American supermarket.

Under capitalism, this is called ‘economic efficiency’. But all those preservatives are also high on the glycemic index and spike insulin levels that tell our brains to store fat, prompting the FDA to approve an endless variety of diet pills and weight loss programs to combat American obesity. This in turn, only exacerbates the problem of American obesity and facilitates a multi-billion dollar weight loss industry, forcing most Americans into a spiral of financial debt, psychological depression and spiritual bankruptcy. [8] [9]

According to Richard C. Cook, veteran Project Manager for the U.S. Treasury Department and Policy Analyst for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration:

“Cheap, mass-produced foods are largely based on grains and beef raised by massive agribusiness firms, so that the atrocious American diet is inextricably linked with capitalist enterprise controlled by Wall Street. A key ingredient is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), suspected of being a major cause of diabetes and heart disease, as well as obesity. Much of the HFCS is extracted from corn grown from genetically-modified seed which has been rammed down the throats of American farmers, again by the massive agribusiness firms such as Monsanto.

“American farming at present is completely incapable of supplying nutritious foods on a scale that would make a difference. In order to furnish natural and healthy foods to poorer markets would require a revolution in American farming where small family farms using heirloom seeds and natural farming methods would once again become prosperous. Unfortunately, this sector has been destroyed by agribusiness and by the federal government policies, not to mention bank lending practices, that favor it. We also have a massive food chemical industry, closely aligned with the pharmaceutical industry, that thrives on doctoring unhealthy and non-nutritious food, with the aid of the Food and Drug Administration which approves their chemical formulas.

“In other words, a big part of the U.S. economy, again under the control of Wall Street, gets rich off making kids obese and unhealthy to the point where we no longer have the capability of producing anything else on a large scale. If Michelle Obama wants to take on all this she has a pretty big job ahead of her.” [3]

It’s easy to find academic research on the Internet to support all these conclusions, and much of the information suggests that race is a key determinant in both poverty and obesity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made similar observations 40 years ago, and a mountain of recent data supports his conclusions today. So why hasn’t the wife of our nation’s first Black President made the obvious connection between poverty and obesity?

Some of the best thinking on the matter of childhood obesity in the United States appears in an essay written by a high school student. Emily Cumbie-Drake of Theodore Roosevelt High School in Iowa suggests that lower income families are at the highest risk for malnutrition since foods with low nutritional value relative to calorie content are often the most economical choices available. [4]

In a more detailed analysis, Professor Adam Drewnowski suggests that “many health disparities in the United States are linked to inequalities in education and income:

“A reduction in diet costs in linear programming models leads to high-fat, energy-dense diets that are similar in composition to those consumed by low-income groups. Such diets are more affordable than are prudent diets based on lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit. The association between poverty and obesity may be mediated, in part, by the low cost of energy-dense foods and may be reinforced by the high palatability of sugar and fat. This economic framework provides an explanation for the observed links between socioeconomic variables and obesity when taste, dietary energy density, and diet costs are used as intervening variables. More and more Americans are becoming overweight and obese while consuming more added sugars and fats and spending a lower percentage of their disposable income on food.” [1]

But instead of responding appropriately to more than 40-years of existing research conclusions by attacking poverty directly, Michelle Obama insists upon reinventing the wheel. Her revised goals include ending what she refers to as “food deserts” with a $400 million a year “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and “help places like convenience stores carry healthier food options.” [2]

However, increasing the availability of healthier foods does not improve access unless American consumers have the purchasing power necessary to make healthier choices. Basic economics suggests that effective demand is not merely needs or desires; it is needs and desires backed with purchasing power. Moreover, pushing more grocery stores (i.e. Wal-Marts) into poor neighborhoods historically forces millions more people out of their homes in the name of economic development and eminent domain. From this perspective, “Let’s Move” seems a most appropriate title for Mrs. Obama’s new campaign.

According to Michelle’s new “Let’s Move” Web site, “grants will also help bring farmers markets and fresh foods into underserved communities, boosting both family health and local economies”. On the surface, this seems like a great idea. But as long as this program is reliant upon government funding, it is inherently unstable and does not empower local economies in the long run. [5]

A more effective approach would be for the US government to legislate in favor of cooperative enterprise and cooperative financing to facilitate the self-sufficiency of local cooperative markets. The role of an effective government is simply to govern and protect its citizens, not to provide funding for sustenance and commerce through taxation and borrowing.

Of course, government funding would make a lot more sense if it were provided from the economic surplus already generated by the nation’s productivity. Emergency programs, implemented in previous times of economic crisis, could have formed the basis for a stable American economy. This was the case when President Lincoln issued the Greenbacks during the civil war — and when colonial paper currencies allowed an emerging American society to monetize the value of the goods and services its inhabitants were able to produce — and again when President Herbert Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), which moved to recapitalize failing non-Federal Reserve state banks in rural areas and small towns. Hoover’s efforts are not remembered as the most popular in US history. But much to his credit, RFC loan programs had a major impact over the next twenty years, providing low interest loans to the railroad industry, farmers, exporters, state and local governments, and wartime industries. [6].

But this is not the way government funding is provided today. Instead, the US government — even when it is led by a Black President — rewards the corruption of the extremely wealthy with billion dollar bailouts and punishes the working people of this nation with rising food costs, unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, homelessness, crime and starvation, along with a failed health care system.

Even in times when the US government seems more egalitarian in its pursuit of the general interest, it either taxes the rich to provide for the poor, and/or it lends money into circulation, borrowed from a privately owned bank called the Federal Reserve, which must be repaid with interest. The former approach at least temporarily returns to the working class some of the surplus that passive ownership has siphoned away from their productive activities. But it is also unsustainable because tax legislation is so politically driven and volatile. Meanwhile, the latter approach is nothing less than organized crime, since it forces all of American society into debt that can never be repaid.

Assuming the American public has had enough of these criminal arrangements, the most viable alternative is expansion of the cooperative sector from the local level worldwide through self-management, self-financing and the development of renewable technologies for transportation, industry and agriculture. That is to say, cooperative expansion must be self-supporting through its own contributions. This will certainly involve a network of publicly owned banks that provide credit as a public utility rather than a financial playground for an exclusively entitled minority. Eventually, it will also involve a Basic Income Guarantee, provided to every US citizen regardless of employment status. [7] But more importantly, these measures need to become permanent fixtures in the American economic system, not temporary emergency programs implemented in response to economic crisis.

To become a positive legacy for the First Lady, her “Let’s Move” program against American obesity must first be a campaign against American poverty. It must seek to establish more genuine conditions of economic democracy across the globe by driving people everywhere to reject both wage-slavery and debt-slavery in favor of “liberty and justice for all”. But since these are obviously not the objectives of Michelle Obama’s campaign, American communities need to find more viable ways to foster economic self-sufficiency and healthier food choices at the local level through cooperative reorganization.

Notes:

[1] Drewnowski, Adam. (12/29/2003). “Poverty and Obesity: The Role of Energy Density and Energy Costs”. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/1/6.

[2] Starr, Penny. (2/9/2010). “First Lady Links Childhood Obesity to National Security in Launch of “Let’s Move’ Campaign. CNS News. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/61157

[3] Cook, Richard C. (3/13/2010). Email correspondence.

[4] Cumbie-Drake, Emily. “Poverty and Obesity in the United States”. Theodore Roosevelt High School, Iowa.

http://www.worldfoodprize.org/assets/YouthInstitute/05proceedings/RooseveltHighSchool.pdf

[5] Obama, Michelle. (2010). “Let’s Move”. http://www.letsmove.gov

[6] Cook, Richard C. (2008-2009). “We Hold These Truths”. Tendril Press, LLC. Aurora, CO. Chapter 5, “Credit as a Public Utility”, pgs 81-112.

[7] Dorrien, Gary. (5/15/2009). “A Case for Economic Democracy”. OpEd News. http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Case-for-Economic-Democr-by-Gary-Dorrien-090513-750.html

[8] Living for a Better You. (10/21/2009). “The Importance of Nutriton and the Effects and Causes of Malnutrition”. http://www.livingforabetteryou.com/2009/10/21/the-importance-of-nutriton-and-the-effects-and-causes-of-malnutrition.html

The Daily Show, Sarah Palin, Microsoft and back to Mordechai Vanunu

Because I watch The Daily Show, I learned Sarah Palin was on a Jay Leno show. She got a few laughs, but nobody was talking about Palin’s connections to the top leaders of “the New Apostolic Reformation/NAR; a religious movement that makes geographic maps of where demons reside. The NAR is a religious network of elites drawn from the ranks of business and government throughout the world [and] encompasses the humble and the elite alike, supporting a network of ‘prayer warriors’ in all 50 states, within the ranks of the U.S. military, and at the far reaches of the globe — all guided by an entire genre of books, texts, videos and other media. The New Apostolic Reformation, is the largest religious movement you’ve never heard of.”[1]

What we the people for peace, justice, equal human rights and for an end to war and military occupations are really up against is the empire of Big Brother; or the dominant or Royal Consciousness as Walter Brueggemann explains it in, The Prophetic Imagination.

Brueggemann describes the ancient Hebrew prophets as itinerant poets, who addressed the social and political injustices perpetuated by the power structures, and were routinely ignored or reviled for telling the brutal truth.  Brueggemann also connects the dots between prophecy and politics,  “We will not understand the meaning of prophetic imagination unless we see the connection between the religion of static triumphalism and the politics of oppression and exploitation.” [2]

“Royal consciousness is what drives the structures of political power—institutions that, devoted only to their perpetuation, exploit and oppress the people they are charged with protecting and serving.

“Royal Consciousness is concerned only with maintaining the systems that will increase power and wealth for the few.” [Ibid]

Perpetuating the status quo is the foremost goal in the maintenance of Royal Consciousness, which runs through state, church and corporate media.

Hierarchy always interprets any expression of doubt or inquiry as a threat.

Those that question a policy or decision are perceived as undermining authority, but dissent and investigative journalism are the means to assure a healthy democracy.

In 1958, Edward R. Murrow warned that as television became more about entertainment and not about shows of enlightenment, the republic would be dumbed down.

The royal consciousness thrives when people are in a state of comfortable numbness; a society dominated by the royal consciousness becomes easily anesthetized by politicians who can also do a little stand up comedy.

Totalitarian regimes control the people with fear of ‘the other’ and lives kept busy with keeping roof above head and any escape from routine is often filled with mindless entertainment.

But then, the curtain on the obvious comes down and what is oblivious to most is that things are very wrong indeed. People are needlessly suffering because of the apathy and especially the inaction by those with political power- but without the political will to do the right thing-and they won’t do the right thing, unless their consciences can be accessed and pricked.

But the situation appears hopeless, the world is out of balance, tipped on its side by military power and royal conciseness thrives when ever there are those who believe there is nothing that be done to fix anything, so why even bother to think about it?

Royal Consciousness thrives whenever ‘we’ do not consider ‘the other’ as also us-just in different skins and places in time.

And that is the task of prophetic imagination: to simply and directly challenge the royal consciousness by being a voice of Conscience, and it begins with “spying on Americans has become big business” and the unearthing by

Cryptome’s John Young on Alex Jones TV 1/3: The Internet is a Police State Surveillance Grid

Cryptome provided the lead to a 22-page Microsoft document, outlining how Microsoft stores all of your private data in their online servers and helps government agencies obtain your private information without the need for court orders.

Read that Microsoft Document here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/27394899/Microsoft-Spy

However, on February 13, 2008, we already knew:

“The Senate yesterday approved a sweeping measure that would expand the government’s clandestine surveillance powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by approving the telecom immunity provision…the Senate approved the reauthorization of a law that would give the government greater powers to eavesdrop in terrorism and intelligence cases without obtaining warrants from a secret court…The most important change approved by the Senate yesterday would make permanent a law approved last August that expanded the government’s authority to intercept — without a court order — the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States communicating with others overseas.” [3]

In my second book, I wrote:

On February 22, 2006, in a Jerusalem court it was revealed that Israel had asked Microsoft to hand over all the details of Vanunu’s Hotmail account before a court order had been obtained, while eluding that Vanunu was being investigated for espionage.

Vanunu wrote, “Microsoft obeyed the orders and gave them all the details…three months before I was arrested and my computers were confiscated. It is strange to ask Microsoft to give this information before obtaining the court order to listen to my private conversations. It means they wanted to go through my emails in secret, or maybe, with the help of the secret services, the Shaback, Mossad.”

Vanunu’s attorney also proved that the police had misled the judges who gave the orders to arrest him, to search his room, to go through his email, confiscate his computers and that the police also misled Microsoft to believe they were helping in a case of espionage.

Vanunu explained, “The State came to the court with two special secret Government orders; Hisaion [documents or information that are deemed confidential by the government and kept from the court, the defendant, and lawyers.] This allows the prosecution to keep documents related to my court hearing secret. One was from the Minister for Interior Security and one from the Minister of Defense.”

When I questioned Vanunu, regarding his Attorney, Michael Sfard’s requests to Police Representative Mr. Peterburg, to specifically state what type of espionage activity the police alluded Vanunu was being accused of, Vanunu replied in an email:

“The policeman did not have any answers and said that he brought all the evidence to the court. When Sfard asked him again about any material related to the ‘espionage’ [charge] Peterburg had no answers. Sfard proved that the police had misled the judges who gave the orders to arrest me: to search my room, to go through my email, to confiscate my computers and [that they] misled Microsoft to believe they are helping in a case of espionage.”

Shortly after being released from 18 years in a tomb sized cell, Vanunu said, “I am the same man as I used to be in the prison, defending my right to freedom of speech. That was my fight for 18 years, all the time demanding the right to speak. That’s what I did and continue to do now that I’m free. The Israel government continue to pursue me, don’t want to let me go free after 18 years. I don’t have any more secrets, so the Israeli government should realize this case is over, dead –they should let me go.”

Vanunu is still waiting in Jerusalem for the right to leave the state and fade away into history instead of continuing to make it. And I have begun writing my third book-which is a lot about stumbling into being the only reporter in the world who bothered to document Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM OF SPEECH Trial since it began, 25 January 2006.

I also reported on Naomi Klein’s, 2007, book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, and connected these dots in 2008:

After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel’s economy was devastated, but then came 9/11, and “suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners…Many of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel’s status as a fortressed state, surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom–a living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war.

“Israel now sends $1.2 billion in “defense” products to the United States—up dramatically from $270 million in 1999. That makes Israel the fourth-largest arms dealer in the world.

“Much of this growth has been in the so-called “homeland security” sector. Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion–an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the “global war on terror.

“Israel’s policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories are also laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states are being field-tested Palestinians–whether living in the West Bank or what the Israeli politicians are already calling ‘Hamasistan’–are no longer just targets. They are guinea pigs.” [4]

Poster-boy for Israel’s Industrial Security/Surveillance Complex is Mordechai Vanunu. Every email Vanunu has ever written, snail mail received, phone call conversation and walk he has ever taken through east Jerusalem, has potentially been monitored 24/7, since his release from an Israeli prison in 2004.

During my first trip to east Jerusalem in June 2005, Vanunu told me that during the first two years of his 18 years in jail [most all in solitary confinement] a light shone above his head 24/7 in a tomb sized cell. When ever he closed his eyes a guard would come in and shine a brighter light into his face and say, “Just checking if you had committed suicide yet.”

In 2008, and thirty odd years from my first time, I reread Orwell’s 1984, that was published in 1949. I was struck at how much Vanunu reminded me of Winston Smith, Orwell’s man with an independent thought that Big Brother; The Party incarnate found so threatening they tortured him beyond his endurance in order to break him, brainwash him and strip him of his humanity.

In 1987, in Ashkelon Prison, Vanunu wrote, I had “no choice. I’m a little man, a citizen, one of the people, but I’ll do what I have to. I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide…yes, it’s there all right. I’m all right. I do see the monster. I’m part of the system. I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it. This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me. Who else knows? Who has seen? Who has heard?” [5]

“A working prophet, is able to see deeper than most of us into the human soul. Orwell in 1948 understood that despite the Axis defeat, the will to fascism had not gone away…the irresistible human addiction to power were already long in place…the means of surveillance in Winston Smith’s era…[are] primitive next to the wonders of computer technology…most notably the Internet.” [6]

“Universal peace and justice are the goals of man, and the prophets have faith that in spite of all errors and sins…[and] although under the illusion of fighting for peace and democracy…all the fighting nations lost moral considerations…the unlimited destruction of civilian populations…atomic bombs…can human nature be changed so that man will forget his longing for freedom, dignity, integrity, love-can man forget that he is human?” [7]

In Orwell’s epic, Winston Smith played the role of the archetype of all threats to Big Brother; an individual with an open and free mind, independent thought, memory of history, a voice of dissent and willing to take bold action. Orwell’s Big Brother tortured all threats in order to get inside their head and then to brainwash them into accepting doublethink as truth.

The atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a baby step compared to the 21st century slaughter that can be achieved by thermonuclear weapons with capacities to wipe out 100% of a country within minutes. The Industrial Military Complex cranks out new weapons about every five years and soon the minds driven mad with doublethink-”war is peace”- will create 100 or 1,000 megaton bombs.

“Orwell demonstrates the illusion of the assumption that democracy can continue to exist in a world preparing for nuclear war, leaders have only one aim, and that is power, and power means to inflict unlimited pain and suffering to another human being.

“How can a minority of one be right? We spend a considerable part of our income and energy in building thermonuclear weapons, and close our minds to the fact that they might go off and destroy one third or one half of our population and that of the enemy, another example of doublethink-and from a Christian standpoint” there is the evil of killing any other. [Ibid]

From emails Vanunu wrote between March 24-27, 2008:

“Court hearing postponed to May 13, 2008-the appeal against 6 month prison sentence for speaking to foreign media…I think the hearing was postponed because, from the beginning of the trial until now, they really don’t know what they want. All was a game to try to put me under new pressure to see if they can gain something by holding me here.

“All this means is that Israel just continues what they have done since my release in 2004, delaying and holding me here instead of sending me for real freedom. They want me very poor and angry, but I am surviving. One thing is very clear: my case is over. They should let me go free.

“My lawyer is very busy with the trial of the previous president, Kasav. He was accused of rape and sexual harassment by many women in his office, while as a minister office many years ago, and again in his palace as president. But the turmoil here is that the prosecutor made a deal with him; no trial no prison sentence, just a symbolic punishment. So today he will go to court with my lawyer to get his deal and be totally free.

“There is a lot of suffering here. Israel wants to hide so much because it is not good for its image as a democracy and a friend of America…1984, yes I read it many times and many years ago. 1984 is here.” [8]

And because I watch The Daily Show, I learned Sarah Palin was on a Jay Leno show. She got a few laughs…

1. http://www.truthout.org/prayer-warriors-and-palin-organizing-spiritual-warfare-take-over-america57276

2. Braverman, Mark, FATAL EMBRACE, page 154

3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021300959.html?hpid=topnews

4. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070702/klein
5. http://www.vanunu.com/

6.Thomas Pynchon, Foreword, Centennial Edition 1984
7. Erich Fromm, Afterword, Centennial Edition 1984

8.http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=198

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