"Monopoly" created to show evils of capitalism

"How I Built This" (Planet Money, 1/25/23); Ananda; Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

"Monopoly" is a board game built around capitalism, so is its origin story

He used to have a monocle (Mandela Effect)

"Monopoly" is one of the best-selling board games in history. It's been an iconic part of American life: a cheap pastime during the Great Depression, a reminder of home for soldiers during WW II, an American export during its rise as a global superpower, and a best-seller during the pandemic.

The game's staying power may in part be because of a strong American myth — the idea that anyone, with just a little cash, can rise from rags to riches.

Author Mary Pilon: The Monopolists

Mary Pilon, author of The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game, dug into the origin story that was once included with every box of the game:

• A man named Charles Darrow was unemployed and came up with the game to pass the time.

He took Monopoly to the game company Parker Brothers in 1934 and eventually became a millionaire.

But there's another origin story – a very different one that promotes a very different and negative image of financial exploitation capitalism (with two sets of starkly different rules on how to play it).

That story shows how a critique of capitalism (and private property) grew from a seed of an idea in a rebellious young woman's mind into a game legendary for its celebration of wealth at all costs.

Hold onto assets rather than working for salary

• This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee, mastered by Natasha Branch, and edited by Jess Jiang. It was made in collaboration with NPR's Throughline. For more about the origin story of Monopoly, listen to their original episode "Do Not Pass Go."
• The original Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Julie Caine, Victor Yvellez, Anya Steinberg, Yolanda Sangweni, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, and Amiri Tulloch. It was fact-checked by Kevin Volkl. Music by Drop Electric.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR One or anywhere you get podcasts Find more Planet Money: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, weekly Newsletter. Segment: Monopoly is a board game built around capitalism. So is its origin story

Julian Assange's sham WikiLeaks trial (video)

Jimmy Dore (jimmydoreshow.com); Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Reality Winner also got the Manning treatment.

Now that the U.S. government bent over backwards to extradite Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in England with the help of the British government, Assange is being put through the same sort of torturous treatment Pfc. Bradley Chelsea Manning was forced to endure to whistleblowing. Assange is being accused of helping Edward Snowden reveal the NSA and CIA's massive spying program being inflicted on all Americans with a cell phone or Internet presence. What the kangaroo court will do to him can already be predicted. It was exactly this sort of injustice that kept Assange in the embassy for so long. Will Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian, Amnesty International, the ACLU, the [sold out] Intercept, Democracy Now!, or any other justice advocates be able to get him any semblance of a fair trial?

(9/11/19) Pam Anderson defends Assange on Megan McCain's The View

Chelsea Manning released (video)

AP (mail.com, 3/13/20); Jimmy Dore; Pfc. Sandoval, S. Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Super-patriot transsexual Pfc. Bradley Manning now Chelsea Manning attends 22nd Annual OUT100 Celebration Gala at the Altman Building in NY (Andy Kropa/Invision/AP).

.

Ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning finally freed from jail

Free Julian Assange from US extradition

FALLS CHURCH, Virginia - A federal judge on Thursday [March 12, 2020] ordered the release of former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, ending roughly a year of incarceration that s/he had served for refusing to testify to a [now disbanded] grand jury.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Manning's release from jail after prosecutors reported that the grand jury that subpoenaed her has disbanded. The Alexandria sheriff's office confirmed Thursday night that Manning had been released.

The judge [outrageously] left in place more than $256,000 in fines he imposed for her refusal to testify to the grand jury, which is investigating WikiLeaks. The fines had been accumulating at a rate of $1,000 a day.

Should I face Chelsea and Reality Winner's fate?

A hearing in the case that had been scheduled for Friday has now been canceled.

Manning had argued that she had shown through her prolonged stay at the Alexandria jail that she proved she could not be coerced into testifying and therefore should be released.

Manning's legal statement asked for privacy and said they were relieved at her release. On Wednesday, her lawyers said she had attempted suicide while at the jail.

Manning was held since May for [exercising her right in] refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks. She spent an additional two months in jail earlier in 2019 for refusing to testify to a separate grand jury.

She could have faced nearly six more months of jail time if the grand jury had continued its work. The civil contempt citation was designed to coerce her testimony. Federal prosecutors had maintained that Manning could easily effect her own release by complying with the grand jury subpoena. They said she had the same duty to provide testimony that all citizens face.

WikiLeaks' Assange being tortured in prison.

Under federal law, a recalcitrant witness can only be jailed for civil contempt if there is a reasonable belief that incarceration will coerce the witness into testifying. If the jail time has no coercive effect and is purely punitive, the recalcitrant witness is supposed to be released.

Manning has said she believes grand juries in general are an abuse of power and that she would rather starve to death than testify.

Judge Trenga, in originally sending Manning to jail, said there was no dishonor in testifying to grand juries, which are referenced specifically in the U.S. Constitution, and that he hoped time in jail would allow Manning to reflect on that.

Manning had previously spent seven years in a military prison for delivering a trove of classified information to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is under indictment at the Alexandria courthouse and is fighting extradition to the U.S. Manning's 35-year sentence was then commuted by then-Pres. B. Obama. More

Edward Snowden tells all in new book

Amazon.com; Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Edward Snowden, the man who risked his life and everything to expose the U.S. government’s system of illegal mass surveillance on American civilians, reveals the story of his life for the first time.

He includes how he helped build the U.S. (NSA) secret civilian spying system and what motivated him to try to bring it down.

In 2013, 29-year-old Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American spying/intelligence establishment and revealed that the U.S. government has been secretly pursuing the means to collect

• every single U.S. phone call
• text message
• and email.

No Place to Hide (Greenwald)

The result is an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every American and every person on earth.

Six years later Snowden reveals for the first time HOW he helped build this system and WHY he exposed it.

Spanning the green Washington, D.C. Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, the new book Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young American man who grew up online ― a man who became a spy, a whistleblower and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience.

Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic. More

US out to destroy Wikileaks' Julian Assange

Mediaite Staff; NBC News; April 11, 2019; Wisdom Quarterly

(NBC News) "A Dark Day For Journalism": Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief on Julian Assange arrest.


(AFP) Edward Snowden has something to say about illegal arrest.

Arrest of Wikileaks co-founder "illegal" (video)

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks arrested today in London; faces minor U.S. charge related to Chelsea Bradley Manning leaks: (Democracy Now! April 11, 2019) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested in London. Earlier today, British police forcibly removed Assange from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has been living since 2012. London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that Assange was arrested on behalf of the United States authorities. The U.S. has charged Assange with helping Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning hack a government computer. The indictment was unsealed shortly after his arrest. We speak to Renata Ávila, a member of Assange’s legal team, as well as British human rights attorney Geoffrey Robertson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald and former Justice Department attorney Jesselyn Radack.

#DemocracyNow #JulianAssange #WikiLeaks

Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on nearly 1,400 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch livestream 8:00-9:00 AM ET: https://democracynow.org

CIA tells Harvard: NO to Chelsea Manning

Associated Press (ap.org); Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Harvard scraps decision to give Chelsea Manning a fellowship

Bradley became Chelsea in federal prison.

Harvard University reversed its decision to name American hero Chelsea Manning (formerly known to the world as US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning) a "Visiting Fellow" early Friday, a day after the CIA's director told them to].

I direct the CIA for Trump.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo scrapped a planned appearance [at Harvard] over the title [of Visiting Fellow] for the soldier [Chelsea Manning] who was convicted of whistle blowing by releasing damning classified information showing US war crimes, crimes against humanity, and atrocities for all the world to see. 

• 

  Go to Harvard!

  PHOTO: In this undated photo provided by the Army EEUU is seen transgender US military soldier Chelsea Manning in a wig (Army EEUU via AP, archive)

• CIA director cancels Harvard speech over "traitor" Manning

(Sept. 15, 2017) Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the university's [CIA assassinated] John F. Kennedy School of Government, wrote in a statement posted to the university's website that naming Manning a visiting fellow was a mistake, even though he said the title carries no special honor.

 

War is Peace. Just ask Obama.

"We invited Chelsea Manning to spend a day at the Kennedy School," he wrote. "On that basis, we also named Chelsea Manning a Visiting Fellow. We did not intend to honor her in any way or to endorse any of her words or deeds, as we do not honor or endorse any Fellow."

 

Elmendorf apologized to Manning and to "many concerned people" he said he had heard from "for not recognizing upfront the full implications of our original invitation." Manning is still invited to spend a day at the school and speak to students, though without the visiting fellow title, he wrote.

 

Obama did at least one good thing: pardon

Manning responded on Twitter early Friday, writing that she was "honored to be 1st disinvited trans woman visiting @harvard fellow."

"They chill marginalized voices under @cia pressure," she said while also accusing the school of letting the CIA determine "what is and is not taught." More

Intercept: Whistlelower cover blown Reality...

Associated Press (ap.org); Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hi, my name is Reality Winner. I'm a whistle blower against soulless ginger Trump (AP).

Obama/GOP will not tolerate whistleblowing

It will be difficult for 25-year-old Reality Winner to get a fair trial if her case becomes "this big thing where we're not going to tolerate leakers [whistleblowers]," Winner's mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told The Associated Press in an interview.

 

"I think they're going to try to make an example out of her because of the political climate right now," Winner-Davis said.

Winner, a former Air Force linguist who now works as a U.S. government contractor, was arrested Saturday by FBI agents on charges that she made copies of a classified report containing top-secret information and mailed it to an online news organization [called The Intercept or WikiLeaks].

 

A judge has scheduled a hearing Thursday for Winner in U.S. District Court to determine whether to allow her to be released on bond pending trial....

I'm not a "soulless ginger orangutan" like Reality Winner says. I'm a redhead.

.

Prosecutors have not named the news outlet, but her arrest was announced Monday as the website The Intercept reported it had obtained a classified NSA (National Security Agency) report suggesting Russian hackers had attacked a U.S. voting software supplier before last year's presidential election....

 

The Intercept said the NSA report was dated May 5 -- the same date court records cited for the documents Winner is accused of leaking....

She posted on Facebook three months ago that climate change is a more important issue than health care "since not poisoning an entire population seems to be more in line with 'health' care, and not the disease care system that people voted for a soulless ginger orangutan to 'fix.'" More

Obama to release Chelsea Bradley Manning!

Editors, Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; RootsAction.org

Hey, F all you all. I'm part of a movement to keep the status quo no matter what (AP).

Look at me. I am the man who sold the world: CIA-groomed stooge B.S. Obama (AP).

.

Stop US torture (freechelsea.com)

We are no fans of the best president we never had, the great letdown that was Obama.

But he has done three good things: made blacks proud, commuted the sentence of Chelsea Bradley Manning, and probably at least one other thing. What's so bad about Obama -- from the left side of viewing the political scene? Let's tell the exiting Obama himself:

Look, I made some mistakes. Ask Michael.

Finally, President B.S. (Barry Soetoro) Obama -- after

• selling us out,
• burning us,
• lying to us,
• serving the military-industrial complex,
• starting more wars than any president in U.S. history (not declared "wars" blessed by Congress but secret wars and kinetic actions, conflicts, and daring others to provoke the US to fabricate a pretext to launch a strike disguised as a retaliation),



The Audacity of Hope Lying

• selling us down the river to the insurance industry and Big Pharma by passing Romneycare in place of a real single payer plan people could afford, then swapping the name out to the Orwellian euphemism (Newspeak) "Affordable Care Act,"
• illegally assassinating/droning enemies and US citizens,
• signing the indefinite detention (NDAA) act,
• continuing the Patriot Act,
• signing off on secret executive acts,
• remaining by and large silent racist event after racist event,
• capitulating to Republicans at every turn and accommodating adversaries as if you worked for them instead of in an adversarial system,
• giving great speeches of sweet lies and soaring oratory,
• delivering great jokes written for you with competence if not actual comedic chops,
• failing to live up to "lawyer," "professor of constitutional law," and "Nobel Peace Prize laureate" titles,
• ...

Obama was great because he was all things to all people and a very convincing liar.

.

Why didn't you help my wife, boy?

-- today commuted the sentence of U.S. military whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning now seven years a prisoner going by the name of Chelsea Manning.

 

Manning was previously serving a 35 year sentence in military prison for telling the truth. Now that sentence will be commuted to time served. Manning is expected to be released in May 2017.
 

Thanks, Obama. Too bad you didn't have the guts to do things like this while you were president of the corporation of the U.S. And what about Native American Leonard Peltier , African American Mumia Abu Jamal, or NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden? How about a get-out-of-jail-free card for Julian Assange or Hillary in case Pres. Trump follows through on the "Lock her up!" campaign promise?

.

.

War is peace (George Orwell, 1984)

When Dr. Stephen Greer (disclosureproject.org) asked Obama, "Disclose the presence of extraterrestrials" on the world stage when you're at the podium, after showing him convincing evidence, Obama said he was afraid to defy parts of the government with their own funding and not under his control.

Obama did -- while promising change and transparency -- has done everything the teleprompter writers could dream of having him. And no one could decry him without risking being called a racist.
 

Of course, the Manning commutation may not stand if Republican Speaker Ryan or the new Trump administration can find a way to rescind it. Thanks, Obama. You've shown that the only way for a person to get along in Washington, D.C. is to go along.

The Manning Saga as oratorio: "The Source"

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Jeff Lunden (NPR.org, Oct. 25, 2014)

Bradley pre-Chelsea Manning in military court, news of the Snowden revelations

Pfc. Bradley, now Chelsea, Manning pays the price for exposing U.S. (uprisingradio.org)

Oratorio tackles issue of leaks from The Source

• Weekend Edition Saturday (download)

The oratorio is a time-honored way for classical composers to tell a big story. Composer Ted Hearne thinks so, too. His new oratorio, The Source, takes on the story of U.S. military insider-whistleblower Chelsea [formerly Pfc. Bradley] Manning and [Julian Assange's] WikiLeaks.

• AUDIO: Listen to the Story (4:46)

Reset the Net protests back encryption, privacy

Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Fightforthefuture.org, Resetthenet

(FFTF) June 5: "Reset the Net" campaign from the group Fight for the Future calls for increased Website encryption and privacy tools for users. Today marks the one-year anniversary of the publication of the first Guardian story based on the leaks of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Activist Evangeline Lilly

(FFTF) Narrated and executive-produced by Evangeline Lilly. Produced by Mata Wata. Don't just watch, DO something: The U.S. government has turned the Internet into a systematic way of spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government surveillance is a dangerous form of censorship. We are emboldened as we Fight for the Future and Demand Progress. Share this video. More

Net Neutrality? Gone. NDAA indefinite detention? Passed. NSA spying? (demanprogress.org)

VIDEO: "There were no good options": Bergdahl should get honorable discharge, says lawyer for deserter
 
Is Bowe Bergdahl a "deserter"? If freed POW left his post, he joins ranks of soldiers moved by conscience to object to US imperial wars of greed, hatred, and delusion

"Awaken to the Truth" with John Lear (audio)

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly; John Lear (thelivingmoon.com)

The truth is too hard to awaken to, so when someone blows the whistle, we tend to duck and shield our eyes from the shattering revelations ("Immaculate Deception" movie).

Edward Snowden (The Guardian) The NSA will not shut up about whistleblower Snowden, but what about the spy who stole more? ...Snowden speaks out against the NSA via Google Hangouts at SxSW... technologists can really fix the deficiencies in the Internet to protect standards.

• 

  Use encryption, use it in layers (sxsw.com).

  WhistleBlogger (Gov't Accountability Project) Protecting corporate, government, and int'l whistleblowers since 1977. Edward Snowden speaks at SXSW: Daily Whistleblower News. GAP client and NSA whistleblower Snowden will speak live via videoconference...



Bradley Chelsea Manning is a hero.

• Who better to advise on business security than Snowden? He defends NSA surveillance whistleblowing at SXSW... secret government spy programs have rocked the world, [he] spoke live from Russia ....urging members of the tech-savvy audience to [use multiple layers of encryption]
• NSA...TV Archive Democracy Now! [on] the latest revelations from Snowden that the NSA...seek[ing] the records of millions of individuals goes against the very fabric of... 
• Free Julian Assange (Facebook) Assange rails against NSA surveillance. He and his team are preparing NEW WikiLeaks releases.

America about to declare WAR (video)

I. Rony, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Noam Chomsky; DemocracyNow.org

Remember 1984, heady days when we championed endless war on a tactic?

 

Opening up a new front (and, more importantly, a new profit stream for the industrious side of the MIC, the Military-Industrial Complex), America plans to officially declared war on whistleblowers.

 

This is actually a war in support of all other wars, whether they are kinetic actions currently being undertaken or our future "spontaneous reactions" on the drawing board. 

M.I.T. Prof. Noam Chomsky explains how the MIC manufactures consent.

• Because it is illegal to initiate war, according to international law, we can only respond to provocations. So on the drawing board are those very provocations. The US government and its associated forces in industry are constantly manufacturing consent for war (by manufacturing pretexts and false flag operations). This helps avoid surprises.

 

The US Military vs. the Truth (DN)

Well, on second thought, it may not declare this one either. Yesterday began the vigorous prosecution and court martial trial -- asking for a minimum of life imprisonment -- of young future Nobel Peace Prize laureate U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. He is Public Enemy No. 2. WikiLeaks' Julian Assange is No. 1. And war is peace.

 

WikiLeaks' lawyer sees spurious "enemy" claims and bid to SCARE whistleblowers MORE

Say no to war, why? My bank, gov't, and TV wants me to say yes (warisacrime.org)

• Obama's drone policy and the Rehman strike in Pakistan
• After 3 years of torture, Army whistleblower begins court-martial shrouded in SECRECY
• Is Pres. Obama LYING about Benghazi, AP Journalists, IRS Scandal? (Slate) “Beyond the Afghan theater, we only target al-Qaida and its associated forces,” Obama declared...
• Obama already violated "new and improved" drone policy? 
• Bradley Manning speaks: In leaked court recording, heroic whistleblower tells his story for first time
• SIGNS: How to spot and save someone who's drowning
• “Capitalist Zen Master” Bob Benson (Mad Men, Season 6)

Loveline to get new co-hostess? (SexWithEmily.com)