Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul
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Birthday Wishes for a Beloved Soul

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Dear One
I wish for you discernment
that you may see who truly is your friend
and who isn’t
who truly wishes you well
and who doesn’t.
I wish you freedom
from your entitlement, your addictions, and your demandingness
so that you may enter into the clear
sweet peace of humility
that has everything to do with your soft open
heart’s kindness and love
for your core Self
and nothing to do with the curdled ego’s insistence
on gratification.
I wish for you that you seek wisdom
alongside knowledge,
words of gratitude
rather than proof,
and opportunities to give
in the very moments that you are tempted
to take.
I send you my love and my light
in the fullness of this day, your birthday,
as I do every moment of every day
and I wish for you that you feel my love
in every angstrom of your being
and that you learn to hold love in the reverence
it deserves
instead of seeing it as an agent to serve your bidding.
May you push you away the voices of false friends
who whisper in your ear of aggrandizement,
realizing that respectfulness
and honesty
and personal responsibility
is the better path.
May all your decisions be for the highest, best good
of yourself and all living beings,
And may your Higher Self bring you to conscious awareness in this lifetime.

by Traci L. Slatton
Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes Birthday Wishes

Citizenfour: The Most Important Movie You Will Ever See
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Citizenfour: The Most Important Movie You Will Ever See

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I recently finished a WWII novel, and I’m still researching the era for another, very different novel set during the same time period. Since one of my closest friends is a Bavarian woman whom I know to be a person of integrity, heart, courage, compassion, and grace, I was curious: how did the NSDAP come to control Germany so completely that its citizens would commit atrocities? So that atrocities would be legalized?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that the NSDAP under Adolf Hitler legalized the illegal. They made laws to force their citizens to participate in the killing of Jews, Poles, the Romany, Socialists, Communists, and anyone who disagreed with the Nazi party. They made laws to enforce the killing and sterilization of children and adults with physical “imperfections” such as mental retardation.

So the Nazi party in Germany created a legal system based on hatred and killing. To enforce this legal system, they instituted a series of Party overseers, one in every community, to make sure that people remained “Loyal” to the party. This was the state police, the Gestapo. The Gestapo surveilled every German citizen, collecting vast files of information about German individuals. There was no “privacy” because the German State was everything.

Every dictatorship surveilles its population as a method of controlling its subjects. This is pointed out in CITIZENFOUR, Laura Poitras’ film about Ed Snowden.

Admittedly, from the beginning, I have considered Snowden a hero. There is no justification for the massive, George-Orwell-1984-Big-Brother spying on citizens in which the United States intelligence services participate. It is an outright breach and invasion of privacy, ethics, and all things good and true.

Our government, the United States government under Barack Obama, is participating in–perhaps perfecting–the exact same tactics employed by Hitler and the Nazi party: Watch every citizen. Scrutinize every private individual. Know what every single person in the State is thinking, saying, and doing. It’s all about information linking, you see.

I know this because I have been researching the Gestapo.

I happened to be at a showing of Citizenfour at Lincoln Plaza after which Poitras appeared for a Q & A. No, she doesn’t know if she’s been followed, but she expects that the US Government would use skilled personnel to follow her. She has been told that all her electronic communication “lights up like a Christmas tree” in the offices where electronic communication is collected and followed.

Poitras was composed, articulate, and expressive. She said that Snowden was exactly as portrayed in the movie: articulate and collected, trying to teach her, Glenn, and Ewan what was most important in the information he gave them.

Some people consider Snowden a traitor. Consider the White Rose in Germany, which consisted of students at the University of Munich and their professor. They had an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign to inform the German public of what was actually being done to Jews and to call the Nazi government to question.

Here is what Wikipedia says of them:

White Rose survivor Jürgen Wittenstein described what it was like to live in Hitler’s Germany: “The government – or rather, the party – controlled everything: the news media, arms, police, the armed forces, the judiciary system, communications, travel, all levels of education from kindergarten to universities, all cultural and religious institutions. Political indoctrination started at a very early age, and continued by means of the Hitler Youth with the ultimate goal of complete mind control. Children were exhorted in school to denounce even their own parents for derogatory remarks about Hitler or Nazi ideology.”

The White Rose was considered traitorous, too. So they were executed.

And “Ultimate goal of mind control” can only be the reason for the NSA’s total surveillance of the American population, including hundreds of millions of completely loyal American citizens.

How long before the US government insists on the same kind of control? All in the name of “protecting” American citizens from terrorists?

Just as the Gestapo was protecting German citizens from Judeo-Bolshevik enemies.

The most important concept in the movie was one that Snowden articulated: that the NSA’s actions change the balance of power so that it’s not elected-officials and electorate, it’s now rulers and those who are ruled.

See the movie. Think about the United States government, which is acting like a bully and a dictatorship.

Citizenfour

 

 

Supporting Sam Harris
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Supporting Sam Harris

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I took a year of Arabic as an undergraduate at Yale. Along with the language, we also discussed the culture of the Arab world. This was the mid-80’s, so liberal sanctimony didn’t have quite the stranglehold on conversation that it now exerts–even at Yale. We were allowed to discuss things like the terrible oppression and enslavement of women in Islam. We were allowed to consider that oppression wrong.

At the same time, I was the only woman in the class. There were undercurrents of, first, curiosity: Why would a woman study Arabic? And then there was contempt: She must be an idiot to do so. I skipped class regularly, being unable to deal with it. At that time, being naive, I was unable even to articulate to myself how bad it felt to be the target of such jeering condescension.

I realized years later that I had taken the class because of an archetype whom I admire: Scheherazade, the resourceful and intelligent woman of unending stories. There was something in that archetype for me, who would one day be a prolific novelist. My final project was a translation from “One Thousand and One Nights.” I worked hard on the story and pulled off a “B” despite my spotty attendance record and near inability to speak in class because of the sneers I encountered.

Because I have a background in the topic, I understand what Sam Harris is saying: Many individual Muslims are good people, but the faith itself is based on a book and teachings that directly lead to intolerance, the demeaning and enslavement of women, and violence.

That’s my interpretation of Harris’ message. When he says, “…One can draw a straight line from specific doctrines in Islam to the intolerance and violence we see in the Muslim world” in his blogpost “Can Liberalism Be Saved from Itself?”, Harris is correct. He’s not acting in a racist, Islam-hating way. He’s witnessing a truth that must be uttered.

Now he’s written a post about the defamation campaign to which he has been subjected, “On the Mechanics of Defamation.” His words are being taken out of context and twisted to make him appear evil. It’s dreadful, and the people who are doing it ought to be ashamed.

I have some experience in what it is to be the subject of a smear campaign. Someone from my past has gone to a great deal of trouble to distort everything I have ever done or said to make me out to be a bad person. He is obsessed with his vendetta, and he carries it on while stalking my blog and reading my posts obsessively, at all hours of the night and day, from different locations.

So I have some sympathy for what Harris is going through now, on many levels. He’s telling the truth and being scorned, castigated, and defamed for it.

The thing is, there is no reasoning with malice. Harris is trying to present a rational thesis to irrational people: knee-jerk liberals.

I have never met more close-minded, self-certain, impregnable-to-logic people than knee-jerk liberals. Especially since Obama took office, their sanctimony and self-righteousness has become a bell jar bulwark against any kind of reason or logic.

I voted for Obama the first time. However, I grew disillusioned. I believe in women’s rights, reproductive freedom, gay rights, social justice, and gun control. So far, OK.

But I also believe in citizen privacy, supporting and encouraging small American businesses (not Wall Street and not Socialism), supporting Israel, accountability and oversight for multi-national corporations that function as sovereign nation-states, and getting the Health Insurance companies to pay for universal Health care (not the states).

I also find it extraordinarily hypocritical that Obama’s tactic is to rally people against “the Have’s” when he has taken more vacations, and more expensive vacations, and played more golf, than any president in history. So many of his supporters are the Limousine liberals of Wall Street, which may be why he bailed them out.

Whenever I have been asked by liberals, “Why don’t you like Obama?” I answer with the aforementioned reasons–citizen privacy, etc–the lengthy list of policies and presidential actions with which I do not agree. Inevitably, the liberals tell me, “You are racist.”

I provide a rational explanation that has nothing to do with the pigment in President Obama’s skin, but knee-jerk liberals can’t hear the logic. They reflexively answer with their standard dismissal of all criticism for Obama: “You are racist.”

Racism is a great social evil. It’s as bad as the misogyny in traditional Islam. I stand for the dissolution of racism and misogyny. Yes, I am equating them. Shouldn’t anyone who believes in social justice do so?

Back to Sam Harris. I support his intelligent, reasonable words and I support his right to speak them. I just doubt he’ll get anywhere with them. For one, traditional Muslims don’t want to hear what he’s saying. The many peace-loving, good Muslims are probably a bit ashamed of the intolerance, bigotry, and violence–and they perhaps feel at a loss for what to do about it. After all, the necessary end to an insistence on purity is terrorism, and Islam insists on purity.

For two, knee-jerk liberals can not hear or receive Harris’ message. They are closed and unavailable to discourse. They do not want to do the research and see truthful implications. They are just about solely interested in promoting their own ideology.

But I hope Sam Harris doesn’t give up. I hope he keeps defending himself and stating his views. I support what he says.

Sam Harris

Coast Guard Beach: Bliss
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Coast Guard Beach: Bliss

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It’s not summer for me unless I spend at least a few days on a beach. Now that I have reached a certain age, I swathe my face in extreme sunblock, a hat, and even a shirt wrapped to block those wrinkle-causing UV rays. But the rest of me is exultantly ravished by the sun. The waves roll and lull me into a heavenly drowse. My limbs get heavy with salty sea air and heat. I am recharged and renewed. Bliss.

Of all beaches, the magical National Seashore at the Cape owns the biggest real estate in my heart. So imagine my keen delight when my cranky but beloved friend Paul invited us to Truro.

This year, the dynamic shoreline has sculpted itself into an inner moat and a berm set out from the shore. There’s a long natural sea pool for swimming, which is a gift. The exploding seal population on the Cape has invited in sharks, including Great Whites. I prefer not to tempt them, in case my wiggling silhouette puts them in mind of a struggling seal. I hear that Great Whites like to tear out the belly of the seal and gobble down the slithery, oily, tasty innards.

The sea is a place of primal experiences. We are primal creatures with salt water in our cells. Beaches are an integral part of who we are.

 

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SUPPORT INTERNET FREEDOM: PROTEST SOPA AND PIPA

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Support Internet Freedom

It’s bad enough, here in the waning years of the American Empire, that so few Americans even notice the travesty that our political system has become.

In our sponsorship duopoly (formerly a democracy but no longer), both parties have the agenda of impoverishing the poor and enriching the rich, while squeezing the middle class.

The Democrats and Republicans both accomplish this aim by 1, making it impossible for small American businesses to thrive; 2, fawning over large multinational corporations that function as sovereign nation-states without oversight or accountability, and 3, refusing to protect Americans from the sometimes poisonous goods China–and said multinational corporations–sells us. Our sponsorship duopoly has to curry favor with China because we owe China so much money.

The Democrats have become a party of the lowest common denominator, of the debasement of culture and opportunity, eroding at human ingenuity and ambition by giving hand-outs and teaching people that they are entitled to be taken care of. The Democrats have entirely lost the concept of “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” They have lost the notion of inspiring people to grow and take care of themselves, and of making it possible for people to create and take advantage of their own opportunities.

Rather, Obama is creating a welfare state that ultimately disempowers Americans and serves no one except the elite in power, who have more and more control over a weaker and weaker constituency.

The Republicans are busy figuring out how to protect and engorge the large multinational corporations, safeguard their inheritances, and install loopholes to avoid their own tax obligations. The Republicans have also become the party associated with the nutso-cuckoo fascist types who oppose freedom of procreational choice, freedom of marriage regardless of gender, and ultimately freedom of thought.

Neither party wants a thinking citizenry. That’s why the American congress has put together SOPA and PIPA: both parties are deeply vested in controlling American citizens by slowly dissolving the power of the Constitution. By slowly eradicating our ability to express our opinions and to post and research facts and trends of thought.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea, and the internet grows ideas like hardy weeds. Who knows what American will be exposed to if the internet is free?

We might realize how little freedom we as Americans actually have left.

PROTEST SOPA AND PIPA

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If Given a Fair choice, most consumers would choose alternative medicine over conventional health care By Mike Adams

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This article is taken from NaturalNews.com
 

(NaturalNews) As a strong proponent of free market economics, I have long wondered why free markets don’t seem to be operating in the health care industry. Today, it finally hit me with great clarity, and I’ll share that with you here. But first, a primer on free market economics:

As the free market theory says, “greed is good” because innovators can only get rich by figuring out how to deliver more goods, services and life improvements to consumers who purchase those items. The genius who figures out how to build a better car— or a less expensive car of the same quality — earns the business of consumers and is financially rewarded as a result. Greed drives innovation, the theory goes, and innovation benefits consumers even as it fills the pockets of corporate CEOs, too.

This model works under one critical assumption, and it turns out that assumption is not true in health care today (for reasons you’ll see below). Which assumption is it? That consumers will rationally purchase only those things that are in their own self interest (things that benefit them) and, equally importantly, that consumers have access to the information they need to make an informed decision.

So, for example, if a solar panel manufacturer figures out a way to make a new line of solar panels with twice the current efficiency at the same cost as current solar panels, consumers will rationally choose to purchase those solar panels and will experience a benefit as a result (but only if they have access to accurate information about the improved performance of those solar panels). The CEO who runs the company that figured out how to make the new, improved solar panels will also reap the financial rewards at the same time.

This is called free market theory in a nutshell.

How it all fell apart in health care

But all this falls apart when corporations are selling products that harm consumers under an irrational system protected by government intervention. Many pharmaceuticals, vaccines and treatment services (such as chemotherapy) actually harm consumers far more than they help them. Knowing this, no rational consumer would choose to purchase such products. So the health care system must engage in some rather devious marketing distortions to cajole people into buying their faulty products:

#1) People are TRICKED into thinking they need these products that harm them. This is accomplished through disease mongering (pushing fabricated diseases such as ADHD), emotional advertising and bribing physicians in order to influence their drug prescribing behavior.

#2) People are LIED TO about the risks of using such products. Drug companies, in particular, routinely lie to consumers by burying negative clinical trials, bribing researchers to produce positive study results, exaggerating claimed benefits in television advertisements and other similar methods.

#3) People are ISOLATED from information they need to know in order to make a rational decision about conventional medicine’s products. They are not allowed to know the truth about the dangers of drugs as revealed in clinical trials, for example. The FDA even conspires with drug companies to hide this relevant data.

#4) People are FORCED into a monopolistic choice by the government outlawing alternative choices such as natural cancer remedies or certain nutritional supplements. Once again, the FDA plays a key role in discrediting natural alternatives. The health insurance industry also enforces this monopolistic approach by covering conventional sick-care therapies (such as heart bypass surgery) while not covering natural therapies that help prevent degenerative disease.

#5) People are KEPT IGNORANT of the actual costs of health care through Medicare, Medicaid and health insurance coverage. Consumers have no idea what they’re being billed for most medical procedures because they’re not footing the bill! So hospitals, clinics and cancer centers bill whatever amount they can get away with.

Why this recipe works for the sick care industry

Remarkably, this recipe of deception has achieved tremendous success, creating a trillion-dollar global market in bad medicine largely based on quack science combined with manipulative marketing.

Of course, it’s not really a free market to begin with. This market is a protected, monopolistic market that’s propped up through government regulatory action designed to eliminate competition. It only exists under the illusion of a free market, where consumers think they’re making a “free choice” about what drugs to take, not knowing they have another option to avoid taking those drugs altogether and do something completely different to protect their health.

Government intervention harms consumers

One conclusion from all this is that when the government gets involved in protecting one particular industry while allowing “greed” to run its course inside that protected industry, the result quickly becomes harmful to consumers even while corporate CEOs (in Big Pharma) accumulate wealth. We see this in Wall Street as much as we do in health care… notice how the trillion-dollar bailouts all went to the wealthiest money criminals even while debasing the currency held by the working masses?

On the Big Pharma side of things, rather than creating better and more innovative products, these companies are in the business of marketing disease first, followed by introducing a chemical pill designed to treat that disease. This is precisely the story behind restless legs syndrome, for example, or the recent push to use drugs to control your uric acid levels.

When governments interfere with free market economics, they inevitably create an unfair playing field that favors one group of companies over another, and that favoritism will always result in financial exploitation that inevitably harms consumers.

The best way out of this would be to deregulate all health care and end the monopoly on medicine currently granted to Big Pharma (and even doctors at the state level). By allowing all providers of health services and health products to compete on a level playing field, without government favoritism, selection orcensorship, consumers would quickly learn which products or services work best to protect their health, and they would rapidly shift their purchasing behavior in that direction.

This would cause a windfall of profits in the realm of natural health and alternative medicine, by the way, even while sharply reducing the profits of Big Pharma and the sick-care industry (because it produces virtually no positive results). In fact, this is precisely why the government is not pursuing a free-market approach to health care right now: Because to allow consumers a truly free choice about how to treat their own health would spell the end of some of the wealthiest corporations in the world — the drug companies whose very existence depends on ignorance, deception and scientific fraud.

Conventional medicine must force consumers to use it!

This is why the FDA continues to censor the truth about nutritional supplements, by the way. It’s the reason why Medicare won’t cover Traditional Chinese Medicine or homeopathy treatments. This is why the AMA has waged a 100-year war on the chiropractic industry. Conventional medicine works so poorly and is such a total failure in terms of its results that it has to force consumers to use it. Sometimes at gunpoint! (With the forced chemotherapy treatment of teens, for example.)

No other system of medicine in the world is such a total failure that a government has to force its own citizens to use it through a campaign of disinformation, monopolistic controls and active censorship of alternatives.

Today, Americans think they live in a free country. But most do not realize their entire health care system is structured in direct opposition to free markets and free choice. The sick-care industry can’t afford for you to have a free choice, because to do so would destroy their entire business model.

Opting out of sickness and into health

You can, of course, opt out of the entire system as I have done. I spend exactly $0 on health insurance, doctor visits and health care. With all the money I save by not writing checks to a system of failed quack medicine, I instead buy superfoods, nutritional supplements, gym memberships and organic fresh produce that I juice and drink every day. This level of personal health commitment combined with true freedom of choice terrifies both the government and the sick care industry which is precisely why Obamacare mandated that all Americans must buy sick-care insurance or be fined by the IRS.

Think about it: If conventional health care really worked, would they have to send IRS agents after people to force them to buy into it? This is “gunpoint health care” where you get to choose any system of medicine you want as long as it’s the one the IRS says you have to choose. Sounds a bit like Communist China, doesn’t it?

What we really need is a truly free market for health care products and services. …a level playing field where natural remedies can be honestly marketed with accurate health claims and where healers of all kinds can engage in healing services without being arrested or threatened with imprisonment. State medical licensing boards, in particular, should be completely dissolved. They are the monopolistic power hubs that enforce conventional medicine monopolies at the state level while criminalize alternative cancer doctors.

A truly free market in health care would revolutionize health in America while ending the dark age of Big Pharma dominance over the entire industry. One day soon, let us hope we may have an opportunity to invoke truly free market economics that will unleash a new era of freedom and healthy living while giving the natural side of medicine its well-deserved opportunity to compete against the failed system of conventional sick care.

In a fair competition, 4 out of 5 consumers would choose natural medicine over conventional medicine. That is precisely why they cannot allow such a freedom of choice to exist.

Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/030923_alternative_medicine_consumer_choice.html#ixzz1AM0jQ3ow