Hands Up - Don't Lie

by

       Zeno Potas

      Perhaps it is time we have an honest discussion about race in America. An HONEST discussion, not the distortions that the Leftists want everyone to believe. You read this blog because we have promised you the truth. Are you ready for the truth? These are the facts.

•  Do you know how many blacks were killed by police by gunfire last year? - The number is 123.
•  Do you know how many whites were killed? That number is 326.
•  Police killings of blacks are down 70% in last 50 years.
•  Whites are 63% of the population, and in 2013, whites committed 4,396 murders.
•  Blacks are 13% of the population, and in 2013, blacks committed 5,375 murders.
• Officers were less likely to erroneously shoot unarmed black suspects than they were unarmed whites — 25 times less likely, in fact . (Washington State University Study)
• Officers hesitated significantly longer before shooting armed suspects who were black, compared to armed subjects who were white or Hispanic. (Washington State University Study)

      In just these few set of facts we can see that one side is out of proportion to distortion being broadcast in our slanted news media. Let's pull up a few historical facts about black America.

•  In 1950, female-headed households were 18 percent of the black population. Today it's 70 percent.
•  In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households.
• The black illegitimacy rate in 1940 was about 14 percent; black illegitimacy today is over 70 percent. 
•  In Democratic controlled urban areas, it is over 80 percent.

     The major problem in the black community that accounts for so much of the disparity in achievement and criminal behavior is that more than seven in 10 black children are born to single women and will spend much of their lives with no father present. Children are raised with no authority to respect and grow up with a distorted view of life. If we want to have an honest conversation about race, we need to begin here. This is where society's, especially in the black community, future problems begin.

      Another problem in many areas of the country is the Leftist control of our schools. These

Socialist teachers, who stand behind the Democratic party in every election, have driven the black academic achievement gap. Often, black 12th-graders can read, write and deal with scientific and math problems at only the level of white sixth-graders. This doesn't bode well for success in college or passing civil service exams or gaining any meaningful employment in their lifetimes.  By under educating young people it deprives them not only of income but also of work experience, which can be even more valuable. Without the right education, young people will be left out of legal work, and with illegal work  always available, this is just asking for trouble. So is having large numbers of idle young males, under educated, and unable to speak the acceptable English language hanging out together on the streets.

       How much of what we see today can be explained by racial discrimination? Jason Riley, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member and author of "Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks To Succeed," is certainly one man who should be listened to.  Riley's book discusses why these depressing statistics stem from cultural changes that have occurred in the black community and the unintended consequences of liberal efforts to blame everything on poverty and prejudice when it is their own actions to "help the underprivileged" that is the root cause behind America's woes. This is an important question because if we conclude that racial discrimination is the major cause of black problems when it isn't, then effective solutions will be elusive forever and we will continue down the path towards anarchy.

Discussion Without an Agenda - Propaganda Fuels Talk of War

by
       Phillip Todd

  We conclude our interview with guest is Jack Hanick who recently completed the development of a state of the art television network in Moscow, built without government funding. Its evening news program broadcasts to 65 million homes in Russia across eight time zones. Previously Jack was a TV director, where he won the New York Emmy in 1994 for best director. His biography of Desmond Tutu also won a New York Emmy. He is considered an American expert on Russia. (Additional comments by John Pilger.)

PT – You spoke of the media and it's willingness to carry story after story of so-called Russian aggression towards it neighbors - are not the elitists, who own the western media, deliberately pushing the world towards war?

JH - We are moving closer and closer to a real war. Republicans and Democrats talk tough on foreign policy towards Russia. When all politicians are in agreement, there is no discussion of alternative approaches. Any alternative to complete isolation of Russia and a NATO build up on Russia’s borders is a

sign of weakness. Any alternative to this military build up is criticized as “appeasement,” likened to the failed foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain toward Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1938.

JP - The most effective propaganda is found not in the Sun or on Fox News - but beneath a liberal halo. When the New York Times published claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, its fake evidence was believed, because it wasn't Fox News; it was the New York Times.

The same is true of the Washington Post and the Guardian, both of which have played a critical role in conditioning their readers to accept a new and dangerous cold war. All three liberal newspapers have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in Ukraine was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and NATO.

PT – Sanctions are continuously being applied to Russia to bring down the government. Do they think intimidation and isolation will accomplish this without another European war? 

JH - A war with Russia cannot be won economically. Russia has oil and an abundance of natural resources. It occupies the largest landmass in the world. It is growing in its ability to replace goods restricted from the west. The US flexing its military muscle will not solve the problems.

JP - This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war.

Once again, the evil empire is coming to get us, led by another Stalin or, perversely, a new Hitler. Name your demon and let rip.

JH - Sanctions are driving Russia away from the West and toward China. Chinese tourism in Russia is at record levels.

PT –Is a European war inevitable?

JH - This time the war will not be “over there.” The Russian bombers flying off the California coast on July 4 clearly demonstrate this point. Russians understand that the US has not fought a war on its soil since the civil war. If new hostilities start, Russia will not let the war be a proxy war where the US supplies weapons and advisers and lets others do the “boots on the ground” combat. Russia will take the war to the US. Imagine if Canada suddenly aligned itself with Russia or China. The US would surely see that as a threat on its border and act decisively. 

JP - "If you wonder," wrote Robert Parry, "how the world could stumble into WWIII – much as it did into WWI a century ago - all you need to do is look at the madness that has enveloped virtually the entire US political/media structure over Ukraine where a false narrative of white hats versus black hats took hold early and has proved impervious to facts or reason."

PT – The truth is that continuing along this path could truly become a world war in all hemispheres of the globe.

JH - War is not the answer but too often in history becomes the only solution when two sides refuse to see the other’s point of view. Understanding the Russian side and taking their arguments seriously can help prevent serious consequences.

PT – That would be the case for most rational people but it seems that the political elite have dollar signs in their eyes without regard for the consiquences to humanity. Thank you both for your insight into the continuing build up of these winds of war.

A Discussion Without an Agenda - The Media is Contributing to the War Hysteria

by
       Phillip Todd

      Our guest is Jack Hanick recently completed the development of a state of the art television network in Moscow, built without government funding. Its evening news program broadcasts to 65 million homes in Russia across eight time zones. Previously Jack was a TV director, where he won the New York Emmy in 1994 for best director. His biography of Desmond Tutu also won a New York Emmy. He is considered an American expert on Russia. (Additional comments by John Pilger.)

PT - Tell our readers about your recent experiences in Russia.

JH - I moved to Moscow two and a half years ago. I went to Russia to  build a non-government funded news channel with editorial views consistent with the Russian Orthodox Church. I have completed that task and returned to the west.

PT - Everyday we hear in our news media stories of Russian aggression, what is going on there?

JH - America is heading for war with Russia.

JP - The world is facing the prospect of major war, perhaps nuclear war, with the United States clearly determined to isolate and provoke Russia and eventually China.

PT – We are being told that Russia is doing this.

JH - There are two sides to this story. I believe that American and western journalists from all political persuasions are not offering critical analysis.

PT – Is that a polite way of saying we are not being told the truth?

JP - This truth is being turned upside down and inside out by journalists. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions.

PT – The Russian people, aren't they also are as dis-informed as we are in the west? We are told that they have no free press at all.

JH - Americans believe that Russians are fed propaganda by the state-controlled media. If Russians only could hear the truth, the thinking goes, they would welcome the US position. This is not so. There are more than 300 TV stations available in Moscow. Only 6 are state-controlled. The truth is that Russians prefer hearing the news from the state rather than the Internet or other sources. This is different from almost any other country. It is not North Korea where the news is censored. Each night during the Crimea crisis, anyone could watch CNN or the BBC bash Russia.

JP - Why has so much western journalism succumbed to propaganda? Why are censorship and distortion standard practice? Why is the BBC so often a mouthpiece of rapacious pow York Times and the Washington Post deceive their readers? These are urgent questions.

PT – What is your view on the situation in Ukraine?

JH - With regard to Ukraine, Russia has drawn a red line: It will never allow Ukraine to be part of NATO. Russia sees the US as the aggressor, surrounding Russia with military bases in Eastern Europe at every opportunity since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US sees Russia as the aggressor against its neighbors. Any small misstep could lead to war. I see both sides of this escalating conflict and unless there is a change in thinking, the result will be catastrophic.

JP - The suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news blackouts I can remember. The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus and eastern Europe since world war two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out.

PT – How did we reach this critical point in such a short time?

JH - When I first arrived, the relationship between the US and Russia seemed normal. As an American, my ideas were welcomed, even sought after. Then Russia passed a law that prevented sexual propaganda to minors. This was the start of tensions. The LGBT lobby in the West saw this law as anti-gay. I did not. The law was a direct copy of English law and was intended to prevent pedophilia, not consenting relationships between adults. Gay relations in Russia are not illegal (although not accepted by the majority of the public). Regarding gay protests, they were restricted from view of children. I saw this in the same way that we in America restrict children from seeing “R” rated films. The punishment for breaking this law is a fine of less than $100. Double-parking a car in Moscow carries a heavier fine of $150. Nonetheless the reaction was overwhelming against Russia.

PT – The commentary most in the west heard was very different. One could hear that statement and make the assumption that the gay community is the west, particularly in the United States, could be the spark that drives us to WWIII?  It only took a spark and mis-information to ignite the first world war.

JH -The (gay inspired) boycott of the Sochi Olympics was the West’s way of discrediting Russia. Russia saw this boycott as an aggressive act by the West to interfere with its internal politics and to embarrass Russia. Sochi was for Russians a great source of national pride and had nothing to do with politics. For the West, this was the first step in creating the narrative that Russia was the old repressive Soviet Union and Russia must be stopped.

PT - But Russia today is not the old Soviet Union.

JH -  This is the mistake that will cost America dearly and it is the assumption that Russia has the same ambitions as the Soviet Union. The cold war strategy used against the Soviet Union cannot be repeated with the same result. The Soviet Union was communist and atheistic. Modern Russia has returned to its Christian roots. There is a revival in Russian Orthodoxy with over 25,000 new churches built in Russia after the fall of Communism. On any Sunday, the churches are packed. Over 70% of the population identifies themselves as Orthodox Christians. Combine this religious revival with renewed Nationalism and Russia is growing in self-confidence. The Marxist ideology followed by the Soviet Union was evangelistic. Only when the whole world became communist will Marxist principles be realized. For this reason, the Soviet Union needed to dominate the whole world. For modern Russia, world domination is not its goal. Russia wants to keep its Russian identity and not lose it to outside forces.
JP - We need to look in the mirror. We need to call to account an unaccountable media that services power and a psychosis that threatens world war.

 

Vote the "Right Way", Say the "Right Thing"

by

       Zeno Potas

      In a representative republic, such as our nation's founders attempted to make, individuals who wish to represent the people are to first give those people an honest representation of themselves and what they stand for. Elections are meant to be the democratic portion of government. Once elected, representatives are to follow only their own consciences when voting on proposed legislation. In 21st century America the reality is far different. For decades key votes were commonly decided by the disguised bribery of corporate lobbyists. Today, outcomes are shaped large on how voting motivation will be painted for the public by an agenda-driven media.

      Every member of each chamber of Congress, as well as the president, is acutely aware that the mainstream media holds his/her career in its unforgiving grasp. Vote the "right" way (meaning the desired outcome of those corporate plutocrats who own the media) and one's future is assured." Vote "wrong," or in opposition to the big boys, and, overnight, an honest representative may be remade into demon-of-the-week. Media manipulation is the name of the game and representation of the people is history. Every elected (or hopeful) ear becomes attuned to unelected media agenda "correctness," even beyond the considerable cash lure of interconnected corporate lobbyists. The media maliciously destroys the character of the people's elected representatives if they refuse to cave to the New World Order agenda, thus changing us to a nation governed by an oligarchy rather than law.

      Those in government who lack sincerity in their political ambitions are quick to recognize and exploit this media

manipulation for personal gain. This is especially true when both

are driven by the same agenda. The use of entertainment programs as a way of inserting continous propaganda into the minds of the viewers is the norm in 2015. We, now with our latest information, can visualize Jon Stewart and the administration at their joint script session before the Daily Show's taping. White House proposals are stated to insure some high-sounding benefit for Americans, in this manufactured news program, to sway the viewers opinions to that of the administration. These proposals usually prove to be constitutionally-unlawful with a trend towards a capitalistic Socialist world-government.

      The media lionizes Mr Obama, ignoring, discrediting or minimizing his many apparently criminal, anti-constitutional acts which make the demonized George Bush become to appear saintly in comparison. Big media, owned by big money, keeps Republicans toeing the one-world agenda as witnessed by only lip service to atrocities against the Constitution by this administration that would not stand in generations past.

      So contorted is the political system in Washington that most bills of Congress sport needful sounding titles which have little or no relation to the usually unlawful Orwellian contents. By this subterfuge the controlled lawmakers hope that both the voting public and their one-world benefactors will be appeased. The media, in turn, is happy to repeat good-sounding titles of desired bills while ignoring content. In this manner, the government is erecting piecemeal a comprehensive framework of police-state dictatorship

      This deliberate dishonesty in government betrays our future generations into slavery and can only be countered by continual pressure from the people themselves. Only their demands can force the elected to truly represent the electorate by returning to obedience to the Constitutional law those elected swore to preserve and protect.

Jon Stewart – The Daily Show – Serious Propaganda

by

       M. Richard Maxson

     

      There was a time when I watched The Daily Show with anticipation. It was a funny satire on American politics and life in the United States. Then something changed. The show began to be a one-sided Lefist view of the world. It wasn't funny anymore because it smelled like propaganda and now we know why. Jon Stewart , the man who claimed to be nonpartisan, a person who follows the truth wherever it leads, has been secretly taking trips to the White House to receive intense one-on-one lobbying from President Obama. Moreover, it has been reported that Daily' Show” staffers routinely call up the White House to get the administration’s suggestions on how a topic was to be presented.

      Austan Goolsbee, a former top economic adviser to the president, frequently emailed with his college classmate Scott Bodow, a “Daily Show” executive producer, to offer spin. Mr Obama's associate, David Axelrod, often reached out directly to Stewart. Mr. Obama himself would summon Stewart to Washington for meetings.

      Did the White House effect what was broadcast? Last year, under fire for the horrifying conditions at Veterans Administration hospitals that led to the deaths of hundreds of vets, Obama tried to reroute the nation’s attention with the release of POW Bowe Bergdahl in Afghanistan. This was to be another "smoke and mirror" event expected to warm the hearts of America except it immediately became obvious that Bergdahl, for whom Obama had traded five Taliban prisoners, was a likely deserter. A charge that Bergdahl is currently awaiting trial on. Stewart’s response was to blast away at Mr Obama's favorite target, Fox News, for suggesting Bergdahl was a deserter. Jon Stewart’s pose as an honest observer helped cement the impression with liberals that there was nothing wrong with the Bergdahl decision.

       Talk show host Ben Shapiro recently interviewed several major Hollywood prime time television producers and one after another they saluted -- even cheered -- their hostility toward conservatives. Some openly bragged about injecting liberal messages in programming. 

The media business, for those who now own and run it, is more than just a money-making operation. The owners promote their political agenda through selecting and disseminating news like presenting propaganda like “the recession is over” or “drones almost always hit their targets.” The media moguls and celebrities push the public to support the Leftist agenda, from their political candidates to their endless wars.

       It's a sad time in America when even entertainment, used by many as an escape from everyday problems, becomes a clandestine propaganda effort for one political party. On a level playing field it the duty of all comedians to be the loyal opposition, to speak truth to the party in power. Under the Republican president, Jon Stewart did just that, but today, Stewart does the opposite. Mild sarcasm is about the worst Stewart can hurl at the Left, but when it comes to Mr. Obama's opponents his mood is never ending assault, whether it be against
conservatives, Fox News, or whoever he is advised to attack.

      “The Daily Show” isn’t no longer enduring political satire. Jon Stewart has gone to the dark side while still pretending to be one of us. His show today is more of a rah-rah talk radio for liberals. Yes, there was a time that I eagerly awaited to hear Jon's show but now I can only say "Good Riddance."  

What Is Important, Is Now Being Lost

by

       Zeno Potas

     

       Probably no one has more misunderstandings about America than Americans. This has been deliberately brought about by the government designing our public education system that no child, taking American history, ever gets past the Battle of Gettysburg. For decades now, American children wondered what happened in that gap between Gettysburg and their birth, but after a while, since no one they knew ever knew either, they stopped being curious.

       Consequently, Americans are full of wrong ideas about their own

country. Most think, for example, that we are a democracy when in fact our Constitution was designed to create a republic. The authors of our Constitution were dead set against democracy, figuring that democracies self destruct as soon as people learn to loot the public treasury with their votes. They did not allow everyone to vote and thought future generations would not allow it either.

       Another example is that many people think the American government is against communism, another misconception. Every time communism has gotten itself into a real trouble, the American government, a.k.a. the elite, has stepped in to save it. We fed it after the Revolution, sold it machinery during Lenin's New Economic Policy, gave it diplomatic recognition and credit during the economic hard times of 1933, helped Stalin industrialize, helped it defeat the Nazis.

       Communism has served the elitists in order to justify the current global foreign policy. Our forefathers warned us against entanglements but whenever the powers-that-be wish to meddle in the internal affairs of another country or finance a coup, the intervention, which is always for economic reasons, is justified on the basis of our being against communism.

       The last generation of Americans were too busy and the media was
too entertaining to wonder how it is possible we could fight communism
in Vietnam, guarantee it's , preservation in Cuba, and trade with it in communist Eastern Europe, all at the same time. Today, the mainstream media is still the main source of information for a great many Americans. They can name every member of the Kardashian family, but they don’t know who their Member of Congress is. What was important, has now been lost. 

       Another misconception is that we have a strong two-party system in the United States when in fact we have two parties, but they are not the ones people think. The two parties consist of them and us. Democrats and Republicans. are merely two sides of the same coin. Both support slightly different forms of a socialistic future for this country. Both parties support the Federal Reserve using it as a “war for profit” tool. Both support the tax system with variations based mainly on having different constituencies to reward. Both support a vigorous hostel global foreign policy favoring weapons manufacturers of the military industrial complex. Their differences are on details and in the degree of competence of their leaders in carrying out the same policies.

 

      Finally, just as the American government isn't really against communism it is not really for free enterprise. It is for a form of corporate capitalism, run by elites, with a welfare state - paid for by the working class - the purpose of which is to keep the masses relatively content or use their restlessness to their advantage socially and politically.

The United States Domestic Propaganda

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      Congress was quietly planning to officially lift a 64-year old

law preventing the US government from using propaganda on its own citizenry. Before the House passed its defense budget a bipartisan group of congressmen tacked on an amendment that would "essentially neutralize" a set of time-tested guidelines "that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government's misinformation campaigns." President Barack Obama endorsed this at Georgetown University that "we're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on ... issues." This should be enough to send a shudder down the spine.  Politicians always have lied but the media was there to, if not serve as an impartial referee, at least hold the players to some sort of standard. No more. Big Brother is not only watching, he's now legally manipulating their environment and blurring the line between fiction and reality.  

"There are very sophisticated efforts to manipulate the images and the information that you see every day, in ways that you won’t recognize.” - Sharyl Attkisson -CBS

      Upton Sinclair, said it best when he defined journalism in the United States as “the day-to-day, between elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence." Journalism, as it is taught in schools, is about discovering, or at least suggesting, through a series of well-defined techniques what is actually happening in events of interest and reporting the findings in a non-biased, almost scientific, way, but, remarkably, this is something which virtually never happens in American journalism. Truthfulness and journalistic principles simply have no place in the intensely  politically-charged atmosphere of America where no event and no utterance is without political dimensions. Actually, this has been the case for a very long time, but it just hasn’t always been so starkly clear as it is now. 

      We sat down in a discussion group of residents who had state run medias in their countries in eastern Europe, Soviet Union, China, etc. When we discussed how the state managed to control public opinion these people would usually produce a weary, knowledgeable, cynical smile and point out that propaganda in those countries was really done quite incompetently. If you really want to know propaganda, they said, you need to study American propaganda techniques. According to them, it is, undeniably, the best in the world. The consensus was that propaganda in those countries was too obvious "As soon as you read the first sentence you knew it was a bunch of propaganda, so you didn’t even bother to read it. If you heard a speech, you knew in the first few words that it was propaganda, and you tuned it out," stated one. Even though communists had total control of the press, the people just tuned it out.

       American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they patiently explained, relies

entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can object to. American propaganda had its birth in the advertising industry. The pioneers of advertising learned early on that people would respond to purely emotional appeals. Appeals to sexiness, to pride of ownership, to fear of falling behind the neighbors are the stock American advertising and propaganda has been refined over the years into a malevolent science, based on the assumption that most people react, not to ideas, but to naked emotion.  Fear, envy, greed, hatred, and lust: these are the basic tools for good propaganda and effective advertising. By far, the most powerful motivating emotion—the top, most-sought-after copy writers will tell you, in an unguarded moment—is fear, followed closely by greed.

      This is not the whole picture, thanks to Edward Snowden, we now have solid proof that paid government agents are using “psychology based influence techniques” on social media websites such as YouTube,

Facebook and Twitter. Documents leaked by Snowden also reveal that government agents have been conducting denial-of-service attacks, flooding social media websites with thinly veiled propaganda and have been purposely attempting to warp public discourse misinformation. The U.S. government has actually been caught manipulating discourse on Reddit and editing Wikipedia. In addition, the State Department has confirmed that it has been working to convince major media and entertainment companies, including Sony Pictures, to help with the American propaganda machine to counter other non-aligned views here and around the world.

"Propaganda does exist on all sides of us, and it does change our mental pictures of the world". -  Edward Bernays

      The times we live in are so dangerous and so distorted in public perception that propaganda is no longer, as Edward Bernays called it, an "invisible government". It is the government. It rules directly without fear of contradiction and its principal aim is the conquest of us: our sense of the world, our ability to separate truth from lies.

      We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.  In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. The terrible truth in all of this is that the average American doesn't even know it is happening to them. Can we truly be a free people when our minds are so tightly controlled by unknown entities or is our national consiousness an illusion?