Sunday, December 30, 2012

It was worse than we thought: How the FBI coordinated the crackdown on the Occupy Movement

12/30/12  In this article, Naomi Wolf indicates who was really calling the shots: the "too-big-to-fail banks" who stole trillions of our tax dollars. The organizers were in more danger than they realized. They could have been assassinated by sniper fire. It was a miracle no one died. 

Friday, December 28, 2012

The following are a summary of blog entries I placed on the Liberty & Justice 1640 website concerning the Sandy Hook school shootings from December 2012 to February 2013
****************************************************************
Feb. 15, 2013


There's been some fascinating information circulating in parts of the Sandy Hook investigation community over the past few days. Remember those reports persisting for many hours on 12/14 that the shooter is the son of a kindergarten teacher at the school? It may turn out to be more truthful than we've been led to believe. It defies some conventional wisdom, but the earliest reports in the unfolding of a crisis are usually the most accurate, not the latter ones that have been "corrected."

 





 **********
At this point in time, I think we need to ingest some humor into a mass murder mystery...
1/20/13

872 YEO (the Sandy Hook Truth Song)
[A parody of Tommy Tutone's "867-5309"]

Chrissy, Chrissy who can I turn to?
For the price of a grand I can always buy smack from you.
872 YEO
872 YEO

What was your car doin' in
Sandy Hook that Friday morn'?
Did you really shoot that green car?
872 YEO
872 YEO

I got it! I got it!
Your plate is on the radio
We gotta getaway
Getaway, GO!

(Ahh... that's as far as I got.)


Establishment rag Salon's attempt to debunk debunkers


1/19/13 On January 16th, Salon Magazine published a largely pathetic attempt to debunk "Sandy Hook Truthers" in an article entitled, "Your comprehensive answer to every Sandy Hook conspiracy theory." Well, it was hardly comprehensive, and it predictably stuck to issues that still have at least some wiggle room for debate. It didn't surprise me, however, that Salon completely ignored three issues that they are not going to touch with a ten foot pole. They are issues I have mentioned in my two previous blogs on Sandy Hook, and they are as follows:

1) The total lack of any video footage released to the public from the school's new, state of the art surveillance system. Had the disgustingly corrupt state of Connecticut been honest and smart, and not regard its adult citizens as little children incapable of handling the images, it would have released the entire school footage, regardless of its complexity. Even if it involved more than sixty cameras and microphones recording every second of activity, they should have released it all WITHIN HOURS of the attack. In the Brazil school shooting of 2011, local authorities released the surveillance videos. Have you stumbled over any Brazil School Shooting "Truther" blogs or YouTube videos lately? It is now far too late for Connecticut authorities to correct this mistake. In a little more than a month's time, with today's technology, that footage could have undergone so many edits and CGI effect add ons ("officially" or unofficially) that none of us will ever know for sure if it is still original.

2) The prohibition on the families from directly identifying the bodies. This is unprecedented. When Lauren Rousseau's family asked to see her remains for positive identification, they were denied. Instead, they were presented with pictures. This can only mean one of two things: A) Evidence of fraud or a coverup, especially in this era of Photoshop, B) Evidence of a nanny state that doesn't regard adult men and women as true adults capable of handling the hard core realities of life and death. This was a blatant and likely illegal attempt to deny the families a TRUE sense of closure through a positive eye witness identification of the bodies.

3) State Troopers being assigned to supposedly "protect" each of the victim's families around the clock until the "official" report is released by the Connecticut State Police. This is actually a two way street that also prevents the families from speaking to the press, which amounts to a gag order. This is also highly unusual.

The article concludes by basically insulting the intelligence of researchers. It reminds us that different people handle grief in different ways, and no one in mourning is in tears all the time because the human system can't endure such intensity. Gosh Salon, you don't say! I've been to plenty of wakes, funerals, and associated family gatherings since I was 8 years old. Did people laugh and tell funny stories, sometimes about the deceased? Of course they did. But there is one thing I've noticed over the years: the younger the deceased person was, and the more sudden or violent their death, the more laughter and smiles were at a premium, regardless of the range of personalities in attendance. I've also been to a couple of wakes where the deceased died suddenly, in the prime of life, and family members couldn't stop weeping the whole time.

Look, I know that stretch of western Connecticut from Danbury to Southbury is a haven for theatrical types. But when a father of a six year old girl, who was just brutally and mercilessly murdered hours before, appears before international TV cameras like a 1960's disc jockey entering a TV game show set - then realizes he's supposed to be "mourning" and does 20 seconds of deep breathing to get into character - I think at least 90 percent of the public would agree that's WAY over the top. When something is that inappropriate, how can it not breed suspicion?

As for the interview with the Soto family, the fact remains that they were communicating in subtle and not so subtle ways that they were taking part in something that, at least on a subconscious level, they truly detested. To put it bluntly, they were pissed! Yet, they continued to play along with the script. How I wish one of them would have spilled the beans and blurted out what was bothering them, right there on live television, letting the chips fall where they may. But because they didn't, I could not feel a connection with them like I could with Russ Hannoman and Nancy Lanza's other friends. Sorry, Salon Magazine. Body language says it all and body language doesn't lie.

So go ahead, folks. Keep those "Sandy Hook Truth" blogs, websites, and YouTube videos coming. At the rate things are going, there will probably be more "Sandy Hook Truth" pages on the internet in six months than 9/11 Truth pages. And it's all brought to you by the massive corruption, incompetence, and total lack of honesty on the part of federal officials and the State of Connecticut. A mentally retarded greyhound could run that state and this crisis with more competence, ethics, and transparency than the likes of Lt. Paul "Mis-information-will-be-prosecuted" Vance, Medical Examiner Wayne "Kids-Stuff" Carver, and Governor Dannel "Don't-label-GMO's-in-my-state" Malloy. In spite of their complaints, I am pleased these low lifes are now reaping so abundantly the exact measure of what they have sown.

Adam Lanza was a vegan... and what body language reveals


1/18/13 Over the past month, I must have spent over 100 hours and searched over a thousand web pages trying to glean every drop of information and insight into the Sandy Hook shootings that I can find. It continues to be an obsession, often at the expense of important day to day matters, and I know I'm hardly alone in that. However, it was not until several days ago that I stumbled across information indicating that accused shooter Adam Lanza was a practicing vegan. The ultimate source of this information is Russell Hannoman, one of Nancy Lanza's closest friends and the only known friend who has both met Adam (on several occasions) and has spoken to the media (on at least two occasions). In an interview with WPIX 11 News, Russ Hannoman states that the Adam Lanza he knew deplored violence and adopted an organic, vegan lifestyle because he didn't want to contribute to animal suffering:

[WPIX video no longer found. Sorry.]

As a vegan myself, and understanding from the inside how a vegan views the initiation of force, either against other humans or an animal, it opens up a plethora of additional inconsistencies and likely cover ups in what has emerged as the "official" Sandy Hook story.

My evolution to veganism was a long one that lasted around ten years and my motivation for that journey was entirely selfish: I wanted the best possible health, skin, and energy. I didn't want to become another heart disease statistic as I got older with a pot belly and a fading mind. I had also come to what should have been an obvious realization that cow's milk was designed to nurse young calves into becoming big cows or bulls, not to nourish adult humans. The fact that there were no maggot attracting bones and gristle to dispose of after dinner, and that no animals were killed or exploited were huge pluses but were not the prime motivators of my evolution. Only later on did I understand the philosophical implications of what I had adopted. And my entire journey did not begin until around age 38.

Yet, here was young Adam Lanza, probably in his teens at the time, cutting right to the chase by mentioning that he had become an organic vegan because he did not want to exploit animals. The juvenile butt heads who follow Howard Stern (the same type of people who likely motivated Nancy Lanza to pull her son out of school in favor of home instruction) have looked at this with pointed fingers and exclaimed, "See, these faggy assed vegans will flip over backwards to save some animal but have no problem mass murdering their own species." Such an assumption misses the entire point. If we have a problem initiating violence against even a small animal, how much more conflicted will we be to initiate violence against a member of our own species? We vegans want an end to ALL violence, and the best, most personal, most intimate way to start is to get violence off our plates.

Adam Lanza's veganism is one of many aspects of this case that is going to cause BIG problems for the intelligence agencies, the FBI, the Connecticut State Police, the corporate media, and any clandestine "secret society" that is planning to cram some whitewashed "official story" down our throats. It's right up there with the fact that not a single frame of surveillance video of the attack has been released, in spite of the recent installation of a state of the art system at Sandy Hook Elementary.

[Do you remember the Brazilian school shooting back in April 2011? It took place in a dirt poor suburb of Rio de Janeiro at a school with a third rate video surveillance system (probably black and white only). Still, it caught everything. And since Brazilian authorities had no problem releasing the footage to the public, it is now all over the internet. Hmm... That's funny. The last time I checked, Newtown, Connecticut is in Fairfield County, the 44th richest county in the first nation of the first world. Yet, no video. And nobody was allowed to identify actual bodies either. Nevertheless, they complain about "conspiracy theorists!"]

No vegan in his natural state of mind - even one addled by autism or Aspergers and taunted for his condition by former classmates - is going to spent his entire day locked up in a basement playing violent video games. Nor is he going to aspire to join the military (apparently so he can kill without the legal ramifications), or create a web page honoring Satan, or attempt to buy guns illegally, or plot a mass shooting at his former grade school. It is simply preposterous.

In light of the discovery of Adam Lanza's veganism, and taken in context of everything else I have studied about this tragedy over the past several weeks, I can only come to two possible conclusions about Adam's role in the attack:

1) Adam was an innocent patsy who was taken hostage from his home by a small group of highly trained assassins. They first murdered his mother, smashed his computer hard drives, dressed him in SWAT gear, and drove him to the school. They then broke into the building and proceeded with the executions. When it looked like police were about to arrive, they murdered the young man with gun shots to his skull and left the weapons near his body to make it appear like a mass shooting/suicide.

2) In the weeks preceding the attack, Adam was given a cocktail of powerful psychotropic drugs that drastically altered his personality, deteriorated his state of mind, and made him vulnerable to powerful, evil people. Due to his condition, they saw an opportunity to mold the perfect Manchurian candidate. In spite of being a lightweight, he carried out the executions as a pure zombie, bearing the heavy weight of his weapons arsenal and its fire power on shear adrenalin. When confronted with the prospects of a gun fight with police, reality hit and he committed suicide.

I can't think of any viable possibility that doesn't roughly resemble these two scenarios. And with either one, you can't escape the prospect that other individuals had to have been involved. Evidence at the school that morning supports this, including the "off duty SWAT officer" chased into the woods and handcuffed by local police, the two shadows that teachers reported seeing move across the parking lot, and the dark colored van with the blown rear window and a passenger dressed up to look like a nun.

I realize that my conclusions ultimately stem from the testimony of Russ Hannoman. Why do I think Russ's testimony is credible, even though some of it contradicts the testimony of others who have also known Adam Lanza? The answer, in short, is body language.

In the video above, when speaking about Adam's non-violent nature, Russ's voice is slightly shaky. He then appears to have a spontaneous recollection of Adam's veganism, which only serves to reinforce his point. The recollection causes his voice to become even a bit more shaky. This is a man who is truly in shock. He is composed enough to carry on an intelligent, coherent interview. But there is evidence on his face that he has been crying in his private moments over the loss of his beloved friend and her son, and is trying to come to grips with the contrast between his memories of that son and the massive damage he may have caused. This is unmistakably someone who is experiencing genuine grief. It is something you cannot fake.

Below is the first appearance we saw of Russ Hannoman, along with three other friends of Nancy Lanza, on the Today Show the Monday morning after the shooting. The segment begins with interviews from a few of Nancy's friends at the bar she frequented, followed by a segment filmed outdoors where Russ appears with three of Nancy's other friends:
After you view this clip in its entirety, go back and pause it around the beginning of the segment with Russ Hannoman, at approximately the 7:40 mark. Take a good look at all four of Nancy Lanza's friends in this scene. Notice the amazing uniformity in their facial expressions and demeanor. It is one of shock, horror, and grief. If some one gave me this picture a week before the shooting, never having seen it before or knowing what is was about, then I was asked to verbalize what their facial expressions were saying, I would respond that something truly horrible had just occurred and they were all trying to come to terms with it. THESE PEOPLE ARE GENUINE. The same goes for the workers and management filmed inside the bar. These individuals are grieving the loss of their friend as well as the entire scope of the tragedy, and everything they exude is communicating that.

Now, by contrast, let me show you something that upon close examination, is rather disturbing. Here is a clip of the Soto family being interviewed by Piers Morgan, apparently at the Firehouse on the evening after the attack:
  
I don't wish to appear disrespectful of the Soto family, but I find this clip difficult and tedious to watch. There is an emotional wall between myself and them, and this is a sign that something is not on the level. Their answers and descriptions are stereotypical, generic, and unconvincing. There is no uniformity whatsoever in their facial expressions and demeanor. Various family members get fidgety and smirk at different times. At one point, the father almost seems to be thinking, "I can't wait for this to be over so we can collect our money and get out of here."

Here is a paraphrase from the description of this video, as written by the original YouTube poster, which I think says it best:

*****
First of all, pay attention to the way Vicki's family is reacting in this interview, especially her father. But also notice the playful smirks and body language from her brother and sister around the 20 second and 31 second mark. The body language of the youngest sister and brother are not even of a person that just lost a sister. And notice the constant blink rate of all the family members. (Lots of blinking means lies.) Now, concerning the father, anyone can tell that this man doesn't want to be a part of this video. His body language is negative throughout the entire interview. How could a father be so disgruntled and annoyed from questions asked about his daughter (Vicki Soto), who apparently died in a violent attack just hours before? Notice at the 2:30 mark when Piers asks about the green ribbons and the father instantly looks like its all a bunch of made up bologna. He even drops his head, looks down, and constantly blinks over and over to make things worse. At the 2:40 mark, when Piers mentions that the snow was a sign from their sister, notice the father smirk. It was as if he was thinking, "Really Piers, you couldn't come up with any better scripted bologna than that?" This alleged  "father" doesn't even look like he belongs with this family.
*****

Now I know what some people might be thinking. "Oh, come on! They are displaying typical New England reserve. And teenagers do get fidgety." Well, New England "reserve" is one thing. Smirks, rapid blinking, and outright disgust is something else. Russ Hannoman, in my opinion, also displayed typical New England reserve. But underpinning it was total sincerity and genuine grief. And I don't see any of that coming from this family. All I hear are scripted lines.

When I first began my research into the entire Sandy Hook tragedy, I was very hard on the Lanzas. But as the weeks have passed, I am increasingly believing that they are, by far, the biggest victims. This study further supports that view. As for anything beyond that, I don't know what to assume at this point, or whether it is safe to draw any conclusions. But for scores of reasons, something is very, very wrong with the nature of this entire event. And I fear that the combination of a tightly controlled media, the erosion of the Bill of Rights, the decimation of the middle class, and a general public that shuns curiosity and lets personal political ideology do their thinking for them, the story of what really occurred on December 14, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut will never be widely known or accepted.


Two weeks after Sandy Hook there are more contradictions and inconsistencies than answers.


12/28/12  As a native of Connecticut who attended the next grade school due east of Sandy Hook Elementary, in the town of Oxford, the Newtown school shootings of December 14th have been an inescapable aspect of life since the day they occurred. My closest connection to any of the victims is through my nephew. His current boss was the husband of Anne Marie Murphy, the special education teacher who was gunned down trying to protect her students. A connection like that, I suppose, is typical of most people with ties to the area.

I have spend many hours on line studying practically every conceivable aspect of this tragedy, and I have to say, I have never in my life seen a story with more contradictions, inconsistencies, changes in the sequence, mysterious parallel events, and odd behavior than this one. After 9/11, that is certainly saying something. First we were told that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher who was gunned down by her son Ryan (not Adam) in her classroom before he went on a killing spree. Then we were told she was murdered at home while still in bed, was never on the school staff, and ended up homeschooling Adam due to disagreements with the school district over how to handle him.

We were told that Adam Lanza drove his mother's car to the school. But the car turned out to be registered to Christopher Rodia, a petty criminal from Norwalk with close ties to two other petty criminal families in that area, one of which has been involved in gun running. We were told that Nancy Lanza was a "prepper" and "survivalist" who owned a huge cache of legally registered guns and ammunition. But her closest friends say that although she did own guns and brought her two sons to the firing range when they were teens, it was hardly the main focus of her life. She was more interested in arts and culture and was a kind, generous person. Then, an on-line journalist states that he cannot find any evidence with Connecticut authorities that Nancy Lanza had any gun registrations at all.

Concerning the weapons, we were told that the long gun (the Bushmaster semi-automatic .223 caliber) was recovered from the truck of Adam Lanza's car many hours later and never made it into the school. But then the coroner stated that all the shots that took down the victims were fired from the long gun. (Say, what?) Then there was the part about the two or more men in camo running away from police into the woods. News helicopters from local TV stations caught the footage. The shadows of these men were seen on the parking lot by a surviving teacher while she was still in the building. Do innocent people run away when confronted by police? Yet, the mainstream media suddenly dropped the issue like a hot potato and we haven't heard a peep from them about it since the day of the massacre.

Combine all this confusion with the odd behavior of the state coroner at his news conference, the stone cold silence of Lt. Vance at his press conference when asked about Nancy Lanza's relationship to the school, and the puzzling public behavior of "laughing dad" Robbie Parker and one or two other parents and survivors, the implication to me is that even greater forces of evil may have had a hand in this. Was all of these factors caused by Adam Lanza allegedly blowing his stack while perhaps under the influence of a psychotropic drug?

At the two week mark, it is time to manage our grief, shock, and horror, and bring the critical thinking portion of our brains back on line concerning this tragedy. Detectives don't solve crimes by believing everything the mainstream media and the "official" story tell them. A good place to start is with the links below, which appear to be from credible sources that do their research.

I visited Newtown, CT on December 26th and took pictures of the memorials in the village of Sandy Hook and at the Newtown Town Hall. They have been added to the Minimum Wage Media Facebook page and you may view them here.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/12/20/sandy-hook-massacre-official-story-spins-out-of-control/

http://newtomorrow.us/ctshooting.html

http://usahitman.com/alcrcr/
 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

"Political democracy without economic democracy is a system destined to fail."
- My summary of Professor Richard Wolff's thesis



Listen to Economic Update with Richard Wolff, Sunday evenings from 11-midnight, on Liberty & Justice 87.5.

And... continuously, through the month of December, listen to various lectures, interviews, and speeches by Professor Wolff on

The Voice of the Resistance 102.9 FM


The Occupy Movement and Progressive Activism for Shirley Center, North Shirley, and Woodsville

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Walmart: A textbook case of everything that is wrong with modern American capitalism


11/20/12  I urge all Liberty & Justice listeners to support and express solidarity with Walmart workers during their massive walkout planned for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. If you can, take a spin by your nearest store or warehouse, give them the thumbs up, and contribute a few dollars to their food fund. As for me, I have been boycotting Walmart for well over a decade for reasons too numerous to mention here, reasons that are well documented all over the Internet. Since my boycott began, the only time I have set foot in one was to exchange or return a Christmas gift I had received a few years back.

If I were appointed czar of the U.S. Department of Justice and given absolute dictatorial powers for one month, I would dig up every dormant anti-trust law on the books and break the Walton empire into approximately 50 to 75 much smaller retail, wholesale, and distribution companies. I would then order the Federal Reserve to make investment funds available to COMMITTED, ETHICAL entrepreneurs who pledge IN WRITING to treat their associates fairly, to provide safe working conditions, reasonable scheduling, freedom of association, and MORE than just a living wage but a prosperous wage. (Walmart employees would get first shot at these opportunities.) If, somewhere down the road, an entrepreneur violates this agreement, their corporation gets dissolved and turned over to someone who WILL keep the agreement. Over time, these smaller companies can become employee-owned cooperatives, if the associates so choose, and then they will determine their own pay and working conditions, and elect their own CEO. All problems solved, wouldn't you say?

"Share your profits with all your associates and treat them as partners."
"Appreciate everything your associates do for the business."

-Sam Walton
Rules for Building a Business, numbers 2 and 5

Friday, October 26, 2012


October 26, 2012
 
Debut of Catholic station at 89.3 forces Troubadour 1700 to move FM frequency to 97.9 MHz 

Dear Friends of the Minimum Wage Media micro stations,

When is enough enough? I couldn't help but ask that question as I was faced again Tuesday night with an inevitable shuffling of the FM frequencies in order to preserve the normal listening range of one of our micro stations.

Early this week, yet another religious broadcaster in the North Central Massachusetts region signed on with a new FM station. This time it is the Catholics who are responsible. Over the past few years, the Catholic Church in the United States has been on a desperate campaign to buy up as many conventional AM & FM stations as they can get their grimy little power-hungry hands on. And since they are practically the richest institution in the world, there is nothing stopping them from doing so.

Being a busy guy these days with different interests and a lot of personal and financial problems, I wasn't aware of the construction permit the FCC had granted for a proposed station operating on 89.3 (Troubadour 1700's FM frequency) from a transmitter just south of Cogshell Park in Fitchburg. But this past Sunday, as I was commuting to work in Shirley Village, I noticed that an open carrier was causing serious interference with Troubadour 1700's FM signal on 89.3, and this signal was powerful enough to blanket the entire area. I had assumed it was a high powered pirate fooling around on the frequency and was relieved to find on Monday that things were back to normal. But Tuesday night, while out on deliveries, I unfortunately discovered what that powerful open carrier really was: the final tests for a new licensed station going on the air in the region.

According to a local newspaper article, the prime reason this Catholic organization wanted to put this new station on the air is to encourage "lapse" Catholics to return to mass on a regular basis ( ..... especially if they bring their young children.... sorry, I couldn't resist). Well, at least I can respect them for their honesty. But that's the entire point. As originally conceived, conventional over-the-air AM, FM, TV, and shortwave stations in the United States were granted licenses to use the public's airwaves (legally, a PUBLIC resource or "commons") in exchange for serving "the public interest, convenience, and necessity." However, by their own admission, this group's prime reason for cluttering up the airwaves of north central Massachusetts with yet ANOTHER religious station is to win back parishioners and bring the money and power back to their massive, discredited, regressive religious cult.

Make no mistake about it. The primary purpose of this and all religious stations is to win converts and bring money and power to the cults that own them. It is NOT, and never has been, to serve "the public interest, convenience, and necessity." Therefore, the obvious conclusion SHOULD be that religious groups - ALL religious groups - should be automatically disqualified from owning broadcast stations in the United States unless they agree to serve a general audience in the station's local community - just like a secular, independent local owner should - and the primary purpose of the station must NOT be to bring in converts and money to their cults. (Such requirements would, by the way, eliminate about 95 percent of such applicants right off the bat!)

I am not saying it is wrong for different stations in a market to have different constituencies and for station licensees to steer their audiences toward information and activities that support their values, interests, and world view. I am simply stating there is a vast difference between public service and propaganda. And in my opinion, every last one of the SIX religious AM & FM signals (yes, we are now up to SIX!) licensed to serve the Fitchburg/Leominster/north central Massachusetts region is 100 percent about propaganda and zero percent about community and public service.        

The fact that American culture still looks upon conventional, regressive, organized religion as a positive influence on society, and has no problem with its ownership of a large chunk of our broadcast media is a source of great frustration to people like me. More mature cultures, like those in most European countries, are not so naive and many of them still prohibit religious groups from owning local broadcast stations.

One of the prime reasons I started and still maintain the Liberty & Justice micro stations is because I want to finally live in a peaceful society where there are no dominators, no rich tycoons, and no hierarchies exploiting other human beings, animals, or the earth for the sake of their psychopathic addiction to wealth and power. (Leaders - yes. Dominators - NO!) I want to live in a world where the majority of us are self employed, or own our own small business or farm, and there is a large enough social safety net to enable even the poorest individual to reach that goal. As for the medium and large corporations that need to stay that size in order to perform their functions, they should become cooperatives where all significant decisions (including who becomes CEO, the amount of his or her salary, the working conditions and compensation for the average employee/co-owner, goods and services they will provide, etc.) are made by democratic vote of the employee/owners and stockholders, NOT by top down edict or manipulations from behind the scene power brokers. That's the kind of society I want - one where we are all truly peers, where we are all accountable, where we all have a roughly equal vested interest, and where we naturally cooperate with each other because the system is fair and it's in our own interest.

But to me, the biggest obstacle toward evolving into a such a society is organized, conservative, hierarchy obsessed Evangelical religion. (Neo-conservative, neo-fascist political ideology is a close second.) Evangelical religion is, above all, about domination and control. ( ....And where domination and control run unchecked, pedophilia often soon follows....) It is a diabolically ingenious form of mind control that conveniently divides the common people into warring factions. It turns otherwise intelligent individuals into fools who advocate policies and a mindset that is obviously contrary to their own well being. I know this for a fact, because a couple times during my teenage and young adult years, I was one of these people! I am stating from experience that it is a lie and these groups DO NOT deserve to be on the public airwaves, let alone dominate them, as they do here in the heart of New England, of all places.

Another aspect of this new station that I find ridiculous is that Shirley is listed as its community of license. What a joke! Can we tune in for school cancellations this coming winter? I also don't know how they got around the FCC's technical requirement for an "urban grade" signal level into the community of license. Last I checked, it is required for non-commercial FM's below 92 MHz on the dial. You cannot get an urban grade FM signal into Shirley with a 510 watt transmitter, at only 75 to 100 feet above average terrain, from a location way out near Cogshell Park in Fitchburg. On Tuesday night, when both stations were operating at 89.3, the Catholic signal did not cause serious interference to Troubadour until a half mile from its transmitter. If this were truly an urban grade signal into Shirley Center or even Shirley Village, I don't think Troubadour would have been received more than a thousand feet outside of Acme Park before the dominate station eclipsed it.

So, I have had to do some shuffling of frequencies and here is what I have decided for now.

1) Troubadour 1700's FM frequency has been changed to 97.9 MHz. I had also considered 88.7 but decided it would jeopardize reception of WERS, a desirable signal for a number of people even at this distance from Boston. The signal tests so far have been very good and I am pleased with the range, especially on a car radio with excellent selectivity. On receivers with less selectivity, there is some "picket fence effect" digital hash from WKAF at 97.7 (from the Brockton area).

In order to move Troubadour to the new frequency, I had to sacrifice "97.9 The Voice of the Resistance," as it had been know, which was my occasional station that carried live events from the Occupy movement and the third party presidential candidates. I haven't fully decided whether to integrate this programing as specials into one or both versions of Liberty & Justice, or simply move this "occasional" service to 102.9 MHz. Right now, I am leaning toward using 102.9 this weekend for live coverage of The United Front Against Austerity's conference in New York on Saturday. I'm not sure what I'll do for specials beyond that one.

I am very pleased that the final broadcast of The Voice of the Resistance at 97.9 was the four-way third party presidential debate between Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, and Virgil Goode. The event took place Tuesday night before a live audience in Chicago and was sponsored by the Free and Equal Foundation. Larry King was the moderator and the questions were provided by ordinary citizens through social media. Before you run out and mindlessly settle for one of the two major party stooges, I URGE you to watch this debate if you didn't catch the original live broadcast. You will find it right on the Free and Equal Foundation's home page. If time permits, you should also watch last Monday night's four-hour "Expanding the Debate" presentation, hosted by Amy Goodman, where Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson respond in real time to the same questions posed in the "main" debate. You can find it archived on the Democracy Now website.

I risk offending a lot of people by saying this, but I'm going to say it because it must be said. If after watching these two debates, from start to finish, you still end up voting for Obama or Romney, then you are either mentally retarded or suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. There are no other conclusions I can make! The choice in this election is very clear. If you haven't experienced enough poverty yet... if you can't wait for your too-big-to-fail bank to gouge you one more time...  if you are anxious to have World War III finally turn this planet into a burning cinder moments before we all die ( ...if you watched that final exchange between the two foreign policy frat boys, you know exactly what I mean), then vote for one of these two corporate controlled puppets. But if you want to finally see an administration that moves the world toward peace and economic justice, then your only option is in the third party realm. You have no other choice!

And please! Don't feed me the same tired bromides about "wasted votes" and "the spoiler effect." Those are mind control techniques that the two major parties have used very effectively to maintain their undeserved duopoly. Anyone who caves into it is, by definition, ignorant of our own history. In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was a voting option for a LOWER percentage of the total electorate than either Gary Johnson or Jill Stein is today. But he won ANYWAY. (Another little known fact: Lincoln did not run for re-election in 1864 as a Republican. He ran exclusively under a third party banner.) But here in the 21st century, the average American has become a dumbed-down blob of protoplasm who lets his TV do his thinking for him. Therefore, it may be difficult to conceive of a time when people actually had the intelligence and backbone to do their own research, vote their convictions, and allowed the chips to fall where they may. But there was. Life in 1860 was rife with problems and dangers we have since solved. But lethargy and mass mind control were not among them.

As for me, I'm voting for a person I first met in the mid 1990's in a musical role that had nothing to do with politics.... Jill Stein. She is one of us. Here is a person, who although a vibrant activist and speaker, has never risen to an office higher than Lexington Town Meeting. Yet, she has become one of the top two independent candidates in contention with a former mayor, governors, and a member of Congress, for the highest office in the land. This is how it should be! But whatever third party candidate you choose, you need to support him or her with what time and money you can afford.

Okay... now back to the facilities inventory....

2) Liberty & Justice 1640 AM / 95.1 FM (the Alex edition). These signals will remain unchanged.

3) Troubadour 1700's flagship AM operation at 1700 KHz will remain unchanged.

4) Liberty & Justice 87.5 FM (the Thom edition) has been largely off the air since the motherboard in its main automation computer died on Sunday 10/14. The computer also required new, quieter fans. The total cost will be around $100. I made sure I could get everything for rock bottom prices, but it is still a cost I can ill afford. And unfortunately, it looks like a personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing has become inevitable for me. I don't have time to do what I already do in a day, let alone take on such a ridiculously complex procedure. But one of the "too-big-to-fail" international zombie credit card banks has turned down a very reasonable offer I made to continue payments on my balance. Their "rules" are too inflexible to accept it. So I don't have much choice.

[Folks, let me just comment that every time you do business with a corporate chain store or a too-big-to fail credit card bank, you may only be a few steps away from your own financial ruin. These are AUTHORITARIAN, TOP-DOWN institutions. They care about ONE thing and ONE THING ONLY - MAXIMUM PROFITS... even where there is little chance for those profits to be realized. Again, if you want more of this, vote for a major party candidate! Small businesses, community banks, and credit unions are much more flexible in situations where you owe them money.]

Nobody I talk to these days has the kind of spending cash they had years ago. But if your wallet and your heart can spare a few dollars to lighten the financial burden of this replacement motherboard, and finally see 87.5 return to the air, I would be humbled and thankful. Visit Troubadour 1700's website or Liberty & Justice 1640's website and follow the links to make a contribution or to buy advertising.

Yes, it is obvious that I am VERY upset by another conservative religious station hitting the airwaves here in north central Massachusetts. That is the main purpose of this letter. In the greater Fitchburg /Leominster region and adjacent areas of southern New Hampshire, we now have full time Evangelical religious propaganda and/ or "culture" on the following local signals: 960 AM, 1000 AM, 89.3 FM, 90.1 FM, 91.7 FM, and 92.1 FM. As for the remaining stations, only 1280 AM, 91.3 FM, and 104.5 FM remain secular. But 1280, as we know, is all neo-con propaganda and sports, and 104.5 is mainstream corporate junk. Again, when is enough enough for these cretins?

I don't think I'm alone in declaring that we want our local airwaves back. But I am not sure where destiny will take me over the next few months. A big part of me wants to get a whole new and sustainable life because so much of my current one is broken. That part of me wants to seek work in NY, DC, or LA at a prominent alternative media outlet like Gary Null's PRN, or RT America, and finally meet and work with people I consider real peers. But another part of me just keeps toughing it out locally, day by day, wondering if there will be a miracle opportunity to pioneer a real change in the abysmal state of media in this area.

If I stay local (and maybe even if I don't) I am looking seriously at launching a community based challenge to the FCC license renewals of at least two of these Evangelical pieces of electromagnetic waste, namely the two "heritage" AM's, WFGL 960 and WCMX 1000. These are two commercially licensed facilities that ultimately should have been returned to the community, NOT sold to the confines of local religious cults. I was a music director and air personality at WCMX from 1983 to 1986 when it was a very community minded, locally programmed, country music station. (And by the way, that was a time when the majority of country artists were distinct individuals who were always true to themselves, who had empathy for working people and the poor, and didn't spout some garbage they heard in a mega church or on Fox News!) So I certainly could lend some credibility to such an effort.

All over-the-air radio facilities in this region of the country have their licenses up for renewal in 2014. Most of the time, the renewal process is automatic unless some community group or alliance of groups gets together and raises a stink about a certain licensee by challenging their renewal. 2013 would be the year for such organizing to take place. I have a bit of a rough frame work in my head as to who to approach for help in such an effort, and I already have a lot of arguments written down. My tentative title for the campaign is "Occupy Cult Radio." Any of your thoughts or suggestions concerning such a proposed effort would be appreciated. Is there enough potential interest in the area? Could we obtain at least a few hundred signatures? What community groups and local store clienteles have a high probability of supporting the effort? Let me know what you think, especially if you live in, or are otherwise familiar with the north central Massachusetts region.

Thanks to all of you for your time and interest, and for hearing me rant.

Jeffrey Gill
Minimum Wage Media                                                                                       
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Troubadour 1700 AM / 89.3 FM
Shirley, MA
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http://www.t1700.net Liberty & Justice 1640 AM / 95.1 FM
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