Category Archives: freedom

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Good Night, And Good Luck (Movie, 2005) – YouTube

Good Night, And Good Luck (Movie, 2005) – YouTube.

In September 2005, Clooney explained his interest in the story to an audience at the New York Film Festival: “I thought it was a good time to raise the idea of using fear to stifle political debate.” Having majored in journalism in college, Clooney was well-versed in the subject matter. His father, Nick Clooney, was a television journalist for many years, appearing as an anchorman in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. The elder Clooney also ran for congress in 2004.

George Clooney was paid $1 each for writing, directing, and acting in Good Night, and Good Luck, which cost $7.5 million to make. Due to an injury he received on the set of Syriana a few months earlier, Clooney couldn’t pass the tests to be insured. He then proposed to mortgage his own house in order to make the film. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former eBay president Jeff Skoll invested money in the project as executive producers.

Clooney and producer Grant Heslov decided to use only archival footage of Joseph McCarthy in his depiction. As all of that footage was black-and-white, that determined the color scheme of the film.

A small jazz combo starring jazz singer Dianne Reeves was hired to record the soundtrack to the movie. This combo (Peter Martin, Christoph Luty, Jeff Hamilton and Matt Catingub) was featured in the movie in several scenes; for example, in one scene the newsmen pass a studio where she is recording with the rest of the band. The CD is Dianne Reeves’s second featuring jazz standards, and it won the Grammy Award in 2005 for best jazz vocal performance.

One complaint about the movie among test audiences was their belief that the actor playing McCarthy was too over the top, not realizing that the film used actual archive footage of McCarthy himself.

Wikipedia/Good Night, Good Luck

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Who Owns the World? Noam Chomsky on U.S.-Fueled Dangers, from Climate Change to Nuclear Weapons

In the week when President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney debated issues of foreign policy and the economy, we turn to world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT professor, Noam Chomsky. In a recent speech, Chomsky examined topics largely ignored or glossed over during the campaign: China, the Arab Spring, global warming, nuclear proliferation, and the military threat posed by Israel and the U.S. versus Iran. He reflects on the Cuban missile crisis, which took place 50 years ago this week and is still referred to as “the most dangerous moment in human history.” He delivered this talk last month at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst at an event sponsored by the Center for Popular Economics. Chomsky’s talk was entitled “Who Owns the World?” [includes rush transcript]

FILED UNDER  Noam Chomsky, Election 2012, Arab Spring, Climate Change, Iran, Nuclear Power, China, Cuba, Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky, MIT professor, world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author, speaking last month at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in a talk entitled “Who Owns the World?”

via Who Owns the World? Noam Chomsky on U.S.-Fueled Dangers, from Climate Change to Nuclear Weapons.

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Who Owns the World? Noam Chomsky on US-Fueled Dangers From Climate Change to Nuclear War 3/3 – YouTube

Visit http://www.democracynow.org to watch more reports on Democracy Now!, an independent, global news hour that airs weekdays on 1,100+ TV and radio stations. Visit to read the complete transcript, watch additional reports on this topic, and more information on award-winning journalist Amy Goodman.

In the week when President Obama and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney debated issues of foreign policy and the economy, we turn to world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author and MIT Professor, Noam Chomsky. In a recent speech, Chomsky examined topics largely ignored or glossed over during the campaign: China, the Arab Spring, global warming, nuclear proliferation, and the military threat posed by Israel and the U.S. versus Iran. He reflects on the Cuban missile crisis, which took place 50 years ago this week, and is still referred to as “the most dangerous moment in human history.” He delivered this talk last month at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, at an event sponsored by the Center for Popular Economics. Chomsky’s talk was entitled, “Who Owns the World?”

Watch the complete uninterrupted Noam Chomsky speech: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/26/who_owns_the_world_noam_chomsky

Click here to watch Democracy Now! interviews with Noam Chomsky: http://www.democracynow.org/topics/noam_chomsky

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The War on Private Property by Laurence M. Vance

This talk was given at the Orange County/Central Florida Campaign for Liberty Monthly Meeting in Orlando, Florida, on October 11, 2012.

Do you want to live in an authoritarian society? Do you desire an intrusive government? Do you wish for a government that is a nanny state? Do you yearn for government bureaucrats to tell you what you can and cannot do? Do you like puritanical busybodies telling you how to live your life? Do you believe that the government should define and enforce morality? Do you reason that vices should be crimes? Then you should support the war on drugs.

Do you love liberty? Do you treasure freedom? Do you want to live in a free society? Do you prefer government at all levels to be as limited as possible? Do you think people should be responsible for the consequences of their own actions? Do you wish the federal government would at least follow its own Constitution? Do you reason that vices should not be crimes? Then you must oppose the war on drugs.

There is no middle ground. The war on drugs is a war on the free market, a free society, and freedom itself.

Continued:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance307.html

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Tea Party versus Agenda 21: Saving the U.S. or just irking it? | Reuters

(Reuters) – Tea Party activist Judd Saul admits that he can sound a little unhinged when he gets talking about an issue close to his heart that most Americans have never heard of.

via Tea Party versus Agenda 21: Saving the U.S. or just irking it? | Reuters.

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Government Dependency Will End in Chaos-Ron Paul

Government Dependency Will End in Chaos PDF Print E-mail

The media insists on characterizing statements about dependency on government handouts as controversial, but in truth such statements are absolutely correct.  It’s not that nearly half of Americans are dependent on government; it’s actually more than half.  If one includes not just people on food stamps and welfare, but also seniors on Medicare, Social Security and people employed by the government directly, the number is more like 165 million out of 308 million, which is 53%.

Some argue that Social Security and Medicare benefits are a right because people pay into these programs their whole lives, or that we need a government safety net in place for people who fall on hard times.  However, this all becomes a moot point when the funds people depend on become worthless due to government default or rampant inflation.

This is less an issue of dignity or dependence on government, and more about thedeceitfulness of government promises.

The Fed recently announced that it plans to keep interest rates near zero and keep buying near worthless assets from banks indefinitely.  This enables Congress to spend without having to take deficits or the debt seriously and there is every indication they intend to spend with impunity until the system collapses.  There are no brakes on the runaway train.  The federal debt ceiling law does nothing to limit spending. The ceiling will have to be raised yet again perhaps before the year is out.  What is happening in Greece with austerity measures and riots in the street will happen here within a decade according to some realistic estimates if we do not find some way to fiscally restrain our government.

There is little point in a debate about being entitled to healthcare or food or shelter from fellow taxpayers if the whole system has collapsed.  And, with the way our politicians have taken over and mismanaged vast amounts of resources, collapse seems almost unavoidable.  Yet the number of Americans who have significant dependency on government is dangerously high, and I honestly fear for them.

Worse, corporate welfare is also at an all time high with no signs of diminishing.  Though it is hard to quantify, Tad Dehaven at Cato has estimated that the government spends nearly twice as much on corporate welfare than on social welfare.  Both parties are equally guilty.  More and more, the business sector is learning to rely on taxpayer largesse in one form or another.  They used to be solely concerned with providing a better product to the consumer at a better price.  Now, success on Wall Street depends entirely too much on having the best lobbyists on K Street.  If one includes the employees of “private” businesses who depend on government contracts, grants or bailouts, there are even more people dependent on government in some way.

Government does not create resources when it taxes people and prints money; it merely redistributes the wealth, while supporting a massive, wasteful bureaucracy along the way.  Government is a giant, blood-sucking parasite on our otherwise healthy economy.  For too long we have entrusted too much economic power and influence to irresponsible politicians in Washington.  It’s the chaos that ensues after they run the system into the ground that will be so painful for so many people.  But realigning our economy with the free market and away from government mandates and handouts must happen in order for it to thrive again.

The answer is not to keep asking government to do more.  The answer is to extricate our economy and ourselves from the grasp of Washington DC as much as possible now, before our dependency becomes our downfall.

Government Dependency Will End in Chaos.