Sandra Finley

(2 of 2) Chris Hedges, What makes for successful revolution? Excerpts from “Wages of Rebellion” (Political prisoners, Rebels.)

 Chris Hedges, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Peace or Violence  No Responses »
Jan 292017
 
 
  Chris Hedges, “Wages of Rebellion”   (excerpts from end of book)
 

P. 183

…  Manning’s sentence (35 years in prison) once again confirmed the inversion of our moral and legal order, the capitulation of the press, and the misuse of the law to prevent any oversight or investigation of official abuses of power, including war crimes.

The sentencing of Manning marked the day when the state formally declared that all who name and expose its crimes will become political

P. 184

prisoners or will be forced, like Snowden, to free into exile.  State power, the sentence showed us, will be unaccountable.  And those who do not accept unlimited state power  – – always the road to tyranny – – will be persecuted.   . . .

Manning, if we had a functioning judiciary, would have been a witness for the prosecution against the war criminals she helped expose.  She would not have been headed, bound and shackled, to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

But the Government effectively shut down Manning’s defense team.  The Army private was not permitted to argue that she had a moral and legal obligation under international law to defy military orders and to make public the war crimes she had uncovered.  Because the documents that detailed the crimes, torture, and killing that Manning revealed were classified, they were barred from discussion in court, and so the fundamental issue of war crimes was effectively removed from the trial.  . . .   (INSERT:  there is more in the book)

P. 185

These restrictions (many more – I didn’t type them up)  prevented Manning from appealing to the Nuremberg principles, a set of guidelines created by the International Law Commission of the United Nations after World War II to determine what constitutes a war crime.  The principles make political leaders, commanders, and combatants responsible for war crimes, even if domestic or internal laws allow such actions.  The Nuremberg principles are designed to protect those, like Manning, who expose these crimes.  Under the Nuremberg principles, military orders do not offer an excuse for committing war crimes.  And the Nuremberg principles would clearly exonerate Manning and condemn the pilots, shown in the “Collateral Murder” video, who fired on unarmed civilians in Baghdad, leaving twelve dead, including the two Reuters journalists.  . .   (INSERT:  more in the book)

P. 186

(Manning’s lawyer, Coombs, speaking)  “He was young (22 years old).  He was a little naïve in believing that the information that he selected could actually mnke a difference.  But he was good-intentioned in that he was selecting information that he hoped would make a difference.

. . .  He was selecting information because he believed that this information needed to be public.

“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this, it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Manning said . . .  she had hoped the release of the information to WikiLeaks “might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counterterrorism while ignoring the situation of the people we engaged with every day.”

But it has not.  Our mechanical drones still circle the skies delivering death.  Our attack jets still blast civilians.  Our soldiers and Marines still pump bullets into mud-walled villages.  Our artillery and missiles still raze homes.  Our torturers still torture.  Our politicians and generals still lie.  And the soldier, who tried to stop it all is serving a thirty-five-year prison sentence.  (INSERT:  January 2017.  Before leaving office, President Obama issued an order to reduce Manning’s sentence from 35 years to just over seven years, the majority of which Manning has already served.   This is not the same as a pardon.)

The Afghans, the Iraqis, the Yemenis, the Pakistanis, and the Somalis know what American military forces do.  They do not need to read WikiLeaks.

P. 187

It is we who remain ignorant.  Our terror is delivered daily to the wretched of the earth with industrial weapons.  But to us, it is invisible.  We do not stand over the decapitated and eviscerated bodies left behind on city and village streets by our missiles, drones, and fighter jets.  We do not listen to the wails and shrieks of parents embracing the shattered bodies of their children.  (more in the book) 

. . .    We do not see the boiling anger that war and injustice turn into a cauldron of hate over time.  We are not aware of the very natural lust for revenge against those who carry out or symbolize this oppression.   . . .   And wilfully uninformed, we do not understand our own complicity.  We self-righteously condemn the killers as subhuman savages who deserve more of the violence that created them.  This is a recipe for endless terror.

P. 188  (Words of Chelsea Manning)

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country.  It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing.   . . .

When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians.  Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture.  We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process.  We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government.  And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power.  When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy – the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the Japanese-American internment camps – – to mention a few.  I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, “There is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

I understand that my actions violated the law; I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States.  It was never my intent to hurt anyone.  I only wanted to help people.  When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society.  I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.     (Manning was sentenced to 35 years.)

P. 196   The case of Jeremy Hammond.    I am not going to type it up.

P. 199

“In these times of secrecy and abuse of power there is only one solution – transparency,” wrote Sarah Harrison, the British journalist who accompanied Snowden to Russia and who has also gone into self-imposed exile in Berlin.  “If our governments are so compromised that they will not tell us the truth, then we must step forward to grasp it.  Provided with the unequivocal proof of primary source documents people can fight back.  If our governments will not give this information to us, then we must take it for ourselves.

“When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged,” she went on.  “When they are gagged, we must be their voice.  When they are hunted, we must be their shield.  When they are locked away, we must free them.  Giving us the truth is not a crime.  This is our data, our information, our history.  We must fight to own it.  Courage is contagious.”

 

p. 200  Summarizing paragraph of chapter VII:

The world has been turned upside down.  The pestilence of corporate totalitarianism is spreading over the earth.  The criminals have seized power.  It is not only Assange, Hammond, Abu-Jamal, Manning, and Hashmi they want.  It is all who dare to defy the destructive fury of the global corporate state.  The persecution of these rebels is the harbinger of what is to come:  the rise of a bitter world where criminals in tailored suits and gangsters in beribboned military uniforms – – propped up by a vast internal and external security apparatus, a compliant press, and a morally bankrupt political elite –  hunt down and cage all who resist.

 

p. 210   Chapter VIII   Sublime Madness

. . .  “There comes a time when we must make a stand for the future of our children, and for all life on Earth,” he (Tom Weis) said.  “That time is here.  That time is now.”

p. 211

Niebuhr wrote that those who defy the forces of injustice and repression are possessed by “a sublime madness” in the soul . . . “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and spiritual wickedness in high places”.  This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital.  Without it, “truth is obscured.”  And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism is a useless force in moments of extremity.  Liberalism . . .  “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say, fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks.  It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.

It is impossible to defy “radical evil” – a phrase originally coined by Immanuel Kant to describe those who surrender their freedom and morality to an extreme form of self-adulation and later adopted by Hannah Arendt to describe totalitarianism . . .  Sublime madness demands self-sacrifice and entails the very real possibility of death.  Not that the rebel possessed of sublime madness wants to die. for the fight against radical evil is the ultimate affirmation of life.  The rebel understands the terrible power of the forces arrayed against all rebels, and how far these forces, once threatened, will go to silence rebels, . . .

The rebel. dismissed as impractical and zealous, is chronically misunderstood.  Those cursed with timidity, fear, or blindness and those who are slaves to opportunism call for moderation and patience.  They distort the language of religion, spirituality, compromise, generosity, and compassion to justify cooperation with systems of power that are bent on our destruction.  The rebel is deaf to these critiques.  The rebel hears only his or her inner voice, which demands steadfast defiance.

P. 212     Self-promotion, positions of influence, the adulation of the public, and the awards and prominent positions that come with bowing before authority mean nothing to the rebel, who understands that virtue is not rewarded.  The rebel expects nothing and gets nothing  But for the rebel, to refuse to struggle, to refuse to rebel, is to commit spiritual and moral suicide.

“You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career,” Vaclav Havel said when he stood up to the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances.  You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them,  It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society . . .  The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all.  He is not seeking power.  He has no desire for office and does not gather votes.  He does not attempt to charm the public.  He offers nothing and promises nothing.  He can offer, if anything, only his own skin – – and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for.  His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost.

   . . .  The message of the rebel is disturbing because of the consequences of the truth he or she speaks.  To accept that Barack Obama is, as Cornel West says,  “a black mascot for Wall Street” means having to challenge some frightening monoliths of power and give up the comfortable illusion that the Democratic Party or liberal institutions or a single elected official can be instruments for genuine reform.  To accept that nearly all forms of electronic communication are captured and stored by the government is to give up the illusion of freedom.

The rebel, by documenting this truth, forces us to embrace a new radicalism.  The rebel shows us that there is no hope for correction or reversal by appealing to power.  The rebel makes it clear that it is only by overthrowing traditional systems of power that we can be liberated.

P. 214

Martin Luther King Jr’s life was marked by this Socratic paradox.  Christian theology calls the Socratic defiance of radical evil “bearing the cross.”    And Christian theology warns that all those who are successful in their defiance pay a bitter price.  “When I took up the cross, King said less than a year before he was killed, “I recognized its meaning . . . . . The cross is something that you bear, and ultimately that you die on.”  . . .

P. 215

The moral life, celebrated only in the afterglow of history and often not celebrated at all, is lonely, frightening, and hard.  The crowd condemns you.  The state brands you a traitor.  You struggle with your own fears and doubts.  The words you speak are often not understood.  And you are never certain if your words   and actions, in the end, will make any difference.  The rebel knows the odds.  To defy radical evil does not mean to be irrational.  It is to have a sober clarity about the power of evil and one’s insignificance and yet to rebel anyway.  To face radical evil is to accept self-sacrifice.

P. 216

Resistance to Nazism was painfully rare  . . .    (fear)

History has vindicated resistance groups such as the White Rose and plotters such as von dem Bussche.  But they were desperately alone while they defied the law, their oaths of allegiance, and public opinion.  Von dem Bussche said that even after the war he was spat upon as he walked down city streets in Germany.  Rebellion, when it begins, is not legal, safe, comfortable, or popular.

“Somebody, after all, had to make a start,” one of the White Rose members, Sophie Scholl, said (1943) at her trial in a Nazi court.  “What we wrote and said is also believed by many others.  They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.”   (Sophie was executed at age 21.  Subject of a 2005 movie.)

P. 218

Von dem Bussche . . . refused to describe what he or the other plotters (INSERT:  on Hitler’s life)  did as heroism.  He detested words like “honor” and “glory” being applied to warfare.  He had no time for those who remonticized combat.  He had no option as a human being but to resist,  he said, and acted, as Edelman did, to save his “self-esteem”.

“There was no hero stuff involved, none at all,” he said.  “I thought this was an adequate means to balance out what I had seen.  I felt that this was justifiable homicide and was the only means to stop mass murder inside and outside Germany”.  His was the tenth thwarted attempt on Hitler’s life.  There would be one more.

P. 219

He felt that as an army officer, even with his involvement in the assassination plots, he remained part of the murderous apparatus that had unleashed indefensible suffering and death.  He worried that he had not done enough.  The brutality and senselessness of the war haunted him.  The German public’s enthusiastic collusion with the Nazi regime tormented him.  And the ghosts of the dead, including those he admired, never left him.  He understood, as we must, that to do nothing in a time of radical evil is to be complicit.

I should have taken off my uniform in the Ukraine,” he told me on the last afternoon of my visit, “and joined the line of Jews to be shot.”

Those with sublime madness accept the possibility of their own death as the price paid for defending life.  This curious mixture of gloom and hope, of defiance and resignation, of absurdity and meaning, is born of the rebel’s awareness of the enormity of the forces that must be defeated and the remote chances for success.  “Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism,” Havel wrote.  “It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Optimism, especially the naïve optimism fed to us by the corporate state, engenders self-delusion and passivity and is the opposite of hope.    . . .  When Abby Mann, who wanted to film Martin Luther Kind’s life story, asked King facetiously, “Hot does the movie end?” King responded, “It ends with me getting killed.”  As Mann recalled, “I looked at him.  He was smiling, but he wasn’t joking.”

P.220

Social and economic life will againt have to be rationed and shared.  The lusts of capitalism will have to be curtailed or destroyed.  And there will have to be a recovery of reverence for the sacred, the bedrock of premodern society, so we can see each other and the earth not as objects to exploit but as living beings to be revered and protected.  This recovery will require a very different vision for human society.

(I will add excellent excerpts from P221 to 225 sometime, or you can read the book!)

P 226  Concluding paragraph of the book:

I do not know  if we can build a better society.  I do not even know if we will survive as a species.  But I do know that these corporate forces have us by the throat.  And they have my children by the throat.  I do not fight fascists because I will win.  I fight fascists because they are fascists.  And this is a fight that in the face of the overwhelming forces against us requires that we follow those possessed by sublime madness, that we become stone catchers and find in acts of rebellion the sparks of life, in intrinsic meaning that lies outside the possibility of success.  We must grasp the harshness of reality at the same time as we refuse to allow this reality to paralyze us.  People of all creeds and people of no creeds must make an absurd leap of faith to believe, despite all the empirical evidence around us, that the good draws to it the good.  The fight for life goes somewhere – – the Buddhists call it karma – – and in these acts we make possible a better world, even if we cannot see one emerging around us.

 

See also:  Chris Hedges, WHAT MAKES FOR SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION? (excerpts from beginning of Wages of Rebellion.)  

2015-09-27 Chris Hedges interview by Abby Martin (The Empire Files): War, Propaganda & the Enemy Within

 Chris Hedges, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Lockheed Martin, War Economy (includes Cdn Census & Trials), Occupy Movement  No Responses »
Jan 292017
 

The interview by Abby Martin, click on:

http://thesaker.is/abby-martin-chris-hedges-war-propaganda-the-enemy-within/

See also:  Chris Hedges, WHAT MAKES FOR SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION? (excerpts from beginning of Wages of Rebellion.)

See also:  Chris Hedges, more from Wages of Rebellion. Political prisoners, Rebels.    

See also:   there is a new category under “Solidarity with the Warriors” for Chris Hedges.   At the top of this page, click on the small  print “Chris Hedges” to generate a summary listing.

 

2017-01-19 A few selected, short videos. Fraud, whistleblower, at the CDC (Centre for Disease Control). What is coverage by mainstream media in Canada?

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Sustainability, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Jan 192017
 

IN follow-up to    There is no doubt: serious fraud at the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) (Big Pharma)

(As far as I can tell, there is zero coverage by mainstream Canadian media, of very serious corruption at the CDC that has had tragic consequences.   In the interests of Big Pharma.)

With many thanks to Dave.   These are excellent links to short videos.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – 

 

      hope Trump doesn’t cave in to Big Pharma. They are powerful…and nasty.

    you have heard of the documentary “Vaxxed”?  It’s related to this, and talks a lot about the CDC. 

Trailer for Vaxxed here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdCU2DfMBpU

Make sure to see it if it comes to your area. Lots of clips on You tube about it, including dozens of testimonials from people outside the theatres where it was just shown. Like this amazing interview:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yNcaLjb45k

 

New book out called Innoculated…about the same CDC leak.  Heard the author on the radio a couple of days ago.  

Here it is on Amazon site:   https://www.amazon.com/Inoculated-Kent-Heckenlively/dp/1945390964    

(Sandra speaking:  there is a synopsis of each chapter of Inoculated  at   http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/06/inoculated-how-science-lost-its-soul-in-autism.html.)   

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – 

From: Sandra

Great!   Thanks Dave.   I’ll forward to others right away,

I think it’s the only way to possibly beat Big Pharma.   Lots of people are petitioning Trump re CDC.

I have a list of March Against Monsanto facebook groups (majority of members are young Mothers), also Peace – –  There are lots more people who will pitch in to the awareness campaign.

At bottom:  I wanted to know if mainstream media is covering the fraud at the CDC.   I did a Google NEWS  SEARCH today (Jan 19)  – – the results are at the bottom.   Followed by a search specifically for the CDC fraud story appearing in Canadian media.   It ain’t happening – – in fact quite the opposite.  IF the search done today is representative.  (I sometimes do such searches – – a very rough gauge – – are people receiving the information?   I have never come up this short on an important issue.  The CDC may be American, but it is recognized internationally.  Big Pharma is transnational.   There is huge protest and awareness of this in the U.S. – – we are being set up to be the dumping ground, if Canadians remain in the dark.)

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  – – 

I think that momentum is strong and there is going to be some rapid change IF we can get out information to counter the (appears to me to be) propaganda – – scroll down to the heading “Canada” (search results for News).

ON-LINE  and through films,  the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is being blown out of the water.   An inside whistle-blower spilled the beans on the cover-up: the analysis of data done in 2001 showed a high (over 7) relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.   I think the CDC is dead in the water – – bigtime fraud. Changing data sets until they got the number down to 1.   Then commissioning more studies on manipulated populations to issue new press releases – – “yet another study shows no link to autism“.   Bogus science, deliberate lying and misleading the public.

The autism rate was steady (1 in 10,000) for the 60’s, 70’s, and into the 80’s.   It has climbed dramatically since then. The numbers are unimaginable, gone from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 67 today.   The rate for boys (1 in 27, I believe) and for black boys worse again.

I guess the good news is the excellent scientists, doctors, lawyers, statisticians, parents, who are determined to overthrow the government agencies behind the cover-up.   It’s a tragic situation for the kids and families of the kids.   Sixteen years worth of more kids with autism (and other diseases) because of the cover-up, fraud and denial.   It’s coming out with a vengeance now. Numerous documentary films. Solid science.

Robert F Kennedy Jr talked with Trump.   Trump announced Kennedy would head up an initiative.   I noticed an article today:   last week Trump said the pharmaceutical companies are getting away with murder.   It was no secret.   By this week, share prices of pharma and biotech are down 20%.   Need to get that info out, too.    “Disinvestment” can only be helpful to bringing the psychopaths down.  I am not a supporter of Trump – – but if he stops the poisoning, good on him.   (Autism is just ONE of the diseases associated with various of the vaccines.)

View all

Story image for cdc from Medscape

Anne Schuchat to Be Acting CDC Director

Medscape–21 hours ago
Anne Schuchat, MD, will take the reins at the CDC starting at noon on Friday, Jan. 20, the agency confirmed Wednesday. She will replace Tom …

Story image for cdc from Vox

This is what keeps CDC director Tom Frieden up at night

Vox–Jan 16, 2017
CDC is willing to work with the incoming administration to protect the American people. I wasn’t there [at the meeting], so I can’t comment.
Outgoing CDC chief talks about agency’s successes — and his …
In-Depth–Washington Post–Jan 16, 2017

View all

Story image for cdc from MedPage Today

CDC Chief Assesses His Tenure

MedPage Today–21 hours ago
In a self-assessment published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, outgoing CDC director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, gave the …

Story image for cdc from RT

Examining RFK Jr.’s claim that the CDC “Owns over 20 vaccine …

Age of Autism–8 hours ago
Mr. Kennedy is in very safe territory by reporting that the CDC has over 20 patents that create vast, undisclosed conflicts of interests in vaccine …

Story image for cdc from USA TODAY

Congress demands details of secret CDC lab incidents revealed by …

USA TODAY–Jan 17, 2017
But after taking nearly two years to release the reports about incidents that occurred from 2013 to 2015, the CDC blacked out large swaths of …

Story image for cdc from EcoWatch

CDC Knew Its Vaccine Program Was Exposing Children to …

EcoWatch–Jan 18, 2017
Uncovered documents show that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) knew that infant …
CANADA

SUBJECT:   Jesus.   Search results for News – Canada

Hi Dave,

It looks like – – not a white out on the news in Canada about the CDC Fraud.   But the opposite.   The Tyee is an exception.

The industry is well-embedded in Canada. Think of InterVac at U of S.   Just one example.   /Sandra

2017-01-17 Vaccines. No doubt, serious fraud at the CDC. Brian Hooker, William Thompson. How are vaccines made? Henrietta Lacks. Attenuation. Anthrax.

 Culture and Ethics, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Propaganda, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Jan 162017
 

Reply to Blake, his email below:

. . .   It’s interesting how close-minded people are on this topic.  We’ve been taught for more than half-a-century that we’ve been saved by vaccines,  like being saved by God or Jenner, Pasteur and Salk.

As I see it, what we know about the world has changed in the last half-century;  beliefs about vaccines have not been updated to keep pace.   There are a few factors involved, of course.    Corruption is the worst one.

I watched Vaccines Revealed,  an on-line docu-series.   They assembled a number of scientists – they don’t call them whistleblowers, but that’s what they are.  Together they cover many facets of the issue (in 2 hours every day for 9 days they cover a lot of ground).  The series has been years in the making.  It’s under umbrella of The World Mercury Project (newly founded) (UPDATE:  that organization was re-named: Children’s Health Defense.  On top of the costs of running the organization, they will have costs specifically for the docu-series.   It seems to me that this launch gives a solid rapid start,  but they won’t want to lose momentum – – the docu-series has to get extensive circulation if the CDC and other health organizations captured by corporates, are ever to be taken back by citizens.

The status quo in medi-care is being challenged.  High-powered MRI’s, electron microscopes,  expanded fields of study, biochemistry, alternatives  – – even a seemingly small, one thing like the role of gut flora has huge implications for brain and other health.  It alone challenges the status quo.  Vaccinations may go the way of the dodo bird,  eventually and regardless of all this – – who knows?

W hat is known about the vaccines in Canada?   I am answering your question in a round-a-bout way, simultaneously with things learned from the series.

On the corruption side:

At the CDC (Centre for Disease Control),  the statistician on  a panel of 5 people tasked with the cover-up of what the data revealed about the relationship between the vaccinations and autism was a fellow named Thompson.

Meanwhile, the father of a boy who was badly damaged by vaccinations – a bioengineer and associate professor of biology,  with a stellar and varied career that included other positions, Brian Hooker,  was persistent with FOI’s (“Freedom Of Information” – U.S.  In Canada called “Access to Information” or AI’s).  Hooker wanted to see the actual data for the research by which the CDC  concluded there was no link, the vaccines were safe.   It took years and overcoming hurdles.

In the end Hooker was rewarded:   Thompson (the statistician in the 5-member CDC group) handed off to him copies of data sets that he had kept when the other 4 members of the group destroyed their copies (part of the cover-up).  It’s a remarkable story.  Hooker was told by Thompson how to go about things – – what he needed to look for in the data (what the CDC had found but gotten rid of).    Thompson gave his data sets to Hooker and asked Hooker to re-work the analysis.    Hooker employed two lawyers – – he recorded the phone conversations with Thompson about the data sets.   He knew he was looking at very serious fraud.

Thompson appears in a video clip,  see

2016-10-19     the CDC Whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson (Vaccinations and Autism) . . .

The consequences of the years-long (since 2001) CDC cover-up make you sick.  You can’t measure how much would have been saved, had they come clean in the beginning.  The financial costs, the human costs for one child, one mother, for one family, for one community’s health and education services – – and autism is not the only disease associated with the particular vaccinations.

Compounded:  if the psychopaths can’t peddle their wares in western countries, they dump in poor countries, and continue to do so.   Thank goodness the doctors, scientists, lawyers and parents in Vaccines Revealed  are also connecting with people outside the U.S.   Without that, between bombing and vaccinating there won’t be a lot of love left for America, otherwise.  Citizens REALLY need to take responsibility for their Governments.

I talked yesterday with a friend.   People WANT to be told “Oh yes, but in Canada it’s different.  In Canada we now use the newer flu vaccine that doesn’t have the mercury in it”.

Is ALL the flu vaccine in Canada mercury-free?   I don’t know, but it’s a moot point.   It’s not the right question.

 

HOW ARE THE VACCINES MADE?   When you know that, you will be in a better position to make informed choices about vaccines.   The answer also helped me understand a question I have long wondered about:

When I first heard the phrase rotavirus vaccine  I wondered:  what is rotavirus? it must be something terrible because they are vaccinating all the babies against it.   I’d never heard of it.

Well, the virus causes diarrhea,  the relatively few infants who die from it in the U.S. die because the parents don’t know to keep the baby hydrated.  Usually, the babies die from dehydration,  and they are immune-compromised to begin with.   But – – vaccinate the whole population of babies.

Then came the news that more than a million babies in the U.S. alone had received a rotavirus vaccine contaminated with a pig virus.

 

THAT IS THE QUESTION I HAVE LONG WONDERED ABOUT:

How could vaccine enough for a million babies ALL get contaminated with a pig virus?   I thought maybe the story was a hoax, so went to the manufacturer’s website.   They had posted a response.  The story is not a hoax:

http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=1115

I was pretty incensed, for not least reason:  the head doctor for the pediatricians’ organization in Canada was pushing the stuff.   The diarrhea symptom is a call to boost the baby’s immune system through clean water, good food, love, care and protection from the pharma predators.     (Who happen to be the same people who killed those kids in Nigeria through surreptitious and illegal human-testing of their drug Travon:   Patients became unwitting guinea pigs for a new, untested antibiotic and many of them either died or were left with permanent disabilities.   It’s the story told in John le Carré‘s The Constant Gardener and a movie by the same name.  The book pre-dated public knowledge.  A Lawsuit brought by the Government of Nigeria against Pfizer, was settled out-of-court with confidentiality clauses … of course.

http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=4415.

So how are the vaccines made?   Besides the info in one of the presentations (Vaccines Revealed) , a book  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Skloot  is excellent and contributes to understanding.    Henrietta, long dead, became immortal because cells from her body are still multiplying in labs and production plants around the world.

Roughly speaking (I do not claim to have more than a sketchy understanding) – and with CLARIFICATION:  Henrietta Lacks is a cancer story not a vaccines story) – –    vaccines are a combination of genetic and other material – –  animal, human and other.  Invisible organisms.  Grown and multiplying (as cells do) under tightly-controlled laboratory conditions.

There are millions of airborne microscopic organisms everywhere that can contaminate the stew – so development of some pharmaceuticals is done inside sealed vacuums.  Anyone who enters has to be de-contaminated.  If contamination does happen,  the unwanted organisms just grow and multiply along with the intended ingredients.

A pig virus can infect a million doses of vaccine because, as with Henrietta Lacks’ cells,  they become inseparable from the stew.

A big problem – –  if you don’t know there’s a contaminant in the stew  why? and for what would you test?  (the pig virus example).

(You need a known protocol for testing for the particular organism, if what we learned from getting the City of Saskatoon to test for the presence in the River of a carcinogenic chemical compound being put down drains to dissolve tree roots – – is valid with vaccines.  There are lots of chemicals that when mixed in other compounds nobody knows HOW TO test for the presence of.  Anyway, you have to know what the contaminant is before you can test for its presence, and if you suspect its presence – –  before you can test, you still have to have a known protocol for testing.)

Another process in the production of vaccines is ATTENUATION.  Understand it, in order to understand the risk factors.  Attenuation is:

A dilution, thinning, or weakening of a substance, especially a reduction in the virulence of a pathogen through REPEATED INOCULATION, growth in a different culture medium, or exposure to heat, light, air OR OTHER WEAKENING AGENTS.

Vaccines contain the pathogen, in one form or another,  that causes the symptoms.  You cannot do “repeated inoculation” on human beings starting with the fully virulent pathogen.   So how is the attenuation done?

As I understand from Vaccines Revealed,  one way is to do the repeated inoculations to a series of monkeys, in which case the blood with the weakened pathogen in it, carries organisms found in animals into the human being.

(I thought the lesson from the transmission of mad cow disease to humans in the form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was:  you do not even feed cooked beef to humans, if the cattle received any kind of ground-up animal in their diets.

But more to the point: (from PDF, U.S. National Institute of Health website):

From 1955 through early 1963, millions of people were inadvertently exposed to simian virus 40 (SV40) as a contaminant of poliovirus vaccines;  the virus had been present in the monkey kidney cultures used to prepare the vaccines and had escaped detection.

(The simian (macaque) monkey virus is associated with cancer.)

 

Another method of attenuation is to add a weakening agent like borax.

I was curious about borax.  Mr. Google helped me:   Cripes.

(CTV News, July 26, 2016 ):

Health Canada is advising Canadians to avoid using borax to make kids’ arts and crafts, such as homemade “slime,” over concerns that too much exposure to all forms of boric acid can cause “developmental and reproductive health effects” in children and pregnant women.

. . .   in an update posted to Health Canada’s website this week, the agency says it is concerned about Canadians’ exposure to all forms of boric acid.

A recent draft risk assessment completed by Health Canada scientists found that too much exposure to boric acid has the potential to cause developmental and reproductive health effects.

“Since Canadians are already exposed to boric acid naturally through their diets and water, Health Canada is advising that exposure from other sources should be reduced as much as possible, especially for children and pregnant women,” the agency said in the update.

“The concern is not with any one product, but rather multiple exposures from a variety of sources.”   
(and might we add that some vaccines contain borax?   Did they order that any and all vaccines containing borax must be thrown out?)
April 15, 2017:   I did a quick look for a government website that documents the use of borax in vaccines.   This from  Australia, an alphabetical listing by component, with the vaccine name brand and the associated pathogen.  You see the different forms of aluminum (neurotoxic),  formaldehyde (no thanks!) – – but in a wide arrange of vaccines, MSG (another surprise),  polysorbate …  and this for Borax:
Appendix 3: Components of vaccines used in the National Immunisation Program

Page last updated: 06 March 2017

Borax/sodium borate:
Vaqta Hepatitis A (HAV) paediatric/adolescent
 All influenza vaccines
 Agrippal		 Influenza
http://www.immunise.health.gov.au/internet/immunise/publishing.nsf/Content/Handbook10-home~handbook10-tools~handbook10-appendices~handbook10-appendix3

The end point is this:

  • knowing that the pathogens MUST be attenuated in the vaccine,  what do you choose to have injected into your body or your child’s body?
  • Injection of the vaccine bypasses the body’s immune systems.  (Th1 and Th2 arms of the immune system are explained in layperson terms in Episode 7, I think it was.)

 

Episode 6 had the story of the ANTHRAX VACCINATION.  Tragedy and heartbreak on a colossal scale.  (I had investigated the ANTHRAX story prior to seeing it in the docu-series.)

. . .    Our soldiers facing an order that they determined was illegal and immoral.  (Mandatory anthrax vaccination)  Witness the horror of human experimentation, all the while repeating; “This Vaccine is Safe”

I vented my emotional response by writing in the Comments:

You assembled and coordinated a large team of whistleblowers.  Bless you all.  Dig out the corruption.

News – – 12 people killed by terrorists. The American military leaders did several thousand times better than that. I still wonder if the number can be right – – 35,000 killed by the anthrax vaccination? It is so incomprehensible.  The military leaders are dangerous — the sometimes quick, sometimes long, strung-out deaths suffered by their victims are cruel. Slow torture.

If it’s terrorists – send some drones, drop some bombs, knock ’em out. And there’ll be some terrorists in the neighborhood, get them too. Helps keep everyone employed, paying taxes and saving the world for democracy.

I remember the footage of Hillary Clinton’s gleeful reaction to the news that the bombs had started falling on Libya. Frankly, I think there are more than a few badly-corrupted souls in high places.

But we don’t have to bomb them, just vaccinate them (and their neighbors) for “safety and security”.

The anthrax vaccination helps explain something else.

Episode 6 of Vaccines Revealed included the Worldwide Premier of the movie VACCINE SYNDROME.

After watching it,  I believe there is more to the arrival of the Veterans (4,000 of them) at Standing Rock.

The Gulf War Syndrome was more accurately the Vaccine Syndrome caused by the vaccine for Anthrax.   A million military and other first responders were forced to receive a number of injections of the vaccine,  with disastrous consequences for thousands and thousands.

When you know what happened, the deaths and the slow deaths – – lives, people and families totally ruined – – those people then ignored,  discarded in the gutter  – – you know that thousands upon thousands of people who would, under normal circumstances, be proud and patriotic supporters of their military buddies,  were no longer.   They went to Standing Rock with the original intention of taking up arms against the very forces they were once part of, on behalf of the Indians who were now their brothers.   (The Sioux Elders took the Veterans from violent means to non-violent resistance, which is the route to success – – people are “converted” to the view that the injustices inflicted by the Empire are shared and widespread.   They join forces against the regime.)

We have “conversion”, big time.

I posted an update on:

016-12-29 Role of Conversion in revolution. Four thousand veterans come to fight for the Indians against the U.S. Military at Standing Rock. Wesley Clark Jr., Chris Hedges.

Is it a sequence we know?

  • they did it to the Indians.   But we were not Indians.
  • they did it to the Soldiers.  The Soldiers recognized they were the Indians and went to help.
  • But we were not Soldiers OR Indians.

Guess what?   In the U.S.  there are currently huge fights against mandatory vaccination.  Some States have passed laws:  unvaccinated children are not allowed to attend schools.  Healthcare workers lose their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated.   Flu vaccinations from age 6 months on upward.  . . .  (as I say, in some States).

Simultaneously there are serious questions about vaccine efficacy raised by science and the historical record (epidemics that have come and gone without any vaccines,  the role of clean water and good food – – disease trends that were on the decline prior to introduction of the vaccine, but the vaccine is credited with the decline, and so on).

Vaccines Revealed reported that vaccines are not mandatory in named countries including Australia and Canada.   I notice in the Comments,  several Australians corrected the information:  it used to be the case.   It is no longer true in Australia.

The situation in Canada?   you can get a sense by doing an internet search on the phrase “vaccinations in Canada”.   The Provinces are divided on the issue.  There is a 2015 report of doctors lobbying to make them mandatory.

Especially with Big Pharma allowed to do “pull-through” advertising (which wasn’t allowed in the past) it is not a good idea to have those who make money from the vaccinations allowed anywhere near such decisions.

Officials “float” ideas, testing the water.   The best way to sink orthodoxy is with science that is not undermined by fraud, or obsolete in a rapidly-evolving world.

Learn about vaccinations and have conversations with fellow citizens, regardless of where they sit.  Officials will back off, OR a campaign to discredit the particular scientists will be mounted, OR there will be a large new propaganda campaign to promote vaccinations.

The way I see things, Big Pharma is transnational.  The countries most in their grip are the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand.   What gets rolled out in one of the FVEY countries gets rolled out in the five countries at least,  IF they can get away with it.   Rest assured they are trying.

If the Americans are fighting hard against mandatory vaccination (have been for a few years now), if Australians are realizing they have a problem on their hands,  my best advice:  get talking!

= = = = = = =  = =

EMAIL FROM BLAKE

Sent: January 16, 2017 9:50 AM To: Sandra Finley Subject: Re: Robert F Kennedy Jr video. Do not want to miss it!

Sandra,

Long time no chat. I thought I should share an experience with you.

I was quite moved by this video. I watched it to well beyond the 1:15 mark and then posted it with a note, which I’ll admit was a bit dramatized and calling for mothers of small children especially to watch it and be warned. I wanted to use this video, as you did, to act as warning and perhaps a prompt to learn more. RFK Jr. is someone, I feel, one should assume carries with him a certain ‘nobless oblige’, a strong leaning to carry on the legacy of his father as a champion of civil rights, and who is almost without question guided by a strong ethical compass.

The post caused quite a shit storm of comments in the thread that followed, including one fellow whom I know personally who identifies as being on the autistic spectrum, a more conservative relative and a more distant cousin, a number of other social activists and so on. And wow…it unlocked a lot of vitriol. I’d say 80% of respondents, absolutely dismissed the suggestion that vaccinations have contributed to the spike in autism, fact clips were posted categorically refuting claims that this might be going on in Canada, dismissing RFK Jr. as a crank etc. It got so nasty that I finally posted a note asking for respect and civility. When I went back to finish watching it it was no longer available to me, so I watched another video with all the same talking points. From his testimony, and from the content of his presentation I have no doubt that it is just as he says. I understand too, from a link posted by my autistic friend on the fb thread, that there are hundreds if not thousands of settlements already paid out of court.

I’m not going to go any deeper down this rabbit hole…I can’t take that on, but I’d appreciate any comments you may have about the comparison between the vaccines used to inoculate children in Canada, and those being distributed for use in the US. Could it be that the drugs here are so different than the ones the same pharmaceutical companies are selling to agencies here? That seems improbable, but the regulatory agencies responsible for reassuring the public respond to concerns by insisting that the risky components are not present.

Looking at charts, the start date and escalating rate of rise of autism since the late 80’s in Canada and the US are the same. The conclusions RFK Jr. draws related to the CDC in the US, but I wonder if the same collusion and corruption he insists are present and devastatingly problematic there are also corrupting our own institutions. For instance, has anyone done a comparative study, and really, why should they if everyone but the’ cranks’ refuse to acknowledge that there’s any validity to these claims. Just some thoughts shared…I know you are busy, so only reply if time allows.

Big virtual hugs to you.

Blake     . . .    THE REPLY TO BLAKE STARTS AT THE TOP OF THIS POSTING

2017-01-16 World’s largest fund manager demands cuts to executive pay and bonuses (The Guardian)

 Change, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Sustainability  No Responses »
Jan 162017
 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/15/blackrock-demands-cuts-to-executive-pay-and-bonuses?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=208612&subid=8093198&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2#comment-91285307

(My Comment is at bottom.)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

BlackRock threatens to stir shareholder rebellions, warning UK companies they must match boardroom pay rises with that of workers

BlackRock officesBlackRock has said it would only approve salary rises for top executives if firms increase workers’ wages by a similar amount. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters

 

The world’s largest asset manager is threatening to unleash a fresh wave of shareholder rebellions in the UK unless Britain’s largest companies rein in excessive boardroom pay.

BlackRock is demanding cuts to director pension entitlements and an end to huge pay rises as UK companies prepare to put their latest pay deals to shareholders.

In a letter to the bosses of more than 300 UK companies, the US fund manager said it would only approve salary rises for top executives if firms increase workers’ wages by a similar amount. It is a significant intervention from a company which is a shareholder in every business listed on the FTSE 100 index. BlackRock has $5.1tn (£4.2tn) of investments and describes itself as the world’s largest fund manager.

(UK bosses make more in two and a half days than workers earn all year.)

The company’s head of investment stewardship in Europe, Amra Balic, said in the letter that a failure to meet the standards outlined by the fund manager would call into question the quality of the board.

She said pay must be linked to performance. “Executive pay should be strongly linked to performance, by which we mean strong and sustainable returns over the long-term, as opposed to short-term hikes in share prices,” she said.

“We consider misalignment of pay with performance as an indication of insufficient board oversight, which calls into question the quality of the board. We believe that shareholders should hold directors to a high standard in this regard.”

About half of Britain’s biggest quoted companies face binding shareholder votes on their pay plans in 2017. One of the issues highlighted by BlackRock is the gap between the pay rises handed out to the most senior executives, and those awarded to the rest of the workforce.

The fund manager said: “In case of a significant pay increase year-on-year that is out of line with the rest of the workforce, BlackRock expects the company to provide a strong supporting rationale. Large increases should not be justified principally by benchmarking.”

The letter to bosses, first reported in the Sunday Times, echoes investor rebellions from 2016. Last April, almost 60% of shareholders voted against a £14m pay package for the chief executive of BP in a year in which it reported record losses, cut thousands of jobs and froze its employees’ pay. Also, more than 50% of investors voted against pay deals at the medical equipment group Smith & Nephew, as shareholders demonstrated their unwillingness to tolerate boardroom excess.

Excessive boardroom pay has moved up the national agenda since the financial crisis of 2008 and prime minister Theresa May stated an ambition to crackdown on poor corporate governance in the UK. Last week BlackRock became the largest shareholder in Lloyds Banking Group after the government further reduced its stake in the bailed-out bank.

Stefan Stern, director at the High Pay Centre, welcomed the intervention from BlackRock but said more needed to be done to tackle excessive boardroom pay.

“There is a systemic problem in top pay. The system is failing and one of the issues is the big asset managers not being effective in helping to restrain those big packages. As a rule, they have not stepped up, so BlackRock are absolutely right to engage in this way.”

Stern said the government, as well as the wider public, also had a bigger role to play in calling for change.

Blackrock said that annual shareholder votes, where the results are not binding, should not be used to justify pay increases. “Pay should only be increased each year, if at all, at the same level of the wider employee base, and in line with inflation,” the company said.

One of the first companies to put their pay proposals up for the shareholder vote will be Imperial Brands at its annual general meeting on 1 February. David Haines, chairman of the tobacco company’s remuneration committee, is recommending a hike in the pay package of its chief executive Alison Cooper, from £5.5m in the last financial year to a maximum of £8.5m in the current financial year.

A spokesman for the company said the proposed hike in pay reflected the committee’s concerns about the company’s ability to “retain and attract executive talent”, adding that Cooper had achieved shareholder returns of more than 170% since she took the top job six years ago.

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I COMMENTED ON-LINE:

The gears of the merry-go-round mesh.  On the merry-go-round you sing one song, “We are worth it!”.  Support your fellow rounders – – tie them to the same chicanery.  Otherwise the merry ride is threatened.    In Canada, a former federal cabinet minister earns more than a million dollars annually just from the Boards she sits on.  Board-to-board you are circulating in a close group of mutually-reinforcing individuals that includes the government officials who got onto the merry-go-round by singing “You are worth it”.  Boards assess compensation of their Executives with executives of other companies.   Not one board will break with the status quo.    They would be black-balled.  It would affect their access to the information that flows in their circles – – which is valuable.  Can they even be said to set the compensation of their own Executives?  CEO’s and VP’s run the Boards – – they by-and-large control the information received by the Board, who are too busy anyway, hopping from one board to another,  always “meeting”.  Boards of Directors (overlapping and the opposite of diverse) would never assess the equity of internal compensation packages, top-to-bottom.  It is too threatening.  And of course, “not their job”.   Sooo – – carry on with the revolt.

2016-12-29 Role of “Conversion” in revolution. Four thousand veterans come to fight for the Indians against the U.S. Military at Standing Rock. Wesley Clark Jr., Chris Hedges.

 Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, Ladar Levison, Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Non-Violent Resistance  No Responses »
Jan 152017
 

The arrival of four thousand U.S. Veterans at Standing Rock

on the side of the Sioux and non-violent resistance

marks a high-water point in the revolution against

the Lords of the American Corporate Empire.

(Interpreted through the historical record.)

Some people will want to skip straight down to heading  “CONVERSION“.

RELATED:

2016-12-21 Why I Kneeled Before Standing Rock Elders and Asked For Forgiveness, Yes! Magazine. (former Army Lt. Wesley Clark Jr., son of Gen. Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.)

– – – – – –  – – – – – – – – –

Derek’s Comment on    I wouldn’t like to wish you peace if there was no hope for it.)   He writes:

How do we get all the separate “single issue” organizations, blogs, individuals all over the internet to combine and work together? We need a thousand arrows all pointing in the same direction!

Ghandi and Indian independence, Vietnam, de-segregation, were all single issues that infuriated millions.

We need one issue…maybe water…that every group can identify with and support.

Any thoughts?

– – – – – – –

Sandra speaking:

There has been a lot of research into the ingredients or characteristics – – what does it take to make a successful revolution?  To me, that is essentially what your question asks.

You identify important elements (what causes people to point their “thousand arrows” in the same direction?  People can be angry with the puppet masters;  it doesn’t necessarily mean they will mobilize.)

I can capture some basics from the research.   I hope others will add Comments below.

Under what conditions DO people mobilize successfully?  A single compelling issue?  Are we there yet?  (you want the factors in place such that enough people see and know we can create a better potential future for our kids – – our current path is of an extremely large herd of lemmings running breathlessly to ensure we all go over the cliff togeeeether.)

I take a bit different tack than you.

How important to success is adoption of the right symbol?   Could water be used?  Gandhi used salt, and he used “the white shirt” (local homespun cotton) in India.   (2002-11   Non-violent resistance versus killing war . . .)

Salt was a “single issue” that not only said way more than a whole chapter of a book could have said,  but it empowered by exposing  “the emperor has no clothes”.  . . .  What the blazes?!    Of course we can evaporate sea water and collect the salt as we have done for a thousand years.   We can and we WILL!   They brought the empire down.   A brilliant symbol, Salt, in that particular country at that particular time.  And without any Communications Consultants scripting it.

I think it was less “single issue” than choice of the right symbol. . . .  In “single issue” people often need to be able to articulate the complexities of the issue.  Which may mean having the time to read “the book” on “the issue”.

How many people in the population are literate  (the Gandhi example in India)  AND have access to the book AND have time to organize their community?

Today, we pride ourselves on exchanging information faster than the speed of light.   BUT  you still need hours to actually read the material and more time to organize around the info.

We forget that people know things without reading about them.   When the conditions for successful revolt have developed (because of the injustices) the emotional string can be plucked by use of the right symbol.  The string will vibrate beautifully and clearly.

The people of East Germany adopted Gandhi’s “white shirt” symbol.   South Africa – –  He (Oliver Tambo) told me that the ANC would like to focus on Mandela as the symbol of the resistance.  (http://www.anc.org.za/content/nelson-mandela-symbol-resistance)

What did the symbol “Mandela” represent? . . .   in his own words in the lead-up to “Mandela Fever” spreading through Africa and then around the world:

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

(Note that the Sioux at Standing Rock made it clear they were prepared to die for unpolluted water that is essential to the health of their children.)

Today,  I think it’s a combination of symbols and MEMES – –

an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.

a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.

Related:  2011-10-18   From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world,  (Reuters).

EXCERPTS:

. . .  As with any movement, a spark is needed to start word spreading.  SocialFlow, a social media marketing company, did an analysis for Reuters of the history of the Occupy hashtag on Twitter and the ways it spread and took root.

. . .  decentralized and leaderless, has mobilized thousands of people around the world  . . .

. . .   crowds have connected and gathered.

. . .   The notion of Occupy Wall Street was out there but it was not gaining much attention — until, of course, it did, suddenly and with force.

. . .   Social media experts trace the expansion to hyper-local tweeters, people who cover the pulse of communities at a level of detail not even local papers can match.

. . .   a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge prompted hundreds of arrests and the spark was ignited.

. . .   The Occupy Wall Street page on Facebook started on September 19 with a YouTube video of the early protests. By September 22, it reached critical mass.

. . .   “No one owns a (Twitter) hashtag (#), it has no leadership, it has no organization, it has no creed but it’s quite appropriate to the architecture of the net.  This is a distributed revolt,” said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at City University of New York and author of the well-known blog BuzzMachine.

. . .   As of Monday afternoon, Facebook listed no fewer than 125 Occupy-related pages, from New York to Tulsa and all points in between. Roughly 1 in every 500 hashtags used on Twitter on Monday, all around the world, was the movement’s own #OWS.   (Occupy Wall Street)

. . .   The websites keep proliferating — We Are the 99 Percent, Parents for Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Together

. . .   There were “we are watching” messages of support from cities across the United States

(Sandra speaking)   Some successful MEMES, in the form of hashtags:

#occupywallstreet; #OWS  (meaning the same thing)

#idlenomore

#havenofear (to counter scare tactics in political campaign of Conservatives under Harper, 2015 Federal Election)

#BlackLivesMatter;  #AllLivesMatter

#NotNormal  (fairly recent – challenging the normalization of surveillance, police-state tactics,  fascist characteristics, etc.)

The people at Standing Rock in North Dakota focused on Water as the symbol for their revolt.   Excellent choice, as you suggest, Derek.  Some hashtags established by different people:

#RezpectOurWater (a play on “reservations”)

#StandWithStandingRock

#NoDAPL;    (No Dakota Access Pipe Line)

As I see it, a difficulty in trying to bring people under one umbrella, for example – –    it was not “water” that triggered the spontaneous entry of  Four Thousand Veterans into the snowstorm at Standing Rock.

They went with the idea of somehow effecting a military “win” on behalf of the Sioux, because of historical and continuing injustices suffered by those people.   As it happened, they achieved something much greater, a transcendental ascent.   (See the link below – – “Why I kneeled before Standing Rock Elders . .  “)

Drawing from the research on successful revolutions,  I think there is an absolutely critical component to be understood.   

CONVERSION

It goes like this:

I recall in an early report from Standing Rock:  from the dark wall of military personnel with their weapons and shields,  rubber bullets, tear gas, the eardrum-splitting sound weapons, armoured vehicles, overhead helicopters, the attack dogs of the pipeline people – – the assembled might of the USA confronting the unarmed people at Standing Rock – –   ONE member of the military said that he did not support what he and his colleagues were doing there.

Later – unexpectedly and in short time after the call went out from U.S. Army Veteran Wesley Clark Jr  –  four THOUSAND Veterans came, prepared to fight and go to jail in defense of the Standing Rock Sioux  (as mentioned above).

Wesley Clark had hoped:  By around the middle of November I think we’d only raised $3,000 and had 50 people going. I thought maybe if we were lucky we might be able to get 500.

In the textbooks on revolt it’s called Conversion   (change from one political belief or viewpoint, to another.  The Veterans not only changed sides, no longer supporting their Government,  but at Standing Rock they were converted by the Sioux Elders from violence to non-violence.)

The significance of “conversion” in successful revolt emerges from the research by Chris Hedges,  a long-time war correspondent turned author and activist.   He comes back to the point time and again.   From his latest book, “The Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt.” (2015)  which addresses the root causes and the seeds of revolution and resistance.

(Brinton, a researcher) adds another important caveat:

No government has ever fallen before attackers until it has lost control over its armed forces or lost the ability to use them effectively . . .   

While violence and terrorism are often part of revolutions, the fundamental tool of any successful revolt is the nonviolent conversion of the forces deployed to restore order to the side of the rebels  (in this case the Standing Rock Sioux and all their supporters are “the rebels”).  Most successful revolutions are, for this reason, fundamentally nonviolent.   

In the video below, Mark Ruffalo in his “amazing uncut speech” is eloquent on this point.

Hedges provides three examples of CONVERSION:

The Russian Revolution was victorious once the Cossacks refused to fire on the protesters in Petrograd in 1917 and joined the crowds. 

The clerics who overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979 won once the Shah’s military abandoned the collapsing regime, 

And the harsh Communist regimes in Eastern Europe were doomed in 1989 when the security forces no longer defended them. 

The superior force of despotic regimes is disarmed not through violence but through conversion.

January 15, 2016 UPDATE

After watching Episode 6 of Vaccinations Revealed,  I believe there is more to the arrival of the Veterans at Standing Rock.

Episode 6 included the Worldwide Premier of the movie, VACCINE SYNDROME.   

The Gulf War Syndrome was more accurately a Syndrome caused by the vaccine for Anthrax.   A million military and other first responders were forced to receive a number of injections of the vaccine.  With disastrous consequences for thousands and thousands of them  (more at http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=18218).

When you know what happened, the deaths and the slow deaths – – lives, people and families totally ruined – – those people then ignored,  discarded in the gutter  – – you know that thousands upon thousands of people who would, under normal circumstances, be proud and patriotic supporters of their military buddies,  were no longer.

They went to Standing Rock.  The original intention was to take up arms on behalf of the Indians, against the very forces they were once part of.    That is conversion, big time.   (The Elders said no – – nonviolence is the best way.)

Getting back to your question, Derek (Any thoughts?):   strategically,  I have biases in favour of:

  • “Both And” instead of “This OR that, which one?”   (Water or . . .?)
  • “Destributed revolt” which I interpret as empowerment at the community level, whether the community is a real or virtual one.
  • Don’t waste too much time trying to contact and to obtain a buy-in from various people or groups (e.g. to organize under one theme, water).

For 15 years my thoughts on resistance have been shaped by the Museum of Non-Violent Resistance in Berlin (repeated for newcomers):

“… nonviolent resistance as a political force is still young, its possibilities not yet well enough known, and is thus seldom an incitement to the masses and is seldom encouraged by the media. For all that, those striving for human rights are dependent on our solidarity and the feeling is growing of an ever increasing threat through the power of dictatorships, the armaments race and the immobility of bureaucrats.

Gandhi presented the principles of nonviolent resistance to the world, but the methods – corresponding to the various hierarchies – have to be very different, should they lead to success. Through the multiplicity of nonviolent resistance, so rich in ideas, it can be demonstrated that the most powerful effective opposing forces can be mobilized against every form of violence …”

I first visited the Museum in 1999 at a time when NATO was bombing Kosovo.

Excerpt from:    “All our Cowardice and Servility” from the Museum of Non-violent Resistance

Non-violent resistance has been on-going in North America for a very long time.  Really, it is part of our heritage.   Lots of examples we’ve talked about.

Moving on:

It seems to me that Hedges’ research makes explicit – – puts a name to a strategy we’ve used but had no name for:  conversion.   And he makes the importance of the strategy known.

In a later posting we can talk about conversion in another sphere, the intelligentsia.   If you are in open, transparent society I think conversion, as a strategy, is as simple as having conversations with fellow citizens with the idea that the conversation (information) might bring some light to bear that will shift the views embraced by that person.

In a clandestine world, conversion would more likely be called “fifth column”.  I have referred to it as “infiltration”.

The attempt to “convert” is not the exclusive tool of one side or another.   The corporatocracy has the advantage of lots of money to create propaganda for converting us or maintaining us in a passive, as opposed to rebel role.

SO, HOW IS CONVERSION TO OUR SIDE ACCOMPLISHED?

Actions that you feel comfortable with (definitely not the same for everyone!).

Using the example of Standing Rock, links below:   NO ONE,  not even Wesley Clark Jr himself could have predicted the outcome of his spontaneous action.  (Clark is a U.S. Veteran and son of a former Supreme Commander of NATO.)

Clark’s action ended up being a big one.  Seemingly little actions are just as important – – talking about what he and the Veterans did magnifies the value.

People, their drives and emotions are very different.  The opportunities for them to express their humanity open up as a consequence of life lived in the years that precede the Action.

Our lived experiences are very different.   That thing that drove Wesley Clark Jr is HIS, it could not have been MINE.   But I and perhaps millions of others can, through him, see a light that shines on Standing Rock.

Then, through the work of Chris Hedges,  the arrival of 4000 Veterans at Standing Rock becomes not just another incident to be reported.  (Or not reported.)   It has great significance when understood through the lessons of history:   No government has ever fallen before attackers until it has lost control over its armed forces or lost the ability to use them effectively . . .  The superior force of despotic regimes is disarmed not through violence but through conversion. 

We have been spreading news of conversions for a number of years now – – some of it gut-wrenching testimony,  members of the military who defected against their Government leaders to the side of  democracy.  Prominent among the examples:

  • the “Winter Soldiers”
  • Chelsea (Bradley) Manning
  • Edward Snowden
  • Daniel Ellsburg

Two additions that preceded Standing Rock:

2015-11-20 Air Force Whistleblowers Risk Prosecution to Warn Drone War Kills Civilians, Fuels Terror.  Democracy Now

2016-09-08 U.S. veterans support legal fight by Yemeni man whose relatives were killed in drone strike, L.A. Times

BUT important question addressed by the research into the Occupy hashtag – – HOW does the revolt SPREAD?   (how does awareness, empowerment and ACTION come about?)

. . .   hyper-local . . ., people who cover the pulse of communities at a level of detail not even local papers can match.    

Means that  WE are critical.   Which you implicitly understand – – your desire to organize us such that our arrows are all pointing the same direction.

Feedback on progress tells us how close we are getting to the  “successful revolution”.   Social unrest (awareness of and anger over Governments that serve corporate and elite interests – – the 1%) is widespread.

The number of conversions in the U.S. is apparent.  Talk, talk, talk  . . . it works.

The  U.S. Government has lost the confidence and trust of its citizens.  And of many of its veterans, a critical part of the military.

 There are more points to be made (hoping others will make theirs)  and I still want to tell the little victory I think we achieved.   But later.

TWO VIDEOS  in closing:   (had technical problems.  Lost one. /S)

2017-01-13 World Mercury Project: Vaccinations – Robert F. Kennedy Jr

 Freedom of Speech. (Remove some wrong postings from category), Mercury poisoning, dental amalgams. See also Vaccinations., Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Jan 132017
 

If you haven’t – – do watch.   Free viewing – – 8 episodes about 2 hours each.   Running this week.

If the CDC (Centre for Disease Control)  doesn’t come down in a ball of flames over the vaccination issue and what they’ve known (what we knew, too – – but not like this!)  it will be a wonder of the world.

Please pass along.

EVERYone should see it.

Subject: Vaccinations – Episode 3  (link below) will be available until tonight (Jan 13)  when it will be replaced by Episode 4.

Hey Sandra,

BREAKING VACCINE NEWS!

I Bet a lot of folks at the CDC are getting VERY nervous…..

Wait until you see tonight’s Vaccines Revealed Episode 3!

You are going to be an insider, and see what Robert Kennedy Jr. has shared with President Elect Trump. It’s the single most potent interview of the series.

FIRST – We have our exclusive interview with Robert Kennedy Jr.

 

AAAAND – We have a global screening of an exclusive 20 MINUTE version of the movie VAXXED!

The news outlets are buzzing with the fact that Robert Kennedy Jr. met with president-elect Trump to discuss Kennedy chairing a Vaccine Safety Committee.

This is HUGE!

And of course…the rabid pro-vax media is going crazy right now trying to cover up the story!

Please…

Share with everyone in your world, especially this episode. Have them get registered now @ www.VaccinesRevealed.com.

 And, now… Here’s your link to Episode 3

 

Enjoy,

Dr. Patrick Gentempo

P.S. We want to hear from you. Go to the episode page now and leave your comments!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2017-01-10 RFK Jr. Announcing “Vaccines Revealed” – through (at the time) the World Mercury Project! (became Children’s Health Defence)

 Mercury poisoning, dental amalgams. See also Vaccinations., Robert F Kennedy Jr, Vaccinations (incl corruption of science & govt)  No Responses »
Jan 102017
 

NOTE:  World Mercury Project became  Childrens Health Defence

An issue we’ve followed for more than a decade, Heavy metals in vaccinations, Mercury in dental amalgams.

I am forwarding this to everyone I know.

——– Forwarded Message ——–

Subject: Announcing “Vaccines Revealed” – Watch for FREE through World Mercury Project!  (became Children’s Health Defence)
Date: Mon, 9 Jan 2017 18:30:42 -0500 (EST)
From: World Mercury Project <laura.bono@worldmercuryproject.org>
Reply-To: laura.bono@worldmercuryproject.org
To:

 

Forward to friends. Sign up for free updates. worldmercuryproject.org

 

Announcing: 

Vaccines Revealed

A FREE 9-PART DOCU-SERIES THAT ANSWERS QUESTIONS ABOUT VACCINES … THEIR SAFETY, EFFICACY, AND HOW THEY REALLY IMPACT YOUR HEALTH. You don’t want to miss this! The World Mercury Project is always on the lookout for projects that align with our philosophy and we want to share them with you. That’s why we wanted you to know that there is a brand new docu-series called Vaccines Revealed and it starts tomorrow, January 10th.  This exclusive documentary series is about to be unveiled for FREE viewing beginning tomorrow, January 10th through 18th. And you can watch the whole thing for FREE here. You’ll discover the most cutting edge news and just released evidence — from over twenty of the world’s authorities and experts. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is interviewed during the series. Don’t miss his thoughts about thimerosal and his recent launch of the World Mercury Project. To watch this exclusive release in its entirety – just sign up here today. HEAR FROM LEADING EXPERTS DURING THIS EXCLUSIVE EVENT In addition to the interview with Robert F. Kennedy. Jr., you can also watch episodes containing interviews with Stephanie Seneff, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Mary Holland, Dr. Kelly Brogan, Dr. Susanne Humphries, Sayer Ji, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Dr. Toni Bark, and more! Episode 1 airs tomorrow, January 10th! Sign up now for FREE! According to the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA), 88 of the 108 cases settled during the first quarter of 2016 were for injuries and deaths due to the flu vaccine, making the flu vaccine the most dangerous vaccine in the U.S., harming and killing more people than all the other vaccines put together. Most of the flu shots contain 25 mcg. of Thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative. As mercury is a known neurotoxin, it is unconscionable that the CDC still allows it in flu shots, especially those given to pregnant mothers, infants and children. A bit more about “Vaccines Revealed”:

Dr. Patrick Gentempo, Dr. Beau Pierce and Jeff Hays have been digging into the hidden truth behind vaccines. With an award-winning film crew, they flew all over the world and got exclusive access to whistleblowers, former drug reps and university scientists. “Vaccines Revealed” found that:

  • The drug and vaccine industry is a multi-BILLION dollar enterprise… focused more on profits than human lives…
  • Drug and vaccine companies blatantly falsified documents…
  • Whistleblowers’ stories got completely BURIED…
  • Our Government is looking the other way…
  • And families are being devastated by vaccine injuries, endless medical bills… ruined marriages… and a rapid rise in chronic disease (especially in children).

It took months and months of care, attention and energy to edit each part of this stunning series. And now it’s finally ready for the world to see. “Vaccines Revealed” tells the hidden story behind the vaccine industry. And features exclusive interviews with the world’s most acclaimed experts in research, medicine, holistic care and natural health. And you can watch it FREE from Tuesday, January 10th through the 18th. Register for this exclusive, world-wide event now by CLICKING HERE. Sincerely, World Mercury Project Team

 

 

1227 North Peachtree Pkwy, Suite 202 Peachtree City, GA 30269

 

See what’s happening on our social sites
     

 

 

World Mercury Project | 1227 North Peachtree Pkwy, Suite 202, Peachtree City, GA 30269
Sent by laura.bono@worldmercuryproject.org in collaboration with
Try it free today

 

 

 

2012-09-10 Happiness in difficult times: The ‘giggle factor’ is gone. John Helliwell, Economist. International Day of Happiness, March 20.

 Economic Indicators  No Responses »
Jan 022017
 

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Happiness+difficult+times+giggle+factor+gone/7360269/story.html

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun 

Professor John Helliwell, 75, is one of the authors of a groundbreaking UN Happiness Report. He and his wife Millie have found happiness together by taking care to pay attention to the needs and feelings of others. July 13, 2012.
Professor John Helliwell, 75, is one of the authors of a groundbreaking UN Happiness Report. He and his wife Millie have found happiness together by taking care to pay attention to the needs and feelings of others. July 13, 2012.  Jenelle Schneider / Vancouver Sun

“It made him happy.”

University of B.C. economist John Helliwell is speaking about how his father felt after deciding in 1964 to donate 3,000 hectares of stunning waterfront land on Hornby Island to the world.

The bluffs of Helliwell Park make up one of the brightest emeralds in B.C.’s Gulf Islands. And the land came into the hands of millions because John’s father, an accountant, “felt it was too beautiful to not share.”

Such community connections are the grist of the international social science of happiness, and John Helliwell has become one of its leading specialists.

The deliriously active 75-year-old was instrumental in inspiring the United Nations this June to declare the arrival of the “International Day of Happiness.” It’s scheduled for March 20 each year.

Who is more happy? The people of Italy or Canada? Citizens of the U.S. or the Philippines? The residents of Halifax or Vancouver?

Embracing value of happiness

The UN’s Human Happiness Report, as well as other research by Helliwell, who is a former adviser to the Bank of Canada and a scholar with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, offers a scientific answer.

It’s taken people like Helliwell a long time to overcome what he calls the “giggle factor” associated with global happiness research.

How could an emotion so vague and mushy be so crucial to human prosperity?

Because science backs it up, Helliwell says. Because happiness levels are verifiable through experiment and peer-reviewed research.

Because most economists and captains of finance — fixated on the Gross Domestic Product as the most important way to rank a country’s well-being — have been missing the bigger picture.

It’s not only the UN that is embracing happiness research, following the example of the tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan with its Gross National Happiness Index. Now, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French leaders and others want to develop their own happiness indexes.

Canada doesn’t do badly in the 2012 World Happiness Report, which Helliwell co-authored with Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs.

After compiling a complex variety of international surveys on happiness and social well-being, Helliwell et al concluded Canada’s citizens are, on average, fifth happiest in the world. The residents of Denmark came in first — out of more than 150 countries — followed by Finland, Norway and the Netherlands.

These northern European countries all had more of the essential ingredients that make Canadians happy: Decent average incomes, community trust, and a safety net.

How about other countries with strong immigrant links to Canada? The World Happiness Report ranks Americans 11th, the British 18th, Italians 28th, Germans 30th, Indians 94th, Filipinos 104th, and Chinese 114th.

Within Canada, Helliwell has also found strong differences in happiness levels.

Despite the image of the West Coast as a natural paradise, British Columbians are not as content as many other Canadians, particularly those in Atlantic Canada. Even though residents of the Atlantic provinces have lower incomes on average, they are significantly more satisfied with their community than residents of the more rugged, individualistic West Coast.

Helliwell — who has become an expert at the complex statistical ways of measuring our moods, memories and overall life evaluations — wrote in a 2010 paper that a sense of “rootedness” helps make Maritimers more content than high-mobility, high-immigrant British Columbia.

Atlantic Canadians trust each other more than their compatriots on the West Coast, especially young people stuck with stagnant wages in an expensive big city like Metro Vancouver, he says.

British Columbians’ do-your-own-thing ethos has its drawbacks. The provincial government’s marketing slogan of the past decade — that B.C. is “the best place on Earth” — was “junk,” Helliwell says.

“In Kitsilano, everybody is too busy living their own lives to reach out to other people. The sense of community that many have in the Atlantic provinces matters more than your café latte.”

Why the GDP is not enough

Speaking from his family’s residence on Hornby Island, Helliwell confirms he feels as happy as his pioneering father did about donating a park.

“We’re proud of what he did.”

Such expressions about the value of sharing and interconnectedness are not empty platitudes for Helliwell. Along with a growing cohort of interdisciplinary economists, Helliwell realizes that orthodox economists fail to understand that a great deal of human interaction takes place outside what is measured by the GDP — which quantifies the market value of all goods and services produced within a country during a given period.

Orthodox economists, by turning the GDP into a kind of Holy Grail, were seeing only a fraction of the happiness picture. In effect, Helliwell says, they over-emphasized human “self-centredness.” What about their altruism?

Helliwell’s own transformation as an economist started about 20 years ago. That’s when he began studying the work of psychologists, who he realized knew a lot more about what makes people satisfied than economists.

“It made me change my view of human nature. It made me reach out more than I would have done.”

Helliwell realized people care about more than just the accumulation of money and stuff. To be happy, we need to feel connection, trust and meaningful relationships.

It turns out the United States provides one of the best examples of why the GDP is over-rated.

In the most powerful economy on earth, the GDP has risen consistently for the past 50 years. But, as Helliwell stresses, reported levels of happiness in the U.S. have been steadily declining during those decades.

“Increasing inequality is part of the issue,” he says. When the incomes of the elite rise a lot, and “median incomes drop or stay flat, most people don’t feel as well off.”

Beyond GDP and its distribution among the population, the World Happiness Report points out that unhappiness comes from a social sense of insecurity.

“Poverty, ill health, and deep divisions in the community all contribute to low life satisfaction,” the report says.

And a sense that corruption is pervasive, that political and financial leaders are rogues, is devastating to a region’s overall contentment level.

What brings happiness?

“A household’s income counts for life satisfaction, but only in a limited way. Other things matter more: community trust, mental and physical health, and the quality of governance and rule of law,” says the UN report. “Raising incomes can raise happiness, especially in poor countries, but fostering co-operation and community can do even more, especially in rich societies.”

Indeed, as declining U.S. happiness levels suggest, affluence can create its own unhappiness.

Obesity epidemics. Drug addiction. Diabetes. Divorce. Depression. Anxiety. The World Happiness Report found them in abundance in wealthier countries.

“Happiness is not just keeping people fed and in front of TV sets,” Helliwell says.

In cultures focused on consuming things and services, an ever-increasing standard for happiness can create a sense of envy that is never fulfilled.

In wealthy societies, people can become addicted to short-term pleasure. They always want more. They don’t understand long-term contentment, which requires a sense of self-limitation, of feeling one has enough.

For instance, Helliwell has learned from psychologist colleagues that over-eating in affluent societies is hardly a celebration of good fortune. More often, it signals depression.

“Over-eating is one way to act out one’s unhappiness. And, when it creates obesity, it just adds to unhappiness.”

Friends and relationships

When it comes to the happiness that flows from relationships, Helliwell finds friends on his beloved Hornby Island and among his fellow scullers at Vancouver’s Spanish Banks.

“The social aspect is very important. It creates a sense of family.”

There is also his community of scholars, thinkers and activists — and his family, including his good-natured wife, Millie, plus two sons, two daughters and five grandchildren. Alas, his well-known brother, David, who won a silver medal in rowing in the 1956 Summer Olympics, died almost two decades ago.

Even though it took Helliwell a while in his economics career to study well-being, it’s fair to suggest his interest in happiness grew out of his Rhodes Scholar studies at Oxford University, where he dived into the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

“I consider myself Aristotle’s research assistant.”

He has conducted laboratory experiments testing Aristotle’s idea about the source of happiness, which the philosopher argued could derive from living a virtuous life, following the Golden Mean.

“Aristotle was saying happiness isn’t all about doing the right thing. Nor about eating good food. It’s a combination.”

Happiness is, in part, a skill — one that people can develop, Helliwell says.

“And having a purpose in life is a part of Aristotle’s story. One can find happiness in doing something for others.”

Helliwell’s growing realization that happiness has to do with connection and altruism has led him to do many “silly things.” Like giving speeches around the world in which he leads audiences in kids’ songs such as “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.”

He says he gets people clapping “to show the science: A shared experience increases happiness. And a lot of people say you can feel the tenor of the room change.”

Religion is also good for creating a sense of connection, he says.

Despite being a largely inactive Anglican, Helliwell says studies show religious people tend to be happier — and much of that has to do with their enhanced sense of community.

In addition, Helliwell joins the Dalai Lama, with whom he is friends, in emphasizing that religious institutions are excellent at teaching people to think about others.

“Everybody needs reminders,” he said. One study suggests people are less likely to cheat and more likely to be generous when indirectly reminded of the Ten Commandments.

Some version of the “Golden Rule” — treat others the way you’d like to be treated — runs through every major religion. Such reaching out, he says, leads to the so-called “caregiver effect.”

It makes people happy.

Marriage can bring joy

Even though Helliwell, as an academic, is adept at making abstract and statistical claims about the origins of happiness, he doesn’t want to lose touch with the state of being itself.

That’s why, along with friends and family, he is not shy about singing the praises of his wife, Millie.

“Marriage is a very important source of happiness.” Even though some separations seem necessary, he says most studies show a high correlation between divorce and unhappiness.

“Some people heal from divorce, but it is still a failed relationship. Most of the happiness effect related to marriage has to do with having someone to share your life with.”

It’s why he doesn’t hesitate to call Millie a “beacon of light wherever she goes” — someone who takes a genuine interest in everyone she meets, lighting up their day.

In other words, as Helliwell likes to say, “I study happiness. And she lives it.”

2013-09-18 Craig Murray, former ambassador, whistleblower. We Need WikiLeaks (Julian Assange). And “The Russians did it!”

 Julian Assange, Wikileaks, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, Arjen Kamphuis  No Responses »
Dec 302016
 

(The thing I dislike most about this:  Western Media cries foul on Russia for interfering (or not) in elections held in the West.    With never a word about how many overseas Governments have been overthrown or sabotaged by the U.S. to serve the interests of their corporations, with never a mention about how many foreign leaders have been assassinated by the U.S.   (see  2016-03-22   There are two sides to the story. Why do we hear only one? (Terrorists & Context: CIA – examples Mossadegh, Lumumba, Arbenz, Guevera, Allende))

There are many more examples.  If the U.S. interferes in foreign elections (big time) every other “Power” in the world  MUST do the same.    They would be fools not to.

 

Suggest:

  1. listen to this 8 minute youtube,  Craig Murray speaking in 2013.
  2. Then December 2016, read Murray’s words (short excerpt) from The Guardian,   CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump  (“Russia did it”  – – American Election, leaked/hacked emails from the Democrats).
  3. Followed by a blunt excerpt from RT opinion

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

2.       CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump
win election, say reports

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/10/cia-concludes-russia-interfered-to-help-trump-win-election-report

Note:   I did not copy the first part of the article – – the title says it loud enough.   The link above is to the whole article.

Excerpt:

. . . .   Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims “bullshit”, adding: “They are absolutely making it up.”

“I know who leaked them,” Murray said. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

“If what the CIA are saying is true, and the CIA’s statement refers to people who are known to be linked to the Russian state, they would have arrested someone if it was someone inside the United States.

“America has not been shy about arresting whistleblowers and it’s not been shy about extraditing hackers.  . . .

– – – – – – – – – – –

3.  RT Opinion  (blunt)

CONTINUING – –  After “The CIA concludes”  that Russia did it,  Obama announced sanctions and booted out Russian diplomats.   Putin meanwhile confirmed:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/372280-obama-sanctions-hacking-election-russia/  

     Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed agreement has been reached on ceasefire in Syria

. . .    a new ceasefire was announced in Syria; a ceasefire organized by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US playing no part. A bitter pill to swallow, indeed.

The fact the US was left out of these latest ceasefire negotiations will be yet another reminder to the Obama administration of where they failed on the global stage. A US presence at the negotiating table was irrelevant because three weeks from now Trump is expected to take a vastly different approach to Syria.
A year ago, after Turkey shot down a Russian jet over Syria, Russia-Turkey relations were dead in the water, seemingly never to be revived. If Moscow and Ankara can get from there to here, surely the US can think up better ‘solutions’ to their problems than kicking a few dozen diplomats out of New York and Maryland.

The Kremlin called the latest sanctions “unpredictable and even aggressive” in their response. One could easily disagree with that. The ‘agree with us or hit the road’ approach is standard and entirely predictable in US foreign policy. When you consider that forcibly removing foreign leaders from power is eternally more preferable than talking, throwing out diplomats over possibly fake hacking doesn’t seem so surprising.

Dangerous precedent on scant evidence

Imposing sanctions over unproven cyber attacks sets a dodgy precedent. It essentially means the CIA can continue to conjure up any wild claims it likes, and no one — not even the media — will question them. The White House can then go ahead and impose whatever kind of political sanctions it likes on its enemies as “retaliation” without having their hands tied by little things like evidence or the facts. That is dangerous.

Just look at how the next set of European elections are already being framed by Western media. Not only did Putin engineer Brexit in the UK and Trump’s election in the US — along with a few other less consequential European votes — but he apparently also has the French and German electorates firmly in his pocket, too. Who is to say that the CIA and their friends in Europe won’t come up with more tales of Russian interference if those elections don’t go their way either? We’re already being primed for it.

Last but certainly not least, it would be remiss to end without noting the sheer hypocrisy of the country best known for engineering coups and interfering in foreign elections having the audacity to throw a hissy fit at this level over the mere notion that someone could deliver a taste of their own medicine.

@DanielleRyanJ

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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