Mic Check Radio

The Occupy movement in NYC has two fascinating off shoots that we take a look at today.  The first is Rolling Jubilee and The Debt Resistors Operation Manual.  Actual financial help for those in need!  The second is the OWS response to Superstorm Sandy, Occupy Sandy, and how organizers are being more effective in their own neighborhood than the Red Cross could ever hope to be.  The show ends with an audio clip from Naomi Klein discussing how Occupy Sandy relates to her ideas on disaster capitalism. [Click to Listen]

A quick post mortem of the 2012 cluster fuck of an election.  A total of $6 billion spent to elect a corporate candidate.  How Bernie Sanders ran an actual re-election campaign with no TV, radio or direct mail ads.  A possible backlash against Super PAC's and the ridiculous idea of voting being either patriotic or a civic duty. [Click to Listen]

Let's say you have picked a candidate for the Presidency of the United States.  After all the primary debates, campaign stops, stump speeches, conventions, ads, mailings, robo-calls, PAC's, Super PAC's, canvassing, the debates (including third party debates), yard signs, billboards and get out the vote campaigns - you have finally chosen someone to vote for.  Great!  But, guess what?  There is a growing chance that your vote just won't count.  I this episode, we take a look at information from a few different sources that expose the problems with using machines to count our votes.  Books by Mark Crispin Miller and Greg Palast as well as the fantastic citizen reporting from Bev Harris at Black Box Voting.  It's all enough to make you say "F**k Voting!". [Click to Listen]

In part I, we take a look at who actually votes.  With all the corporate media hype about how important every election cycle is, why are almost half of registered voters staying home on (S)election day?  Also, we get into who works the polls on (S)election day and how there will be no one to work the polls in a few years. [Click to Listen]

A brief history of some recent third party candidates as well as some Gallup poll data which indicates that almost half of the country identifies as "Independent" in their political ideology.  Seems like the perfect environment for a massive switch towards a new political paradigm.  The question then should be 'why vote for one of the two corporate candidates?' and not 'why vote third party?'. [Click to Listen]

A brief history of 7 court cases that have shaped the current landscape of campaign financing. Emily's List vs FEC, Citizen's United vs FEC, SpeechNOW.org vs FEC, Club for Growth, Commonsense Ten and National Defense PAC. [Click to Listen]

A look into the Commission on Presidential Debates and how they hijacked the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters and turned the whole circus into, well a more boring form of a circus. [Click to Listen]

Just because you are older than a kid, doesn't mean you can't learn from them.  The innocent point of view of kids is unvarnished by corporate media (to a point) and social pressure as well as the natural curiosity about anything and everything. [Click to Listen]

The inconsistencies of law enforcement illustrate how broken the system really is.  Corporations pollute and poison with impunity while activists are arrested for wearing masks in public or sitting in trees. [Click to Listen]

Malcolm X was addressing the upcoming election of 1964 in this clip, but he may as well have been talking about our current situation.  It's depressing how politics never changes. [Click to Listen]