Recently, we heard Professor Eric Larsen admonish those who have become obediently ignorant and comfortable living in a country that continues to wage multiple illegal wars in the name of its citizens, that continues to strip away civil liberties granted by the US Constitution, that continues to build the surveillance panopticon vacuuming up emails, phone calls and personal data of its citizens, that continues to remind you that the repealing of freedoms are necessary for your security and the nation’s security. We are now unconsciously living in this new reality created by an irrelevant government inserting itself, trying to take away the power of the people to help one another.
A distorted media and essentially news blackout has been described as the most single powerful weapon used against the people in the United States. These distortions are also necessary for the positioning of athletes, comicbook characters, musicians, and celebrities as heroes to praise and idolize while whistleblowers, the real heroes have become vilified. Many thoughtful people have pointed out this sick inversion. Among them is our guest Doug Auld.
Guest – Doug Auld is an artist who created his own lexicon of heroes memorialized in oil painting portraits. The project is called Those Who Blew The Whistle: 100 Portraits of Whistleblowers and Informers. Whistleblower is generally defined as a person who informs on a person or organization engaged in an illicit activity. Doug broadens the definition to include informers (not informants) who bring previously unknown and unaccepted information forward.