Ike Farewell Address

As the current president readies to give a farewell address, here is video of the very famous and important address given by a former president, at least in part.

A Lady Pole like feeling.

Sometimes, when I attempt to explain anything pertinent to our politics, I feel a bit like the character Lady Pole from the novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  Whenever she would try to explain to people about the harm caused to her by the evil faerie prince, she was compelled to speak a kind of gibberish instead. This was because of the spell the faerie had her in.

Outside the land on Faerie, and more specifically, in the United States of today - there are many possible reasons why our political discourse can turn into gibberish. These reasons range from the mundane to the incredible. By "incredible," I mean that which is often relegated to the realm of "conspiracy theory"

A simple reason we might be inclined towards political nonsense is because we are constantly exposed to political nonsense. Mass communications, often one-way communications (with the possible exception of the internet) fill our minds with fantasy. What has become the mass media, including television, radio, and the internet to some extent, assaults us with the greatest illogic  history has ever known.

So far, I have been speaking of the mundane, which should be fairly obvious to most. Moving beyond the mundane, into the realm of ideas often relegated to "conspiracy theory," there is much to consider.

Let's start with one that is a little less controversial. For decades, we have known about the potential for subliminal messages to alter thought and behavior. Some would say the potential is exaggerated. For instance, it has been claimed that for one to be motivated to buy a soda at the drive-in movie, one first had to be truly thirsty. And, there is some quibbling over how "subliminal" is really defined.  The above link makes the case that sometimes we mean "supraliminal" rather than "subliminal."

To move further into the realm of "conspiracy theory," There are allegations that, whether this counts as subliminal or not, the US government has technology to broadcast audio messages directly to a single individual.   In fact, here is a video that shows a private individual demonstrating the technology allowing him to do this very thing.

Of course, there is much more, and I haven't even mentioned things like MK Ultra and Project Mockingbird. There certainly are cases when fact is stranger than fiction, but at least it is still unlikely that one could be manipulated by a faerie prince.

Lack of Democracy

Sometimes, when I'm motivated to write in this blog, I literally don't know where to start. I've probably used this next quote in other posts. I am often reminded of it. When George Carlin was on the Keith Olbermann show several years ago, at one point he told Olbermann very plainly, "This country is finished."   I would have to agree with Carlin if he meant the country is/was finished as a democracy. In fact, there have been scholarly studies suggesting just that. 

It could be argued that this concept is not new, as we have had academics tell us similar things even decades ago. For example, C Wright Mills wrote, The Power Elite in the 1950s. And I'm sure that some variation of the idea about the powerful elite of business, finance, and military interests dominating political life - of course with the help of the more staid media - has likely been with us for eons.

However, I would argue that in the US today (possibly other countries), things have gone way beyond that basic concept. It is such a big topic, and one is likely to have the scornful label of "conspiracy theorist" placed upon the one's self for even considering that our democracy might be corrupt beyond just the corruption of ordinary manipulation of opinion, and powerful persons having too great an influence on policy.

I tend to believe that at some point, I don't know when exactly, the very mechanics of our electoral democracy became corrupted. The first investigation into this that I am aware of was a book called, VoteScam: The Stealing of America. This book was written by two brothers, who having the experience of knowing some of the more radical politically minded people of the 1960s, decided that they should try to run an election campaign, just to record their experience. It was a way of testing whether they, two rather regular guys, could find the value, or lack thereof, of doing so.

According to them, they found out quite a bit more than they originally hoped to discover - namely that our elections are hopelessly corrupt. What was supposed to be a project to possibly write a book turned into a lifelong journey for them.

As they point out in the book, they believe they discovered sort of the pilot project for American democracy. Since then, as James Collier (one of the brothers who wrote the book) points out in various interviews, it has only gotten much worse.

I can't even recall if the electronic voting machines were introduced within the period covered in the book. Yet, at some point during the 1990s, these machines began to turn up in American polling places. The first time I remember reports of them appearing in the news was the election featuring Bush vs. Gore. For example, there was the voting machine that counted backwards.   By the time of the 2004 election, a great number of people had become suspicious of these machines, and believed they were being used to deliver elections to Republican candidates. Whether that is true or not, the machines are design in away that would allow either party, or potential outsiders, to basically rig an election.

In fact, those who were concerned with election integrity around this time were almost able to force a Republican tech consultant to appear in court in order for him to tell whatever he might know about alleged tampering with the 2004 election. Notice the circumstances of his not appearing in court.

At any rate, it would seem that the election result could be anything the machine says it is. I don't believe we select the president anymore, and I'm uncertain how much say we have in the lesser offices. Put this together with the work of people like C Wright Mills, and there is very little democracy regardless of the election results. This is truly a time of universal deceit.

politics is done in the darkness #5

I hope I'm right about the number. I think this is the 5th audio-cast.

Freedom of speech restricted in France?

Man claims he takes down his website because he is afraid of alleged new law limiting disagreement with the government. I tried his site out of curiosity and got a white screen only. Hmm...

The internet of things

The real question is why people have come to power that think this way?

Politics is done in the darkness podcast #2

The second of what is intended to be a series of podcasts about politics.

MI5 Spying on Ken Livingstone & Corbyn - Going Underground

Except I think Livingstone understates what goes on in the west

Reflections on Democracy, Taboo Ideas, and the Human Spirit - Joaquin

Joquin and Morris108 in a philosophical conversation. Quite good with many points made.

Does TPP spell the demise of the internet as we know it?

Only time will tell. This is from CounterPunch.  It is hard to imagine that even Google and some of the big tech companies would be for some of the things in this deal. Perhaps they're not. time will tell, but if we take what is being reported at face value, especially in the article linked to above, it might become difficult to spread information throughout the internet as we can today. Who knows, it might be useless to link to articles, as copyright will be very much in the way. That's if we are still allowed to link to articles at all. On the other hand, the end of the internet has predicted by doomsayers many times before, and somehow, it survives. We'll have to wait and see if it survives this time. The problem is, the people with real power in this world don't like our freedom.

I have reasons to believe the "targeted Individual" theory

Every now and then, there will be a story in the news about individuals doing something reckless, dangerous, and out of character for them - with terrible results for them personally, not to mention others (especially others). There was an event in my life that I still haven't come to terms with, and as crazy as it may sound, I can not rule out some of the more far out theories even to explain my own case.

The most recent story is the case of the woman who drove her car into the Oklahoma State sports crowd.    there is no logical explanation for her actions. Every account from people who know her (as is the pattern in other cases) tells us that she would never do such a thing. So why did she do it? Well, there are probable explanations out there.

This is from the Internet Archive, and was uploaded by somebody called, HRC.


Some things they can do to you with science
For those who have a browser (other than chrome, maybe firefox) that will not play my html5 video code - here is the direct link.

Rev. Pinkney

Here is a link to Glen Ford's Black Agenda Report with a story about what was done to Rev. Pinkney.