Possible solutions to the worlds problems

http://www.alternet.org/activism/or...t-monsanto-federal-judge-upholds-gmo-seed-ban

[h=1]Monsanto GMOs Defeated by Oregon Organic Farmers as Federal Judge Upholds Seed Ban[/h]
Community activists win at key stage in court.



By Steven Rosenfeld / AlterNet
May 30, 2015

A coalition of Oregon organic farmers has beaten Monsanto—the corporate agriculture giant—in a landmark federal lawsuit that will make national waves by the way that their rural county banned the use of genetically modified seeds.
On Friday, Mark D. Clarke, a federal magistrate judge, dismissed a legal challenge brought by commercial farmers who use Monsanto's genetically modified alfalfa seeds. The non-organic farms sought to overturn a 2014 ordinance passed by Jackson County voters that banned the use of such seed stock, claiming that the anti-GMO ordinance violated their right to farm.
However Judge Clarke concluded that exactly the opposite was the case. He held that the county's no-GMO seed ordinance could take effect next week, citing earlier state legislation that protected commercial farms—in this case organic farmers—from harm from other commercial enterprises, such as the commercial farms whose GMO-laced alfalfa pollen gets carried by the wind and can't be stopped from tainting organic crops.
“Farmers have always been able to bring claims against other farmers for practices that cause actionable damage to their commercial agriculture products,” Clarke wrote. “The Ordinance, by contrast, is enacted pursuant to section 30.935 [of state law], and serves to prevent such damage before it happens.”
The victory by Our Family Farms Coalition is notable in many regards. To start, Jackson County passed its ordinance before agribusiness giants successfully lobbied the Oregon legislature to pass a law banning counties from adopting this form of anti-GMO seed law. In contrast to many other anti-GMO campaigns across the country, Jackson County didn’t focus on requiring food labels to identify GMO ingredients—which federal courts repeatedly have thrown out as violating a food maker’s commercial speech rights. Instead, activists focused on barring the use of GMO seeds in the county, affecting only a few farms, as a way to ensure that crops and seeds produced on many more organic farms were not sullied.
“We just learned this afternoon that we have WON the Monsanto-backed legal challenge attempting to overturn our Jackson County ban on genetically engineered crops,” said an e-mail from the coalition. “The court upheld the Ordinance on the grounds that it was intended to protect against damage to commercial agricultural products, which is allowed under the Right to Farm Act, and because it was expressly allowed by the Oregon Legislature.
“While this is an incredible victory for family farmers standing up to GMOs, we do know there is a real chance Monsanto and their ilk could appeal this decision so the battle is not really over yet,” they said. “Also, the Plaintiffs' claims that the GMO ban constitutes a constitutional “taking” will now have to be litigated in the second phase of the case.”
Monsanto is expected to appeal this district court decision to a federal appeals court, meaning this fight is far from over.




Steven Rosenfeld covers national political issues for AlterNet, including America's retirement crisis, democracy and voting rights, and campaigns and elections. He is the author of "Count My Vote: A Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).
 
To end war and conflicts on this planet, we need to remove jealousi from the human mind = Impossble .. We as a race will never get smarter, and at some point we're going to erase ourselves

I would think that greed and possessiveness/protectionism comes ahead of jealousy. Personal conflict, jealousy for sure but not so much on the impersonal scale. As the speed of communication increases so does the difficulty of keeping secrets, and with fewer secrets the ability to manipulate others out of greed/protectionism/possessiveness is more difficult.

To the more doubtful among us, finding a global cause to fight against would probably end most war and whatnot on this planet. Like a war with aliens. Hard to fight each other when we all got to fight aliens together.. Its the tribal insider/outsider aspect of human psyche that plays into this.
 
I would think that greed and possessiveness/protectionism comes ahead of jealousy. Personal conflict, jealousy for sure but not so much on the impersonal scale. As the speed of communication increases so does the difficulty of keeping secrets, and with fewer secrets the ability to manipulate others out of greed/protectionism/possessiveness is more difficult.

To the more doubtful among us, finding a global cause to fight against would probably end most war and whatnot on this planet. Like a war with aliens. Hard to fight each other when we all got to fight aliens together.. Its the tribal insider/outsider aspect of human psyche that plays into this.

There's a whole 'conspiracy theory' about the idea of uniting the world behind a need to fight 'aliens'

There is this talk of a US military plan called 'Project Bluebeam' which involves creating an illusion that the world is under attack from an outside force so that we all then agree to the formation of a world government (run by the people who cooked up Bluebeam)

Most of the wars are orchestrated by those very same conspirators

If humanity can become aware of their machinations and refuse to play any further part in their insane schemes then we could see more peace emerge

These guys really are waging wars and destabilising the planet in countless ways and have been doing so for over a hundred years

Most people are aware of how the world polarised during the so called 'cold war' but that war hasn't really ended and is a hot war for the various countries which the major players use as their proxy battlegrounds
 
Most people are aware of how the world polarised during the so called 'cold war' but that war hasn't really ended and is a hot war for the various countries which the major players use as their proxy battlegrounds

It is interesting to think about how the factions and tensions never eased... and how amazingly well it has united the many facets of each side into a somewhat unified us vs them.

If humanity can become aware of their machinations and refuse to play any further part in their insane schemes then we could see more peace emerge
Sadly, a lot of humanity marches to the beat of someone elses drum and it is difficult to out drum the current drummers. But there are those that will always try and that balance of opposing sides is hopefully the solution.
 
It is interesting to think about how the factions and tensions never eased... and how amazingly well it has united the many facets of each side into a somewhat unified us vs them.


Sadly, a lot of humanity marches to the beat of someone elses drum and it is difficult to out drum the current drummers. But there are those that will always try and that balance of opposing sides is hopefully the solution.

Its difficult to not see an MBTI dimension to those processes

For example it is said the majority of types tend to follow the status quo; a kind way of putting that is to say that they are the 'social glue that binds society together'

However when the system becomes an oppressive one those very same people will continue to follow the new rules of the new regime even if it is oppressive

An unkind way to describe such unquestioning behaviour would be to call them ''unthinking drones''

This all came up with the nazi regime and the resulting fall out in the nuremburg trials. people basically just said: ''i was just following orders''

There is a trick to changing the world and it is so simple it actually goes right over the head of most people. Whatever we feed grows stronger. So if we want to make something weaker all we have to do is WITHDRAW SUPPORT

Someone needs to start a WALK AWAY MOVEMENT

This would involve walking away from anything that is toxic

The problem is though that even if people agree that we should walk away from toxic things many people aren't aware enough of what is doing the harm out there and what is beneficial

Confusing the situation even further is the fact that the bad guys are often hijacking good causes and using them to further their own agenda thereby piggy-backing off the idealism of people

To know when causes are genuine and when they are being misguided requires a level of discearnment that is difficult to get because it requires a constant vigilance that most people are unable to unwilling to apply in their day to day lives

So the walk away movement has to go alongside a growing awareness as more people become street-wise in the ways of the system and the people who shape it

The spirit of the walk away movement is captured in ghandi's quote: ''be the change you want to see in the world''

This requires people to make informed decisions about what they support and what they refuse their support to

At the moment most people are, as you say, dancing to the beat of someone elses drum that is telling them to support all the wrong things and that is shaping our world into the unpleasant place it is becoming
 
[video=youtube;EyCaQceAniI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=EyCaQceAniI[/video]
 
Its often said that the best leaders are the ones who don't want to lead. Gandhi's quote can also be taken as an inclusive insight into action instead of exclusive. Walking away to be the change leaves the world as it is, being the change in the world for the sake of the world has the possibility of influencing the world. If your actions are true and good, chances are the influence will be too.

At the moment most people are, as you say, dancing to the beat of someone elses drum that is telling them to support all the wrong things and that is shaping our world into the unpleasant place it is becoming
...unpleasant to you but not to all. It is an important distinction to make. Its hard to encourage someone to care about something they don't care about.

The rawness and power of us v them (tribalism) runs deep in us all.

Bigger question: If you had the power and ability to change society and people in the ways you see beneficial, would you? Why?
 
Its often said that the best leaders are the ones who don't want to lead. Gandhi's quote can also be taken as an inclusive insight into action instead of exclusive. Walking away to be the change leaves the world as it is, being the change in the world for the sake of the world has the possibility of influencing the world. If your actions are true and good, chances are the influence will be too.

No walking away from things causes them to wither on the vine

Once you understand that the world is controlled by a small number of people withdrawing your support for all their instruments of power is the sensible cause of action

Peaceful non cooperation

It's not just about walking away though it is about what we walk to as well

...unpleasant to you but not to all. It is an important distinction to make.

The sheer number of people on anti-depressants or otherwise self medicating says otherwise

It is unpleasant in many ways to the majority of people

For example the shifting of wealth from the many to the few is already causing tensions in society which will only increase

if you think you are comfortable and safe now just wait a while...they're coming for your wealth too

Its hard to encourage someone to care about something they don't care about.

The rawness and power of us v them (tribalism) runs deep in us all.

This is why people need to become aware of the dynamics at play here

The neoliberal policies are basically about moving the wealth away from the many into the hands of the few so that the few can then buy up everything the corrupt governments will sell them (ie all the national assets)

This will create a neo-fuedal situation of a two-tier society where the few get the best of everything and everyone else just gets shit. Also you will not be able to change that because your democratic say will be removed

You will not be able to protest it either because money will become digital and if you protest your access to your digital wealth will be switched off

This is why people need to wise up now and act now

Bigger question: If you had the power and ability to change society and people in the ways you see beneficial, would you? Why?

I do have power and i'm exercising that power

I'm shunning things i believe are toxic and supporting things i see as beneficial

I'm also helping to spread awareness

The more people who do these things the faster positive change will occur
 
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[video=youtube;OuDpalaJrsw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=25&v=OuDpalaJrsw[/video]

[h=1]This is What the Medical Profession Hopes You Never Find Out![/h]
Cancer caued by build up of toxins
 
http://www.alternet.org/burnout-what-happens-when-work-becomes-soul-crushing-and-what-do-about-it

[h=1]Burnout! What Happens When Work Becomes Soul-Crushing -- And What to Do About It[/h]
Research indicates that the most commonly proposed answer, improved self-care, doesn’t work. So what does?



By Scott Miller, Mark Hubble, Françoise Mathieu / Psychotherapy Networker

June 1, 2015

Jessica, a counselor in her mid-30’s, works at a large, public mental health clinic in a major metropolitan area. Her workday begins early, the alarm sounding off at 5:30 a.m. Up she gets and down to the kitchen she goes. Thank goodness for Nespresso! Brewing her coffee has never been more efficient. Cup in hand, she rushes back upstairs, waking her daughter, Emily. Pausing briefly, she takes in the room. School clothes laid out. Check. Homework in backpack. Check. Off to the shower.
By 6:30 a.m., with breakfast finished, mother and daughter are out the door, headed across the street to the neighbors’ house, where Emily will stay until the school bus arrives. Thank goodness for friends! After scraping the snow and ice off her 2001 Toyota Corolla, Jessica jumps into the driver’s seat and turns the key. Following its familiar protest, the engine growls to life. Then the four-mile commute begins. It usually takes 45 minutes, but if there’s an accident or road construction, all bets are off.
As she winds her way through traffic, her grip on the wheel tightens. She was hoping to arrive early enough to complete clinical notes left over from the day before. She’s already on notice with her supervisor. In the past year, the entire agency adopted the practice of “concurrent documentation”—completing all paperwork together with the client during scheduled visits. The idea was easy enough to understand. It was supposed to save time, as well as foster a “culture of transparency,” which would improve “client engagement.”
Like many public behavioral health agencies, dropout rates at hers had been notoriously high, wreaking havoc with productivity statistics. Jessica and everyone else had been tasked with improving retention, but she knew she was resisting the new paperwork requirement. To her, it was just one more encroachment on the already scarce time she had available with clients. Recently, payers had begun offering a premium to agencies for 30-minute visits. And if that weren’t enough, to maximize the number of face-to-face encounters, the administration decided that frequent “no-shows” would be double-booked. In that way, they hoped every clinical hour would be filled, thus eliminating expensive downtime.
Jessica’s thoughts turn to the last client who’d failed to appear: Cassandra, a single parent of three, with more problems than the DSM-V has diagnoses. She’s well-known at the agency, having worked with several of the staff over the years, participating in most of the programs at one time or another. Originally, she sought help for her daughter, who’d been sexually assaulted by the same relative who’d abused Cassandra herself when she’d been in her early teens. In time, it became apparent that these sad events were only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
When Jessica explained the new no-show policy, Cassandra merely stared, saying nothing. It wasn’t a matter of resistance or poor motivation. Jessica knew that. Life often conspired against her client. If it wasn’t a problem with one of the kids, it was another family member, particularly the drug-addicted father of her oldest child. Lack of money was a constant threat, her food stamp allotment always running out long before the end of the month. When the agency began providing bus fare to help Cassandra make appointments, the city abruptly changed routes, adding an hour to the trip and forcing her to walk a fair distance through unsafe streets and often bad weather. Over the last week, Jessica couldn’t stop herself from worrying about Cassandra. So far, all her calls have gone unanswered.
Up ahead, the traffic comes to a complete stop. A light snow starts to fall, with more in the forecast. Checking the dashboard clock, Jessica realizes the chance of arriving early is slipping away. That’s when the feeling starts—first, a heaviness in the shoulders, quickly followed by a tightening around the heart. Jessica lets out an audible sigh and closes her eyes. She’s no stranger to these sensations: they’ve become a near-constant companion on her way to and from work.
As the car ahead once again begins to move, she works at controlling her breathing, slowly inhaling and exhaling. Her mouth now dry, she reflexively reaches for the water bottle in the center console. It’s made of cheap white plastic with her agency’s name, address, and phone number printed in big black characters on the side. She takes a sip, recalling the day the bottles were passed out. Everyone who worked at the agency received one, following a day-long workshop on burnout. Proper hydration had been a top recommendation.
When the presenter had reeled off the signs of burnout, Jessica immediately recognized herself. In almost every way, the job she once loved had become unrewarding—a dreadful daily ordeal. Physically, she was worn out. It was taking more and more effort just to get up and get going. In the year following her last performance evaluation, she’d taken more “personal days” than in all her previous years combined. Her usually hopeful and upbeat outlook had given way to discouragement, even cynicism. Increasingly, when working with clients—and even when meeting with coworkers—she found herself feeling either bored or detached, her heart no longer in it.
The Walking Dead
Jessica’s story is far from exceptional. Indeed, the world seems to be in the midst of a pandemic of burnout, spread across all age groups, genders, professions, and cultures. The lead article of this year’s January/February Scientific American Mind boldly declares that job satisfaction worldwide is in “a surprisingly fragile state.” Research specific to mental health providers finds that between 21 and 67 percent may be experiencing high levels of burnout. Since the 1970s, when the term first appeared, other related “conditions” have been identified, including compassion fatigue (CF), vicarious traumatization (VT), and secondary traumatic stress (STS), all aimed at describing the negative impact that working in human services can have on mental and physical health. The toll is severe. Growing rates of absenteeism, job turnover, and reports of depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and physical illness (e.g., insomnia, hypertension, high blood sugar, excess body fat, abnormal cholesterol levels, cardiovascular events, musculoskeletal disorders) are well documented.
In fact, an entire industry of authors, coaches, and trainers has sprung up to address the problem, providing books, videos, presentations, retreats, and organizational consultation. Across such offerings, the advice given is remarkably similar. It falls into one or two categories, usually aimed at those considered at risk or already afflicted: (1) do more of this, and (2) do less of that.
On the “do more” side, Jessica and her coworkers were told to practice mindfulness meditation, eat healthy snacks, go for short walks, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, join a service organization, take up a hobby, attend a continuing education event, learn to say no, see a therapist, and take time out to value oneself. On the “do less” side, recommendations included leaving work at work, turning off technology, limiting the number of client contact hours per week, cutting back on or eliminating caffeine and alcohol, avoiding stress-inducing people and experiences, and the ultimate “do less”: quit.
Of course, given her recent feelings, Jessica had been looking forward to the workshop. She agreed with the presenter’s assertion that self-care wasn’t merely a personal matter, but an ethical duty, key to maintaining one’s ability to help others and avoid harm. But at the same time, the shared feeling in the group was that none of these strategies had any real chance of solving the core problems they all faced: too much paperwork, too many clients, deteriorating and inadequately maintained clinic facilities, ongoing financial uncertainty, and administrative indifference.
“How is any of this going to help?” Jessica overheard one of the other counselors later say. “I feel like one of the zombies in The Walking Dead. Why don’t they just put us out of our misery?”
The image neatly captured Jessica’s experience of late.
“Yeah,” added another, laughing sarcastically. “We’re zombies all right, but don’t forget: we have an ‘ethical duty’ to take care of ourselves.”
“So we’re guilty zombies,” Jessica chimed in. Everyone laughed.
The Monkey on Our Back
Although it’s of little solace to Jessica, the subject of stress in the workplace is hardly new and has been a topic of interest among researchers for decades. One of the first studies, published in 1958, inScientific American, was conducted by behavioral neuroscientist Joseph Brady. In brief, he restrained a pair of Rhesus monkeys in chairs and then administered electric shocks at 20-second intervals. One of the animals—called the executive—could avert the shock for both by pressing a lever; the other—the control—lacked an effective means to escape the noxious stimulus. Consistent with Brady’s hypothesis, the executive monkey experienced greater levels of stress-related illness as measured by gastric ulceration. The results were widely reported, quickly entering popular culture and giving rise to the belief that reducing stress is the key to workplace health. Decision makers, especially those whose actions affected the welfare of others, were thought to be especially vulnerable.
While it seemed the cause of workplace stress had been settled once and for all, a major problem soon emerged. Brady’s contemporaries couldn’t replicate his findings. In fact, in the decades that followed, hundreds of studies found exactly the opposite. So-called executives—be they primates, rodents, or human beings—always fared better than controls. Put another way, being in charge wasn’t the issue. Instead, circumventing stress was a matter of possessing the ability to act effectively in any given circumstance. Convincing evidence for this conclusion can be found in a massive study of government employees in the United Kingdom, ongoing since the 1960s, showing that the more control workers have, the less stress-related illness they experience.
Such data make clear that the field’s approach to healing the healer’s heart must change. Contrary to conventional wisdom, what matters most isn’t how demanding a particular job is, or the level of responsibility it comes with, but how much personal agency one has in performing the work. In essence, we put the monkey on our own back whenever the solution to burnout is tied to controlling our response to circumstances over which we have no actual control. Instead of offering liberation, any strategy based on this premise ends up trapping us in a classic double-bind. It’s this crazy: those most stressed by the circumstances of their work, which they can’t control, are expected to reduce their own stress, which they can’t do because of their lack of control, and in the end, are held responsible by those in control when they ultimately fail to reduce their stress, which they can’t help but do. The result is a kind of tertiary traumatization. In effect, the message is “We gave you what you needed. If you’re not improving, it’s your fault.”
Little wonder Jessica feels guilty! Her gallows humor underscores the futility of currently fashionable approaches to burnout. Put bluntly, workplace initiatives focused on individual self-care and work–life balance aren’t only doomed to fail, but may make us worse. This isn’t mere speculation or a conclusion extrapolated from animal analogue studies. It’s a fact. Even when clinicians wholeheartedly believe such activities will help and work hard to apply them in their lives, the empirical evidence shows it makes no difference. As Toronto-based researchers Ted Bober and Cheryl Regehr conclude, “It does not appear that engaging in any coping strategy recommended for reducing distress, . . . including effective use of leisure, self-care, supervision, [or] . . . augmenting individual coping responses, . . . has an impact.”
In the absence of proven methods for ameliorating this suffering, what are Jessica and the many others who find themselves in similar straits to do?
Don’t Stop Believin’, Hold on to that Feelin’
Over the last decade, we’ve published a series of articles in the Networker on the subject of top-performing clinicians. The first, titled “Supershrinks” (November/December 2007), described the practices of this highly effective group. Clients of these therapists, compared to those treated by average clinicians, experience 50 percent more improvement and 50 percent less dropout, have shorter lengths of stay, and are significantly less likely to deteriorate while in care. In “The Road to Mastery” (May/June 2011), we identified factors in the work environment or culture necessary for the emergence of superior practitioners and their continued development.
And we’ve continued to accumulate data, much of it awaiting further analysis and explanation. One finding, however, stood out immediately, as it contradicted what’s often cited by therapists as the core of their professional identity and what most say is essential for their being effective. Later, we’d learn it had a direct bearing on the question of burnout. Here’s the rundown.
Being completely immersed in and sharply attuned to the client’s experience has long been the sine qua non of “good” clinical practice. Research confirms as much. For example, a large multinational investigation by University of Chicago’s David Orlinsky and the University of Oslo’s Michael Rønnestad involving more than 10,000 therapists found the majority not only yearn for but consider a deep connection with their clients the pinnacle of professional development. Not long ago, this subject was addressed in the Q&A department of the Networker, called In Consultation. “Something is missing from my work,” a clinician wrote plaintively, “some level of deep connection.” The advice given was remarkably consistent with what studies say therapists want: love your client. “Not the personal love we feel for a spouse or our children,” the author explained, “but love as a heart energy within all of us that’s far more spacious, selfless, and unqualified.”
Curiously, our own research showed that Healing Involvement (HI)—the construct used by researchers to capture clinicians’ felt sense of being deeply connected to their clients—varied by success rate, with top performers rating it significantly less important to their work and identity than their more average counterparts. At the same time, this group of therapists evinced little interest in traditional self-care practices. Most importantly, they reported far less burnout.
Determined to make sense of the discontinuity between the best and the rest, we reached out to top performers. How, we wondered, could caring less—at least as our field might view such findings—yield better results for clients and, simultaneously, protect clinicians from burnout?
One of the first practitioners we spoke with was Paulina Bloch, a highly effective therapist identified in our research, who works for the National Health Service in Staffordshire, England. When asked about the role caring played in her work, she thought for a moment and replied, “I guess I have a funny relationship with that word. It’s not me liking or worrying so much about my clients, or even being deeply invested in their lives or stories really. It’s a question of whether or not I’m helping.” Paulina paused, wondering out loud whether she should say what was on her mind, then continued, “The first thing I think when I meet a new client is When can I stop seeing this person? And I know I can do that if I get results.”
In interview after interview, the field’s most effective clinicians placed the outcome of treatment above involvement with clients as their chief consideration, the focus of their work and professional identity. This isn’t to say they don’t care about their clients. They do. Yet, as Bloch suggests, they don’t see caring, or connection, as the point. For them, involvement is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
“The tendency to conflate involvement with effectiveness is easy to understand,” observes psychologist Daryl Chow. His research is the most in-depth examination of supershrinks to date. “In the face of suffering, even if we’re not helping, deepening our involvement feels like the right thing to do. Add this together with findings showing that therapists aren’t particularly skilled at detecting a lack of progress or deterioration in care, and the stage is set.”
Here, it might be tempting to conclude that caring is wrongheaded, as though clinicians must choose between caring about their clients—and risking burnout—or being effective. No such choice is being proposed: to care or not to care is not the question. If there’s one thing we can learn from highly effective therapists, it’s that burnout doesn’t begin with caring, or even caring too much, but continuing to care ineffectively, losing sight of what we’re there to accomplish with our clients in the first place.
Proving this point, a new study of mental health professionals by Michelle Salyers and colleagues at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis found that emotionally exhausted clinicians are blind to the effect burnout has on their performance. While most readily agree that it negatively affects the quality of services and productivity in general, they strangely convince themselves it has no effect on the outcomes of their own work.
Such findings indicate that the real challenge for practitioners is knowing when to let go, “when to stop believin’ and to let go of that feelin.’” In the same way that we don’t marry everyone we date, therapists can’t help everyone who comes through their doors. Research shows that therapists, on average, fail to help as many as 50 percent of their clients achieve a measurable improvement. So sometimes we have to let go, relinquishing both the belief that we have something to offer and the duty we feel to help. Of course, the arguments against doing so are legion and, unfortunately, powerfully persuasive: “My client needs me.” “It’s my job to hang in there.” “We just need a little more time; then it’ll work.” “At least they’re not getting worse.” And finally, “There’s no one else.” Mix in a generous portion of guilt and a dash of professional pride and burnout is all but guaranteed.
“I think we’ve been approaching the problem of burnout wrong,” Chow speculates. “It’s not about reducing or managing our stress, or how to take care of ourselves. It’s about choice and having effective options.” In short, it’s not the burden of our responsibilities that matters so much as it is improving our “response-abilities.”
How Joe Got his Mojo Back
“We’re never so defenseless against suffering,” Freud wrote in 1930, “as when we love.” These words perfectly describe Joe, a clinical social worker and 20-year veteran of service in rural community mental health. Joe had been raised on an ethic of service. In the small, Southern town where he’d grown up, everyone knew his father, a minister. The area was economically depressed, and members of the congregation did what they could to help each other. They collected and distributed food and clothing, and pitched in whenever something needed to be done. Throughout his childhood, his family home was always open—people coming in and out, being fed, and even staying the night.
Joe’s upbringing complicated the guilt he felt when he lost his heart for clinical work. He’d always been the go-to person at the agency, the one others trusted to work with the most troubled clients, the person they consulted when needing to discuss a case, get personal advice, decompress, or just share a laugh. Many weekends, he volunteered at the local food pantry and Red Cross, and helped coach a Little League Baseball team.
“I can’t think of a date, or put my finger on any one thing that happened,” he recalls. “But it’s like my flame slowly went out.” What he does remember is his mood changing. Normally positive and optimistic, he found himself increasingly irritable and impatient. Whereas before, the door to his office was always open, colleagues increasingly found it closed. He felt burdened by the clients, secretly glad when they didn’t show up.
“I just got beat down,” Joe says. “The paperwork, runaway caseloads, lack of support—my job was no longer about helping. It was about something else, crunching numbers, whatever. And with the clients, their lives, what happened to them—the trauma and suffering—it just seemed to get worse and worse. Somewhere along the way, I started being there, but not there.”
Joe seriously contemplated quitting, yet felt trapped. “I have no real skills,” he jokes, “hate computers, am only so-so with my hands. What could I do, really?” When asked to describe what eventually turned it all around for him, he leans forward and with mischief written all over his face, whispers, “Bunting.”
In baseball, Joe explains, bunting is a technique where the batter pivots toward the pitcher, holds the bat loosely over home plate and, instead of swinging, gently taps the ball into play. The method forces opposing players to leave their positions and rush infield to retrieve the ball, which can dribble off in almost any direction. Confusion among the players over who’s to field the ball and who’s to cover the bases often allows runners to advance and even score.
A remarkable degree of controversy surrounds the technique. It’s reviled among many fans and analysts. Players capable of knocking the ball out of the park still consider it weak, an affront to their pride. Yet a successful bunt has often proven to be the deciding factor in a game.
“In the right circumstances, it’s amazingly effective,” Joe says.
His excitement grows as he describes the types of bunts, when they’re used, and for what purpose. One is of particular relevance to his own comeback story. “The sacrifice,” he explains. “Stepping up to the plate, the player knows he’s probably going to get out. But you see, he’s doing it for the good of the team. If he does it right, his sacrifice will help his teammates advance, and maybe even score a run.”
With that, Joe leans back in his chair, puts his hands behind his head and waits, deliberately heightening the drama. “I can tell from your faces,” he says, “that you’re wondering what in the hell this has to do with me getting my mojo back. Well,” he says, “two things. Since most players look down on bunting, they don’t practice it. They just wing it, getting up there and doing it when they’re forced to by the coach during a game. And since when did winging something in the heat of the moment ever make you better at it? The other thing is, sometimes you’ve gotta sacrifice. You’re not going to be the one who helps that client score, so you bunt. You have to have that hard conversation about moving on, practice having those hard conversations. Think of it this way, I strike out so my client can advance, get where they need to be.”
Joe’s story about bunting, as homespun as it seems, fits squarely with research from the studies of supershrinks. First, compared to average therapists, top performers spend two-and-a-half to four times more hours per week outside of work in activities specifically designed to improve their outcomes. Practice, practice, practice! This group is constantly working at their craft, intolerant of mere proficiency, always pushing beyond what they’re already capable of doing. Second, highly effective therapists always have their “eyes on the prize.” Just as a good batter is willing to use a sacrifice bunt for the good of the team, these clinicians are willing to remove themselves from a therapy for the good of the client.
Joe readily admits that as a therapist, his newfound appreciation for the humble art of bunting was hard won: the change it required in his philosophical outlook was far more difficult and time consuming than his story about baseball techniques would suggest. The same could be said of the entire agency where he worked. The place was in big trouble. Funding was being cut. Staff morale was sinking. They had a backlog of clients. Many started; fewer finished. The result was long waiting lists of people in need of service. The county mental health board was hammered with complaints from clients and referral sources, which, in turn, were heaped on agency directors and the clinical staff.
“Anyway, we’re talking a few years back now. Some board member goes to a workshop and the word comes down: the solution to our problems is to measure outcomes, at every session! I remember thinking to myself, How’s that supposed to help? It’s just another harebrained scheme. We’re headed to hell in a handbasket. With everything else we had on our plates, we didn’t have enough time as it was.” Right then and there, Joe decided he wasn’t going to participate.
“Then,” Joe recalls, “my boss asked me to join the planning team, the group that was going to make it happen. In no uncertain terms, I told him, ‘No thanks.’ But on the day of the first meeting, he came and got me! He refused to accept my refusal,” Joe laughs.
His account of how his boss had to drag him to the planning session parallels Martin Seligman’s report of what transpired in his famous experiments on learned helplessness. In that research, dogs that had previously learned they could do nothing to avoid a painful stimulus didn’t try to flee when later given the opportunity. Instead, they gave up, refusing to move, merely whining in response. Recovery of their ability to act on their own behalf occurred only when the experimenters picked the dogs up and physically moved their legs to simulate the actions necessary for escape.
“Truth is,” Joe admits, his tone more serious, “I don’t think I’d be here today if that hadn’t happened, if my boss had let me be and not come and gotten me.” When asked to describe this experience in greater detail, he continues, “I can’t speak for everybody. You know, there was a lot of discouragement. Being involved, though, is what got me started, got us all going.”
As early as 1996, researcher Laurie Anne Pearlman argued that any successful approach to burnout would need to address simultaneously causative factors operating at every level: individual, agency, and system. Such advice appeared more sophisticated than the traditional homilies about individual self-care, but it failed to yield practical solutions, much less effective ones. The basic message was simply that the problem was complex. And, as often happens when the definition of a problem is too broad and ambiguous, the all-too-human response was finger-pointing—finding someone or something specific to blame. Clinicians attributed the problem to their clients and work setting, administrators pointed back at clinicians and inadequate funding, and both groups griped about the system that set standards of care all agreed were absurd.
“From the beginning, it was a team effort,” Joe says emphatically. He and his colleagues began using two simple measures at every visit: one to assess the quality of the work and the other the outcome of the service. Ample evidence indicates that this practice as much as doubles the probability of improvement by identifying clients at risk of dropout, deterioration, or a lack of progress. (Practitioners can review the empirical support, watch how-to videos, and access free copies of the evidence-based measures at whatispcoms.com.) “By measuring our outcomes,” Joe opines, “we could see who we were helping and who we weren’t.”
Time was set aside to discuss clients not making progress or dissatisfied with the treatment approach or therapeutic relationship. Every aspect of the services offered was organized around outcome, including paperwork, supervision, flow of information within the organization, up to and including funders and the board. Of major importance is that it wasn’t considered a problem when the measures showed, despite everyone’s best efforts, that therapy wasn’t working. There was no need for guilt or shame, no need to fix blame, or shift the burden of failure to the client. Instead, such occurrences were seen as an opportunity, a time to make a choice, to take action in the service of a larger objective, a higher order of caring.
“We all learned to do the sacrifice bunt!” Joe chuckled. “We’d trade cases or refer them out. And occasionally, we just plain stopped seeing them. Surprisingly, nothing bad happened. Actually, consumer complaints to our county mental health board declined dramatically. But the first time I did this, my oh my, was it painful. I’d seen this young woman 10 times. She’d gone away to a church camp for the summer and had a psychotic break. She ended up coming home early, couldn’t tie two thoughts together, didn’t want to leave the house, wasn’t eating or sleeping much. She was so scared, and so was her family. Nothing like this had ever happened to them. I was the only one she’d talk to. She and her family knew me from church.”
Leaning forward, he places his hands on his knees, “Believe me when I say, I tried. And I wanted to keep on trying, and I would have, but the measures showed, even though we had a good relationship, I wasn’t helping. She knows this, because we look at the results every time we meet. Whenever I point it out though, she begs me not to stop. When I suggest changing therapists, she starts crying. I don’t know how I did it, but I held my ground and stood by the need for a change, offering to sit in on the first appointment with the new therapist.” Joe did, and the young women improved. Within a handful of visits, she was back at church. Eventually, she was her old self again.
Improving Joe’s “response-ability” with clients he wasn’t helping proved the turning point in recovering his heart for clinical work. Still, he emphasizes, it was only the start. “What’s kept me going since, every day, is working at getting better at what I do.”
Joe’s observation is echoed by the thousands of therapists around the world who participated in the multi*national study by Orlinsky and Rønnestad cited earlier, the majority of whom cite professional development as both a key motivation for their work and a buffer against burnout.
“If you want to get better at bunting, or any skill,” Joe says, “you’ve got to practice. These outcome measures enable me to see when I’m helping and when I’m not, which clients I connect with and the ones I don’t. Sometimes, the reasons remain a mystery, and I can’t tell what wasn’t working or what went wrong. Like that young woman, I’m still trying to figure that one out. But when the same problem creeps up again and again, then you know what it is, and you can work on it.”
A cultural shift is well under way at Joe’s agency. The committee he serves continues to explore ways to empower practitioners, to enhance choice and effectiveness. What’s happening in Joe’s setting is also taking place in others. “Our doors are open nearly 12 hours a day,” says Robbie Babins-Wagner, the director of the Calgary Counseling Center. “Apart from using outcome measures, our staff has the flexibility to schedule their work within a range of days and hours. They set their own schedules. If someone wants to see his child in the school play, he can! He should. It’s good for him, and it’s good for the agency.” She adds, “We’ve capped the number of hours our therapists can spend conducting therapy beyond which our outcome data show a decline in effectiveness.” The results speak for themselves. Burnout is a thing of the past. Indicators such as staff turnover and number of sick days have declined dramatically. At the same time, the percentage of clients improved or recovered has increased 21 percent, deterioration rates have declined by a third, and the percentage of clients in therapy who experience no benefit has dropped.
In other words, being effective and improving over time are the best medicine for what ails the healer’s heart.
Fulfillment of Purpose
In the February 2014 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, medical professor Richard Gunderman, writing on the causes of burnout, warned against seizing on obvious stressors to explain the problem. He was writing to medical students who, in a recent study, were found to be at significantly greater risk of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished sense of personal accomplishment than age-matched peers. Students enter medicine, he observes, “Because they care, because people matter to them, and because they want to make a difference.” Long hours, financial uncertainty, rapidly changing and demanding practice environments aren’t the problem, he argues. Instead, the cause of burnout is “the sum total of hundreds and thousands of tiny betrayals of purpose, each one so minute that it hardly attracts notice.”
It’s equally true of therapists. We care. People matter to us. We want to make a difference. We’re dedicated to helping people overcome the problems that bring them to treatment, to make it possible for them to enjoy healthier, happier, more productive lives. In this effort, we place ourselves at risk whenever the boundary between what we’re there to accomplish becomes conflated with what we bring to the work. In the end, we don’t fulfill our purpose by providing caring, empathy, and compassion, no matter how lovingly extended. We do fulfill our purpose, however, when we consistently engage in the kinds of therapeutic practices that objectively promote the client’s improvement. Further, genuinely and demonstrably helping people improve is the entire point of therapy and, in the end, the best of all ways to show that we really, deeply care.
Scott Miller, PhD, is the founder of the International Center for Clinical Excellence, an international, web-based consortium of clinicians, researchers, and educators dedicated to promoting excellence in behavioral health services. He’s the coauthor or coeditor of eight books and numerous chapters, research studies, and popular articles. Contact: info@scottdmiller.com
Mark Hubble, PhD, is a national consultant and graduate of the postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at the Menninger Clinic. He’s coauthored and coedited six books and is a senior advisor and founding member of the International Center of Clinical Excellence. Contact: raptor7@comcast.net.
Françoise Mathieu, MEd, CCC, is a certified mental health counsellor and compassion fatigue specialist with more than 20 years of experience in trauma and crisis intervention. She’s the director of Compassion Fatigue Solutions, Inc., and author of The Compassion Fatigue Workbook.
Tell us what you think about this article by emailing letters@psychnetworker.org. Want to earn CE credits for reading it? Visit our website and take the Networker CE Quiz.
 
http://naturalsociety.com/first-gly...er-next-huge-blow-to-companies-like-monsanto/

WHO About to Deliver Huge Blow to Companies Like Monsanto

Will this herbicide be deemed 'carcinogenic' too?


plants_testing_science_lab_735_350.jpg


by Christina Sarich
Posted on June 3, 2015




When the World Health Organization recently declared that the herbicide ingredient glyphosate was ‘probably carcinogenic,’ numerous countries responded with bans, serious inquiries, and boycotts of Monsanto’s Roundup. Now, the WHO is now set to review another Big Ag chemical, 2,4-D, just three months after Monsanto was delivered news it couldn’t swallow. You can bet Big Ag is nervous.
It isn’t as if this ‘bad’ news is ‘big news’ to most of us in the GMO-awareness movement. We’ve been sounding the warning sirens about these products for decades. What matters is that a WHO declaration that a product is cancerous finally gives government agencies and local municipalities the extra ‘oomph’ they need to take decisive action against agribusiness companies who are poisoning us and the planet.

The herbicide 2,4-D is set to be examined by twenty-four scientists representing the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The review will occur at a meeting scheduled for June 2[SUP]nd[/SUP]– 9[SUP]th[/SUP] in Lyon, France.
Read: Health Authorities Call Glyphosate a Human Carcinogen
A totally separate group of IARC scientists were the ones who delivered a death blow to Monsanto, but a joyful recognition to all those who have been negatively affected by Big Ag chemicals. It meant that things were finally changing.
Many believe the new scientific panel could deliver a similar fate to makers of 2,4-D, the main ingredient used in Vietnam, known around the world as Agent Orange.
Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumers Union believes they will upgrade 2,4-D’s status as a dangerous chemical, which would then prompt a similar reaction to Monsanto’s Glyphosate – bans, consumer boycotts, and more.
With the obvious reference in our history of the Vietnam War, the case for 2,4-D is even more open and shut than with glyphosate. Dow representatives say there is no cancer link, but IARC scientists Maria Leon, and others, say that there are multiple cancer connections triggered by 2,4-D exposure.
Should the WHO’s declaration concerning 2,4-D be similar to that given for glyphosate, that means first Monsanto, and then Dow Chemical would be knocked down to size within months. Big Ag, the world is asking for you to pay your karmic debt. It starts now
[TABLE="class: author_bio"]
[TR]
[TD]About Christina Sarich:
Christina Sarich is a humanitarian and freelance writer helping you to Wake up Your Sleepy Little Head, and See the Big Picture. Her blog is Yoga for the New World. Her latest book is Pharma Sutra: Healing the Body And Mind Through the Art of Yoga.[/TD]
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[/TABLE]



 
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-podemos-phenomenon-spains-best-hope-for-democracy/5453434

[h=2]The Podemos Phenomenon: Spain’s Best Hope for Democracy[/h] By William Hawes
Global Research, June 04, 2015

The captivating rise of Spain’s new left-leaning party Podemos has captured the world’s attention by emphasizing participative democracy. The formerly fractured Spanish left, in the past marred by petty infighting in Spain, coalesced from grassroots protests over austerity measures and gained steam in 2011. Working with the Anti-Capitalist Left activist base, Podemos began in 2014 by starting local public meetings, called citizen circles, to organize; using the web to organize, poll, and debate issues; and heavily promoting anti-austerity measures and poverty reduction. Young adults especially have been swept up in the Podemos’ rise, as unemployment for youths stands at anywhere from 30-50% by region.
Last month, anti-poverty activist Ada Colau gained the most seats to become Barcelona’s mayor with backing from Podemos. Podemos-backed Manuela Carmena came in a strong second in Madrid’s mayoral election as well. A coalition with Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE) may secure both ladies’ spots. Now all eyes turn to the general election slated for December. At center stage as leader of Podemos is Pablo Iglesias, former college professor and TV host.
The ideology of Podemos was incubated during the May 2011 protests in Madrid centered on the skyrocketing unemployment and austerity measures employed by the Zapatero-led government. Spain’s protests erupted nationwide and were centered in the Puerta del Sol square in Madrid, led by social networks and citizen assemblies. Protesters were dubbed Indignados (“the outraged”, or “the angry ones”), for their rejection of Spain’s increasingly corrupt two-party system and the “austericide” measures strangling the economy and vitality of the nation. Spreading throughout the country, it is estimated that about 6.5-8 million participated. Protests have continued under the Rajoy regime. (1)
After the protests, Podemos formed from a coterie of radical professors from Madrid’s Complutense University. The most notable are Iglesias, political theorist and the face of the movement; Jesús Montero, former communist and political organizer, and Iñigo Errejón, university lecturer and campaign strategist. Beginning to channel citizens’ hopes, despair, and anger over poor economic conditions, Iglesias’ TV programs, La Tuerka and also Fort Apache, became hits and launched him into the national spotlight.
Debating conservatives on national broadcasts pushed Iglesias into the stratosphere in Spain, with bona-fide rock-star status, which he backs up: Iglesias accepts only quarter of his salary as a member of the European parliament. He flies coach on all his trips. He routinely rips Rajoy and his cadre of corrupt officials. He lives in a graffitied neighborhood in Madrid, has credentials as a respected academic, and visits with famous theorist Chantal Mouffe.
Iglesias and Podemos certainly have their critics and detractors, however. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has blasted the party recently, calling them “incompetent populists”. Some have questioned Iglesias’ decision to run Fort Apache, as it was produced by an Iranian state-run TV company. Others frown upon members’ past consulting work with the Venezuelan government. And co-founding member Juan Carlos Monedero has recently quit the party, commenting that Podemos needs to “go back to its origins”. (2)
Despite the backlash, there is no doubt that Podemos represents the best hope for the future in Spain. Monedero still claims they are “the most decent force in Spanish politics”. Iglesias has shown citizens who the ruling People’s Party (PP) and the rival Socialists’ Workers Party (PSOE) really are: la casta (the caste), the establishment, corrupt leaders and officials who do nothing as nearly 6 million people are out of work and 2 million households have no net income. (3) The party is also aware of their limitations in an integrated EU economy: this is why they have called on the help of friends like Greece’s Syriza to fight the EU technocracy, ECB, and IMF. No doubt, Podemos would be wise to send feelers to Italy’s PM Matteo Renzi and Ireland’s Sinn Fein party to ally the periphery, mainly southern Europe, against the unjust policies of Brussels.
Iglesias has shown moderation and fairness in nearly every aspect of Podemos’ agenda. He supports Spain’s membership in the EU, but only under fair laws and loan agreements. He wants benefits and social programs expanded, but he is not calling for nationalization of entire industries. Podemos supports sharing more power with the autonomous regions of the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Galicia, and even states that the party would allow a Catalonian referendum, which the PP and PSOE oppose. (4)
Podemos is more than a vehicle to bring to life the hopes and dreams of Spaniards alone. As political theorists, leaders of Podemos cannot be accused of intellectual laziness. By employing a narrative of anti-elite rhetoric within a framework of social justice, they have created a message appealing to citizens of the whole nation. By linking digital democracy, through social media, with participative elements, such as meetings to combat poverty, lobby for public health initiatives, the arts, and more, Podemos has provided a contemporary deliberative democratic blueprint for the world.
The party has helped lay ground for democracy with revolutionary potential, but not within a traditional, left/right framework. Though favoring a moderate social democracy, Iglesias and the leadership deny that they are partisans. Iglesias explained the left/right divide succinctly at a rally in Barcelona: “Power doesn’t fear the left, only the people”. (5) At its core, Podemos is attempting to challenge the power structure, and deliver democracy to the masses, even if it means deviating from its anti-capitalist, leftist origins.
By moving towards the center, and consolidating power mostly between Iglesias and Errejón, Podemos risked alienating its activist base. These are undoubtedly the reasons for Monedero’s resignation from the party. Charisma and charm will only take you so far, and pandering towards the middle will only work up to a point. Besides, the populist, new center-right party Ciudadanos is also mining the center for votes with this strategy.
Podemos should continue to act as a movement led by activists, and evade the traps of capitulation and compromise that mainstream parties fall into. Breaking the two-party stranglehold of the PP and PSOE has been impressive. By concentrating on poverty reduction, debt restructuring, ending austerity, and listening to its citizen circles, Podemos and Iglesias can win wider support, unity, and solidarity. If focus can be kept on their grassroots campaigns, Spain will begin to see what a true, albeit messy, participative democracy looks like.
William Hawes is a writer specializing in politics and environmental issues. You can reach him at wilhawes@gmail.com.
Notes:
1) http://www.rtve.es/noticias/2011080...s-han-participado-movimiento-15m/452598.shtml
2) http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/30/inenglish/1430403454_148415.html
3) http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/31/podemosradical-party-turning-spanish-politics-head-279018.html
4) https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-e...-baird/podemos-cat-among-pigeons-in-catalonia
5) http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/02/02/inenglish/1422900233_612344.html
 
http://govtslaves.info/why-i-ditched-my-smartphone-and-you-should-too/

[h=1]Why I Ditched My Smartphone And You Should Too[/h] Iron Sheik 06/04/2015

(Thomas Dishaw) As a blogger and concerned citizen I try to put my money where my mouth is. I believe voting with my dollars is a way of life, therefore I do my best to only support companies, products, and people who I truly stand behind morally and politically. I came to an understanding long ago that the only way to get a point across criminal corporations is to affect their bottom line.
Over the last few months I have been having discussions with friends and family about getting rid of my smart phone and downgrading to a cheaper, less traceable flip phone. Sounds crazy, right? Most people think so, but at these critical times when everybody is distracted by their smartphones, a major social breakdown in society is happening . What used to be sounds of conversation, laughter and happiness surrounding us has been replaced by an eerie silence only filled with email and text alerts. We have become slaves to our devices, almost never looking up in fear of missing something from our glowing screens that continues to sell us propaganda and unhappiness for pennies on the dollar. Most acknowledgements like “Hello” or “How are you” are returned with dirty stares and confusion from people forced to look up from their personal enslavement devices.
So this really got me to start thinking “why am I paying a AT&T to spy on me?” I give them $110.00 a month for access to my own personal information, but what am I getting out of this deal? This is the question I often asked myself. I carry around a big brother tracking device that sends everything I do to EVERY alphabet agency on the planet, and ANY corporation that would pay a dime for my psychological profile and buying habits. You may be thinking, like a lot of people, “well if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t care.” Well I have everything to hide and I do care, and so should you.

PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE DANGEROUS
I decided I needed to make a change. As most continue to go high-tech, I made the unpopular decision of going lo-tech. After weeks of toying with the idea of ditching my smartphone I finally did it. Called AT&T, dumped my $110 a month service and switched to NET 10 for $35 a month unlimited phone & text (no internet). With that move alone I am already saving $75 per month and almost $1,000 per year. But more importantly I’m proving to myself and others that you don’t just have to put up with these phone companies because it’s the status quo. There are other options that allow you to still be connected but without giving up your freedom of privacy. I know I can’t stop 100% of the unconstitutional spying but I can start by controlling who I support.
In a weird way I actually enjoy the stares I get from people when my Nintendo sounding ring tone signals an incoming call when I forget to turn the vibrate on. I know people are secretly judging me, but I don’t care. “He must be a drug dealer, a criminal, or that’s a second phone for his mistress.” “He must have bad credit, or even worse he’s poor.” The main stream media wants us to think this way. They used the same narrative when attacking Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones who was caught talking on a flip phone. The media made fun of Jones, attacking his lack of style and financial stature as a reason for using such an “outdated” device. I’m sure Jerry’s having the last laugh as he is making million dollar phone calls from his secure satellite phone.
Over the last month I’ve noticed that I need my phone less and less. Prior to this my cell phone used to follow me in trips to the bathroom, at the dinner table, and in the bedroom. Now I find it easy to abandon on the kitchen table and barely use a full battery. The biggest shock to me is that I don’t even miss it. I’m getting more accomplished everyday, I’m not wasting time on Facebook or getting sucked into the smart phone trance that often distracts us.
Some things are taking a little while to get used to though. I don’t have the luxury of taking a quality photo with my flip phone. I can’t get driving directions with my navigation app. I can’t look up a business or phone number on the fly. Texting is really tough compared to ease of my old “big brother tracking device”. And yes people will notice the difference. I recently got a text from a friend saying we don’t talk as much, and I found that it was too much to type a whole explanation on my flip phone. I guess I’ll just have to explain in person.
I don’t like to make bold predictions, but I don’t ever see myself going back to a smart phone. I know over the next few years the temptation will be great with all the new technology that continues to be developed. But to me the pros outweigh the cons:
PRO’S

  • Voting with my dollars
  • Saving money
  • More productive
  • Cut the surveillance drastically
  • Eliminate the radiation risks
  • Engaging in more conversation
  • I’m not texting while driving
  • I’m less distracted and more aware of my surroundings
CON’S

  • Cant take a good picture
  • It’s a hassle to text
  • Can’t Email
  • Can’t surf the web
  • Can’t get driving directions
  • Can’t enjoy the internet from my bed
The pro’s drastically outweigh the cons, so stop being a slave. If the opportunity ever arises to ditch your cell phone try it. I guarantee it will be one of the best investments in time and quality of life that you ever make.
 
I've been saying for years here that society is conditioned to treat symptoms NOT root causes

I have also said that people are spread too thin in trying to oppose the system and that they need to start zeroing in on the root problem

I have also called for the need to ORGANISE and said that the organisation follows on from the awareness stage

So its good to hear max igan saying the same where he is saying the various activist groups need to start coming together and focussing their efforts on certain individuals in power

The people need to start coming together and acting in concert. When they do that we will be a juggernaut

[video=youtube;oK9kTyvML8M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK9kTyvML8M[/video]
 
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/06/...e-art-of-chewing-life-up-and-spitting-it-out/

Living Magically: The Art of Chewing Life Up and Spitting it Out

Gary “Z’ McGee, Staff Writer

Waking Times
“The Universe is saying: Allow me to flow through you unrestricted, and you will see the greatest magic you have ever seen.”Klaus Joehle

You’ve probably heard the now common cliché, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” How true it is. But it’s not enough to know it with your head. You need to understand it with your heart; with your mind, body, and soul, in order to create magic with it. You need to be proactive about it, in order for it to really have an impact in your life. Like Daniel Pinchbeck said, “Deep down, nobody wants a job to occupy his or her time. We want a mission that inspires us.”

This will probably require getting a little “crazy,” a little bit “nuts.” In order to make your life more magical, you may need to take a non-dogmatic leap of faith. Let yourself go mad. Let yourself be weird. Like Kurt Vonnegut said, “We are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.” Farting around is making a big stink, it’s laughing at the all-too-serious human condition, and it’s falling in love with impermanence.

You are a magical creature, even if you’re not consciously aware of it. Your inner-child wants desperately to come out and play, even if you have suppressed it; even if it has been oppressed by a sick society. Jump into the angry abyss with a smile on your face. This is how magic has always been created, from shamans to Shakespeare. Get out there and live! Look for the magic within things. Look for the magic within you. Like William Butler Yeats poetically articulated, “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

Dreamer of Dreams
“Not to dream boldly may turn out to be irresponsible.”George Leonard
Haters gonna hate, lovers gonna love. And the best place to start loving, is to start dreaming your love into being. Dream of cathartic thunder resonating between lonely hearts. Dream of lightening in a jar drank to the dregs by humorless men desperately trying to regain their sense of humor. Dream of chaotic empathy usurping orderly apathy. Dethrone the parochial by dreaming God and Satan are playing tennis, and no matter how much they play, the score is always love-love. Like George Bernard Shaw said, “You see things, and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’”

Between wakefulness and dreams there is a third thing: metamorphosis. Dreams don’t stand still: they move; they change; they dissolve and crumble and coalesce and regroup. As a dreamer of dreams, you must do the same. And if your dreams are “flying south for the winter,” then that’s probably where you should be heading. Turn your dreams into a quest, into a journey of the most high. Whether it’s the quest for health, truth or love, “quest” is the key word, and the journey is always the thing.

Forget logic and reason for a time. Let unreason and magic shine. Then bring logic and reason back in for a little tidying up. Do it with high humor, and the magic that comes from being the dreamer of dreams will not elude you. Like Carl Jung said, “Reason and understanding must unite with unreason and magic.” Let them unite within you in perfectly imperfect recognition.
The Greek word Thumos is the desire for prestige. It is the dream of the perfect recognition, when all that is great within ourselves synergizes perfectly with all that is eternal in the cosmos in harmonic synchronicity.

Mythmaker of Myths
“Dream the myth forward.”Carl Jung
The greatest magic is transmuting the passions. And nothing is as powerful, alchemically, at transmuting the passions than myth.
Joseph Campbell described mythology as having four basic functions:

  • The Mystical Function: experiencing the awe of the universe,
  • The Cosmological Function: explaining the shape of the universe,
  • The Sociological Function: supporting and validating a certain social order, and
  • The Pedagogical Function: how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances.
As far as being a myth-maker is concerned, the mystical and the pedagogical functions are the most important. This is because the primary method of myth is sensual, not verbal. Language is secondary, and only because it is the only way we have to communicate the mythic vision. But by relearning this, sensual, nonverbal language (what Derrick Jensen calls “a language older than words”), we open ourselves up to the majesty of the cosmos and allow for the inner-workings of nature to rethread herself through us.

Our tool is myth. Our goal becomes, as Thomas Berry said, “to move the human community from its destructive presence on the planet to a benign or mutually enhancing presence on the planet.” The myths we harbor can work for or against us. Our current myth is a violent, exploitative, dog-eat-dog system. Unfortunately, we’ve swallowed this myth: hook, line, and sinker. Our duty, if we have the courage, is to update this outdated, unsustainable myth by becoming mythmakers who have the audacity to create a contemporary, sustainable system that meets violence with laughter, exploitation with expiation, and the dog-eat-dog system with a human-support-human system.

Mythology is an ever-present, ever-receding horizon mediated through the creative imagination of individuals and cultures and venerated through art and cosmology. As Louis G. Herman wrote, “The retelling of mythology helps access the creative energy of the ancient past within the present. In this understanding, past, present, and future become separate faces of a single reality,” or, as Jean Gebser put it, an “ever-present origin.”

If we can step back every once in a while and think like an outsider. If we can let go of the “story,” and release the myth. If we can think past it, around it, inside and out of it. If we can accept it for what it is, and then let our imagination run rampant all over it. If we can take the frame of our yester-life and reshape it, widen it, rebuild it out of rubber-bands, or weaponry turned livingry, or desertification turned greenery. If we can break it, if need be. If we can do that, then we can prevent the frame from ever becoming a locked safe. And if it ever happens to become a locked safe, it’s never too late. We know the combination. And if for any reason we should lose that combination, then we must have the courage to shatter the lock. Like Tony Robbins said, “Passion is the genesis of genius.” Being a mythmaker is having the passion to shatter outdated locks with updated sledgehammers.
Jokester of Jokes
“Life should be lived to the point of tears.”Albert Camus
Nature loves audacious courage. Commit to nature and she responds by removing obstacles from your path. This is how magic is done. This is the art of chewing life up and spitting it out. This is the shamanic dance in the abyss.

One of the most amazing things that courageous people discover on their journey is how fulfilling the self-made path is, especially when they don’t know where it might lead. The awesome realization that if the path were clear, and everything ahead of us were known, it simply would not be fulfilling. Even if we cannot admit it to ourselves, we yearn for astonishment. We long to be surprised, to be in awe, to be taken aback by the majesty of the Great Mystery.

It is within the labyrinth of our own journey, with its twists and turns, ups and downs, hidden demons and thrashing thresholds, where we find true fulfillment. Not on the clear path of others, with their wide-open and clearly forecasted ways, their all-too-noticeable signs, their spoon-fed morsels of already-lived life, and their parochial paradigms handed down piecemeal from shrunken comfort zones. In the adventure of our own labyrinth, there is no such thing as dead ends. There is only the illusion of dead ends. On the already-lived-path-of-others there are always dead ends, especially if you don’t do things as “they” did, or as authority commands.

This is not to say that we should not stand upon the shoulders of giants. We definitely should. But we ought to make such standing a part of our journey rather than an end to it. If we can allow ourselves to be individuated voyeurs, peeking in on the paths of others, borrowing the magic that works and discarding that which insults our soul, all while using it to see further than they could, then we make our journey our own while learning from those who came before us. And the best part is we don’t get stuck, because we’re simply borrowing an egg or two (of knowledge) from their baskets, rather than placing all our eggs into any single basket.

By living the self-made labyrinth of our own journey, we turn the tables upon the cosmic joke itself. Instead of being the butt-end of the joke, we become the almighty jokester, the personified trickster, transcending seriousness with a humor of the most high. We become the one who laughs instead of the one who is laughed at. We liberate ourselves to laugh at it all, to poke holes in makeshift ideologies (especially our own), and to usurp outdated thrones with updated humor.

The paths that came before us pale in comparison to the paths that lay within us. Similarly, the dogmatic seriousness that came before us pales in comparison to the humorous sincerity that lies within us. Their old magic is no match for our new magic. I beseech you, you who would live a magical life of adventure and self-discovery, your path begins at the perceived limits of your comfort zone. Authentic love begins with genuine humor. Dream the dream forward. Dream the myth forward. Dream the joke forward. Laugh, and laugh hard, especially at stagnate dreams, outdated myths, and parochial gods. The world doesn’t need more obedient followers, sycophants, and bootlickers. It desperately needs more disobedient dreamers, mythmakers, and jokesters.

“In conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they always have, getting weirder all the time.”
Robert Anton Wilson
About the Author

Gary ‘Z’ McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.
 
Black community coming together over vaccines

[video=youtube;pgr3NAhXl88]https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=87&v=pgr3NAhXl88[/video]
 
Switch off from the mainstream media!!!

Zen Gardner: "The Media Is A Tidal Wave Of Disinformation. Disconnect From It And Never Look Back."

[video=youtube;Eu8W1ZVumgw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu8W1ZVumgw[/video]

List of independent media sites in post below
 
A variety of indie media sites (will add more as they come to mind)

David Icke headlines: best resource on the internet imo!

The Ritchie Allan radio show: covers lots of issues the mainstream media hasn't got the balls to cover

James Corbett and the Corbett Report: well researched pieces often including contributions from subscribers

Global Research: written pieces and youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/GlobalResearchTV

Gerald Celente: runs a trends forecast company and has a good track record of being correct

Rense.com run by Jeff Rense

Truth Stream Media

RT: sure its funded by the russian government but who is going to tell you the truth about the bad things your govenment get upto? Not your own government that's for sure! So why not hear what the russkies have to say?

The Keiser Report on RT: libertarian capitalist show focussing on the economic news of the day...a good way to boost your financial literacy

Zen Gardner: chilled out, upbeat guy with a good grasp of whats going on

Max Igan: been telling it like it is for years

Alex Jones and Info Wars: needs no intro. some say he's a bit melodramatic but i think for someone who knows what he knows and who has stuck his head so high above the parapet he's holding it together pretty well

Zero Hedge: insightful, well researched articles

Matt taibi @ rolling stone: has his own following

UK Column: UK based indie media

Dollar Vigilante: capitalist libertarian site

Red Ice Radio: has a focus on the weaponisation of multi-culturalism

Alternet: mission is to "inspire citizen action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, and health care issues".

Natural News: health based info

Liveleak: it aims to take reality footage, politics, war, and other world events and combine them with the power of citizen journalism

We are change: activism/journalism

Naveed Ahmad: covers the middle east http://www.theglobalexperts.org/experts/area-of-expertise/politics-and-governance/naveed-ahmad

Mark Dice: a focus on the illuminati
 
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There's a lot of ideas for people in this thread but some might seem out of reach for some people depending on their circumstances however I don't believe that anyone is powerless because everything we do has some effect on the world including how we spend our money

So being selective about how you use your money ie what you give your financial support to is a form of activism

What we feed grows stronger. So if we give support to something eg by buying its goods and services then we help make that thing stronger, so if we don't want to live in a world run by the corporations we need to think about how we spend our money

If we all vote with our feet towards positive things and aim as ghandi said to 'be the change we want to see in the world' we can change things (if enough of us play our part)

Below is a list of possible actions folk can take day to day:


  • Discuss whats going on in the world eg blog about it to help spread awareness across the internet and encourage more and more people to take action as the greater number of people taking action the bigger the effect
  • Avoid vaccines: they are part of a eugenics movement that harms the young and enriches the big pharmaceutical corporations
  • Check if the drinking water in your area is flouridated: if it is then buy a water filter to remove the flouride as it is toxic
  • Buy organic food as far as possible to avoid the cancer causing chemicals sprayed on other foods which also affects peoples DNA, fertility and also makes people gluten intolerant. Many supermarkets stock organic food and there are also often local growers who provide food boxes at a reasonable price
  • Avoid food with: GMO's, Aspartame, Monosodium Glutomate, E numbers, artificial: flavourings, sweetners, colourings & preservatives
  • Canned food often has endocrine disrupting chemicals in them so try to eat fresh food not canned food; tomato soup is meant to be especially bad
  • Avoid toothpaste with flouride in it and buy flouride free, organic toothpaste online instead
  • Use organic and natural shampoo and avoid parabens and other ingredients that can affect skin and cause skin disorders
  • Avoid chemical sprays of various kinds eg airfreshners, deodorant etc
  • Get rid of your TV and instead use the internet selectively. This way you can cut out all the crap and adverts and have more free time to do things that don't rot the brain
  • Avoid the mainstream media and use indie media instead
  • Don't use facebook, it's a spying programme for the CIA and Mossad. There are alternatives that might be worth looking into if it's a must eg Ello and look left
  • Don't use any 'SMART' stuff eg smart phones or smart meters etc as they are all part of Agenda 21 which is a United Nations programme of social engineering
  • Avoid WIFI and talking for any length of time on a mobile phone as RF frequency radiation is damaging to human DNA especially the eggs inside females
  • Keep electronic media away from children to protect them from the radiation and to allow them to grow up using their imaginations instead of being plugged into the borg. No mobile phones and TV's in the bedroom! Mobile phones damage kids brains..it's a fact...look it up!
  • use encryption to encrypt your emails and phone calls to lessen government intrusion; it doesn't matter that we aren't doing anything wrong.....we have a right to privacy
  • Engage in community activism, sign petitions, write to politicians, journalists and other influential people to inform them of important issues
  • have a reserve of gold or silver currency in the event of financial collapse of the paper currency; don't tell anyone you have it
  • Grow your own vegetables if you can as it will make you more self sufficient and less vulnerable to turbulence in the markets, toxic spraying and GMO's
  • use renewable energy if possible and consider greener options for your car eg LPG
  • try to do a job that contributes to society or that at least doesn't contribute to the corporatocracy
  • refuse any move by the government to go to war
  • look into participating in a 'peer2peer' economy which cuts out the middle men of banks, governments etc
  • avoid contracts and debt as far as possible as they tie you into the system
  • take your money out of the corporate banks and put it into community credit unions instead
  • support cooperatives
  • don't vote for the main political parties. Either don't vote at all in which case you are helping to remove the democratic mandate of the corporatocracy and the politicians it controls or if you absolutely must vote then vote for a party like the pirate party who want to preserve internet freedoms
  • Don't waste anything; if you don't want it then give it away, use charity bins, freecycle, recycle, compost food waste etc
  • Buy local and boycott big corporations as much as possible: don't feed the beast!
  • Don't accept the cashless society...it is a ploy by the corporatocracy to gain control over us by controlling our access to our wealth; don't be hoodwinked by arguments about advancements in technology and how cool it is....being a slave is not cool
  • Don't accept them putting RF microchips into your body anywhere no matter how cool they tell you it is.....even if they make a film where brad pitt has it and it looks really cool...don't do it...it is to enslave you by controlling your movements and access to goods services and your wealth
  • Film police brutality and post it online and blow the whistle on any corruption you witness...be the change you want to see in the world
  • Avoid synthetic drugs and explore natural alternative medicine options like marijuana oil that have a proven track record
  • Find release from the oppressions of society in nature and in learning new skills and being creative. Do things for fun, to lift the spirits, to feed your imagination and to meet up with like-minded people and to contribute to your communtiy. Avoid competitive things and things that poison the spirit like beauty pagents
  • Say no to fracking! It poisons the soil and the water
  • Some people swear by meditation and mindfulness as ways to cope with stress and gain insights into yourself. others keep a dream diary and look for themes over time that give insight into our psyche
  • get your 8 hours sleep!
  • Travel....see other cultures, understand the world from other peoples perspective, eat with them, laugh with them, share space with them and find common ground
  • Accept diversity but also enjoy healthy culture that comes from creative expression and shared positive values

Well that's a few ideas anyway....none of us can do everything, so its just a case of doing what we can

if enough people took even some of the simple steps above it would have a drastic effect on society
 
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re-post of The Full Circle Project; sign up and get involved!

http://www.fullcircleproject.net/

[h=1]Welcome to The Full Circle Project[/h] The Full Circle Project provides an active hub for people to unite a diverse range of local cooperative initiatives from around the globe with a principle aim: to bring mankind Full Circle into their natural state of abundance.

Using positive common sense action undertaken by the people themselves, the project seeks ways to empower the individual and local communities by gathering together in ever-widening circles of focus and agreement. By examining vital issues and applying effective methods we can usher in a more cooperative and caring society based on honesty instead of deception and abundance instead of scarcity.

[h=2]The Full Circle Project website coming soon...[/h] The Full Circle Project website will be fully launched soon. In the meantime, please start connecting with each other!
 
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