In August of 1971, Lewis F. Powell Jr. was about to be sworn in as an Associate Supreme Court Justice after previously turning down the same offer from President Nixon in 1969. Before being sworn in, he wrote a memo entitled, "Attack on American Free Enterprise System" (to become known as 'The Powell Memo') to Eugene B. Syndor Jr. at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memo called upon Corporate America to aggressively shape politics, media, education and the court system of this country. Over 40 ...
Apr 16, 2013
In another attempt at knowing what the opposition is up to, we spy on a key advocate for the Keystone XL Pipeline - The Center for Industrial Progress . By spying, it means we play some audio selections from their YouTube channel. And then yell into a microphone. [Click to Listen]...
Apr 02, 2013
In the debate about the Keystone XL Pipeline there are the voices of reason (the activists) and insanity (the corporate shills). In this episode we take a look at the philosophies of two groups who represent these two sides; Anarcho-Primitivism and and the Center for Industrial Progress . [Click to Listen]
Mar 25, 2013
In November of 2012, the University of California at Irvine and Slate.com teamed up to conduct and then publish the findings of a very telling social experiment...how do we (human beings) remember news stories? Over 5,000 people participated in the study and the results provide quite an insight as to how news stories can be manufactured, presented and accepted as true. [Click to Listen]...
Mar 16, 2013
A quick recap/wrap-up of some recent episodes about the Corporate Police State, the Intelligence Community and the surveillance state in general. Plus, the Supreme Court rules in favor of spying on US citizens without their knowledge. [Click to Listen]
Mar 11, 2013
Rebroadcast: A look at the tactics used by the FBI's COunter INTELligence PROgram ( COINTELPRO ) against activist groups in the United States (with some readings from Dan Berger's book: Outlaws in America ). The program officially ended in 1971, but the tactics are clearly still being practiced today against Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement in general. [Click to Listen]...
Feb 28, 2013
Continuing down the Corporate Security State rabbit hole of public information, we take a look at some on the record statements from both government officials and private security contractors. This week we check in with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Booz Allen Hamilton Vice Chairman (and former head of the NSA) Mick McConnell . They both say the Cyber War is coming any day. [Click to Listen]...
Feb 18, 2013
From push notifications, corporate news channel tickers, billboards, newspaper headlines, blog titles, Facebook updates and twitter posts - the depth of our information diet is getting smaller and less diverse. In this episode we take a look at alternative ways to expand the mind with in depth information. From concerts and films to just plain old up all night passionate conversations with friends and family, there is no need to limit ourselves when it comes to the amount and type of information...
Feb 09, 2013
The Peoples Library was started within days of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park. As OWS spread throughout the country and the world, so did the ideas of the Peoples Library, with most encampments hosting a version of this free access to information. In this episode we take a look at how a traditional library (the San Diego County Library) teamed up with Housing Opportunities Collaborative to offer free foreclosure clinics, one of the central focal points of the Occupy Movement....
Feb 04, 2013
In December 2012 the FBI confirmed what longtime activists knew, that the corporate state and the intelligence community are in bed together. Now it is time to take a look at who is doing the domestic spying on not just OWS , but activists and citizens all over this country. An article over at Defense News and a video report from T his Week in Defense News reveal that the CIA has its own venture capital firm ( In-Q-Tel ) to get in with social media companies and Twitter sells a product call " th...
Jan 26, 2013
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his "I Have a Dream" speech, but his "Beyond Vietnam" speech from April 4th, 1967 is my personal favorite. He was killed exactly a year to the day after delivering this speech. [Click to Listen]
Jan 21, 2013
Just before Christmas, the FBI finally granted a Freedom of Information Act request by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund on the role of the FBI in monitoring, infiltrating and spying on Occupy Wall Street protests. Although heavily redacted, there are some interesting pieces of information contained in the documents. Among them, the role of the Domestic Security Alliance Council , a group started by the FBI that "facilitates information sharing and cooperation between the FBI and over 200 o...
Jan 15, 2013
Thanks to politically motivated redistricting, Congressman Dennis Kucinich is no longer in Washington. On today's show we say a quick goodbye to the vegan representative who tried to; impeach a sitting president (Bush), impeach a sitting vice president (Cheney), keep space from being weaponized, repeal the PATRIOT Act, create a Department of Peace, nationalize the Federal Reserve, legislate against factory farms and end all foreign occupations. He was also a vocal supporter of Occupy Wall Street...
Jan 12, 2013
A look at some of the major banking scandals of 2012. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Barclay's, Nomura, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Knight Capital, ING, Capital One, Peregrine Financial Group and LIBOR are all discussed. [Click to Listen]
Jan 07, 2013
Do you need any more reasons to be pissed off at banks, part 2? Previously, we discussed their decades long cozy relationship with drug cartels and the CIA? The Golden Triangle, Iran-Contra Affair, Mena, Arkansas, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela National Guard, etc. This time we take a look at the recent "settlement" for the third largest bank in the world and their decades long relationship with Mexican and Columbian drug cartels. [Click to Listen]...
Dec 19, 2012
After a quick discussion of the role of the national corporate media in shaping our day to day reality of the world around us, we get into the horrific story of 13 Cleveland Police officers shooting 137 rounds at two unarmed citizens after a 20+ minutes car chase - killing both of them. [Click to Listen]...
Dec 13, 2012
Students are taking matters into their own hands at Cooper Union in NYC. 12 students are occupying the "clock tower" in order to keep the tuition free and oust the current president of the university. [Click to Listen]
Dec 08, 2012
As I type this, there are activists sitting in tress stands in Texas trying the best to hold off construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. Keep up with their actions at the Tar Sands Blockade website. Also, we take a look at their 10 reasons to oppose the pipeline. [Click to Listen]
Dec 03, 2012
Three of the five people arrested in Cleveland this past spring find out how long they will be spending in jail. The presiding judge in this case keeps a relatively cool head in the face of the US Attorney's office pushing for upwards of 30 years for some of the defendants. "It doesn't make any sense whatsoever," the judges said in an interview. He went on to call the tough sentencing sought by the prosecution as "grotesque". [Click to Listen]...
Nov 27, 2012
Do you need any more reasons to be pissed off at banks? How about their decades long cozy relationship with drug cartels and the CIA? The Golden Triangle , Iran-Contra Affair , Mena, Arkansas , Mexico , Panama and Venezuela National Guard (to name just a few from a Wikipedia page). [Click to Listen]...
Nov 24, 2012
The Occupy movement in NYC has two fascinating off shoots that we take a look at today. The first is Rolling Jubilee and The Debt Resistors Operation Manual . Actual financial help for those in need! The second is the OWS response to Superstorm Sandy, Occupy Sandy , and how organizers are being more effective in their own neighborhood than the Red Cross could ever hope to be. The show ends with an audio clip from Naomi Klein discussing how Occupy Sandy relates to her ideas on disaster capitalism...
Nov 20, 2012
A quick post mortem of the 2012 cluster fuck of an election. A total of $6 billion spent to elect a corporate candidate. How Bernie Sanders ran an actual re-election campaign with no TV, radio or direct mail ads. A possible backlash against Super PAC's and the ridiculous idea of voting being either patriotic or a civic duty. [Click to Listen]
Nov 12, 2012
Let's say you have picked a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. After all the primary debates, campaign stops, stump speeches, conventions, ads, mailings, robo-calls, PAC's, Super PAC's, canvassing, the debates (including third party debates), yard signs, billboards and get out the vote campaigns - you have finally chosen someone to vote for. Great! But, guess what? There is a growing chance that your vote just won't count. I this episode, we take a look at information from a few ...
Nov 03, 2012
In part I, we take a look at who actually votes. With all the corporate media hype about how important every election cycle is, why are almost half of registered voters staying home on (S)election day? Also, we get into who works the polls on (S)election day and how there will be no one to work the polls in a few years. [Click to Listen]
Nov 01, 2012
A brief history of some recent third party candidates as well as some Gallup poll data which indicates that almost half of the country identifies as "Independent" in their political ideology. Seems like the perfect environment for a massive switch towards a new political paradigm. The question then should be 'why vote for one of the two corporate candidates?' and not 'why vote third party?'. [Click to Listen]...
Oct 27, 2012
A brief history of 7 court cases that have shaped the current landscape of campaign financing. Emily's List vs FEC, Citizen's United vs FEC, SpeechNOW.org vs FEC, Club for Growth, Commonsense Ten and National Defense PAC. [Click to Listen]
Oct 24, 2012
A look into the Commission on Presidential Debates and how they hijacked the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters and turned the whole circus into, well a more boring form of a circus. [Click to Listen]
Oct 19, 2012
Just because you are older than a kid, doesn't mean you can't learn from them. The innocent point of view of kids is unvarnished by corporate media (to a point) and social pressure as well as the natural curiosity about anything and everything. [Click to Listen]
Oct 13, 2012
The inconsistencies of law enforcement illustrate how broken the system really is. Corporations pollute and poison with impunity while activists are arrested for wearing masks in public or sitting in trees. [Click to Listen]
Oct 11, 2012
Malcolm X was addressing the upcoming election of 1964 in this clip, but he may as well have been talking about our current situation. It's depressing how politics never changes. [Click to Listen]
Oct 04, 2012
