Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest

Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest. Back road tripping across the Northwestern United States. First stop is The Dakota Access Pipeline protest at Standing Rock. A few miles north of Cannonball, North Dakota, about thirty miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota. DAPL – as it is known – is an explosive issue for the Standing Rock Tribe of Native Americans in this region, but pipelines have huge implications for the rest of the United States. As some celebrate the newfound energy independence US Oil Exploration brings, it also brings problems. The biggest is the issue of how to transport the oil out of the state of North Dakota which cannot refine the crude pulled out of the Bakken Reserve. For now, oil is transported on trucks and trains, which may be more unsafe when it comes to accidents and spills than pipelines. At issue is whether the pipeline will rupture, sooner or later, and contaminate ground water. The people at the Standing Rock Protest say yes. The oil companies say no. It’s very hard to get a clear idea of who’s right and wrong. Myron Dewey joins Podcast 558-Pipeline Protest from the protest, which he does not call a protest (as you’ll hear), and for balance an oil company employee and lifetime North Dakotan Eric Nelson joins the podcast not as a spokesperson for the company he works for, but as a concerned citizen. Also check out Standing Rock Fact Checker, and this from Inforum, on Doug Burgham, one of the Republican Gubernatorial candidates in North Dakota. The Standing Rock pipeline protest (sorry Myron but that’s what everyone’s calling it) has certainly focused worldwide attention on the issue. I’m going to take you inside the protest, which is in itself educational. Whenever I cover public events, I am rolling the minute I get there. This time I caught some interesting and educational audio. (Editor’s Note: You might have to strain a little to hear some of what went down, so use headphones. I will be worth it.) Like many local issues, it is filled with emotion and an ocean of ‘facts’ designed to persuade the listener to come to the ‘right’ conclusion. What do you think? Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

Podcast 557-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show #47

Podcast 557-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show #47. Kitty Genovese was murdered on a street in Kew Gardens, Queens New York in 1964. She is famous because the New York Times ran a story that scores of witnesses saw Kitty stabbed by an assailant, and did nothing. Fifty years later her younger brother Bill Genovese did the legwork the New York Times did not do and guess what? It turns out the idea that decent people would ignore a woman being attacked and killed on the street in a major city turns out to be a myth. New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal thought it would help people to tell the story the way his paper told it. In fact as the new documentary ‘The Witness‘ shows, the idea that people would stand by and do nothing ended up having devastating consequences for Kitty’s brother Bill. No spoilers here, but a great piece of work from a citizen journalist who decided to get to the bottom of the story; something apparently the New York Times couldn’t do for fifty years. Or 60 minutes. Or dramas like Perry Mason and Law and Order, all perpetuated the myth no one did anything while Ms. Genovese, 28 was being murdered. It’s a great illustration of the fact that while we live in a supposedly modern society, we’re constantly told lies disguised as myths because an editor or producer or reporter somewhere decided it would ‘help people’, or because they’re lazy, or because it’s clickbait. If you want to know why Election 2016 is based on lies, fairy tales and myth, why the issues are fake, the candidates and the political parties are fake, ‘The Witness’ is a good place to start. Realizing the media is complicit in creating myths no less powerful than the old oral histories passed down by shaman and story tellers around the campfire, through family, clan and tribe, one wonders what it takes to get to the facts in a case. Fact is, most of the time all it takes is some time and shoe leather to check the source material and talk to people on the front lines. Does our media do that? No, it’s much cheaper and easier to sit in an air condition studio in Times Square, with a roundtable of other people who know nothing, telling everyone else what they should be thinking and doing. What implications does this modern myth making (called story-lines) have? How can you make good decisions with bad data? Welcome to 1984. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

Podcast 556-Defining Freedom

Podcast 556-Defining Freedom. There Is No Liberty Movement in the United States. Got a chance to talk about personal sovereignty on the radio and it was so much fun, I decided to do it as a podcast without the time constraints associated with radio. Plus, I do not have to do all the disclaimers about why I don’t like to take calls on talk radio anymore, and the commercial for my radio show, or the podcasts. I’ve come to the conclusion that I am much more a podcaster these days than a radio guy, although I will always love radio. Truth is, this concept for Podcast 556-Defining Freedom is a good radio show and podcast. With today’s political discourse descending into cartoonish fights, there’s little substance. I believe this is the cause of the rapid decline of the broadcast medium but it also applies to cable television news channels and unfortunately a good many You Tube, FaceBook and Twitter videos. Fighting back and forth about tactical political issues like Donald Trump’s Federal Tax Bill, Hillary Clinton’s Email and who called who a pig, by the way, is not substance but instead a distraction from the vital discussion we should be having; Neither one of the two major political parties is going to do anything about protecting your freedom. No one reads source material these days on economics, or history.  In fact, more than likely they’ll use your precious constitution and Declaration of Independence to take your freedom away. Even more depressing for some to hear; It will be the Republicans that do it. We already know democrats believe in the power of government to do ‘good’ things. Caught up in an ocean of political apologists shouting that if we don’t vote republican we’re going to get Hillary Clinton, we apparently don’t know The republicans are just as likely to limit our freedom as the democrats. While we’re caught up in the right-left political spectrum debate, both candidates are talking about taking more of our freedom away. How do you define freedom? I define it as Personal Sovereignty. The individual supersedes the government. Our right to sovereignty precedes the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. So how is it then, that we exist as servants to the government? How is it then, that the government thinks it is the sovereign. Nothing’s going to change until we take our power back. How do we do that? How can we benefit from the break down of the existing two-party system? How can we start a nationwide movement that ends government power over us permanently? Going to meetings and poring over copies of the constitution isn’t accomplishing this. That’s why I say, there is no liberty movement in the United States. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance.