Paul Craig Roberts - Markets Fall When Dollar Falls

90% Of What You Watch On Television Is Controlled By Just 6 Giant Corporations

How much is your view of the world shaped by what you see on television?  On average, Americans spend more than 150 hours watching television every month, and it is called “programming” for a reason.  If you allow anyone to pour ideas and information into your mind for five hours a day, it is going to change how you look at reality.  Everyone has an agenda, and every single news program, television show and movie is trying to alter your views.  Sadly, our society has become absolutely addicted to media, and the mainstream media is completely dominated by the elite.  In fact, about 90 percent of the programming that comes through your television is controlled by just 6 gigantic media corporations.  Most of us are willingly plugging ourselves into this “propaganda matrix” that is completely dominated by the elite for several hours each day, and that gives them an enormous amount of power over the rest of us.

In Part I and Part II of this series, I discussed how the elite use money as a tool to dominate the planet.  Today, we are going to talk about how they use information.  If you control what people think, then you control a society.  And through their vast media empires, the elite are able to shape how we all think to a frightening degree.

Just think about it.  What do we talk about with our family, our friends and our co-workers?  To a large extent, those conversations are about movies, television shows, something that we just saw on the news or a sporting event that just took place.  The reason why we talk about certain things is because the mainstream media gives those things attention, and other things we ignore because the mainstream media does not make them seem to be important.

The mainstream media literally sets the agenda for our society, and it would be difficult to overstate the power that is in their hands.  And as I mentioned above, the mainstream media is almost entirely controlled by just 6 colossal corporations.  The following list of these 6 corporate giants comes from one of my previous articles, and this is just a sampling of the media properties that they each own…

Comcast

NBC
Telemundo
Universal Pictures
Focus Features
USA Network
Bravo
CNBC
The Weather Channel
MSNBC
Syfy
NBCSN
Golf Channel
Esquire Network
E!
Cloo
Chiller
Universal HD
Comcast SportsNet
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Studio Home Video

The Walt Disney Company

ABC Television Network
ESPN
The Disney Channel
A&E
Lifetime
Marvel Entertainment
Lucasfilm
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Disney Mobile
Disney Consumer Products
Interactive Media
Disney Theme Parks
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures

News Corporation

Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox News Channel
Fox Business Network
Fox Sports 1
Fox Sports 2
National Geographic
Nat Geo Wild
FX
FXX
FX Movie Channel
Fox Sports Networks
The Wall Street Journal
The New York Post
Barron’s
SmartMoney
HarperCollins
20th Century Fox
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Blue Sky Studios
Beliefnet
Zondervan

Time Warner

CNN
The CW
HBO
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
HLN
NBA TV
TBS
TNT
TruTV
Turner Classic Movies
Warner Bros.
Castle Rock
DC Comics
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
New Line Cinema
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Viacom

MTV
Nickelodeon
VH1
BET
Comedy Central
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Country Music Television (CMT)
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land

CBS Corporation

CBS Television Network
The CW (along with Time Warner)
CBS Sports Network
Showtime
TVGN
CBS Radio, Inc.
CBS Television Studios
Simon & Schuster
Infinity Broadcasting
Westwood One Radio Network

If nobody tuned in to their “programming”, they would not have any power over us.

But according to a report put out by Nielsen, Americans are plugging into “the matrix” more than ever before.  The following is how our daily use of media breaks down by device…

Live TV: 4 hours, 31 minutes
Time-Shifted TV: 33 minutes
Radio: 1 hour, 52 minutes
DVDs: 8 minutes
Video Game Consoles: 14 minutes
Multimedia Devices (Apple TV, Roku, etc.): 13 minutes
Internet on PC: 58 minutes
Smartphone: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Tablet: 31 minutes

When you total those numbers up, it comes to 10 hours and 39 minutes.

In essence, Americans are spending most of their waking hours plugged in to something.

And if you only add together “live television” and “time-shifted television”, Americans are spending an average of more than five hours each day just watching television.

Of course many of us spend countless hours on the Internet as well.  It has been estimated that 54,907 Google searches are conducted, 7,252 tweets are posted, 125,406 YouTube videos are viewed, and 2,501,018 emails are sent out every single second.

You may have guessed this already, but most of the news and information that we consume on the Internet is also controlled by the elite…

Overall, the top 10 publishers — together owning around 60 news sites — account for 47% of total online traffic to news content last year, with the next-biggest 140 publishers accounting for most of the other half, SimilarWeb found.

The biggest online news publisher for the U.S. audience was MSN, owner of MSN.com, with just over 27 billion combined page views across mobile and desktop, followed by Disney Media Networks, owner of ESPN and ABC News, with 25.9 billion.

This is why the “alternative media” is so important.  All over America and all over the world, people are waking up and realizing that they aren’t getting the truth from the mainstream media, and they are hungry for truly independent sources of information.

The only way that we are ever going to be able to throw off the insidious system of control that the elite have established is by winning the information war.  We are literally in a constant battle for hearts and minds, and the good news is that we have made a lot of progress.  Over the past decade we have “red pilled” millions upon millions of people, but we still have a long way to go.

Faith in the corporate media is dwindling, and the elite are deeply concerned about this.  The Internet has allowed ordinary people like us to communicate on a mass scale, and this has never been the case before in human history.  We have a window of opportunity to fight back against the elite, and we must not let this opportunity pass us by.

We are literally engaged in a battle for the future of this planet, and let us never waver in our pursuit of victory.

Credit to Economic Collapse

OLYMPIC ATHLETES GROUP: MICROCHIP US!

World Olympians Association CEO Mike Miller Has Suggested Taking The Extreme Step Of Microchipping All Athletes To Guard Against Illegal Doping.

Speaking to world anti-doping officials at a forum on sports ethics held in London, he said:

In order to stop doping we need to chip our athletes where the latest technology is there. Some people say it’s an invasion of privacy, well, sport is a club and people don’t have to join the club if they don’t want to, if they can’t follow the rules.

Microchips get over the issue of whether the technology can be manipulated because they have no control over the device. The problem with the current anti-doping system is that all it says is that at a precise moment in time there are no banned substances but we need a system which says you are illegal substance-free at all times and if there are changes in markers they will be detected …

Some people say we shouldn’t do this to people,” Miller said. “Well, we’re a nation of dog lovers, we’re prepared to chip our dogs and it doesn’t seem to harm them, so why aren’t we prepared to chip ourselves?

The Briton said he expects a breakthrough in microchip technology is coming, and that anti-doping testers need to be aware of those developments or athletes could exploit them to avoid drug-cheating detection:

I’m just throwing the idea out there. I’m gauging reaction from people but we do need to think of new ways to protect clean sport. I’m no Steve Jobs but we need to spend the money and use the latest technology.

The WOA represents the 48 national Olympians associations and 100,000 living Olympians.

Credit to Trunews.com

It's All About To Hit The Fan, The Cabal's Next Move Will Cover It All Up

Head of MI5: UK Facing Most Severe Terrorist Threat Ever

In the UK, it’s extremely rare that interviews with members of the British intelligence, let alone the head of MI5, are broadcast on primetime news programs, yet this is what happened, when Andrew Parker, MI5’s director general, warned that Britain was facing the most severe terrorist threat ever and further attacks are inevitable. Parker explained "That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we’ve not seen before…It’s at the highest tempo I have seen in my 34-year career. Today there is more terrorist activity, coming at us more quickly, and it can be harder to detect."

While Islamic State has been suffering heavy defeats in Iraq and Syria, MI5 estimates that 850 Britons who had travelled to its territory could return Britain. About 100 have died in fighting.

There’s no question that Parker and his spying agency are under severe pressure, having failed to prevent four Islamist terror attacks which led to 36 deaths – Westminster Bridge, Manchester, London Bridge and Parsons Green tube station. More so, when Parker’s staff is increasing 25% to 5,000. UK politicians are pushing for more oversight as The Guardian reports “This month the government will receive reports on whether chances to thwart the atrocities were missed and what lessons could be learned. Ministers and the National Security Council wanted independent oversight of the review, in essence not allowing MI5 or counter-terrorism police to assess themselves. Oversight is being provided by the barrister David Anderson QC, a former government appointment as independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.”

From a BBC report:

“Mr Parker was asked what was the point of MI5 surveillance when someone who had made ‘no secret of his affiliations with jihadist extremism’ had then been allowed to go on to launch a deadly attack. He said the risk from each individual was assessed on a ‘daily and weekly basis’ and then prioritised ‘accordingly’. 

‘One of the main challenges we've got is that we only ever have fragments of information, and we have to try to assemble a picture of what might happen, based on those fragments.’ 

He said the likelihood was that when an attacked happened, it would be carried out by someone ‘that we know or have known’ - otherwise it would mean they had been looking in completely the wrong place".

Defending his agency, Parker stated that 20 terror plots had been prevented during the last four years and seven in the last seven months. However, he lamented “The threat is more diverse than I’ve ever known. Plots developed here in the UK, but plots directed from overseas as well. Plots online. Complex scheming and also crude stabbings; lengthy planning but also spontaneous attacks. Extremists of all ages, gender and backgrounds, united only by the toxic ideology of violent victory that drives them.”

Journalists pressed Parker on the role of technology firms and social media platforms. He remained relatively diplomatic, but said they were inadvertently helping terrorists and emphasized their “ethical responsibility” to do more in helping the government in the “dark edges” of the internet.

Credit to Zero Hedge

CYBER HIT COULD COLLAPSE U.S. STOCK MARKET ON ANNIVERSARY

57 Dead, Over 680 Infected As Madagascar Plague Outbreak Escalates

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

An outbreak of the plague in Madagascar is spreading at an unprecedented rate.

With the ease of spreading the plague, the likelihood that this disease will move to other more densely populated regions of the planet has become a huge concern for many.

So far, the plague has claimed 57 lives and infected more than 680 others. These figures are from October 12, however, and the disease is spreading rapidly. An estimated 329 of these cases and 25 of the deaths were in the capital city of Antananarivo. Of the 684 cases reported as of October 12, 474 were the pneumonic plague, 156 bubonic and 1 septicemic plague. A further 54 were unspecified, according to the World Health Organization. Of Madagascar’s 114 districts, 35 have reported cases of plague, including at least 10 cities.

Plague is caused by infection with the bacterium Yersinia pestis and is typically spread through the bite of infected fleas, frequently carried by rats. The bacteria will eventually end up causing the often fatal plague. Symptoms can include painful, swollen lymph nodes, called buboes, as well as fever, chills, and coughing. Pneumonic plague is more virulent or damaging and is an advanced form of the disease characterized by a severe lung infection. The infection can be transmitted from person to person via airborne droplets from coughing or sneezing. The incubation period is extremely short too, and an infected person may die within 12 to 24 hours of contracting the bacteria making cures in underdeveloped regions of the globe difficult at best.

According to CNN, the cases were reported by both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Bureau for Risk and Disaster Management (BNGRC) in Madagascar. They include probable and suspected cases as well those that have been confirmed by laboratory tests. And while the country experiences regular outbreaks, with an estimated 400 cases of plague each year, this time things are very different, experts warn.

This year, health officials report the infections started much earlier than usual, and they’re occurring in new areas, including urban settings. They’ve also seen an unexpected number of cases of pneumonic plague, which transmits more easily from person to person. Historically dubbed the “black death” the bubonic plague has been responsible for several worldwide pandemics in the past.

Early detection of the plague is key since both forms of it can be cured with antibiotics. But, occasionally there can be cases of septicemic plague, where the infection has spread to a person’s bloodstream and can cause bleeding and necrosis of tissue, turning it black.

The government of Madagascar has mobilized resources to spray schools and other public places to fight fleas and rodents and curb the spread of the infection. People have also been lining up at pharmacies in the capital while wearing face masks to get medications or protection. To further reduce the spread of the disease, public schools are closed and the government has forbidden public gatherings, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC).

Internationally, this outbreak is also being taken seriously. WHO delivered more than 1.2 million doses of antibiotics and released $1.5 million in emergency funds earlier this month. The Red Cross has released more than $1 million to deploy a treatment center and has mobilized more than 1,000 volunteers and is upgrading their skills on community surveillance, finding and monitoring people who have been in contact with infected patients and insightful messaging to stop the spread of this disease.

Credit to Zero Hedge