Skeptic Project

I wanted to contribute a list of those in the film, that I've noted thus far:

(Cast of Characters)
[Dr. Robert Bowman] old guy, nuclear physics, constitution in background
[Alan Watt] scottish guy, grey, bad teeth
[Max Keiser] guy in white shirt, works for Iran
[G. Edward Griffin] old guy in his office
[John Perkins] eonomic hit man
[George Humphrey]
[Dr. Francis A. Boyle] squirly old guy, looks like Ron Paul
[Jesse Ventura]
[Gerald Celente]
[Webster Tarpley]
[Wayne Madsen] guy outside at the national mall, looks like a fat version of that guy who debated noam chomsky and threatened to punch him in the face
[William K. Black] can't close his mouth; green shirt with tie

The descriptions are mine, they're just a copy and paste from my notes so I remember who these people are. They're not "official descriptions" ;-)

Who is Gerald Celente?

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According to Wikipedia:

Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is an American trend forecaster, publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant[3] and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Celente has described himself as a "political atheist" and "citizen of the world." He has appeared as a guest on television news shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, The Glenn Beck Show and NBC Nightly News.

An article in the Washington Times has claimed "Celente's accurate forecasts include the 1987 stock market crash, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the 1997 Asian currency crash" and "the 2007 subprime mortgage scandal." His forecasts since 1993 have included predictions about terrorism, economic collapses and war. More recent forecasts involve fascism in the United States, food riots and tax revolts.
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Sort of interesting how the entry goes from very specific, to very vague. Either way, I do not recall any food riots or tax revolts. If your perspective is extreme enough, I guess you find some fascism in America. Then perhaps the tea parties could be "revolts" and then his predictions would be accurate.

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In 2009 Celente predicted turmoil which he described as "Obamageddon" and he was a popular guest on conservative cable-TV shows such as Fox News Sunday and Glenn Beck's television program. In April 2009 Celente wrote, "Wall Street controls our financial lives; the media manipulates our minds. These systems cannot be changed from within. There is no alternative. Without a revolution, these institutions will bankrupt the country, keep fighting failed wars, start new ones, and hold us in perpetual intellectual subjugation." He appeared on the Glenn Beck show and criticized the U.S. stimulus plan of 2009, calling government controlled capitalism "fascism" and saying shopping malls in the U.S. would become "ghost malls." Celente has said, "smaller communities, the smaller groups, the smaller states, the more self-sustaining communities, will 'weather the crisis in style' as big cities and hypertrophic suburbias descend into misery and conflict," and forecasts "a downsizing of America."
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So this is the Nostradamus, huh?

Let's see what some other people think of Celente:

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Aside from the Dale Carnegie-style language here, much of Celente’s “suggestions” seem more like a series of guidelines on how to become a successful “futurist” predicting a good deal of generalist nonsense that scares the shit out of people, using language lifted from a newspaper story’s barebones and riding on a few hunches. Of course, it also helps to have an aesthetic touch — something along the lines of a desktop covered with 12 globes, just so you can impress a New York Times reporter who comes by to write a small profile.

Since Infowars could not be bothered to perform even the most rudimentary act of journalism, the time has come to see if Celente’s record truly cuts the mustard.

* In May 1993, in a story about fiftysomethings losing their jobs written for the Orange County Register, Celente was quoted. He was advising IBM at the time during a period of downsizing. What was Celente’s golden advice? He informed displaced executives to “go for some kind of counseling.” Asked to comment on this situation, Celente offered the same doom and gloom boilerplate that he’s telling us today: “The Industrial Age is ending. All the systems are breaking down and that means disappointment and disillusionment for the people who grew up in the ’50’s.” He elaborated, “These people believed in the Ozzie and Harriet way of life. That concept is dead. So is the concept of retiring at 65.” These were hardly prescient or specific thoughts, but they were certainly dramatic enough to make it into an Orange County newspaper.
* Why not get topical? Let’s take Celente on a more specialized subject like restaurants. In 1993, Celente predicted “growing demands for take-out food, high- and low-end restaurants, and restaurants that offer live entertainment. Middle-range restaurants with mainstream fare will suffer.” Aside from the fact that Celente’s prediction accounts for about 90% of restaurants, doesn’t the fact that human beings need to eat remain a comfy ledge to launch a prediction?
* In 1998, Celente told Money Magazine that, as the population grows older, “Americans will be spending more time at home than ever before both for pleasure and business.” Imagine that. You grow old, retire, and then you suddenly have more time. How the hell did Celente know?
* In the September 21, 2000 edition of Newsweek, the great futurist weighed in on mindless chores. Why are they called mindless? “Your mind can’t be going all the time.” And when any problem becomes bigger, it becomes bigger than burnout. “It’s road rage, it’s air rage, it’s Columbine, it’s stress — and people don’t get it.” I’m wondering if it’s also the kind of impulse that will cause you to make impetuous predictions about the United States’s future.
* Asked by CBS News in May 2005 to comment upon where Dillard’s planned to go, Celente had this to say: “There is nothing Dillard’s has that you can’t find in 1,000 other places. America is vastly overstored.” Take out “Dillard’s” and sub it in with another department store chain name, and you begin to see what little Celente’s remarks say.
* But if we’re in for a future of doom and gloom, Celente has been sending us some mixed messages. He told the Associated Press in May 2005, “The bottom of the luxury market is not going to fall out.”
* Talking with the Associated Press in September 2005, Celente suggested that Wal-Mart could deflect its negative image with its philanthropy. That’s hardly a stunning insight. Any positive action has the probability of causing a company to look good. This is rudimentary probability. But what profound thoughts did our great seer tell the AP? “We try to refrain from making value judgments — what the motive is. But the fact is that [Wal-Mart was] there with trailer trucks being turned away. Amazing, isn’t it?” Amazing indeed. Presumably, the AP reporter who talked with Celente did so because the reporter needed somebody to describe the situation as “amazing” or “magnificent.” Some casual modifier that might be confused for profound thought.
* Celente was asked to weigh in on Internet trends by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Patricia Yollin in December 2006. “People are more electronically connected and less humanly connected,” opined our great psychic. And if that general piece of advice wasn’t enough, Celente also took the time to badmouth public displays of affection, pointing out how unacceptable it was to put PDA in “techno jargon.” Perhaps Celente confused PDA with another type of PDA, but what he didn’t seem to tell the reporter was that acronyms have existed long before the Internet.

Here you have a history of a man who not only makes his living spouting this generalist nonsense at corporations, but who is listened to by the media. If we weren’t all scared shitless, this wingnut would be chased out of boardrooms and newsrooms with pitchforks.

http://www.edrants.com/gerald-celente-futurist-fraud/<br /> -----

Who is G. Edward Griffin?

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According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Edward_Griffin</p>

G. Edward Griffin (born November 7, 1931) is an American film producer, author, and political lecturer. Starting as a child actor, he became a radio station manager before age 20. He then began a career of producing documentaries and books on often-debated topics like cancer, Noah's ark, and the Federal Reserve, as well as on right-libertarian views of the U.S. Supreme Court, terrorism, subversion, and foreign policy. Since the 1970s, Griffin has promoted Laetrile as a killer of cancer cells, a view not accepted by a majority of scientists. He has also promoted the Durupınar site as hosting the original Noah's ark, against skeptics as well as near-Ararat Creationists. He has opposed the Federal Reserve since the 1960s, saying it constitutes a banking cartel and an instrument of war and totalitarianism. In 2002, Griffin founded the individualist network Freedom Force International.
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Standard extreme right Libertarian nut with a Noah's Ark twist. Sweet. So I wonder what sort of individualist would join his Freedom Force International network. What better place to look than it's Hall of Honor:

1. Alex Jones
2. G. Edward Griffin (How humble, he put himself second)

The rest are other conspiracy theorists and homeopaths that I don't care to bother listing, go here for the rest:

http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/freedomcontent.cfm?fuseaction=hallofhonor&refpage=home /> -----