End Bipartisan support for Myth of “fighting for our freedom!”

Once again, members from from both political Parties, this time with Donald Trump and Frederica Wilson, managed to accuse each other of using veterans or "Gold star" families for political purposes, without pointing out that the vast majority of wars we've been fighting have all been based on lies.

It may seem like Donald Trump is the worst of these two, since he doesn't even do a good job pretending to tell the truth; however this makes Frederica Wilson seem like the lesser of two evils even though she doesn't challenge most of the lies leading us into one war after another. Furthermore, even though Donald Trump does so bad a job telling his lies everyone should be able to see right through it, there appear to be plenty of people that seem to believe him, which is part of the reason the Democrats and a few of the Republicans that are finally speaking out against him seem to be the lesser of two evils.

The sad truth is that the vast majority of our military activity has little or nothing to do with defending our country and some of it even incites retaliation like the Fort Hood attack, Boston Bombings, San Bernardino attacks, the Orlando Pulse attack and, assuming the 9/11 attacks weren't an inside conspiracy as some believe, the 9/11 attacks were also retaliation for foreign policy that involves forcing our will on countries around the world. According to Wikipedia: Terrorism in the United States the number of people that die as a result of terrorist attacks is relatively small compared to other causes of death, yet it's used to stir up an enormous amount of fear and help justify the so called "War on Terror" around the world which is almost entirely based on lies.

And, many of these attacks are actually domestic terrorism including abortion bombings the Charleston shootings and the Oklahoma terrorism attack, which according to McVeigh was partially inspired by his outrage of activities by the United States Government including their foreign policy. His perceived justification won't hold up to scrutiny, of course, but he was trained by the United States Government along with many other mass murderers.

Many people in the alternative media outlets have gone into much more detail about how our history of fighting wars based on lies including a couple of my own recent articles, Wars Based On Lies Has Long History Of Political Support! Vietnam Documentary Hits Hard While Downplaying The Worst! both of which cite additional sources and there are more below.

The sad truth is that this is part of a vast propaganda effort to convince the public that the United States is the "leader of the free world fighting to defend democracy," when it is simply not true and a close look at history and the support of many tyrants or coups to overthrow democratic governments proves this, although they're poorly reported in the mainstream media. However the academic world, good non-fiction books, and the best alternative media outlets do a much better job reporting this, although most people don't rely on these sources, and may not even want to hear the truth, since it makes them feel good about their country to believe this myth.



At times, when I have written about wars based on lies, or a lot of veterans that have come back from war after suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, often caused as much by boot camp training and military culture as from combat, and going on shooting sprees, I have expected a significant amount of outraged from veterans; and I was surprised that, for the most part this hasn't happened. If anything most responses, which have almost always been relatively brief, have been partial agreement, although it often comes in re-tweets or likes that don't explain details or reservations about some of it. Part of this may be because although I have been critical of these wars base don lies, and tried to point out that military indoctrination leads to escalating violence, including mass shootings and domestic violence; I've also tried to point out that some of the people that recognize this the most, and try to reverse this problem, are veterans.

Perhaps one of the most famous anti-war veterans that attempted to expose these lies might be John Kerry, or so many people might think; However John Kerry wasn't opposed to the war when he was there and he asked for an early discharge so he could run for office, which he received. He didn't run for office right away though, perhaps because he learned how opposed the public was to the war when he returned; and then he became a opponent of the war long enough to develop a political reputation, but later supported more wars based on lies.

Real peace activists don't oppose war only when it suits their political career!

The vast majority of activists, veterans or not, that are really trying to expose the lies used to justify war get little or no attention even when they organize their activities at the grassroots level for years if not decades like Medea Benjamin or Bruce Gagnon who never get any coverage from the mainstream media unless they stage loud disruptive protests; then they portray them as fringe elements or "radicals" without giving them time to make their points. When they do get an opportunity to actually speak and make their case on alternative media outlets, it often becomes clear that they're not radical at all, and that they've done a far better job researching the lies that are used to justify wars based on lies than the mainstream media.

Even when a celebrity does speak out about wars based on lies they're often marginalized and fired from the traditional media like when Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC for questioning the war and he was almost never heard from again in the mainstream media; or when Jesse Ventura spoke out against wars based on lies they often portrayed him as a fringe conspiracy theorists, and some of his old wrestling outfits might make him fit the stereotypes. However, those that think about some of his comments, books including the following article, and fact check them might realize that he has some good points:

Jesse Ventura: Military doesn't 'fight for our freedom' 11/11/2014

Former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura has some harsh words for the armed forces this Veterans Day: If given the option today, he'd opt out of military service.

"I hate to say it, but no, I would be a conscientious objector today," the Navy special forces veteran said in a video posted Tuesday. "I don't believe that the military fights for our freedom."

"They give them all the ra ra at the stadiums, and they cheer 'em on," said Ventura, who served as a Reform Party governor of the North Star state from 1999 to 2003. "But when the veterans come home, we pretty much forget about them. They're old news. They're yesterday's garbage. And it's time to move on to the next war."

He pointed to the fallout from the Vietnam War as an example of these attitudes -- and he predicted that veterans from more modern wars would experience the same thing. "There gonna come back to parades, but it's gonna end about right there," he said.

Ventura did say, however, that he isn't anti-veteran. After all, he is one himself, having served in the U.S. Navy Underwater Demolition Team member during the Vietnam War.

"You can hate the war and not hate the vet. The veteran is a pawn. They have to do it. They are not given a choice," he said. "Our vets are honorable people... I bear no grudge."

In particular, Ventura took issue with the large dollar amount pinned to foreign wars, arguing that "international corporations" are the ones who "truly run our country today."

"That's why wars are fought -- so the profiteers of war can make money," Ventura said, pointing to the large portion of the annual budget that goes toward national security and defense.

"If we weren't involved in these wars, we would have more freedom," he said. Complete article

Since Jesse Ventura has been much higher profile he's often been vilified much more especially when he had a disagreement wit Chris Kyle that Kyle initiated, and if the court case that resulted from that disagreement was correct then he lied; but even if it wasn't and the description in Kyle's book is accurate it implies that Chris Kyle is justified in punching people out that disagree with the war, which turned out to be based on lies!

No reasonable person would come to that conclusion unless he was thoroughly indoctrinated to believe a bunch of lies, which regrettably many people are. Ironically CNN has recently come out with a new propaganda piece that reminds the public of some of the propaganda tactics it's been using for decades; however it's trying to get credit for exposing the tactic without acknowledging the fact that it's been using it!

One of the most basic and effective principles of propaganda often ironically attributed to Vladimir Lenin is, "A lie told often enough," often with appeals to emotion, "becomes the truth," or at least it seems to for those that don't check their facts.

This has been a well known propaganda tactic that the media including CNN has known about and used for decades to promote their ideology and convince the vast majority of the public that the United States has been fighting for freedom since the revolution. They've recently come up with an "apple" ad where they try to convince the public that they're telling the truth and implying that someone else, perhaps Donald Trump or fringe media outlets like Breitbart is using propaganda, to reinforce their false reputation as "The most trusted name in news," which is one of the lies they repeat over and over again!



Another propaganda principle that is widely understood by people like George Orwell, Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler and the mass media is that the vast majority of the public have a very short memory; and do little to fact check, or at least they have most of the time, which is why Hermann Göring's explanation in prison about how effective war propaganda has always been in the past has proven to be effective, so far, at least:

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. additional Hermann Göring quotes

Whether it should go without saying, that I don't like Hermann Göring or his support for the Holocaust anymore than anyone else, or not, he has described war propaganda very effectively and it has worked as he described every time, or almost every time, at least so far.

But does it have to continue working so effectively every time leading us into wars based on lies every time it suits our political purposes?

Not necessarily, if we understand why it has been so effective and what kind of educational institutions it would take to change it!

One of the most important things that we need is of course a much more diverse media that reports different points of views, as many people in alternative media outlets ahve repeatedly pointed out, including me in Alternative Media is an Absolute Necessity, which includes a long list of lower profile media outlets, including many that do a much better job than the mainstream media.

It would also help to understand how they indoctrinate veterans to blindly obey orders without question, and as I pointed out before some veterans that have been through boot camp have learned from it and spoken about against the wars, and in some cases the boot camp indoctrination that teaches blind obedience through a process that involves hazing and intimidation among other things. As I reported in Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment and Eli Roth’s Milgram/Obedience experiment much more extensive than most people realize the military and the Office of Naval Research supported research that was allegedly designed to understand obedience to authority so they could avoid a repeat of World War II; however the knowledge to stand up to these indoctrination methods, has for the most part, been distributed in the academic world, while among the working classes, especially in uneducated rural areas or the South, there is little effort to educate potential camp cadets about them, and the research is used to improve boot camp indoctrination methods.

The military that supported this research has never been in the business of teaching their cadets to question orders, and think for themselves.

This boot camp indoctrination method apparently uses intimidation tactics heavily from the beginning to teach everyone to get with the program believing what they're told and obeying orders without question. Veterans are often taught to believe that they're fighting for freedom and that the enemy is threatening it, even when it is often not true. However, if they question it everyone from the military may join in on the intimidation tactics.

Some of them may eventually rethink things when they're not surrounded by a lot of people inclined to intimidate them if they question orders. There are plenty of memoirs about how hard it is to reconsider this including Lynda Van Devanter's "Home before Morning," where at one point or another she describes how many veterans had to believe that they were fighting for freedom after going through a lot of trauma, since to admit otherwise would mean that they were fighting on the wrong side. A few others in the recent PBS documentary also came to the same conclusion; however in the case of the Vietnam war, and many other conflicts, there never would have been sides in the first place if they had let Vietnam control their own government after World War II as they wanted to according to their own Declaration of Independence.

These veterans found out the hard way, as Jesse Ventura said, that "The veteran is a pawn," that was betrayed first with patriotic propaganda then with intimidating boot camp indoctrination.

Many veterans are apparently so emotionally involved that they can't admit to themselves that they've been used as pawns; and in some cases, the political establishment turns them to to spokespeople to reinforce the lies that cost them their loved ones or led to serious injuries to themselves, including Khizr Khan, Patricia Smith and Tammy Duckworth among many others, adding insult to injury. If people challenge these beliefs they might be portrayed as the villain; however if they don't and the lies continue then there will only be more wars based on lies leading to more veterans sacrificing their lives for nothing.



This denial also leads to even more problems with emotional instability as I pointed out in Teach a soldier to kill and he just might when many of these veterans come back with Post-traumatic stress disorder and act out of anger, often getting involved in more domestic violence incidents and occasionally even mass shootings. Sometimes the same people that help develop the propaganda to indoctrinate veterans in the first place try to have it both ways like David Grossman, who I explained in that article used selective statistics to deny how many veterans were involved in a large number of shootings and in another article, Videogames as ‘murder simulators’ 01/18/2013 attempts to blame video games on the shooting in Sandy Hook.

He may be partially right on this, I've seen some studies, in addition to his, that claim that children that watch a lot of video games are desensitized to violence, and might be more prone to kill; however it is almost certainly not as big a factor as early child abuse leading to escalating violence later in life including military hazing, which also increases violence, despite Grossman's denials.

Also, these video games are also used as part of military training as well; Grossman tries to argue that when it is done in a controlled military training setting that it doesn't lead to shootings however he can't back this up without distorting his statistics.





I don't like pointing out these inconvenient facts anymore than anyone else does; and I don't expect everyone to like it. However even if I don't do the best job drawing attention to it, ignoring these problems will only make them worse.





As I said the vast majority of the mainstream media and even a lot of alternative media outlets don't do a good job pointing out all the lies our government gives us to lead us into wars; however there are some that do including the following articles, which I suspect will hold up to scrutiny much better than the propaganda from the mainstream media:

US Troops Do Not Fight ‘To Keep Us Free’ 01/29/2014

Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So 08/07/2011

American Soldiers Did Not Die Defending Our Freedom 05/27/2014

You don’t protect my freedom: Our childish insistence on calling soldiers heroes deadens real democracy 11/09/2014

The Myth of American Exceptionalism 10/11/2011

Is CIA studying support for censorship on the internet?

There should be little or no doubt that large corporations, media companies, advertisers, political operatives and the CIA are studying how to manipulate people on the internet; and they often admit to at least some of it. The mainstream media often comes right out and says that Facebook and other internet companies are constantly collecting data and selling it to advertisers so they can learn how to target consumers more effectively; however the most thorough research about how they use this isn't available on the mass media.

That doesn't mean this is a fringe conspiracy theory, since there is an enormous amount of evidence to indicate that much more research studying social psychology and political manipulation, among other things in the academic world; and this isn't completely secret, although only a small fraction of the public reads this material. A couple of the most famous experiments, which everyone in the social psychology field of the academic world is familiar with, are the Obedience to Authority and Stanford Prison Experiments. However, the vast majority of the public isn't aware of this; and even many people in the academic world aren't aware of the full context behind these experiments, and that they were funded with the support of the military, if not directly by the military. As I explained in several articles listed below the military isn't in the business of teaching their recruits to question orders, and they're far more likely to support this research so that they can learn how to more effectively obtain blind obedience through boot camp indoctrination.

This research is only a small fraction of the research that he social psychology academic world is involved in, including another experiment done by Philip Zimbardo comparing how people react to an abandoned care in a wealthy community verses how they act in a ghetto; and another from a different researcher that made intentional wrong number phone calls so they could allegedly find out whether perceived liberal people are more prejudiced, than perceived conservative people, as reported in Arthur Miller's book, also listed below.

Additional research studies how people reacted when in an elevator while a boyfriend or husband is harassing his wife or girlfriend to see how they react; but this is also staged like the fake phone calls. this is portrayed as attempts to understand violence, which might make sense if they made better efforts to report the best and least controversial research to the public, like how early child abuse escalates to more violence later in life. These experiments have been replicated in a prime time show in a manner that could easily be used to shame people and to manipulate people, like the Obedience to Authority and Stanford Prison Experiments; however there is no effort to educate the public how this is often done anymore than they do much to inform the public about most advertising or political manipulation research.

Instead they often pass Proprietary information laws designed to keep a large portion of this secret, although they can't keep it all secret!

Some of these experiments are extremely flawed, as many people in the social psychology should know and they can often be used for multiple purposes, often to promote prejudicial ideas, which is why it is important to have good peer review, although what is published in the highest profile locations is often not the best quality work. For example the experiments to study reactions to the phony wrong number experiments were sited as evidence that conservatives are actually more inclined to help people than liberal's and perhaps less prejudiced, which I don't completely rule out; however another possibility is that some of the people answering these phony calls recognized them for what they were, fake, and responded accordingly, which means that conclusions from this experiment may be almost useless!

Many people within the academic community, including Michael Shermer, who I've cited on numerous occasions for doing biased research, cite these experiments and many more over and over again in locations that the majority of the public never hear of.

The clear implication is that there is a pattern of behavior within the social psychology academic community of doing one of these experiments after another. Some of these experiments are almost certainly studied by anyone within the academic world that thinks it can help them in their work, including advertisers, political pundits, union busters, military psychologists developing boot camp indoctrination methods, and as some good researchers including Alfred McCoy claim, the CIA.

The published research by many of these social psychologists doesn't fit the strictest definition of a conspiracy, since it's not secret; however people within the academic world have easy access to it; and some of them use it for manipulation or indoctrination purposes against those with less education, which accomplishes the same goal!

There should be little or not doubt that they will continue doing this research in the online community conducting social psychology research there as well, although most of the research on this is almost certainly not published where many people can see it, and since it is often years before some of this research gets circulated much, it's less likely that most of it is well known at all.

Once people become familiar with the work done by social psychology researchers in the academic world it shouldn't be hard to speculate about some of the kinds of research they would inevitably do on activity on the internet from studying sex offenders seeking teens to pray on, which the FBI occasionally says it's doing and often they report it on TV, to minor things like how people respond to ratings or likes, depending on which forum they on, which can be used for improved advertising tactics and many other things. One of the things they did in the Milgram obedience experiments is study how people would react if they had additional support versus if all people present were inclined to obey authority with many variations.

One of the simplest things to figure out, once people think about it, is that popular forums have to have a steady amount of traffic and participants in order to attract new members. When the internet was first established it might have been controlled at the grassroots, at least to some degree but there was a very small percentage of the public participating in it. By the time it became more popular there almost certainly were many people from the oligarchy, including advertiser political operatives, social psychologists, and the CIA that recognized this; and the successful forums that grew must have realized they needed a strong group of regular participants to get their forums off the ground.

This raises the question of how many people that are the most popular at any given forum are there for fun or because they have an undisclosed agenda.

There should be no doubt they would be inclined to research all these things and much more, although it would be virtually impossible to keep track of it.

There is also an enormous amount of evidence that many alternative media outlets are being run by organizations with major institutional support; so in a addition to the oligarchies controlling the six largest corporations controlling over 90% of the national media, they also have an enormous amount of influence on the alternative media outlets.

There's good reason to believe that in at least a few cases AstroTurf pressure or psychological manipulation have been used to encourage censorship for one reason or another; in some cases there is even incentive for people to suppress content they don't like through down votes or flagging material that they don't like, and moderators might use this as an excuse to support censorship instead of debating issues on their merits. In many cases this is often done by forums that claim to defend free speech; however they often seem to mean that it's only protected for the majority or those that control the forums.

I can't say for certain how much the CIA has been involved in; however there is good reason, after many past disclosures, to believe that at a minimum they're interested in studying it and almost certainly conducting other activities. This doesn't mean that all people involved in the CIA are informed about it or that there aren't other undisclosed agendas competing with each other, which there almost certainly is.

The fact that there's an enormous amount of psychological research going in in the academic world is definitely true, and there are reliable sources to prove this, and they even openly admit it, although they often spin it to their own favor. There's also enough evidence to indicate that there's an enormous amount of additional activity done in secret; so reasonable conspiracy theories are justified; however it is important to keep track of the sources and review how they came to their conclusions so that people know the most reliable conclusions are not mixed up with the most irrational conspiracy theories.

Even if there isn't adequate evidence to support many conspiracy theories there's little doubt that many of the most powerful organizations are controlled by a small fraction of the public with an enormous amount of the money; and that they also, either directly or indirectly control a significant portion of the alternative media as well. some of this is through financing it directly; but there's also a lot of it done by simply controlling the mass media which decides which subjects many people discuss at the grassroots level, even if they can't completely control people's views on that subject.

The following are a few of the most important of my past articles disclosing some of the psychological manipulation research, along with Arthur Miller's book, after a review of a few examples where there are ulterior motives that have been demonstrated in a few major web pages:

Philip Zimbardo, Lucifer Effect, Stanford Prison Experiment

Corruption or Bias in the American Psychological Association

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

Anti-violence social experiments (including staged threats to a spouse in an elevator to study reactions) could be part of a slippery slope

Frank Luntz confesses to sabotaging democratic process for clients

Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil 2005 excerpts

Arthur Miller "The Social Psychology of Good and Evil 2005 PDF



One of the most blatant examples of political manipulations from a pseudo-progressive webpage portrayed as grassroots that I've encountered is the Daily Kos, which for a while before 2012 I thought was one of the best alternative media outlets, although after I joined them and took a closer look I found out that it was heavily censored, and they had rules that encouraged this. It wasn't until I was banned from them for using what I considered free speech advocating for a grassroots candidate that I realized that the rules actually encouraged censorship and that while they pretended to support progressive ideas within the Democratic Party, they actually restricted the speech that would support Democracy or criticism of establishment Democrats, that are obviously not progressive at all.

After looking back I now realize that this censorship which I recognized back then continued and helped rig the 2016 election for Hillary even when she had little support from well informed real progressives.

The following is an article I originally posted on Open Salon (They have since closed down so I retrieved it through the wayback machine; for some links, which I didn't replace see the original which goes through the wayback machine for now) in 2012 about being banned from the Daily Kos for encouraging debates from diverse candidates including Jill Stein; at the time I thought this was supposed to be an open site that encouraged diverse progressive ideas, before finding out that it was designed to help rig coverage for establishment candidates:

Censored at Daily Kos which pretends its promoting democracy 10/05/2012

Yesterday I posted a blog about Censored at debates: Jill Stein, sincere candidates, issues; this was cross-posted at the Daily KO as Censorship partly prevented at debates: Jill Stein, Democracy Now! Present issues. 10/04/2012 When I attempted to sign in today to respond to the people at that blog many of whom were outraged by the fact that I wasn’t blindly supporting the Democratic Party I was forced to click on an acknowledgement of the fact that I was warned that advocating for a third party is against the rules at the Daily KO before being allowed to post again. I did this assuming that I would be allowed and that it would be a matter of time before I was banned because I wouldn’t put up with that and there was no doubt that I would be speaking out on the subject. It turns out that I couldn’t post anyway.

This is clearly a Democratic Propaganda machine disguised as a discussion board. There was no warning that this board was heavily censored and I couldn’t find where these rules were that informed me of what I could and couldn’t do. A relatively quick look around the internet turns up the Truth About the Daily Kos which is being run by someone that has had similar experiences with them and is presumably more familiar with them than I am.

Ironically while looking around a little further I found an article about Internet Censorship Bills Up For Vote Dec 5th – “Stop Online Piracy Act” & “Protect IP” Garner Enthusiastic Bi-Partisan Support In Congress at the Old Speak Journal which was also posted as Internet censorship bills appear to be fast-tracked for action by Joan McCarter at the Daily KO. The Old Speak Journal also posted about As Obama, Romney Hold First Debate, Behind The Secret GOP-Dem Effort To Shut Out Third Parties.

So which is it; are they against censorship or for it only when they’re the ones using it?

It clearly seems that some of the people involved are in favor of censorship when they’re the ones doing it; however there might be others that haven’t kept up with it or that have looked the other way and remained silent about it.

You can’t be sincerely opposed to censorship and use it at the same time although many people pretend to do this. Looking the other way isn’t much if any better although there may be more details that could result in mitigating circumstances.

Apparently the subject came up at the Democratic Underground which wasn’t censored, or was it? Welcome to the DUngeon what is going on here? Original article from wayback machine

Recently an article, Daily Kos Is Back The liberal site has acquired a new relevance in the era of Democratic resistance to President Donald Trump. By Ryan Grim 04/12/2017 claims that the Daily Kos has become liberal again in it's opposition to Donald Trump; however they describe how they refused to get behind Bernie Sanders in 2016 despite the support he had from their grassroots. Clearly, although they can take credit for opposing Trump now, they're still supporters of the traditional Democratic Party not the grassroots, and are only trying to collect brownie points. This is still an Astroturf web site!

Ryan Grim is usually about as good as traditional media, or Huffington Post, which is one of the few alternative media outlets invited to appear on traditional media outlets, gets; however he's clearly trying to patch together the reputation of an AstroTurf media outlet which also gets a lot of coverage from traditional media. The best alternative media outlets rarely get much if any coverage from mainstream media.

According to The Duplicitous Roles of the OFA and the Daily Kos 05/03/2015 Ryan Grim's claim that Markos Moulitsas and the Daily Kos leadership didn't take sides during the primary and they only received flack for inadequate support for Sanders even though the grassroots at the sight overwhelmingly supported him was blatantly false as early as May 3 2015, when they reported that Markos Moulitsas declared the Hillary Clinton was “inevitable,” and the grassroots was outraged! It was clear at that time that if they had addressed the grassroots support for Bernie Sanders that he would have had a much better chance.

Instead "the OFA’s 'rapid response' team turned out in full force on the Daily Kos, predictably shouting down detractors and unleashing faux outrage at any member who had the temerity to challenge Markos’ assertion." The Hillary Clinton campaign benefited from an enormous amount of support from obviously planted supporters from the establishment and the article even points out that Markos flipped on his support for Clinton after saying, in 2008, "She is a leader who fails to lead. She does not appear 'electable.'" Markos is clearly a political operative that sold out rigging the primaries for a candidates that he previously said she couldn't win, and as it turned out he was right!

This doesn't mean that the Daily Kos, alone rigged the primaries for Hillary Clinton, of course; however this was a patterns among the traditional media as well as the leading alternative media outlets which was replicated over and over again in other web pages, including The Democratic Underground, Huffington Post, and even Move On which eventually supported Sanders in the Primary but only after they were unable to overcome an enormous amount of grassroots support.

Many of the leading alternative media outlets actually got some support from the traditional media, though brief amounts of coverage from time to time, and alos often get some degree of financing, and aren't controlled by the grassroots at all! To some degree this may even include Democracy Now, although they did a much better job expanding the debate in both 2012, however they probably could have done more, and As I have reported in some previous articles they have occasionally provided puff pieces for authors like Philip Zimbardo and down played the support that USAID has been receiving from the CIA for decades.

The Daily Kos apparently relies on Daily Kos: Rules of the Road to justify their policies. They claim to be progressive, yet support candidates that are blatantly supporting non-progressive ideas and cater overwhelmingly to Wall Street. these rules aren't widely publisized and I didn't know I was violating them until after I was banned or as one person put it went "BOJO" which apparently means that I was flagged presumably for supporting debates where third party candidates can be heard and the voters can hear much more diverse ideas including progressive ideas, which the Daily Kos pretends to support.

These rules are very selectively enforced, since clearly there was an enormous amount of trolling on my article yet none of them were banned, and there should be little or no doubt that many of them almost certainly work for a political organization of some sort. The rules say that advocating for a third party candidate is banned based on the false assumption that the Democrats have been progressive, which means that actually advocating for progressive ideas is essentially banned. trolls who support the Democratic Party aren't banned and are apparently used to help ban people since they can "flag" things they don't like and this is part of the process to ban people. It isn't all clearly defined in the rules and people that are banned including me are often not sure why and don't even get a warning. After finding out a little about it I found a few diaries including New users are now taking 3 flags to BOJO. Still happening, 2015 and Welcome New Users: Ratings, mojo, nojo, bojo and mo' which shed a little more light on how it works but they aren't official policy.

Edit 10/25/207: After doing a relatively quick search for Daily Kos censorship I found many more people that have been banned from the Daily Kos for expressing their views. The Daily Kos is still not solely responsible for rigging the primaries for Hillary Clinton and chasing away real progressives, effectively rigging the general election for Trump; however they did far more to accomplish this than I previously realized. The evidence is mounting to indicate that this election was rigged!

The following a a handful of the censored contributors, including Ted Rall, who is a well known cartoonist from the Daily Kos; and there's many more some that can be found in the section they refer to as "Trolls," although the real trolls are the ones that chase off opposing views and as long as they support the corrupt Democratic establishment they're allowed to stay.

The end of Daily Kos as a credible news source 06/02/2016

Politically motivated censorship at DailyKos? 03/04/2016

Does DailyKos support censorship of #WhichHillary? 02/29/2016

Censored by Daily Kos Ted Rall 11/28/2013

I have been censored by Daily Kos Ted Rall 11/29/2013

Daily Kos Bans Cartoonist Ted Rall for Imaginary Racism 12/03/2013

Did Twitter's Exec Censor #WhichHillary in advance of Key Primaries? Twitter users speak out 02/26/2016

Markos Moulitsas Clinton-bashed well into 2008, but is now censoring Clinton critics after March 15th 03/05/2016

Daily Kos Censorship and Apartheid Israeli Style December 2015



The Daily Kos is a laughing stock and if Ryan Grim thinks they can come back after this he's not much better.

Apparently numerous other webpages including ImgFlip also have similar rules that allow users including trolls or people with undisclosed motives to help censor ideas that they don't like, although it is difficult to know for certain since they also don't seem to have clearly defined rules. I sent them an Email asking if they retract "featured" memes which are shown more prominently if they're voted down without getting many if any up-votes, but haven't received a response yet; however they clearly appear to be doing just that, especially for memes that question religious beliefs, and patriotic or political memes that question republicans seem to be retracted more often. When memes critical of religion get up votes they rarely get retracted, so far only ones with no up-votes or a few with only one up vote have been retracted, and those that are retracted often get negative comments that don't adequately address the meme that they criticize.



As I write this another meme saying “'In god we trust’ because he ‘works in mysterious ways’ with appeals to emotions all others must communicate openly and rationally, keeping their word, to earn trust!” was retracted, without explaining why; and many other ones are apparently approved by the administration then retracted after they don't get support from people that don't like it.

Religious people are often taught not to listen to people that challenge their beliefs from an early age so they often don't correct many incredibly obvious mistakes; however this doesn't mean that major forums attracting a lot of attention need to help them remain in denial. If their beliefs are true then they can correct mistakes from skeptics and they'll stand up to scrutiny; however the fact that so many feel the need to do so raises doubts about them.

Allowing memes or contributors to be censored by those that disagree with them is a way to enable forums to try to blame others for their censorship; however it is clear to anyone that thinks it through that the forum moderators are the ones making this possible and in some cases it's clear that they're enabling those with the most paid political operatives, which is almost always the same people controlling the oligarchies, to increase their control over the alternative media as well as the mainstream media.

If popular web pages are interested in defending free speech then enabling members of the public to help with the censorship of content that they don't like is hardly the way to do it; however it's a different story when they allow or encourage people to promote the ideas they agree with which is, of course the way it should work, and it's hard, if not impossible, to imagine any objection to that. ImgFlip doesn't have nearly as much traffic as the Daily Kos and both Facebook and Twitter are much more popular, and they have their own ways of setting up the programs which are often more difficult to sort through, although if you watch them enough there are plenty of people that claim they're biased one way or another. This of course now includes the mainstream media which is arguing that Facebook is selling ads to Russia propagandist, although even if there is some truth to this, it can't be nearly as bad as the obsession coverage the mainstream media gave to the most corrupt candidates that became the nominees enabling trump to get elected.

There is absolutely no way that either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump could have gotten the nomination without this enormous advantage if they had provided fair coverage to honest candidates from the grassroots, nor could most of the members of congress get elected!

But why did they rig the election so that these two incredibly bad candidates got an enormous amount of coverage that enabled them to get the nomination and, after making it appear as if they were rigging it for Clinton enabled Trump to win by putting him up against the only candidate he had a chance to beat?

Can't they do a better job pretending to do a good job defending democracy?

It's enough to make you believe in one conspiracy theory or another; but can you even trust the conspiracy theory message boards, once you start believing there is a conspiracy going on?

There are routinely even questions about that going back over a decade, even about the most common of those, Above Top Secret when someone asked in 2004 Is Above Top Secret website a CIA front? 2004- and Springer the ATS owner responded, "For the record, I can ASSURE anyone here that the CIA does not fund this site. The MWA has been known to invest in this site in the past and plans on continuing the practice as needed for security upgrades and other things." but it has come up again since then according to Is Abovetopsecret.com Run By Agents/Cia?? Something Shifty About That Site 2013 and several other articles the hacker group Anonymous exposed ATS as a CIA front however, not surprisingly, people from ATS in Who are Anonymous who is behind Anonymous, what is their Agenda? deny it and claim that Anonymous might be working for the CIA.

How can we tell which is which?

We might not be able to for sure without additional information, at least; however there might be some way to narrow it down depending on what the CIA is trying to accomplish, how and why.

As I have written in the past there is enough evidence raising doubts about the early development of civilization, including megaliths, well over a hundred tons some over seven hundred tons, that were moved long distances, by people that allegedly only had primitive tools, even though experiments to move megaliths above ten tons had to cheat and only had limited success. This leads me to believe that there might have been some influence from an unknown advanced intelligence, possibly ancient aliens, as I reported in previous articles including, Is Stanton Friedman working for the CIA to refute reverse engineering claims? Hurricane Apocalypse Coming With or Without Fringe Conspiracy Theory and Looming North Korea Nuclear Apocalypse Result of Incompetence? Or Staged?

Above Top Secret has been reporting on these alleged aliens for years, and there should be no doubt that if they're partly true, at a minimum, the CIA would be observing them and almost certainly having people sign up to present their own arguments. If possible there is no doubt that they would want to influence the moderators, and if they think they can they would try to arrange for some of them to work for them; or perhaps the rumors are correct and that they really are working for the CIA so they can disclose information when they want in the manner they want, often, when it suites their purposes in a manner that only the most credulous would believe or in a way that it seems like a crazy conspiracy theory so few would believe it.

Are all the media outlets controlled by major corporations or well financed people, often without full disclosure of what biases they might have? Can media outlets even start small at all?

There are some small ones that might provide full disclosure; however they're very rare and they have limited resources, often relying on the information they get from larger media outlets. Old Elm Tree tried that a few years back with a message board to provide more progressive views that weren't always as welcome at the Democratic Underground so they started their own message board with a server in someone's house working with a few friends with a very modest investment. But they still had to maintain it and wound up trying to collect a few hundred dollars here and there and eventually let it go. This web page was fairly up front with discussions about their own personal views, although they claimed to try to be neutral for the sake of the board, they weren't, of course. This is a claim that people should stop making since no one seems to be able to do it as Howard Zinn pointed out years ago, and he was far more neutral than the mainstream media outlets that demonstrated that when they claim to be neutral, they really mean they favor the views of those in power.

Recently I found one of the few other message boards or small blogoshere's without much if any financial backing, although something about it seemed like it might be suspicious after I took a closer look and apparently a few other people came to to the same conclusion for different reasons. I was asked by Autumn Cote if she could cross-post one of my articles on her web page which I had never heard of and said yes. When I had a little more time I took a look and found that she had unusual rules about requiring a certain amount of comments to other articles, which seemed odd. Recommending them is certainly reasonable but requiring them seemed authoritarian and likely to chase people away.

A quick search turned up a couple other complaints, although the first one doesn't seem rational after looking at the site according to Writer Beat — BEWARE!!! 08/11/2017 just a couple months ago he was asked to cross-post as well and he found an antisemitic article by Tom Purcell who seems to have written at least three other articles, but supposedly they were deleted. This led him to the conclusion that Autumn Cote was a neo-Nazi, although this article isn't typical of Writer Beat, which apparently has some Jewish authors as well as right wing authors, or Autumn Cote, implying he might have jumped to conclusions for one reason or another. Another article claims that Mark Wachtler, owner or editor of White Out Press may also be a white supremacist, citing several articles that seem to have more credibility; however his only connection to Writer's Beat seems to be that he did an interview introducing her to some people in 2014.

With a relatively quick look at Writer's beat and these claims of supporting neo-Nazis I can't completely rule out some leaning toward this but, I'm skeptical of it and there appears to be something else odd about it. Apparently this is about five years old and they started out offering $10 to top writers and a chance at connecting them with publishing companies, according to Does anyone know anything about Autumn Cote Writer Beat? It feels like a scam. Aug 2012 The publishing companies don't seem to be affiliated with Writer's Beat; perhaps it was an early attempt that didn't work out but she's persisted since then keeping her web Page going, yet there's no obvious revenue or scam, although she must be spending a lot of time and a modest amount of money to keep it going for one reason or another,

In her interview, WriterBeat.com - great Citizen Journalism website 11/13/2014 she says, "To be brutally honest, we’ll likely never be a success. I derive a lot of personal enjoyment from running the site, so if I never make a dollar, no big deal." the assumption that she won't make money out of it seems to be true, since there is no revenue by her own admission which is repeated on her web page; however it's hard to imagine this is something she does for fun since it is so systematic. She seems to be recruiting her writers and a large portion of them are leaving with complaints that she regularly features on articles titled, "The Beat Goes On," writing about enforcing of rules that most writers don't find out about until they join and often leave once they find out about them. This hardly seems like the way to run a web-page if the motive is to either enjoy herself and promote a free forum or eventually turn a profit assuming she can sell ads.

Apparently I'm not the only one that has doubts about the motives behind Write Beat including another newcomer, going by the name of "Flying Junior," who wrote, Has Writer Beat Been Infiltrated by the Russians or is Autumn’s Real Name Natalia? 10/1/2017 He closes his argument by asking, "Are you guys infiltrated by Russian trolls? What other possible explanation could there be?"

I'm not inclined to rush to believe they've been infiltrated by Russia anymore than I'm going to rush to believe Autumn cote is a neo-Nazi. As I've repeated several times, even if there is some truth to the stories about Russia manipulating the election they pale in comparison to the activities of the six oligarchies rigging the coverage for candidates they support and the AstroTurf organizations like the Daily Kos and ImgFlip helping ensure that the real grassroots don't have a reasonable opportunity to promote honest candidates that might actually serve the interests of the public instead of bending over backwards for multinational corporations like Bush, Obama, Clinton and now Trump, often pretending to be progressive or anti-establishment.

As for Juniors question about what other possible explanation could there be, as I said earlier it is virtually guaranteed that people within the social psychology community will continue conducting research experiments that can be used for one reason or another including psychological manipulation, although when they do these experiments they claim that it is to prevent violence or study obedience to authority to prevent the blind obedience of the Nazis.

This web page doesn't have the characteristics that I would expect if most people running it would get "lot of personal enjoyment from running the site," or if they might be trying to increase traffic so they could sell ads, which she claims she is open to, although I can't guarantee that she thinks otherwise. Nor does it seem like something the Russians would do since the web page simply doesn't have that much traffic, although it seem very active with lots of responses from participants. The articles often get as much as one comment for every four or five views, although it is more typical, after they've been up for a while to get one comment for every ten views, which strongly implies that the vast majority of people that are checking with Writer Beat are the participants.

However it does have characteristics of a social psychology experiments, including variations of the Obedience to Authority experiments or the experiments done in an elevator to see how people respond to potential domestic violence arguments, which are often organized by professors with the help of college students. It's been decades since they started the Obedience to Authority experiments and on at least one occasion Peter Singer, an academic who specializes in ethics, said they almost certainly wouldn't meet modern ethics guidelines; however despite this claim, and the death of Stanley Milgram over thirty years ago they've been continuing to do them repeatedly, as I pointed in an article in 2011, which was long after Peter Singer said they wouldn't meet ethical guidelines and at least a few other articles including experiments about violence in an elevator which was being faked happened since then, and some of these experiments have become more sophisticated.

On the first article I posted myself, after she cross posted the one she asked permission for the first comment from her was, "Please note, the second best way to draw more attention to your work is to comment on the work of others. I know this to be true because if you do, I'll do everything in my power to draw more attention to your articles. PS - There is a lot I can do and would like to do on your behalf." (Panic About School Shootings Won’t Help! P.S. They’re Going Down!) This was typical of comments she makes to many other newcomers and it wasn't long before my article rose to the top of the front page, like the one she cross-posted for me, which received an enormous amount of feedback for a newcomer.

Perhaps I was famous! Nah, it doesn't take long to realize that the way the web page is set up one recommendation sends anyone to the top of the page. However the second article I wrote after this was followed up by comments about following the rules, which I wasn't aware of, "Please note, it's against the rules to post partial articles whereby the reader has to click on a link to read the rest of the article." Vietnam Documentary Hits Hard While Downplaying The Worst! And a couple hours after this, perhaps she noticed that at the end of the article when I posted the link it included an explanation to why I provided it and a comment critical of the rule about "peculiar rules about minimum comments on other articles," which at the time I only learned about by reading a fair amount of warnings to other readers, including the first one on my previous article.

This has some similarities to the experiments on Obedience to Authority to see if people will question these arbitrary and perhaps often senseless rules. Some of these experiments had many variations including whether people were more likely to question authority if others were also questioning it versus if everyone else was going along with the program. This involved staging things with multiple people that pretended not to be involved in the experiment. As I said before in order to get started pretty much every successful forum has to have a core group of followers that keep the site busy, and if they had some contributors participating with the experiment that would do the trick and they could have them conduct variations as well to see how different people responded. They could also study how people manipulate the ratings system to promote their own page, which they have a rule against.

They could also study how people react to obviously hypocritical comments from someone that expects people to follow the rules on her own forum then openly says, "I started spamming people on LinkedIn until they banned my account. I then moved to Medium until they banned my account." after being asked "How is it that you find people willing to cross-post their work here?" The Beat Goes On XIX

There could also be research to study how people react to on line bickering and if they join in which there is plenty of in many web sites, including this one. Like the Daily Kos the rules are selectively enforced if they're enforced at all; as far as I can see unlike the Daily Kos instead of banning me without warning she just gave me warnings, although she ignored my comment about the HTML not enabling me to simply cut and paste the entire article without reinserting each individual link and picture.

It would be interesting to see how she responds if I cross-post this critique and comes out and confirms or denies, accurately or not my speculation if she simply ignores it like she did with Flying Junior; or if she uses her rules to justify banning me, even though she said on the interview with Mark Wachtler that "As of right now, we have over 4,000 (by now it will be much more than this) articles and I have no intention of deleting any of them. One day I should ask a lawyer who retains ownership of submitted articles as I honestly don’t know. I imagine articles on Writer Beat are part of the public realm." I don't know whether she checked with that lawyer but I have written about copyright in the past and, although I don't agree with the laws, any copyright belongs to the people that wrote them, yet at the bottom of each article it says "© 2017 WriterBeat. All right reserved," which would never hold up in court.

Also one of the most common complaint that people heading out make is that she doesn't provide links to the source like most people that cross-post with or without permission. I often do this myself under the fair use clause. I can't say for certain that this is what she's doing but regardless, there could still be some benefit for this site by experimenting with the most effective way to set up rules for a really diverse that is "owned and operated by a regular person just like you and me, not some partisan Political Action Committee," as Writer Beat claims to be although there should be full disclosure. At the Old Elm Tree there was some discussion about the founders and their motives and beliefs along with efforts to collect funds to keep it going, they were far more credible than this site but didn't manage to get those funds.

Introducing White Nationalist Mark Wachtler and the Opposition News Network 04/05/2015



This was partially cross-posted on both Writer Beat where Autum cote denied being part of a social psychology research project, without adressing any of the concerns or elaborating on her motives and Above Top Secret where the moderators are presumably to busy to respond but maintain their own denials, although reactions from both are mixed.

The following are some of the memes that were retracted by ImgFlip after being featured by the moderators; they're followed by some that were never featured; and since the majority of memes that were retracted were religious, I also included examples of religious memes that weren't retracted, mostly that got numerous up-votes which presumably made it more difficult for the down-votes to result in retractions. I'm not part of a clique on ImgFlip although I can't rule out the possibility that some people that agree with me might have taken notice and started up-voting to prevent them from being deleted or just because they liked them.

Retracted





















Never featured















Featured

Las Vegas Massacre Is Just A Minuscule Fraction Of Gambling Crime

There is an increasing amount of evidence to indicate that there might be some very unusual things about the Vegas mass shooting; however the fact that there was a major violent incident in Vegas shouldn't be surprising at all!

There are enormous problems with violence related to gambling that have gone back decades, since when the mafia controlled large portions of it; and now that it is controlled mostly by corporations trading on Wall Street it may not be that much better, although since it is treated as a legitimate business now and they donate an enormous amount of money to political campaigns and spend even more on advertising, both the media and political establishment have an enormous incentive to avoid talking about it!

Until now!

Maybe!

The following article points out that “Everyone is trying to make a connection between his gambling and what he did," except that it isn't quite true especially many of the highest profile people on TV; and when the media including this article does make this connection they often try to downplay it:

What, If Anything, Does Stephen Paddock’s Gambling Have to Do With the Las Vegas Shooting? 10/06/2017

He was a dedicated — addicted? — gambler who tethered himself for hours at a time to high-stakes video poker slot games known for their 99.17 percent “hold.” He was also a heavy drinker, known to demand high-end cognac and treat cocktail waitresses and his own girlfriend rudely, according to a source in guest services at a casino he frequented. He was a lousy tipper and a loner who spoke as little as possible, but also a man who enjoyed free, fancy meals and rooms to keep him happy, said the same person, who asked not to be identified.

And now that 64-year-old Stephen Paddock is also the gunman responsible for the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the question is whether any of that has anything to do with the horrific thing that has made him infamous.

“Everyone is trying to make a connection between his gambling and what he did, but the way he played wasn’t as abnormal as it sounds,” said Leslie Smith, a semi-professional poker player who visits Vegas once a month and believes he saw Paddock playing at the Cosmopolitan resort a few years ago. “It sounds exotic and a little weird to people who don’t know any better, but it’s something some wealthy people do because it’s fun. Complete article

Determining the exact motive and back ground of Stephen Paddock will take time assuming they actually figure it out and it is virtually guaranteed that some of the stories being put out already will have a certain amount of misinformation; however there's enough research from past incidents to help narrow things down, although the mainstream media almost certainly on't report on the best of this. This excerpt might be better than most of the reporting from the mainstream media, going out now, but it still probably isn't the best:

Las Vegas Shooter Stephen Paddock Had an Unusual Financial Life. Here's What We Know 10/04/2017

Medfis told Seeker.com that Paddock's high-stakes gambling habit is noteworthy. While Paddock's apparent wealth makes him atypical of mass shooters, "he was also a prolific gambler, so it would not surprise me at all to learn that he recently suffered a significant financial loss,” Medfis said. “That said, mass killers do not just ‘snap.’”

Other research indicates that pathological gamblers can often also be diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders, as well as a higher likelihood to have problems with alcohol and commit crimes in general. There is no conclusive cause-and-effect relationship, however, and it's unclear the degree to which people are born with psychopathic tendencies or develop them over their lifetimes. It's worth noting that Paddock's father was a notorious bank robber who escaped from federal prison and was on the FBI's Most Wanted list in the 1960s and 1970s. Complete article

In 2014 I did a series of articles about the leading causes of violence based on characteristics that were more common in certain states, including How does gambling and gun control impact violent crime? and others listed below. Gambling and Gun control are almost certainly not the most important factors when it comes to contributing causes of violence as I pointed out in numerous articles including a recent one Panic About School Shootings Won’t Help! P.S. They’re Going Down! and more listed below, the most important contributing factor is almost certainly child abuse and corporal punishment leading to escalating violence later in life. The second most important contributing factor is probably abandoned inner cities, although the evidence of that might not be quite as conclusive and this probably isn't a major factor in the Las Vegas shooting.

Even when other factors are present, including gambling or states with little or no gun control, early child abuse or neglect is usually a major contributing factor. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a psychologist and author of "Guilty by Reason of Insanity" claims that in all cases where she looked close enough to find evidence of early child abuse in the back ground of murderers she was able to find it, without relying solely on claims from defendants that might have a motive to lie, often including police or hospital reports or corroborating witnesses to verify this. Other good researchers including James Garbarino and Lonnie Athens have also made similar statements, although they haven't gone quite so far as to say they found this evidence every time.



As I said, it's still too early to know for certain what made Stephen Paddock go to such extreme's to kill so many people but there's already circumstantial evidence to indicate that there probably is some early abuse, including statements from an alleged escort that accompanied him to Casinos at times and his father being on America's most wanted and abandoning him at the age of seven. This isn't direct evidence of early abuse, of course but it is a common characteristic of people who were abused indicating that if a thorough investigation were done by a thorough researcher like Dorothy Otnow Lewis, stronger evidence might turn up.

According to a deposition taken four years ago he didn't drink but was on Valium for anxiety and he often gambled a million dollars a night, and when the questioner said "That's a lot of money," he responded by saying, "No, it's not." there should be no doubt that this was a problem gambler. There are plenty of myths about professional gamblers that beat the Casinos, which actually works as great advertising for the Casinos, since many gamblers fantasize about being one of those glamorous gamblers.

Do these professional gamblers actually exist or are they just advertisements faking it to give gamblers something to dream about becoming?

There're certainly a lot of stories about them and sometimes they name names for gamblers to keep track of. And if they do exist Stephen Paddock appears to be one of them; or if they don't this would be a hypothesis that would lead to far-fetched false flag theories like the ones about Sandy-Hook which would require significant evidence to take seriously. However if they do exist and they're beating the odds and the Casinos are still making massive profits with enormous expenses that means the odds must be fixed that much more against the majority of players who must be the big losers!

Furthermore, if these professional gamblers do exist, they must go on massive losing streaks once in a while, as described the in the Movie "Casino" that openly claims that in the end the house always wins and they get the "pros" that they "comp" back and eventually they lose it back to the house. The so-called "comps" or complimentary meals and rooms they give to big gamblers isn't a charitable donation; they're investments, because they know that they routinely get that money back and much more.

It's not uncommon to combine multiple risk factors or contributing causes, whether it's early abuse as a child, Valium, other drugs or alcohol, or other potential causes of violence with gambling at Casinos, which means that it shouldn't be surprising if there is higher violence at Casinos or related to gambling, often after leaving the Casino. Instead of educating the public about how to prevent child abuse from escalating to more violence the pharmaceutical companies often try to solve this problem by using profitable drugs, even though the side effects of them sometimes do the opposite of what's intended. Instead of reminding the public about how the odds must be fixed for Casinos to thrive and profit, the media constantly tries to convince them how fun it is and they they "can win big" even though this is practically never the case.

I can't rule out the possibility that some depression drugs or other medications are worthwhile but when they're prescribing them without exploring other options at the encouragement of pharmaceutical salesmen that are trying to maximize profits it often does more harm than good. And the media and political establishment gets an enormous amount of campaign donations and advertising dollars from Casinos, pharmaceutical companies and many other large corporations that contribute, either directly or indirectly to crime; and the media only covers candidates catering to these interests ensuring that the most important issues won't be discussed and crime reduction opportunities will only take place at the local level when grassroots people learn on their own through alternative media outlets and force their local leaders to act.

Las Vegas: Stephen Paddock 'gambled $1m a night' and had Valium doctor on retainer 10/10/2017

Killer's Boast to Hooker reveals how Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock acted out violent rape fantasies and bragged: ‘I was born bad’ 10/08/2017

Las Vegas Gunman’s Criminal Father Vanished From Sons’ Lives 10/02/2017 No one could fathom that Pat Paddock, the big, jolly father of four young boys who owned a small business in town and was a special deputy at the sheriff’s office, was really Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, a serial bank robber with a rap sheet that stretched back to Chicago.

Las Vegas Shooter Stephen Paddock Had Recent Large Gambling Transactions 10/02/2017

However, regardless of why Stephen Paddock went on a massive killing spree shooting up a crowd that didn't do anything to him, even if he did have some legitimate grievances with Casinos, which hasn't been adequately reported assuming it exists at all, there's still evidence of a massive problem of crime associated with gambling, and there may be a significant amount of evidence to indicate that it is also related to lack of critical thinking skills that should have been developed in early childhood if children were raised properly.

First of all why would anyone in their right mind spend a significant amount of money at a Casino in the first place?

Don't people know that in order for Casinos or any other form of organized gambling to cover expenses and make a profit they have to rig the odds? And since there are an enormous amount of expenses and massive profits they have to rig them a lot!!

If people had a minimum amount of critical thinking skills no doubt they would know this and there would be no way this industry would be this big!



The entire industry is based on fraud and it could never survive without help from both the mainstream media and the government, both of which could educate the public about this fraud and the enormous amount of violence associated with organized gambling, as indicated by many studies including a lot listed below. It's not hard to find these studies once you look for them on the internet but they're almost never mentioned by either the traditional media or the government, which is because they're both run by people who have a financial incentive to suppress reporting on this subject as I reported previously on The tragedy of gambling politics in United States; the media gets an enormous amount of money in advertising revenue from organized gambling institutions and they also have investments in organizations like "Fantasy Football" so they have an enormous incentive to downplay reports of violence at Casinos. And Politicians are much more likely to get the support of players who are actually victims if they remain silent on the subject, since these loser want to believe they can win and are often more likely to blame the messenger who tells them they can't, than the people promoting gambling.

They're committing epidemic levels of fraud, and, at least to some degree, it's intentional; and they're studying how to convince people to accept their losses without committing violence on the premises. However as many of the studies the media refuses to report that often leads to violence at home and it doesn't even prevent a lot of the violence at Casinos, instead it just minimizes it so they can cover it up easier.

Some of this educational efforts to convince people to leave peacefully accepting their losses may have been described may have been described by Patrick Swayze, in "Road House," which the police are apparently using for training now according to the following article:

NYPD using ‘Road House’ movie to teach cops how to ‘be nice’ 02/24/2015

The NYPD has turned to Patrick Swayze to teach city cops how to behave.

Police bosses are using a scene from the 1989 action flick “Road House” as part of the mandatory, three-day retraining course for 22,000 cops, The Post has learned.

“You have to have a thick skin,” an instructor told cops forced to take part in the $35 million program before hitting play on the two-minute clip from the cult classic, sources said.

In the scene, Swayze — playing a tough-guy bouncer, Dalton — teaches his goons at the rowdy bar Double Deuce how to handle unruly customers.

First, he spells out three rules, with the third being simply, “Be nice.”

“If somebody gets in your face and calls you a c–ksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won’t walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can’t walk him, one of the others will help you, and you’ll both be nice,” he says.

“I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal.” ....

The scene also includes Swayze’s most important message: “I want you to be nice, until it’s time to not be nice.”

“Well, how are we supposed to know when that is?” asks a mush-mouthed bouncer with a big black eye.

“You won’t. I’ll let you know,” Swayze says.

The clip had the audience at the Police Academy smirking and stifling laughter.

“It’s just ridiculous, the stuff they’re showing us,” the cop said. “It’s crazy. They’re showing us something from a movie and they want us to act like that in real life. It’s not realistic — it’s Hollywood.” Complete article

The cop saying that real life isn't like Hollywood is, of course, right, at least partially; however some of these suggestions might actually be a good idea, or at least they would be if they were taught in the right context for the right reasons.

It really is a good idea to "be nice," to avoid escalating violence whenever possible and it's also a good idea not to take things personal.

However, the biggest reasons this isn't like the real world or that this isn't the most effective solutions to violence is that it involves waiting till the last minute to deal with problems just before they potentially escalate; instead of teaching the public how to prevent child abuse from escalating to more violence or solving other social problems like creating fair local economies that solve social problems before the last minute.

However, police or security guards will of course argue that this isn't their job, and they would be right. Or at least the police would be right when dealing with violent offenders; but this wouldn't be true when it comes to dealing with protesters that are trying to convince their government to address these social problems; when that happens if police use violence to suppress protests not only are they committing violence, but they're also aiding and abetting in efforts to prevent solutions from happening.

The claim that Road House isn't like reality could just as easily go for the media coverage of mass shootings, or anything else for that matter, even though they're supposed to be reporting on news in a realistic manner.



The media came up with dramatic footage hyping the coverage of this shooting within no more than a few hours of it, presumably to drive up ratings for profitable purposes, which is now routine. However they provide little or no coverage of the most important causes of violence so that it can be prevented in the most effective way possible; instead quickly going into the usual obsession with gun control debate that never accomplishes anything. One side of the gun control debate seems to think that the most effective way to solve problems it to allow as many people as possible to have guns so they can shoot the perpetrator as quick as possible; the other side thinks they can stop it solely with gun control even though it is only limited control and it doesn't address any of the social problems leading to violence.

When it comes to Casino Security the bigger problem is that their objective may be to keep it peaceful so the gamblers go quietly, for now, then come back and lose more later, so Casinos can maximize profits which often come from problem gamblers, and if these problem gamblers happen to take it out on their family, that might be considered a "negative externality," as they say in the business world, so it wouldn't be considered a high priority if it's a priority at all.

However for public relations reasons they wouldn't want to come out and admit this, so if they can't keep it completely quit they might prepare an effort to at least make it seem like they're trying to address this problem like the following advertisement for a Domestic Violence Coordinator, for Seneca Niagara Casino, which is one of the native American Casinos running at the time of this article being posted:

Domestic Violence Coordinator (1FT) for Seneca Niagara Casino October 2017

Salary: $18.84/hour
Job Description
Responsible for intervention, treatment, advocacy and coordination of services for victims of domestic and sexual violence. Initiates and maintains effective communications with outside service and legal agencies. Maintain all appropriate case files, and report directly to the Chief Community Services Officer and Court Administrator

Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Human Services, Social Services or related field with two years experience in community organizations, volunteer recruitment, management, counseling victims of crime, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence or human services. MUST have a clean, valid NYS Driver's License. Must have knowledge of the Seneca Nation Tribal and outside Court Systems, understand Seneca culture and the communities service by the SNHS.

Seneca or Native preference given to qualified applicants.

Pre-Employment Drug Screen Required. Complete article
This advertisement will presumably be retracted within a few weeks or months of this article being posted but other ones will almost certainly show up at various casinos.

Is a Casino really the organization we want to be hiring "Domestic Violence Coordinators?" Or for that matter being in charge of security of policing? Intentional or not that is what is happening; and these Casinos have an enormous incentive to put their profits ahead of efforts to reduce violence, whether it's on native American reservations or in the Casinos.

Anyone familiar with research in various fields including, crime prevention, security or economics knows that the people that finance research this often create biases in the results that look the other way at how profits from that organization might impact security.

Another legitimate consideration is how they treat these so called professional gamblers that at least claim to be big winners, and for short times, at least some of them probably are. One of the most famous ones appears to be James Grosjean who supposedly bankrupted a private detective firm and demonstrated how the Casino industry would go to great lengths to make sure few if any people actually beat the odds, although they have to pretend otherwise to lure suckers in as demonstrated in the following article.

James Grosjean isn’t just a professional blackjack player. He’s a master card counter, author, and member of the prestigious Blackjack Hall of Fame.

In gambling circles, Grosjean may be best known for his legal battles against casinos and investigation agencies. To card players who use legal means to beat the house, Grosjean’s victories in court have been a boon to the entire gambling community.

On September 13th, 2005, Griffin Investigations was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to legal costs and damages stemming from a successful defamation lawsuit against the company by Michael Russo and James Grosjean. Griffin Investigations had long worked for the casinos, compiling information on cheaters, card counters, and other "undesirable" casino patrons. In many cases, casinos would detain or ban customers based on the information provided by the firm. The lawsuit stated that Russo and Grosjean had both been improperly detained, labeled as cheaters, and arrested, all due to information provided by Griffin Investigations. In July of 2005, a jury in Clark County District Court issued a $45,659 judgment on behalf of the two gamblers. Russo was awarded $25,000 in damages and $15,000 in punitive damages, and Grosjean was awarded $25,000 in damages and $10,000 in punitive damages.

Needless to say, the downfall of the hated Griffin Investigations was celebrated throughout the gambling community, making James a most beloved figure and leader in the fight for gambler’s rights.

But the lawsuit against Griffin wasn’t the only legal case that James would file and win. While he has lawsuits pending against both Caesar’s Palace and two Nevada Gaming Control Board agents, he also won a $400,000 verdict against the Imperial Palace in a wrongful imprisonment suit.

Grosjean contended that he was detained at Caesar’s Palace in April of 2000 and later at the Imperial Palace. Grosjean and a friend were detained at Caesar’s Palace for five hours, accused of cheating, then arrested and taken to the Clark County Detention Center. While his friend was released the next day, Grosjean was held in custody for 4 1/2 days. While they were charged with cheating, Grosjean maintains that the sloppy dealer had been continually exposing the hole card. Despite numerous surveillance devices, the casino could offer no proof to substantiate their claims of wrongdoing.

Several weeks later, Grosjean visited the Imperial Palace and found himself confronted by a security guard. "I wasn’t even playing," Grosjean was later quoted as saying. "I noticed a guard watching me, so I left. But he followed me, and he did get physical. He put his hands on my chest, and he blocked me from leaving."

Grosjean was then handcuffed and taken to a holding cell by six guards. His pockets were emptied, and he was then interrogated and threatened. Complete article

Does anyone have any idea how much time our courts spend, at tax payers expense settling petty argument from Casinos, which are fraudulent industries and scam artists that are trying to beat them? Or how often it leads to violence?

There are far more lawsuits and criminal investigations at tax payers expense than most people know about including some described by Ben Mezrich, listed below; and, of course, Stephen Paddock was apparently involved in one of them a few years ago which is what his deposition was about.

Did Stephen Paddock encounter similar treatment that James Grosjean complained about? He may have although it this was retaliation it was against all the wrong people although he could damage the Casinos indirectly by scaring off their customers.

Regardless of of why Stephen Paddock went on his killing spree, even though it is almost certainly the worst Casino related mass murder, it is still only a minuscule fraction of the violence caused by organized gambling, and it is virtually impossible to find out just how extensive the full problem is; however there are an enormous number of studies that all seem to come to the same conclusion, as far as I can tell, that there is a major connection.

Why is it so rare for the mainstream media to mention this at all?



Is there any doubt that the enormous amount of advertising revenue they get from Casinos is part of the reason for lack of coverage? MSNBC has also reported recently that they have direct investments in "Fantasy Football" as well while reporting on a story about it, although the disclosure was only mentioned briefly and few even noticed. Mandalay Bay is apparently owned by MGM Resorts International which according to Wikipedia is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM; however a quick search through their history indicates that they have, or had ties with each other and at least four of the six major corporations that control over ninety percent of the media at one time or another, and they almost certainly have some ties and common investors now.

How many other news organizations also own stock in gambling institutions and is that giving them further incentive to minimize coverage of violence?

Who's Casinos are having the biggest problems with violence? At least for a three year period in Atlantic City, apparently it was Donald Trump's Taj Mahal after he cut expenses for security!

This was apparently reported during the presidential campaign on the internet in at least a couple articles; however I didn't hear about it until searching for a connection with violence and Casinos for this article. It certainly didn't get obsession coverage like a lot of other stories and there were probably very few other people that heard about this. And, if you remember the times Hillary Clinton mentioned Casino gambling it wasn't to speak out against the corruption of the industry or the damage it does to society, including violence, but to ridicule Donald Trump for losing money at his Atlantic City Casinos when his companies declared bankruptcy.

Neither of the candidates the media provided obsession coverage to seem concerned at all about addressing this problem and the biggest owner of some of the most violent Casino's and Hotels is now president and has a major incentive to look the other way as he has in the past!

Although the mainstream media practically never reports more than a minuscule fraction of the problems with violence or crime in Casinos or caused directly or indirectly by organized gambling there are a few articles exposing a cover up, or at least part of it including Casino high rollers getting away with everything but murder 07/29/2016, which quotes Glen Costales, the pit manager, saying, “All men are created equal except in the casino.” This clearly indicates that tehy're not even trying to prevent troubles from escalating in many cases if they think they can keep the high rollers gambling.

According to Star Casino violence three times worse than official crime statistics, leaked report says 10/31/2016\ Sydney Australia's Star Casino has been accused of hiding the full extent of violence at the venue with leaked documents showing nearly two-thirds of assaults on site are not being reported to police. There are few reports that I know of that are quite so clear in the United States; however after looking through the enormous volume of crime studies and reports below, there should be no doubt that even without such a report for the United States Casinos it should be clear that if they can get away with covering things up they clear will, and are!

Insider Vegas Secrets You Really, Really Don’t Want to Know About Las Vegas Hotels 01/11/2015 doesn't provide facts that can be easily checked; however, once again after reviewing the stories below there's little doubt that most of what they report is either true or very close including high problems with crime violence and even people so caught up with gambling that they simply piss on their chairs instead of going to the bathroom.



The following are some of the articles exposing the high crime problems at Trump Casinos:

Trump Taj Mahal Slashed Security. Then the Murders Started 06/02/2016

Between 2008 and 2011, 1 in every 8 murders in Atlantic City took place at Trump's Taj Mahal casino 06/02/2016

Oh Look, Another Violent Psycho With Close Ties to Donald Trump 04/06/2016

Another Poker Murder - Death at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City 04/07/2008

Murder charges filed in fatal Atlantic City carjacking 09/20/2011

Trump Taj Mahal worker dies from customer's gunshots 05/28/2009

A Top Gambler Is Killed Owing Casinos Millions 01/12/1992

7 arrested in connection with shooting at Trump Taj Mahal 03/30/2016

Police: Shots Fired Inside Room At Atlantic City Casino 05/02/2014







All the studies that I have found indicate that there is a major problem with violence and Casinos or other forms of organized gambling; although I have no doubt that corporations profiting from them might create some of their own biased studies; however most of the biased studies that I've seen from the industry focus on what they consider economic benefits, which actually go to a select few. They probably prefer not to even discuss potential violence studies since they aren't likely to hold up. 

Clicking on the Memes above will link to some studies about Gambling and violence and the following are more; although there is much more where that came from, which could be found through additional internet searches:

The Dark Side of Casinos Studies indicate that people who are addicted to gambling generate a disproportionate amount of profits for casinos: five percent of casino patrons are addicted, generating 25 percent of the casino's profits [Source: PBS]. Economic studies show that the net value of a casino to a community is actually negative [Source: UIUC News Bureau].

Casino Watch

Correlates of Gambling Among Youth in an Inner City Emergency Department March 2009

Problem Gambling Associated with Violent and Criminal Behaviour: A Danish Population-Based Survey and Register Study. March 2016

Studies: Casinos bring jobs, but also crime, bankruptcy, and even suicide 10/30/2012

Video Gambling Linked to Crime Spike: Study 08/23/2017

The Elusive Link Between Casinos and Crime With a study of the impact of Philadelphia’s SugarHouse Casino, a heated debate gets fresh ammunition. 07/29/2014



Will a mass murder keep you from going to Las Vegas? 10/05/2017 Fluff pieces like this are much more likely to get coverage from traditional media trying to convince people that they shouldn't let terrorists, or mass murderers interfere with "our way of life," implying that this would be letting them win! However as the following articles along with the studies above indicate "our way of life" at least for those most obsessed with gambling often includes an enormous amount of violence crime and suicide after they lose everything to organized gambling institutions, although you won't see reports of just how extensive this is.

Mom, daughter killed by husband in murder-suicide months after winning $2M lottery 08/10/2021

This list seems very long, and it is; however the only reason it isn't much longer is because I just don't have time. I have no doubt that searching various words including "Casino murder," "stabbing," "brawl" or "violence" along with names of Casino cities or specific Casinos will turn up at least three to four times as many articles, if not ten to twenty times as much!

Coroner identifies two dead in murder-suicide 09/16/2009 Edward Wayson was a legal advisor to Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn, according to an obituary in The Washington Post. Wynn got his start at Wayson's Bingo, a 750-seat hall owned by the Wayson family in Annapolis.

Police: 2 dead in Excalibur murder-suicide 12/14/2012

Woman's Dead Body Found Stuffed Down Laundry Chute of Hotel During Las Vegas Birthday Trip 02/24/2016

Man shot to death in Caesars Palace employee parking garage 10/22/2016

The Amount Of Mysterious Deaths At This Las Vegas Casino Will Haunt You...And So Will The Reason Why 06/02/2016

Security guard stabbed in Palazzo casino on Las Vegas Strip 08/09/2017

Tourists’ stay ends in murder-suicide 09/28/2004 A tourist committed suicide this morning by jumping off Hoover Dam after calling 911 and reporting that he had killed his girlfriend in a room at Treasure Island, (A Las Vegas Hotel and Casino) Metro Police said.

10 Most Famous Crimes In The History Of Las Vegas

Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion Dollar Empire; and how it all came crashing down By Ben Mezrich

Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees By Ben Mezrich

Casino security guard dies after subduing assault suspect 05/07/2017

Man Shoots Himself at Seneca Niagara Casino 04/05/2007

Man sentenced to life in Arizona casino shooting death of retired officer 05/02/2017

Police kill suspect after 2 injured at Hon-Dah casino 08/02/2014

Biker faces murder charge in casino gunfight 04/29/2002

Anonymous tip leads to arrest in 2004 murder of casino winner 03/24/2010

Sioux Falls Man Convicted of Murder in Casino Shooting 03/23/2017

Seminole Tribe shields against releasing records in Hardrock death 11/09/2008

Shooting by Seminole Tribe police officer was a first, spokesman says 04/22/2011

“Why are people plunging to their death off the garage at the coconut creek casino????” 08/06/2014 customer review

Funeral held for man found shot to death inside car after leaving casino 07/21/2016 Alex Eichmann, 48, found with gunshot wound outside Pompano Beach McDonald's

14 years from murder to conviction in slaying of Miami Subs founder 07/04/2015 It was the beginning of the end of one of South Florida's most enduring criminal cases — featuring shady business deals and mob connections and culminating in the execution-style murder of Miami Subs founder Gus Boulis on a Fort Lauderdale street.

Wikipedia: Akio Kashiwagi 1992 murder victim inspiration for character in "Casino"

New York City Murder Suspect Arrested at Foxwoods 01/24/2015

Foxwoods Casino patron dies after being shot by police and falling off of parking garage 09/20/2017

Police: Reno casino security guard charged in man's death 04/10/2014

Shots Fired East of Downtown Reno 11/05/2016

1 dead after officer-involved shooting in Eldorado Casino in downtown Reno 02/24/2017

No gunshots fired in burglary of store at Bellagio in Las Vegas 03/25/2017

Vegas Strip Briefly Closed After Shot Fired Near Bellagio 08/07/2017

Massacre Comes Amid Soaring Gun Violence in Las Vegas 10/02/2017

He beat a murder rap in a casino killing. Now, he’s accused of a rap-studio robbery 09/26/2017

Floyd Mayweather Boxing Club Volunteer Arrested for Murder of Sometimes Las Vegas Roomate 10/03/2017

“Disturbing violence and confrontations outside casino” 06/30/2016 personal account

A Brawl Between Motorcycle Gangs Turns Fatal at a Nevada Casino 04/28/2002

36 die of suffocation when gunman storms Manila hotel-casino and starts a fire 06/01/2017

Customers shocked by deadly violence at Silver Nugget Casino 05/20/2016 8 News NOW spoke with some of the casino customers. It turns out, most of them knew the suspect, who was also a security guard.

These are just a few more related articles.

Yahoo!, Disney and CBS should score financial touchdowns thanks to the increased popularity of fantasy football. 08/11/2006

Trump was once so involved in trying to block an Indian casino that he secretly approved attack ads 06/30/2016

The Mad Violence of Casino Capitalism 02/25/2016