As a tangent series to the Activist Cinema episodes we've been doing for a few months, here is short playlist of fantastic Activist Music - The Hip Hop Edition. Introduction - Boots Riley ( The Coup ) Public Enemy - Fight the Power LMFAO - Shots The Coup - Laugh, Love, Fuck Tha Truth - Power to the People Dead Prez - Police State Immortal Technique - Rich Man's World Street Sweeper Social Club - Fight Smash Win [Click to Listen]...
On the heels of our 5 part series on the Corporate Media, we tryout the Zen TV Experiment . Instead of passively watching TV, try this: -Watch 15 minutes of a scripted sitcom without the sound. -Watch 15 minutes of a news program without the sound. -Watch the TV for 30 minutes while it is turned off. It only takes 1 hour and we promise, it will be a more memorable 1 hour than anything on the TV you would normally be watching. The places your mind will go and the thoughts you will come up with in...
We have come to the end (for now) of our Corporate Media series. On this episode we take a look at several examples of the corporate/government hijacking of the public airwaves that have been exposed. After that...the numbers don't lie! Alternative media outlets are growing in numbers and listeners. We examine the Pew Research Centers 2013 State of the Media report and the many reasons it gives us to celebrate. Mainly the low, low, low viewership of the Corporate Media's flagship "news programs"...
This week, in our continuing series taking a look at the multiple corporate and government influences on our media, we focus on public relations firms. In this episode we focus on Ketchum , Qorvis and Edelman and their use of video news releases , sponsored content, native ads and paid content slipped right into news programs. [Click to Listen]...
In part three of our Corporate Media series we take a look at the known influence of the CIA's Operation Mockingbird on the media. The New York Times, Time/Life, CBS, NBC, Newsweek, the AP, UPI, Reuters and even all the way down the publishing hierarchy to The Louisville Courier-Journal were actively working with the CIA. And just when you thought it was safe to say that all of this CIA influence of the corporate media was in the past, we have the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (NDAA...
After World War II, the proven power of propaganda and the TV boom coincided so beautifully that the CIA invented an infrastructure to exploit/manipulate/guide/control the media, and by extension the public. And Operation Mockingbird is just one program that we know about. From just one of the government agencies who are spying on us all. Who knows what craziness lurks in the classified archives at the National Clandestine Service offices? [ Click to Listen ]...
In the first part of our Corporate Media series we take a quick look at the history of US government's attempts to regulate (and eventually deregulate)the media over the past hundred years. What is the end result of all of these bills and laws that have been passed? The greatest consolidation of corporate media power (also known as: propaganda) the world has ever seen. [Click to Listen]
Activist Cinema Episode 5 - Network (1976) is simply one of the best American films. Period. It also happens to be a satire that ended up being so prophetic that the satire has fallen away in the decades since it was initially produced. Giant, international corporations buying up the TV airwaves and forcing the News Divisions to turn a profit by mixing in more and more entertainment at the expense of the public service they were originally intended to serve. Sound familiar to anyone? This film p...
Five years after the 2008 economic collapse, how are we as a civilization doing? All of those new Wall Street regulations are keeping the banks in line. All of the 'too big to fail' banks have been broken up. Community banking has taken over as the dominant banking system. The nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures kept millions of families off the streets. The SEC has been bringing law suits of major banks and investment firms by the hundreds to the court system. Bankers have been going to ...
It's been a long, long two years since OWS started up in the heart of the financial district in NYC. The ripple effects of this movement are too diverse and too numbered to fully catalog in a short podcast. Instead we take a look at the arithmetic of protests attendance. The corporate media dismisses protests and movements (like the coverage of OWS Year One ) when they say the numbers are too low, but what do these numbers actually represent? At what point are the assemble more powerful than the...
On this anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, we take a look at the events of the day from a different point of view. The wonderful folks over at CrimethInc have a poster titled "The Shadow of the Past Holds the Future Hostage". This is a "Story Time with Mic Check Radio" episode where we read this thought provoking analysis in full. [Click to Listen]...
This is it! The one and only episode where we take a look at the climate change "debate". It's caused by humans, it's not caused by humans, it's getting hotter, it's getting colder...it's enough to keep us humans busy yelling at each other and not addressing the facts behind all of these accusations. Earth's climate is changing and it doesn't care if humans survive. So start prepping people! The governments of the world aren't going to help. [Click to Listen]...
Who says that drones have to fly thru the air? Why not float? Why not drive? Why not walk? Or better yet run! Or how about little tiny drones the size of a cricket? Maybe we could put a small camera and microphone on one? Maybe put some weapons on another? The possibilities are nearly endless...what will this police state look like in 10 years? [Click to Listen]
Activist Cinema Episode 4 - How to Survive a Plague (2012) is a time capsule documentary that uses archival footage and interviews to take the viewer back to the late 1980's and early 1990's when ACT UP took to the streets (including Wall Street) to protest the insanely slow response from the Government, pharmaceutical companies and the medical community to the AIDS/HIV epidemic . [Click to Listen]...
Way back in 1987 a government funded study, Perception of Risk , was published in the journal Science. While the study is officially a look at how the general public evaluates and perceives risk, it also reads as a manual for the manipulation of the public's fear and the unrealistic desire to live in a "zero risk society". [Click to Listen]
Mickey Z has written a fine column over at World News Trust in which he asks “ With the stakes never higher than they are now, why aren't activists ramping up the pressure and looking beyond tactics that are allowed by those in power? ”. He answers that question with 5 fantastic observations about protests in the United States. [Click to Listen]...
This episode was released on January 25th, 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 medi...
In this episode we take a look at FEMEN, a feminist activist group that started in Kiev, Ukraine and has made headlines throughout the world. [Click to Listen]
1 Skyscraper. 6 Women. No permission. What would you do to save the Arctic? [Click to Listen]
Activist Cinema Episode 3 - The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) is a documentary told in Mr. Ellsberg's own words that traces the events leading up to and after the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. [Click to Listen]
In part 2 (of 2), we take a look at activist groups that have a "left-wing" political ideology. In doing so we also take a look at how the corporate media portrays the political ideology of activist groups in the so called "wings" and what catalyzing events push those groups to take direct action (both violent and non-violent) against their declared enemies. [Click to Listen]
In part 1 (of 2), we take a look at activist groups that have a "right-wing" political ideology. In doing so we also take a look at how the corporate media portrays the political ideology of activist groups in the so called "wings" and what catalyzing events push those groups to take direct action (both violent and non-violent) against their declared enemies. [Click to Listen]
As this years G8 (Gang of 8) meeting takes place in Northern Ireland, we take a look at the Stop G8 network and the Carnival Against Capitalism that has been organized in London's West End. [Click to Listen]
Activists Cinema Episode 2 - The Miami Model (2003) is a documentary about the community resistance to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas meeting in Miami in 2003 and the massive and brutal police response. [Click to Listen]
On this episode we take a look at what it means to have a national identity. Is national pride even a logical emotion to have? And, why stop at national pride? Why not planet pride? Where should we drawn the line for having pride in where you are from...or should there even be a line? [Click to Listen]
In a follow up the the What is Terrorism? episode from two weeks ago, we take a look at several cases where the FBI found, coached, armed and then arrested "terrorists". [Click to Listen]
On this episode we take a look at the top Corporate tax dodgers for the year 2012. Just let your jaw hang open starting now. [Click to Listen]
Four recent news stories present wildly different definitions of terrorism. Assata Shakur becomes the first woman on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list (after almost 30 years in exile) - the Boston Marathon Bombings and the ensuing terrorizing of the local population - two bills going thru the Oregon Senate that seek to redefine Eco terrorism - the recent Ag Gag bills turn a woman with a camera in a public place into a potential terrorist. [Click to Listen]...
The inaugural episode of a new series here at Mic Check Radio that focuses on the political, social and educational value of different films from throughout the 100+ years of the medium. This episode focuses on THE political propaganda film of all time (so far) and the contradictions it causes by watching the film within today's political environment. [Click to Listen]
If Corporations are people, then what kind of a person are they? On this episode we take a look at the Exxon Mobile Pipeline 'Pegasus' that burst in Arkansas at the end of March. How did this "person" know as Exxon Mobile deal with the situation? [Click to Listen]
