January 21, 2013

Occupy Wall Street: The hidden meaning behind protests

For nearly our entire history as a country, Americans have shared a social contract.

As police crack down on protests in New York City and elsewhere, what does OWS say about America?

It went something like this:

One of the cultural characteristics that makes America great is the fact that we celebrate winners in our society. We look at people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and we say to ourselves, “If I work hard enough, I can be like them.”

So we look in the mirror each morning and ask, “How am I doing? Am I working hard enough? Do I have the right education, skills and talent to succeed in this country?”

We don’t blame the rich for their successes, this cultural norm goes, because we know they worked hard and got what they deserved.

Instead, Horatio Alger-like, we turn these impulses inward in the name of self-improvement. We turn the success of others into models for our own behavior. We do not direct our personal frustrations and hostilities onto others.

This cultural reality in the US — this shared belief that hard work leads to economic success — has helped promote political stability and propel economic growth through the decades.

This idea has helped hard-working Americans grow richer, regardless of where they started and is perhaps the most important economic contribution the US has made to human society.

The critical assumption here, of course, is that the system needs to be fair. The rules of the game need to apply to all.

And that’s where the trouble starts.

The Occupy Wall Street movement represents a reversal of this largely unstated social contract in this country.

Right on cue, protesters nationwide are reacting to this change in this longstanding social contract. They are massing. They are demanding change. They are standing up to what has become — to the perceptions of far too many Americans — a rigged game.

A glance at the many protest signs from around the country makes the point:

“Robin Hood was right.”

“This country was built by men in denim and will be destroyed by men in suits”

“I am a human being, not a commodity”

“I can’t afford a lobbyist. I am the 99 percent”

In short, the social contract in America is broken. The optimistic glue that has successfully held together so much diversity, so many disparate dreams, for so long, is coming undone.

This is the unspoken message behind the Occupy Wall Street movement — in New York, Boston, Oakland, Portland and in all the other unhappy cities around the US. Its echoes can be heard around the world, from Tahrir Square, to London, to Tokyo, to every other place where economic inequality is today rearing its ugly head.

This is the larger point that so many people are trying to make, in so many different places.

Understanding this root cause is critical to addressing the problem, and finding a potential solution.

Unfortunately, the 99 percent and the 1 percent appear to be miles apart, and this is particularly true in the US right now.

Read the following statement attributed to Dennis Gartman, author of the popular financial industry newsletter the Gartman Letter, that was published Thursday on the FT Alphaville blog:

We celebrate income disparity and we applaud the growing margins between the bottom 20% of American society and the upper 20% for it is evidence of what has made America a great country. It is the chance to have a huge income… to make something of one’s self; to begin a business and become a millionaire legally and on one’s own that separates the US from most other nations of the world. Do we feel bad for the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the US? Of course not; we celebrate it, for we were poor once and we are reasonably wealthy now. We did it on our own, by the sheet dint of will, tenacity, street smarts and the like. That is why immigrants come to the US: to join the disparate income earners at the upper levels of society and to leave poverty behind. Income inequality? Give us a break? God bless income disparity and those who have succeeded, and shame upon the OWS crowd who take us to task for our success and wallow in their own failure. Income disparity? Feh! What we despise is government that imposes rules that prohibit or make it difficult to make even more money; to employ even more people; to give even more sums to the charities of our choice. That is what we despise.”

Yes, Gartman is tapping into this rags to riches tradition in America. But his argument — which is a common refrain among those fighting for the staus quo — ignores what every child on every playground in the US intuitively knows: the rules of the game have to be fair.

Prior to this chaotic moment in our history, most Americans could turn their personal frustrations into productive energy. They could work harder. They could plot, plan and dream about riches. And, god bless America, millions succeeded in these endeavors.

But this social contract only worked if there was reasonable hope that these human energies would produce results. This only worked, in other words, if fairness was the norm.

This is also the larger point that Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman — the heavyweight champion of the world of free markets — made regularly.

In his seminal 1960 work Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman wrote the following:

“The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rules of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on.

In 1970, Friedman was at it again, this time on the social responsibilities of business as it relates to profit:

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.”

So long as it stays within the rules of the game, Friedman believed, business was the best mechanism for producing social harmony.

According to most OWS protesters, this is precisely the problem: the American system is no longer free or fair (bankers win). The rules of the game no longer apply equally to all (lobbyists hired by the most powerful write the laws). The government’s umpire role is non-existent (Washington is staffed with former Goldman Sachs CEOs who bail out banks instead of helping “regular people”).

Of course, Friedman was the first to argue — highly effectively — that less government is better. Smaller and more efficient government is better for the economy, better for people and better for society. Anyone who has waited hours in line for a driver’s license or any other government service can attest to that.

But goverment has a role to play, even if it’s a limited one, of allowing a sense of fairness back into the American story.

Vitriolic rampage against government only creates more division. Vilification of the less well-off is no answer to this country’s rising inequality problems. Triumphalism from society’s winners breeds abhorrence from the rest.

Taken together this toxic mix of anger, frustration, and rising contempt by all threatens everything that America — the most successful economic engine the world has ever produced — once represented for all.

 

Source: https://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/business-tech/111117/occupy-wall-street-the-hidden-meaning-behind-protests

Islamophobia of the West and historic perspective

Islamophobia is one of the overriding factors behind the policy of persecution and oppression of the Muslims by the US and its non-Muslim allies. Muslim-Christian antagonism dates back to the period of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who was blessed with prophet hood in 610AD.

In less than twenty years he transformed the savage Arab tribes into a civilized people. When Mecca was captured in 630AD and cleared of all the idols, he forgave all those who had persecuted and insulted him and forced him to migrate to Madina. Mecca became the cradle of a new civilization and fountain-head of a new culture. Infussed by his teachings, the Arab nomads brought about the greatest revolution in the annals of mankind. The Christians and Jews indulged in endless intrigues and conspired to undermine Islam and defame Holy Prophet. Reverence to the greatest benefactor of mankind among 1.5 billion Muslims spread all over the globe remains undiminished.

During the era of four Caliphs of Islam (632-661AD), the two mighty empires of Byzantine and Persia were dismantled. In the space of 100 years the Arab Muslim armies conquered an empire extending from the Pamirs in the east to the Atlantic coast of Morocco in the west, and northward into southern France. The Muslim Empire was a more civilized society than that of Christian Europe. Tolerance and justice exhibited by the Muslims towards other religions have been universally acknowledged. However, despite the benevolence of the Muslims, the Christians viewed the progression of Muslims as a threat to Christianity and nurtured innate grudge against them.

Spain was ruled by the Muslims from 714 till 1492 during which it attained world fame. Cordova was turned into a world ranking city of culture and education and became the centre of learning. The rulers showed tolerance towards Christians and Jews and were given complete liberty to build churches and synagogues. The glorious Muslim civilization in Iberian Peninsula dispelled the darkness that had enveloped Medieval Europe. Once the process of their decay set in, the Christian powers got united under the banner of Ferdinand and invaded Spain. Helped by disgruntled Muslim notables, Cordova was captured in 1236 and Seville in 1248. The capture of last stronghold of the Muslims at Grenada in 1492 made the Christians the masters of Spain and put an end to Andulusia civilization abruptly.

The Christians killed all the Muslims who refused to exile or convert to Christianity. A large number were converted by force while millions were banished. But even conversion to Christianity could not save them from the wrath of Spanish Christians. They were subsequently massacred. Although all traces of Muslim heritage, art and culture were obliterated after the ‘cross’ replaced the ‘crescent’ from the horizon of Spain, and the Moors themselves faded into dustbin of history, Spain and the western world stand forever in their debt. The Spanish Muslims left behind indelible marks on the Spanish culture, language, race and geography.

Although western and Hindu writers created a myth that Islam spread through the power of sword and have dried their pens describing the atrocities committed by Muslim rulers, slaughter committed by the crusaders have no parallel. Jerusalem was retaken in 1099 by Christian forces in a veritable bloodbath. All the 70,000 Muslims and Jews were slaughtered. When Caliph Omar took over Jerusalem in 7th century, he didn’t put a single person to sword.

Turning the pages of history about the Crusade wars, in their desperate bid to possess the holy land of Jerusalem, Palestine and Egypt from the Muslims, the Christian world instigated by religious priests launched series of ferocious Crusades from 1096 onwards. All told, eight Crusades were launched during the period of 1096-1271, in which the holy city exchanged hands several times. Never before the Christian world was so culturally united as it was on the occasion of first Crusade. Pope Urban II exhorted the Christians to make war upon the ‘wicked race’ that held the Holy Land.

The Crusaders apart from shedding rivers of blood of Muslims poisoned the minds of the west against the Muslims by deliberately representing teachings and ideals of Quran. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was described as anti-Christ and religion of Islam depicted as a fount of immorality and perversion. It was represented as a religion of crude sensualism and brutal violence. They kept sowing seeds of hatred and resultantly misperception about Islam and Prophet got permanently planted in the minds of Christians.

When Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi re-conquered Jerusalem in 1187, unlike the brutal ways of Christians, he spared all those who surrendered their arms. Women, children and old men were set free. When the combined armies of France, Germany and others tried to retake Jerusalem in 1189, they suffered a decisive defeat and were routed in 1192. The military defeat of the Crusaders left deep imprints of prejudice and hostility among the Christendom against Islam, the effects of which have persisted till today. The second phase of Crusades was undertaken by European nations in late 13th century. The Crusades which petered out in 17th century continue to shape global imagination of US leaders to this day. Deep-seated prejudice against Islam, found in western literature and in the minds of current generation is rooted in history of hate that took birth during Crusades.

Muslims were considered highly progressive in science and technology till 14th and 15th centuries. They had gained enviable prominence in several branches of science, especially medicine, chemistry, optics, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. After the long rules of Ummayads (661-750) and Abbasids (750-1258), the Ottoman Empire (1290-1566) wielded considerable political and military strength and held sway in Europe, Asia and Africa. Its vast dominions included major parts of southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa stretching from gates of Vienna to the wall of China in east; and from Ukraine in the north to the source of Nile in the south.

The great Empire started withering in 16th century due to over extension and lust for materialism. Apart from the Ottomans, another powerful Muslim Empire that emerged in 16th century was the Safavid Dynasty in Persia that reached its peak under Shah Abbas. It ruled with firmness for 200 years. Yet another dynamic and great Muslim empire in that period was that of the Moghuls in Indian subcontinent (1526-1858) which remained at the pinnacle of its glory till 1707.

Europe was in darkness till the Renaissance in France. It had passed through orthodoxy, intolerance and irrationalism under the influence of popes and cardinals of that time. The west became civilized after annihilating eight-century old Andulusia civilization. From middle of 15th century, Europe got engulfed in commercial revolution. Spain, Portugal, Holland, France and England embarked upon exploring overseas markets in the east. By early 16th century, the European economy had expanded manifold and gave rise to capitalism. By 1600, Western Europe had gone through cultural transformation and by 1800 it had reached a stage whereby it could dominate the world in general and Islamic world in particular. Europe and North America became economically prosperous and militarily stronger than the rest of the world as a result of industrial revolution.

Europe started making speedy scientific and technological progress from middle of 18th century. The overseas colonial expansion by the European nations which had waned a little recommenced after 1870 under the title of ‘new imperialism. Industrial revolution in Europe heightened the need for raw material and cheap labor. Great powers jostled for additional colonial territories in Middle East, Africa, Asia and Pacific Basin rich in minerals and raw materials. Moral justification propounded by the colonizers to annex economically self-sufficient Muslim states was to enlighten the uncouth in Asia and Africa and to usher in progress and civilization. Forced evolution of Muslim societies was justified under the phrase of ‘white man’s burden’. By end of 19th century, the Europeans had most of Africa and much of Asia. Britain held the largest empire and its navy was unchallenged in any ocean of the world.

Economic prosperity of European powers also witnessed growth of antagonism between Christian powers vying to gain supremacy. Heightened rivalry between European powers ultimately led to First World War (1914-1918). Consequent to 2nd world war in which Germany under Adolph Hitler had embarked upon an ambitious plan to make Germany the most powerful nation of the world, the British Empire on which the sun had never set got exhausted economically and was no more in a position to administer its colonies effectively. Similar was the case with other colonial powers. In the wake of commencement of freedom movements, Britain decided to free its colonies and withdraw east of Suez. Britain convinced the newly emerged super power USA to fill up the power vacuum to checkmate the other super power Soviet Union and to subsequently neo-colonize its liberated colonies. Arab states in North Africa got freedom from France as late as 1960s.

Throughout its little less than 100 years rule, Britain went all out to shatter the spiritual and cultural heritage of the Indian Muslims. Before partition of colonized India in August 1947 by the British, Governor of United Provinces William Moore wrote a book on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in which he wrote negatively about the Prophet. He said, ‘Two things are the worst enemies of humanity; Prophet Muhammad’s Quran and his sword’. Britain gave a parting kick to Muslims by dividing India unjustly. It penalized Muslim Pakistan and favored Hindu India. Unresolved Kashmir dispute is the British legacy left behind which has bedeviled Indo-Pak relations. Ever since India and Pakistan have become independent, Britain has always sided with India and harmed Pakistan’s interests.

From early 1950s, the US embarked upon a multifaceted program to contain communism and weaken Soviet Union. Matching nuclear and conventional power of USSR restrained USA from making headlong confrontation and restricted itself to cold war. It had to ultimately seek assistance of Muslims to defeat its arch enemy. In the Afghan war in the 1980s not a single non-Muslim soldier took part. The US and western world glorified Mujahideen. Till the downfall of USSR in 1989, communism was regarded as the biggest threat to western ideology and capitalism.

Once the cold war ended and the US emerged as a sole super power, the neo-cons in USA and in western countries started a whispering campaign portraying Islam as the chief threat to Christian world. They advocated confronting the new threat with all available means. It was in line with this propaganda campaign that Samuel Huntington came out with his book ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in 1996, which set in motion plan for 9/11. Academics and think tanks sprung into action to promote the theme. Plans were made as early as 1997 to invade Afghanistan where Jihadis from all over the Muslim world had assembled to fight the evil empire of USSR and had not returned to their respective countries. Religious seminaries established in FATA region and funded by CIA to train students as Jihadis had also multiplied.

Jihad in Afghanistan had encouraged Muslim freedom fighters in Indian occupied Kashmir, Chechnya, Uzbekistan and elsewhere to wage liberation movements. The neo-cons not only desired annihilation of the main base of Jihad in Afghanistan but also the Jihadi producing seminaries in FATA. Invasion of Afghanistan and converting it into a permanent military base became all the more vital when Taliban succeeded in controlling social vices in Afghan society by introducing Sharia, and Pakistan aligned with Taliban turned nuclear. Iran had already slipped out of US hands. It was feared that unless proactive measures were taken, an Islamic bloc of Pakistan-Iran-Afghanistan may come into being. Denuclearization and secularization of Pakistan were listed as priority objectives.

The hidden hands of neo-cons and Jewish lobby prevailed upon the US Supreme Court to declare George W. Bush a winner in November 2000 elections despite that he had lost to Al Gore. 9/11 gave President Bush a readymade excuse to play havoc with the Muslims under the garb of global terrorism. After the attacks on World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Bush gave a policy statement, ‘We are starting a long-drawn-out Crusade’. On another occasion he said, ‘We will dry up ponds (Madaris) which produce mosquitoes (Islamic Ulemas). Vice President Dick Cheney viewed Muslim world as ‘brute and nasty’.

After such pronouncements, the militarily strongest and economically richest countries of the world pounced upon Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries of the world which had no connection with 9/11 and trampled it with their military boots. An orchestrated propaganda war was unleashed in USA and whole of Europe. Rupert Murdock managing Fox TV channel led the propaganda assault against Islam, coloring the perceptions of the west with many false impressions about Islam. CNN, ABC, BBC and western print media also chipped in. Jihadis of 1980s eulogized as Mujahideen and holy warriors were converted into terrorists. Small and unknown al-Qaeda outfit under Osama bin Laden created by CIA to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan was depicted as a global threat.

The mass media propelled by the US neo-cons constantly poisoned the minds of the west. Public thinking and perceptions about Muslims were thickly colored by portraying them as terrorists and Islam defined as a terrorism breeding religion. To further harm Islam, the western media further accentuated the British inspired concept of categorizing Islam into two categories as radical and moderate, and Muslims were treated accordingly. A notion was implanted that terrorism was exclusively confined to Muslim Arabs and non-Arab Muslims. The propagandists put aside left-wing and right-wing terrorists and international terrorists present among all religions and atheist world. All guns were trained on radical Muslims and non-Muslim radicals were spared.

Soon after annexation of Afghanistan, McCain, Lieberman and John Kyl lobbied for Saddam Hussein’s removal at the behest of Israel. Paul Wolfowitz, another Zionist insider was also a proponent of Iraq invasion. Fictitious stories to justify invasion of Iraq included WMDs, ties with al-Qaeda, Iraqi bio weapons laboratories, and purchase of yellow cake uranium from Niger. Saddam was declared a danger to humanity and Iraq was unjustly invaded. After destroying a modern and progressive country which was not involved in 9/11, and had done no harm to USA, Saddam was sent to the gallows.

It has now been established that 9/11 was engineered essentially to neo-colonize the Muslim world and capture its resources so as to pre-empt future danger from Islam, which the sole super power considers to be the only potent threat that could thwart its ambitions to gain total global monopoly. Many Americans contend that it was an in-house affair.

Even if 9/11 was not an in-house affair, the act was performed by few individuals who could have been brainwashed. Mind control techniques are in use of CIA for over six decades. What was so difficult for the CIA to control the minds of 19 Arabs for the implementation of neo-cons-Jewish agenda against Islam? Under no hypothesis it can be said that the suicidal acts were Islam inspired or supported by Muslims.

Military interventions against Muslim countries were justified under the veneer of morality by using false phrases of freedom, liberty, democracy, women emancipation and human rights. Muslims were persecuted on the plea of homeland security of USA. Different set of phrases were used for the two annexed countries.

Pamphlets were circulated projecting Quran as a book of terrorism. Few years ago a translation in English of Quran was published, which was subsequently translated in ancient Ubrani language. Under the title ‘Quran the ultimate truth’, thirty objections were raised which were widely circulated through media. An effort was made to prove that Quran was not a divine book but authored by Prophet Muhammad. Highly insulting language was used in respect of Holy Prophet. At one place it is written, ‘Quran is full of contradictions; hence it cannot be a book sent by God. Rather, it is a creation of a person suffering from delusion and dejection, or else few persons have collectively compiled it’.

In order to prove their contention that Quran is not a heavenly book, they challenged one of the injunctions of Quran saying ‘If you have doubts about its veracity, produce one Surah’ matching its quality. Four Surahs were produced by the challengers. Such wicked attempts to malign Quran were off and on made by non-Muslims, but after 9/11, Quran was targeted with a vengeance. For centuries the Jews and Christian zealots have been trying to prove that Quran is not a divine but have failed. As against all other heavenly books, Quran is the only Holy Scripture in which not a word or even comma has been modified, added or subtracted and remains unchanged because God had promised to protect it.

Vatican Pope played a negative role in undermining Islam. He has ignored prolonged caricature campaign in newspapers and on internet in some western countries to malign the image of revered Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), injuring the sentiments of 1.5 billion Muslims.

Nonie Darwish a converter to Christianity and Frank Gaffney are among the leading Islamophobes in USA. Darwish presents Islam as cruel, intolerant and anti-women. In her view, mosques and schools in Arab world teach the children virtues of Jihad and instigate them to resort to violence against non-believers. Both are inflaming hysteria against Islam. Islam-haters forget that the west is the originator of terrorism and is Muslim focused.

Hatred of non-Muslims against Quran and Islam has risen to such an extent that rulers of advanced countries are pressing the Muslim rulers to modify Quran by way of deleting verses pertaining to Jihad and Qital. They are demanding closure of Madaris or as a minimum changing their teaching syllabus since in their view these institutions are fomenting terrorism against the west. While image of Madaris and the ones running them are being smeared, no mention is made of ‘mind control techniques’ being employed by CIA.

54 out of 57 Muslim states have been made secular and efforts are in hand to secularize the rest as well. Most Muslim rulers are pawns of USA who accept its discriminatory and anti-Islamic policies. Practicing Muslims in Muslim countries and residing abroad are being brutally persecuted while those who know little of their religion and have adopted western culture are treated as transitory friends best-suited to defame Islam.

The US wants to impose western brand of democracy and civilization upon the Muslim world. It wants puppets and not upright and popular Muslim leaders. Having learnt bitter lessons from Algeria’s fair and free elections in early 1990s and Palestinian elections in 2003 in which Islamists were elected, it encourages use of fraudulent means to ensure election of compliant rulers. In case of Pakistan the US was instrumental in brokering a secret deal between Gen Musharraf and late Benazir and later on in the issuance of hated NRO which enabled USA to micro-manage Pakistan affairs and brought it to such a sorry state.

Islamophobia in actuality is an irrational fear of Islam and is an effort to save socially decaying western civilization. It is ironic that the age-old western resentment against Islam should still persist subconsciously at a time when religion has lost most of its hold on the imaginations of the people of the west. The shadow of Crusades hovers over the west to this day. A recent example of this inbuilt hatred was seen in Florida where a bigoted pastor Terry Jones burnt copies of Quran and is unrepentant on his shameful act. Without having read the Quran, he maintains that Quran encourages terrorism against Christians and poses a threat to USA and western world. Such self created lurking fears of extremist Christians together with their economic ambitions have upped the level of their hatred against Muslims to such heights that their thirst to suck the blood of Muslims has become unquenchable.

While Afghanistan and Iraq have been ruthlessly destroyed and close to two million people massacred, Pakistan is being continuously bled and economically ruined despite that it is an ally. Propaganda war as well as physical war against Muslims under Barack Obama has not scaled down even a wee bit. Sudan has been divided and Libya is now targeted and soon there will be a regime change and a US puppet installed. Sooner than later, Syria will be under fire. Yemen is fast cracking up from within and several other Arab states in turmoil are providing opportunities to USA to intervene. Military interventions and slaughter of Muslims are solely aimed at neo-colonizing Muslim world, capturing their natural resources and giving a deathblow to Islam.

The US supported by western allies, Israel, India and Russia are all engaged in killing Muslims on the pretext that extremist Muslims are all terrorists and pose a danger to world peace. The UN supposed to follow even handed policies is highly biased and is anti-Muslim. While it promptly points finger at Muslim countries and unhesitatingly approves economic sanctions and military actions, it ignores high handed policies and human rights violations of USA, Israel and India. It is rightly dubbed as the mistress of USA since it has all along served non-Muslims vested interests.

Sensing that the roots of Islam are being systematically weakened with the help of their pawns within Muslim countries, the Islamists dubbed as terrorists are confronting anti-Islamic forces with whatever primitive means available and are getting bled profusely. Muslim blood will continue to be spilled by non-Muslim powers as long as Mir Jaffars, Mir Sadiqs, AlQami and Toosi are present within Muslim ranks and string-puppet rulers dancing to the tunes of Washington sit in corridors of powers. No foreign conspiracy, covert war or physical intervention can succeed without their support.

 

Source: https://www.thosepeoples.tk/2011/11/islamophobia-of-west-and-historic.html

Depression in Women doubles since 1970s

Women have taken on more responsibilities and challenges over the years, such as handling a family and working simultaneously. Along with these responsibilities came feelings of depression and unhappiness, researchers say.

While women used to be the happy ones, the tables have turned, with women being the unhappy gender in today’s world. Women reported being much happier and less stressed decades ago compared to recent years. Since the 1970′s, depressive episodes have doubled, with further increasing up until the 1990′s. Since then, the amount of depression women face has stagnated, with it leveling off in recent years.

A Daily Mail Online reporter writes the following:

Researchers who have studied the extent of mental health problems across Europe say rates of depression in women have doubled since the 1970s.

They found that women are most at risk from the age of 16 to 42, when they tend to have children.

These age groups have between 10 and 13.4 per cent chance of developing depression – twice as high as men in the same age bracket.

Professor Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, who led the study, said: ‘In depression you see this 2.6 times higher rate amongst females.

‘There are clusters in the reproductive years between the ages of 16 to 42.

‘In females you see these incredibly high rates of depressive episodes at the time when they are having babies, where they raise children, where they have to cope with the double responsibilities of having a job and a family.

‘This is what is causing the tremendous burden.

‘It’s the effect on the females who can’t care any more for their family and are trying to be active in their profession, which is one of these major drivers of these higher rates.

‘We have seen compared to the 1970s a doubling of depressive episodes amongst females.

‘It happened in the 1980s and 1990s, there are no further increases now.

‘It’s now levelling off, it’s pretty much stabilised but it’s much much higher than the 1970s.’

The German researchers looked at the extent of mental health problems including dementia, eating disorders and even insomnia across the continent using previous studies and surveys.

Their work, which is published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, found that 38 per cent of people are suffering from some form of mental illness. The most common of these are depression, insomnia, phobias and dementia in old age.

Just last month American researchers found that ‘supermums’ – women who try to juggle careers and families – are far more likely to be depressed.

Their study of 1,600 young women was carried out at the University of Washington.

It concluded that the women who try to do it all are more likely to feel like failures.

But other experts said men are just as likely to suffer from depression.

The difference is that men tend not to admit it so they are often never diagnosed, researchers say.

Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity SANE, said: ‘The reason we believe that depression is twice as common amongst women than men is that women are more prepared to talk about it.

‘Men can find it more difficult to describe their feelings of anxiety, depression or loneliness and may lack the language to express their inner feelings.’

 

Source: https://naturalsociety.com/depression-in-women-doubles-since-1970s/

Hillary Clinton and the new American (Pacific) Century

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently published in Foreign Policy magazine, “America’s Pacific Century,” a Hitlerian declaration of imperial intent for American “leadership” in Asia for the next 100 years. The piece, which could just as easily been penned by Neo-Con policy makers begins with, “the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.”

Of course, America’s presence throughout the Middle East and the control it exercises over the region’s oil resources, as well as over the region as a logistical hub, is essential in tempering the rise of Asiaand ultimately hemming in the rise of China and Central Asia. The “Arab Spring” which Secretary Clinton and the US State Department had been a part of preparing, equipping, training, and even arming for at least 2 years prior, is the coup de grâce meant to completely overturn the multi-polar nature of the Middle East and ultimately the world.

Upon reading Clinton’s declaration of intent for American leadership into the next century, readers may recall the similarly named, ranting “Project for a New American Century” signed off on by some of America’s most notorious Neo-Conservatives, which almost verbatim made the same case now made by Clinton. In fact, America’s evolving confrontation with China, marked acutely by Obama’s announcement of a permanent US military presence in Australia just this week, is torn directly from the pages of decades-old blueprints drawn up by corporate-financier funded think-tanks that truly rule America and its destiny.

As reported in June, 2011′s “Collapsing China,” as far back as 1997 there was talk about developing an effective containment strategy coupled with the baited hook of luring China into its place amongst the “international order.” Just as in these 1997 talking-points where author and notorious Neo-Con policy maker Robert Kagan described the necessity of using America’s Asian “allies” as part of this containment strategy, Clinton goes through a list of regional relationships the US is trying to cultivate to maintain “American leadership” in Asia.

For example, the recently reinstalled Wall Street proxy regime in Thailand led by Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck, has received reassurances by Clinton herself just this week stating that, “it is in the national security and political interest of the United States to have this government succeed.” As reported in-depth in “CONFIRMED: Thailand’s “Pro-Democracy” Movement Working for US,” Thaksin Shinawatra and his political regime have had long-standing, well-documented ties to Wall Street and London. The US backing of puppet-regimes like Thaksin, installing them into power, and keeping them there is central to projecting power throughout Asia and keeping China subordinate, or as Kagan put it in his 1997 report, these proxy regimes will have China “play Gulliver to Southeast Asia’s Lilliputians, with the United States supplying the rope and stakes.”

It is essential to look past the empty rhetoric of “democracy,” “human rights,” and “progress” used to justify foreign-funding and meddling to install servile autocrats like Thailand’s Thaksin orMalaysia’s stooge dictator-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim and see the greater geopolitical game at play and the disastrous conclusion it is leading us all toward. It is also essential to expose the disingenuous organizations, institutions, and media personalities helping promote this global corporate-fascist agenda.

Above all, it is important not to allow ourselves and our countrymen to be manipulated and their lives wasted in the inevitable conflicts that are sure to arise as Wall Street and London struggle to maintain, or even expand their global financial, economic, and military hegemony.

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/hillary-clinton-and-new-american.html

41% of Americans say the the “American Dream” is dead

In a somewhat shocking poll conducted by Yahoo! Finance, it has emerged that 41% of Americans believe that the so-called “American Dream” has been lost.

I say this is somewhat shocking because it appears that many Americans are just waking up to this reality.

However, the majority of Americans polled believe that the economy is getting worse. 63% said the American economy is getting worse, while 72% of those over 55 find this to be the case.

The “American Dream,” for the most part, has had a war waged against it for many years and we are just now seeing the devastating impact that this has had.

This has been done by the criminal banking elite which, with the help of the private Federal Reserve, defrauds and robs the American people with impunity.

It appears that younger people, like myself, are so blinded by the propaganda of the establishment media and mindless entertainment that they either do not care about or do not see the reality of the situation in America.

The poll also brought some more disturbing numbers to light including: 37% of American adults have zero retirement savings, and 38% plan on living off of meager Social Security.

An article in Yahoo’s Daily Ticker claims that macroeconomic data shows that the economy has technically recovered, but the majority of Americans aren’t feeling it.

While they do point out that a record of 49.1 million Americans are poor, they don’t point out that the outlook for the unemployed is less than promising, especially for the long-term unemployed, and the only ones who seem to be coming out on top are the corporations and banksters.

This isn’t quite surprising, as most establishment news sources continue to pretend that everything is okay and that we are currently recovering.

If you talk to average Americans, this usually isn’t the case. Many are falling on hard times which are only getting worse as the days and weeks drag on.

Sure, the macroeconomic data might show a recovery, but this is heavily weighted by corporations and the financial industry.

They say, “Considering 49 million Americans are living in poverty, the ‘real’ unemployment rate is 16% and millions of Americans are facing foreclosure, it’s no wonder many believe the recession never ended.”

However, the use of “believe” indicates that many Americans are simply ignorant or misled, but is that really the case?

If many Americans do not see the economic recovery in their lives, is there really a real recovery or a corporate-bankster recovery?

The survey also showed that many Americans are increasingly unwilling to take on debt, feel less confident about purchasing a home, and are spending less money while having less in their savings than both 1- and 3-years ago.

Other results of the poll, which was conducted in September by polling 1500 Americans between 18 and 64 years of age with the help of Ipsos OTX MediaCT, were not quite as grim.

They also found that between Americans ages 18-34, 53% believe that America is still the land of opportunity.

45% of American parents think that their children will be better off than they are while a surprising 68% of those polled say that their current financial situation is either “satisfactory” or “excellent.”

The Daily Ticker reports that this is consistent with the broad trend of growing income inequality in the United States.

They point out, “those doing well in America are doing quite well, indeed.”

This also reinforces the point that the recovery is only being felt by individuals who are already wealthy, and those who continue to steal every penny possible from Americans within the Federal Reserve and the big banks nationwide.

Hopefully more Americans will begin to take notice of the reality of the economic situation and start speaking out before it gets worse.

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/41-percent-of-americans-say-that.html#more

Wall Street firms spy on protesters in tax-funded center

Wall Street’s audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1% knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens.

According to newly unearthed documents, the planning for this high tech facility on lower Broadway dates back six years. In correspondence from 2005 that rests quietly in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s archives, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly promised Edward Forst, a Goldman Sachs’ Executive Vice President at the time, that the NYPD “is committed to the development and implementation of a comprehensive security plan for Lower Manhattan…One component of the plan will be a centralized coordination center that will provide space for full-time, on site representation from Goldman Sachs and other stakeholders.”

At the time, Goldman Sachs was in the process of extracting concessions from New York City just short of the Mayor’s first born in exchange for constructing its new headquarters building at 200 West Street, adjacent to the World Financial Center and in the general area of where the new World Trade Center complex would be built. According to the 2005 documents, Goldman’s deal included $1.65 billion in Liberty Bonds, up to $160 million in sales tax abatements for construction materials and tenant furnishings, and the deal-breaker requirement that a security plan that gave it a seat at the NYPD’s Coordination Center would be in place by no later than December 31, 2009.

The surveillance plan became known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative and the facility was eventually dubbed the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. It operates round-the-clock. Under the imprimatur of the largest police department in the United States, 2,000 private spy cameras owned by Wall Street firms, together with approximately 1,000 more owned by the NYPD, are relaying live video feeds of people on the streets in lower Manhattan to the center. Once at the center, they can be integrated for analysis. At least 700 cameras scour the midtown area and also relay their live feeds into the downtown center where low-wage NYPD, MTA and Port Authority crime stoppers sit alongside high-wage personnel from Wall Street firms that are currently under at least 51 Federal and state corruption probes for mortgage securitization fraud and other matters.

In addition to video analytics which can, for example, track a person based on the color of their hat or jacket, insiders say the NYPD either has or is working on face recognition software which could track individuals based on facial features. The center is also equipped with live feeds from license plate readers.

According to one person who has toured the center, there are three rows of computer workstations, with approximately two-thirds operated by non-NYPD personnel. The Chief-Leader, the weekly civil service newspaper, identified some of the outside entities that share the space: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange. Others say most of the major Wall Street firms have an on-site representative. Two calls and an email to Paul Browne, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, seeking the names of the other Wall Street firms at the center were not returned. An email seeking the same information to City Council Member, Peter Vallone, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, was not returned.

In a press release dated October 4, 2009 announcing the expansion of the surveillance territory, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Kelly had this to say:

“The Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative will add additional cameras and license plate readers installed at key locations between 30th and 60th Streets from river to river. It will also identify additional private organizations who will work alongside NYPD personnel in the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where corporate and other security representatives from Lower Manhattan have been co-located with police since June 2009. The Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center is the central hub for both initiatives, where all the collected data are analyzed.” [Italic emphasis added.]

The project has been funded by New York City taxpayers as well as all U.S. taxpayers through grants from the Federal Department of Homeland Security. On March 26, 2009, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) wrote a letter to Commissioner Kelly, noting that even though the system involves “massive expenditures of public money, there have been no public hearings about any aspect of the system…we reject the Department’s assertion of ‘plenary power’ over all matters touching on public safety…the Department is of course subject to the laws and Constitution of the United States and of the State of New York as well as to regulation by the New York City Council.”

The NYCLU also noted in its letter that it rejected the privacy guidelines for the surveillance operation that the NYPD had posted on its web site for public comment, since there had been no public hearings to formulate these guidelines. It noted further that “the guidelines do not limit police surveillance and databases to suspicious activity…there is no independent oversight or monitoring of compliance with the guidelines.”

According to Commissioner Kelly in public remarks, the privacy guidelines were written by Jessica Tisch, the Director of Counterterrorism Policy and Planning for the NYPD who has played a significant role in developing the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center. In 2006, Tisch was 25 years old and still working on her law degree and MBA at Harvard, according to a wedding announcement in the New York Times. Tisch is a friend to the Mayor’s daughter, Emma; her mother, Meryl, is a family friend to the Mayor.

Tisch is the granddaughter and one of the heirs to the now-deceased billionaire Laurence Tisch who built the Loews Corporation. Her father, James Tisch, is now the CEO of the Loews Corporation and was elected by Wall Street banks to sit on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until 2013 representing the public’s interest. (Clearly, the 1 per cent think they know what’s best for the 99 per cent.)

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the entity which doled out the bulk of the $16 trillion in bailout loans to the U.S. and foreign financial community. Members of Tisch’s family work for Wall Street firms or hedge funds which have prime broker relationships with them. A division of Loews Corporation has a banking relationship with Citigroup.

The Tisch family stands to directly benefit from the surveillance program. In June of this year, Continental Casualty Company, the primary unit of the giant CNA Financial which is owned by Loew’s Corp., signed a 19-year lease for 81,296 square feet at 125 Broad Street – an area under surveillance by the downtown surveillance center.

Loews Corporation also owns the Loew’s Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in midtown, an area which is also now under round-the-clock surveillance on the taxpayer’s dime.

Wall Street is infamous for perverting everything it touches: from the Nasdaq stock market, to stock research issued to the public, to auction rate securities, mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, credit default swaps with AIG, and mortgage securitizations. Had a public hearing been held on this massive surveillance sweep of Manhattan by potential felons, hopefully someone might have pondered what was to prevent Wall Street from tracking its employee whistleblowers heading off to the FBI offices or meeting with a reporter.

One puzzle has at least been solved.

Wall Street’s criminals have not been indicted or sent to jail because they have effectively become the police.

 

Source: https://truthsquad.tv/?p=1008

CODEX ALIMENTARIUS & THE GLOBAL FOOD TYRANNY

“If this Directive is not stopped, there will be only one medical world: the pharmaceutical world. When this Codex project began in 2001, some 180 million protest letters reached their office, but Codex doesn’t give up on protecting us.” -Helke Ferrie

Do you recall seeing the following headlines splashed across newspapers? “Man Dies Of Vitamin C Overdose” “Scores Of Youth Lost To Vitamin Overdose Each Year”

No, of course you haven’t, but that won’t stop the government from “protecting” the American public from vitamins and supplements. The pharmaceutical industry is working hard to push the US to adopt Codex Alimentarius guidelines governing vitamins and supplements which have already been implemented in Germany, Norway and Canada: vitamins and supplements, which are now classified as food, will be newly classified as drugs. In doing so, they will then only be dispensed at limited amount under prescriptions, “to stop consumers overdosing on vitamin and mineral food supplements.”

The Codex Alimentarius program was officially created in 1963 by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization for the purpose of setting guidelines for international food trade. Funded by pharmaceutical corporations and donors like the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundations through the UN, it is a committee consisting of unelected officials masquerading as the watchdogs of food & nutrition. The guidelines set by Codex are dutifully followed by participating countries because of interlocking international treaties set by the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Countries face economic sanctions and loss of trade privileges for their refusal to adopt Codex guidelines.

Small family farms and independent producers of food are the target of Codex regulations. They are pitted in a David-and-Goliath-like match with the multi-billion dollar mass production cartel who infiltrate, lobby and bribe federal agencies. This incremental shut down of small farms will eventually result in the unavailability of organic, locally grown food that is free of GMO’s and toxic pesticides and herbicides.

Marti Oakley, a blogger with farmwars.info, says “CODEX, although its PR pages make it sound wonderful for the planet, is instead a system to end the human right to foods of our choice, produced by us, and purchased, exchanged, bartered, and consumed by us free from corporate interference and from unnecessary government regulation and control.”

Canada, Germany and Norway have already implemented Codex’s guidelines marking vitamins and supplements as drugs, resulting in vitamins and supplements being sold at ridiculously high prices for virtually ineffective low doses. Allowable dosages are calculated by assessing what an ideal diet would naturally provide, and subtracting that amount of vitamin from the dose to avoid nutrient overdose. To further convince you that you’re just a hippie trying to shun conventional medicine, the Codex Article 6 instructs that labels shall “not attribute to food supplements the property of preventing, treating or curing a human disease, or refer to such properties”. Vitamins play the starring role in curing and preventing many diseases, such as rickets, anemia, and osteoporosis, but this information is conveniently overlooked by the committee chaired by Randy Dennin of Pfizer that decides the vitamin “safety limits”. (Drug companies deciding safety limits for natural nutrients is surely a conflict of interest that directly impacts the profits of said pharmaceutical companies.)

According to the “Manifesto on the Future of Food”, the Codex Alimentarius has “codified policies designed to serve the interest of global agribusiness above all others, while actively undermining the rights of farmers and consumers”. – Manifesto on the Future of Food, produced by The International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, Italy, 2003

Codex guidelines successfully fly under the radar of the general public by being trickled down gradually over a number of years. The slow change is an attempt to gradually shift the public to reject natural vitamins & nutrients and embrace pharmaceuticals. Most Americans have never heard of Codex, and an internet search will first direct you to the FDA website which assures you that Codex has only the best intentions. Just last year, America’s favorite POW, Senator John McCain, introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010, which would have brought the US in line with Codex’s guidelines for vitamins and supplements. It was only due to the opposition of Americans who were onto this scheme that Sen. McCain withdrew his support of this bill within a month of its introduction. Surely, to be ignorant of the dangers posed by Codex Alimentarius is to turn a blind eye to tyranny. Education and awareness of this important issue are our only defense.

 

Source: https://truthsquad.tv/?p=346

Majority of 1% don’t know they’re part of the 1%

Think you’re part of the 99 percent? You may be wrong.

Half of the top one percent of earners, don’t think they’re part of that category, a new survey from wealth marketing firm, HNW Inc., finds. The survey, which polled 100 people making more than $350,000 per year, also found that two-thirds of the respondents don’t sympathize with the Occupy Movement.

That could be because many of the survey respondents’ views are at odds with those of the protesters. Nearly 45 percent of respondents said they think they pay too much in taxes and only 37 percent think the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Still, more than half of respondents said they think the financial industry needs more regulation.

Two-thirds of those surveyed also said they believe Occupy Wall Street is a “flash in the pan” - an assessment the protesters are attempting to defy even after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to clear Zuccotti Park of protesters and their belongings early Thursday morning. The majority of New Yorkers believe the protesters should be allowed to stay in the park, according to a Siena College poll released Tuesday.

Still, some one-percenters are throwing their weight behind the 99 percent movement. Fifty sevenmembers of Congress fall into the top 1 percent of earners, according to a USA Today analysis, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has said she supports the Occupy movement. In addition, celebrity one-percenters such as filmmaker Michael Moore, actor Alec Baldwin and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons have also publicly backed the protests.

Though nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents said they believe there is a wealth gap in the U.S. - one of the many rallying cries of the movement — only 25 percent see it as a problem. That could be because it’s the rich that have been the primary beneficiaries. The one percent saw their incomes rise 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while Americans in the bottom fifth of earners saw an income boost of only 20 percent.

Even if all of the one percent realize they’re rich, their kids probably won’t find out. One-third of parents worth $20 million or more discussed their wealth with their children, according to a survey released earlier this month.

 

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/one-percenters_n_1095837.html

Lessons from Iceland: The people can have the power

As early progress in Iceland shows since the banking collapse, the 21st century will be the century of the common people. Of us.

The Guardian

The Dutch minister of internal affairs said at a speech during free press day this year: “Law-making is like a sausage, no one really wants to know what is put in it.” He was referring to how expensive the Freedom of Information Act is, and was suggesting that journalists shouldn’t really be asking for so much governmental information. His words exposed one of the core problems in our democracies: too many people don’t care what goes into the sausage, not even the so-called law-makers, the parliamentarians.

If the 99% want to reclaim our power, our societies, we have to start somewhere. An important first step is to sever the ties between the corporations and the state by making the process of lawmaking more transparent and accessible for everyone who cares to know or contribute. We have to know what is in that law sausage; the monopoly of the corporate lobbyist has to end – especially when it comes to laws regulating banking and the internet.

The Icelandic nation only consists 311,000 souls, so we have a relatively small bureaucratic body and can move quicker then in most countries. Many have seen Iceland as the ideal country for experimentation for new solutions in an era of transformation. I agree.

We had the first revolution after the financial troubles in 2008. Due to a lack of transparency, corruption and nepotism, Iceland had the third largest financial meltdown in human history, and it shook us profoundly. The Icelandic people realised that everything we had put our trust in had failed us. One of the demands during the protests that followed – and that resulted in getting rid of the government, the central bank manager and the head of the financial authority – was that we would get to rewrite our constitution. “We” meaning the 99%, not the politicians who had failed us. Another demand was that we should have real democratic tools, such as being able to call directly for a national referendum and dissolve parliament.

As an activist, web developer and poet, I never dreamt of being a politician and nor have I ever wanted to be a part of a political party. That was bound to change during these exceptional times. I helped create a political movement from the various grassroots movements in the wake of the crisis. We were officially created eight weeks prior to the election, and based our structure on horizontalism and consensus. We had no leaders, but rotating spokespeople; we did not define ourselves as left or right but around an agenda based on democratic reform, transparency and bailing out the people, not the banks. We vowed that no one should remain in parliament longer then eight years and our movement would dissolve if our goals had not been achieved within eight years. We had no money, no experts; we were just ordinary people who’d had enough and who needed to have power both within the system and outside it. We got 7% of the vote and four of us entered the belly of the beast.

Many great things have occurred in Iceland since our days of shock in 2008. Our constitution has been rewritten by the people for the people. A constitution is such an important measure of what sort of society people want to live in. It is the social agreement. Once it is passed, our new constitutionwill bring more power to the people and give us proper tools to restrain those in power. The foundation for the constitution was created by 1,000 people randomly selected from the national registry. We elected 25 people to put that vision into words. The new constitution is now in the parliament. It will be up to the 99% to call for a national vote on it so that we inside the parliament know exactly what the nation wants and will have to follow suit. If the constitution passes, we will have almost achieved everything we set out to do. Our agenda was written on various open platforms; direct democracy is the high north of our political compass in everything we do.

Having the tools for direct democracy is not enough though. We have to find ways to inspire the public to participate in co-creating the reality they want to live in. This can only be done by making direct democracy more local. Then people will feel the direct impact of their input. We don’t need bigger systems, we need to downsize them so they can truly serve us and so we can truly shape them.

The capital city of Reykjavík has launched a direct democracy platform, where everyone can put in a suggestion in a community forum about things they want to be done in the city. The city council has to take the top five suggestions and process them every month. Next step is to have a similar system for the parliament, and the logical step after that is to have the same system for the ministries.

From conversations I have had with people from Occupy London it is obvious we are all thinking along the same lines. All systems are down: banking, education, health, social, political – the most logical thing would be to start a fresh system based on values other than consumerism, which maximises profit and self-destruction. We are strong, the power is ours: we are many, they are few. We are living in times of crisis. Let’s embrace this time for it is the only time real changes are possible by the masses.

Source:

https://www.sovereignindependent.com/?p=29907

George Orwell on War

The reason why George Orwell seems to have so accurately predicted what we are in the midst of today is precisely because it is nothing new.

We have a chance — once again — to fight the tyranny that has landed on our doorstep.

Let’s see if we can get it right this time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/05/quote-of-day-george-orwell-on-war.html