Showing posts with label anarchists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anarchists. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2015

James O’Keefe Goes Undercover in Greece During Financial Crisis



Published on Jul 16, 2015
This Project Veritas video shows an unfettered view of Greece’s citizens on their country’s economic crisis. Project Veritas President, James O’Keefe was chased from riots under the threat of violence and was even tear-gassed. And O’Keefe and other Project Veritas journalists infiltrated the Communist, Socialist, and Anarchist movements and even captured Members of the Greece’s Parliament on hidden camera.

In this new video, Andreas Katsaniotis, a Member of the Hellenic Parliament (Greece’s legislative body) was caught on hidden camera saying: “The referendum is so foggy…” Referring to the recent national referendum in Greece on whether to accept the bailout conditions jointly proposed by the European Commission, International Monetary Fund, and European Central Bank.

As the situation in Greece continued to deteriorate O’Keefe and other Project Veritas journalists were right there to capture the footage. Things got particularly intense when they spoke to members of the anarchist movement. One anarchist, who would only identify himself as Paolo and was covering his face with a black bandana, was caught on hidden camera saying: “One day we’ll burn, not only parliament, parliament and the police stations.”

O’Keefe also attempted to vote in the recent Greek Referendum. Unlike his numerous attempts in the United States, O’Keefe was told that photo ID was necessary to vote in Greece. In fact, the Greek poll worker was shocked that the U.S. did not have such laws saying: “You go to vote and you will not give an ID, and how they know you are the one you say you are?”


Website: http://projectveritas.com/
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/Project_Veritas

NJO: Title, video and blurb from James O'Keefe's YouTube channel VeritasVisuals.

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Cynthia Jeub: How I Came to Support Same-Sex Marriage, Part 2: Losing Faith in Politics

NJO: Source: Cynthia Jeub's blog.

It was March 2012 when everything I had been taught to believe about gay people began to break down. People were choosing sides in the upcoming election, and as I became more politically influential than ever before, I was becoming equally disenfranchised with politics.

The more I worked on both sides of political lines, however, I realized all people are just people, and the system is more broken than I ever knew. Simple conversations with a fellow investigative journalist, a Ron Paul supporter, and a childhood friend made me start questioning the political reasoning behind opposition to same-sex marriage rights.

A fellow videographer (NJO: Almost certainly either John Howting or Spencer Meads) drove me to the university (NJO: The University of North Carolina) we were investigating for corruption. (NJO: Some context: This was during the lead-up to the vote on North Carolina's legislatively-referred constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, known as Amendment 1, which would pass as expected, and would in October 2014 be declared unconstitutional. The "investigation" for "corruption" that James O'Keefe had sent Howting, Meads and Jeub on involved Howting and Jeub secretly filming university administrators while pretending to be students who wanted to commit voting fraud as a means to defeat the amendment and trying to get said administrators to voice some kind of endorsement or sympathetic statement on tape. Classic James.) We discussed the stronger arguments for equal marriage rights: gay couples weren’t hurting anyone with their personal lifestyle choices, so it didn’t make sense to outlaw it on grounds of harming people. Our investigation was focused around voting legality and ethics, not equal marriage, but I had to think about my priorities: I knew I believed in fighting injustice, and it didn’t seem fair that these people couldn’t live how they wished.

My friend Dave picked me up from the airport when I landed back in Colorado. A dedicated Ron Paul supporter, Dave talked to me about the primaries and didn’t ask me any questions about my secretive trip. I was leaning toward anarchy as a political philosophy (I don’t support violent revolution, but I think the ideal form of government is no government, and the means to get there is empowering individuals to govern themselves), but I didn’t support Ron Paul. Dave, too, brought up equal marriage rights. He said the government shouldn’t be making marriage official and taxing based on it anyway, so it didn’t matter if people were living outside of the so-called “definition” of marriage.

...

NJO: Whole post at Cynthia Jeub's blog.

You can see the long cut of the "investigation" here and the short and flashy cut here.

The long cut is over 3 hours long, with 13 distinct segments over (I think) 12 cuts. I say "long cut" instead of "full video" or "uncut version" because as we'll see in the following breakdown of both cuts, there were at least two surreptitious recordings made by the Project Veritas videographers as components of this "investigation" which, while included in partial form in the short and flashy cut, were for some reason excluded from the long cut.

Breakdown (work in progress):

Approximately the first 2 and a half hours consists of a series of hidden camera operations against
(a) University of North Carolina administrators (00:00 - 49:32, 49:32 - 1:21:33, 1:59:10 - 2:15:58, 2:15:58 - 2:32:30),
(b) North Carolina poll workers (1:36:13 - 1:59:10), and
(c) A phone bank operated by the anti-Amendment One campaign group Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families (1:21:33 - 1:36:13). These operations are all carried out by John Howting, accompanied in the second segment of part (a) (49:32 - 1:21:33; a meeting with two university administrators) by Cynthia Jeub, and in part (c) (1:21:33 - 1:36:13; the phone bank) by Spencer Meads.

The next 35 minutes consists of:
(d) John Howting's phone call to citizen Zbigniew Gorzkowski (2:32:30 - 2:35:18),
(e) Two hidden camera operations carried out by a young woman (maybe Cynthia Jeub again but I'm not sure) against University of North Carolina administrators (2:35:18 - 2:50:27),
(f) Spencer Meads' non-hidden camera confrontation with citizen William Romero outside what is apparently Romero's home, in which a kid is caused to cry (2:50:27 - 2:52:46),
(g) A non-hidden camera interview with Gary Sims, then Deputy Director of Wake County Board of Elections, conducted by a young guy who doesn't sound like either Howting or Meads (2:52:46 - 3:04:32), and lastly
(h) A non-hidden camera interview with a Durham County election judge, conducted by two guys who sound like Meads and Howting but I'm not completely sure. (3:04:32 - 3:08:10)

The short cut is 10 minutes long and features:

(i) A cut-down version of Meads' confrontation with Mr Romero, this time with subtitles, the faces pixelated, and narration from James O'Keefe. (00:00-00:49)
(ii) A cut-down and subtitled version of the second of the hidden-camera-at-a-polling-place stings carried out by Howting as seen in the long cut (the one starting at about 1:53:00, where he uses the name William DeJesus Romero and puts on an accent), preceded by some brief footage of Howting walking around outside not seen in the long cut, accompanied by some narration from James indicating that the dungaree get-up he's wearing is meant to denote "a strange man". (00:49-02:00)
(iii) A segment focussing on Mr Gorzkowski, starting with narration from James, a snippet of the interview with Gary Sims from the long cut, then some footage not in the long cut of Meads walking outside wearing similar get-up as Howting's with James again indicating that this denotes a "strange man". This is then followed by footage of a hidden-camera-at-a-polling-place sting carried out by Meads that's not seen in the long cut, in which he uses the name Zbigniew Gorzkowski. (02:00 - 03:16) After that is a cut-down version of Howting's phone conversation with Mr Gorzkowski with an introductory narration by James. (03:16 - 04:41)
(iv) "Ballots offered in the name of the Dead". A cut-down and subtitled version of the first of Howting's polling place stings seen in the long cut (the one starting at 1:36:13, where he uses the name Michael G. Bolton), preceded by an introductory narration from James. (04:41 - 05:20)
(v) A brief segue into the second half of the video which focuses on the other people recorded in the long cut, i.e. the university staff, the election officials, the phone bank activists. Brief snippet (not in long cut) of John Howting outside what is presumably a University of North Carolina building, dressed as he is the second segment of the long cut (UNC ballcap, blue shirt, blonde hair) as James narrates, "We found much more than we expected". Brief snippet of the first segment of the long cut (Howting's hidden camera recording of university administrator/professor Terri Phoenix), and the election judge. (05:20 - 05:46)
(vi) Sims (05:46 - 05:56)
(vii) the county election judge (05:56 - 07:33)
(viii) Howting and Jeub (07:25 - 09:51)
(ix) An audio recording not heard in the long cut, accompanied by a still frame not seen in the long cut, of the Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families phone bank activists (09:51 - 10:18)

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Dear Freshmen, ahem... "First-Year-Students"

A year ago, this publication did not exist. Since then we have violated 37 copyrights in our satire of The New York Times, done a review of the most decorated liberal professor doors, investigated the rampant fiscal and electoral corruption of NJPIRG, documented our speech code, and investigated faculty contributions to political parties to find out professors gave 104 times more money to John F. Kerry than George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. We have exposed the Stalinism of Rutgers favorite son, Paul Robeson, and printed the appropriate forms to relinquish your United States Citizenship if you are ashamed of your American identity. Additionally, we have filed a “bias incident report form” on one student who wrote “Die” all over one of our issues. We sent Valentines to NJPIRG requesting our money be refunded while documenting threats made to us by our old faculty advisor who told us “not to f*** with him.” We investigated our bureaucracy to find over 33 distinct offices, committees, programs, projects, caucuses and councils that advance nothing but diversity of skin color. As a response to Campus Censorship of the Grease Trucks' sandwiches, we attempted to ban Lucky Charms from the dining halls in a form of satirical protest. We, tragically, succeeded. And we got it on tape. We interviewed Bret Schundler for Governor and confronted a Professor who chased a student out of his classroom because he disagreed with the professor’s worldviews. We responded to the "Vagina Monologues" with the “Penis Monologues.” At Tent State, we counter-protested with patriotic country music and an affirmative action bake sale where we sold brownies for less money to minority customers. Students signed our petition to ban water. Anarchist ninjas assaulted us when we told them about the state scandals. Professors have tried to expel us when we exposed their lies, and the administration has disavowed us when we printed the truth. We have been assaulted, betrayed, and, at times, ignored. But we will never surrender in our pursuit to challenge the academic monopoly of thought. We will never surrender at trying to get students to look at both sides of an issue. We will never surrender in upholding our motto, Veritas vos Liberabit.

Read on.      - THE EDITORS

NJO: Originally printed in the September 2005 issue of The Centurion.