Mic Check Radio

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]