Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: January 2016

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Why would anyone consider Hillary Clinton if they knew this?

What could be so bad about Hillary Clinton that should make just about everyone excluding those financing her campaign refuse to even consider her?

Just about everything!

Especially things that are only reported briefly by the mainstream media and forgotten quickly while they repeat propaganda about her that is mostly positive, or even if it isn't they present her as inevitable, and the only "viable" Republican opposition as even more extreme.

Below are what started as a couple of links about stories that weren't getting enough attention and I saved them so I wouldn't forget. Before I realized it they grew into dozens.

As Jeff Foxworthy might say in his southern drawl, "If you recognize more than a fraction of these stories you might be a political junkie that sees through corporate propaganda!" But if you rely on mainstream media it is virtually guaranteed that you may not have heard most of these stories.

Given enough time I'm sure there is much more where this came from but it is clear that this is an incredibly horrible candidate and not only can't I imagine why anyone would vote for her but I can't imagine why the establishment would support a candidate that is so obviously flawed; and all of them rally behind her to make her seem inevitable.

Don't you think they could have presented several corporate puppets to make it seem like a more credible scam?

They almost certainly know how to come up with a better scam but regardless of why they didn't this is a horrible candidate that supports multinational corporations and the military industrial complex at the expense of the vast majority of the public.

Who do you think is paying for all those ads saying that she'll stand up to Wall Street and the Drug companies?

You guessed it the people paying for these accountability ads are the ones that she's supposedly going to hold accountable.

And that's just the beginning.

Who do you think is near the top of the list of corporations that are donating to her campaign or the Clinton Foundation?

The media that is supposedly "Unbiased" when they control the debate and exclude grassroots candidates by simply refusing to cover them.

This isn't referred to as bribery according to the ironic definition by the Supreme Court that says the rest of us are often restricted to "Free speech zones."

As for the claim that many of these non-profit organizations that are endorsing Hillary Clinton, are part of the establishment that clearly appears to be true, or they're dependent on the establishment for their money, and many of the people heading up these organizations are often closely tied or even related to politicians like Cecile Richards who has seen her pay rise from over $300,000 per year to over $500,000 in a few years.

There is an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that their so-called charitable organizations are being used for political purposes and many of the people or corporations donating to them are involved in a large variety of atrocities that do much more damage than their "charity." This includes selling arms to governments using them to oppress their own people corporations polluting large portions of the world or supporting governments that are spying on people and oppressing them and much more.

In Green Inc. Christine MacDonald reported about how most of the highest profile environmental groups are closely tied with corporations and are actually acting as public relations fronts for them. The leadership of these groups have close ties with CEOs of multinational corporations and are often paid almost as much as them.

These are some of the biggest corporate donors that are paying for the ads telling people Hillary Clinton will hold them accountable:

Hillary Clinton has quietly pursued policies that enabled foreign governments including China, Columbia Honduras, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and more oppress their own people especially the working class and including children that she often claims to defend. This includes support of Cisco when they were helping China spy on their own citizens and Monsanto which is using the public as research subjects without much if any disclosure. Pharmaceutical companies selling antidepressant drugs and other medications are also using people as research subjects without adequate disclosure. Advertisers and lobbyist often have more influence over policies than the most sincere researchers.

If the political establishment including Hillary Clinton, will do this to poor people around the world should we believe they wouldn't do it to people here? Keep in mind that the political establishment routinely remains silent on crisis's like Flint Michigan until it spreads through the grassroots.

Hillary Clinton has been promoting her defense of children for decades by rebroadcasting her speeches including one that claims that she will defend children "no matter where they're born" but that clearly doesn't apply to those in war torn countries including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Columbia or many other countries where her foreign policy positions supported oppressive regimes or wars based on lies; nor does it include the children impacted by welfare reform in our country which wasn't accompanied by efforts to defend workers so they could earn enough to care for their own children.

It also includes the pharmaceutical companies that she claims she’s going to stand up to despite their donations to her campaign, This is a pattern of behavior; like the gun industry while she claims she’s going to stand up to them she’s also profiting from them along with Barack Obama. And of course she’s good friends with Alice Walton, and was a former member of the Walmart board, while claiming that she’ll put workers ahead of her campaign contributors.

Few of her positions promoted with her campaign ads seem to hold up when researched. I almost certainly didn't cover more than a fraction of them here but, on any given subject it is advisable to do a little research before believing what she says.

For starter here are three of my past posts about some of her false claims:

Regardless of Polls Bernie Sanders Supports Blacks much better than Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton was A Republican supporting Barry Goldwater who opposed the Civil Rights bill when Bernie Sanders was marching with Martin Luther King; and she's hired private prison lobbyists in addition to supporting her husbands drug policies which targeted mostly minorities.

Bernie Sanders wins foreign policy debate hands down despite propaganda In addition to supporting the Iraq War based on lies Hillary Clinton also supported many other military actions or tyrants and arms sales as Secretary of State, Senator or First Lady, often antagonizing people that retaliate based on more lies.

Hillary Clinton Is Using Children As Props While Her Record Betrays Them The people who gave her an opportunity to speak when her political career was just started and supported the Children's Defense Fund have come out in opposition to her welfare reform and other policies which did more harm than good for the children she claims to defend; similar problems arise with her alleged support for women.

And there’s much more as the following articles indicate, starting with another collection of links by Jeanette Sandernista, and as I said Google searches will turn up even more, if I have time I might add a few of them:

Jeanette Sandernista A guide to Hillary Clinton information video clips

Hillary Clinton Top Contributors from Open Secrets

Naturally, CNN’s parent company is one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest donors 10/15/2015

Money Talks: Why CNN Wants You to Believe That Hillary Clinton Won the Democratic Debate 10/16/2015

George Stephanopoulos discloses $75,000 contribution to Clinton Foundation 05/14/2015 ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their nonprofit organization, the On Media blog has learned.

CBS and NBC Punt on Latest Clinton Foundation Controversy 04/23/2015 The State Department, with Clinton at the helm, approved the sale of one of America's largest uranium mines to Russia. At the same time, a foundation controlled by the mine’s chairman was making donations to the Clinton Foundation. We are talking about some big money here. Four separate donations totaling $2.35 million. And these reports say that the donations were not publicly disclosed.

Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals 05/15/2015

How Hillary Clinton is buying off the Democratic National Committee 01/06/2016

Team Hillary Took Insurance Lobby Cash They fought the Affordable Care Act, and helped torpedo Hillarycare. Then they rained money on Clinton loyalists. 08/13/2015

Top Consulting Firm Emerges In Early Hillary Clinton Efforts 09/14/2014

Hillary Clinton, Cisco And China: Company Funded Foundation, Was Lauded By Clinton Despite Role In Repression 04/16/2015

Snowden Says Hillary Clinton’s Bogus Statements Show a “Lack of Political Courage” 10/16/2015

Despite Hillary Clinton Promise, Charity Did Not Disclose Donors: Report 03/19/2015

Goldman Paid Bill Clinton $200,000 For Speech Before Bank Lobbied Hillary Clinton 04/27/2015

As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations 04/08/2015

Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton's State Department 05/26/2015

The Clinton Foundation: Hillary Beholden To Banks, Corporations, And Foreign Governments 01/23/2016

Firms Paid Bill Clinton Millions As They Lobbied Hillary Clinton 04/28/2015

Campaign 2016: Hillary Clinton Pitched Iraq As 'A Business Opportunity' For US Corporations 09/30/2015

Confession of Hillary Shill from /r/SandersForPresident - thread is now gone but someone saved the content. This may not seem reliable to many since it is anonymous; however there is evidence that this kind of practice is far more common than most people realize. Several books have exposed how corporations have been using on line people for marketing or political purposes and political strategists like Frank Luntz have describe many similar tactics and admitted that they use them routinely. There are also plenty on the Democratic side like James Carville working on the democratic side and the Clinton campaign has been caught planting questions before in the audience and in the media.

'60 Minutes' used 'planted' questions, Hillary Clinton email says 10/01/2015

Student describes how she became a Clinton plant 11/13/2007

The Head of the Democratic Party Is Either a Failure or a Liar 01/17/2016

WikiLeaks: Hillary Clinton Pushed Mexico's Oil Privatization 08/10/2015

Barack Obama And Hillary Clinton Donors Profit From Gun Industry 01/12/2016

The Right Baits the Left to Turn Against Hillary Clinton 05/16/2015

Election 2016: Wall Street-Funded Super PAC Airs New Iowa Ad Slamming Hillary Clinton’s Ties to Wall Street 01/17/2016

Hillary Clinton Denounces Corporate Crime While Accepting Cash From Blackstone, Firm Sanctioned By SEC 12/16/2015

The Clintons’ so-called charitable enterprise has served as a vehicle to launder money and to enrich family friends. 11/17/2015

Union fired their own workers for trying to organize a union, source says 09/23/2015

Hillary Clinton Hires Former Monsanto Lobbyist to Run Her Campaign 04/26/2016

Hillary vs. Bernie on Frankenfood Is Hillary a Shill for Monsanto? 06/23/2015

Hillary Clinton: We Can’t Afford to Lose Biotechs 01/25/2014 “I don’t want to see biotech companies or pharma companies moving out of our country simply because of some perceived tax disadvantage and potential tax advantage somewhere else,” she said.

“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record, you say, and are scientifically provable to continue to try to make the case to those who are skeptical,” Clinton said when asked about her stance on GMOs.

She said she promoted drought-resistant seeds while combating food insecurity in Africa, which “by definition, they have been engineered to be drought-resistant.”

Clinton takes in big money from drug industry 10/16/2015 Hillary Clinton has said she is proud to have drug companies as her enemies – but she is also taking their money. Lots of it.

The Clinton campaign received far more money from the drug and medical device industries than any other presidential candidate in either party during the first six months of the campaign, according to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. She accepted $164,315 during that period.

Jeanette Sandernista: Under #Hillary2016, the State Dept approved $1.65 billion worth of arms deals for her Foundation's donors. 12/25/2015

Chelsea Clinton Takes Aim at Sanders Over Health Policy 01/12/2016

Reminder: Hillary Clinton's Daughter is Married to a Hedge Fund Manager 06/16/2015 Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton's daughter, is married to Marc Mezvinsky. Mezvinsky is not just a hedge fund manager, but a co-founder of a hedge fund. And how did he get a number of his big money investors? Through his ties to the Clintons.

Report: FBI expands investigation of Clinton 01/11/2016

Hillary Clinton made more in 12 speeches to big banks than most of us earn in a lifetime 01/08/2016

Emails expose close ties between Hillary Clinton and accused war criminal Henry Kissinger 01/12/2016

Former Planned Parenthood donors are now sending their money to Bernie Sanders 01/06/2016

FBI's Clinton probe expands to public corruption track 01/11/2016

Even the “Clinton News Network” (CNN) laughs at Hillary’s ‘dead broke’ comment

"This is from Mahatma Gandhi. He ran a gas station down in St Louis for a couple of years" Hillary Clinton

Here's How Elizabeth Warren Is Holding Clinton's "Feet to the Fire" on Liberal Policies 04/27/2015

Clintons charge big fees to small groups The Clinton Foundation has taken in as much as $11M in payments from non-profit groups. 06/15/2015

How Hillary Clinton's State Department Sold Fracking to the World Fall 2014

Conservatives are making hay out of Hillary Clinton’s defense of an accused rapist 06/16/2014

How Hillary Clinton Betrayed the Children's Defense Fund for Political Gain 01/16/2008

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Is the academic world defending democracy? or corrupting it?

It is often said that colleges are defenders of democracy where ideas are debated freely; this is necessary to protect democracy and it is also necessary to get the information the public needs to them, and enable them to compare all ideas to make the best decisions possible when participating in the democratic process.

Unfortunately the cost of college keeps it out of reach for the vast majority of the public and, even worse, a close look may indicate that the best ideas with the most credible research often takes a distant back seat to the ideas with the most political support, especially in the media; however there appears to be an enormous amount of academic support for these political ideologies, even when they don't stand up to scrutiny.

A close look at almost any given subject, especially if it impacts economic ideologies that benefit the wealthy or foreign policy, either directly or indirectly, indicates that the beliefs repeated over and over again in the media, and by the highest profile politicians or academics often presented as experts, is not the most reliable. However it takes time on any given subject to sort through the details and figure out where the more reliable research is.

People more accustomed to checking alternative media outlets or reading non-fiction books that aren't promoted much by the traditional media are much more likely to find out about this. Once people do check enough different subjects it should be clear that the best academic work isn't being presented to the majority of the public or used to make the most important political decisions.

As I explained in numerous posts including John McCain really isn't a War Hero; North Korea Nuclear Test Propaganda Is War Mongering and many more previous ones the vast majority of research about foreign affairs is rarely mentioned in the media while they repeat propaganda to maintain a permanent state of war over and over again. For example, on a few occasions they might remind the public about the Iranian coup with the help of the CIA in 1953, or that the Reagan government sold arms to both sides of the Iran/Iraq war and other activities then quickly forget it; but they will repeat Iranian retaliation over and over again without reminding the public what they're retaliating against.

Like other subjects there are some more credible college professors or reporters doing a much better job reporting this; however the reporters have to work for alternative media outlets assuming they find work at all, with less resources and both the professors and reporters like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Stacy Mitchell and many more including those contributing to the American Empire Project (additional sources available for other subjects will be listed at end of post) are treated like radical fringe professors, if they're mentioned at all by the traditional media. In most cases they ignore them since even mentioning them might bring attention to them and if people check their work they might realize that it holds up much better to scrutiny than the traditional version of truth presented by the mainstream media.

Establishment ideologies often have many of the same characteristics of a cult. They repeat their version over and over again with charismatic speakers often using a variety of psychological manipulation tactics. This isn't a fringe conspiracy theory, at least if you use the strictest definition of the word conspiracy, since the vast majority of the information that they're downplaying isn't completely secret but it is almost absent absent from political and media discussion on this subject or many others. Some of the alternative media outlets or professors that do more credible research explain many of these manipulation tactics so that those inclined to take the time to read them can compare them and confirm it for themselves.

In "Shock Doctrine" Naomi Kline describes hoe Milton Friedman used to speak in a very charismatic and authoritarian manner like a preacher when promoting his fiscal ideology. Most of his students were almost certainly from the upper class and raised to expect to be part of the political class that controls the system. This enabled them to promote their ideology abroad where there was the least amount of resistance for decades. However it eventually began to backfire especially in Latin America where thy finally learned how to stand up to them. This kind of cult mentality can only last so long before it backfires when it does so much damage that society can't function properly, and that is what happened. Milton Friedman's ideologies was forced on Latin America for a long time with the help of tyrants supported by the United States government like Pinochet and numerous others by violently repressing their people. But the news reported to the United States public was very different and they didn't report when they were distracted with the war on terror after 9/11 that a lot of their puppet governments were in the process of being overturned partially reversing the process.

This is also clear when it comes to the recent water crisis in Flint Michigan, which has been part of a pattern of behavior for decades, although it has only made it into the mainstream media recently. Alternative media outlets including Maude Barlow author of "Blue Gold" and Susan Clark and Woden Teachout author of "Slow Democracy" have reported on this crisis years ago long before most of the public ever heard of it. Numerous communities around the world have been facing major problems with their water thanks to the privatization practice of extremists following Milton Friedman's ideology. The most extreme cases have been in third world countries where the mainstream media feels no need to report on but there have been some less extreme examples including in France where one of the leading privatizers is founded and Gloucester Massachusetts, among others which are only reported at the local level. By only reporting it in low profile places they enable the multinational corporations to pull the same scam one time after another.

This is very common among an enormous amount of environmental research, where the best researchers report on astronomical amounts of damage around the world but they can't get any coverage in the mainstream media or attention from the majority of the political establishment. People in third world countries are routinely standing up to corrupt multinational corporations because the damage is already threatening their lives, yet the media refuses to report on most of it. And the economists are often portrayed as the so-called experts; on top of that the energy companies buy up enormous amounts of media time to portray themselves as environmentally friendly while they're causing all this destruction.

It is virtually guaranteed that many more of these examples will be exposed in the years to come, and in many cases they already have been exposed, at least at the local level.

This will guarantee a growing backlash since multinational corporations can't hide the enormous damage they're doing forever.

The same practice goes with one subject after another. When it comes to advertising to children, which most people don't think about very much, the most effective research exposing how deceptive it is and how it is impacting education and even interfering with the democratic process don't get any media coverage. This may seem trivial to most people, but when children are targeted by advertisers, even in schools, they often spend more time thinking about them than their education; and researchers have demonstrated that it impairs the development of critical thinking skills and even impacts their ability to scrutinize promises from politicians threatening their ability to participate in the democratic process.

If there's any doubt about the impact of advertising on the economy or quality of life, imagine of they send advertising expenses through the roof along with lobbying, shipping, union busting, and legal expenses that don't benefit consumers through the roof while cutting expenses that do benefit consumers how will that impact the value and quality of consumer goods or service?

It would of course be a disaster and yet this is happening even though politicians, media pundits, and academic experts rarely if ever mention this to the majority of the public.

There are numerous academic sources defending the current patent and copyright system based on the claim that it provides incentive for innovation yet a closer look indicates that it provides more pay, in many cases for copyright lawyers than it does for authors. Now that we have new computer technology it is much more expensive to prevent the free distribution of information than it is to spread it even when it comes to educational information people need to participate in the democratic process. The government routinely subsidizes medical research or other kinds of research then allows multinational corporations to have patents any way and is even extending them enabling the multinational corporations to gouge consumers.

Yet this isn't reported to the vast majority of the public and they try to portray those that exchange information as "pirates" as if they're the ones destroying our education system by giving people the information they need to participate in the democratic system. Researchers that try to minimize this or correct these problems like Lawrence Lessig, Robert McChesney or John Nichols are treated like fringe "radicals" and little or no high profile discussion takes place to find a more effective system to educate the public in a fair manner.

There are an enormous amount of academic sources that study politics in a manner that is far more likely to manipulate the public than educate them so they can look out for their own best interests like Karl Rove, Frank Luntz and many more who get far more attention than those that try to expose their manipulation tactics. When it comes to choosing the leaders of many colleges they routinely chose those with the most political connections among the wealthy rather than those that do the best work, like Lawrence Summers, William Bulger, or John Silber, all of whom are often paid batter than those doing the best work that stands up to scrutiny, assuming scrutiny is actually applied.

In most cases this scrutiny isn't actually applied, or at least not in a high profile manner; the best research is often relegated to lower profile alternative media outlets or books that most people don't read.

This also applies to authoritarian child rearing methods for children that often lead to escalating violence and blind obedience to authority especially in the military. This is often used differently along class or racial lines. Those that are expected to do menial labor are much more likely to be taught in an authoritarian manner while those expected to develop critical thinking skills for more complicated jobs are often taught using less authoritarian methods that help encourage the development of critical thinking skills necessary for advanced education.

This escalates in institutions like the military or police academies where recruits are put intensive boot camp where they're taught to blindly obey orders without question and hazing is often used to intimidate anyone that thinks for themselves. the psychological research for these boot camp techniques are done in the academic world without explaining it to the majority of the public so they won't realize they're being manipulated.

The good news is that even without political clout or an enormous amount of resources the more sincere researchers have been able to do a much better job than those with the most political connection but they have little or no opportunity to get their point across to the vast majority of the public. As I said this doesn't fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy, since it isn't completely secret; however the best researchers are limited to low profile methods of getting their points across while the political establishment has centralized authoritarian control over the mass media and the leading political parties and the system to interview and elect politicians.

Sometimes it is almost like the most trustworthy are only allowed to speak in "free speech zones" where hardly no one is listening; which might as well be a conspiracy.

Do we really need all these academics that are more concerned about manipulating the public for benefit of the wealthy instead of looking out for the best interests of all?

I've written dozens if not hundreds of posts about additional material to back up mt conclusions most of which can be found on my table of context but the following are a few of the external sources cited here followed by some of my relevant previous posts about the academic divide and some of the more reliable sources on various subjects:

Blue Gold The global water crisis and the commodification of the world's water supply A Special Report issued by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG) by Maude Barlow She followed this up with a longer book by the same name and another called "Blue Covenant."

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein - Infoshop.org PDF

Slow Democracy by Susan Clark and Woden Teachout

And these are my previous posts:

Roy F Fox on unethical targeting of children by marketers

Roy F Fox Harvesting Minds, Channel One Indoctrination of Kids

Wal-Marts unethical marketing to children

Michelle Obama pushes token advertising restrictions while ignoring research that calls for more

Copyright Bureaucracy

Copyright violators are thought criminals

Lawrence Lessig encouraging an Educational Commons

Fundamentals of Psychology

Manipulation Tactics

Political Manipulation

Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment including information about how this may be used for indoctrination purposes when military puts recruits through Boot Camp.

Corruption or Bias in the American Psychological Association

Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize

Political Psychologist Are Suppressing Democracy

Does child abuse and bullying lead to more violence?

Child abuse and bullying link in study long over due

The real victim rights advocates

Cause and Effect of Hatred

Coming soon real reform ….. or book burning? Genocide?

Pages

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Why would anyone consider Hillary Clinton if they knew this?

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Is the academic world defending democracy? or corrupting it?