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When I first started posting shows on the Internet, I was uploading and storing them on the FTP server in WMV format. I eventually decided to store them on Youtube as that service became much more convenient. Around about 2022, Godaddy decided that they were going to start charging me $1200 a year to store these old WMV files. I thought this was highway robbery so I cut back this service although I'm still stuck with Godaddy for technical reasons. I downloaded the FTP folder and stuck them on an old hard drive before I deleted it. I lost track of it when I went on the Golden Rule tour. If you click on a thumbnail and it comes up "file not found", this is one of those old shows. These shows were from the late 2000s to about 2013. I found this old folder recently and am restoring some of these old shows by uploading them to Youtube. Many old shows from around this era were stored on Archive.org or Free Speech TV also. These links still work. There was a whole decade or so of shows before I created this web page and started posting on the Internet.These shows were stored on video tape and are in boxes out in my garage. I have a copy of every Pirate TV show ever made either on videotape, disk, or hard drive. I can't restore or upload all these shows to the Internet, but there are many of historical significance that I hope upload. If you come across one of these shows that comes up "file not found" and you really need it, contact me and I'll see what I can do. I want to go through some of these boxes of VCR tapes and digitize some of these old shows that have never been posted to the Internet at some point. Pirate TV used to be called "Crack the CIA" and focused on the secret history of the United States and CIA collusion with drug trafficking. Digitizing some of these old VCR tapes will be quite a chore.  I might dispense with the write-up to save time.  


Donations are always welcome.

My PayPal and Zelle account is the same as the email address: PirateTVSeattle(at)gmail.com

Snail mail: Ed Mays, 1947 S  371st  PL,  Federal Way, WA 98003

Phone: 206 370 9843

Shows are listed in the reverse order of restoration (latest at the top):

Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine- The Rise of Disaster Capitalism TRT 1:29
Naomi Klein:  The Shock  Doctrine

We use the term "brainwashing" to refer to extreme indoctrination, but that is actually slang. Brainwashing has a specific and original meaning. It refers to the erasure and reprogramming of the human mind. The CIA carried out experiments on hundreds of unwitting patients in the 50s and 60s through Dr. Ewan Cameron [First President, World Psychiatric Association] at Allen Memorial Institute, McGill University in Montreal Canada as part of the CIA's MK Ultra Mind Control Program. Doctor Cameron primarily targeted patients with minor psychological ailments, using extreme methods like high-voltage electroshock therapy, prolonged drug-induced sleep (lasting up to 65 days), and sensory deprivation, a process he called "depatterning". He would then try to reprogram them in a process he called "psychic driving".
Many of Dr Cameron's patients' brains were indeed erased although how successful were his attempts at reprogramming is a matter of debate. [Hundreds of people suffered catastrophic, lifelong brain damage that rendered them functionally incapacitated.] Some say the CIA learned how to create Manchurian Candidates that were later used in assassinations. The CIA and the Canadian government were sued by victims of the McGill experiments and their families. It was revealed in 1984 that the U.S. government sent a formal apology to the Canadian government regarding its funding. While the U.S. did apologize to the Canadian government privately, the victims had to fight in court for over a decade just to receive financial settlements.

This research was the basis of modern torture techniques utilized by the US government ["Enhanced interrogation"], some of which are enumerated in the film prelude of this presentation. These include:

Sensory Deprivation: Cameron's research showed that isolating a subject from all sensory input (light, sound, smell) could break their psychological resistance in hours or days rather than weeks. This evolved into the use of sensory overload (white noise or loud music) and hooding.

Sleep Deprivation: Used by Cameron to "depattern" patients through drug-induced comas or forced wakefulness, this became a staple "enhanced" technique for "breaking" a prisoner's will.

Psychological Regression: Cameron aimed to reduce patients to a "childlike state" to make them suggestible. Modern interrogation uses humiliation (such as forced nudity or wearing diapers) to achieve a similar state of total dependency on the interrogator.

Induced Amnesia and Disorientation: Techniques designed to disrupt a subject's sense of time and space-pioneered through Cameron's use of massive electroshock and barbiturates-were adapted to disorient detainees during transport and detention.

Self-Correction/Repetition: Cameron's "psychic driving" (repeatedly playing negative messages to break a person down) informs modern methods where detainees are forced to repeat self-deprecating or specific statements to erode their sense of identity.

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is widely considered one of Naomi Klein's most famous and influential books, solidifying her reputation as a leading critic of neoliberalism and "disaster capitalism". No Logo, her other most famous work came out in 1999. This was the year we shut down the WTO plenary here in Seattle. Pirate TV was there covering that talk, also.
Although I learned about Dr. Cameron and MK Ultra from other sources, [e.g. Acid Dreams- Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, A Question of Torture- Alfred McCoy...] I am thankful to Naomi Klein for dredging up this forbidden history of which most Americans remain oblivious to this day. Naomi's revolutionary insight was to take it a step further and connect the dots, illuminating the empire managers' use of "shock therapy" to further imperial rule, corporate globalization, and neoliberal fascism. This is a sad and disturbing book, especially looking back from where we are now. The next shock is coming right up.

For more on the McGill experiments search YouTube for the Canadian TV documentary: The Sleep Room.

Update: A new class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government and McGill University involving over 400 families was authorized in July 2025 to seek further compensation and accountability.

I have restored this video to the Pirate TV website and am posting it to Youtube for the first time.

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
Jim Douglass: JFK and the Unspeakable

Jim Douglass: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters
Many people including Oliver Stone and Ray Mcgovern have expressed their opinion that this is the best book they have read on the Kennedy assassination. The intense public debate and pressure generated by Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK directly led to the passing of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. As we know, we are still waiting for the majority of these documents to be released.
Recorded at St.Therese Church, Seattle 6/8/08
I have restored this video to the Pirate TV website and am posting it to Youtube for the first time.

Max Blumenthal: Crisis Among the Radical Right TRT 1:15 Recorded 9/24/09
Max Blumenthal:  Crisis Among the Radical Right 

Max talks about his first book- "Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party" at Seattle Town Hall 9/24/09. Undoubtedly one of the foremost investigative journalists alive today, Max delves into the little known perverse history of the Christian Right, the movement that brought us Ronald Reagan, George W Bush, and Donald Trump. You can access Max's journalism nowadays on- The Grayzone: Independent news and investigative journalism on politics and empire.

Website: https://thegrayzone.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegrayzonenews
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegrayzonenews Telegram: https://t.me/thegrayzonenews
YouTube: : https://www.youtube.com/@thegrayzone7996/streams

I have restored this video to the Pirate TV website and am posting it to Youtube for the first time.

Michael Parenti Lies, Wars, & Empire TRT 1:36
Michael Parenti: Lies, Wars and Empire

In this extraordinary talk recorded at Antioch University in Seattle on 5/12/07, Michael Parenti explores how propaganda works in relation to human cognition or “How to think about what we think”. Parenti says, “We know truth exists because liars exist.” Since we perceive with our mind and not our eyes, our perception is already limited by our convictions. He calls this the “Prevailing orthodoxy” or “Dominant paradigm”, which can be described as “conformity of bias.” This conformity of bias in a highly indoctrinated society passes for objectivity. This is why reality is radical. Says Parenti: “Heterodoxy is more reliable since it is constantly challenged and tested.”

To celebrate the life of one of my greatest mentors I have been going through old hard drives and spools of DVDs to find old shows featuring Michael Parenti. As I go, I’ll pick out some other shows of note, upload them to Youtube and restore them to the website while I’m at it. Godaddy decided that they were going to start charging me $1200 a year to park WMV files at one point so I downloaded and deleted those files. This folder somehow got deleted from my laptop when I was on the Golden Rule tour. Three- or 4-years’ worth of shows in WMD format were lost. I found these in a backup folder on an old hard drive yesterday! This is where I got the Michael Parenti talk that I upload yesterday.

This current talk was in the first spool of DVDs I went through. There are several more. So, if you are rifling through this website and come across an old show that comes up “file not found”, it is one of those shows. There is probably not enough time in my life to restore all those shows. However, if you come across one that you simply can’t live without, contact me and I’ll upload it. There were roughly a decade and a half of Pirate TV broadcasts before I created the website and started putting the shows online. These are in boxes full of VCR tapes. I will upload some of these shows that I think are particularly important for the first time as well as other shows featuring Michael Parenti as I come across them. I watched this show while I was working on it. I’m so glad I did! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Michael Parenti: Capitalism's Apocalypse- Why the plutocrats can't save anyone, not even themselves. Recorded 8/27/08
Michael Parenti: Capitalism's  Apocalypse

I was able to find this old show that I thought was lost and have uploaded it to Youtube [1/23/26]. I am looking for more old talks by Dr. Parenti. In this talk he discusses how capitalism is incompatible with democracy and human survival. Recorded at NoneSuch Space, Oakland, CA on 8/23/2008 by Martin Spencer Davies for TUC radio. RIP Michael Parenti. Thanks to Mariah Gilardin and David Rovics