By Bill Maher
Huffington Post
New Rule: If America can’t get its act together, it must lose the bald eagle as our symbol and replace it with the YouTube video of the puppy that can’t get up. As long as we’re pathetic, we might as well act like it’s cute. I don’t care about the president’s birth certificate, I do want to know what happened to “Yes we can.” Can we get out of Iraq? No. Afghanistan? No. Fix health care? No. Close Gitmo? No. Cap-and-trade carbon emissions? No. The Obamas have been in Washington for ten months and it seems like the only thing they’ve gotten is a dog.
Well, I hate to be a nudge, but why has America become a nation that can’t make anything bad end, like wars, farm subsidies, our oil addiction, the drug war, useless weapons programs – oh, and there’s still 60,000 troops in Germany – and can’t make anything good start, like health care reform, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure. Even when we address something, the plan can never start until years down the road. Congress’s climate change bill mandates a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions… by 2020! Fellas, slow down, where’s the fire? Oh yeah, it’s where I live, engulfing the entire western part of the United States!
We might pass new mileage standards, but even if we do, they wouldn’t start until 2016. In that year, our cars of the future will glide along at a breathtaking 35 miles-per-gallon. My goodness, is that even humanly possible? Cars that get 35 miles-per-gallon in just six years? Get your head out of the clouds, you socialist dreamer! “What do we want!? A small improvement! When do we want it!? 2016!”
When it’s something for us personally, like a laxative, it has to start working now. My TV remote has a button on it now called “On Demand”. You get your ass on my TV screen right now, Jon Cryer, and make me laugh. Now! But when it’s something for the survival of the species as a whole, we phase that in slowly.
Folks, we don’t need more efficient cars. We need something to replace cars. That’s what’s wrong with these piddly, too-little-too-late half-measures that pass for “reform” these days. They’re not reform, they’re just putting off actually solving anything to a later day, when we might by some miracle have, a) leaders with balls, and b) a general populace who can think again. Barack Obama has said, “If we were starting from scratch, then a single-payer system would probably make sense.” So let’s start from scratch.
Even if they pass the shitty Max Baucus health care bill, it doesn’t kick in for 4 years, during which time 175,000 people will die because they’re not covered, and about three million will go bankrupt from hospital bills. We have a pretty good idea of the Republican plan for the next three years: Don’t let Obama do anything. What kills me is that that’s the Democrats’ plan, too.
We weren’t always like this. Inert. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law and 11 months later seniors were receiving benefits. During World War II, virtually overnight FDR had auto companies making tanks and planes only. In one eight year period, America went from JFK’s ridiculous dream of landing a man on the moon, to actually landing a man on the moon.
This generation has had eight years to build something at Ground Zero. An office building, a museum, an outlet mall, I don’t care anymore. I’m tempted to say that, symbolically, all America can do lately is keep digging a hole, but Ground Zero doesn’t represent a hole. It is a hole. America: Home of the Freedom Pit. Ironically, it’s spitting distance from Wall Street, where they knock down buildings a different way – through foreclosure.
That’s the ultimate sign of our lethargy: millions thrown out of their homes, tossed out of work, lost their life savings, retirements postponed – and they just take it. 30% interest on credit cards? It’s a good thing the Supreme Court legalized sodomy a few years ago.
Why can’t we get off our back? Is it something in the food? Actually, yes. I found out something interesting researching last week’s editorial on how we should be taxing the unhealthy things Americans put into their bodies, like sodas and junk foods and gerbils. Did you know that we eat the same high-fat, high-carb, sugar-laden shit that’s served in prisons and in religious cults to keep the subjects in a zombie-like state of lethargic compliance? Why haven’t Americans arisen en masse to demand a strong public option? Because “The Bachelor” is on. We’re tired and our brain stems hurt from washing down French fries with McDonald’s orange drink.
The research is in: high-fat diets makes you lazy and stupid. Rats on an American diet weren’t motivated to navigate their maze and once in the maze they made more mistakes. And, instead of exercising on their wheel, they just used it to hang clothes on. Of course we can’t ban assault rifles – we’re the first generation too lazy to make its own coffee. We’re the generation that invented the soft chocolate chip cookie: like a cookie, only not so exhausting to chew. I ask you, if the food we’re eating in America isn’t making us stupid, how come the people in Carl’s Jr. ads never think to put a napkin over their pants?
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The stock market rally is just another bubble – and it's set to pop
Moneyweek
John Stepek
Stock markets continue to expect the best of all worlds.
There will be a V-shaped recovery. Everything is headed back to normal. At least, that's what you'd believe if you just look at the way stocks have surged.
But the 'real' economy is telling a different story. And it's one that could spell a very sticky ending for the current rally...
We're in a bubble
Money printing by the Bank of England and other central banks across the world has worked. Sort of.
The free and easy money being dished out by the world's central banks is finding its way into assets, particularly financial assets such as stocks and bonds. That's great for asset prices, as the surge in stock market since March has demonstrated.
But so far, it's not having much impact on the 'real' economy. In other words, the money is being pumped into financial assets, but it's not being loaned out to businesses and individuals to fund business expansion and investment, or increased consumption. In fact, businesses and individuals are still in cutback mode, and show no real sign of coming out.
So it seems we're having a surge in financial assets that has no backing in economic reality. There's a name for that – a bubble. "Instead of getting consumer inflation from all this central bank liquidity, we are seeing asset price inflation and we all know that usually does not end well for investors," Steven Ricchiuto of Mizuho Securities told the Financial Times this weekend.
What this means for property
It's interesting to look at the property market with this in mind. On the one hand, the property market benefits at the very top from the renewed boom in asset prices. You get bankers getting all excitable again, and foreign investors and people with cash looking for returns and getting fed up with the "dull" sub-5% or less return they're getting on their savings. So top-end homes in the South particularly look attractive again.
But as the latest Rightmove survey points out, at the bottom end, things are a lot tougher. "This recession appears to have hit prices harder in the North, and this is compounded by lenders' more conservative attitude to risk. Lenders quite naturally prefer to lend to lower-risk borrowers in better locations, with better job security, larger deposits and more resilient property values," says Rightmove's Miles Shipside.
In other words, there's plenty of demand for now for high-end homes that can be bought with cash or big chunky deposits. For sellers who depend on buyers who actually need home loans, the outlook is far less upbeat.
John Stepek
Stock markets continue to expect the best of all worlds.
There will be a V-shaped recovery. Everything is headed back to normal. At least, that's what you'd believe if you just look at the way stocks have surged.
But the 'real' economy is telling a different story. And it's one that could spell a very sticky ending for the current rally...
We're in a bubble
Money printing by the Bank of England and other central banks across the world has worked. Sort of.
The free and easy money being dished out by the world's central banks is finding its way into assets, particularly financial assets such as stocks and bonds. That's great for asset prices, as the surge in stock market since March has demonstrated.
But so far, it's not having much impact on the 'real' economy. In other words, the money is being pumped into financial assets, but it's not being loaned out to businesses and individuals to fund business expansion and investment, or increased consumption. In fact, businesses and individuals are still in cutback mode, and show no real sign of coming out.
So it seems we're having a surge in financial assets that has no backing in economic reality. There's a name for that – a bubble. "Instead of getting consumer inflation from all this central bank liquidity, we are seeing asset price inflation and we all know that usually does not end well for investors," Steven Ricchiuto of Mizuho Securities told the Financial Times this weekend.
What this means for property
It's interesting to look at the property market with this in mind. On the one hand, the property market benefits at the very top from the renewed boom in asset prices. You get bankers getting all excitable again, and foreign investors and people with cash looking for returns and getting fed up with the "dull" sub-5% or less return they're getting on their savings. So top-end homes in the South particularly look attractive again.
But as the latest Rightmove survey points out, at the bottom end, things are a lot tougher. "This recession appears to have hit prices harder in the North, and this is compounded by lenders' more conservative attitude to risk. Lenders quite naturally prefer to lend to lower-risk borrowers in better locations, with better job security, larger deposits and more resilient property values," says Rightmove's Miles Shipside.
In other words, there's plenty of demand for now for high-end homes that can be bought with cash or big chunky deposits. For sellers who depend on buyers who actually need home loans, the outlook is far less upbeat.
Big Pharma Microchip To Force Drugging
Financial Times
By Andrew Jack in London
Patients who fail to pop pills on time could soon benefit from having a chip on their shoulder, under a ground-breaking electronic system being developed by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group.
The company is testing technology that inserts a tiny microchip into each pill swallowed and sends a reminder to patients by text message if they fail to follow their doctors’ prescriptions.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
FT Health Blog - Sep-21
Novartis expects dollar to offset growth - Jul-16
Novartis in warning on swine flu vaccine - Jul-16
The partnership with Proteus Biomedical , which originally developed the technology, is one of several alliances under development by Novartis as it and rival pharmaceuticals companies attempt to maintain high prices for innovative medicines by ensuring that they are taken as the doctor ordered. Pfizer’s Health Solutions division has developed a system to telephone patients to encourage them to take medicine.
Joe Jimenez, head of pharmaceuticals at Novartis, said tests using the system – which broadcasts from the “chip in the pill” to a receiver on the shoulder – on 20 patients using Diovan, a drug to lower blood pressure, had boosted “compliance” with prescriptions from 30 per cent to 80 per cent after six months.
The experiment comes amid rising concern among governments and health insurers that they are not seeing the health improvements claimed by drugs companies because patients do not take the medicines as prescribed unless they are closely supervised in clinical trials.
Compliance often drops off rapidly for patients, especially those taking medicines for chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. This is because of unpleasant side effects or because patients do not rapidly develop symptoms and so fail to notice the value of the drug. However, with patients then going on to develop more serious forms of illness and require hospitalisation or surgery, the result is hundreds of millions of dollars a year in unnecessary costs.
“This industry is starting to explode,” said Mr Jimenez, adding that he was close to recruiting a “compliance tsar” to oversee a wide range of other partnerships and programmes to strengthen appropriate use of medicines.
Mr Jimenez stressed that Novartis would still need to work closely with regulators and doctors to overcome any concerns, and negotiate an exclusive contract with Proteus in order to expand the approach. But he was confident that such approaches to boost compliance would be widespread in the future.
By Andrew Jack in London
Patients who fail to pop pills on time could soon benefit from having a chip on their shoulder, under a ground-breaking electronic system being developed by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group.
The company is testing technology that inserts a tiny microchip into each pill swallowed and sends a reminder to patients by text message if they fail to follow their doctors’ prescriptions.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
FT Health Blog - Sep-21
Novartis expects dollar to offset growth - Jul-16
Novartis in warning on swine flu vaccine - Jul-16
The partnership with Proteus Biomedical , which originally developed the technology, is one of several alliances under development by Novartis as it and rival pharmaceuticals companies attempt to maintain high prices for innovative medicines by ensuring that they are taken as the doctor ordered. Pfizer’s Health Solutions division has developed a system to telephone patients to encourage them to take medicine.
Joe Jimenez, head of pharmaceuticals at Novartis, said tests using the system – which broadcasts from the “chip in the pill” to a receiver on the shoulder – on 20 patients using Diovan, a drug to lower blood pressure, had boosted “compliance” with prescriptions from 30 per cent to 80 per cent after six months.
The experiment comes amid rising concern among governments and health insurers that they are not seeing the health improvements claimed by drugs companies because patients do not take the medicines as prescribed unless they are closely supervised in clinical trials.
Compliance often drops off rapidly for patients, especially those taking medicines for chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes. This is because of unpleasant side effects or because patients do not rapidly develop symptoms and so fail to notice the value of the drug. However, with patients then going on to develop more serious forms of illness and require hospitalisation or surgery, the result is hundreds of millions of dollars a year in unnecessary costs.
“This industry is starting to explode,” said Mr Jimenez, adding that he was close to recruiting a “compliance tsar” to oversee a wide range of other partnerships and programmes to strengthen appropriate use of medicines.
Mr Jimenez stressed that Novartis would still need to work closely with regulators and doctors to overcome any concerns, and negotiate an exclusive contract with Proteus in order to expand the approach. But he was confident that such approaches to boost compliance would be widespread in the future.
F.D.I.C. May Borrow Funds From Banks
Is this for real? How comfortable would you be investing your money with a bank that is insuring itself against insolvency? This doesn't make any sense
NYTIMES
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON — Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government.
Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks.
The plan, strongly supported by bankers and their lobbyists, would be a major reversal of fortune.
A hallmark of the financial crisis has been the decision by successive administrations over the last year to lend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to large and small banks.
“It’s a nice irony,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting company. “Like so much of this crisis, this is an issue that involves the least worst options.”
Bankers and their lobbyists like the idea because it is more attractive than the alternatives: yet another across-the-board emergency assessment on them, or tapping an existing $100 billion credit line to the Treasury.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oversees the fund, is said to be reluctant to use its authority to borrow from the Treasury.
Under the law, the F.D.I.C. would not need permission from the Treasury to tap into a credit line of up to $100 billion. But such a step is said to be unpalatable to Sheila C. Bair, the agency chairwoman whose relations with the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, have been strained.
“Sheila Bair would take bamboo shoots under her nails before going to Tim Geithner and the Treasury for help,” said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers. “She’d do just about anything before going there.”
Bankers worry that a special assessment of $5 billion to $10 billion over the next six months would crimp their profits and could push a handful of banks into deeper financial trouble or even receivership. And any new borrowing from the Treasury would be construed as a taxpayer bailout that could open the industry to a political reaction, resulting in a wave of restrictions like fresh limits on executive pay.
Any populist furor could be avoided, the thinking goes, if the government borrows instead from the banks.
“Borrowing from healthy banks, instead of the Treasury, has the advantage of keeping this in the family,” said Karen M. Thomas, executive vice president of government relations at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing about 5,000 banks. “It is much better for perceptions than having the fund borrow from somewhere else.”
Ultimately, officials say, the deposit insurance corporation could settle on a plan that replenishes the insurance fund by doing some of both: borrowing from healthy banks to shore up the shorter-term liquidity needs of the fund, and imposing a special fee on banks to increase the longer-term capital level of the fund.
Since January the F.D.I.C. has seized 94 failing banks, causing a rapid decline in the deposit insurance fund. Despite a special assessment imposed on banks a few months ago to keep the fund afloat, its cash balance now stands at about $10 billion, a third of its size at the start of the year. (Another $32 billion has been set aside for failures that officials expect to occur in the coming months.)
The fund, which stands behind $4.8 trillion in insured deposits, could be wiped out by the failure of a single large bank, although the deposit insurance corporation could always seek a taxpayer bailout by borrowing from the Treasury to stay afloat.
Officials say that the F.D.I.C. will issue a proposed plan next week to begin to restore the financial health of the ailing fund.
There is no consensus among the five board members, consisting of Ms. Bair, two other F.D.I.C. officials, and the heads of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Others may propose novel ways to replenish the fund, for example, by asking the banks to prepay the premiums that they were planning to make next year.
Borrowing from the industry is allowed under an obscure provision of a 1991 law adopted during the savings and loan crisis. The lending banks would receive bonds from the government at an interest rate that would be set by the Treasury secretary and ultimately would be paid by the rest of the industry. The bonds would be listed as an asset on the books of the banks.
NYTIMES
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON — Tired of the government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government.
Senior regulators say they are seriously considering a plan to have the nation’s healthy banks lend billions of dollars to rescue the insurance fund that protects bank depositors. That would enable the fund, which is rapidly running out of money because of a wave of bank failures, to continue to rescue the sickest banks.
The plan, strongly supported by bankers and their lobbyists, would be a major reversal of fortune.
A hallmark of the financial crisis has been the decision by successive administrations over the last year to lend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to large and small banks.
“It’s a nice irony,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting company. “Like so much of this crisis, this is an issue that involves the least worst options.”
Bankers and their lobbyists like the idea because it is more attractive than the alternatives: yet another across-the-board emergency assessment on them, or tapping an existing $100 billion credit line to the Treasury.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which oversees the fund, is said to be reluctant to use its authority to borrow from the Treasury.
Under the law, the F.D.I.C. would not need permission from the Treasury to tap into a credit line of up to $100 billion. But such a step is said to be unpalatable to Sheila C. Bair, the agency chairwoman whose relations with the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, have been strained.
“Sheila Bair would take bamboo shoots under her nails before going to Tim Geithner and the Treasury for help,” said Camden R. Fine, president of the Independent Community Bankers. “She’d do just about anything before going there.”
Bankers worry that a special assessment of $5 billion to $10 billion over the next six months would crimp their profits and could push a handful of banks into deeper financial trouble or even receivership. And any new borrowing from the Treasury would be construed as a taxpayer bailout that could open the industry to a political reaction, resulting in a wave of restrictions like fresh limits on executive pay.
Any populist furor could be avoided, the thinking goes, if the government borrows instead from the banks.
“Borrowing from healthy banks, instead of the Treasury, has the advantage of keeping this in the family,” said Karen M. Thomas, executive vice president of government relations at the Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group representing about 5,000 banks. “It is much better for perceptions than having the fund borrow from somewhere else.”
Ultimately, officials say, the deposit insurance corporation could settle on a plan that replenishes the insurance fund by doing some of both: borrowing from healthy banks to shore up the shorter-term liquidity needs of the fund, and imposing a special fee on banks to increase the longer-term capital level of the fund.
Since January the F.D.I.C. has seized 94 failing banks, causing a rapid decline in the deposit insurance fund. Despite a special assessment imposed on banks a few months ago to keep the fund afloat, its cash balance now stands at about $10 billion, a third of its size at the start of the year. (Another $32 billion has been set aside for failures that officials expect to occur in the coming months.)
The fund, which stands behind $4.8 trillion in insured deposits, could be wiped out by the failure of a single large bank, although the deposit insurance corporation could always seek a taxpayer bailout by borrowing from the Treasury to stay afloat.
Officials say that the F.D.I.C. will issue a proposed plan next week to begin to restore the financial health of the ailing fund.
There is no consensus among the five board members, consisting of Ms. Bair, two other F.D.I.C. officials, and the heads of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Others may propose novel ways to replenish the fund, for example, by asking the banks to prepay the premiums that they were planning to make next year.
Borrowing from the industry is allowed under an obscure provision of a 1991 law adopted during the savings and loan crisis. The lending banks would receive bonds from the government at an interest rate that would be set by the Treasury secretary and ultimately would be paid by the rest of the industry. The bonds would be listed as an asset on the books of the banks.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Dr. Len Horowitz Files Pandemic Charges with FBI in NYC
Federal Jack
Friends,
The substance of the message below on a false flag h1n1 flu pandemic has been widely discussed on the net for months, but the message indicates the first serious US legal action I have seen on it. I have with the help of many been tracking this issue as it affects states and localities, anticipating the need to file injunction lawsuits v. any government taking steps to compel vaccination. It is presumed by Dr. Horowitz and others that government will attempt to compel vaccination v. h1n1, which is not possible under current law, especially US Constitution and state constitution law for many First Amendment and related privacy and civil rights reasons. I offer the message as a warning as to how serious the talks, research and some of the proposed h1n1 policy state laws under consideration opposing civil rights, especially in ME, MA and OK, have become.
Having read of lawsuits filed against h1n1 in Europe for reasons indicated in the below article, I am convinced that there is considerable reason not to take any new so called h1n1 vaccine, and to prepare for simlilar suits in the US, which I am prepared to do.
To lawyers receiving this message, I welcome your comments on how to prepare clients and friends to defend against unconstitutional h1n1 legislation and acts, and any common effort we might begin in the US.
Harold Burbank
2008 CT Green Party candidate, US House
Release: No. H1N1-15
Date Mailed: Sept. 15, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Rob Potter–(959) 715-1520 or 310-877-5002
LOS ANGELES, CA — Drug-industry investigators have uncovered documents exposing an international drug ring, operating from New York City, is behind the H1N1 swine flu fright and vaccination preparations.
Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz and Sherri Kane, an investigative journalist, have released evidence in legal affidavits that leaders of a private global biotechnology “trust” are behind the pandemic flu, including its origin and alleged prevention via vaccinations. Their documents, being sent by attorneys to the FBI this week, evidence industrialists are operating a crime ring within the “Partnership for New York City” (PNYC), and are behind the pandemic’s creation, media persuasions, vaccination preparations, and health official promotions.
“David Rockefeller’s trust, that engages several powerful partners on Wall Street, including media moguls Ruppert Murdock, Morton Zuckerman, Thomas Glocer, and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Jerry Speyer, are implicated in advancing global genocide,” Dr. Horowitz wrote to FBI directors.
“This ‘partnership’ controls biotechnology research and development globally. Health commerce internationally is also controlled virtually entirely by this trust that also exercises near complete control over mainstream media to promote/propagandize its products and services for the drug cartel’s organized crime. This trust, in essence, makes or breaks medical and natural healing markets, primarily through the mass media companies and propaganda it wields for social engineering and market building,” Dr. Horowitz wrote.
Among the revelations from the Horowitz-Kane research are those linking Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties, Inc., and the 9-11 terrorist attacks, to the drug cartel’s geopolitical, economic, and population reduction activities. Mr. Silverstein, leaser of the World Trade Center who authorized to have Building-7 “pulled” [detonated] is a chief suspect in the “9-11 truth” investigation. Silverstein is currently landlord and co-partner in the biotechnology trust founded by David Rockefeller and implicated by these new discoveries.
Given the unprecedented nature and urgency of these findings, Dr. Horowitz has posted his affidavit for public review on FLUscam.com, hoping wide spread dissemination will prompt governments worldwide to cease mass vaccination preparations to avoid becoming accessories.
“The last time I contacted the FBI I warned them about the impending anthrax attacks one week before the first mailings were announced in the press,” Dr. Horowitz recalled. “It took them 6 months to respond. When they did, they made me a suspect in the mailings. This time I am warning the Justice Department a month before the deadliest genocide in history. I’m praying they’ll take kindly to my appeal for a PNYC investigation, and Court-ordered injunction, to stop the vaccinations for public protection.”
Friends,
The substance of the message below on a false flag h1n1 flu pandemic has been widely discussed on the net for months, but the message indicates the first serious US legal action I have seen on it. I have with the help of many been tracking this issue as it affects states and localities, anticipating the need to file injunction lawsuits v. any government taking steps to compel vaccination. It is presumed by Dr. Horowitz and others that government will attempt to compel vaccination v. h1n1, which is not possible under current law, especially US Constitution and state constitution law for many First Amendment and related privacy and civil rights reasons. I offer the message as a warning as to how serious the talks, research and some of the proposed h1n1 policy state laws under consideration opposing civil rights, especially in ME, MA and OK, have become.
Having read of lawsuits filed against h1n1 in Europe for reasons indicated in the below article, I am convinced that there is considerable reason not to take any new so called h1n1 vaccine, and to prepare for simlilar suits in the US, which I am prepared to do.
To lawyers receiving this message, I welcome your comments on how to prepare clients and friends to defend against unconstitutional h1n1 legislation and acts, and any common effort we might begin in the US.
Harold Burbank
2008 CT Green Party candidate, US House
Release: No. H1N1-15
Date Mailed: Sept. 15, 2009
For Immediate Release
Contact: Rob Potter–(959) 715-1520 or 310-877-5002
LOS ANGELES, CA — Drug-industry investigators have uncovered documents exposing an international drug ring, operating from New York City, is behind the H1N1 swine flu fright and vaccination preparations.
Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz and Sherri Kane, an investigative journalist, have released evidence in legal affidavits that leaders of a private global biotechnology “trust” are behind the pandemic flu, including its origin and alleged prevention via vaccinations. Their documents, being sent by attorneys to the FBI this week, evidence industrialists are operating a crime ring within the “Partnership for New York City” (PNYC), and are behind the pandemic’s creation, media persuasions, vaccination preparations, and health official promotions.
“David Rockefeller’s trust, that engages several powerful partners on Wall Street, including media moguls Ruppert Murdock, Morton Zuckerman, Thomas Glocer, and former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Jerry Speyer, are implicated in advancing global genocide,” Dr. Horowitz wrote to FBI directors.
“This ‘partnership’ controls biotechnology research and development globally. Health commerce internationally is also controlled virtually entirely by this trust that also exercises near complete control over mainstream media to promote/propagandize its products and services for the drug cartel’s organized crime. This trust, in essence, makes or breaks medical and natural healing markets, primarily through the mass media companies and propaganda it wields for social engineering and market building,” Dr. Horowitz wrote.
Among the revelations from the Horowitz-Kane research are those linking Larry Silverstein of Silverstein Properties, Inc., and the 9-11 terrorist attacks, to the drug cartel’s geopolitical, economic, and population reduction activities. Mr. Silverstein, leaser of the World Trade Center who authorized to have Building-7 “pulled” [detonated] is a chief suspect in the “9-11 truth” investigation. Silverstein is currently landlord and co-partner in the biotechnology trust founded by David Rockefeller and implicated by these new discoveries.
Given the unprecedented nature and urgency of these findings, Dr. Horowitz has posted his affidavit for public review on FLUscam.com, hoping wide spread dissemination will prompt governments worldwide to cease mass vaccination preparations to avoid becoming accessories.
“The last time I contacted the FBI I warned them about the impending anthrax attacks one week before the first mailings were announced in the press,” Dr. Horowitz recalled. “It took them 6 months to respond. When they did, they made me a suspect in the mailings. This time I am warning the Justice Department a month before the deadliest genocide in history. I’m praying they’ll take kindly to my appeal for a PNYC investigation, and Court-ordered injunction, to stop the vaccinations for public protection.”
Ten Swine Flu Lies Told by the Mainstream Media
Mike Adams
Natural News
The mainstream media is engaged in what we Americans call “bald faced lies” about swine flu. It seems to be true with this issue more than any other, and it became apparent to me recently when a colleague of mine — a nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist — told me their column on natural defenses for swine flu was rejected by newspapers all across the country. Many newspapers refused to run the column and, instead, ran an ad for “free vaccine clinics” in the same space.
The media, it seems, is so deeply in bed with the culture of vaccinations that they will do almost anything to keep the public misinformed. And that includes lying about swine flu vaccines.
There are ten key lies that continue to be told by the mainstream media (MSM) about swine flu and swine flu vaccines.
Lie #1 – There are no adjuvants used in the vaccines
I was recently being interviewed by a major U.S. news network when the reporter interviewing me came up with this humdinger: There are no adjuvants being used in the swine flu vaccines, he said!
I assured him that adjuvants were, indeed, a crucial part of the vaccine recipe, and they were being widely used by drug companies to “stretch” the vaccine supply. It’s no secret. But he insisted he had been directly told by a drug company rep that no adjuvants were being used at all. And he believed them! So everything being published by this large news network about swine flu vaccines now assumes there are no adjuvants in the vaccines at all.
Lie #2 – The swine flu is more dangerous than seasonal flu
This lie is finally starting to unravel. I admit that in the early days of this pandemic, even I was concerned this could be a global killer. But after observing the very mild impact the virus was having on people in the real world, it became obvious that this was a mild flu, no more dangerous than a seasonal flu.
The MSM, however, continues to promote H1N1 swine flu as being super dangerous, driving fear into the minds of people and encouraging them to rush out and get a vaccine shot for a flu that’s really no more likely to kill them than the regular winter sniffles. Sure, the virus could still mutate into something far worse, but if it does that, the current vaccine could be rendered obsolete anyway!
Lie #3 – Vaccines protect you from swine flu
This is the biggest lie of all, and the media pushes it hard. Getting a vaccine, they insist, will protect you from the swine flu. But it’s just flat-out false. Even if the vaccine produces antibodies, that’s not the same thing as real-world immunity from a live virus, especially if the virus mutates (as they often do).
As I pointed out in a recent article, statistically speaking the average American is 40 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to have their life saved by a swine flu vaccine. (http://www.naturalnews.com/026955_s…)
Lie #4 – Vaccines are safe
And how would any journalists actually know this? None of the vaccines have been subjected to real-world testing for any meaningful duration. The “safety” of these vaccines is nothing more than wishful thinking.
The MSM also doesn’t want you to know what’s in the vaccines. Some vaccines are made from viral fragments grown in diseased African monkeys. If that sounds incredible, read the true story here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026779_s…
Lie #5 – The vaccine isn’t mandatory
You hear this lie all the time: The swine flu vaccine shot is voluntary, they say. But it’s not true if you’re an employee at a place where vaccines are being mandated. Millions of Americans are now being told by their employers that if they don’t get vaccine shots, they will be effectively fired from their jobs. It’s especially true with health care workers, day care employees and school teachers.
Lie #6 – Getting a vaccine shot is a good bet on your health
In reality, a vaccine shot is far more likely to harm you than help you. According to one viral expert, the actual mortality rate of the swine flu virus is estimated to be as low as .007 percent (http://www.reuters.com/article/heal…). That means H1N1 swine flu kills less than one person in 100,000. Even if the vaccine works, let’s say, 10 percent of the time, you’d have to vaccine one million people to prevent one death from swine flu.
And in vaccinating one million people, you would inevitably harm or kill several people, simply from the vaccine side effects! Your net risk of death is increased by getting a swine flu vaccine.
Lie #7 – The vaccine isn’t made with “attenuated live virus”
When the swine flu vaccines were first being announced several months ago, they were described as being made with “attenuated live virus.” This was directly mentioned in CDC documents, among other places.
This term apparently freaked out the American news consumer, and it has since been all but erased from any discussion about vaccines. Now, journalists will actually argue with you and insist the vaccines contain no attenuated live viruses whatsoever.
Except they’re wrong. The vaccines are, indeed, made with “attenuated live viruses.” That’s how you make a vaccine: You take live viruses, then you weaken them (”attenuate”) and inject them into people.
Lie #8 – Wash, wash, wash your hands (to avoid exposure)
This idea of washing your hands a hundred times a day is all based on the assumption that you can avoid exposure to the swine flu virus. But that’s impractical. The virus is now so widespread that virtually everyone is certain to be exposed to it through the air if not other means. This whole idea of avoiding exposure to the swine flu virus is nonsense. The conversation should shift to ways to survive exposure via a healthy immune system.
Of course, hand washing is a very good idea in a hospital setting. Recent news reveals that doctors are too busy to wash their own hands, resulting in the rampant spread of superbugs throughout most large hospitals in first world nations.
Lie #9 – Children are more vulnerable to swine flu than adults
This is just a flat-out lie, but it makes for good vaccine sales. Vaccines are right now being targeted primarily to schoolchildren.
But the truth is that swine flu is extremely mild in children. “It’s mildest in kids,” says Dr Marc Lipsitch of Harvard University. “That’s one of the really good pieces of news in this pandemic.” Reuters actually had the guts to report this story, but most of the larger media outlets are still reporting that children are the most vulnerable.
Lie #10 – There is nothing else you can do beyond a vaccine and Tamiflu
This is where the media lies by omission. The mainstream media absolutely refuses to print just about any story that talks about using vitamin D, anti-viral herbs or natural remedies to protect yourself from swine flu. In the MSM, there are two options and only two: Vaccines and Tamiflu. That’s it. No other options exist in their fictional reality.
Why is the mainstream media so afraid to print the truth these days? Why can’t reporting on swine flu see the light of day… literally, with a mention of sunlight and vitamin D? Apparently, Big Pharma has such a tight grip on mainstream newspapers that no true story on swine flu can ever make it past the editor’s desk.
Killing stories, deceiving the public
It must really be depressing to work for the mainstream media. Even the reporters I know can’t stand it. The truth, they admit, rarely makes it into print.
Over the last few years, I’ve had a couple of job offers from large media outlets. They want to pay me a six-figure salary and stick me behind a desk where they can control what I report. Needless to say, I routinely reject those offers. If I can’t write the truth like I do here on NaturalNews.com, there’s no point writing at all. In too many ways, the mainstream media has become little more than a corporate mouthpiece, whoring itself out to the highest bidder / advertiser.
It’s no fault of the frontline reporters who actually work there. For the most part, they agree with what I’m saying. It’s the fault of the profit-oriented corporate mindset where news is about selling newspapers rather than actually informing the public.
Important news stories get killed every day in the newsrooms across America. They get killed not because they are poorly investigated or poorly written, but because they upset advertisers and corporate string pullers who shape the news and reject any stories that threaten their own financial interests.
Here in 2009, the distorted reporting on the swine flu vaccine has been one of the greatest media frauds ever perpetrated. The media has in every way contributed to the widespread ignorance of the American people on the subject of vitamin D and natural immune-boosting defenses that could reduce swine flu fatalities. Rather than informing readers, the MSM has made it a point to keep the people stupid, and in doing so, the media has failed its only mission and betrayed the very audience is claims to serve.
Friday, September 18, 2009
75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.
All I got to say is....DAMN!
News9
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students' basic civic knowledge.
"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.
A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.
About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.
Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.
"Jefferson later said that a nation can't expect to be ignorant and free," Dutcher said. "It points to a real serious problem. We're not going to remain ignorant and free."
Question % of Students
Who Answered Correctly
What is the supreme law of the land?
28
What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
26
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
27
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?
10
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
14
What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?
61
What are the two major political parities in the United States?
43
We elect a U.S. senator for how many years?
11
Who was the first President of the United States?
23
Who is in charge of the executive branch?
29
News9
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Only one in four Oklahoma public high school students can name the first President of the United States, according to a survey released today.
The survey was commissioned by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in observance of Constitution Day on Thursday.
Brandon Dutcher is with the conservative think tank and said the group wanted to find out how much civic knowledge Oklahoma high school students know.
The Oklahoma City-based think tank enlisted national research firm, Strategic Vision, to access students' basic civic knowledge.
"They're questions taken from the actual exam that you have to take to become a U.S. citizen," Dutcher said.
A thousand students were given 10 questions drawn from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services item bank. Candidates for U.S. citizenship must answer six questions correctly in order to become citizens.
About 92 percent of the people who take the citizenship test pass on their first try, according to immigration service data. However, Oklahoma students did not fare as well. Only about 3 percent of the students surveyed would have passed the citizenship test.
Dutcher said this is not just a problem in Oklahoma. He said Arizona had similar results, which left him concerned for the entire country.
"Jefferson later said that a nation can't expect to be ignorant and free," Dutcher said. "It points to a real serious problem. We're not going to remain ignorant and free."
Question % of Students
Who Answered Correctly
What is the supreme law of the land?
28
What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
26
What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
27
How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?
10
Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?
14
What ocean is on the east coast of the United States?
61
What are the two major political parities in the United States?
43
We elect a U.S. senator for how many years?
11
Who was the first President of the United States?
23
Who is in charge of the executive branch?
29
VIDEO - Bill O'Reilly is a JFK "Conspiracy Theorist"
Bill O'Reilly, when he was on Inside Edition, reports on Oswald's association with the CIA.
Here he is supporting a conspiracy theory!
Of course this was before his multi-million dollar contract with the mainstream media.
Here he is supporting a conspiracy theory!
Of course this was before his multi-million dollar contract with the mainstream media.
89% Say End the Fed, Save the Dollar: Ron Paul
By: Brian Beers
Senior Producer, CNBC
"Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve," writes Texas Congressman Ron Paul in his latest book hitting shelves this week, titled "End the Fed."
"It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class."
Paul makes the case that the Fed is the main culprit responsible for the current economic mess the country faces through the destructive policies of cheap credit and excessive money printing.
"Prosperity can never be achieved by cheap credit," says Paul. "If that were so, no one would have to work for a living. Inflated prices only deceive one into believing that real wealth has been created."
The Federal Reserve, created in 1913, has been acting as the main central bank of the United States for nearly one hundred years. Many Americans are either not sure or not interested in what role the Fed plays in managing the economy. "The economic crisis has changed everything," writes Congressman Paul.
Paul is currently pushing for passage of a bill, H.R. 1207, that would allow for an unprecedented audit of the Federal Reserve. The bill has 289 co-sponsors, and is gaining solid momentum in the House of Representatives.
"The worse the economy gets, the more power Congress is willing to grant to the Federal Reserve. Trillions of dollars created and distributed by the Fed with no requirement to submit to any oversight" argues Congressman Paul.
"End the Fed" is a sharp counter to Keynesian economic theory, and takes aim at the hazards of a managed economy.
Paul, a strong advocate of free-markets and the Austrian school of economics counters those looking to blame the near collapse of the financial system on capitalism by penning, "Manipulating the money supply and interest rates rejects all the principles of the free market, and so it cannot be said that too free a market caused this mess. The market was not free at all. It was manipulated and distorted."
But, wait.
Didn't Fed Chairman Bernanke hint that the recession may already be over?
Wouldn't that indicate that the "emergency interventions" of the past year or so worked to stabilize the economy, and all is on its way back to normal?
Paul writes, "The Fed is using all its power to drive the monetary base to unprecedented heights, creating trillions in new money out of thin air. From April 2008 to April 2009, the adjusted monetary base shot up from $856 billion to an unbelievable $1.749 trillion. Was there any new wealth created? New production? No, this was the Ben Bernanke printing press at work. If you and I did anything similar, we would be called counterfeiters and be sent away for a lifetime in prison. But, when the Fed does it - complete with a scientific gloss - it is seen as the perfectly legal and responsible conduct of monetary policy."
On the inflation front, Paul adds "It's as if we still believe that money can be grown on trees, and we don't stop to realize that if it did grow on trees, it would take on the value of leaves in the fall, to be either mulched or bagged and put in a landfill. That is to say, it would be worthless."
You get the feeling after reading this book, that Paul sees his goal of cutting off the power of the Fed as attainable in the long run, but needed a "playbook" to help educate the general public as to why they should care, and what they should demand be done about it from their elected officials.
The passage from the book that stuck with me the most. "When we unplug the Fed, the dollar will stop its long depreciating trend, international currency values will stop fluctuating wildly, banking will no longer be a dice game, and financial power will cease to gravitate toward a small circle of government-connected insiders."
Ron Paul's case for sound money policies and the end of "Fed domination" marches on, this time in hardcover.
So, what do you think - vote now in our poll and if you have more to say - please submit your comments below in the comment section.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
VIDEO - Peter Schiff: Americans must prepare for deepening unemployment, inflation and possible breadlines
RussiaToday
Rockstar Economist Peter Schiff tells RT's Marina Portnaya that Lehman Brothers failure was a success not a failure. He says Americans will face increasing unemployment, inflation, and possible bread-lines if government backed bail-outs continue.
Rockstar Economist Peter Schiff tells RT's Marina Portnaya that Lehman Brothers failure was a success not a failure. He says Americans will face increasing unemployment, inflation, and possible bread-lines if government backed bail-outs continue.
VIDEO - Police and Military Train For Forced Vaccinations
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Law enforcement and military personnel are training to set up checkpoints in order to catch people who refuse to take the swine flu vaccination according to whistle blowers, while health authorities are laying the groundwork for a mass vaccination campaign by warning that serious and potentially deadly health problems will be blamed on the H1N1 vaccine.
In a You Tube video, a woman describing herself as a soldier explains how she was part of a drill in California centered around setting up roadblocks and checkpoints so authorities could check who has received the swine flu vaccine. Those who have had the shots will be fitted with an RFID bracelet so they can be tracked. Those who have not taken the shot will be offered it there and then and if they still refuse, will be carted off to an internment camp, according to the woman.
Watch the clip.
This individual needs to go public with her full name and position because she will already be known to authorities. By remaining anonymous to the public only, her testimony can be dismissed as just someone ranting on You Tube. However, her statements about tracking people who have taken the vaccine via RFID bracelets is something that has already been beta tested by health authorities.
Former Kansas state trooper Greg Evensen underscored this claim back in July. “Have you been made aware of the massive roadblock plans to stop all travelers for a vaccine bracelet (stainless steel band with a micro-chip on board) that will force you to take the shot?” Evensen wrote on July 29. “Refuse it? You will be placed on a prison bus and taken to a quarantine camp. What will you do when your children are NOT allowed into school without the shot? What will you do when you are not allowed into the workplace without the vaccine paperwork? Buy groceries? Go to the bank? Shop anywhere?? Get on a plane, bus or train? Use the toilet in the mall? Nope. Police officers will become loathed, feared, despised and remembered for their ‘official’ duties.”
Mr. Evensen made the following comment at an event in Texas:
Z- I did my own digging and found that he later retracted it and said that the information was not entirely accurate. From his website:
"After exhaustive investigation, it appears that the information that I reported regarding Oklahoma’s “Mandated Vaccine Program”, was not entirely accurate. We were in error! We are deeply sorry and regret that our statement did not reflect an official act. However, it has been suggested by officials that our position on the matter brought enough pressure on other States, not to enact laws that would force inoculations, period. This may be true, however; it was not our plan to do such."
Authorities in Boston have already trialed such technology, with the purpose of creating a “vaccination map” charting which people have taken the vaccine and which have not, or “creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination,” as a Boston Globe article describes.
Participants were given a bracelet with a unique identifier code, exactly as described in the You Tube clip.
“Infectious disease specialists in Boston and elsewhere predicted that the registry approach could prove even more useful if something more sinister strikes: a bioterrorism attack or the long-feared arrival of a global flu epidemic. In such crises, the registry could be used to track who received a special vaccine or antidote to a deadly germ,” according to the article.
“Anything you can do to better pinpoint who’s vaccinated and who’s not, that’s absolutely vital,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I wish more cities were doing this kind of thing.”
While governments have publicly backed away from talk of mandatory mass vaccination programs, their actions behind closed doors indicate that they are preparing for a state of medical martial law.
An international swine fu conference held recently in Washington DC and attended by the world’s top health authorities featured workshops on enforced quarantines, mass vaccinations, and how to “control and diffuse social unrest and public disorder.” Individuals who attempted to gain access to the conference representing the media were turned away by officials at the conference.
As we reported earlier this month, a shocking internal document outlines the French government’s plan to impose a mass swine flu vaccination program on the entire population which would be focused around regional vaccination centers and would be carried out by H1N1 injection teams, completely bypassing medical establishments and GP’s.
Legislation has also been passed in the U.S. that would allow state vaccine teams to go door to door to conduction immunization “interventions” and look for people who have not taken the shot.
It is unclear how authorities plan to enforce any such mandatory vaccination campaign, especially in light of anecdotal evidence suggesting that a large majority of the public will refuse to take the shots. Polls taken in the UK indicate that a majority of nurses and other health workers, the primary targets for the first round of vaccinations, will refuse to be vaccinated.
It is likely that threats, intimidation and removal of rights and conveniences will force most holdouts to take the shot. Once governments start imposing quarantines and travel bans on people for not taking the shot, a sizeable number are likely to acquiesce.
Since the dangerous ingredients that will be included in the H1N1 shots became known to the public, opposition to proposed mass vaccination programs has snowballed.
As we have previously documented, the swine flu vaccine was rushed through safety procedures while governments have provided pharmaceutical companies with blanket immunity from lawsuits arriving out of the vaccine causing deaths and injuries.
It was previously revealed that some batches of the vaccine will contain mercury, a toxin linked with autism and neurological disorders. The vaccine will also contain the dangerous ingredient squalene, which has been directly linked with cases of Gulf War Syndrome and a host of other debilitating diseases.
It was also recently reported that the UK government sent a confidential letter to senior neurologists telling them to be on the alert for cases of a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine. The CDC in America replicated this warning weeks later.
As a result of the dangers of the vaccine becoming widely known, authorities are moving to get out ahead of the story by acknowledging that millions of health problems in the aftermath of a vaccination campaign will be blamed on the vaccine, citing the 1976 swine flu debacle when the shot proved far deadlier than the actual virus.
Reuters reports that public health officials, “Expect an avalanche of so-called adverse event reports, which are reports of death, illness or other health trauma that occur within two weeks after receiving treatment — in this case, the swine flu vaccine,” in reaction to an estimated “one million heart attacks, 700,000 strokes and 900,000 miscarriages.”
“We are going to be overwhelmed with potential events,” said Mike Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota.
By coming out early and claiming that these problems would have occurred without the swine flu vaccine anyway, authorities are creating plausible deniability for when side-effects from the shot begin to appear.
A number of factors now indicate that authorities in both America and Europe are not only preparing mass vaccination programs, but are also training law enforcement and military assets on how to deal with those who refuse to take the shot. Given the fact that around 150 million Americans own guns and would be prepared to use them to defend their families against police and troops forcibly jabbing needles into them, it seems unlikely that health authorities in the U.S. will go down this route. However, by implementing travel bans, school bans and other forms of general quarantine, a good number of those refusniks may eventually be intimidated into taking the dangerous shot.
But a good number of them will stand firm – and that’s probably where the internment camps and martial law will come into play.
Only by diffusing the rampant hype behind the relatively harmless swine flu virus and re-affirming our right to reject enforced medical procedures conducted against our will under the Nuremberg code will the swine flu hoax, which is being used by governments as a smokescreen to accelerate and implement the police state, be defeated.
Brazen Propaganda: CBS Talking Head Gets Her Toxic Vaccination Live On TV
Blatant propaganda! Line on up my sheep, come get some mercury, dead aborted fetus embryo, formaldehyde, MSG, aluminum, thimerosal yummyness...see if I can take, it so can you! Statistically I'll be more likely to get the flu in the future and I might get sick and possibly die from all these toxins in the vaccine within the next 10 years, but ohh well...I'm making way too much money lying to all you fine people....no seriously I am ;_)
VIDEO - Gerald Celente: There is No Recovery
Russia Today
Gerald Celente — the most trusted name in trends — sits down for an exclusive interview with RT’s Anastasia Churkina to talk about what the future holds for America during and after the Great Recession, gives advice to Obama, and forecasts the unexpected.
GERALD CELENTE'S FORECASTS
http://www.trendsresearch.com/forecast.html
Gerald Celente — the most trusted name in trends — sits down for an exclusive interview with RT’s Anastasia Churkina to talk about what the future holds for America during and after the Great Recession, gives advice to Obama, and forecasts the unexpected.
GERALD CELENTE'S FORECASTS
http://www.trendsresearch.com/forecast.html
Psychedelic Tea Brews Unease
WSJ
By STEPHANIE SIMON
SANTA FE, N.M. -- A secretive religious group that fought a long legal battle for the right to drink hallucinogenic tea in pursuit of spiritual growth now plans to build a temple and greenhouse in a wealthy community here -- to the dismay of local residents.
The church was founded in Brazil in 1961 and remains most popular there, but about 150 people in the U.S., including about 60 in Santa Fe, practice the faith, which goes by the Portuguese name Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, or UDV. Members say the church is based on Christian theology but also borrows from other faiths and finds spirituality in nature.
Since the U.S. branch of the religion emerged in the late 1980s, practitioners have imported from Brazil their sacramental tea, known as hoasca, which is brewed from two Amazonian plants and contains the psychedelic compound dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. The U.S. government classifies DMT as a Schedule I controlled substance, the same designation given to heroin and marijuana. But in a unanimous ruling in 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the UDV had the right to use hoasca in its ceremonies.
Now, the Santa Fe branch has drawn up plans to build a greenhouse for growing their own sacred plants, a ceremonial kitchen for brewing the tea and a 7,100-square-foot temple, complete with a children's nursery and foot-thick walls to ensure privacy.
They are seeking a zoning change and county permits to build these facilities on 2½ acres in the Arroyo Hondo neighborhood, a secluded community of horse ranches and million-dollar homes. The grassy lot, which sits at the entrance to the neighborhood, is held in trust by Jeffrey Bronfman, the local leader of the UDV. He also owns a stately private home across the street. Mr. Bronfman is a grandnephew of Samuel Bronfman, the patriarch of the prominent Canadian family that owned Seagram Co. and other assets.
Because the UDV is a bona fide church, it can build a house of worship almost anywhere in the county, as long as it complies with requirements for parking, waste disposal and the like, said Jose Larrañaga, a county case manager. UDV members say the lot they have chosen is sacred to them -- and was consecrated by church elders from Brazil -- because they held services there on and off during their five-year legal battle.
Neighbors, however, say the spot is inappropriate for a church of any kind -- and especially for one that builds its services around a psychedelic brew.
"We don't object to them using their tea. It's legal and that's fine," said Linda Spier, who lives within sight of the proposed temple. "But it's not fine if it endangers the health and welfare of the community."
She and other residents worry about traffic -- and tea-impaired drivers -- on the winding, narrow road that leads into their neighborhood. They fear the UDV temple, which is designed with a large gate and three flagpoles out front, would commercialize their rural neighborhood and drive down property values.
And they worry about crime once word gets out that the greenhouse shelters hallucinogenic plants.
"What teenage kid wouldn't be tempted?" said neighbor Jacque Dawson.
UDV members don't speak to the media. Their lawyer, Nancy Hollander, said the tea had never been implicated in a traffic accident in the U.S. As for the greenhouse, she said: "I'm sure they will have appropriate security."
Anyone looking to the greenhouse for an easy high would likely be disappointed, said Richard Glen Boire, an attorney who has written extensively on psychoactive plants and specializes in defending clients accused of using them. Mr. Boire, who has offices in Davis, Calif., and Los Angeles, isn't associated with the UDV.
The two plants used to make hoasca tea aren't potent on their own; they must be brewed together, Mr. Boire said. The resulting tea is quite bitter and often induces intense vomiting and diarrhea. It causes "a significant alteration in consciousness" that can be terrifying, Mr. Boire said.
"The average person," he added, "would find it somewhat nightmarish."
In documents filed with their land-use plan, UDV members say the tea doesn't make them hallucinate but amplifies their concentration, "which facilitates our connection with God."
The county's first hearing on the zoning application is slated for next month. Neighbors have urged the county to reconsider whether a UDV temple really qualifies as a "community service facility," the zoning designation used for churches, because outsiders aren't allowed to participate in or even observe ceremonies. "The whole thing is wrong. It's just wrong," said Jerry Levine, a neighbor.
But Mr. Larranaga, the county's case manager, said the UDV was legally recognized as a legitimate church. The county doesn't require a community-service facility to serve the entire community, he said.
UDV members have suggested that they would consider it religious persecution if their application were denied. A rejection, one wrote in a letter to the county, would be an affront to "my family's forefathers, who came over on the Mayflower and fought in the Revolutionary War for our religious freedom."
By STEPHANIE SIMON
SANTA FE, N.M. -- A secretive religious group that fought a long legal battle for the right to drink hallucinogenic tea in pursuit of spiritual growth now plans to build a temple and greenhouse in a wealthy community here -- to the dismay of local residents.
The church was founded in Brazil in 1961 and remains most popular there, but about 150 people in the U.S., including about 60 in Santa Fe, practice the faith, which goes by the Portuguese name Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, or UDV. Members say the church is based on Christian theology but also borrows from other faiths and finds spirituality in nature.
Since the U.S. branch of the religion emerged in the late 1980s, practitioners have imported from Brazil their sacramental tea, known as hoasca, which is brewed from two Amazonian plants and contains the psychedelic compound dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. The U.S. government classifies DMT as a Schedule I controlled substance, the same designation given to heroin and marijuana. But in a unanimous ruling in 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the UDV had the right to use hoasca in its ceremonies.
Now, the Santa Fe branch has drawn up plans to build a greenhouse for growing their own sacred plants, a ceremonial kitchen for brewing the tea and a 7,100-square-foot temple, complete with a children's nursery and foot-thick walls to ensure privacy.
They are seeking a zoning change and county permits to build these facilities on 2½ acres in the Arroyo Hondo neighborhood, a secluded community of horse ranches and million-dollar homes. The grassy lot, which sits at the entrance to the neighborhood, is held in trust by Jeffrey Bronfman, the local leader of the UDV. He also owns a stately private home across the street. Mr. Bronfman is a grandnephew of Samuel Bronfman, the patriarch of the prominent Canadian family that owned Seagram Co. and other assets.
Because the UDV is a bona fide church, it can build a house of worship almost anywhere in the county, as long as it complies with requirements for parking, waste disposal and the like, said Jose Larrañaga, a county case manager. UDV members say the lot they have chosen is sacred to them -- and was consecrated by church elders from Brazil -- because they held services there on and off during their five-year legal battle.
Neighbors, however, say the spot is inappropriate for a church of any kind -- and especially for one that builds its services around a psychedelic brew.
"We don't object to them using their tea. It's legal and that's fine," said Linda Spier, who lives within sight of the proposed temple. "But it's not fine if it endangers the health and welfare of the community."
She and other residents worry about traffic -- and tea-impaired drivers -- on the winding, narrow road that leads into their neighborhood. They fear the UDV temple, which is designed with a large gate and three flagpoles out front, would commercialize their rural neighborhood and drive down property values.
And they worry about crime once word gets out that the greenhouse shelters hallucinogenic plants.
"What teenage kid wouldn't be tempted?" said neighbor Jacque Dawson.
UDV members don't speak to the media. Their lawyer, Nancy Hollander, said the tea had never been implicated in a traffic accident in the U.S. As for the greenhouse, she said: "I'm sure they will have appropriate security."
Anyone looking to the greenhouse for an easy high would likely be disappointed, said Richard Glen Boire, an attorney who has written extensively on psychoactive plants and specializes in defending clients accused of using them. Mr. Boire, who has offices in Davis, Calif., and Los Angeles, isn't associated with the UDV.
The two plants used to make hoasca tea aren't potent on their own; they must be brewed together, Mr. Boire said. The resulting tea is quite bitter and often induces intense vomiting and diarrhea. It causes "a significant alteration in consciousness" that can be terrifying, Mr. Boire said.
"The average person," he added, "would find it somewhat nightmarish."
In documents filed with their land-use plan, UDV members say the tea doesn't make them hallucinate but amplifies their concentration, "which facilitates our connection with God."
The county's first hearing on the zoning application is slated for next month. Neighbors have urged the county to reconsider whether a UDV temple really qualifies as a "community service facility," the zoning designation used for churches, because outsiders aren't allowed to participate in or even observe ceremonies. "The whole thing is wrong. It's just wrong," said Jerry Levine, a neighbor.
But Mr. Larranaga, the county's case manager, said the UDV was legally recognized as a legitimate church. The county doesn't require a community-service facility to serve the entire community, he said.
UDV members have suggested that they would consider it religious persecution if their application were denied. A rejection, one wrote in a letter to the county, would be an affront to "my family's forefathers, who came over on the Mayflower and fought in the Revolutionary War for our religious freedom."
VIDEO -San Diego Sheriff Buys Sonic Terrorist Weapon Planned to be Used Against Civilians
The San Diego County Sheriff's Department purchased with a federal grant, a new sonic weapon known as a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD. The technology has been used in Iraq to control terrorists, and now it is in the sheriff's department's possession, to be used against civilians. In the video here, San Diego cops promise they will not use LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) against demonstrators. If that is the case, why was the device placed at a town hall meeting in San Diego?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Biovail Fined $25M For Bribing Doctors
GEE....What a surprise this is! Just another great example of a drug company paying off doctors to prescribe their unsafe drug.
CBC News
A subsidiary of Toronto-based drug maker Biovail Corp. will pay nearly $25 million US in fines after pleading guilty to encouraging doctors to prescribe their blood pressure drug by paying them cash on the side.
The Boston office of the U.S. attorney announced Monday that Bridgewater, N.J.-based Biovail Pharmaceuticals Inc. was sentenced to pay $22,243,590 after pleading guilty to conspiracy and kickback charges.
Prosecutors alleged Biovail paid thousands of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants and others up to $1,000 apiece to induce them to prescribe or recommend Biovail's drug Cardizem to patients, including prescriptions that were paid for by Medicaid.
"These payments exceeded the reasonable fair market value of the medical prescribers' time necessary to enroll these patients," the office said in a release.
"Such attempts not only drive up health-care costs, they deprive patients of the untainted medical decision-making and trust they deserve," acting United States Attorney Michael K. Loucks said.
Biovail had previously announced it had agreed to plead guilty and pay to settle the case in May 2008.
The company must also pay a $2,404,286 civil penalty to settle the matter.
SIDE EFFECTS:
Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); hallucinations; irregular heartbeat; swelling of the feet or hands; tender, bleeding, or swollen gums, constipation; dizziness; facial flushing; headache; weakness.
Why the hell would you take this??
CBC News
A subsidiary of Toronto-based drug maker Biovail Corp. will pay nearly $25 million US in fines after pleading guilty to encouraging doctors to prescribe their blood pressure drug by paying them cash on the side.
The Boston office of the U.S. attorney announced Monday that Bridgewater, N.J.-based Biovail Pharmaceuticals Inc. was sentenced to pay $22,243,590 after pleading guilty to conspiracy and kickback charges.
Prosecutors alleged Biovail paid thousands of physicians, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants and others up to $1,000 apiece to induce them to prescribe or recommend Biovail's drug Cardizem to patients, including prescriptions that were paid for by Medicaid.
"These payments exceeded the reasonable fair market value of the medical prescribers' time necessary to enroll these patients," the office said in a release.
"Such attempts not only drive up health-care costs, they deprive patients of the untainted medical decision-making and trust they deserve," acting United States Attorney Michael K. Loucks said.
Biovail had previously announced it had agreed to plead guilty and pay to settle the case in May 2008.
The company must also pay a $2,404,286 civil penalty to settle the matter.
SIDE EFFECTS:
Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); hallucinations; irregular heartbeat; swelling of the feet or hands; tender, bleeding, or swollen gums, constipation; dizziness; facial flushing; headache; weakness.
Why the hell would you take this??
Could Patrick Swayze Have Been Saved?
(NaturalNews) Beloved actor Patrick Swayze died yesterday evening after a 20-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Having put his faith in conventional chemotherapy, he largely dismissed ideas that nutrition, superfoods or "alternative medicine" might save him, instead betting his life on the chemotherapy approach which seeks to poison the body into a state of remission instead of nourishing it into a state of health.
These are not condemnations of this remarkable man; they are simply descriptive explanations of the path he chose and the results he experienced. Patrick Swayze was a talented, dedicated actor and dancer, and his work brought joy to the lives of millions. He will be deeply missed, and in his death, he joins many other celebrities who have been recently killed by pharmaceuticals or chemotherapy.
Peter Jennings died following chemotherapy for lung cancer. Heath Ledger died following an accidental overdose of prescription medications (http://www.naturalnews.com/022602.html). Michael Jackson was killed by a doctor-administered injection of lethal painkillers. Famed newscaster Tim Russert most likely died from the fatal side effects of cholesterol medications (http://www.naturalnews.com/023434_T...). Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow died after receiving chemotherapy for colon cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/023626_c...), and Bernie Mac was most likely killed by pharmaceutical side effects (http://www.naturalnews.com/023817_B...).
The list of celebrities killed by western medicine is seemingly endless. And now, sadly, Patrick Swayze joins that ever-growing list of famous, endearing people who paid the ultimate price for their misplaced faith in slash-and-burn medicine and "conventional" chemotherapy treatments.
Western medicine offers no hope, no solutions
Of course, the cancer industry takes no responsibility for his death. Drug companies and cancer docs never accept responsibility for the way their poisonous treatments harm (and often kill) many fine people.
Had Patrick Swayze's pancreatic cancer gone away, doctors would have hailed chemotherapy as the genius treatment that saved Swayze's life. But chemotherapy has never healed anyone of cancer. Not once in the history of medicine. And when people die after being poisoned by chemotherapy, the oncologists and conventional medical doctors just shrug and say ridiculous things like, "The cancer was too far along" or "He didn't fight it hard enough."
No one fought cancer more diligently and optimistically than Patrick Swayze. Even after being diagnosed with an admittedly scary disease -- pancreatic cancer -- he remained upbeat and enthusiastic about beating the condition. He put more faith in conventional medicine and chemotherapy than perhaps anyone, and yet that medicine failed him just the same. No one can fault Swayze himself for a lack of optimism.
"I want to last until they find a cure, which means I'd better get a fire under it," Swayze said in a highly-publicized interview with ABC's Barbara Walters. No one apparently told Swayze the cancer industry isn't looking for a cure. They're looking for more business from more patients, and a genuine "cure" for cancer is flatly incompatible with the industry's business interests.
Could he have been saved?
Could Patrick Swayze have saved his own life with natural medicine? Absolutely. Without question. Even late-stage pancreatic cancer can be reversed (yes, reversed) with full-on naturopathic treatments involving Chinese herbal medicine, deep body detoxification that includes sweat saunas and colon cleansing, radical changes in diet from "dead" foods to "live" foods, a healthy dose of vitamin D and the daily consumption of raw anti-cancer living juices made from fresh, organic produce like cabbage, broccoli and garlic.
Many people, of course, aren't willing to engage in these lifestyle changes in order to save their own lives, but for those who are, the results are astounding. I've personally met numerous people who told me their personal stories of reversing cancer (even late-stage liver cancer) by turning to natural medicine. I've met all kinds of people who once had cancer and are now completely cured of cancer after making the very simple lifestyle changes espoused here on NaturalNews.com. And yet, at the same time, I've never met a person who was cured by cancer with chemotherapy. Not a single one. Never even heard of such a person. They don't exist. Even the cancer industry will tell you their "cure rate" is zero (because they don't believe cancer can ever be cured).
So if you have cancer, and you want a zero percent chance of being cured, go with chemotherapy. Your chance of being cured is zero, but your chance of being killed is significantly higher -- as much as 90 percent, depending on your diagnosis. The advantage with choosing chemotherapy, however, is that you don't have to change your eating habits or think outside the box. Your doctor will tell you what to do, what pills to take, what questions to stop asking, etc., and he won't even request that you stop eating those cancer-causing hot dogs and breakfast sausages which have been shown to significantly increase your risk of pancreatic cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/007024.html) (http://www.naturalnews.com/News_000...).
Actually saving your own life, on the other hand, takes real effort. It requires thinking for yourself and casting off the "do what you're told" attitude that gets cancer patients killed. It means questioning the sanity of poisoning your own body with extremely carcinogenic chemicals -- chemicals which, by the way, have the side effect of causing cancer!
Chemotherapy causes cancer
If you've never received chemotherapy, you may not know this, but before the cancer doctors inject you with their poisons, they usually make you sign a disclaimer that spells out the risks associated with chemotherapy. Among those risks, you'll see mentions of cancer, brain damage, liver failure, kidney failure and all sorts of other horrifying end results that might befall you if you're crazy enough to agree to be poisoned.
I've often wondered how any human being could actually read that document and sign it, but now I know the answer: Cancer doctors use FEAR to recruit patients into their profitable but extremely dangerous treatments. They say things like, "Unless you get this chemotherapy, you'll only have six months to live." It's ludicrous, of course, but as a marketing gimmick, it works like gangbusters. Patrick Swayze was told much the same thing, and he believed it. And he paid the ultimate price for that misplaced belief.
NaturalNews contributing author Tony Isaacs foresaw all this. In a January, 2009 article published on NaturalNews.com (http://www.naturalnews.com/025289_cancer_health_medicine.html), Isaacs admonished Patrick Swayze for pursuing toxic chemotherapy instead of natural anti-cancer therapies. He foresaw precisely the outcome the whole world now knows to be true: That chemotherapy often leads to death.
Make a better choice
As the editor of NaturalNews, I urge everyone reading this to learn from Patrick Swayze's passing. Let his passing mean something positive to you in the realization that you don't have to die from chemotherapy. Even if you have cancer, you have lots of options that Swayze chose to ignore. You can choose Gerson Therapy (www.Gerson.org), for example -- and check out the documentary movie The Beautiful Truth to learn more about that (http://www.thebeautifultruthmovie.com).
One of the best Traditional Chinese Medicine clinics in the United States is called "Han Tang," located near Merritt Island, Florida (East of Orlando). The website is http://www.hantang.com - you'll have to look up their phone number on Google.
There's also an excellent "integrative" cancer treatment center in Arizona run by Dr. Thomas Lodi (www.AnOasisOfHealing.com). For topical cancers, there are numerous products that really work, such as Cansema (http://www.altcancer.com/cansema.htm). Other effective anti-cancer products can be found at websites like http://www.cancerchoices.com or http://www.DanielChapterOne.com
Some trusted health centers to check out for raw food juicing and detox lifestyle changes include the Hippocrates Institute (www.hippocratesinst.org) and the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (www.TreeOfLife.nu).
The automatic cure for cancer
Cancer cures already exist. They're everywhere in the world except in mainstream American medicine (where they've been outlawed). Curing cancer is not only easy to do, it's the most natural thing in the world. Your body knows how to do it so amazingly well that if you feed your body the right nutrients, you can't even stop it from curing cancer!
But most people in first-world countries are living a "pro-cancer" lifestyle. They are chronically deficient in Vitamin D, the miraculous anti-cancer nutrient (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html), they eat cancer-causing processed meats, they consume cancer-causing artificial sweeteners, and they subsist on dead, refined foods that are almost completely devoid of anti-cancer nutrients like selenium, vitamin C and specific phytonutrients.
On top of that, a lot of people choose to further destroy their health through the regular use of toxic perfumes and colognes (which often contain cancer-causing chemicals), smoking cigarettes, using carcinogenic hair dyes, spraying pesticides on their lawns and generally engaging in a radical cancer-causing lifestyle. For those people, an eventual diagnosis of cancer should really be no surprise because it's a result they created through a lifetime of poor choices about personal health.
I've noticed a pattern in all this: Those who make the worst choices in life also tend to make the worst choices about the way they die. If they lived a toxic lifestyle that gave them cancer in the first place, they almost always choose a toxic chemotherapy death to go with it.
A few folks, however, are opening their eyes and living vibrant lives even long after chemotherapy by embracing a truly healthful lifestyle. If you survive chemo, you can go on to live a long, long time by making new choices in foods, exercise and environments. And if you're one day found to be free of cancer, it wasn't the chemo that cured you, it was your own body healing itself! With the right nutrients, sufficient hydration and the dedicated avoidance of cancer-causing chemicals, the human body can heal itself of cancer, accomplishing what no doctor, surgeon or oncologist could ever hope to achieve.
Are you living in a cancer box?
Sadly, cancer-causing chemicals are in almost everything. The average American household contains probably five hundred (or more) different cancer-causing chemicals found in cleaning products, cosmetics, personal care products, lawn care products, car care products, laundry products, foods, medicines, air fresheners and even in the walls, carpets and paints. For the most part, people live in little cancer boxes they call "homes." And they rarely venture outside their cancer boxes to embrace the real world where cancer cures are as easy to find as picking weeds (because many of them really are extracted from common weeds).
So protecting yourself from cancer most definitely involves a change in your day-to-day choices about where you live, how you live and what you consume. There is no doctor in the world who can take cancer out of your body for any significant duration if you continue to live a cancer-causing lifestyle. That's why chemo just flat out doesn't work: Because it doesn't address the causes of cancer. So it can never offer a cure.
Only you can do that.
What would God say about chemotherapy?
By the way, I don't usually do this, but I'd like to make a comment here related to those who follow a religious practice. In almost every major world religion, it is considered a sin to desecrate your own body. Many religions consider it sinful to commit suicide, for example. In Judaism, people who mark their bodies with tattoos are considered to be in violation of the Torah ("You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves: I am the Lord" - Leviticus 19:28), and those who commit suicide may be denied burial in a Jewish cemetery.
Under Islamic law, self-mutilation of any kind is also forbidden, including tattoos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tattooing). Under Christian principles, the body is considered a "temple" (a church) which must be honored as a reflection of God (http://www.mybodyhistemple.com).
My question to those who follow any major religion -- and who may also be considering chemotherapy -- is simply this: What would God think about you poisoning your God-given body with deadly chemicals?
There is no way around it, really: Chemotherapy is a violation of the principles of body holiness found in every major world religion. Intentionally poisoning yourself to a point where your hair falls out, where you vomit and waste away flesh and bone, where you cannot eat, or think, or often even digest your own food cannot possibly be something that is endorsed by any church or any God. It is sacrilegious to harm or destroy your body with chemical intervention based on man-made poison. God would no more wish for you to inject chemotherapy into your veins than heroin or crack.
That's why chemotherapy isn't just bad for your immune system and bad for your body; it's also bad for your soul. Whether you believe in the Pearly Gates or some other version of an afterlife, there's no question that showing up on Judgment Day after having died from chemotherapy is not a comfortable episode of spiritual scrutiny. If God, in a booming voice, asks, "I gave you a perfect body, in my own image. What did you choose to do with it?" And if you answer, "Well, I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, I swore off all the natural medicine that you provided us, and I allowed my body temple to be injected and destroyed with man-made toxic chemicals that killed me and brought me here," chances are you're not going to find yourself in God's favor. He might even hold up your chemotherapy disclaimer contract and say, "Did you actually SIGN this thing?"
Think about it.
Then again, most conventional cancer doctors don't believe in God anyway. They believe in chemicals. At least, they believe in them for YOU, but not necessarily for themselves. Most oncologist, it turns out, would never subject themselves to chemotherapy.
Why? Because they've seen what it does to people. Even oncologists don't want to die in the same way they see their patients dying. Whether they believe in a God or not, they definitely believe in avoiding suffering, and that means avoiding chemotherapy.
At the risk of once again being way too blunt for the general public, I feel compelled to ask people reading this: Did you ever stop to consider the degree of suffering Patrick Swayze must have gone through, dying from pancreatic cancer combined with toxic chemotherapy?
I can speak on this subject because I've watched a man die from precisely the same diagnosis and the same treatment. I've been at the bedside, watching the digitized intravenous dripping of morphine into the shell of a man, with sunken jawbones and hollow eyes. The cancer industry won't show you photos of Patrick Swayze's death for the same reason the Pentagon won't show you photos of young U.S. soldiers getting their legs blown off: It's just too much reality for people to deal with.
And it changes people, too, because once you see a precious human being die from chemotherapy, you'll never seek it out for yourself. You'll swear it off for the rest of your life, and the cancer industry will lose a likely future customer.
The cancer industry loves to talk about those people who are "survivors" of cancer and chemotherapy. But they never talk honestly about those who were killed by their poison. The truth is simply swept away, dumped in a casket and buried along with the victim. It's all business as usual for the U.S. cancer industry.
May Patrick Swayze rest in peace, wherever his eternal soul may now exist.
Why Propaganda Trumps Truth
Excellent article on why most people believe government propaganda instead of investigating the truth for themselves.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
By Paul Craig Roberts
"Information Clearing House" -- -An article in the journal, Sociological Inquiry, casts light on the effectiveness of propaganda. Researchers examined why big lies succeed where little lies fail. Governments can get away with mass deceptions, but politicians cannot get away with sexual affairs.
The researchers explain why so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it has become obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with the event. Americans developed elaborate rationalizations based on Bush administration propaganda that alleged Iraqi involvement and became deeply attached to their beliefs. Their emotional involvement became wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality. They looked for information that supported their beliefs and avoided information that challenged them, regardless of the facts of the matter.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained the believability of the Big Lie as compared to the small lie: “In the simplicity of their minds, people more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have such impudence. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and continue to think that there may be some other explanation.”
What the sociologists and Hitler are telling us is that by the time facts become clear, people are emotionally wedded to the beliefs planted by the propaganda and find it a wrenching experience to free themselves. It is more comfortable, instead, to denounce the truth-tellers than the liars whom the truth-tellers expose.
The psychology of belief retention even when those beliefs are wrong is a pillar of social cohesion and stability. It explains why, once change is effected, even revolutionary governments become conservative. The downside of belief retention is its prevention of the recognition of facts. Belief retention in the Soviet Union made the system unable to adjust to economic reality, and the Soviet Union collapsed. Today in the United States millions find it easier to chant “USA, USA, USA” than to accept facts that indicate the need for change.
The staying power of the Big Lie is the barrier through which the 9/11 Truth Movement is finding it difficult to break. The assertion that the 9/11 Truth Movement consists of conspiracy theorists and crackpots is obviously untrue. The leaders of the movement are highly qualified professionals, such as demolition experts, physicists, structural architects, engineers, pilots, and former high officials in the government. Unlike their critics parroting the government’s line, they know what they are talking about.
Here is a link to a presentation by the architect, Richard Gage, to a Canadian university audience: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13242
The video of the presentation is two hours long and seems to have been edited to shorten it down to two hours. Gage is low-key, but not a dazzling personality or a very articulate presenter. Perhaps that is because he is speaking to a university audience and takes for granted their familiarity with terms and concepts.
Those who believe the official 9/11 story and dismiss skeptics as kooks can test the validity of the sociologists’ findings and Hitler’s observation by watching the video and experiencing their reaction to evidence that challenges their beliefs. Are you able to watch the presentation without scoffing at someone who knows far more about it than you do? What is your response when you find that you cannot defend your beliefs against the evidence presented? Scoff some more? Become enraged?
Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that few people have the education to follow the technical and scientific aspects. The side that they believe tells them one thing; the side that they don’t believe tells them another. Most Americans have no basis to judge the relative merits of the arguments.
For example, consider the case of the Lockerbie bomber. One piece of “evidence” that was used to convict Magrahi was a piece of circuit board from a device that allegedly contained the Semtex that exploded the airliner. None of the people, who have very firm beliefs in Magrahi’s and Libya’s guilt and in the offense of the Scottish authorities in releasing Magrahi on allegedly humanitarian grounds, know that circuit boards of those days have very low combustion temperatures and go up in flames easily. Semtex produces very high temperatures. There would be nothing whatsoever left of a device that contained Semtex. It is obvious to an expert that the piece of circuit board was planted after the event.
I have asked on several occasions and have never had an answer, which does not mean that there isn’t one, how millions of pieces of unburnt, uncharred paper can be floating over lower Manhattan from the destruction of the WTC towers when the official explanation of the destruction is fires so hot and evenly distributed that they caused the massive steel structures to weaken and fail simultaneously so that the buildings fell in free fall time just as they would if they had been brought down by controlled demolition.
What is the explanation of fires so hot that steel fails but paper does not combust?
People don’t even notice the contradictions. Recently, an international team of scientists, who studied for 18 months dust samples produced by the twin towers’ destruction collected from three separate sources, reported their finding of nano-thermite in the dust. The US government had scientists dependent on the US government to debunk the finding on the grounds that the authenticity of custody of the samples could not be verified. In other words, someone had tampered with the samples and added the nano-thermite. This is all it took to discredit the finding, despite the obvious fact that access to thermite is strictly controlled and NO ONE except the US military and possibly Israel has access to nano-thermite.
The physicist, Steven Jones, has produced overwhelming evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings. His evidence is not engaged, examined, tested, and refuted. It is simply ignored.
Dr. Jones’ experience reminds me of that of my Oxford professor, the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi. Polanyi was one of the 20th centuries great scientists. At one time every section chairman of the Royal Society was a Polanyi student. Many of his students won Nobel Prizes for their scientific work, such as Eugene Wigner at Princeton and Melvin Calvin at UC, Berkeley, and his son, John Polanyi, at the University of Toronto.
As a young man in the early years of the 20th century, Michael Polanyi discovered the explanation for chemical absorbtion. Scientific authority found the new theory too much of a challenge to existing beliefs and dismissed it. Even when Polanyi was one of the UK’s ranking scientists, he was unable to teach his theory. One half-century later his discovery was re-discovered by scientists at UC, Berkeley. The discovery was hailed, but then older scientists said that it was “Polanyi’s old error.” It turned out not to be an error. Polanyi was asked to address scientists on this half-century failure of science to recognize the truth. How had science, which is based on examining the evidence, gone so wrong. Polanyi’s answer was that science is a belief system just like everything else, and that his theory was outside the belief system.
That is what we observe all around us, not just about the perfidy of Muslims and 9/11.
As an economics scholar I had a very difficult time making my points about the Soviet economy, about Karl Marx’s theories, and about the supply-side impact of fiscal policy. Today I experience readers who become enraged just because I report on someone else’s work that is outside their belief system. Some readers think I should suppress work that is inconsistent with their beliefs and drive the author of the work into the ground. These readers never have any comprehension of the subject. They are simply emotionally offended.
What I find puzzling is the people I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11. For reasons that escape me, they believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. How can this be, I ask them. Did the government slip up once and tell the truth? My question does not cause them to rethink their belief in the government’s 9/11 story. Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait.
The problem faced by truth is the emotional needs of people. With 9/11 many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don’t feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called “terrorist sympathizers.” Others on the left-wing have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the US have delivered “blowbacks.” Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government’s propaganda that Muslims attacked the US.
Naive people think that if the US government’s explanation of 9/11 was wrong, physicists and engineers would all speak up. Some have (see above). However, for most physicists and engineers this would be an act of suicide. Physicists owe their careers to government grants, and their departments are critically dependent on government funding. A physicist who speaks up essentially ends his university career. If he is a tenured professor, to appease Washington the university would buy out his tenure as BYU did in the case of the outspoken Steven Jones.
An engineering firm that spoke out would never again be awarded a government contract. In addition, its patriotic, flag-waving customers would regard the firm as a terrorist apologist and cease to do business with it.
In New York today there is an enormous push by 9/11 families for a real and independent investigation of the 9/11 events. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have provided the necessary signatures on petitions that require the state to put the proposal for an independent commission up to vote. However, the state, so far, is not obeying the law.
Why are the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who are demanding a real investigation dismissed as conspiracy theorists? The 9/11 skeptics know far more about the events of that day than do the uninformed people who call them names. Most of the people I know who are content with the government’s official explanation have never examined the evidence. Yet, these no-nothings shout down those who have studied the matter closely.
There are, of course, some kooks. I have often wondered if these kooks are intentionally ridiculous in order to discredit knowledgeable skeptics.
Another problem that the 9/11 Truth Movement faces is that their natural allies, those who oppose the Bush/Obama wars and the internet sites that the antiwar movement maintains, are fearful of being branded traitorous and anti-American. It is hard enough to oppose a war against those the US government has successfully demonized. Antiwar sites believe that if they permit 9/11 to be questioned, it would brand them as "terrorist sympathizers" and discredit their opposition to the war. An exception is Information Clearing House.
Antiwar sites do not realize that, by accepting the 9/11 explanation, they have undermined their own opposition to the war. Once you accept that Muslim terrorists did it, it is difficult to oppose punishing them for the event. In recent months, important antiwar sites, such as antiwar.com, have had difficulty with their fundraising, with their fundraising campaigns going on far longer than previously. They do not understand that if you grant the government its premise for war, it is impossible to oppose the war.
As far as I can tell, most Americans have far greater confidence in the government than they do in the truth. During the Great Depression the liberals with their New Deal succeeded in teaching Americans to trust the government as their protector. This took with the left and the right. Neither end of the political spectrum is capable of fundamental questioning of the government. This explains the ease with which our government routinely deceives the people.
Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe. The notion that "we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead" is an extremely romantic and idealistic notion. I have seldom experienced open minds even in academic discourse or in the highest levels of government. Among the public at large, the ability to follow the truth wherever it may lead is almost non-existent.
The US government's response to 9/11, regardless of who is responsible, has altered our country forever. Our civil liberties will never again be as safe as they were. America's financial capability and living standards are forever lower. Our country's prestige and world leadership are forever damaged. The first decade of the 21st century has been squandered in pointless wars, and it appears the second decade will also be squandered in the same pointless and bankrupting pursuit.
The most disturbing fact of all remains: The 9/11 event responsible for these adverse happenings has not been investigated.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Scientific Poll: Only 29% Of Americans Trust Mainstream Media
5 companies own all major networks
NY TIMES
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Trust in news media has reached a new low, with record numbers of Americans saying reporting is inaccurate, biased and shaped by special interests, according to a survey set to be released Monday.
The survey of 1,506 people interviewed in July by the Pew Research Center showed that self-described Republicans continued to take the dimmest view of news organizations, but discontent among Democrats was catching up.
On crucial measures of credibility, faith in news media eroded from the 1980s to the ’90s, then held fairly steady for several years, according to Pew surveys that have asked some of the same questions for more than two decades. But in the two years since the last survey, those views became markedly more negative.
In this year’s survey, 63 percent of respondents said news articles were often inaccurate and only 29 percent said the media generally “get the facts straight” — the worst marks Pew has recorded — compared with 53 percent and 39 percent in 2007.
Seventy-four percent said news organizations favored one side or another in reporting on political and social issues, and the same percentage said the media were often influenced by powerful interests. Those, too, are the worst marks recorded in Pew surveys.
Negative opinions grew since 2007 among both major parties, but significantly more so among Democrats. The percentage of Democrats calling the media inaccurate rose to 59, from 43; the percentage who said the media took sides rose to 67, from 54.
Views of some specific news organizations split sharply along partisan lines, with differences between Republicans and Democrats often approaching 30 percentage points. Asked about CNN, MSNBC or network television news, Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to rate them favorably, and Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to see them unfavorably. Fox News was seen much more positively by Republicans, and more negatively by Democrats.
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