Is the truth for sale on commercial media?

Commercial media is owned by six corporations controlling well over 90% of national media, they cover expenses by selling ads, and are owned by a fraction of one percent of the wealthiest people in the country; I don't see how there could be any doubt that money is corrupting the vast majority of the media. Wealthy people control virtually all powerful institutions, and they've demonstrated with their actions that they're not above using propaganda to indoctrinate everyone they can, if they can get away with it, to rig everything in their favor. They do this even though they already have more money and political power than they need and increased amount of money or political power will do nothing to increase their own quality of life, although it may cause a serious deterioration for society, which is already underway in many so-called "sacrifice zones," which will eventually backfire even on them.

Are they so insane that they'll distort the truth even when it comes to environmental destruction and Climate Change, which will inevitably destroy even them eventually?

The closer you look at the evidence the more obvious that it appears they've already answered with their actions, and the answer is yes!

The Republicans don't even pretend they want to solve this problem at all, often claiming that Climate Change is a hoax; even if some of the claims surrounding Climate Change are flawed, there's little doubt among credible scientists that most of it is real, and even if that weren't true, there's much more to pollution related problems than Climate Change, and the evidence is much stronger for a lot of it. The vast majority of environmental destruction is in third world countries, or in the poorest part of our country, often where minorities live, and there's overwhelming evidence to prove this, assuming the establishment is willing to look at that evidence, which they're usually not. One good source, Which Countries Destroy the Environment the Most (and Least)? 05/01/2017 says that we started using natural resources faster than the planet could produce them back in 1970, and that it's been getting steadily worse sine then; several other sources including The World Is Using Natural Resources Faster Than Ever Before 07/30/2019 claim that we used natural resources 75% faster than the planet can replenish them in 2019, and previous reports, including We’re Depleting Natural Resources Twice As Fast As Nature Can Recover. Here’s The Good News. 07/31/2018, indicate it was only 70% in 2018, which may indicate it's growing by about 5% per year, which would mean we may be using resources 90% faster than the earth can replenish them this year, although that's subject to confirmation. And yet the biggest corporations causing environmental damage are constatly coming up with propaganda to downplay their faults and promote an economic system based on constant growth selling people things they don't need including How Walmart convinced critics it can sell more stuff and save the world 10/13/2022 which is a long rambling article trying to explain how Walmart has dealt with all their critics, implying their bad reputation was behind them; yet it can't change the fact that constant growth is incompatible with reversing environmental damage, and shows some of the green-washing described by Christine MacDonald reported on in Green Inc.

Despite claims by the Democrats that they want to address this problem, like campaign promises from the squad during the 20128 campaign and President Biden's recent claims that "good environmental policies are good economic policies," which sounds very good, and it is true, but they're doing little or nothing to make the major changes that are needed to reverse this process. and there's still a massive amount of propaganda to deny Climate Change is real funded by the oil companies, even if there isn't quite as much as there used to be. Furthermore, commercial media sells and enormous amount of propaganda ads, which they often deceptively refer to as public relations ads about many other subjects giving wealthy, for profit organizations, a massive advantage over more honest grassroots organizations that aren't making a lot of money to deceive the public and pay for the ads. This includes massive amount of ads for insurance, or to prevent Medicare for All, which a large majority of the public supports, other pooled risk financial services like after market warranties, which are just as inefficient, ads about how corporations are giving benefits to their employees, often even when they have major protests or lawsuits based on labor practices, and when the benefits are a small fraction of what they pretend to offer, investment firms claiming to help the poor while rigging the economy doing far more damage than their small charity donations, and many more deceptive ads that are extremely biased, if not outright lying.

However, unlike pollution and epidemic environmental destruction including Climate Change, most of these other issues don't literally involve ecocide or destruction of the planets ability to support life. You would think that no one would be stupid enough to create a massive amount of propaganda to guarantee they can increase profits in the short term by eventually destroying the environment and everyone else, including themselves. You would be wrong. The most powerful people in the world are being led by oil and financial companies, with the help of other major Wall Street corporations, the media, and the vast majority of the political establishment to create an ideology that will eventually destroy us, although I can't be certain when, or which warnings from researchers are the most accurate.

However, although there should be no doubt that we're destroying the planet, even though, at best it could be deacades before it gets much worse for people living in wealthy areas, or we conclusively pass the point of no return, the oil companies and their Wall Street allies have been buying up propaganda, corrupting politicians and the media, and funding inaccurate science to prevent the solutions that we need, which should have started decades ago. It seems to me like there were much more of their propaganda ads about five years ago; however, I've still seen a few ads from Chevron or think tanks portraying domestic oil, like the keystone pipe line as the most effective solution to our energy problems. And even when there are ads promoting clean energy, they often exaggerate how much is being produced, and some of it may be green-washing for the oil companies; or when real environmental groups really do buy ads to protect the environment, they only have a minuscule fraction of the advertising budget. Some of this is explained in the following article from Grist, which explains when or why they increase their spending in some cases, among other things:

Big Oil spent $3.6 billion to clean up its image, and it’s working 12/24/2019

“You want to know one of the reasons we’re not acting on climate change? $3.6 billion spent on corporate propaganda might have something to do it.”

If you’ve ever seen an ad featuring ExxonMobil scientists handling beakers of green goo, the algae that will supposedly fuel the future, you’ve been the target of an oil company’s advertisement. Exxon isn’t trying to sell you a product, exactly — but it is hoping to sell you on the idea that it’s committed to a greener future.

Over the past 30 years, the world’s five biggest oil companies have forked over more than $3.6 billion for reputation-building ads like this one. “When we looked at the dollar amounts, we were sort of blown away,” said Robert Brulle, a visiting professor of environment and society at Brown University.

Promotional ad spending from Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips has fluctuated a lot over the years, so Brulle’s research team decided to figure out why. The results, published in the journal Climatic Change this month, suggest that oil companies pour money into promotional campaigns for two main reasons: to boost their reputation when they’re getting negative media coverage, and to influence policymakers when Congress is considering climate legislation.

Consider the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, when BP’s oil rig exploded, filling the Gulf of Mexico with nearly 5 billion gallons of oil. Unsurprisingly, the news coverage was not exactly favorable. BP’s spending on promotions ads jumped from just $10,000 the year before the spill to a whopping $168 million in 2010, adjusted for inflation.

“If you want to make your case in a legal court, you gotta go get a lawyer,” Brulle said. “If you want to make your case in the court of public opinion, you gotta go get a public relations agent.” Complete article

Even if the oil industry isn't spending quite as much as they did about five years ago this clearly indicates that it may only be temporary, and that if action against Climate Change is taken it could increase much more. There is still plenty of ads promoting domestic energy, which often means either the Keystone Pipeline or Fracking, among other traditional fossil fuels that are destroying the environment, which they occasionally try to claim is much cleaner that it was previously, and with supposedly progressive politicians, like John Fetterman, who now says he supports fracking they may not feel as much need to spend as much on propaganda to convince us that Fracking is safe, for now. Furthermore, traditional oil companies have often tried to convince us they're promoting more clean energy like wind or solar often greatly over estimate what they're doing for clean energy as part of a green-washing propaganda campaign designed to clean up their reputations more than the environment, one of the greatest examples of this is British Petroleum's efforts to convince consumers that BP now stands for "Beyond Petroleum," even though they're only providing a token amount of investment in clean energy with much more spent on propaganda.

These propaganda ads obviously have no credibility, although many complacent people that don't things through will fall for it if it's repeated often enough; more important, the commercial media that makes massive amounts of money selling deceptive propaganda ads also has serious credibility, especially when they don't provide nearly as much coverage on issues exposing their own advertisers. This isn't limited to ads about environmental destruction or energy; it also includes ads about insurance or aftermarket warranties, which obviously make any industry involving pooled risk less efficient, since the more they spend on ads the less they have available for legitimate claims, worker relations, since, once again the more they spend on propaganda the less they can spend on employees safety or other employment issues, health care, or anything else! When it comes to the environment organizations like Grist and a few more I listed below are far more credible than traditional media, although caution should be taken to ensure that we don't rely on organizations that might gradually turn into green-washing organizations for Wall Street as Christine C. MacDonald pointed out in her book Green, Inc.: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad 2008. This should be kept in mind when searching for good environmental news outlets, for example, when I Googled some of the best sources, one of the news sources recommended was Bloomberg Environmental, which I would be highly skeptical of, considering their ties to Wall Street corporations profiting off the destruction of the environment, and some news outlets might not be quite so obvious.

Even though some of the grassroots environmental organizations are among the best, there are also some satirical sites that are far better than traditional news, assuming you use reasonable discretion, which isn't always that hard, including The Yes Men on Climate Change which creates a lot of spoofs, some that make very good points and even exposes corporate hypocrisy. One excellent example of this is an article about how "BlackRock Does the Right Thing" 01/16/2019 which turns out to be a satire based on a BlackRock Hoax letter addressed to CEOs 01/16/2019 which actually gives very good advice, and if you think about it, in the long run it's also good economic advice, although they didn't see it that way. The following is an excerpt from the hoax letter, which they were forced to deny:

... But we find that the biggest contributor to uncertainty is also the greatest threat to the long-term stability of our economy and our investors’ assets: climate change. Companies must address climate risk factors or fail in their fiduciary duty.

.... With our partners in the Investment Stewardship Group, we criticized the Trump administration for pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. We see the Paris Agreement as an important framework for long-term sustainability. Despite denouncing the short-term thinking that pervades management, BlackRock’s voting record has not aligned sufficiently with our own ideals. That’s going to change. Moving forward, we will demand more accountability. We will require all companies we hold stakes in to align their business models with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have made strides in this direction, but the urgency of the threat demands that we increase our focus.

Purpose In Action, or Purposeful Inaction?

After extensively analyzing our role in driving market trends, and acting out of a need to protect our clients’ long-term returns, we have identified two pivots that we have the ability to make this year—a structural adjustment to our exclusionary-screen indices, and a cultural adjustment to our shareholder action:

First, we are expanding a screen of non-Paris compliant companies to now apply by default to all ETFs, mutual and other broad indexed funds we offer, except when investors opt out and explicitly ask for these stocks. It is not enough to simply create exclusionary funds that screen out certain companies, because we offer thousands of products and most investors are passive. To make good on the threat I issued last year, we will begin this work by divesting from coal companies in our actively managed funds. Within 5 years, more than 90% of our 1000+ investment products will be converted to screen out non-Paris compliant companies such as coal, oil, and gas, which we see as declining and endangered. As a result, an increased percentage of our assets under management will align with our ESG values while sustaining high returns. This approach keeps responsibility in the hands of our clients, who will always have the choice to opt-out of our vision of a stable future and back into coal, oil, and gas.

Second, BlackRock will shift its approach to engagement. We have always supported management, but our clients have become impatient with companies that tout ESG values but do not align their planning to a Paris-compliant model. Beginning in 2019, BlackRock resolves to use our considerable stake in energy and related sectors to vote in favor of management only when we find them to be working toward net zero carbon emissions by 2050. We will use our shareholder position to keep companies accountable to resolutions that align with these values, and aggressively vote down those that do not. In cases where companies consistently fail to value long-term viability, we will vote out obstructionist boards and vote in members who are more forward-thinking.

This adds to the evidence that they must understand how much damage they're doing to the environment, assuming they actually want to know the truth, but they insist on trying to maximize short term profits, even though they know it will backfire on everyone, including themselves. Prior to this spoof letter BlackRock had been putting out statements to indicate they were concerned with Climate Change, and they continue to do so to this day; however, when this letter came out and some investors thought it was real they expressed outrage, and BlackRock was forced to admit that they didn't intend to do any of the things in the letter and that it was a spoof, which showed the real intentions of wealthy investors. While the spoof letter was forgotten within months, if not sooner, by MSM the deceptive propaganda was repeated over and over again, which is the way propaganda works. The lies are repeated over and over, while the truth falls down the memory hole, on the rare occasions where it comes out at all.

Now, in addition to making false propaganda claims about protecting the environment, BlackRock is producing ads about how they're handling pensions for working people, in the New England area highlighting a local fire department union that they're managing funds for. However, once again, it doesn't take much research to find out that they've previously been sued for looting pension funds, and more recently have been accused of funding Russia's war in Ukraine. Ironically, even though their propaganda to make themselves look environmentally friendly or socially responsible in other ways is almost all false, conservative groups are accusing them of being too "woke," which, intentionally or not, plays into their hands making it look like their propaganda is true even though it's not.

The bottom line is, if we continue to allow the wealthy elites with fanatical ideologies to control the propaganda we use to make important decisions, not only will they rig the economy in their favor turning most of us into virtual slaves, but they'll eventually destroy the planet as well, although I don't exactly how long it will take!

The decision has already been made, as demonstrated by the actions of powerful corporations, politicians, the media, and other in a position of power to resolve this problem; they're going to maximize short term profit even though they know, or should know, that it will destroy our planet and eventually themselves. There are plenty of environmentalists that recognize this, and are trying to change this; but they're not in a position to reverse it without help from wealthy elites, or a massive percentage of the public that currently remains complacent, and is going along with the program of the oligarchs. The majority of the public has indicated with their actions as well, they're not going to help unless the damage impacts them. So unless something changes soon things will get much worse before they get better, assuming they ever get better, even though we have the technology and ability to greatly reduce this problem, if not solve it.

The following are additionale sources or related articles:

Why the News Is Not the Truth May–June 1995

Why Don't Truth In Advertising Laws Apply To Political Ads? 11/06/2019

Truth, Lies, and Advertising Honesty 10/18/2012

The Honest Truth About False Advertising 07/15/2019

If Adverts Told the Truth, What Would They Look Like? 05/03/2022

Big Business Spent $1.4 Billion On PR, Advertising Over The Last Decade 03/14/2019

How the oil industry has spent billions to control the climate change conversation 01/08/2020

PR firms are facing a backlash for ‘greenwashing’ Big Oil — and the pressure on them is growing 01/16/2022

Oil companies' ad spending: Driven by climate change legislation & media coverage 01/07/2020

Big Oil’s green PR disproportionate to its investment, finds research 09/09/2022

Climate change ads highlight growing financial power of environmental groups 09/03/2021 The new set of ads come after the League of Conservation Voters and related environmental groups invested $20 million across July and August in a national ad campaign pushing for greater focus on climate legislation.

UN climate report: It’s ‘now or never’ to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees 04/04/2022

Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change, Speakers Warn during General Assembly High-Level Meeting 03/28/2019

Climate change will be sudden and cataclysmic. We need to act fast 01/19/2021

Climate change is hitting the planet faster than scientists originally thought 02/28/2022

We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN 10/08/2018

AOC praises Biden administration, says it has surpassed progressives' expectations 04/24/2021

AOC praises Biden saying he’d support a filibuster change to protect abortion: ‘Now we’re talking’ 06/30/2022

The World Is Using Natural Resources Faster Than Ever Before 07/30/2019

As of today, humans have used more resources than Planet Earth can regenerate in a year 07/29/2019

Yes, humans are depleting Earth’s resources, but ‘footprint’ estimates don’t tell the full story 07/30/2018

We’re Depleting Natural Resources Twice As Fast As Nature Can Recover. Here’s The Good News. 07/31/2018

Grist

Moms Clean Air Force

The Daily Climate

Inside Climate News

Climate Change News

‘Super polluters’: the top 10 publishers denying the climate crisis on Facebook 11/02/2021

The Guardian: Climate Crisis

BP dropped green energy projects worth billions to focus on fossil fuels 04/16/2015

Oil Slicks: BP’s new eco-friendly ad campaign makes no sense. 10/15/2002

Energy and Environment News

The Narwhal

UPDATE 1-U.S. pension funds sue Blackrock, allege 'looting' at iShares 02/03/2013

Pension funds sue BlackRock for ‘looting’ ETF lending revenue 02/04/2013

BlackRock ploughed UK pension funds into Putin’s war chest 04/05/2022

Missouri withdraws money from management firm in political move 10/18/2022

BlackRock targeted in new ad campaign for being too woke 10/29/2021

From Climate Denial to “Green” Petroleum: Massachusetts Accuses Exxon Mobil of Deceptive Messaging 10/31/2019

Exxon to World: Drop Dead 03/31/2014

Could Steve Bannon Be Providing Propaganda To Enable Climate Change Research Project?

I don't know if you noticed but the entire political establishment has been going insane for years which led to the election handing the presidency to Donald Trump, who they want us to believe is out of his mind.

They're right of course, he is out of his mind; but not necessarily for the reason they want us to believe. One far-fetched hypothesis which I'll get to is that he's only pretending to be out of his mind as part of a bizarre conspiracy theory. However participating this insane theory would be as insane as if he were really as insane as he pretends to be.

Or something like that.

If you're not up to date on some of the most far-fetched conspiracy theories out there and find this hard to believe good, you should; and you shouldn't jump on board a bizarre theory without checking the facts carefully. However, as I have reported in several articles there is overwhelming evidence of major unsolved mysteries, including how they moved megaliths over seven hundred tons thousands of years ago when experiments to replicate these efforts cheated with megaliths between ten and forty tons and only had limited success without trying anything bigger. Therefore you shouldn't rush to rule them out either.

I’ve gone into this in previous articles including 107 Wonders of the Ancient World Is Stanton Friedman working for the CIA to refute reverse engineering claims? and most recently UFO Hypothesis Far More Credible Than Catholic Claim of A "Miracle Of The Sun" where I explained that the incident at Fatima was either one of the biggest UFO sightings in history or another unexplained mystery. Some of these articles consider the possibility that alien technology was retrieved at Roswell, as claimed by Philip Corso, and reversed engineered. Additional possibilities include claims of contact with aliens and that there is intentional sharing of technology with them and perhaps some kind of deal struck. These theories have their problems; however they do address some of the unsolved mysteries that have taken place going back thousands of years.

One of the biggest problems with some of these theories is how far-fetched the technology to travel from one star system to another; however there has been an enormous advance in technology over the past several decades that includes developing technologies that were previously considered impossible. After thousands of years with very slow development of technology, all of a sudden it has been leaping forward at epidemic levels.



As for the possibility Steve Bannon providing Propaganda To Enable Climate Change Research Project, for starters, if you believe that climate Change is a result of human activity, which most traditional scientists do, then this is by definition a form of Geoengineering, although it may be unintentional. It doesn't mean that these scientists can control weather, although there are plenty of conspiracy theories that claim that there are efforts to do this. However if there is a possibility that weather can be controlled by human activity, and if there have been some form of advanced intelligence influencing our society since the megaliths were moved thousands of years ago, it is possible that this unknown advanced intelligence might have known about this possibility and realized that in order to research it they might have to allow it to happen.

Most people don't know it but before Steve Bannon began providing propaganda for Climate Change deniers he was involved in running Biosphere 2 which was funded by Ed Bass, a billionaire who wanted to support research that would help understand how to create a closed environment on a planet like Mars, if they ever sent people there, and study Climate Change as well. Ed Bass and many researchers involved in Biosphere 2 were admittedly trying to study the greenhouse effect and learn how to reverse Global Warming or Climate Change, with Steve Bannon's help, and later on he began working for projects supported by a different billionaire, Robert Mercier, and oil executives that have a short term interest in denying Climate Change.

This is insane since it isn't even in the best interests of the oil companies to destroy the environment.

Are they suicidal, and willing to take the human race with them? There is plenty evidence to support this hypothesis, although some people might just explain it as ideological fanaticism; however with the science so obviously opposed to this and even Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil, taking a more rational view than the fanatical Trump administration it might be worth considering different possibilities.



Some problems should have been obvious even before they began this project, including the choice of Arizona to build it, which turned out to be partially responsible for their problems. If they were studying an isolated environment for a colony on Mars a cooler location farther north at a higher atmosphere, like either Canada or the Montana area, would almost certainly have been a better choice. One of the problems they had was that it costed $3 million just to cool Biosphere 2, which they should have anticipated in the Arizona location, which would have been much warmer than Montana. I'm guessing that the reason they chose Arizona might have been that they were more interested in studying Climate Change, which for all I know might have been more effective in Arizona.

The following article indicates that Steve Bannon wasn't always a fanatical Climate Change denier, and some of the people he was working with hoped that he would provide a positive influence on the Trump administration on the subject of Climate Change, although he clearly has done the opposite since then:

Trump's Chief Strategist Steve Bannon Ran a Massive Climate Experiment 12/07/2016

BEFORE STEVE BANNON was Donald Trump’s campaign advisor, a right-wing media mogul, or a conservative Hollywood documentarian, he helped a group of climate scientists steer a controversial experiment in the Arizona desert back from financial chaos. Twenty-five years ago, a New Agey-experiment called Biosphere 2 set out to recreate life on another planet with eight people locked in a giant glass habitat. But it ended bitterly with allegations of financial fraud, scientific goof-ups, and a power struggle outside the dome.

Now some of the scientists who worked on Biosphere 2 hope that Bannon—who has been dogged by allegations of ties to the white nationalist alt-right movement—might steer Trump back from the edge of climate denial, and perhaps forge a better deal between the US and other nations intent on reducing heat-trapping greenhouses gases. That might seem far-fetched for someone whose website, Breitbart News, calls climate change a hoax and those who study it corrupt. But these scientists point to Bannon’s time as a successful turn-around manager of Biosphere 2 in the mid-1990s as proof that he understands climate science—and may not be as much of a climate denial zealot as the folks who write for his website.

Biosphere 2 was designed to replicate life on Earth. Inside a massive enclosed glass structure, environmental scientists built separate chambers or biomes stocked with plants from desert, forest, grassland, and ocean habitats. They wanted to create a self-sustaining ecosystem—90 feet high, with 3.14 acres under glass—that required no inputs from the outside. If the researchers could figure out how to keep the giant hothouse sustainable, perhaps they could one day grow food on the Moon, Mars, or a long-distance space journey.

Funded by billionaire Ed Bass, Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 being planet Earth) got off to an auspicious beginning in 1991. Eight so-called biospherians—four men and four women dressed in matching blue jumpsuits—embarked on a two-year "mission" inside the dome, along with 4,000 plant and animal species. The crew maintained daily contact with scientists and managers through a direct video link, but otherwise slept, ate, and worked together just as they would on a separate planet. The scientific mission was to see if the team could grow their own food, keep the flora and fauna alive, and maintain a balanced air supply. .....

“There was mistrust and probably some poor management of the finances by the people who were in there before,” says Tony Burgess, one of the few scientists who worked for both Bannon and the former leadership. The biosphere's culture, at the beginning, was that of idealistic space hippies building a better world. But Bannon shifted the focus, as a clear-eyed financier of climate research. “Steve came in and tried to change it around," says Burgess. "It was costing $3 million a year just to cool the place, and the idea was to see how could it pay for itself. That began a long struggle to see how a closed system could justify itself in mainstream terms.”

Bannon never expressed personal opinions about climate change, but he did sell the idea of Biosphere 2 as a climate laboratory to the press and potential investors, including in a 1995 interview with C-SPAN. “What a lot of the scientists who are studying global change and the effects of greenhouse gases, many of them feel the Earth’s atmosphere in 100 years is what Biosphere 2’s atmosphere is today,” Bannon said in the interview. “This allows them to study the impact of enhanced CO2 on humans, plants, and animals.”

With the Biosphere 2 bleeding money, Bannon decided to shut down the crew habitat. He persuaded a timber company to remove one of the biomes and replant it with poplar trees in one habitat to measure how quickly commercially harvested trees would grow in a carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. “They shot right up,” says Burgess. At times, Burgess said, carbon dioxide levels reached up to 4,000 parts per million inside the biosphere, ten times current levels on Earth.

Bernd Zabel, who managed construction of the dome in the late 1980s and spent six months inside the dome, compared Bannon to a “hot-shot” fireman who parachutes into a forest fire. “Everyone understood his mission,” says Zabel, now a retired engineer living in the Tucson area. “He was sent in by the owner to see what can be done with Biosphere 2. Steve was the one with idea to get more scientists involved.” With more than 100 employees, Biosphere 2 wasn’t just a backyard fantasyland. It added a conference center, café, and links to academia. ....

Bruno Marino, an isotopic chemist who helped track atmospheric compounds inside Biosphere 2, spent a lot of time working with Bannon in 1994 and 1995. He remembers him keeping a private office at the Arizona compound stocked with dozens books about climate science, including The Biosphere, a 1926 book by Russian mineralogist Vladimir Vernadsky that first sketched out the scientific theory that living things, including humans, can change the planet, just as much as geological or physical forces.

“At the time I didn’t think much of it,” says Bruno, who now runs a small environmental consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., and last saw Bannon about 10 years ago. “It may mean he was interested in climate issue more broadly. I don’t know. I hope maybe he will have some role to play in Trump’s climate policy moving forward.” Complete article

Additional information, including the fact that his brother still works with Biosphere 2 is provided in the following article:

Steve Bannon’s Weird Journey From Biosphere Champion to Climate Denying Crank 03/08/2017

As climate scientists go, Wally Broecker is famous. The 85-year-old geochemist and Columbia University professor not only coined the term “global warming,” but was one of the first researchers to accurately predict how much the Earth’s temperature would change because of fossil fuel burning. He discovered the Ocean Conveyor Belt, which moves water around the globe, and figured out that those currents help regulate the global climate. “He has singlehandedly pushed more under­standing than probably anybody in our field,” one colleague said in a 2012 profile.

“He was an intense guy,” Broecker told the New Republic in a phone interview. “I actually kinda liked him.” ....

“He knew what we were doing, and knew we were worried about the consequences of global warming,” said Broecker, who managed and directed Biosphere 2’s scientific operations from Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. But Bannon never publicly questioned the science during his time at Biosphere 2, and Broecker never thought twice about it—that is until years later, when he read in the paper that Bannon would be Trump’s right-hand man.

Reading up on Bannon’s politics, Broecker began to worry that Bannon might not understand the scientific consensus on climate change. So he contacted Bannon’s brother, Chris, who still works at Biosphere 2, and asked him to pass along a paper Broecker had written about how to solve the climate crisis. “Chris said he’d pass it along, and I’m sure he did,” Broecker said. “But I never heard back.” Trump’s cabinet is full of contenders as America’s most dangerous climate villain. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, after all, has alarmingly close ties to the fossil fuel industry, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson used to run Exxon Mobil, the largest oil company in the world. But so far, both Pruitt and Tillerson have pushed back against some of Trump’s more anti-environment policies. Bannon has not; in fact, he appears to be the one pushing them forward. .....

If Bannon is a climate conspiracy theorist, he wasn’t always—at least not openly. “It certainly wasn’t clear that he was against climate research or climate mitigation,” said Bruno Marino, an isotopic chemist who was the scientific director at Biosphere 2 from 1994 to 1996. In fact, Marino said, Bannon “seemed intellectually intrigued by the broader issues we were studying,” which included the effects of global warming and increased carbon in the atmosphere. ......

“The biggest factor when I think about Steve is, how could he not have brought with him today something of what he learned then? That doesn’t compute for me,” Marino said. “He must know. He must have some deeper thoughts about climate change than he’s letting on. I don’t think he’s fully opened up about what he’s learned during that period.” Complete article

Apparently there have been conspiracy theories about Biosphere 2 for decades, for one reason or another, from both those that believe in Climate Change and those that deny it. The Climate Change deniers claim that it's a conspiracy to prevent us from burning fossil fuels and drive up the cost of gas; however they routinely ignore that even if this was true there's still an enormous amount of pollution related to burning of fossil fuels and, like Climate Change, the majority of the pollution is destroying the poorest people in the world, and in many cases some of the worst pollution and greatest impact from Climate Change like Hurricane Harvey, which is hitting Texas now are impacting some of the most religious people as well. As I pointed out in Dobson’s Indoctrination Machine indoctrination tactics recommended by James Dobson are routinely used to teach children from a young age and believe what their leaders say without question at an early age; and many of these religious leaders are in total denial about the damage being done by pollution or Climate Change, even though they claim to be "pro-Life." James Dobson and a surprising number of other religious leaders also endorsed Donald Trump even though his alleged faith in religion is incredibly shallow and easy for anyone with a minimal amount of critical thinking skills to see through.

If this is all being done solely for greed, and the people controlling the oil companies are that fanatical they must be having a good laugh at how they can manipulate all these religious people so that they could increase their profits in the short term while destroying the environment in the long term.



Can they really be that insane? If not something even more absurd or hard to believe might be going on.

As far fetched as this sounds to most rational people, it should be clear that, for one reason or another, the political establishment is behaving an an absurd and irrational manner, and it is having a devastating impact on the environment which will only get worse unless some major changes are made. This doesn't mean that we should believe every conspiracy theory like the most common ones about chemtrails which are supposedly part of a geoengineering effort by our government. Most skeptics provide what seems like a rational explanation debunking this, and they're probably right. However the same experts claim that carbon-dioxide and other chemicals are a major contributing factor for Climate Change and they also reported that CFCs were responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer, which clearly implies that many of the chemicals we're using with advanced technology on a large scale has a negative impact on the environment. This means that even if these chemtrails aren't having nearly as big an impact as the conspiracy theorists claim that along with large amounts of other chemicals being used for other reasons they might have some impact. Furthermore the absurd sounding conspiracy theories about exaggerated irrational theories enable the political and media establishment to create stereotypes about less exaggerated theories that might be closer to the truth; and in some cases there might even be a more far-fetched conspiracy closer to the truth.



I have no doubt that this seems like an insane conspiracy theory to most people; but, one way or another, some of the most fanatical conspiracy theorists are now close advisers to the White House; and this administration couldn't have been elected if not for the obsession coverage that the mainstream media has provided them, while refusing to cover the most credible environmental scientists and, at times, portraying environmentalists as "Eco-terrorists." The same media establishment is obsessed with a variety of their own irrational conspiracy theories including the one they're obsessing about with the Russia involvement in rigging the election, which is trivial compared to their own propaganda.

With all these conspiracy theorists controlling just about everything and ignoring some of the most effective solutions to environmental destruction like wind, solar or geothermal, which most people hardly heard of, it should be clear that something is wrong even if the most far-fetched ones turn out to be false. Even the highest profile people that claim they're trying to protect the environment and educate the public often have financial ties to the oil companies that are destroying it like Al Gore who got the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on that earned a fortune from Occidental Petroleum and sold Current TV to corporations with close ties to the oil industry. When Al Gore, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton are in power they routinely defend the interests of Wall Street and the oil companies, even if they campaign against them; in Barack Obama's case he didn't stand up to the Keystone pipeline until there were massive protests against it, and he want's credit it for it like other hypocritical politicians.

There's no doubt that the people that are making the decisions about policy impacting the environment are the ones making all the profits; while the destruction caused by these decisions is almost all being done to the poorest people and some of these rich reporters, like Chris Matthews, occasionally even slip and tell the public about how he's "so glad we had that storm last week because I think the storm was one of those things. No, politically, I should say — not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics,” after Hurricane Sandy killed over a hundred people. Hurricane Katrina was even worse killing over a thousand, possibly close to two thousand; and there are even worse storms killing larger numbers in poorer parts of the world, where storms or earthquakes often kill tens of thousands of people.





Whether it's environmental damage or many other disasters there is research to show how to prevent many of them and minimize the damage for many others; however for one reason or another they're not reporting the best research to the majority of the public. There should be no doubt that we need more disclosure of whatever secrets the government are keeping and more reporting on the best research to educate the public about the most effective solutions to problems, yet it isn't happening; and their excuses aren't even credible anymore!

A close look at Steve Bannon's record indicates that he seems to be working for one eccentric billionaire or another selling his beliefs to the highest bidder, and that these eccentric billionaires are constantly making bizarre decisions that have major impact on all of us. This isn't limited to Steve Bannon; there are plenty of additional examples that could easily be researched that might support this hypothesis, although they could be interpreted to support other claims as well so careful consideration should be given before coming to a final conclusion. Checking the financial income of Alex Jones, another conspiracy theorists denying Climate Change and enabling pollution, could also be worthwhile. Apparently he's selling all kinds of dietary supplements, which as a explained in past articles are being used for undisclosed research in many cases.

And theories about geoengineering apparently haven't always been treated as fringe, and are now increasingly being considered by mainstream researchers, for better or worse, as indicated in the following article:

What Is Geoengineering and Why Is It Considered a Climate Change Solution? 04/06/2010

When a report on climate change hit the U.S. president's desk, the suggestion was not to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, scientific advisors counseled intervention via technology in the climate system itself—a practice now known as geoengineering. And the president was not Barack Obama, George W. Bush or even Bill Clinton—it was Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

"This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels," President Johnson told Congress in February of that year. To address the problem, his science advisors suggested spreading reflective particles over 13 million square kilometers of ocean in order to reflect an extra 1 percent of sunlight away from Earth.

Today, with climate change accelerating and little being done to curb the greenhouse gas emissions, some scientists have resurrected the idea of "deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment," as the U.K.'s Royal Society puts it. After all, it's an idea nearly as old as the understanding of the physical principles behind global warming itself. Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius thought that global warming would be a boon to humanity and therefore fossil fuel burning should be encouraged, after calculating by hand the likely temperature impact of continued coal-burning and rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the late 19th century—roughly matching the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and their computer models more than a century later.

That's why 175 scientists and other interested folks (including companies looking to profit from geoengineering) gathered in the Asilomar conference center near the end of March to try to repeat the success of molecular biologists who gathered there in 1975 to reassure a skeptical public about genetic engineering. Ultimately, the gathered would-be geoengineers released a statement calling for, among other things, "further research in all relevant disciplines to better understand and communicate whether additional strategies to moderate future climate change are, or are not, viable, appropriate and ethical." Complete article

Lyndon Johnson's speech was made before the vast majority of the public understood Climate Change and it hardly received any attention at all from the media until a couple of decades later. It indicates that there was some consideration of geoengineering long before the public was paying attention. And, if as some researchers including Philip Corso, were partly correct about contact with aliens it could have been the early stages of planning on a hypothetical research project. This is one of many stories that may have been told that are related to this hypothesis, but were almost ignored for decades.

If you think this is fringe or irrational you might be right; however it is increasingly being treated as a viable option by many people in the scientific community and they often have conflicts of interests and an enormous amount of political power, and may be ignoring simpler more rational solutions that are proven to work far more efficiently.

As I explained in the opening there are many major unsolved mysteries going back thousands of years that still haven't been resolved. It may be difficult to provide hard evidence to prove that this is linked to current events; however there still has to be an explanation for them, and it is also difficult to rule it out. There are also an enormous amount of new unsolved mysteries constantly happening, like why Steve Bannon would have behaved as if he were staying on at the White House in an interview given just a few days before he resignation if he supposedly knew that he would be leaving. He's also apparently a supporter of Zionism and anti-Semites at the same time; and he may have ties to Sheldon Adelson, who he may be introducing at a Zionist dinner, as well.

The closer you look at the news the more irrational and contradictory it seems; and they don't even appear to be trying to make it seem sensible anymore. Instead they keep throwing one irrationals story after another, hoping no one will be able to keep track of it all; and it's hard to imagine how many if any people can.

As I first reported in "Yes Virginia There Is A Trump And Clinton Conspiracy" there are far more similarities between the characteristics of "The Whore of Babylon" and Hillary Clinton, and a growing amount of similarities between Donald Trump and the "Beast." Instead of falling apart these similarities grew especially with the outrageous behavior at the Al Smith dinner and him winning the election when it initially appeared as if they were rigging it for Hillary Clinton. A possible version of this theory involved the possibility that there really might be some ancient aliens that influenced the construction of monuments built megaliths thousands of years ago and influenced our early religions. I still try to be a rational skeptic; however the official version of truth is becoming increasingly as insane if not more insane than many conspiracy theories, so at times being a rational skeptic may mean being skeptical of the official version of the truth.

If there is something to this bizarre conspiracy then at least there is some potential for benefit if the technology allegedly shared with corporations from aliens, as discussed in some previous articles, is partially true, assuming it is disclosed and used for the benefit of all not just those that are controlling the way it is being distributed. As mentioned in several of my previous articles this might involve some communication with the aliens and a possible deal of some sort. However if they did agree to provide cooperation in return for the technology there is no guarantee that the aliens provided they might have agreed to participate in a Climate Change research project intentionally. This doesn't mean that they were completely honest with those they shared this technology with though. If these alleged aliens exist and made a deal with the ruling class after the Roswell incident; it may be the latest in many alleged deals or Biblical "Covenants," and a close look at history indicates that if any of these Biblical covenants really are true they came at a much bigger cost than people were led to believe, and that any unknown advanced intelligence perceived as "God" allowed many civilizations to collapse and there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't do it again.

If it is a research project into Climate Change there's no telling how much damage they may want to conduct or if they might go to far. Also the assumption that they wouldn't take it to too big of an extreme is irrational since if this alleged unknown advanced intelligence does exist it allowed the Crusades, inquisitions, holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and much worse. If it suits their purposes they've already indicated that they would be willing to allow more atrocities and use deception to accomplish their goals.

With or without a far-fetched conspiracy theory the people that control the country have repeatedly demonstrated with their actions that they seem to consider the vast majority of the public expendable, except when they serve the purposes of the wealthy, or when they stand up for their rights and don't allow the wealthy to take advantage of them. If there is an unknown advanced intelligence, and he was as benevolent as religious people say, he could have and would have spoken out against this in a manner that everyone would understand. By declining to do the this hypothetical God has demonstrated that, if he exists, he also has an ulterior motive.

Even if none of this is true then it's still far more rational to protect the environment to the best of our ability with the cleanest energy possible, and to reform the democratic process so that everyone gets the news and education they need to participate in the process!

Even though a large portion of the sources discussing Geoengineering or even weaponizing of weather seem like unreliable conspiracy theorists there are apparently a surprising number of people that think there is some degree of control of the weather that man can do, in addition to carbon dioxide contributing to climate change Russia the United States and china have all done research into "cloud seeding" which supposedly increases rain at least a little. If scientists working with the most powerful governments believe this is at least partially possible and they're researching it then it could have an impact on Climate Change and should be exposed. This is especially true when they refuse to implement the safest ways to protect the environment that isn't based on fringe science!

The following articles show that at least some degree of research is going on to study climate or weather control from sources that aren't fringe:

Wikipedia: Weather warfare

Wikipedia: Cloud seeding

Wikipedia: Operation Popeye

Does cloud seeding work? China takes credit for the storms now bringing a reprieve from severe drought, but is that claim valid? 02/19/2009

China creates 55 billion tons of artificial rain a year—and it plans to quintuple that 10/22/2013

Russia spends millions on 'cloud seeding' technology to ensure it doesn't rain on May Day public holiday 05/02/2016





I went into this more in the following previous articles which cite additional unsolved mysteries that might be explained if this turns out to be close to the truth:

107 Wonders of the Ancient World

Is “Prism” news? or is it ECHELON?

A Brief History of the Mormon Church

Why so few arrests for Crop Circles makers? Is there microwave evidence?

UFO Hypothesis with rational use of Occam's Razor

"God's Not Dead" But Is He Nice?

Multinationals Are Using Public For Research On Massive Scale

Yes Virginia There Is A Trump And Clinton Conspiracy but could it be related to a far-fetched Apocalypse Prophecy or a weak copy of it?

Wanted unsuspecting research subjects

Is Stanton Friedman working for the CIA to refute reverse engineering claims?

Deadly Monopolies and Medical Slavery?

Deadly Monopolies With Alien Technology?

UFO Hypothesis Far More Credible Than Catholic Claim of A "Miracle Of The Sun"





The following are some related articles and additional sources:

Steve Bannon, Unrepentant 08/16/2017 “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.” “Ethno-nationalism—it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.” “These guys are a collection of clowns,”

Bannon: 'The Trump Presidency That We Fought For, and Won, Is Over.' 08/18/2017 “On August 7th , I talked to [Chief of Staff John] Kelly and to the President, and I told them that my resignation would be effective the following Monday, on the 14th,”

Report: Steve Bannon Meets with Billionaire Mercer Family as He Prepares for #War 08/18/2017

‘Populist Hero’ Stephen K. Bannon Returns Home to Breitbart 08/18/2017

Steve Bannon’s Weird Journey From Biosphere Champion to Climate Denying Crank 03/08/2017

Life Under the Bubble 12/20/2010

The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency How Robert Mercer exploited America’s populist insurgency. By Jane Mayer 03/27/2017

Inside The Wealthy Family That Has Been Funding Steve Bannon's Plan For Years 03/22/2017

How Climate Change Saved Steve Bannon’s Job 06/02/2017

Al Gore’s petrodollars once again make him a chip off the old block 01/08/2013

Alex Jones’s Media Empire Is a Machine Built to Sell Snake-Oil Diet Supplements 05/04/2017

Climate Change Is Here. It’s Time to Talk About Geoengineering 07/20/2017

Geoengineering Is Not a Solution to Climate Change Using technofixes to tinker with global climate systems is an excuse to avoid unpopular but necessary measures to reduce carbon emissions 03/10/2015

Geoengineering SRM: Dark Clouds and Shady Solutions 06/26/2014

Steve Bannon to Speak at Zionist Organization of America Gala 08/2/2017

Natural Born Killers of the Planet

I was walking the dog a few weeks ago and she started sniffing at something which I didn’t recognize at first. After a closer look I realized what it was.

Dead Fish

Hundreds of them

They weren’t the ones in the picture above and most people wouldn’t consider what I came across as serious as many other disasters. These were just a large school of baby fish no more than two inches long, most of them were probably less then one inch. Presumably the nearby stream overflowed during a recent rain storm which wasn’t that bad and they went over with it but when the water drained back into the stream they were left high and dry.

What makes this seem relatively trivial compared to many other disasters may be what actually makes it important.

I doubt if many if anyone else even noticed them; they certainly weren’t reported in even the local newspaper; which is the point.

For every report that does make the newspaper how many are there that don’t? For every disaster that makes the national news how many do you think there are that only makes local papers?

Of course this isn’t just dead fish or other animals it involves an enormous amount of different environmental destruction of all kinds. Shortly after I saw the fish in the road which quickly disappeared, presumably they may have been eaten by the birds, without notice there was a fire that made relatively big news for a few days in New England but doesn’t seem to have drawn much national attention. This was a Back Bay electrical fire in Boston; they say the smoke isn’t toxic but that people should stand clear anyway as a precaution. Presumably they mean no more toxic than any smoke full of excessive amounts of carbon-dioxide which can kill you or lead to other health problems if you breathe enough of it.

A relatively quick Google search for dead fish in the road photos should be more than enough to confirm the fact that there is much more of these types of disasters than the vast majority of us think about. Seeing it makes it easier to think about but when it is relatively trivial it is also easier to quickly forget about it.

One of the things that came to mind was Mickey Knox saying “It's just murder, man. All of God's creatures do it, some form or another, I mean, you look in the forest... you got species killing other species. Our species is killin' all the species includin' the forest, and we just call it "industry", not murder.”

If you don’t think a fictional mass murder is the best source for this then you can consider Charles Manson’s words, "Everyone's God and if we don't wake up to that there's going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we're doing bad things to the atmosphere… The automobiles and fossil fuels are destroying the atmosphere and we won't have air to breathe.” “Charles Manson Breaks 20-Year Silence, Warns Of Global Warming” Huffington Post 
 
Mickey Knox and Charles Manson may not be the most credible sources arguing for the protection of the planet but it shouldn’t take much to realize that, at least on this issue, they are far closer to the truth than many so-called more reputable sources. If there is any doubt a relatively quick look through some Google photos of deforestation before and after; deforestation children; oil explosions; coal environmental concerns; and environmental pollution in general; not to mention many other terms you could come up with on your own if your inclined, should be enough to indicate that we have a much more serious problem than the corporate media is reporting on.

There is enough reliable information about how much we are destroying the planet available to anyone with access to the internet to indicate that we need much more action to repair the damage that has already been done and we need to start by stop adding to it at what might be record breaking rates. I don’t know this is increasing for certain due to the lack of reporting from the largest institutions with the most resources and the fact that they do more to distract from the issue than to address it but it is a real possibility and even if they aren’t destroying the planet at a record breaking pace they still aren’t repairing the damage at a rate that is required to begin to repair the damage.

The current political and Media establishment seems to have gone insane when it comes to addressing this issue and many others.

Another way we are attempting to destroy the planet at a possible record pace is of course the non-stop state of war that is being maintained and used as an excuse to prevent real coverage about many issues.
The following is another picture of a larger disaster of some sorts that I never even heard about on the national news last year when it happened; it wasn’t until I Googled for Dead fish that I found the photo that led me to the story. And there are certainly many more where that came from.

Both major parties have indicated that they don’t seem to be taking this seriously if they consider it at all. The Republican party has indicated that they seem to be unanimous in the opinion that Global Warming is a Hoax. The Democratic Party has attempted to portray themselves as the rational moderates on the issue by saying that we need what they call a fair balanced approach, between the protection of the environment and the economy, to the situation.

This is kind of like cutting a major artery and saying maybe we should put a band-aid on that!
I suppose compared to what the Republican’s are doing they might seem somewhat rational but that is only because the Republican’s are behaving in such an insane manner. The entire presidential field of candidates has indicated that they’re unanimous in the opinion that we should, “Drill baby drill,” or something along those lines.

The Democrats have often tried to debunk this argument by saying that Barack Obama is already drilling more than we have ever done before; which should raise serious doubts about their claims that they’re trying to increase alternative energy. They have tried to implement some renewable energy but they have often attempted to prioritize many other things that slow the repair of the environment down dramatically, or for all practical purposes they indicate that they aren’t serious about it at all. They indicate that they’re just as concerned about other issues like what they call “free trade” and “intellectual property” rights; this is generally presented in a manner that is clearly designed to protect the best interests of the campaign donors that happen to be trying to do something, not much, but something on the issue. Clearly collecting campaign contributions is much more important to him and any other candidate for higher office that the corporate media consider viable. (Some of this was covered more in “Thought control outweighs environmental protection.”) 
 
James Inhofe author of “The Greatest Hoax” has may be one of the GOP’s leading representatives from the oil companies along with Joe Barton who actually apologized to Tony Hayward and BP for the grilling they received about the enormous amount of damage he did. To the best of my knowledge he hasn’t apologized to the American people or the victims of any of the disasters that have occurred as a result of the oil company’s corruption. Perhaps he only apologizes to campaign contributors and the only reason Sadam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden haven’t received apologies is because they haven’t donated.

Apparently James Inhofe claims that only God can change the climate; this is a very common belief among many of the most devout religious people. The problem is that even if God exists he doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to preventing many disasters or getting his point across in a manner that people can understand and confirm. He didn’t prevent the Crusades, WWI or II, the attack on 9/11 and many other events. In fact if you look at the causes that preceded all these events you’ll find a major contribution on the part of many religious people that helped bring about these events and many more.

This doesn’t mean that the hypothetical God created these disasters but it does mean that even if he does exist that he couldn’t be bothered to speak up and tell people this isn’t what he intended for them to do in his name; which indicates that at best the hypothetical God gave his tacit support for all these disaster.
One of the more obvious cases where people allowed their beliefs based on faith or superstition involves the plagues where they somehow came to the conclusion that the cat’s were the ones that were causing it and they killed off thousands of them which of course had the opposite result because the cats were actually keeping the rats in check and it was the fleas that lived on the rats that were actually causing the plague. The point is that even if there is such a thing as God that the way problems are solved depends on people doing what is rational to solve them; and that doesn’t involve saving the economy by destroying the planet. It should be obvious that without the environment there can be no life or economy.

This isn’t something that most of these people that call themselves “pro-life” seem to understand. Sincere pro-life attitudes would hold protecting the environment and preventing wars as a high priority, since they cause much more problems than abortion ever could. But their beliefs aren’t developed by rational thinking instead they’re dictated to them from an early age when children are told what to believe by their parents and they’re taught to believe authority figures. I went into this in more detail in Dobson’s Indoctrination Machine where I also mentioned Dan Gilgoff’s chapter on how James Dobson convinced many of his followers to oppose environmental protection (at Talking Points Memo). Gilgoff clearly indicates how religious leaders and political leaders have colluded with politicians to convince the public to do what is in the best interest of the business leaders that donate to campaigns regardless of how much damage it does to the planet.

This is very similar to the way James Inhofe and Joe Barton seem to have been bought off by the oil companies. As indicated in Mitt Romney’s Mormon prophets and a previous post about the Mormon religion the Mormon’s and Mitt Romney can’t be trusted to do much better. In fact the Mormons have an enormous amount of stock in many media corporations, far more than any other religion; if they wanted to get out a positive message about how they would try to reverse the damage being done to the planet they could have and would have done so by now. Instead they adopt a belief system that is very similar to the Evangelicals on the subject and they’re counting on God to do it for them or they’re counting on this and other problems to help usher in the apocalypse that will allegedly precede the return of Jesus.

They don’t seem to ask why Jesus would need to allow all this destruction any more than the Evangelicals do.

The Branch Dravidians, which was a break off of the Seventh Day Adventists who were originally inspired by William Miller, didn’t ask that either nor did the followers of Jim Jones.

Things didn’t work out well for them.

All of these religions are apocalyptic and they seem to think it is a good idea to help bring about the disasters that they’ve been predicting.

Not everyone agrees.

It is hard to know whether or not these politicians or any of the business men actually believe their own propaganda. For all I know they may repeat it to themselves so often that many of them actually do believe it or they’re in denial or something. Regardless of whether or not they believe their own lies they’re clearly acting on it and they have an enormous amount of power can control over the Mass Media that is delivering messages to the public. If there are some people within the establishment that actually do want to reform the problem, judging by their actions, they don’t seem to be doing much if anything to do so. Perhaps, for all I know they’re giving into an enormous amount of peer pressure and if they don’t they find themselves out of a job and without access to the Mass Media. Whether this is the case or not it is clear that the establishment can’t be trusted to fix this problem.

The moderates like Rachel Maddow seem to argue that something’s need to be done but when it comes to actually implementing solutions they don’t have the power to do it and the things they want to do aren’t nearly good enough. Furthermore, judging by the way they present things on TV I often get the impression that they may want to usher in only enough change to prevent a total collapse without allowing more reform than they need too. The propaganda pieces that they continue to play on MSNBC is a clear indication that there is something to this; these are obvious attempts to implement partial reforms without actually educating the majority of the public on many of the most important issues. Instead these propaganda pieces are designed to dictate a different version of the truth to the public without allowing peer review from many of the most reliable sources and they’re trying to replace one distorted ideology with another.

The corporate media has been giving the public the impression that we have to chose from one of the two major parties or we’re wasting our vote.

They indicate that in order to be viable a candidate has to collect an enormous amount of money that can only come from the corporations.

The corporations don’t donate this kind of money if they don’t expect to get something in return; for money this big they expect something much bigger in return.

This is a crock of shit!!

If the public accepts this absurd premise it may already be too late.

There is no reason to accept this absurd premise although changing the system won’t be easy. There are already many alternatives to the two parties but they just don’t have the resources to get their views across to the majority of the public due to the politicians allowing the corporations to consolidate their control over the mass media and boycott everyone who doesn’t go along with the corporate agenda.

This is a result of several decisions including the Buckley v. Valeo case which equated money with speech; the Citizens United case which enabled corporate contributors to donate enormous amounts of money in secrecy; and the Media re-regulation that took place, mostly, in the late nineties that enabled a small number of corporations to control all the major media outlets and turn them into propaganda machines.

For one reason or another once they did this they turned them into propaganda machines that are so extreme that just about everyone can see that they have no credibility!

This means that the grass roots organizations may have a better chance with many of the people that haven’t been as well organized in the past. When you talk to a reasonable person it is hard to see how they could possibly not realize how incompetent or corrupt the media, government and the corporations have become. One of these parties that deserves a closer look should be The Green party. and their political candidates for many offices including the president which Jill Stein is running for. The Green Party isn’t very powerful here in the United States, presumably due to the enormous amount of influence that the corporations have over the government and the fact that this isn’t nearly as democratic as most of us would like to believe but that doesn’t mean that will remain that way.

In fact I suspect that due to the extremes that the current system has been going to it will be much easier to run many more successful candidates and help usher in some form of election reform that would enable the public to have control over the campaign process not the corporations.

The Green Party has been much more successful in other party of the world. However I suspect that in order to obtain that success they had to have more democratic systems than we have in the USA and I also suspect that they may have had to make coalitions with other parties including the corporate world. This may have led to a more moderate Green Party that does more than other parties but still doesn’t do nearly as much to solve many of these problems as we need to.

Whether this is true or not we need much more efforts to educate the public on the subject. This will have to involve media reform which enables many more people to have access to the Mass Media to get their points of views across. As it stand now only the most corrupt can access the mass media.

This will of course involve more than can be discussed in just one Blog and I’ve already discussed some of this in others. One of the things that should be done is to correct many of the misconceptions that the corporate indoctrination machine has been giving the public.

For starters one of the things that should be made clear is that organizations like PETA, Earth First and many others are not, as the Mass media has often implied, “Nuts!”

For a long time I actually thought that they had some good points but that some of the things that they do really are “Nuts;” somewhere along the line I tried to think of the things that made them “Nuts.” At first I couldn’t come up with anything but figured it must have slipped my mind and that there had to be something. Then I thought of an event that was somewhat recent at the time where they hired a model to pose half naked in a cage in Manchester NH with make up that looked like a big cat and a fake tail attached to her. This received a lot of attention at the time and it doesn’t seem to be a good way to get their point across but after thinking about it it is clear that the corporate media does the same thing much more often and they’re not considered “Nuts.” Sex has always been used to sell; if it is “Nuts” in one of these cases it should be the one that is more destructive and that is generally the corporate tactics. The only reason they seem more rational to many people is because they have control of the propaganda machine.

Given time I’m sure I could come up with similar things about Earth First; the closest things that comes to mind is the eco-terrorism that they’ve allegedly been involved in. But there is a problem; I have heard conflicting stories about that. The most common stories that I have heard are about spiking trees and property damage. I have also heard that it is actually other organizations that have been doing this.

Regardless of which is true there clearly hasn’t been nearly as much damage done to the public of property by the so-called eco-terrorists as there has been by the enormous volume of disasters. In fact these tactics actually work into the hands of the oil companies since they can use them as propaganda to indicate that the bigger problem is the terrorists and it creates a distraction.

The main reason that many people are inclined to think of these organization as being fringe or nuts is almost certainly because the corporations have overwhelming control over the media and they use it for propaganda purposes. The incident with the model in the cage must have been over a decade ago; once I started thinking about whether they actually were doing that would be “nuts” and how they were being portrayed in the Mass Media it became increasingly obvious that they were distorting their coverage and that it was almost certainly this propaganda that led me to think of them as being “nuts” for a long time.

If you want an oversimplified example consider a scenario where one person said it was a bad idea to destroy the planet and another said it was a good idea. Assume for the sake of argument that there was also something that led you to believe that they were both serious. Which one would you consider “nuts?”
Or a slight variation of that option where they both say that it is a bad idea but one of the person demonstrates overwhelmingly, with his actions that he doesn’t mean it.

Then who’s “nuts?”

That is the situation we have here on a much larger scale with many additional contributing factors. However, some things are simple enough that should enable you to understand that despite all the spin the environmentalists are right unless for some reason some people simply don’t want to understand or they have limited thinking skills and are inclined to go along with the crowd.

The corporations have been playing an enormous amount of public relations pieces on TV and there have been few if any from sincere environmental groups. The news coverage that is provided by the same people that collect an enormous amount of money from these advertisers do little if anything to question these propaganda pieces. This essentially means that the vast majority of environmental “education” that the public is receiving is from the companies that are destroying the environment.

This isn’t education; it’s indoctrination!

One of the most common of these ads are some by Iris Cross who works for BP
.

She almost certainly didn’t say something like the following; it certainly wasn’t in any ad that I saw.

Hi I’m Iris Cross public relations spokes person for BP: I would like to assure you that BP is going to do every thing they can to repair the damage that they have done; or at least they’ll spend an enormous amount of money on public relations to convince you to believe this. They’ve spent money hiring public relations experts that tell them which tactics are most effective when it comes to convincing the public they're repairing the damage done whether they are or not.

There will of course be some payments which we will highlight; others who aren’t satisfied with their payments will of course not be featured in our ads and we will be much less likely to buy these ads from news outlets that give them an opportunity to speak. We would also appreciate it if you decline to pay to much attention to the small print that uses the phrase “all legitimate costs” when I smile and say that were making things right by repairing the damage and funding our own approved environmental studies.

Our public relations specialists have informed us that if we come up with simple phrases like “I was born here, I'm still here and so is BP.” And we say it with a smile we can fool "the small people," as Carl-Henric Svanberg would say. Our public relations experts have let us know that most people will fall in line if you just flirt and appear friendly with them like me and Melody Stacey who is also doing public relations for Exxon Mobil.

Melody is part of the sponsorship for schools that adopt the appropriate ideology. As Susan Linn wrote "In-school advertising began escalating in earnest in 1990. It now includes (but isn’t limited to) corporate-sponsored newscasts, field trips, classroom materials, vending machines, gymnasiums, walls, and whole buildings. Have you visited your child’s school lately? Perhaps she’s learning about energy production and consumption through the lens of companies like Exxon Mobil or professional associations like the American Coal Foundation (“Unlocking Coal’s Potential through Education”).” (Susan Linn "Consuming Kids" 2004 p.75-6)

This in school advertising and other sponsorship programs for schools are intended to ensure that they teach the approved environmental studies. This way you can think of us as the great protectors of the environment.

In fact we’ve been at this for quite a while; in fact long before we had the BP disaster in the Gulf we were promoting the idea that BP stood for “Beyond Petroleum” which referred to the clean energy that we intend to promote… some day when it becomes profitable…maybe.

It isn’t just the public relations that is trying to ensure that we make the maximum amount of profits for the corporations regardless of what it does to the planet many powerful institutions, including the World Bank, are also doing what they can to ensure this. In 1991 Lawrence Summers was chief economist for the World Bank when he wrote the following.

'Dirty' Industries: Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]? I can think of three reasons:

1) The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.

2) The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. Only the lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport, electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent world welfare enhancing trade in air pollution and waste.

3) The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is is 200 per thousand. Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is about visibility impairing particulates. These discharges may have very little direct health impact. Clearly trade in goods that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a non-tradable.

The problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in LDCs (intrinsic rights to certain goods, moral reasons, social concerns, lack of adequate markets, etc.) could be turned around and used more or less effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalization. Whirled Bank.org

After this memo was leaked one of the arguments that was made to defend it was that he was throwing it out for discussion implying that the purpose was to prevent it from happening. This might sound good if there was follow up along those lines but instead they continued to put into practice the policy that he described in the memo. It won’t take much to search the internet to find an enormous amount of damage being done to the planet in Less Developed Countries while the environmental protection improves for a small percentage of the public including those in the most privileged part of the US. There are still many part of the US that are having more than their share of environmental destruction and they are of course the areas where people are the poorest and least educated and politically involved.

The following Photo is just a small sample of the Damage being done too many parts of the world and the children without political power who live there.

This is in Vietnam where the forest has been burnt by slash and burn agriculturalists who will cultivate crops for a few years before allowing the forest to grow again. This is part of the desperate tactics that many poor people are still forced to use due to the fact that they have little or no resources. This is of course because of the fact that they never fully recovered from the enormous amount of damage that was done during the Vietnam war which was based on lies. They told us that we were going there to defend democracy but the US was fighting against the side with much more popular support from the local people; while propping up generals that had no popular support.

They were actually fighting to suppress democracy not defend it. And they also did an enormous amount of environmental damage during the war which was never repaired. Since then Nike has become the leading employer in Vietnam which is riddled with complaints about sweat shop conditions (PDF file) some of which have environmental implications.

The United States is still unwilling to acknowledge the full implications of that war and they continue to portray the people who fought the war as “war heroes” without acknowledging the fact that it was based on lies or considering the possibility that the real war heroes were the ones that stood up to the authorities that ordered them to kill innocent people. Both John Kerry and John McCain have been portrayed as the good guys who normalized ties with Vietnam and enabled Nike to create these sweat shops. They continue to use a propaganda version of this war that blatantly contradicts the more credible one found in many libraries and the Pentagon Papers.

The way we’re treating the environment is kind of like a classic Steve Martin sketch where he talks about applying leeches to bleed the sick, or dunking witches in vats of oil -- Theodoric would pause for a sudden blinding insight, and question whether we need a new, enlightened approach -- whether due process of law, or the scientific method, or the rule of reason. And after musing poetically about the possibilities of the future, he'd admit: "Naaah."

I got news for some people; this was supposed to be a joke to demonstrate how stupid that approach was and yet we’re doing it anyway.

And we’re creating an enormous amount of propaganda and pseudo-scientific studies to prove the claims of the oil companies that enables them to make the most short term profits at the expense of the planet.

The link on the picture leads to an article to go directly to easier to read blow up of the picture click here.

“It's just murder, man. All of God's creatures do it, some form or another, I mean, you look in the forest... you got species killing other species. Our species is killin' all the species includin' the forest, and we just call it "industry", not murder.”

When it comes to being a Natural Born Killer Mickey Knox and Charles Manson can’t hold a candle to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama, James Inhofe, Joe Barton, Tony Hayward, James Dobson, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Lawrence Summers, John Kerry, John McCain and many others who use more subtle ways to indirectly kill millions through environmental damage and complicated institutions that maintain some degree of plausible deniability. These people don’t go to jail for their crimes nor is it even considered a crime due to the fact that they have influence with the government that makes the laws; instead they live in nice houses often mansions or yachts bought with the proceeds from the products sold at the expense of the planet and everyone else living on it without political power. Even Iris Cross and Melody Stacey should know that what they’re doing involves covering up for the destruction of the planet and they’re enabling it for what might appear to them as a public good or a paycheck.

(For more information on Blog see Blog description and table of context for most older posts.)

The following are the original replies when this was first posted on Open Salon.

It is sad ...

rated Rolling March 22, 2012 01:49 PM

Fantastic piece.

Myriad March 22, 2012 06:34 PM

[r][r][r][r][r][r] ... you deserve these and so many more. Zachd you are on fire!! This is brilliant and takes on so much with such fantastic insights! I began to copy stuff on one issue to put in comment and then got caught up on the next and let go of the first. I have to come back and reread. The walking the dog stuff and dead fish, what an intro. And with our amoral media ... you can bet that things don't make it to the teebee screen until they is such DESPERATION and the coverups aren't working, but we all know how insane things have INSANE CONDITIONS to even begin to crack the coverup process of craven media and political denial and miminization. I love love love the BP subtext!!!! Green party mention is terriff!!!! I have to read this again and I hope the length of this doesn't discourage your readers. YOU SO ROCK, ZACHD!!!!!! bravo. THIS SHOULD BE PUT ON THE COVER FOR THE YEAR!!! best, libby (I'll be back. This deserves more than one readthru!) (Steve Martin's ... Naaaaaa!!!! you nail it!!!)

libbyliberalnyc March 22, 2012 06:59 PM

Great post. You're right. Voting for president solves nothing. I am really pleased to see so many local communities successfully enacting municipal ordinances stipulating that residents - and the environment - have more rights than corporations.

Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall March 22, 2012 09:23 PM

Libby, it clearly should be better to take notice of this long before one of these post apocalypse movies like Mad Max gets any closer to the truth than they already are. The solution to these problems won’t be like anything you see in the movies or on TV right now. Real solutions involve tedious things like thinking things through and implementing the small details in the most effective way possible.

Stuart, voting for president alone clearly solves nothing but if it is combined with other methods to keep him accountable and ensure that the candidates are all required to lay out their plans before being elected and keep their promises after then it could be a big part of the solution. That doesn’t mean that the current system is the best; it might be better to have a different set of representatives or to rely more heavily on ballot questions when possible; and of course there will be additional follow up required; but I think there is opportunity for major improvements.

Thanks Myriad, Rolling etal

zacherydtaylor March 23, 2012 10:37 AM

Jesus Christ would be mortified as I am here and now...

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Algis Kemezys March 25, 2012 05:26 AM