A look back at the first year of this podcast, the topics covered and how the show changed with them.

The Big Five-Oh! This is the final episode of The Private Citizen for 2020 where I will provide a look backwards at the year and the topics I covered on the show.

This episode was recorded before a live audience on Twitch. You can watch the video after the fact on YouTube.

Upcoming Hiatus of the Show

I had originally planned to record another episode before this wrap up, which would have taken us to 51 episodes for the year. However, my research into voter fraud in the US Presidential Election, especially of the affidavit of Russel James Ramsland, Jr. filed in cases in Michigan and Georgia has turned up a number of inconsistencies that were also reported by The New York Times. This and further research into similar lawsuits and claimes made by legal experts surrounding President Trump is causing me to believe that this isn’t a serious issue worth reporting. And as such, that episode has died with the story. Instead, I present this year in review show as the final episode for 2020.

I will now take the rest of December off to recharge my batteries, rethink the show somewhat and do some work on the website. The plan is to come back to the regular schedule on Wednesday, 6 January 2021.

The Year 2020 in Review

As you can see, so far I have managed to release more than the promised one episode per week. I’m also really happy that, aside from one episode that was delayed by a day, I’ve always managed to keep my Wednesday release schedule so far.

I am thankful for the roughly 2000 - 3000 listeners I estimate listen to each one of these. And I’m even more thankful for the producers who send me information, feedback and who support the show monetarily. Please consider telling people about the show – or specific episodes thereof – if you think they might be interested.

Discrete Episodes

Elections and Election Fraud

Surveillance Capitalism

The SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Off the Grid

Wirecard

Privacy Legislation Analysis

The Crypto Wars

Producer Feedback

Russell writes in with a collection of points regarding a number of previous episodes of the show:

I recently did some research on Bernays. Here are a few media resources I came across that you might find useful. Bernays donated his papers to the Library of Congress long before he died, and, as such, they are well catalogued and indexed. The finding aid is the culmination of that indexing.

The Father of Spin: Edward Bernays is an interview that CSPAN did with Larry Tye. Tye was one of the first journalists to begin researching Bernays using the LOC collection. Bernays was still alive at the time and Tye was able to interview him for the book he was writing. He has some unique insights into the personal life of Bernays (if you’re into that sort of thing). Larry Tye is also interviewed by Adam Curtis in The Century of the Self, where Curtis explores the development of the occupation of public relations and the consequences the profession has had on society at large. Also featured in the program are interviews with Bernays and his daughter Ann. Curtis also documents Bernays' work with/for United Fruit in Guatemala and the CIA in the 1950s.

A longer form (and more linear) interview with Bernays is included in the 13th part of the Bill Moyer’s series A Walk through the 20th Century. This episode of the series also investigates the pre-Bernays public relations industry and notable figures thereof (Ivy Ledbetter Lee, John D. Rockefeller, etc).

As for the article linked to by “our Anonymous Canadian”, the same writer also did a story on the Canadian Military running a psyop in which citizens were told (via a forged letter) that a pack of wolves was on the loose in Nova Scotia. A sound system was set up to play wolf sounds. Pretty scary stuff.

Russell gave me some suggestions of who to interview on the show in the future, which is very much appreciated. He also mentions the FBI/DOJ takedown of the American Herald Tribune.

There have been other examples recently: The Bitchute takedown on 3 November, the removal of the youtube-dl repo I mentioned last time I wrote in.

I mention these because they are outside the perceived left/right divide, but there are plenty of others. Thankfully, the youtube-dl issue appears to have been resolved, at least for now, with EFF’s help. What about IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) as a takedown-resistant way of publishing static sites (and other things)?

This concludes the podcast for this year. I hope you enjoyed the first 50 episodes. I will be back in January with more content and a refreshed outlook on the show and topics we need to discuss.

If you have any thoughts on the episodes released in 2020, please feel free to contact me.

Toss a Coin to Your Podcaster

I am a freelance journalist and writer, volunteering my free time because I love digging into stories and because I love podcasting. If you want to help keep The Private Citizen on the air, consider becoming one of my Patreon supporters.

You can also support the show by sending money to via PayPal, if you prefer.

This is entirely optional. This show operates under the value-for-value model, meaning I want you to give back only what you feel this show is worth to you. If that comes down to nothing, that’s OK with me, pard. But if you help out, it’s more likely that I’ll be able to keep doing this indefinitely.

Thanks and Credits

I like to credit everyone who’s helped with any aspect of this production and thus became a part of the show.

Aside from the people who have provided feedback and research and are credited as such above, I’m thankful to Raúl Cabezalí, who composed and recorded the show’s theme, a song called Acoustic Routes. I am also thankful to Bytemark, who are providing the hosting for this episode’s audio file.

But above all, I’d like to thank the following people, who have supported this episode through Patreon, Twitch or PayPal and thus keep this show on the air: Michael Mullan-Jensen, Jonathan M. Hethey, Dave, Niall Donegan, Georges Walther (your exclusive shirt is on the way), Butterbeans, Steve Hoos, Mark Holland, Shelby Cruver, Jackie Plage, Philip Klostermann, 1i11g, Kai Siers, Jaroslav Lichtblau, Fadi Mansour, ikn, Dirk Dede, Matt Jelliman, Joe Poser, David Potter, Mika, Dave Umrysh, Martin, S.J., RikyM, drivezero, Jonathan Edwards, MrAmish, Barry Williams, avis, Neil, Captain Egghead, indiegameiacs and cizzbar.