Source
The Education Ministry is rewriting the country's main civics textbook, and the chairman of the ministry's pedagogical secretariat will begin publishing updates on the ministry's Web site as early as the upcoming school year.
The main contention of the chairman - Zvi Zameret - is that the textbook dwells too much on criticism of the state, sources in the Education Ministry who took part with Zameret in discussions on the book told Haaretz.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
buildingwhat.org
This is a commercial that 911 victims families are trying to get to air in New York. Let's spread this around.
on the other hand you have this neo con zionist shill
on the other hand you have this neo con zionist shill
Some Interesting Insights Into Facebook
**For some of the backstory about my thoughts on facebook click here.
From day one I have been anti social networking, even before I found out Zuckerberg was a jew who stole the idea of facebook. If you think those are just claims then just listen to some of Zuckerbergs speeches, the specific one that comes to mind is the one he gave at Stanford which can be found on Itunes U. He is so vague about the creation of facebook, and doesn't really seem to have a good grasp on the site or the business. When you listen to speeches of other founders of various companies they are very detailed and meticulous since their very life is so tightly woven into a startup.
I had heard about his dismal performance Zuckerberg gave at the D8 conference this year, but only today did I see part of the video. For those that aren't familiar D8 is a conference where various tech figures are interviewed by a jew and a dyke, the draw of course is that they have very popular people on to interview so even though the jew is obnoxious and constantly interrupts and talks over people, people still want to watch just for the interviewee.
Watch in the video as Zuckerberg gives an incoherent answer when asked about privacy issues but also make note at the end where you see what is inside the facebooks company jackets.
Did you notice it? The so called Star of David? Here are a few pictures in case you missed it.
So as you can see facebook is clearly a very jew centric company. What other company has the star of david on their company clothes? I'll leave you with this video and you can begin to see the real purpose of facebook.
From day one I have been anti social networking, even before I found out Zuckerberg was a jew who stole the idea of facebook. If you think those are just claims then just listen to some of Zuckerbergs speeches, the specific one that comes to mind is the one he gave at Stanford which can be found on Itunes U. He is so vague about the creation of facebook, and doesn't really seem to have a good grasp on the site or the business. When you listen to speeches of other founders of various companies they are very detailed and meticulous since their very life is so tightly woven into a startup.
I had heard about his dismal performance Zuckerberg gave at the D8 conference this year, but only today did I see part of the video. For those that aren't familiar D8 is a conference where various tech figures are interviewed by a jew and a dyke, the draw of course is that they have very popular people on to interview so even though the jew is obnoxious and constantly interrupts and talks over people, people still want to watch just for the interviewee.
Watch in the video as Zuckerberg gives an incoherent answer when asked about privacy issues but also make note at the end where you see what is inside the facebooks company jackets.
Did you notice it? The so called Star of David? Here are a few pictures in case you missed it.
So as you can see facebook is clearly a very jew centric company. What other company has the star of david on their company clothes? I'll leave you with this video and you can begin to see the real purpose of facebook.
There Are No Heroes In Illegal And Immoral Wars
By Robert Jensen
August 24, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans -- military and civilian -- to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism -- or risk being labeled callous or traitors -- undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.
The legal case is straightforward: Neither invasion had the necessary approval of the United Nations Security Council, and neither was a response to an imminent attack. In both cases, U.S. officials pretended to engage in diplomacy but demanded war. Under international law and the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 is clear that “all Treaties made,” such as the UN Charter, are “the supreme Law of the Land”), both invasions were illegal.
The moral case is also clear: U.S. officials’ claims that the invasions were necessary to protect us from terrorism or locate weapons of mass destruction were never plausible and have been exposed as lies. The world is a more dangerous place today than it was in 2001, when sensible changes in U.S. foreign policy and vigorous law enforcement in collaboration with other nations could have made us safer.
The people who bear the greatest legal and moral responsibility for these crimes are the politicians who send the military to war and the generals who plan the actions, and it may seem unfair to deny the front-line service personnel the label of “hero” when they did their duty as they understood it. But this talk of heroism is part of the way we avoid politics and deny the unpleasant fact that these are imperial wars. U.S. military forces are in the Middle East and Central Asia not to bring freedom but to extend and deepen U.S. power in a region home to the world’s most important energy resources. The nation exercising control there increases its influence over the global economy, and despite all the U.S. propaganda, the world realizes we have tens of thousands of troops on the ground because of those oil and gas reserves.
Individuals can act with courage and compassion serving in imperial armies. There no doubt were soldiers among the British forces in colonial India who acted heroically, and Soviet soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe were capable of bravery. But they were serving in imperial armies engaged in indefensible attempts to dominate and control. They were fighting not for freedom but to advance the interests of elites in their home countries.
I recognize the complexity of the choices the men and women serving in our military face. I am aware that economic realities and the false promises of recruiters lure many of them into service. I am not judging or condemning them. Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility. For example, a journalist recently asked Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to reflect on U.S. culpability for the current state of Iraqi politics. Crocker was reluctant to go there, and then refused even to consider the United States’ moral responsibility: “You can ask the question, was the whole bloody thing a mistake?” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on that.”
It’s not surprising U.S. policymakers don’t want to reflect on the invasions, but the public must. Until we can tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy, and how the military is used to advance that policy in illegal and immoral ways, we will remain easy marks for the politicians and their propagandists.
Part of that propaganda campaign is suggesting that critics of the war don’t support the troops, don’t recognize their sacrifices, don’t appreciate their heroism. We escape the propaganda by not playing that game, by telling the truth even when it is painful.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007)
Jensen can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html.
August 24, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”
While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans -- military and civilian -- to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.
This is not an attack on soldiers, sailors, and Marines. Military personnel may act heroically in specific situations, showing courage and compassion, but for them to be heroes in the truest sense they must be engaged in a legal and morally justifiable conflict. That is not the case with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan, and the social pressure on us to use the language of heroism -- or risk being labeled callous or traitors -- undermines our ability to evaluate the politics and ethics of wars in a historical framework.
The legal case is straightforward: Neither invasion had the necessary approval of the United Nations Security Council, and neither was a response to an imminent attack. In both cases, U.S. officials pretended to engage in diplomacy but demanded war. Under international law and the U.S. Constitution (Article 6 is clear that “all Treaties made,” such as the UN Charter, are “the supreme Law of the Land”), both invasions were illegal.
The moral case is also clear: U.S. officials’ claims that the invasions were necessary to protect us from terrorism or locate weapons of mass destruction were never plausible and have been exposed as lies. The world is a more dangerous place today than it was in 2001, when sensible changes in U.S. foreign policy and vigorous law enforcement in collaboration with other nations could have made us safer.
The people who bear the greatest legal and moral responsibility for these crimes are the politicians who send the military to war and the generals who plan the actions, and it may seem unfair to deny the front-line service personnel the label of “hero” when they did their duty as they understood it. But this talk of heroism is part of the way we avoid politics and deny the unpleasant fact that these are imperial wars. U.S. military forces are in the Middle East and Central Asia not to bring freedom but to extend and deepen U.S. power in a region home to the world’s most important energy resources. The nation exercising control there increases its influence over the global economy, and despite all the U.S. propaganda, the world realizes we have tens of thousands of troops on the ground because of those oil and gas reserves.
Individuals can act with courage and compassion serving in imperial armies. There no doubt were soldiers among the British forces in colonial India who acted heroically, and Soviet soldiers stationed in Eastern Europe were capable of bravery. But they were serving in imperial armies engaged in indefensible attempts to dominate and control. They were fighting not for freedom but to advance the interests of elites in their home countries.
I recognize the complexity of the choices the men and women serving in our military face. I am aware that economic realities and the false promises of recruiters lure many of them into service. I am not judging or condemning them. Judgments and condemnations should be aimed at the powerful, who typically avoid their responsibility. For example, a journalist recently asked Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to reflect on U.S. culpability for the current state of Iraqi politics. Crocker was reluctant to go there, and then refused even to consider the United States’ moral responsibility: “You can ask the question, was the whole bloody thing a mistake?” he said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on that.”
It’s not surprising U.S. policymakers don’t want to reflect on the invasions, but the public must. Until we can tell the truth about U.S. foreign policy, and how the military is used to advance that policy in illegal and immoral ways, we will remain easy marks for the politicians and their propagandists.
Part of that propaganda campaign is suggesting that critics of the war don’t support the troops, don’t recognize their sacrifices, don’t appreciate their heroism. We escape the propaganda by not playing that game, by telling the truth even when it is painful.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007)
Jensen can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html. To join an email list to receive articles by Jensen, go to http://www.thirdcoastactivist.org/jensenupdates-info.html.
Some Thoughts To Consider About Higher Education
by DC
School begins for many this week, and there are some hard truths about higher education that few wish to explore, let alone acknowledge.
1. Not everyone should go to college. Getting a higher education can be a marvelous experience, but it's just not for everyone.
I know of no country that attempts to educate everyone at this level. College was originally designed for students who are at least a standard deviation in academic aptitude above the mean. That eliminates all but about 16 percent of the population, and then a lot of those folks are wasting their time and money at a university.
John is a brighter than average high school student, but is not at the top of his class. He is good with his hands and understands how things work. His parents send him to college to become a lawyer.
He is in the bottom 20 percent of his law class. He graduates with an immense debt load and is considered to be a poor lawyer. He doesn't get much respect.
Suppose instead that John goes to a trade school to become a repairman. He is in the top 20 percent of this group. John the Repairman is highly respected. He has almost no debt, and he makes more money than John the Lawyer.
As an added bonus, society is in need of good repair persons, but we have no need for more bad lawyers.
2. Getting a college degree doesn't mean that you know anything. Modern universities don't require that students be knowledgeable to graduate. This sounds odd and administrators and teachers would claim that it is not true, but ask a simple question: What does a student need to know from a university to be allowed to graduate?
The answer is "nothing."
Students are required to complete a number of tasks. There is a long list of requirements. If they check each one off, they graduate. Students will work hard for grades; they will not necessarily work hard to know something. Modern schools have disassociated the two. Students memorize material, regurgitate it on an exam, and go their way.
Many students graduate knowing next to nothing. Don't take my word for it. I have been challenging my colleagues to test their students for years. I would love to be wrong on this, but ...
3. Grades don't reflect reality. There are entire areas of universities that give an automatic A to everyone unless they do poorly, and then they are given an A-minus. Much of this results from the improper use of student evaluations of teaching. Having students rate teachers is not a bad idea in itself, but it has evolved into a counter-productive travesty.
Imagine that at your workplace, several times every year, people you associate with are asked to fill out a questionnaire about you. They will remain anonymous and can say anything they wish. Management admits that it doesn't know what the surveys actually measure, but you will be denied merit pay, and perhaps even fired if your scores are low.
That in a nutshell is how universities use student evaluations.
Critics, and some supporters, maintain that the only reason that this system is maintained is administrative sloth and student crowd control.
Universities are essentially demanding that professors be well-liked by their students or they will be punished. Students are students because they don't know what they should know. The bottom line is that the evaluation system has resulted in grade inflation and a corresponding reduction in what students actually know.
Research over the last 10 years from all across the U.S. has consistently shown that teachers who get higher student evaluations produce students who tend to do more poorly in subsequent classes.
4. Like the housing market bubble, we may be approaching an education bubble. Paying a lot for an education makes sense if the returns are greater, but the cost of education is rising faster than the benefits. This has serious implications, which I will address in a forthcoming column.
School begins for many this week, and there are some hard truths about higher education that few wish to explore, let alone acknowledge.
1. Not everyone should go to college. Getting a higher education can be a marvelous experience, but it's just not for everyone.
I know of no country that attempts to educate everyone at this level. College was originally designed for students who are at least a standard deviation in academic aptitude above the mean. That eliminates all but about 16 percent of the population, and then a lot of those folks are wasting their time and money at a university.
John is a brighter than average high school student, but is not at the top of his class. He is good with his hands and understands how things work. His parents send him to college to become a lawyer.
He is in the bottom 20 percent of his law class. He graduates with an immense debt load and is considered to be a poor lawyer. He doesn't get much respect.
Suppose instead that John goes to a trade school to become a repairman. He is in the top 20 percent of this group. John the Repairman is highly respected. He has almost no debt, and he makes more money than John the Lawyer.
As an added bonus, society is in need of good repair persons, but we have no need for more bad lawyers.
2. Getting a college degree doesn't mean that you know anything. Modern universities don't require that students be knowledgeable to graduate. This sounds odd and administrators and teachers would claim that it is not true, but ask a simple question: What does a student need to know from a university to be allowed to graduate?
The answer is "nothing."
Students are required to complete a number of tasks. There is a long list of requirements. If they check each one off, they graduate. Students will work hard for grades; they will not necessarily work hard to know something. Modern schools have disassociated the two. Students memorize material, regurgitate it on an exam, and go their way.
Many students graduate knowing next to nothing. Don't take my word for it. I have been challenging my colleagues to test their students for years. I would love to be wrong on this, but ...
3. Grades don't reflect reality. There are entire areas of universities that give an automatic A to everyone unless they do poorly, and then they are given an A-minus. Much of this results from the improper use of student evaluations of teaching. Having students rate teachers is not a bad idea in itself, but it has evolved into a counter-productive travesty.
Imagine that at your workplace, several times every year, people you associate with are asked to fill out a questionnaire about you. They will remain anonymous and can say anything they wish. Management admits that it doesn't know what the surveys actually measure, but you will be denied merit pay, and perhaps even fired if your scores are low.
That in a nutshell is how universities use student evaluations.
Critics, and some supporters, maintain that the only reason that this system is maintained is administrative sloth and student crowd control.
Universities are essentially demanding that professors be well-liked by their students or they will be punished. Students are students because they don't know what they should know. The bottom line is that the evaluation system has resulted in grade inflation and a corresponding reduction in what students actually know.
Research over the last 10 years from all across the U.S. has consistently shown that teachers who get higher student evaluations produce students who tend to do more poorly in subsequent classes.
4. Like the housing market bubble, we may be approaching an education bubble. Paying a lot for an education makes sense if the returns are greater, but the cost of education is rising faster than the benefits. This has serious implications, which I will address in a forthcoming column.
US Military "Overwhelmed" By Mental Health Problems Of Soldiers
By Gregg Zoroya
August 24, 2010 "USA Today" -- FORT HOOD, Texas - Nine months after an Army psychiatrist was charged with fatally shooting 13 soldiers and wounding 30, the nation's largest Army post can measure the toll of war in the more than 10,000 mental health evaluations, referrals or therapy sessions held every month.
About every fourth soldier here, where 48,000 troops and their families are based, has been in counseling during the past year, according to the service's medical statistics. And the number of soldiers seeking help for combat stress, substance abuse, broken marriages or other emotional problems keeps increasing.
A common refrain by the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, is that far more soldiers suffer mental health issues than the Army anticipated. Nowhere is this more evident than at Fort Hood, where emotional problems among the soldiers threaten to overwhelm the system in place to help them.
Counselors are booked. The 12-bed inpatient psychiatric ward is full more often than not. Overflow patient-soldiers are sent to private local clinics that stay open for 10 hours a day, six days a week to meet the demand.
"We are full to the brim," says Col. Steve Braverman, commander of the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center on the post.
That doesn't even count those soldiers reluctant to seek care because they are ashamed to admit they need help or the hundreds who find therapy outside the Army medical system, Braverman and other medical officials say.
Officials worry the problems may worsen - for the military and the country.
"If Fort Hood is representative of the Army - and 10% of the Army is assigned to Fort Hood - then if you follow the logic, our numbers should be scalable to any other post in the country," says acting base commander Maj. Gen. William Grimsley.
"I worry that if we don't see this through the right way over the long haul ... we're going to grow a generation of people 10 or 15 years from now who are going to be a burden on our own society," he says. "And that's not a good thing for the Army. That's not a good thing for the United States."
Statistics provided to USA TODAY by Fort Hood commanders show the explosion of mental health issues here:
Fort Hood counselors meet with more than 4,000 mental health patients a month.
Last year, 2,445 soldiers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), up from 310 in 2004.
Every month, an average of 585 soldiers are sent to nearby private clinics contracted through the Pentagon's TRICARE health system because Army counselors cannot handle more patients. That is up from 15 per month in 2004.
Hundreds more see therapists "off the network" because they want their psychological problems kept secret from the Army. A free clinic in Killeen offering total discretion treated 2,000 soldiers or family members this year, many of them officers.
Last year, 6,000 soldiers here were on anti-depressant medications and an additional 1,400 received anti-psychotic drugs.
"I don't think we fully understand the total effect of nine years of continuous conflict on a force this size," Chiarelli says, reacting to those statistics.
"Those numbers are pretty staggering," says Kathy Beasley, a health care executive with the Military Officers Association of America. She wonders what will happen when those soldiers leave the military. "Do we have the supply and the people in our systems to take care of that?"
Every time more counselors are hired here, their schedules immediately fill up with patients. "It's almost like a Field of Dreams," Braverman says, referring to the famous line from the 1989 film about a baseball field on an Iowa farm that spontaneously draws crowds. "If you build it, they will come."
'Life can slowly slip away'
Staff Sgt. Josh Rivera came back from his third tour in Iraq this year eager to save his marriage.
"When a soldier is constantly gone and actually fighting, not just deploying and sitting in an office, life can slowly slip away," says Rivera, 32, a native of the Bronx, N.Y.
Thirty-nine cumulative months of war had left him distant from his family and confused about his role in their lives, Rivera says. All that made sense was the infantry, which he loves. Rivera resisted seeing a counselor until his marriage was in real trouble, he says.
The Army therapist who met with Rivera and his wife, Julie, gently guided them back to basics - what brought them together 10 years before, why each mattered to the other and what they wanted out of life, the couple say.
Chaplains provide marriage counseling, but for soldiers who want to see a licensed marriage counselor, the base's social work department has two, each with a caseload of 60 couples, says Lt. Col. Nancy Ruffin, department director.
She has to refer some troubled marriages to private clinics, and not all the soldiers are willing to do that, Ruffin says.
The demand for other types of counseling also far exceeds supply. There are not enough social workers to treat soldiers suffering the emotional effect of sexual assault. Ruffin says she has one social worker, who is handling 50 cases.
Fort Hood has an intensive, three-week therapy program, followed by eight weeks of group therapy, for soldiers suffering stress-related issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder. It has a waiting list of 80 soldiers.
The child and adolescent psychiatric services at Fort Hood handle more than 1,000 visits, assessments or counseling sessions with military children each month, up from about 800 in 2004. It refers about 30 overflow cases off base each month, up from zero in 2004, the base statistics show.
Fort Hood has one of the most robust mental health programs in the Army. It has 171 behavioral health providers and 28 new hires are on the way, says Lt. Col. B. Kirk Phillips, a psychiatrist and director of mental health care at the Darnall medical center. This is up from about 50 mental health workers in 2004.
Because of war and deployments, not only are there more soldiers suffering emotional problems, they are sicker than ever and require more counseling sessions, Phillips says. Even after the latest round of hiring, Phillips says, a recent internal analysis showed the mental health staff will need an additional 58 counselors to meet the demand.
Suicides outpacing 2009
Despite the increase in mental health resources, there have been 14 confirmed or suspected suicides among Fort Hood soldiers this year. That figure outpaces 2009 and matched each of the three worst years for suicides in recent base history, 2006-2008. In June, the Army recorded 32 suicides overall, the highest monthly total since it began keeping records.
Army Sgt. Douglas Hale Jr., 26, was one of the most recent Fort Hood suicides.
On July, 6, Glenda Moss received this text message from Hale, her son: "i love u mom im so sorry i hope u and the family and god can forgive me."
Her son had tried to kill himself in May. She feared he might try again. She immediately called the Army and then drove the 90 minutes from her home in King, Texas, to the base.
It was too late. Hale had walked into a restaurant across Highway 190 from Fort Hood, asked to use the bathroom, locked the door and shot himself in the head with a newly purchased handgun, according to a police report. He was removed from life support a few days later.
Moss knew her son was very troubled. When his second combat tour to Iraq ended in 2007 after 15 months, he was diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression, began drinking heavily, saw his marriage disintegrate and, finally, left the base without permission last year.
He was brought back to Fort Hood in May after being taken into custody by police in King for being absent without leave, his mother said. He attempted suicide in his barracks that month.
The Army sent him to a psychiatric hospital in Denton, Texas. Army doctors told him "we don't have enough people here (at Fort Hood) to help you," his mother recalls.
A statement released by Fort Hood in response to questions about Hale's case says, "Space and staff shortages prevent us from treating all our patients on post. While it is our intent to treat patients within our facilities, the reality is we cannot at the present time."
Base officials declined to discuss the specifics of Hale's case while an Army investigation continues.
Moss says her son seemed to be in good spirits after leaving the Denton hospital following a month of treatment in June. He spent the July 4th weekend at his mother's home before she drove him back to Fort Hood on July 5.
Moss says the Army can do more to watch over troubled soldiers like her son. "They need to do as much as they can to stop this, because if they don't, the Army's going to be responsible for a lot more (suicides)," she says. "I don't want another family to have to deal with what I went through.
'Stigma was still a problem'
After the mass killings in November, Fort Hood launched a campaign to gauge the psychological health in the community. The goal was to see how many people needed help, whether they were getting it and how many counselors were needed. Part of the effort was an online, confidential survey in February to get soldiers' views. Troops were offered incentives such as a day off from work to participate. More than 5,000 responded.
One in four said they would be viewed as weak, treated differently or harm their careers if they admitted suffering emotional issues, says Col. William Rabena, who led the campaign. The attitude was particularly strong among majors, lieutenant colonels and full colonels.
"Stigma was still a problem," Rabena says.
For those soldiers afraid to seek help, who decline to go to Army therapists or private clinics that contract with the military, there are alternatives.
A Pentagon program offers soldiers a limited number of counseling sessions with private therapists that will remain off their medical records. The program is called Military OneSource, and it provides up to 12 free and confidential therapy sessions when soldiers call a toll-free hotline. From May 2009 to May 2010, there was a 72% increase in sessions provided by the program in the Fort Hood area, from 822 to 1,412, says Air Force Maj. April Cunningham, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Another option for Fort Hood soldiers who want to keep their psychological problems secret from the Army is a free clinic in Killeen called Scott & White Military Homefront Services. The therapy provided at this clinic does not show up as a mental health diagnosis on a soldier's medical record.
The five therapists at the project are booked solid, says the director, Maxine Trent, a psychotherapist and the wife of a retired Navy SEAL.
The clinic has seen 7,117 soldiers, spouses and their children since it opened in 2008, says Matthew Wright, a director with Scott & White Healthcare of Temple, Texas, which operates the project.
Soldiers, many of them officers, come into the clinic seeking therapy for the first time in their careers, Trent says.
"Generally, you have the parade rest," she says, demonstrating how they sit with backs straight, arms outstretched and palms on knees. The tension in their bodies, she says, is palpable.
"Those who have been back-to-back deployed vibrate. ... There's different energy. There's hyper-vigilance that you won't see anywhere else," Trent says. "They walk in here not sleeping. They walk in here having mood disruptions, angry driving, explosions at wife and/or husband and kids."
When her offices opened, Trent canvassed the wives of Fort Hood commanders to get a sense of what she was facing. "They told us basically, 'We know everything we need to know about deployment. Please don't set up any programs to teach us about deployment,' " Trent recalls. " 'What we don't know how to do is to keep doing it (deployments). We're tired. We're exhausted.' "
Even this program struggles to cope with all those needing help and getting the money to pay for it.
A $750,000 grant from the Dallas Foundation and the Association of the U.S. Army for the project is nearly gone and officials are trying to secure more funding, Wright says.
Adam Borah, who runs the outpatient psychiatric clinic at Fort Hood, sees progress in the many soldiers stepping forward to seek help. "The bad news is that there are a lot of people out there who need behavioral heath care," he says.
Braverman worries that if the number of patients keeps climbing, soldiers will give up waiting to see someone and avoid seeking help. Private clinics that contract with the military to handle overflow patients are overworked, says Chuck Lauer, a senior administrator at Darnall Hospital. "These guys (local private therapists) are putting in six days a week. Some of them have their practices open 10 hours a day," Lauer says.
Staff Sgt. Rivera, who got the marital help, worries for the soldiers. "The military needs to know that they are losing very good soldiers and squads and platoons to multiple deployments," he says. "The amount of help needed is actually overwhelming."
© 2010 USA Today
August 24, 2010 "USA Today" -- FORT HOOD, Texas - Nine months after an Army psychiatrist was charged with fatally shooting 13 soldiers and wounding 30, the nation's largest Army post can measure the toll of war in the more than 10,000 mental health evaluations, referrals or therapy sessions held every month.
About every fourth soldier here, where 48,000 troops and their families are based, has been in counseling during the past year, according to the service's medical statistics. And the number of soldiers seeking help for combat stress, substance abuse, broken marriages or other emotional problems keeps increasing.
A common refrain by the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, is that far more soldiers suffer mental health issues than the Army anticipated. Nowhere is this more evident than at Fort Hood, where emotional problems among the soldiers threaten to overwhelm the system in place to help them.
Counselors are booked. The 12-bed inpatient psychiatric ward is full more often than not. Overflow patient-soldiers are sent to private local clinics that stay open for 10 hours a day, six days a week to meet the demand.
"We are full to the brim," says Col. Steve Braverman, commander of the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center on the post.
That doesn't even count those soldiers reluctant to seek care because they are ashamed to admit they need help or the hundreds who find therapy outside the Army medical system, Braverman and other medical officials say.
Officials worry the problems may worsen - for the military and the country.
"If Fort Hood is representative of the Army - and 10% of the Army is assigned to Fort Hood - then if you follow the logic, our numbers should be scalable to any other post in the country," says acting base commander Maj. Gen. William Grimsley.
"I worry that if we don't see this through the right way over the long haul ... we're going to grow a generation of people 10 or 15 years from now who are going to be a burden on our own society," he says. "And that's not a good thing for the Army. That's not a good thing for the United States."
Statistics provided to USA TODAY by Fort Hood commanders show the explosion of mental health issues here:
Fort Hood counselors meet with more than 4,000 mental health patients a month.
Last year, 2,445 soldiers were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), up from 310 in 2004.
Every month, an average of 585 soldiers are sent to nearby private clinics contracted through the Pentagon's TRICARE health system because Army counselors cannot handle more patients. That is up from 15 per month in 2004.
Hundreds more see therapists "off the network" because they want their psychological problems kept secret from the Army. A free clinic in Killeen offering total discretion treated 2,000 soldiers or family members this year, many of them officers.
Last year, 6,000 soldiers here were on anti-depressant medications and an additional 1,400 received anti-psychotic drugs.
"I don't think we fully understand the total effect of nine years of continuous conflict on a force this size," Chiarelli says, reacting to those statistics.
"Those numbers are pretty staggering," says Kathy Beasley, a health care executive with the Military Officers Association of America. She wonders what will happen when those soldiers leave the military. "Do we have the supply and the people in our systems to take care of that?"
Every time more counselors are hired here, their schedules immediately fill up with patients. "It's almost like a Field of Dreams," Braverman says, referring to the famous line from the 1989 film about a baseball field on an Iowa farm that spontaneously draws crowds. "If you build it, they will come."
'Life can slowly slip away'
Staff Sgt. Josh Rivera came back from his third tour in Iraq this year eager to save his marriage.
"When a soldier is constantly gone and actually fighting, not just deploying and sitting in an office, life can slowly slip away," says Rivera, 32, a native of the Bronx, N.Y.
Thirty-nine cumulative months of war had left him distant from his family and confused about his role in their lives, Rivera says. All that made sense was the infantry, which he loves. Rivera resisted seeing a counselor until his marriage was in real trouble, he says.
The Army therapist who met with Rivera and his wife, Julie, gently guided them back to basics - what brought them together 10 years before, why each mattered to the other and what they wanted out of life, the couple say.
Chaplains provide marriage counseling, but for soldiers who want to see a licensed marriage counselor, the base's social work department has two, each with a caseload of 60 couples, says Lt. Col. Nancy Ruffin, department director.
She has to refer some troubled marriages to private clinics, and not all the soldiers are willing to do that, Ruffin says.
The demand for other types of counseling also far exceeds supply. There are not enough social workers to treat soldiers suffering the emotional effect of sexual assault. Ruffin says she has one social worker, who is handling 50 cases.
Fort Hood has an intensive, three-week therapy program, followed by eight weeks of group therapy, for soldiers suffering stress-related issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder. It has a waiting list of 80 soldiers.
The child and adolescent psychiatric services at Fort Hood handle more than 1,000 visits, assessments or counseling sessions with military children each month, up from about 800 in 2004. It refers about 30 overflow cases off base each month, up from zero in 2004, the base statistics show.
Fort Hood has one of the most robust mental health programs in the Army. It has 171 behavioral health providers and 28 new hires are on the way, says Lt. Col. B. Kirk Phillips, a psychiatrist and director of mental health care at the Darnall medical center. This is up from about 50 mental health workers in 2004.
Because of war and deployments, not only are there more soldiers suffering emotional problems, they are sicker than ever and require more counseling sessions, Phillips says. Even after the latest round of hiring, Phillips says, a recent internal analysis showed the mental health staff will need an additional 58 counselors to meet the demand.
Suicides outpacing 2009
Despite the increase in mental health resources, there have been 14 confirmed or suspected suicides among Fort Hood soldiers this year. That figure outpaces 2009 and matched each of the three worst years for suicides in recent base history, 2006-2008. In June, the Army recorded 32 suicides overall, the highest monthly total since it began keeping records.
Army Sgt. Douglas Hale Jr., 26, was one of the most recent Fort Hood suicides.
On July, 6, Glenda Moss received this text message from Hale, her son: "i love u mom im so sorry i hope u and the family and god can forgive me."
Her son had tried to kill himself in May. She feared he might try again. She immediately called the Army and then drove the 90 minutes from her home in King, Texas, to the base.
It was too late. Hale had walked into a restaurant across Highway 190 from Fort Hood, asked to use the bathroom, locked the door and shot himself in the head with a newly purchased handgun, according to a police report. He was removed from life support a few days later.
Moss knew her son was very troubled. When his second combat tour to Iraq ended in 2007 after 15 months, he was diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression, began drinking heavily, saw his marriage disintegrate and, finally, left the base without permission last year.
He was brought back to Fort Hood in May after being taken into custody by police in King for being absent without leave, his mother said. He attempted suicide in his barracks that month.
The Army sent him to a psychiatric hospital in Denton, Texas. Army doctors told him "we don't have enough people here (at Fort Hood) to help you," his mother recalls.
A statement released by Fort Hood in response to questions about Hale's case says, "Space and staff shortages prevent us from treating all our patients on post. While it is our intent to treat patients within our facilities, the reality is we cannot at the present time."
Base officials declined to discuss the specifics of Hale's case while an Army investigation continues.
Moss says her son seemed to be in good spirits after leaving the Denton hospital following a month of treatment in June. He spent the July 4th weekend at his mother's home before she drove him back to Fort Hood on July 5.
Moss says the Army can do more to watch over troubled soldiers like her son. "They need to do as much as they can to stop this, because if they don't, the Army's going to be responsible for a lot more (suicides)," she says. "I don't want another family to have to deal with what I went through.
'Stigma was still a problem'
After the mass killings in November, Fort Hood launched a campaign to gauge the psychological health in the community. The goal was to see how many people needed help, whether they were getting it and how many counselors were needed. Part of the effort was an online, confidential survey in February to get soldiers' views. Troops were offered incentives such as a day off from work to participate. More than 5,000 responded.
One in four said they would be viewed as weak, treated differently or harm their careers if they admitted suffering emotional issues, says Col. William Rabena, who led the campaign. The attitude was particularly strong among majors, lieutenant colonels and full colonels.
"Stigma was still a problem," Rabena says.
For those soldiers afraid to seek help, who decline to go to Army therapists or private clinics that contract with the military, there are alternatives.
A Pentagon program offers soldiers a limited number of counseling sessions with private therapists that will remain off their medical records. The program is called Military OneSource, and it provides up to 12 free and confidential therapy sessions when soldiers call a toll-free hotline. From May 2009 to May 2010, there was a 72% increase in sessions provided by the program in the Fort Hood area, from 822 to 1,412, says Air Force Maj. April Cunningham, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Another option for Fort Hood soldiers who want to keep their psychological problems secret from the Army is a free clinic in Killeen called Scott & White Military Homefront Services. The therapy provided at this clinic does not show up as a mental health diagnosis on a soldier's medical record.
The five therapists at the project are booked solid, says the director, Maxine Trent, a psychotherapist and the wife of a retired Navy SEAL.
The clinic has seen 7,117 soldiers, spouses and their children since it opened in 2008, says Matthew Wright, a director with Scott & White Healthcare of Temple, Texas, which operates the project.
Soldiers, many of them officers, come into the clinic seeking therapy for the first time in their careers, Trent says.
"Generally, you have the parade rest," she says, demonstrating how they sit with backs straight, arms outstretched and palms on knees. The tension in their bodies, she says, is palpable.
"Those who have been back-to-back deployed vibrate. ... There's different energy. There's hyper-vigilance that you won't see anywhere else," Trent says. "They walk in here not sleeping. They walk in here having mood disruptions, angry driving, explosions at wife and/or husband and kids."
When her offices opened, Trent canvassed the wives of Fort Hood commanders to get a sense of what she was facing. "They told us basically, 'We know everything we need to know about deployment. Please don't set up any programs to teach us about deployment,' " Trent recalls. " 'What we don't know how to do is to keep doing it (deployments). We're tired. We're exhausted.' "
Even this program struggles to cope with all those needing help and getting the money to pay for it.
A $750,000 grant from the Dallas Foundation and the Association of the U.S. Army for the project is nearly gone and officials are trying to secure more funding, Wright says.
Adam Borah, who runs the outpatient psychiatric clinic at Fort Hood, sees progress in the many soldiers stepping forward to seek help. "The bad news is that there are a lot of people out there who need behavioral heath care," he says.
Braverman worries that if the number of patients keeps climbing, soldiers will give up waiting to see someone and avoid seeking help. Private clinics that contract with the military to handle overflow patients are overworked, says Chuck Lauer, a senior administrator at Darnall Hospital. "These guys (local private therapists) are putting in six days a week. Some of them have their practices open 10 hours a day," Lauer says.
Staff Sgt. Rivera, who got the marital help, worries for the soldiers. "The military needs to know that they are losing very good soldiers and squads and platoons to multiple deployments," he says. "The amount of help needed is actually overwhelming."
© 2010 USA Today
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Remembering George Lincoln Rockwell
March 9, 1918 – August 25, 1967
Rockwell also wrote the famous Fable Of The Ducks And Hens
"And if it means that you are a Nazi and a Fascist because you fight for a white America, well then by George let's be Nazis!"
Lt. Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, USN
Rockwell also wrote the famous Fable Of The Ducks And Hens
"And if it means that you are a Nazi and a Fascist because you fight for a white America, well then by George let's be Nazis!"
Lt. Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, USN
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Marxist Unions Continue To Rape California
By PETER SCHEER—For public employee unions–those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local level–these are the worst of times.
Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold on to past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that, on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a Saturday Night Live skit, followed, the next day, by a New York Times magazine cover article proclaiming the “Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand.”
Public unions’ traditional strength–the ability to finance their members’ rising pay and benefits through tax increases–has become a liability. Although private sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can’t choose–they are, in effect, “captive consumers.”
At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that: (1) they are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have; and (2) government services, from schools to the DMV, are not good enough—not for the citizen individually nor the public generally—to justify the high and escalating cost.
We are at that point.
In California, government sector unions, once among the most entrenched and powerful labor groups in the country, mainly have themselves to blame. For most of the post-war period, they were a force for progressive change, prospering by winning over public support for their agenda.
In the 1970s and 80s they backed laws like the Public Records Act and Brown Act to make state and local government more transparent. Because unions enjoyed broad-based political support, efforts to enhance government accountability and responsiveness to voters were seen–correctly–as benefiting the unions and their members.The public interest and public employees’ interests were aligned.
But the unions switched strategies. Although the change was gradual, by the 1990s California’s government unions had decided that, rather than cultivate voter support for their objectives, they could exert more influence in the Legislature, and in the political process generally, by lavishing campaign contributions on lawmakers. Adopting the tactics of other special interest groups, government unions paid lip service to democratic principles while excelling at the fundamentally anti-democratic strategy of writing checks to legislators, their election committees and PACs.
While not illegal (in fact, such contributions are constitutionally protected), the unions’ aggressive spending on candidates puts them on the same moral low ground as casino-owning tribes, insurance companies and other special interests that have concluded that the best way to influence the legislative process is to, well, buy it.
Public unions in California turned distrustful of voters and ambivalent about government transparency. In the mid-1990s unions backed improvements to the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, but also inserted a provision assuring that the public would have no access to collective bargaining agreements negotiated by cities and counties—often representing 70 percent or more of their total operating budgets—until after the agreements are signed.
What happens when voters and the press have no opportunity to question elected officials about how they propose to pay for a lower retirement age, healthcare for retirees’ dependents, richer pension formulas and the like? The officials make contractual promises that are unaffordable, unsustainable (and, in general, don’t come due until after those elected officials have left office). In the case of Vallejo, in northern California, this veil of secrecy, and the symbiotic relationship it fosters, has led to municipal bankruptcy.
The harm to the credibility of public employee unions from these excesses is made far worse by the unions’ attempts to hide them. The revelations about pay and pension abuses have surfaced only as a result of lawsuits. (Disclosure: The First Amendment Coalition has been a plaintiff in several of these cases.) Public employee unions, rather than taking the lead to stop abusive compensation practices, have vigorously opposed disclosure of individual employees’ salaries and pension amounts.
Public employee unions need to reboot. The old strategy of cynically buying political influence and excluding the public from decision-making has run its course. Unions can rebuild public support by recommitting to an agenda of open government in the public interest. If they don’t, they will be further marginalized.
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.
Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold on to past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that, on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a Saturday Night Live skit, followed, the next day, by a New York Times magazine cover article proclaiming the “Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand.”
Public unions’ traditional strength–the ability to finance their members’ rising pay and benefits through tax increases–has become a liability. Although private sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can’t choose–they are, in effect, “captive consumers.”
At some point, however, voters turn resentful as they sense that: (1) they are underwriting, through their taxes, a level of salary and benefits for government employment that is better than what they and their families have; and (2) government services, from schools to the DMV, are not good enough—not for the citizen individually nor the public generally—to justify the high and escalating cost.
We are at that point.
In California, government sector unions, once among the most entrenched and powerful labor groups in the country, mainly have themselves to blame. For most of the post-war period, they were a force for progressive change, prospering by winning over public support for their agenda.
In the 1970s and 80s they backed laws like the Public Records Act and Brown Act to make state and local government more transparent. Because unions enjoyed broad-based political support, efforts to enhance government accountability and responsiveness to voters were seen–correctly–as benefiting the unions and their members.The public interest and public employees’ interests were aligned.
But the unions switched strategies. Although the change was gradual, by the 1990s California’s government unions had decided that, rather than cultivate voter support for their objectives, they could exert more influence in the Legislature, and in the political process generally, by lavishing campaign contributions on lawmakers. Adopting the tactics of other special interest groups, government unions paid lip service to democratic principles while excelling at the fundamentally anti-democratic strategy of writing checks to legislators, their election committees and PACs.
While not illegal (in fact, such contributions are constitutionally protected), the unions’ aggressive spending on candidates puts them on the same moral low ground as casino-owning tribes, insurance companies and other special interests that have concluded that the best way to influence the legislative process is to, well, buy it.
Public unions in California turned distrustful of voters and ambivalent about government transparency. In the mid-1990s unions backed improvements to the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, but also inserted a provision assuring that the public would have no access to collective bargaining agreements negotiated by cities and counties—often representing 70 percent or more of their total operating budgets—until after the agreements are signed.
What happens when voters and the press have no opportunity to question elected officials about how they propose to pay for a lower retirement age, healthcare for retirees’ dependents, richer pension formulas and the like? The officials make contractual promises that are unaffordable, unsustainable (and, in general, don’t come due until after those elected officials have left office). In the case of Vallejo, in northern California, this veil of secrecy, and the symbiotic relationship it fosters, has led to municipal bankruptcy.
The biggest blow to unions’ public support has come from revelations about jaw-dropping compensation and pension benefits. Police have received unwelcome attention for budget-busting overtime and the manipulation of eligibility rules for “disability pensions,” which provide higher benefits and tax advantages. Other government employees, particularly managers, have been called out for “pension-spiking:” Using vacation time, sick pay and the like to boost income in the last years of employment, which are the basis for calculating retirement benefits.
Such gaming of the system boosts starting pensions to levels that can approach, and even exceed, employees’ salaries. Some examples from the reporting of the Contra Costa Times’ Daniel Borenstein: A retired northern California fire chief whose $185,000 salary morphed into a $241,000 annual pension; a county administrator whose $240,000 starting pension was 98 percent of final salary; and a sanitary district manager who qualified for a $217,000 pension on a salary of $234,000. At a time when most Californians anticipate an austere retirement (if they can afford to retire at all), government pensions are a source of real voter anger.
The harm to the credibility of public employee unions from these excesses is made far worse by the unions’ attempts to hide them. The revelations about pay and pension abuses have surfaced only as a result of lawsuits. (Disclosure: The First Amendment Coalition has been a plaintiff in several of these cases.) Public employee unions, rather than taking the lead to stop abusive compensation practices, have vigorously opposed disclosure of individual employees’ salaries and pension amounts.
Public employee unions need to reboot. The old strategy of cynically buying political influence and excluding the public from decision-making has run its course. Unions can rebuild public support by recommitting to an agenda of open government in the public interest. If they don’t, they will be further marginalized.
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.
Is Wikileaks Tied To The CIA Or Mossad?
Up until recently I have been an outspoken supporter of wikileaks, their founder Julian Assange and their stated mission online. As things sometimes do some information has begun to circulate that wikileaks is funded by George Soros and has ties to the Mossad and or the CIA. Now I can't confirm any of these allegations but I do consider them noteworthy.
One of the biggest red flags for me is Assange's statement that he is "annoyed" by 911 Truth stating that there are "actual conspiracies" out there. Now anyone who has honestly taken the time to investigate 911 knows at least 1 thing for certain, we aren't getting all the facts on 911, so for someone like Assange to try and divert attention from it is very suspicious.
Many people have made up their minds about Assange and wikileaks but I am not one of them, not yet. I most certainly will proceed with caution from this point but I'm not going to condemn them now, I see no reason to rush to judgement.
The following links provide a balance to the very favorable coverage I have given them in the past. Take these for what they're worth.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is 'annoyed' by 9/11 truth
Is the latest Wikileaks release serving the military industrial complex?
GORDON DUFF: WIKI-LEAKS IS ISRAEL, LIKE WE ALL DIDN’T KNOW
WIKILEAKS WORKS FOR THE CIA AND MOSSAD?
One of the biggest red flags for me is Assange's statement that he is "annoyed" by 911 Truth stating that there are "actual conspiracies" out there. Now anyone who has honestly taken the time to investigate 911 knows at least 1 thing for certain, we aren't getting all the facts on 911, so for someone like Assange to try and divert attention from it is very suspicious.
Many people have made up their minds about Assange and wikileaks but I am not one of them, not yet. I most certainly will proceed with caution from this point but I'm not going to condemn them now, I see no reason to rush to judgement.
The following links provide a balance to the very favorable coverage I have given them in the past. Take these for what they're worth.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is 'annoyed' by 9/11 truth
Is the latest Wikileaks release serving the military industrial complex?
GORDON DUFF: WIKI-LEAKS IS ISRAEL, LIKE WE ALL DIDN’T KNOW
WIKILEAKS WORKS FOR THE CIA AND MOSSAD?
Anne Frank Tree Topples
I think this is a fitting symbol since no matter what they do or how hard they try, the lid is off the Holocaust™ myth. They have thrown people in prison for daring to have an opinion contrary to what the jews media says.
Even against severe penalty though the Truth surges forward with all the money and power in the world they can't stop it, which is quite reassuring. The greatest friend of Truth is time.
Story
Prepare The Lube
From Americans for Tax Reform
8-23-10
In just six months, on January 1, 2011, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect.
They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves.
On January 1, 2011, here's what happens... (read it to the end, so you see all three waves)...
First Wave
Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief
In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011.
Personal Income Tax Rates Will Rise
The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).
The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent.
All the rates in between will also rise.
Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as highermarginal tax rates.
The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
The 10%
bracket rises to an expanded 15%
The 25%
bracket rises to 28%
The 28%
bracket rises to 31%
The 33%
bracket rises to 36%
The 35%
bracket rises to 39.6%
Higher Taxes On Marriage And Family
The "marriage penalty" (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.
The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.
The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.
The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.
The Return Of The Death Tax
This year only, there is no death tax. (It's a quirk!) For those dying on or after January 1, 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes, a business, a retirement account, could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones. Think of the farmers who don't make much money, but their land, which they purchased years ago with after-tax dollars, is now worth a lot of money. Their children will have to sell the farm, which may be their livelihood, just to pay the estate tax if they don't have the cash sitting around to pay the tax.
Think about your own family's assets. Maybe your family owns real estate, or a business that doesn't make much money, but the building and equipment are worth $1 million. Upon their death, you can inherit the $1 million business tax free, but if they own a home, stock, cash worth $500K on top of the $1 million business, then you will owe the government $275,000 cash! That's 55% of the value of the assets over $1 million! Do you have that kind of cash sitting around waiting to pay the estate tax?
Higher Tax Rates On Savers And Investors
The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011.
The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011.
These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.
The Second Wave
Obamacare
There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:
The "Medicine Cabinet Tax"
Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).
The "Special Needs Kids Tax"
This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.
There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States , and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education.
Tuitiion rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington , D.C. ( National Child Research Center ) can easily exceed $14,000 per year.
Under tax rules, FSA dollars can not be used to pay for this type of special needs education.
The HSA (Health Savings Account) Withdrawal Tax Hike.
This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 0 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAsand other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
The Third Wave
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and Employer Tax Hikes
When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they'll be in for a nasty surprise-the AMT won't be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired.
The major items include:
The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year.
According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center , Congress' failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families-rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Small business 'expensing' will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.
Small businesses can normally 'expense' (deduct) rather than slowly-deduct or 'depreciate' equipment purchases up to $250,000.
The traditional $250,000 figure will be cut all the way down to $25,000!
Larger businesses can currently expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, ALL of it will have to be "depreciated." (The depreciation period over which a business must write off a major expense is often THIRTY YEARS.)
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses
There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the "research and experimentation tax credit," but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced
Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses.
Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut.
Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed.
The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed
Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA.
This contribution also counts toward an annual "required minimum distribution." This ability will no longer be there.
PDF Version Read more:
And Worse Yet?
Now, your insurance will be INCOME on your W2's!
One of the surprises we'll find come next year, is what follows - - a little "surprise" that 99% of us had no idea was included in the "new and improved" healthcare legislation . . . the dupes, er, dopes, who backed this administration will be astonished!
Starting in 2011, (next year folks), your W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or governmental body of some sort.
If you're retired? So what... your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get.
You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year.
For many, it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse.
This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the15% that don't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.
Not believing this??? Here is a research of the summaries.....
On page 25 of 29: TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(sec. 9001, as modified by sec. 10901) Sec.9002 "requires employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from the employees gross income."
___________
Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters.
Go to Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what is above.
8-23-10
In just six months, on January 1, 2011, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect.
They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves.
On January 1, 2011, here's what happens... (read it to the end, so you see all three waves)...
First Wave
Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief
In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011.
Personal Income Tax Rates Will Rise
The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).
The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent.
All the rates in between will also rise.
Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as highermarginal tax rates.
The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:
The 10%
bracket rises to an expanded 15%
The 25%
bracket rises to 28%
The 28%
bracket rises to 31%
The 33%
bracket rises to 36%
The 35%
bracket rises to 39.6%
Higher Taxes On Marriage And Family
The "marriage penalty" (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.
The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.
The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.
The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.
The Return Of The Death Tax
This year only, there is no death tax. (It's a quirk!) For those dying on or after January 1, 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes, a business, a retirement account, could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones. Think of the farmers who don't make much money, but their land, which they purchased years ago with after-tax dollars, is now worth a lot of money. Their children will have to sell the farm, which may be their livelihood, just to pay the estate tax if they don't have the cash sitting around to pay the tax.
Think about your own family's assets. Maybe your family owns real estate, or a business that doesn't make much money, but the building and equipment are worth $1 million. Upon their death, you can inherit the $1 million business tax free, but if they own a home, stock, cash worth $500K on top of the $1 million business, then you will owe the government $275,000 cash! That's 55% of the value of the assets over $1 million! Do you have that kind of cash sitting around waiting to pay the estate tax?
Higher Tax Rates On Savers And Investors
The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011.
The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011.
These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.
The Second Wave
Obamacare
There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:
The "Medicine Cabinet Tax"
Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).
The "Special Needs Kids Tax"
This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children.
There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States , and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education.
Tuitiion rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington , D.C. ( National Child Research Center ) can easily exceed $14,000 per year.
Under tax rules, FSA dollars can not be used to pay for this type of special needs education.
The HSA (Health Savings Account) Withdrawal Tax Hike.
This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 0 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAsand other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
The Third Wave
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and Employer Tax Hikes
When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they'll be in for a nasty surprise-the AMT won't be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired.
The major items include:
The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year.
According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center , Congress' failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families-rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.
Small business 'expensing' will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.
Small businesses can normally 'expense' (deduct) rather than slowly-deduct or 'depreciate' equipment purchases up to $250,000.
The traditional $250,000 figure will be cut all the way down to $25,000!
Larger businesses can currently expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, ALL of it will have to be "depreciated." (The depreciation period over which a business must write off a major expense is often THIRTY YEARS.)
Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses
There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the "research and experimentation tax credit," but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.
Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced
Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses.
Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut.
Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed.
The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.
Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed
Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA.
This contribution also counts toward an annual "required minimum distribution." This ability will no longer be there.
PDF Version Read more:
And Worse Yet?
Now, your insurance will be INCOME on your W2's!
One of the surprises we'll find come next year, is what follows - - a little "surprise" that 99% of us had no idea was included in the "new and improved" healthcare legislation . . . the dupes, er, dopes, who backed this administration will be astonished!
Starting in 2011, (next year folks), your W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or governmental body of some sort.
If you're retired? So what... your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get.
You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year.
For many, it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse.
This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the15% that don't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.
Not believing this??? Here is a research of the summaries.....
On page 25 of 29: TITLE IX REVENUE PROVISIONS- SUBTITLE A: REVENUE OFFSET PROVISIONS-(sec. 9001, as modified by sec. 10901) Sec.9002 "requires employers to include in the W-2 form of each employee the aggregate cost of applicable employer sponsored group health coverage that is excludable from the employees gross income."
___________
Joan Pryde is the senior tax editor for the Kiplinger letters.
Go to Kiplingers and read about 13 tax changes that could affect you. Number 3 is what is above.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Jewish Race Baiting Coming Back To Bite Them
"We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negros. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause."
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for he Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
Now that was 98 years ago, today their plan has been implemented in full. For several generations now the dumb blacks have taken the bait and you end up with the following scenario.
It should be noted that I agree with what Dr. Laura says on this tape, however I will not defend or pity her since it is her own people who caused this problem. This is of course the way marxism is done, since we all know that the system itself is flawed and cannot work long term they go from nation to nation destroying and once their host is effectively dead, they move on. Or in some cases they are found out and promptly kicked out, I write this blog to help insure that scenario is the one that plays out.
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for he Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
Now that was 98 years ago, today their plan has been implemented in full. For several generations now the dumb blacks have taken the bait and you end up with the following scenario.
It should be noted that I agree with what Dr. Laura says on this tape, however I will not defend or pity her since it is her own people who caused this problem. This is of course the way marxism is done, since we all know that the system itself is flawed and cannot work long term they go from nation to nation destroying and once their host is effectively dead, they move on. Or in some cases they are found out and promptly kicked out, I write this blog to help insure that scenario is the one that plays out.
Quote Of The Week
"We must realize that our party's most powerful weapon is racial tensions. By propounding into the consciousness of the dark races that for centuries they have been oppressed by whites, we can mold them to the program of the Communist Party. In America we will aim for subtle victory. While inflaming the Negro minority against the whites, we will endeavor to instill in the whites a guilt complex for their exploitation of the Negros. We will aid the Negroes to rise in prominence in every walk of life, in the professions and in the world of sports and entertainment. With this prestige, the Negro will be able to intermarry with the whites and begin a process which will deliver America to our cause."
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for he Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
Israel Cohen, A Racial Program for he Twentieth Century, 1912. Also in the Congressional Record, Vol. 103, p. 8559, June 7, 1957
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Jews Teach Courses On Editing Wikipedia
Source
Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.
Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia, the online reference site.
Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My I srael) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.
"We don't want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm," says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. "We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day."
Wikipedia is one of the world's most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. "We don't want to give this arena to the other side," she said. "But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel's side, with all the correct arguments and explanations."
Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is "not doing a very good job" of explaining Israel to the world.
And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.
Take the page on Israel, for a start: "The map of Israel is portrayed without the Golan heights or Judea and Samaria," said Bennett, referring to the annexed Syrian territory and the West Bank area occupied by Israel in 1967.
Another point of contention is the reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – a status that is constantly altered on Wikipedia.
Other pages subject to constant re-editing include one titled Goods allowed/banned for import into Gaza – which is now being considered for deletion – and a page on the Palestinian territories.
Then there is the problem of what to call certain neighbourhoods. "Is Ariel a city or a settlement?" asks Shaked of the area currently described by Wikipedia as "an Israeli settlement and a city in the central West Bank." That question is the subject of several thousand words of heated debate on a Wikipedia discussion thread.
The idea, says Shaked and her colleauges, is not to storm in, cause havoc and get booted out – the Wikipedia editing community is sensitive, consensus-based and it takes time to build trust.
"We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned," says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.
Is that Shiloh in the occupied West Bank? "No," he sighs, patiently. "That's Shiloh in the Binyamin region across the Green Line, or in territories described as disputed."
One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn't want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. "Going public in the past has had a bad effect," she says. "There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground."
In 2008, members of the hawkish pro-Israel watchdog Camera who secretly planned to edit Wikipedia were banned from the site by administrators.
Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. "It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity," says Bennett. "The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad."
The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the "Best Zionist editor", with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.
Wikipedia wars
There are frequent flare-ups between competing volunteer editors and obsessives who run Wikipedia. As well as conflicts over editing bias and "astroturfing" PR attempts, articles are occasionally edited to catch out journalists; the Independent recently erroneously published that the Big Chill had started life as the Wanky Balls festival. In 2005 the founding editorial director of USA Today, John Seigenthaler, discovered his Wikipedia entry included the claim that he was involved in the assassination of JFK.
Editors can remain anonymous when changing content, but conflicts are passed to Wikipedia's arbitration committee. Scientology was a regular source of conflict until the committee blocked editing by the movement.
Critics cite the editing problems as proof of a flawed site that can be edited by almost anybody, but its defenders claim the issues are tiny compared with its scale. Wikipedia now has versions in 271 languages and 379 million users a month.
Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.
Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia, the online reference site.
Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My I srael) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.
"We don't want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm," says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. "We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day."
Wikipedia is one of the world's most popular websites, and its 16m entries are open for anyone to edit, rewrite or even erase. The problem, according to Ayelet Shaked of Israel Sheli, is that online, pro-Israeli activists are vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian voices. "We don't want to give this arena to the other side," she said. "But we are so few and they are so many. People in the US and Europe never hear about Israel's side, with all the correct arguments and explanations."
Like others involved with this project, Shaked thinks that her government is "not doing a very good job" of explaining Israel to the world.
And on Wikipedia, they believe that there is much work to do.
Take the page on Israel, for a start: "The map of Israel is portrayed without the Golan heights or Judea and Samaria," said Bennett, referring to the annexed Syrian territory and the West Bank area occupied by Israel in 1967.
Another point of contention is the reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – a status that is constantly altered on Wikipedia.
Other pages subject to constant re-editing include one titled Goods allowed/banned for import into Gaza – which is now being considered for deletion – and a page on the Palestinian territories.
Then there is the problem of what to call certain neighbourhoods. "Is Ariel a city or a settlement?" asks Shaked of the area currently described by Wikipedia as "an Israeli settlement and a city in the central West Bank." That question is the subject of several thousand words of heated debate on a Wikipedia discussion thread.
The idea, says Shaked and her colleauges, is not to storm in, cause havoc and get booted out – the Wikipedia editing community is sensitive, consensus-based and it takes time to build trust.
"We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned," says Yisrael Medad, one of the course participants, from Shiloh.
Is that Shiloh in the occupied West Bank? "No," he sighs, patiently. "That's Shiloh in the Binyamin region across the Green Line, or in territories described as disputed."
One Jerusalem-based Wikipedia editor, who doesn't want to be named, said that publicising the initiative might not be such a good idea. "Going public in the past has had a bad effect," she says. "There is a war going on and unfortunately the way to fight it has to be underground."
In 2008, members of the hawkish pro-Israel watchdog Camera who secretly planned to edit Wikipedia were banned from the site by administrators.
Meanwhile, Yesha is building an information taskforce to engage with new media, by posting to sites such as Facebook and YouTube, and claims to have 12,000 active members, with up to 100 more signing up each month. "It turns out there is quite a thirst for this activity," says Bennett. "The Israeli public is frustrated with the way it is portrayed abroad."
The organisiers of the Wikipedia courses, are already planning a competition to find the "Best Zionist editor", with a prize of a hot-air balloon trip over Israel.
Wikipedia wars
There are frequent flare-ups between competing volunteer editors and obsessives who run Wikipedia. As well as conflicts over editing bias and "astroturfing" PR attempts, articles are occasionally edited to catch out journalists; the Independent recently erroneously published that the Big Chill had started life as the Wanky Balls festival. In 2005 the founding editorial director of USA Today, John Seigenthaler, discovered his Wikipedia entry included the claim that he was involved in the assassination of JFK.
Editors can remain anonymous when changing content, but conflicts are passed to Wikipedia's arbitration committee. Scientology was a regular source of conflict until the committee blocked editing by the movement.
Critics cite the editing problems as proof of a flawed site that can be edited by almost anybody, but its defenders claim the issues are tiny compared with its scale. Wikipedia now has versions in 271 languages and 379 million users a month.
Declassified Documents Reveal Massive Israeli Manipulation of US Media
This is one of the reasons I find Russia Today to be the fairest of all mainstream networks in their news coverage.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Don't Forget Our Amazon Store
I don't ask for donations because I enjoy doing this site, but if I can make money without it costing you a dime than it seems like a win win. Which is why for some time I've had an Amazon store where I earn several % of the things you purchase at no cost to you.
If you visit Amazon through our Amazon store, whatever you purchase will give me a cut. Which is always very appreciated for those of you who do.
The button sits in the top of the site and over a while (or if you just read the RSS feed) you don't notice.
So here is the reminder :)
Truth In Our Time Amazon Store
If you visit Amazon through our Amazon store, whatever you purchase will give me a cut. Which is always very appreciated for those of you who do.
The button sits in the top of the site and over a while (or if you just read the RSS feed) you don't notice.
So here is the reminder :)
Truth In Our Time Amazon Store
Why Hollywood Ignores Hiroshima (and Dresden)
The short answer is because all you are supposed to know about WWII is that Hitler was evil and killed millions of poor innocent hardworking jews for no reason, he was the monster of the century. The US entered the war and committed no atrocities whatsoever. This of course is because Germany is to be the great evil of WWII and by default the US the savior, this is how the jews are able to extract billions in hoaxacaust reparations the world over and perpetuate the "oy vey ve are so persecuted" BS.
Now obviously the following writer doesn't really nail the real reason, but the fact that he asks the question is at least a start.
I recall talking to someone a few years ago who was talking about North Korea and how they should get off their high horse about obtaining nukes and how dangerous Kim was. Who are we to say of all the nuclear countries in the world we are the only one to use them, and on civilians no less. Of course when the US mass murders civilians in a foreign land it's either justified or swept under the rug, but if a foreign power kills civilians than they are a rogue, terror state and a threat to world peace. This is the epitome of orwellian double speak.
Source
American cinema is omnivorous. It has swallowed almost every subject from the trivial to great historical events, and then spewed them up. However, there is one subject it has refused to tackle directly: the bombing of Hiroshima and its consequences.
As it is now 65 years since the horrific event, the omission seems even more astounding. Is there is an element of collective guilt because the US is the only country ever to have used a nuclear weapon on a civilian population? It cannot be because the subject is too appalling to depict, since many other horrendous happenings have been portrayed graphically in American films.
The only references that American cinema, commercial or otherwise, has made to Hiroshima have been oblique. During the cold war, MGM produced Above and Beyond (1952), based on the experiences of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The film makes the oft-repeated argument that the bombing was justified because it contributed to the ending of the second world war, yet it seemed more concerned with the effects it had on the pilot's relationship with his wife.
Previously, in 1947, MGM had released The Beginning Or the End, which dramatised the Manhattan project. After the success of the tests, we see the Enola Gay and her crew drop the bomb, the mushroom cloud, and scenes of the entire city burning – from a vast distance, of course. Yet, the sanguine message of the movie is that America can be trusted to use this new weapon for universal good. Among the extremely rare moments in American films that allude to the bombing of Hiroshima is the climax of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987), where a beautiful special effect lights up the sky. But nowhere in American cinema do we see one victim of the bomb, one burning corpse, one person dying of radiation, one deformed child.
In the opening dialogue of Alain Resnais's masterful Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), the reference to which all other films on the subject must incline, a French actor in Hiroshima for a film, tells her Japanese lover that she has seen everything in Hiroshima – the exhibits in the museum, the news footage of the injured and dying. However, he keeps insisting, "You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing."
American cinema has seen nothing in Hiroshima. Nor has it ever tried.
Now obviously the following writer doesn't really nail the real reason, but the fact that he asks the question is at least a start.
I recall talking to someone a few years ago who was talking about North Korea and how they should get off their high horse about obtaining nukes and how dangerous Kim was. Who are we to say of all the nuclear countries in the world we are the only one to use them, and on civilians no less. Of course when the US mass murders civilians in a foreign land it's either justified or swept under the rug, but if a foreign power kills civilians than they are a rogue, terror state and a threat to world peace. This is the epitome of orwellian double speak.
Source
American cinema is omnivorous. It has swallowed almost every subject from the trivial to great historical events, and then spewed them up. However, there is one subject it has refused to tackle directly: the bombing of Hiroshima and its consequences.
As it is now 65 years since the horrific event, the omission seems even more astounding. Is there is an element of collective guilt because the US is the only country ever to have used a nuclear weapon on a civilian population? It cannot be because the subject is too appalling to depict, since many other horrendous happenings have been portrayed graphically in American films.
The only references that American cinema, commercial or otherwise, has made to Hiroshima have been oblique. During the cold war, MGM produced Above and Beyond (1952), based on the experiences of Colonel Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The film makes the oft-repeated argument that the bombing was justified because it contributed to the ending of the second world war, yet it seemed more concerned with the effects it had on the pilot's relationship with his wife.
Previously, in 1947, MGM had released The Beginning Or the End, which dramatised the Manhattan project. After the success of the tests, we see the Enola Gay and her crew drop the bomb, the mushroom cloud, and scenes of the entire city burning – from a vast distance, of course. Yet, the sanguine message of the movie is that America can be trusted to use this new weapon for universal good. Among the extremely rare moments in American films that allude to the bombing of Hiroshima is the climax of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987), where a beautiful special effect lights up the sky. But nowhere in American cinema do we see one victim of the bomb, one burning corpse, one person dying of radiation, one deformed child.
In the opening dialogue of Alain Resnais's masterful Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959), the reference to which all other films on the subject must incline, a French actor in Hiroshima for a film, tells her Japanese lover that she has seen everything in Hiroshima – the exhibits in the museum, the news footage of the injured and dying. However, he keeps insisting, "You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing."
American cinema has seen nothing in Hiroshima. Nor has it ever tried.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Female Patriot Hits Jew Senator Carl Levin In The Face With A Pie
(You other treasonous bastards better take heed while all you are hit with is pies.)
BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.
The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin's office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.
Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.
Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."
Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin's office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University's campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.
The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.
Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.
"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement.
The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.
BIG RAPIDS, Mich. – A woman identified as an anti-war protester hit U.S. Sen. Carl Levin in the face with an apple pie during the Armed Services Committee chairman's meeting with constituents in northern Michigan, authorities said Monday.
The senator took a question near the end of the Monday morning meeting in Big Rapids from a man who said he was a student, Levin's office said in a news release. The man read a long statement, then a woman came up and hit Levin with a pie.
Big Rapids police arrested Ahlam M. Mohsen, 22, of Coldwater on a felony charge of stalking, as well as misdemeanor counts of assault and disorderly conduct. She has no listed telephone number in Coldwater.
Mohsen told the Big Rapids Pioneer she hoped "to send a message that liberals and Democrats are just as implicated in the violence (of war) as the Republicans."
Mohsen was one of three protesters arrested in January 2009 after a sit-in at Levin's office in Lansing, according to Michigan State University's campus newspaper. She told the newspaper then that the group wanted the United States to begin cutting military and other support to Israel and call for an investigation of Israeli war crimes.
The earlier arrest, plus the escalation to a physical assault, formed the basis for the stalking charge, Officer Erik Small told The Associated Press. He said Mohsen was being held without bond and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday.
Police said the man who read the statement before Mohsen hit Levin with the pie and a woman who videotaped the attack also could face charges. Police do not have the videotape, Little said.
Levin appeared to take the pie toss in stride.
"They didn't hurt me, but they hurt their cause even more than their own extreme words had already done," he said in a statement.
The constituent meeting was sponsored by the Mecosta County Democratic Party. The city of about 10,000 is 50 miles north of Grand Rapids and 150 miles northwest of Detroit.
40 Facts About The US Economy
Another collaboration like this one posted previously.
1 - According to one shocking new survey, 28% of U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.
2 - A recent Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the recession began.
3 - There are 9.2 million Americans that are unemployed but that are not receiving an unemployment insurance check.
4 - In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
5 - According to one analysis, the United States has lost 10.5 million jobs since 2007.
6 - China's trade surplus (much of it with the United States) climbed 140 percent in June compared to a year earlier.
7 - This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
8 - According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
9 - According to a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg, 71% of Americans say that it still feels like the economy is in a recession.
10 - Banks repossessed 269,962 U.S. homes during the second quarter of 2010, which was a new all-time record.
11 - Banks repossessed an average of 4,000 South Florida properties a month in the first half of 2010, up 83 percent from the first half of 2009.
12 - According to RealtyTrac, a total of 1.65 million U.S. properties received foreclosure filings during the first half of 2010.
13 - The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that demand for loans to purchase U.S. homes has sunk to a 13-year low.
14 - Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
15 - 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008.
16 - Back in 1950 each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers. Today, each retiree's
Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
17 - According to a new poll, six of 10 non-retirees believe that Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.
18 - 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
19 - According to one survey, 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
20 - According to one recent survey, 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
21 - The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index declined sharply to 52.9 in June. Most economists had expected that the figure for June would be somewhere around 62.
22 - Retail sales in the U.S. fell in June for a second month in a row.
23 - Vacancies and lease rates at U.S. shopping centers continued to get worse during the second quarter of 2010.
24 - Consumer credit in the United States has contracted during 15 of the past 16 months.
25 - During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.
26 - Things are now so bad in California that in the region around the state capital, Sacramento, there is now one closed business for every six that are still open.
27 - The state of Illinois now ranks eighth in the world in possible bond-holder default. The state of California is ninth.
28 - More than 25 percent of Americans now have a credit score below 599, which means that they are a very bad credit risk.
29 - On Friday, U.S. regulators closed down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to be shut down so far in 2010.
30 - The FDIC's deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.
31 - The U.S. federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion with three months still to go in the current budget year.
32 - According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
33 - The M3 money supply plunged at a 9.6 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2010.
34 - According to a new poll of Americans between the ages of 44 and 75, 61% said that running out money was their biggest fear. The remaining 39% thought death was scarier.
35 - One study found that as of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
36 - The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
37 - The number of Americans with incomes below the official poverty line rose by about 15% between 2000 and 2006, and by 2008 over 30 million U.S. workers were earning less than $10 per hour.
38 - According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
39 - For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
40 - A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey has found that just 23% of American voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed.
1 - According to one shocking new survey, 28% of U.S. households have at least one member that is looking for a full-time job.
2 - A recent Pew Research survey found that 55 percent of the U.S. labor force has experienced either unemployment, a pay decrease, a reduction in hours or an involuntary move to part-time work since the recession began.
3 - There are 9.2 million Americans that are unemployed but that are not receiving an unemployment insurance check.
4 - In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
5 - According to one analysis, the United States has lost 10.5 million jobs since 2007.
6 - China's trade surplus (much of it with the United States) climbed 140 percent in June compared to a year earlier.
7 - This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
8 - According to a poll taken in 2009, 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck. That was up significantly from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
9 - According to a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg, 71% of Americans say that it still feels like the economy is in a recession.
10 - Banks repossessed 269,962 U.S. homes during the second quarter of 2010, which was a new all-time record.
11 - Banks repossessed an average of 4,000 South Florida properties a month in the first half of 2010, up 83 percent from the first half of 2009.
12 - According to RealtyTrac, a total of 1.65 million U.S. properties received foreclosure filings during the first half of 2010.
13 - The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that demand for loans to purchase U.S. homes has sunk to a 13-year low.
14 - Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
15 - 1.41 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009 - a 32 percent increase over 2008.
16 - Back in 1950 each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 workers. Today, each retiree's
Social Security benefit is paid for by approximately 3.3 workers. By 2025 it is projected that there will be approximately two workers for each retiree.
17 - According to a new poll, six of 10 non-retirees believe that Social Security won't be able to pay them benefits when they stop working.
18 - 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
19 - According to one survey, 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
20 - According to one recent survey, 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
21 - The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index declined sharply to 52.9 in June. Most economists had expected that the figure for June would be somewhere around 62.
22 - Retail sales in the U.S. fell in June for a second month in a row.
23 - Vacancies and lease rates at U.S. shopping centers continued to get worse during the second quarter of 2010.
24 - Consumer credit in the United States has contracted during 15 of the past 16 months.
25 - During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.
26 - Things are now so bad in California that in the region around the state capital, Sacramento, there is now one closed business for every six that are still open.
27 - The state of Illinois now ranks eighth in the world in possible bond-holder default. The state of California is ninth.
28 - More than 25 percent of Americans now have a credit score below 599, which means that they are a very bad credit risk.
29 - On Friday, U.S. regulators closed down three banks in Florida, two in South Carolina and one in Michigan, bringing to 96 the number of U.S. banks to be shut down so far in 2010.
30 - The FDIC's deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.
31 - The U.S. federal budget deficit has topped $1 trillion with three months still to go in the current budget year.
32 - According to a U.S. Treasury Department report to Congress, the U.S. national debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015.
33 - The M3 money supply plunged at a 9.6 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2010.
34 - According to a new poll of Americans between the ages of 44 and 75, 61% said that running out money was their biggest fear. The remaining 39% thought death was scarier.
35 - One study found that as of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
36 - The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
37 - The number of Americans with incomes below the official poverty line rose by about 15% between 2000 and 2006, and by 2008 over 30 million U.S. workers were earning less than $10 per hour.
38 - According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
39 - For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
40 - A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey has found that just 23% of American voters nationwide believe the federal government today has the consent of the governed.
The US 1950 VS 2010
1950: The total U.S. national debt is about 257 billion dollars.
2010: The U.S. national debt is increasing by over 4 billion dollars per day.
1950: If a member of Congress doesn't tell the truth it is a felony.
2010: If a member of Congress doesn't tell the truth they are just playing politics.
1950: Americans dress up in suits and dresses to get on an airplane.
2010: Americans are forced to walk through full body security scanners that give gawking security workers a clear view of their naked bodies before they can get on an airplane.
1950: American schoolchildren openly read the Word of God and pray in public schools.
2010: Attempting to read your Bible or pray in a public school will get you slapped with a lawsuit by the ACLU.
1950: Wealth redistribution is considered communist and anti-American.
2010: Wealth redistribution is the official policy of the U.S. government.
1950: The U.S. Constitution is deeply loved and highly revered.
2010: Federal authorities are instructed to be on the lookout for anyone who talks about the U.S. Constitution too much because they might be a domestic terrorist.
1950: Mass murderers are executed and unborn babies are protected by law.
2010: Unborn babies are being mass murdered and mass murderers are protected by law from being executed in many states.
1950: We mobilize the entire U.S. military to protect the borders of South Korea.
2010: The U.S. government barely lifts a finger to do anything about the millions of gang members, drug dealers and serial criminals that are pouring across America's borders.
1950: We actually attempt to parent our children.
2010: We pump our kids full of Ritalin and let video games and television raise our children.
1950: If a company makes too many bad decisions they go out of business.
2010: If you have connections in high places or you are "too big to fail" your business gets bailed out by the U.S. government.
1950: Socialized medicine is considered a bizarre scheme that only communist nations would be stupid enough to attempt.
2010: Congress and the president ram a bill down the throats of the American people that they did not want which basically socializes our entire health care system.
1950: The American people believe that the free market should run the economy.
2010: The American people are told that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve should run the economy.
1950: American industry provides great jobs for hard working Americans and the United States has the biggest middle class in the world.
2010: Giant global predator corporations ship our manufacturing base and millions of great jobs to the third world and our politicians pretend that it is our fault when we can't get jobs.
1950: Cities such as Detroit, Michigan are shining examples of the great American economic machine.
2010: Cities such as Detroit, Michigan are decaying, rusted-out war zones where houses sell for as little as one dollar.
1950: The United States lends more money to other nations than any other country in the world.
2010: The United States borrows more money from other nations than any other country in the world.
1950: The American people are the envy of the world.
2010: The American people are some of the fattest people on the planet.
1950: The American people are extremely well read and are deeply interested in politics.
2010: The American people are obsessed with American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and with how their favorite sports teams are doing.
1950: If children act up they are tanned on the behind and taught a lesson.
2010: If children act up they are told they have ADHD and pumped full of pharmaceutical drugs.
1950: Communists and socialists are considered dangerous extremists and the American people are taught to love the U.S. Constitution.
2010: Those who love the U.S. Constitution are considered dangerous extremists and we have a communist in the White House.
2010: The U.S. national debt is increasing by over 4 billion dollars per day.
1950: If a member of Congress doesn't tell the truth it is a felony.
2010: If a member of Congress doesn't tell the truth they are just playing politics.
1950: Americans dress up in suits and dresses to get on an airplane.
2010: Americans are forced to walk through full body security scanners that give gawking security workers a clear view of their naked bodies before they can get on an airplane.
1950: American schoolchildren openly read the Word of God and pray in public schools.
2010: Attempting to read your Bible or pray in a public school will get you slapped with a lawsuit by the ACLU.
1950: Wealth redistribution is considered communist and anti-American.
2010: Wealth redistribution is the official policy of the U.S. government.
1950: The U.S. Constitution is deeply loved and highly revered.
2010: Federal authorities are instructed to be on the lookout for anyone who talks about the U.S. Constitution too much because they might be a domestic terrorist.
1950: Mass murderers are executed and unborn babies are protected by law.
2010: Unborn babies are being mass murdered and mass murderers are protected by law from being executed in many states.
1950: We mobilize the entire U.S. military to protect the borders of South Korea.
2010: The U.S. government barely lifts a finger to do anything about the millions of gang members, drug dealers and serial criminals that are pouring across America's borders.
1950: We actually attempt to parent our children.
2010: We pump our kids full of Ritalin and let video games and television raise our children.
1950: If a company makes too many bad decisions they go out of business.
2010: If you have connections in high places or you are "too big to fail" your business gets bailed out by the U.S. government.
1950: Socialized medicine is considered a bizarre scheme that only communist nations would be stupid enough to attempt.
2010: Congress and the president ram a bill down the throats of the American people that they did not want which basically socializes our entire health care system.
1950: The American people believe that the free market should run the economy.
2010: The American people are told that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve should run the economy.
1950: American industry provides great jobs for hard working Americans and the United States has the biggest middle class in the world.
2010: Giant global predator corporations ship our manufacturing base and millions of great jobs to the third world and our politicians pretend that it is our fault when we can't get jobs.
1950: Cities such as Detroit, Michigan are shining examples of the great American economic machine.
2010: Cities such as Detroit, Michigan are decaying, rusted-out war zones where houses sell for as little as one dollar.
1950: The United States lends more money to other nations than any other country in the world.
2010: The United States borrows more money from other nations than any other country in the world.
1950: The American people are the envy of the world.
2010: The American people are some of the fattest people on the planet.
1950: The American people are extremely well read and are deeply interested in politics.
2010: The American people are obsessed with American Idol, Dancing With The Stars and with how their favorite sports teams are doing.
1950: If children act up they are tanned on the behind and taught a lesson.
2010: If children act up they are told they have ADHD and pumped full of pharmaceutical drugs.
1950: Communists and socialists are considered dangerous extremists and the American people are taught to love the U.S. Constitution.
2010: Those who love the U.S. Constitution are considered dangerous extremists and we have a communist in the White House.
Fructose Slurping Cancer Could Kill The Soda Industry (Good)
Here is the full article with links.
Soda and processed-food manufacturers have long insisted that all sugars are essentially the same. Yet, simultaneously they're delicately backing away from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as one study after another links the corn-based sweetener to obesity and diabetes. While the market for HFCS declined by 9% in 2008, says Ken Roseboro of the Organic and Non-GMO Report, it was still used in 55% of all sweetened edibles in 2009.
New findings published this month in the journal Cancer Research by University of California Los Angeles researchers could further sour the public's sentiment toward the super-sweet, super-cheap syrup and reduce its use even further. HFCS is 55% fructose and 42% glucose. The study found that pancreatic tumor cells metabolized fructose differently than glucose and that the cancer cells "readily metabolized fructose to increase proliferation." In other words, as the headline reads, "Cancer cells slurp up fructose."
Lawsuits Are Sure to Follow
This is a direct challenge to the Corn Refiner's Association, which made a splash in 2008 with commercials belittling consumers who disdained high-fructose corn syrup as self-righteous and incoherent. (The ads inspired a little outrage and a lot of spoofs and rebuttals.) In March 2010, the association put on its website a clip from CBS News calling differences in the chemistry of HFCS and table sugar "an urban myth." And despite the occasional study linking HFCS consumption to obesity, as well as insulin resistance and diabetes, the prevailing sentiment of the food industry was that the difference between HFCS and cane or beet sugar was negligible.
"Fructose is a natural, simple sugar commonly found in a variety of sweeteners, including table sugar, honey, and high fructose corn syrup, as well as in many fruits, vegetables, and juices," says Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association in a statement. "This study does not look at the way fructose is actually consumed by humans, as it was conducted in a laboratory, not inside the human body. The study also narrowly compared pure fructose to pure glucose, neither of which is consumed in isolation in the human diet."
Despite the Corn Refiner's Association's best efforts, high fructose corn syrup is still being maligned. But it is this latest study linking the sweetener to pancreatic cancer that may be the weapon of choice for eager attorneys in defense of angry consumers. As Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Christopher Shanahan says, laughing, when asked whether there will be lawsuits, "Yes, I'd put money on it."
But as damning as the headlines of this latest study seem to be, other scientists caution that further research needs to be done before people leap to the assumption that fructose helps cancer proliferate. The science blogger known as "Orac" writes that the research is "rather interesting," but far more work should be done before it's seen as proof that HFCS causes pancreatic cancer. "It's far too early to make any sort of recommendations about high fructose corn syrup and diet based on this study," he writes.
In a statement, the American Beverage Association said: "It is important to recognize that this was not a clinical trial performed on humans, but rather a test tube study. In addition, the isolated cancer cells were subjected to extremely high levels of fructose that are unlikely in normal human metabolic processes. In fact, human beings do not typically consume fructose by itself, as it is normally found in combination with glucose in fruits and vegetables, or in the form of sucrose or high fructose corn syrup as found in myriad foods and beverages. The fact remains that no single food or beverage causes cancer, including pancreatic cancer."
Beverage Makers Under the Gun
The beverage companies are the easiest targets in the crusade against HFCS, says Shanahan. For "the corn manufacturers, the sugar manufacturers, the processed-food manufacturers, there is an underlying fear that, in the next 10 years, this is going to be a critical challenge similar to the top-down mandates that impacted the tobacco industry."
He points to a central problem of the U.S. agricultural system: Very few crops -- soy, wheat and especially corn -- account for a huge percentage of the American diet, especially when you consider the soy- and corn-fed livestock and myriad processed foods made from corn derivatives.
"The recent obesity measure, weight issues, diabetes, all can be routed back to the American diet," Shanahan says, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is complicit in the problem, with rich subsidies for wheat, soy and corn, the top recipient. The amount varies widely from year to year, but corn subsidies totaled $73.8 billion from 1995 to 2009. With corn so cheap, there's incentive to put it in more and more foods in place of other, more expensive, ingredients. Now it's in practically every processed food, and lots of nonfoods, too, including ethanol for fuel.
Getting the HFCS Out
Roseboro, of the Organic & Non-GMO Report, says change is coming. Big brands like Hunt's (CAG), Gatorade (PEP) and Starbucks (SBUX) are reformulating some of their products to remove HFCS. "I think the fact that big companies [like Hunt's and Pepsico] are going to stop using it is indication that a trend is going to be that companies will be taking it out, using sugar instead, and the smaller companies will follow along."
Shanahan agrees. "Food manufacturers are starting to diversify their product line to include cane sugar," he says. "The corn refiners are going to stop making corn sweeteners, and make ethanol instead."
It might be longer than he thinks before beverage companies and, most important, government agencies decide it's time for change, however. Switching away from corn sweeteners won't be easy. Cheap corn is, after all, the basis of many processed foods. It's not just the HFCS, of course. Corn is the source of oil for salad dressing and frying, of coloring for sodas, juices and yogurts, of livestock feed that makes $1 hamburgers possible.
"Over time, consumers will change their diets as they are taught the real cost of food," Shanahan says. "This is going to be a diminishing problem." Food and beverage makers have plenty of skin in this game and may as well get ahead of eventual regulation, he says, adding that a healthful product line is where the industry is headed. "Food processors are only doing what the man wants. They're going to sell you healthy food if you want it."
Just as with tobacco, we're in for a decade or two of growing awareness about the destructive effects of our subsidized cheap-sweetener system, with lawsuits and regulations to follow. But we'll get over it, Shanahan says. "In this transitional period, people don't want to eat the stuff, but they'll be more than happy to put it in their cars."
Soda and processed-food manufacturers have long insisted that all sugars are essentially the same. Yet, simultaneously they're delicately backing away from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as one study after another links the corn-based sweetener to obesity and diabetes. While the market for HFCS declined by 9% in 2008, says Ken Roseboro of the Organic and Non-GMO Report, it was still used in 55% of all sweetened edibles in 2009.
New findings published this month in the journal Cancer Research by University of California Los Angeles researchers could further sour the public's sentiment toward the super-sweet, super-cheap syrup and reduce its use even further. HFCS is 55% fructose and 42% glucose. The study found that pancreatic tumor cells metabolized fructose differently than glucose and that the cancer cells "readily metabolized fructose to increase proliferation." In other words, as the headline reads, "Cancer cells slurp up fructose."
Lawsuits Are Sure to Follow
This is a direct challenge to the Corn Refiner's Association, which made a splash in 2008 with commercials belittling consumers who disdained high-fructose corn syrup as self-righteous and incoherent. (The ads inspired a little outrage and a lot of spoofs and rebuttals.) In March 2010, the association put on its website a clip from CBS News calling differences in the chemistry of HFCS and table sugar "an urban myth." And despite the occasional study linking HFCS consumption to obesity, as well as insulin resistance and diabetes, the prevailing sentiment of the food industry was that the difference between HFCS and cane or beet sugar was negligible.
"Fructose is a natural, simple sugar commonly found in a variety of sweeteners, including table sugar, honey, and high fructose corn syrup, as well as in many fruits, vegetables, and juices," says Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association in a statement. "This study does not look at the way fructose is actually consumed by humans, as it was conducted in a laboratory, not inside the human body. The study also narrowly compared pure fructose to pure glucose, neither of which is consumed in isolation in the human diet."
Despite the Corn Refiner's Association's best efforts, high fructose corn syrup is still being maligned. But it is this latest study linking the sweetener to pancreatic cancer that may be the weapon of choice for eager attorneys in defense of angry consumers. As Frost & Sullivan industry analyst Christopher Shanahan says, laughing, when asked whether there will be lawsuits, "Yes, I'd put money on it."
But as damning as the headlines of this latest study seem to be, other scientists caution that further research needs to be done before people leap to the assumption that fructose helps cancer proliferate. The science blogger known as "Orac" writes that the research is "rather interesting," but far more work should be done before it's seen as proof that HFCS causes pancreatic cancer. "It's far too early to make any sort of recommendations about high fructose corn syrup and diet based on this study," he writes.
In a statement, the American Beverage Association said: "It is important to recognize that this was not a clinical trial performed on humans, but rather a test tube study. In addition, the isolated cancer cells were subjected to extremely high levels of fructose that are unlikely in normal human metabolic processes. In fact, human beings do not typically consume fructose by itself, as it is normally found in combination with glucose in fruits and vegetables, or in the form of sucrose or high fructose corn syrup as found in myriad foods and beverages. The fact remains that no single food or beverage causes cancer, including pancreatic cancer."
Beverage Makers Under the Gun
The beverage companies are the easiest targets in the crusade against HFCS, says Shanahan. For "the corn manufacturers, the sugar manufacturers, the processed-food manufacturers, there is an underlying fear that, in the next 10 years, this is going to be a critical challenge similar to the top-down mandates that impacted the tobacco industry."
He points to a central problem of the U.S. agricultural system: Very few crops -- soy, wheat and especially corn -- account for a huge percentage of the American diet, especially when you consider the soy- and corn-fed livestock and myriad processed foods made from corn derivatives.
"The recent obesity measure, weight issues, diabetes, all can be routed back to the American diet," Shanahan says, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is complicit in the problem, with rich subsidies for wheat, soy and corn, the top recipient. The amount varies widely from year to year, but corn subsidies totaled $73.8 billion from 1995 to 2009. With corn so cheap, there's incentive to put it in more and more foods in place of other, more expensive, ingredients. Now it's in practically every processed food, and lots of nonfoods, too, including ethanol for fuel.
Getting the HFCS Out
Roseboro, of the Organic & Non-GMO Report, says change is coming. Big brands like Hunt's (CAG), Gatorade (PEP) and Starbucks (SBUX) are reformulating some of their products to remove HFCS. "I think the fact that big companies [like Hunt's and Pepsico] are going to stop using it is indication that a trend is going to be that companies will be taking it out, using sugar instead, and the smaller companies will follow along."
Shanahan agrees. "Food manufacturers are starting to diversify their product line to include cane sugar," he says. "The corn refiners are going to stop making corn sweeteners, and make ethanol instead."
It might be longer than he thinks before beverage companies and, most important, government agencies decide it's time for change, however. Switching away from corn sweeteners won't be easy. Cheap corn is, after all, the basis of many processed foods. It's not just the HFCS, of course. Corn is the source of oil for salad dressing and frying, of coloring for sodas, juices and yogurts, of livestock feed that makes $1 hamburgers possible.
"Over time, consumers will change their diets as they are taught the real cost of food," Shanahan says. "This is going to be a diminishing problem." Food and beverage makers have plenty of skin in this game and may as well get ahead of eventual regulation, he says, adding that a healthful product line is where the industry is headed. "Food processors are only doing what the man wants. They're going to sell you healthy food if you want it."
Just as with tobacco, we're in for a decade or two of growing awareness about the destructive effects of our subsidized cheap-sweetener system, with lawsuits and regulations to follow. But we'll get over it, Shanahan says. "In this transitional period, people don't want to eat the stuff, but they'll be more than happy to put it in their cars."
Cancer Cells Feed On Fructose (HFCS)
* Study shows fructose used differently from glucose
* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars
Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.
Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
"These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation," Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."
Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.
Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.
Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
Several states, including New York and California, have weighed a tax on sweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda. [ID:nN12233126]
The industry has also argued that sugar is sugar.
Heaney said his team found otherwise. They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose.
Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. "Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different," Heaney's team wrote.
"I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets," Heaney said in a statement.
Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumor cells from making use of fructose.
U.S. consumption of high fructose corn syrup went up 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
* Findings challenge common wisdom about sugars
Aug 2 (Reuters) - Pancreatic tumor cells use fructose to divide and proliferate, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a study that challenges the common wisdom that all sugars are the same.
Tumor cells fed both glucose and fructose used the two sugars in two different ways, the team at the University of California Los Angeles found.
They said their finding, published in the journal Cancer Research, may help explain other studies that have linked fructose intake with pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancer types.
"These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation," Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center and colleagues wrote.
"They have major significance for cancer patients given dietary refined fructose consumption, and indicate that efforts to reduce refined fructose intake or inhibit fructose-mediated actions may disrupt cancer growth."
Americans take in large amounts of fructose, mainly in high fructose corn syrup, a mix of fructose and glucose that is used in soft drinks, bread and a range of other foods.
Politicians, regulators, health experts and the industry have debated whether high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients have been helping make Americans fatter and less healthy.
Too much sugar of any kind not only adds pounds, but is also a key culprit in diabetes, heart disease and stroke, according to the American Heart Association.
Several states, including New York and California, have weighed a tax on sweetened soft drinks to defray the cost of treating obesity-related diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
The American Beverage Association, whose members include Coca-Cola (KO.N) and Kraft Foods (KFT.N) have strongly, and successfully, opposed efforts to tax soda. [ID:nN12233126]
The industry has also argued that sugar is sugar.
Heaney said his team found otherwise. They grew pancreatic cancer cells in lab dishes and fed them both glucose and fructose.
Tumor cells thrive on sugar but they used the fructose to proliferate. "Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different," Heaney's team wrote.
"I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets," Heaney said in a statement.
Now the team hopes to develop a drug that might stop tumor cells from making use of fructose.
U.S. consumption of high fructose corn syrup went up 1,000 percent between 1970 and 1990, researchers reported in 2004 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Follow Truth In Our Time On Twitter
I am one of the very few people who has never had myspace, facebook, twitter etc. I really don't see the point of it other than a gigantic time waster and a great way for the government to keep tabs on the populace.
I do want to make it as easy as possible for people to access information of the nature carried here at Truth In Our Time so I've created a twitter. The primary purpose is so people can follow the twitter feed which will contain the post title and then have a link to the post.
This is somewhat redundant since you can already follow using google connect or any other RSS reader, however twitter is very popular and many people have it on their cell phones etc. So this will hopefully bring in a wider audience.
I still never plan on having a personal twitter, myspace or facebook as I've said I question their underlying motives so don't take this move as an endorsement of their safety. They can be used for useful purposes such as this (hopefully) but I would be very cautious as to what you post on those services.
If you would like to follow Truth In Our Time click here.
I do want to make it as easy as possible for people to access information of the nature carried here at Truth In Our Time so I've created a twitter. The primary purpose is so people can follow the twitter feed which will contain the post title and then have a link to the post.
This is somewhat redundant since you can already follow using google connect or any other RSS reader, however twitter is very popular and many people have it on their cell phones etc. So this will hopefully bring in a wider audience.
I still never plan on having a personal twitter, myspace or facebook as I've said I question their underlying motives so don't take this move as an endorsement of their safety. They can be used for useful purposes such as this (hopefully) but I would be very cautious as to what you post on those services.
If you would like to follow Truth In Our Time click here.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Rand Paul Threatens GQ Magazine Over Expose
Source
Rand Paul's camp is firing back at GQ reporter Jason Zengerle and the magazine for a piece detailing the Kentucky Senate candidate's "kooky" behavior in college.
"We are investigating all our options - including legal ones," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told Politico. "We will not tolerate drive-by journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda."
Zengerle, in a piece posted online Monday, described Paul's 2½ years at Baylor University. The Senate hopeful attended — but didn't graduate from — the Texas school before eventually attending medical school at Duke. Zengerle wrote that during Paul's tenure at Baylor, he "wasn't your typical Baylor student."
Indeed, Zengerle describes Paul's membership in the NoZe brotherhood, a secret society comprising more liberal students at the predominantly conservative Baptist university. The NoZe brotherhood was behind pranks and a satirical newspaper that wouldn't seem out of place at most universities.
But Zengerle also describes a troubling incident involving Paul that goes beyond typical campus jokes.
He quotes an anonymous woman who claims that Paul and one of Paul's fellow NoZe members blindfolded her, tied her up and put her in a car.
First, she says, Paul and the other man tried forcing her to take bong hits in his apartment. Next, they drove her to a creek and made her bow down to "Aqua Buddha" — supposedly their God. (Not surprisingly, she says Paul was smoking pot, too).
"They never hurt me, they never did anything wrong, but the whole thing was kind of sadistic," she told GQ. "They were messing with my mind. It was some kind of joke."
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson, in a statement, defended the piece against charges of "drive-by journalism."
"We've vetted, researched, and exhaustively fact-checked Jason Zengerle's reporting on Rand Paul's college days, we stand by the story, and we gave the Paul campaign every opportunity to refute it," Nelson said. "We notice that they have not, in fact, refuted it."
It's not uncommon for politicians to shoot the messenger after an unflattering story. And media-bashing can go over well with voters, especially on the right.
After a rough May interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow over his controversial civil rights views, Paul said: "I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias."
So far, the Paul camp hasn't specified inaccuracies in the GQ piece. If it's factually correct, then there probably wouldn't be grounds for a suit. (A GQ spokeswoman told The Upshot that there had been no legal action as of early afternoon Tuesday Eastern time).
Benton did not immediately respond to The Upshot's request for comment on whether the campaign believes the piece is inaccurate and on what grounds they'd consider legal action.
Rand Paul's camp is firing back at GQ reporter Jason Zengerle and the magazine for a piece detailing the Kentucky Senate candidate's "kooky" behavior in college.
"We are investigating all our options - including legal ones," Paul spokesman Jesse Benton told Politico. "We will not tolerate drive-by journalism by a writer with a leftist agenda."
Zengerle, in a piece posted online Monday, described Paul's 2½ years at Baylor University. The Senate hopeful attended — but didn't graduate from — the Texas school before eventually attending medical school at Duke. Zengerle wrote that during Paul's tenure at Baylor, he "wasn't your typical Baylor student."
Indeed, Zengerle describes Paul's membership in the NoZe brotherhood, a secret society comprising more liberal students at the predominantly conservative Baptist university. The NoZe brotherhood was behind pranks and a satirical newspaper that wouldn't seem out of place at most universities.
But Zengerle also describes a troubling incident involving Paul that goes beyond typical campus jokes.
He quotes an anonymous woman who claims that Paul and one of Paul's fellow NoZe members blindfolded her, tied her up and put her in a car.
First, she says, Paul and the other man tried forcing her to take bong hits in his apartment. Next, they drove her to a creek and made her bow down to "Aqua Buddha" — supposedly their God. (Not surprisingly, she says Paul was smoking pot, too).
"They never hurt me, they never did anything wrong, but the whole thing was kind of sadistic," she told GQ. "They were messing with my mind. It was some kind of joke."
GQ Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson, in a statement, defended the piece against charges of "drive-by journalism."
"We've vetted, researched, and exhaustively fact-checked Jason Zengerle's reporting on Rand Paul's college days, we stand by the story, and we gave the Paul campaign every opportunity to refute it," Nelson said. "We notice that they have not, in fact, refuted it."
It's not uncommon for politicians to shoot the messenger after an unflattering story. And media-bashing can go over well with voters, especially on the right.
After a rough May interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow over his controversial civil rights views, Paul said: "I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias."
So far, the Paul camp hasn't specified inaccuracies in the GQ piece. If it's factually correct, then there probably wouldn't be grounds for a suit. (A GQ spokeswoman told The Upshot that there had been no legal action as of early afternoon Tuesday Eastern time).
Benton did not immediately respond to The Upshot's request for comment on whether the campaign believes the piece is inaccurate and on what grounds they'd consider legal action.
Don't Lie To Yourself, You Have NO Representation
We are all taught in government run schools albeit subtly that the US government derives it's legitimacy to govern because We The People elected the various representatives who control Washington.
So while we might not agree with who currently sits on Capital Hill, we have the option to vote them out next election. This of course is a process which has been going on for at least the last 60 years and undoubtedly longer. As Carrol Quigley said
"The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so the that American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy."
The typical American soothingly deludes himself into the notion that he has a say in what transpires in this nation. That although his voice is small and his vote is only one in millions it is still powerful. If you feel like you are somewhat in control of the direction you are headed it is comforting, and while their may be some unpleasant detours along the way you remain quiet because after all you will speak up next election cycle and make your voice heard.
When you think of the reality of the situation the conclusion you reach is much different than the relatively pleasant dream world you have lived in. (which is why most people don't think)
Let's consider the reality.
Nobody in America today is happy with where we are, or are headed. Other than the few who benefit of course. I'm talking about the average American, and I mean all of them, now granted I think 90% totally miss the boat in regards to steps needed in restoring the republic but they DO know that something is wrong. Whether it is the liberal tax and spend democrats who were beside themselves when Obama got the nomination, the bible belt "conservative" who was duped into buying the neo con lie and currently worships at the altar of Palin, or the working Joe who doesn't get into politics unanimously they can sense that something is amiss.
So how is it that if these politicians are supposed to be our proxies in Washington and do what WE elect them to do, that the system is failing, that our will isn't being done? This is their sole job after all.
Here are 2 glaring examples of work that we want done, they seem to agree to do it, but in the end nothing gets done, and basically by magic you can't pin the blame on anyone.
The first is Prop 8 in California voted on by the masses and their verdict? No sodomite marriage in CA. Cased closed right? Nope some judge just overrules what the people voted on. Clearly this goes against what the people want. Where is the "democracy" in that? The citizens of Californias voices weren't heard.
This is another example which I was thinking about the other day. That is HR 1207, the Audit The Fed bill. The very vast majority of Americans supported it, 73% of the entire House of Representatives supported it, in the Senate 32 senators co sponsored the bill. So surely a bill with such vast amounts of support would sail through right? Nope it gets caught in the gears of the confusing, nonsensical way in which laws are passed. Who can be blamed for it not passing? It's pretty much a mystery to me, which is exactly the way they want it since their jobs rely on the blame game and always blaming someone else for why the country is in the toilet using any metric you choose.
Now these are just 2 examples, mainly because it's 1AM and I'm tired. But the bottom line is, you don't have a say in what finally goes on. The bankers do, the military industrial complex does, the huge multi national corporations do. This is the fascist state in which they get FILTHY rich at the expense of the little man.
They get the bailouts you get the bill. It's a pretty nice racket they have going, and the best part is everyone runs around with cherished delusions of vague notions of "freedom" and "land of opportunity" rhetoric.
"If voting made a difference they wouldn't let us do it."
Samuel Langhorn Clemens
So while we might not agree with who currently sits on Capital Hill, we have the option to vote them out next election. This of course is a process which has been going on for at least the last 60 years and undoubtedly longer. As Carrol Quigley said
"The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so the that American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy."
The typical American soothingly deludes himself into the notion that he has a say in what transpires in this nation. That although his voice is small and his vote is only one in millions it is still powerful. If you feel like you are somewhat in control of the direction you are headed it is comforting, and while their may be some unpleasant detours along the way you remain quiet because after all you will speak up next election cycle and make your voice heard.
When you think of the reality of the situation the conclusion you reach is much different than the relatively pleasant dream world you have lived in. (which is why most people don't think)
Let's consider the reality.
Nobody in America today is happy with where we are, or are headed. Other than the few who benefit of course. I'm talking about the average American, and I mean all of them, now granted I think 90% totally miss the boat in regards to steps needed in restoring the republic but they DO know that something is wrong. Whether it is the liberal tax and spend democrats who were beside themselves when Obama got the nomination, the bible belt "conservative" who was duped into buying the neo con lie and currently worships at the altar of Palin, or the working Joe who doesn't get into politics unanimously they can sense that something is amiss.
So how is it that if these politicians are supposed to be our proxies in Washington and do what WE elect them to do, that the system is failing, that our will isn't being done? This is their sole job after all.
Here are 2 glaring examples of work that we want done, they seem to agree to do it, but in the end nothing gets done, and basically by magic you can't pin the blame on anyone.
The first is Prop 8 in California voted on by the masses and their verdict? No sodomite marriage in CA. Cased closed right? Nope some judge just overrules what the people voted on. Clearly this goes against what the people want. Where is the "democracy" in that? The citizens of Californias voices weren't heard.
This is another example which I was thinking about the other day. That is HR 1207, the Audit The Fed bill. The very vast majority of Americans supported it, 73% of the entire House of Representatives supported it, in the Senate 32 senators co sponsored the bill. So surely a bill with such vast amounts of support would sail through right? Nope it gets caught in the gears of the confusing, nonsensical way in which laws are passed. Who can be blamed for it not passing? It's pretty much a mystery to me, which is exactly the way they want it since their jobs rely on the blame game and always blaming someone else for why the country is in the toilet using any metric you choose.
Now these are just 2 examples, mainly because it's 1AM and I'm tired. But the bottom line is, you don't have a say in what finally goes on. The bankers do, the military industrial complex does, the huge multi national corporations do. This is the fascist state in which they get FILTHY rich at the expense of the little man.
They get the bailouts you get the bill. It's a pretty nice racket they have going, and the best part is everyone runs around with cherished delusions of vague notions of "freedom" and "land of opportunity" rhetoric.
"If voting made a difference they wouldn't let us do it."
Samuel Langhorn Clemens
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)