thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
came a commitment on the part of the CIA and the military to take this man out...and in fact we did. we sent in planes, we sent in soldiers, we sent in jackals, we sent everything in to take him out, and did take him out. And as soon as he was removed from office, the new guy that took over after him basically reinstated everything to the big international corporations, including United Fruit.(Ecuador 1981)Ecuador for many, many years had been ruled by pro-US dictators, often relatively brutal. Then it was decided that they were going to have a truly democratic election. Jaime Roldos ran for office, and his main goal he said as president would be to make sure that Ecuador's resources were used to help the people. And he won, overwhelmingly, by more votes than anyone had ever won anything in Ecuador, and he began to implement these policies...to make sure that the profits from oil went to help the people...well, we didn`t like that in the United States. I was sat down as one of several economic hit men, to change Roldos, to corrupt him, to bring him around. To let him know, you know, ok, you know, you can get very rich you and your family if you play our game, but if you continue to try to keep these policies you`ve promised, you`re gonna go... he wouldn`t listen.(Ecuadorian leader dies in plane crash)He was assassinated. As soon as the plane crashed, the whole area was cordoned off. The only people that were allowed in were US military from a nearby base, and some of the Ecuadorian military. When investigation was launched, two of the key witnesses died in car accidents before they had a chance to testify. A lot of very, very strange things that went on around the assassination of Jaime Roldos. I, like most people who`ve really looked at this case, have absolutely no doubt that it was an assassination, and of course in my position as an economic hit man I was always expecting something to happen to Jaime, weather it be a coup or an assassination I wasn`t sure, but that he would be taken down because he was not being corrupted, he would not allow himself to be corrupted the way we wanted to corrupt him.(Panama 1981)Omar Torrijos, president of Panama, was one of my favorite people, I really, really liked him, he was very charismatic, he was a guy who really wanted to help his country. When I tried to bribe him or corrupt him he said, look John... he called me Juanito...he said, look Juanito, I don`t need the money. What I really need is for my country to be treated fairly. I need for the United States to repay the debts that you owe my people for all the destruction you`ve done here. I need to be in a position where I can help other Latin American countries win their independence, and be free of this terrible presence from the north that you people are exploiting us so badly.
I need to have the Panama canal back in the hands of the Panamanian people. That`s what I want. And so leave me alone, don`t try to bribe me. It was 1981, and in may Jaime Roldos was assassinated, and Omar was very aware of this. Torrijos got his family together and he said, I`m probably next. But it`s ok, because I`ve done what I came here to do. I`ve renegotiated the canal, the canal will now be in our hands...he`d just finished negotiating the treaty with Jimmy Carter. In June of that same year, just a couple of months later, he also went down in an airplane crash...which there`s no question was executed by CIA sponsored Jackals. Tremendous amount of evidence that one of Torrijos' security guards handed him at the last moment as he was getting on the plane a tape recorder, a small tape recorder, that contained a bomb.(Venezuela 2002)It is interesting to me how this system has continued pretty much the same way for years and years and years, except the economic hit men are getting better and better and better. Then we come up with, very recently, what happened in Venezuela. In 1998 Hugo Chavez gets elected president, following a long line of presidents who`d been very corrupt, and basically destroyed the economy of the country...and Chavez was elected amidst all that. Chavez stood up to the United States, and he has done it primarily demanding that Venezuelan oil be used to help the Venezuelan people. Well, we didn`t like that in the United States. So, in 2002 the coup was staged, which, there`s no question in my mind and most other peoples minds that the CIA was behind that coup. The way that that coup was fomented was very reflective of what Kermit Roosevelt had done in Iran, of paying people to go out into the streets to riot, to protest, to say this Chavez is very unpopular. You know, if you can get a few thousand people to do that, television can make it look like its the whole country, and things start to mushroom. Except in the case of Chavez, he was smart enough and the people were so strongly behind him that they overcame it. Which was a phenomenal moment in the history of Latin America.(Iraq 2003)Iraq actually is a perfect example of the way the whole system works...so, we economic hit men are the first line of defense, we go in, we try to corrupt governments and get them to accept these huge loans which we then use as leverage to basically own them. If we fail, as I failed in Panama with Omar Torrijos, or in Ecuador with Jaime Roldos, men who refused to be corrupted, then the second line of defense is we send in the jackals. And the jackals either overthrow governments or they assassinate, and once that happens then a new government comes in and boy, it`s going to tow the line, because the new president knows what will happen if he doesn't. In the case of Iraq,
both of those things failed-economic hit men were not able to get through to Saddam Hussain, we tried very hard, we tried to get him to accept a deal very similar to what the house of Saud had accepted in Saudi Arabia, but he wouldn`t accept it, and so the jackals went in to take him out...they couldn`t do it, his security was very good...after all, he at one time worked for the CIA. he`d been hired to assassinate a former president if Iraq, and failed...but he knew the system. So in '91 we send in the troops, and we take out the Iraqi military. So we assume at that point that Saddam Hussain is going to come around. We could have taken him out, of course, at that point in time, but we didn`t want to, he`s the kind of strong man we like. He controls his people, we thought he could control the Kurds and keep the Iranians within their border, and keep pumping oil for us, and that once we took out his military, now he`s going to come around. So the economic hit men go back in in the '90s, without success. If they`d had success, he`d still be running the country. We`d be selling him all the fighter jets he wants, and everything else he wants... but they couldn`t, they didn`t have success. The Jackals couldn`t take him out again. So we sent the military in once again, and this time we did the complete job and took him out, and in the process created for ourselves some very, very lucrative construction deals...we had to reconstruct a country that we`d essentially destroyed, which is a pretty good deal if you own construction companies, big ones. So, Iraq shows the three stages; the economic hit men, failed there; the jackals, failed there; and as a final measure the military goes in. And in that way we`ve really created an empire, but we`ve done it very, very subtly...it`s clandestine. All of the empires of the past were built on the military. And everybody knew that they were building them. So that the British knew they were building them....the French, the Germans, the Romans, the Greeks...and they were proud of it, and they always had some excuse like spreading civilization, spreading some religion, something like that, but they knew they were doing it...we don`t. The majority of the people in the United States have no idea that we are living off the benefits of a clandestine empire, that today there`s more slavery in the world than ever before. And then you have to ask yourself, well if it`s an empire, then who`s the emperor? Obviously, our presidents of the United States are not emperors, an emperor is someone who`s not elected, doesn`t serve a limited term, and doesn`t report to anyone, essentially. So you can`t classify a president that way. But we do have what I consider to be the equivalent of the emperor, and it`s what I call the Corporatocracy. Corporatocracy is this group of individuals who run our
the need for money, or profit.[TITLE : "INDUSTRY"][FRESCO:]'What's in it for me', is the way people think. And so if a man makes money selling a certain product, naturally he is going to fight the existence of another product that may threaten his institution. Therefore people cannot be fair and people do not trust each other. A guy will come over to you and say, "I've got just the house you're looking for".He's a salesman. When a doctor says 'I think your kidney has to come out', I don't know if he's trying to pay off a yacht, or that my kidney has to come out- it's hard in monetary system to trust people. If you came into my store and I said this lamp that I've got is pretty good, but the lamp in the next store is much better, I wouldn't be in business very long. It wouldn't work... If I were ethical, it wouldn't work. So, when you say industry cares for people... that are not true. They can't afford to be ethical. So your system is not designed to serve the well being of people... if you still don't understand that, there would be no outsourcing of jobs... if they cared about people. Industry does not care. They only hire people because it hasn't been automated yet. So, don't talk about decency and ethics... we cannot afford it and remain in business.[NARRATION:]It is important to point out, that regardless of the social system, whether fascist, socialist, capitalist or communist, the underlying machanism is still money, labor and competition.Communist China is no less capitalistic than the United States. The only difference is the degree by which the state intervenes in enterprise.The reality is that "monetary-ism", so to speak, is the true mechanism that guides the interests of all the countries on the planet.The most aggressive and hence dominant variation of this monetary-ism is the free enterprise system. The fundamental perspective, as put forth by early free market economists, like Adam smith, is that self-interest and competition leads to social prosperity, as the act of competition creates incentive, which motivates people to persevere. However, what isn't talked about is how a competition-based economy invariably leads to strategic corruption, power and wealth consolidation, social stratification, technological paralyses, labor abuse, and ultimately a covert form of government dictatorship by the rich elite.The word corruption is often defined as moral perversion.If a company dumps toxic waste into the ocean to save money, most people recognize this as corrupt behavior. On a more subtle level, when WalMart moves into a small town and forces small businesses to shut down, for they are unable to complete, a gray area emerges.... For what exactly is Walmart doing wrong? Why should they care about mom and pop organizations they destroy. Yet, even more subtly, when a person gets fired from their job, because a new machine has been created which can do the work for less money, people tend to just accept that as " the way it is" not seeing the inherent, corrupt inhumanity of such
give you electricity...that give you motor vehicles, that heat your house... and cool it in the summertime. It's technology that solves problems, not politics. Politics cannot solve problems, because they are not trained to do so.Very few people today stop and consider what it is that actually improves their lives. Is it money? Obviously not... One cannot eat money or stuff money into their car to get it to run... is it politics? - All politicians can do is create laws, establish budgets and declare war. Is it religion? Of course not.... Religion creates nothing except intangible emotional solace for those who require it.The true gift that we have as human beings have, which has been solely responsible for everything that has improved our lives... is technology.[TITLE: "TECHNOLGY"]What is technology? Technology is a pencil, which allows one to solidify ideas on paper for communication. Technology is an automobile, which allows one to travel faster than feet would allow. Technology is a pair of eyeglasses, which enables sight for those who need it.Applied technology itself is merely an extension of human attributes, which reduces human effort freeing humans from a particular chore or problem. Imagine what your life would be like today without a telephone... or an oven... or a computer... or an airplane. Everything in your home, which you take for granted, from a doorbell to a table to a dishwasher, is technology, generated from the creative, scientific ingenuity of human technicians... not money, politics or religion...These are false institutions.[FRESCO:]And writing your congressman is fantastic. They tell you to write your congressman if you want something done. The men in Washington should be at the forefront of technology. The forefront of human study... the forefront of crime... all the factors that shape human behavior. You don't have to write your congressman.... What kind of people are they that are appointed to do that job?The future will have great difficulty...And the question that is raised by politicians is " how much will a project cost?" The question is not "how much will it cost?" - "Do we have the resources?" and we have the resources today, to house everyone, build hospitals all over the world, build schools all over the world, the finest equipment in labs for teaching and doing medical research. So you see, we have all that, but we are in a monetary system, and in a monetary system- there's profit.[NARRATION:]And what is the fundamental mechanism that drives the profit system, besides self-interest? What is it exactly that maintains that competitive edge at its core. Is it high efficiency and sustainability? No. That isn't part of their design. Nothing produced in our profit-based society is even remotely sustainable or efficient. If it was there wouldn't be a multi-million dollar a year service industry for automobiles, nor would the average life span for most electronics be less than three months before they are obsolete. Is it abundance? Absolutely not... Abundance, as based on the laws of supply and demand, is actually a negative thing. If a diamond company finds 10 times the
most important focus we can have, is on the intelligent management of the earth's resources, for it is from these natural resources we gain the materials to continue our path of prosperity.Understanding this, we then see that money fundamentally exists as a barrier to these resources for virtually everything has a financial cost. And why do we need money to obtain these resources? Because of real or assumed scarcity. We don't usually pay for air and tap water, because it is in such high abundance, selling it would be pointless.So then, logically speaking, if resources and technologies applicable to creating everything in our societies, such as houses, cities and transportation, were in high enough abundance, there would be no reason to sell anything. Likewise, if automation and machinery was so technologically advanced, as to relieve human beings of labor, there would be no reason to have a job... and with these social aspects taken care of, there would be no reason to have money at all.So the ultimate question remains? Do we on earth have enough resources and technological understanding, to create a society of such abundance, that everything we have now could be available without a price tag and without the need for submission through employment?Yes we do. We have the resources and technology to enable this at a minimum, along with the ability to raise the standard of living so high, that people in the future will look back at our civilization now, and gawk at how primitive and immature our society was.[FRESCO:]What the Venus Project proposes is an entirely different system that's updated to present day knowledge.[MEADOWS:]We have never given scientists the problem of how do you design a society which would eliminate boring and monotonous jobs, that would eliminate accidents in transportation, that would enable people to have a high standard of living. That would eliminate poisons in our food... give us other sources of energy that are clean and efficient. We can do that out there.[TITLE: A RESOURCE BASED ECONOMY][MEADOWS:]The major difference, between a resource based economy and a monetary system, is that a resource based economy is really concerned with people and their well-being. Where a monetary system has become so distorted that the concerns of the people are really secondary, if they are there at all. The products that are turned out are for how much money you can get. If there is a problem in society and you can't earn money from solving that problem, than it won't be done. A resource-based economy is really not close to anything that's been tried. And with all our technology today we can create abundance. It can be used to improve everyone's lifestyle...abundance all over the world, if we use our technology wisely and maintain the environment.[FRESCO:]It's a very different system and its very hard to talk about because the public is not that well enough informed as to the state of technology.[TITLE: The Venus Project: ENERGY][FRESCO:]At present, we don't have to burn fossil fuels. We don't have to use anything that would contaminate the environment. There
are many sources of energy available.Narr:Alternative energy solutions pushed by the establishment, such a hydrogen, biomass and even nuclear, are highly insufficient, dangerous, and exist only to perpetuate the profit structure that industry has created. When we look beyond the propaganda and self-serving solutions put forth by the energy companies, we find a seemingly endless stream of clean, abundant and renewable energy for generating power.Solar and wind energy are well known the public, but the true potential of these mediums remains unexpressed. Solar energy, derived from the sun, has such abundance, that one hour of light at high noon, contains more energy than what the entire world consumes in a year. If we could capture .01 of a percent of this energy, the world would never have to use oil, gas or anything else. The question then is not availability, but the technology to harness it, and there are many advanced mediums today, which could accomplish just that, if they were not hindered by the need to compete for market share with the established energy power structures.Then there is wind energy. Wind energy has long been denounced as weak and, due to it being location driven, impractical. This is simply not true. The US department of energy admitted in 2007, that if wind was fully harvested in just 3 of America's 50 states, it could power the entire nation. And then there are the rather unknown mediums of Tidal and Wave Power. Tidal power is derived from Tidal shifts in the ocean. Installing turbines, which capture this movement, generates energy. In the United Kingdom, 42 sites are currently noted as available, forecasting that 34% of all the UK's energy could come form tidal power alone. Wave Power, which extracts energy from the surface motions of the ocean, is estimated to have a global potential of up to 80,000 TWh a year, This means 50% of the entire planet's energy usage could be produced from this medium alone.Now It is important to point out that tidal, wave, solar and wind power requires virtually no preliminary energy to harness, unlike coal, oil, gas, biomass, hydrogen and all the others.In combination, these four mediums alone, if efficiently harnessed through technology, could power the world forever.That being said, there happens to be another form of clean, renewable energy, which trumps them all- Geothermal Power.Geothermal energy utilizes what is called heat mining, which, though a simple process using water, is able to generate massive amounts of clean energy. In 2006, an MIT report on geothermal energy found that 13,000 zettajoules of power are currently available in the earth, with the possibility of 2000 zj being easily tap-able with improved technology. The total energy consumption of all the countries on the planet is about half of a zettajoule a year. This means about 4000 years of planetary power could be harnessed in this medium alone. And when we understand that the earth's heat generation is constantly renewed, this energy is really limitless and could be used forever. These energy sources are only a few of the clean, renewable
mediums available, and as time goes on, we will find more.The grand realization is that we have total energy abundance, without the need for pollution, traditional conservation, or, in fact, a price tag.[TITLE: THE VENUS PROJECT - TRANSPORATION]And what about transportation? The prevailing means of transportation in our societies is by automobile and aircraft, both of which predominantly need fossils fuels to run.In the case of the automobile, the battery technology needed to power an electric car that can go over 100 miles an hour for over 200 miles on one charge exists, and has existed for many years. However, due to battery patents controlled by the oil industry, which limits their availability, to maintain market share, coupled with the political pressure from the energy industry, the accessibility and affordability of this technology is limited.There is absolutely no reason, other than pure, corrupt profit interest, that every single vehicle in the world could not be electric and utterly clean, with zero need for gasoline.As far as airplanes, it is time we realize that this means of travel is inefficient, cumbersome, slow, and causes far too much pollution.This is a Mag Lev train. It uses magnets for propulsion. It is fully suspended by a magnetic field, and requires less than 2% of the energy used for plane travel. The train has no wheels, so nothing can wear out. The current maximum speed of versions of this technology, as used in Japan, is 361 miles per hour. However, this version of the technology is very dated.An organization called ET3, which has connections with the Venus Project, has established a tube based maglev that can travel up to 4000 miles per hour, in a motionless, frictionless tube, which can go over land, or underwater. Imagine going from LA to NY for an extended lunch break.... Or from Washington DC to Beijing China in 2 hours. This is the future of continental and intercontinental travel. Fast, clean, with only a fraction of the energy usage we use today for the same means.In fact, between maglev technology, advanced battery storage, and geothermal energy, there would be no reason to ever burn fossil fuels again. And we can do this now, if we were not held back by the paralyzing profit structure.[TITLE: "WORK"][FRESCO:]Now America is inclined towards fascism. It has a propensity by its dominant philosophy and religion, to uphold the fascist point of view. American industry is essentially a fascist institution. If you don't understand that, the minute you punch that time clock, you walk into a dictatorship. [MEADOWS:]Were given notions about the respectability of work. And I really look at as being paid slavery.[FRESCO]:You're brought up to believe that you shall earn you living by the sweat of your brow... that holds people back. Freeing people, from drudgery, repetitive jobs, which make them ignorant. You rob them. In our society, that is a resource-based economy, machines free people. You see, we can't image that, because we've never known that kind of world.[TITLE: AUTOMATION][NARRRATION:]If we look back history, we see a very clear pattern of machine automation,