Is mass media used to manipulate the public? Yes, undoubtedly so. Examples to illustrate this are so numerous and backed up by intellectuals like Noam Chomsky , Norman Solomon , and those that actively engaged in this manipulation, like Edward Bernays , that this fact is not a
The Illuminati were amateurs. The second huge financial scandal of the year reveals the real international conspiracy: There's no price the big banks can't fix C onspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic...
Alex Jones must be either getting lazy or think his readers are really dumb, because his grand theory about the Boston Marathon bombings is the sloppiest concocted narrative we’ve seen since that dog ate your homework. Of course, Jones and his comrades at InfoWars thinks the brothers suspected in the bombing are innocent, citing such reliable sources as Twitter user...
There was a time in the distant past — call it the late 2000s — when infographics seemed like a good idea. You can pack all kinds of info into a visually appealing file that’s easy to share! What could go wrong? What could go wrong is that infographics became the No. 1 answer of every middle-aged person in a meeting discussing how to get their organization exposure and...
People are waking up. They're getting involved. They're saying, "Not another day! This is where I mark the line." Their desire to change the world is turning from simple wishful thinking on Monday mornings into tangible action. The thoughts they used to have only occasionally about their relationship to the rest of the world now occurs to them all the time. They're...
Part 1: The River of Vision “Teacher seeks pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” So begins the novel Ishmael , published in 1992 by Daniel Quinn, now residing in Houston. Through the course of more than a dozen books and countless speeches and essays, Daniel Quinn has served as a strong and poetic guide for the human journey. Whether...
The way The Telegraph and some other media houses in Kolkata are manipulating the public opinion on behalf of the big pocketed lobbyists, it's becoming more obvious than ever. When someone speaks of media manipulation, they can mean both manipulation by the media and manipulation OF the media (by business lobbies/politicians/self-serving interest groups etc.) Manipulation of the media does...
Over the last 7 years, Films For Action has been cataloging an online library of the best social change films that can be watched free online. Opting for quality over quantity, the site has grown slowly to include 500 documentaries and 900 short films, trailers and presentations indexed into 40 subjects to make it easy to discover content about specific slices of the social change pie...
The "Islamic terrorism" that is an excuse for the enduring theft of Africa's vast store of minerals was all but invented by US, Pakistani and British intelligence agencies, which created the mujahedin of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan...
If YouTube was a race, gold would go to South Korea with Psy’s ‘ Gangnam Style ’ easily topping one billion hits, while silver would go to North Korea for it's documentary ‘ Propaganda ’ currently sitting at 1.3 million hits. This hard hitting expose on capitalist public relations techniques takes a pot shot at almost every aspect of the Western system and...
"What is keeping us from thriving?" asks the new movie, Thrive . The answer it gives is "the global elite," the people who control the financial system that in turn controls everything else. Operating through the power institutions of our society, this elite pursues a conscious agenda of total world dominance, purposely suppressing anything that would disrupt their power: from clean energy...
This article proposes issuing Hour-denominated currency nationwide, to stimulate creative and ecological economies, make grants to community groups, and make interest-free loans. Twenty years ago I started printing money. Soon after, residents of Ithaca, New York, began exchanging colorful cash featuring children, waterfalls, trollies and bugs. Since then, millions of dollars worth of...
Many of you have visited the Films For Action website and asked us why we have not posted any Alex Jones documentaries or included Infowars, Prision Planet, Natural News or other like-minded sites on our list of recommended independent media. Unfortunately, we feel it would be irresponsible to promote Alex Jones, his websites, or any of his films. His films were always overly sensational...
As a conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government. The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government—which replaces sovereign nation-states—and an...
Looking out upon the horrid ruin we seem to have made of the planet, in spite of the kind hearts and good intentions of the vast majority of human beings, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some nefarious force has hijacked civilization, driving it towards ends that serve almost no one. If we are headed for a future that no one would consciously choose, it stands to reason, some say...
Interest charges are a strongly regressive tax that the poor pay to the rich. A public banking system could realize savings up to 40 percent - allowing taxes to be cut, services increased and market stability created - with banks feeding the economy rather than feeding off it. In the 2012 edition of Occupy Money released last week, Professor Margrit Kennedy writes that a stunning 35...
Progressive hero Daniel Ellsberg wrote a statement, published on numerous sites, urging Obama-disaffected left/liberal/progressives who live in swing states to vote for Obama's reelection. He declares it "urgently important" for Romney to be defeated. Despite this plea, Ellsberg takes offense at being seen as "supporting Obama.” “I lose no opportunity publicly,&rdquo...
Thrive is the name of a controversial film that asks, and attempts to answer, some of the deepest questions about the nature of the human condition and what is thwarting our chances to prosper. Lavishly funded, it features appealing imagery, beautiful music, and interviews with many leading progressives, including myself. Yet ten of us have signed a statement formally disassociating ourselves...
Excerpt from the book, “The Story of B” Systems thinkers have given us a useful metaphor for a certain kind of human behavior in the phenomenon of the boiled frog. The phenomenon is this. If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber Out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float...
Address given at EnvironDesign 3, Baltimore, MD, April 30, 1999. Editor's note: Even though this essay is over 10 years old, it's as relevant today as ever, especially considering the mass shootings that became a tragic outlet for wounded human beings has only increased as the years go on. We need to start solving for causes rather than effects if we ever want to see this end. - Ed...
Take a look at this info-graphic. And then this one . The disparity is absurd. Though personally I don't think raising the minimum wage is the solution, as it doesn't get anywhere close to solving the root problem.
Film offers us a powerful tool to shift awareness and inspire action. By hosting community film screenings and sharing them online, they offer a method to break our dependence on the mainstream media and become the media ourselves. We don't need to wait for anyone or anything. Just imagine what could become possible if an entire city had seen just one of the documentaries below. Just imagine...
Tuesday marks the four-month anniversary of the Occupy movement. Perhaps it’s time to ask the question: Is it working? In four months, has progress been made toward realizing the movement’s goals? As much as I would like to be able to answer with an emphatic “yes,” reality is much less encouraging for Occupiers, who haven’t been able to maintain a consistent...
As I’ve written about before , America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts...
2011 will likely be remembered in America as the year that the nation's youth finally started to wake up - all that bubbling knowledge of the world's problems, all the discontent and disillusion with our broken system finally burst into a flurry of creative action. Our understandings of the deep, structural flaws in our economy, politics and culture reached new heights of collective awareness...
One of the most entertaining yet unsurprising aspects of Occupy Wall St has been the response from traditional media. Whether intentionally playing dumb or genuinely clueless, the mainstream media has failed to inform the public and substantially address the key issues. But why did tens of thousands of people risk arrest all over the world to set up encampments and protest the status quo?...
Over the last six months of researching for my work-in-progress documentary about the pitfalls of American higher education, The Elephant on Campus , there have been many problems I have come across. One of the biggest and least talked about problems is that public universities are totally opaque when it comes to the way they receive and spend money, especially tuition money. No one outside...
Something is wrong, and the signs of it are everywhere. Somebody flies a plane into an IRS tax office in Texas, and millions of people around the country cheer, while the media speak of a “senseless attack.” In a black neighborhood in the slums of Hartford, someone opens fire on a SWAT team that has busted down their door, and people in the gathered crowd of neighbors whisper...
The last refuge of Obamaphiles is that no matter how many times the First Black President double-crosses us by cutting Medicare and Medicaid, no matter how completely be betrays his voters by ignoring black unem ployment, by deporting one million Latinos, by protecting the banksters responsible for the foreclosure crisis and by invading, bombing, occupying and subverting even more countries...
While the Rupert Murdoch scandal is justifiably front-page news, there is a much wider problem with the mainstream media. Purchasing Reporters Famed Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein says the CIA has already bought and paid for many successful journalists . A CIA operative allegedly told Washington Post editor Philip Graham ... in a conversation about the willingness of jou
“This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest,” Gore Vidal said of Ayn Rand, writing for Esquire in July 1961, “and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the ‘freedom is slavery’ sort.” The mindset of Rand’s followers has not changed over the decades. “She has a...
“Change the Media, Change the World” was the theme at the National Conference for Media Reform in Boston last weekend. But if it didn’t sound like a self-help book from the bargain bin, we could have added “Change Yourself.” Because we all walked away a little changed, didn’t we? So much of the work we do to change the media happens online, or in our own...
The ongoing economic crisis that began with the unraveling of wildly inflated real estate prices and the Wall Street derivatives bubble in 2007 and the crash into near depression in October of 2008 resulted in trillions of dollars of public bail out money for banks and other institutions around the world. Other banks and businesses collapsed or went bankrupt and many individuals lost their...
I think now is a good time to be talking about Bucky’s vision of a World Game. We have the technology to do this and a new administration could easily provide the funding. I don’t think any of this material is Utopian or far out, but if you do, let me know why. From the introduction to a World Game activity book: “Now, for the first time in the history of man, all...
Here is the first issue of Gonzo Times for Print. We ask that you print not only one for yourself but others to distribute in your area. Coffee Shops, Libraries, Campuses, Book Stores and Community Centers may be some places you can do this. This publication thrives on Mutual Aid so it needs your support. Small Independent press you can partake in.
PART ONE Closing In on the Problem I heard this, naturally, from my grandfather, he from his grandfather, he from his own grandfather, and so on, back many hundreds of years. That means this tale is very old. But it won't disappear, because I offer it to my children, and my children will tell it to their children, and so on. GYPSY STORYTELLER LAZAROS HARISIADIS, QUOTED BY DIANE TONG...
Lawrence, KS -- After 12 months in development, Films For Action has launched its new website - a head-to-toe redesign that lays the foundation for a vibrant community-powered news site dedicated to inspiring positive social change. At the heart of the new site is a constantly growing learning library of over 200 documentaries and 500 short films that can be watched free online, daily...
Over the past century, our cities have been shaped — literally — for the benefit of the automobile and oil industries. Today, with global oil reserves headed toward irreversible decline, we need to face the challenges of the imminent post-oil reality. Seizing foreign oil fields (then “spinning” the story to make a prophet of Orwell) will not solve our environmental...
This is an audio podcast of clips relating to Wikileaks. Act 1: The campaign to ruin Julian Assange – The Progressive Song 1: And So It Goes – The Essential Billy Joel Act 2: Assange released from jail – The Bugle Song 2:
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail. Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and...
Preamble We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common...
The Bottleneck. The Great Disruption. Peak Everything. The Great Turning. Whatever you call it, it's the big enchilada. In the words of filmmaker Tom Shadyac, "The shift is hitting the fan." We're experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation. This awkward 'tween state marks the end of pre-history - the sunset of an ecologically illiterate civilization. Like a baby being born, a...