The Three-Ring Circus that Has Replaced the Three Branches of Government?

No matter what you think of imprisoned writer and activist, Mumia Abu Jamal, he hit the nail on the head when he told Chris Hedges,

“ What’s necessary for the state is the illusion of normality, of regularity … In Rome, what the emperors needed was bread and circuses. In America, what we need is ‘Housewives of Atlanta.’ We need sports. The moral stories of good cops and evil people [or evil cops and Because you have that …. there is no critical thinking in America ...”

However, since Donald Trump took office, the "illusion of normality, of regularity" grows thinner everyday,  yet because the indoctrinated public is so unable or unwilling to revise their current belief in the truth of "officialdom", and in the United States as a beacon of light, they're easily swayed by appeals to authority, to emotion, to fear, etc., and can't see through the greatest show on earth designed to distract them from the reality that their government is not even pretending to be a constitutional republic, not even pretending to be a democracy.

From Trump's absurd presidency to hysterical Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and everything in between, it's hard to differentiate between reality and satire; reality and parody; reality and entertainment. Watching Trump's entire presidency is like watching back to back episodes of "Saturday Night Live", fill-in-the-blank reality TV,  and/or  "As the World Turns".  Perhaps, that's because what we're told is reality is, in reality, the Greatest Show on Earth, that the only thing we can be sure of is that we're being duped and indoctrinated to replace the Truth/Reality with this alternate and virtual reality  

"Bread and circuses" anchored the domestic politics of ancient Rome: feed and put on a good show to placate the masses...keep them distracted, fat and happy. However today, thanks mostly to the exponential advancement of technology, the bread isn't as important as the three-ring circus that has replaced the three branches of government. In other words, the never ending, all encompassing circus is the mainstay of global politics and President Trump gladly plays the role of puppet ring-master. What we're seeing today is a manufactured reality, a matrix conjured up by parasitical globalist wizards in order to beguile the overtaxed, over-policed, overburdened, undernourished, poisoned, traumatized, dumbed-down, plundered, indoctrinated populace. Yes, it's more important than ever to keep the masses compliant, convinced, and captivated...keep them in their place so as the prison walls turn, they don't turn in on their masters.

Keep in mind that  cultural revolution precedes political revolution.  The three-ring circus that presents as reality today wouldn't work five or six decades ago, prior to the sexualization of American society including children, prior to the destruction of the Catholic Church in the northern hemisphere, prior to the destruction of the family, prior to the "anything goes" moral relativity that has eliminated God from the public square. Directly or indirectly--through entertainment,  pop culture,  public "education", foundations, secret societies, laws, technology, etc.--the culture had to be changed to roll out the circus.

So, yes the reality show that is pretending to be started long before President Trump.  It started inching it's way  out of the closet when President-elect Donald Trump met with “Apprentice” director Mark Burnett to discuss a reality-TV-style inauguration, complete with a grand entrance by helicopter.  According to the New York Times, he didn't get his wish, however, every day since President Trump took office proves otherwise.  Think about it.  President Trump spends most of his time tweeting, golfing, watching TV...when does he have time to preside?  And if he's not presiding, who is? 

Washington DC has become the ultimate reality show of reality shows that have been created to replace...wait for it, reality, and  Brett Kavanaugh's "confirmation hearing" is just the latest episode as they continue to inundate  us with theatrics, spectacle and tabloid static. "Due-process", "presumption of innocence," "evidence" mean nothing thanks to our trial by media society, where faulty generalizations, cherry picking, circular reasoning, red herrings, appeal to authority, appeals to emotion, ad infinitum, proceed unchallenged.

Today's three ring circus is dominated by money and profit, imagery and spin, hype and personality,  guarantees that nothing in the way of real truth reaches the populace.  It is so emotionally charged and entertaining that it make you forget that you live in a police state.

“In 2016, his Republican primary opponents didn’t recognize that we are living in an age of bread and circuses, an age Donald Trump didn’t create but into which he inserted his own circus. Curiosity seekers filled the tent and loved the show.”

The sophisticates in the media thought they could beat Donald Trump at this game by burying him under waves of negative publicity. But he feeds off of it, just as he turned the Philadelphia Eagles’ White House no-show into a display of patriotic music, with the maestro at the center.

Now, fantastically, some Democrats are complaining that they can’t get their message out (the tax cut didn’t work, Medicare for all) because Donald Trump has blotted out the media sun. Gee whiz, whose fault is that?

The eclipse won’t end. The media has turned the Trump presidency into a phenomenon of constant self-absorption—their self-absorption in this one person. Donald Trump has become the biggest balloon in a political Macy’s parade of modern media’s own creation. They could let go of the ropes. But they won’t. ─ Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal

The world is truly a stage now. Everything we see is, at the very least, partially choreographed, scripted, and 99% theatrical. That those who occupy the highest or celebrated positions in government, media, academia, etc., are, more or less, mind-controlled life-time actors who live out the roles they've been chosen to play based on their talents, personalities, background, intelligence, etc. No, they don't memorize lines and they don't rehearse, and they may not even know the circumstances they will face--many do not even know they're actors-- but, ultimately, through indoctrination, trauma-based mind control, blackmail, reward, etc., they will act and react as their character. In other words, they become their character just as the greatest method actors become the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of the person they've been chosen to play. The difference, of course, being, it's a lifetime role. They live it on and even off camera for as long as needed.

Meanwhile, the global dominance that has been progressing for centuries--now that Europe is consolidated under the EU; the North American union is consolidated under NAFTA, and other more powerful "free" trade agreements consolidating the planet; the entire media consolidated under five corporations, and banks and national corporations being run by fewer and fewer multinationals--is almost complete. The final steps that are firmly establishing totalitarian global order--as they divide, confuse and confound the masses with the three-ring circus led by Trump, are being taken.

In other words, as the three-ring circus rolls out act after act, behind the scenes,  the true powers that be are consolidating even more power than they already have; each "crisis" unifying the most powerful, entrenching authority even more deeply, while they concentrate the power in the hands of the same global elite that created and designed the never ending crisis, disasters and absurdities we see everyday.  Make no mistake, there is a very definite method to their madness, a very definite order to the "chaos".

The bottom line is that the unaccountable technocracy continue to tweak the Luciferian establishment system that protects and expands a perverse culture that repudiates the most sacred tenants of civilization as we know it, blurring all distinctions between not only national borders, but between man and woman, human and machine, God and man, etc. The biggest obstacle to this new order has been and is always God so the consolidation effort must be extended to the sphere of religion because global power understands the religious nature of human beings, hence our survival of the fittest "enlightenment" with the creation of  Darwinism, scientism, humanism, transhumanism, and other isms and 'ologies, reinforced by "pop culture", "celebrity culture," etc.,that pushes our Creator to the sidelines.  This--the attempt to replace/ transform/erase the Wisdom that's written and inscribed in our hearts by our Creator --is the hidden issue that is not only ignored but, with great effort, actively suppressed by the establishment because they know their totalitarian agenda is impossible when the foundation of our hope rests upon God's Wisdom; when the multitude is animated by a spirit of understanding and unselfishness by the principles and spirit of the Gospel.

And unto man he said to man: Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom: and to depart from evil, is understanding."  

Nevertheless, as long as we're breathing, it's never too late to take back our souls from this worldly agenda. The choice is ultimately ours: Do we become obedient servants of a Godless institutional despotism or the obedient servants of a Loving and Sovereign God who created the world and everything in it?

 For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Mark 8:36

 

Links:
Trump Is the Symptom, Not the Disease

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Silent Coup: The Rise of the Anti-Government Flash Mobs

Anymore, it's always the same: peaceful "democratic" protests, in country after country, against supposedly undemocratic and unresponsive governments that are--wait for it--democratically elected by the people, which eventually turn violent. But are these events really orchestrated silent coups--or attempted coups-- disguised as domestic current events? Ted Snider of Anti-War.com seems to think so.

There is no doubt that the American government has been providing arms, money and logistical support to Al Qaeda in Syria, Libya, Mali, Bosnia, etc.– and related Muslim terrorists in Chechnya, Iran, and many other countries. That's right. We're funding extremest elements within the broader population of targeted nations in order to destabilize targeted nations, ultimately leading, not to a democratic leader in power, but, instead,  radicals  in power who most definitely do not support a democratic government In other words, the genuine protestors, of which there are many, are merely pawns in a chess game played by much more powerful interests and geopolitical forces.

But as the American media continues to mischaracterize the ongoing protests and downplay "the radical ultra-nationalist character of some protesters" not to mention the western leaders (U.S. and EU) continued support of these anti-government protesters--thus, rationalizing what they're doing--we the taxpayers remain blinded to the silent coups that are taking place right under our noses.

A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests U.S. Was Plotting Coup

“I mean that. I mean that Moscow—look at it through Moscow’s eyes. Since the Clinton administration in the 1990s, the U.S.-led West has been on a steady march toward post-Soviet Russia, began with the expansion of NATO in the 1990s under Clinton. Bush then further expanded NATO all the way to Russia’s borders. Then came the funding of what are euphemistically called NGOs, but they are political action groups, funded by the West, operating inside Russia. Then came the decision to build missile defense installations along Russia’s borders, allegedly against Iran, a country which has neither nuclear weapons nor any missiles to deliver them with. Then comes American military outpost in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which led to the war of 2008, and now the West is at the gates of Ukraine. So, that’s the picture as Moscow sees it. And it’s rational. It’s reasonable. It’s hard to deny.

But as for the immediate crisis, let’s ask ourselves this: Who precipitated this crisis? The American media says it was Putin and the very bad, though democratically elected, president of Ukraine, Yanukovych. But it was the European Union, backed by Washington, that said in November to the democratically elected president of a profoundly divided country, Ukraine, "You must choose between Europe and Russia." That was an ultimatum to Yanukovych. Remember—wasn’t reported here—at that moment, what did the much-despised Putin say? He said, "Why? Why does Ukraine have to choose? We are prepared to help Ukraine avoid economic collapse, along with you, the West. Let’s make it a tripartite package to Ukraine." And it was rejected in Washington and in Brussels. That precipitated the protests in the streets.

And since then, the dynamic that any of us who have ever witnessed these kinds of struggles in the streets unfolded, as extremists have taken control of the movement from the so-called moderate Ukrainian leaders. I mean, the moderate Ukrainian leaders, with whom the Western foreign ministers are traveling to Kiev to talk, they’ve lost control of the situation. By the way, people ask—excuse me—is it a revolution? Is it a revolution? A much abused word, but one sign of a revolution is the first victims of revolution are the moderates. And then it becomes a struggle between the extreme forces on either side. And that’s what we’re witnessing. -- Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.

A 1967 interview with Miles Copeland Jr., a famed CIA Agent who helped the Agency stage a coup in Syria in 1949, which could easily apply today



Links:

The UN Says the Ukrainian People Must Decide their Fate, NATO Wants Something Else

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Mysterious Loud Booms? Acoustic Mapping for the Police State Infrastructure?

What are those loud mysterious booms heard across the US that the government claims ignorance? Well, according to Scott Portzline, a nuclear security expert, and activist security consultant to Three Mile Island Alert,claims it very well could be something called acoustic mapping.

Portzline searched through the Department of Energy (DOE) Information Bridge, which is the DOE's portal for scientific documents and discovered the Autonomous UAV-Based Mapping of Large Scale Urban Firefight from 2006, which "describes experimental results from a live-fire data collect designed to demonstrate the ability of IR and acoustic sensing systems to detect and map high-volume gunfire events from tactical UAVs," mapping out and collecting echo data in order to pinpoint large scale weaponry use during firefights that might break out during civil unrest, particularly in an urban setting.

Translated to English, that means that they came up with a fusion of four methodologies (4-D fusion),  which after inserted into a software program--aerial detection systems--that they install into UAVs, they can acoustically map the echoes from the terrain and buildings in urban areas across the US. The purpose is that should a firefight occur, the government will already know the acoustic properties, through acoustic sensing, of all the different buildings and terrain, thus giving them the capability to pinpoint, by subtracting out the echoes from the clutter, within seconds, where the firefight is coming from right down to the room/floor of the building you’re firing from, your motion, and type/caliber/ammunition you’re using.

Four methodologies:

• Acoustic observation – adheres to gun and motor (weapon) noises
• Infrared observation – see the flashes
• 3-D scenery information – already knows what the urban area targeted for acoustic mapping looks like.
• Prior Time-step data –

Why are they going to all of this trouble? The U.S. military is seeking to "better understand the [global] information battle space" through full spectrum dominance. What is that?  It's America’s grand strategy for achieving totalitarian democracy in the new world order. In other words, “full spectrum dominance” over all land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough power through “a vast array of psychological and economic warfare techniques” to maintain the unchallengeable military we have now through a "Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), which was created to bring about a major change in the nature of warfare. Essentially, RMA's goal is the implementation of global command and control sense and respond systems to ultimately enforce world government.

"A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organisational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations." -- Andrew Marshall, director of the Office of Net Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense

The combination of  an Event Driven Architecture, created with built in backdoors, and sense and respond logistics will categorize, infer and 'engage' threats.  IBM has even admitted that they supply the military with their 'Sense and Respond' solutions, which have the specific aim of facilitating Network-Centric Operations/Warfare, which exists to further the war economy and exact full command and control over the population.



If you see this type of equipment in your area, you will know what's going on.



Edward Bernays, the father of public relations and 'perception-molding' who created the pretext for a US military invasion in Guatemala that ended up killing 200,000 and disappearing 100,000 amongst other achievements such as the creation of a 'fake enemy', selling cigarrettes to women, fake emancipation movements, and providing the knowledge base for cointelpro, it could be said, started a revolution in military affairs long before the official document came to be.

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Sentencing Two Populations to Generations of Debt Slavery

The first real test of establishing America’s commitment to "democracy" came from Greece after WWII. During the war, the Left Wing National Liberation Front had provided the majority of resistance to the Nazis. It also set up interim governments across the nation. Though its military government leaders were communist, the partisan governments bore no resemblance to Stalinist Russia. They were decentralized and participatory. The peasants were treated fairly and their status, raised. It was a real people’s government. The goal was to make Greece independent, free from all ties.

But Winston Churchill claimed anarchy and demanded the return of the monarchy. He wanted to keep Greece in their sphere of influence in the Mediterranean for their own political ends. In other words, they wanted to restore the old order in Greece. They wanted the King back on his throne because he was the best guarantee of British interest in Greece: political, economic, and strategic, despite the fact that all of the Greek people hated the oppressive regime of the King.

So America stepped in and a network of concentration camps were set up across the Greek islands while right winged death squads terrorized villages. A favorite technique was beheading. President Truman gave $400 million to aid in restoring the old order. In 1947, 74,000 tons of military equipment was sent to Greece including massive stocks of napalm, and during the Civil War in Greece, the Truman Doctrine was announced which was in effect to crush the peasant and worker based anti-Nazi resistance and restore the traditional fascist order. As a result, 150,000 Greeks were killed. Greece was the first major police task which the United States took on in the postwar world.

Fast forward almost 60 years, and the European feudal system is scapegoating Greece, along with its tiny neighbor, Cyprus --many Cypriots consider themselves Greeks; they share the same National Anthem, are Orthodox and of course they speak Greek--once again, only this time, instead of tanks, they're using banks.

"At least 1,600 Greek businesses - from shipping, retail to tourism - will suffer from the Cyprus bailout deal announced on Sunday after a showdown between Brussels and Nicosia, according to Vasilis Korkidis, head of the National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE).

“The tragic situation in Cyprus will certainly have immediate effects on the Greek market, since a large part of the domestic businesses maintain close ties with Cypriot companies,” Korkidis said in a statement on Tuesday. He was particularly critical of the capital controls and the impending haircut on large deposits (over 100,000 euros) expected to be more than 40%.

Greece's exports to Cyprus exceed 1billion euros annually and the country is Cyprus’ biggest trade partner, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany.

According to Korkidis, the Eurogroup’s Cyprus deal establishes new, severely punitive rules for countries needing emergency aid in the future.

He also slammed the Eurogroup deal (which he called the "German plan" to stress the key role played by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the negotiations) for “crippling” Cyprus. He said the deal is “tragic” because it “sentences” Cyprus - the country’s markets and economy - to a long period of recession and debt.

Without blinking an eye, the troika of International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank (ECB) wipes out the savings of a people, while imposing draconian capital controls, sentencing two populations to generations of debt slavery. This is the new model. Other countries will surely follow.

Links:

List Released With 132 Names Who Pulled Cyprus Deposits Ahead Of "Confiscation Day"

With every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer the Cyprus deposit confiscation "news" was the most unsurprising outcome for the nation's financial system and was known by virtually everyone on the ground days and weeks in advance: first it was disclosed that Russians had been pulling their money, then it was suggested the president himself had made sure some €21 million of his family's money was parked safely in London, then we showed a massive surge in Cyprus deposit outflows in February, and now the latest news is that a list of 132 companies and individuals has emerged who withdrew their €-denominated deposits in the two weeks from March 1 to March 15, among which the previously noted company Loutsios & Sons which is alleged to have ties with the current Cypriot president Anastasiadis.

From Sigma:

"Money transfers made within 15 days, namely from 1 until March 15. On Friday, March 15, had met the Eurogroup, which officially decided to impose a tax on deposits by companies and individuals in all financial institutions in Cyprus.

These 132 companies and individuals have withdrawn all deposits in euros, dollars and rubles, which were transferred to other banks outside Cyprus.

The disclosure of the list, which shows that the outflow of deposits from local banks other financial institutions outside Cyprus became massively raises suspicion that some had inside information about the decisions taken by the other 16 eurozone countries in exchange for financing deficits of the economy.

In listings, and the company is Loutsios and Sons Ltd, which carried 21 million deposit in a UK bank, while the owner of the company is alleged to have family ties with the President of the Republic, Nikos Anastasiadis.

The first column are names of companies and individuals in the second record of the amounts withdrawn in the third column refers to the amount withdrawn in the same currency, the currency in the fourth and the fifth and last column refers to the date of transfer.

The Timeline of the Unfolding Eurozone Crisis

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Ex-CIA Agent, Whistleblower John Kiriakou Says John Brennan is a Terrible Choice to Lead the CIA

John Kiriakou served in the CIA from 1990 until March 2004. As a senior operations officer, he became chief of counterterrorist operations in Pakistan following the September 11 attacks. This tour culminated in the March 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah, al-Qa’ida’s third-ranking official. Upon his return from Pakistan, John was named Executive Assistant to the CIA’s Deputy Director for Operations, where he was principal Iraq briefer for the Director of the CIA. In addition, he was a senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he focused on international terrorism, piracy, and counternarcotics. He also served as senior intelligence advisor.

On December 10, 2007, Kiriakou gave an interview to ABC News where he was described as participating in the capture and questioning of Abu Zubaydah, who is accused of having been an aide to Osama Bin Laden. According to Kiriakou, based on what he had been told by the CIA, it had taken only a single brief instance of waterboarding to extract answers to an interrogator's questions from Abu Zubaydah. In reality, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, and that little or no useful extra information may have been gained by "harsh methods". However, even when Kiriakou believed-- from the CIA--that Zubayda was waterboarded only once, he acknowledged that even the "mild" waterboarding he described constituted a form of torture and he expressed reservations about whether the value of the information was worth the damage done to the U.S. reputation.

Fast forward to Monday, January 23, 2012, and Kiriakou was charged as the first official to confirm the waterboarding of al-Qaeda prisoners as an interrogation technique, which he described as torture. On April 5, he was indicted: one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, three counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917--only used three times prior to the Obama administration, who has used it against six government officials-- and one count of making false statements for allegedly lying to the Publications Review Board of the CIA. Soon after, Kiriakou pleaded not guilty, and was released on bail.

In a plea deal, on Monday, October 22, 2012, he changed his mind and agreed to plead guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media thereby violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; sparing journalists from testifying in a trial.  Then, on January 25, 2013, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months--two-and-a-half years-- in prison.

Days after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, John Kiriakou — the first CIA official to be jailed for any reason relating to the torture program — denounces President Obama’s appointment of John Brennan to head the CIA.

"I’ve known John Brennan since 1990. I worked directly for John Brennan twice. I think that he is a terrible choice to lead the CIA. I think that it’s time for the CIA to move beyond the ugliness of the post-September 11th regime, and we need someone who is going to respect the Constitution and to not be bogged down by a legacy of torture." -- John Kiriakou

The bottom line is that out of all of the people involved in the CIA's illegal torture program, he's the only person who will go to jail, not for torturing anyone, but for exposing the use of this suffocation technique.



Links:

Talk About Politicizing Intelligence! Meet John Brennan, CIA Chief Designee

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Controling the Dangerous Crowd in an Age of Mass Democracy

The triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power is truly moved into the hands of the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self by Adam Curtis tells the untold and controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How is the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interest?

The Freud dynasty is at the heart of this compelling social history. Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis; Edward Bernays, who invented public relations; Anna Freud, Sigmund's devoted daughter; and present-day PR guru and Sigmund's great grandson, Matthew Freud. Sigmund Freud's work into the bubbling and murky world of the subconscious changed the world. By introducing a technique to probe the unconscious mind, Freud provided useful tools for understanding the secret desires of the masses. Unwittingly, his work served as the precursor to a world full of political spin doctors, marketing moguls, and society's belief that the pursuit of satisfaction and happiness is man's ultimate goal....

Part 1-Happiness Machines:
Part one documents the story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays who invented 'Public Relations' in the 1920s, being the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Part 2-The Engineering of Consent:
Part two explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses. Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany, and in response to this, they set out to find ways to control the masses so as to manage the 'hidden enemy' within the human mind.

Part 3-There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed:
In the 1960s, a radical group of psychotherapists challenged the influence of Freudian ideas, which lead to the creation of a new political movement that sought to create 'new people', free of the psychological conformity that had been implanted in people's minds by business and politics. This episode shows how this idea rapidly developed in America through "self-help movements", into the irresistible rise of the expressive self: the Me Generation.

Part 4-Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering:
This episode explains how politicians turned to the same techniques used by business in order to read and manipulate the inner desires of the masses. Both New Labor with Tony Blair and the Democrats led by Bill Clinton, used the focus group which had been invented by psychoanalysts in order to regain power. Both set out to mold their policies to manipulate people's innermost desires and feelings, just as capitalism had learned to do with products.

The Century of the Self:

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Voting Charade

As someone commented on the George Carlin video below, "Fuck this illusory nonsense. It's hypocrisy disguised as righteousness and I'm sick of it."

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Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.

The genius of our current plutocratic power structure is their ability to present the illusion of change on the surface, while maintaining continuity just beneath the surface. In other words, despite change in leadership, despite change in political party, despite promises to make a difference in the state or condition of things, despite promises to reform, nothing deviates from the status quo, wealth and privilege continue to reign supreme and our leaders, regardless of party affiliation, remain faithful to imperialist aims and objectives.

Of course, this should come as no surprise, since it's the wealthy and privileged--whether individually, or corporately--who provide most, if not all the funding for both the National Democratic Party and National Republican Party. The same wealthy who who demand free enterprise, at the same time that they totally support monopoly and vested interest. They use the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously in order to keep "we the people" in eternal subjugation.

If you don't believe the two-party system is a sham, consider the continuing escalation of economic inequality, economic insecurity, economic exploitation, corporatized media, military intervention, assault on our civil liberties, "Big Brother", educational indoctrination, not to mention the ever-increasing prison population (since the 1970’s our prison population has increased by over 500%, with over 2.2 million people in prison, 900,000 of them, black) over the last four decades.

What is the point of voting when the outcome is the same?

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Protests Against Government Outlawed.

The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R.347 - Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, a bill that gives the government power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country. The right of American citizens to peacefully assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances has been abolished by outlawing protests where key government officials or other VIP's gather. In other words, this bill criminalizes dissent.

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. " - Justice William O. Douglas

What makes the passing of this bill even worse is that it follows directly on the heels of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that allows for indefinite detention of Americans, which followed the extension of the Patriot Act, allowing the government to seize records and conduct secret surveillance on Americans, even though they have no known connections or ties to terrorist groups.  

As in Weimar Germany, our fundamental rights and freedoms are being repealed under the same pretext: that democracy is threatened and must be protected. But who is it that's really threatening our democracy?  On top of the police state legislation, the US today has 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on programs related to counter-terrorism, homeland security and intelligence. A recent Washington Post investigation warned the our top secret world has become “so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

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Are We Living in a Post Racial America? Or, Jim Crow Junior America?

After all, as the New York Times claimed, the election of President Obama into the White House, swept "away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive". Really? Then, why are the African Americans suffering more than any other group of people at this time? Remember, many of the white supremacy members said they voted for Obama to send the country into a tailspin...foment a race war.  One former member, Tim Zaal, said, "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise." 

"Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites." -- Neo-Nazi, with the pen name, "LastOfMyKind"

For instance, under Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD’s practice of “stop and frisk” - — practice of officers stopping city residents on the street and searching them- increased to 600,000 stops performed last year. "87% of those stopped last year were black or Hispanic, a number disproportionate to their share of the population. And just 7 percent of the stops resulted in arrests, meaning the vast majority of those stopped committed no crime. The NYPD argues the practice reduces crime, but it has been coming under increasingly intense criticism in recent months".

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Dear Sociopathic Government, It's Life, Stupid! Not the Fiction You Call an Economy.

We, as a people, have lost perspective of reality. We've totally bought into the belief that what gives life meaning, is based, on what you own; how much you have; whom you associate with, and your position. In other words, the one with the most wins, and the only kind of life worth living is a life lived for the acquisition of wealth, social status, position. Acquisition = success.

Therefore, most of us sincerely believe - including me at one time - that every decision government makes should be based on the premise: "it's the economy, stupid"! This so-called economy that requires each and every one of us to pay in order to live - from the time of birth - despite the fact that between nature and the advanced technology available there is more than enough to meet the basic needs of everyone on the planet.

Not to mention, most of us cannot even explain how this "ponzi scheme" of an economy works. Or how it sustains or empowers the people, because it does not. Can we eat money? Drink money? Breathe money? Wear money? What the hell is money, anyway? We can't even answer that. Why? Because it's not real. It's created out of thin air! Moreover, this debt-based money requires the creation of shortages to create value. Without debt and manufactured shortages, our economic system fails. WTF kind of system is that?

Yet, we continue to allow the powers that be to decide the overall quality of our lives based on this fiction, thus making it thee #1 priority in life, even when it destroys life. And that's exactly what our extractive economic system does. That's the way it was designed: to destroy life.

Because the more the international/American economy extracts or exploits the earth's natural resources, the more it pollutes our atmosphere, the more it plunges our planet into misery and ravages it by hunger, water shortages, flooding, and warfare...the more prosperous this economy is.

People's lives are evaluated through the market, and the lives of the poor, and now, even the middle-class are deemed practically worthless, because it's cheaper to let people die than to interfere with economic growth, and/or the profit of the elitist power structure.

The system is beyond dysfunctional.  If we have any hope of changing it, we need to revalue, re-prioritize, and redefine reality. Currently, the discourse that defines reality, especially for those who formulate public policy, is economics. The overall good of society is measured strictly by GNP/GDP, and an unsustainable rate of growth. The quality of our lives does not factor into this equation at all!

Take fracking, the hydraulic fracturing of coal gas seams and gas shale to liberate and extract natural gas. The noxious emissions emitted by this process contaminate the water table, air, and soil; but that is all but ignored because it's "good" for the economy.

This is our society. We are the nation. However, at this point, fighting back will only worsen our situation as they can declare martial law. In addition, they have covertly co-opted a good percentage of our more power-hungry citizenry by appealing to that that desire for power. Therefore, disconnecting from our system is the only way. And the only way that will work is if we, the people unite by building our local communities, which means we have to start trusting our "neighbors" rather than the ruling elite.

Who are the ruling elite? Well, who knows? But we do know who their puppets are: the mainstream media, government officials, corporate executives, attorneys, and/or the "justice" system, law enforcement, etc. Most of these people are not even aware of their "puppet" status. They're so brainwashed to accept and enforce the status quo that they operate on automatic.  They will only see the light when it is them who experience the crushing blows that the system is so adept at delivering.

The bottom line is divided we fall, and the ruling class knows that best of all.

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News Inc

Today, American journalism is replete with incestuous relationships between government, industry, and academia, thanks to a few of the largest Fortune 500 corporations that own and operate news organizations. What we call mainstream "news" is now a bottom-line serving propaganda machine, riddled with conflicts of interest. Moreover, mainstream "journalists" have morphed into strategic communication professionals.And authentic investigative journalism does not exist, if it ever really existed in the mainstream media when you take into account all that the Internet has unearthed from as far back as the 1930s. However, it seems, whatever the situation was, it may be far worse now.

Because of the incestuous "working relationship" government and corporate media enjoy, average Americans receive not only a censored version of reality, but also many times, a fabricated version of reality. The fourth estate, the press, rather than acting as watchdog of American democracy, is now an instrument of the growing corpocracy that is in the process of transforming America from a Constitutional Republic to an oligarchy.

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional law and civil rights litigator and author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?", "A Tragic Legacy" and most recently, "Great American Hypocrites", eloquently depicts the corporatized mainstream media as he analyzes and describes his own experience in his recent article: The merger of journalists and government officials

"...Over the last month, I've done many television and radio segments about WikiLeaks and what always strikes me is how indistinguishable -- identical -- are the political figures and the journalists. There's just no difference in how they think, what their values and priorities are, how completely they've ingested and how eagerly they recite the same anti-WikiLeaks, "Assange = Saddam" script. So absolute is the WikiLeaks-is-Evil bipartisan orthodoxy among the Beltway political and media class (forever cemented by the joint Biden/McConnell decree that Assange is a "high-tech Terrorist,") that you're viewed as being from another planet if you don't spout it. It's the equivalent of questioning Saddam's WMD stockpile in early 2003.

It's not news that establishment journalists identify with, are merged into, serve as spokespeople for, the political class: that's what makes them establishment journalists. But even knowing that, it's just amazing, to me at least, how so many of these "debates" I've done involving one anti-WikiLeaks political figure and one ostensibly "neutral" journalist -- on MSNBC with The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart and former GOP Congresswoman Susan Molinari, on NPR with The New York Times' John Burns and former Clinton State Department official James Rubin, and last night on CNN with Yellin and Townsend -- entail no daylight at all between the "journalists" and the political figures. They don't even bother any longer with the pretense that they're distinct or play different assigned roles. I'm not complaining here -- Yellin was perfectly fair and gave me ample time -- but merely observing how inseparable are most American journalists from the political officials they "cover."

(2) From the start of the WikiLeaks controversy, the most striking aspect for me has been that the ones who are leading the crusade against the transparency brought about by WikiLeaks -- the ones most enraged about the leaks and the subversion of government secrecy -- have been . . . America's intrepid Watchdog journalists. What illustrates how warped our political and media culture is as potently as that? It just never seems to dawn on them -- even when you explain it -- that the transparency and undermining of the secrecy regime against which they are angrily railing is supposed to be . . . what they do.

What an astounding feat to train a nation's journalist class to despise above all else those who shine a light on what the most powerful factions do in the dark and who expose their corruption and deceit, and to have journalists -- of all people -- lead the way in calling for the head of anyone who exposes the secrets of the powerful. Most ruling classes -- from all eras and all cultures -- could only fantasize about having a journalist class that thinks that way, but most political leaders would have to dismiss that fantasy as too extreme, too implausible, to pursue. After all, how could you ever get journalists -- of all people -- to loathe those who bring about transparency and disclosure of secrets? But, with a few noble exceptions, that's exactly the journalist class we have.

There will always be a soft spot in my heart for Jessica Yellin because of that time when she unwittingly (though still bravely) admitted on air that -- when she worked at MSNBC -- NBC's corporate executives constantly pressured the network's journalists to make their reporting favorable to George Bush and the Iraq War (I say "unwittingly" because she quickly walked back that confession after I and others wrote about it and a controversy ensued). But, as Yellin herself revealed in that moment of rare TV self-exposure, that's the government-subservient corporate culture in which these journalists are trained and molded...."

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Cushioning the Government from the Direct Expression of the Will of the People

Today, the terms republic and democracy are virtually interchangeable, but that wasn't always the case, especially at the time of the creation of our "Constitutional Republic" .

Democracy implied direct rule by the people, all of whom were equal. Whereas republic implied a system of government in which the will of the people was mediated by representatives, who might be wiser and better educated than the average person -- the elite.

For example, in the early American republic, the requirement that voters own property and the establishment of institutions such as the Electoral College were intended to cushion the government from the direct expression of the will of the people.

Well, it could be said that things have changed over the last 250 years, and no, not towards democracy, but, towards empire. And that cushion has/is growing to smothering proportions, as an interlocked corrupt oligarchic system, the ruling elite, works quietly in the shadows, "creating other new realities".

‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ — Senior Bush Advisor, The New York Times, October 17, 2004

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Deception is a State of Mind and the Mind of the State

How can one tell the veneer of dissent from authentic grassroots dissent? Fabricated leaks from real leaks? Fabricated terrorists from real terrorists?



Hegelian Dialectics of Deception:

Invent not one, but two (or more) opposing lies, and keep the unsuspecting people busy debating which of them is true. (The 'Technique of Infamy', exposition attributed to Ezra Pound)

From the clash of opposite constructions, a greater whole is germinated towards the desired outcome (The Hegelian Dialectics)

When the opposites don't exist or don't clash naturally, it is fabricated and the clash engineered, entirely stage-managed on both sides to piece-meal synthesize the desired hidden agenda – raising a new phoenix from the ashes left behind by the controlled clash of the opposites (The Hegelian Dialectics of Deception applied to modern statecraft, familiar to most as fake-competition to reel in customers, or fake-managed-fights as in WWF wrestling benefiting its owners regardless of who wins or loses)

“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. -- Edward Bernays

“Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State” James Jesus Angleton, Head of CIA Counter Intelligence 1954-1974

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Fake Net Neutrality & Keeping the Illusion of Democracy Alive and Well.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is bringing new, "industry-written" "net neutrality" rules, that he's kept secret until the last possible moment, to a five-member panel, tomorrow, for a vote.  Are we supposed to believe that these rules - supposedly aimed at preventing the nation’s cable and Internet service providers from interfering with the empowering, open-to-innovation, leveling-the-playing-field nature of the internet - are real?   

Are we supposed to believe that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's "compromise", kept from the knowledge of any but the privileged isn't just another pretense to freedom of expression and freedom of thought? Pretense to "democracy"?

Well, since the nation's cable and telecommunications companies are pleased by the new rules, and they are signaling their support for Genachowski’s compromise deal,  the answers to the aforementioned questions should be fairly clear.

Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota, called this issue "the most important free speech issue of our time", and, along with many other public interest and free speech groups, "slammed the rules as woefully inadquate to protect the public from the privations of an industry keen on turning the internet into a cyber-version of cable TV, with tiers and premium packages affordable by the wealthy."

This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet.

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

This principle is called "net neutrality" -- and it's under attack. Internet service giants like Comcast and Verizon want to offer premium and privileged access to the Internet for corporations who can afford to pay for it.

The good news is that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to issue regulations that protect net neutrality. The bad news is that draft regulations written by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski don't do that at all. They're worse than nothing.

That's why Tuesday is such an important day. The FCC will be meeting to discuss those regulations, and we must make sure that its members understand that allowing corporations to control the Internet is simply unacceptable.

Once again, the government is intervening in ways that redistribute income, wealth, and opportunity upward. However, once that starts to become apparent, their actions will be cleverly disguised as the natural working of the free market, therefore, in our best interest.

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Big Sister Urges We the People to Spy on Each Other.

Seizing websites, molesting people at airports and now Big Sister videos at Wal-Mart trying to raise the paranoia level? What does this have to do with homeland security? It sounds like Ms. Napalitano is squandering resources with all of this nonsense.

Copyright enforcement has nothing to do with homeland security. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 makes only one reference to copyright enforcement. It points out the revenue-collection function of copyright belongs in the Treasury Department. That's it. Yet, Homeland Security is shutting down websites without any notification whatsoever.

And what the hell do we need a  "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign at Wal-Mart, or anywhere else for that matter?

"...help the American public play an active role in ensuring the safety and security of our nation?"

Translation: ...help the American public play an active role in ensuring the takeover of our nation.

You will see and hear Janet Napolitano say this as you stand in line at Wal-Mart:

"If you see something suspicious in the parking lot or in the store, say something immediately. Report suspicious activity to your local police or sheriff. If you need help, ask a Walmart manager for assistance."

It wasn't all that long ago that Adolf Hitler said the following words when proposing the creation of the Gestapo:

"An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland."
-- Adolf Hitler

In a report by Robert Gellately of Florida State University shows that 80% of all Gestapo investigations were conducted as a result of one neighbor 'turning in' another.

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Magma Crisis Finished Off the Middle Class.

The “magma chart”: the Fed balance sheet, courtesy of the Cleveland Fed.

We, the U.S. consumers have little left to spend on goods and services. Why?  Well, because we have so much to spend on debt service. Moreover, if take a look at  wage distribution in the US for 2009 from the Social Security Administration, our wages, on average, were nothing to brag about.

The largest group of wage earners made between $0.01 — 4,999.99, earning, on average $2,016. And the average wage for everyone was $39,054, but the median was a mere $26,261, with two-thirds of all workers making than $40,000.

“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to…the general prey of the rich on the poor.” -- Thomas Jefferson

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Can One Illusion Under "God" Continue to Keep the Common Man in Eternal Subjugation?

Halloween visitors with the President, 31 October 1963

The new and advancing technologies driving the profound changes we see today are bound to eventually change the balance of political power in one way or another. If we the people remain alert and take advantage of the opportunities this new technology offers, we can  level the playing field in ways never seen before.

However,  the global elite are well aware of  this threat to their supreme power. In part, it explains our current situation: a desperate privileged class, bound and determined to remain in control, who must rely increasingly on force, covert or overt, to maintain their place in the social hierarchy. One thing for sure: this distinctively neo-liberal, elitist, and monarchistic group will not go down easy, despite their seemingly progressive rhetoric promoting democratization, liberty, transparency, and the rule of law. They must steadily convince us that those in power act in our best interest, and what better way to do that than a "Potemkin" administration.

President Kennedy speaks at rally in Fort Worth, 22 November 1963.

We were were promised change under President Obama's administration, despite the fact that he has, in fact, made some positive changes,  since he took office, it appears that unlike, former President John F. Kennedy (JFK), President Obama is not prepared to take on those "opposing forces, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy" that JFK spoke of, and challenged.  It's not surprising, considering what happens to those who courageously take on those who have everything to lose if the status quo .

So, the Obama administration, for the most part, avoids straying too far from former President Bush's path, which includes: an escalation on the "war on terror" and no big plans to dismantle the failed "war on drugs."  Moreover, rather than the transparent, collaborative, democracy President Obama promised, we the people, remain subservient  to multinational corporate interests and the establishment elite, all the while, carrying on under the increasing surveillance powers put in place under the Patriot Act.

"It’s 18 months and, if not now, when? ... Guantanamo is still not closed. Military commissions are still a mess. The administration still uses state secrets to shield themselves from litigation. There's no prosecution for criminal acts of the Bush administration. Surveillance powers put in place under the Patriot Act have been renewed. If there has been change in the civil liberties context, I frankly don't see it. -- ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero

Are we headed toward a global governance, in which international elites play pass the power, in an effort to render itself unaccountable to its citizens?

Well, as increasing economic interconnection becomes a reality, it exposes us to the covert motives of multinational corporations. This expanding sphere of influence creates the conditions for effective international governance.

". 'substantial decisions are frequently taken by unaccountable officials operating in arcane and secretive international forums, which exert strong pressure on, even if they do not formally bind, national decision-making processes.'

“The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.” -- President John F. Kennedy Speaking to the American Newspaper Association April 27, 1961

"For we are opposed, around the world, by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence; in infiltration instead of invasion; on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice; on guerillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. Its preparations are concealed not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined, its dissenters are silenced, not praised; no expenditure is questioned. - President John F. Kennedy

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money and more power.

They claim to be superpatriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjugation” -- Vice President Henry Wallace

Links: 

Remarks at the Breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, November 22, 1963 - JFK's last words.

GOSCON - is the Government Open Source Conference, an annual event produced by Oregon State University's Open Source Lab. Now in its sixth year, the conference focuses on the role of open source software and collaboration as an enabler of leading Open Government and Transparency initiatives throughout the US. Speakers come from all levels of government, from City Officials to Federal Agencies.

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Meet the Exonerated: Indiana's Death Row

In Indiana, the death penalty is available only for the crime of murder, and is available for murder only if the prosecution can prove the existence of at least one of 16 “aggravating circumstances” identified by the Indiana General Assembly. These circumstances are set out in the state’s death penalty statute, at IC 35-50-2-9. In order to seek the death penalty, the prosecutor must allege the existence of at least one of the aggravating circumstances set out in the statute.

In Indiana, 2 men have been sentenced to death and later acquitted at new trials.

Larry Hicks - Represented by an incompetent public defender, Larry Hicks, a dirt-poor, mentally retarded 19-year-old black man from the deep ghetto of Gary, Indiana, was sentenced to die in the Indiana electric chair for supposedly murdering two men by stabbing them to death in a fight inside a Gary home in a trial that lasted little over one day.

Before that trial, Larry's public defender (PD) wasn't even aware that his client faced the death penalty until a week before the trial took place. (The lawyer admitted this in open court before trial, and it is in the transcript.) Larry's PD failed to investigate Larry's alibi that he wasn't present at the time the brutal slayings took place, failed to examine the dark red stains on the jeans Larry wore on the night of the murders (which stains, without chemical examination, the prosecution would term "blood"), failed to examine the knife which the state claimed Larry used to stab the two men, and -- as revealed by the PD's 1/4-inch thick file on this death penalty case -- otherwise totally failed to prepare for the one and a half day long murder trial that would result in Larry Hicks being sentenced to die in Indiana's electric chair.

Two weeks prior to his scheduled execution, with the help of a volunteer attorney, Hicks received a stay. The Playboy Foundation became interested in this claim of innocence and supplied funds for a reinvestigation after he passed lie detector tests. At retrial, Hicks was acquitted and released after evidence established Hicks's alibi and showed that eyewitness testimony against him at his original trial was perjured.

Charles Smith was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Allen County in 1983 for a street robbery and murder of a woman. The man who claimed to be the getaway driver had his charges dropped in exchange for testifying against Smith. The Indiana Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1989 because of ineffective assistance of counsel. (Smith v. State, 547 N.E.2d 817 (Ind. 1989). He was acquitted at his re-trial and released in 1991 after presenting evidence that witnesses against him had lied under oath.

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Future of Freedom in the Internet Age

The free flow of information and ideas over new digital technologies is in our national and global interests: it is important for economic growth; for U.S. diplomatic relationships; for building sustainable democratic societies; and for meeting global challenges in the years and decades ahead.

The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are working with a wide range of partners outside of government to support these principles. They are pursuing an active agenda to promote Internet freedom, to boost online access across the developing world and to train civil society activists in online organizing.

Five Key Freedoms of the Internet Age:

• Freedom of Speech: Blogs, emails, text messages have opened up new forums for the exchange of ideas.
• Freedom of Worship: The Internet enhances people’s ability to worship as they see fit.
• Freedom from Want: Online connections expand people’s knowledge and economic opportunities including locating new markets.
• Freedom from Fear: Those who disrupt the free flow of information threaten individual liberties and the world’s economy and civil society.
• Freedom to Connect: Connecting with others near and far offers unprecedented opportunities for human cooperation.

The following link includes lectures that address information accessibility issues, especially those involving open media and the web.

Audio presentations on future of information:

Free Digital Library Brewster Kahle is building a truly huge digital library -- every book ever published, every movie ever released, all the strata of web history ... It's all free to the public -- unless someone else gets to it first.

Open Source Learning: Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions, his open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials freely, anywhere in the world.

Open-source economics: Learn about the impact of technologies like Wikipedia and Linux that allow free exchange of information and how they're affecting the way business is conducted.

Future of Digital Commons: Music, writing and images are discussed in this talk on the world of free information on the web.

The Future of American Libraries: How new technologies and the changing needs of patrons will shape the library of the future.

Open Media in Iran: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are making it easier for people to share information quickly and accurately over the web, something that becomes especially relevant in tumultuous situations like the recent protests in Iran.

Internet Censorship and The Great Wall of China: What happens if one of the largest economies in the world doesn't have open access to the web?

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