This is a book site, which hopefully will be published soon. It's being offered here freely for the time being.
Due to temporary difficulties the photos cited below will not appear. The book is being updated with coverage
of the 2012 and 2014 elections
Ken Hildebrandt - February 17, 2013, March 10, 2015 - realitybeknown@aol.com
ELECTION SPOILERS
Introduction
“We live entangled in webs of endless deceit,
in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried.”
- Noam Chomsky
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
- Bertrand Russell, 20th century philosopher
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over again
for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
- President George W. Bush
WHATEVER ITS ORIGINAL SOURCE IS, our five billion year old solar system has given birth to us all, no doubt. In reality we share this moment of time together on this planet and have the ability to communicate worldwide like never before in history.
Recalling that the Sumerians were able to transmit thought via writing millennia ago, cannot we at the height of the Information Age spread censored critical news to enough to matter in time? If you keep reading you’ll soon see who your worst enemies are and how you can legally, morally, and effectively defend yourself and everyone else you care about against them. The widely held belief that people are basically divided into two political camps, “conservative” or “liberal,” is but a media manufactured distortion of reality likely developed simply to divide the people amongst themselves. I’m not claiming neither has its gripes, just that they are both getting royally scammed to such a point the very survival of our species is at stake right now. A rational person would think this would predominate discussion. Neither side of these media-presented illusions can reasonably be considered conservative nor liberal, as has been presented repetitively by multiple sources throughout this manuscript, which are, for the most part, backed by video, government statistics and/or mainstream articles which have been, nearly without exception, kept out of the limelight and only given scant and/or easily discoverable misleading coverage.
Possibilities vs. Impossibilities
Surely most will agree that no matter what anyone does, the earth will still be spinning around the sun, making a complete revolution in just over 365 days. That much won’t change. What might change is how we treat the problem of our ailing atmosphere, which we as humans need not be harming, though we clearly are, thus putting at considerable risk the continued survival of our very species within this century.* That just doesn’t make sense, does it? It happens because most people don’t know a handful or so of irrefutable truths, and they vote in disfavor of themselves and their world by choosing those whose interests lie in said gluttonies of a disproportionate few over the survival of humankind. The Information Age could very well be called The Age of Ignorance, which, I’m hoping, with your help, will soon come to a close. It’s time to stop complaining about our society and become honorable participants in its governing at the highest of levels. If you, along with others including me, put forth the effort to inform others, and ask them to ask others to do the same, we have a chance of getting out of this mess. Otherwise, we don’t.
Each of us could very well be the deciding factor. Please think about that.
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, as reported in the Toronto Star, though originating from London and available now at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
The United Nations is in the United States, so how come we have to find out paramount concerns such as the above via Canada and England? At least with the Internet it’s easy to do. Sites like commondreams.org (above) have more information than most, bringing light to a variety of domestic and worldwide sources. I don’t miss going there at least once in awhile. Does that mean I buy everything they have posted? Of course not. Considering the wide variety of issues they discuss, I doubt their editors do either. The only reason anyone can “buy” what’s presented here is because I stick mostly to but a handful of topics, and ask the reader to check it out for herself or himself. What’s here is elementary, profound, censored, and luckily also easily verifiable.
Our best chance lies in enough getting informed in time, otherwise we can expect a downward spiral in several life impacting ways.
For those with short attention spans, consider reading just the Introduction and the Conclusion of this book, and then pick and choose what you find of interest in between, which consists mostly of the evidence supporting what’s written at the beginning and end. I don’t want anyone to just take my word for anything. There are quotes at every chapter’s beginning, and enough to keep most interested I’m hoping, especially since what’s in this book is about profound censored news at your expense. It’s the kind of book one can skip around while reading. Everything here is easy to understand and most is alarming. These are fixable political problems, so long as each reasonable person out there does what he or she can in a quick decisive vote in favor of themselves, and by informing as many as possible, asking them to ask others to do likewise. Informing others is the key, so if for one reason or another you can’t vote yourself, don’t worry about it. Either you’ll let others know what’s going on, or what’s going on will continue to get worse at everyone's expense. Old myths die hard, though if you take your life seriously as well as the lives of those around you, you’ll do what you can, I’m hoping. If enough try, things will change.
Our leaders, nearly without exception, at the congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial, vice presidential and presidential levels, clearly stand against us. An opinion is an opinion, and facts are facts, and the fact is that our elected leaders are almost exclusively known-proven by their actions-supporters of unnecessary and unjust suffering, misery and death, all to benefit the criminal gluttony of a disproportionate few.
A disproportionate few are misguiding most. Their immorality and lack of concern for you and your loved ones is unfathomable, especially when they smile in your face on television. Don’t take my word for it. All I’m asking is for you take a look at the evidence. No research project required here, just a brief review of one that’s already been done.
A handful of media-censored topics are primarily discussed in the pages that follow, those being:
1) The media’s open distortion of elections;
2) The mass caging of known innocents at taxpayers' and children’s expense, while leaving more real criminals at large in society as a result;
3) The royal tax scam;
4) We could be growing our own oil;
and...
5) The way out of this mess, should enough of us make the effort of our lives as if our lives depended on it-as is surely the case-and as if the fate of humankind was in our hands, as it is.
Is there something we can do now?
Yes, become informed regarding some basics and tell others. Like a chain letter the news can spread to such a point that someone in a position of power, whether or not he or she has proclaimed to be for “change,” will be pressured to act humanely as opposed to the media's false projection that he or she already is so acting.
Noam Chomsky is pictured below on October 25, 2002, at the conclusion of speaking with Ken and Elaine, regarding our findings exposing media-censored elections. The words below are what Noam said to us on camera upon leaving.
“Terrific. You bring it to others.”
- Noam Chomsky
Chapter 1
Telling it Like it Is
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
- George Orwell
Dr. Ken’s speech for Presidential candidate Ralph Nader at the University of Texas on April 30, 2004
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Dr. Ken Hildebrandt is the name. (The moment I was handed the microphone, the Twelve O’clock bell started going off at the top of the tower just behind me.)
Man who introduced Ken by another name completely: That’s even better.
Ken: I want to turn this thing around a little bit and just talk about some basic things, some basic reality, which (most) people are not aware of. This campaign coming up is about, basically, life or death if you want to look at it. A couple years ago a thousand scientists submitted a report to the U.N. saying that basically our environment is at such a point that we need to turn it around now or we’re in dire straits.* How come that wasn’t on the front page of the news? In fact it was hardly even reported here in the United States. Now isn’t that, (pointing up to the sky), that we’re all breathing, don’t we all need to be concerned about that?
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, as reported in the Toronto Star, though originating from London and available now at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
Well, in this upcoming presidential election, we can choose a man who had more executions than any governor in the history of the United States, or we can choose a man who’s not much better than him, or we can choose a man who is responsible for our cars having seat belts and air bags. I mean this is so cut and dried.
If you were going to choose a doctor... OK, if you were going to choose a doctor, which doctor of three you were presented with would you pick? Would you pick a doctor who had lost many many patients, and really shown open contempt for 90% of them? Or another doctor who was the same, but yet these doctors were portrayed by the TV, the news, and all the other sources. Yet you found out from your friend with this life-threatening illness you had, that there was an alternative of somebody who had saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Now who would you pick? I mean, this whole thing about Nader being a spoiler is a media-manufactured myth.
The United States, the Land of Liberty, has more incarcerates per capita than any civilization on planet Earth…
Check it out yourself, there were three quarters of a million* (a rough estimate, rounding to the nearest quarter of a million, but over 700,000) of our own people who were cuffed and caged last year for possession of a plant, leaving by default more pedophiles, rapists, murderers, extortionists, you name it, more criminals at large…
* See, http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-01-10.html
Now, that’s (pointing toward the sky) endangered, A); B), we have more incarcerates than anyone else, and C), our top crime is a non-crime...
You know, if you can’t refute what I’m saying, just look at what I’m saying, because the stuff that I’m talking about is definitely making you look at your world like this, (topsy-turvy gesture with arm). But let it soak in, and if it feels right to you and you want to do something about it, then get these signatures so we can vote for a viable candidate... I mean, (do) you think the mass media is going to portray the guy who’s responsible for seat belts and air bags? You think they’re going to give him fair time? Why do you think Nader was eliminated from the debates last time? Because he’s a rational candidate. Would’ve won hand’s down. Oh jeez... ah... do you want this guy who supports death, misery, and suffering of Americans, or do you want this guy who stands for death, suffering and misery of Americans, or do you want this guy who stands for Americans and has for four decades? It’s time to bury the myth about him being a spoiler...
We just invaded another country because of what they are supposedly doing to their citizens (and their manufactured threat against others too of course). Meanwhile, we have 13-million hungry kids today, here, and we just heard back from a probe from Mars! Now that’s insane. Can’t you see that? Is there any excuse for that? (President) Wilson... saw that we could eradicate poverty by the end of the century.
And yet... (a heckler interrupts) Hey... are 13-million hungry kids real to you? You know? I hope so. No, I’m not going to back off... I mean, you’re supporting death and suffering and you’re telling me to back off, and you’re for Christ? ...Would Christ have voted for one or two candidates who was for caging of innocent Americans for no reason? Jeez.
Alright, now let’s talk about the tax structure. Alright, when I was a kid a man worked in a hardware store in the fishing department and he raised his whole family, and his wife didn’t have to work outside the home. It should have gotten easier in the last four decades but it got worse, in spite of four decades of technological advancement. Now why is that? Well, (in no small part), because the rich in the year 1960 were taxed 91% on their most superfluous of income. Sounds like a lot but it takes other people to make that money. Now the rich are taxed 35% with earnings to infinity. So, if you look at the billionaire stats last year, Mr. Gates and the Wal-Mart crew (not referring to the workers of course), they made more money last year. What a surprise?
The superfluities of a few over the necessities of the many. Bottom line is, in the Presidency, the House, and the Senate we don’t have one person who doesn’t stand for unnecessary human suffering and pain and unnecessary American suffering and pain. I was a physician for 13 years and... I either got them better or I didn’t. I was a manual medicine physician, my hands and my brain, that was it. I practiced in New Jersey and was never sued, which is almost a miracle. But the point is, is that, we need to start looking at these as real life and death issues. We’re talking about caging our own people for no reason, leaving by default more criminals... The tax structure I talked about how it was 91%... in the year 1960. The other day Nader said, he said, 'Listen, we’ll revert it back to what it was in the 60’s and the deficit is gone, instantly.' Oh jeez, he’s the spoiler if he was given a fair shot... I mean he wants to revert (it) back. We don’t need 13-million hungry kids everyday...
Let me tell you the last thing. We could be growing our own oil. Hemp oil ran cars; it’s decades-old technology... Anyone (who) has a problem with anything I’ve said about cannabis or hemp can go to JackHerer.com and refute it with Jack... (that shuts them up real fast), you know, because he’s got a $100,000 challenge. The bottom line is, we could be growing our own oil...
So, we got the most addicting substance known to man supporting our president’s campaigns, and we got the top crime being a non-crime. Now, both Kerry and Bush stand for that... and the tax structure, remember which... is all the way down to 35%... Those issues alone will really show you where you’re at...
So, I’m jumping up and down, running out of, not running out of steam, it’s just that this is not only about me. You know, that’s our atmosphere, (pointing up toward the sky). It could be way better for us. I’ve shown you that in a short period of time. That all we have to do when we go to vote... we could shoot that way, that way, or that way. You know, just because the elite display the other two candidates, you got to be kind of foolish to pick them...
Here we are, to give you perspective, (holding up a poster of the earth rotating around the sun with one division marked for each of the 365 days), spinning through space, living under delusion at the height of the Information Age, while people who claim they’re followers of the Prince of Peace heckle what I’m talking about, with millions of people being hungry, little innocent children right here.* That’s what it is. For those of you who want to do something about it... go to votenader.org, and get these signatures. You need 64 thousand signatures. Get other people to get signatures, and let’s get him on...**
* “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
– Joseph Stalin
** Note: Nader made it on 34 state ballots and DC in 2004. In 2008, he made it on 45 states and DC, as well as a write-in for four other states.
Last time around, (meaning Election 2000) my wife (Elaine) ...she called... the head of a major U.S. newspaper and he said that he would post, he would actually print my editorial, six sentences long, until he saw it, and then he even called her back, and he denied that he got it, but he wouldn’t print it. And yet three days later (an estimate), he found front page space to compare Bush and Gore to the makes of automobiles...*
* Note: This was the key point for me to realize that we the people could not ever expect the elite-owned-and-operated media to print the truth regarding paramount hidden concerns, especially regarding elections, but we now had the tool of the Internet to overcome the media myths and thus fight the liars who have convinced the lion to submit to the lamb, at the expense of millions and now to the point of risking the ability for our species to continue to survive.
I’m in this because we’re all in this together. I mean we’re all endangered right now. Our atmosphere is heating up while (proclaimed) followers of the Prince of Peace are gabbing about whatever. Sorry, I don’t mean to criticize anyone but it’s just that we’re all in this together. It’s like Flight 93 has been hijacked, and I’m up here bashing on the cockpit door. We both got arrested, incarcerated in the Land of Liberty for doing this, and other people are playing pinochle and they’ve got the nerve to criticize or just chat about nonsense, while we’re trying to get through the cockpit door... So, if you want to do something constructive... (tell others).
Chapter 2
The Greatest Weapon:
The Mind of the Oppressed
“The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
- Steve Biko
The following commentary by the author was published on Znet interActive in early October 2000.
Observations of a Concerned Citizen
I am absolutely appalled that not only was Ralph Nader not allowed to participate in the first presidential debate, but was blocked by the police Gestapo outside when he arrived with a valid ticket to sit in the viewing audience. This truly represents just how far our democracy has deteriorated. It is reminiscent of the tyranny that we were all taught happened in communist countries, which in turn made us abhor those political entities. How can anyone of sane mind still feel that we are free as Americans under these conditions? A presidential debate committee that can ignore a candidate, who has received nearly 100,000 signatures in an online petition for his inclusion, is far from just and representative of the people. We are talking about a decision about who is going to get the most important job in America. I think, we, as citizens, deserve more than having to pick between "the least of the worst," as Mr. Nader has rightfully termed our bipartisan choices. It must be borne in mind that the arbitrary 15% inclusionary rule, was not present when the debates were run by the League of Women Voters and has only been present for eleven years. Besides that, recent polls have indicated that the majority of Americans would like to see Ralph Nader in the debates. If diverse opinions are not allowed, then why have a debate at all? If Vice President Al Gore is seriously concerned about the plight of middle class Americans and the environment, then how can he support the WTO, which clearly does not? You won't get an answer to that question from a Bush-Gore debate because both support the WTO. Nader does not, and don't we as Americans deserve to hear this topic discussed? After all, the protests in Seattle last year over this issue were the largest seen in America since the Vietnam War days. I would like to hear the opinion of this issue from a man that has done more as private citizen for the benefit of the people in this country than both Bush and Gore have done while holding public office. Ralph Nader is a man who has always stood for the people over big business, which is the antithesis of the Republican and Democratic candidates, both of whom have obtained wealth via corporate welfare from the tax-paying public. If we allow ourselves to be dominated by the interests of the wealthy to such an extent that we are not even given a fair chance of choosing a president, then we can no longer claim that we live in anything even remotely resembling a democracy.
End of first 2000 commentary
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Like it or not, we’re all in this together and the media are harming all, even those who work within same, though they don’t realize this is the case obviously enough. All are in the same predicament, dependent upon the same atmosphere for survival, and whether the media accurately portray our mutual situation or not, reality remains reality. Those of us living in the U.S. live in the most influential and powerful nation in the world, and in spite of it being the height of the Information Age, we are allowing ourselves to be deluded to such a point the continued survival of humankind is at stake within this very century, all to satisfy the murderous greed of a disproportionate few, thanks to those who misguide the mass media and thus the majority of Americans, in spite of the Internet’s ability to overcome the media.
It’s hard to believe that the majority of Americans would allow themselves “…to be deluded and manipulated by the system,”* to use the words of the most quoted living author, Professor Noam Chomsky, who’s all but completely censored by the U.S. corporate media giants, most notably in my view the major television networks, since televised footage gains more attention than print news** and is arguably a stronger medium to transmit information, yet that’s clearly the case. Most are duped, big time.
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
** See, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/stats.html
Professor Chomsky has been described in the New York Times as being, “... arguably the most important intellectual alive,”* and as stated he is the most quoted living author,** so why do you suppose he’s not invited as a guest on any of these numerous television political talk shows we have nowadays on the major networks?
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
** See, CHOMSKY FOR BEGINNERS, by David Cogswell, page 1
As a matter of fact, Professor Chomsky has lambasted the New York Times* for burying important information, one example being East Timor in the late 1970s, where a slaughter of innocent human beings occurred, yet received very little coverage, and the coverage it did receive was primarily from the view of the aggressors. So, it wasn’t like this comment about him being, “...arguably the most important intellectual alive,” was put on their front page. It was in what the Professor referred to as a “publisher's blurb,” and he further stated that “...and you always got to watch those things. Because if you go back to the original you’ll find that that sentence is there, this is in the New York Times, but the next sentence is; 'Since that's the case, how can he write such terrible things about American foreign policy?' (laughs, Chomsky and audience) And they never quote that part. But in fact if it wasn’t for that second sentence I would begin to think that I’m doing something wrong, and I’m not joking about that.”
* Discussed in the second October 2000 commentary, The Daily Paper - No Longer an Essential News Source
I usually stick with the fact that in spite of the U.S. corporate media strongly censoring him he’s still the most quoted living author. That’s a fact. Don’t you think he ought to at least be heard?
Chomsky tells people there’s no reason they should “believe” anything he says, and I echo those sentiments wholeheartedly. All I’m asking is for people to consider what’s presented here, especially in relation to elections, unknown tax facts, and a war against innocent people that the citizens have sponsored, and for each person to decide what he or she feels is right in relation to same in terms of who they vote for and/or encourage others to vote for in our high office elections. The media have and are continuing to censor significant realities that impact your life. Everything here is elementary. It’s merely hidden. Cannot the Internet help bring it into plain view for enough to see to matter in time? Suffice it to say one way or another we're all making history right now. In time we’ll find out and one way or another whether we made it or not, won’t we?
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The Daily Paper - No Longer an Essential News Source
by Dr. Ken Hildebrandt
(published on ZNet on or before October 20, 2000)
At the end of last year Johann Gutenberg was the first one listed among "The Most Important People of the Millennium" by TIME Magazine, for his invention of the printing press in the 15th century. This was likely a good call because his invention enabled mass communication for the first time in history. Unfortunately for most people however, the power of the press fell into too few hands and enabled the greedy to write history as they saw fit for their own gains. As the population of the planet continued to grow, so did the amount of human suffering therein as a consequence. The Prosperous Few and The Restless Many, a book title by the great linguist Noam Chomsky, is a concise way of stating the resultant status quo. It takes only one example to clearly illustrate just how immoral those in power became, that being of the genocide that occurred in East Timor, in the late 1970s.
Although the United States supplied 90% of the arms used by Indonesia to slaughter an estimated 200,000 innocent human beings, there was virtually no awareness of the issue at all in the land of justice and freedom. The New York Times, who boast their contents to contain "All the News, That's Fit to Print," didn't report the story at all in the peak killing year of 1979. No news, no outcry, was unfortunately the fate for the East Timorese, whose women were sent back to the barracks of the Indonesian soldiers for their "use."
It must also be clearly stated that almost all of this was during the Jimmy Carter era, the so called, "man of integrity" being personally responsible himself for vast amounts of human suffering and death. This truly illustrates how "elementary truths" are easily withheld from the people and additionally that the controlling powers of The New York Times, along with the rest of the US media actually had "complicity in genocide in this case," as Chomsky pointed out. All of this occurred, yet just last year when Timor atrocities were covered in the American press, the U.S. was depicted as benevolent death camp liberators, a status both of our top two presidential candidates still maintain. It is an outrage that this kind of lying can go unchecked. We should be sending vast amounts of aid to that country, along with an open apology, for what was done to them. How do you think those who survived in Timor look at our country, with our leading two presidential contenders asserting they are decent human beings worthy of such a high office? I would assume that they would think we're pretty simple-minded, immoral, or both.
We must put an end to this kind of nonsensical behavior, getting our information from such consistently unreliable and inaccurate sources when we no longer need to due to the Internet. Associated Press wires are available as they happen from a variety of sources on the net, as are non-corporate sponsored news websites that help prevent truly newsworthy material from slipping through the cracks. We don't need the newspapers anymore, at least not to get our news. All we have to do is spread the word, completely boycott these most undeserving institutions, and devise ways to bring computer access and skills to those who don't have them. There are many people who are working hard to remove the barriers that still exist in bringing the truth to the people in our country. The emancipation has begun, so let's enjoy it!
End of second 2000 commentary
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Below: TIME magazine web post by the author as reposted on Znet interActive in October of 2000 under the category of “IRAQI EMBARGO,” though it also deals with the Drug War.
Of note, to clarify what’s stated in the introductory “NOTE,” the last I had checked just prior to writing was that out of over a million respondents, Mr. Nader had received 58.77% of the votes in the referred online TIME magazine poll.
At Children's Expense!
NOTE: The following was originally an e-mail in response to posted message at TIME.com, to one, Dave, who I assume was the moderator. I have a feeling there's more than one person over there who regrets they had this online election thing, in retrospect. I mean, one could interpret these findings as evidence that even conservatives would vote for Nader over Bush and Gore combined, if they gave moderate effort at becoming informed. Dave concluded his statement about people demonizing the corporate candidates with a quote from Charlie Brown, "Good Grief!"
“Good grief!” Dave, come out of the Peanuts cartoon and get with reality. Your Mom &/or Dad were unlikely to have been sent to jail for years during your childhood, due to an unjust drug war that singled them out for the color of their skin. The prison population in the United States has grown 600% in the last 20 years, Dave. The rich are now floating bonds to build more prisons and capitalize on the suffering of others by depriving them of freedom for years of their lives. It kind of sounds like slavery to me, Dave. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that major corporations have discovered that they can hire the inmates at slave labor wages because they are not entitled to the same rights as citizens. I'm talking about 50 cents an hour, right here at home, without setting up operations overseas. Solutions to the problems for the rich abound in our land of opportunity. Did anyone in power bother to think about the inmates' children, Dave? Do they deserve to be so insufficiently supported during their upbringing? What did they do to deserve this punishment, Dave? Haven't you thought about these issues, or don't they concern you because it's not your pain? They're dehumanizing children, Dave, little innocent children! The corporations involved in these affairs are nothing less than greed-motivated, serial-child-abuse offenders. They steal children's childhoods for money, Dave. Think about it, serial-child-abusers build prisons for people who use seemingly arbitrarily chosen substance illegalities. After all, the most destructive drug, alcohol, and the most addicting, nicotine, are both legal. The others are not though, with extreme human consequences of pain and suffering. Those are not just words Dave, I'm talking about real pain and real suffering. Suffering meted out to satisfy the superfluous desires of the wealthy. If they were sent to rehabs it would be far more effective than prisons in every way, including cost, according to UNICEF and other legitimate studies on the issue. Giving children more potential for happiness would actually cost us less money. Rich people would be the only losers here. In a just society, they would be put in their own prisons, for their sickening crimes against humanity. “Good” grief? No way! There is no such thing as “good” grief, Dave.
I didn't have to go through these kind of things in my childhood to understand and care about what's going on. Does it not violate your internal sense of justice that hurting children has not only been in essence legalized, but it is a profitable enterprise as well? The evidence is widely available, albeit sparingly in your publication, that clearly demonizes the top two contenders. You so hypocritically demand the non-use of offensive language at your site so as to not disturb the more fortunate families, while you simultaneously endorse campaigns that actually starve children to death. I'm claiming that you endorse these immoral endeavors because you have attempted to defend them from being called the names that best suit supporters of these policies.
While we're on the topic of how politics affect children, let's look at the embargo against Iraq that kills between 4 and 5 thousand children a month via starvation and malnutrition. Elementary logic clearly discloses two guilty parties here, in that if either would stop its torturous behavior, the children would be saved from starvation, literally from starvation! Wake up, please, anyone who doesn't get that! Nazi Germany was involved in the starvation of innocent people. This policy, likewise, results in the starvation of innocent people. If the end product is the slow death of starvation, to anyone, notwithstanding innocent children, it is not a moral option for us. It is clearly wrong. The Iraqi embargo has killed about a million children under the age of Elian, since it began nearly a decade ago. Please explain the difference between each one of those children and Elian, Dave. Both Bush and Gore boast of their commitment to punish Saddam, killing the women and children in the country that he dominates. How grotesquely absurd and simpleminded can human's become? This embargo is nothing other than a sustained act of the worst form of terrorism known to man, starvation. Bush and Gore are demonized because they deserve to be. I assume that you rationalize the starving to death of children, because if you didn't, you wouldn't retort with such nonsense to such truly justified descriptions of our leading two candidates.
Why don't you come to Harlem with me someday, or go out in the middle of the night with me and talk to some homeless people? I meet a lot of homeless people who are confined to wheelchairs, Dave. Let's go talk to them together, and maybe the time will come when we can both tell them that we're fighting the system that has allowed their situation to reach this level of despair. The only way you're still a jerk is if you continue to act like one, Dave, and anyone else for that matter. So jump on board and start putting some real use to your life on this planet and stop denying the reality of other breathing human being's pain! The invite is sincere, you have my e-mail address and I'd love to show you why those two examples of “personified ineptitude” who are running for president deserve to be demonized in a big way. See for yourself why they have been demonized, by obtaining easily found examples of real people, Dave, who have been victimized by the perverse actions that these two incompetent candidates wholeheartedly support. I'll likely publish this letter to you in an open format and I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.
End of third 2000 commentary
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Chapter 3
Confirming Reality using the Internet
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
THANKS TO THE INTERNET, ONE CAN EASILY CONFIRM REALITY, especially regarding basic, yet profound concerns, such as the platforms and histories of all the candidates who are ballot qualified in US Federal elections, meaning those running and able to win presidential (2 people, one president and one vice president), congressional (435 people, one member of congress to represent each voting district), and senate seats (100 people, two senators per state), for a grand total of 537 people, who basically run the show, or a big part of it anyway.
These people not only guide the direction of over 300 million Americans, but being the leaders of the dominant nation on Planet Earth, and the clear military leader, 'admittedly' spending nearly half the rest of the entire world combined, in addition to environmental and atmospheric dangers that are now threatening all life on earth, one would think choosing who these people are should be more than a haphazard choice, not a decision based on people whom it can readily be demonstrated withhold and/or distort reality into fiction regarding our world, time after time.
As perplexing as it is, in the face of hard evidence and facts many adults are seemingly incapable of letting go of their “beliefs.” This is unfortunate and luckily does not apply to all. If it applied to all we’d be in trouble and there would certainly be no point in my writing this book discussing amongst the most elementary of profound yet buried elementary truths the media have been distorting in relation to our Federal and State elections, and some key ramifications of same. If a third* understand then it would seem rational people would finally have a fair shot of electing far more reasonable candidates for high political offices in spite of the media’s all-out efforts to have the people choose representatives whom it can be readily proven do not represent them with respect to their very lives as well as the lives of others, but instead prioritize greed, power and death over “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
* An approximate figure, since even in the hotly contested 2004 election, over a third of eligible voters didn’t vote. So, we need half of two thirds, i.e., about a third. For stat verification see, http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html. Please remember effort in informing others is far more potent than just a single vote.
The founders of this country, flaws and all, would likely be disgusted beyond comprehension as to what we’ve allowed to happen due to deception and apathy, all the while hanging out our flags as if we actually should be proud for not standing up for ourselves or others. The very future survival of our species is at stake here, and yet the many are still letting the few run the course full steam ahead at the height of the so-called Information Age. “Truth is stranger than fiction…,” Mark Twain observed. Does this not appear to be the case right here right now, whilst Americans gather around their propaganda boxes weekly glued to American 'Idle', or whatever it’s called, yet have not the foggiest idea that the survival of their species is in unnecessary jeopardy* simply to satisfy the gluttonous wants of a disproportionate few because they’re “...allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system?”
* See, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm for article originally published in the Toronto Star, about a report submitted to the U.N. regarding our global situation. Remember, the U.N. is in New York. Why do we need to find out what’s happening in the United States via Canada, in relation to profound implications that affect the entire world? Should not a story like this be front page news and top headlines?
Once I discovered in 2000 that the capability was there to put things in video format on the Internet, I thought the days of television, magazine, and newspaper dominance were numbered. Perhaps I was correct, just not in timing. In the fall of 2000, I posted at a prominent web site not of my creation, and tried to get others who already had video on their websites to hear me out as to what I thought they could do to help in their elections, since that is what their websites were about - they were political in nature.
So, since 2000 I’ve been trying to put what I wanted to say out there in Cyberspace, i.e., the Internet, all free of charge. I learned a lot about human apathy along the way, something Professor Chomsky has claimed horrifies him more than the occasional Hitler or LeMay who crops up in history, because without the backing of the people, people such as Hitler would be powerless. People simply are not living to their human potential if they knowingly submit their very lives to others based on false pretenses, especially when it’s been explained that their very tax dollars directly fund mass human suffering and misery whilst millions of children worldwide die of neglect each year for what just a fraction of the Pentagon budget could easily prevent. In other words, these children die horrible deaths simply because they’re dehumanized.* And please don’t buy the malarkey that we’re giving a high proportion of our money for the good of those elsewhere. Over 50% of our nation’s expenditures go toward “defense,” whilst less than 1% goes toward aid. Though over 20 industrialized nations of the United Nations including the United States agreed to allocating 0.07% of their Gross Domestic Product in 1970, that’s a standard that’s yet to be met and isn’t projected to be met until 2015, 45 years after its birth.**
* See, http://thehungersite.com, where it’s been stated that someone dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds; 75% are under the age of five. If one does the math, that comes to 8-million, 760-thousand every year. Imagine that, whilst our nation’s priorities lie with feeding the gluttonies of disproportionate few, a holocaust of children under the age of five die of hunger every 250 days as if they’re not real human beings at all - their lives are deemed meaningless. And that’s from hunger alone.
** See, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
Although not being a technological whiz, I managed to learn how to have my own video website in early 2001, mostly due to the Winter 2000 edition of Videomaker’s Guide to PC Video, in which Matthew York, its editor and publisher, stated at the conclusion of the Editor’s Letter, “Now, even you, can make a television program!” I realized that the corporate media could be beat, if only an organized effort to inform the masses was made by enough caring people to matter in time.
Here it is years later, and I finally heard the 2008 U.S. presidential election called the “YouTube Election,” after the Internet site YouTube.com, where people can upload their videos for all to see. As stated, this technology was available at least in 2000, perhaps before. In my humble opinion Internet video should have had a profound impact on the presidential election in 2000, and had it done so we would likely be living in a much more sane, reasonable, fair world today. It didn’t and thus we’re not.
When Paul Revere made his ride he didn’t yell, “I think the British are coming,” did he? Then why do we not yell, or at least tell others about how much the media have painted a fictitious view of our very reality at the height of the Information Age, making the 2008 presidential contest a bout between warmongering John McCain, who finished 894th out of 899 in the Naval
Academy (arguably a potential threat to George W. Bush as the likely all-time cerebrally challenged president), and Barack Obama, who does not oppose the domestic and international Drug Wars, even though he admitted to doing drugs himself, with the people quickly forgiving him since deep down everyone knows it’s really not a crime to do drugs?
I'm not claiming it’s smart to do drugs, just that stupidity is not a crime in itself. Eating junk food isn’t wise either, though it’s not illegal. It’s not like Obama robbed a bank, murdered or raped someone or something. If he had done any of those things and admitted it he would’ve been history long ago, don’t you think? So why does he support the caging of those who’ve done the same thing?
The Land of the Free now has more prisoners than any nation on Earth, both per capita and in total, ranking second only to Nazi Germany in the recorded history of humankind. Though comprising some five percent of the world’s population, we house a full quarter of the world’s slightly less than 10-million inmates. Over half of the U.S. prisoners have harmed no one, they’ve merely disobeyed in a land where one is supposed to be guaranteed the right to “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” and then were put in harm’s way in a cage. If you live in the U.S. you most likely directly funded this mass assault not only against innocent people, but everyone, really, since law enforcement personnel were ordered to waste their time chasing non-criminals at the expense of fighting crime. Doesn’t that make you the least bit angry? Governments wouldn’t be able to treat their citizens and others with contempt were it not for mass thoughtlessness as well as the lack of objection by most.
Although this book is primarily concerned with censored elections, as well as our direct funding of unnecessary mass human suffering and death as a result of the Drug War, and tax inequality, it should be pointed out that of course this is not all that’s censored, since the U.S. media shape the news in their direction for other usually obvious reasons likewise. Remember, the ultra-wealthy own and thus run the major media outlets, so in whose interests do you suppose they’ll be slanting reality? Whether they’re censoring to guide an election or censoring to keep dissenters at a minimum regarding war, their scams are not that difficult to see if one spends the time and looks. For example, prior to September 11, 2001, there was extensive mainstream coverage regarding Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, two female U.S. Christian aid workers who had been taken into custody by the Taliban and were being held in Kabul, yet as the days led up to Bush’s forces bombing Kabul, not knowing where exactly these women were being held, I could find nothing regarding the two of them. It was as if they vanished into thin air, though in the weeks leading up to 9-11 they were given marked media coverage. Why do you suppose the media took them out of the limelight when U.S. forces were bombing the city in which they were held captive?
At one point I did read or hear on television that one of the fathers was protesting the bombing saying something along the lines of, ‘They're bombing the hell out of Kabul and daughter’s in there,’ but that was just once! Not until they were luckily rescued did they become substantially newsworthy anew. By the way it wasn’t American troops who rescued the aid workers - they were Afghanis.
One shouldn’t get the wrong impression of the Taliban’s foe, the Northern Alliance, as if this group was a bunch of freedom- loving peacemakers. Many will recall that picture of the man begging for his life on his knees, and the subsequent photo of the same man with his pants pulled down, lying on his back apparently dead, with blood that can be seen that had splattered on his lower shirt, as a member of the Northern Alliance took one more gunshot at him with the utmost of anger visible in his face, as two others likewise took shots at his now corpse. In one prominent periodical I read that he had begged for his life but was not granted his wish. In another I read that he had begged for his life, was humiliated, and was killed. Months later I read an article from the U.K. describing the photo and stating that his pants had been pulled down and then his gentiles, or part of his genitals, were cut off with a knife before he was shot to death. Unfortunately as of this writing I’ve been unable to confirm that source, though I do recall reading it and it was unmistakably describing this horrendous event. Did they tell the truth here in the U.S.? Sure they did, though they left out a major detail didn’t they? Can’t even trust them with a photograph can you?
I remember having a brief conversation with a young mother of three several years back who worked in a convenience store. She said, “I know exactly what you mean,” regarding how if the media don’t report something it’s not known. This struggling single mother had lived in a neighborhood in which a young boy was murdered by a teenager when the boy was going door to door selling something or other for school or Scouts as I recall. If anyone didn't hear of this horrific event, particularly in this area, then they must've been living in a cave. People were outraged. The woman stated that those who lived in the neighborhood at the time knew the accused murderer had been captured, but the media withheld the information for fear of what the public might do if they realized he was captive in the local jail, so basically outside of the neighborhood no one knew.
In spite of the Internet being comparably accessible as television, and the potential to have streaming and downloading video is possible, even just using a phone modem is enough in relation to download video from the net if its producer chooses to make his or her material in reasonable sizes available for downloading, years later vital information is still successfully repressed so that not enough people know to matter. Is this not shameful beyond comprehension? Internet video was used at presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s site in 2000, though it was not passed on by enough to matter. The video he had was easily accessible to those with dial-up service, which was predominant at the time.
Back on topic, were it not for media distorted elections, we’d likely live in an entirely different world, a far more reasonable efficient world with much less cruelty. Who wants wealthy un-elected censors, many of whom are even unknown? Well, that’s what we’re getting and that’s why the choices are so bad that many, and in the midterm elections - most, don’t even bother voting at all. There is a way to get back, and that’s in finding one’s information about the candidates via their websites primarily, comparing platforms and histories and voting according to common sense, decency and reason.
In the U.S. presidential elections of 2004 and 2008 there were six candidates on enough state ballots to win the presidency, though only two were permitted in the televised debates. Who are these un-elected people who are censoring our elections to this profound degree? What Constitutional Amendment gives them this awesome power? Considering the seriousness of the highly censored realities at least two of the censored candidates were bringing up, the election was a farce resulting in casualties by the millions at least, a farce perhaps coming at the cost of the continued survival of our species on this planet within this century.*
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, at, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines02/0523-01.htm
Thanks to the media’s deception and the public’s general inability to recognize this grandest of scams, there was nearly a split decision amongst two unreasonable choices, George W. Bush, the former high school cheerleader who has the national record of the most executions of any governor in the history of the United States, who started two wars in less than two years, though he made sure he didn’t go to Vietnam himself, and John Kerry, so bad himself he was unable to decisively defeat someone as knowingly horrible as Bush.
Unless one thinks unnecessary human suffering, pain, misery and death are perfectly acceptable to be inflicted upon innocent people, all to benefit a disproportionate few, then we have a problem here. How is that so, one might rightfully ask? Either one supports the misery of others voluntarily or one doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion but a matter of reality.
I’m confident you’ll see things clearly if you take the time to review the evidence presented throughout this book, no small part of which can be checked with video documentation for all to see. At the height of theInformation Age there’s a lot the American people are not aware of regarding the world in which they live.
As stated in my speech for Nader in Austin, Texas back in April of 2004, the U.S. houses a full quarter of the world’s prisoners,* many, if not most, of whom have harmed no one but merely disobeyed laws against their rights to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?” Chomsky has stated that we live in a society that's so highly indoctrinated that “...elementary truths are easily buried.”** The prison population when Ronald Reagan took office was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000. Now we have roughly 2.3 million prisoners, meaning it’s more than quadrupled since 1980. Are we any safer? According to the RAW DATA SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICADA, STATS AND FACTS page of the April 2000 issue of PLAYBOY, the “...percentage of homicides in 1975 that were solved: 79. Percentage in 1997: 64.” The bottom line is, we’ve gotten tough on non-crimes, at the expense of crime. How immoral is that?
* See, Prisons at Center of Damning Report on U.S. Human Rights, archived at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0712-08.htm.
** See segment of interview with Bill Moyers in, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
If you don’t like my previous source, I’m not saying I do either, at least not all of it, (which is almost always the case), but it often has hidden information other mainstream sources, for whatever reason, have chosen not to widely report, or not to report at all. A former presidential candidate did an interview for PLAYBOY, as did a former U.S. Attorney General. Rather than dwelling on the source of this information, it’s most important to understand what this means in terms of real people, and that’s that we have more child molesters, rapists and murderers at large amongst us in order to punish the innocent. Surely this ought to be enough to have most people want to rise up against this absurdity, demanding reason of their elected representatives.
The increases in prisoners have in no small part been due to the Drug War, yet one of the most addicting drugs, nicotine, which accounts for the deaths of some 400,000 Americans each year and 5,000,000 deaths each year world wide, is perfectly legal. Likewise, alcohol, which impairs judgment as well as muscle and motor control, is also legal. Sending people to live in cages ought to be for valid reasons, and cruel and unusual punishments such as beatings and rape should not be tolerated as per Amendment Eight of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution, yet said punishments, which harm people for life, are even joked about routinely by so-called “comics,” in spite of the fact that most of our prisoners have physically harmed no one themselves, nor ever ordered harm to anyone. How can a sane reasonable society accept such punishments as being the norm, and even laugh about it?
A relatively recent article released by the Associated Press disclosed that one out of every 136 U.S. citizens was behind bars as of the summer of 2005.* If one thinks that by obeying the law they’ll be fine, think again. With drugs, it’s easy to have them planted on “suspects,” and indeed is reported to happen far too often. That’s another problem with arresting people for non-crimes - the evidence becomes the law officer’s word versus the defendant’s.** Since no crime was in fact committed, the usual standards of collecting incriminating evidence are discarded, meaning more innocent people will be torturously punished for sustained periods of time. That’s simple deductive reasoning. If our law enforcement personnel are being used to jail people who’ve committed no crime, then that leaves more real criminals as a result. Part of the reason this likely happens is because people, for the most part anyway, don’t see who’s being punished for what, unlike the days of the pillories of old, (see picture of pillory below). Oh sure, they read about this or that person being sentenced to prison in the newspaper, but how often to they report what happens inside those prisons? There was more transparency in the days of the pillory, you have to give them that much.
* See, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0522-03.htm
** For example, see Chapter 4
Above: The pillory - At least in some ways it was a more open society then, unlike our prisons today where people are mostly punished who’ve harmed no one, hidden from the general public, and they’re incarcerated at a number and rate higher than any nation on Earth. Imagine that, the Land of the Free.
Professor Chomsky has noted that if one has access to a wide variety of mainstream media sources one might find the “occasional nugget” of truth concerning a mostly censored topic. No doubt those nuggets are easier to obtain now thanks to the Internet. I cite the mainstream whenever I can because when they admit something there's no going back. I try to cite sources that don’t offend anyone if possible, though it must be remembered none of us would be here were it not for sex and that we’re the only animal in the Animal Kingdom that doesn’t generally present itself as-is, unless we’re shooting a probe into outer space announcing who we are as per the famous NASA Pioneer Plaques sent into space in the 1970s, in which case the female’s genitalia are absent and the male’s present though both are presented in the nude.* What’s that say about our species? We’re not even honest about who we are.
* See, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/images/content/72418main_plaque.jpg
It’s astonishing that the Taliban were rightly criticized for not allowing women to show their faces, though men could, yet here in the U.S. men can show their chests but it’s illegal for women to do the same. So, while we eliminate the very body part we nearly all came from in an image sent into outer space to introduce ourselves to any intelligent life form that may encounter the message, we live by double standards we largely don’t even recognize and fail to realize how stupid we must look. To send something like that to who would almost certainly by odds be far more advanced than our primitive society with but little more than a handful of millennia of recorded history at our disposal and truly in the historic infancy of the Age of Technology is to openly demonstrate our mass absurdity does it not?
After reading the next chapter you’ll likely think twice about signing for a package for the people next door, or for anyone other than yourself or a completely trusted friend or family member for that matter. This is about a man right here in the U.S. who was sentenced to 15 years for signing for a package, and a retired judge stepped out of his way and into my camera’s lens to publicly declare his concern that this innocent person was living his life in a cage away from his family.
Chapter 4
The Package and the Cage:
Easy Setups for Non-Crimes
“They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness.”
- John Milton - 1642
Above: Wanda Best, and an unidentified retired judge who walked into the picture as I was filming and began commenting on behalf of Wanda Best’s husband, Darrel Best.
REGARDING A MAN WHO WAS SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS SIMPLY FOR SIGNING FOR A NEIGHBOR'S PACKAGE, the following is nearly the complete transcript, though some parts were inaudible.
Interviewer: Oh this is an old picture?
Wanda Best: This is an old picture, right.
Interviewer: Oh, OK.
Wanda Best: This one, (pointing to a young girl in the family picture), today’s her senior prom. She’s getting ready to go to college...
Interviewer: Oh wow.
Wanda Best: And now, daddy won’t be there.
Interviewer: Wow. Is he fighting it, is he a...?
Wanda Best: Of course, he was fighting it but, you know...
Interviewer: But what, um....
Wanda Best: Unfortunately, what happened to his case was right after 9/11, so everybody thought the cops wouldn’t lie, they were heroes. So they just took the word of the cops and they didn’t believe anything else. My husband had witnesses and everything.
Interviewer: What happened to the guys that gave him the package, can't you… (pause) ...get them... to help? These were the guys who gave him the package (?)... undercover cops…
Wanda Best: Federal Express. Yeah, the whole truck, the uniforms, everything…
Interviewer: Oh God!
Wanda Best: My husband…
Interviewer: Why did he...? What... was he rushing him or something?
Wanda Best: He needed glasses and the guy pressured him, you know, and when my husband was um... The defense attorney asked him: “Well, do you have a wire (or permission) or did you videotape it… Did you wire the conversation?” You see, so he lied. The cops lied, the jury bit... but he pressured him.
Interviewer: He has no record, this man has no record?
Wanda Best: No.
Interviewer: Based on a testimony, a cops testimony?
Wanda Best: Solely on the testimony.
Interviewer: What kind of jury was this? How could...
Wanda Best: ...I guess because, I don’t know, I don’t know why they believed him, but they believed him. Like I said, it happened right after 9/11.
Interviewer: What was the cop’s testimony? What was his defense testimony?
Wanda Best: He didn’t have any. He just said that my husband signed for the package. And then they took something my husband said and just twisted it, just like I just told you. He was up there trying to make money to (support) you know, buy his daughter’s books. My husband told the cops that and the cop said; “Well he was up here trying to make extra money to support his five daughters, or his four daughters” - which was true, but he wasn’t selling drugs, he was fixing my uncle’s awning.
Interviewer: Right...
Wanda Best: You know...”
Interviewer: But what went through his mind, what was in the package when he signed? What… what...
Wanda Best: He thought it was for the neighbor.
Interviewer: For the neighbor... He was signing something for the neighbor?
Wanda Best: Haven’t you done that? I’ve done that.
Interviewer: Yeah!
Wanda Best: I don’t do it anymore.
Interviewer: But if the guy tells me ahead of time...
Dr.Ken Hildebrandt: No, I guess not.
Interviewer: If he tells me ahead of time... This is the name on the package. Would you like to sign here?
Wanda Best: Well, it had his uptown address, but it had the last name of the neighbor. So he thought maybe they... cause he was like, it’s a private home. Instead of 1019, it was like 1020.
Interviewer: OK, OK now, my next question. He made a mistake. The name wasn’t in his, his ... ah ... it was somebody else’s name? Why would they arrest you for signing for somebody else’s package?
Wanda Best: You tell me why. That's why I'm here today.
Interviewer: Why, because I mail drugs to your house?
Wanda Best: Yeah, if I sign for it.
Interviewer: If I mail drugs to your house and you sign it by mistake, they arrest you?
Wanda Best: Oh yeah!
Ken: The potential for set-up is amazing. I’ve talked about this numerous times on my website, I mean.
Passer by: …Federal Express… I’ve used it all the time for the people, never again. It happened to Patty Hearst. She got a big box. She signed for it. Fed agents got on it. Did she go to jail? No.
Interviewer: This is ... ah ...
Wanda Best: My husband? Yeah.
Judge: (inaudible)
Interviewer: It is, it is.
Wanda Best: He was at my husband’s trial. He knows… nothing… He was good.
Interviewer: You had a good lawyer too?
Judge: Yeah, yeah, one of the best, but, um, I don't know...
Wanda Best: Who knows what the jury was thinking? Like I said…
Judge: Jurors have no idea, I’m sure, what the penalty is. They don’t know what he was facing.
Interviewer: What was the amount? What was the amount? Do you know?
Wanda Best: I think it was...
Judge: Two pounds, wasn’t it?
Wanda Best: A pound.
Interviewer: A pound?
Wanda Best: …they were off …
Judge: …one and a half years … there's a thirteen and a half year spread because he didn’t plead guilty.
Wanda Best: They told him he could…
Interviewer: …what was... Oh, eight months?
Ken: Who are you? Sir, I’m sorry.
Judge: (inaudible) I’m a retired judge.
Ken: Oh, how are you doing? (The judge and I shake hands.)
Ken: Kenny Hildebrandt from NowWe’reTalking.TV.
Interviewer: So, he didn’t take the conviction?
Judge: He didn’t take the plea.
Interviewer: The plea. He didn’t take the plea, which they wanted, so now they’re making him spend money and drag this thing on? You gonna get hit with ... ah ...
Wanda Best: My husband’s father, his life’s savings. He’s retired now...
Interviewer: Spent to helping him?
Wanda Best: $20,000 for lawyers.
Interviewer: Really?
Wanda Best: It’s gone. My husband’s still gone.
Ken: Wow.
Questioner: He’s in...
Wanda Best: Of course now… You know the sad thing about, for my husband, being a big-time drug dealer. The day he was convicted I came home and I didn’t have food to feed his daughters.
Interviewer: You didn’t?
Wanda Best: You know ...we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have any money, you know, what can I tell you? This is why we’re here, for justice.
Interviewer: I heard about this. I heard from the judge...
Judge: This is a strange case, in many respects. If he was willing to plead guilty... because he knew that… year… he was going to jail...
Interviewer: (inaudible)… he was going to cop...
Wanda Best: Yes, but no contest.
Judge: But he wouldn’t… to plead guilty. Then the judge is going to ask you questions. Did you order this...
Interviewer: That he wouldn’t accept, right?
Judge: Now some judges will accept that. They call that an Alford plea. It’s … kind of plea that somebody figures: “Well I’m innocent but they’re gonna have witnesses against me and I can’t beat this and I’m facing all this heavy time. Forget it, I’ll plead guilty.” And that’s what he tried to do but the judge wouldn’t accept that.
Interviewer: He would not?
Judge: He wouldn’t, no.
.
Wanda Best: …He was gonna plead for no contest.
Interviewer: He would accept the plea of no contest meaning that he…
Wanda Best: It means he’s not guilty, he’s not innocent, he’s just accepting the plea.
Judge: But he wouldn’t admit that he was guilty.
Wanda Best: He wouldn’t admit that he was guilty.
Interviewer: He wouldn’t admit that... this package...
Wanda Best: Why would he? He didn’t do it.
Interviewer: But he wanted him to?
Judge: If this man was guilty he would’ve taken one and a half years.
Interviewer: Of course! He would have took that.
Judge: He’d have to be crazy not to...
Wanda Best: They told him that he didn’t have to. This happened just before Christmas. They said you could spend the holidays with your children. You won’t even have to go to jail until January. I mean, they sweetened this pot like you would not.... They said in eight months you’ll be out. But he couldn’t do it. We told our children, don’t lie. How’s he gonna lie and then be branded a drug dealer?
Interviewer: Actually right, be branded…
Wanda Best: But he still is branded a drug dealer.
Interviewer: He’s branded as a drug dealer.
Wanda Best: And it still happened. But we fought it. We weren’t gonna go down without a fight.
Interviewer: Whoa, what a shame. What a shame, man. Wow, sorry to hear that.
Unidentified person: (I have a feeling) I hope there’s, you know, I hope there’s a chance...
Wanda Best: Yeah.
Unidentified person: Horrible.
Wanda Best: It is, it is.
Interviewer: Whoa, sorry to hear that.
Ken: Occasionally (one can) get clemency, you know, like the woman back there. We’ll hope for that.*
Wanda Best: Judge Michael Gross. He was devastated. He wanted to...
Judge: He wanted to... but by law you got to do it.
Wanda Best: That’s what he said… He wished to God…
Ken: Exactly ...by the law.
Interviewer: The law, the law states 15 to life.
Wanda Best: 15 minimum, minimum, 15 to life.
Ken: Sentencing guidelines.
Judge: Anything over two ounces (selling?) or you possess over four, same as murder, 15 to 25 to life.
* Mr. Best was the sole person to receive clemency in the state of New York in 2005 by Governor George Pataki, though
the New York Times article hardly pointed out the main facts surrounding the case. - See, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/nyregion/25clemency.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Chapter 5
A Way Out:
Informing Others and Voting
"Every election cycle more lethally vicious regressives are victorious,
crushing common sense and human rights in tandem, moving the country further in the direction of mindless fascism."
- Dr. David Michael Green,
political science instructor at Hofstra University, New York,
July 12, 2010
There have been presidential, vice presidential, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates who have been against the Drug War, particularly against cannabis, which accounts for approximately one of every twenty U.S. arrests. Yet these candidates have been greatly marginalized by the major media in nearly all instances, with one major exception being the former governor of New Mexico, Republican Gary Johnson. Is it not a waste of resources to arrest people for violations of their right to liberty? How many pedophiles, rapists, thieves and killers remain at large whilst so many of our law enforcement officers are spending their time harming innocent people as per their orders? No one knows for sure yet simple deductive reasoning indicates that whatever the number is it’s totally unacceptable, unless one doesn’t mind having more pedophiles, rapists, thieves and murderers on the loose than need be.
Yes, we live in a terribly inefficient cruel society, though the parameters have been set up for us such that it needn’t be this way. We, as a society, have allowed ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT has pointed out long ago. At the height of the so-called Information Age, the statement still holds true today, though I must admit that’s beyond my ken. That’s “ken” with a small “k,” meaning one’s range of understanding, for those who aren’t familiar with the word and were wondering what I meant. Nothing to do with my name, just my range of understanding, and it’s beyond mine that at the height of the Information Age most are deluded, particularly in regard to elections in which they’re picking known sponsors of mass misery and murder by voting for the media’s puppets in lieu of the Third Party and Independent candidates who in some cases do in fact stand for the people over big business, unlike nearly all in power today. Just because the others advertise more is no reason to pick one of them, is it?
If you were choosing a doctor and knew that two of the six or so you were considering heavily advertised yet could be shown to sometimes demonstrate complete contempt for human life, would you pick her or him as a doctor? Or would you go to someone who, it could be readily ascertained, genuinely cared about human life, though she or he didn’t have as much money to advertise as a result of taking more time caring for her or his patients?
Media deception regarding elections is arguably the most important of truths successfully withheld due to its direct influence on how we are governed, what laws rule the land, whether or not said laws are fair and rational vs. immoral, cruel, completely unjust and irrational, and whether or not the superfluities of a highly disproportionate few should come at the expense of some 12-million real children feeling hunger pains right here in the U.S. on a daily basis, whilst allowing some eight September 11th Attacks’-worth of real live children to unnecessarily die each day of completely preventable causes for what just a fraction of the Pentagon budget could easily prevent,* in actuality, all due to neglect. If one does the math, one quickly arrives at the figure of some 6-million children dying worldwide every 250 days for no reason whatsoever - none justified, anyway. That’s a holocaust of real children every 250 days. These aren’t Cabbage Patch Kids or something.
* See, Bad News When Madmen Lead the Blind, by Norman Soloman, at, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2164
and, http://thehungersite.com
People can easily see that there are more than two candidates on their voting ballots, yet only two are displayed in televised public debates - nearly without exception - for nearly every major political office available. Why? And why aren’t more people asking why? What is it these other candidates have to say that is either A) so unimportant as to not be newsworthy, or B) newsworthy enough to send shockwaves throughout our democratic system? Who are the people withholding these candidates from public view? Have any of these censors been elected to do this kind of profound censoring? Did they have to go through any kind of public scrutiny to get their “jobs?” These are the kinds of questions thinking people ought to be asking, one would think.
We’ll take a look at some of the repercussions of thoughtlessness and media dominance over people’s thought, particularly here in the United States, where we have the guidelines set up to have a self-governing body in the interests of the common people. We’ve collectively allowed ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Professor Chomsky has stated. Instead, we have a system designed to feed the wants of a disproportionate few over the necessities of many, if not most.
IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS? Yes, a simple vote would bring us well on our way to improvement, but it would involve the effort and recruitment of many to overcome the wealthy liars who censor our news. With the Internet at people’s disposal it is surely something that is doable. Along with the Internet, our right to assemble would have to also be employed to gather like-minded caring people to do what we can by sharing the information learned from one another, using pamphlets, audios and videos as seen appropriate to help spread some basic, factual, easy-to-explain elementary truths to others. Nothing speculative need be discussed, since that would only leave rational caring people with weak points to attack. There are no conspiracy theories in asserting facts. When Professor Chomsky debated the Dutch Minister of Defense years ago, the Minister was compelled to excuse himself out of humiliation. It’s tough to argue against facts regarding human justice. Anyone trying to do so will look foolish and/or cruel. That is almost surely the reason the powers that be do not want anyone outside the two corporate-controlled parties in major political debates.
“At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible, either the general population will take control of its own destiny and concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.”
– Noam Chomsky
Time is indeed running short to do so.
Chapter 6
Dr. Ken Asks Presidential Candidate
Ralph Nader a Question at a Press Conference
in late October of 2004 in Iowa
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
- Joseph Stalin
The following is the transcript of my question to presidential candidate Ralph Nader, from late October of 2004 in Iowa, accompanied by his answer in a room of journalists with their cameras running. The above picture of Mr. Nader is from election eve on Wall Street, 2004.
Ralph Nader: Yes... (pointing toward me).
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Mr. Nader, Ken Hildebrandt from MajorMediaBypass.com. Just briefly... a small amount of people who were not elected kept you out of the debates and therefore we didn’t hear about the real risk of global warming, the fact that we could be using hemp to grow our oil right now, that our top crime is a non-crime and that we house a quarter of the world’s incarcerates. These are all real issues and what I’m asking that you do is speak to the American people and ask them to vote their conscience and to take a look at these real issues, which people who were not elected kept from us. And, would you be willing to talk to us about this?
Ralph Nader: Well, of course. There’s no time to go into our reform of the criminal injustice system, but being in Iowa I do want to emphasize that we have long favored the legalization of industrial hemp which has 5,000 known products, can reduce our reliance on oil, produce food, fiber like Patagonia clothing, and which reduces the need to cut down trees because it provides material for good paper and produces a source of food.
And farmers in this country are prohibited by law from growing industrial hemp even though it’s legal for us to import it from Canada, France, Romania and China. That’s because it’s on the DEA proscribed list, a residue of medieval thinking that somehow it’s connected with marijuana. The only connection it has with marijuana, other than 1/3 of 1% THC, is if it is planted near a marijuana plot it will cross-pollinate and dilute the marijuana crop to the chagrin of the marijuana crops growers. They don’t want any industrial hemp anywhere near them.
So we have petitioned with a whole array of farm groups and state legislators, and even in international papers twice, to get it off the DEA proscribed list - once under Clinton and once under Bush. Both times our detailed petition was denied. It would be nice to have the two candidates talk about the multi-billion-dollar crop that would advance our national security by reducing our reliance on foreign oil as well as provide environmentally benign crops and income for hard-pressed farmers. Thank you.
Carl Mayer: OK Ralph, gotta go.
WE ARE LIVING IN A NATION THAT PRIDES ITSELF AS THE GREATEST DEMOCRACY ON THE PLANET yet a small amount of people who were not elected kept him out of the debates. Is that a democracy? What if former President Jimmy Carter was monitoring an outside nation’s democratic elections, as he’s been known to do in the case of East Timor, what would he say if the nation's mainstream televised media eliminated four out of six candidates who were on enough state ballots to win the election? Would he give the thumbs-up on such an election? I doubt it.
In 2000, Mr. Nader was physically blocked from even viewing one of the presidential debates, even though he had obtained a valid General Admission Pass to attend. He ended up suing and winning the case, to the tune of somewhere in the twenty thousand dollar range as I recall, which is next to nothing when one considers all that’s at stake here. Mr. Nader has never been known to interfere with a television broadcast, so why was he prevented from even viewing something he should’ve been a part of? As we’ll discuss later on, physical blocking of ballot-qualified candidates is not just confined to presidential elections here in the U.S. In other cases in which the would-be participants do not have such recognizable names as Mr. Nader, candidates are arrested for either A) demanding inclusion in public debates they should by right be participating in, or for B) simply demanding to view said debates. Examples of both will be given in awhile, but for now let’s get back to Mr. Nader’s question, and his answer.
Back to my question: “...therefore we didn’t hear about the real risk of global warming…” Remember, this was 2004, and though the major media had by that time begun to bring up the issue, was it discussed with any seriousness by either Bush or Kerry in any of the debates? Some scientists had already called it the greatest threat to the human race by that time. Mr. Nader did bring up that hemp was “environmentally benign” and that it “would advance our national security by reducing our reliance on foreign oil.” He also mentioned that the growing of hemp “reduces the need to cut down trees.” So, he hit on some major points with that question for sure. Though I was disappointed about what he had said about the other two candidates at the time, in 2008 he was on 45 state ballots and as a write-in for four others. He had a much better chance in 2008. He just needed help. Not all could give dollars but all could give help.
Growing our own oil alone could've arguably won him the presidency, don't you think? Decreased terrorism and decreasing our reliance on foreign oil... Did the others offer any of this? Have they ever? We'll see later on that the ones who have, in spite of being in mainstream parties, were likewise excluded from televised presidential debates.*
* See, Chapter 15 - Media-censored Presidential Elections Metastasizes to the Republican and Democratic Mainstream Parties; Chapter 16 - The Military-Industrial-Media Complex; and Chapter 17 - On the Eve of the New Hampshire Primary with Professor Noam Chomsky
I also mentioned in my question to Mr. Nader, “...that our top crime is a non-crime and that we house a quarter of the world’s incarcerates.” What I meant by our top crime being a non-crime is that drug violations account for more citizen arrests than anything else.* Again, if nicotine is legal, as is alcohol, why should other substances be deemed illegal in a nation that prides itself on people having the right to “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?” And yes, though the Land of the Free comprises but 5% of the world's population, our imprisoned account for a full 25% of the world's prison inmates.
* See, “Law enforcement officers made more arrests for drug abuse violations in 2005 (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.1 percent of the total) than for any other offense,” at,http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/arrests/index.html
Prison for many, if not most, means the end of their lives as they know it. Once one is a victim of a violent crime, one’s life is never the same afterwards. Being cuffed, strip-searched, and thrown into a locked cage is a violent crime in and of itself. Yes, we really do live in a barbaric society, and “...elementary truths are easily buried," as Chomsky has maintained.
After looking at Mr. Nader’s platform since 2000 and realizing that if Americans actually understood that people’s lives were at stake here by the millions - we're polluting the environment when this environmentally benign form of energy is available to us and the tax structures are scamming all but the very wealthiest of income earners - I figured he'd be elected hands down if people were just informed. Surely a short quality video could be made that would be impossible for the media to ignore and which Americans could pass onto one another via the Internet. That's still true.
I learned something very important one day when I was in Harlem in 2000 passing out some of Mr. Nader’s literature, as well as talking with anyone and everyone I could, when one passerby who was obviously in a rush bluntly stated to me: “I don’t want to see anything else other than his platform. I’m not interested in anything else you have. Show me his platform,” before heading across the street. Though I had copies earlier in the day, as I frantically looked to find a copy, I saw that I had run out. The best I could do was run after him and give him something containing a partial list of some of the positions Mr. Nader stood for on a few issues, which the man accepted though he was obviously not fully satisfied.
That individual I met on the northwest corner of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Boulevards hit the nail on the head as far as what was the most important thing about any candidate, i.e., her or his platform. It was something I’ll never forget, and hope you never do either, because it really is one of, if not the single most important thing about a candidate, revealing, if one looks carefully enough, where one stands regarding human life and death. These things are not discussed, for the most part, by the media's puppet candidates.
Also looking back to 2000, I remember when it was announced on C-SPAN that George W. Bush had in fact won the election, and they were taking callers to express their thoughts regarding their newly-elected president. It seemed that every third caller or so viewed it as if Hitler himself had been elected.*
* Side note: At the time, those who had headsets and web cams were actually pictured making their comments on television on C-SPAN, a historic first thanks to the Internet.
Some of the comments would’ve been laughable had they not indeed been targeted and well reasoned. After all, the man had broken all records to date in executions as a U.S. governor, signing for some 152 people out of 153 he was presented with to be strapped to a gurney and put to death. Though not all oppose the death penalty, few realize that studies have indicated it to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% accurate, meaning two out of every ten executed are completely innocent of the crime they are murdered for - two out of ten. When these findings were made known shortly after Bush had begun his presidency, his administration was quick to point out that the studies also indicated that 93% were guilty of some crime, which is hardly a valid point considering that the new president and Vice President Dick Cheney both had prior drunk driving convictions. In fact, George W. Bush had his underage sister as a passenger when he was caught driving drunk in his earlier days. He would’ve done time in most states for the same crime these days. George W. Bush is known to have been arrested for real crimes at least a documented three times. Isn't that something?
The bottom line is, many saw this man as a monster. They fully well knew he stood for big business over the average Jane or Joe and that his tax cuts were primarily going to benefit the top one percent of income earners... in other words, those who had no needs whatsoever over those who do.
Bush lowered the taxes of his favorite one percent of the population from 39.6% on their uppermost superfluous of income to just 35%, though he tried to get them even lower than that. The same group was taxed 91% on their uppermost income during the Eisenhower years. Most people just don’t realize that wealthy people make their money via two avenues only: Earth’s resources and human labor. We’re not importing either from Mars are we? So when these media pundits talk about how much in proportion the top one percent are paying in taxes, ask them to discuss just how they earned their money in the first place. What a bunch of horse manure! I think it’s time the people stop eating, don’t you? I don’t mean to be gross, just blunt enough to help people wake up.
Here we are, in spite of decades of technological advancement, nowadays almost every household has two people working full time in order to make ends meet, whereas in the 1960s when I was growing up it was rare to have more than one parent working outside the home. How can it be that after 4+ decades of technological advancement, it’s become more difficult for the average American to survive? Can it not be logically deduced that these tax cuts have had something to do with it?
Former Apollo astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell discussed how his grandparents moved to Texas from the south via covered wagon in the 1870s and yet he walked on the moon just about a hundred years later. Once technology takes hold, it takes off, and the benefits should likewise. Instead, they've mostly gone to the wealthiest of income earners whilst most get the shaft and are more or less forced to be “...cogs in a machine...” as Professor Noam Chomsky has pointed out is not necessary in the least.*
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
As mentioned earlier, media censorship is by no means limited to the presidency, since in order to gain control of the Federal government one needs not only the presidency, but each state of course is represented by two U.S. Senators and each congressional district a member of the House. There are a total of 100 U.S. Senators of which a mere 51% vote makes law (if split 50/50, the vice president casts the deciding vote), or 2/3 to override a presidential veto. The House, containing 435, likewise needs a 2/3 majority to override a presidential veto, otherwise they too need a majority. So, we're talking about less than 500 people, less than 400 really, who are in a position to steer our nation, and thus humankind, since we clearly live in the dominant nation on earth. How these people are picked... one would think would seem important, don't you think?
Chapter 7
Media-censored U.S. Senatorial
Candidate Arrested
“Both of the other two parties,
both the Democrats and the Republicans
are dominated by big money,
by corporate money.”
- Ted Glick, censored 2002 New Jersey ballot qualified candidate for U.S. Senate, (pictured below)
The following is a transcript of an interview with New Jersey Green Party 2002 U.S. Senate candidate, Ted Glick, I videoed shortly after he was released from jail after attempting to enter the television studio in order to watch a debate he should’ve been included in as a bona fide candidate on the ballot. The interview was given by someone representing a television network.
Ted Glick: We were here because we should’ve been inside in the debate. We were excluded from the debate. We were not approached about being in the debate. When we spoke to the general manager about it we were essentially told it was a done deal, nothing could be done about it. So we were here to say that this is supposed to be a democracy. The voters are supposed to be able to learn about all the candidates so they can make informed choices. That means candidates need to be in debates so the voters can hear what they have to say - and this is the first debate. We hope that in future debates we will be included. If not, we’ll be outside of those the way we were here and we hope sooner or later reason will prevail.
Interviewer: Well, I... What is your candidacy about? (inaudible)
Ted Glick: Both of the other two parties, both the Democrats and the Republicans are dominated by big money, by corporate money. Both of these parties are overseeing a tremendous increase in the amount of money going to the Pentagon, a tremendous transfer of resources over the last 20-25 years from low income people, working-class people, middle-class people, to the top 1% of the population. We have the crisis of global warming that is not being addressed. Instead we’re talking about invading Iraq, when Iraq is effectively contained while thousands of children every month are dying from the economic sanctions that are imposed upon Iraq. Innocent children are dying. The direction of the country is wrong. My candidacy is about trying to put this country back on the right course. Those views are shared by many people, and those views should be included in these debates.
Interviewer: Where do you live and what's your background?
Ted Glick: I live in Bloomfield. I have been a(n) active social trainer for 35 years. Right now I’m a coordinator of a national third party network, called the Independent Politics Network. I work with young people with leadership training. I work with community organizations. I do that right now as a volunteer. Our program is about justice. That’s what we need in this country. That's what we need in this world. Unless we develop policies that are about social justice, economic justice, environmental justice - for the world’s people, for our people - we are going to be in deeper trouble. We need to be moving in another direction. That’s what my campaign is about. I am the coordinator of this Independent Politics Network... that’s my paying work.
Interviewer: Let me ask one more question (inaudible), OK? (inaudible) When did you decide to enter the race, and why?
Ted Glick: I decided in February. One of the reasons I decided to do it was because Robert...
Interviewer: [Interrupted Mr. Glick]: Give me one second... I’ve got to fix my tie, and collar.
[A half dozen or so people were either watching or filming the interview up close, including a woman who was watching who later claimed she from was from the press, which will come into significance shortly.]
Interviewer: straightened his tie and collar, then continued: OK, go ahead.
Ted Glick: One of the reasons I decided to do it was in fact because Robert Torricelli was the one candidate who I knew for sure that I would be going up against and thought that Robert Torricelli continuing in office for another six years was not something I was looking forward to. I felt that he was somebody that should be opposed for any number of reasons.
I also decided to do it because I have been a member of the Green Party for any number of years and when I was asked by leadership of the Green Party to consider this, I did consider it seriously and decided that this was something I could do. Finally I did it because I felt that particularly since September 11 that the direction of the country is wrong. There’s just serious, very serious, changes that are taking place, attacks on our civil liberties, our rights, the increase in our war budget, the transfer of resources from most people to the top, to the very top, that has to change. That has to change. I felt that this year, this race in New Jersey was a good race to undertake and I’ve been actively campaigning ever since.
Interviewer: Thanks very much.
Unidentified person: Thank you... (inaudible)
Interviewer: OK.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Thanks.
Interviewer: [turning back, looking me in the eyes]: Yeah.
Did the above interview ever make it on television? I honestly can’t say one way or another, though I seriously doubt it. I don’t doubt that the interviewer would have liked to see it aired, however those decisions come from others who likely would not. Had it aired, just maybe there would have been some public feedback, depending upon how much it was aired and when. These are serious concerns, and the major media seem to follow the same general censoring patterns. If one corporate-owned television station went to lengths, even resorting to the use of force, to prohibit his participation so the population wouldn’t see that they didn’t have to pick between two sellouts for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else, but especially the poorest of the poor, another TV station would almost certainly follow suit. In a nation of over 300-million people, the richest nation ever to exist, we allow some 12-million real children to suffer from hunger every day, no kidding. Surely censorship plays a big part of this.
The only thing I recall reading in any newspaper following Mr. Glick’s arrest and interviews, with both the television interviewer and another woman who claimed to be from the press, was that Ted Glick’s tie was crooked. Of all the serious concerns brought up in both the above interview and the one given subsequently, a statement about candidate Ted Glick’s tie was the primary focus brought to the public's attention.
Let’s take a look at some of the things Ted Glick said and did that were of importance to us as citizens choosing a U.S. Senator:
1) He was arrested for trying to watch something he should have been a participant in as a candidate on the New Jersey ballot for U.S. Senate.
2) “We have the crisis of global warming that is not being addressed.” Remember, this was 2002.
3) “Instead we’re talking about invading Iraq, when Iraq is effectively contained while thousands of children every month are dying from the economic sanctions that are imposed upon Iraq. Innocent children are dying.” The Iraqi Embargo had been killing innocent children by the thousands every month over a ten-year period. Estimates varied from 500,000* to 2-million childhood deaths during that time due to the embargo against Iraq that didn’t harm Saddam Hussein in the least bit, yet did anger many a Muslim who was already mad at the United States for its policies in the Middle East. I heard one story of a small child dropping an egg he had just bought and bursting into tears. The owner of the shop gave him another egg, but this was of course before Bush’s invasion in 2003. Now the streets reportedly have orphaned children wandering aimlessly, completely on their own. I was told that story by someone whose friend had just gotten back from military duty in Iraq, and for that very reason initially stated he would never return, yet he did. The threat of jail is a powerful threat, especially in our nation, which has more prisoners than any country in the world whilst all but fully allowing the worst of atrocities of violence to occur without intervention, i.e., rapes. Also, Mr. Glick was absolutely correct in stating that, “Iraq is effectively contained.” Iraq was not even considered a threat to its contiguous neighbors following the first Gulf War.
* Former United States UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked about the sanctions in 1996 by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl. Their conversation is as follows:
Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Madeleine Albright: I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.
4) “...both the Democrats and the Republicans are dominated by big money, by corporate money. Both of these parties are overseeing a tremendous increase in the amount of money going to the Pentagon.”
5) “(We’ve seen)... a tremendous transfer of resources over the last 20-25 years from low income people, working-class people, middle-class people to the top 1% of the population.” Actually, the wealthiest of income earners were taxed at the rate of 91% on their uppermost superfluous of income when Eisenhower left office in 1961. JFK lowered the rate to 70%, with Reagan taking it down from there and George W. Bush lowering the rate, as stated earlier, from 39.6% to 35%. The incumbent, Senator Robert Torricelli, a Democrat, voted for those tax cuts. Why would anyone authorize giving tax cuts for those who’ve need of nothing whilst allowing 12-million children to feel hunger every day?
By the way, for those who proclaim that there are “self-made billionaires,” or even millionaires, ask yourself this: How did they make their money other than via two avenues - Earth’s resources and human labor? We’re not importing either from Mars. I read a mainstream article on the Internet recently about a media-proclaimed, “self-made billionaire,” who made his money by trading oil. Excuse me, but did he create the oil? Did he create the materials necessary to drill the oil, and did he do the work of harvesting it? If it needed to be transported (which one would assume would almost certainly be the case), did he build the ships and create the steel or whatever they were made of himself? Then please ask yourself how he’s “self-made.”
Summation: That’s a lot to not be heard in the debates: innocent children dying en masse due to the U.S.-led embargo against Iraq, an impending war against Iraq, the transfer of resources from the general population to those who’ve need of nothing, Global Warming - amongst the biggest threats to the continuation of the human race we’re facing today - and even more money going to the Pentagon when the U.S. at that time had already spent over three times more on defense than China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and Iraq combined. With the Cold War being over, why are we continuing to spend more and more on defense, while the average American is struggling just to make ends meet? When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew a man who worked in the fishing tackle department of the local hardware store. Though he and his wife had three children, his wife didn’t have to work outside the home and in fact, hardly anyone I knew when I was growing up had two parents having to work outside the home. Shouldn’t things have become easier after 4+ decades of technological advancement instead of worse? Why is it that when I was a child one heard of the occasional millionaire yet now we hear of billionaires, and they claim they are “self-made.” Would the majority vote for a minority to flourish at the majority’s expense if they only knew they could choose otherwise? I doubt it, yet a small number of people who are not elected prevent them from seeing how things could and should be. As long as people believe that the wealthy media censors are giving them the whole story, and folks don’t bypass the media using technology which most here in the U.S. now have at their disposal, then most will keep voting for those whose interests do not concern the average person. In other words, they’ll be voting against themselves while voting for the unnecessary horror of others, whether they know it or not.
Chapter 8
In Memory of Doug Friedline,
who was among the few who've broken the media's stronghold on major US elections
by helping get Jesse Ventura elected Governor of Minnesota
“...we hope sooner or later reason will prevail.”
- Ted Glick
2002 U.S. Senate candidate, New Jersey
The image above on the left was taken moments after Glick’s release from jail in Edison, New Jersey. I don’t know the name of, nor the charge the soldier shaking Glick’s hand was arrested for, but the two had apparently conversed while incarcerated and were released at or about the same time. The photo op was solely the soldier’s idea once he saw me standing there with my video camera running.
Doug Friedline, Glick’s campaign manager, is pictured on the right side of the center photo talking to a police officer and someone else following Glick’s release from jail.
I arrived just a moment after Ted Glick began this next interview with a woman who was taking notes and claimed to be from the Associated Press.
Ted Glick: I was arrested.
Interviewer: Here?
Ted Glick: I was arrested inside the vestibule.
Interviewer: For what?
Ted Glick: We wanted me to be able to go into the debates and to observe it.
Interviewer: Oh, you didn’t want to participate... you wanted to observe?
Ted Glick: I wanted to participate.
Interviewer: But you were going inside with the intention of observing?
Ted Glick: We told, we communicated with the New Jersey 12 management that that would be sufficient, just myself going inside to observe the debate so that then afterwards I could tell the Press or anyone else who was interested what I thought about the debate.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: That is what we were trying to do. And we were able to go in the first door.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: And the second door was kept locked and they told us we could not come in. We tried to engage in the negotiation process.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: They were essentially unwilling to talk to us.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: There was a point at which the second door was opened. I took one step forward to try to go in and my way was blocked. The police said that if I didn’t move back that I would be under arrest and in about 10 seconds the handcuffs came out and I was arrested.
Interviewer: This was the police that were already here? Police were not especially called for this?
Ted Glick: They came in within a minute or two of us going inside.
Interviewer: Did they actually take you to the station and book you?
Ted Glick: Yeah, they booked me.
Interviewer: They did?
Ted Glick: Yeah, they took me and they booked me. I was handcuffed in the back of the police car.
Interviewer: Gosh.
Ted Glick: They took the handcuffs off over at the police station. Most of the time, of course I was handcuffed to a table for about 15 minutes and I was treated fine. I’m not complaining about the treatment of the police.
Interviewer: How long was whole entire process?
Ted Glick: Oh it must have been from the time I was arrested until the time I was released, about an hour and a half.
Interviewer: What time were you arrested? Do you have any idea?
Ted Glick: 7:59 (laughs)
Interviewer: So right before... Wow.
Ted Glick: When the debate was over. (laughs)
Interviewer: Wow.
Unidentified woman who was a Glick supporter: He was allowed out to come here for the end.
Interviewer: OK... um. This has, I mean you’ve been sort of struggling just to be included...
Ted Glick: Right.
Interviewer: ...in part of this and now you’re arrested trying to be. I mean, my goodness, what do you, what can you possibly say? (laughs as if it’s just outrageous) What’s your reaction to all of this?
Ted Glick: Well, people have been arrested, you know, over many decades for causes that they believed in.
Interviewer: Right.
Ted Glick: That’s all I was doing. I was willing to be arrested if necessary to try to underline the point that this is a democracy. We call this a democracy, and if it truly is, the voters should be able to hear from candidates who are running for office, who are qualified candidates who are on the ballot. We clearly are about winning votes. It shouldn’t be just confined to two parties.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: We have a democracy crisis right now and we’ll be lucky if 1/3 of the voters in New Jersey come out and vote in this election. Ordinarily in an off-year election you don’t get more than thirty-six percent of the voters.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: And with this particular race, you know given Torricelli’s negatives, and Forrester being unknown and etc., etc., I think probably getting a third of the voters would probably be doing well, but there’s a solution to that and that is to open up the political process.
Interviewer: Right, right.
Ted Glick: And to allow other candidates to be given exposure and other points of view to be heard. If you want to revitalize democracy, that’s one of the key ways to do it.
Interviewer: Was it Edison police?
Ted Glick: Edison police.
Interviewer: And would it be fair to say, um, you know, that these candidates have alternate viewpoints?
Ted Glick: Yes.
Interviewer: That would be fair to say?
Ted Glick: Yes.
Interviewer: OK. May I ask you how old you are?
Ted Glick: Fifty-two.
Doug Friedline: Court date’s on October 1st.
Doug Friedline was Ted Glick’s campaign manager. Mr. Friedline is best known for being the campaign manager of former professional wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura in the gubernatorial race in Minnesota. Ventura, who as an outsider to politics actually defeated the Democratic and Republican candidates, made history that’s yet to be duplicated since.
Interviewer: Oh, thank you.
Doug Friedline: And let her have our website.
Interviewer: I have it already.
Doug Friedline: You have it?
Interviewer: Yes. Thank You.
Ted Glick: Yeah, thank you.
Unidentified female Glick supporter: What are you? [Notice, not "Who" but "What...."]
Interviewer: Associated Press [proudly giving the name of her employer to identify herself.]
More than one person can be heard saying the same thing: Oooh! [said as the as the proclaimed AP interviewer seemingly proudly walks away after giving the name of her employer to describe what she was.]
Unidentified female Glick supporter: Oh, OK.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: All right.
Unidentified female Glick supporter: Hey!
Doug Friedline: Excellent! Cool! Thank you.
Summation: It’s too bad this interview or at least the primary concerns discussed in this interview never made it to any newspaper, to the best of my knowledge. The only thing I remember reading in any newspaper was that Mr. Glick’s tie was crooked, which we’ve already discussed. It seemed to me that whoever interviewed him was sincere and concerned about what had happened. I suspect, perhaps incorrectly, that it was one or more of her superiors who went over her notes with her and saw the part about the interviewer from the TV station having to stop his interview to adjust his tie. As you’ll recall, the press interviewer was watching and listening to that interview before approaching Mr. Glick to do her own. No major news source I’m aware of reported things as they happened, and I was present for each of the three interactions with people representing the media who spoke with or interviewed Glick.
Regarding Doug Friedline, I was most disappointed to do a search on him and found out he had passed away in late 2006. I had been fortunate enough to have a couple of prolonged conversations with Doug, one on the phone and one in person. I can tell when someone was following what I was saying and he sure was. I believe if enough made the worst of victim’s lives real, along with our situation concerning taxes (discussed throughout this book), then it wouldn’t matter a hoot whether a candidate was cut off from the debates or not.
Chapter 9
The Journalist Who 'Covered'
a Censored Debate
“People, it has been said, can be placed in three classes:
the few who make things happen,
the many who watch things happen,
and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what happened.”
- Nicholas Murray Butler
The following interaction was with a man claiming to be from The Trenton Times, who's pictured above. He had been covering the exclusionary debate inside NJ Channel 12 studios between Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli and his Republican opponent, Doug Forrester.
Reporter: Forrester said he was a liar, and you know, it was dishonorable and everything else (laughs) you want (inaudible). [looking straight into my camera smiling and laughing]
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Of course. (laughs) Nowweretalking.tv, let’s continue the discussion here.
Ted Glick: How did Torricelli approach it?
Reporter: Well, Torricelli said he expected the negative attack because Doug Forrester doesn’t have, is so out of sync with the people of New Jersey that really the only thing he can do is attack him. That’s, you know, it’s kind of standard. I’m not telling you anything. If you had watched it on TV you would’ve said the same thing.
Ted Glick: So…
Unidentified female Glick supporter [interjects]: He was busy getting arrested for trying to come into the debate.
Ted Glick: So you would say it was like no major type of... one way or another.
Reporter: Oh, you never can tell how these things... I mean, reporters cannot judge debates. They may try to but they can’t, because voters do that. You guys do that. I’m sure you’ll watch the replay. Is this going to be on TV someplace?
Ken: Yeah, nowweretalking.tv on the web.
Reporter: Dot tv on the web. Whatever, web site, yeah, I don’t care.
Ken: Hey, that’s the only way to overcome the major media, other than people communicating amongst themselves. Those are the two avenues, because the bottom line is if people...
Reporter [interjects]: You know we went through, not to criticize you at all, but we went through the whole tax payer’s revolution and all these different groups who were going to third parties and they all collapsed.
Ken: Yeah, but the Green Party is actually...
Reporter [interjects]: Good luck to anybody that...
Ted Glick [interjects]: Are you talking about in the debate or just generally?
Reporter: Oh, just generally, you know, in the last 10 years they just... (inaudible).
Ken: Yeah, but when in mankind’s evolution did we follow the stupidest one in the pack, like we’re doing now with the president?
Reporter: I was, I mean the people on TV talk about it. I’m not covering this event. I just pulled up... (inaudible)
Unidentified female Glick supporter: What media are you in?
Reporter: The Trenton Times, OK, but I’m not covering the debate itself. I’m just trying to, sort of, figure out what to do about it afterwards.
Ken: See, the point is that some major issues aren’t brought up, I mean.
Reporter [interjects, walking away]: Well it’s... well I tell you, you couldn’t get more issues brought up in 90 minutes than brought up tonight.
Ken: Yeah, but if they’re on the same page regarding the issues... I mean, was the Drug War brought up? Was the Drug War, I mean, you consider it a Drug War, we have more incarcerates per capita than any civilization that’s ever existed.*
* That’s incorrect, though no one called me on it. Nazi Germany had more than us, both per capita and overall. So, we’re second to Nazi Germany on the All-Time List, though first right here right now, even surpassingChina in the number of prisoners we have, in spite of their horrible record concerning human rights and the fact that they outnumber us several times over. We don’t just have more prisoners per capita, we have more period.
Reporter: Yeah. [walking away]
Ken: Well, I mean, that should’ve been brought up, [the reporter throws his arms out to the side] but it wasn’t.
Reporter: Well. [still walking away]
Ken: Well, I mean, talk to somebody whose daddy or mommy is in jail because of the Drug War and, you know, they may want to see it brought up.
Summation: Though I don’t speak Latin there’s one phrase I am familiar with and I believe it’s applicable here. The words in Latin are “Res Ipsa Loquitor” which I understand roughly means, “The thing speaks for itself,” or “It speaks for itself.” Is that not applicable to the above video recorded talk with a newspaper journalist?
This reminds me of what I learned from watching MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, and that’s if one is well informed and debates someone who does not stand for “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” it doesn’t take much time to leave one’s opponent speechless. After all, how can one defend such things from a rational standpoint? They can’t, but the point is, thanks to corporate media censorship, those in charge or competitive to be elected for high office don’t have to. Who can defend harming others who are less fortunate or weaker, or anyone who is innocent? Human beings unnecessarily die because of our leadership and the laws these people vote for and create, yet they’re freely elected. This is not rocket science here. It’s easily decipherable and sickening beyond comprehension to anyone who thinks, cares and is informed regarding same that this grand scam continues unabated, yet things will remain the same and continue to get worse and worse unless enough regular caring people don’t sweat the small stuff and finally begin organizing and informing others as each sees fit to do.
Will the media be beat? Your guess is as good as mine. We know the oppressed far outnumber the oppressors and we could beat them if enough try. If it doesn’t happen, then I guess it means most gave their brains to a piece of electronic equipment, their television set, even though another piece of electronic equipment, the computer, has easily discoverable evidence that the mainstream news was purposefully misleading. Two candidates have been displayed, though six candidates have made it on enough ballots to win enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Will the propaganda box win again? I don't know. It doesn’t matter that the Internet also has this and that... facts can be verified from several sources in seconds to minutes in many cases, especially in relation to the few topics discussed in this book - amongst those, elections, the Drug War and drastic tax swings for those who’ve need of nothing over those who do.
In MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, footage is nicely flipped back and forth to scenes of Professor Chomsky’s debate with the then Dutch Minister of Defense, Fritz Bolkestein. The last scene likewise spoke for itself, as the Minister looked at his watch and said: “I’m sorry, ladies and gentleman, I must be leaving,” he then turned and exited the stage. The audience laughed as he walked off the stage. The debate mediator then stated:
“One thing is sure, that consent has not been manufactured tonight.”
Chapter 10
The Not-so-great Escape of Former
U.S. Senator Robert (Bob) Torricelli
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing...”
- Edmund Burke, 18th century British statesman
Above: U.S. Senator Robert “Bob” Torricelli, makes a getaway from questions the media censors do not ask
THE BOTTOM LINE IS, IF THE MEDIA FILTERS WEREN'T THERE people would never consent to being scammed by a government that’s supposed to represent them, though it doesn’t, while both scamming them financially and sending real people to live in violent human caging facilities en masse for non-crimes.
If there’s no victim, there’s no crime. The majority of the nation’s estimated 2.3-million prisoners are serving time for victimless “crimes,” in violent human cages away from their families and loved ones for years for nothing, nothing legitimate anyway. The Land of Liberty’s prison population has gone from an estimated 500,000 prisoners in the early '80s to some 2.3-million in 2007, largely due to the War on Drugs, which has not only failed, but denies our citizens of the right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Think about it: annual arrests for cannabis possession have been nearly three-quarters of a million in the United States now for the last several years. That means not only subjecting people who are merely possessing a plant to spend time in a human chicken coop, which is what it amounts to, only this human coop is crowded and physically dangerous, where fights and gang rapes are commonplace, but leaving society with more real criminals, i.e., those who have harmed others, at large as a result. That’s simple deductive reasoning. If our resources are wasted elsewhere, then we’ll have more pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and so forth, at large amongst the public, free to continue their crimes as a result. Please think about it. This isn’t someone else’s society I’m writing about here, and you’re amongst the majority who are getting the shaft at the hands of a disproportionate extreme minority of greedy murderous people. Does that not upset you? We’re buying the rocks for the stonings, to use a metaphor, only in our case it’s to cage people, most of whom have harmed no one. If we pay taxes, we’re chipping in.
Rape is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, and in society in general it’s treated as such, yet in U.S. prisons and jails it’s commonplace, and not even discouraged in most areas, though as I understand things from speaking to former inmates is not tolerated in some institutions. Nevertheless, when have you ever heard of someone in jail being charged with rape? Why should we leave ourselves more at risk as a population in order to punish people who’ve harmed no one to be stripped of their liberty at a grand expense to all? Would not the Founding Fathers, flaws and all, be appalled by what we’ve allowed our nation to become?
I read an article years ago about a man who started some kind of group awareness program about this in NYC, who had himself been raped in prison as a younger man who was protesting the Vietnam War. Although his bail was set at $10 he refused to have it posted, to make his point. I’m sure he would’ve done differently in retrospect if he only knew what was going to happen. As he was exiting the showers, about five men suddenly attacked him at the same time, one pulling his long hair backwards as hard as he could, with each of the others grabbing an arm or a leg. He was raped by all of them. Then they suddenly released him and took off. He got up right away to confront his attackers but they were gone. He went to look for them but didn’t even know who he was looking for since he hadn’t seen one of them. His search proved futile so he went to a guard and told him. The guard told him to stop whining.
This story is by no means unique, nor is it confined to men alone. I have a book which was written by former President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Ellen Alderman entitled The Right to Privacy in which a horrible encounter is described about a female physician who ended up in jail for unpaid parking tickets. She found herself confronted by women who made her take off her clothes. She heard a larger woman coming down the hall, who she was hoping was going to save her, but instead joined in with the others. Then she was ordered to assume humiliating positions while naked. When she told them she was a doctor they startedhooting and mocking her. This kind of violence in women’s prisons and jails is not uncommon.
Women get beat up in prison, jaws get broken and lives destroyed. We’ve witnessed this being stated in a court room from a woman who had spent time in Ocean County Jail in Ocean County, New Jersey. A man no older than 18 or 19 was up next, and he too had his jaw broken in the men’s part of the same jail, yet the prosecutor went after him tooth and nail, like he wasn’t a real human being in considerable distress brought on by our system. So, these things happen and I’d like to add that not only do the ones sent to jail suffer, so do their families and friends.
When I was practicing chiropractic, many of my patients were treated for tense muscles either precipitated or exacerbated by stress. When one is wondering whether one’s mother, father, daughter, son, wife, husband, friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, grandson, granddaughter or whoever they’re close to is facing time in a violent human caging facility, people tend to get scared for the ones they care about, and it oftentimes creates physical stress which can lead to more than just muscular tightness since stress has been proven to be highly linked to illness in general. But again, this topic is rarely brought up in the wealthy-owned, wealthy-censoring media.
The Land of the Free has become the Home of the Caged, right before our very eyes, though they don’t normally put these institutions in prominent locations such as off Interstates, yet I have seen them in both western New York just off I-90 and on I-81 in southern Virginia.
The Drug War affects the poor much more than the wealthy. The downside is the wealthy benefit from it by hiring people who have lost their citizen rights and therefore can be paid slave labor wages, far below minimum wage, like 17 cents an hour, 25 cents an hour, if they’re lucky 50 cents an hour.
If stonings for adultery were practiced here in the United States, would you condone your tax dollars funding the bombardment of people with rocks for violations of their right to live as they choose? Our tax dollars are directly funding the terrorization and torture of our own citizens en masse, while keeping them away from everyone who cares about them, even though they’ve harmed no one. Meanwhile, arguably the most harmful drug is legal, in terms of how its ingestion can affect others, i.e., alcohol, and one of, if not “the” most addicting drug known to mankind is legal likewise, i.e., nicotine, the addiction to which accounts for some 400,000 U.S. deaths each year, and 5-million people worldwide.
It’s rare for someone who smokes cannabis to smoke anywhere near as much as tobacco. Cannabis contains no compound like nicotine that fits in a lock and key fashion to its own receptor sites of the brain like opiates and tobacco that must be continuously satisfied if one is to remain free of bodily withdrawal symptoms.* If these receptor sites do not get what they’re used to getting, the person will get physical symptoms which can only be satisfied by having more of the unique substance that fits in a lock and key fashion to parts of the brain. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that nicotine was as addicting as heroin. In fact, he stated,“Nicotine in cigarettes may be more addicting than other drugs, because the smoker gets so many 'hits' of nicotine each day.”**
* NOTE: THC does have receptor sites in the brain, but unlike nicotine and opiates, one does not go through terrible withdrawal symptoms if these sites are not stimulated.
** See, http://www.cvhpinstitute.org/ch/ch06.html
Surely “cannabis” AKA “marijuana” could be made to contain less THC for someone who didn’t want to get high but wanted to stop smoking cigarettes. Unlike tobacco, one doesn’t wake up with a strong feeling that one needs a fix. This doesn’t happen to all tobacco users, of course, yet it happens to far too many, likely most. I’ve been around enough tobacco smokers in my life, and even been addicted to it several times myself and watched other tobacco addicts have their lives destroyed due to the prolonged use of this plant. In fact, of the five cancer patients I had to diagnose during my 13 years as a chiropractic physician, four were heavy smokers. At one time when I was looking at the MRI results of a man with cancer that had spread to his hip which it was eating away, the radiologist turned to me and asked, “Smoker?” Yes, he was a tobacco smoker, and he died of the disease within a few weeks. The same facility took a pelvic x-ray only weeks earlier in which the tumor was not detectable in the least, because it takes more bone loss to be detected via x-ray, unlike the more sensitive albeit expensive MRI.
Getting back to the highlight of the evening, other than a legitimate U.S. Senate candidate being arrested while an un-elected few forcibly had him handcuffed and locked in a cage during the time of the debate in which he should have been included, the following is our encounter with New Jersey U.S. Senator, Robert Torricelli, as he left the studio. A few of us were standing several cars away from the exit walkway from Channel 12 studio when Doug Friedline spotted Senator “Bob” Torricelli, walking with a woman while leaving the station.
Doug Friedline: Torricelli’s over here.
Glick quickly rushed down and met Torricelli at the base of the sidewalk where it joined the parking lot. I arrived with my video camera, running, moments later. Beginning 10 feet away or so and approaching, the following conversation with former U.S. Senator Robert “Bob” Torricelli was recorded.
NJ Green Party Congressional candidate, Joe Fortunato, a north Jersey attorney: Hi Bob [Torricelli], how’s it going?
Ted Glick: (Inaudible, since Mr. Glick was facing away from me, and Mr. Fortunato was facing toward me as I approached.)
Senator Torricelli: I know, but that’s not my call.
Ted Glick: You have a lot to do with it.
Senator Torricelli: [walking away] Well, I don’t.
Ted Glick: You negotiate the rules of the debate.
Joe Fortunato: How about next time? Can we sit down and talk about it? Talk about the issues sir?
Unidentified female Glick supporter: That’s what our new slogan is... “Backdoor Bob.” Like it?
Joe Fortunato: How about talk about the issues with us? Let’s have a real debate.
Unidentified male: Stop ducking.
Elaine Hildebrandt: Why is it that the true people are taken away to jail while the (inaudible) people go walk on the streets telling people lies? Second Graders know that everybody should have a voice.
Joe Fortunato: Bob, how are you going to vote on the war plan?
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Bob! Isn’t it true that you were one of the 12 dirty dozen Democrats that went along with W’s tax-cutting rape for the people that benefited the one percent? Isn’t that true?
Joe Fortunato: What about the war, Bob?
[Senator Torricelli and his female companion spot their limo]
Ken: How about the Drug War, Bob? You know? They’re victimless criminals that are put in and have to sit their lives in cages.
Apart from a statement or two from other citizens trying to ask Senator Torricelli real questions about life and death which were difficult to hear, the above was the entire recorded interaction. Senator Torricelli had no words to even attempt to substantiate the undeniable human-induced terror and death they support while still coming across as fair and working for the best interests of the citizens of the United States. As Senator Torricelli was asked questions the mainstream media would never address fairly, if at all, he simply stopped responding.
It’s tough to argue for the stress, strain and misery of many to benefit a small percentage of the population. It’s also tough to argue for sending citizens en masse to live in violent human zoos at a rate and number greater than any nation on earth, yet pretends to be the Land of the Free, but they just don’t bring that up often on the six o’clock news, do they?
We’re talking about over half* of 2.3-million prisoners who are living in cages for violations of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Again, this has all escalated tremendously over the last few decades.
* See, http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm, number 14.
And something that one doesn’t normally hear brought up is the question that since our law enforcement personnel are chasing non-criminals half the time, does that not by default leave more rapists, pedophiles, thieves and murderers at large due to the hours, days and weeks our law enforcement people are spending harming the innocent, their families and loved ones at taxpayers' expense? We’ve already discussed that it certainly does. It’s nothing but elementary deductive reasoning. Would anyone care to argue otherwise, publicly I mean? Why not write one of the mainstream puppet commentators and ask this most basic question regarding such a profundity?
Most know that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped step up the Drug War. Fewer know that the prison population during the Clinton years about doubled. Even less probably know that Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Joe Biden, the Washington dinosaur who's been in the U.S. Senate for some three and half decades (in other words, the antithesis of “change”), pushed for mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions in the '80s, meaning that innocent people would be taken away from their families, friends, children, and so forth to live in violent caging facilities for violations of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for even longer periods of time. Has not Joe Biden had major complicity in harming innocent people en masse, and we know it?*
* See, Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his VP, at, http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/08/23/NaderonBiden/.
If one can’t reasonably answer why one is supporting the harming of millions of our citizens, doesn’t that make you sick?
People in the U.S., the most powerful and influential nation on earth, are “...allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” to the point that they directly fund human misery and vote for those who make the laws that harm the innocent on purpose. How much sense does this make? Is this not cruel? Is this not state-sanctioned child abuse that’s rationalized by the elite lawmakers and the media as being legitimate? It either is or isn’t.
Remembering what Steve Biko, who was killed under the Apartheid regime in South Africa, stated:
“The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
How true!
Chapter 11
Another Censored Candidate Discusses
Wind, Hemp, and More
“You’re never going to regret wind.
Nuclear power you’re going to regret.”
- Eric Borregard,
2002 Michigan U.S. Senate candidate (pictured below)
AS IN 2000 WITH THE ELIMINATION OF RALPH NADER and the other legitimate candidates who were on ballots, limiting the bounds of debate by the media in the United States - by force if necessary - is their modus operandi. In 2002 our travels took us not only to events in New Jersey but we also traveled to Michigan and Minnesota in our pursuit to cover the elections.
In August we went to Michigan, where we spoke to the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Eric Borregard. Eric had much to share with us, including giving us video footage of fellow Green Party candidate for Governor of Michigan, Douglas Campbell, being physically grabbed off the stage before the start of a televised debate for the office he was seeking. He reportedly had several ribs broken in the process of being ripped from his seat by two officers of some kind, who grabbed him on each side lifting him off his seat and out of the room. His would-be opponents ignored the assault that took place right next to them. One of them would be elected Governor of Michigan.
I asked Mr. Borregard a few questions, and he showed me a breakdown of how much money his opponents had raised by special interest groups, especially concentrating on the Democrat who was clearly leading the pack in money raised for the campaign. We’ll begin with some questions I had for the U.S. Senate candidate, who was likewise marginalized by the media as if he didn’t exist.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: We’re here with Senate candidate Eric Borregard at his office. And tell me, Eric, you were talking to me before about wind as an alternative to nuclear power. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about that.
Michigan U.S. Senate candidate, Eric Borregard: You’re never going to regret wind. Nuclear power you’re going to regret. There’s no way to get rid of nuclear waste. And now that they’re going to be shipping it to Yucca , you’ll be sitting at a light and when one of these trucks comes up next to you, it’ll be the equivalent of about 100 dental x-rays.
Elaine Hildebrandt: Not a train... a truck?
Eric Borregard: Just a truck, sitting there idling next to it, like a moving x-ray machine.
Ken: So how come we’re not using wind? I mean, I know that but... ah...
Eric Borregard: For the same reason we haven’t legalized hemp.
Ken: And that is, of course?
Eric Borregard: The Alcohol Lobby; the Energy Lobby; they’re invested in coal. All those guys down in West Virginia, you know, they’re strip-mining all the mountains... um, a lot of money in that, and they would lose their job(s). Engineers up here in Detroit started building large assembly lines to build the wind turbines. We can build energy we don’t have to go find it.
Ken: You had heard, too, the thing that I had seen on JackHerer.com, that Henry Ford actually had an automobile that ran on hemp seed oil...
Eric Borregard: Yeah.
Ken: …in the 1930s, and you’re aware of that also?
Eric Borregard: Part of it’s the economics. It was cheaper to drill for oil. That’s still the case,* it’s cheaper, but as time goes on it’s not that much more expensive. We do have ethanol in our gasoline.
* Note: Gasoline prices in Michigan were in the low to mid $1.40 range at the time, according to, http://fuelgaugereport.com.
Ken: Right. Now you’re saying it’s cheaper. This guy Jack...
Eric Borregard: It’s just another form of ethanol, though diesel, you can make diesel out of it, so the trucks can run on it, too. It has a lot of uses but again, also the Alcohol Lobby, they have a lot of money invested in alcohol, selling it at every local drug store and if you started selling marijuana it would probably cut twenty, thirty, maybe forty percent of their profits. (laughs)
Ken: I wonder what would happen to the violence, too.
Eric Borregard: The real thing is why should we be putting people in jail for something that is probably a lot less harmless [sic] to their bodies. Alcohol causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and (you) lose muscle control when you’re driving. You know, it’s a much more dangerous drug. Why should we be putting those people in jail and paying for their incarceration when our schools need money and so on, and we really don’t need to be doing this at all? In fact we’ve created a kind of state of mind in people’s, you know, that we need this kind of law enforcement. It’s more of like a stigma on a particular product than any real...
Above: All too frequent consequence of alcohol consumption.
Ken: And what it’s doing really is enforcing that these alternative energy sources are not used. That’s what it’s enforcing. It’s enforcing the idea that oil is going to be continued to be used. That’s really what they’re enforcing. It’s awful.
Eric Borregard: Recently we’ve just reached the point, the last year or so, where all the oil there is to be used, we’re at the half-way point just a few years ago.
Ken: Huh.
Eric Borregard: So, it went up like this (raising his hand up) we reached this point, it’s going to get harder and harder to find the last bits, and then there’s not going to be any left. So if it only takes a hundred years to go through that, probably fifty years to go through what’s left. So, the next economic boom, the next big bonanza, it’s green, it’s going to be very green. It’s going to be trains that run on electricity, wind turbines, and probably still a lot of the other electrical generation type equipment.
Ken: But not only is oil running out, the earth-raping way we have to go about getting it, plus, I mean it takes (millions of years for oil to be created). Hemp renews annually.*
* See, http://JackHerer.com
Eric brought us to another room to show us some printouts regarding where his Democratic and Republican opponents were getting their money.
Eric Borregard: This is Carl Levin who I’m running against, and here is the total money spent as of July 17, 2002.
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: He’s reached four million (dollars) and Andrew Raczkowski, the Republican, he’s raised about half a million (dollars). PAC contributions, the Republican has about $2,275. Zero percent of his money is coming from PAC, it’s all individuals. The Democrat has raised $665,000, 16% of his money is coming from Corporate PACs. So we have a Democrat who’s actually hogged up all the corporate money.
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: ...All the insurance companies, all the oil companies, the oil industry.
Ken: Wow.
Eric Borregard: And, ah, the Defense industry,* especially because he’s on the Armed Services Committee and the Government Intelligence Committee. Of course, I’m on here too, zero percent. I haven’t taken any donations yet. (This was toward the end of August 2002.)
Mr. Borregard then turned the page of the printout he had stapled together.
* From, A World of Ideas, with Bill Moyers, PBS (Public TV), USA, 1988:
Bill Moyers to Professor Noam Chomsky: You have said that we live entangled in webs of endless deceit, in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. Elementary truths such as?
Professor Noam Chomsky: Such as... the fact that the military system is to a substantial extent, not totally, but to a substantial extent, a mechanism by which the general population is compelled to provide a subsidy to high technology industry, since they're not going to do it if you ask them to, you have to deceive them into doing it.
Ken: These are some of those industries you were talking about.
Eric Borregard: Oh yeah, you’ve got to see this (pointing to a picture of Senator Levin). This is Carl Levin. I’m sure you’ll all recognize him from somewhere. He’s up around 5-million dollars right now actually. This is back in July but he has raised from law firms about 300,000 (dollars), pro-Israeli groups, ah... you’re wondering why we’re having a war in Iraq and supporting Israel. Well, he’s on the committee and here’s a quarter of a million reasons why he likes them. Insurance industry... you wonder why you’re not getting your prescription drugs or whatever. They’re going to be slowed down, he’s going to take a long time to consider those. Health care professionals, you know, (he moving down the list), Medicare, yep, there’s going to be problems there. Aerospace groups, defense groups, yeah...
Ken: Yeah, who was that last one?
Eric Borregard: ... (inaudible), Chrysler, oh yeah.
Ken: Oh yeah, good old MBNA, (spotting this one myself and wanting to be sure he didn’t miss it since I was aware that they had also supported Bush’s campaign in 2000.)*
* “Among the biggest beneficiaries of the measure would be MBNA Corporation of Delaware, which describes itself as the world’s biggest independent credit card company. Ranked by employee donations, MBNA was the largest corporate contributor to the Bush campaign, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics, an election research group.”
- From, Lobbying Campaign Led by Credit Card Companies and Banks Nears Bankruptcy Bill Goal, by Philip Shenon, originally published on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 in the New York Times, and currently available at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0313-02.htm.
Eric Borregard: I’m not qualified to be a U.S. Senator, but I think the guy down here at the Taco Bell who’s folding tacos (burritos)...
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: ...is more qualified than Carl Levin...
Ken: No doubt about it.
Eric Borregard: ...because he knows enough not to stick his hands in the guacamole. (laughs)
Ken: Right. (laughs)
Before we left Eric’s office he gave us a copy of a television commercial (made for a cable station, as I recall) containing footage of a brutal arrest of Michigan Green Party candidate, Douglass Campbell, who as someone on the official state ballot had sat down to participate in a televised debate with the Republican and Democratic candidates. He told us to do with it what we liked and when we misplaced the first copy he mailed us another. It was quite an arrest. Two officers, one on each side, grabbed him by one arm each and hoisted him out and behind his chair with him ending up on the floor with broken ribs.
Campbell had several ribs broken in this videotaped assault as the other members of the panel sitting to his right did not even seemingly react at all. Unlike the presented puppets, Douglas Campbell clearly stood for the common people in general over big business and other special interest groups, but Michiganders never got to see and hear him because he was yanked from the stage by people who were not elected to make such decisions.
There’s yet to be a citizen vote on who is allowed in the debates and why, concerning all leading offices in this country including the presidency, yet the big business people who run the major television stations, standing up for themselves and their fellow wealthy corporation buddies, simply eliminate more reasonable fair people from even being in the contest. And the people swallow it, hook, line and sinker, time after time, election after election.
It’s not a very complex scam, and with the Internet, the fact that it’s still working is nothing short of disgraceful, in my view. Like the well-dressed gentleman said to me in Harlem back in 2000: “I don’t want to see anything else other than his platform. I’m not interested in anything else you have. Show me his platform.” Well, in that case it was a he, meaning Nader. But the point is, whether one likes Ralph Nader as a person or not, his platform was far more reasonable than his primary opposition, yet all he managed to do was glean some 3% of the vote, thanks to a censoring media.
George W. Bush, a man who had had more executions as governor of Texas than any governor in the history of the United States, whose signature was written on 152 of 153 death penalty cases he had been presented with during his tenure, ended up winning the presidency. The media had spoiled yet another election.
Many of those put to death at Bush’s command were clearly innocent, many others likely innocent, and several drew international outrage, yet George W. Bush either ignored the facts or didn’t spend the time to look into the cases before determining whether he’d have each one of them put to death. He simply relied on the court’s ruling, his signature being the only thing stopping a real person from being put to death.
One of his victims - who was guilty of murder, admittedly - had made it on a mainstream television program. Tucker Carlson, the generally Bush-supporting bow-tied telecaster, asked Governor George W. Bush if he had seen the broadcast. George W. reportedly then said to Mr. Carlson: “Please don’t kill me,” with pursed lips, indicating he had likely seen the broadcast and that was his synopsis of same. Bush's actions led to a murder likewise, didn’t they? George W. Bush claims to be a born-again Christian, as clearly Karla Faye Tucker had become, making them brother and sister in Christ according to their religion, yet did he remember the teaching of Jesus, whom he claims to be a follower of, proclaiming that, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” as is recorded in, The Gospel According to John, (Chapter 8, Verse 7), a book he proclaims he believes is sacred?
Not to stray too much here before we return to Douglas Campbell, yet it seemed a good place for people to have a glance at some of Bush’s killing record prior to becoming president, especially since a 10+ year study of executions was released and openly reported in the mainstream media at the time revealing that 20% of those executed are innocent of the crime for which they were sentenced to death. The Bush team was quick to point out that the study also showed that over 90 percent were guilty of “some crime,” even though Bush and Cheney had histories of being arrested and found guilty for drunk driving themselves, making both of them fit into that same category.
One person who was clearly among the 20 percent was Gary Graham, AKA Shaka Sankofa. He was 17 at the time of the alleged crime to begin with, making the U.S. among just a handful of countries which would execute him even if he was guilty, though the evidence indicates he was not. He was identified by one person from 30 feet away at night as being the murderer, though six other eye witnesses claimed he was not the killer, and four others passed polygraph tests saying he was with them at the time of the murder.
There was no physical evidence linking him with the crime either. This was surely a case of questionable guilt and in reality almost certain innocence. The facts are that ten people, plus Shaka Sankofa himself, maintained that he was innocent of the crime he paid the ultimate price for committing, six eyewitnesses to the crime and four people who claimed he was with them at the time of the murder, vs. one person whose description of the killer was not near what any of the other eyewitnesses described him as being.
I remember seeing a picture in the Daily News of NYC of several people walking down a street, some holding signs, with the camera focused on a woman who was reportedly Mr. Graham’s daughter, crying, and a man holding her as they were walking together. Bush had just ordered the killing of her father for a crime he did not commit. No, he didn’t murder Shaka Sankofa (the name the former Gary Graham requested he be remembered by) himself (the former high school cheerleader probably wouldn’t be up to that), yet his signature was what caused this man’s death. Charles Manson didn’t kill anyone himself either, did he? Yet all consider him a murderer for ordering others to kill, do they not? That’s what Bush’s signature did for Gary Graham, AKA Shaka Sankofa.
This blatant disregard for accuracy regarding real human being’s lives seems so foreign to me as a former healer. I remember how specific I tried to be when arriving at a diagnosis and plan of treatment for my patients, and how much I cared for each and everyone who came to my office entrusting me to a certain degree with their very health. Nearly all that was at my disposal to help was my brain and my hands, though I often relied on technology such as x-rays and MRIs to help arrive at a diagnosis.
My point is, I certainly didn’t want any of them to die, though I did diagnose a handful who ended up having diseases I knew would likely take their lives and did, and had I had in my power to take their life-threatening illness away I surely would’ve, and I think most people think this way, whether physician or not, though clearly George W. Bush does not think this way. “What’s wrong with him?” one might ask, and what’s wrong with the people for electing such a person to have more influence over people’s lives than arguably anyone alive?
George W. Bush is a person who obviously doesn’t mind if his actions directly cause another human to be strapped to a gurney and put to death, even though the matter could be halted by his mere say-so. As governor he had absolute power as to whether or not he wanted to have each of the 152 of 153 people he was presented with to live or die. The decision was his. “The buck stops here,” stated President Harry Truman, the man responsible for the two biggest terrorist attacks of all time, by the way. Who did Junior Bush let live out of the 153, aren’t you wondering? Henry Lee Lucas is the answer, a man who admitted he killed hundreds of people. Yes, on a scale of one to ten in straining believability it often seems to be a ten doesn’t it?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”
- Mark Twain
Back to Douglas Campbell: Eric Borregard had given us his telephone number encouraging us to contact him but we had already planned to travel to Minnesota before returning to New Jersey and New York, where we had a home near the beach and an apartment in the city at the time. In retrospect, I wish we had delayed our trip to Minnesota and given Douglas Campbell a call, or arranged to meet him on the way back, for his is truly representative of how far the major media will go to distort a major election. Nowhere else in our society is this kind of treatment to the innocent accepted, except in U.S. jails and prisons, of course - in both cases simply because they haven’t been brought to broad public attention to reach enough people who care that their tax dollars are directly funding the catching and caging of innocent people who have not harmed or stolen from anyone, while considering of course that there are multiple scores of others who are likewise harmed when the people they know and in many cases love and live with are taken away from their homes to reside in violent human caging facilities, off limits to the general public for most intents and purposes. One mustn’t forget either that by so doing we are left with more real criminals, such as murderers, pedophiles, rapists, thieves and so forth as a result of wasting our resources terrorizing innocent people for their lifestyles.
We met a young woman whose father shot and killed himself days before he was to return to a Michigan jail on possession of marijuana charges. He had already been in one of these caging facilities for a violation of his right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” but not for hurting anyone or stealing anything, and rather than face going back he ended his life. It was easy to see the suffering in his teenage daughter’s eyes. Her Daddy died due to our torturous prisons and our denying people by force en masse of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We’re all a part of this, as Professor Chomsky has correctly stated.
Think about it, while remembering the words of the insane yet successful dictator, Adolf Hitler, who admitted, “What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” Include both men and women, of course, in granting the rulers their luck whilst diminishing their own. But those who do understand need to communicate to as many others as they can since the media will not do this for us. We’re all losing though we outnumber our oppressors. With the Internet at our disposal all that's missing is effort, the effort to inform others about how the media have been shafting us all.
Who would choose a doctor who knowingly harmed most in order to benefit a disproportionate few, simply because she or he spent more money than the other doctors advertising and so forth? How are the media able to keep such importantly impacting secrets contained within safe limits at the height of the Information Age? Here we are with nearly everyone being aware of faulty voting machines, yet long before Election Day when the public is supposed to get a clear idea of who they’re voting for, a disproportionate few keeps it all a safe secret by openly leaving out qualified competition. It’s hardly a complex scam.
Candidates who are on the ballots and therefore are eligible to win the seat of the race they’re in are marginalized to such a point they’re deemed a wasted vote, even though the public could be choosing people who far and away are more supporting of their needs and well being, yet thus far this obvious news has drawn little attention. How many other books have you read about this? Is this not easier to demonstrate and more impacting than faulty voting machines?
Chapter 12
A Corporate Country Club
for Democrats
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it.
... the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”
- Joseph Goebbels,
Hitler's Minister of Propaganda
Above: Carl Mayer, NJ Green Party congressional candidate
UPON LEAVING U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE ERIC BORREGARD'S OFFICE, we set out for Minnesota to help the Green Party take on Paul Wellstone, who was arguably by far the most fair, reasonable, caring U.S. Senator we had at the time. Nevertheless after 9/11, like far too many others, he caved by voting in favor of mass suffering, misery and death to thousands of innocent people, i.e., war, for clearly unsound reasons. It should be noted that even if he voted against the war in Afghanistan it would’ve made no difference since the Senate overwhelmingly backed an invasion. If he had voted against invading Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9-11-01, many thought so doing would have ended up costing him his U.S. Senate seat in the coming year’s midterm election of 2002. Tragically, Senator Wellstone died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002, just prior to the election. Ironically, we heard the news on television upon returning to our motel room after meeting Professor Noam Chomsky for the first time. One of the last things we told Noam before leaving was that we planned on heading back to Minnesota, this time to help with Senator Wellstone's campaign, since the Greens at that point obviously had no chance, and he was in danger of losing his seat.
As it turned out, back in August when we got to Minnesota we found out that it hadn’t yet been decided who among two were going to run on the state’s Green Party ticket for U.S. Senate, either Ed McGaa or Ray Tricomo. So we went back to New Jersey in plenty of time for the first scheduled televised debate among the U.S. Senate candidates, only to witness the arrest of the Green Party candidate, Ted Glick, which we discussed earlier.
Weeks before his arrest, we met U.S. Senate candidate Ted Glick in person for the first time outside a private club in the outskirts of Princeton, New Jersey, a club that had annual dues of some 60 to 65 thousand dollars, on a large estate just a matter of minutes away from some of the poorest inner city streets I’ve ever seen in Trenton, New Jersey. Reportedly, five U.S. Senators were in attendance at the estate on the day we met him, all were Democrats. One was Jon Corzine, 2006-2010 governor of New Jersey, who was then a U.S. Senator. A permit for a gathering to draw attention to what was happening inside was obtained, and reportedly some Libertarians were in attendance too, at some point, in addition to mostly members of the Green Party.
As soon as we arrived and parked a short way down the street at the end of the other vehicles, I walked toward the small gathering of a dozen or so people with my camera in my hand. I ended up interviewing U.S. Senate candidate Ted Glick, Joe Fortunato, a Green Party candidate then running for Congress in the 8th District of New Jersey, and Carl Mayer, who was likewise running as a Green for Congress in a different district than Mr. Fortunato.
After interviewing both Ted Glick and Joe Fortunato, we ended up turning around and going back in order to interview the last candidate, Carl Mayer, after hearing him on WBAI radio as we started making our way home, in an apparent taped discussion since there was no one from any radio or television stations at the event while we were there.
We’ll begin with Carl Mayer, followed by Joe Fortunato, since you’ve yet, at least in this manuscript, read anything about them. Then we’ll return to Ted Glick.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Carl, I had to turn back. You were on the radio on my way home on (W)BAI (a listener-supported radio station out of New York City).
Carl Mayer: Oh, was I?
Ken: ...and you gave a great rant.
Carl Mayer: Oh, was I (inaudible)?
Ken: So, this is Carl Mayer. Did I pronounce that right?
Carl Mayer: Yeah, Mayer.
Ken: All right, now what’s going on here today, Carl? The part I got before the radio station went out was about Al Gore’s New York Times editorial last week and you had some interesting comments to make regarding that editorial.
Carl Mayer: Last week in the New York Times, Al Gore wrote an editorial in which he said the historic mission of the Democratic Party is to fight for the people, not the powerful. Not one week after his editorial, the leading Democratic Senators are partying at one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, the former mansion of Seward Johnson, the founder of Johnson & Johnson. It costs $65,000 to enter those gates, just to get in, $65,000.
Ken: What is the acreage I heard you say on...?
Carl Mayer: Two hundred and thirty acres.
Ken: Wow. (Remember, this isn’t rural Virginia where my wife Elaine and I live now, this is in central western New Jersey where real estate prices are among the highest in the country.)
Carl Mayer: Sixty-five thousand dollars to get in.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: A lot of people live in homes in this country that are less than $65,000. It’s just to get into the club. There are all sorts of corporate sponsors of this fundraiser, and there are corporate members of this club like Arthur Anderson is, a convicted corporate criminal. They’re convicted of obstructing justice, for shredding documents in the Enron case. They’re a member of this club and yet Corzine and four other Democratic Senators...
Ken: Yeah, who are the other four Democratic Senators, that was the other...
Carl Mayer: Tom Harkin, Jean Carnahan, Tim Johnson from South Dakota, and Max Cleland from Georgia.
Ken: Wow.
Carl Mayer: Max Cleland of Georgia, and they’re all going, as Bruce Afran here pointed out (Bruce Afran was a Green Party New Jersey U.S. Senate candidate in 2000), it’s like going to John Gotti’s social club. It’s like the police commissioner going to a party at John Gotti’s social club, the same thing as Jon Corzine having a party at Arthur Anderson’s social club. They’re both criminals, the only difference is Arthur Anderson stole a lot more than John Gotti ever did.
Ken: I think it’s indicative that we don’t have a Democratic Party that’s called the Democratic Party, that we have one that’s Green.
Carl Mayer: Yep.
Ken: All right.
Carl Mayer: Rush Holt, who is marinated with corporate PAC money. Rush Holt is, he is nothing but a corporation in disguise running as a person. He has taken money from WorldCom, from Deloitte and Tush, from Ernst and Young, Price Waterhouse, all the accounting firms that were responsible for the various frauds like Tico and Enron. Here, you can see right here (pointing to a placard someone else was holding), 1-800-BUY-HOLT.
Ken: Now, there’s somebody else running against him (too)?
Carl Mayer: Buster Soaries, yeah, he’s the Republican nominee. He’s actually an interesting nominee. He’s an African-American minister* and he’s done a lot of work in the community, and ah, his campaign is not funded like Rush Holt’s. Rush Holt would make (Croatias?) look poor, he has so much money. He spent 4.9-million dollars in his last few campaigns.
* Technically all Americans, if one traces one’s lineage far enough back, are African-American. After all, we do have a common ancestor (along with everyone else in the world) who was from Africa. Yes, we’re all, “families apart,” as the late great musician and visionary Jimi Hendrix wrote shortly before he passed away in 1970. We’re all related, everyone on earth, yet few realize this undeniable reality. The false barriers keep us divided amongst ourselves.
Ken: Yeah.
Carl Mayer: He takes money from these accounting firms and then he voted against a bill that would’ve made the accountants more accountable to the people, that would have reduced and eliminated accountant’s conflict of interest. It was proposed by a member of his own party, Dennis Kucinich, and um, he voted against it because he’s in the hands of the accountants.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: He hasn’t... there isn’t, there isn’t (hardly) a PAC he hasn’t taken money from. He’s taken from defense contractors, he’s taken from the nuclear power industry.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: He’s taken from Wall Street firms and securities industry while the securities industry is defrauding America. He’s taken from the, ah, the med or the drug companies. He’s taken more money from the drug companies than any other member of Congress, on the Democratic side, and he voted against a bill to put a cap on prescription drug prices for seniors because he votes with the drug companies, not the... not the, ah, people.
Ken: Ah, incidentally, as do almost always, all the Republicans, right?
Carl Mayer: Well, that’s true.
Ken: That’s, well, I mean, we gotta give it to your opponent too.
I was referring to his other opponent’s membership party, the Republican Party, of which I doubt his opponent would’ve been nominated as a candidate, had he been openly opposed to their platform. If he had been in accord with most of the Republican Party’s platform, then even if he had done helpful things for the community and was a likeable guy and so forth, whether he knew it or not he was supporting unnecessary pain and suffering, same as if he had been a Democrat. Both parties' platforms support the War on Drugs which is really an inhumane war against our own citizen’s right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and has resulted in millions of casualties, some sent to violent cages, some with loved ones, parents, spouses, etc., when other much more harmful and addicting substances are perfectly legal.
Nicotine addiction accounts for some 400,000 U.S. deaths each year, since that’s the addictive substance contained in tobacco. Tobacco addicts have specific receptor sites in their brains which the drug nicotine fits into in a lock and key fashion, same as opiate addicts have receptor sites for opium, as has been discussed. Of course, alcohol ingestion has a direct relationship with physical violence and automobile accidents, yet it remains legal likewise. I don’t know of any other drug, whether injected, digested, or inhaled, that can actually make people completely forget hours of their time when under its influence other than anesthesia. So, considering the loss of muscle and motor control, as was brought up by U.S. Senate candidate Eric Borregard earlier, and that people can actually forget time and do things that they don’t even remember doing, like driving and ending up killing innocent people, sometimes killing themselves along with them, sometimes not, how can anything else be deemed illegal from a rational standpoint?
Remember, we’re supposed to have the right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Taking people from their homes and making them live in cages, oftentimes for years, ought to be for something other than what the person decides to put into her or his body. This is a violation of their liberty, and it comes at an expense to all, as has been explained. If we spend our money chasing innocent people, that leaves more real criminals at large as a result. This is basic deductive reasoning.
Ken: (in conclusion): So, here we are. Here’s the facilities folks (as I pointed my video camera toward the outer wall and gates), for the so-called Democratic Party (or at least, some of its leading U.S. Senate members), and, a mere sixty-five grand to get you through those gates.
Chapter 13
More Candidate Censorship -
Compliments of The Corporate Media
“The corporate media won't cover us unless
we force them to, and we have to seek other outlets
and I'm very glad you're here doing this.”
- Joe Fortunato,
NJ Green Party congressional candidate
(Pictured below)
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: We’re outside of our little fundraiser, or rather the Democratic Party’s fundraiser* for the upcoming election, in Elitesville, that is, between Princeton and Lawrenceville, New Jersey. What a contrast to five miles ago. So, what do you think of the upcoming election? We’ve got Joe Fortunato (here) and you’re in what congressional district?
* Not to say this was a Democratic Party officially-sanctioned event, just that key members of its party were in attendance.
Joe Fortunato: I’m in the 8th Congressional District, which is Passaic County and Essex County.
Ken: What is your message to the voters in your area? I mean, who are your opponents?
Joe Fortunato: Well, the Democrat incumbent is William Pascrowl, a middle of the road centrist Democrat, and the Republican is named, Jarad, or Jared Silverman, who’s never, to my knowledge, run on a Federal level for office before, and I’m a Green Party candidate, (on the ballot running for the same office). Essentially the message is that we need an alternative to the two-party system. Democrats and Republicans are bought and paid for by major corporations such as Enron and WorldCom. We’re here today, as you mentioned, outside a Democratic fundraiser where the elite and the millionaires are backing Democratic Party candidates such as Corzine and Torricelli, and we’re here with a different kind of message.
Ken: You have an upcoming debate, I understand, between these two. Well, hopefully so.
Joe Fortunato: There will be a candidate’s forum in October, with the AARP, and we take a very different position on issues of our elders, as well as on health care. We support universal health care for everyone. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans will do that. They fight each other’s proposals for limited prescription drugs in the Senate. The Greens call for universal health care for all. That’s one difference. Another difference is oncampaign finance reform.* There are many differences. It’s a fundamentally different way of looking at things. We are running a campaign which says give democracy back to the people and away from the major corporations and their bought and paid for political parties.
* In the fall of 2009, I was lucky enough to make contact with Doris Haddock, AKA “Granny D,” who walked across the country between the ages of 88 and 90 for campaign finance reform. After exchanging e-mails, we ended up conversing several times via telephone, and had planned on meeting in person in the spring of 2010. Unfortunately Doris passed away on March 09, 2010, at age 100. In one of our lengthier conversations, she told me that her real motivation for walking across the country was for “publicly `funded elections,” but if she had had a sign stating that on her cross-country walk, she felt few would've understood her message. In other words, it required more of an explanation than what could be placed on a simple placard. Publicly funded elections were a high priority for Doris, and she worked hard for them right up to the end, in spite of her decades long battle with emphysema. She informed me that there was pending legislation for same in some 27 states, and that Maine and Arizona already had laws in place. I had known about Maine, but not Arizona. I asked her about eventually seeing this reach a Federal level, and she agreed that was her ultimate goal. What an amazing woman. If enough others put forth a fraction of the effort she did, we'd steer this nation and world toward a more sane direction in a short time.
Ken: Now, the district’s representative (in Congress) this time, I guess he voted with Bush’s tax-cut plan for the elites, both of them. Are you aware (of that)? ...as far as the first tax cut...
Joe Fortunato: Did, in my... ah...?
Ken: Well, as far as the original tax cut, which basically took the highest tax bracket... they were taxed at the rate of 39.6 %, and they took it all the way down to 35%.
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: I mean, the great benefactors…
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: ...of the first tax plan.
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: You know, and everyone else gets shafted as a result. Almost all the House, I’m sure all the House Republicans voted for it.
Joe Fortunato: Well, that’s right, my opponent’s a Democrat and he makes progressive-sounding noises from time to time, on taxes, on education, but, um, essentially has voted with the administration right down the line on our, where our, most of our tax dollars go, which is to the military.
Ken: Yeah, no doubt.
Joe Fortunato: ...For these bloated military budgets.
Ken: Over 50%. There comes a high cost of oppressing the rest of the world, I guess.
Joe Fortunato: Well that’s for sure, you know. For instance, two years ago we voted 1.3-billion, with a ‘b,’ billion dollars, ah... for the Columbian military to fight a phony Drug War in Columbia.
Ken: Unbelievable.
Joe Fortunato: And, the ah...
Ken: I don’t think what people understand, too, is that this Drug War, if they continue to attack these people, there’s going to be that many more murderers, and there’s going to be that many more rapists, and there’s going to be that many more pedophiles on the street as a result.
Joe Fortunato: Well, absolutely.
Ken: It’s insane.
Joe Fortunato: We should’ve learned something from Prohibition. It looks like we haven’t.
Ken: But, I mean, as a consequence, if the police are occupying themselves with these activities, that’s that much time taken away from seeking murderers and whatnot. I brought this up in one of my earlier films, that I saw on the History Channel (that) there were two serial killers. They had hundreds of kills before the authorities were even alerted that anything was wrong.*
* Does the name Henry Lee Lucas ring a bell? See, Chapter 11
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: You would think that if they weren’t busy chasing people for what they were doing on their own property, you know, (as I turned my camera toward the mansion’s gates) I mean, they can be having meetings here on how to screw the people (sarcastic laughs), you know. That’s legal. But these other things are not. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but anyway, I didn’t mean to get sidetracked there but...
Joe Fortunato: Well.
Ken: Well, good luck in your, in your campaign.
Joe Fortunato: Thank you. Thank you for covering us. You know, that’s a big part of the battle. The corporate media won’t cover us unless we force them to and we have to seek other outlets and I’m very glad you’re here doing this.
Ken: Well, what I’m saying, too, is that if the people spread the word, then we can make this... All you have to do is communicate. (If) Paul Revere could spread a message over two hundred years ago, you could spread a message that’s about seven pages long (an approximation, perhaps way off, of the party’s platform if printed out). You do have the Green Party platform on your site, do you not?
Joe Fortunato: Absolutely.
Ken: Well, all they need to do is look at that, and look at the Democratic platform, and then look at the Republican (platform) and go make their choice.
Joe Fortunato: Go to www.gpnj.org.
Ken: All right, thank you very much.
Joe Fortunato: Thank you.
Remember what the man in Harlem said about platforms: That was the only thing he was interested in of all the literature we had on the table. It doesn’t matter if the candidate is male or female, somber or silly, what matters is what the candidate’s platform is, or at least that’s what matters most. Mainstream candidates may reach out and pull a branch here and there, but there are people running against them who are going for the roots of several major problems, none of which should exist.
If enough people checked out the candidate’s platforms, with those possessing voting rights voting along the lines of common sense and decency, while those not possessing voting rights (along with everyone else who cares a hoot about their world) encouraging others to do this simple research for themselves, each doing what he or she could to pass the material the major media were hiding from them to as many people as they could, using both the Internet and talking to others, the minority who own and operate the candidate-censoring media could be defeated or at least significantly weakened in a single election.
No election was ever won by a single vote. Our votes are next to meaningless. Where the power to fight the media lies is in informing others about what they are hiding. So, if you’re under 18 or have lost your voting rights, don’t think you can’t have a say. We’re all in this together. There are people trying to overcome their oppressors, whom they outnumber several times over. There are those who aren’t doing a thing to change the fact that a disproportionate few are ruining their lives, their loved one’s lives, their descendants' lives, along with everyone else they know, merely because said disproportionate few have taken hold of the media outlets though same can now be easily overcome with an organized, even half-organized, effort.
It’s not just theory that this is happening, that we living in the most dominant society on earth are collectively allowing ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Noam Chomsky has stated. You, me, and everyone else, is either fighting this pervasive ignorance at the height of the Information Age or not. The decision is up to you. You’re either on your own side, or you’re not; on your children’s side, or you’re not. We have an unnecessarily more dangerous world than need be, due to greed, deception (primarily via the media), apathy, and thoughtlessness. If you allow this kind of deception to continue unimpeded, then you’re allowing a disproportionate few to guide a completely inefficient horrible world on a sure dead-end path without protest. That’s up to you, as it’s up to me. But we should all remember we’re in the same boat and not let petty concerns get in the way of our organizing and passing basic information on via a tool the general people have never had before, i.e., the Internet. Like it or not we’re in the same sinking ship, but make no mistake about it we’re all in the same situation, whether facing same or not. Hopefully there’s enough time to stop it from sinking.
If we don’t act, we know where we’re headed. After a while of cooperative effort, we may just get to appreciate one another, and overlook one another’s flaws, and gain control of our mutual situation. Hopefully this manuscript will reach enough people in time.
Were I not to have seen MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, broadcast in the wee hours of the morning on PBS, (not being aired in the daytime due to the lobbying of people such as Pat Robertson, it was only aired late night, early morning), as I sat with my terminally ill mother at the hospital, you would’ve never seen this book. Were it not for Noam Chomsky, as well as Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick who made this documentary explaining the murderous methods of the media, or some of the methods anyway, you wouldn’t be reading this book. Numerous others have helped give me the vision I have, which I hope you get to see likewise and share with others best you can. The belief in human hierarchy is nonsense. We’re all but a breath away from checking out of here. All are vulnerable. All are in this together. All are related. A cooperative effort makes so much more sense, and is so much more gratifying, isn’t it?
Who would choose a known lousy doctor, who it could be proven unnecessarily had mass complicity in real human suffering and misery, just because he or she advertised more? Then why do we do this in relation to our elected officials whose policies guide our very lives in the interests of a disproportionate few over most? Cannot we spread this basic message to others?
Chapter 14
Corporate Power
“What you do makes a difference
and you have to decide what kind of difference
you want to make.”
- Jane Goodall
U.S. Senate Candidate for the Green Party in 2002, Ted Glick, (above), was, as stated earlier, the first one I interviewed that day in August outside the club where some U.S. Democratic Senators were getting their earfuls from corporate sponsors.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hey, Ted, congratulations on being the first candidate to ever be endorsed by nowweretalking.tv...
US Senate candidate, Ted Glick: OK.
Ken: ...4thepeople.org, [I no longer have that site name] and ppbnj.com (refreshing him about who I was since I had spoken with him on the phone some days beforehand).
Ted Glick: OK.
Ken: I was just saying as I was walking down here, I ended up in inner-city Trenton. I made the same mistake I made last time (going to an indoor track to work out years before), taking the first turn at the end of I-195 here, and what a contrast. Five miles. What a difference between these estates and a real inner-city. So, tell me, Ted, what’s going on here today?
Ted Glick: Well, the Democratic Party, Democratic Senators, are feeding at the trough, at the corporate trough. (inaudible) $60,000 to be a member of this club and those are the people who are inside, are doing their networking...
Ken: Ah hah.
Ted Glick: ...are Democratic Party elected Senators and Representatives. And we’re here to say that for both Democrats and Republicans that’s not acceptable anymore. We need to move away from this type of a system, where big money dominates how who gets elected and we need to move to a system that is democratic with a small "d"...
Ken: Ah hah.
Ted Glick: ...where anybody can run for office, where you don’t have to be a millionaire, or connected to millionaires, in order to campaign. We’re here to point out that even though there’s been some legislation passed following this corporate fraud and corporate crime scandal, following WorldCom and Enron, Adelphia and Global Crossing and the rest of them, that there’s still a great deal of cleaning up that has to be done and the Green Party is going to be continuing to lead that effort. Our candidate Ralph Nader in 1996, he knew the problems that were coming. He didn’t know specifically what was going to happen. He was very aware that corporate, corporations, corporate power, was too influential.
Ken: Do you have any idea what the voting population is in New Jersey? I don’t mean to put you on the spot...
Ted Glick: In terms of how many people actually vote?
Ken: Well, how many are registered voters?
Ted Glick: I think it’s probably in the neighborhood of, maybe 70, 75 percent I’d say of the eligible electorate. I don’t know the exact number but I think it’s in that neighborhood.
Ken: Right, but I mean what is the (actual) number?
Ted Glick: Numerically?
Ken: Yeah.
Ted Glick: Well, the number of people who voted in the 2000 election...
Ken: Right.
Ted Glick: …was about, I believe, about 2.7-million.
Ken: OK
Ted Glick: 2.7-million actual voters.
Ken: So then all we need to do is get the word to over 50%, or maybe not even that many, really, of those...
Ted Glick: Right, right.
Ken: ... people in New Jersey, which is not all that great a distance in square miles and I think it can be done, Ted, personally, and I really think it’s inexcusable if it doesn’t get done.
Ted Glick: (inaudible)
Ken: I want to see you get in there. But everybody needs to do some effort, not just you and not just, you know, a few of us.
Ted Glick: Well, this is a grassroots campaign and in a grassroots campaign, word of mouth is absolutely essential. People need to talk to other people about the fact that there is an alternative. People need to call in to radio talk shows and say: “Hey...
Ken: That’s a good way.
Ted Glick: …do you know about Ted Glick?” People need to send, write letters to the editor...
Ken: Right.*
* Actually, I don't know why I agreed with him about writing to the editors, since expecting the media to use its resources against itself would be self-destructive for them, so unless it’s a small paper or an independent newspaper, you won't see much about how more rational candidates are censored undemocratically from our debates. It’s likely a waste of time to ask the enemy to reveal their own scam. Take a look and see who your local paper is owned by, and whether or not it’s owned by a corporate conglomerate.
Ted Glick: People need to raise with organizations that they’re part of, churches, unions, community groups, whatever they may be, um, raise the fact that there’s an alternative... (inaudible).
Ken: Now, you have your platform on the site, too?
Ted Glick: Yeah, our website.
Ken: That’s what I tell people. I say: “Listen, go look at the platform of the Green Party candidate. Look at the platform of the Democratic candidate, and look at his history too in this case, and then do the same thing with the Republican and then make your choice.”*
Ted Glick: Right.
Ken: That’s my call.
* I think people should investigate all the candidates running by looking at their platforms at least, and if a presidential race, then one should likely also consider how many state ballots the candidate is on. For example, in the 2008 election, Ralph Nader, the Independent, made it on 45 state ballots and was an official write-in for four other states, whereas Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate (whom I've spoken with on the phone, met in person once and have corresponded with via e-mail) was on but 32 state ballots, and as a write-in for 18 others. I like Cynthia, yet the numbers in 2008 clearly stood in favor of Ralph.
Chapter 15
Media-censored Presidential Elections
Metastasizes to the Republican and Democratic
Mainstream Parties
“Think of the press as the great keyboard
on which the government can play.”
- Joseph Goebbels
Hitler's Minister of Propaganda
Above: Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel at the “Alternate Debate” he and members of his campaign
presented in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007, after being excluded from the televised MSNBC Democratic debate.
[After finally starting this book, writing and transcribing our findings from the years, I ended up putting my project aside from late October of 2007, until the beginning of March 2008, with good reason.]
IT SEEMS THE METASTASIS HAD SPREAD TO THE MAINSTREAM PARTIES NOW, at first the Democratic Party undemocratically eliminating Mike Gravel, the former U.S. Senator from Alaska who released the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, revealing the lies of three different presidential administrations to involve our nation in an unnecessary war, costing the lives of some 3-million Southeast Asians and 58-thousand Americans, in addition to those disabled and those orphaned. Imagine all that suffering, misery and death for nothing but to line the pockets of a disproportionate few. That’s what happened as can be seen from what Gravel revealed in the early 70s.
Isn’t this the kind of person we needed in the debates, with the U.S. finding itself involved in not one, but two highly questionable wars? In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, we had most of the world on our side, but that has changed. Even in the U.S., it's common knowledge that the war in Iraq was based on completely bogus claims about weapons of mass destruction, and it's also widely known that we turned our backs on Saddam Hussein's most hideous crimes when he committed them. What about the infamous picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam after he gassed the Kurds? And as far as Afghanistan, we hold a lot of the blame there likewise, by helping build up the Taliban in their resistance of the former Soviet Union, but none of this was discussed, because the media, with the blessing of the leading Democrats, eliminated the man who read thePentagon Papers in front of the U.S. Senate, so their contents were a matter of public record.
Former Senator Gravel opted to have his own alternate debate in Philadelphia a block or two away from MSNBC studios that night, and I felt that with writing this book I had to be there. Little did I know that two weeks later I’d be driving from southern Virginia to Las Vegas, Nevada, to cover Senator Gravel’s alternate debate there, since the other networks followed the lead of MSNBC... this time CNN.
Eventually Dennis Kucinich was likewise eliminated from the Democratic Party’s debates, though they hardly included him when he had been present, with an open slant right from the get-go toward Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama receiving the most attention, followed by a distant John Edwards, with the remaining media rejects getting a moment here and there.
The Republicans followed suit shortly thereafter by eliminating Dr. Ron Paul, a longtime congressman who set an all-time record for the most amount of money raised in a single day, primarily via individual contributions. Who are these un-elected people who undemocratically removed such a candidate from a televised debate without valid reason?
Much to my pleasant surprise, in spite of Rudy Giuliani not being marginalized in the least and being respected by the moderators, the Media’s Mayor dropped out of the race altogether in January, quickly giving his support over to John McCain, perhaps with the long-shot hope of being chosen as McCain’s running mate, potentially leaving him but a breath away from the presidency.
With Rudy out, thus went any “spoiler issue” for this election in many ways. In my opinion at that time, only he matched Bush’s arrogance and seemingly complete disregard of other's concerns.
With no major “spoiler issue,” I thought it was going to be an interesting campaign, but things changed. It was quite a disappointing time to be sure, and still is. I wonder what I could’ve done differently. Since no one has a time machine, all we can do is move forward from this point onward.
The only way I see a third party win happening is if there’s a strategic effort to inform the public regarding a very limited number of life and death issues, the point being made that the media withhold such information, and the people beat the liars with what we have on hand at the height of the Information Age. The right concise pointed video could change the course of humankind, there’s little doubt of that. Where there’s doubt is, will such a video be made and will enough put forth the effort to bring it to others? Both remain to be seen.
Likely best to both plan for the next election while bringing media-buried truths to enough others so that the media, and our leaders, will no longer be able to ignore these hidden issues of life and death. It's also likely many of them are duped themselves. I wonder how many members of congress even know that the U.S. overthrew the Iranian government in 1953, bringing their oil back under Western control, and reinstating a known tyrant?
If the odds for success may seem slim, that’s mere illusion. For the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), who is regarded as, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English,” according to,Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, located at, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/, was surely correct in asserting:
“Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider
human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with
which the many are governed by the few.”
- David Hume
I didn’t open the e-mail from the Gravel campaign until around midnight on October 30, 2007, indicating that A) he had been eliminated from the MSNBC Democratic Presidential Debate scheduled later that evening and that, B) he would be holding an alternate debate at around 9:00 P.M. at a venue his campaign quickly rented a block or two away from the televised puppet show. Gravel stated that if things were “sliced and diced” nicely, recalling that videos on the Internet are not scheduled for one particular time only, it could be passed on for months perhaps, eventually equaling or even surpassing the coverage of the other candidates. I liked the way he appeared to be thinking at the time, since I had been trying to get a similar message through to third party candidates who were marginalized by the media for years, stating that since the differences between them and the mainstream puppets was nothing less than life and liberty over misery, oppression and mass murder, it was hardly a tough decision for one presented with some evidence.
So, in spite of planning on writing the night through, and having slept during the day so I’d be able to do just that, it was going to be quite a challenge to make it from southern Virginia to Philadelphia by 9:00 PM that night. As it turns out I got there about a half hour late or so, mainly because there was no westbound entrance for the street I was to get off at to make it to the venue. Thus I had to go ahead and backtrack through neighborhoods until I got back to the short highway leading into the heart of Philadelphia where hopefully I’d find out where I was supposed to be. As I got closer to the puppet show, helicopters could be heard overhead and police cars seemed to be everywhere, yet I somehow managed to find a place to park that was in easy walking distance to Mike Gravel’s event, though it was quite close to the media’s circus event of unqualified sellouts discussing mostly non-issues.
Gravel, on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air, it seemed. I felt it had been well worth the struggle to get there and not having as much sleep as I had wanted. Two weeks later, I would end up driving from our home in Southside, Virginia all the way to Las Vegas to cover yet another alternate debate Mike Gravel was having, this time being censored by CNN. At that time I was able to speak to one of his assistants about scheduling an interview with the former U.S. Senator who had released the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, at his office back in Arlington, Virginia, about a four hour ride from our home. I ended up having my sit-down, jacket-and-tie interview with this American and International hero at his office on December 19, 2007, having written up the questions I wanted to ask shortly after returning from Vegas. By early February I had a two-part interview posted at, http://youtube.com, which I felt could very well change the outcome of the upcoming election if only enough people saw them, thought things through, and did what they could to bring this information to others.
That didn’t happen. Gravel ended up joining the Libertarian Party but didn't end up getting their nomination, so he was out of the race.
This book brings several people’s testimonies together to demonstrate how the media are giving us the shaft. It’s not just Ken’s opinion, it’s what is, and one can research enough of this for her or himself to verify that my assertion - that the media are deliberately censoring our major elections and that stated censoring directly results in our ignorant funding of mass human suffering and misery with our tax dollars - is absolutely true. It’s not just an opinion, it’s a fact. This is what they do. Think back to the presidential debates... were all six candidates who made it on enough ballots to win allowed to participate? Is this democracy? Who eliminated the other candidates?
Since trying daily to get people to wake up about their media-misguided elections since 2000, my most valuable skill is likely in effectively communicating the hidden status quo, in regard to less than two handful’s of profound concerns affecting everyone’s lives that a disproportionate few who own and operate the mainstream media have been purposefully distorting and/or omitting entirely, thus painting an entirely different view of reality than what is. How could they do that, one might as? A lot of it has to do with too many people “allowing” others to do their thinking for them.
As Hitler admitted himself, “What luck for the rulers that men do not think,” only nowadays, of course, we should include both men and women in granting the rulers their luck whilst taking it from ourselves.
Chapter 16
The Military-Industrial-Media Complex
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 1961
Above: Former U.S. Senator & 2007-2008 Democratic
presidential candidate, Mike Gravel
Mike Gravel Interview – December 19, 2007:
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hi, I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt from MajorMediaBypass.com. We’re here today with Senator Mike Gravel, who’s a presidential candidate who’s been greatly marginalized by the mainstream media, and I’d like to ask Senator Gravel a few questions.
The world’s most quoted living author, your friend Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, has stated that we live in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. He has also stated that “Education is a system of imposed ignorance.” That being said, can you please give those who either read or watch this interview a truncated synopsis of what you’re likely most famous and respected for, that being for releasing the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s during the Vietnam war when you were a U.S. Senator?
Senator Gravel: It certainly would be that, because what was involved was so fundamental to a democracy. In a democracy the people must know what is going on in government, otherwise they can’t respond to what the government is doing.
When I released the Pentagon Papers, I really thought I had a good chance of going to prison. And so I was frightened. But I felt it was so, so vital to the... to our society for the people to be informed. And, I had been... when I was 23 years old I was a Top Secret Control Officer. I had been in Intelligence, and so I knew how ridiculous it was to... to classify these documents, which are nothing but documents about the history of how we got involved, how three successive presidential administrations had lied to the American people to get us involved in the swamp of Vietnam that cost 3-million Southeast Asian lives, that cost 58-thousand American lives - all of these lies in a Democracy. That had to be overcome and I was prepared to put my career on the line to try to overcome that. I did it, I survived. And of course, as Chomsky has pointed out, that is one of the most significant things of my career.
Ken: As I understand it, others were asked to do the same thing but only you had the courage to take on this task, is that correct?
Senator Gravel: Yes it is. The papers were offered to George McGovern, Gaylord Nelson, Pete McClousky, Bill Fulbright, and for various and sundry reasons, reasons that they chose not to accept the papers or to release them.
Ken: You were a Senator, U.S. Senator, between what years?
Senator Gravel: 1969 and ’81. I served when Richard Nixon was elected. I served with Gerald Ford and with Jimmy Carter.
Ken: Senator Gravel, you’ve stated that General Electric kept you out of the MSNBC debates, sponsored Democratic debates, held in Philadelphia on October 30. How did you come about knowing these were the people censoring you and not MSNBC?
Senator Gravel: First off, because I had been repeatedly talking about the military-industrial complex, and of course they are one of the largest military contractors in the United States. And had been talking about the whole nuclear issue and they’re the proliferators of the world.
...they gave away their role by the simple fact that I first pointed out to Hillary that I was ashamed of her because of the way she voted on the Iran resolution, Lieberman II resolution, and it was shortly after that, that they cut me out. Now, CNN had tried to cut me out earlier and did not succeed. And so it was as a result of what I attribute... Howard Dean and the Democratic Party in cahoots with NBC and GE, where they made a decision that they had had enough, that they’ve really got to silence me.
A friend of mine in India wrote an e-mail to GE complaining about the fact that I was cut out. They responded to him saying, and this was the PR person for GE. What they should have done, is they should have referred him to NBC or MSNBC, but no, the PR person from GE responded to his e-mail saying that I did not qualify by their criteria… That was the final nail in their coffin with respect to their getting involved in censoring apresidential candidate.
So here you have a defense contractor, a private corporation, making a decision as to who is going to... whose voice is going to be heard in the course of a presidential campaign. And of course they own... not only do they own NBC and MSNBC and Tele Mundo and several other communications companies, because they own these, so they can control the information and so they’re one of... one of the five major corporations that control the communications, the information that Americans receive about how their society, how their government is working in, quote, “a free society.”
Ken: The United States now houses a quarter of the world's prisoners, more than China, more than Russia, Iran, Syria and so forth. Our prison population has gone from an estimated 500,000 inmates when you left office as a U.S. Senator in 1981 to over 2.3-million people today. Most of these prisoners have harmed no one, yet their incarceration not only harms them, but also their families and loved ones. Plus, by default, if our law enforcement officers are busy chasing and apprehending non-criminals a great deal of that time, by simple deductive reasoning we are assured that this waste of resources is leaving that many more real criminals, such as murderers, child abusers, rapists and thieves and so forth at large. What is your position on this undeclared yet very real civil Drug War that has brought forth unspeakable suffering to millions, including children, while leaving the general population more susceptible to real criminals as a result?
Senator Gravel: What you’ve just recited, these statistics are appalling and shameful and it’s shameful for the United States of America to be in this position. To my knowledge I’m the only presidential candidate that has stepped forward and said that we have to end the “War on Drugs.” The war itself, not the addiction problem... that’s a public health problem.
The war itself has ravaged our inner cities and I’ve taken the position that if I become President of The United States I will seek legislation to be able to pardon everybody - everybody - who’s been convicted of a crime involving marijuana. Marijuana is not a gateway drug. Marijuana is not addictive. Marijuana should not be... have a legal problem. You should be able to buy marijuana at the liquor store just like you buy alcohol. It’s not nearly as addictive as alcohol is. And so anybody that’s been convicted of a marijuana infraction in the law should be pardoned immediately and gotten out of jail. That would go a long way, a long way, to addressing this problem of incarceration that we have. And it’s bankrupting the nation, morally, spiritually... ripping our families apart. You can’t believe the damage we’re doing to individuals who come out as felons, and have their civil rights impaired, have their whole lives ruined as a result of this.
Ken: We had Thanksgiving with a family... it was the guy’s, the son, it was his first Thanksgiving in six years that he’s had with his family, and he told me unspeakable horrors of hearing young 18, 19 year old kids screaming as they were being raped, you know the new initiates, and really horrible things and he had to fight for his… you know, to defend himself. It was really horrible conditions.
Senator Gravel: (shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders in astonishment and disgust)
Whew… it’s a training-ground for felons, making felons. They weren’t felons when they went in but they were made into felons.
Ken: Alright, last question. Do you believe that you can win, the presidency if A) enough caring people give what they can give and B) if enough put forth the effort to inform others by using the Internet to spread information about your campaign in spite of the elite-owned-and-operated main stream media censoring you?
Senator Gravel: One of the things that I don’t understand, and I don’t think anybody else does, is what is really going on in this election.
First off, we don’t know the impact of these unbelievable sums of money that Obama and Hillary are raising. You know, we all know that money is the corrupting agent of politics and yet mainstream media has anointed those who should be president because they’ve raised the most money. Well, that must mean that they’re the most corrupt, because they’ve raised the most money.
Will I get elected? All I know is that on the Internet I’m very, very highly thought of. Will the American people be able to push aside the control of the media to make a decision on a person who’s not known, who calculatingly the American media shuns aside? I don’t know. All I know is that in the two or three blind polls that have been taken, I come out way, way ahead of everybody else. What it means is that if my particular positions are identical to what the American people want to see enacted into law... Now, if my positions are what the American people want, then obviously there’s a dislocation between what the people know of my positions and me. And so, if that can be overcome, I’d become President of the United States.
Can that be overcome? I don’t know. All I know is that there’s a year between now and the election and will that be overcome during that period of time? I don’t know. I think the media’s gone crazy over what’s happening in Iowa and New Hampshire and all the others and all the money being spent and all the charges. This is all going to settle down and then the American people are going to begin to focus on what’s been happening. And we may be headed for a perfect storm, a war, the economy in the tubes and the people totally dissatisfied with the Democratic Party which now controls the Congress, total dissatisfaction with the Republican Party... All of this is coming to bear on a decision by the American people in ’08.
’08 may be the tipping-point for the future of this country. I think it will be. And will the American people step forward and choose a person who is “not politics as usual,” who is a person who wants to empower you,you to be able to make laws and decide the policy and decisions? That’s the position I have and will that permit me to become President of the United States? I want to be not your Commander in Chief, not your president, I want to be your legislative leader. You’re the ones that are going to be able to enact the laws that are going to affect your future.
Ken: Do you want to explain a little about your National Initiative, just because I didn’t cover that?
Senator Gravel: Well, what... What I’m talking about when I talk about the lawmaking... I drafted legislation called the National Initiative. It sets up the procedures. It’s a Constitutional Amendment, and it has procedures that the American people can vote for. It’ll take 60-million Americans to enact it into law. It goes entirely around the government, and so when roughly around 60-million Americans have voted for this, it becomes the law of the land and that means that Americans will be able to enact and vote on laws in every government jurisdiction in the United States.
This is very significant. This is changing the paradigm of human governance. We do that here in the United States, it will go around the world like wildfire. And it will mean... because I have unreserved faith in the majority of the people to make a better decision than their elected leaders who are a very distinct minority. We are ruled by a minority in our society and that’s what has to change, and what can change it is going to be the National Initiative for Democracy.
Ken: Great. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Gravel: Thank you for having me. OK!
Ken: All right.
After our interview was over, Senator Gravel, who had been suffering with a cold and thus had already left as I was packing up my camera equipment and so forth, one of his campaign workers brought my attention to a video then posted at, http://youtube.com, in which someone had run into Howard Dean as he was headed toward the Democratic debate and was able to video his question to Dr. Dean about Mike Gravel’s exclusion from the night’s event. As I recall, Dr. Dean indicated that although others had eliminated Gravel from the debate, he and others within the Democratic Party supported them in regard to their censorship of Gravel.
I was later told by someone else involved with the campaign that the video had been later taken down because it had been entered in a contest. I’m wondering what contest was more important than arguably the very fate of our world. These elections result in life and death for many, and major influence over everyone’s lives. Dr. Dean, as a physician, should be aware that all options should be on the table before making life and death decisions, not just on an individual basis but likewise for the masses. Though Stalin stated: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic,” that’s only because of far too many people not taking life seriously at the grandest of levels. As Hitler admitted: “What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” He wasn’t referring to things of moderate interest, and he wasn’t only referring to himself. Surely we cannot evolve as a species with such primitive behavior as the norm, as it is. We either fund policies with our tax dollars that knowingly murder, maim and torture other innocent human beings or we don’t. There’s no middle of the road here.
So, though Senator Gravel gave no evidence for his stated suspicion that Howard Dean was likewise involved somehow in his censoring, unlike GE and MSNBC where he did have the evidence, it’s likely he was aware of the above-mentioned footage in his implication of Dean amongst the self-appointed gatekeeper conspirators.
Below is an official statement that Professor Noam Chomsky e-mailed me regarding Mike Gravel’s campaign on January 05, 2008:
“Alone among members of Congress, Senator Mike Gravel had the courage to take a stand that not only helped bring the atrocious Indochina wars to an end, but also made a great contribution to breaking the wall of secrecy that governments erect to protect themselves from their own citizens. I am of course referring to his release of the Pentagon Papers, properly called 'the Gravel edition,' which provided the public with a unique opportunity to become educated about affairs of state.
In the years since, Gravel has continued to show the same moral integrity and courage, particularly with regard to war and aggression, the severe threat of nuclear war, the destructive impact of the military-industrial complex on American democracy, and the programs of aggressive militarism that have led even Europeans to rank the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace, far above Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or other states assigned this role in the U.S. doctrinal system. It may be that these consistent and honorable commitments are responsible for his being largely excluded from the media, even from presidential debates. And the same integrity and courage should be an inspiration for people who care about their country, the fate of its people, and its role in the world.”
– Noam Chomsky
Chapter 17
On the Eve of the New Hampshire Primary
with Professor Noam Chomsky
“However the media, if they were serving a public function,
would not choose to reflect such, to adopt such criterion,
no, they would give fair opening to anyone
who’s running in the race.”
- Noam Chomsky
Above: Professor Noam Chomsky at the conclusion of his one-question interview with
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt, this time representing, http://overcomethemedia.com, on
January 08, 2008, the eve of the New Hampshire Democratic and Republican Primaries.
SINCE I WAS IN THE AREA FOR THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY, Noam Chomsky’s assistant, Bev Stohl, was kind enough to squeeze me in to see Noam for 15 minutes between his appointments on January 08, 2008. I took but a few moments to video but one question of Noam as per below:
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hi, I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt of OvercomeTheMedia.com, [I had just purchased that web site name two or three days before, though my wife Elaine found an e-mail in which Professor Chomsky gave me the thumbs-up for the name back in 2005. For whatever reason, I never bought it until 2008.] We’re here with Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, the world’s most quoted living author, and I’d like to ask Noam a question. Here we are on the day of the New Hampshire primary and once again more reasonable candidates, arguably more reasonable candidates, such as Mike Gravel, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, have been greatly marginalized by the major media, even to a point of eliminating them from public debates. Have you any thoughts regarding this?
Professor Noam Chomsky: What the media are doing is, they have a criterion, like it or not. The criterion is polling data which in turn reflects mostly the amount of money you’ve picked up, which means usually the level of corporate support, and somebody like Mike Gravel is not going to accumulate that kind of financing. However the media, if they were serving a public function would not choose to reflect such, to adopt such criterion, no, they would give fair opening to anyone who’s running in the race.
Ken: Very good. Thanks.
Professor Noam Chomsky: OK
Chapter 18
2010 Skype interview with California Governor Candidate, Laura Wells
Ken - Greetings. I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt. We’re here with 2010 California governor candidate Laura Wells who was actually arrested for simply trying to sit in and watch a debate that she should have been a part of. And, let’s not forget that we’ve had two presidents in recent history, Reagan and Bush, Bush II, who were governors before they ended up being President of the United States so how democracy unfolds in the state of California could arguably end up having an impact on our world and certainly our nation.
So tell us Laura, what happened on October 12, 2010.
Laura - Well, October 12 there was a gubernatorial race in… and it was a debate in San Rafel which is just north of San Francisco. And so the two, the only two candidates out of the six candidates that were invited to the debate were the Democrats and the Republicans which I started to call the Titanics because they’re big they seem unsinkable but boy, we better hope for the rest of us that they are sinkable and, I know they are. So, as a Green Party candidate I of course was not to be included in the debate but we were there, outside and, if you’re an individual in the US, what passes for free speech is a barricaded zone, that’s where you can be. Corporations can give all the money they want to elections but they’re, you know, they’re corporate persons. Real persons don’t have the same where-with-all.
So, I was there and some reporters were talking to me and somebody came up and said, "You know you should be in the room at least and I have an extra ticket. As a matter of fact I have two extra tickets. You and your friend can go in." So, the two of us had our tickets, the guard passed us through, we were standing on the staircase, the stairway outside the building where the debate was to be held when suddenly security guards came up and surrounded me, not my friend, they left her completely alone and said, "You don’t belong here. That’s not your ticket. You’re not supposed to be here." And I just thought, you know what, I am supposed to be here. There is no, they said, "You aren’t supposed to be here, you aren’t supposed to be here." That was just dead wrong. And so I stayed and they ended up doing a citizen’s arrest of me, took me to the San Rafel police, put me in metal handcuffs in the back of the squad car. The whole thing about dipping the head and everything to get this dangerous person outside of being in the audience of the debate. So that’s what happened. Then they wrote up the citation, which is perfect, trespassing at a private party. Yes, the party on the Titanic. And set, coincidentally, the court date for November 2nd, Election Day.
So, that was the story.
Ken - Unbelievable! Tell us a couple things, or a few things, that weren’t heard because you weren’t in there. I’d like to start off tying two subjects together because they are kind of intertwined and that’s cannabis and hemp.
Hemp seed oil, or hemp, was actually described in a February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics as a billion dollar crop. They usually didn’t talk billions back in those days. And it’s also only recently been stated that it can supply nearly all of our energy needs. And yet it’s illegal. And then we look at cannabis, which accounts for some 800,000 arrests every year in the United States, which coincidentally is the same, or near the same number of kids who go missing.* So obviously if our resources are being tied up in one area, then those kids aren’t being found. And I mean our priorities are totally messed up. But anyway, what is your take on both cannabis and hemp?
* Correction: It's over 500,000 children who go missing, and some 700,000 people in total in the US.
Laura - Well there was a proposition on the ballot in California in November and so it’s making headway and sooner or later, it will be, it was about the legalization of marijuana and, so what, sooner or later it will get legalized. Now what would be the benefits of that, and I had a BFO, a Blinding Flash of the Obvious a few years back where I realized that the powers that be had to come down that strong on marijuana because you could grow it in your backyard and it could be entirely outside of the consumer/capitalists kind of thing and, industrial hemp would be a source of energy… I mean basically, it grows like a weed. And, it could take the pressure off our forests, you could make so many things out of industrialized hemp, industrial hemp. It’s ridiculous and you know, a sign of the priorities as you were saying that it’s not legal. But I think its day is coming.
Ken - Well, I think if the Green Party candidates get in there hopefully it will happen that much sooner because I mean even with this last proposition in California how many people said, "Look, you know we’re having x amount of kids who are going missing who we’re not finding because we’re going after this other…" You know they just don’t seem to make it real enough and give it that punch. You know, that’s the way I see it anyway.
Laura - …Yeah…
Ken - Moving right along, what about the other big issue that you brought up was that North Dakota has its own bank, its own state bank and they’re the only state who’s not in the red right now. Can you tell us more about that whole issue?
Laura - Right, they started it in 1919 when the farmers got mad in North Dakota. They got mad at the outside bankers. They, the farmers, were doing all the work and the outside bankers were making all the money which is just what’s happening right now. And so now, years and years later North Dakota has a budget surplus and every other state has a budget deficit. So, what would happen…, and one of the good things about individual, one of the Green Party principals is that the global work and the personal work, work together. And people are individually taking their money out of those huge banks and putting them into credit unions and private banks. And that, if we had a state bank in California, would be what the state bank would partner with, the local banks, the credit unions, you know the small, when I said the private banks, I mean the local private banks and, make better loans, with lower interest to homeowners as well as small business owners as well as students and what interest was charged would come back, fold back into investing in California, not Wall Street or Federal Reserve and all of that. We would be, being the eighth largest economy in the world, California, bigger than most other countries, we would have like the equivalent of a central bank. That’s what you have. You take control of your own money supply.
Ken - Wow, that‘s something, the eighth largest economy in the world. I don’t think very many people know that either. You know that’s a very important point. And as Chomsky has brought out that we live entangled in webs of endless deceit in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. I hope that at the height of the Information Age we can start bringing the truths about our elections out to the people, to enough people, where we bypass the media and start voting for more reasonable candidates.
Ken - Thank you Laura for being here with us.
Laura - Thank you Ken.
Ken - …and good luck in the future for all of us.
Chapter 19
2012 Interview with Highly Censored Presidential Candidate,
Jill Stein, M.D.
This will be the transcript of,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7SUERLKk0&list=UUkp82XygTyAphmJ4HqABVUQ&index=11
Chapter 20
The Author is recruited to run for Congress himself
immediately following the previous interview with Dr. Stein
Conclusion
Bringing Information to Others
Above: The author with Noam Chomsky, on January 08, 2008
“Pass it on, Pass it on to the young and old.”
- Jimi Hendrix
THINK ABOUT IT: We’re having a civil and international war of no practical value other than serving the ultra-wealthy; thus tax-paying citizens of the United States of America are funding actual mass human suffering and misery, especially of children, imposed upon innocent people both within and beyond our borders, yet this reality is distorted by the media as being something that’s actually esteemed as being legitimate and in the public’s best interests. I am of course referring to the Drug War also known as, the War on Drugs which is really a “War against innocent people’s right to '...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,' as well as the loved one’s of same, and everyone else by default, by deflecting our law enforcement personnel against real criminals, leaving more at large amongst us.” Plus, we're getting royally scammed in regard to the paying of taxes, subsidizing those who've need of nothing, while royally shafting those who do.
“The most important thing for me and for you is to think about the consequences of your actions. What can you effect? These are the things to keep in mind. These are not just academic exercises. We’re not analyzing the media on Mars or in the eighteenth century or something like that. We’re dealing with real human beings who are suffering and dying and being tortured and starving because of policies that we are involved in.”
- Noam Chomsky
If we were to have stonings, would people object to purchasing the stones? If people had a neighborhood meeting, would most object to far less than one percent hogging the pie? Are we not all funding the caging of our own away from their families, oftentimes under extremely violent and torturous conditions en masse for no legitimate reason or not? Are these real people or not? Do our tax dollars directly fund this horror or not?
None of this is rocket science. How can we justify putting someone in a cage for what they choose to do with their life when we’re supposed to live in the Land of the Free, especially when substances like alcohol, which make one suffer losses of inhibitions and muscle control, and nicotine, which is arguably one of, if not the most addicting substance known to humankind, are perfectly legal and their consumption is even encouraged, especially in relation to alcohol? These substances together account for hundreds of thousands of horrible U.S. deaths per year, yet instead of trying to lessen these numbers we instead spend billions inflicting pain on innocent people.
The rulers’ luck? I’d say... though it’s both the rulers and their puppeteers who benefit from this unnecessary horror that comes at children’s expense primarily, all to support the gluttony and cowardice of a disproportionate few. Is this not shameful beyond words? Is this not the height of the Information Age, when we can get any information we want practically in seconds, including information about presidential, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates? So then why do we continue to vote for people whose policies are endangering all humankind just to benefit a disproportionate minority of inhumane compassionless people who’ve need of nothing and want of much?
They didn’t have the Internet and free elections in Hume’s day. We do. What’s our excuse for losing to a disproportionate minority of horrible people at such a grand expense to all? Isn’t that something to think about? Is it not time we take control of our situation?
Ignorance is our block. Knowledge is our answer. Please tell others about what's going on. We're all in this together. If enough try to lift the log that needs lifting we'll do it, thereby taking a major step toward the preservation and advancement of humankind, or humans will be no longer, in a very short time. That's what the evidence clearly shows. It’s up to us to inform or die as a species, whilst torturing our own along the way, too, of course. Will a disproportionate few continue to misguide most at the likely expense of survival as we know it, or not?
“Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations
a planet that is healthy (and) inhabitable by all species.”
- David Attenborough
“We gotta stand side by side.
We gotta stand together and organize.”
- Jimi Hendrix
“But real success can only come if there’s a change in our
societies, in our economics, and in our politics.”
- David Attenborough
A disproportionate few are misguiding most at the very risk of the continued survival of our species within this century. That’s been established. Is it not time to “...bring it to others?” Cannot the people examine the candidates’ platforms and tell others about how insane it is to vote according to murderous elite’s fictionalized reality? Expecting the media, i.e., the enemy, to do this for us is the height of folly, is it not? Are they not the very censors whose censorship knowingly results in mass suffering, misery and death, and that’s the very reason they censor the more reasonable candidates? Do murderers rehabilitate on their own? Why would you trust a proven mass murderer, or sponsor of same? Can you not examine the candidates’ platforms and see for yourself where they stand, whether for more murderers, pedophiles, rapists and thieves or not, torturing innocent people or not, and then vote your conscience?
The oppressed outnumber the oppressors by far, as brought up by Hume centuries ago, and your sharing with others some basics the media hide might be the key to success in a bout we don’t know which way is going to go. You can tell as many people as you want what’s going on and request they do likewise, and you could very well be the determining key as to whether human beings make it on this planet or not. Can either of us truthfully claim otherwise? Is it any exaggeration the very survival of humankind is at stake?*
* Please recall the study submitted to the U.N. in 2002 cited in the Introduction, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, available at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
“I think one should be very optimistic... The large majority
of the population already agrees with the things
activists are committed to. All we have to do is
organize people who are convinced.”
- Professor Noam Chomsky -
(For above quote confirmation, please see the last paragraph of,
World in Peril, Chomsky Tells Overflow Crowd, posted at,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0306-07.htm).
“What can be done? Here are a few thoughts.
The time has come to stop locking up people for mere
possession and use of marijuana.”
- US Senator Jim Webb
from, A TIME TO FIGHT,
Chapter 13: A CRIMINAL INJUSTICE, page 229
(Note: If Barack Obama really wanted national change,
wouldn’t he have picked someone like Webb, over someone
responsible for helping to establish national minimum sentencing guidelines?)
WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, and the only way things will get better is if we bring to others some of what the media hide, and vote accordingly. The media sure won’t do it for us. I’d rather vote for someone with a more reasonable platform than an outwardly seemingly reasonable person who supports mass suffering, misery, death and inefficiency, who advertised more, and I wouldn’t take any of the enemy’s polls seriously either. Either we’ll be casting our votes for more of the same, as per the normal self-destructive way, or we’ll finally vote in favor of ourselves and others. I’d rather try than not try, and fight than not fight, and work than not work. If enough others make an attempt we’ll all reach our goal; otherwise we won’t. How can anyone just take it without a struggle once they know?
Will we remain entangled in webs of “endless deceit,” or will enough tell others how the media have been fictionalizing reality at the expense of humankind?
Should we not at least try to overcome the media who are destroying all of us? That’s for each to decide for oneself, taking into account that this simplistic scam comes at children’s expense primarily. What will you say to them if given the chance down the road when asked if you’d been informed? What if we only missed by a little?
I don’t know which way the scale is going to tip. No one does. All I know is that if I try, it’ll give us that much more of a chance, the same as if you try it’ll likewise give us that much more of a chance. We are all in this together, and only with a cooperative effort will any of us get anywhere.
We'll let Dr. Edgar Mitchell sum up just where we stand.
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, pictured below,
one of twelve human beings who's walked on the moon,
stated on April 19, 2008:
“We’re at a tipping point..., and it’s not clear which way it’s going to go,
but WE are the ones that are going to determine which way it’s going to go,
and it's up to us.”
“When people who have been honestly deceived learn the truth,
they either quit being deceived or quit being honest.”
- Unknown
ELECTION SPOILERS
Introduction
“We live entangled in webs of endless deceit,
in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried.”
- Noam Chomsky
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
- Bertrand Russell, 20th century philosopher
“See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over again
for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”
- President George W. Bush
WHATEVER ITS ORIGINAL SOURCE IS, our five billion year old solar system has given birth to us all, no doubt. In reality we share this moment of time together on this planet and have the ability to communicate worldwide like never before in history.
Recalling that the Sumerians were able to transmit thought via writing millennia ago, cannot we at the height of the Information Age spread censored critical news to enough to matter in time? If you keep reading you’ll soon see who your worst enemies are and how you can legally, morally, and effectively defend yourself and everyone else you care about against them. The widely held belief that people are basically divided into two political camps, “conservative” or “liberal,” is but a media manufactured distortion of reality likely developed simply to divide the people amongst themselves. I’m not claiming neither has its gripes, just that they are both getting royally scammed to such a point the very survival of our species is at stake right now. A rational person would think this would predominate discussion. Neither side of these media-presented illusions can reasonably be considered conservative nor liberal, as has been presented repetitively by multiple sources throughout this manuscript, which are, for the most part, backed by video, government statistics and/or mainstream articles which have been, nearly without exception, kept out of the limelight and only given scant and/or easily discoverable misleading coverage.
Possibilities vs. Impossibilities
Surely most will agree that no matter what anyone does, the earth will still be spinning around the sun, making a complete revolution in just over 365 days. That much won’t change. What might change is how we treat the problem of our ailing atmosphere, which we as humans need not be harming, though we clearly are, thus putting at considerable risk the continued survival of our very species within this century.* That just doesn’t make sense, does it? It happens because most people don’t know a handful or so of irrefutable truths, and they vote in disfavor of themselves and their world by choosing those whose interests lie in said gluttonies of a disproportionate few over the survival of humankind. The Information Age could very well be called The Age of Ignorance, which, I’m hoping, with your help, will soon come to a close. It’s time to stop complaining about our society and become honorable participants in its governing at the highest of levels. If you, along with others including me, put forth the effort to inform others, and ask them to ask others to do the same, we have a chance of getting out of this mess. Otherwise, we don’t.
Each of us could very well be the deciding factor. Please think about that.
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, as reported in the Toronto Star, though originating from London and available now at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
The United Nations is in the United States, so how come we have to find out paramount concerns such as the above via Canada and England? At least with the Internet it’s easy to do. Sites like commondreams.org (above) have more information than most, bringing light to a variety of domestic and worldwide sources. I don’t miss going there at least once in awhile. Does that mean I buy everything they have posted? Of course not. Considering the wide variety of issues they discuss, I doubt their editors do either. The only reason anyone can “buy” what’s presented here is because I stick mostly to but a handful of topics, and ask the reader to check it out for herself or himself. What’s here is elementary, profound, censored, and luckily also easily verifiable.
Our best chance lies in enough getting informed in time, otherwise we can expect a downward spiral in several life impacting ways.
For those with short attention spans, consider reading just the Introduction and the Conclusion of this book, and then pick and choose what you find of interest in between, which consists mostly of the evidence supporting what’s written at the beginning and end. I don’t want anyone to just take my word for anything. There are quotes at every chapter’s beginning, and enough to keep most interested I’m hoping, especially since what’s in this book is about profound censored news at your expense. It’s the kind of book one can skip around while reading. Everything here is easy to understand and most is alarming. These are fixable political problems, so long as each reasonable person out there does what he or she can in a quick decisive vote in favor of themselves, and by informing as many as possible, asking them to ask others to do likewise. Informing others is the key, so if for one reason or another you can’t vote yourself, don’t worry about it. Either you’ll let others know what’s going on, or what’s going on will continue to get worse at everyone's expense. Old myths die hard, though if you take your life seriously as well as the lives of those around you, you’ll do what you can, I’m hoping. If enough try, things will change.
Our leaders, nearly without exception, at the congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial, vice presidential and presidential levels, clearly stand against us. An opinion is an opinion, and facts are facts, and the fact is that our elected leaders are almost exclusively known-proven by their actions-supporters of unnecessary and unjust suffering, misery and death, all to benefit the criminal gluttony of a disproportionate few.
A disproportionate few are misguiding most. Their immorality and lack of concern for you and your loved ones is unfathomable, especially when they smile in your face on television. Don’t take my word for it. All I’m asking is for you take a look at the evidence. No research project required here, just a brief review of one that’s already been done.
A handful of media-censored topics are primarily discussed in the pages that follow, those being:
1) The media’s open distortion of elections;
2) The mass caging of known innocents at taxpayers' and children’s expense, while leaving more real criminals at large in society as a result;
3) The royal tax scam;
4) We could be growing our own oil;
and...
5) The way out of this mess, should enough of us make the effort of our lives as if our lives depended on it-as is surely the case-and as if the fate of humankind was in our hands, as it is.
Is there something we can do now?
Yes, become informed regarding some basics and tell others. Like a chain letter the news can spread to such a point that someone in a position of power, whether or not he or she has proclaimed to be for “change,” will be pressured to act humanely as opposed to the media's false projection that he or she already is so acting.
Noam Chomsky is pictured below on October 25, 2002, at the conclusion of speaking with Ken and Elaine, regarding our findings exposing media-censored elections. The words below are what Noam said to us on camera upon leaving.
“Terrific. You bring it to others.”
- Noam Chomsky
Chapter 1
Telling it Like it Is
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
- George Orwell
Dr. Ken’s speech for Presidential candidate Ralph Nader at the University of Texas on April 30, 2004
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Dr. Ken Hildebrandt is the name. (The moment I was handed the microphone, the Twelve O’clock bell started going off at the top of the tower just behind me.)
Man who introduced Ken by another name completely: That’s even better.
Ken: I want to turn this thing around a little bit and just talk about some basic things, some basic reality, which (most) people are not aware of. This campaign coming up is about, basically, life or death if you want to look at it. A couple years ago a thousand scientists submitted a report to the U.N. saying that basically our environment is at such a point that we need to turn it around now or we’re in dire straits.* How come that wasn’t on the front page of the news? In fact it was hardly even reported here in the United States. Now isn’t that, (pointing up to the sky), that we’re all breathing, don’t we all need to be concerned about that?
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, as reported in the Toronto Star, though originating from London and available now at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
Well, in this upcoming presidential election, we can choose a man who had more executions than any governor in the history of the United States, or we can choose a man who’s not much better than him, or we can choose a man who is responsible for our cars having seat belts and air bags. I mean this is so cut and dried.
If you were going to choose a doctor... OK, if you were going to choose a doctor, which doctor of three you were presented with would you pick? Would you pick a doctor who had lost many many patients, and really shown open contempt for 90% of them? Or another doctor who was the same, but yet these doctors were portrayed by the TV, the news, and all the other sources. Yet you found out from your friend with this life-threatening illness you had, that there was an alternative of somebody who had saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Now who would you pick? I mean, this whole thing about Nader being a spoiler is a media-manufactured myth.
The United States, the Land of Liberty, has more incarcerates per capita than any civilization on planet Earth…
Check it out yourself, there were three quarters of a million* (a rough estimate, rounding to the nearest quarter of a million, but over 700,000) of our own people who were cuffed and caged last year for possession of a plant, leaving by default more pedophiles, rapists, murderers, extortionists, you name it, more criminals at large…
* See, http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-01-10.html
Now, that’s (pointing toward the sky) endangered, A); B), we have more incarcerates than anyone else, and C), our top crime is a non-crime...
You know, if you can’t refute what I’m saying, just look at what I’m saying, because the stuff that I’m talking about is definitely making you look at your world like this, (topsy-turvy gesture with arm). But let it soak in, and if it feels right to you and you want to do something about it, then get these signatures so we can vote for a viable candidate... I mean, (do) you think the mass media is going to portray the guy who’s responsible for seat belts and air bags? You think they’re going to give him fair time? Why do you think Nader was eliminated from the debates last time? Because he’s a rational candidate. Would’ve won hand’s down. Oh jeez... ah... do you want this guy who supports death, misery, and suffering of Americans, or do you want this guy who stands for death, suffering and misery of Americans, or do you want this guy who stands for Americans and has for four decades? It’s time to bury the myth about him being a spoiler...
We just invaded another country because of what they are supposedly doing to their citizens (and their manufactured threat against others too of course). Meanwhile, we have 13-million hungry kids today, here, and we just heard back from a probe from Mars! Now that’s insane. Can’t you see that? Is there any excuse for that? (President) Wilson... saw that we could eradicate poverty by the end of the century.
And yet... (a heckler interrupts) Hey... are 13-million hungry kids real to you? You know? I hope so. No, I’m not going to back off... I mean, you’re supporting death and suffering and you’re telling me to back off, and you’re for Christ? ...Would Christ have voted for one or two candidates who was for caging of innocent Americans for no reason? Jeez.
Alright, now let’s talk about the tax structure. Alright, when I was a kid a man worked in a hardware store in the fishing department and he raised his whole family, and his wife didn’t have to work outside the home. It should have gotten easier in the last four decades but it got worse, in spite of four decades of technological advancement. Now why is that? Well, (in no small part), because the rich in the year 1960 were taxed 91% on their most superfluous of income. Sounds like a lot but it takes other people to make that money. Now the rich are taxed 35% with earnings to infinity. So, if you look at the billionaire stats last year, Mr. Gates and the Wal-Mart crew (not referring to the workers of course), they made more money last year. What a surprise?
The superfluities of a few over the necessities of the many. Bottom line is, in the Presidency, the House, and the Senate we don’t have one person who doesn’t stand for unnecessary human suffering and pain and unnecessary American suffering and pain. I was a physician for 13 years and... I either got them better or I didn’t. I was a manual medicine physician, my hands and my brain, that was it. I practiced in New Jersey and was never sued, which is almost a miracle. But the point is, is that, we need to start looking at these as real life and death issues. We’re talking about caging our own people for no reason, leaving by default more criminals... The tax structure I talked about how it was 91%... in the year 1960. The other day Nader said, he said, 'Listen, we’ll revert it back to what it was in the 60’s and the deficit is gone, instantly.' Oh jeez, he’s the spoiler if he was given a fair shot... I mean he wants to revert (it) back. We don’t need 13-million hungry kids everyday...
Let me tell you the last thing. We could be growing our own oil. Hemp oil ran cars; it’s decades-old technology... Anyone (who) has a problem with anything I’ve said about cannabis or hemp can go to JackHerer.com and refute it with Jack... (that shuts them up real fast), you know, because he’s got a $100,000 challenge. The bottom line is, we could be growing our own oil...
So, we got the most addicting substance known to man supporting our president’s campaigns, and we got the top crime being a non-crime. Now, both Kerry and Bush stand for that... and the tax structure, remember which... is all the way down to 35%... Those issues alone will really show you where you’re at...
So, I’m jumping up and down, running out of, not running out of steam, it’s just that this is not only about me. You know, that’s our atmosphere, (pointing up toward the sky). It could be way better for us. I’ve shown you that in a short period of time. That all we have to do when we go to vote... we could shoot that way, that way, or that way. You know, just because the elite display the other two candidates, you got to be kind of foolish to pick them...
Here we are, to give you perspective, (holding up a poster of the earth rotating around the sun with one division marked for each of the 365 days), spinning through space, living under delusion at the height of the Information Age, while people who claim they’re followers of the Prince of Peace heckle what I’m talking about, with millions of people being hungry, little innocent children right here.* That’s what it is. For those of you who want to do something about it... go to votenader.org, and get these signatures. You need 64 thousand signatures. Get other people to get signatures, and let’s get him on...**
* “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
– Joseph Stalin
** Note: Nader made it on 34 state ballots and DC in 2004. In 2008, he made it on 45 states and DC, as well as a write-in for four other states.
Last time around, (meaning Election 2000) my wife (Elaine) ...she called... the head of a major U.S. newspaper and he said that he would post, he would actually print my editorial, six sentences long, until he saw it, and then he even called her back, and he denied that he got it, but he wouldn’t print it. And yet three days later (an estimate), he found front page space to compare Bush and Gore to the makes of automobiles...*
* Note: This was the key point for me to realize that we the people could not ever expect the elite-owned-and-operated media to print the truth regarding paramount hidden concerns, especially regarding elections, but we now had the tool of the Internet to overcome the media myths and thus fight the liars who have convinced the lion to submit to the lamb, at the expense of millions and now to the point of risking the ability for our species to continue to survive.
I’m in this because we’re all in this together. I mean we’re all endangered right now. Our atmosphere is heating up while (proclaimed) followers of the Prince of Peace are gabbing about whatever. Sorry, I don’t mean to criticize anyone but it’s just that we’re all in this together. It’s like Flight 93 has been hijacked, and I’m up here bashing on the cockpit door. We both got arrested, incarcerated in the Land of Liberty for doing this, and other people are playing pinochle and they’ve got the nerve to criticize or just chat about nonsense, while we’re trying to get through the cockpit door... So, if you want to do something constructive... (tell others).
Chapter 2
The Greatest Weapon:
The Mind of the Oppressed
“The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
- Steve Biko
The following commentary by the author was published on Znet interActive in early October 2000.
Observations of a Concerned Citizen
I am absolutely appalled that not only was Ralph Nader not allowed to participate in the first presidential debate, but was blocked by the police Gestapo outside when he arrived with a valid ticket to sit in the viewing audience. This truly represents just how far our democracy has deteriorated. It is reminiscent of the tyranny that we were all taught happened in communist countries, which in turn made us abhor those political entities. How can anyone of sane mind still feel that we are free as Americans under these conditions? A presidential debate committee that can ignore a candidate, who has received nearly 100,000 signatures in an online petition for his inclusion, is far from just and representative of the people. We are talking about a decision about who is going to get the most important job in America. I think, we, as citizens, deserve more than having to pick between "the least of the worst," as Mr. Nader has rightfully termed our bipartisan choices. It must be borne in mind that the arbitrary 15% inclusionary rule, was not present when the debates were run by the League of Women Voters and has only been present for eleven years. Besides that, recent polls have indicated that the majority of Americans would like to see Ralph Nader in the debates. If diverse opinions are not allowed, then why have a debate at all? If Vice President Al Gore is seriously concerned about the plight of middle class Americans and the environment, then how can he support the WTO, which clearly does not? You won't get an answer to that question from a Bush-Gore debate because both support the WTO. Nader does not, and don't we as Americans deserve to hear this topic discussed? After all, the protests in Seattle last year over this issue were the largest seen in America since the Vietnam War days. I would like to hear the opinion of this issue from a man that has done more as private citizen for the benefit of the people in this country than both Bush and Gore have done while holding public office. Ralph Nader is a man who has always stood for the people over big business, which is the antithesis of the Republican and Democratic candidates, both of whom have obtained wealth via corporate welfare from the tax-paying public. If we allow ourselves to be dominated by the interests of the wealthy to such an extent that we are not even given a fair chance of choosing a president, then we can no longer claim that we live in anything even remotely resembling a democracy.
End of first 2000 commentary
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Like it or not, we’re all in this together and the media are harming all, even those who work within same, though they don’t realize this is the case obviously enough. All are in the same predicament, dependent upon the same atmosphere for survival, and whether the media accurately portray our mutual situation or not, reality remains reality. Those of us living in the U.S. live in the most influential and powerful nation in the world, and in spite of it being the height of the Information Age, we are allowing ourselves to be deluded to such a point the continued survival of humankind is at stake within this very century, all to satisfy the murderous greed of a disproportionate few, thanks to those who misguide the mass media and thus the majority of Americans, in spite of the Internet’s ability to overcome the media.
It’s hard to believe that the majority of Americans would allow themselves “…to be deluded and manipulated by the system,”* to use the words of the most quoted living author, Professor Noam Chomsky, who’s all but completely censored by the U.S. corporate media giants, most notably in my view the major television networks, since televised footage gains more attention than print news** and is arguably a stronger medium to transmit information, yet that’s clearly the case. Most are duped, big time.
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
** See, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part3/stats.html
Professor Chomsky has been described in the New York Times as being, “... arguably the most important intellectual alive,”* and as stated he is the most quoted living author,** so why do you suppose he’s not invited as a guest on any of these numerous television political talk shows we have nowadays on the major networks?
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
** See, CHOMSKY FOR BEGINNERS, by David Cogswell, page 1
As a matter of fact, Professor Chomsky has lambasted the New York Times* for burying important information, one example being East Timor in the late 1970s, where a slaughter of innocent human beings occurred, yet received very little coverage, and the coverage it did receive was primarily from the view of the aggressors. So, it wasn’t like this comment about him being, “...arguably the most important intellectual alive,” was put on their front page. It was in what the Professor referred to as a “publisher's blurb,” and he further stated that “...and you always got to watch those things. Because if you go back to the original you’ll find that that sentence is there, this is in the New York Times, but the next sentence is; 'Since that's the case, how can he write such terrible things about American foreign policy?' (laughs, Chomsky and audience) And they never quote that part. But in fact if it wasn’t for that second sentence I would begin to think that I’m doing something wrong, and I’m not joking about that.”
* Discussed in the second October 2000 commentary, The Daily Paper - No Longer an Essential News Source
I usually stick with the fact that in spite of the U.S. corporate media strongly censoring him he’s still the most quoted living author. That’s a fact. Don’t you think he ought to at least be heard?
Chomsky tells people there’s no reason they should “believe” anything he says, and I echo those sentiments wholeheartedly. All I’m asking is for people to consider what’s presented here, especially in relation to elections, unknown tax facts, and a war against innocent people that the citizens have sponsored, and for each person to decide what he or she feels is right in relation to same in terms of who they vote for and/or encourage others to vote for in our high office elections. The media have and are continuing to censor significant realities that impact your life. Everything here is elementary. It’s merely hidden. Cannot the Internet help bring it into plain view for enough to see to matter in time? Suffice it to say one way or another we're all making history right now. In time we’ll find out and one way or another whether we made it or not, won’t we?
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The Daily Paper - No Longer an Essential News Source
by Dr. Ken Hildebrandt
(published on ZNet on or before October 20, 2000)
At the end of last year Johann Gutenberg was the first one listed among "The Most Important People of the Millennium" by TIME Magazine, for his invention of the printing press in the 15th century. This was likely a good call because his invention enabled mass communication for the first time in history. Unfortunately for most people however, the power of the press fell into too few hands and enabled the greedy to write history as they saw fit for their own gains. As the population of the planet continued to grow, so did the amount of human suffering therein as a consequence. The Prosperous Few and The Restless Many, a book title by the great linguist Noam Chomsky, is a concise way of stating the resultant status quo. It takes only one example to clearly illustrate just how immoral those in power became, that being of the genocide that occurred in East Timor, in the late 1970s.
Although the United States supplied 90% of the arms used by Indonesia to slaughter an estimated 200,000 innocent human beings, there was virtually no awareness of the issue at all in the land of justice and freedom. The New York Times, who boast their contents to contain "All the News, That's Fit to Print," didn't report the story at all in the peak killing year of 1979. No news, no outcry, was unfortunately the fate for the East Timorese, whose women were sent back to the barracks of the Indonesian soldiers for their "use."
It must also be clearly stated that almost all of this was during the Jimmy Carter era, the so called, "man of integrity" being personally responsible himself for vast amounts of human suffering and death. This truly illustrates how "elementary truths" are easily withheld from the people and additionally that the controlling powers of The New York Times, along with the rest of the US media actually had "complicity in genocide in this case," as Chomsky pointed out. All of this occurred, yet just last year when Timor atrocities were covered in the American press, the U.S. was depicted as benevolent death camp liberators, a status both of our top two presidential candidates still maintain. It is an outrage that this kind of lying can go unchecked. We should be sending vast amounts of aid to that country, along with an open apology, for what was done to them. How do you think those who survived in Timor look at our country, with our leading two presidential contenders asserting they are decent human beings worthy of such a high office? I would assume that they would think we're pretty simple-minded, immoral, or both.
We must put an end to this kind of nonsensical behavior, getting our information from such consistently unreliable and inaccurate sources when we no longer need to due to the Internet. Associated Press wires are available as they happen from a variety of sources on the net, as are non-corporate sponsored news websites that help prevent truly newsworthy material from slipping through the cracks. We don't need the newspapers anymore, at least not to get our news. All we have to do is spread the word, completely boycott these most undeserving institutions, and devise ways to bring computer access and skills to those who don't have them. There are many people who are working hard to remove the barriers that still exist in bringing the truth to the people in our country. The emancipation has begun, so let's enjoy it!
End of second 2000 commentary
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Below: TIME magazine web post by the author as reposted on Znet interActive in October of 2000 under the category of “IRAQI EMBARGO,” though it also deals with the Drug War.
Of note, to clarify what’s stated in the introductory “NOTE,” the last I had checked just prior to writing was that out of over a million respondents, Mr. Nader had received 58.77% of the votes in the referred online TIME magazine poll.
At Children's Expense!
NOTE: The following was originally an e-mail in response to posted message at TIME.com, to one, Dave, who I assume was the moderator. I have a feeling there's more than one person over there who regrets they had this online election thing, in retrospect. I mean, one could interpret these findings as evidence that even conservatives would vote for Nader over Bush and Gore combined, if they gave moderate effort at becoming informed. Dave concluded his statement about people demonizing the corporate candidates with a quote from Charlie Brown, "Good Grief!"
“Good grief!” Dave, come out of the Peanuts cartoon and get with reality. Your Mom &/or Dad were unlikely to have been sent to jail for years during your childhood, due to an unjust drug war that singled them out for the color of their skin. The prison population in the United States has grown 600% in the last 20 years, Dave. The rich are now floating bonds to build more prisons and capitalize on the suffering of others by depriving them of freedom for years of their lives. It kind of sounds like slavery to me, Dave. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that major corporations have discovered that they can hire the inmates at slave labor wages because they are not entitled to the same rights as citizens. I'm talking about 50 cents an hour, right here at home, without setting up operations overseas. Solutions to the problems for the rich abound in our land of opportunity. Did anyone in power bother to think about the inmates' children, Dave? Do they deserve to be so insufficiently supported during their upbringing? What did they do to deserve this punishment, Dave? Haven't you thought about these issues, or don't they concern you because it's not your pain? They're dehumanizing children, Dave, little innocent children! The corporations involved in these affairs are nothing less than greed-motivated, serial-child-abuse offenders. They steal children's childhoods for money, Dave. Think about it, serial-child-abusers build prisons for people who use seemingly arbitrarily chosen substance illegalities. After all, the most destructive drug, alcohol, and the most addicting, nicotine, are both legal. The others are not though, with extreme human consequences of pain and suffering. Those are not just words Dave, I'm talking about real pain and real suffering. Suffering meted out to satisfy the superfluous desires of the wealthy. If they were sent to rehabs it would be far more effective than prisons in every way, including cost, according to UNICEF and other legitimate studies on the issue. Giving children more potential for happiness would actually cost us less money. Rich people would be the only losers here. In a just society, they would be put in their own prisons, for their sickening crimes against humanity. “Good” grief? No way! There is no such thing as “good” grief, Dave.
I didn't have to go through these kind of things in my childhood to understand and care about what's going on. Does it not violate your internal sense of justice that hurting children has not only been in essence legalized, but it is a profitable enterprise as well? The evidence is widely available, albeit sparingly in your publication, that clearly demonizes the top two contenders. You so hypocritically demand the non-use of offensive language at your site so as to not disturb the more fortunate families, while you simultaneously endorse campaigns that actually starve children to death. I'm claiming that you endorse these immoral endeavors because you have attempted to defend them from being called the names that best suit supporters of these policies.
While we're on the topic of how politics affect children, let's look at the embargo against Iraq that kills between 4 and 5 thousand children a month via starvation and malnutrition. Elementary logic clearly discloses two guilty parties here, in that if either would stop its torturous behavior, the children would be saved from starvation, literally from starvation! Wake up, please, anyone who doesn't get that! Nazi Germany was involved in the starvation of innocent people. This policy, likewise, results in the starvation of innocent people. If the end product is the slow death of starvation, to anyone, notwithstanding innocent children, it is not a moral option for us. It is clearly wrong. The Iraqi embargo has killed about a million children under the age of Elian, since it began nearly a decade ago. Please explain the difference between each one of those children and Elian, Dave. Both Bush and Gore boast of their commitment to punish Saddam, killing the women and children in the country that he dominates. How grotesquely absurd and simpleminded can human's become? This embargo is nothing other than a sustained act of the worst form of terrorism known to man, starvation. Bush and Gore are demonized because they deserve to be. I assume that you rationalize the starving to death of children, because if you didn't, you wouldn't retort with such nonsense to such truly justified descriptions of our leading two candidates.
Why don't you come to Harlem with me someday, or go out in the middle of the night with me and talk to some homeless people? I meet a lot of homeless people who are confined to wheelchairs, Dave. Let's go talk to them together, and maybe the time will come when we can both tell them that we're fighting the system that has allowed their situation to reach this level of despair. The only way you're still a jerk is if you continue to act like one, Dave, and anyone else for that matter. So jump on board and start putting some real use to your life on this planet and stop denying the reality of other breathing human being's pain! The invite is sincere, you have my e-mail address and I'd love to show you why those two examples of “personified ineptitude” who are running for president deserve to be demonized in a big way. See for yourself why they have been demonized, by obtaining easily found examples of real people, Dave, who have been victimized by the perverse actions that these two incompetent candidates wholeheartedly support. I'll likely publish this letter to you in an open format and I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon.
End of third 2000 commentary
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Chapter 3
Confirming Reality using the Internet
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- Mahatma Gandhi
THANKS TO THE INTERNET, ONE CAN EASILY CONFIRM REALITY, especially regarding basic, yet profound concerns, such as the platforms and histories of all the candidates who are ballot qualified in US Federal elections, meaning those running and able to win presidential (2 people, one president and one vice president), congressional (435 people, one member of congress to represent each voting district), and senate seats (100 people, two senators per state), for a grand total of 537 people, who basically run the show, or a big part of it anyway.
These people not only guide the direction of over 300 million Americans, but being the leaders of the dominant nation on Planet Earth, and the clear military leader, 'admittedly' spending nearly half the rest of the entire world combined, in addition to environmental and atmospheric dangers that are now threatening all life on earth, one would think choosing who these people are should be more than a haphazard choice, not a decision based on people whom it can readily be demonstrated withhold and/or distort reality into fiction regarding our world, time after time.
As perplexing as it is, in the face of hard evidence and facts many adults are seemingly incapable of letting go of their “beliefs.” This is unfortunate and luckily does not apply to all. If it applied to all we’d be in trouble and there would certainly be no point in my writing this book discussing amongst the most elementary of profound yet buried elementary truths the media have been distorting in relation to our Federal and State elections, and some key ramifications of same. If a third* understand then it would seem rational people would finally have a fair shot of electing far more reasonable candidates for high political offices in spite of the media’s all-out efforts to have the people choose representatives whom it can be readily proven do not represent them with respect to their very lives as well as the lives of others, but instead prioritize greed, power and death over “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
* An approximate figure, since even in the hotly contested 2004 election, over a third of eligible voters didn’t vote. So, we need half of two thirds, i.e., about a third. For stat verification see, http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/voting/004986.html. Please remember effort in informing others is far more potent than just a single vote.
The founders of this country, flaws and all, would likely be disgusted beyond comprehension as to what we’ve allowed to happen due to deception and apathy, all the while hanging out our flags as if we actually should be proud for not standing up for ourselves or others. The very future survival of our species is at stake here, and yet the many are still letting the few run the course full steam ahead at the height of the so-called Information Age. “Truth is stranger than fiction…,” Mark Twain observed. Does this not appear to be the case right here right now, whilst Americans gather around their propaganda boxes weekly glued to American 'Idle', or whatever it’s called, yet have not the foggiest idea that the survival of their species is in unnecessary jeopardy* simply to satisfy the gluttonous wants of a disproportionate few because they’re “...allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system?”
* See, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm for article originally published in the Toronto Star, about a report submitted to the U.N. regarding our global situation. Remember, the U.N. is in New York. Why do we need to find out what’s happening in the United States via Canada, in relation to profound implications that affect the entire world? Should not a story like this be front page news and top headlines?
Once I discovered in 2000 that the capability was there to put things in video format on the Internet, I thought the days of television, magazine, and newspaper dominance were numbered. Perhaps I was correct, just not in timing. In the fall of 2000, I posted at a prominent web site not of my creation, and tried to get others who already had video on their websites to hear me out as to what I thought they could do to help in their elections, since that is what their websites were about - they were political in nature.
So, since 2000 I’ve been trying to put what I wanted to say out there in Cyberspace, i.e., the Internet, all free of charge. I learned a lot about human apathy along the way, something Professor Chomsky has claimed horrifies him more than the occasional Hitler or LeMay who crops up in history, because without the backing of the people, people such as Hitler would be powerless. People simply are not living to their human potential if they knowingly submit their very lives to others based on false pretenses, especially when it’s been explained that their very tax dollars directly fund mass human suffering and misery whilst millions of children worldwide die of neglect each year for what just a fraction of the Pentagon budget could easily prevent. In other words, these children die horrible deaths simply because they’re dehumanized.* And please don’t buy the malarkey that we’re giving a high proportion of our money for the good of those elsewhere. Over 50% of our nation’s expenditures go toward “defense,” whilst less than 1% goes toward aid. Though over 20 industrialized nations of the United Nations including the United States agreed to allocating 0.07% of their Gross Domestic Product in 1970, that’s a standard that’s yet to be met and isn’t projected to be met until 2015, 45 years after its birth.**
* See, http://thehungersite.com, where it’s been stated that someone dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds; 75% are under the age of five. If one does the math, that comes to 8-million, 760-thousand every year. Imagine that, whilst our nation’s priorities lie with feeding the gluttonies of disproportionate few, a holocaust of children under the age of five die of hunger every 250 days as if they’re not real human beings at all - their lives are deemed meaningless. And that’s from hunger alone.
** See, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Debt/USAid.asp
Although not being a technological whiz, I managed to learn how to have my own video website in early 2001, mostly due to the Winter 2000 edition of Videomaker’s Guide to PC Video, in which Matthew York, its editor and publisher, stated at the conclusion of the Editor’s Letter, “Now, even you, can make a television program!” I realized that the corporate media could be beat, if only an organized effort to inform the masses was made by enough caring people to matter in time.
Here it is years later, and I finally heard the 2008 U.S. presidential election called the “YouTube Election,” after the Internet site YouTube.com, where people can upload their videos for all to see. As stated, this technology was available at least in 2000, perhaps before. In my humble opinion Internet video should have had a profound impact on the presidential election in 2000, and had it done so we would likely be living in a much more sane, reasonable, fair world today. It didn’t and thus we’re not.
When Paul Revere made his ride he didn’t yell, “I think the British are coming,” did he? Then why do we not yell, or at least tell others about how much the media have painted a fictitious view of our very reality at the height of the Information Age, making the 2008 presidential contest a bout between warmongering John McCain, who finished 894th out of 899 in the Naval
Academy (arguably a potential threat to George W. Bush as the likely all-time cerebrally challenged president), and Barack Obama, who does not oppose the domestic and international Drug Wars, even though he admitted to doing drugs himself, with the people quickly forgiving him since deep down everyone knows it’s really not a crime to do drugs?
I'm not claiming it’s smart to do drugs, just that stupidity is not a crime in itself. Eating junk food isn’t wise either, though it’s not illegal. It’s not like Obama robbed a bank, murdered or raped someone or something. If he had done any of those things and admitted it he would’ve been history long ago, don’t you think? So why does he support the caging of those who’ve done the same thing?
The Land of the Free now has more prisoners than any nation on Earth, both per capita and in total, ranking second only to Nazi Germany in the recorded history of humankind. Though comprising some five percent of the world’s population, we house a full quarter of the world’s slightly less than 10-million inmates. Over half of the U.S. prisoners have harmed no one, they’ve merely disobeyed in a land where one is supposed to be guaranteed the right to “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” and then were put in harm’s way in a cage. If you live in the U.S. you most likely directly funded this mass assault not only against innocent people, but everyone, really, since law enforcement personnel were ordered to waste their time chasing non-criminals at the expense of fighting crime. Doesn’t that make you the least bit angry? Governments wouldn’t be able to treat their citizens and others with contempt were it not for mass thoughtlessness as well as the lack of objection by most.
Although this book is primarily concerned with censored elections, as well as our direct funding of unnecessary mass human suffering and death as a result of the Drug War, and tax inequality, it should be pointed out that of course this is not all that’s censored, since the U.S. media shape the news in their direction for other usually obvious reasons likewise. Remember, the ultra-wealthy own and thus run the major media outlets, so in whose interests do you suppose they’ll be slanting reality? Whether they’re censoring to guide an election or censoring to keep dissenters at a minimum regarding war, their scams are not that difficult to see if one spends the time and looks. For example, prior to September 11, 2001, there was extensive mainstream coverage regarding Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, two female U.S. Christian aid workers who had been taken into custody by the Taliban and were being held in Kabul, yet as the days led up to Bush’s forces bombing Kabul, not knowing where exactly these women were being held, I could find nothing regarding the two of them. It was as if they vanished into thin air, though in the weeks leading up to 9-11 they were given marked media coverage. Why do you suppose the media took them out of the limelight when U.S. forces were bombing the city in which they were held captive?
At one point I did read or hear on television that one of the fathers was protesting the bombing saying something along the lines of, ‘They're bombing the hell out of Kabul and daughter’s in there,’ but that was just once! Not until they were luckily rescued did they become substantially newsworthy anew. By the way it wasn’t American troops who rescued the aid workers - they were Afghanis.
One shouldn’t get the wrong impression of the Taliban’s foe, the Northern Alliance, as if this group was a bunch of freedom- loving peacemakers. Many will recall that picture of the man begging for his life on his knees, and the subsequent photo of the same man with his pants pulled down, lying on his back apparently dead, with blood that can be seen that had splattered on his lower shirt, as a member of the Northern Alliance took one more gunshot at him with the utmost of anger visible in his face, as two others likewise took shots at his now corpse. In one prominent periodical I read that he had begged for his life but was not granted his wish. In another I read that he had begged for his life, was humiliated, and was killed. Months later I read an article from the U.K. describing the photo and stating that his pants had been pulled down and then his gentiles, or part of his genitals, were cut off with a knife before he was shot to death. Unfortunately as of this writing I’ve been unable to confirm that source, though I do recall reading it and it was unmistakably describing this horrendous event. Did they tell the truth here in the U.S.? Sure they did, though they left out a major detail didn’t they? Can’t even trust them with a photograph can you?
I remember having a brief conversation with a young mother of three several years back who worked in a convenience store. She said, “I know exactly what you mean,” regarding how if the media don’t report something it’s not known. This struggling single mother had lived in a neighborhood in which a young boy was murdered by a teenager when the boy was going door to door selling something or other for school or Scouts as I recall. If anyone didn't hear of this horrific event, particularly in this area, then they must've been living in a cave. People were outraged. The woman stated that those who lived in the neighborhood at the time knew the accused murderer had been captured, but the media withheld the information for fear of what the public might do if they realized he was captive in the local jail, so basically outside of the neighborhood no one knew.
In spite of the Internet being comparably accessible as television, and the potential to have streaming and downloading video is possible, even just using a phone modem is enough in relation to download video from the net if its producer chooses to make his or her material in reasonable sizes available for downloading, years later vital information is still successfully repressed so that not enough people know to matter. Is this not shameful beyond comprehension? Internet video was used at presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s site in 2000, though it was not passed on by enough to matter. The video he had was easily accessible to those with dial-up service, which was predominant at the time.
Back on topic, were it not for media distorted elections, we’d likely live in an entirely different world, a far more reasonable efficient world with much less cruelty. Who wants wealthy un-elected censors, many of whom are even unknown? Well, that’s what we’re getting and that’s why the choices are so bad that many, and in the midterm elections - most, don’t even bother voting at all. There is a way to get back, and that’s in finding one’s information about the candidates via their websites primarily, comparing platforms and histories and voting according to common sense, decency and reason.
In the U.S. presidential elections of 2004 and 2008 there were six candidates on enough state ballots to win the presidency, though only two were permitted in the televised debates. Who are these un-elected people who are censoring our elections to this profound degree? What Constitutional Amendment gives them this awesome power? Considering the seriousness of the highly censored realities at least two of the censored candidates were bringing up, the election was a farce resulting in casualties by the millions at least, a farce perhaps coming at the cost of the continued survival of our species on this planet within this century.*
* See, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, at, http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines02/0523-01.htm
Thanks to the media’s deception and the public’s general inability to recognize this grandest of scams, there was nearly a split decision amongst two unreasonable choices, George W. Bush, the former high school cheerleader who has the national record of the most executions of any governor in the history of the United States, who started two wars in less than two years, though he made sure he didn’t go to Vietnam himself, and John Kerry, so bad himself he was unable to decisively defeat someone as knowingly horrible as Bush.
Unless one thinks unnecessary human suffering, pain, misery and death are perfectly acceptable to be inflicted upon innocent people, all to benefit a disproportionate few, then we have a problem here. How is that so, one might rightfully ask? Either one supports the misery of others voluntarily or one doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion but a matter of reality.
I’m confident you’ll see things clearly if you take the time to review the evidence presented throughout this book, no small part of which can be checked with video documentation for all to see. At the height of theInformation Age there’s a lot the American people are not aware of regarding the world in which they live.
As stated in my speech for Nader in Austin, Texas back in April of 2004, the U.S. houses a full quarter of the world’s prisoners,* many, if not most, of whom have harmed no one but merely disobeyed laws against their rights to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?” Chomsky has stated that we live in a society that's so highly indoctrinated that “...elementary truths are easily buried.”** The prison population when Ronald Reagan took office was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000. Now we have roughly 2.3 million prisoners, meaning it’s more than quadrupled since 1980. Are we any safer? According to the RAW DATA SIGNIFICA, INSIGNIFICADA, STATS AND FACTS page of the April 2000 issue of PLAYBOY, the “...percentage of homicides in 1975 that were solved: 79. Percentage in 1997: 64.” The bottom line is, we’ve gotten tough on non-crimes, at the expense of crime. How immoral is that?
* See, Prisons at Center of Damning Report on U.S. Human Rights, archived at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0712-08.htm.
** See segment of interview with Bill Moyers in, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
If you don’t like my previous source, I’m not saying I do either, at least not all of it, (which is almost always the case), but it often has hidden information other mainstream sources, for whatever reason, have chosen not to widely report, or not to report at all. A former presidential candidate did an interview for PLAYBOY, as did a former U.S. Attorney General. Rather than dwelling on the source of this information, it’s most important to understand what this means in terms of real people, and that’s that we have more child molesters, rapists and murderers at large amongst us in order to punish the innocent. Surely this ought to be enough to have most people want to rise up against this absurdity, demanding reason of their elected representatives.
The increases in prisoners have in no small part been due to the Drug War, yet one of the most addicting drugs, nicotine, which accounts for the deaths of some 400,000 Americans each year and 5,000,000 deaths each year world wide, is perfectly legal. Likewise, alcohol, which impairs judgment as well as muscle and motor control, is also legal. Sending people to live in cages ought to be for valid reasons, and cruel and unusual punishments such as beatings and rape should not be tolerated as per Amendment Eight of the Bill of Rights of our Constitution, yet said punishments, which harm people for life, are even joked about routinely by so-called “comics,” in spite of the fact that most of our prisoners have physically harmed no one themselves, nor ever ordered harm to anyone. How can a sane reasonable society accept such punishments as being the norm, and even laugh about it?
A relatively recent article released by the Associated Press disclosed that one out of every 136 U.S. citizens was behind bars as of the summer of 2005.* If one thinks that by obeying the law they’ll be fine, think again. With drugs, it’s easy to have them planted on “suspects,” and indeed is reported to happen far too often. That’s another problem with arresting people for non-crimes - the evidence becomes the law officer’s word versus the defendant’s.** Since no crime was in fact committed, the usual standards of collecting incriminating evidence are discarded, meaning more innocent people will be torturously punished for sustained periods of time. That’s simple deductive reasoning. If our law enforcement personnel are being used to jail people who’ve committed no crime, then that leaves more real criminals as a result. Part of the reason this likely happens is because people, for the most part anyway, don’t see who’s being punished for what, unlike the days of the pillories of old, (see picture of pillory below). Oh sure, they read about this or that person being sentenced to prison in the newspaper, but how often to they report what happens inside those prisons? There was more transparency in the days of the pillory, you have to give them that much.
* See, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0522-03.htm
** For example, see Chapter 4
Above: The pillory - At least in some ways it was a more open society then, unlike our prisons today where people are mostly punished who’ve harmed no one, hidden from the general public, and they’re incarcerated at a number and rate higher than any nation on Earth. Imagine that, the Land of the Free.
Professor Chomsky has noted that if one has access to a wide variety of mainstream media sources one might find the “occasional nugget” of truth concerning a mostly censored topic. No doubt those nuggets are easier to obtain now thanks to the Internet. I cite the mainstream whenever I can because when they admit something there's no going back. I try to cite sources that don’t offend anyone if possible, though it must be remembered none of us would be here were it not for sex and that we’re the only animal in the Animal Kingdom that doesn’t generally present itself as-is, unless we’re shooting a probe into outer space announcing who we are as per the famous NASA Pioneer Plaques sent into space in the 1970s, in which case the female’s genitalia are absent and the male’s present though both are presented in the nude.* What’s that say about our species? We’re not even honest about who we are.
* See, http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/images/content/72418main_plaque.jpg
It’s astonishing that the Taliban were rightly criticized for not allowing women to show their faces, though men could, yet here in the U.S. men can show their chests but it’s illegal for women to do the same. So, while we eliminate the very body part we nearly all came from in an image sent into outer space to introduce ourselves to any intelligent life form that may encounter the message, we live by double standards we largely don’t even recognize and fail to realize how stupid we must look. To send something like that to who would almost certainly by odds be far more advanced than our primitive society with but little more than a handful of millennia of recorded history at our disposal and truly in the historic infancy of the Age of Technology is to openly demonstrate our mass absurdity does it not?
After reading the next chapter you’ll likely think twice about signing for a package for the people next door, or for anyone other than yourself or a completely trusted friend or family member for that matter. This is about a man right here in the U.S. who was sentenced to 15 years for signing for a package, and a retired judge stepped out of his way and into my camera’s lens to publicly declare his concern that this innocent person was living his life in a cage away from his family.
Chapter 4
The Package and the Cage:
Easy Setups for Non-Crimes
“They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness.”
- John Milton - 1642
Above: Wanda Best, and an unidentified retired judge who walked into the picture as I was filming and began commenting on behalf of Wanda Best’s husband, Darrel Best.
REGARDING A MAN WHO WAS SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS SIMPLY FOR SIGNING FOR A NEIGHBOR'S PACKAGE, the following is nearly the complete transcript, though some parts were inaudible.
Interviewer: Oh this is an old picture?
Wanda Best: This is an old picture, right.
Interviewer: Oh, OK.
Wanda Best: This one, (pointing to a young girl in the family picture), today’s her senior prom. She’s getting ready to go to college...
Interviewer: Oh wow.
Wanda Best: And now, daddy won’t be there.
Interviewer: Wow. Is he fighting it, is he a...?
Wanda Best: Of course, he was fighting it but, you know...
Interviewer: But what, um....
Wanda Best: Unfortunately, what happened to his case was right after 9/11, so everybody thought the cops wouldn’t lie, they were heroes. So they just took the word of the cops and they didn’t believe anything else. My husband had witnesses and everything.
Interviewer: What happened to the guys that gave him the package, can't you… (pause) ...get them... to help? These were the guys who gave him the package (?)... undercover cops…
Wanda Best: Federal Express. Yeah, the whole truck, the uniforms, everything…
Interviewer: Oh God!
Wanda Best: My husband…
Interviewer: Why did he...? What... was he rushing him or something?
Wanda Best: He needed glasses and the guy pressured him, you know, and when my husband was um... The defense attorney asked him: “Well, do you have a wire (or permission) or did you videotape it… Did you wire the conversation?” You see, so he lied. The cops lied, the jury bit... but he pressured him.
Interviewer: He has no record, this man has no record?
Wanda Best: No.
Interviewer: Based on a testimony, a cops testimony?
Wanda Best: Solely on the testimony.
Interviewer: What kind of jury was this? How could...
Wanda Best: ...I guess because, I don’t know, I don’t know why they believed him, but they believed him. Like I said, it happened right after 9/11.
Interviewer: What was the cop’s testimony? What was his defense testimony?
Wanda Best: He didn’t have any. He just said that my husband signed for the package. And then they took something my husband said and just twisted it, just like I just told you. He was up there trying to make money to (support) you know, buy his daughter’s books. My husband told the cops that and the cop said; “Well he was up here trying to make extra money to support his five daughters, or his four daughters” - which was true, but he wasn’t selling drugs, he was fixing my uncle’s awning.
Interviewer: Right...
Wanda Best: You know...”
Interviewer: But what went through his mind, what was in the package when he signed? What… what...
Wanda Best: He thought it was for the neighbor.
Interviewer: For the neighbor... He was signing something for the neighbor?
Wanda Best: Haven’t you done that? I’ve done that.
Interviewer: Yeah!
Wanda Best: I don’t do it anymore.
Interviewer: But if the guy tells me ahead of time...
Dr.Ken Hildebrandt: No, I guess not.
Interviewer: If he tells me ahead of time... This is the name on the package. Would you like to sign here?
Wanda Best: Well, it had his uptown address, but it had the last name of the neighbor. So he thought maybe they... cause he was like, it’s a private home. Instead of 1019, it was like 1020.
Interviewer: OK, OK now, my next question. He made a mistake. The name wasn’t in his, his ... ah ... it was somebody else’s name? Why would they arrest you for signing for somebody else’s package?
Wanda Best: You tell me why. That's why I'm here today.
Interviewer: Why, because I mail drugs to your house?
Wanda Best: Yeah, if I sign for it.
Interviewer: If I mail drugs to your house and you sign it by mistake, they arrest you?
Wanda Best: Oh yeah!
Ken: The potential for set-up is amazing. I’ve talked about this numerous times on my website, I mean.
Passer by: …Federal Express… I’ve used it all the time for the people, never again. It happened to Patty Hearst. She got a big box. She signed for it. Fed agents got on it. Did she go to jail? No.
Interviewer: This is ... ah ...
Wanda Best: My husband? Yeah.
Judge: (inaudible)
Interviewer: It is, it is.
Wanda Best: He was at my husband’s trial. He knows… nothing… He was good.
Interviewer: You had a good lawyer too?
Judge: Yeah, yeah, one of the best, but, um, I don't know...
Wanda Best: Who knows what the jury was thinking? Like I said…
Judge: Jurors have no idea, I’m sure, what the penalty is. They don’t know what he was facing.
Interviewer: What was the amount? What was the amount? Do you know?
Wanda Best: I think it was...
Judge: Two pounds, wasn’t it?
Wanda Best: A pound.
Interviewer: A pound?
Wanda Best: …they were off …
Judge: …one and a half years … there's a thirteen and a half year spread because he didn’t plead guilty.
Wanda Best: They told him he could…
Interviewer: …what was... Oh, eight months?
Ken: Who are you? Sir, I’m sorry.
Judge: (inaudible) I’m a retired judge.
Ken: Oh, how are you doing? (The judge and I shake hands.)
Ken: Kenny Hildebrandt from NowWe’reTalking.TV.
Interviewer: So, he didn’t take the conviction?
Judge: He didn’t take the plea.
Interviewer: The plea. He didn’t take the plea, which they wanted, so now they’re making him spend money and drag this thing on? You gonna get hit with ... ah ...
Wanda Best: My husband’s father, his life’s savings. He’s retired now...
Interviewer: Spent to helping him?
Wanda Best: $20,000 for lawyers.
Interviewer: Really?
Wanda Best: It’s gone. My husband’s still gone.
Ken: Wow.
Questioner: He’s in...
Wanda Best: Of course now… You know the sad thing about, for my husband, being a big-time drug dealer. The day he was convicted I came home and I didn’t have food to feed his daughters.
Interviewer: You didn’t?
Wanda Best: You know ...we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have any money, you know, what can I tell you? This is why we’re here, for justice.
Interviewer: I heard about this. I heard from the judge...
Judge: This is a strange case, in many respects. If he was willing to plead guilty... because he knew that… year… he was going to jail...
Interviewer: (inaudible)… he was going to cop...
Wanda Best: Yes, but no contest.
Judge: But he wouldn’t… to plead guilty. Then the judge is going to ask you questions. Did you order this...
Interviewer: That he wouldn’t accept, right?
Judge: Now some judges will accept that. They call that an Alford plea. It’s … kind of plea that somebody figures: “Well I’m innocent but they’re gonna have witnesses against me and I can’t beat this and I’m facing all this heavy time. Forget it, I’ll plead guilty.” And that’s what he tried to do but the judge wouldn’t accept that.
Interviewer: He would not?
Judge: He wouldn’t, no.
.
Wanda Best: …He was gonna plead for no contest.
Interviewer: He would accept the plea of no contest meaning that he…
Wanda Best: It means he’s not guilty, he’s not innocent, he’s just accepting the plea.
Judge: But he wouldn’t admit that he was guilty.
Wanda Best: He wouldn’t admit that he was guilty.
Interviewer: He wouldn’t admit that... this package...
Wanda Best: Why would he? He didn’t do it.
Interviewer: But he wanted him to?
Judge: If this man was guilty he would’ve taken one and a half years.
Interviewer: Of course! He would have took that.
Judge: He’d have to be crazy not to...
Wanda Best: They told him that he didn’t have to. This happened just before Christmas. They said you could spend the holidays with your children. You won’t even have to go to jail until January. I mean, they sweetened this pot like you would not.... They said in eight months you’ll be out. But he couldn’t do it. We told our children, don’t lie. How’s he gonna lie and then be branded a drug dealer?
Interviewer: Actually right, be branded…
Wanda Best: But he still is branded a drug dealer.
Interviewer: He’s branded as a drug dealer.
Wanda Best: And it still happened. But we fought it. We weren’t gonna go down without a fight.
Interviewer: Whoa, what a shame. What a shame, man. Wow, sorry to hear that.
Unidentified person: (I have a feeling) I hope there’s, you know, I hope there’s a chance...
Wanda Best: Yeah.
Unidentified person: Horrible.
Wanda Best: It is, it is.
Interviewer: Whoa, sorry to hear that.
Ken: Occasionally (one can) get clemency, you know, like the woman back there. We’ll hope for that.*
Wanda Best: Judge Michael Gross. He was devastated. He wanted to...
Judge: He wanted to... but by law you got to do it.
Wanda Best: That’s what he said… He wished to God…
Ken: Exactly ...by the law.
Interviewer: The law, the law states 15 to life.
Wanda Best: 15 minimum, minimum, 15 to life.
Ken: Sentencing guidelines.
Judge: Anything over two ounces (selling?) or you possess over four, same as murder, 15 to 25 to life.
* Mr. Best was the sole person to receive clemency in the state of New York in 2005 by Governor George Pataki, though
the New York Times article hardly pointed out the main facts surrounding the case. - See, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/nyregion/25clemency.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Chapter 5
A Way Out:
Informing Others and Voting
"Every election cycle more lethally vicious regressives are victorious,
crushing common sense and human rights in tandem, moving the country further in the direction of mindless fascism."
- Dr. David Michael Green,
political science instructor at Hofstra University, New York,
July 12, 2010
There have been presidential, vice presidential, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates who have been against the Drug War, particularly against cannabis, which accounts for approximately one of every twenty U.S. arrests. Yet these candidates have been greatly marginalized by the major media in nearly all instances, with one major exception being the former governor of New Mexico, Republican Gary Johnson. Is it not a waste of resources to arrest people for violations of their right to liberty? How many pedophiles, rapists, thieves and killers remain at large whilst so many of our law enforcement officers are spending their time harming innocent people as per their orders? No one knows for sure yet simple deductive reasoning indicates that whatever the number is it’s totally unacceptable, unless one doesn’t mind having more pedophiles, rapists, thieves and murderers on the loose than need be.
Yes, we live in a terribly inefficient cruel society, though the parameters have been set up for us such that it needn’t be this way. We, as a society, have allowed ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT has pointed out long ago. At the height of the so-called Information Age, the statement still holds true today, though I must admit that’s beyond my ken. That’s “ken” with a small “k,” meaning one’s range of understanding, for those who aren’t familiar with the word and were wondering what I meant. Nothing to do with my name, just my range of understanding, and it’s beyond mine that at the height of the Information Age most are deluded, particularly in regard to elections in which they’re picking known sponsors of mass misery and murder by voting for the media’s puppets in lieu of the Third Party and Independent candidates who in some cases do in fact stand for the people over big business, unlike nearly all in power today. Just because the others advertise more is no reason to pick one of them, is it?
If you were choosing a doctor and knew that two of the six or so you were considering heavily advertised yet could be shown to sometimes demonstrate complete contempt for human life, would you pick her or him as a doctor? Or would you go to someone who, it could be readily ascertained, genuinely cared about human life, though she or he didn’t have as much money to advertise as a result of taking more time caring for her or his patients?
Media deception regarding elections is arguably the most important of truths successfully withheld due to its direct influence on how we are governed, what laws rule the land, whether or not said laws are fair and rational vs. immoral, cruel, completely unjust and irrational, and whether or not the superfluities of a highly disproportionate few should come at the expense of some 12-million real children feeling hunger pains right here in the U.S. on a daily basis, whilst allowing some eight September 11th Attacks’-worth of real live children to unnecessarily die each day of completely preventable causes for what just a fraction of the Pentagon budget could easily prevent,* in actuality, all due to neglect. If one does the math, one quickly arrives at the figure of some 6-million children dying worldwide every 250 days for no reason whatsoever - none justified, anyway. That’s a holocaust of real children every 250 days. These aren’t Cabbage Patch Kids or something.
* See, Bad News When Madmen Lead the Blind, by Norman Soloman, at, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2164
and, http://thehungersite.com
People can easily see that there are more than two candidates on their voting ballots, yet only two are displayed in televised public debates - nearly without exception - for nearly every major political office available. Why? And why aren’t more people asking why? What is it these other candidates have to say that is either A) so unimportant as to not be newsworthy, or B) newsworthy enough to send shockwaves throughout our democratic system? Who are the people withholding these candidates from public view? Have any of these censors been elected to do this kind of profound censoring? Did they have to go through any kind of public scrutiny to get their “jobs?” These are the kinds of questions thinking people ought to be asking, one would think.
We’ll take a look at some of the repercussions of thoughtlessness and media dominance over people’s thought, particularly here in the United States, where we have the guidelines set up to have a self-governing body in the interests of the common people. We’ve collectively allowed ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Professor Chomsky has stated. Instead, we have a system designed to feed the wants of a disproportionate few over the necessities of many, if not most.
IS THERE A WAY OUT OF THIS? Yes, a simple vote would bring us well on our way to improvement, but it would involve the effort and recruitment of many to overcome the wealthy liars who censor our news. With the Internet at people’s disposal it is surely something that is doable. Along with the Internet, our right to assemble would have to also be employed to gather like-minded caring people to do what we can by sharing the information learned from one another, using pamphlets, audios and videos as seen appropriate to help spread some basic, factual, easy-to-explain elementary truths to others. Nothing speculative need be discussed, since that would only leave rational caring people with weak points to attack. There are no conspiracy theories in asserting facts. When Professor Chomsky debated the Dutch Minister of Defense years ago, the Minister was compelled to excuse himself out of humiliation. It’s tough to argue against facts regarding human justice. Anyone trying to do so will look foolish and/or cruel. That is almost surely the reason the powers that be do not want anyone outside the two corporate-controlled parties in major political debates.
“At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible, either the general population will take control of its own destiny and concern itself with community interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others, or alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control.”
– Noam Chomsky
Time is indeed running short to do so.
Chapter 6
Dr. Ken Asks Presidential Candidate
Ralph Nader a Question at a Press Conference
in late October of 2004 in Iowa
“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
- Joseph Stalin
The following is the transcript of my question to presidential candidate Ralph Nader, from late October of 2004 in Iowa, accompanied by his answer in a room of journalists with their cameras running. The above picture of Mr. Nader is from election eve on Wall Street, 2004.
Ralph Nader: Yes... (pointing toward me).
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Mr. Nader, Ken Hildebrandt from MajorMediaBypass.com. Just briefly... a small amount of people who were not elected kept you out of the debates and therefore we didn’t hear about the real risk of global warming, the fact that we could be using hemp to grow our oil right now, that our top crime is a non-crime and that we house a quarter of the world’s incarcerates. These are all real issues and what I’m asking that you do is speak to the American people and ask them to vote their conscience and to take a look at these real issues, which people who were not elected kept from us. And, would you be willing to talk to us about this?
Ralph Nader: Well, of course. There’s no time to go into our reform of the criminal injustice system, but being in Iowa I do want to emphasize that we have long favored the legalization of industrial hemp which has 5,000 known products, can reduce our reliance on oil, produce food, fiber like Patagonia clothing, and which reduces the need to cut down trees because it provides material for good paper and produces a source of food.
And farmers in this country are prohibited by law from growing industrial hemp even though it’s legal for us to import it from Canada, France, Romania and China. That’s because it’s on the DEA proscribed list, a residue of medieval thinking that somehow it’s connected with marijuana. The only connection it has with marijuana, other than 1/3 of 1% THC, is if it is planted near a marijuana plot it will cross-pollinate and dilute the marijuana crop to the chagrin of the marijuana crops growers. They don’t want any industrial hemp anywhere near them.
So we have petitioned with a whole array of farm groups and state legislators, and even in international papers twice, to get it off the DEA proscribed list - once under Clinton and once under Bush. Both times our detailed petition was denied. It would be nice to have the two candidates talk about the multi-billion-dollar crop that would advance our national security by reducing our reliance on foreign oil as well as provide environmentally benign crops and income for hard-pressed farmers. Thank you.
Carl Mayer: OK Ralph, gotta go.
WE ARE LIVING IN A NATION THAT PRIDES ITSELF AS THE GREATEST DEMOCRACY ON THE PLANET yet a small amount of people who were not elected kept him out of the debates. Is that a democracy? What if former President Jimmy Carter was monitoring an outside nation’s democratic elections, as he’s been known to do in the case of East Timor, what would he say if the nation's mainstream televised media eliminated four out of six candidates who were on enough state ballots to win the election? Would he give the thumbs-up on such an election? I doubt it.
In 2000, Mr. Nader was physically blocked from even viewing one of the presidential debates, even though he had obtained a valid General Admission Pass to attend. He ended up suing and winning the case, to the tune of somewhere in the twenty thousand dollar range as I recall, which is next to nothing when one considers all that’s at stake here. Mr. Nader has never been known to interfere with a television broadcast, so why was he prevented from even viewing something he should’ve been a part of? As we’ll discuss later on, physical blocking of ballot-qualified candidates is not just confined to presidential elections here in the U.S. In other cases in which the would-be participants do not have such recognizable names as Mr. Nader, candidates are arrested for either A) demanding inclusion in public debates they should by right be participating in, or for B) simply demanding to view said debates. Examples of both will be given in awhile, but for now let’s get back to Mr. Nader’s question, and his answer.
Back to my question: “...therefore we didn’t hear about the real risk of global warming…” Remember, this was 2004, and though the major media had by that time begun to bring up the issue, was it discussed with any seriousness by either Bush or Kerry in any of the debates? Some scientists had already called it the greatest threat to the human race by that time. Mr. Nader did bring up that hemp was “environmentally benign” and that it “would advance our national security by reducing our reliance on foreign oil.” He also mentioned that the growing of hemp “reduces the need to cut down trees.” So, he hit on some major points with that question for sure. Though I was disappointed about what he had said about the other two candidates at the time, in 2008 he was on 45 state ballots and as a write-in for four others. He had a much better chance in 2008. He just needed help. Not all could give dollars but all could give help.
Growing our own oil alone could've arguably won him the presidency, don't you think? Decreased terrorism and decreasing our reliance on foreign oil... Did the others offer any of this? Have they ever? We'll see later on that the ones who have, in spite of being in mainstream parties, were likewise excluded from televised presidential debates.*
* See, Chapter 15 - Media-censored Presidential Elections Metastasizes to the Republican and Democratic Mainstream Parties; Chapter 16 - The Military-Industrial-Media Complex; and Chapter 17 - On the Eve of the New Hampshire Primary with Professor Noam Chomsky
I also mentioned in my question to Mr. Nader, “...that our top crime is a non-crime and that we house a quarter of the world’s incarcerates.” What I meant by our top crime being a non-crime is that drug violations account for more citizen arrests than anything else.* Again, if nicotine is legal, as is alcohol, why should other substances be deemed illegal in a nation that prides itself on people having the right to “...Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness?” And yes, though the Land of the Free comprises but 5% of the world's population, our imprisoned account for a full 25% of the world's prison inmates.
* See, “Law enforcement officers made more arrests for drug abuse violations in 2005 (an estimated 1.8 million arrests, or 13.1 percent of the total) than for any other offense,” at,http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/arrests/index.html
Prison for many, if not most, means the end of their lives as they know it. Once one is a victim of a violent crime, one’s life is never the same afterwards. Being cuffed, strip-searched, and thrown into a locked cage is a violent crime in and of itself. Yes, we really do live in a barbaric society, and “...elementary truths are easily buried," as Chomsky has maintained.
After looking at Mr. Nader’s platform since 2000 and realizing that if Americans actually understood that people’s lives were at stake here by the millions - we're polluting the environment when this environmentally benign form of energy is available to us and the tax structures are scamming all but the very wealthiest of income earners - I figured he'd be elected hands down if people were just informed. Surely a short quality video could be made that would be impossible for the media to ignore and which Americans could pass onto one another via the Internet. That's still true.
I learned something very important one day when I was in Harlem in 2000 passing out some of Mr. Nader’s literature, as well as talking with anyone and everyone I could, when one passerby who was obviously in a rush bluntly stated to me: “I don’t want to see anything else other than his platform. I’m not interested in anything else you have. Show me his platform,” before heading across the street. Though I had copies earlier in the day, as I frantically looked to find a copy, I saw that I had run out. The best I could do was run after him and give him something containing a partial list of some of the positions Mr. Nader stood for on a few issues, which the man accepted though he was obviously not fully satisfied.
That individual I met on the northwest corner of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X Boulevards hit the nail on the head as far as what was the most important thing about any candidate, i.e., her or his platform. It was something I’ll never forget, and hope you never do either, because it really is one of, if not the single most important thing about a candidate, revealing, if one looks carefully enough, where one stands regarding human life and death. These things are not discussed, for the most part, by the media's puppet candidates.
Also looking back to 2000, I remember when it was announced on C-SPAN that George W. Bush had in fact won the election, and they were taking callers to express their thoughts regarding their newly-elected president. It seemed that every third caller or so viewed it as if Hitler himself had been elected.*
* Side note: At the time, those who had headsets and web cams were actually pictured making their comments on television on C-SPAN, a historic first thanks to the Internet.
Some of the comments would’ve been laughable had they not indeed been targeted and well reasoned. After all, the man had broken all records to date in executions as a U.S. governor, signing for some 152 people out of 153 he was presented with to be strapped to a gurney and put to death. Though not all oppose the death penalty, few realize that studies have indicated it to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% accurate, meaning two out of every ten executed are completely innocent of the crime they are murdered for - two out of ten. When these findings were made known shortly after Bush had begun his presidency, his administration was quick to point out that the studies also indicated that 93% were guilty of some crime, which is hardly a valid point considering that the new president and Vice President Dick Cheney both had prior drunk driving convictions. In fact, George W. Bush had his underage sister as a passenger when he was caught driving drunk in his earlier days. He would’ve done time in most states for the same crime these days. George W. Bush is known to have been arrested for real crimes at least a documented three times. Isn't that something?
The bottom line is, many saw this man as a monster. They fully well knew he stood for big business over the average Jane or Joe and that his tax cuts were primarily going to benefit the top one percent of income earners... in other words, those who had no needs whatsoever over those who do.
Bush lowered the taxes of his favorite one percent of the population from 39.6% on their uppermost superfluous of income to just 35%, though he tried to get them even lower than that. The same group was taxed 91% on their uppermost income during the Eisenhower years. Most people just don’t realize that wealthy people make their money via two avenues only: Earth’s resources and human labor. We’re not importing either from Mars are we? So when these media pundits talk about how much in proportion the top one percent are paying in taxes, ask them to discuss just how they earned their money in the first place. What a bunch of horse manure! I think it’s time the people stop eating, don’t you? I don’t mean to be gross, just blunt enough to help people wake up.
Here we are, in spite of decades of technological advancement, nowadays almost every household has two people working full time in order to make ends meet, whereas in the 1960s when I was growing up it was rare to have more than one parent working outside the home. How can it be that after 4+ decades of technological advancement, it’s become more difficult for the average American to survive? Can it not be logically deduced that these tax cuts have had something to do with it?
Former Apollo astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell discussed how his grandparents moved to Texas from the south via covered wagon in the 1870s and yet he walked on the moon just about a hundred years later. Once technology takes hold, it takes off, and the benefits should likewise. Instead, they've mostly gone to the wealthiest of income earners whilst most get the shaft and are more or less forced to be “...cogs in a machine...” as Professor Noam Chomsky has pointed out is not necessary in the least.*
* See, MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, a documentary by Mark Achbar & Peter Wintonick
As mentioned earlier, media censorship is by no means limited to the presidency, since in order to gain control of the Federal government one needs not only the presidency, but each state of course is represented by two U.S. Senators and each congressional district a member of the House. There are a total of 100 U.S. Senators of which a mere 51% vote makes law (if split 50/50, the vice president casts the deciding vote), or 2/3 to override a presidential veto. The House, containing 435, likewise needs a 2/3 majority to override a presidential veto, otherwise they too need a majority. So, we're talking about less than 500 people, less than 400 really, who are in a position to steer our nation, and thus humankind, since we clearly live in the dominant nation on earth. How these people are picked... one would think would seem important, don't you think?
Chapter 7
Media-censored U.S. Senatorial
Candidate Arrested
“Both of the other two parties,
both the Democrats and the Republicans
are dominated by big money,
by corporate money.”
- Ted Glick, censored 2002 New Jersey ballot qualified candidate for U.S. Senate, (pictured below)
The following is a transcript of an interview with New Jersey Green Party 2002 U.S. Senate candidate, Ted Glick, I videoed shortly after he was released from jail after attempting to enter the television studio in order to watch a debate he should’ve been included in as a bona fide candidate on the ballot. The interview was given by someone representing a television network.
Ted Glick: We were here because we should’ve been inside in the debate. We were excluded from the debate. We were not approached about being in the debate. When we spoke to the general manager about it we were essentially told it was a done deal, nothing could be done about it. So we were here to say that this is supposed to be a democracy. The voters are supposed to be able to learn about all the candidates so they can make informed choices. That means candidates need to be in debates so the voters can hear what they have to say - and this is the first debate. We hope that in future debates we will be included. If not, we’ll be outside of those the way we were here and we hope sooner or later reason will prevail.
Interviewer: Well, I... What is your candidacy about? (inaudible)
Ted Glick: Both of the other two parties, both the Democrats and the Republicans are dominated by big money, by corporate money. Both of these parties are overseeing a tremendous increase in the amount of money going to the Pentagon, a tremendous transfer of resources over the last 20-25 years from low income people, working-class people, middle-class people, to the top 1% of the population. We have the crisis of global warming that is not being addressed. Instead we’re talking about invading Iraq, when Iraq is effectively contained while thousands of children every month are dying from the economic sanctions that are imposed upon Iraq. Innocent children are dying. The direction of the country is wrong. My candidacy is about trying to put this country back on the right course. Those views are shared by many people, and those views should be included in these debates.
Interviewer: Where do you live and what's your background?
Ted Glick: I live in Bloomfield. I have been a(n) active social trainer for 35 years. Right now I’m a coordinator of a national third party network, called the Independent Politics Network. I work with young people with leadership training. I work with community organizations. I do that right now as a volunteer. Our program is about justice. That’s what we need in this country. That's what we need in this world. Unless we develop policies that are about social justice, economic justice, environmental justice - for the world’s people, for our people - we are going to be in deeper trouble. We need to be moving in another direction. That’s what my campaign is about. I am the coordinator of this Independent Politics Network... that’s my paying work.
Interviewer: Let me ask one more question (inaudible), OK? (inaudible) When did you decide to enter the race, and why?
Ted Glick: I decided in February. One of the reasons I decided to do it was because Robert...
Interviewer: [Interrupted Mr. Glick]: Give me one second... I’ve got to fix my tie, and collar.
[A half dozen or so people were either watching or filming the interview up close, including a woman who was watching who later claimed she from was from the press, which will come into significance shortly.]
Interviewer: straightened his tie and collar, then continued: OK, go ahead.
Ted Glick: One of the reasons I decided to do it was in fact because Robert Torricelli was the one candidate who I knew for sure that I would be going up against and thought that Robert Torricelli continuing in office for another six years was not something I was looking forward to. I felt that he was somebody that should be opposed for any number of reasons.
I also decided to do it because I have been a member of the Green Party for any number of years and when I was asked by leadership of the Green Party to consider this, I did consider it seriously and decided that this was something I could do. Finally I did it because I felt that particularly since September 11 that the direction of the country is wrong. There’s just serious, very serious, changes that are taking place, attacks on our civil liberties, our rights, the increase in our war budget, the transfer of resources from most people to the top, to the very top, that has to change. That has to change. I felt that this year, this race in New Jersey was a good race to undertake and I’ve been actively campaigning ever since.
Interviewer: Thanks very much.
Unidentified person: Thank you... (inaudible)
Interviewer: OK.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Thanks.
Interviewer: [turning back, looking me in the eyes]: Yeah.
Did the above interview ever make it on television? I honestly can’t say one way or another, though I seriously doubt it. I don’t doubt that the interviewer would have liked to see it aired, however those decisions come from others who likely would not. Had it aired, just maybe there would have been some public feedback, depending upon how much it was aired and when. These are serious concerns, and the major media seem to follow the same general censoring patterns. If one corporate-owned television station went to lengths, even resorting to the use of force, to prohibit his participation so the population wouldn’t see that they didn’t have to pick between two sellouts for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else, but especially the poorest of the poor, another TV station would almost certainly follow suit. In a nation of over 300-million people, the richest nation ever to exist, we allow some 12-million real children to suffer from hunger every day, no kidding. Surely censorship plays a big part of this.
The only thing I recall reading in any newspaper following Mr. Glick’s arrest and interviews, with both the television interviewer and another woman who claimed to be from the press, was that Ted Glick’s tie was crooked. Of all the serious concerns brought up in both the above interview and the one given subsequently, a statement about candidate Ted Glick’s tie was the primary focus brought to the public's attention.
Let’s take a look at some of the things Ted Glick said and did that were of importance to us as citizens choosing a U.S. Senator:
1) He was arrested for trying to watch something he should have been a participant in as a candidate on the New Jersey ballot for U.S. Senate.
2) “We have the crisis of global warming that is not being addressed.” Remember, this was 2002.
3) “Instead we’re talking about invading Iraq, when Iraq is effectively contained while thousands of children every month are dying from the economic sanctions that are imposed upon Iraq. Innocent children are dying.” The Iraqi Embargo had been killing innocent children by the thousands every month over a ten-year period. Estimates varied from 500,000* to 2-million childhood deaths during that time due to the embargo against Iraq that didn’t harm Saddam Hussein in the least bit, yet did anger many a Muslim who was already mad at the United States for its policies in the Middle East. I heard one story of a small child dropping an egg he had just bought and bursting into tears. The owner of the shop gave him another egg, but this was of course before Bush’s invasion in 2003. Now the streets reportedly have orphaned children wandering aimlessly, completely on their own. I was told that story by someone whose friend had just gotten back from military duty in Iraq, and for that very reason initially stated he would never return, yet he did. The threat of jail is a powerful threat, especially in our nation, which has more prisoners than any country in the world whilst all but fully allowing the worst of atrocities of violence to occur without intervention, i.e., rapes. Also, Mr. Glick was absolutely correct in stating that, “Iraq is effectively contained.” Iraq was not even considered a threat to its contiguous neighbors following the first Gulf War.
* Former United States UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked about the sanctions in 1996 by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl. Their conversation is as follows:
Lesley Stahl: We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Madeleine Albright: I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.
4) “...both the Democrats and the Republicans are dominated by big money, by corporate money. Both of these parties are overseeing a tremendous increase in the amount of money going to the Pentagon.”
5) “(We’ve seen)... a tremendous transfer of resources over the last 20-25 years from low income people, working-class people, middle-class people to the top 1% of the population.” Actually, the wealthiest of income earners were taxed at the rate of 91% on their uppermost superfluous of income when Eisenhower left office in 1961. JFK lowered the rate to 70%, with Reagan taking it down from there and George W. Bush lowering the rate, as stated earlier, from 39.6% to 35%. The incumbent, Senator Robert Torricelli, a Democrat, voted for those tax cuts. Why would anyone authorize giving tax cuts for those who’ve need of nothing whilst allowing 12-million children to feel hunger every day?
By the way, for those who proclaim that there are “self-made billionaires,” or even millionaires, ask yourself this: How did they make their money other than via two avenues - Earth’s resources and human labor? We’re not importing either from Mars. I read a mainstream article on the Internet recently about a media-proclaimed, “self-made billionaire,” who made his money by trading oil. Excuse me, but did he create the oil? Did he create the materials necessary to drill the oil, and did he do the work of harvesting it? If it needed to be transported (which one would assume would almost certainly be the case), did he build the ships and create the steel or whatever they were made of himself? Then please ask yourself how he’s “self-made.”
Summation: That’s a lot to not be heard in the debates: innocent children dying en masse due to the U.S.-led embargo against Iraq, an impending war against Iraq, the transfer of resources from the general population to those who’ve need of nothing, Global Warming - amongst the biggest threats to the continuation of the human race we’re facing today - and even more money going to the Pentagon when the U.S. at that time had already spent over three times more on defense than China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and Iraq combined. With the Cold War being over, why are we continuing to spend more and more on defense, while the average American is struggling just to make ends meet? When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew a man who worked in the fishing tackle department of the local hardware store. Though he and his wife had three children, his wife didn’t have to work outside the home and in fact, hardly anyone I knew when I was growing up had two parents having to work outside the home. Shouldn’t things have become easier after 4+ decades of technological advancement instead of worse? Why is it that when I was a child one heard of the occasional millionaire yet now we hear of billionaires, and they claim they are “self-made.” Would the majority vote for a minority to flourish at the majority’s expense if they only knew they could choose otherwise? I doubt it, yet a small number of people who are not elected prevent them from seeing how things could and should be. As long as people believe that the wealthy media censors are giving them the whole story, and folks don’t bypass the media using technology which most here in the U.S. now have at their disposal, then most will keep voting for those whose interests do not concern the average person. In other words, they’ll be voting against themselves while voting for the unnecessary horror of others, whether they know it or not.
Chapter 8
In Memory of Doug Friedline,
who was among the few who've broken the media's stronghold on major US elections
by helping get Jesse Ventura elected Governor of Minnesota
“...we hope sooner or later reason will prevail.”
- Ted Glick
2002 U.S. Senate candidate, New Jersey
The image above on the left was taken moments after Glick’s release from jail in Edison, New Jersey. I don’t know the name of, nor the charge the soldier shaking Glick’s hand was arrested for, but the two had apparently conversed while incarcerated and were released at or about the same time. The photo op was solely the soldier’s idea once he saw me standing there with my video camera running.
Doug Friedline, Glick’s campaign manager, is pictured on the right side of the center photo talking to a police officer and someone else following Glick’s release from jail.
I arrived just a moment after Ted Glick began this next interview with a woman who was taking notes and claimed to be from the Associated Press.
Ted Glick: I was arrested.
Interviewer: Here?
Ted Glick: I was arrested inside the vestibule.
Interviewer: For what?
Ted Glick: We wanted me to be able to go into the debates and to observe it.
Interviewer: Oh, you didn’t want to participate... you wanted to observe?
Ted Glick: I wanted to participate.
Interviewer: But you were going inside with the intention of observing?
Ted Glick: We told, we communicated with the New Jersey 12 management that that would be sufficient, just myself going inside to observe the debate so that then afterwards I could tell the Press or anyone else who was interested what I thought about the debate.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: That is what we were trying to do. And we were able to go in the first door.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: And the second door was kept locked and they told us we could not come in. We tried to engage in the negotiation process.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: They were essentially unwilling to talk to us.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: There was a point at which the second door was opened. I took one step forward to try to go in and my way was blocked. The police said that if I didn’t move back that I would be under arrest and in about 10 seconds the handcuffs came out and I was arrested.
Interviewer: This was the police that were already here? Police were not especially called for this?
Ted Glick: They came in within a minute or two of us going inside.
Interviewer: Did they actually take you to the station and book you?
Ted Glick: Yeah, they booked me.
Interviewer: They did?
Ted Glick: Yeah, they took me and they booked me. I was handcuffed in the back of the police car.
Interviewer: Gosh.
Ted Glick: They took the handcuffs off over at the police station. Most of the time, of course I was handcuffed to a table for about 15 minutes and I was treated fine. I’m not complaining about the treatment of the police.
Interviewer: How long was whole entire process?
Ted Glick: Oh it must have been from the time I was arrested until the time I was released, about an hour and a half.
Interviewer: What time were you arrested? Do you have any idea?
Ted Glick: 7:59 (laughs)
Interviewer: So right before... Wow.
Ted Glick: When the debate was over. (laughs)
Interviewer: Wow.
Unidentified woman who was a Glick supporter: He was allowed out to come here for the end.
Interviewer: OK... um. This has, I mean you’ve been sort of struggling just to be included...
Ted Glick: Right.
Interviewer: ...in part of this and now you’re arrested trying to be. I mean, my goodness, what do you, what can you possibly say? (laughs as if it’s just outrageous) What’s your reaction to all of this?
Ted Glick: Well, people have been arrested, you know, over many decades for causes that they believed in.
Interviewer: Right.
Ted Glick: That’s all I was doing. I was willing to be arrested if necessary to try to underline the point that this is a democracy. We call this a democracy, and if it truly is, the voters should be able to hear from candidates who are running for office, who are qualified candidates who are on the ballot. We clearly are about winning votes. It shouldn’t be just confined to two parties.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: We have a democracy crisis right now and we’ll be lucky if 1/3 of the voters in New Jersey come out and vote in this election. Ordinarily in an off-year election you don’t get more than thirty-six percent of the voters.
Interviewer: Um hmm.
Ted Glick: And with this particular race, you know given Torricelli’s negatives, and Forrester being unknown and etc., etc., I think probably getting a third of the voters would probably be doing well, but there’s a solution to that and that is to open up the political process.
Interviewer: Right, right.
Ted Glick: And to allow other candidates to be given exposure and other points of view to be heard. If you want to revitalize democracy, that’s one of the key ways to do it.
Interviewer: Was it Edison police?
Ted Glick: Edison police.
Interviewer: And would it be fair to say, um, you know, that these candidates have alternate viewpoints?
Ted Glick: Yes.
Interviewer: That would be fair to say?
Ted Glick: Yes.
Interviewer: OK. May I ask you how old you are?
Ted Glick: Fifty-two.
Doug Friedline: Court date’s on October 1st.
Doug Friedline was Ted Glick’s campaign manager. Mr. Friedline is best known for being the campaign manager of former professional wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura in the gubernatorial race in Minnesota. Ventura, who as an outsider to politics actually defeated the Democratic and Republican candidates, made history that’s yet to be duplicated since.
Interviewer: Oh, thank you.
Doug Friedline: And let her have our website.
Interviewer: I have it already.
Doug Friedline: You have it?
Interviewer: Yes. Thank You.
Ted Glick: Yeah, thank you.
Unidentified female Glick supporter: What are you? [Notice, not "Who" but "What...."]
Interviewer: Associated Press [proudly giving the name of her employer to identify herself.]
More than one person can be heard saying the same thing: Oooh! [said as the as the proclaimed AP interviewer seemingly proudly walks away after giving the name of her employer to describe what she was.]
Unidentified female Glick supporter: Oh, OK.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: All right.
Unidentified female Glick supporter: Hey!
Doug Friedline: Excellent! Cool! Thank you.
Summation: It’s too bad this interview or at least the primary concerns discussed in this interview never made it to any newspaper, to the best of my knowledge. The only thing I remember reading in any newspaper was that Mr. Glick’s tie was crooked, which we’ve already discussed. It seemed to me that whoever interviewed him was sincere and concerned about what had happened. I suspect, perhaps incorrectly, that it was one or more of her superiors who went over her notes with her and saw the part about the interviewer from the TV station having to stop his interview to adjust his tie. As you’ll recall, the press interviewer was watching and listening to that interview before approaching Mr. Glick to do her own. No major news source I’m aware of reported things as they happened, and I was present for each of the three interactions with people representing the media who spoke with or interviewed Glick.
Regarding Doug Friedline, I was most disappointed to do a search on him and found out he had passed away in late 2006. I had been fortunate enough to have a couple of prolonged conversations with Doug, one on the phone and one in person. I can tell when someone was following what I was saying and he sure was. I believe if enough made the worst of victim’s lives real, along with our situation concerning taxes (discussed throughout this book), then it wouldn’t matter a hoot whether a candidate was cut off from the debates or not.
Chapter 9
The Journalist Who 'Covered'
a Censored Debate
“People, it has been said, can be placed in three classes:
the few who make things happen,
the many who watch things happen,
and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what happened.”
- Nicholas Murray Butler
The following interaction was with a man claiming to be from The Trenton Times, who's pictured above. He had been covering the exclusionary debate inside NJ Channel 12 studios between Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli and his Republican opponent, Doug Forrester.
Reporter: Forrester said he was a liar, and you know, it was dishonorable and everything else (laughs) you want (inaudible). [looking straight into my camera smiling and laughing]
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Of course. (laughs) Nowweretalking.tv, let’s continue the discussion here.
Ted Glick: How did Torricelli approach it?
Reporter: Well, Torricelli said he expected the negative attack because Doug Forrester doesn’t have, is so out of sync with the people of New Jersey that really the only thing he can do is attack him. That’s, you know, it’s kind of standard. I’m not telling you anything. If you had watched it on TV you would’ve said the same thing.
Ted Glick: So…
Unidentified female Glick supporter [interjects]: He was busy getting arrested for trying to come into the debate.
Ted Glick: So you would say it was like no major type of... one way or another.
Reporter: Oh, you never can tell how these things... I mean, reporters cannot judge debates. They may try to but they can’t, because voters do that. You guys do that. I’m sure you’ll watch the replay. Is this going to be on TV someplace?
Ken: Yeah, nowweretalking.tv on the web.
Reporter: Dot tv on the web. Whatever, web site, yeah, I don’t care.
Ken: Hey, that’s the only way to overcome the major media, other than people communicating amongst themselves. Those are the two avenues, because the bottom line is if people...
Reporter [interjects]: You know we went through, not to criticize you at all, but we went through the whole tax payer’s revolution and all these different groups who were going to third parties and they all collapsed.
Ken: Yeah, but the Green Party is actually...
Reporter [interjects]: Good luck to anybody that...
Ted Glick [interjects]: Are you talking about in the debate or just generally?
Reporter: Oh, just generally, you know, in the last 10 years they just... (inaudible).
Ken: Yeah, but when in mankind’s evolution did we follow the stupidest one in the pack, like we’re doing now with the president?
Reporter: I was, I mean the people on TV talk about it. I’m not covering this event. I just pulled up... (inaudible)
Unidentified female Glick supporter: What media are you in?
Reporter: The Trenton Times, OK, but I’m not covering the debate itself. I’m just trying to, sort of, figure out what to do about it afterwards.
Ken: See, the point is that some major issues aren’t brought up, I mean.
Reporter [interjects, walking away]: Well it’s... well I tell you, you couldn’t get more issues brought up in 90 minutes than brought up tonight.
Ken: Yeah, but if they’re on the same page regarding the issues... I mean, was the Drug War brought up? Was the Drug War, I mean, you consider it a Drug War, we have more incarcerates per capita than any civilization that’s ever existed.*
* That’s incorrect, though no one called me on it. Nazi Germany had more than us, both per capita and overall. So, we’re second to Nazi Germany on the All-Time List, though first right here right now, even surpassingChina in the number of prisoners we have, in spite of their horrible record concerning human rights and the fact that they outnumber us several times over. We don’t just have more prisoners per capita, we have more period.
Reporter: Yeah. [walking away]
Ken: Well, I mean, that should’ve been brought up, [the reporter throws his arms out to the side] but it wasn’t.
Reporter: Well. [still walking away]
Ken: Well, I mean, talk to somebody whose daddy or mommy is in jail because of the Drug War and, you know, they may want to see it brought up.
Summation: Though I don’t speak Latin there’s one phrase I am familiar with and I believe it’s applicable here. The words in Latin are “Res Ipsa Loquitor” which I understand roughly means, “The thing speaks for itself,” or “It speaks for itself.” Is that not applicable to the above video recorded talk with a newspaper journalist?
This reminds me of what I learned from watching MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, and that’s if one is well informed and debates someone who does not stand for “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” it doesn’t take much time to leave one’s opponent speechless. After all, how can one defend such things from a rational standpoint? They can’t, but the point is, thanks to corporate media censorship, those in charge or competitive to be elected for high office don’t have to. Who can defend harming others who are less fortunate or weaker, or anyone who is innocent? Human beings unnecessarily die because of our leadership and the laws these people vote for and create, yet they’re freely elected. This is not rocket science here. It’s easily decipherable and sickening beyond comprehension to anyone who thinks, cares and is informed regarding same that this grand scam continues unabated, yet things will remain the same and continue to get worse and worse unless enough regular caring people don’t sweat the small stuff and finally begin organizing and informing others as each sees fit to do.
Will the media be beat? Your guess is as good as mine. We know the oppressed far outnumber the oppressors and we could beat them if enough try. If it doesn’t happen, then I guess it means most gave their brains to a piece of electronic equipment, their television set, even though another piece of electronic equipment, the computer, has easily discoverable evidence that the mainstream news was purposefully misleading. Two candidates have been displayed, though six candidates have made it on enough ballots to win enough Electoral College votes to win the presidency. Will the propaganda box win again? I don't know. It doesn’t matter that the Internet also has this and that... facts can be verified from several sources in seconds to minutes in many cases, especially in relation to the few topics discussed in this book - amongst those, elections, the Drug War and drastic tax swings for those who’ve need of nothing over those who do.
In MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, footage is nicely flipped back and forth to scenes of Professor Chomsky’s debate with the then Dutch Minister of Defense, Fritz Bolkestein. The last scene likewise spoke for itself, as the Minister looked at his watch and said: “I’m sorry, ladies and gentleman, I must be leaving,” he then turned and exited the stage. The audience laughed as he walked off the stage. The debate mediator then stated:
“One thing is sure, that consent has not been manufactured tonight.”
Chapter 10
The Not-so-great Escape of Former
U.S. Senator Robert (Bob) Torricelli
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do nothing...”
- Edmund Burke, 18th century British statesman
Above: U.S. Senator Robert “Bob” Torricelli, makes a getaway from questions the media censors do not ask
THE BOTTOM LINE IS, IF THE MEDIA FILTERS WEREN'T THERE people would never consent to being scammed by a government that’s supposed to represent them, though it doesn’t, while both scamming them financially and sending real people to live in violent human caging facilities en masse for non-crimes.
If there’s no victim, there’s no crime. The majority of the nation’s estimated 2.3-million prisoners are serving time for victimless “crimes,” in violent human cages away from their families and loved ones for years for nothing, nothing legitimate anyway. The Land of Liberty’s prison population has gone from an estimated 500,000 prisoners in the early '80s to some 2.3-million in 2007, largely due to the War on Drugs, which has not only failed, but denies our citizens of the right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Think about it: annual arrests for cannabis possession have been nearly three-quarters of a million in the United States now for the last several years. That means not only subjecting people who are merely possessing a plant to spend time in a human chicken coop, which is what it amounts to, only this human coop is crowded and physically dangerous, where fights and gang rapes are commonplace, but leaving society with more real criminals, i.e., those who have harmed others, at large as a result. That’s simple deductive reasoning. If our resources are wasted elsewhere, then we’ll have more pedophiles, rapists, murderers, and so forth, at large amongst the public, free to continue their crimes as a result. Please think about it. This isn’t someone else’s society I’m writing about here, and you’re amongst the majority who are getting the shaft at the hands of a disproportionate extreme minority of greedy murderous people. Does that not upset you? We’re buying the rocks for the stonings, to use a metaphor, only in our case it’s to cage people, most of whom have harmed no one. If we pay taxes, we’re chipping in.
Rape is one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, and in society in general it’s treated as such, yet in U.S. prisons and jails it’s commonplace, and not even discouraged in most areas, though as I understand things from speaking to former inmates is not tolerated in some institutions. Nevertheless, when have you ever heard of someone in jail being charged with rape? Why should we leave ourselves more at risk as a population in order to punish people who’ve harmed no one to be stripped of their liberty at a grand expense to all? Would not the Founding Fathers, flaws and all, be appalled by what we’ve allowed our nation to become?
I read an article years ago about a man who started some kind of group awareness program about this in NYC, who had himself been raped in prison as a younger man who was protesting the Vietnam War. Although his bail was set at $10 he refused to have it posted, to make his point. I’m sure he would’ve done differently in retrospect if he only knew what was going to happen. As he was exiting the showers, about five men suddenly attacked him at the same time, one pulling his long hair backwards as hard as he could, with each of the others grabbing an arm or a leg. He was raped by all of them. Then they suddenly released him and took off. He got up right away to confront his attackers but they were gone. He went to look for them but didn’t even know who he was looking for since he hadn’t seen one of them. His search proved futile so he went to a guard and told him. The guard told him to stop whining.
This story is by no means unique, nor is it confined to men alone. I have a book which was written by former President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Ellen Alderman entitled The Right to Privacy in which a horrible encounter is described about a female physician who ended up in jail for unpaid parking tickets. She found herself confronted by women who made her take off her clothes. She heard a larger woman coming down the hall, who she was hoping was going to save her, but instead joined in with the others. Then she was ordered to assume humiliating positions while naked. When she told them she was a doctor they startedhooting and mocking her. This kind of violence in women’s prisons and jails is not uncommon.
Women get beat up in prison, jaws get broken and lives destroyed. We’ve witnessed this being stated in a court room from a woman who had spent time in Ocean County Jail in Ocean County, New Jersey. A man no older than 18 or 19 was up next, and he too had his jaw broken in the men’s part of the same jail, yet the prosecutor went after him tooth and nail, like he wasn’t a real human being in considerable distress brought on by our system. So, these things happen and I’d like to add that not only do the ones sent to jail suffer, so do their families and friends.
When I was practicing chiropractic, many of my patients were treated for tense muscles either precipitated or exacerbated by stress. When one is wondering whether one’s mother, father, daughter, son, wife, husband, friend, girlfriend, boyfriend, grandson, granddaughter or whoever they’re close to is facing time in a violent human caging facility, people tend to get scared for the ones they care about, and it oftentimes creates physical stress which can lead to more than just muscular tightness since stress has been proven to be highly linked to illness in general. But again, this topic is rarely brought up in the wealthy-owned, wealthy-censoring media.
The Land of the Free has become the Home of the Caged, right before our very eyes, though they don’t normally put these institutions in prominent locations such as off Interstates, yet I have seen them in both western New York just off I-90 and on I-81 in southern Virginia.
The Drug War affects the poor much more than the wealthy. The downside is the wealthy benefit from it by hiring people who have lost their citizen rights and therefore can be paid slave labor wages, far below minimum wage, like 17 cents an hour, 25 cents an hour, if they’re lucky 50 cents an hour.
If stonings for adultery were practiced here in the United States, would you condone your tax dollars funding the bombardment of people with rocks for violations of their right to live as they choose? Our tax dollars are directly funding the terrorization and torture of our own citizens en masse, while keeping them away from everyone who cares about them, even though they’ve harmed no one. Meanwhile, arguably the most harmful drug is legal, in terms of how its ingestion can affect others, i.e., alcohol, and one of, if not “the” most addicting drug known to mankind is legal likewise, i.e., nicotine, the addiction to which accounts for some 400,000 U.S. deaths each year, and 5-million people worldwide.
It’s rare for someone who smokes cannabis to smoke anywhere near as much as tobacco. Cannabis contains no compound like nicotine that fits in a lock and key fashion to its own receptor sites of the brain like opiates and tobacco that must be continuously satisfied if one is to remain free of bodily withdrawal symptoms.* If these receptor sites do not get what they’re used to getting, the person will get physical symptoms which can only be satisfied by having more of the unique substance that fits in a lock and key fashion to parts of the brain. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that nicotine was as addicting as heroin. In fact, he stated,“Nicotine in cigarettes may be more addicting than other drugs, because the smoker gets so many 'hits' of nicotine each day.”**
* NOTE: THC does have receptor sites in the brain, but unlike nicotine and opiates, one does not go through terrible withdrawal symptoms if these sites are not stimulated.
** See, http://www.cvhpinstitute.org/ch/ch06.html
Surely “cannabis” AKA “marijuana” could be made to contain less THC for someone who didn’t want to get high but wanted to stop smoking cigarettes. Unlike tobacco, one doesn’t wake up with a strong feeling that one needs a fix. This doesn’t happen to all tobacco users, of course, yet it happens to far too many, likely most. I’ve been around enough tobacco smokers in my life, and even been addicted to it several times myself and watched other tobacco addicts have their lives destroyed due to the prolonged use of this plant. In fact, of the five cancer patients I had to diagnose during my 13 years as a chiropractic physician, four were heavy smokers. At one time when I was looking at the MRI results of a man with cancer that had spread to his hip which it was eating away, the radiologist turned to me and asked, “Smoker?” Yes, he was a tobacco smoker, and he died of the disease within a few weeks. The same facility took a pelvic x-ray only weeks earlier in which the tumor was not detectable in the least, because it takes more bone loss to be detected via x-ray, unlike the more sensitive albeit expensive MRI.
Getting back to the highlight of the evening, other than a legitimate U.S. Senate candidate being arrested while an un-elected few forcibly had him handcuffed and locked in a cage during the time of the debate in which he should have been included, the following is our encounter with New Jersey U.S. Senator, Robert Torricelli, as he left the studio. A few of us were standing several cars away from the exit walkway from Channel 12 studio when Doug Friedline spotted Senator “Bob” Torricelli, walking with a woman while leaving the station.
Doug Friedline: Torricelli’s over here.
Glick quickly rushed down and met Torricelli at the base of the sidewalk where it joined the parking lot. I arrived with my video camera, running, moments later. Beginning 10 feet away or so and approaching, the following conversation with former U.S. Senator Robert “Bob” Torricelli was recorded.
NJ Green Party Congressional candidate, Joe Fortunato, a north Jersey attorney: Hi Bob [Torricelli], how’s it going?
Ted Glick: (Inaudible, since Mr. Glick was facing away from me, and Mr. Fortunato was facing toward me as I approached.)
Senator Torricelli: I know, but that’s not my call.
Ted Glick: You have a lot to do with it.
Senator Torricelli: [walking away] Well, I don’t.
Ted Glick: You negotiate the rules of the debate.
Joe Fortunato: How about next time? Can we sit down and talk about it? Talk about the issues sir?
Unidentified female Glick supporter: That’s what our new slogan is... “Backdoor Bob.” Like it?
Joe Fortunato: How about talk about the issues with us? Let’s have a real debate.
Unidentified male: Stop ducking.
Elaine Hildebrandt: Why is it that the true people are taken away to jail while the (inaudible) people go walk on the streets telling people lies? Second Graders know that everybody should have a voice.
Joe Fortunato: Bob, how are you going to vote on the war plan?
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Bob! Isn’t it true that you were one of the 12 dirty dozen Democrats that went along with W’s tax-cutting rape for the people that benefited the one percent? Isn’t that true?
Joe Fortunato: What about the war, Bob?
[Senator Torricelli and his female companion spot their limo]
Ken: How about the Drug War, Bob? You know? They’re victimless criminals that are put in and have to sit their lives in cages.
Apart from a statement or two from other citizens trying to ask Senator Torricelli real questions about life and death which were difficult to hear, the above was the entire recorded interaction. Senator Torricelli had no words to even attempt to substantiate the undeniable human-induced terror and death they support while still coming across as fair and working for the best interests of the citizens of the United States. As Senator Torricelli was asked questions the mainstream media would never address fairly, if at all, he simply stopped responding.
It’s tough to argue for the stress, strain and misery of many to benefit a small percentage of the population. It’s also tough to argue for sending citizens en masse to live in violent human zoos at a rate and number greater than any nation on earth, yet pretends to be the Land of the Free, but they just don’t bring that up often on the six o’clock news, do they?
We’re talking about over half* of 2.3-million prisoners who are living in cages for violations of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Again, this has all escalated tremendously over the last few decades.
* See, http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm, number 14.
And something that one doesn’t normally hear brought up is the question that since our law enforcement personnel are chasing non-criminals half the time, does that not by default leave more rapists, pedophiles, thieves and murderers at large due to the hours, days and weeks our law enforcement people are spending harming the innocent, their families and loved ones at taxpayers' expense? We’ve already discussed that it certainly does. It’s nothing but elementary deductive reasoning. Would anyone care to argue otherwise, publicly I mean? Why not write one of the mainstream puppet commentators and ask this most basic question regarding such a profundity?
Most know that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush helped step up the Drug War. Fewer know that the prison population during the Clinton years about doubled. Even less probably know that Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Joe Biden, the Washington dinosaur who's been in the U.S. Senate for some three and half decades (in other words, the antithesis of “change”), pushed for mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions in the '80s, meaning that innocent people would be taken away from their families, friends, children, and so forth to live in violent caging facilities for violations of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” for even longer periods of time. Has not Joe Biden had major complicity in harming innocent people en masse, and we know it?*
* See, Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his VP, at, http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/08/23/NaderonBiden/.
If one can’t reasonably answer why one is supporting the harming of millions of our citizens, doesn’t that make you sick?
People in the U.S., the most powerful and influential nation on earth, are “...allowing themselves to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” to the point that they directly fund human misery and vote for those who make the laws that harm the innocent on purpose. How much sense does this make? Is this not cruel? Is this not state-sanctioned child abuse that’s rationalized by the elite lawmakers and the media as being legitimate? It either is or isn’t.
Remembering what Steve Biko, who was killed under the Apartheid regime in South Africa, stated:
“The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
How true!
Chapter 11
Another Censored Candidate Discusses
Wind, Hemp, and More
“You’re never going to regret wind.
Nuclear power you’re going to regret.”
- Eric Borregard,
2002 Michigan U.S. Senate candidate (pictured below)
AS IN 2000 WITH THE ELIMINATION OF RALPH NADER and the other legitimate candidates who were on ballots, limiting the bounds of debate by the media in the United States - by force if necessary - is their modus operandi. In 2002 our travels took us not only to events in New Jersey but we also traveled to Michigan and Minnesota in our pursuit to cover the elections.
In August we went to Michigan, where we spoke to the Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, Eric Borregard. Eric had much to share with us, including giving us video footage of fellow Green Party candidate for Governor of Michigan, Douglas Campbell, being physically grabbed off the stage before the start of a televised debate for the office he was seeking. He reportedly had several ribs broken in the process of being ripped from his seat by two officers of some kind, who grabbed him on each side lifting him off his seat and out of the room. His would-be opponents ignored the assault that took place right next to them. One of them would be elected Governor of Michigan.
I asked Mr. Borregard a few questions, and he showed me a breakdown of how much money his opponents had raised by special interest groups, especially concentrating on the Democrat who was clearly leading the pack in money raised for the campaign. We’ll begin with some questions I had for the U.S. Senate candidate, who was likewise marginalized by the media as if he didn’t exist.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: We’re here with Senate candidate Eric Borregard at his office. And tell me, Eric, you were talking to me before about wind as an alternative to nuclear power. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about that.
Michigan U.S. Senate candidate, Eric Borregard: You’re never going to regret wind. Nuclear power you’re going to regret. There’s no way to get rid of nuclear waste. And now that they’re going to be shipping it to Yucca , you’ll be sitting at a light and when one of these trucks comes up next to you, it’ll be the equivalent of about 100 dental x-rays.
Elaine Hildebrandt: Not a train... a truck?
Eric Borregard: Just a truck, sitting there idling next to it, like a moving x-ray machine.
Ken: So how come we’re not using wind? I mean, I know that but... ah...
Eric Borregard: For the same reason we haven’t legalized hemp.
Ken: And that is, of course?
Eric Borregard: The Alcohol Lobby; the Energy Lobby; they’re invested in coal. All those guys down in West Virginia, you know, they’re strip-mining all the mountains... um, a lot of money in that, and they would lose their job(s). Engineers up here in Detroit started building large assembly lines to build the wind turbines. We can build energy we don’t have to go find it.
Ken: You had heard, too, the thing that I had seen on JackHerer.com, that Henry Ford actually had an automobile that ran on hemp seed oil...
Eric Borregard: Yeah.
Ken: …in the 1930s, and you’re aware of that also?
Eric Borregard: Part of it’s the economics. It was cheaper to drill for oil. That’s still the case,* it’s cheaper, but as time goes on it’s not that much more expensive. We do have ethanol in our gasoline.
* Note: Gasoline prices in Michigan were in the low to mid $1.40 range at the time, according to, http://fuelgaugereport.com.
Ken: Right. Now you’re saying it’s cheaper. This guy Jack...
Eric Borregard: It’s just another form of ethanol, though diesel, you can make diesel out of it, so the trucks can run on it, too. It has a lot of uses but again, also the Alcohol Lobby, they have a lot of money invested in alcohol, selling it at every local drug store and if you started selling marijuana it would probably cut twenty, thirty, maybe forty percent of their profits. (laughs)
Ken: I wonder what would happen to the violence, too.
Eric Borregard: The real thing is why should we be putting people in jail for something that is probably a lot less harmless [sic] to their bodies. Alcohol causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and (you) lose muscle control when you’re driving. You know, it’s a much more dangerous drug. Why should we be putting those people in jail and paying for their incarceration when our schools need money and so on, and we really don’t need to be doing this at all? In fact we’ve created a kind of state of mind in people’s, you know, that we need this kind of law enforcement. It’s more of like a stigma on a particular product than any real...
Above: All too frequent consequence of alcohol consumption.
Ken: And what it’s doing really is enforcing that these alternative energy sources are not used. That’s what it’s enforcing. It’s enforcing the idea that oil is going to be continued to be used. That’s really what they’re enforcing. It’s awful.
Eric Borregard: Recently we’ve just reached the point, the last year or so, where all the oil there is to be used, we’re at the half-way point just a few years ago.
Ken: Huh.
Eric Borregard: So, it went up like this (raising his hand up) we reached this point, it’s going to get harder and harder to find the last bits, and then there’s not going to be any left. So if it only takes a hundred years to go through that, probably fifty years to go through what’s left. So, the next economic boom, the next big bonanza, it’s green, it’s going to be very green. It’s going to be trains that run on electricity, wind turbines, and probably still a lot of the other electrical generation type equipment.
Ken: But not only is oil running out, the earth-raping way we have to go about getting it, plus, I mean it takes (millions of years for oil to be created). Hemp renews annually.*
* See, http://JackHerer.com
Eric brought us to another room to show us some printouts regarding where his Democratic and Republican opponents were getting their money.
Eric Borregard: This is Carl Levin who I’m running against, and here is the total money spent as of July 17, 2002.
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: He’s reached four million (dollars) and Andrew Raczkowski, the Republican, he’s raised about half a million (dollars). PAC contributions, the Republican has about $2,275. Zero percent of his money is coming from PAC, it’s all individuals. The Democrat has raised $665,000, 16% of his money is coming from Corporate PACs. So we have a Democrat who’s actually hogged up all the corporate money.
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: ...All the insurance companies, all the oil companies, the oil industry.
Ken: Wow.
Eric Borregard: And, ah, the Defense industry,* especially because he’s on the Armed Services Committee and the Government Intelligence Committee. Of course, I’m on here too, zero percent. I haven’t taken any donations yet. (This was toward the end of August 2002.)
Mr. Borregard then turned the page of the printout he had stapled together.
* From, A World of Ideas, with Bill Moyers, PBS (Public TV), USA, 1988:
Bill Moyers to Professor Noam Chomsky: You have said that we live entangled in webs of endless deceit, in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. Elementary truths such as?
Professor Noam Chomsky: Such as... the fact that the military system is to a substantial extent, not totally, but to a substantial extent, a mechanism by which the general population is compelled to provide a subsidy to high technology industry, since they're not going to do it if you ask them to, you have to deceive them into doing it.
Ken: These are some of those industries you were talking about.
Eric Borregard: Oh yeah, you’ve got to see this (pointing to a picture of Senator Levin). This is Carl Levin. I’m sure you’ll all recognize him from somewhere. He’s up around 5-million dollars right now actually. This is back in July but he has raised from law firms about 300,000 (dollars), pro-Israeli groups, ah... you’re wondering why we’re having a war in Iraq and supporting Israel. Well, he’s on the committee and here’s a quarter of a million reasons why he likes them. Insurance industry... you wonder why you’re not getting your prescription drugs or whatever. They’re going to be slowed down, he’s going to take a long time to consider those. Health care professionals, you know, (he moving down the list), Medicare, yep, there’s going to be problems there. Aerospace groups, defense groups, yeah...
Ken: Yeah, who was that last one?
Eric Borregard: ... (inaudible), Chrysler, oh yeah.
Ken: Oh yeah, good old MBNA, (spotting this one myself and wanting to be sure he didn’t miss it since I was aware that they had also supported Bush’s campaign in 2000.)*
* “Among the biggest beneficiaries of the measure would be MBNA Corporation of Delaware, which describes itself as the world’s biggest independent credit card company. Ranked by employee donations, MBNA was the largest corporate contributor to the Bush campaign, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics, an election research group.”
- From, Lobbying Campaign Led by Credit Card Companies and Banks Nears Bankruptcy Bill Goal, by Philip Shenon, originally published on Tuesday, March 13, 2001 in the New York Times, and currently available at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0313-02.htm.
Eric Borregard: I’m not qualified to be a U.S. Senator, but I think the guy down here at the Taco Bell who’s folding tacos (burritos)...
Ken: Hmm.
Eric Borregard: ...is more qualified than Carl Levin...
Ken: No doubt about it.
Eric Borregard: ...because he knows enough not to stick his hands in the guacamole. (laughs)
Ken: Right. (laughs)
Before we left Eric’s office he gave us a copy of a television commercial (made for a cable station, as I recall) containing footage of a brutal arrest of Michigan Green Party candidate, Douglass Campbell, who as someone on the official state ballot had sat down to participate in a televised debate with the Republican and Democratic candidates. He told us to do with it what we liked and when we misplaced the first copy he mailed us another. It was quite an arrest. Two officers, one on each side, grabbed him by one arm each and hoisted him out and behind his chair with him ending up on the floor with broken ribs.
Campbell had several ribs broken in this videotaped assault as the other members of the panel sitting to his right did not even seemingly react at all. Unlike the presented puppets, Douglas Campbell clearly stood for the common people in general over big business and other special interest groups, but Michiganders never got to see and hear him because he was yanked from the stage by people who were not elected to make such decisions.
There’s yet to be a citizen vote on who is allowed in the debates and why, concerning all leading offices in this country including the presidency, yet the big business people who run the major television stations, standing up for themselves and their fellow wealthy corporation buddies, simply eliminate more reasonable fair people from even being in the contest. And the people swallow it, hook, line and sinker, time after time, election after election.
It’s not a very complex scam, and with the Internet, the fact that it’s still working is nothing short of disgraceful, in my view. Like the well-dressed gentleman said to me in Harlem back in 2000: “I don’t want to see anything else other than his platform. I’m not interested in anything else you have. Show me his platform.” Well, in that case it was a he, meaning Nader. But the point is, whether one likes Ralph Nader as a person or not, his platform was far more reasonable than his primary opposition, yet all he managed to do was glean some 3% of the vote, thanks to a censoring media.
George W. Bush, a man who had had more executions as governor of Texas than any governor in the history of the United States, whose signature was written on 152 of 153 death penalty cases he had been presented with during his tenure, ended up winning the presidency. The media had spoiled yet another election.
Many of those put to death at Bush’s command were clearly innocent, many others likely innocent, and several drew international outrage, yet George W. Bush either ignored the facts or didn’t spend the time to look into the cases before determining whether he’d have each one of them put to death. He simply relied on the court’s ruling, his signature being the only thing stopping a real person from being put to death.
One of his victims - who was guilty of murder, admittedly - had made it on a mainstream television program. Tucker Carlson, the generally Bush-supporting bow-tied telecaster, asked Governor George W. Bush if he had seen the broadcast. George W. reportedly then said to Mr. Carlson: “Please don’t kill me,” with pursed lips, indicating he had likely seen the broadcast and that was his synopsis of same. Bush's actions led to a murder likewise, didn’t they? George W. Bush claims to be a born-again Christian, as clearly Karla Faye Tucker had become, making them brother and sister in Christ according to their religion, yet did he remember the teaching of Jesus, whom he claims to be a follower of, proclaiming that, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” as is recorded in, The Gospel According to John, (Chapter 8, Verse 7), a book he proclaims he believes is sacred?
Not to stray too much here before we return to Douglas Campbell, yet it seemed a good place for people to have a glance at some of Bush’s killing record prior to becoming president, especially since a 10+ year study of executions was released and openly reported in the mainstream media at the time revealing that 20% of those executed are innocent of the crime for which they were sentenced to death. The Bush team was quick to point out that the study also showed that over 90 percent were guilty of “some crime,” even though Bush and Cheney had histories of being arrested and found guilty for drunk driving themselves, making both of them fit into that same category.
One person who was clearly among the 20 percent was Gary Graham, AKA Shaka Sankofa. He was 17 at the time of the alleged crime to begin with, making the U.S. among just a handful of countries which would execute him even if he was guilty, though the evidence indicates he was not. He was identified by one person from 30 feet away at night as being the murderer, though six other eye witnesses claimed he was not the killer, and four others passed polygraph tests saying he was with them at the time of the murder.
There was no physical evidence linking him with the crime either. This was surely a case of questionable guilt and in reality almost certain innocence. The facts are that ten people, plus Shaka Sankofa himself, maintained that he was innocent of the crime he paid the ultimate price for committing, six eyewitnesses to the crime and four people who claimed he was with them at the time of the murder, vs. one person whose description of the killer was not near what any of the other eyewitnesses described him as being.
I remember seeing a picture in the Daily News of NYC of several people walking down a street, some holding signs, with the camera focused on a woman who was reportedly Mr. Graham’s daughter, crying, and a man holding her as they were walking together. Bush had just ordered the killing of her father for a crime he did not commit. No, he didn’t murder Shaka Sankofa (the name the former Gary Graham requested he be remembered by) himself (the former high school cheerleader probably wouldn’t be up to that), yet his signature was what caused this man’s death. Charles Manson didn’t kill anyone himself either, did he? Yet all consider him a murderer for ordering others to kill, do they not? That’s what Bush’s signature did for Gary Graham, AKA Shaka Sankofa.
This blatant disregard for accuracy regarding real human being’s lives seems so foreign to me as a former healer. I remember how specific I tried to be when arriving at a diagnosis and plan of treatment for my patients, and how much I cared for each and everyone who came to my office entrusting me to a certain degree with their very health. Nearly all that was at my disposal to help was my brain and my hands, though I often relied on technology such as x-rays and MRIs to help arrive at a diagnosis.
My point is, I certainly didn’t want any of them to die, though I did diagnose a handful who ended up having diseases I knew would likely take their lives and did, and had I had in my power to take their life-threatening illness away I surely would’ve, and I think most people think this way, whether physician or not, though clearly George W. Bush does not think this way. “What’s wrong with him?” one might ask, and what’s wrong with the people for electing such a person to have more influence over people’s lives than arguably anyone alive?
George W. Bush is a person who obviously doesn’t mind if his actions directly cause another human to be strapped to a gurney and put to death, even though the matter could be halted by his mere say-so. As governor he had absolute power as to whether or not he wanted to have each of the 152 of 153 people he was presented with to live or die. The decision was his. “The buck stops here,” stated President Harry Truman, the man responsible for the two biggest terrorist attacks of all time, by the way. Who did Junior Bush let live out of the 153, aren’t you wondering? Henry Lee Lucas is the answer, a man who admitted he killed hundreds of people. Yes, on a scale of one to ten in straining believability it often seems to be a ten doesn’t it?
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”
- Mark Twain
Back to Douglas Campbell: Eric Borregard had given us his telephone number encouraging us to contact him but we had already planned to travel to Minnesota before returning to New Jersey and New York, where we had a home near the beach and an apartment in the city at the time. In retrospect, I wish we had delayed our trip to Minnesota and given Douglas Campbell a call, or arranged to meet him on the way back, for his is truly representative of how far the major media will go to distort a major election. Nowhere else in our society is this kind of treatment to the innocent accepted, except in U.S. jails and prisons, of course - in both cases simply because they haven’t been brought to broad public attention to reach enough people who care that their tax dollars are directly funding the catching and caging of innocent people who have not harmed or stolen from anyone, while considering of course that there are multiple scores of others who are likewise harmed when the people they know and in many cases love and live with are taken away from their homes to reside in violent human caging facilities, off limits to the general public for most intents and purposes. One mustn’t forget either that by so doing we are left with more real criminals, such as murderers, pedophiles, rapists, thieves and so forth as a result of wasting our resources terrorizing innocent people for their lifestyles.
We met a young woman whose father shot and killed himself days before he was to return to a Michigan jail on possession of marijuana charges. He had already been in one of these caging facilities for a violation of his right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” but not for hurting anyone or stealing anything, and rather than face going back he ended his life. It was easy to see the suffering in his teenage daughter’s eyes. Her Daddy died due to our torturous prisons and our denying people by force en masse of their right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We’re all a part of this, as Professor Chomsky has correctly stated.
Think about it, while remembering the words of the insane yet successful dictator, Adolf Hitler, who admitted, “What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” Include both men and women, of course, in granting the rulers their luck whilst diminishing their own. But those who do understand need to communicate to as many others as they can since the media will not do this for us. We’re all losing though we outnumber our oppressors. With the Internet at our disposal all that's missing is effort, the effort to inform others about how the media have been shafting us all.
Who would choose a doctor who knowingly harmed most in order to benefit a disproportionate few, simply because she or he spent more money than the other doctors advertising and so forth? How are the media able to keep such importantly impacting secrets contained within safe limits at the height of the Information Age? Here we are with nearly everyone being aware of faulty voting machines, yet long before Election Day when the public is supposed to get a clear idea of who they’re voting for, a disproportionate few keeps it all a safe secret by openly leaving out qualified competition. It’s hardly a complex scam.
Candidates who are on the ballots and therefore are eligible to win the seat of the race they’re in are marginalized to such a point they’re deemed a wasted vote, even though the public could be choosing people who far and away are more supporting of their needs and well being, yet thus far this obvious news has drawn little attention. How many other books have you read about this? Is this not easier to demonstrate and more impacting than faulty voting machines?
Chapter 12
A Corporate Country Club
for Democrats
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it,
people will eventually come to believe it.
... the truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”
- Joseph Goebbels,
Hitler's Minister of Propaganda
Above: Carl Mayer, NJ Green Party congressional candidate
UPON LEAVING U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE ERIC BORREGARD'S OFFICE, we set out for Minnesota to help the Green Party take on Paul Wellstone, who was arguably by far the most fair, reasonable, caring U.S. Senator we had at the time. Nevertheless after 9/11, like far too many others, he caved by voting in favor of mass suffering, misery and death to thousands of innocent people, i.e., war, for clearly unsound reasons. It should be noted that even if he voted against the war in Afghanistan it would’ve made no difference since the Senate overwhelmingly backed an invasion. If he had voted against invading Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9-11-01, many thought so doing would have ended up costing him his U.S. Senate seat in the coming year’s midterm election of 2002. Tragically, Senator Wellstone died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002, just prior to the election. Ironically, we heard the news on television upon returning to our motel room after meeting Professor Noam Chomsky for the first time. One of the last things we told Noam before leaving was that we planned on heading back to Minnesota, this time to help with Senator Wellstone's campaign, since the Greens at that point obviously had no chance, and he was in danger of losing his seat.
As it turned out, back in August when we got to Minnesota we found out that it hadn’t yet been decided who among two were going to run on the state’s Green Party ticket for U.S. Senate, either Ed McGaa or Ray Tricomo. So we went back to New Jersey in plenty of time for the first scheduled televised debate among the U.S. Senate candidates, only to witness the arrest of the Green Party candidate, Ted Glick, which we discussed earlier.
Weeks before his arrest, we met U.S. Senate candidate Ted Glick in person for the first time outside a private club in the outskirts of Princeton, New Jersey, a club that had annual dues of some 60 to 65 thousand dollars, on a large estate just a matter of minutes away from some of the poorest inner city streets I’ve ever seen in Trenton, New Jersey. Reportedly, five U.S. Senators were in attendance at the estate on the day we met him, all were Democrats. One was Jon Corzine, 2006-2010 governor of New Jersey, who was then a U.S. Senator. A permit for a gathering to draw attention to what was happening inside was obtained, and reportedly some Libertarians were in attendance too, at some point, in addition to mostly members of the Green Party.
As soon as we arrived and parked a short way down the street at the end of the other vehicles, I walked toward the small gathering of a dozen or so people with my camera in my hand. I ended up interviewing U.S. Senate candidate Ted Glick, Joe Fortunato, a Green Party candidate then running for Congress in the 8th District of New Jersey, and Carl Mayer, who was likewise running as a Green for Congress in a different district than Mr. Fortunato.
After interviewing both Ted Glick and Joe Fortunato, we ended up turning around and going back in order to interview the last candidate, Carl Mayer, after hearing him on WBAI radio as we started making our way home, in an apparent taped discussion since there was no one from any radio or television stations at the event while we were there.
We’ll begin with Carl Mayer, followed by Joe Fortunato, since you’ve yet, at least in this manuscript, read anything about them. Then we’ll return to Ted Glick.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Carl, I had to turn back. You were on the radio on my way home on (W)BAI (a listener-supported radio station out of New York City).
Carl Mayer: Oh, was I?
Ken: ...and you gave a great rant.
Carl Mayer: Oh, was I (inaudible)?
Ken: So, this is Carl Mayer. Did I pronounce that right?
Carl Mayer: Yeah, Mayer.
Ken: All right, now what’s going on here today, Carl? The part I got before the radio station went out was about Al Gore’s New York Times editorial last week and you had some interesting comments to make regarding that editorial.
Carl Mayer: Last week in the New York Times, Al Gore wrote an editorial in which he said the historic mission of the Democratic Party is to fight for the people, not the powerful. Not one week after his editorial, the leading Democratic Senators are partying at one of the most exclusive clubs in the country, the former mansion of Seward Johnson, the founder of Johnson & Johnson. It costs $65,000 to enter those gates, just to get in, $65,000.
Ken: What is the acreage I heard you say on...?
Carl Mayer: Two hundred and thirty acres.
Ken: Wow. (Remember, this isn’t rural Virginia where my wife Elaine and I live now, this is in central western New Jersey where real estate prices are among the highest in the country.)
Carl Mayer: Sixty-five thousand dollars to get in.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: A lot of people live in homes in this country that are less than $65,000. It’s just to get into the club. There are all sorts of corporate sponsors of this fundraiser, and there are corporate members of this club like Arthur Anderson is, a convicted corporate criminal. They’re convicted of obstructing justice, for shredding documents in the Enron case. They’re a member of this club and yet Corzine and four other Democratic Senators...
Ken: Yeah, who are the other four Democratic Senators, that was the other...
Carl Mayer: Tom Harkin, Jean Carnahan, Tim Johnson from South Dakota, and Max Cleland from Georgia.
Ken: Wow.
Carl Mayer: Max Cleland of Georgia, and they’re all going, as Bruce Afran here pointed out (Bruce Afran was a Green Party New Jersey U.S. Senate candidate in 2000), it’s like going to John Gotti’s social club. It’s like the police commissioner going to a party at John Gotti’s social club, the same thing as Jon Corzine having a party at Arthur Anderson’s social club. They’re both criminals, the only difference is Arthur Anderson stole a lot more than John Gotti ever did.
Ken: I think it’s indicative that we don’t have a Democratic Party that’s called the Democratic Party, that we have one that’s Green.
Carl Mayer: Yep.
Ken: All right.
Carl Mayer: Rush Holt, who is marinated with corporate PAC money. Rush Holt is, he is nothing but a corporation in disguise running as a person. He has taken money from WorldCom, from Deloitte and Tush, from Ernst and Young, Price Waterhouse, all the accounting firms that were responsible for the various frauds like Tico and Enron. Here, you can see right here (pointing to a placard someone else was holding), 1-800-BUY-HOLT.
Ken: Now, there’s somebody else running against him (too)?
Carl Mayer: Buster Soaries, yeah, he’s the Republican nominee. He’s actually an interesting nominee. He’s an African-American minister* and he’s done a lot of work in the community, and ah, his campaign is not funded like Rush Holt’s. Rush Holt would make (Croatias?) look poor, he has so much money. He spent 4.9-million dollars in his last few campaigns.
* Technically all Americans, if one traces one’s lineage far enough back, are African-American. After all, we do have a common ancestor (along with everyone else in the world) who was from Africa. Yes, we’re all, “families apart,” as the late great musician and visionary Jimi Hendrix wrote shortly before he passed away in 1970. We’re all related, everyone on earth, yet few realize this undeniable reality. The false barriers keep us divided amongst ourselves.
Ken: Yeah.
Carl Mayer: He takes money from these accounting firms and then he voted against a bill that would’ve made the accountants more accountable to the people, that would have reduced and eliminated accountant’s conflict of interest. It was proposed by a member of his own party, Dennis Kucinich, and um, he voted against it because he’s in the hands of the accountants.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: He hasn’t... there isn’t, there isn’t (hardly) a PAC he hasn’t taken money from. He’s taken from defense contractors, he’s taken from the nuclear power industry.
Ken: Hmm.
Carl Mayer: He’s taken from Wall Street firms and securities industry while the securities industry is defrauding America. He’s taken from the, ah, the med or the drug companies. He’s taken more money from the drug companies than any other member of Congress, on the Democratic side, and he voted against a bill to put a cap on prescription drug prices for seniors because he votes with the drug companies, not the... not the, ah, people.
Ken: Ah, incidentally, as do almost always, all the Republicans, right?
Carl Mayer: Well, that’s true.
Ken: That’s, well, I mean, we gotta give it to your opponent too.
I was referring to his other opponent’s membership party, the Republican Party, of which I doubt his opponent would’ve been nominated as a candidate, had he been openly opposed to their platform. If he had been in accord with most of the Republican Party’s platform, then even if he had done helpful things for the community and was a likeable guy and so forth, whether he knew it or not he was supporting unnecessary pain and suffering, same as if he had been a Democrat. Both parties' platforms support the War on Drugs which is really an inhumane war against our own citizen’s right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and has resulted in millions of casualties, some sent to violent cages, some with loved ones, parents, spouses, etc., when other much more harmful and addicting substances are perfectly legal.
Nicotine addiction accounts for some 400,000 U.S. deaths each year, since that’s the addictive substance contained in tobacco. Tobacco addicts have specific receptor sites in their brains which the drug nicotine fits into in a lock and key fashion, same as opiate addicts have receptor sites for opium, as has been discussed. Of course, alcohol ingestion has a direct relationship with physical violence and automobile accidents, yet it remains legal likewise. I don’t know of any other drug, whether injected, digested, or inhaled, that can actually make people completely forget hours of their time when under its influence other than anesthesia. So, considering the loss of muscle and motor control, as was brought up by U.S. Senate candidate Eric Borregard earlier, and that people can actually forget time and do things that they don’t even remember doing, like driving and ending up killing innocent people, sometimes killing themselves along with them, sometimes not, how can anything else be deemed illegal from a rational standpoint?
Remember, we’re supposed to have the right to “...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Taking people from their homes and making them live in cages, oftentimes for years, ought to be for something other than what the person decides to put into her or his body. This is a violation of their liberty, and it comes at an expense to all, as has been explained. If we spend our money chasing innocent people, that leaves more real criminals at large as a result. This is basic deductive reasoning.
Ken: (in conclusion): So, here we are. Here’s the facilities folks (as I pointed my video camera toward the outer wall and gates), for the so-called Democratic Party (or at least, some of its leading U.S. Senate members), and, a mere sixty-five grand to get you through those gates.
Chapter 13
More Candidate Censorship -
Compliments of The Corporate Media
“The corporate media won't cover us unless
we force them to, and we have to seek other outlets
and I'm very glad you're here doing this.”
- Joe Fortunato,
NJ Green Party congressional candidate
(Pictured below)
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: We’re outside of our little fundraiser, or rather the Democratic Party’s fundraiser* for the upcoming election, in Elitesville, that is, between Princeton and Lawrenceville, New Jersey. What a contrast to five miles ago. So, what do you think of the upcoming election? We’ve got Joe Fortunato (here) and you’re in what congressional district?
* Not to say this was a Democratic Party officially-sanctioned event, just that key members of its party were in attendance.
Joe Fortunato: I’m in the 8th Congressional District, which is Passaic County and Essex County.
Ken: What is your message to the voters in your area? I mean, who are your opponents?
Joe Fortunato: Well, the Democrat incumbent is William Pascrowl, a middle of the road centrist Democrat, and the Republican is named, Jarad, or Jared Silverman, who’s never, to my knowledge, run on a Federal level for office before, and I’m a Green Party candidate, (on the ballot running for the same office). Essentially the message is that we need an alternative to the two-party system. Democrats and Republicans are bought and paid for by major corporations such as Enron and WorldCom. We’re here today, as you mentioned, outside a Democratic fundraiser where the elite and the millionaires are backing Democratic Party candidates such as Corzine and Torricelli, and we’re here with a different kind of message.
Ken: You have an upcoming debate, I understand, between these two. Well, hopefully so.
Joe Fortunato: There will be a candidate’s forum in October, with the AARP, and we take a very different position on issues of our elders, as well as on health care. We support universal health care for everyone. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans will do that. They fight each other’s proposals for limited prescription drugs in the Senate. The Greens call for universal health care for all. That’s one difference. Another difference is oncampaign finance reform.* There are many differences. It’s a fundamentally different way of looking at things. We are running a campaign which says give democracy back to the people and away from the major corporations and their bought and paid for political parties.
* In the fall of 2009, I was lucky enough to make contact with Doris Haddock, AKA “Granny D,” who walked across the country between the ages of 88 and 90 for campaign finance reform. After exchanging e-mails, we ended up conversing several times via telephone, and had planned on meeting in person in the spring of 2010. Unfortunately Doris passed away on March 09, 2010, at age 100. In one of our lengthier conversations, she told me that her real motivation for walking across the country was for “publicly `funded elections,” but if she had had a sign stating that on her cross-country walk, she felt few would've understood her message. In other words, it required more of an explanation than what could be placed on a simple placard. Publicly funded elections were a high priority for Doris, and she worked hard for them right up to the end, in spite of her decades long battle with emphysema. She informed me that there was pending legislation for same in some 27 states, and that Maine and Arizona already had laws in place. I had known about Maine, but not Arizona. I asked her about eventually seeing this reach a Federal level, and she agreed that was her ultimate goal. What an amazing woman. If enough others put forth a fraction of the effort she did, we'd steer this nation and world toward a more sane direction in a short time.
Ken: Now, the district’s representative (in Congress) this time, I guess he voted with Bush’s tax-cut plan for the elites, both of them. Are you aware (of that)? ...as far as the first tax cut...
Joe Fortunato: Did, in my... ah...?
Ken: Well, as far as the original tax cut, which basically took the highest tax bracket... they were taxed at the rate of 39.6 %, and they took it all the way down to 35%.
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: I mean, the great benefactors…
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: ...of the first tax plan.
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: You know, and everyone else gets shafted as a result. Almost all the House, I’m sure all the House Republicans voted for it.
Joe Fortunato: Well, that’s right, my opponent’s a Democrat and he makes progressive-sounding noises from time to time, on taxes, on education, but, um, essentially has voted with the administration right down the line on our, where our, most of our tax dollars go, which is to the military.
Ken: Yeah, no doubt.
Joe Fortunato: ...For these bloated military budgets.
Ken: Over 50%. There comes a high cost of oppressing the rest of the world, I guess.
Joe Fortunato: Well that’s for sure, you know. For instance, two years ago we voted 1.3-billion, with a ‘b,’ billion dollars, ah... for the Columbian military to fight a phony Drug War in Columbia.
Ken: Unbelievable.
Joe Fortunato: And, the ah...
Ken: I don’t think what people understand, too, is that this Drug War, if they continue to attack these people, there’s going to be that many more murderers, and there’s going to be that many more rapists, and there’s going to be that many more pedophiles on the street as a result.
Joe Fortunato: Well, absolutely.
Ken: It’s insane.
Joe Fortunato: We should’ve learned something from Prohibition. It looks like we haven’t.
Ken: But, I mean, as a consequence, if the police are occupying themselves with these activities, that’s that much time taken away from seeking murderers and whatnot. I brought this up in one of my earlier films, that I saw on the History Channel (that) there were two serial killers. They had hundreds of kills before the authorities were even alerted that anything was wrong.*
* Does the name Henry Lee Lucas ring a bell? See, Chapter 11
Joe Fortunato: Right.
Ken: You would think that if they weren’t busy chasing people for what they were doing on their own property, you know, (as I turned my camera toward the mansion’s gates) I mean, they can be having meetings here on how to screw the people (sarcastic laughs), you know. That’s legal. But these other things are not. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but anyway, I didn’t mean to get sidetracked there but...
Joe Fortunato: Well.
Ken: Well, good luck in your, in your campaign.
Joe Fortunato: Thank you. Thank you for covering us. You know, that’s a big part of the battle. The corporate media won’t cover us unless we force them to and we have to seek other outlets and I’m very glad you’re here doing this.
Ken: Well, what I’m saying, too, is that if the people spread the word, then we can make this... All you have to do is communicate. (If) Paul Revere could spread a message over two hundred years ago, you could spread a message that’s about seven pages long (an approximation, perhaps way off, of the party’s platform if printed out). You do have the Green Party platform on your site, do you not?
Joe Fortunato: Absolutely.
Ken: Well, all they need to do is look at that, and look at the Democratic platform, and then look at the Republican (platform) and go make their choice.
Joe Fortunato: Go to www.gpnj.org.
Ken: All right, thank you very much.
Joe Fortunato: Thank you.
Remember what the man in Harlem said about platforms: That was the only thing he was interested in of all the literature we had on the table. It doesn’t matter if the candidate is male or female, somber or silly, what matters is what the candidate’s platform is, or at least that’s what matters most. Mainstream candidates may reach out and pull a branch here and there, but there are people running against them who are going for the roots of several major problems, none of which should exist.
If enough people checked out the candidate’s platforms, with those possessing voting rights voting along the lines of common sense and decency, while those not possessing voting rights (along with everyone else who cares a hoot about their world) encouraging others to do this simple research for themselves, each doing what he or she could to pass the material the major media were hiding from them to as many people as they could, using both the Internet and talking to others, the minority who own and operate the candidate-censoring media could be defeated or at least significantly weakened in a single election.
No election was ever won by a single vote. Our votes are next to meaningless. Where the power to fight the media lies is in informing others about what they are hiding. So, if you’re under 18 or have lost your voting rights, don’t think you can’t have a say. We’re all in this together. There are people trying to overcome their oppressors, whom they outnumber several times over. There are those who aren’t doing a thing to change the fact that a disproportionate few are ruining their lives, their loved one’s lives, their descendants' lives, along with everyone else they know, merely because said disproportionate few have taken hold of the media outlets though same can now be easily overcome with an organized, even half-organized, effort.
It’s not just theory that this is happening, that we living in the most dominant society on earth are collectively allowing ourselves “...to be deluded and manipulated by the system,” as Noam Chomsky has stated. You, me, and everyone else, is either fighting this pervasive ignorance at the height of the Information Age or not. The decision is up to you. You’re either on your own side, or you’re not; on your children’s side, or you’re not. We have an unnecessarily more dangerous world than need be, due to greed, deception (primarily via the media), apathy, and thoughtlessness. If you allow this kind of deception to continue unimpeded, then you’re allowing a disproportionate few to guide a completely inefficient horrible world on a sure dead-end path without protest. That’s up to you, as it’s up to me. But we should all remember we’re in the same boat and not let petty concerns get in the way of our organizing and passing basic information on via a tool the general people have never had before, i.e., the Internet. Like it or not we’re in the same sinking ship, but make no mistake about it we’re all in the same situation, whether facing same or not. Hopefully there’s enough time to stop it from sinking.
If we don’t act, we know where we’re headed. After a while of cooperative effort, we may just get to appreciate one another, and overlook one another’s flaws, and gain control of our mutual situation. Hopefully this manuscript will reach enough people in time.
Were I not to have seen MANUFACTURING CONSENT: NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA, broadcast in the wee hours of the morning on PBS, (not being aired in the daytime due to the lobbying of people such as Pat Robertson, it was only aired late night, early morning), as I sat with my terminally ill mother at the hospital, you would’ve never seen this book. Were it not for Noam Chomsky, as well as Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick who made this documentary explaining the murderous methods of the media, or some of the methods anyway, you wouldn’t be reading this book. Numerous others have helped give me the vision I have, which I hope you get to see likewise and share with others best you can. The belief in human hierarchy is nonsense. We’re all but a breath away from checking out of here. All are vulnerable. All are in this together. All are related. A cooperative effort makes so much more sense, and is so much more gratifying, isn’t it?
Who would choose a known lousy doctor, who it could be proven unnecessarily had mass complicity in real human suffering and misery, just because he or she advertised more? Then why do we do this in relation to our elected officials whose policies guide our very lives in the interests of a disproportionate few over most? Cannot we spread this basic message to others?
Chapter 14
Corporate Power
“What you do makes a difference
and you have to decide what kind of difference
you want to make.”
- Jane Goodall
U.S. Senate Candidate for the Green Party in 2002, Ted Glick, (above), was, as stated earlier, the first one I interviewed that day in August outside the club where some U.S. Democratic Senators were getting their earfuls from corporate sponsors.
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hey, Ted, congratulations on being the first candidate to ever be endorsed by nowweretalking.tv...
US Senate candidate, Ted Glick: OK.
Ken: ...4thepeople.org, [I no longer have that site name] and ppbnj.com (refreshing him about who I was since I had spoken with him on the phone some days beforehand).
Ted Glick: OK.
Ken: I was just saying as I was walking down here, I ended up in inner-city Trenton. I made the same mistake I made last time (going to an indoor track to work out years before), taking the first turn at the end of I-195 here, and what a contrast. Five miles. What a difference between these estates and a real inner-city. So, tell me, Ted, what’s going on here today?
Ted Glick: Well, the Democratic Party, Democratic Senators, are feeding at the trough, at the corporate trough. (inaudible) $60,000 to be a member of this club and those are the people who are inside, are doing their networking...
Ken: Ah hah.
Ted Glick: ...are Democratic Party elected Senators and Representatives. And we’re here to say that for both Democrats and Republicans that’s not acceptable anymore. We need to move away from this type of a system, where big money dominates how who gets elected and we need to move to a system that is democratic with a small "d"...
Ken: Ah hah.
Ted Glick: ...where anybody can run for office, where you don’t have to be a millionaire, or connected to millionaires, in order to campaign. We’re here to point out that even though there’s been some legislation passed following this corporate fraud and corporate crime scandal, following WorldCom and Enron, Adelphia and Global Crossing and the rest of them, that there’s still a great deal of cleaning up that has to be done and the Green Party is going to be continuing to lead that effort. Our candidate Ralph Nader in 1996, he knew the problems that were coming. He didn’t know specifically what was going to happen. He was very aware that corporate, corporations, corporate power, was too influential.
Ken: Do you have any idea what the voting population is in New Jersey? I don’t mean to put you on the spot...
Ted Glick: In terms of how many people actually vote?
Ken: Well, how many are registered voters?
Ted Glick: I think it’s probably in the neighborhood of, maybe 70, 75 percent I’d say of the eligible electorate. I don’t know the exact number but I think it’s in that neighborhood.
Ken: Right, but I mean what is the (actual) number?
Ted Glick: Numerically?
Ken: Yeah.
Ted Glick: Well, the number of people who voted in the 2000 election...
Ken: Right.
Ted Glick: …was about, I believe, about 2.7-million.
Ken: OK
Ted Glick: 2.7-million actual voters.
Ken: So then all we need to do is get the word to over 50%, or maybe not even that many, really, of those...
Ted Glick: Right, right.
Ken: ... people in New Jersey, which is not all that great a distance in square miles and I think it can be done, Ted, personally, and I really think it’s inexcusable if it doesn’t get done.
Ted Glick: (inaudible)
Ken: I want to see you get in there. But everybody needs to do some effort, not just you and not just, you know, a few of us.
Ted Glick: Well, this is a grassroots campaign and in a grassroots campaign, word of mouth is absolutely essential. People need to talk to other people about the fact that there is an alternative. People need to call in to radio talk shows and say: “Hey...
Ken: That’s a good way.
Ted Glick: …do you know about Ted Glick?” People need to send, write letters to the editor...
Ken: Right.*
* Actually, I don't know why I agreed with him about writing to the editors, since expecting the media to use its resources against itself would be self-destructive for them, so unless it’s a small paper or an independent newspaper, you won't see much about how more rational candidates are censored undemocratically from our debates. It’s likely a waste of time to ask the enemy to reveal their own scam. Take a look and see who your local paper is owned by, and whether or not it’s owned by a corporate conglomerate.
Ted Glick: People need to raise with organizations that they’re part of, churches, unions, community groups, whatever they may be, um, raise the fact that there’s an alternative... (inaudible).
Ken: Now, you have your platform on the site, too?
Ted Glick: Yeah, our website.
Ken: That’s what I tell people. I say: “Listen, go look at the platform of the Green Party candidate. Look at the platform of the Democratic candidate, and look at his history too in this case, and then do the same thing with the Republican and then make your choice.”*
Ted Glick: Right.
Ken: That’s my call.
* I think people should investigate all the candidates running by looking at their platforms at least, and if a presidential race, then one should likely also consider how many state ballots the candidate is on. For example, in the 2008 election, Ralph Nader, the Independent, made it on 45 state ballots and was an official write-in for four other states, whereas Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate (whom I've spoken with on the phone, met in person once and have corresponded with via e-mail) was on but 32 state ballots, and as a write-in for 18 others. I like Cynthia, yet the numbers in 2008 clearly stood in favor of Ralph.
Chapter 15
Media-censored Presidential Elections
Metastasizes to the Republican and Democratic
Mainstream Parties
“Think of the press as the great keyboard
on which the government can play.”
- Joseph Goebbels
Hitler's Minister of Propaganda
Above: Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel at the “Alternate Debate” he and members of his campaign
presented in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007, after being excluded from the televised MSNBC Democratic debate.
[After finally starting this book, writing and transcribing our findings from the years, I ended up putting my project aside from late October of 2007, until the beginning of March 2008, with good reason.]
IT SEEMS THE METASTASIS HAD SPREAD TO THE MAINSTREAM PARTIES NOW, at first the Democratic Party undemocratically eliminating Mike Gravel, the former U.S. Senator from Alaska who released the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, revealing the lies of three different presidential administrations to involve our nation in an unnecessary war, costing the lives of some 3-million Southeast Asians and 58-thousand Americans, in addition to those disabled and those orphaned. Imagine all that suffering, misery and death for nothing but to line the pockets of a disproportionate few. That’s what happened as can be seen from what Gravel revealed in the early 70s.
Isn’t this the kind of person we needed in the debates, with the U.S. finding itself involved in not one, but two highly questionable wars? In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, we had most of the world on our side, but that has changed. Even in the U.S., it's common knowledge that the war in Iraq was based on completely bogus claims about weapons of mass destruction, and it's also widely known that we turned our backs on Saddam Hussein's most hideous crimes when he committed them. What about the infamous picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam after he gassed the Kurds? And as far as Afghanistan, we hold a lot of the blame there likewise, by helping build up the Taliban in their resistance of the former Soviet Union, but none of this was discussed, because the media, with the blessing of the leading Democrats, eliminated the man who read thePentagon Papers in front of the U.S. Senate, so their contents were a matter of public record.
Former Senator Gravel opted to have his own alternate debate in Philadelphia a block or two away from MSNBC studios that night, and I felt that with writing this book I had to be there. Little did I know that two weeks later I’d be driving from southern Virginia to Las Vegas, Nevada, to cover Senator Gravel’s alternate debate there, since the other networks followed the lead of MSNBC... this time CNN.
Eventually Dennis Kucinich was likewise eliminated from the Democratic Party’s debates, though they hardly included him when he had been present, with an open slant right from the get-go toward Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama receiving the most attention, followed by a distant John Edwards, with the remaining media rejects getting a moment here and there.
The Republicans followed suit shortly thereafter by eliminating Dr. Ron Paul, a longtime congressman who set an all-time record for the most amount of money raised in a single day, primarily via individual contributions. Who are these un-elected people who undemocratically removed such a candidate from a televised debate without valid reason?
Much to my pleasant surprise, in spite of Rudy Giuliani not being marginalized in the least and being respected by the moderators, the Media’s Mayor dropped out of the race altogether in January, quickly giving his support over to John McCain, perhaps with the long-shot hope of being chosen as McCain’s running mate, potentially leaving him but a breath away from the presidency.
With Rudy out, thus went any “spoiler issue” for this election in many ways. In my opinion at that time, only he matched Bush’s arrogance and seemingly complete disregard of other's concerns.
With no major “spoiler issue,” I thought it was going to be an interesting campaign, but things changed. It was quite a disappointing time to be sure, and still is. I wonder what I could’ve done differently. Since no one has a time machine, all we can do is move forward from this point onward.
The only way I see a third party win happening is if there’s a strategic effort to inform the public regarding a very limited number of life and death issues, the point being made that the media withhold such information, and the people beat the liars with what we have on hand at the height of the Information Age. The right concise pointed video could change the course of humankind, there’s little doubt of that. Where there’s doubt is, will such a video be made and will enough put forth the effort to bring it to others? Both remain to be seen.
Likely best to both plan for the next election while bringing media-buried truths to enough others so that the media, and our leaders, will no longer be able to ignore these hidden issues of life and death. It's also likely many of them are duped themselves. I wonder how many members of congress even know that the U.S. overthrew the Iranian government in 1953, bringing their oil back under Western control, and reinstating a known tyrant?
If the odds for success may seem slim, that’s mere illusion. For the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), who is regarded as, “The most important philosopher ever to write in English,” according to,Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, located at, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/, was surely correct in asserting:
“Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider
human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with
which the many are governed by the few.”
- David Hume
I didn’t open the e-mail from the Gravel campaign until around midnight on October 30, 2007, indicating that A) he had been eliminated from the MSNBC Democratic Presidential Debate scheduled later that evening and that, B) he would be holding an alternate debate at around 9:00 P.M. at a venue his campaign quickly rented a block or two away from the televised puppet show. Gravel stated that if things were “sliced and diced” nicely, recalling that videos on the Internet are not scheduled for one particular time only, it could be passed on for months perhaps, eventually equaling or even surpassing the coverage of the other candidates. I liked the way he appeared to be thinking at the time, since I had been trying to get a similar message through to third party candidates who were marginalized by the media for years, stating that since the differences between them and the mainstream puppets was nothing less than life and liberty over misery, oppression and mass murder, it was hardly a tough decision for one presented with some evidence.
So, in spite of planning on writing the night through, and having slept during the day so I’d be able to do just that, it was going to be quite a challenge to make it from southern Virginia to Philadelphia by 9:00 PM that night. As it turns out I got there about a half hour late or so, mainly because there was no westbound entrance for the street I was to get off at to make it to the venue. Thus I had to go ahead and backtrack through neighborhoods until I got back to the short highway leading into the heart of Philadelphia where hopefully I’d find out where I was supposed to be. As I got closer to the puppet show, helicopters could be heard overhead and police cars seemed to be everywhere, yet I somehow managed to find a place to park that was in easy walking distance to Mike Gravel’s event, though it was quite close to the media’s circus event of unqualified sellouts discussing mostly non-issues.
Gravel, on the other hand, was a breath of fresh air, it seemed. I felt it had been well worth the struggle to get there and not having as much sleep as I had wanted. Two weeks later, I would end up driving from our home in Southside, Virginia all the way to Las Vegas to cover yet another alternate debate Mike Gravel was having, this time being censored by CNN. At that time I was able to speak to one of his assistants about scheduling an interview with the former U.S. Senator who had released the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s, at his office back in Arlington, Virginia, about a four hour ride from our home. I ended up having my sit-down, jacket-and-tie interview with this American and International hero at his office on December 19, 2007, having written up the questions I wanted to ask shortly after returning from Vegas. By early February I had a two-part interview posted at, http://youtube.com, which I felt could very well change the outcome of the upcoming election if only enough people saw them, thought things through, and did what they could to bring this information to others.
That didn’t happen. Gravel ended up joining the Libertarian Party but didn't end up getting their nomination, so he was out of the race.
This book brings several people’s testimonies together to demonstrate how the media are giving us the shaft. It’s not just Ken’s opinion, it’s what is, and one can research enough of this for her or himself to verify that my assertion - that the media are deliberately censoring our major elections and that stated censoring directly results in our ignorant funding of mass human suffering and misery with our tax dollars - is absolutely true. It’s not just an opinion, it’s a fact. This is what they do. Think back to the presidential debates... were all six candidates who made it on enough ballots to win allowed to participate? Is this democracy? Who eliminated the other candidates?
Since trying daily to get people to wake up about their media-misguided elections since 2000, my most valuable skill is likely in effectively communicating the hidden status quo, in regard to less than two handful’s of profound concerns affecting everyone’s lives that a disproportionate few who own and operate the mainstream media have been purposefully distorting and/or omitting entirely, thus painting an entirely different view of reality than what is. How could they do that, one might as? A lot of it has to do with too many people “allowing” others to do their thinking for them.
As Hitler admitted himself, “What luck for the rulers that men do not think,” only nowadays, of course, we should include both men and women in granting the rulers their luck whilst taking it from ourselves.
Chapter 16
The Military-Industrial-Media Complex
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower
January 1961
Above: Former U.S. Senator & 2007-2008 Democratic
presidential candidate, Mike Gravel
Mike Gravel Interview – December 19, 2007:
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hi, I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt from MajorMediaBypass.com. We’re here today with Senator Mike Gravel, who’s a presidential candidate who’s been greatly marginalized by the mainstream media, and I’d like to ask Senator Gravel a few questions.
The world’s most quoted living author, your friend Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, has stated that we live in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. He has also stated that “Education is a system of imposed ignorance.” That being said, can you please give those who either read or watch this interview a truncated synopsis of what you’re likely most famous and respected for, that being for releasing the Pentagon Papers in the early 1970s during the Vietnam war when you were a U.S. Senator?
Senator Gravel: It certainly would be that, because what was involved was so fundamental to a democracy. In a democracy the people must know what is going on in government, otherwise they can’t respond to what the government is doing.
When I released the Pentagon Papers, I really thought I had a good chance of going to prison. And so I was frightened. But I felt it was so, so vital to the... to our society for the people to be informed. And, I had been... when I was 23 years old I was a Top Secret Control Officer. I had been in Intelligence, and so I knew how ridiculous it was to... to classify these documents, which are nothing but documents about the history of how we got involved, how three successive presidential administrations had lied to the American people to get us involved in the swamp of Vietnam that cost 3-million Southeast Asian lives, that cost 58-thousand American lives - all of these lies in a Democracy. That had to be overcome and I was prepared to put my career on the line to try to overcome that. I did it, I survived. And of course, as Chomsky has pointed out, that is one of the most significant things of my career.
Ken: As I understand it, others were asked to do the same thing but only you had the courage to take on this task, is that correct?
Senator Gravel: Yes it is. The papers were offered to George McGovern, Gaylord Nelson, Pete McClousky, Bill Fulbright, and for various and sundry reasons, reasons that they chose not to accept the papers or to release them.
Ken: You were a Senator, U.S. Senator, between what years?
Senator Gravel: 1969 and ’81. I served when Richard Nixon was elected. I served with Gerald Ford and with Jimmy Carter.
Ken: Senator Gravel, you’ve stated that General Electric kept you out of the MSNBC debates, sponsored Democratic debates, held in Philadelphia on October 30. How did you come about knowing these were the people censoring you and not MSNBC?
Senator Gravel: First off, because I had been repeatedly talking about the military-industrial complex, and of course they are one of the largest military contractors in the United States. And had been talking about the whole nuclear issue and they’re the proliferators of the world.
...they gave away their role by the simple fact that I first pointed out to Hillary that I was ashamed of her because of the way she voted on the Iran resolution, Lieberman II resolution, and it was shortly after that, that they cut me out. Now, CNN had tried to cut me out earlier and did not succeed. And so it was as a result of what I attribute... Howard Dean and the Democratic Party in cahoots with NBC and GE, where they made a decision that they had had enough, that they’ve really got to silence me.
A friend of mine in India wrote an e-mail to GE complaining about the fact that I was cut out. They responded to him saying, and this was the PR person for GE. What they should have done, is they should have referred him to NBC or MSNBC, but no, the PR person from GE responded to his e-mail saying that I did not qualify by their criteria… That was the final nail in their coffin with respect to their getting involved in censoring apresidential candidate.
So here you have a defense contractor, a private corporation, making a decision as to who is going to... whose voice is going to be heard in the course of a presidential campaign. And of course they own... not only do they own NBC and MSNBC and Tele Mundo and several other communications companies, because they own these, so they can control the information and so they’re one of... one of the five major corporations that control the communications, the information that Americans receive about how their society, how their government is working in, quote, “a free society.”
Ken: The United States now houses a quarter of the world's prisoners, more than China, more than Russia, Iran, Syria and so forth. Our prison population has gone from an estimated 500,000 inmates when you left office as a U.S. Senator in 1981 to over 2.3-million people today. Most of these prisoners have harmed no one, yet their incarceration not only harms them, but also their families and loved ones. Plus, by default, if our law enforcement officers are busy chasing and apprehending non-criminals a great deal of that time, by simple deductive reasoning we are assured that this waste of resources is leaving that many more real criminals, such as murderers, child abusers, rapists and thieves and so forth at large. What is your position on this undeclared yet very real civil Drug War that has brought forth unspeakable suffering to millions, including children, while leaving the general population more susceptible to real criminals as a result?
Senator Gravel: What you’ve just recited, these statistics are appalling and shameful and it’s shameful for the United States of America to be in this position. To my knowledge I’m the only presidential candidate that has stepped forward and said that we have to end the “War on Drugs.” The war itself, not the addiction problem... that’s a public health problem.
The war itself has ravaged our inner cities and I’ve taken the position that if I become President of The United States I will seek legislation to be able to pardon everybody - everybody - who’s been convicted of a crime involving marijuana. Marijuana is not a gateway drug. Marijuana is not addictive. Marijuana should not be... have a legal problem. You should be able to buy marijuana at the liquor store just like you buy alcohol. It’s not nearly as addictive as alcohol is. And so anybody that’s been convicted of a marijuana infraction in the law should be pardoned immediately and gotten out of jail. That would go a long way, a long way, to addressing this problem of incarceration that we have. And it’s bankrupting the nation, morally, spiritually... ripping our families apart. You can’t believe the damage we’re doing to individuals who come out as felons, and have their civil rights impaired, have their whole lives ruined as a result of this.
Ken: We had Thanksgiving with a family... it was the guy’s, the son, it was his first Thanksgiving in six years that he’s had with his family, and he told me unspeakable horrors of hearing young 18, 19 year old kids screaming as they were being raped, you know the new initiates, and really horrible things and he had to fight for his… you know, to defend himself. It was really horrible conditions.
Senator Gravel: (shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders in astonishment and disgust)
Whew… it’s a training-ground for felons, making felons. They weren’t felons when they went in but they were made into felons.
Ken: Alright, last question. Do you believe that you can win, the presidency if A) enough caring people give what they can give and B) if enough put forth the effort to inform others by using the Internet to spread information about your campaign in spite of the elite-owned-and-operated main stream media censoring you?
Senator Gravel: One of the things that I don’t understand, and I don’t think anybody else does, is what is really going on in this election.
First off, we don’t know the impact of these unbelievable sums of money that Obama and Hillary are raising. You know, we all know that money is the corrupting agent of politics and yet mainstream media has anointed those who should be president because they’ve raised the most money. Well, that must mean that they’re the most corrupt, because they’ve raised the most money.
Will I get elected? All I know is that on the Internet I’m very, very highly thought of. Will the American people be able to push aside the control of the media to make a decision on a person who’s not known, who calculatingly the American media shuns aside? I don’t know. All I know is that in the two or three blind polls that have been taken, I come out way, way ahead of everybody else. What it means is that if my particular positions are identical to what the American people want to see enacted into law... Now, if my positions are what the American people want, then obviously there’s a dislocation between what the people know of my positions and me. And so, if that can be overcome, I’d become President of the United States.
Can that be overcome? I don’t know. All I know is that there’s a year between now and the election and will that be overcome during that period of time? I don’t know. I think the media’s gone crazy over what’s happening in Iowa and New Hampshire and all the others and all the money being spent and all the charges. This is all going to settle down and then the American people are going to begin to focus on what’s been happening. And we may be headed for a perfect storm, a war, the economy in the tubes and the people totally dissatisfied with the Democratic Party which now controls the Congress, total dissatisfaction with the Republican Party... All of this is coming to bear on a decision by the American people in ’08.
’08 may be the tipping-point for the future of this country. I think it will be. And will the American people step forward and choose a person who is “not politics as usual,” who is a person who wants to empower you,you to be able to make laws and decide the policy and decisions? That’s the position I have and will that permit me to become President of the United States? I want to be not your Commander in Chief, not your president, I want to be your legislative leader. You’re the ones that are going to be able to enact the laws that are going to affect your future.
Ken: Do you want to explain a little about your National Initiative, just because I didn’t cover that?
Senator Gravel: Well, what... What I’m talking about when I talk about the lawmaking... I drafted legislation called the National Initiative. It sets up the procedures. It’s a Constitutional Amendment, and it has procedures that the American people can vote for. It’ll take 60-million Americans to enact it into law. It goes entirely around the government, and so when roughly around 60-million Americans have voted for this, it becomes the law of the land and that means that Americans will be able to enact and vote on laws in every government jurisdiction in the United States.
This is very significant. This is changing the paradigm of human governance. We do that here in the United States, it will go around the world like wildfire. And it will mean... because I have unreserved faith in the majority of the people to make a better decision than their elected leaders who are a very distinct minority. We are ruled by a minority in our society and that’s what has to change, and what can change it is going to be the National Initiative for Democracy.
Ken: Great. Thank you very much, Senator.
Senator Gravel: Thank you for having me. OK!
Ken: All right.
After our interview was over, Senator Gravel, who had been suffering with a cold and thus had already left as I was packing up my camera equipment and so forth, one of his campaign workers brought my attention to a video then posted at, http://youtube.com, in which someone had run into Howard Dean as he was headed toward the Democratic debate and was able to video his question to Dr. Dean about Mike Gravel’s exclusion from the night’s event. As I recall, Dr. Dean indicated that although others had eliminated Gravel from the debate, he and others within the Democratic Party supported them in regard to their censorship of Gravel.
I was later told by someone else involved with the campaign that the video had been later taken down because it had been entered in a contest. I’m wondering what contest was more important than arguably the very fate of our world. These elections result in life and death for many, and major influence over everyone’s lives. Dr. Dean, as a physician, should be aware that all options should be on the table before making life and death decisions, not just on an individual basis but likewise for the masses. Though Stalin stated: “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic,” that’s only because of far too many people not taking life seriously at the grandest of levels. As Hitler admitted: “What luck for the rulers that men do not think.” He wasn’t referring to things of moderate interest, and he wasn’t only referring to himself. Surely we cannot evolve as a species with such primitive behavior as the norm, as it is. We either fund policies with our tax dollars that knowingly murder, maim and torture other innocent human beings or we don’t. There’s no middle of the road here.
So, though Senator Gravel gave no evidence for his stated suspicion that Howard Dean was likewise involved somehow in his censoring, unlike GE and MSNBC where he did have the evidence, it’s likely he was aware of the above-mentioned footage in his implication of Dean amongst the self-appointed gatekeeper conspirators.
Below is an official statement that Professor Noam Chomsky e-mailed me regarding Mike Gravel’s campaign on January 05, 2008:
“Alone among members of Congress, Senator Mike Gravel had the courage to take a stand that not only helped bring the atrocious Indochina wars to an end, but also made a great contribution to breaking the wall of secrecy that governments erect to protect themselves from their own citizens. I am of course referring to his release of the Pentagon Papers, properly called 'the Gravel edition,' which provided the public with a unique opportunity to become educated about affairs of state.
In the years since, Gravel has continued to show the same moral integrity and courage, particularly with regard to war and aggression, the severe threat of nuclear war, the destructive impact of the military-industrial complex on American democracy, and the programs of aggressive militarism that have led even Europeans to rank the U.S. as the greatest threat to world peace, far above Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or other states assigned this role in the U.S. doctrinal system. It may be that these consistent and honorable commitments are responsible for his being largely excluded from the media, even from presidential debates. And the same integrity and courage should be an inspiration for people who care about their country, the fate of its people, and its role in the world.”
– Noam Chomsky
Chapter 17
On the Eve of the New Hampshire Primary
with Professor Noam Chomsky
“However the media, if they were serving a public function,
would not choose to reflect such, to adopt such criterion,
no, they would give fair opening to anyone
who’s running in the race.”
- Noam Chomsky
Above: Professor Noam Chomsky at the conclusion of his one-question interview with
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt, this time representing, http://overcomethemedia.com, on
January 08, 2008, the eve of the New Hampshire Democratic and Republican Primaries.
SINCE I WAS IN THE AREA FOR THE NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY, Noam Chomsky’s assistant, Bev Stohl, was kind enough to squeeze me in to see Noam for 15 minutes between his appointments on January 08, 2008. I took but a few moments to video but one question of Noam as per below:
Dr. Ken Hildebrandt: Hi, I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt of OvercomeTheMedia.com, [I had just purchased that web site name two or three days before, though my wife Elaine found an e-mail in which Professor Chomsky gave me the thumbs-up for the name back in 2005. For whatever reason, I never bought it until 2008.] We’re here with Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT, the world’s most quoted living author, and I’d like to ask Noam a question. Here we are on the day of the New Hampshire primary and once again more reasonable candidates, arguably more reasonable candidates, such as Mike Gravel, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, have been greatly marginalized by the major media, even to a point of eliminating them from public debates. Have you any thoughts regarding this?
Professor Noam Chomsky: What the media are doing is, they have a criterion, like it or not. The criterion is polling data which in turn reflects mostly the amount of money you’ve picked up, which means usually the level of corporate support, and somebody like Mike Gravel is not going to accumulate that kind of financing. However the media, if they were serving a public function would not choose to reflect such, to adopt such criterion, no, they would give fair opening to anyone who’s running in the race.
Ken: Very good. Thanks.
Professor Noam Chomsky: OK
Chapter 18
2010 Skype interview with California Governor Candidate, Laura Wells
Ken - Greetings. I’m Dr. Ken Hildebrandt. We’re here with 2010 California governor candidate Laura Wells who was actually arrested for simply trying to sit in and watch a debate that she should have been a part of. And, let’s not forget that we’ve had two presidents in recent history, Reagan and Bush, Bush II, who were governors before they ended up being President of the United States so how democracy unfolds in the state of California could arguably end up having an impact on our world and certainly our nation.
So tell us Laura, what happened on October 12, 2010.
Laura - Well, October 12 there was a gubernatorial race in… and it was a debate in San Rafel which is just north of San Francisco. And so the two, the only two candidates out of the six candidates that were invited to the debate were the Democrats and the Republicans which I started to call the Titanics because they’re big they seem unsinkable but boy, we better hope for the rest of us that they are sinkable and, I know they are. So, as a Green Party candidate I of course was not to be included in the debate but we were there, outside and, if you’re an individual in the US, what passes for free speech is a barricaded zone, that’s where you can be. Corporations can give all the money they want to elections but they’re, you know, they’re corporate persons. Real persons don’t have the same where-with-all.
So, I was there and some reporters were talking to me and somebody came up and said, "You know you should be in the room at least and I have an extra ticket. As a matter of fact I have two extra tickets. You and your friend can go in." So, the two of us had our tickets, the guard passed us through, we were standing on the staircase, the stairway outside the building where the debate was to be held when suddenly security guards came up and surrounded me, not my friend, they left her completely alone and said, "You don’t belong here. That’s not your ticket. You’re not supposed to be here." And I just thought, you know what, I am supposed to be here. There is no, they said, "You aren’t supposed to be here, you aren’t supposed to be here." That was just dead wrong. And so I stayed and they ended up doing a citizen’s arrest of me, took me to the San Rafel police, put me in metal handcuffs in the back of the squad car. The whole thing about dipping the head and everything to get this dangerous person outside of being in the audience of the debate. So that’s what happened. Then they wrote up the citation, which is perfect, trespassing at a private party. Yes, the party on the Titanic. And set, coincidentally, the court date for November 2nd, Election Day.
So, that was the story.
Ken - Unbelievable! Tell us a couple things, or a few things, that weren’t heard because you weren’t in there. I’d like to start off tying two subjects together because they are kind of intertwined and that’s cannabis and hemp.
Hemp seed oil, or hemp, was actually described in a February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics as a billion dollar crop. They usually didn’t talk billions back in those days. And it’s also only recently been stated that it can supply nearly all of our energy needs. And yet it’s illegal. And then we look at cannabis, which accounts for some 800,000 arrests every year in the United States, which coincidentally is the same, or near the same number of kids who go missing.* So obviously if our resources are being tied up in one area, then those kids aren’t being found. And I mean our priorities are totally messed up. But anyway, what is your take on both cannabis and hemp?
* Correction: It's over 500,000 children who go missing, and some 700,000 people in total in the US.
Laura - Well there was a proposition on the ballot in California in November and so it’s making headway and sooner or later, it will be, it was about the legalization of marijuana and, so what, sooner or later it will get legalized. Now what would be the benefits of that, and I had a BFO, a Blinding Flash of the Obvious a few years back where I realized that the powers that be had to come down that strong on marijuana because you could grow it in your backyard and it could be entirely outside of the consumer/capitalists kind of thing and, industrial hemp would be a source of energy… I mean basically, it grows like a weed. And, it could take the pressure off our forests, you could make so many things out of industrialized hemp, industrial hemp. It’s ridiculous and you know, a sign of the priorities as you were saying that it’s not legal. But I think its day is coming.
Ken - Well, I think if the Green Party candidates get in there hopefully it will happen that much sooner because I mean even with this last proposition in California how many people said, "Look, you know we’re having x amount of kids who are going missing who we’re not finding because we’re going after this other…" You know they just don’t seem to make it real enough and give it that punch. You know, that’s the way I see it anyway.
Laura - …Yeah…
Ken - Moving right along, what about the other big issue that you brought up was that North Dakota has its own bank, its own state bank and they’re the only state who’s not in the red right now. Can you tell us more about that whole issue?
Laura - Right, they started it in 1919 when the farmers got mad in North Dakota. They got mad at the outside bankers. They, the farmers, were doing all the work and the outside bankers were making all the money which is just what’s happening right now. And so now, years and years later North Dakota has a budget surplus and every other state has a budget deficit. So, what would happen…, and one of the good things about individual, one of the Green Party principals is that the global work and the personal work, work together. And people are individually taking their money out of those huge banks and putting them into credit unions and private banks. And that, if we had a state bank in California, would be what the state bank would partner with, the local banks, the credit unions, you know the small, when I said the private banks, I mean the local private banks and, make better loans, with lower interest to homeowners as well as small business owners as well as students and what interest was charged would come back, fold back into investing in California, not Wall Street or Federal Reserve and all of that. We would be, being the eighth largest economy in the world, California, bigger than most other countries, we would have like the equivalent of a central bank. That’s what you have. You take control of your own money supply.
Ken - Wow, that‘s something, the eighth largest economy in the world. I don’t think very many people know that either. You know that’s a very important point. And as Chomsky has brought out that we live entangled in webs of endless deceit in a highly indoctrinated society where elementary truths are easily buried. I hope that at the height of the Information Age we can start bringing the truths about our elections out to the people, to enough people, where we bypass the media and start voting for more reasonable candidates.
Ken - Thank you Laura for being here with us.
Laura - Thank you Ken.
Ken - …and good luck in the future for all of us.
Chapter 19
2012 Interview with Highly Censored Presidential Candidate,
Jill Stein, M.D.
This will be the transcript of,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7SUERLKk0&list=UUkp82XygTyAphmJ4HqABVUQ&index=11
Chapter 20
The Author is recruited to run for Congress himself
immediately following the previous interview with Dr. Stein
Conclusion
Bringing Information to Others
Above: The author with Noam Chomsky, on January 08, 2008
“Pass it on, Pass it on to the young and old.”
- Jimi Hendrix
THINK ABOUT IT: We’re having a civil and international war of no practical value other than serving the ultra-wealthy; thus tax-paying citizens of the United States of America are funding actual mass human suffering and misery, especially of children, imposed upon innocent people both within and beyond our borders, yet this reality is distorted by the media as being something that’s actually esteemed as being legitimate and in the public’s best interests. I am of course referring to the Drug War also known as, the War on Drugs which is really a “War against innocent people’s right to '...Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,' as well as the loved one’s of same, and everyone else by default, by deflecting our law enforcement personnel against real criminals, leaving more at large amongst us.” Plus, we're getting royally scammed in regard to the paying of taxes, subsidizing those who've need of nothing, while royally shafting those who do.
“The most important thing for me and for you is to think about the consequences of your actions. What can you effect? These are the things to keep in mind. These are not just academic exercises. We’re not analyzing the media on Mars or in the eighteenth century or something like that. We’re dealing with real human beings who are suffering and dying and being tortured and starving because of policies that we are involved in.”
- Noam Chomsky
If we were to have stonings, would people object to purchasing the stones? If people had a neighborhood meeting, would most object to far less than one percent hogging the pie? Are we not all funding the caging of our own away from their families, oftentimes under extremely violent and torturous conditions en masse for no legitimate reason or not? Are these real people or not? Do our tax dollars directly fund this horror or not?
None of this is rocket science. How can we justify putting someone in a cage for what they choose to do with their life when we’re supposed to live in the Land of the Free, especially when substances like alcohol, which make one suffer losses of inhibitions and muscle control, and nicotine, which is arguably one of, if not the most addicting substance known to humankind, are perfectly legal and their consumption is even encouraged, especially in relation to alcohol? These substances together account for hundreds of thousands of horrible U.S. deaths per year, yet instead of trying to lessen these numbers we instead spend billions inflicting pain on innocent people.
The rulers’ luck? I’d say... though it’s both the rulers and their puppeteers who benefit from this unnecessary horror that comes at children’s expense primarily, all to support the gluttony and cowardice of a disproportionate few. Is this not shameful beyond words? Is this not the height of the Information Age, when we can get any information we want practically in seconds, including information about presidential, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates? So then why do we continue to vote for people whose policies are endangering all humankind just to benefit a disproportionate minority of inhumane compassionless people who’ve need of nothing and want of much?
They didn’t have the Internet and free elections in Hume’s day. We do. What’s our excuse for losing to a disproportionate minority of horrible people at such a grand expense to all? Isn’t that something to think about? Is it not time we take control of our situation?
Ignorance is our block. Knowledge is our answer. Please tell others about what's going on. We're all in this together. If enough try to lift the log that needs lifting we'll do it, thereby taking a major step toward the preservation and advancement of humankind, or humans will be no longer, in a very short time. That's what the evidence clearly shows. It’s up to us to inform or die as a species, whilst torturing our own along the way, too, of course. Will a disproportionate few continue to misguide most at the likely expense of survival as we know it, or not?
“Surely we have a responsibility to leave for future generations
a planet that is healthy (and) inhabitable by all species.”
- David Attenborough
“We gotta stand side by side.
We gotta stand together and organize.”
- Jimi Hendrix
“But real success can only come if there’s a change in our
societies, in our economics, and in our politics.”
- David Attenborough
A disproportionate few are misguiding most at the very risk of the continued survival of our species within this century. That’s been established. Is it not time to “...bring it to others?” Cannot the people examine the candidates’ platforms and tell others about how insane it is to vote according to murderous elite’s fictionalized reality? Expecting the media, i.e., the enemy, to do this for us is the height of folly, is it not? Are they not the very censors whose censorship knowingly results in mass suffering, misery and death, and that’s the very reason they censor the more reasonable candidates? Do murderers rehabilitate on their own? Why would you trust a proven mass murderer, or sponsor of same? Can you not examine the candidates’ platforms and see for yourself where they stand, whether for more murderers, pedophiles, rapists and thieves or not, torturing innocent people or not, and then vote your conscience?
The oppressed outnumber the oppressors by far, as brought up by Hume centuries ago, and your sharing with others some basics the media hide might be the key to success in a bout we don’t know which way is going to go. You can tell as many people as you want what’s going on and request they do likewise, and you could very well be the determining key as to whether human beings make it on this planet or not. Can either of us truthfully claim otherwise? Is it any exaggeration the very survival of humankind is at stake?*
* Please recall the study submitted to the U.N. in 2002 cited in the Introduction, Planet’s Future At Stake, U.N. Report Says, available at, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0523-01.htm.
“I think one should be very optimistic... The large majority
of the population already agrees with the things
activists are committed to. All we have to do is
organize people who are convinced.”
- Professor Noam Chomsky -
(For above quote confirmation, please see the last paragraph of,
World in Peril, Chomsky Tells Overflow Crowd, posted at,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0306-07.htm).
“What can be done? Here are a few thoughts.
The time has come to stop locking up people for mere
possession and use of marijuana.”
- US Senator Jim Webb
from, A TIME TO FIGHT,
Chapter 13: A CRIMINAL INJUSTICE, page 229
(Note: If Barack Obama really wanted national change,
wouldn’t he have picked someone like Webb, over someone
responsible for helping to establish national minimum sentencing guidelines?)
WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, and the only way things will get better is if we bring to others some of what the media hide, and vote accordingly. The media sure won’t do it for us. I’d rather vote for someone with a more reasonable platform than an outwardly seemingly reasonable person who supports mass suffering, misery, death and inefficiency, who advertised more, and I wouldn’t take any of the enemy’s polls seriously either. Either we’ll be casting our votes for more of the same, as per the normal self-destructive way, or we’ll finally vote in favor of ourselves and others. I’d rather try than not try, and fight than not fight, and work than not work. If enough others make an attempt we’ll all reach our goal; otherwise we won’t. How can anyone just take it without a struggle once they know?
Will we remain entangled in webs of “endless deceit,” or will enough tell others how the media have been fictionalizing reality at the expense of humankind?
Should we not at least try to overcome the media who are destroying all of us? That’s for each to decide for oneself, taking into account that this simplistic scam comes at children’s expense primarily. What will you say to them if given the chance down the road when asked if you’d been informed? What if we only missed by a little?
I don’t know which way the scale is going to tip. No one does. All I know is that if I try, it’ll give us that much more of a chance, the same as if you try it’ll likewise give us that much more of a chance. We are all in this together, and only with a cooperative effort will any of us get anywhere.
We'll let Dr. Edgar Mitchell sum up just where we stand.
Dr. Edgar Mitchell, pictured below,
one of twelve human beings who's walked on the moon,
stated on April 19, 2008:
“We’re at a tipping point..., and it’s not clear which way it’s going to go,
but WE are the ones that are going to determine which way it’s going to go,
and it's up to us.”
“When people who have been honestly deceived learn the truth,
they either quit being deceived or quit being honest.”
- Unknown