Socialism Versus Socialist Worker
From Nick P. at Black Sun Gazette:
Things have been rather hectic around Black Sun Gazette Central lately, so forgive my lack of regular communication. I’ve got a few articles brewing that I’m sure my loyal readership is sure to enjoy.
However, I wanted to take a moment to go back to the subject of the International Socialist Organization and their website, SocialistWorker.org.
One of the most common arguments by ISO members is that the tendency with which I am in solidarity “does nothing.” I’d like to take some time to seriously examine this claim, in a more reasoned and less emotional way than my prior screed on the ISO.
Disinformation Interviews Jesse Ventura on ‘American Conspiracies’ and More
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has a new bestselling book out, American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us. Following my recent interview with June Sarpong, a member of the investigative team for his TV series Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura, Jesse agreed to meet with the disinformation® New York crew at the legendary Russian Tea Room.
I asked Jesse why he’s digging up dirt where other public figures fear to tread, what we should do with the information he’s revealing, who he thinks is really behind the myriad conspiracies in his book — from JFK to 9/11 — and much more. Enjoy the video — we’ll post some extra clips where we talk off the record about everything from surfing to rock & roll … soon!
Who Funds the Radical Left In America?
By Steve Baldwin for the Western Center for Journalism:
Very few Americans realize there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center.
The Strategic Principles of the Tides Foundation
Over the course of its 33 year history, the Tides network has given hundreds of millions of dollars to anti-free enterprise groups, gun control groups, anti-private property groups, abortion rights groups, homosexual groups, groups engaged in voter fraud, anti-military groups, and organizations that seek to destroy…
Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest
From Wired’s Threat Level:
Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.
When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.
Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18…
Report: Californians Consume 16 Million Ounces of Pot a Year
This humble Disinfonaut believes that the numbers on these sorts of reports are always too low. I would imagine that the real amount is many, many times higher. From the Sacramento Bee:
So how much pot do Californians smoke?
According to a recent state board of equalization report prepared for the legislature, it’s 16 million ounces a year. That’s a little less than one-half an ounce for each resident in California, in case you’re counting every man, woman and child.
The analysis was prepared for legislation by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), that seeks to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for use by California adults 21 and over.
Some other findings:
- California is America’s top pot producing state, with an annual yield of 8.6 million pounds of weed valued at $13.8 billion. That’s more than one-third of…
Republicans’ Internal Documents Call For Strategy Of “Fear”
The politics of fear, laid out in PowerPoint. From Politico:
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to “save the country from trending toward socialism.”
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
Pentagon Shooting Yet Another Sign of Boiling Anti-Government Sentiment
From Alternet:
The media are trying to find political affiliations for the Pentagon shooter, but they’re missing the big picture.
Another day, another violent anti-government kamikaze act. As the feds recover from Joseph Stack flying his airplane into an IRS building in Austin on Feb. 18 — leaving one dead and 13 injured — the media and government have another dead man to worry about.
Thursday night, after having driven cross-country from California to Washington, John Patrick Bedell walked up to a screening area at the Pentagon and starting firing his two semiautomatic weapons. In less than a minute, he’d wounded two police offers and received gunshot injuries that would later kill him.
Like Stack, Bedell was well-educated and left behind comprehensive material that outlined his longtime anger at the U.S. government. But his…
Jesse Ventura: Two-Party System is the “Downfall of Our Country”
I think Jesse makes a couple of good points here:
The Frogman Cometh
From the Smirking Chimp:
Karl Rove is typically described as a villain of American politics. I prefer the description of deranged psycho killer when referring to him and the underhanded campaign tactics he popularized.
While villains tend to be handsome, dashing men who wield great power and charisma, psycho killers are generally pathetic and broken down little misfits, usually sexually dysfunctional and shunned by society, only to fester in the shadows while flagellating themselves and masturbating to pictures of their mother.
Is that an apt description of Karl Rove? Who the fuck cares, it’s Karl Rove. When did he ever consider the veracity of his claims? This is the man who helped forward a rumor in 2000 that John McCain’s adopted Indian daughter was really an illegitimate child sired with a woman of…
John Avlon Slams Conspiracy Theorists & ‘Fright-Wing Politics’
Anderson Cooper hosts John Avlon, author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, who really seems to have a problem when it comes to anyone who dares challenge the government’s version on … more or less anything:
Time for U.S. Revolution: Fifteen Reasons
From the Huffington Post:
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness…
ACLU to Obama: ‘Change or More of the Same?’
From The Raw Story:
The American Civil Liberties Union has never treated the Obama administration with kid gloves, but with their latest ad buy it’s become increasingly clear that their patience for the continuance of some Bush-era policies has run quite thin.”What will it be Mr. President?” the ACLU asks in a full-page New York Times advertisement published Sunday. “Change or more of the Same?” The ad also features a portrait of Obama that morphs into Bush.
The ACLU’s images of the subtle transition between presidents is filtered and lacking in detail, and spans just four frames. However, it appears to be a take-off of a protest image that circulated Facebook and some progressive blogs late last year, showing a similar transition in eerie detail.
The ACLU’s full-size advertisement is below this text.
The ad specifically…
Brother of Pentagon Shooter Describes a Path from Early Promise to Madness
In addition to the piece below from the Washington Post, I have included a video embed from what’s claimed to John Patrick Bedell’s YouTube Channel. The media reports first described him as a right-wing extremist, which has now been modified to him having an “anti-government” ideology.
Ian Shapira writes in the Washington Post:
John Patrick Bedell was an independent-minded and skeptical teenager — bright and questioning, with strongly held opinions, like countless other young people, his brother remembered Saturday.
Bedell, who went by Patrick, had vigorously objected to the government’s role in the 1991 Persian Gulf War since high school, telling relatives that the United States was trying to enrich itself and oil companies, said his brother, 33-year-old Jeffrey Bedell.
But, in about 2002, after the breakup of a long-term relationship with a girlfriend, his skepticism began to turn to deep-rooted suspicion. And soon it became paranoia, his brother said.
Patrick would point skyward, convinced that “they” were watching him. He believed songs he heard on the radio were meant as warnings. Deeply concerned, the Bedell family and close friends tried to seek medical help for him, but Patrick refused, convinced that he was privy to information that warranted his mind-set.
Gordon Brown’s UK Election Pledge – More CCTV!
This week the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made it clear that he sees the expansion of the UK surveillance camera network as a vote winner in the coming general election [1]. Brown was in Reading delivering a speech on ‘crime and anti-social behaviour’, he said [2]:
CCTV and DNA are crucial.
There are of course some who think CCTV is “excessive”, but they probably don’t have to walk home or take the night bus on their own at the end of a night out. For the rest of us, for ordinary hard working, decent people, the evidence is clear: CCTV reduces the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour.
That is why this government has funded CCTV in nearly 700 town centre schemes over the last decade — and why in the coming months we are bringing in a new power for people to petition their local authority for more CCTV, with the authority having a duty to respond.
Now the opposition parties have campaigned against CCTV — our support for CCTV will be on the ballet paper at any coming election.
Lycans Attack! on Disinformation World News: Episode 13
iTunes • Direct Download • RSS
Patriot Act disappointment, the history of the Werewolf, and trans-species migrations, all this week on Disinformation World News.
Disinformation World News is a monthly news series with a humorous take on the strangest recent stories to hit the wire. Anchored by Raymond Wiley and Joe McFall, the series also featuring occult news from Austin Gandy’s Invisible College as well as little known history from Joe Nolan’s Insomnia.
We welcome listener-created segments, if they are of high quality. If you’re interested, please email me at ray@disinfo.com.
Denver UFO Ballot Initiative Adopts Hip-Hop Anthem
From the Denver Post:
It is not every ballot initiative that has its own hip-hop song.
But then, how many times are voters asked to approve formation of a commission to study visitors from outer space?
Jeff Peckman, director of the extraterrestrial affairs commission ballot initiative, will launch a campaign to educate voters about his proposal this evening at 7 P.M. at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.
Peckman collected signatures to have the measure placed on Denver’s Aug. 10 ballot. If it passes, the City of Denver will be required to create a seven-member commission tasked with collecting evidence that extraterrestrials and UFOs have been visiting Earth.
“Pink UFO,” a song by Chris Steele, of the hip-hop duo Calm, wrote and performs “Pink UFO,” which will be replayed at tonight’s event. The song, which is dedicated…
Chicago’s Pointless Handgun Ban
From Reason.com:
When Chicago passed a ban on handgun ownership in 1982, it was part of a trend. Washington, D.C. had done it in 1976, and a few Chicago suburbs took up the cause in the following years. They all expected to reduce the number of guns and thus curtail bloodshed.
District of Columbia Attorney General Linda Singer told The Washington Post in 2007, “It’s a pretty common-sense idea that the more guns there are around, the more gun violence you’ll have.” Nadine Winters, a member of the Washington city council in 1976, said she assumed at the time that the policy “would spread to other places.”
But the fad never really caught fire—even before last summer, when the Supreme Court struck down the D.C. law and cast doubt on the others, including the…
Winter in America: Democracy Gone Rogue
From Truthout:
The absolute … spells doom to everyone when it is introduced into the political realm.
- Hannah Arendt [1]
Democracy in the United States is experiencing both a crisis of meaning and a legitimation crisis. As the promise of an aspiring democracy is sacrificed more and more to corporate and military interests, democratic spheres have largely been commercialized and democratic practices have been reduced to market relations, stripped of their worth and subject to the narrow logics of commodification and profit making. Empowerment has little to do with providing people with the knowledge, skills, and power to shape the forces and institutions that bear down on their lives and is now largely defined as under the rubric of being a savvy consumer. When not equated with the free market capitalism, democracy…
Was Foot a National Treasure or the KGB’s Useful Idiot?
From the Telegraph:
Why did the former Labour leader take money from Moscow for years, asks Charles Moore .
We have a habit in this country of turning certain people into “national treasures”. If they go on long enough, and have enough charm, we tend to forget what we once disliked about them. This has happened to Tony Benn, who was once routinely depicted by cartoonists as wearing jackboots. It has come perilously close to happening to Ian Paisley. It happened to Michael Foot, who died this week.Like all dear old “characters”, Foot had his props – the thick spectacles, the knobbly walking stick, his dog Dizzy, and that hotly debated garment worn at the Cenotaph. He had an eccentric way of speaking, which involved shouting at the end of sentences. And…
