Category Archives: Health

Here’s Why Hillary Won’t Allow Her Corporate Speeches to be Published

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By Eric Zuesse

Source: RINF

In a previous report, I indicated “Why Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches Are Relevant”, but not what they contained. The present report indicates what they contained. 

One speech in particular will be cited and quoted from as an example here, to show the type of thing that all of her corporate speeches contained, which she doesn’t want the general public to know about. 

This is the day’s keynote speech, which she gave on Wednesday, 25 June 2014, to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a lobbying organization in DC, at their annual convention, which in 2014 was held in San Diego. The announcement for attendees said: “Wednesday’s Keynote session is sponsored by Genentech, and is open to Convention registrants with Convention Access and Convention Access & Partnering badges only. Seating is limited.” Somehow, a reporter from a local newspaper, the Times of San Diego, managed to get in. Also, somehow, an attendee happened to phone-video the 50-minute interview that the BIO’s CEO did of Clinton, which took place during the hour-and-a-half period, 12-1:30, which was allotted to Clinton.

The Times of San Diego headlined that day, “Hillary Clinton Cheers Biotechers, Backing GMOs and Federal Help”, and gave an excellent summary of her statements, including of the interview. Here are highlights:

—

It was red meat for the biotech base. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a 65-minute appearance at the BIO International Convention on Wednesday, voiced support for genetically modified organisms and possible federal subsidies. … 

“Maybe there’s a way of getting a representative group of actors at the table” to discuss how the federal government could help biotechs with “insurance against risk,” she said.

Without such subsidies, she said, “this is going to be an increasing challenge.” …

She said the debate about GMOs might be turned toward the biotech side if the benefits were better explained, noting that the “Frankensteinish” depictions could be fought with more positive spin.

“I stand in favor of using seeds and products that have a proven track record,” she said [at 29:00 in the video next posted here], citing drought-resistant seeds she backed as secretary of state. “There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.” [that too at 29:00] …

Minutes earlier, Gov. Jerry Brown made a rousing 3-minute pitch for companies to see California as biotech-friendly.

“You’ve come to the right place.” …

Brown had some competition for biotech boosterism in the form of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton ally who pitched his own state as best for biotech. …

[Clinton was] Given a standing ovation at the start and end of her appearance.

—

In other words: As President, she would aim to sign into law a program to provide subsidies from U.S. taxpayers to Monsanto and other biotech firms, to assist their PR and lobbying organizations to eliminate what she says is “a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are” concerning genetically modified seeds and other GMOs. In other words: she ignores the evidence that started to be published in scientific journals in 2012 showing that Monsanto and other GMO firms were selectively publishing studies that alleged to show their products to be safe, while selectively blocking publication of studies that — on the basis of better methodology — showed them to be unsafe. She wants U.S. taxpayers to assist GMO firms in their propaganda that’s based on their own flawed published studies, financed by the GMO industry, and that ignores the studies that they refuse to have published. She wants America’s consumers to help to finance their own being poisoning by lying companies, who rake in profits from poisoning them.

Her argument on this, at 27:00 to 30:00 in the video of the 50-minute interview of Clinton, starts by her citing the actual disinformation (that’s propagandized by the fossil-fuels industries, which actually back her Presidential campaign) that causes the American public to reject the view that humans have caused global warming. At 27:38 in the video, she said “98% of scientists in the world agree that man has caused the problem” of global warming, and she alleged that the reason why there is substantial public resistance to GMOs is the same as the reason why there’s substantial public resistance to the reality that global warming exists and must be actively addressed: Americans don’t know the science of the matter. She received several applauses from this pro-GMO audience, for making that false analogy. The reality, that it’s false, is that on 15 May 2013, the definitive meta-study, which examined the 11,944 published studies that had been done relating to the question of global warming and its causes, reported that “97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.” The meta-study was titled “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature”. So, Clinton’s statement “98%” was only 0.9% off regarding the size of the scientific consensus. However, her implication that the public’s rejection of that actual 97.1% of experts’ findings on global warming, is at all analogous to the public’s rejection of the actually bogus finding by GMO industry ‘experts’ that GMOs are safe, is pure deception by her. The reality is the exact contrary: The fossil-fuels industries have financed the propaganda ‘discrediting’ the scientists’ consensus about global warming, much like the GMO industries have financed the deception of the public to think that ‘scientists’ ‘find’ that GMOs are safe. In fact, as was reported in Scientific American, on 23 December 2013, “’Dark Money’ Funds Climate Change Denial Effort”, and the study they were summarizing, from the journal Climate Change, was titled “Institutionalizing delay: foundation funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations”. It found that:

“From 2003 to 2007, the Koch Affiliated Foundations and the ExxonMobil Foundation were heavily involved in funding CCCM [climate change counter-movement] organizations. But since 2008, they are no longer making publicly traceable contributions to CCCM organizations. Instead, funding has shifted to pass through [two] untraceable sources [both of which had been set up by the Kochs: Donors Trust, and Donors Capital Fund].“

On 23 April 2016, Politico headlined “Charles Koch: ‘It’s possible’ Clinton is preferable to a Republican for president”, but this isn’t the only indication that Hillary is merely pretending to be their enemy. On 24 February 2016, I headlined “Hillary Clinton’s Global-Burning Record” and summarized and linked to news reports such as the opening there: “On 17 July 2015, Paul Blumenthal and Kate Sheppard at Huffington Post bannered, ‘Hillary Clinton’s Biggest Campaign Bundlers Are Fossil Fuel Lobbyists’ and the sub-head was ‘Clinton’s top campaign financiers are linked to Big Oil, natural gas and the Keystone pipeline.’”

In other words: the same pro-GMO lobbyists who applaud Hillary for verbally endorsing the science that affirms global warming, applaud her for endorsing their own fake ‘science’ which asserts that GMOs have been proven safe. They just love her lie, which analogizes them to the authentic scientists who (97.1%) say that global warming exists and is caused by humans’ emissions of global-warming gases.

Also, she expressed the wish that: “the federal government could help biotechs with ‘insurance against risk,’ she said. Without such subsidies, she said, this is going to be an increasing challenge,” because otherwise, biotech companies might get bankrupted by lawsuits from consumers who might have become poisoned by their products. She wants the consuming public to bear the risk from those products — not the manufacturers of them to bear any of the risks that could result from those manufacturers’ rigged ‘safety’ ‘studies’ (a.k.a.: their propaganda).

In other words: the reason why Hillary Clinton won’t allow her 91 corporate speeches, for which she was paid $21,667,000, to be published, is the lying political cravenness of her pandering to those corporations there. Each group of lobbyists is happy to applaud her lying, regardless of whether her lies include insults against another group of lobbyists, to whom she might be delivering similar lies to butter them up at a different annual convention or etc.

In other words: she’s telling all of them collectively: You’re my type of people, and the public who despise you are merely misguided, but as President I’ll set them straight and they’ll even end up paying part of the bill to be ‘educated’ about these matters, by my Administration, and even part of the bill to pay corporations’ product-liability suits.

The reason why Clinton doesn’t want those speeches to be made public is that she doesn’t want the voters to know that she intends to use their money to propagandize to them for the benefit of those corporations, and also to protect those corporations from liability for harms their products cause the public.

This is called (by the propagandists) ‘capitalism’ and ‘democracy’. Mussolini, with pride, called it sometimes “fascism,” and sometimes “corporationism.” But whatever it’s called, it’s what she supports, and what she represents, to the people who are paying her. And even most of her own voters would find it repulsive, if they knew about it. So: she can’t let them know about it. And she doesn’t.

Lifting the Veil of Psychopathic Intrusion in Everyday Life

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By Nozomi Hayase

Source: Dissident Voice

In recent years, the conception of the psychopath has gained a new upsurge of interest. Popular culture’s sensational image of Hannibal Lecter in the movie Silence of the Lambs and notorious killers like Ted Bundy have long cultivated public fascination. Now, awareness is spreading beyond these portrayals of outlandish criminals. More people are beginning to recognize the existence of socialized psychopaths who are not so outwardly violent.

Psychopaths walk among us, quietly blending into society. They could be corporate CEOs who exploit their workers, politicians who lie to get elected or Don Juan-like womanizers who inspire love to play with others hearts. Roughly 1-2 % of individuals in overall society are estimated to have been affected by this pervasive personality disorder (Neumann & Hare, 2008), yet some suggest these numbers are conservative and that many go unnoticed (Kantor, 2006).

The difficulty of accurately identifying psychopaths partly lies in a significant ambiguity among mental health professionals. Psychopathy expert, Robert D. Hare (1996) described the pivotal shift that occurred in 1980 with the publication of the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-3), concerning the diagnosis of psychopathy. He noted how in this standard classification of mental disorder that has become the clinician’s bible, psychopathy was renamed antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), and defined by “persistent violations of social norms, including lying, stealing, truancy, inconsistent work behavior and traffic arrests” (para. 5).

Hare (1996) explained how this change was made based on the reasoning that affective and interpersonal traits that play a primary role in understanding psychopathy were difficult to measure. As a result, this diagnostic criteria of ASPD that mainly refer to criminal and outwardly observable antisocial behaviors, stripped off personality traits that are critical factors inherent in psychopathy. The trend of omitting the traits unique to this pathology has not been overturned to this day in the latest version of diagnostic manual DSM-5.

Along with this blurring of diagnosis, the very nucleus of this psychiatric disorder seems to have contributed to creating this lack of clarity. In his seminal work The Mask of Sanity, first published in 1941, psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley articulated how, among other personality traits such as their superficial charm, emotional poverty and egocentricity, the essential characteristic of psychopathy lies in its deceitful nature; hiding their lack of internal structure in a façade of normalcy.

Without knowing what to look for, even for professionals it is extremely hard to detect the psychopathic individual. This is made even more difficult when the very characteristics involve deception. All this has unleashed this dangerous population with few restraints, bringing great risk to the public. Their ability to fake and hide makes their exploitation invisible to the public eye. Oftentimes, people do not recognize abuse in a relationship until much of the damage is done. There are even cases where those who suffered harm do not realize they are victims.

Now, with the Internet and social media, a new level of education is happening. Through YouTube channels and online forums, those who experienced significant pain inflicted by these deranged individuals are coming together to gain validation that is desperately needed, yet often lacking in formal therapy. They are spouses, friends and co-workers, whose life had been ruined financially, mentally or emotionally. Those who had close encounters with these unknown members of society have seen the true face of psychopathy. With this sharing of first hand experience and witnesses outside lab experiments, the mystery of psychopathy is slowly being unveiled.

Hollowness as Elusive Core

In Without Conscience, Hare (1993) describes a psychopath as “a self-centered, callous, and remorseless person profoundly lacking in empathy and the ability to form warm emotional relationships with others, a person who functions without the restraints of conscience” (p. 2). The elusive core of this pathology is an absence of empathy. This sets those affected apart from the rest. People equipped with the ability to put themselves into another’s shoes often take this attribute for granted and don’t recognize the crucial role this seemingly innate aspect of human nature plays in forming a sense of one’s own self.

Humans are social beings. We exist in relation and develop identity through making connections with others at an emotional level. For instance, mother’s validation and proper attuning to her baby’s needs is crucial for infants to cultivate their sense of reality.

Psychopaths do not bond in the same way most people do and have not secured healthy attachment to caregivers. Because of this lack of attachment, argued by Hare (1993) as being a symptom of psychopathy, they cannot develop their identity based upon concrete reality.

Empathy unlocks the door into the world of a larger humanity, allowing one to experience higher emotions of joy, love and compassion. As the foundation of their identity is divorced from an empathic ground, psychopaths are emotionally held down in a “pre-socialized world”, lacking the full range of emotions (Meloy, 1988).

There is nothing inside to hold their identity together. As described in a T.S. Eliot’s poem, they are “hollow men… stuffed men -leaning together, headpiece filled with straw” (1934/1951, p. 56). Out of this vacuousness at the center of their personality, a head grows with an intelligence that is cunning and clever and primarily serves narrow selfish interests.

The being personified in this entity is enslaved by an internal void. They are a nobody and are driven to fill an insatiable hunger at any cost. Hare (1993) describes how they are “social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets” (p. xi). Like going out on a hunt, they trespass people’s boundaries, dragging those who enter their proximity into their dark hole of nothingness. Anyone can become a target and once trapped, they are often sucked dry if not completely destroyed.

Idealization, Prelude to Seduction

The psychopath’s predation follows certain destructive relationship patterns that they repeat throughout their life. Regardless of differences in background, the victims all share similar cycles of abuse. Claudia Moscovici (2010) on her blog Psychopathyawareness describes these patterns in three stages; idealization, devaluation and then discard.

The first stage of a psychopathic relationship is idealization. This is a powerful and seductive period when psychopaths allure their potential victims. With superficial charm, this cunning and manipulative population enchants their targets. They put their new love interest on a pedestal, saying whatever the person wants to hear, transfixing whoever has become the unfortunate prey. It could be a whirlwind romance or promising partnership. Showered with flattery and adulation, targets often feel they are finally getting the appreciation they deserve in life.

In Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, Hare and leading organizational psychologist Paul Babiak (2006) described this period as an assessment phase, where psychopaths examine their targets’ value and utility. They outlined the four main messages that psychopaths convey to their targets to create an instant connection, which they call the “psychopathic bond”. These are: 1) “I like who you are”; 2) “I am just like you”; 3) “Your secrets are safe with me”; 4) “I am the perfect friend, lover, partner for you” (p. 74-78).

If you are chosen, you will be adored and made to feel special. In their idealizing gaze, you are a center of the universe and can do no wrong. This newly acquainted friend or lover taps into fears, insecurity and deep wishes and morphs themselves into becoming anything their victim wants them to be.

Their seemingly caring gestures appear very genuine and many mistake this as empathy. Later, targets would reflect back on that exciting beginning and feel that they had been fooled. Hare describes how, unlike other mental disorders, psychopaths are rational and that “their behavior is the result of choice, freely exercised” (1993, p. 22). Although it is true that some of the deviants are calculative and indeed plot all the way through, at the same time, as Hare suggests, it is often done more instinctively and is not necessarily planned out. Their love-bombing during this phase rather appears to be an effect of their pathology, caused by impaired emotional processing.

Narcissistic Mirror and Erosion of Identity

So, why do they idealize? The idealization is a part of their pathological makeup. Psychopaths are truly outsiders. Without being a part of the world informed by empathy, they live in isolation and develop a sense of self that is divergent from the majority of society. Researchers point to the psychopath as having a “narcissistic and grossly inflated view of their self-worth and importance” (Hare, 1993 p. 38), a “grandiose self-structure” and a “psychopathology of narcissism” (Meloy, 2001, p. 11).

Although psychopathy is different from the other severe personality dysfunction recognized in the psychiatric community as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), its core of empathy deficit encompasses some of the features exhibited by NPD. Like those who suffer from excessive narcissism, they are trapped in mirrors of self-absorption and can’t recognize others as having their own autonomous thoughts and feelings. Through not being grounded in a consensual reality, they lack objectivity in their assessment of their own selves. For them, reality is constructed not based on who they really are, but who they want and believe themselves to be.

Being cut off from emotional reality, they are dead inside and can’t harvest their own energy. So they become parasites and feed off others’ emotional reactions. When they idealize their partners, they are unconsciously wanting to establish a connection to a source of creativity, that which gives emotional sustenance. Through weaving a fantasy and duping the other into their web of deception, they extract the life forces of the victim.

For psychopaths, relationship is the stage on which they enact their grandiose fantasy. Others are seen as an extension of themselves, as props that can be used. Anyone who comes their way is screened for their ability to perform a role that serves their plot. Their chosen targets become an object of desire and are pursued with great passion. With beam-like attention, they turn the spotlight on the victims. Through mirroring the victims’ positive qualities, predators disarm their prey and bring them under the luminary light of their narcissistic mirror. In this, the victim’s identity is eroded, yet with constant flattery and attention, they feel pumped up and elated.

This internal casting process can be seen as the psychopath launching a parallel persona upon their targets’ identity and then using it as a mask to create a rapport with their target. Yet, this mirroring is not consciously carried out. It is an automatic reflex that happens when they see something they want in others. Also, in some cases, in others’ positive attributes, these self-absorbed individuals see an idealized image of themselves. Like the Greek myth of Narcissus who falls in love with his own reflection in the water and then pines away, this is the effect of psychopaths seeing themselves in another’s reflection that is created by victims favorably responding to idealization and then trying to claim that image for themselves.

This mirroring starts to fade after the psychopaths successfully attach themselves to their hosts and is then replaced with mind games. Without being able to feel genuine emotions, the psychopath from a young age studied human behavior and learned how to effectively create a favorable response. They will slowly start to use this acquired skill of clever manipulation to keep their victims inside their delusional bubble and maintain control.

Devaluation and the Broken Mirror

What comes next is devaluation, marked as a betrayal with broken promises. This is when psychopaths who had always seen their partners in a positive light will begin to criticize and withdraw their attention. They slowly tear down the pedestal they once put victims up on and engage in subtle ridicule and condescension. Confused, the targets often internalize these criticisms and start becoming convinced that they are not as perfect as the psychopaths initially made them feel and that they have faults just like everyone else.

So, why does this devaluation happen? Many who have been taken for a ride wonder why this person who once seemed to love them so much, changes all of sudden. After psychopaths absorb their targets’ good traits, they cannot truly make them their own. There is nothing that can fill their bottomless pit and soon the void starts to grow again. When the initial thrill and excitement of a new target wears off, they get bored. This is the point where those who have been taken in by the charm start to see the mask slipping.

While victims begin to have a glimpse of the hollow man behind the mask of the manufactured persona, in the eyes of the psychopath, the victim ceases to be the perfect mirror that reflects back their delusions of grandeur. This happens because those who were made to be reflections in their mirror are living human beings. When victims start to act autonomously, as every human being is meant to do, these malignantly narcissistic individuals experience their self-image fluctuating and their mirror of absorption beginning to shatter.

In a sense, psychopaths are like bullets that have been fired by a gun they themselves barely understand. Distortion in the mirror that occurs during this devaluation process is experienced by them as an attack on their very existence. When they start to realize their idealized partner is fallible, they experience injury and believe that what pulled the trigger is coming from outside them. The love of life that they once declared quickly becomes malformed or damaged goods and the victim can even be seen as an object of hatred and contempt. The idealized self-image projected onto their partners now disappears from the mirror and they have to look for it elsewhere. Thus, rinse and repeat. They start chasing a new object of ‘affection’ and begin the idealization phase all over again.

Discarded

Little does the victim know, but the person they had fallen for is now gone. The psychopath has already abandoned their masks. At this point, if the target remains useful to them, they would be kept around, but otherwise, the psychopath moves on, as if the previous victim never existed. The duration of each stage leading up to the final discard depends on how fast the targets catch on to their ploy or whether they cease to be useful.

After being cast aside, the victims might feel they were handled dishonestly. They realize that their partners were fraudulent and that what they thought was love or true friendship was an illusion. Those who were wronged ask themselves if their partners really cared about them at all. When the psychopath’s mask is finally blown off and one begins to glimpse the monster behind that mask, one is flooded with questions that may never be answered.

It is important not to forget that these are ‘hollow men’. They suffer from shallow emotions and don’t have the same capacity for feeling as most people do. Hare (1993) describes their apparent lack of emotional depth, noting how they “seem to know the dictionary meanings of words but fail to comprehend or appreciate their emotional value or significance” (p. 128). They are “like a color-blind person who sees the world in shades of gray but who has learned to function in a colored world” (p. 129). Without having vital emotional understanding, they mimic experiences they can’t really understand through simulating emotions and parroting words that others use.

Without this understanding, those with empathy assume the other has a similar orientation and they fill in the blanks by projecting good attributes and interpreting words of those who lack feeling for others according to how they themselves use language. As the relationship unfolds beyond the initial stage, the differences eventually begin to emerge and the shallow consciousness behind the beautiful words starts to unravel.

As they are not tied to others by empathy, psychopaths have little connection to their own history and are uprooted from the shared narrative of humanity. They live in the present moment and are driven by immediate needs and instinctual desires. Just like the hollowness of their soul, their words are empty, rarely matching actions. They promise eternal devotion and love to describe their transient and fleeting desires of the here and now. For them there is no future; there is no past. There is nothing lasting that deeply connects them with other human fellows. They try on one personality and then drop it when it becomes inconvenient and move on to the next as needed.

The Anesthetized Heart

Who are these empty souls, masquerading as friends, lovers and good Samaritans, whose self-gratifying deeds in the end always leave their victims bewildered? The beast inside this small minority of society seizes everything that moves. They conquer the other, turning constantly evolving images of their targets into frozen snapshots of abstraction, which they then possess. In extreme cases, this is seen in the example of serial killers cutting up victims’ dead bodies and sleeping with them. Although the degree might be different, this deadening force that works within is the same. Psychopaths try to wipe out victims’ identity, so to make them a clean slate that can more perfectly mirror their grandiose self. Through lies and re-framing events, they attack their target’s memory, making them doubt their own sense of self. What awaits one toward the end of the relationship, if one does not disentangle themselves in time, can even be a total annihilation of the self.

The horror displayed by psychopathy and this moral bankruptcy often provokes an image of evil. In People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, psychiatrist and author Scott Peck (1983) defined evil as a reversal of the word ‘live’, and portrayed it as something that crushes life. They have what psychologist James Hillman (1992) characterized as an “anesthetized heart, the heart that has no reaction to what it faces, thereby turning the variegated sensuous face of the world into monotony, sameness, oneness” (p. 64).

Empathy is the foundation of conscience. It is to think with the heart and to feel with others. As the psychopath is delinked from the heart; from that which ties all living beings together, they are in a kind of darkness, where the light of conscience cannot reach. They lack insight about the situations they are in. They can intellectually understand what they are doing, but they cannot be fully conscious of their own actions and their devastating effects.

This state of numbness blinds them to the beast within that is devouring their victims. It makes them become deaf to the cries of those who are slowly dying. After the initial honeymoon phase, when their partners don’t defer to the psychopath’s version of reality and question this pretend world, they rush out and punish the victims. When victims strike back, psychopaths often fail to see how those abused are trying to defend themselves and instead twist reality. They deflect, misconstrue conversations to fit a narrative where they are constantly aggrieved and injured, making the victims look like the perpetrators.

No amount of love is enough for them. In the effort to communicate with these disordered individuals, words bounce back off their hardened hearts and become echos that the psychopath cannot hear. They rationalize and make one feel what they can’t feel about themselves, transmitting these emotions like poison. Victims are called too sensitive, crazy or imagining things and are further dragged into the predator’s one-sided reality.

Recovery and Path Back to the Self

How can those who are captured in a toxic web escape this snare and stop the bleeding that has been feeding this beast? These hungry carnivores sink their claws into their prey through the innate human trait of empathy and exploit our trusting nature. Most people relate to others in dialogue, giving a space for another’s perspective to enter in the interaction. Psychopaths on the other hand, not abiding by empathy, live in solipsism and operate in a monologue. While victims are trying to understand their perspective, these emotional vampires move quickly to direct the narrative, giving no chance for their targets to participate in the unfolding story as a co-creator. Through being nitpicky and accusative, they make victims back off from asserting their needs and make them walk on eggshells.

In relationship with these deadly individuals, what remains unconscious, both the dark and bright parts of oneself become vulnerable for manipulation. During idealization, the psychopath, like a puppeteer, attaches invisible heartstrings to their targets. They promise to fill a void, play on one’s vanity, mirroring back desires and enamoring victims with their own reflected beauty. Victims would not know until much later how this idealization was conditioning them to act in a certain way. What happens is a transfer of authority, where without realizing it, victims slowly begin to seek for approval from this pretend friend or partner.

When the devaluation phase sets in, if victims begin to become aware of what is happening and try to fortify their boundaries, they are often so deep in the fantasy and the fog of confusion becomes so thick that they cannot even see the path from which they came. They often suppress their emotions and take the blame in confrontational situations, so as not to ruin this idealized image.

Master manipulators know their prey, their insecurities and desires and know very well which buttons to push to get what they want. Chosen targets become like rats in a maze that leads to a shadow of one’s former self. As long as one performs according to the master’s plot, they will be rewarded, yet when one derails from their story, they are punished. Many desperately try to mend the broken mirror that once reflected their idealized self and focus on fixing what they have been brainwashed to believe as their ‘issues’.

For those who have been abducted into psychopaths’ illusory world, the path back to the self lies within. Recovery from the terror of the anesthetized heart calls for fully reclaiming one’s own empathy. This first requires one to have empathy for oneself; to claim all that was disowned within. Through accepting one’s own emotions without judgment no matter what they are, one can make a more conscious relationship with them and recognize how these emotions have been used as a tool for control. One can then break this hypnotic spell and take back the power to define one’s own reality.

Larger Social Implications

The relationship with a psychopath is like nothing experienced before. Until it is lived on a personal level, it is difficult to understand the depth of its destruction. This is a kind of psychological warfare being quietly waged upon victims. Psychopaths build up their targets and then knock them down under the rug. In the aftermath, victims may come to realize that they have been in a battle for their own life and that what is at stake is something even larger. This psychopathic invasion into one’s life is an infiltration of our deeper humanity. So, what is the agenda behind this dark force and where is it taking us?

Those with imperiled empathy are haunted by an eternal emptiness. They are thirsty, yet they can’t drink from the water of life. All they see are frozen images on the surface. This internal vacuum can turn into a monstrous desire for power that boils below consciousness. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1920) once signified this force when he urged his readers to make themselves “superior to humanity in power, in loftiness of soul, —contempt” (p. 38). This fighter for human freedom revealed to us the fall of human nature in his call for the will to power. He asked:

What is good? —Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man. What is evil? —Whatever that springs from weakness. What is happiness? —The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome. (p. 42-43)

In praise of independence, psychopaths condemn human emotions such as attachment and jealousy as weakness and deny attributes like compassion and cooperation. They hijack and pull the development of the individual into becoming a reflection of their dry and deserted soul.

The encounter with psychopaths brings forth the fundamental question of evil; how can humanity confront what has become so terrifying in the world? Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1943/1977) once elucidated how the role of evil is to educate us to freedom and love:

Love would be impossible for man and freedom would be impossible for man without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss. A man unable of his own free decision to choose good or evil, would be a being only led on a leading string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom. (p. 206)

We are born into the cradle of nature and unconsciously carried by affects and desires that stem from deep obligation to one another. Governed by this internal law of empathy, emotions that arise from a communal ground such as the sense of guilt or shame or simply feelings for the other, naturally regulate self-interests and restrain actions in consideration of others’ needs.

Unless we are ripped away from this protective world of empathy, how will we become aware of it and understand its true value? Psychopaths make us fight against ourselves. Their assault on empathy awakens us to the force that denies and breaks the bond of brotherhood. It gives us an opportunity to find the strength within to resist this will to power. By being pushed to the edge, we are asked to uphold out of free will all that makes us human.

When one fights this battle consciously, one can see this ‘evil’ for what it truly is. Hare (1993) shared a view held by some investigators that “behind Cleckley’s ‘mask of sanity’ lies not insanity but a young child of nine or ten” (p. 169). Like poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s myth of dragons being transformed into princesses at the last moment, perhaps these frightening members of society are a part of our own humanity that is “waiting to see us just once being beautiful and courageous” (1992, P. 85).

When we find courage to turn to what has become so dark, we find ourselves anew in those who are forgotten or condemned –within the shadows of man. We become survivors and begin to understand the true meaning of this battle.

One day, a stranger knocked at the door and opened our eyes to a side of humanity that we didn’t know existed. Darkness had a gift. It let us see the light that shines from within. With this light, mankind may find its true path toward evolution, becoming a species that can truly love. This is our salvation, where lies the potential for redemption of ourselves and the world.

 

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is a writer who has been covering issues of freedom of speech, transparency, and decentralized movements. Her work is featured in many publications. Find her on twitter @nozomimagine Read other articles by Nozomi.

Bayer and Monsanto: A Marriage Made in Hell

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By Steven MacMillan

Source: New Eastern Outlook

In a world infected with a plethora of immoral multinational corporations, it is hard to think of two corporations who have more nefarious histories than Bayer AG and Monsanto. Considering this, it is a harrowing prospect that the two corporations could potentially strike a deal in the near future.

As Bloomberg reported earlier this month, Bayer AG – the German pharmaceutical and chemical corporation – is reportedly considering a bid for the agrochemical and biotechnology corporation, Monsanto. This comes two months after Monsanto showed some interest in acquiring Bayer Crop Sciences, a branch of Bayer AG.

Founded in 1863, Bayer may be familiar to many readers as the first company to widely sell and trademark Aspirin in the late nineteenth century. But there is a far more sinister history to this company that is often omitted. 

The Inception of Chemical Warfare

April 22nd, 1915 is widely considered to be the first successful large-scale use of poison gas in warfare, when the Germany army deployed chlorine gas against the French lines at the start of the Second Battle of Ypres. In January of that year, German forces had released gas against Russian forces, yet the cold conditions inhibited the main agents in the weapon from having the desired impact.

Even as far back as the First World War, Bayer was playing a major role in the development of Germany’s chemical weapons apparatus. Along with other German chemical giants at the time, Bayer was a key player in producing and supplying the German army with chemical weapons during WWI (it should be noted that other powers were developing and deploying chemical weapons during the Great War, not just Germany). 

Bayer and the Nazi War Machine

Fast-forward a decade or so, and Bayer was playing an integral part in amalgamating numerous chemical companies into one. The merger resulted in the creation of the most infamous chemical company in modern history – I.G. Farben. As the late Anthony C. Sutton – a former Economics Professor at California State University and Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution – wrote in his book, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler:

“The Farben cartel dated from 1925, when organizing genius Hermann Schmitz (with Wall Street financial assistance) created the super-giant chemical enterprise out of six already giant German chemical companies – Badische Anilin, Bayer, Agfa, Hoechst, Weiler-ter-Meer and Griesheim-Elektron. There companies were merged to become I.G. Farben. Twenty years later the same Hermann Schmitz was put on trial at Nuremburg for war crimes committed by the I.G. cartel. Other I.G. Farben directors were placed on trial but the American affiliates of I.G. Farben and the American directors of I.G. itself were quietly forgotten; the truth was buried in the archives… Without the capital supplied by Wall Street, there would have been no I.G. Farben in the first place and almost certainly no Adolf Hitler and World War II.”

In more modern times, a division of Bayer was accused of ‘knowingly’ selling HIV-contaminated blood products to haemophiliacs, and has paid millions in damages in legal settlements.

Brothers in Death

During the Vietnam War, Monsanto was contracted to produce and supply the US government with a malevolent chemical for military application. Along with other chemical corporations at the time such as Dow Chemical, Monsanto produced the military herbicide Agent Orange which contained high quantities of the deadly chemical Dioxin. Between 1961 and 1971, the US Army sprayed between 50 and 80 million litres of Agent Orange across Vietnamese jungles, forests and strategically advantageous positions.

It was deployed in order to destroy forests and fertile lands which provided cover and food for the opposing troops. The fallout was devastating, with Vietnam estimating that 400,000 people died or were maimed due to Agent Orange, as well as 500,000 children born with birth defects and up to two million people suffered from cancer and other diseases. Millions of US veterans were also exposed and many have developed similar illnesses. The consequences are still felt today, and will continue to be felt for decades to come; with cancer rates, birth defects and other diseases still causing devastation to the victims and their families.

And today, Monsanto is still involved in producing chemical poison. Last year, the World Health Organisations (WHO) cancer agency – the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) – conducted a study on glyphosate, the main ingredient in the most widely used weedkiller in the world, Monsanto’s Roundup – which is heavily sprayed on GMO crops. The IARC study revealed that glyphosate was “classified as probablycarcinogenic to humans”.

Given the history of these corporations and the atrocities they have been complicit in, the last sector they should be involved in is the agricultural industry.

Related Podcast: Radio WhoWhatWhy – Monsanto’s 50 Years of Death From Above and Below Is About to End

68 Monsanto-Owned Companies To Boycott

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(Editor’s Note:  Tomorrow marks the 4th annual international March Against Monsanto. Whether or not you participate, you can take action in solidarity all year round by refusing to buy products from the companies listed below.)

Monsanto Company Inc. is a well-known, American-owned, multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation. It has been a leading force behind the widespread use of genetically modified seeds, the production of GM food products, and the development and application of associated chemicals.

Specifically, Monsanto’s infamous contribution has been Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide that is promoted as safe and harmless to humans, but is believed by a multitude of experts to be quite the opposite. While the company’s GMO seeds are advertised as requiring a reduced use of pesticides, this has been exposed as a false claim. The company also previously produced such evils as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, aspartame and bovine growth hormone.

All of these chemicals are considered by many to be a threat to global ecosystems, water safety and biodiversity. The residues of Roundup, which remain in genetically modified foods, are believed to cause many dangerous effects to human health, including the death of embryonic cells and extreme damage to the intestinal microbiome.

These foods are ubiquitous, with soy, maize, corn, sorghum, canola, alfalfa and cotton being largely contaminated with Roundup. In a world of modern processed foods, a surprising majority of ingredient lists contain at least one of these items. Many forward-thinking companies and restaurants are now excluding GMOs from their product offerings.

Even more upsetting is that the processed foods containing GMOs are often targeted toward children. Check out this link for a video of Daniel Bissonnette, a nine-year-old Canadian boy who asks why children in particular are subjected to the most toxic food by our society.

Tami Monroe Canal, founder of the worldwide March Against Monsanto movement, sums up the issue by saying, “Monsanto’s predatory business and corporate agricultural practices threatens [this] generation’s health, fertility and longevity.”

Here is the list of companies and brands that are either owned by Monsanto, or are known to use genetically modified seeds sold by Monsanto:

  • Aunt Jemima
  • Aurora Foods
  • Banquet
  • Best Foods
  • Betty Crocker
  • Bisquick
  • Cadbury
  • Campbell’s
  • Capri Sun
  • Carnation
  • Chef Boyardee
  • Coca-Cola
  • ConAgra Foods
  • Delicious Brands cookies
  • Duncan Hines
  • Famous Amos
  • Flowers Industries
  • Frito Lay
  • General Mills
  • Green Giant
  • Healthy Choice
  • Heinz
  • Hellmann’s
  • Hershey
  • Holsum
  • Hormel
  • Hungry Jack
  • Hunt’s
  • Interstate Bakeries
  • Jiffy
  • KC Masterpiece
  • Keebler
  • Kellogg’s
  • Kid Cuisine
  • Knorr
  • Kool-Aid
  • Kraft
  • Lean Cuisine
  • Lipton
  • Loma Linda Foods
  • Marie Callender’s
  • Minute Maid
  • MorningStar Farms
  • Mrs. Butterworth’s
  • Nabisco
  • Nature Valley
  • Nestlé
  • Ocean Spray
  • Ore-Ida
  • Orville Redenbacher’s
  • Pepperidge Farm
  • Pepsi
  • Philip Morris
  • Pillsbury
  • Pop Secret
  • Post cereals
  • PowerBar brand
  • Prego
  • Pringles
  • Procter & Gamble
  • Quaker
  • Ragú
  • Rice-A-Roni & Pasta Roni
  • Schweppes
  • Weight Watchers Smart Ones
  • Stouffer’s
  • Tombstone frozen pizza
  • Totino’s
  • Uncle Ben’s
  • Unilever
  • V8

So what is a concerned consumer to do? We recommend getting on the organic train, and staying there. Certified USDA organic products do not contain GMOs and are therefore safe for consumption. However, certain processed organic foods may still be owned by Monsanto. That’s why it’s even more important to buy local, seasonal organic produce and free-range, pastured animal products from small brands that you know and trust. Anything that comes in a box, bag, can or package is better left alone.

If you do choose to buy packaged foods, try using an app such as Buycott, which is able to determine the “family tree” of a company and let you know if it is associated with Monsanto. Then you can pop that product back on the shelf and choose a different one. Boycotting these companies and brands will strengthen the force against the dangerous agricultural practices they are promoting.

We encourage you to join the movement against Monsanto and say “NO!” to everything it represents by boycotting these products. Learn more about anti-GMO efforts here.

Terror Cells

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Ain’t no cure for dystopian biology

By Barbara Ehrenreich

Source: The Baffler

At around the turn of the millennium, some disturbing findings surfaced in the biomedical literature. Macrophages—immune cells whose function is to attack and kill microbes and other threats to the body—do not gather at tumor sites to destroy cancer cells, as had been optimistically imagined. Instead, they encourage the cancer cells to continue their mad reproductive rampage. Frances Balkwill, the British cell biologist who performed some of the key studies of treasonous immune cell behavior, described her colleagues in the field as being “horrified.”

By and large, medical science continues to present a happy face to the public. Self-help books and websites go right on advising cancer patients to boost their immune systems in order to combat the disease; patients should eat right and cultivate a supposedly immune-boosting “positive attitude.” Better yet, they are urged to “visualize” the successful destruction of cancer cells by the body’s immune cells, following guidelines such as:

• Cancer cells are weak and confused, and should be imagined as something that can fall apart like ground hamburger.

• There is an army of different kinds of white blood cells that can overwhelm the cancer cells.

• White blood cells are aggressive and want to seek out and attack the cancer cells.

At a more respectable level of discourse, Harvard physician Jerome Groopman wrote an entire 2012 New Yorker article on scientific attempts to enlist the immune system against cancer—without ever once mentioning that certain types of immune cells have a tendency to go over to the other side.

But the evidence for immune cell collusion with cancer keeps piling up. Macrophages supply cancer cells with chemical growth factors and help build the new blood vessels required by a growing tumor. So intimately are they involved with the deadly progress of cancer that they can account for up to 50 percent of a tumor’s mass. Macrophages also appear to be necessary if the cancer is to progress to its deadliest phase, metastasis. When cancerous mice were treated to eliminate all their macrophages, their tumors stopped metastasizing.

A May 2014 paper in the journal Cancer Cell offers a chilling account of the macrophage–cancer cell interaction. Macrophages are among the most mobile cells in the body, capable of moving through the bloodstream or creeping, like amoebae, by extending pseudopods and pulling themselves along. When macrophages encounter breast cancer cells, they do not do what we would like them to do, which is to attack and engulf the “enemy.” Instead, the Cancer Cell article suggests, the macrophages release a growth factor that encourages the cancer cells to elongate themselves into a mobile, invasive form poised for metastasis. These elongated cancer cells, in turn, release a chemical that further activates the macrophages—leading to the release of more growth factor, and so on. A positive feedback loop is established. Or, to put it more colorfully, the macrophages and cancer cells seem to excite one another to the point where the cancer cells are pumped up and ready to set out from the breast in search of fresh lebensraum—in the lungs, for example, or the liver or brain.

You will find little of this drama in the article itself, and not only because it is a scientific paper that happens to have seventeen coauthors. Their data focuses entirely on the chemical exchange between the two types of cells—which is a little like describing a human flirtation entirely in terms of hormones and pheromones. But what goes on among the living cells in the body? How many cells (macrophages and cancer cells) are required before the positive feedback loop can take off? Do the macrophages and cancer cells actually touch one another, perhaps briefly fusing cell membranes, or do the chemical messages they exchange travel through the intercellular matrix? And then there are the deeper, perhaps unanswerable, questions, like what’s in this for the macrophages, which by enabling metastasis seal their own doom? Or for that matter, what’s in it for the cancer cells, which will die along with the organism they destroy?

Kill, Eat, Repeat

If science seems to balk at the behavior of individual cells (and small groups of cells), this is because twentieth-century biology, in its reductionist zeal, tended to zip right past cells to get to the more glamorous molecular level. Cancer research came to focus on the DNA mutations that predispose cells to a career of selfish reproduction. Immunology downplayed macrophages in favor of an obsession with antibodies—the protein molecules that can mark a “foreign” cell, like a microbe, for destruction—although it is chiefly macrophages that do the destroying. My first thesis advisor at Rockefeller University won a Nobel Prize for elucidating the structure of antibody molecules. My second thesis advisor got far less recognition, and a much smaller lab, for his work on how macrophages kill and digest their prey.

Part of the appeal of molecules over cells is that molecules can be collected in test tubes like any nonliving chemical, stored in a refrigerator, and analyzed at leisure by the usual chemical methods. Cells can be pulverized and fractionated into their constituent molecules, of course, but living cells have to be observed with the patience of an ethnologist studying chimpanzee behavior in the wild. After months of biochemical studies of macrophages, I once had a chance to see a living one under a phase contrast microscope and was surprised, in my naïveté, to find that it was moving, its surface rippling and corrugating like that of a sea anemone. The cells of our body are analogs of, and evolutionary descendants of, the unicellular creatures that preceded multicellular life and, in a sense, are tiny animals themselves.

Only very recently, new techniques in microscopy have made it possible to track the behavior of individual cells in living tissue, and the resulting images reveal striking degrees of individuality. If you calculate the bulk average of movements within a sample group of cells, most cells turn out to be going their own way, on paths far from the average. Cancer cells within a tumor exhibit “extreme diversity.” NK, or “natural killer,” cells, which, like macrophages, attack targets like microbes, do not always kill. A 2013 article reports that about half of the NK cells sit out the fight, leaving a minority of them to become what their human observers call “serial killers.”

Individual cells have no mental life—no thoughts or feelings—at least none that we can imagine, if only because they lack nervous systems. But macrophages and NK cells are capable of “memory,” or different responses to stimuli they have encountered before. Risking anthropomorphism, scientists now speak of “decision-making” by individual cells such as macrophages. The cells sniff the chemicals in their microenvironment, seem to weigh their options, and then decide whether to attack or withdraw, move forward or remain where they are. As one science news site put it:

Cells are constantly making decisions about what to do, where to go or when to divide. Many of these decisions are hard-wired in our DNA or strictly controlled by external signals and stimuli. Others, though, seem to be made autonomously by individual cells.

Just a decade ago, any talk about cellular “decision-making” would have been taken for whimsy. Cells, as we knew them then, were programmed both genetically and epigenetically (through chemical modifications to DNA occurring during development) to perform their functions in the body. Heart cells beat, intestinal cells secrete digestive enzymes, nerve cells conduct electrical signals, etc.—and those that falter at their tasks obligingly commit suicide through a process called apoptosis. Furthermore, most body cells, most of the time, are fixed in place by glue-like attachments to other cells. Individual cells have no decisions to make, we used to think, because they have no choice but to serve the organism by tirelessly carrying out their assigned roles.

But that old deterministic model of cell behavior offered little insight into cellular rebellions such as cancer. Many cells may be exposed to a carcinogen, but only some turn into cancer cells, and of those, only a fraction go on to a career of metastasis. “Decisions” are made. As for macrophages, collusion with cancer cells is only one of the ways they can undermine the organism. Overly ambitious macrophages play a central role in autoimmune diseases and the many inflammatory ailments, like arthritis, that plague the elderly. In coronary artery disease, macrophages pile up on the arterial walls, where they fatten themselves on lipids until there is no space in the artery for blood to flow through. The macrophages are doing what comes naturally to them: eating. Unfortunately, there is no central authority to tell them to desist lest the whole multicellular contraption that is the body come to grief.

As an analogy to the erratic immune system (which includes macrophages, NK cells, and a host of other cell types, including antibody-producing lymphocytes), biology teachers often invoke the military. Any human society within a spear’s throw of potential enemies needs some kind of defensive force—minimally, an armed group who can defend against invaders. But there are risks to maintaining a garrison: the warriors may get greedy and turn against their own people, demanding ever more food and other resources. Similarly, in the case of the body, without immune cells we would be helpless in the face of invading microbes. With them, we face the possibility of insurrection and self-inflicted death.

Dystopian Biology

It is disconcerting to think of the biological self, or body, as a collection of tiny selves. The image that comes to mind is the grotesque portrait of a super-sized king in the frontispiece of Hobbes’s Leviathan: on close inspection, the king turns out to be composed of hundreds of little people crowded into his arms and torso. Hobbes’s point was that human societies need autocratic leaders; otherwise they risk degenerating into a “war of all against all.” But no “king” rules the body. Despite, or sometimes because of, all the communications—chemical and electrical—that connect the tissues and cells of the body, chaos can always break out.

It would be nice to think that the brain, with which we do our thinking, is a more tightly disciplined place, set off as it is from the turmoil of the body by the blood–brain barrier, like a computer kept in a dust-free, air-conditioned room. But living brain cells are not entirely predictable. The glial cells that support and nourish neurons can become cancerous (as, more rarely, can neurons themselves). Then too, the brain has its own army of macrophages, or microglia as they are called, and overactive microglia can, like macrophages in other parts of the body, create damaging inflammations, leading to neurodegenerative diseases. Bizarrely enough, new research this year shows that breast cancer cells sometimes “disguise” themselves as neurons, penetrate the blood–brain barrier, and start fresh tumors in the brain. If individual cells have functions, they do not always seem to know it.

It took science until 2012 to officially acknowledge that nonhuman animals possess feelings and consciousness. It may take a bit longer for biology to admit that the cells in our bodies are not simply automata, that they possess, if not consciousness, at least some sort of agency. As recently as 2008, an article on the confusing taxonomy of macrophages proposed that a new, “more informative” classification “should be based on the fundamental macrophage functions,” which are defined as “host defence, wound healing and immune regulation.” What about macrophages’ role in abetting cancer—or in instigating life-threatening inflammatory diseases? What “functions” do these activities represent? The “wisdom of the body,” which supposedly keeps the body unified as a single sustainable organism, does not always apply at the microscopic level, where an individual cell can sabotage the entire operation.

Natural selection should weed out cellular traitors, you might think, since people who are vulnerable to cancer, autoimmune diseases, and pathological inflammation—at least at early ages—are less likely to reproduce. The truth is, though, that we do not know for sure what natural selection means at the cellular level. Often, when a person with cancer is subjected to chemotherapy, some of the cancer cells survive through what can only be called natural selection. A victory at the cellular level may mean defeat for the organism.

This is madness, of course. But then, who are we, as human beings, to be appalled by the irresponsible “decisions” of our body’s cells? We too are biological organisms, supposedly doing our best to survive and promote the survival of our kin. And we too, like rogue cells in our bodies, can be murderous, suicidal, and systematically destructive of our physical habitats. We, of all creatures, should appreciate the perversity, as well as the clockwork precision, of biology.

Poisoned Agriculture: Depopulation and Human Extinction

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By Colin Todhunter

Source: RINF

There is a global depopulation agenda. The plan is to remove the ‘undesirables’, ‘the poor’ and others deemed to be ‘unworthy’ and a drain on finite resources. However, according to Rosemary Mason, the plan isn’t going to work because an anthropogenic mass extinction is already underway that will affect all life on the planet and both rich and poor alike. Humans will struggle to survive the phenomenon.

A new paper by Rosemary A Mason in the ‘Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry’, indicates that a ‘sixth extinction’ is under way (the Holocene extinction, sometimes called the Sixth Extinction, is a name describing the ongoing extinction of species during the present Holocene epoch – since around 10,000 BCE). In her paper, ‘The sixth mass extinction and chemicals in the environment: our environmental deficit is now beyond nature’s ability to regenerate’, she argues that loss of biodiversity is the most urgent of the environmental problems, as biodiversity is critical to ecosystem services and human health. And the main culprit is the modern chemical-intensive industrialised system of food and agriculture.

Mason asserts there is a growing threat from the release of hormone-disrupting chemicals that could even be shifting the human sex ratio and reducing sperm counts. An industrial agricultural revolution has created a technology-dependent global food system, but it has also created serious long-run vulnerabilities, especially in its dependence on stable climates, crop monocultures and industrially produced chemical inputs. In effect, farming is a principal source of global toxification and soil degradation.

Without significant pressure from the public demanding action, Mason argues there could little chance of changing course fast enough to forestall disaster. The ‘free’ market is driving the impending disaster and blind faith in corporate-backed technology will not save us. Indeed, such faith in this technology is actually killing us.

Since the late 1990s, US scientists have written in increasingly desperate tones regarding an unprecedented number of fungal and fungal-like diseases, which have recently caused some of the most severe die-offs and extinctions ever witnessed in wild species and which are jeopardizing food security. Only one paper dared to mention pesticides as being a primary cause, however.

Mason cites a good deal of evidence to show how the widespread use on agricultural crops of the systemic neonicotinoid insecticides and the herbicide glyphosate, both of which cause immune suppression, make species vulnerable to emerging infectious pathogens, driving large-scale wildlife extinctions, including essential pollinators.

Providing evidence to show how human disease patterns correlate remarkably well with the rate of glyphosate usage on corn, soy and wheat crops, which has increased due to ‘Roundup Ready’ crops, Mason goes on to present more sources to show how our over-reliance on chemicals in agriculture is causing irreparable harm to all beings on this planet. Most of these chemicals are known to cause illness, and they have likely been causing illnesses for many years. But until recently, the herbicides have never been sprayed directly on food crops and never in this massive quantity.

The depopulation agenda

Mason discusses how agriculture and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) fit into a wider agenda for depopulating the planet. She notes that on the initiative of Gates, in May 2009 some of the richest people in the US met at the home of Nurse, a British Nobel prize-winning biochemist and President (2003–10) of Rockefeller University in Manhattan, to discuss ways of tackling a ‘disastrous’ environmental, social and industrial threat of overpopulation. The meeting was hosted by David Rockefeller Jr. These same individuals have met several times since to develop a strategy in which population growth would be tackled.

The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) was involved in extensive financing of eugenics research by the National Socialists (Nazis) during and after World War and was in league with some of the US’s most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. The explicit aim of the eugenics lobby funded by wealthy élite families, such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harriman and others since the 1920s, has embodied what they termed ‘negative eugenics’, the systematic killing off of ‘undesired bloodlines’.

RF funded the earliest research on GMOs, which Mason regards as part of the depopulation agenda (of course, apart from the adverse health impacts of GMOs, Monsanto owns the ‘epicyte gene’ which causes sterility in males). The RF funded the earliest research on GMOs in the 1940s and effectively founded the science of molecular biology.

Mason cites Steven Druker to show the fraud behind GMOs and how governments and leading scientific institutions have systematically misrepresented the facts about GMOs and the scientific research that casts doubt on their safety. Druker has shown that GMOs can have severe health impacts, which have been covered up.

The Royal Society is the preeminent scientific body within the UK that advises the government. It has misrepresented the facts about GMOs and has engaged in various highly dubious and deceptive tactics to promote the technology.

Druker wrote an open letter to RS as it has an obligation to the British public to provide a public response and ‘put the record straight’ on GMOs. Although Sir Paul Nurse’s presidency of Rockefeller University terminated in 2010, after he assumed the Royal Society presidency, Mason notes that Nurse is said to have maintained a laboratory on the Rockefeller campus and has an ongoing relationship with the university.

She asks: is that why Sir Paul was unable (or unwilling) even to discuss GMOs with Steven Druker? Was he sent to London by the Rockefeller Foundation to support the UK Government in their attempt to bring in GM crops? The UK Government and the GM industry have after all been shown to be working together to promote GM crops and foods, undermine consumer choice and ignore environmental harm.

Mason then goes on to discuss the impact of glyphosate residues (herbicide-tolerant GM crops are designed to work with glyphosate), which are found in the organs of animals, human urine and human breast milk as well as in the air and rivers. She documents its widespread use and contamination of soil and water and notes that the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer’s assessment of glyphosate being a 2A carcinogen (probably carcinogenic in humans) is unwelcome news for the agrochemical industry. She also notes that Roundup usage has led to a depletion of biodiversity and that loss of biodiversity is also correlated with neonicotinoids. However, despite the evidence, the blatant disregard concerning the use of these substances by regulatory agencies around the world is apparent.

To provide some insight into the impact on health of the chemical-intensive model of agriculture, Mason shows that in the US increases in Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, breast cancer, oesophageal cancer, congenital anomalies and a growing burden of disability, particularly from mental disorders are all acknowledged.

She claims that plans are under way to depopulate the planet’s seven million plus people to a more manageable level of between 500–2000 million by a combination of means, including the poisoning and contamination of the planet’s food and water supplies via chemical-intensive industrialised agriculture. Mason also notes that health-damaging GMOs are being made available to the masses (under the guise of ‘feeding the poor’), while elites are more prone to eat organic food.

We may be gone before planned depopulation takes hold

Although Mason cites evidence to show that a section of the US elite has a depopulation agenda, given the amount of poisons being pumped into the environment and into humans, the thrust of her argument is that we could all be extinct before this comes to fruition – both rich and poor alike.

In concluding, she states that the global pesticides industry has been allowed to dominate the regulatory agencies and have created chemicals of mass destruction that can no longer be controlled. She has some faith in systems biology coming to the fore and being able to understand the complexity of the whole organism as a system, rather than just studying its parts in a reductionist manner. But Mason believes that ultimately the public must place pressure on governments and hold agribusiness to account.

However, that in itself may not be enough.

It is correct to highlight the poisonous impacts of the Rockefeller-sponsored petrochemical ‘green revolution’. It has uprooted indigenous/traditional agriculture and local economies and has recast them in a model that suits global agribusiness. It is poisoning life and the environment, threatening food security across the globe and is unsustainable. The ‘green revolution’ was ultimately a tool of US foreign policy that has been used in conjunction with various institutions like the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation. GMOs represent more of the same.

In this respect, Mason follows the line of argument in William F Engdahl’s book ‘Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation’, which locates the GM issue and the ‘green revolution’ firmly within the context of empire. Engdahl also sees the Rockefeller-Gates hand behind the great GMO project to a sinister eugenicist strategy of depopulation.

Mason’s concerns about depopulation therefore should not be dismissed, particularly given the record of the likes of the Gates and Rockefeller clans, the various covert sterility programmes that have been instituted by the US over the decades and the way agriculture has and continues to be used as a geopolitical tool to further the agendas of rich interests in the US.

To understand the processes that have led to modern farming and the role of entities like Monsanto, we must appreciate the geopolitics of food and agriculture, which benefits an increasingly integrated global cartel of finance, oil, military and agribusiness concerns. This cartel seeks to gain from war, debt bondage and the control of resources, regardless of any notions relating to food security, good health and nutrition, biodiversity, food democracy, etc.

Food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma notes the impacts in India:

“India is on fast track to bring agriculture under corporate control… Amending the existing laws on land acquisition, water resources, seed, fertilizer, pesticides and food processing, the government is in overdrive to usher in contract farming and encourage organized retail. This is exactly as per the advice of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well as the international financial institutes.”

In Punjab, India, pesticides have turned the state into a ‘cancer epicentre‘. Moreover, Indian soils are being depleted as a result of the application of ‘green revolution’ ideology and chemical inputs. India is losing 5,334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion because of the indiscreet and excessive use of fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is become deficient in nutrients and fertility.

And now, there is an attempt to push GM food crops into India in a secretive, non-transparent manner that smacks of regulatory delinquency underpinned by corrupt practices, which suggests officials are working hand in glove with US agribusiness.

As smallholders the world over are being driven from their land and the GMO/chemical-industrial farming model takes over, the problems continue to mount.

The environment, the quality of our food and our health are being sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit and a type of looting based on something we can loosely regard as ‘capitalism’. The solution involves a shift to organic farming and investment in and reaffirmation of indigenous models of agriculture. But ultimately it entails what Daniel Maingi of Growth Partners for Africa says what we must do: “… take capitalism and business out of farming.”

It must also entail, according to Maingi, investing in  “… indigenous knowledge and agroecology, education and infrastructure and stand(ing) in solidarity with the food sovereignty movement.”

In other words, both farmers and consumers must organise to challenge governments, corrupt regulatory bodies and big agribusiness at every available opportunity. If we don’t do this, what Mason outlines may come to pass.

 

Colin Todhunter is an independent writer : you can support his writing here.

The Weird Politics Of Aspartame: Conspiracy Theory Or Startling Truth?

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By Paanii Powell Cleaver

Source: Inquisitr

Earlier this month, news wires and Twitter feeds were abuzz with info about the potential danger of certain artificial sweeteners.

In reality, recent reports about the potential perils of low-calorie sweeteners are not exactly breaking news. Almost 20 years ago, on December 29, 1996, Mike Wallace conducted an eye-opening segment about aspartame, also known as NutraSweet, on 60 Minutes.

The segment aired in response to a flurry of reports noting a dramatic increase in brain tumors and other serious health issues following the approval of aspartame for use in dry foods in 1981. Fifteen years after its somewhat dubious approval, (the most controversial FDA decision to date), more than 7,000 consumer reports of adverse reaction to aspartame had been delivered to the FDA. As reported by 60 Minutes, the litany of consumer complaints included severe headaches, dizziness, respiratory issues, and seizures. The FDA countered with a statement that aspartame was the most tested product in FDA history.

Dr. Virginia V. Weldon, a pediatrician from Missouri and Vice President of Public Policy for the Monsanto Company from 1989 through 1998, told 60 Minutes that aspartame is “one of the safest food ingredients ever approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Dr. John W. Olney, a neuroscientist at Washington University School of Medicine, vehemently disagreed with Dr. Weldon’s assessment of the controversial super sweetener. Notable for his discovery of the brain-harming effects of an amino acid called glutamate, Dr. Olney was influential in legislating the ban of MSG in baby food. At the time of the 60 Minutes segment, he had been studying the effects of aspartame and other compounds on brain health for more than two decades.

Olney told 60 Minutes’ Mike Wallace that since the approval of aspartame, there had been “a striking increase in the incidence of malignant brain tumors.” The doctor did not directly blame aspartame for the increase. He did, however, state that there was enough questionable evidence to merit reevaluating the chemical compound. He said that the FDA should reassess aspartame and that “this time around, they should do it right.”

Dr. Erik Millstone, Professor of Science Policy at the University of Sussex, told 60 Minutes that Searle’s testing procedures in the early 1970s were so flawed that there was no way to know for certain if aspartame was safe for human consumption. Millstone claimed that the company’s failure to dissect a test animal that died during an aspartame experiment was merely one example of “deficiencies” in Searle’s conduct. He also noted that when test mice presented with tumors, the tumors were “cut out and discarded and not reported.” In addition, Dr. Millstone told Mike Wallace that G.D. Searle and contractors hired by the drug company administered antibiotics to some test animals yet neglected to reveal this information in official reports.

In 1974, after the G.D. Searle company had already manufactured a significant quantity of aspartame, then-commissioner of the FDA, Alexander Schmidt, came very close to approving the chemical for human food purposes. Relying solely on evidence provided by Searle, the FDA allowed a mere 30 days for the public to respond before putting the FDA seal of approval on the now-controversial food additive. Dr. John Olney wasted no time in joining forces with James Turner, a public interest attorney who also worked with consumer advocate Ralph Nader. Just before the allotted time for public response ran out, Dr. Olney and his attorney petitioned the FDA with data that indicated the dangerous similarities between aspartame and glutamate.

In his 1970 best seller, The Chemical Feast, Turner detailed numerous ways the FDA shirked its obligation to protect the American people. At the time of its publication, Time magazine described the tome as “the most devastating critique of a U.S. government agency ever issued.”

In response to Dr. Olney’s allegations that aspartame was potentially as brain-damaging as glutamate, the FDA called for a task force to investigate the matter. By late 1975, the FDA found that Searle’s own research into the safety of aspartame was so flawed that they stayed the approval process, citing “a pattern of conduct which compromises the scientific integrity of the studies.”

Former U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum told 60 Minutes that when Searle presented information to the FDA in 1974, the drug company “willfully misrepresented” and omitted facts that may have halted approval of what would soon become its best-selling product. Metzenbaum went on to say that the FDA was so disturbed by its findings, it forwarded a file to the U.S. Attorney’s Chicago office in 1975 in the interest of calling a grand jury to determine whether criminal indictments against Searle were warranted.

When did the grand jury convene? Never. According to 60 Minutes, U.S. Attorney Samuel Skinner requested a grand jury investigation in 1977 but recused himself from the case when he was offered a job at the Sidley & Austin law firm, which also happened to be the Chicago law firm that represented the G.D. Searle company. The investigation was stalled until the statute of limitations ran its course, and no grand jury ever heard the case against Searle’s questionable research standards. Skinner, by the way, did eventually accept the job with Searle’s Chicago law office.

In 1977, a new FDA task force convened in Skokie, Illinois, with the sole purpose of investigating the research methods employed by G.D. Searle in its effort to gain FDA approval of aspartame. The task force examined raw data from 15 studies that Searle used to back up its uniformly positive claims about aspartame. According to journalist Andrew Cockburn, the task force noted numerous “falsifications and omissions” in Searle’s research reports.

In 1980, at the tail end of the Carter administration, the FDA conducted two-panel investigations into claims that aspartame caused brain tumors. Led by scientific and medical experts, each panel concluded that more tests were needed to prove the safety of the sweetener. Both panels concluded that aspartame should not be approved at that time.

So, how does the fellow in the cover picture figure into this equation?

If you do not recognize the face in the feature photo, here is a memory refresher: The man in the pic — and up to his ears in the aspartame controversy — is Donald Rumsfeld. Perhaps best known as Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush presidency, Donald Rumsfeld also happened to be CEO of the G.D. Searle drug company when Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States on January 1981.

Regardless of its safety or potential peril, the fact remains that without the clout and political influence of Donald Rumsfeld, aspartame might never have been approved for human use at all.

Donald Rumsfeld, who at one time aspired to be Reagan’s running mate, was a member of the new president’s transition team. Part of the team’s duties involved the selection of a new FDA Commissioner. Rumsfeld et al chose a pharmacist with no experience in food additive science to lead the agency.

On January 21, 1981, Ronald Reagan’s first full day as president, the G.D. Searle company, headed by Donald Rumsfeld, reapplied for FDA approval of aspartame. That same day, in one of his first official acts, President Reagan issued an executive order that rescinded much of the FDA commissioner’s power.

In April 1981, newly appointed FDA commissioner Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., put together a five-person panel tasked to reevaluate the agency’s 1975 decision to not approve aspartame as a food additive. At first, the panel voted 3-2 to uphold non-approval of the chemical sweetener. Hayes then invited another member to the official FDA panel, and the vote was retaken. The panel deadlocked, and Hayes contributed his own vote to break the tie. Two months later, the product that the FDA refused to approve for seven long years was suddenly approved for human consumption.

Four years later, in 1985, the Monsanto corporation bought G.D. Searle and established a separate division, The NutraSweet Company, to manage the sales and public relations of one of its best-selling and most profitable products. It may be worth noting that when Monsanto purchased Searle and the patent on aspartame, Donald Rumsfeld reportedly received a fat $12 million bonus.

Before reading this, how much did you know about the origins of aspartame? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is “not much.” And, if you’re like many Americans, your interest in a story such as this one will wane as soon as the next hot topic comes along. Perhaps this is the reason that there has been little if any public outcry regarding aspartame or the weird way that it received FDA approval.

Updates:

In 1987, UPI investigative journalist Gregory Gordon reported that Dr. Richard Wurtman, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a die-hard supporter of aspartame during its 1981 rush to approval, had reversed his thoughts on the sweetener. He noted the once-ardent supporter as saying his views had evolved along with scientific studies and his increased skepticism of industry research standards.

In 1997, the U.K. government obliged makers of sweetened food to prominently include the words “with sweeteners” on product labels. Ten years later, U.K. supermarket chain Mark & Spencer announced the end of artificial sweeteners and coloring in their chilled goods and bakery departments, according to the Daily Mail.

In his well received 2007 book, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, author Andrew Cockburn described the results of the 1977 FDA task force that found “falsifications and omissions” in Searle’s research data. The New York Times called author Cockburn’s biographical tome “quite persuasive.”

In 2009, Woolworths, a South African retailer, announced that it would no long brand products containing aspartame.

On February 28, 2010, Dr. Arthur Hayes Hull, Jr., the FDA Commissioner who hurried aspartame to market and later squelched public fear of Tylenol during the 1982 poisoning scare, died in Connecticut. According to his New York Times obituary, Hayes was employed as president of E. M. Pharmaceuticals after his term at the FDA. Hayes succumbed to leukemia at age 76.

A 2011 report in the Huffington Post noted that 10,000 American consumers notified the FDA about the ill effects of aspartame between 1981 and 1995. According to the article, the use of aspartame elicited more complaints than any other product in history, comprising 75 percent of complaints received by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In 2013, the EFSA (the British equivalent of the FDA), reiterated its claim that aspartame is harmless. Professor Erik Millstone responded with his own reevaluation of aspartame, in which he noted that every study the EFSA used to approve aspartame was funded by the same industry that manufactures and profits from the controversial sweetener.

Dr. John W. Olney passed away at the age of 83 on April 14, 2015. In addition to his campaigns against aspartame and glutamate, the doctor devoted half a century of his life to finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis, the crippling neurological disease that claimed his own sister when she was 16. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, cause of death of the pioneering brain researcher included complications of ALS, a neurological disorder more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Those interested in learning more about the approval of aspartame are invited to read the FDA Commissioner’s Final Report, published by the Department of Health and Human Services on July 24, 1981. A detailed version of the aspartame timeline is available at Rense.com.

The Control-Matrix is Crashing because the Truth-Seekers are Winning

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By Phillip J. Watt

Source: The Mind Unleashed

The way the masses view the world is a farce. Every single mainstream perspective is either purposely deceptive, or completely misses the point. Even the people in places of influence who we’re meant to trust have either sold out, or are just plain ignorant to the facts. There’s no need to have a heavy heart though; the matrix of control is crashing because the truth-seekers are dealing heavy blows to the false narratives that have for too long shaped the collective mindset of humanity.

Of course the internet can be celebrated for being the primary mechanism which has amplified the sharing of information across location, race, culture and belief systems. In retrospect, the powers-that-will-no-longer-be would be kicking themselves for not trying harder to institute their insidious plan for humanity prior to the birth and growth of the world-wide-web.

Make no mistake though; they have been very successful on many fronts. For example, try to imagine a world where:

      • most journalists don’t report the real news;
      • the majority of doctors don’t truly understand the causes of poor health and how to legitimately resolve it;
      • a high proportion of politicians don’t know how the money supply works and what the agenda is of those who control it;
      • many so-called expert scientists ‘believe’ in a discredited philosophy which resembles a dogmatic religion;
      • the majority of teachers don’t realize they’re teaching a system of indoctrination that nowhere near gets close to the information and critical thinking that should be afforded our kids; and

the masses are not only ill-informed, divided and feverishly fighting against each other over small and irrelevant topics, but they’re also sleepwalking through one of the most majestic and reverent realities that could have ever been conceptualized.

Well, welcome to our world.

As we begin what we call the 21st Century, every system that should be designed to facilitate the health and vitality of the people has been hacked with lies, deception, dysfunction and disharmony. It’s easy to think that this is an embarrassment for our species because it’s beneath our intelligence and ethical capacity, yet there’s no need to lose faith in the inevitable betterment of humanity, including the way in which we organize and economize our societies.

Why? Because all of this dysfunction has been an effective driver of the collective awakening that is rising in the hearts and minds of humanity.

The inspiring fact is that more and more people are slowly waking up and realizing we all have the opportunity to come to our own, informed opinion on the truth, pertaining to both the spiritual and systemic realities. So many more people now understand the mainstream news is not to be taken seriously as its not where we can find information which is aligned with the deeper truths. They’re also acknowledging that we have the choice on what we decide to personally stand and fight for, as well as the legacy we leave for our children and our future generations.

Beware though; once we exit the matrix of control we’re faced with some serious challenges. We have a lot of inner work to do, such as designing a philosophy that ensures we’re at peace, as well as exercising patience in the quest to take back our liberties and design a legitimate and honorable future for humanity.

That’s why we’ve got to feel for those who have been long aware of the many dysfunctions of our world, especially those who have not learned peace and patience. Slowly they’ve watched:

    • the military-industrial-media-politico-banking complex increase their power and continue their pillage across the world;
    • pharmaceutical monopolies amplifying the drugging of society, as well as keeping many of us sick so that they maximize their profits;
    • movements rise up only to be vilified and disassembled, such as the Occupy Movement;
    • science turned into a corporate institution, as well as further hijacked by an inaccurate and small-minded philosophy of reality;
    • wars purposely created with millions of people dying for the whims of the shadow empire;
    • radical extremists massaged into proxy armies to do dirty work for the collapsing power structure;
    • air, medicine, food and water becoming purposely more toxic;
    • governmental policy increasingly being determined by corporate/elite interests;
    • police being militarized all around the globe;
    • the education model struggling to become less of an indoctrination system; and
    • the agenda of global governance becoming closer to fruition.

Some people have known about much of this for decades, so we should commend them for continuing to fight the good fight. They might have witnessed some disheartening developments, yet as much as all this sounds dire, they’ve also seen millions of people disengage from the propaganda narratives and align themselves with the systemic and spiritual pathways that will be the next stage of our evolution.

The point is that even though we need to be patient and persevere, we should recognize and celebrate the achievements that have been made so far. As I discussed in a previous article called “Whilst the Old System Crashes a New One is Being Built”, there are:

    • economists who want to transform the Keynesian model to legitimate alternatives;
    • teachers who understand the massive holes in the indoctrination system called public education;
    • scientists who want to evolve the way energy is created and shared;
    • health practitioners who see the limits of mechanistic and pharmacological medicine and the need for the reintroduction of natural and plant-based therapies;
    • journalists who demand that the media monopolies need to be disassembled;
    • environmentalists who want to transition the way food is grown and distributed;
    • community leaders who aim to reintegrate them to better support its members;
    • politicians who understand the democratic system has been hijacked by big money;
    • activists who campaign for revolutions in our value systems; and
    • futurists who want to change the systemic template for our societal health and well-being.

There are many beautiful souls who are leading the charge by attempting to redesign our society back into alignment with the natural laws of our universe. We should be one of them, regardless of which way we personally decide to contribute.

To do that, we all need to be super clear within ourselves what we believe and what we want to change. There are many ways to do it too, so finding our passions and strengths is critical to playing our own small part in the shift.

It is simply no longer acceptable to keep our heads in the sand; either we’re a minion of the system or we’re not. Of course its difficult to completely disconnect from the way resources flow through the control channels, yet that needn’t stop us from talking about it, sharing information online and somehow contributing, no matter how small, to local and global movements which aim to transition humanity into the new paradigm of abundance.

After all, the truth is what it is, and it is exposing itself to the world by powerfully flowing through all of us.

Ultimately, we needn’t wait for the zombie apocalypse because its already arrived. Most people are good people, yet the masses have been brainwashed into thinking in ways that are absolutely nowhere near aligned to the truth. They might be sleepwalking through a time where the tipping point for the conscious society builds, but that doesn’t mean they’re not salvageable. That’s why we all have a responsibility to help facilitate waking up the collective so that together we’re more empowered and informed to really bring about a future of justice and honor that we can all be proud of.

To do so, let me give you some advice. Don’t get frustrated, don’t be rude, don’t belittle, don’t condemn. We all had to wake up at one stage so its hypocritical if we are. Instead, be calm, be cool, be real, be articulate. Know the information that you advocate like the back of your hand. If we want to be successful in helping others to face the delusions then we need to ensure their defense mechanisms aren’t raised so they’re more likely to be open and receptive to embrace the truth.

And one more thing; hang in there guys and be patient, we’ve still got a long, arduous way to go but we know all the effort will be worth every second.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip J. Watt lives in Australia. His written work deals with topics from ideology to society, as well as self-development. Follow him on Facebook or visit his website.