Liberty – Page 6 – MICHAEL W. DEAN

Neo-con right-wing hit piece against Ron Paul that’s so silly it could have been from The Onion

The other day this article called “Drugs, Guns and Madness in the Ron Paul Revolution” came out on the inaccurately named neo-con blog, “Accuracy in Media.” It’s so stunningly stupid, you must read it. An Excerpt:

Ron Paul didn’t do as well as the media thought he would in Iowa, but he is moving on toward New Hampshire, where the candidate has what the media call a good “ground game.” But the “Ron Paul Revolution” in New Hampshire looks a lot like what Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn tried to accomplish with the 1960s generation. Disillusioned young people, brainwashed with illegal mind-altering drugs and armed with weapons in the name of “liberty,” are being taught to hate their government and the police. They believe Ron Paul is their savior.

Remember that communist terrorist Dohrn had said, “We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.”

The same attitude is apparent in some of the libertarian-anarchist groups backing Paul in New Hampshire.

In order to grasp this phenomenon, consider what happened at the Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest) held in New Hampshire in June of last year.

A film called “Guns and Weed: The Road to Freedom” was screened for the PorcFest participants. The “weed” is marijuana. This very disturbing video, which carries a warning, features many objectionable scenes, including one of a rapper with a gun dancing in front of a huge poster of marijuana leaves. “Today,” says the narrator, “many cops who enforce pot laws do so because it provides them with cushy jobs, good benefits, and a chance to push people around.”……

It goes on with this tone, for many many paragraphs.

Even real conservatives think it’s a stupid article. This user comment is spot on:

Old Right said:

Wow, Cliff. You and AIM have really gone downhill over the years. I used to enjoy your work on the UN and would distribute AIM’s sister group Accuracy in Academia’s material at my political correctness plagued campus. But man…..what happened to you? This tirade just sounds like some drunk yelling at people in a bar. Oh well. Old-school conservatives used to understand that big government in our own country was the biggest threat to our liberty, not the Gay Muslim Mexicans. Thankfully, that idea has come around again. Ron Paul by far wins the youth vote in Republican polls, and now that the primaries have started he won the under-40 vote demographic in the Iowa caucus. Peace, liberty, and sound money are the future of the conservative movement, Cliff. Get with the program or get left behind.

I think the hit piece came from two reasons:
1. Simply IGNORING Ron Paul is no longer working.
2.There’s a lot more MONEY in sounding insane and mean than there is in making sense. Look at the SPLC. I think of Accuracy in Media as the right-wing SPLC.

The Accuracy in Media site is pretty popular, and the guy who wrote the article, Cliff Kincaid, used to be the editor for Oliver North’s newsletter. (As someone said “No wonder he knows so much about guns, drugs and violence.” lol.) And it got re-blogged on several hundred other blogs. (Probably automatically. They were probably syndicating him and haven’t yet noticed his meltdown, like Old Right has.)

And this isn’t just some fly-by-nite blog of one guy in his mother’s basement. They have an office on tony Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC, a staff of nine, and according to their financial statements, they have nearly five million dollars in assets. Who the hell is funding these trolls? (Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, heir to the Mellon oil fortune, according to this.)

Fortunately, like Mr. Burns, they are old and will one day die off. Their ideas will die with them. The path of America will go in one of two directions: socialism, or liberty. Everyone slammed in that article hates socialism as much, if not more, than the guy who wrote it claims to. The only thing that’s going to keep socialism from prevailing is people like the folks slammed in that article, and their good activism and media work.

As horrible of a bullshit bit of writing it is, I’m honored that our Guns and Weed film was included. And of all the things that are being thrown around these days to try to stop Ron Paul, I never thought I’d be one of those things!

Most of the people mentioned in the article are friends of mine.

While this hit piece in “Accuracy” in Media was way off the mark with the tone, I DO feel like it’s right in one respect: we are the spiritual godchildren of the 60s radicals. Or at least I know I can say *I* feel that way.

The first piece of “alternative literature” I ever got my hands on was Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman (PDF). That was 1975, I was 11. Sure, he was a commie, but that book is all about guns and weed and not trusting the government and cops.

My older sister lived in New Hampshire in the 70s and I used to visit here there. She was involved in the 70s blockades on the Seabrook Nuclear Plant. She’s an Obama lover now, but she was a big influence on me in showing me “the majority isn’t always correct.”

While most people thought that Timothy Leary and the “Tune in, Turn on, Drop out” thing erupted and spread spontaneously, in reality, he and Allen Ginsberg and a few others had frequent conversations about “running it like a business”, and sent out press releases and did a lot of very proactive things like that behind the scenes.

I’m thinking and working like that lately.

The book Steal This Book contains this image, (bad scan from the PDF is here, click to see bigger):

It’s a cartoon of some 60s radicals running a pirate radio/TV station. It’s hard to read all the text in this scan, but I can read two of the word balloons. One is coming from the door, it says “Open up! it’s the police!” “We got some nice LSD for ya! Har har.” The guy in the back right with the pot leaf shirt and the bandoleer and shotgun is looking at the door saying “The mad lackeys are in for a sample of revolutionary justice, folks.”

But the whole idea of pirate radio and TV fascinated me as a kid when I read this. I never did do pirate radio, but I did build legal micro-transmitters as a kid to try to reach the world. So that picture really spoke to me.

Though guns scared me back then. Not these days, I have at least three loaded guns within ten feet of me right now.

But the cool thing is, thanks to the internet, my friends and I reach the world 24/7 with podcasting and satellite radio and community radio. While we’re calmer and not commie, our bedrooms now are the studio in that cartoon above.

–Michael W. Dean

Above: Antigone from Sex, Lies and Anarchy podcasting

Kevin M. Sanchez-Cruz of CopBlock podcasting.

Neema Vedadi podcasting Freedom Feens

Me podcasting Freedom Feens

Garrett Fox from Cop Block surfing while editing

From left to right, Carla, Stephanie, and Meg, all in-studio during “She Talk live”

Free Talk Live remote radio broadcast

Pete Voluntaryist Eyre doing activist video

Ademo Voluntaryist Freeman from Cop Block doing activist video

Stephanie Murphy in her home studio

Michael Dean’s secondary editing setup

Heavy Inspiration for the Boondocks Theme Song

When I was a kid growing up in the 70s, whenever I went to the local movie theater, there was this 20-second or so motion logo with some really hip music that would play after the trailers and before the main feature. If we were still at the concession stand or hanging out in the lobby, as soon we heard this groovy beat, we’d run into the theater to sit down. The visual of this logo was swirling colors (I’ve put a still of it behind Riley from the Boondocks in the image I Photoshopped, above.)

This was literally the first “hip” “groovy” music I ever heard in my life, and was also the first “psychedelic light show” type imagery I ever saw. After I grew up and went to theaters that did not use this logo (or when the logo was replaced by other things, mainly more trailers), I often thought about it. It somehow had an important place in my mind. Even in my 40s, I could still hum the melody I hadn’t heard since I was 8, and I always wondered what this motion logo was.

A few years ago I discovered the animated show The Boondocks, and I love it. Neema lent me all the DVDs, and even after watching them all three or four times, whenever my wife and I are channel flipping and there is a Boondocks episode on, we watch it. The excellent theme song for the Boondocks (by the very talented rapper Asheru) contains a horn line that seems to be heavily inspired by a horn line from that 70s movie theater animation logo.

This got me thinking about the motion logo again. What was it? Who made it? Was it in all theaters or only mine? I’m assuming all, but as a kid I didn’t travel much and really thought of my tiny town as the whole world.

That theater has long been torn down and replaced with a statue of Habeas Corpus suspender and first Republican Abraham Lincoln with Grace Bedell. Grace is the little girl who famously told Lincoln to grow his beard. Grace was from my tiny town, Westfield, New York.

Grace Bedell was about the only claim to fame we had, except Westfield also being the birthplace of Welches Grape Juice.

Lucille Ball and Natalie Merchant were from our county, but not our town.

The other night I was surfing around YouTube and watched a trailer from a 70s biopic on the legendary and murderous blues singer Lead Belly. (Yes, Lead Belly is properly spelled as two words, not one. The man himself spelled it with two words.) At the end of the trailer, someone had added THE MOTION LOGO FROM THE 70s that had been so important to me as a kid. I was elated! I finally found it! It actually exists and I didn’t imagine it!

Here’s a direct link to the motion logo at the end of the Lead Belly trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48aQbh1lV1s&feature=player_detailpage#t=324s

(That link should take you directly to where the logo starts. If it doesn’t, and starts and the beginning of the trailer, scroll over to the last 20 seconds of the video.) Someone has added text over the logo on the YouTube video, that text was not in the theater version. Obviously,…it’s a Web URL for a DVD company. Web URLs and DVDs did not yet exist in the 70s. Which is why I went to movie theaters as a kid!

For comparison to the much later Boondocks theme song, here’s a direct link to the horn line I think was inspired by the 70s motion logo horn line:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgRGpbVYZz0&feature=player_detailpage#t=30s

(If that doesn’t take you to the direct spot, the line comes up over and over in the song, it’s the descending horn part after the ascending piano part.)

I still don’t know what that 70s logo animation was, or who owned it. I think Quentin Tarantino may have purchased the rights to it, someone said he’s used it on some of his DVDs. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t liked him since Pulp Fiction.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this nifty little revelation with you.

Before I go, another thing I really love about the Boondocks Theme Song is the reference to the concept “The Four Boxes of Liberty“, with the lines

I am the ballot in your box
The bullet in your gun

Neema and I are fond of the concept of The Four Boxes of Liberty, and have discussed it in the Freedom Feens Podcast, in this episode.

–Michael W. Dean

How To Bypass BitTorrent Throttling, step-by-step settings

A lot of ISPs throttle BitTorrent traffic: Charter, AT&T, Qwest, ComCast, CableVision, and many more. There’s a full list HERE. There are lot of tutorials out there on bypassing the evils of throttling. Some work, some don’t, some work for a while then stop working when the ISP figures it out. Below are step-by-step settings that worked for me in uTorrent. I went from being throttled to about three hours a week to being on 24/7. The bandwidth isn’t quite as high as before I was being throttled, but overall my weekly throughput is MUCH higher, because I can now be on 24/7.

NOTE: I do not recommend that you do anything illegal. I use BitTorrent ONLY for seeding my movies and podcasts, things I own, movies like Guns and Weed, the Road To Freedom and the Freedom Feens podcast, things I produced myself that are released Creative Commons. In fact, you can grab my torrents HERE. If you like this article and get something out of it, please do grab those torrents, download and enjoy them, and SEED them. Thanks! But I’ve done a test, and these techniques do work for downloading as well.

Overall, showing bandwidth I’m getting:

Here are the screenshots of my custom settings that are bypassing throttling on my end. (under Options/Preferences):

General settings:

UI settings:

(No screenshot for Directories. Doesn’t matter what you have for Directories.)

Connection settings: (If this port doesn’t work for you, try a different random port, but do not randomize port for each start.)

Bandwidth settings:

BitTorrent settings:

Transfer Cap settings:

Queuing:

Leave the last four, Scheduler, Web UI, Playback and Advanced, as is. You don’t need to change anything on them.

Enjoy. Always obey the law, brush your teeth and do what your parents tell you to. And don’t forget to vote, because your vote counts and politicians are looking out for your best interests. HA HA HA HA!

–Michael W. Dean

Free-Speech Kit (including gun)

They say that the Second Amendment protects the First Amendment.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. –Thomas Jefferson

Or, if you’re not someone who depends on old dried pieces of parchment to “grant you your rights”, the same can be said as “The Right To Bear Arms protects The Right To Free Speech.”

When they took the 4th Amendment, I was quiet because I didn’t deal drugs.
When they took the 6th Amendment, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they took the 2nd Amendment, I was quiet because I don’t own a gun.
Now they have taken the 1st Amendment, and I can only be quiet.
– Lyle Myhr

I love The Right To Bear Arms AND The Right To Free Speech. I use them both every day, if by “bear arms” you mean “own and carry guns and knives.” But I don’t actually exercise my right to “use” my arms, I’ve seen no need so far in my life. Hopefully I will never have a need. I do like putting holes in pieces of paper though, and do so often.

If they want to stop the social disturbances, they should stop disturbing us.
— MamaLiberty

I propose that people who love The Right To Bear Arms and The Right To Free Speech practice both, all day, every day. And they say the press is only free if you own one. Today “a printing press” means something different than it did in 1776. Hell, I WRITE books for a living and I don’t usually read books. Today, it’s all about the Interwebs, baby.

To that end, I propose “Free Speech Kits.” They are basically a portable radio station/TV station/newspaper combined with the ability to defend that. Here are two methods:

BASIC FREE SPEECH KIT (suitable for the elderly, the infirm, and responsible children. Click images for larger view.):

Clockwise from bottom: USB drive with encrypted podcasting intros and outros, lists of media contacts, and wireless connectivity; .38 special snubnose revolver, ZOOM H2 digital audio recorder a.k.a. “Studio on a stick”, still camera capable of shooting low-rez video with audio. Doesn’t include a computer, because, hey, they’re everywhere, even in tax-eater funded public libraries.

The Basic free speech kit can be carried to look like a lunch box or tool kit. If you use a black box and wear black pants and a dark shirt, it will blend in quite nicely and people will barely even notice you’re carrying it.

ADVANCED FREE SPEECH KIT (suitable for real men, and real women.):

Left to Right: small laptop computer running Linux, with extensive encryption programs, USB drive with encrypted podcasting intros and outros, lists of media contacts, and wireless connectivity (not shown, it’s under the computer); hunting knife for when you run out of ammo or if you need to be quiet, Yugo AK-47 underfolder rifle, extra loaded mags for said rifle, cell phone for calling your lawyer or streaming an arrest live to the web, ZOOM H2 digital audio recorder a.k.a. “Studio on a stick”, encrypted hard drive, lavaliere microphone for great-sounding on-the-spot interviews (in plastic bag), video camera capable of shooting high-rez video with pristine audio. Both the video camera and the Zoom H2 use SD cards, and the laptop has a card reader, so you don’t need to carry cables or take the time and hassle of importing media from tape.

If you have the right look, you can even pull off carrying this case while looking like an unarmed beatific hippie Occupy Wall Street type. Yay!

If you do, it’s recommended you keep the revolver from the basic free speech kit in your purse, so you can fight your way to your rifle in the guitar case.

Note: this post is for amusement only. We do not recommend concealing weapons against any laws, nor do we recommend children use weapons unsupervised.

Microphone And Mixer Suggestions For Podcasting And Low-Power Radio

My background: I do podcasting, digital recording and have done low-power community radio. I also used to sing in bands, have done 13 records between 1985 and now, one of those records was on Warner Brothers.

And many people who hear my current podcast, FREEDOM FEENS Podcast say it’s the best-sounding podcast they’ve ever heard. So I pretty much know my way around recording at all levels, from high-end commercial studios down to the cheapest D.I.Y. home recording setups. As a result of all this, a lot of people ask me for advice on the best low-budget gear for home recording, filmmaking, podcasting, and radio. I’ve addressed home recording HERE and HERE, and filmmaking HERE and HERE.

So today I’m going to offer my suggestions for podcasting and low-power radio microphones and mixers….

The first suggestion I’d make is DON’T USE LARGE CONDENSER MICROPHONES for podcasting or radio.

They’re really too sensitive unless you are very experienced and want to spend WAY too much time on everything like I do. Yeah, I use ’em, but I have 30 years experience recording, and I spend 12 hours editing every podcast. Because I’m a perfectionist. Unless you have 30 years experience recording and want to spend 12 hours editing every cast, SKIP THE LARGE CONDENSER MICROPHONES! I know they’re tempting, they look very “studio.” Large condenser microphones used to cost about 10,000 dollars, and only major studios had them. Now they make clones in China that cost about 100 bucks and look nice, sound pretty good (if you know what you’re doing!), but they’re WAY TOO MUCH WORK for the informal nature of most podcasting and radio.

They’ll pick up you scratching your face, touching your shirt by accident, and they’ll pick up the truck going by outside. I know that “all the cool kids are doing it”, but I’ve listened to all the cool kids’ podcasts and radio shows, and they’re filled with background noise! Again, SKIP THE LARGE CONDENSER MICROPHONES!

Large condenser microphones can get AMAZING sound if you really know what you’re doing and if you work your butt off at it. (I use them to record our intros and outros, and for paid voiceover work, but not for day-to-day podcasting.) If you don’t know what you’re doing and if you don’t work your butt off at it, they’ll sound awful. If you don’t know what you’re doing and if you don’t want to work your butt off at it, you want microphones that sound pretty good all the time with little effort.

Large condenser microphones are also extremely fragile to bumps, power surges, moisture and static.

I have two suggestions for low-budget microphones for podcasting and radio that will get you a MUCH BETTER sound than what most people get out of large condensers.

The first is the Zoom H2 for under 150 bucks. It’s a “studio on a stick”, I use it to record my end of the Freedom Feens podcast, in stereo, and it sounds amazing. This is literally ALL you need, besides a computer and ideas, to record a podcast.

I recommend getting a mic stand of some sort for it. I made this dedicated table stand,

directions are HERE.

I use the Zoom H2 to record my podcast, and I edit it later before uploading. But it can also be used as a microphone and signal processor (it has a tiny amount of perfect built-in compression) to be used as a pass-through microphone for live radio.

You can set the sensitivity of the mics, from zero to 120. I believe the default is 120. I recommend setting them at 100 (and do NOT turn on the attenuation switch) for podcasting in a quiet room with a speaker with an average voice volume.

If you have more than one person on your cast and you’re in the same room, the Zoom H2 has front and back mics. By default, only the front mics are on. But if you look at the manual, you can change the settings to have both sets of mics on. In this mode, it can be set to record to quad or to stereo. Set it to record both front and back mics, recording to stereo. Then put it on the little screw-in table stand between you two on a table Put a folded up T-shirt under it to prevent vibration from the floor from reaching the Zoom, then don’t bump the table. Should sound good. Do a test.

I generally record with the Zoom about 9 inches from my mouth. That seems to get the best sound. Also helps if it’s in a room with a lot of fabric and not a lot of wood or plaster walls. Actually inside a closet with lots of hanging clothes is really really good.

If you want to get a little more fancy than a Zoom H2, and/or if your podcast is more than one person, you might want to get some good solid non-condenser mics and a small mixer and record into your computer. The following setup will also be good for live community radio as well as per-recorded podcasting.

Get Shure SM58 microphones, one for each person who does the podcast. SM58s are pretty much what’s on the stage of every club you’ve ever been in. They’re really good for the price, they’re practically indestructible, and they get a good sound every time. Large-diaphragm condenser mics can get a GREAT sound, but it’s hard. Again: if you don’t pay way too much attention to them, to the room, and to the mix, they sound way WORSE than dynamic mics like the SM58.

You can read about them HERE, and buy them for 99 dollars HERE. (You’ll also need mic cables, one for each mic, they are here.)

They have a very “radio” sound, as you can hear here: Shure SM58 test. (The SM58 doesn’t start being used until 2 minutes and 10 seconds in)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQq3TTxY_SY

SM58s pretty much pick up what’s right in front of them and that’s it. They isolate you (which you want) and reject outside sounds (which is also good.)

You’ll want windscreens which fit over the end of the mic and reduce “popping” sounds. Here are five for ten dollars. Get five, even if you only get one mic. They wear out.

You might be able to find SM58s cheaper somewhere for less than 99 bucks each, but don’t buy them used, used mics smell, and often have other issues.

Note: We still use the above set-up for our weekly Sunday live show, talking and recording via Mumble And the low-tech solution pictured below for phone calls:

But for the weekly Wednesday non-live podcast, as of Feb 30, 2012, Michael is podcasting with a different mic (a Nady RSM-4 ribbon mic):

and a different mixer/USB input. Neema started using a Nady RSM-5 ribbon mic on March 14, 2012. Details are in the video below, and if you go to YouTube, there are links for the gear with the video.

=-=-=-

INTERFACES
If you do a solo show, I’d use the inexpensive pre-amp/USB interface shown above in the video. (Links on the YouTube page for the video).

If you have more than one host, I’d get this inexpensive mixer/USB computer interface.

I wouldn’t worry about recording more than two tracks even if you have more than two hosts, just do stereo in Audacity, plug your SM58s into your mixer (turn off the mic power switch on the mixer, dynamic mics do NOT require phantom power), do a mix with one voice in the middle, and the other two a LITTLE to the left and a LITTLE to the right (like one at 10 PM and one at 2 PM.)

If you have a smooth “radio voice” without a lot of dynamics, you probably don’t need a compressor/limiter. But if you have a lot of variation of volume in your natural speaking voice, it would help. You can make a conscious effort to change how you speak, but I’d use the technology instead. Trying to get someone to change the way they’ve spoken their whole life is going to squelch their free-flowing talk and make them spend energy worrying about how they speak, rather than what they have to say.

I recommend the 70-dollar ART Tube MP Studio V3 Microphone Preamp and Limiter with Presets:

Make sure you have the phantom power on it OFF for your mics unless they’re condenser mics. Only condenser mics need phantom power. Dynamic mics (like the SM57 and SM58) and ribbon mics don’t need phantom power, and can actually be harmed by it.

Here’s a demonstration of it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay5gOZMusnw

Whenever I’m searching for gear these days I do a search on YouTube. Pretty much anything is reviewed on there, with audio examples.

That’s my bear-bones easy gear recommendations for podcasting and radio. However, if you really want to get fancy and spend a lot of time getting things perfect, Neema and I did a post on how we record. If you DO want to use large condensers AND do a lot of overkill, check it out (I use the Zoom H2, Neema uses a large condenser, and we both do a lot of overkill.) There is also some other stuff there, about sound dampening and just podcasting and radio in general that might be useful.

–Michael W. Dean

Note: if you do low-power or pi-fi radio and want to re-broadcast the Freedom Feens podcast (many stations do), feel free, and there are links to download all episodes: Episodes 1-39 DIRECT DOWNLOAD
Episodes 40-current DIRECT DOWNLOAD. Please post a comment here if you do. Thanks!