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

Read more...

The Atocha and the Plundering State

Let’s first define the term, "State." In Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary it is defined in numerous ways. Essentially, it is how a particular group of people deems it when they want it to be applied by statute. In other words, it is impossible to answer the question without knowing how the law makers have defined it. But the true meaning of the word State from its very origin means, "To Stand." Webster’s 1828 Dict. states; "n. L. status, from sto, to stand, to be fixed. State is fixedness or standing." State in one sense means government, while State in another sense mean people for tax purposes. It also says, "Estate; possession. Now obsolete."   In America, the term can be applied to the United States or to the individual States of this Union. It's important to note that in the United States, the state is interchangeable with the term, “Estate”.

There is no better, and more fascinating example of the state’s power to plunder than the journey of one very hard-working man. You may have never heard of him, but after Jimmy Buffet, this man, Mel Fisher--a deep-sea explorer who pioneered the development of Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA)--was Key West’s most celebrated figure.

Why is he so celebrated? He is the man who dedicated his life to finding—and who eventually found—the world’s most magnificent treasure, that of the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the richest Spanish Galleon ever to have sunk in the western hemisphere, in the Florida Keys in 1622, setting in motion the Spanish Kingdom’s downfall as a world economic power.  The Atocha's manifest listed over 47 tons of registered silver and gold, but estimates of the smuggled emeralds still being found on this ship are expected to exceed even the registered cargo, an estimated $2 billion.

In 1969, 347 years after the Atocha sank, Mel Fisher began his hunt for the holy grail of treasures locked inside the doomed ship at the bottom of the sea. At first Fisher and his crew were searching in the wrong place, the Keys of Metacumbe, currently Florida’s central keys, because that’s the location stated in the first reports—72 original documents—of the disaster. However, until 1969, no one had taken into consideration  the nomenclature at the time the ship sunk. It wasn’t until Dr. Eugene Lyon, Shipwreck Historian, went to Seville Spain, and after pouring through thousands of documents at the Archive of the Indies, he discovered the Spanish word, "metacumbe", referred to all of the Florida Keys, not just the modern day middle islands.  Lyons made another discovery that further narrowed down the precise location of the shipwreck:  the salvage papers from the Atocha’s sister ship, the Santa Margarita, drafted in 1626.

Upon learning this new information, Fisher moved his boats to the new spot and began to search anew. In May, 1971, after several months, 125,000 linear miles, thousands of dollars, and countless hours at sea, Fisher and his divers found a 17th century galleon anchor,  but it wasn’t until 1973 that Fisher started finding precious metals. This is when the state reared its ugly head, and started manufacturing claims and accusations against Fisher, starting an endless legal nightmare.

Despite the state's interference, with the aid of experts and scholars, Fisher and his divers, including his two sons and daughter-in-law, continued the quest. Sadly, in 1975, after finding the bronze cannons of the Atocha, proving to all that what they were finding was indeed, authentic (the state was asserting Fisher's discoveries were planted), Mel Fisher’s son Dirk, and daughter-in-law, Angel, and one other diver, Rick Gage, drowned due to the malfunction of one of the pumps on the tugboat they inhabited. Still, Mel Fisher, despite this tragedy, insisted they go on, and it was ten years to the day of  Dirk’s death that Fisher’s other son, Kane, found the mother lode, July 20, 1985.

Unfortunately, Dirk, Angel, and Rick Gage were not the only casualties. Two others died during their journey bringing the total to five. An eerie coincidence: 260 people died when the Atocha sank, leaving five survivors.

Between 1975 and 1980, Fisher and his divers found numerous artifacts and treasure but no bonanza. Up until this time, Fisher held a contract to share 25% of what he recovered from the Atocha with the State of Florida. But after he found gold, all deals were off. The state—both state and federal—sued Fisher for the entire wealth of the Atocha.

The Supreme Court

Who earned the right to salvage the Atocha?  Fisher fought “the state” all the way up to the Supreme Court, which, in 1982, decided in his favor.  The high court ruled that he alone owned the wreck. But that didn’t stop his legal troubles. The state, both local and federal, continued to pursue him and his treasure.

On July 20, 1985, Fisher and his team finally found the mother lode of the Atocha, 47 tons of solid silver, worth hundreds of millions of dollars that they, all by themselves, brought to the surface using shopping carts and milk crates.. Ten years, to the day, that marked the death of his son, daughter-in-law, and friend.

Six months later, the crew found nearly three pounds of rare Columbian emeralds, but the bulk of the gems are still out there. One beautiful emerald ring (left) was appraised at $114,000, another at $600,000.

"The plunderers have historically organized themselves into States and have tried to make their activities an exception to the universal moral principles by introducing laws that “sanction” plunder and a moral code that “glorifies” it. The plunderers also deceive their victims by means of “la Ruse” (trickery, deception, fraud) and the use of “sophisms” (fallacies) to justify and disguise what they are doing. It is the task of political economists like Bastiat to expose the trickery, fraud, and fallacies used by the plunderers to hide what they do from their “dupes” (the ordinary people) and to eliminate organized plunder from society for good." -- Frédéric Bastiat

Aside from the millions of dollars Mel Fisher spent to find the sunken treasure, he paid an additional $4 million in attorney fees fighting the state. The bottom line is that most people do not possess the wherewithal to endure the brutality of the state in matters such as these. The Mel Fisher story is extraordinarily rare because he actually won.

Read more...

Another Supreme Court Decision Proving the US is a Corporation First and Foremost.

What is the duty of It is NOT the duty of the police to protect you. Their job is to protect THE CORPORATION and arrest code breakers.According to the US Supreme Court, a corporation is a person when it wants to buy an election - Citizens United ruling - but when it wants to torture and murder people - unanimous ruling on Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority - it's not a person; therefore, cannot be held accountable.

The United States Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law on the books since 1991 precludes organizations, both political and corporate, from being sued for torture or murder outside of the U.S.

In a unanimous ruling on Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority (PDF), Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the careful text of the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991, the way it is written "convinces us that Congress did not extend liability to organizations, sovereign or not."

Do you need any more proof that the United States is, indeed, a corporation? Because it most certainly is. Not only that, despite what you were taught in school about the Revolutionary War, that we won our independence from the Brits, the United States is still, and always has been subject to the British Crown. 

Keep in mind, the use of "Esquire" which declares anyone who uses that title, British subjection and loyalty to the crown.

The first Charter of Virginia in 1606

Using his money and resources, King James I sent his subjects to America with the expectation of gain from his commercial venture. In the Virginia Charter he declares his sovereignty over the land and his subjects and declared the amount of gold, silver and copper he was to receive. Moreover, the king declared the right to regulate every aspect of commerce in his new colony.

Treaty of Paris 1783

This treaty contradicts what we've been taught about the Revolutionary war. We did not win our total independence. Ben Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams - all Esquires - merely negotiated further granted privileges from the King of England. Quite a few, in fact, except one: his claim to continue receiving gold, silver and copper as gain (see Virginia Charter, 1606) for his commercial venture.

So, why is the King granting us privileges if we won the war? Why  was the King dictating the terms for surrender if we won the war? To this very day, the US is still paying millions of dollars per day to the Crown. Every time you pay a tax you are transferring your labor to the king, and his heirs and successors are still receiving interest from the original American Charters.

Financial servitude

Every taxpayer has an Individual Master File (IMF). Document 6209, about 467 pages, is used to decode the computer codes on the IMF records. If you retrieve your IMF, you will find that you are being held liable for a tax payable to the Crown.

Act of 1871 "An Act To Provide A Government for the District of Columbia."

The 41st Congress, under no constitutional authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, which is a ten mile square parcel of land.  This Act created a new constitution for the District of Columbia, the corporation.

Here, you will find much more information on the purpose of the War of 1812, the forgotten amendment (#13), 

Queen Elizabeth controls and has amended U.S. Social Security (S.I. 1997 No:1778 The Social Security. A 1040 form is for tribute (tax - A contribution which is raised by a prince or sovereign from his subjects to sustain the expenses of the state. A sum of money paid by an inferior sovereign or state to a superior potentate, to secure the friendship or protection of the latter." Blacks Law Dictionary forth ed. p. 1677) paid to Britain. (IRS Publication 6209).

Read this section from Title 26  (at this link, you will find lots more info on this subject) you will see just one situation where the king is still collecting a tax from those that receive a benefit from him, on property which is purchased with the money the king supplies, at almost the same percentage:

-CITE- 26 USC Sec. 1491
HEAD- Sec. 1491. Imposition of tax
-STATUTE-

There is hereby imposed on the transfer of property by a citizen or resident of the United States, or by a domestic corporation or partnership, or by an estate or trust which is not a foreign estate or trust, to a foreign corporation as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, or to a foreign estate or trust, or to a foreign partnership, an excise tax equal to 35 percent of the excess of -

(1) the fair market value of the property so transferred, over

(2) the sum of -

(A) the adjusted basis (for determining gain) of such property in the hands of the transferor, plus

(B) the amount of the gain recognized to the transferor at the time of the transfer.

-SOURCE-

(Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 365; Oct. 4, 1976, Pub. L. 94-455, title X, Sec. 1015(a), 90 Stat. 1617; Nov. 6, 1978, Pub. L. 95-600, title VII, Sec. 701(u)(14)(A), 92 Stat. 2919.)

-MISC1-

AMENDMENTS

1978 - Pub. L. 95-600 substituted 'estate or trust' for 'trust' wherever appearing.

1976 - Pub. L. 94-455 substituted in provisions preceding par.

(1) 'property' for 'stocks and securities' and '35 percent' for '27 1/2 percent' and in par.

(1) 'fair market value' for 'value' and 'property' for 'stocks and securities' and in par.

(2) designated existing provisions as subpar. (A) and added subpar.

(B). EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1978 AMENDMENT

Section 701(u)(14)(C) of Pub. L. 95-600 provided that: 'The amendments made by this paragraph (amending this section and section 1492 of this title) shall apply to transfers after

October 2, 1975.'

EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1976 AMENDMENT

Section 1015(d) of Pub. L. 94-455 provided that: 'The amendments made by this section (enacting section 1057 of this title, amending this section and section 1492 of this title, and renumbering former section 1057 as 1058 of this title) shall apply to transfers of property after October 2, 1975.'

Read more...

9/11: Indifference to What's Real and the Murder of Reality.

I distinctly remember the weather on Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001: beautiful crystal clear skies as far as the eye could see. No one could've predicted what was to come...well, none of us regular people, anyway. However, things aren't always as they appear. In the background, on that beautiful morning, a category three Hurricane -Hurricane Erin- was headed toward New York City! At a whopping 500 miles in diameter, with more cyclonic energy than Hurricane Katrina! One would think the "hype every storm to the empth degree" mainstream media would've, at the very least, mentioned it. But, not a peep.

Now, as it happened, this huge hurricane spared Manhattan, by making a sharp right hand turn out toward sea. But did the national weather service know this would occur? No, not really. According to Dr. Judy Wood, author of "Where did the Towers Go", Erin was a high pressure system moving from the west, so, yes, it was predicted that it would turn; however, considering the system had already carved its path for four days without reversing position, it was clear that meteorologists didn't know when this would occur. And if the system did not turn exactly when it did, it would've "caused all sorts of storm surges" that would've undoubtedly caused flooding, as Manhattan is at sea level. Dr. Wood also said, "there were air craft carriers and other ships that were docked around Newark, and they took those out to sea because you don't want those docked when horrendous storms are hitting land."  

Here's the thing: the conditions inside the hurricane held constant for 24 hours. The air pressure, wind speed, and distance remained the same. This is an anomaly.  There are no hurricanes in recorded history that have held constant air conditions for 24 hours.

The disconnect between what really happened that day and what people believe to be true, is astonishing. In June, I blogged about the 1975 World Trade Center Fire that Burned for 3 Hours. One would think that the television talking heads who droned on and on, day after day about 9/11 would've mentioned this fire. Asked the question, why didn't the towers fall back then? After all, they are the very first skyscrapers that have disintegrated collapsed due to fire.

Questions:

Why were all the recordings of the building's demise so quiet?

It should've sounded like, as Dr. Wood said, "like it was raining dump trucks".

Where was the what should've been 210 stories of rubble?

Why did the Earth’s magnetic field dip at 8:46 a.m.?

From a set of magnetometers monitored by the University of Alaska, several instruments showed significant deviations from normal readings as the events of 9/11 were unfolding.
Where's the flood? Both towers are built into a "bathtub" on bedrock that plunges 70 feet below the water table.
Where was the seismic signal that would've reflected two 500,000 ton buildings crashing to the ground? The seismic signal was equivalent to the bottom 20 stories of Tower 1 and the bottom 16 stories of Tower 2.

Why did the ground shake for only 8 seconds once the north tower "fell", when dropping a bowling bowl from the top of one of the buildings would've shook the ground for 9.5 seconds?

Why were there no traces of toilets, filing cabinets, yet, office paper was flying everywhere? Hello? Uh..doesn't paper burn up before porcelin and steel?

What's with the bizarre toasting (totaled, not necessarily cooked) and flipping (it was the upside down cars that were in good shape, and the cars that were right side up were toasted) of 1,400 vehichles, often times in close proximity to trees, where not one leaf was disturbed? Windshields, engines, and door handles completely disappeared, leaving the shell of the car in tact.

Why do we have falling debris hitting other buildings only up to the eighteenth floor, when there were 110 stories?

Why was there instant rusting of nearby steel? That is evidence of molecular disassociation and transmutation.

Why, when the dust fell, was it coarse, and then, once, it landed, began breaking down further, becoming so fine that it started wafting up?

What caused the presence of uranium, tritium, and the presence of deuterium in the air that Dr. Thomas Cahill found after monitoring the air for 5 months after 911 at the WTC - which began after Oct. 5?
Where was the heat?  From most reports, the dust clouds were cool. No one claimed they were hot or that they were burned. Yes, things glowed, but not everything that glows is hot.
We finally saw the demise of WTC #7, but what happened to WTC buildings #3 and #6? Building #3 nano-particalized, while in WTC #6, half the building nano-particalized from the inside out!

Finally, what can transform two quarter mile tall buildings into nano-particles(invisible and permanently suspended in the atmosphere)?

Former Governor Jesse Ventura used the example of microwaving chicken on a paper plate. The chicken cooks, while the paper plate doesn't. That's the effect seen all around the WTC towers on 9/11.

Thermite?

Thermite is powdered aluminum and powdered iron rust. The buildings were steel (composed of over 98% iron) structures with aluminum cladding. If the buildings were reduced to nano particles (molecular dissociation), obviously, one would find particles of iron rust, and aluminum. Thermite cannot transform buildings into dust. So, where is the proof of thermite?

The so-called "truth" movement does not address any of these issues, yet, Dr. Wood is the only person who has conducted a thorough forensic investigation...the only one!

Mel Fabregas, the host of Veritas, quoted Vicent Bugliosi, regarding the division between what's real and what we perceive:

"We're talking about people who see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what they've been told to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see, not what is right in front of them in its pristine condition."

This quote sums it up. This disconnect is not a matter of intelligence. Not at all. Some of the most intelligent people in the world disregard the facts in order to maintain the comfortable illusion that substitutes for reality. The vanishing point of reality (horizon) is vanishing altogether, as the silhouettes on the walls of the cave that Plato referred to in his allegory of the cave are increasingly being forced down our throats...24/7. When everything is bestowed upon us to see, what is left to be seen?

Source: Veritas with Mel Fabregas interview with Dr. Judy Wood



Link to everything you want to know about Dr. Judy Wood's Qui Tam cases JUDY WOOD on behalf of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff/Relator, vs. Defendants.

DC Docket Number: (07-cv-3314)
Docket Number: (08-3799-cv)
Supreme Court Docket Number: (09-548)

APPLIED RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC. (ARA),
SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL CORP.(SAIC),
UNDERWRITERS LABORATORIES, INC.,
WISS, JANNEY, ELSTNER ASSOCIATES, INC. (WJE),
ROLF JENSEN & ASSOCIATES, INC.(RJA),
COMPUTER AIDED ENGINEERING ASSOCIATES, INC.,
SIMPSON GUMPERTZ & HEGER, INC. (SGH),
SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL, LLP (SOM),
GILSANZ MURRAY STEFICEK LLP (GMS),
HUGHES ASSOCIATES, INC. (HA),
ROSENWASSER/GROSSMAN CONSULTING ENGINEERS, P.C.,
S. K. GHOSH ASSOCIATES, INC. (GA),
TENG & ASSOCIATES, INC. (TA),
AJMAL ABBASI,
EDUARDO KAUSEL,
DAVID PARKS,
DAVID SHARP,
JOSEF VAN DYCK,
KASPAR WILLIAM,
DANIELE VENEZANO,
DATASOURCE, INC.,
GEOSTAATS, INC.,
NuSTATS,

Read more...

Why Are We So Vulnerable to Propaganda?

The best defense against the deliberately cloaked propaganda in the mass media is recognizing our susceptibility to it. If we refuse to believe that we are vulnerable, we are much more likely to succumb to propaganda's compelling force. And, it's not always the ignorant and uneducated masses who succumb most easily. Very often, the arrogance of the educated and/or "privileged" class renders them defenseless to its insidious pressure; thus, allowing the propaganda to inform and permeate their psyche.

Jacques Ellul on propaganda:

The average citizen wants to have opinions on domestic and foreign issues. But in reality, he can’t. He is caught between his desire and his inability, which he refuses to accept. For no citizen will believe that he is unable to have opinions. Public opinion surveys always reveal that people have opinions even on the most complicated questions, except for a small minority (usually the better informed and those who have reflected the most). The majority prefers expressing stupidities to not expressing any opinion.

For this they need simple thoughts, elementary explanations, a “key” that will permit them to take a position, and even ready-made opinions. As most people have the desire and at the same time the incapacity to participate, they are ready to accept a propaganda that will permit them to participate, and which hides their incapacity beneath explanations, judgments, and news, enabling them to satisfy their desire without eliminating their incompetence.

The individual does not want information, but only value judgments and preconceived positions. Here one must also take into account the individual’s laziness, which plays a decisive role in the entire propaganda phenomenon, and the impossibility of transmitting all information fast enough to keep up with developments in the modern world.

Besides, the developments are not only beyond man’s intellectual scope; they are also beyond him in volume and intensity; he simply cannot grasp the world’s economic and political problems.

Faced with such matters, he feels his weakness, his inconsistency, his lack of effectiveness. He realizes that he depends on decisions over which he has no control, and that realization drives him to despair. Man cannot stay in this situation too long. He needs an ideological veil to cover the harsh reality, some consolation, a purpose, a sense of values. Only propaganda offers him a remedy for a basically intolerable situation …

If we look at the average man, and not at those few intellectuals whose special business it is to be informed, what do we actually mean when we say this man is informed? It means that, aside from spending eight hours at work and two more commuting, this man reads a newspaper or, more precisely, looks at the headlines and glances at a few stories. He may also listen to news broadcasts, or watch it on TV; and once a week, he will look at the pictures in some kind of news magazine (Time, Newsweek, etc.). This is the case of the reasonably well-informed man, that is, of 98% of all people.

Now, what happens next to a man who wishes to be informed and receives a great deal of news each day? First, straight news reporting never gives him anything but factual details; the event of the day is only always a part, for news can never deal with the whole. Theoretically, the reporter could relate these details to other details, put them into context and even provide certain interpretations–but that would no longer be pure information. Besides, this could only be done for the most important events, whereas most news items deal with less important matters.

But if you shower the public with the thousands of items that occur in the course of a day or week, the average person, even if he tries hard, will simply retain thousands of items which mean nothing to him. He would need a remarkable memory to tie some event to another that happened three weeks or three months ago.

Moreover, the array of categories is bewildering — economics, politics, geography, and so on — and topics and categories change every day. To be sure, certain major stories occasionally become the subject of continuous reporting for several weeks or months, but that is not typical.

Ordinarily, a follow-up story on a previous news item appears two weeks to a month later. To obtain a rounded picture, one would have to do research, but the average person has neither the time or desire for it. As a result, he finds himself in a kaleidoscope in which thousands of unconnected images follow each other rapidly. His attention is continually diverted to new matters, new centers of interest, and is dissipated on a thousand things, which disappear from one day to the next.

The world becomes remarkably changeable and uncertain; he feels as though he is at the hub of a merry-go-round, and can find no fixed point or continuity; this is the effect information has on him. Even with major events, an immense effort is required to get a proper broad view from the thousand little strokes, the variations of color, intensity, and dimension the paper gives him. The world thus looks like a pointilliste canvas — a thousand details make a thousand points. Moreover, blank spots on the canvas also prevent a coherent view.

Our reader would then have to be able to stand back and get a panoramic view from a distance; but the law of news is that it is a daily affair. Man can never stand back to get a broad view because he immediately receives a new batch of news, which supersedes the old and demands a new point of focus, for which our reader has no time.

To the average man who tries to keep informed, a world emerges that is astonishingly incoherent, absurd, and irrational, which changes rapidly and constantly for reasons that he cannot understand. And as the most frequent news story is about an accident or calamity, our reader takes a catastrophic view of the world around him. What he learns from the paper is inevitably the event that disturbs the order of things. He is not told about the ordinary — and uninteresting — course of events, but only of unusual disasters and crime, etc., that disturb that course. He does not read about the thousands of trains that every day arrive normally at their destination, but he learns all the details of a train accident.

In the world of politics and economies, the same holds true. The news is only about trouble, danger and problems. This gives man the notion that he lives in a terrible and frightening era. Man cannot stand this; he cannot live in an absurd and incoherent world (for this, he would have to be heroic, and even Camus, who considered this the only honest posture, was not really able to stick it to it); nor can he accept the idea that the problems, which sprout all around him, cannot be solved, or that he himself has no value as an individual and is subject to the turn of events.

The man who keeps himself informed needs a framework in which all this information can be put in order; he needs explanations and comprehensive answers to general problems; he needs coherence. And he needs an affirmation of his own worth. All this is the immediate effect of information.

And the more complicated the problems are, the more simple the explanations must be; the more fragmented the canvas, the simpler the pattern; the more difficult the question, the more all-embracing the solution; the more menacing the reduction of his worth, the greater the need for boosting his ego.

All this propaganda — and only propaganda — can give him.

… An analysis of propaganda therefore shows that it succeeds primarily because it corresponds exactly to a need of the masses. Effective propaganda needs to give man an all-embracing view of the world, a view rather than a doctrine. Such a view will first of all encompass a general panorama of history, economics and politics. That panorama allows the individual to give proper classification to all the news items he receives; to exercise a “critical” judgment, to sharply accentuate certain facts and suppress others, depending on well they fit into the framework.

News therefore loses its frightening character when it offers information for which the listener already has a ready explanation in his mind, or for which he can easily find one. Man is doubly reassured by propaganda: first, because it tells him the reasons behind the developments which unfold, and second, because it promises a solution for all the problems that arise, which would otherwise seem insoluble.

Propaganda is the true remedy for loneliness. It also corresponds to deep and constant needs, more developed today, perhaps, than ever before; the need to believe and obey, to create and hear fables, to communicate in the language of myths. It also responds to man’s intellectual and desire for security–intrinsic characteristics of the real man as opposed to the theoretical man of the Existentialists.

This situation has another aspect. In our society, man is being pushed more and more into passivity. He is thrust into vast organizations which function collectively and in which each man has his own small part to play. But he cannot act on his own; he can act only as the result of somebody else’s decision. He is more and more trained to participate in group movements and to act only on signal and in the way he has been taught.

The individual becomes less and less capable of acting by himself; he needs the collective signals which integrate his actions into the complete mechanism. Modern life induces us to wait until we are told to act.

At the same time, the individual feels himself diminished. For one thing, he gets the feeling that he is under constant supervision and can never exercise his independent initiative; for another, he thinks he is always being pushed down to a lower level. To be sure, we’re talking of the average man; obviously a corporate president, high-level administrator, or professional man does not feel diminished, but that fact does not change the general situation.

The feeling of being unimportant stems from

•general working conditions, such as mechanization and regimentation
•from housing conditions, with small rooms, noise, and lack of privacy
•from family conditions, with loss of authority over children
•from submission to an ever-growing number of authorities (no one will ever be able to assess fully the disastrous effect on the human soul of all the bureaus and agencies)
– in short, from participation in mass society.

But man cannot stand being unimportant; he cannot accept the status of a cipher. He needs to assert himself, to see himself as a hero. He needs to feel he is somebody and to be considered as such. He needs to express his authority, the drive for power and domination that is in every man.

Under our present conditions, that instinct is completely frustrated. Only propaganda provides the individual with a fully satisfactory response to his profound need.

The more his needs increase in the collective society, the more propaganda must give man the feeling that he is a free individual. Propaganda alone can create this feeling, which, in turn, will integrate the individual into collective movements.

Though a mass instrument, propaganda addresses itself to each individual. It appeals to me. It appeals to my common sense, desires, and provokes my wrath and my indignation. It evokes my feelings of justice and my desire for freedom. It gives me violent feelings, and lift me out of the daily grind.

As soon as I have been politicized by propaganda, I can from my heights look down on my daily trifles. My boss, who does not share my convictions, is merely a poor fool, a prey to the illusions of an evil world. I take my revenge upon him by being enlightened; I have understood the situation and know what ought to be done. Thanks to propaganda, the diminished individual obtains the very satisfaction he needs.

In addition, to the extent that modern man is diminished, he finds himself faced with the almost constant need for repression. Most of his natural tendencies are suppressed by social constraints.

We live in an increasingly organized and ordered society which permits less and less free and spontaneous expression of man’s profound drives (which, it must be admitted, would be largely anti-social if completely unleashed). But it is impossible to keep the individual in such a situation for long.

The individual who feels himself in conflict with the group, whose personal values are different from those of his milieu, who feels tension toward his society and even toward the group in which he participates–that individual is in a tragic position in modern society.

To seal all outlets and suppress man in all areas is dangerous. Man needs to express his passions and his desires; collective social repression can have the same effect as individual repression. Either sublimation or release is necessary.

Propaganda offers release on a grand scale. For example, propaganda will permit what so far was prohibited, such as hatred, which is a dangerous and destructive feeling and fought by society. But man always has a certain need to hate, just as he hides in heart the urge to kill. Propaganda offers him an object of hatred [think of the giant pictures of Goldstein in 1984, shown during the Five Minutes of Hate], for all propaganda is aimed at an enemy. And the hatred it offers him is not shameful, evil hatred that he must hide, but a legitimate hatred, which he can justly feel.

Moreover, propaganda points out enemies that must be slain, transforming crime into a praise-worthy act [the Ritual Crime between citizen and state]. Almost every man feels a desire to kill his neighbor, but this is forbidden, and in most cases the individual will refrain from it for fear of the consequences. But propaganda opens the door and allows him to kill the Jews, the bourgeois, the Communists, and so on, and such murder even becomes an achievement.

Authoritarian regimes know that people held very firmly in hand need some decompression, some safety valves. The government offers these itself. This role is played by satirical journals attacking the authorities, yet tolerated by the dictator, or by a wild holiday set aside for ridiculing the regime, yet paid for by the dictator (Friday of Sorrows in Guatemala) Clearly, such instruments are controlled by the regime.

These instruments of criticism serve to consolidate power and make people cling even more to the regime by providing artificial release of tendencies that the state must keep in check. In such situations, propaganda has an almost therapeutic and compensatory function.

This role is even more prominent in the presence of another phenomenon: anxiety. Anxiety is perhaps the most widespread psychological trait in our society. On the one hand, the number of dangers is increasing and, because of the news media, man is more aware of them; on the other hand, religious beliefs, which allowed men to face fear, have disappeared almost entirely.

Finally, as a result of all the threats and contradictions in contemporary society, man feels accused, guilty. He cannot feel that he is right and good as long as he is exposed to contradictions, which place him in conflict with one of his group’s imperatives no matter which solution he adopts.

But one of man’s greatest inner needs is to feel that he is right. First, man needs to be right in his own eyes. He must be able to assert that he is right, that he does what he should, that he is worthy of his own respect. Then, man needs to be right in the eyes of those around him, his family, his milieu, his coworkers, his friends, his country.

Finally, he feels the need to belong to a group, which he considers right and which he can proclaim as noble, just and good. But that righteousness is not absolute righteousness, true and authentic justice.

For what matters is not to be just, or to act just, or that the group to which one belongs is just — but to seem just, to find reasons for asserting that one is just, and to have these reasons shared by one’s audience. [The rallying cries of "multiculturalism" and "diversity" come to mind here.]

This corresponds to man’s refusal to see reality — his own reality first of all — as it is, for that would be intolerable; it also corresponds to his refusal to acknowledge that he may be wrong. Before himself and others, man is constantly pleading his own case and working to find good reasons for what he does or has done. Of course, the whole process is unconscious. Relevant here is the tendency of the individual to reconstruct his past to demonstrate that his conduct was right. But this is justification rather than explanation of behavior. Man thus lives in a seemingly reasonable fiction.

On the collective level one can say that most ideologies and political or economic theories are justifications. A study by M. Rubel has shown that Marx’s rigid and seemingly uncompromising doctrine was one gigantic intellectual justification for sentimental and spontaneous positions taken by him in his youth.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to accept reality as it is and acknowledge the true reasons for our behavior, or to see clearly the motivations of a group to which we belong. If we practice a profession, we cannot limit ourselves to its financial rewards; we must also invest it with idealistic or moral justification. It becomes our “calling,” and we will not tolerate its being questioned.

Obviously, the prodigious universality of justification makes it so effective: the man who justifies himself and unconsciously plays this farce not only believes it himself but also has the need for others to believe it. And, in fact, the others do believe it, because they use the rationalizations and become accomplices of the play in which they themselves are actors.

Justification really attains its effectiveness only on the basis of this complicity, which is so all-pervasive that even those who are victims of justification go along with it.

Propaganda appeases tensions and resolves conflicts. It offers facile, ready-made justifications, which are transmitted by society and easily believed. At the same time, propaganda has the freshness and novelty which correspond to new situations and give men the impression of having invented new ideals. It provides man with a high ideal that permits him to give into his passions while seeing to accomplish a great mission.

Propaganda dissolves contradictions and restores man to unitary world in which the demands are in accord with the facts. Here, propaganda plays an idealistic role, by involving a man caught in the world of reality and making him live by anticipation in a world based on principle.

In conclusion: For all these reasons contemporary man needs propaganda; he asks for it; in fact, he almost instigates it. The development of propaganda is no accident. The politician who uses it is not a monster; he fills a social demand. The propagandee is a close accomplice of the propagandist. Only with the propagandee’s unconscious complicity can propaganda fulfill its function; and because propaganda satisfies him — even if he protests against propaganda in abstracto, or considers himself immune to it — he follows its route.

Propaganda is the inevitable result of the various components of technological society, and plays so central a role in the life of society that no economic or political development can take place without the influence of its great power.

Social work, Human Relations in social relationships, advertising (Human Engineering in the economy) propaganda in the strictest sense in the field of politics — the need for psychological influence is everywhere the decisive factor, which progress demands and which the individual seeks in order to be delivered from his own self.

Read more...

The $upreme Court Rules in Favor of the Corporate Thieves

Corporate control of the justice department reared its ugly head again today.  The Supreme Court, once more, sided with large corporations,  as it dismissed a massive class-action lawsuit that charged Wal-Mart with systemic gender discrimination.  This ruling strengthens the divide-and-conquer strategy of the power elite by eliminating the possibility of citizens to collectively seek justice against the enormously powerful corporation.  The individual's access to the justice system is even more limited now that a higher burden of proof  is required before an employment discrimination class action can be certified.

“Those without means to hire an attorney or pursue a claim rely on class-action lawsuits to level the playing field and change the policies and practices of elite corporations. The court’s sharply divided ruling has made it more difficult for these individuals.” -- Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The U.S. might still rank as one of the top nations insofar as income and wealth go, but the distribution is so massively skewed in favor of the top 1%, it's the epitome of deceit.  Exclude the wealthiest 1%, and let's see where we rank...most likely, at the very bottom.  Thanks to the  $upreme Court ruling, low-level hourly employees, of whom many  live at the  poverty level, without insurance, are now at the mercy of Wal-Mart and/or any of the large corporations who do not respect their employees.

Individual women can still sue Walmart. But their options and opportunities will be limited by their isolation and economic circumstance. As Walmart Watch notes: Walmart Associates live on poverty-level wages and often do not have access to benefits. Walmart’s average sales associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to IBISWorld, an independent market research group. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of thirty-four hours per week, well below the poverty line for a family of four. Additionally in 2010, Walmart’s health insurance covered only 54 percent of their associates while tens of thousands of associates qualify for Medicaid and other publicly subsidized care.”

Read more...

Sliding Further Down the Slippery Slope of Government Intrusion.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that we, the people are increasingly losing our right to be secure in our homes and in our persons.  In an ironic twist, just as we get the news that cops may be suspect in the Long Island serial killings (Of course, the NYPD denies this), the Indiana Supreme Court - in a decision that overturns centuries of common law - ruled, that residents have no right to resist the entry of police, without warrant.

This decision stems from a case in which police were called to investigate a husband and wife arguing outside their apartment.  Dissenters, Justices Robert Rucker and  Brent Dickson said that they would have supported the ruling if the court had limited its permission for police entry to domestic violence situations.

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence." -- Indiana Supreme Court Justice Steven David

Another dissenting judge said,

“government agents may now enter their homes illegally – that is, without the necessity of a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances.”

What did the three justices that ruled that police can break down the door of any home, if the situation warrants  (left to the arbitrary discretion of the police official)?   Well, they said residents can later protest the entry through the court system.  Kind of hard to do if you're dead, injured for life; not to mention, it's not going to bring back any loved ones who happen to wander into the line of fire during the warrant-less intrusion.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that police can enter our personal residences, without a warrant, if they smell marijuana, and simultaneously, hear the toilet flush. Why? There is a possibility that the flusher was getting rid of evidence. Now, this ruling is more specific, as it applies only to marijuana, that "dangerous" plant that I'm sure, saves more lives than it takes.  Nevertheless, once again, citizens are left dangling on a hook, at the mercy of arbitrary officials, and their arbitrary decisions.  The one and only dissenting judge, Justice Ruth Ginsburg, wrote,

“Police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant,”

and quoted in a New York Times article :

“How secure do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and, on hearing sounds indicative of things moving, forcibly enter and search for evidence of unlawful activity?”

The infringements to our freedoms are always cloaked under fear and national security; however, that cloak is getting more transparent every  day.  It's hard to deny the serial assaults on our Constitutional liberties and the ongoing attempt to erode the protections of  American citizens from wholly irrational government action, even if you buy into all of the propaganda.  The protection of the lives, health, and property of American citizens, and the preservation of good order and the public morals mean very little, if anything to those who reside at the top of our power structure.

Read more...

Corporate Citizens United to Take Over America.

The Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, that allows corporations, unions and interest groups to spend as much as they want on political campaigns opened a Pandora's box of potential ways to exploit the already corrupted campaign process, as well as paving the road for "corporate persons" to to render we the people, obsolete.

Secret corporate "people" are  funneling their funds into nonprofit organizations - who don’t have to disclose their funders, and who can spend as much as half of their revenue on political activities - in order to buy elections that further their corrupt agendas.   Some of these nonprofits appear to be shell groups for political operatives looking to influence races. Mike McIntire of the New York Times investigated one of those groups, the Coalition to Protect Seniors, and came up empty when he tried to track down exactly who was behind the group.

The Supreme Court opened the door for foreign nationals to intervene in American elections. And guess what? The right-wing didn't waste any time, personally escorting them through...patriotic as always. Yep.  Lee Fang from Think Progress broke the story about foreign contributions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors, that are possibly being used to fund political ads. They have already raised over $75 million and paid to have ads run more than 8,000 times on behalf of Republican Senate candidates.

"What we found were several fundraising documents that the Chamber has been using in places like Bahrain (and) India. The documents say foreign businesses are welcome and ask that these businesses send money to the same campaign account the 501(c)(6) that the Chamber is using to run attack ads. And they're telling these foreign businesses that they can have a voice in American public policy debates." - Lee Fang

Then, if things aren't bad enough, the Citizens United precedent  threatens to undermine progress in America's hard fought battle for equality.  Specifically, the repeal of the "public accommodations" section of the "The Civil Rights Act" which specifically states: "to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations."

But who and why would anyone want to repeal any part of the Civil Rights Act?  The libertarians, of course, who populate the the "Tea Party" movement, for one. They believe private businesses should be permitted to discriminate without legal repercussions, therefore they believe the public accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act interferes with the corporate citizen's first amendment rights. Glen Beck, at his “Restoring Honor” rally held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech," claimed that he and his Tea Party followers would “take back the civil rights movement.”

Links:

Move to Amend

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

A recent report, Fading Disclosure: Increasing Number of Electioneering Groups
Keep Donors’ Identities Secret by Public Citizen found that in the 2004 elections, 98% of outside groups disclosed the names of donors who paid for their political ads.  Fast forward four years and only 32% disclosed the names of donors.

GOP Quietly Funded Foreign Donations.

Republicans Thwart New Campaign Finance Disclosure Rules As DISCLOSE Act Fails Procedural Vote in Senate

Read more...

Interfering with a Citizen’s Fundamental Rights Under the Constitution Without Explanation.

Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional Aug. 4, and he suggested that only the state could defend the law. In his ruling overturning Prop. 8 and in a subsequent order denying a stay, he said the "measure's sponsors had failed to show any prospect of harm in allowing same-sex weddings."

Just last week, the federal appeals court decided that same-sex marriages remain barred while the case is on appeal, despite the fact that the state is not defending the measure.  Moreover,  the 3-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit did not even state its reasons for issuing a stay that put the marriages on hold until the court decides whether Prop. 8 violated the constitutional right to marry.  The appeals court will decide whether the initiative's sponsors have legal standing to represent the state's interests during a hearing the week of Dec. 6 in San Francisco.

So, this order, without any kind of explanation leaves thousands of gay and lesbian couples wondering why they can't marry, and millions more people wondering why Prop. 8 remains in effect after a federal judge found it unconstitutional.

Links

Support for Same-Sex Marriage - Support for gay marriage has risen to 45 percent or more, according to national polls, and a CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage.

Courage Campaign 

Read more...

Will Justice for Sale Undermine the Rule of Law?

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warns this may very well be the case, as special interest pressure on judges continues to increase.

“This crisis of confidence in the judiciary is real and growing,” Justice O’Connor warned. “Left unaddressed, the perception that justice is for sale will undermine the rule of law that the courts are supposed to uphold.” -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in the forward of the new report on judicial elections.

The new report The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2000-2009: Decade of Change reveals that special-interest money in state court races from 2000-2009 exploded.  For over a decade, partisans and special interests have been growing more organized in their efforts to use elections to tilt the scales of justice in their direction as millions of dollars, raised by candidates from parties who may appear before them, millions more poured in by interest groups, nasty and misleading ads, and pressure on judges to signal courtroom rulings on the campaign trail continue to escalate.

Dan Eggen from the Washington Post said, “that much of the increase has been fueled by outside groups funding attack ads of the kind commonly found in partisan races for the White House, Congress, or governors’ mansions. Industry groups, trial lawyers and others are increasingly targeting specific judges for removal over rulings that hurt their financial bottom line.”

NPR's Report: Too Much Money Going To State Court Races said the study "documents an arms race that’s escalating among business groups, trial lawyers and unions. They’re all competing to raise money to put their favorite candidates on the bench.”

A few personal examples of the grave and growing challenges to the impartiality of our nation’s courts (from the comments section of On Point's radio show entitled: Electing Judges: Justice for Sale?):

I tried to find a lawyer to represent me in what could have been a suit against a particular company which is a member of a particular business “type” in my state. I called at least seven lawyers, and they all said, “no, I won’t take the case because I get a lot of business from that company, and I don’t want to sue them on your behalf, thus risking my law firm’s ability to continue getting business from the company you want to take action against in the future. They send a lot of business my way.”

I asked if I had a potentially “good” case. They said, “yes.” I asked if I were not entitled to representation in court. They said, “you are, but I don’t have to give it to you.” So many (seven )law firms said this same thing, that I think it is parallel to this topic today: big money in the courts. -- Posted by A.J., on August 17th, 2010 at 10:18 AM

Justice Taylor, a guest of the show, received, over the course of several elections, considerable (read millions) donations from Business Groups, Insurance Companies, and physician groups.

Now, why would Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan give to a judge’s campaign? Shortly after the 2000 election, in which insurance gave lots, Justice Taylor penned a decision forcing a higher standard for Plaintiffs in order to pursue medical malpractice complaints. In the Scarsella case, which has its own behind-the-scenes procedural anomalies, Taylor institutionalized (read “interpreted into precedent”) a procedural set of steps only sketched out by the legislature. In short, Taylor repaid the insurance industry by limiting the number of cases of med mal–that is, by setting the entrance fee to the court just a little higher.

This is one small example of how campaign monies are repaid.  -- Posted by Bill Jackson, on August 18th, 2010 at 10:04 AM

American democracy is not where majority rules, rather where it's safe to be in the minority. The courts are supposed to protect the rights of the people, even if that means going against popular opinion, however the new politics of judicial elections furthers corporate or monied interests at the expense of individual justice.

"In a democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules. The majority’s rejection of this principle “elevate(s) corporations to a level of deference which has not been seen at least since the days when substantive due process was regularly used to invalidate regulatory legislation thought to unfairly impinge upon established economic interests." Bellotti , 435 U. S., at 817, n. 13 (White, J., dissenting).

At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." -- Former Justice Stevens' dissent in Citizens United vs FCC

Read more...

Arbitration Fairness

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in Rent-A-Center v Jackson, "dealt a major blow to consumers and employees who seek to challenge arbitration agreements on the ground that they are unfair or unconscionable", instead, upholding the authority of arbitrator to rule on the validity of agreements to arbitrate, relegating American workers to arbitration proceedings that can be structurally biased to favor large corporations, showing once again how the Supreme Court favors corporations and unfairly disadvantages hard-working Americans.

However, President Obama, by signing into law the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), under the just-passed Wall Street Reform Act, helps limit the use of abusive forced arbitration clauses in financial contracts.

“The new CFPB will help address the abusive forced arbitration practices used by banks against consumers. Congress must now pass the Arbitration Fairness Act to ensure these predatory clauses are banned once and for all.” -- American Association for Justice President Gibson Vance.

Two other bills have been introduced in Congress to stem the abusive practice of forced arbitration:

Arbitration Fairness Act 2009 - sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), would ensure that the decision to arbitrate is made voluntarily and after a dispute has arisen, so corporations cannot manipulate the arbitration system in their favor at the expense of consumers and employees.

Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act (S. 512 / H.R. 1237), sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), would eliminate forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts.

Read more...

Corporate Death Penalty

After all corporations are entitled to all the rights of a person. Why shouldn't they be subject to the death penalty. Especially now that the Supreme Court decision (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission) further did away with distinctions between 'corporate rights' and 'individual rights'.

Thom Hartmann's article Halliburton & BP -- Is it time for the Corporate Death Penalty?:

"President Barack Obama pretty much stated the obvious when he called the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico "a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster." The oil well pouring a river of crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have the normal type of remote-control shut-off switch used in Norway and the UK as last-resort protection against underwater spills, largely because the oil companies themselves are responsible for "voluntary" compliance with safety and environmental standards.

It was in 1994, two years into the Clinton administration, when this practice of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse was legalized, about the same time George W. Bush was doing the same thing in Texas, a program pushed hard in the previous administration by Dan Quayle's so-called "competitiveness council" charged with deregulating industry. The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. Voluntary safety for oil wells, but you and I can get stopped by the police if we don't fasten our safety belts? Eleven people have died because Halliburton and BP wanted to save money.

In the first hundred years of this republic it was commonplace for rogue corporations to get the corporate death penalty -- being shut down, dissolved, and having their assets sold off. Through the 19th century, it averaged around 2000 companies a year that got the axe. If the Supreme Court now says that corporations are people -- and they did -- then these corporations should be eligible for the corporate death penalty. Time to break up and sell off the pieces of Haliburton and British Petroleum."

Read more...

You Didn't Get Mad.

As far as I know the following came from wall dude posting on the democratic underground. It's well worth the read:

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.

You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.

You finally got mad when.. when... wait for it... when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all ok with you but helping other Americans... well fuck that. That about right? You know it is.

Read more...

Supreme Court: Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Read more...

Do We Need a Constitutional Convention to Drive Big Money Off Capital Hill?.

Let's face it, reform and change will not come through the current big-business-dominated electoral system which serves to stifles all voices but that of the ruling class. A list of poll findings [appended to the text of Paul Street's book, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics] suggest American citizens, on the whole, do not share the imperialist views of what Paul Street calls the “political and policy-making class” or the “Narrow-Spectrum Two-Party Money-Media Single-Member-Plurality-System-Winner-Take-All-Strong-Executive-Imperial Plutocracy”.

“Twice as many Americans back more government services and spending (even if this means a tax increase) as the number who support fewer services and reduced spending.”

“69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health care to all US citizens.”

“59 percent of Americans in 2004 thought the US should remove its military presence from the Middle East if that’s what the majority of the people there want.”

“93 percent of Americans support minimum standards in international trade agreements for working conditions and 91 percent support minimum environmental protection.

Our two-party system has been reduced to what political scientist Sheldon Wolin calls "a one-and-a-half party system" where,

"the parties set out to mobilize the citizen-as-voter, to define political obligation as fulfilled by the casting of a vote. Afterwards, post-election politics of lobbying, repaying donors, and promoting corporate interests - the real players - takes over The effect is to demobilize the citizenry, to teach them not to be involved or to ponder matters that are either settled or beyond their efficacy....The timidity of a Democratic Party mesmerized by centrist precepts,...points to the crucial fact that, for the poor, minorities, the working-class, anticorporatists, pro-environmentalists, and anti-imperialists, there is no opposition party working actively on their behalf." (Wolin, Democracy Incorporated, pp. 201, 205, 206).

Even the slightest, superficial distinctions that still exist between the one-and-a-half party system can mean the difference between life and death for the most vulnerable part of our population, living on, as Street says, “the wrong side of American hierarchy and policy”.

However, all is not lost. Pressure from a mobilized and organized populace has great potential to restore our democracy.

Read more...

Right-wing Coup D'etat

“Those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the people in the stupor for which they are supremely fit.” -- Leo Strauss, godfather of neo-con scholars

I've always wondered, why, considering the hatchet job on Clinton, while in office, and the Bush v. Gore pillage, did the neo-cons let an African-American Democrat follow on the heels of the Republican political front man, George W (credentials: inadequately educated "party boy" blatantly manifesting an anti-intellectual, cowboy machismo and religiosity, whose repeated failures in business earned him the position of Gov. of TX) they plundered into office?

Because no matter what you think of W, he accomplished a hell of a lot to further the neo-con agenda, which entailed taking over Washington, steering the US into a Middle Eastern war, nominating necon "activist judges" (Alito and Roberts: his most important mission), deregulating Wall Street, promoting the rights of corporations over individuals, unchecking the power of the President, shredding the Constitution...in other words, basically leaving this country in a shambles (Project for the New American Century ).

So, why after all the trouble the neo-cons went to over the last three decades, in order to usher in their agenda, would they allow someone who seemingly represented the antithesis to W, carte blanche?

Well, for one thing, who better to clean up after a wealthy white man, than a black man? However, aside from the fact that any President following Bush would inherit the insurmountable task of putting Humpty Dumpty together again, the real answer lies in installation of "the highly politicized conservative majority intent on working its will, even if that means ignoring precedents and the wishes of the elected branches of government" to the Supreme Court.

Yep, President Obama's election is all part of the plan. Not only is Obama their convenient "fall guy", they have nothing to worry about as far as anyone interfering in their agenda, thanks to the Republican party, who transformed itself into a two-year old, as they've become the "party of no", but even more importantly, securing traitors to American democracy in positions of power, in which it is very easy to take even more power and show America who is boss.

If we don't do something now, you can bet the neoconservatives have done, and are doing something, and that something is setting the stage for an era that will make the Bush years seem rather serene.

Read more...

Will Multinational Corporate Lobbyists Define America Now?

The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision opened up a huge loophole in the restrictions that we have on foreign entities participating in our elections. Now, foreign corporations with U.S. subsidiaries will be able to make 'independent expenditures' to American political campaigns.

Democrats have already begun drafting legislation that could restrict the possibility of foreign influence in our election campaigns. However, it is doubtful that anything, short of a constitutional amendment, will impact on the ruling.

Democrats are also eyeing restrictions on U.S. companies that are subsidiaries of foreign-owned corporations; they believe the public will be outraged by the possibility of foreign influence in U.S. election campaigns. The high court's majority opinion avoided addressing possible implications for foreign-owned firms, which are barred from direct participation in U.S. elections but can use their American subsidiaries to form political action committees.

Foreign subsidiaries are already "lashing out at reports that congressional Democrats are looking to block foreign-owned corporations from seizing on the Supreme Court's campaign finance ruling last week".

Saudi Arabia has already asserted that the development of renewable energy is their biggest threat. Now, they can do something to stop their "biggest threat". Saudi Arabian-owned subsidiaries operating in the U.S. can and will expend as much as they want to advocate for the defeat of candidates who support clean energy legislation.

Tough legislation must be drafted to keep domestic corporations from operating on their own as if they were not foreign-controlled companies.

Read more...

Does the Supreme Court Ruling Call for a Populist Revolt?

E.J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post believes - that after the Supreme Court, in a fundamental reversal of precedent, that removed legislative restrictions on the role of corporations in political campaigns, ruling that companies can spend as much as they want to support or oppose individual candidates - "the only proper response to this distortion of our political system by ideologically driven justices is a popular revolt".

This court ruling should also challenge the fake populism we have seen of late. It disguises a defense of the interests of the powerful behind crowd-pleasing rhetoric against "Washington," "taxes" and, yes, "Obama."

President Obama has helped feed this faux populist revolt by failing to understand until recently how deeply frustrated politically moderate, middle-class Americans are over policies that bailed out the banks while leaving behind millions of unemployed and millions more alarmed about their economic futures.

If average voters came to see government primarily as an instrument of the banks, why should they believe that the same government could help them on matters of health care and employment? This problem was aggravated by puffed-up, self-involved U.S. senators who conspired to make the legislative process look as ugly and chaotic as possible.

Obama began turning toward populism before the results of the Massachusetts Senate race rolled in. Republican Scott Brown's victory made the new turn imperative.

The president has now offered a modest tax on the big financial institutions to cover the costs of bailouts, and a tougher approach to banks that will limit their size and their capacity to make economy-wrecking financial bets. It's a decent start, and it's about time.

Read more...

Corporations Conveniently Cloak the Psychopaths Among Us

Yet, the Supreme Court is endowing these giant psychopathic super powers with even more super powers, without the threat of severe punishment that we mere humans are subject.

Why? Well, it all started with the legal doctrine of "corporate personhood", established in the late 1800s, that makes the claim corporations are persons or human beings, therefore they are intended to fully enjoy the legal status and protections created for persons or human beings. Fast forward one-hundred years and the powers that be have decided it's in we, the human beings, best interest if we the human beings serve these giant beasts that house the psychopaths residing within.

But what makes powerful wealthy people believe that corporations are persons? From what I remember from economics 101, a corporation is an artificial legal and social structure where human beings gather for economic reasons. Yes, it (the corporation) is very good at raising capital, creating wealth, providing a return for its shareholders, etc. However, it cannot serve on a jury, cannot serve time, cannot serve our country, nor can it serve breakfast. It can "live" forever...can "live" in multiple nations at once...can "live" with or without oxygen, food, sex, and all the other things we humans require. The bottom line is, that it is an it...that's it.

The good thing. Obama's angry. Maybe that means he's not going to take it anymore.

Read more...

Do We Have the Right Not To Be Framed?

In 1977, 17- year old Terry Harrington (left), captain of his Omaha high school football team, was being recruited for a possible scholarship at Yale when he was arrested for the murder of a retired Iowa police captain, killed by a shotgun blast while working as a private security guard.

What followed next is an example of the kind of injustice most of us can only conceive of in our worst nightmare. Prosecutors Joseph Hrvol and David Richter, along with local police, went to work suppressing evidence that pointed at another suspect — Charles Gates, while manufacturing evidence against the two chief suspects, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, Jr. The two men were convicted of the murder in separate trials, and each was sentenced to life without parole.

After the police records were uncovered in 2003, Harrington successfully petitioned the Iowa State Supreme Court to overturn their convictions. All of the witnesses against them recanted their perjured testimony. The Iowa Supreme Court set aside both convictions, citing exculpatory evidence pointing to another suspect that was withheld from defense counsel in both trials.

Their case (Pottawattamie County v. McGhee) turned on whether prosecutors, who knowingly fabricate evidence to convict an innocent person should be susceptible to lawsuits, or if prosecutors should always have absolute immunity from such suits, no matter how bad their behavior. Keep in mind that investigating police officers, less educated than prosecuting attorneys, don’t receive that kind of immunity. So, then, why should it be granted to prosecutors acting in the same capacity?

As citizens of the U.S. most of us assume we have the right to prove our innocence if we are wrongly convicted of a crime. We probably even assume that we will be compensated for the cost of being wrongly convicted. That is the cost of attorney fees, loss of employment, earnings and earnings potential, not to mention, the loss of time with our loved ones, etc. In other words, we assume that the preservation of justice is paramount in this country, and that the legal process works to ensure that the truth will set us free .

However, this is not the case. It could even be said, the odds are stacked against we, the average people, considering the absolute immunity of judges and prosecutors, and the monopolistic legal system currently in place. Prosecutors have the "right" to frame you with total immunity. The Supreme Court maintains that even prosecutors who knowingly hide or invent evidence in a case that results in the conviction of an innocent person cannot be sued for damages. As morally abhorrent as this is, it is legally sound, just as the following quote from Justice Antonin Scalia is morally abhorrent but legally sound:

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.”

In Brady v. Maryland, judges said prosecutors have an absolute duty not only to not hide evidence, but to divulge evidence that could show innocence.

Teacher says Prosecutor ruined her. - "A former high school teacher who was exonerated of charges that she had sex with a student has sued her prosecutor, claiming Kenton County Attorney Rob Sanders indicted her though he knew the allegations were bogus. She claims Sanders "acted with malice" in pursuit of "publicity, attention and redemption in how he handled a prior student/adult sex case."

Read more...