01/24/15 ~ The Raw Story

Saturday, 24 January 2015

Flashback: Fear, Inc. The roots of the Islamophobia network in America

© Getty Images/Bill Pugliano

Anti-Muslim graffiti defaces a Shi'ite mosque at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan.

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway's Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a "jihadist" motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described "gruesome but necessary" actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was "necessary" to save Europe from Marxism and "Muslimization." In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows "brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties" to fight the alleged "ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe."

Breivik's manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam's "war against the West." This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer's website, which "tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture," boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer's frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded "promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy "American values." Based on Breivik's sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik's deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism "is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged," the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are "the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged." Sageman adds that their rhetoric "is not cost-free."

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik's manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism - three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of "creeping Sharia," Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians' talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam - in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

Donors Capital Fund

Richard Mellon Scaife foundations

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust

Russell Berrie Foundation

Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund

Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009 - funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here's one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was "a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it." Gingrich went on to claim that "Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world."

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one's parents - precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia "the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time." Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy's anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans' perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, "All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith - face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon love, not hate."

Unfortunately, President Bush's words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America's core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States." One of the top focal points of the effort is to "counter al-Qa'ida's propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam." Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa'ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our history - from the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated "Ground Zero mosque" controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. ... We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1 - our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term "Islamophobia." We don't use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America's social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America's core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose - and marginalize - the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Wajahat Ali is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a researcher for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Eli Clifton is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and a national security reporter for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress and Director of the Center's Middle East Progress. Lee Fang is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher/blogger for the Center for American Progress Action Fund and ThinkProgress.org. Scott Keyes is a researcher at the Center for American Progress and an investigative researcher for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Faiz Shakir is a Vice President at the Center for American Progress and serves as Editor-in-Chief of ThinkProgress.org.

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Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader

In the name of God, the Beneficent the Merciful

To the Youth in Europe and North America,

The recent events in France and similar ones in some other Western countries have convinced me to directly talk to you about them. I am addressing you, [the youth], not because I overlook your parents, rather it is because the future of your nations and countries will be in your hands; and also I find that the sense of quest for truth is more vigorous and attentive in your hearts.

I don't address your politicians and statesmen either in this writing because I believe that they have consciously separated the route of politics from the path of righteousness and truth.

I would like to talk to you about Islam, particularly the image that is presented to you as Islam. Many attempts have been made over the past two decades, almost since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to place this great religion in the seat of a horrifying enemy. The provocation of a feeling of horror and hatred and its utilization has unfortunately a long record in the political history of the West.

Here, I don't want to deal with the different phobias with which the Western nations have thus far been indoctrinated. A cursory review of recent critical studies of history would bring home to you the fact that the Western governments' insincere and hypocritical treatment of other nations and cultures has been censured in new historiographies.

The histories of the United States and Europe are ashamed of slavery, embarrassed by the colonial period and chagrined at the oppression of people of color and non-Christians. Your researchers and historians are deeply ashamed of the bloodsheds wrought in the name of religion between the Catholics and Protestants or in the name of nationality and ethnicity during the First and Second World Wars. This approach is admirable.

By mentioning a fraction of this long list, I don't want to reproach history; rather I would like you to ask your intellectuals as to why the public conscience in the West awakens and comes to its senses after a delay of several decades or centuries. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems? Why is it that attempts are made to prevent public awareness regarding an important issue such as the treatment of Islamic culture and thought?

You know well that humiliation and spreading hatred and illusionary fear of the "other" have been the common base of all those oppressive profiteers. Now, I would like you to ask yourself why the old policy of spreading "phobia" and hatred has targeted Islam and Muslims with an unprecedented intensity. Why does the power structure in the world want Islamic thought to be marginalized and remain latent? What concepts and values in Islam disturb the programs of the super powers and what interests are safeguarded in the shadow of distorting the image of Islam? Hence, my first request is: Study and research the incentives behind this widespread tarnishing of the image of Islam.

My second request is that in reaction to the flood of prejudgments and disinformation campaigns, try to gain a direct and firsthand knowledge of this religion. The right logic requires that you understand the nature and essence of what they are frightening you about and want you to keep away from.

I don't insist that you accept my reading or any other reading of Islam. What I want to say is: Don't allow this dynamic and effective reality in today's world to be introduced to you through resentments and prejudices. Don't allow them to hypocritically introduce their own recruited terrorists as representatives of Islam.

Receive knowledge of Islam from its primary and original sources. Gain information about Islam through the Qur'an and the life of its great Prophet. I would like to ask you whether you have directly read the Qur'an of the Muslims. Have you studied the teachings of the Prophet of Islam and his humane, ethical doctrines? Have you ever received the message of Islam from any sources other than the media?

Have you ever asked yourself how and on the basis of which values has Islam established the greatest scientific and intellectual civilization of the world and raised the most distinguished scientists and intellectuals throughout several centuries?

I would like you not to allow the derogatory and offensive image-buildings to create an emotional gulf between you and the reality, taking away the possibility of an impartial judgment from you. Today, the communication media have removed the geographical borders. Hence, don't allow them to besiege you within fabricated and mental borders.

Although no one can individually fill the created gaps, each one of you can construct a bridge of thought and fairness over the gaps to illuminate yourself and your surrounding environment. While this preplanned challenge between Islam and you, the youth, is undesirable, it can raise new questions in your curious and inquiring minds. Attempts to find answers to these questions will provide you with an appropriate opportunity to discover new truths.

Therefore, don't miss the opportunity to gain proper, correct and unbiased understanding of Islam so that hopefully, due to your sense of responsibility toward the truth, future generations would write the history of this current interaction between Islam and the West with a clearer conscience and lesser resentment.

Seyyed Ali Khamenei

Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Outside of heart disease and statins, another area I have been studying for many years is diabetes. Not type I diabetes (caused by destruction of beta-cells in the pancreas and a lack of insulin), but type II diabetes. Type II diabetes has nothing to do with a lack of insulin, it is generally considered to be caused by insulin resistance i.e. enough insulin is produced, but there is 'resistance' to its effects.

This resistance firstly drives up the insulin levels. However, as it worsens, the raised insulin levels are no longer sufficient, so the blood sugar levels rise anyway. At first the fasting sugar levels may be normal, but the response to a sugar 'test' shows an abnormally high level about an hour later. This is why a glucose tolerance test (GTT) used to be the way of diagnosing early stage type II diabetes.

This has been superseded by the HbA1c test. This test, essentially, looks at the amount of glucose that has stuck to your red blood cells over the last month.

Which gives an idea of what the 'average' sugar level has been over a longer time period. It is a better measure.

Anyway, without getting too bogged down in technical details, the model that is used to explain type II diabetes is very simple.

You eat too much

You become obese

As you become more and more obese you become more and more insulin resistant

Your insulin level rises to overcome this resistance

At some point the resistance become too much

You develop raised blood sugar levels aka type II diabetes

I call this the 'blowing up a balloon' model of diabetes. As the balloon expands, you need to blow harder to get more air in.

This model (or variations thereof) is almost universally agreed, by almost everyone. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that I do not agree with it. Yes, there is not the slightest doubt that diabetes and obesity are related. In fact, there is no doubt that obesity; insulin resistance and type II diabetes are closely related.

Equally, there is no doubt that if people lose weight, their diabetes can go into reverse, and 'reversibility' is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence possible in proving causality. So where exactly, you may think, is my problem?

My problems first started with the recognition that you can find far too many direct contradictions to this model. Just to look at two examples. First we can look at the least obese people in the world. Those unfortunates who have a condition called '. In this condition you have no fat cells - at all. So, of course, the rate of type II diabetes in these people would be zero...right? Wrong, the rate of type II diabetes is 100%.

Then we have Sumo wrestlers, the single most obese group of people on earth. So, they all have severe insulin resistance and type II diabetes right...? Wrong, whilst in training, none of them have type II diabetes.

In short:

Thinnest group of people in the word, 100% diabetes

Fattest group of people in the world 0% diabetes

Or to put this another way round, it is clear that obesity is neither necessary, nor sufficient to cause type II diabetes. If you were a follower of Bradford Hill, or Koch, of Popper this, effectively, writes off obesity as a possible causal factor for type II diabetes.

But, but.

But what?

To move sideways for a moment or two. When you first read about type I diabetes, one of the things that stands out is that those diagnosed with type I (at least in the past) lost weight very rapidly. They grew thinner and thinner, becoming almost like skeletons - before they all died. Why?

Why, is because insulin is the energy storage hormone. It does not just affect blood sugar levels. In fact, the almost obsessive focus on the interplay between insulin and blood sugar has blinded almost everyone to the fact that insulin does far more than just lower sugar levels. It affects fat, protein and sugar metabolism. It interacts with many different pathways in adipose tissue, muscle cells and the liver. Lowering blood sugar may be, in some ways, the least important thing that it does.

The reason why you die in type I diabetes has little to do with blood sugar levels. You die because, without insulin, fats escape from adipose tissue and travels to the liver as free fatty acids. In the liver these fatty acids are automatically converted into ketone bodies (which the body uses for energy in a fasting state).

The ketone bodies are, in turn, acidic, and in a high concentration they cause 'acidosis'. This acidity overwhelms the alkali buffering systems, and you die in a keto-acidotic coma. To reiterate, it is not the high sugar that kills you in type I diabetes, it is the uncontrolled release of fats. This has nothing to do with sugar at all - except indirectly. Which, although you may not think it, returns us to the matter in hand. Namely, what is the association between obesity and diabetes?

As we have seen, without insulin, fats escape from fat cells at a high rate, so you lose weight. If we turn this though one hundred and eighty degrees, it should be clear that, if you have too much insulin in your bloodstream, fat can no longer escape from fat cells, and you will get fatter and fatter.

Essentially, insulin is obesogenic. A fancy way of saying that if you produce too much insulin you will become obese. An amazing fact '' in August 2014

"DALLAS - August 25, 2014 - UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a crucial link between high levels of insulin and pathways that lead to obesity, a finding that may have important implications when treating diabetes."[1]

Yes chaps, well done. You made a breakthrough discovery of the absolute bleeding obvious. You mean, insulin makes you fat? Well who'd a thunk? Well, lots and lots of people actually. At which point, let me introduce you to the Pima Indians of North America. This race has an almost unbelievably high rate of type II diabetes. It is greater than 50%. Perhaps more. Are they obese, yes? Of course. However, of greater interest is that Pima Indians, long before they become obese and/or diabetic, produce far, far, more insulin than any other race [2]:

'The normal and prediabetic Indians had fasting and stimulated insulin levels during all the tests two-to-threefold greater than the Caucasians. Differences in insulin levels between the two races could not be explained by differences in glucose level, age, or obesity.'

Interesting... It is clear that the model with the Pima Indians is, as follows:

You produce too much insulin

You become obese

You become insulin resistant

You develop type II diabetes

Of course, it is not just the Pima Indians where this happens. This causal chain works for us all. It contains most of the same 'factors' as the blowing up a balloon model of diabetes (although you will notice it does not contain the 'you eat too much' factor). However, as you can also see, the facts are in a different order. I like to call this, the correct order.

In short, yes, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes are closely associated. But not quite in the way that everyone believes.

Moving on. What, you might think, would cause people to produce too much insulin. Well, what foodstuffs cause the greatest rise in insulin levels? Why, let me think... Yes, carbohydrates would cause the greatest rise in insulin levels. So if you eat lots of carbohydrates, you will produce lots of insulin. Insulin forces fats into fat cells and stops it escaping. Insulin is obesogenic... Join those dots ladies and gentlemen.

P.S. Pop quiz. What do you think happens if you try to force blood sugar levels down in type II diabetes by prescribing insulin?

P.P.S. So why does everyone with Beradinelli-Siep syndrome have type II diabetes? Answers on a postcard please.

References:

1: High insulin levels tied to obesity pathway

2: Lymphocyte membrane receptors mediating recognition of antigens (translated article in German)

January 23, 2015 "ICH" - Imagine - a bunch of French, CIA and Mossad special forces, one of them or a combination of the three, attack a racist, Moslem-insulting publisher in Paris and a kosher supermarket at another end of town - killing altogether 17 people, notwithstanding the 'suicide' of the French police chief in charge of investigating the atrocity.

A million and a half people in Paris take to the streets - about 6 million throughout Europe - all screaming or carrying posters with a maddening, inexplicable " - depicting an utterly brainwashed mindset, brainwashed for decades with Washington directed mind control.

They do not know, do not want to know, that the Charlie massacre was yet another staged event, another false flag that will eventually give their masters green light to intensify their 'wars on terror' around the globe. Terrorists are mostly Muslims; so is their dictum. Before the massacre, the powers that be identified three Muslims as the perpetrators of the crime to come. Soon after the Charlie attack, they sent killer squads to massacre them, before anybody could question them. The fight on terror - don't leave witnesses behind.

The millions of demonstrators' war cry is literally asking the western armies, led by NATO to turn- and speed up their brutal killing machine in the Middle East - to exterminate the Moslem population.The western public has been told and is constantly being told by the western powers dominated main stream media thatMuslims are at the heart of all evil; when in fact quite the contrary is true. The West under neoliberal leadership (sic) has become a horrifying merciless killing machine.

That's Paris Charlie revisited and in a nutshell. - That's our neoliberal 'civilization' - with a purpose. written all over the walls of Charlie Hebdo's blasphemous infrastructure. Waging even more savage war on the 1.6 billion Muslims. Killing 17 people by Empire and its stooges, will allow Empire and its stooges to kill more millions, perhaps tens of millions, to exterminate this 'evil' Muslim sect of 'terrorists'. A 'terrorist' is anybody who doesn't bend to the empire's boot. That doctrine has been impregnated in western minds ever since another killed on 9/11 about 3,000 people in New York, allowing the beginning of the eternal war - wars, one succeeding the next - the criminal Bush-Blair legacy of the 21^st Century.

The Afghanistan invasion of empire directed NATO forces was to control the TAPI pipeline project (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India), for which the Taliban were unwilling to negotiate with the Bush family, nor with a secret Congressional commission in 2001. The project is as of this day a bone of contention - and a good reason for Obama to leave a permanent 'residue' of troops in Afghanistan.

To keep a roving mindless populace tight - local false flags, à la Boston Marathon bombing are necessary to intensify repression, abrogate ever more civil liberties - and this even on demand from the very people affected by the repression. They want more security, more protection.

As with Charlie Hebdo, the bad guys were pre-identified, so that when the secret special forces launched their ugly plot, they were easy to trace and chase - and kill. One of the designated 'perpetrators' in the Boston case and all of them in Paris. Dead men don't talk.

The Bostonians literally invited armed police to take over their streets and invade their homes. In Paris the marchers of 1.5 million people were silently screaming, "Hollande go to war and free us from evil! " - What a depressing joke this is. It would be laughable if it weren't that serious. - It is one more step won by the neoliberal empire - a step towards full dominance and subjugation of the populace.

The Washington funded AlQaeda-turned-Taliban-turned-AlQaeda Osama BinLaden was made responsible for the Twin Tower's collapse - in no time. And in no time, two years to be exact, the wind shifted. Iraq's Saddam is the culprit. The power of the msm - in combination with the brainless masses works wonders.

Saddam, the newly designated culprit of the New York 9/11 monstrosity triggered the war on Iraq - the empire taking over the country's riches, her oil wells; at that time the world's cheapest oil to bring to the surface - and making sure that Saddam would not tell helped and incited him to wage an eight-year war against his neighbor Iran, and gave him the poison to gas in 1988 the Kurds in the North, and especially, that he would not convert his forced dollar denominated sales of hydrocarbons into euros, as he unwittingly announced - he had to be executed. He received a world stage hanging, propaganda for justice, for American justice - justice of the exceptional people, supported and road-mapped, as always, by the banking backed 'chosen people'.

The Bush-Blair led 'coalition of the willing' slaughtered more than a million and a half Iraqis, mostly civilians;women, children and elderly; creating other millions of refugees. Countless people murdered in Afghanistan. In parallel the NED-induced (National Endowment for Democracy) infamous machinery of 'regime change' produced the so-called Arab Spring which had nothing to do with spring, but everything with devastating one Middle Eastern and North African country after another. The obliteration of Libya and Syria through NATO bombing and NATO prompted civil wars, and more brutal and bloody conflicts all over Mother Earth.

Obama's personally directed drone war on Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Turkey - and the list goes on - is further fomenting and funding local unrest, killing masses of defenseless people.

It is American judgment over nations by war. ISIS, a US-EU-NATO creation, generously funded by the empire and its European and Middle Eastern stooges, as a rebel force to fight Syrian troops and to take over Iraq, is torturing and slaughtering in the (concealed) name of the neocon empire, other thousands of people.

ISIS, supplied with cutting-edge weaponry by the US and NATO, is assailing Iraq, where George W. Bush notoriously declared in May 2003, two months after his shock and awe invasion, "Mission Accomplished".

Not to mention the horrifying eight more years of war Iraq and her people endured until Obama ceremoniously announced the end of war, pulling out US troops in 2011 - not without leaving a core presence behind, though.

As Eduardo Galeano, the famous revolutionary Uruguayan writer and philosopher said - once US troops are in a country, they never leave. Hence, the more than thousand US military bases around the globe.

Wars must go on. The US neoliberal economy depends on them. The war machine and its ramifications contribute more than 50% to the US GDP.

Without wars, the country would collapse. All peace talks and negotiations initiated or feigned by Washington are fake, a deception, propaganda for the goodness of the naked emperor. Kudos for the exceptional nation.

World peace would mean a black hole for the United States, demise.

In both cases, Iraq and Syria, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) - the Sunni caliphate having merged in 2013 with Syria's al-Nusra Front - and whatever other names the 'rebels' may morph into - are paid to fight national armies unwilling to bend. In turn, they are justifying US interventions, bombing the same ISIS they created, though only a little bit, to make believe, lest ISIS might really be wiped out. Recent US helicopter food and ammunition drops behind ISIS Iraqi lines testify to the west's double standards and deceit.

In reality, when bombing ISIS, NATO is bombing Iraq and Syria for regime change, and as an added icing on the cake, to grease the US war machine, the ever hungry military industrial complex.

Estimates have it that US carried out and inspired wars and conflicts around the globe have killed over ten million people in the last decade and a half.

That's neoliberal 'civilization' - murdering 17 to kill millions - making billions by weapon manufacturing and selling, plus more billions by stealing hydrocarbon - the God of Energy of our ever growth-lusty western greed economy; and making even more billions by converting small-holder agriculture which still today feeds 80% of world population - into pesticide-implanted genetically modified food production, the Monsanto world.

As if this destruction, annihilation and misery of war and mass killing were not enough, there is reconstruction after war, another bonanza for the destroyer. The words of former World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, also known as the US neoliberal trade tsar, will not be forgotten, when he said in the midst of NATO devastating Libya in 2011 - "We hope that the World Bank will also be involved in the reconstruction of Libya." Well, this wish has not come through yet, but in other war-torn zones it has.

After destruction comes reconstruction with all the neoliberal strings attached, financial robbery of public goods, reduction of pensions, minimum wages, social services, privatization of education and health, expropriation and privatization of natural resources by foreign corporations - and the list goes on, all requisites of extreme austerity measures as conditions for the sacrosanct IMF, World Bank and ECBso-called rescue packages.

At times, countries whose existence remains somehow important for the empire, like those in Southern Europe, will be driven into misery without physical war, just by financial abuse and economic slavery. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy, were driven to the abyss of suffocation by the all-powerful, but appallingly criminal troika, the IMF, ECB and the European Commission.

After coercing or replacing their elected governments with neoliberal puppets, mostly former Wall Street execs, as is the President of the ECB, they - the troika and their masters - forced these countries into debt, after debt and more debt - debt that is virtually unrecoverable in a generation; debt that causes astronomical levels of unemployment, Greece, Spain and Portugal, hovering above 25% and 65% among the young people, slashing social services, health care, pensions, leaving a huge proportion of their population in absolute poverty and in physical and mental misery.

And who funds all these atrocities - wars and financial devastation? - Wall Street, the extended arm of the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon controlled monetary system, and its puppets, the FED, IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank and their subordinate European mega-banks. Naturally. - Who else?

All of these neoliberal mayhems are guided by the invisible hand of the PNAC - the Plan of a New American Century, designed by Zionist Washington think tanks, the tail that wags the dog. The PNAC foresees the annihilation of the Middle East, the pocketing of Europe by implanting puppets - done! - and finally the encircling and eventual subjugation of Russia and China - the ascent of a Washington directed One World Order.

It shall not happen. There is hope in the solid alliance of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, of Russia and China; a strategic economic and defense pact, the western media are silent about. The less the public knows of the truth, the more it will adore the 'exceptional nation', as its one and only master - so goes the theory of western self-adulation.

Neoliberalism wants it all, the supremacy of the 1% - addressing the lowest common denominator in human kind - greed, using the main stream media concocting lies and deceptions to nurture more greed which in turn is the engine that fuels the neoliberal doctrine of private property, of privatization of public goods, privatization - stealing - of other countries natural resources, the steady pursuit of instant profit, of police and military oppression of the few who refuse to comply. A Win-Win-Win situation - energy, food and money, as per Kissinger's infamous dogma - who controls energy controls continents, who controls food controls people, and who controls money controls the world.

Neoliberalism, the religion of the West, is the epitome of evil, of destruction of civilization itself. Neoliberalism - thanks to its unifying factor of greed, has ravaged the west like brushfire and taken over the world in less than 30 years, a feat grander than that achieved by mono-theistic Judo-Christianity in over 2000 years.

Citizens of Mother Earth - BEWARE ! - Wake up ! Open your eyes and ears ! - Become vanguards of a new world, new values - where the neocons and their globalization bite the dust, and where local production for local markets funded by local banks propels solidarity and harmony into new generations of mankind.

Attack on Mariupol Begins; 7,000-8,000 Ukrainian Forces Nearly Encircled in Northern Cauldron; US Sends Army Trainers

Yesterday, DNR (Donetsk People's Republic) president Alexander Zakharchenko issued this statement on a ceasefire:

"There will no longer be any attempts to speak about a ceasefire from our side. We will now see how Kiev reacts. Kiev doesn’t currently understand that we can advance in three directions simultaneously".

Jacob Dreizin, a US citizen who speaks Russian and reads Ukrainian provides a DNR perspective that he has seen.

Jacob writes ...

Background for Zakharchenko's "no more ceasefires" statement stems from rebel disappointment back in August when Moscow forced the rebels to the negotiating table in Minsk, Belarus. The rebels gave up some territory around Mariupol at a time when Ukraine army was retreating, and in complete disarray.

This could have been a great opportunity for Kiev to come to its senses and accept a political solution.

However, the Ukraine side openly and repeated stated that the so-called ceasefire was just a tactical move prior to building up the forces and going back on the offensive. Then Kiev announced a 4th wave build-up of 50,000-100,000 troops.

In that context, Zakharchenko is telling the world that the Ukrainians blew their second chance, and there will be no more opportunities because all Kiev has done is move to strengthen its forces. Zakharchenko’s patience has run out especially considering nonstop bombardment of rebel-held cities.

Enough is enough.

Attack on Mariupol Begins

Today Zakharchenko announced the battle for Mariupol is underway. Also, to the North the Debaltsevo cauldron is closing and 7,000 to 8,000 Ukrainian forces will be trapped (encircled).

Here are some images and text regarding the attack on Mariupol from Colonel Cassad.

Colonel Cassad writes ... "This morning our forces continued their attempts to sever an exit path for the Debaltsevso-Group of Ukrainian forces. Encirclement failed so far, but according to reports, our artillery began to pound the main road leading from Debaltsevo to Svetlodarsk."

That paragraph is in reference to the about-to-be trapped Ukrainian forces around the city of Debaltsevo (the Debaltsevo cauldron).

Red Alert: Rocket Fire Could Signal New Offensive on Mariupol

From Stratfor: Red Alert: Rocket Fire Could Signal New Offensive on Mariupol.

Reports of heavy rocket artillery firing on the eastern parts of the city of Mariupol, Ukraine, as well as a statement made by a separatist leader, indicate the potential preparation of an offensive on the city. While this would be a significant escalation and an indicator of Russian intent to push further into Ukraine, potentially forming a much-rumored land connection to the northern border of Crimea, there are also several indicators required for such an offensive that are currently still missing.

The attack comes days after the Russian forces secured the Donetsk Airport, important in defending the right flank of any offensive westward. It also comes days after Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe, came to Ukraine and publicly announced that a small number of U.S. Army trainers would be arriving in Ukraine. While any large-scale offensive would have been considered and planned for much longer, the decision of the United States to send Lt. Gen. Hodges could have affected the dynamic of internal Russian calculations.

In any event, we do not yet know Russia’s strategic intentions. This could simply be an attempt to signal the danger Russia could pose to their negotiating partners in the west. It could be an attempt to extend the pocket they hold modestly. It could, finally, be the opening of an offensive toward Crimea.

The Russian position in Crimea is untenable. Crimea is easily isolated should Ukranian forces strengthen or Western forces get involved. Russia holds Crimea only to the extent that the West chooses not to intervene, or to the extent that it extends a relatively wide and robustly defended land bridge from Russia to the Crimea. Crimea and the Sevastapol naval facilities are of strategic importance to Russia and the decision to hold these facilities but not extend their power makes diplomatic sense, though it is not militarily rational. Either Russia can build the geographical structure to support Crimea, or it becomes a permanent weak point in the Russian position. The Russians do not want a massive confrontation with the West at a time of economic dysfunction, yet at the same time, having made the decision to hold Crimea, they will not have a better moment for consolidation.

This is an ongoing conversation in Moscow. It is not clear that it is over. The artillery may simply be a minor probe or it could be the preface to an assault. We know that there has been a significant increase in Russian presence in the pocket, but it does not seem to us that the Russians are logistically ready for a major offensive yet.

Taking Mariupol is a first step to a broader offensive. It is also an end in itself, anchoring the southern flank in the city, though may not even be that. However, the MLRS barrages on Mariupol open the door to multiple avenues of exploitation and have clearly moved the fighting to a new level, not so much in intensity, but in raising serious questions of strategic intention.

Mariupol Video

Link if video does not play: Attack on Mariupol

Major Offensive

In contrast to the analysis from Stratfor, it seems to me the major offensive started yesterday with the warning from DNR president Alexander Zakharchenko "Kiev doesn’t currently understand that we can advance in three directions simultaneously."

The intent of Zakharchenko is to take and hold the entire Donetsk region. And it appears he will be able to do just that unless the US intervenes in a major way.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://bit.ly/1CGxx6l to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

© NASA, ESA and A. Field (STScI)

This NASA graphic shows how scientists used Hubble Space Telescope observations of a distant quasar to discover that two giant gas bubbles are erupting from the Milky Way's core at 2 million mph. In this graphic, material shown in blue is moving toward the observer, while material in red is traveling away.

Giant bubbles of gas that erupted from the core of the Milky Way galaxy millions of years ago are expanding out into space at mind-blowing speeds, according to new observations that may help reveal how the strange balloon-like lobes formed.

Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have clocked the speed of gas bubbles, known as Fermi bubbles, at a whopping 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h). The giant structures now extend 30,000 light-years above and below the plane of the Milky Way.

"A few million years ago, there was a very energetic event at the galactic center, and we're seeing a remnant," lead author Andrew Fox, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, said at a press conference this month.

Fox presented the new Hubble observations at the 225th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, revealing the age of the Fermi bubbles.

Piercing the Dust and Gas

Fermi bubbles were first discovered in 2010 by scientists using NASA's Fermi Large Area Telescope, which revealed two lobes of material protruding from the center of the Milky Way. Since then, the features have been studied in the X-ray and radio wavelengths.

Fox and his team paired Hubble's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph with a distant quasar to measure the speed and composition of the billowing bubbles. A quasar is a very bright source of light generated by fast-moving particles near a supermassive black hole inside a distant galaxy. Light from the quasar is so strong that it outshines its parent galaxy. The scientists measured how the ultraviolet light from quasar PDS 456 shifted as it passed through the base of the northern bubble.

With the help of the bright quasar, the team determined that material on the near side of the northern lobe is streaming toward the sun, while material on the far side is zipping away. The material is gushing out of the Milky Way at approximately 900 to 1,000 kilometers per second, or about 2 million mph.

At this rate, the scientists calculated that the event that created the lobes occurred between 2.5 and 4 million years ago.

In addition to measuring its speed, the new Hubble observations also determined that the material swept up by the gas was made up of silicon, carbon and aluminum. This composition suggests that the gas is enriched by heavy elements that are forged within stars, and represents the fossil remnants of star formation.

The gas studied by Fox's team reaches temperatures of 17,500 degrees Fahrenheit (9,700 degrees Celsius). Far cooler than the rest of the gas in the outflow, which reaches temperatures of around 18 million degrees F (10 million degrees C), the cooler gas may be interstellar gas from the Milky Way that has been swept up in the hot outflow, Fox said.

A Front-Row Seat

In other galaxies, starbursts drive outflows of gas that resemble Fermi bubbles, but these features are difficult to study from so far away. The Milky Way's Fermi bubbles provide an up-close look at these formations.

"We have a front-row seat. We can study the details of these structures," Fox said in a statement. "We can look at how big the bubbles are and how much of the sky they are covering."

PDS 456 is the first of 20 quasars whose light passes through the lobes. Studying the entire sample will allow astronomers to further narrow down the source of the event that generated the Fermi bubbles.

One potential cause of the outflows is rapid star formation at the galactic center. This birth of stars produced a series of supernovas that blew out a significant supply of gas. Another explanation involves the fall of a star or group of stars into the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, causing superheated gas to be blasted into space.

Whatever the cause, the short-lived nature of the bubbles (when compared with the 13.2-billion-year-old age of the galaxy) suggests that they may be repeating phenomena, occurring frequently throughout the life of the Milky Way.

"It looks like the outflows are a hiccup," Fox said in the statement. "There may have been repeated ejects of material that have blown up, and we're catching the latest one. By studying the light from the other quasars in our program, we may be able to detect the fossils of previous outflows."

The study will be published in the and is available online in preprint form.

The Donetsk militia has been ordered to suppress Kiev's military positions to the east of Mariupol, but is not going to storm the city, said Donetsk Republic head, Aleksandr Zakharchenko, accusing Kiev of a false flag operation and shifting the blame.

"Until now, we weren't conducting any operations outside Mariupol. We're saving strength," Zakharchenko was cited by RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.

"But now, after Kiev decided to shift the blame on us for its erroneous fire from Grad multiple rocket launchers at residential areas [in Mariupol], I gave an order to suppress the positions of the Ukrainian military, stationed east of Mariupol," he added.

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Zakharchenko added that the forces of the People's Republic of Donetsk (DPR) have no plans of storming the city itself.

The DPR leader said that "in the last few days the Ukrainian side had relocated a large grouping of its troops to Mariupol."

"Day and night, our positions in the town of Novoazovsk are subjected to massive bombardment from Grad multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery. Today, the armored vehicles from the 28th Ukrainian brigade have arrived in the area as well," he stressed.

According to Zakharchenko, Kiev is doing everything to make the rebels "move the forces, which are now involved in the battle for the Donetsk airport, to Mariupol, to weaken us and dislodge us from there [the airport]."

The Ukrainian military is using the citizens of Mariupol as "human shields," the People's Republic of Donetsk leader said.

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Earlier, a DPR military official, Eduard Basurin, said that the Kiev forces have renewed their attempts to retake the strategically significant Donetsk airport on Saturday.

"The Ukrainian military is trying to attack from the north, west and east. Hostilities are underway at the airport," Basurin said, as cited by Interfax news agency.

According to the rebels, they established full control over the Donetsk airport on January 16, following an exhausting standoff with Kiev troops, which has been ongoing since May last year.

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The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has dispatched its Mariupol observer mission to the city's Olimpiiska Street, which was hit by artillery fire, in order to conduct a fact-finding mission on the ground.

The monitors said that the crater analysis led them to the conclusion that Grad and Uragan rockets were used in the bombardment.

"According to the impact analysis, the Grad rockets originated from a north-easterly direction, in the area of Oktyabr (19 km north-east of Olimpiiska Street), and the Uragan rockets from an easterly direction, in the area of Zaichenko (15 km east of Olimpiiska Street), both controlled by the "Donetsk People's Republic" ("DPR")," the Special Monitoring Mission report said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has aborted his visit to Saudi Arabia for the funeral of King Abdullah, and has flown back to Kiev.

On his arrival, Poroshenko will "host an urgent meeting of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council," which was ordered "to develop and implement more effective steps in view of the rapid deterioration of the situation in the east of the country," the presidential press-service said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseny Yatsenyuk, has requested that an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council be held over the situation in Mariupol.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry also issued a statement, expressing hope that the shelling will be comprehensively and objectively investigated and that the perpetrators will receive the punishment they deserve.

The EU has urged Moscow to persuade the leaders of the eastern Ukrainian militias to stop the hostilities, saying that the continued warfare in south-eastern Ukraine "would inevitably lead to a further grave deterioration of relations between the EU and Russia," according to a statement made by Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The EU and the US keep blaming Russia for supporting the militias in Donbas. The claims have not been backed by any significant proof and have been repeatedly denied by Russian officials.

Approximately 30 people, including two children, were killed when the city of Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence during the majority of the Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on Saturday.

Kiev was quick to place the blame with the militia, saying that the bombardment was part of their advancement on the port.

The militia representatives denied the accusations and called the shelling "yet another provocation" by the Ukrainian forces.

According to the DPR's speaker of parliament, Denis Pushilin, the rebels simply don't have the necessary long-range artillery equipment to hit the center of the city from their positions.

The Ukrainian conflict began last April when Kiev launched a military operation in the southeastern the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, after they refused to recognize the country's new, coup-imposed authorities.

The death toll in the Ukraine conflict has exceeded 5,000 people. Over 10,000 have been injured, according to UN estimations.

According to Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, 30 people were killed and another 102 injured when the city of Mariupol, which has remained relatively insulated from violence during the majority of the Ukrainian conflict, was shelled on Saturday.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with US Special Operations Command, American forces are conducting black ops and shadow wars in 133 countries - roughly 70% of the nations on the planet. This capped a three-year span in which the country's forces were active in more than 150 countries, carrying out missions ranging from kill and capture raids to terrorist training exercises, wars and coups - with unforeseen blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

Just for the record, some 405,000 people have been killed as a result of the US-led war in Iraq. Some 200,000 people have also been killed in Syria where America's "moderate" terrorists are pushing for regime change in Damascus. The US is also a major threat to its own people: It is the world's largest incarcerator of people, with some 2.3 million in prison - one million of whom are African Americans.

Much of the global violence and terrorism today can be traced back to these imperial adventures and shadow ops. The rise of the terrorist groups of Al-Qaeda and ISIL is traced to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The recent terrorist attack in France came as a direct consequence of the Syria war spillover. The drug-related violence sweeping Latin America or the territorial disputes and wars across the African continent are also tied to the US role in militarizing these regions. Since 2006, the US-led war on drugs has taken over 100,000 lives in Mexico alone!

The arming and outfitting of militants and the training of terrorist leaders in the Persian Gulf also serve as further proof that consecutive US administrations have lied about the so-called war on terror. Their double standard approach to the subject matter of terrorism is in fact the reason behind the ongoing surge in violence and terrorism in the Middle East AND Europe.

Despite their massive scale and scope, these not-so-secret adventures across much of the planet are unknown to most people. The vast majority of missions remains completely in the shadows and is never subjected to meaningful examination - which only increases the chances of blowbacks and catastrophic consequences.

This criminal legacy was put into focus once more by the Senate's torture report released last December. American media outlets summarized the findings of the damning document: The torture program was far more brutal than we thought and not effective enough!

These are only some of the overwhelming facts that managed to make it into the news and onto the record. So after considering the trail of torture, war crimes, bloods, coups, tactical missions and "humanitarian" bombs that continues to follow the American flag wherever it goes, it is safe to say the US is exceptional in many things; liberty, democracy and justice are not among them.

This while the Military Industrial Complex is still being consistently propped up by the concept of American exceptionalism, shadow wars, massive surveillance and untold numbers of assassinations. So it's also safe to conclude that these bullets and beliefs make the United States the biggest war criminal and the biggest threat to global peace and security the world has ever seen.

We live in a culture of scarcity. We are never good enough: never rich enough, never beautiful enough, never safe enough, never certain enough. The greater the uncertainty in the world, the less tolerance we have for vulnerability in our lives.

We associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid such as fear, shame, and uncertainty. Yet we too often lose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love. Vulnerability is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

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Shame

Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love and belonging. The most primitive human emotion we all feel and the one no one wants to talk about. Shame is believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. It creates feelings of fear, blame and disconnection. It's the fear that something we've done or failed to do, an ideal that we've not lived up to, or a goal that we've not accomplished makes us unworthy of connection. I'm not worthy or good enough for love, belonging, or connection. I'm unlovable. The only people who don't experience shame lack the capacity for empathy and human connection. Here's your choice: Fess up to experiencing shame or admit that you're a sociopath.

Shame is such a powerful emotion that it can literally overcome us. We get hijacked by the Limbic system. Shame says "I am bad", with focus on self. Guilt, on the other hand, says "I did something bad", the focus is on behavior. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, eating disorders, violence, bullying and aggression. Guilt is inversely correlated with those outcomes.

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People often want to believe that shame is reserved for people who have survived an unspeakable trauma, but this is not true. Shame is something we all experience. And while it feels as if shame hides in our darkest corners, it actually tends to lurk in all of the familiar places.

Shame Resilience

Shame resilience theory (SRT) came about in 2006. Forming mutually empathetic relationships that facilitate reaching out to others: When we reach out for support, we may receive empathy, which is incompatible with shame and judgment. We recognize that our most isolating experiences are also the most universal. We recognize that we are not defective or alone in our experiences.

Shame needs three things to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot survive empathy. Empathy and shame are on opposite ends of a continuum. Shame results in fear, blame (of self or others), and disconnection. Empathy is cultivated by courage, compassion, and connection, and is the most powerful antidote to shame.

If you want to see a shame cyclone turn deadly, throw one of these at it: 'Oh, you poor thing.' Or the incredibly passive-aggressive, Southern version of sympathy: 'Bless your heart.'

Expressing empathy or being empathic is not easy. It requires us to be able to see the world as others see it, to be non-judgmental, to understand another person's feelings and to communicate your understanding of that person's feelings

It is so important that we find support systems, even one or two friends or family members with whom we can share our experiences and know that they will listen with empathy and understanding. Both reaching out for empathy and offering empathy are key to building shame resilience.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy places another's problems at a distance from us, places us in a position of superiority, and drives separation. Empathy, on the other hand, requires that one internalize the feelings of another. That shared experience drives interpersonal connection.

Women often experience shame when they are entangled in a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. The expectation of effortless perfection, do everything for everyone, perfectly, and never let them see you sweat.

If you think about issues like work and motherhood, labor and delivery options, breastfeeding, disciplining and sleep strategies, we often stay quiet when we disagree or have alternative ideas or opinions and/or we say what we think we are supposed to say in order to not jeopardize our connection with other mothers and/or sometimes, we use shame in response to our own threatened feelings. Building shame resilience is about reaching out to others and building connection. When we do this with people in our support systems, we often develop relationships that are built on a foundation of empathy.

Shame triggers include appearance and body image, motherhood/fatherhood, family, parenting, money and work, mental and physical health, addiction, sex, aging and religion.

Men's shame is not primarily inflicted by other men. Instead, it is the women in their lives who tend to be repelled when men show the chinks in their armor.

For men the biggest shame trigger is perception of weakness. Culturally we think vulnerability is weakness.

It is especially risky for men to practice vulnerability.

There are three main practices men, in particular, need to engage in. The first is asking for help. The second is

setting boundaries; for example, not taking on work or activities that you don't want to do. And the third is apologizing and "owning it" when you are wrong.

As mentioned above, men also need a support system, one or two friends or family members with whom they can share and know that they will be heard with empathy and understanding. And it's a two-way street where one also learns to listen with empathy and understanding.

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With the advent of the internet came a superabundance of available information regarding personal health. However, with this deluge of available information also came a hefty downfall - a massive amount of misguided and unreliable information.

Out of all fields of discussion, it's safe to say that no other topics are more dangerous to have misinformation spread about than diet and nutrition. If a nutrition myth is continually repeated, it can soon become a culturally accepted truth, something that is dangerous to the general public. So for that matter, this article will address some of the most common and misguided nutrition 'facts' out there today.

Eggs Are Bad For Your Heart & Overall Health

Eggs have had a bad rap in recent years, mostly due to the cholesterol myth. But a few recent studies have since debunked this myth.

A study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) found that higher consumption of eggs (up to one egg per day) is not associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke. In fact, eggs actually raise the 'good' cholesterol (called high-density lipoprotein cholesterol) which works to remove the 'bad' cholesterol.

The health benefits of eggs include:

6 grams of high quality protein (full amino acid profile).

High in lutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidants in your lens and retina that help prevent eye diseases such as macular degeneration and cataracts.

Good source of choline, a member of the vitamin B family.

One of the few food containing naturally occurring Vitamin D.

Contains sulfur- essential for healthy hair and nails.

*The key is to eat organic, pasture-raised eggs.

All Saturated Fats Are Bad For You

This is a myth that stemmed from an unsubstantiated claim made decades ago. The truth of the matter? There is absolutely no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of CHD or CVD, according to a meta-analysis which looked at 347,747 subjects.

As mentioned above, saturated fats from things like egg yolks, coconut oil, and avocado work to increase the good cholesterol which works to lower the bad cholesterol.

Saturated fats from proper sources provide the building blocks for your cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormone-like substances, as well as serve as carriers for the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K and are required for converting carotene into vitamin A.

Good sources of saturated fat: nuts, seeds, coconut oil, organic nut oils, eggs, avocados, grass-fed meat.

Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day

There is new evidence to suggest that intermittent fasting has some major health benefits. By skipping breakfast and not eating until around 11am, you're giving your body an extended break from eating, which has been shown to be as effective as calorie restriction in fat loss.

Fasting has also been shown to increase human growth hormone secretion by up to 1200 percent for women and 2000 percent for men.

Other benefits include reducing inflammation, reducing insulin resistance, improving blood pressure, and increased lean body mass. Intermittent fasting can also improve your brain function by increasing levels of BDNF, a protein that protects your brain cells from the changes associated with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Eat 6 Small Meals Per Day Instead of 3 Big Ones

The logic behind eating 6 small meals makes sense, (i.e., portion control, stabilizing blood sugar), however, this claim has not been proven to be true. In fact, multiple studies prove that there is no difference in metabolism or fat loss with people eating 6 meals per day compared with people who eat the same amount of food in 3 larger meals.

We know that our ancestors weren't constantly feasting, they also didn't have access to a grocery store 24/7. Our ancestors were more likely to go through periods of fasting and then eating large meals.

Furthermore, when we don't eat for a while, a process called autophagy cleans waste out of our cells.

Omega-6 Fats From Seed and Vegetable Oils Are Good For You

While eating omega-6 fats is crucial to our health, the main issue lies in the fact that most of us are eating too much omega-6 fatty acids, most of which are sourced from processed seed and vegetable oils.

Humans are supposed to receive a well balanced ratio of omega-6 and omega-3 fats, that is 1:1. Most westerners are getting about 20-50 times more omega-6's than omega-3's, which can cause problems.

One study showed that too much omega-6 fats from processed oils is a leading factor to coronary heart disease.

Be sure to eat well sourced omega-3 fats (flax/chia seeds, cod liver oil) and reduce your intake of processed omega-6 fats (vegetable oil, sunflower oil).

Artificial Sweeteners Are Safe Sugar Replacements for Diabetics, and Help Promote Weight Loss

As a child, I remember seeing my grandmother using artificial sweeteners in her tea, which she explained was for her diabetes. If only I knew then what I know now.

A study from 1986, which included nearly 80,000 women, found that those who used artificial sweeteners were significantly more likely than non-users to gain weight over time, regardless of initial weight.

A more recent study found similar results, here's what researchers had to say,

"Several large scale prospective cohort studies found positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain. When matched for initial body mass index (BMI), gender, ethnicity, and diet, drinkers of artificially sweetened beverages consistently had higher BMIs at the follow-up, with dose dependence on the amount of consumption..."

Another study published in PLoS One found that chronic lifetime exposure to aspartame, commencing in utero, produces changes in blood glucose parameters and adversely impacts spatial learning and memory in mice (a.k.a. messes with the body's insulin response, a danger for type II diabetics).

Low-Fat Foods Help With Weight Loss

In order to compensate for the flavour of low-fat foods, food manufacturers will usually add sugar (corn syrup) or artificial sweeteners. As mentioned above, artificial sweeteners are silent killers.

The idea that fat is bad for us came out of the 1970's when the American dietary guidelines were first published. They demonized saturated fats (which we've just explained are crucial to our health) while giving sugar and refined carbs a free pass. It's interesting to note that the obesity epidemic began around the same time...

Carbs & Grains Should Be Your Highest Source Of Calories

Currently, as war exists between people who eat a high-fat/low-carb diet and those who consume a high-carb/low-fat diet.

While the mainstream states that your biggest source of calories should come from complex carbs (50-60%), many nutritionists are now coming forward and refuting this statement. Carbs, particularly organic whole grain bread, cereal, and pasta (although not as applicable for fruit and vegetables), spike insulin and leptin levels in the blood, which is a leading factor to many chronic illnesses.

The low-fat, high-carb diet simply isn't working for North Americans, as obesity rates are at an all time high. While this diet may be okay for people who are lean, people who are obese or who have metabolic syndrome should stay far away from this type of diet, according to these studies.

As explained above, properly sourced, high-fat diets are crucial to our overall health. Here are 23 gold standard studies which support the benefits of a high-fat/low-carb diet.

Soy Is A Health Food

Clever marketing has denoted soy beans as a 'health food', when in fact there is much more to the story than this simple claim.

Over 90% of soy produced in the U.S. is genetically modified and the crops are sprayed with the herbicide Roundup, which may be associated with adverse effects on health.

Most of the soy consumed in the western diet is processed, in the form of soy bean oil. In fact, in 1999, 7% percent of Americans' total diet was derived from soy bean oil, which is derived from a process that uses hexane to extract it.

While whole soy beans do contain nutrients, they also contain phytates, a substance which inhibits nutrient absorption in the body.

Soy also contains large amounts of biologically active compounds called isoflavones, which function as phytoestrogens... that is, plant-based compounds that can activate estrogen receptors in the human body, a.k.a., soy acts as a hormone disruptor.

When is soy okay for you? When it is fermented. Tempeh, natto, and miso are fermented forms of soy which contain lowered levels of phytic acid and other anti-nutrients, as well as beneficial bacteria for our gut.The key here is to consume in small amounts.

Sources

As more parents have become aware of the risks and side effects of vaccines, many vaccination rates have been declining. Pharmaceutical companies and doctors alike are concerned about this awakening, so they have created training materials to help vaccine providers handle what one manual refers to as "vaccine-hesitant parents."

When you take your child to their health care provider for a visit, you may have a list of questions to ask them about vaccines. You might be wondering about the risk of autism, the side effects of a vaccine, or the damaging effect dozens of vaccines will have on your child's immune system.

And, your child's doctor will have answers: the ones they are trained to give you. Organizations such as the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Pediatrics, two names you might trust but should not, have created brief manuals for doctors, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants, and even pharmacists, teaching them how to successfully deal with parents who question or refuse vaccines. ^{[1] [2]}

Who Is Really Training Your Child's Doctor?

Let's find out who wrote these training materials.

A online publication of the journal instructs doctors and other health care providers how to respond to parents who question vaccination. One of the authors of that paper, Dr. C. Mary Healy, served on an advisory board for Novartis vaccines. She also received a research grant from Sanofi Pastuer. Your child's doctor will tell you what Dr. Healy said to say, but your child's doctor won't tell you that Dr. Healy was under the influence of Big Pharma when she wrote the script. ^[3]

Another author of the training material, Dr. Larry Pickering, worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Emory University, both of which have strong ties to vaccine manufactures. Emory University owns a significant amount of stock in a vaccine company called GeoVax. If you want to learn more about why Emory University is a suspicious organization that should not be trusted, read this informative article. ^[4]

Another easy-to-read training publication, perfect for busy, overworked doctors who don't have time to research vaccines in depth, was created by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO receives more funding from organizations than it does from its member nations, including the Rockefeller Foundation, which has ties to many large vaccine companies and owns more than half of pharmaceutical interests in the US. ^{[5, 6]}

What's Inside These Vaccine-Funded Training Guides?

Your child's doctor may have already read these publications, as they are concise and provide exact scripts, depending how you as the parent may question a vaccine. These materials also train nurses, emphasizing the important role a nurse plays in maintaining practice-wide commitment to high vaccination rates.

Both training manuals outline several similar misgivings parents may have about vaccines, including the following common objections addressed in the WHO publication, which refers to concerned parents as and :

... and these questions parents might ask, as published by : As you know, these concerns are valid and real, yet the guidelines written by vaccine-influenced doctors downplay parents' unease by reducing real conversations to repartee, with answers that lack any scientific evidence.

What Is Your Child's Doctor Trained To Tell You?

Have you asked your child's healthcare provider questions about the risks of vaccines? Here are some of the scripts in the guide published by the World Health Organization, offering answers doctors can memorize when parents question vaccines:

Parent:

Health care provider:

Parent:

Health care provider:

Parent:

Health care provider:

Parent:

Health care provider:

Parent:

Health care provider:

Did you notice how the doctor or nurse does not really address the parents' concerns about vaccination?

Additional Techniques Doctors are Trained to Use With Vaccine-Hesitant Parents

Doctors are also trained to use the following strategy with parents who have concerns about vaccines. The training materials identify the four key parts of conversation with a hesitant parent:

patient and empathetic reassurance that you understand that their infant's health is their top priority, and it also is your top priority, so putting children at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases without scientific evidence of a link between vaccines and autism is a risk you are not willing to take

your knowledge that the onset of regressive autism symptoms often coincides with the timing of vaccines but is not caused by vaccines

your personal and professional opinion that vaccines are safe

your reminder that vaccine-preventable diseases, which may cause serious complications and even death, remain a threat

The training materials list several other ways doctors should engage in conversation with parents and convince them to vaccinate their child. Here are more techniques your doctor may use to convince you to ignore the facts about vaccines and vaccinate your child:

Take time to listen.

Solicit and welcome questions.

Keep the conversation going.

Acknowledge benefits and risks.

Respect parents' authority.

Reduce the stress of shots.

Additionally, doctors are instructed to share with parents that all of their own children have been vaccinated and are healthy, or to share that they have rarely or never seen a serious reaction to a vaccine in their practice, as a way to mix anecdotal stories with science.

Another tactic instructs doctors to tell parents that I would imagine that most families with a vaccine-injured child would strongly disagree with this statement.

None of the communication techniques in the training materials include the sharing of scientific facts or studies that are not affiliated with vaccine companies or their funding.

Which Resources are Doctors Trained to Recommend to Parents?

There are some websites named in the training guides that doctors are instructed to share with parents if parents have questions about research they can do on their own. Sadly, most of these sites or their parent organizations receive funding from pharmaceutical companies.

One guideline directs health care providers to share a link to the WHO website with parents. Despite its well-known status, this organization is not to be trusted, as you noted earlier in this article.

The website for the American Medical Assocation is also on the list of recommended resources for parents. This group promotes vaccination and receives funding from vaccine manufacturers.

The National Network for Immunization Information (NNii), also on the list as a trustworthy resource, is funded by affiliate organizations like the American Medical Association and other groups who receive funding and influence from vaccine manufacturers.

Another recommendation, the American Academy of Pediatrics, has received funding from Merck and Sanofi Pastuer, widely recognized and powerful vaccine companies.

The Allied Vaccine Group is another recommended website. This is a group of several pro-vaccine organizations claiming they are "dedicated to presenting valid scientific information about vaccines." One of the members, PATH, has a highly profitable partnership with Merck and Sanofi, two huge pharmaceutical companies. ^[7]

Do you think these websites, or any of the others on the recommended list, will present unbiased information when they receive enormous amounts of funding from vaccine companies?

What Will You Say to Your Pharma-Trained Doctor?

Now that you know your child's doctor is using a script when you have a conversation about vaccines, you know that you, too, will need your own script when they remind you that it's time to vaccinate your child.

Intimidation, uncertainty, and worry are very common feelings for parents as they are thinking about how to tell their child's doctor that they are questioning, delaying, or avoiding vaccines. These sentiments subside with time and research. As you become more educated in your decision, you will feel confident, empowered, and self-assured.

At your child's appointment, you can let their doctor know that you will not be getting any vaccines at this visit, or say that you are still doing research about a specific vaccine, or explain that your child was recently ill and you will not be vaccinating today for that reason. Remember, different kinds of vaccine exemptions are available in all fifty states.

In addition, please know that well-baby and well-child visits are primarily scheduled for vaccination purposes. These visits are especially comforting to first time parents, but if your child is in good health, they may not be necessary if you are not vaccinating your child.

Conclusion

Have you had conversations with your child's health care provider similar to the ones mentioned above? Do you recognize that doctors and nurses have been trained to recommend vaccination by other doctors and organizations who profit immensely from the sale of vaccines? Do you see that these tactics fail to disclose unbiased, scientific information about the dangers of vaccination?

If you want to delay or refuse vaccines, remember to practice your own script in advance of appointments with your child's doctor.

If you want information about vaccine injuries and adverse events that have been reported to the government, you can visit the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) website and search specific vaccines. However, you must know that adverse events are highly underreported in this passive system, as admitted by the CDC, and the statistics for adverse events represent only one to ten percent of actual adverse events that occur after vaccination. ^[8]

If you want to learn real facts about vaccination that are not influenced by profit, you must discover the truth from sources that have no ties to pharmaceutical companies. You can access free, unbiased information and a list of vaccine ingredients here.

References