Affluenza: Adulthood (Part 2)

Our final installment in the Affluenza series.  On this weeks show we finish taking a look at the history of Affluenza [Defined by Wikipedia as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more"].  We start with the explosion of TV in the post-WWII economy and work our way thru the introduction of credit cards, presidential campaigns that employ advertisers (1952), the philosophy of retail shopping, the hippie movement, Jimmy Carter's stunning anti-consumerism speech, the deregulation of the Reagan era and how Microsoft convinced millions of consumers to install active cameras and microphones in living rooms across the country. [Click to Listen]

Affluenza: Adulthood (Part 1)

So, our part II of this series turned out to run so long that we broke it up into two parts.  On this weeks show we take a look at the history of Affluenza [Defined by Wikipedia as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more"], starting in 1870 with the appearance of the first luxury department stores and end with the madness of the post-WWII economic boom.  Are we, as human beings, natural consumers or have we just been programmed to be obedient shopping slaves?  Trick question; it's the latter. [Click to Listen]

Affluenza: Children

In part I of a two part series, we take a look at the disease know as "affluenza".  Defined by Wikipedia affluenza is "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more".  On this episode, we take a look at the way affluenza harms the youngest among us - children.  Before they can form a coherent thought or utter a coherent word, advertisers (working with child psychologists) try their hardest to get inside children's heads and make them mindless consumers for life.  [Click to Listen]

Black Friday Buying Options

Consumers in the United States just spent nearly 60 billion dollars (mostly with credit cards) over the Black Friday weekend on products made with slave labor (in countries with little to no environmental regulations) that will eventually fill up landfills and ruin this planet a little faster.  What else could we have spent that money on? [Click to Listen]

How to Manufacture News Stories (Rebroadcast)

This episode was released on March 16th, 2013:
In November of 2012, the University of California at Irvine and Slate.com teamed up to conduct and then publish the findings of a very telling social experiment...how do we (human beings) remember news stories?  Over 5,000 people participated in the study and the results provide quite an insight as to how news stories can be manufactured, presented and accepted as true. [Click to Listen]

What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)

Activist Cinema Episode 6 - What Would Jesus Buy? (2007) is a documentary that follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping on their North American tour in the month leading up to Christmas 2005.  As we head into the capitalist orgy of Black Friday and the holiday shopping season, this film works as a great antidote to the consumer frenzy that is about to be unleashed.  Also, it is available free on YouTube (as of this posting).  Rev. Billy and Nehemiah are both currently (11.24.13) facing a year in prison.  Please follow this link to sign a petition for their charges to be dropped. [Click to Listen]

Activist Music - Hip Hop

As a tangent series to the Activist Cinema episodes we've been doing for a few months, here is short playlist of fantastic Activist Music - The Hip Hop Edition.

Introduction - Boots Riley (The Coup)
Public Enemy - Fight the Power
LMFAO - Shots
The Coup - Laugh, Love, Fuck
Tha Truth - Power to the People
Dead Prez - Police State
Immortal Technique - Rich Man's World
Street Sweeper Social Club - Fight Smash Win

[Click to Listen]

Kill Your TV

On the heels of our 5 part series on the Corporate Media, we tryout the Zen TV Experiment.  Instead of passively watching TV, try this:
-Watch 15 minutes of a scripted sitcom without the sound.
-Watch 15 minutes of a news program without the sound.
-Watch the TV for 30 minutes while it is turned off.
It only takes 1 hour and we promise, it will be a more memorable 1 hour than anything on the TV you would normally be watching.  The places your mind will go and the thoughts you will come up with in that 30 minute period may just surprise you. [Click to Listen]

Corporate Media (Part 5)

We have come to the end (for now) of our Corporate Media series.  On this episode we take a look at several examples of the corporate/government hijacking of the public airwaves that have been exposed.  After that...the numbers don't lie!  Alternative media outlets are growing in numbers and listeners.  We examine the Pew Research Centers 2013 State of the Media report and the many reasons it gives us to celebrate.  Mainly the low, low, low viewership of the Corporate Media's flagship "news programs". [Click to Listen]

Corporate Media (Part 4)

This week, in our continuing series taking a look at the multiple corporate and government influences on our media, we focus on public relations firms.  In this episode we focus on Ketchum, Qorvis and Edelman and their use of video news releases, sponsored content, native ads and paid content slipped right into news programs. [Click to Listen]

Corporate Media (Part 3)

In part three of our Corporate Media series we take a look at the known influence of the CIA's Operation Mockingbird on the media.  The New York Times, Time/Life, CBS, NBC, Newsweek, the AP, UPI, Reuters and even all the way down the publishing hierarchy to The Louisville Courier-Journal were actively working with the CIA.  And just when you thought it was safe to say that all of this CIA influence of the corporate media was in the past, we have the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (NDAA) which allows the use of government produced propaganda on the US public (previously made illegal-at least on paper-by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948). [Click to Listen]

Corporate Media (Part 2)

After World War II, the proven power of propaganda and the TV boom coincided so beautifully that the CIA invented an infrastructure to exploit/manipulate/guide/control the media, and by extension the public.  And Operation Mockingbird is just one program that we know about.  From just one of the government agencies who are spying on us all.  Who knows what craziness lurks in the classified archives at the National Clandestine Service offices? [Click to Listen]

Corporate Media (Part 1)

In the first part of our Corporate Media series we take a quick look at the history of US government's attempts to regulate (and eventually deregulate)the media over the past hundred years.  What is the end result of all of these bills and laws that have been passed?  The greatest consolidation of corporate media power (also known as: propaganda) the world has ever seen. [Click to Listen]

Network (1976)

Activist Cinema Episode 5 - Network (1976) is simply one of the best American films.  Period.  It also happens to be a satire that ended up being so prophetic that the satire has fallen away in the decades since it was initially produced.  Giant, international corporations buying up the TV airwaves and forcing the News Divisions to turn a profit by mixing in more and more entertainment at the expense of the public service they were originally intended to serve.  Sound familiar to anyone?  This film predicted media consolidation, the rise of reality TV, corrupt news broadcasts and so much more. [Click to Listen]

Economic Collapse II: The Sequel

Five years after the 2008 economic collapse, how are we as a civilization doing?  All of those new Wall Street regulations are keeping the banks in line.  All of the 'too big to fail' banks have been broken up.  Community banking has taken over as the dominant banking system.  The nationwide moratorium on home foreclosures kept millions of families off the streets.  The SEC has been bringing law suits of major banks and investment firms by the hundreds to the court system.  Bankers have been going to jail in record numbers and paying appropriately high fines for their criminal acts.  It's exactly the world that President Hope and Change promised the voters five years ago. [Click to Listen]

Occupy Wall Street Year Two

It's been a long, long two years since OWS started up in the heart of the financial district in NYC. The ripple effects of this movement are too diverse and too numbered to fully catalog in a short podcast.  Instead we take a look at the arithmetic of protests attendance.  The corporate media dismisses protests and movements (like the coverage of OWS Year One) when they say the numbers are too low, but what do these numbers actually represent?  At what point are the assemble more powerful than the elected?  This episode ends with a reading of the Declaration of Occupation. [Click to Listen]

The Shadow of the Past Holds the Future Hostage

On this anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks, we take a look at the events of the day from a different point of view.  The wonderful folks over at CrimethInc have a poster titled "The Shadow of the Past Holds the Future Hostage".  This is a "Story Time with Mic Check Radio" episode where we read this thought provoking analysis in full. [Click to Listen]

Climate Change Apocalypse

This is it!  The one and only episode where we take a look at the climate change "debate".  It's caused by humans, it's not caused by humans, it's getting hotter, it's getting colder...it's enough to keep us humans busy yelling at each other and not addressing the facts behind all of these accusations.  Earth's climate is changing and it doesn't care if humans survive.  So start prepping people!  The governments of the world aren't going to help. [Click to Listen]

The Future of Drones

Who says that drones have to fly thru the air?  Why not float?  Why not drive?  Why not walk?  Or better yet run!  Or how about little tiny drones the size of a cricket?  Maybe we could put a small camera and microphone on one?  Maybe put some weapons on another?  The possibilities are nearly endless...what will this police state look like in 10 years? [Click to Listen]

How to Survive a Plague (2012)

Activist Cinema Episode 4 - How to Survive a Plague (2012) is a time capsule documentary that uses archival footage and interviews to take the viewer back to the late 1980's and early 1990's when ACT UP took to the streets (including Wall Street) to protest the insanely slow response from the Government, pharmaceutical companies and the medical community to the AIDS/HIV epidemic. [Click to Listen]

The Manipulation of Our Fear

Way back in 1987 a government funded study, Perception of Risk, was published in the journal Science.  While the study is officially a look at how the general public evaluates and perceives risk, it also reads as a manual for the manipulation of the public's fear and the unrealistic desire to live in a "zero risk society". [Click to Listen]

Reasons to Not Protest

Mickey Z has written a fine column over at World News Trust in which he asks “With the stakes never higher than they are now, why aren't activists ramping up the pressure and looking beyond tactics that are allowed by those in power?”.  He answers that question with 5 fantastic observations about protests in the United States. [Click to Listen]

We Are Being Monitored (Rebroadcast)

This episode was released on January 25th, 2013:
In December 2012 the FBI confirmed what longtime activists knew, that the corporate state and the intelligence community are in bed together.  Now it is time to take a look at who is doing the domestic spying on not just OWS , but activists and citizens all over this country.  An article over at Defense News and a video report from This Week in Defense News reveal that the CIA has its own venture capital firm (In-Q-Tel) to get in with social media companies and Twitter sells a product call "the full Twitter firehose" to the intelligence community and to private multinational companies.  What does the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, OICI, I&A, INR, INSCOM, Boeing, Northrop Grummand, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin do with all this information? [Click to Listen]

Femen

In this episode we take a look at FEMEN, a feminist activist group that started in Kiev, Ukraine and has made headlines throughout the world. [Click to Listen]

Ice Climbing The Shard

1 Skyscraper. 6 Women. No permission.  What would you do to save the Arctic? [Click to Listen]

The Most Dangerous Man in America (2009)

Activist Cinema Episode 3 - The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) is a documentary told in Mr. Ellsberg's own words that traces the events leading up to and after the release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. [Click to Listen]

Activism in the Wings (Part 2)

In part 2 (of 2), we take a look at activist groups that have a "left-wing" political ideology.  In doing so we also take a look at how the corporate media portrays the political ideology of activist groups in the so called "wings" and what catalyzing events push those groups to take direct action (both violent and non-violent) against their declared enemies. [Click to Listen]

Activism in the Wings (Part 1)

In part 1 (of 2), we take a look at activist groups that have a "right-wing" political ideology.  In doing so we also take a look at how the corporate media portrays the political ideology of activist groups in the so called "wings" and what catalyzing events push those groups to take direct action (both violent and non-violent) against their declared enemies. [Click to Listen]

Stop G8 and the Carnival Against Capitalism

As this years G8 (Gang of 8) meeting takes place in Northern Ireland, we take a look at the Stop G8 network and the Carnival Against Capitalism that has been organized in London's West End. [Click to Listen]

The Miami Model (2003)

Activists Cinema Episode 2 - The Miami Model (2003) is a documentary about the community resistance to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas meeting in Miami in 2003 and the massive and brutal police response. [Click to Listen]

National Identity Crisis

On this episode we take a look at what it means to have a national identity.  Is national pride even a logical emotion to have?  And, why stop at national pride?  Why not planet pride?  Where should we drawn the line for having pride in where you are from...or should there even be a line? [Click to Listen]

FBI Creates Terrorists

In a follow up the the What is Terrorism? episode from two weeks ago, we take a look at several cases where the FBI found, coached, armed and then arrested "terrorists".  [Click to Listen]

Top Corporate Tax Dodgers for 2012

On this episode we take a look at the top Corporate tax dodgers for the year 2012.  Just let your jaw hang open starting now. [Click to Listen]

What is Terrorism?

Four recent news stories present wildly different definitions of terrorism.  Assata Shakur becomes the first woman on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list (after almost 30 years in exile) - the Boston Marathon Bombings and the ensuing terrorizing of the local population - two bills going thru the Oregon Senate that seek to redefine Eco terrorism - the recent Ag Gag bills turn a woman with a camera in a public place into a potential terrorist. [Click to Listen]

Activist Cinema 1

The inaugural episode of a new series here at Mic Check Radio that focuses on the political, social and educational value of different films from throughout the 100+ years of the medium.  This episode focuses on THE political propaganda film of all time (so far) and the contradictions it causes by watching the film within today's political environment. [Click to Listen]

Corporations Are Psychopaths

If Corporations are people, then what kind of a person are they?  On this episode we take a look at the Exxon Mobile Pipeline 'Pegasus' that burst in Arkansas at the end of March.  How did this "person" know as Exxon Mobile deal with the situation? [Click to Listen]

The Powell Memo

In August of 1971, Lewis F. Powell Jr. was about to be sworn in as an Associate Supreme Court Justice after previously turning down the same offer from President Nixon in 1969.  Before being sworn in, he wrote a memo entitled, "Attack on American Free Enterprise System" (to become known as 'The Powell Memo') to Eugene B. Syndor Jr. at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  The memo called upon Corporate America to aggressively shape politics, media, education and the court system of this country.  Over 40 years later, almost everything Powell wrote about has happened. [Click to Listen]

C.I.P. Exposed! (Center for Industrial Progress)

In another attempt at knowing what the opposition is up to, we spy on a key advocate for the Keystone XL Pipeline -  The Center for Industrial Progress.  By spying, it means we play some audio selections from their YouTube channel.  And then yell into a microphone. [Click to Listen]

Anti Civ vs. Center for Industrial Progress

In the debate about the Keystone XL Pipeline there are the voices of reason (the activists) and insanity (the corporate shills).  In this episode we take a look at the philosophies of two groups who represent these two sides; Anarcho-Primitivism and and the Center for Industrial Progress. [Click to Listen]

How to Manufacture News Stories

In November of 2012, the University of California at Irvine and Slate.com teamed up to conduct and then publish the findings of a very telling social experiment...how do we (human beings) remember news stories?  Over 5,000 people participated in the study and the results provide quite an insight as to how news stories can be manufactured, presented and accepted as true. [Click to Listen]

Supreme Court Approves of Spying

A quick recap/wrap-up of some recent episodes about the Corporate Police State, the Intelligence Community and the surveillance state in general.  Plus, the Supreme Court rules in favor of spying on US citizens without their knowledge. [Click to Listen]

CoIntelPro Tactics

Rebroadcast: A look at the tactics used by the FBI's COunter INTELligence PROgram (COINTELPRO) against activist groups in the United States (with some readings from Dan Berger's book: Outlaws in America).  The program officially ended in 1971, but the tactics are clearly still being practiced today against Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement in general. [Click to Listen]

The Coming Cyber War

Continuing down the Corporate Security State rabbit hole of public information, we take a look at some on the record statements from both government officials and private security contractors.  This week we check in with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Booz Allen Hamilton Vice Chairman (and former head of the NSA) Mick McConnell.  They both say the Cyber War is coming any day. [Click to Listen]

The Flow of Information

From push notifications, corporate news channel tickers, billboards, newspaper headlines, blog titles, Facebook updates and twitter posts - the depth of our information diet is getting smaller and less diverse.  In this episode we take a look at alternative ways to expand the mind with in depth information.  From concerts and films to just plain old up all night passionate conversations with friends and family, there is no need to limit ourselves when it comes to the amount and type of information we are putting in our brains. [Click to Listen]

OWS and Libraries

The Peoples Library was started within days of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park.  As OWS spread throughout the country and the world, so did the ideas of the Peoples Library, with most encampments hosting a version of this free access to information.  In this episode we take a look at how a traditional library (the San Diego County Library) teamed up with Housing Opportunities Collaborative to offer free foreclosure clinics, one of the central focal points of the Occupy Movement.

We Are Being Monitored

In December 2012 the FBI confirmed what longtime activists knew, that the corporate state and the intelligence community are in bed together.  Now it is time to take a look at who is doing the domestic spying on not just OWS , but activists and citizens all over this country.  An article over at Defense News and a video report from This Week in Defense News reveal that the CIA has its own venture capital firm (In-Q-Tel) to get in with social media companies and Twitter sells a product call "the full Twitter firehose" to the intelligence community and to private multinational companies.  What does the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, OICI, I&A, INR, INSCOM, Boeing, Northrop Grummand, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin do with all this information? [Click to Listen]

MLK Beyond Vietnam

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his "I Have a Dream" speech, but his "Beyond Vietnam" speech from April 4th, 1967 is my personal favorite.  He was killed exactly a year to the day after delivering this speech. [Click to Listen]

The Corporate Police State

Just before Christmas, the FBI finally granted a Freedom of Information Act request by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund on the role of the FBI in monitoring, infiltrating and spying on Occupy Wall Street protests.  Although heavily redacted, there are some interesting pieces of information contained in the documents.  Among them, the role of the Domestic Security Alliance Council, a group started by the FBI that "facilitates information sharing and cooperation between the FBI and over 200 of the largest American companies, which altogether account for over one third of the gross domestic product of the United States".  Yes, corporations are working hand in hand with the police state. [Click to Listen]

Goodbye Dennis!

Thanks to politically motivated redistricting, Congressman Dennis Kucinich is no longer in Washington.  On today's show we say a quick goodbye to the vegan representative who tried to; impeach a sitting president (Bush), impeach a sitting vice president (Cheney), keep space from being weaponized, repeal the PATRIOT Act, create a Department of Peace, nationalize the Federal Reserve, legislate against factory farms and end all foreign occupations.  He was also a vocal supporter of Occupy Wall Street and visited Occupy Cleveland. [Click to Listen]

Banking Scandals of 2012

A look at some of the major banking scandals of 2012.  Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Barclay's, Nomura, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Knight Capital, ING, Capital One, Peregrine Financial Group and LIBOR are all discussed. [Click to Listen]