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Isaac Davis, Staff
"If you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit." –Josiah Stamp
Iceland has gained the admiration of populists in recent years by doing that which no other nation in the world seems to be willing or capable of doing: prosecuting criminal bankers for engineering financial collapse for profit.
Their effective revolt against the banking class, who drove the tiny nation into economic crisis in 2008, is the brightest example yet that the world does not have to be indebted in perpetuity to an austere and criminal wealthy elite. In 2015, 26 Icelandic bankers were sentenced to prison and the government ordered a bank sale to benefit the citizenry.
Inspired by Iceland's progress, activists in Switzerland are now making an important stand againstthe banking cartels and have successfully petitioned to bring an initiative to public referendum that would attack the private banks where it matters most: their power to lend money they don't actually have, and to create money out of thin air.
"Switzerland will hold a referendum to decide whether to ban commercial banks from creating money.
The Swiss federal government confirmed on Thursday that it would hold a plebiscite, after more than 110,000 people signed a petition calling for the central bank to be given sole power to create money in the financial system.
The campaign – led by the Swiss Sovereign Money movement and known as the Vollgeld initiative – is designed to limit financial speculation by requiring private banks to hold 100pc reserves against their deposits." [The Telegraph]
Switzerland is in a key position to play a revolutionary role in changing how global banking functions. In addition to being the world's safest harbor for storing wealth, it is also home to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), a shadowy private company owned by many of the world's central banks, and acting as a lender to the central banks. The BIS is the very heart of global reserve banking, the policy that enables banks to lend money that does not actually exist in their bank deposits, but is instead literally created electronically from nothing whenever a bank extends a line of credit.
Reserve banking is the policy that guarantees insurmountable debt as the outcome of all financial transactions.
The Sovereign Money initiative in Switzerland aims to curb financial speculation, which is the intended and inevitable result of reserve banking, the tool that makes financial adventurism possible by supplying the banks with endless quantities of fiat money.
Limiting a bank's ability to produce money from nothing would be a direct blow to the roots of the banking cartel, and would cripple their ability to manipulate the world economy. Here's how it works, in rather simplified terms:
"…if we had access to the same computer terminals the banks have, we could magic in or out of existence all the imaginary stuff we are trained to think of as important – money – in whatever quantities we liked.
This is how it works: when they print quite a lot of this stuff there is a boom. When they print too much of it, there is inflation (actually, the printing of money is inflation). When they stop printing it or simply hold on to it, there is a depression." [Source]
In Switzerland, 90% of all money in circulation is electronic, and for this, The National Bank of Switzerland has become the direct target of the Sovereign Money Campaign. Swiss law has in the past required required banks to back all currency creation with collateral assets like physical silver or gold, however in recent decades the climate has changed, and, "due to the emergence of electronic payment transactions, banks have regained the opportunity to create their own money."
The grass roots campaign said in a public statement regarding the intentions of the referendum, "banks won't be able to create money for themselves any more, they'll only be able to lend money that they have from savers or other banks."
This is an interesting twist in the human saga of man vs. banks, and while it remains to be seen if the referendum passes or not, it must be pointed out that it does have its own problems, articulated by Sam Gerrans:
"… it does say that the central bank should be given sole right to create money. This would essentially leave the creation of money in the same hands as those who control the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England rather than allow them to farm out the process. But at least it shows that people are beginning to wake up to where the true power lies.
In the unlikely event that this grass-roots movement in Switzerland should get its way and its proposed legislation be enacted, and then begin to morph into something which really does threaten the banking elite, we must not be surprised if Switzerland is shortly discovered to be harboring weapons of mass destruction, or to have masterminded 9/11, or to be financing Islamic State."
Part of the cultural conditioning of our time is an ingrained, pre-assumed dependency on sacred cow institutions like banking. Just like it is impossible for most Americans to envision a world withoutDemocrats and Republicans, it is difficult for most people to imagine a world without predatory global banking.
Yet, there are a number of other possibilities for trading, storing wealth, and facilitating development in the world. This is not the only economic system we can imagine, and as Iceland has proven, people can regain control of their collective wealth, so perhaps this revolution will foment further in Switzerland, presenting a chance to at least bring greater awareness to the truth about central banking.
About the Author
Isaac Davis is an outspoken advocate of liberty and an honest society from the top down. He is a contributing writer for WakingTimes.com. Follow him on Facebook, here.
Terence Newton, Staff
This is how big oil conquered the world.
In the effort to find a cheaper source for kerosene, on Sunday, August 28th, 1859, "Colonel" Edwin Drake struck black gold in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in what was the world's first oil well, thereby officially beginning the global oil revolution. It is predicted that in 2016 the world will an astounding, "worldwide average demand of nearly 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels per day – that works out to more than 35 billion barrels a year." [1]
"Drake's well proved that by drilling for it, oil could be found in abundance and produced cheaply. Overnight a whole new industry was born. Before long in millions of homes, farms and factories around the world, lamps would be lit with kerosene refined from West Pennsylvania crude." [Source]
From that moment, the oil boom began and it was players like John D. Rockefeller who made the first fortunes in turning West Pennsylvania crude into a product that would fuel the world.
Today, there is no doubt that the oil industry is the most powerful economic and development force in the world, and with the recent developments in fracking, the industry is still expanding. There are now over 1.1 million active gas and oil wells in the United States alone, and citizens are beginning to wake up to the reality that oil companies have more rights within the law than ordinary citizens do, and the struggle to stop the oil industry's advances into our communities is escalating.
Disasters like the Deepwater Horizon and countless other spills, train-wrecks, pipeline explosions and leaks make quick circulation in the news and in disaster struck areas, corporate police prohibit media coverage and even impede public clean up efforts. In the wilds of Canada the Tar Sands oil operations are scorching unfathomable tracts of wilderness. It is as though oil companies literally own the environment and can do as they please without any meaningful repercussions.
Aside from the impact that the oil and gas industry has on our communities and the environment, the world is now geo-strategically organized around the collection and domination of oil resources. The Middle East has been deliberately destabilized in the war on terror and is being taken over by oil companies escorted into no-man's-lands by private military contractors.
Dictators like the those in the House of Saud are propped up and are free to roam the world with ridiculously lavish riches, entirely above the law. Even the escalating and complicated struggle with ISIS is now entangled in the dramatic and very lucrative oil trade. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently delivered on his promise to provide evidence of how Turkey and other nations are supporting ISIS by knowingly conducting trade with the terrorist organization.
"If you want to rule the world you need to control the oil. All the oil. Anywhere." -Michel Collon, Monopoly
The oil industry is also well-known for its monopolistic tactics in preventing the proliferation of energy technologies that could offer alternatives to oil, or to make our oil usage much more efficient than it is now.
How was our entire world and culture so thoroughly dominated by the oil industry in just over 150 years?
Recently released, a new documentary film by James Corbett of the Corbett Report brings to light the lesser known and more obscure parts of the quest to bring oil to market and change the course of human history, dubbing it the 'Rise of the Oiligarchy. It is a new must-see documentary that brings extraordinary perspective to our troubled world.
About the Author
Terence Newton is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com, interested primarily with issues related to science, the human mind, and human consciousness.
Christina Sarich, Natural Society
The Yurok Tribe, the largest Native American tribe in California, will join other peoples such as those from Russia, Italy, and Germany in saying NO to genetically modified organisms. The tribe has just announced that it is implementing a ban on all GM crops and GM animals. [1]
A committee meant to review the Yurok Tribe Genetically Engineered Organism (GEO) Ordinance, which was first allowed public comment, has now been enacted this December, 2015.
The Tribal GEO Ordinance prohibits the propagation, raising, growing, spawning, incubating, or releasing of genetically engineered organisms (such as growing GMO crops or releasing genetically engineered salmon) within the Tribe's territory and declares the Yurok Reservation to be a GMO-free zone. It is the first ordinance of its kind in the Nation.
This tribe previously tried to protect their land and rivers from genetically modified salmon, and now have decided that all GM crops and animals pose a serious threat.
The Yurok Tribe's homeland is on the Klamath River, where massive algal blooms, exacerbated by agricultural runoff and antiquated hydroelectric dams, turn the river toxic each summer.
Violations of the ban can be enforced through Yurok Tribal Court.
"It is the inherent sovereign right of the Yurok People to grow plants from natural traditional seeds and to sustainably harvest plants, salmon and other fish, animals, and other life-giving foods and medicines, in order to sustain our families and communities as we have successfully done since time immemorial; our Court will enforce any violations of these inherent, and now codified, rights," Yurok Chief Judge Abby Abinanti stated.
[1] SustainablePulse
V. Susan Ferguson, Contributor
The American people are beginning to realize that the 'Land of the Free' is no more and has been taken over by a corporatist global regime that cares nothing about us. We do not benefit from this dreadful American Empire that only serves the 1% and most of us never wanted. Not only has the corporatist regime used the privately owned Federal Reserve banking system to decimate the middle class here in the United States and impoverish the rest, it also appears to be using the American population as 'collateral damage' in its geoengineering industry that has in fact been in effect for 60 years.
The people beneath the toxic aerosol 'chemtrail' spraying that is raining down on us every day as part of Operation Cloverleaf are seen as expendable by the corporatist state which conducts ongoing programs implemented by the military industrial complex, among which are electronic warfare, climate control and weather manipulation.
Profits of Doom
Geoengineering is highly profitable for the corporations said to be involved, like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing. The Guardian UK has reported that Bill Gates has put millions into funding geoengineering techniques, such as spraying the stratosphere with sulphate to block the sunlight. Many climate scientists are beginning to agree that geoengineering is only making the world's climate far worse. Heating the ionosphere and spraying the skies with toxic aerosols is blatant interference in our planet's delicate balance, and there is increasing evidence overhead spraying is making people, children & the elderly in the USA, Europe and the world weak & slowly sick as the immune system is attacked daily with aluminum, barium, strontium, and the very weird Morgellons.
The corporatist global regime agenda is also in control of America's foreign policy, which does not serve the American people, benefitting instead the giant multinational corporations who use our tax dollars, while they are sheltering themselves with complicated tax exemptions. The demonic financial wizardry of algorithmic fast-trading has all but destroyed the middle class, and financial collapse has already left millions unemployed and desperate.
The Death of Our Oceans, Air and Land
The corporatist global regime agenda is ruining life for everyone except the 1% with their insane compulsion for power and global domination. Their insane globalist ambition to rule the planet is destroying the environmental health of our oceans, air and land. The global multinational corporations are abolishing traditional law and replacing it with corporate law, for example the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, are being rendered impotent with secretive trade agreements like the WTO, the TPP, and AFRICOM that over-ride national sovereignty, and protect only corporate shareholders.
In a recent interview Craig Hulet says that corporatism has no ideology, meaning they don't care about fascism, democracy, etc. They have an empire that they own. The new world order is now called 'The Global Regime of Economic Interdependence' and it's here now — and it's "what's bombing people everywhere." Hulet remarks that the Pentagon's new 1200 page war manual, entitled 'Department of Defense Law of War Manual,' is "basically a blueprint to suspend sovereignty and constitutional rule throughout the world including here in the USA." Hulet says that the document is full of legal language that portends a future where, "the Pentagon will dictate to countries what they can and cannot do, enforced by military might."
Corporate Mercenaries
Our military no longer exists to protect our borders, which are being overwhelmed with young men of unknowable origin that are said to be wanted as military recruits to fight in these endless foreign wars. Our military is being used by the corporations for their self-serving greed to confiscate resources around the planet with the aid of what is little more than debt thievery from the IMF and Goldman Sachs.
Paul Craig Roberts has been warning the world that the Neoconservatives in power in Washington DC are just crazy enough to start WWIII and even use nuclear strikes. Are the psychopathic control-freak 1% monsters — who are reported to have extensive underground bases to hide in —pushing the entire world toward WWIII? We can't let them do that. Time to wake-up!
"When Self-knowledge declines then ignorance prevails, causing fear. Ghost-like it appears, assuming specific names and forms in the most terrible manner.
This world, non-existent on its own, is terrible like an infernal city. Such is the way the all-pervading Lord mysteriously did make appear the whole universe."
– Narayana Guru, Darshana Mâlâ I.7 & 8; Complete Works, translated by Muni Narayana Prasad
About the Author
V. Susan Ferguson is the author of Inanna Returns, Inanna Hyper-Luminal; her own commentary on the Bhagavad Gita and the Shiva Sutras; and Colony Earth & the Rig Veda. Her website is Metaphysical Musing.
– http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2015/dec/01/will-bill-gates-and-his-billionaire-friends-save-the-planet
– http://www.craigbhulet.com/
– http://www.craigbhulet.com/
– http://byebyebluesky.com/organizations-involved-in-chemtrailsgeoengineering/
– http://byebyebluesky.com/organizations-involved-in-chemtrailsgeoengineering/
– http://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2015/dec/01/will-bill-gates-and-his-billionaire-friends-save-the-planet
Once, When We Were Free
Jon Rappoport, Guest
(To read about Jon's mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)
We're so much more sensible now. We don't live our lives as much as we arrange them and organize them. B follows A. D follows C. We take our medicine and our shots because the doctor says so.
We're careful, because accidents happen.
We don't say what's on our minds a lot of the time, because other people might pass that on, and who knows? We might get into trouble.
But once upon a time, when we were young, we were free. We didn't take any shots, and when we got sick we recovered. We were stronger than kids are now. We didn't ask for much protection and we weren't given much, and we survived.
There was no talk about the needs of the group. When we went to school, we weren't told about ways we could help others. That was something we learned at home. We weren't taught about The Planet. Instead, we learned to mind our own business, and it wasn't considered a crime.
When we played games, adults weren't hovering or coaching every move we made. We found places to play on our own, and we figured it all out. There were winners and losers. There were no plastic trophies. We played one game, then another. We lost, we won. We competed. Losing wasn't a tragedy.
There were no childhood "conditions" like ADHD or Bipolar, and we certainly didn't take any brain drugs. The idea of a kid going to a psychiatrist would have been absurd.
People were who they were. They had lives. They had personalities. They had eccentricities, and we lived with that.
There was far less whispering and gossip. There were fewer cliques. Kids didn't display their possessions like signs of their identity. A kid who did was ignored, even shunned.
Kids never acted like little adults. They didn't dress like adults. They didn't want to be fake adults.
Our parents didn't consult us about what we wanted. We weren't part of the decision-making process. They didn't need us for that.
We weren't "extra-special." We weren't delicate.
No one asked us about our feelings. If they had, we would have been confused. Feelings? What's that? We were alive. We knew it. We didn't need anything else.
We could spot liars a mile away. We could spot phonies from across town. We knew who the really crazy adults were, and we stayed away from them.
We didn't need gadgets and machines to be happy. We only needed a place to play. If you wanted a spot to be alone, you found one, and you read a book.
There was no compulsion to "share."
School wasn't some kind of social laboratory or baby-sitting service. We were there to learn, and if we worked hard, we did. Teachers knew how to teach. The textbooks were adequate. Whether the books were new or old didn't matter.
Kids weren't taught how to be little victims.
Sex was a private issue. You were taught about that at home or not at all. You certainly didn't learn about it in school. That would have been ridiculous.
Some of us remember being young, and now, we still have that North Star. We still don't take our shots and medicines. We still don't take every word a doctor says as coming from God. We still know losing isn't a crime or an occasion for tragic theater.
We still know how to be alone. We still think gossip and cliques are for morons. We still feel free. We still want to live, and we do.
We still resent intrusion on our freedom, and we speak up and draw the line. We still like winning and competing. We still like achieving on our own.
We can spot self-styled messiahs at a hundred yards.
As kids, we lived in our imaginations, and we haven't forgotten how. It's part of who and what we are.
We aren't bored every twelve seconds. We can find things to do.
We don't need reassurances every day. We don't need people hovering over us. We don't need to whine and complain to get attention. We don't need endless amounts of "support."
We don't need politicians who lie to us constantly, who pretend we're stupid. We don't need ideology shoved down our throats. Our ideology is freedom. We know what it is and what it feels like, and we know no one gives it to us. It's ours to begin with. We can throw it away, but then that's on us.
If two candidates are running for office, and we don't like either one, we don't vote. We don't need to think about that very hard. It's obvious. Two idiots, two criminals? Forget it. Walk away.
We don't fawn, we don't get in other people's way. We don't think "children are the future." Every generation is a new generation. It always has been. We don't need to inject some special doctrine to pump up children. We remember what being a child is. That's enough.
When we were kids, there was no exaggerated sense of loyalty. We were independent. Now, we see what can be accomplished in the name of obligation, group-cohesion, and loyalty: crimes; imperial wars; destruction of natural rights.
It didn't take a village to raise a kid when we were young, and it doesn't take one now. That's all propaganda. It panders to people who are afraid to be what they are, who are afraid to stand up for themselves.
We don't feel it's our duty to cure every ill in the world. But it goes a lot further than that. We can see what that kind of indoctrination creates. It creates the perception of endless numbers of helpless victims. And once that's firmly entrenched, then magically, the endless parade of victims appears, ready-made. When some needs have been met, that's never enough, so other needs are born. The lowest form of hustlers sell those needs from here to the sky and beyond. They make no distinction between people who really can use help and those who are just on the make.
We didn't grow up that way. We don't fall for the con now.
When we were kids, the number of friends we had didn't matter. We didn't keep score. Nobody kept track of the count. That would have been recognized in a second as a form of insanity.
As kids, we didn't admire people simply because other people admired them. That was an unknown standard.
We were alive. That was enough. We were free. That was enough.
It still is.
When we were young, we had incredible dreams. We imagined the dreams and imagined accomplishing them. Some of us still do. Some of us still work in that direction. We haven't given up the ghost just because the world is mad.
The world needs to learn what we know. We don't need to learn what the world has been brainwashed into believing.
About the Author
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29thDistrict of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails hereor his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Cole Mellino, EcoWatch
In March, EcoWatch reported that Costa Rica powered the first 82 days of the year solely with renewable energy. Now that we're closing in on the end of the year, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced that the country ran entirely on renewables for 285 days between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17.
"We close 2015 with 99 percent clean energy!" ICE wrote on Facebook, saying that "the energy produced … in 2015 reaches 98.95 percent with renewable sources as of December 17."
"We are closing 2015 with renewable electricity milestones that have put us in the global spotlight," ICE electricity division chief Luis Pacheco told AFP.
The majority of the country's energy (75 percent) comes from hydropower, thanks to a vast river system and abundant rainfall, and the rest of its renewables come from geothermal, biomass, windand solar. Despite a very dry year, ICE said it was ahead of its renewable energy targets and Pacheco predicted that 2016 would be an even better year because a new $2.3 billion hydroelectric plant will be coming online.
The country reportedly wants to move away from its dependency on hydropower, though, and harness more of its electricity needs from geothermal and wind. It plans to retire its heavy fuel oil-powered Moin plant in 2017 and wants to move its transportation sector away from fossil fuels. The country has made all this progress, while reducing overall energy costs, which fell by 12 percent this year and the ICE expects costs to keep falling.
"The government has pledged to build an electric train which will be integrated with public buses," Gabriel Goldschmidt, regional head of infrastructure for Latin America and Caribbean at the International Finance Corporation, which is part of the World Bank, told the Huffington Post. "There is also a proposal to start replacing oil-powered cars with electric cars as part of a new bill in congress that aims to offer consumer incentives to lower the prices of these cars. This would have multiple benefits including better air quality."
Costa Rica's heavy reliance on hydropower has been criticized by some. Gary Wockner of Save the Colorado argues that hydropower is actually "one of the biggest environmental problemsour planet faces" and a "false solution" for addressing climate change.
"Hydropower has been called a 'methane factory' and 'methane bomb' that is just beginning to rear its ugly head as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that have so-far been unaccounted for in climate change discussions and analyses," Wockner said last month.
Still, the country is among the vanguard of nations around the world moving towards a 100 percent renewable energy future. Several countries have hit impressive benchmarks for renewables in just a few short years. And many places have already made the transition to fossil-fuel-free electricity. Samso in Denmark became the world's first island to go all in on renewables several years ago. Most recently, Uruguay, three U.S. cities--Burlington, Vermont;Aspen, Colorado; and Greensburg, Kansas—along with Kodiak Island, Alaska, have all made the transition.
San Diego, Vancouver, Las Vegas and other major cities around the world have pledged to go 100 percent renewable. Sweden made headlines earlier this year when it pledged to be among the first countries to go fossil free. Hawaii pledged to do so by 2045—the most ambitious standard set by a U.S. state thus far. Several other islands, including Aruba, Belize, St. Lucia, Grenada, the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and San Andres and Providencia have pledged to go 100 percent renewable, through the Ten Island Challenge, created by Richard Branson's climate group the Carbon War Room.
Greenpeace and researchers at Stanford and UC Berkeley have laid out plans for every state in the U.S. to adopt 100 percent renewables and a Greenpeace report published in September posits the world can achieve 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. Mark Jacobson, one of the researchers from Stanford, said the barriers to 100 percent clean energy are social and political, not technical or economic.
Just last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in an interview that "You could take a corner of Utah or Nevada and power the entire United States with solar power."
And, it looks as if the Paris climate conference earlier this month helped create market certainty in renewables, as fossil fuel stocks tumbled and renewable energy stocks soared. After thelandmark Paris agreement was reached, the coal industry's European lobbying associationfeared that the deal meant the sector "will be hated and vilified, in the same way that slave traders were once hated and vilified."
The Art of Living & Dying
Gary 'Z' McGee, Staff
This is Philosophy's Double-edged Sword…
"When Plato's Socrates states in the Phaedo that philosophy is melete thanatou –that is to say, an intense practice of death – he may mean not just that the object of philosophy should be to help us better cope with our mortality, but also that the one who practices philosophy should understand the risks that come with the job." –Costica Bradatan
Philosophy is a tool. Put more succinctly, philosophy is a razor. It uses questions to cut ideas. Whatever answers should arise from such questioning simply get cut by better questions. The philosopher then, is one who shaves the superfluous from their perception of reality through ever more effective, more reasonable, and more logical questioning, while also not losing their sense of imagination.
If philosophy is a razor, then Self-inflicted philosophy is a razor-sharp double-edged sword that the philosopher stabs himself with in order to achieve continual rebirth. It's a way of mythologizing personal experience, thereby transforming an otherwise mundane life into a hero's journey. An imaginative self-actualized life filled with Eudaimonia. From victim to hero to cosmic hero, the self-inflicted philosopher is ever in the throes of metanoia.
When we stab ourselves with this particular sword, we're both the hero and the villain, the jester and the wise man, the eternal child and the warrior. We're light and we're shadow, anima and animus, weaving in and out of a Sartrean being-in-itself and being-for-itself while going through the motions of vicissitude within being-for-others and being-in-fate. We're naked ape and overman, layman and master, fool and genius. We're the nadir, the apotheosis and everything in between. We are the living and the dying: judge, jury, and executioner. Wielding the double-edged sword is daring the fates. Stabbing ourselves with it is becoming one with Fate. Our ego becomes a smeared-out Ouroboros. And the only thing capable of eating it (other than itself) is our soul. Somewhere within this infinite feeding frenzy of rebirth, we discover the art of living and dying.
As Nietzsche profoundly said…
"You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?"
The Art of Living
"Suddenly you're ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you're alive and it's spectacular." –Joseph Campbell
One side of the double-edged sword of self-inflicted philosophy is life. The ultimate objective (or telos, to put it more Aristotelean) of this side of the sword is Eudaimonia, or human flourishing. Eudaimonia is a result of living well. Eudaimonia is the rapturous joy and the provident happiness, tantamount to jouissance, gained from living a life well. A life that has become an ever-moving, walking meditation. The trick, the crux, the fly in the ointment, the ultimate dilemma is, of course: how do we live our life well?
Luckily, there are giants whose shoulders we can climb upon to get some answers. Of course, these answers should never be clung to but, rather, taken into deep consideration, applied to reality as it stands, questioned to the nth degree, incorporated into a muscle memory of sorts, and then released. The key to living life well is flexible open-mindedness, the ability to turn an idea around in our minds without assuming it is the truth. AsAristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it." The more ideas of giants we're able to take into consideration, the less likely we are to get hung up on any particular idea, and the more likely we are to use probability as an Occam's razor toward higher contemplation. Like Nietzsche said, "The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind." Don't cease to be mind. Seek mindful detachment. Be mindful in one breathe, and then let it all go in the next.
But before our life can become a work of art, it must first be a work of science. That is to say, it must be based in reality in such a way that it can be continually questioned even as it goes through inevitable changes. Before we can discover the philosopher's stone, we must first accept and embrace the cornerstone. The cornerstone is reality-in-itself, the way the world is despite our opinions. The cornerstone is the bones of the universe. Once we learn how to carry the bones of the universe, that is to say, how to live in harmony with the cosmos, then we may proceed to build a life well lived.
Cultivating a life well lived is not a being but a becoming. But it is different for everyone, as we are all profoundly unique. Aristotle condensed the idea of it into a single word, Eudaimonia, but what are the right actions to take in order to flourish in such a way? I mentioned 'learning how to carry the bones of the universe' and 'standing on the shoulders of giants,' but what else is there? It seems a spiritual journey is needed in order to round out the art of living. One that tests the mind, body and soul. One that pushes our spiritual boundaries into existential horizons. One that cooks our fixed-state into a liberated free-state. One that weighs the heaviness of our heart in the crucibles of a dark night of the soul. One that forces the head of our humanity over the unforgiving abyss of our mortality.
The Art of Dying
"I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and live within… I turned away and sought the place of inner life." –C. G. Jung
The art of dying is shamanic in breadth, Jungian in scope, and Nietzchean in self-overcoming. But it's not for the faint of heart. It requires a commitment to infinite improvisation and eternal dying. Not dying in the sense that we're on our death bed, but in the sense that we are all dying. In the sense that we're closer to death with each passing day, and also that we die small-deaths throughout a lifetime. With this perspective, there is space for continual rebirth and death acts as both macro and micro scope. It's a broken compass, but it's all the more sacred because of that fact. As E. E. Cummings said, "Death is no parenthesis." Indeed, but death is an asterisk – It begs all questions, birds-eye-view poignant, as it puts all things into proper perspective.
Such questions as: how do we deal with our fear of annihilation? Do we shepherd ourselves onto the safety of the farm, where the status quo vacillates with comfort and security, despite freedom? Do we rail at fate in order to maintain our certainty or lose ourselves in the brambles twisting destiny into Chinese handcuffs? Do we stick to safe sidewalks or shoot ourselves in the daredevil foot? Do we gamble or gambol with God? Praise or murder God? Have faith in or become God? Stick to outdated definitions of God or dare to redefine God? Do we curl up comfortably within the proverbial box, or do we existentially crush out?
Making an art out of dying is both imaginatively answering such soulful questions and coming up with more imaginative questions that further test the soul. It is cultivating a declaration of interdependence. It's declaring to the universe, "I'm not dying, I'm thermodynamically disintegrating. I'm becoming one with all things." It's a friendly (or unfriendly, depending on your perspective) reminder that the whole of the universe, for billions of years, has conspired through all of its conditions to bring you up to this point: where you are able to contemplate the universe within a finite amount of time and dare to discover meaning despite your mortality.
The art of dying is also the ability to discover a good death; to seek out what's worth dying for, and to live it so passionately, so flexibly, so courageously, that death itself must adapt to it and become merely the finishing touches to the overall adventure. Death acts more as a beacon of mortality, beckoning you to live life to the fullest even as it casts its dark shadow over the expanse of your life. It is a shadow that must be reconciled, after all. Just as your own shadow must be reconciled. Such reconciliation can only occur within life (as far as we know), and so an aspect of the art of dying is getting better at shadow reconciliation. Resolve the shadow of death, settle the score with your inner shadow, and a good death will not elude you.
When it comes down to it, life in its fullest form is a series of deaths and rebirths. You let go of one phase and enter another. The art of living is cultivating these rebirths. The art of dying is cultivating these deaths. The key that turns both of these arts is the masterful ability to question to the nth degree, to keep the journey being the thing. You want Eudaimonia? You want to live life to the fullest? You want to discover a good death? Question thyself. Destroy thyself. Rebirth thyself. Repeat. Keep going. Shift all paradigms. Shake all secure foundations. Demolish all thrones and alters. Wreck yourself against infinity. As Nietzsche said, "The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously."
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.
Sayer Ji, Green Med Info
Modern science is only beginning to catch up to the wisdom of the ancients: plants possess sentience and a rudimentary form of intelligence.
Plants are far more intelligent and capable than we given them credit. In fact, provocative research from 2010 published in Plant Signaling & Behavior proposes that since they cannot escape environmental stresses in the manner of animals, they have developed a "sophisticated, highly responsive and dynamic physiology," which includes information processes such as "biological quantum computing" and "cellular light memory" which could be described as forms of plant intelligence. Titled, "Secret life of plants: from memory to intelligence," the study highlights one particular "super power" of plants indicative of their success as intelligent beings:
"There are living trees that germinated long before Jesus Christ was born. What sort of life wisdom evolved in plants to make it possible to survive and propagate for so long a time in the same place they germinated?"
According to the researchers, plants "plants actually work as a biological quantum computing device that is capable to process quantum information encrypted in light intensity and in its energy." This information processing includes a mechanism for processing memorized information. For example:
"… plants can store and use information from the spectral composition of light for several days or more to anticipate changes that might appear in the near future in the environment, for example, for anticipation of pathogen attack."
According to the study, "plants can actually think and remember."
Moreover, plant not only possess a mechanism for information gathering and processing, but appear to exercise agency or "choice" vis-à-vis different scenarios:
"… different group of chloroplasts and cells in the same leaf under identical constant and stable light, temperature and relative humidity condition have different opinion "what to do" in such conditions and tests different scenarios of possible future development."
The study also offers an explanation for why plants absorb more light energy than is needed for photosynthesis alone:
"Another possible answer to the above question is a light training of young naïve leaves. Let's imagine when young leaf or flower is emerging out of a plant, it would be nice for that leaf or flower to know about the conditions in which it is going to emerge. Older, more experienced leaves that actually are acclimated to outside conditions can train naïve emerging young leaves with the PEPS [photoelectrophysiological signaling ]and cellular light memory mechanisms. This explains why plants possess a natural capacity to absorb more light energy than that required for photosynthetic CO2 assimilation. They need this absorbed energy in excess for optimization and training of light acclimatory and immune defenses."
The authors leave us with the provocative conclusion:
Our results suggest that plants are intelligent organisms capable of performing a sort of thinking process (understood as at the same time and non-stress conditions capable of performing several different scenarios of possible future definitive responses), and capable of memorizing this training.17 Indeed leaves in the dark are able to not only "see" the light,8,34 but also are able to differently remember its spectral composition and use this memorized information to increase their Darwinian fitness."
Why is this discovery important?
There are many reasons why recognizing the sentience and intelligence of plants may have positive implications for the future of humanity. For one, it helps us all to transcend the dominant worldview that non-human life forms are best defined in strictly mechanistic terms, and that attributing a "life essence" or consciousness to them is a form of magical thinking. French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Pointy called this world view the "Great Object," namely, that everything in the universe is compromised of material objects externally related to one another, and with consciousness merely an ephemeral subjectivity found only in humans.
To the contrary, if we open ourselves to the possibility that we are all participants in an interconnected web of life, as many indigenous peoples believed and actually experienced things to be, destroying the natural world simply to serve the essentially suicidal infinite economic growth model will be identified for the insanity that it is. If we recognize, as biologist James Lovelock proposed, the Earth as a whole should be looked upon more like a self-regulating organisms (Gaia hypothesis), or as mycologist Paul Stamet envisions, that there is a fungi-based internet within the ground connecting all living things on the planet in an information-sharing network, we will be less likely to both perceive and to treat the natural world as "other" to be dominated.
Recognizing that plants, for instance, have consciousness, or that their simple presence in our environment has healing effects, reintroduces an element of wonder and mystery back into the experience of the natural world. A perfect example of this can be found in the singing plants of the sacred forest of Damanhur. Damanhurian researchers in the mid-70's reported using custom equipment to capture electromagnetic changes on the surface of leaves and roots and transforming them into audible signals. The researchers also observed that the plants learned to control their electrical responses, indicating they had some rudimentary awareness of the music they were creating. To learn more, watch the video documentary on GreenMedTV, or visit the Damanhur project website, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
About the Author
Sayer Ji is founder of Greenmedinfo.com, on the Board of Governors for the National Health Federation, and Fearless Parent, Steering Committee Member of the Global GMO Free Coalition (GGFC), a reviewer at the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine.
Cortland Pfeffer & Irwin Ozborne, Contributors
Christmas has become symbolic of all that is wrong with our society. Much like the Grinch, whose heart was three sizes too small; our hearts have diminished in size due to the culture of fear, conformity, and consumerism in which we reside. As a result, we have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas, and celebrate it in ways that are in direct opposition to its original intent.
This year, on Black Friday, I was reminded about the true meaning of Christmas. I choose not to celebrate Thanksgiving, but rather honor the Day of Mourning for our Native American brothers and sisters. I surrounded myself in nature and spent time at a cabin in small-town Western Wisconsin. The sights and sounds were serene. It was a true "silent" and "holy" night with no one around, yet I was far from being alone as I was immersed in the thriving and picturesque landscape provided by mother earth. And it was there, at the local gas station, that I re-discovered what the meaning of Christmas is really about.
Black Friday has become as much a part of the holiday season in the United States as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Families anxiously await the moment the retail stores open for those extraordinary deals, and quickly abandon their feelings of gratitude and "thanks" by indulging in competition and materialism, literally rioting, fighting with strangers for bargains as though we were fighting for our survival. Any sense of gratitude we may have tapped into are quickly banished, and consumerism takes hold once again.
I find it ironic that we published an article about the foundations of Thanksgiving last month --Celebrating Genocide: The Real Story of Thanksgiving — and were slammed by many readers for "ruining Thanksgiving". We were told that it's not a celebration of the dispossession of the American Indians, but that "the meaning has changed and it is about being thankful and having gratitude." But, while this sounds good in theory, it is not practiced. And how could it be? As a nation, we have not collectively acknowledged our nation's bloody past, much less healed the trauma it inflicted. Instead, we celebrate all that we have but ignore the genocide it took to get it. And so, the day before Thanksgiving is the second biggest drunken night of the year in America – behind only New Year's Eve. We have a meal together and give thanks, but cannot even last a full 24 hours of gratitude before reverting to type, as Black Friday deals now start at 7:00 p.m. or earlier on Thursday, the "Day of Thanksgiving."
It's hard for me to buy into the concept of a day of gratitude when it starts with a hangover and, before it even ends, we ditch our families to wrestle with over others for materialistic ends. It leads to fights, people being trampled, arrests, and even a few deaths, all in an effort to purchase "things" to provide for our families for Christmas.
This is what Christmas has become; a season of shopping, not the season of giving. It is about money, consumerism, and materialism.
The Season of Giving
The United States retail industry generated over three trillion dollars during the holidays in 2013, with the average person spending about $750 on the holiday. Additionally, 33 million evergreen conifers are purchased each year, at around $35 each, for a market of $1.16 billion in Christmas tree sales.
It is estimated by a United Nations world hunger project that it would cost approximately $30 billion per year to end world hunger. Think about that. It would take only $30 billion per year to end world hunger, and yet, through the season of giving, Americans will spend$465 billion on our own material gratification, most of which is disposable and dispensable. This is not suggesting to abolish Christmas altogether, but if every U.S. household reduced their Christmas budget by only thirty-percent and contributed that money to impoverished communities, we would meet the forecast amount to end world hunger.
Wouldn't that make a better gift? Wouldn't that make for a better Christmas story, if all the resources in the world were utilized to making a better life for everyone rather than benefiting the few? Isn't that what Christmas is about?
In fact, this is how the original story of Santa Claus arose. St. Nicholas was a monk born in the third century. He lived near modern-day Turkey and was admired for his kindness, compassion and generosity. Legends suggest that St. Nicholas gave away all of his wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. Over the years, we have created a mythical creature to symbolize this monk — Santa Claus. But, instead of going around and donating his wealth to the poor, our modern-day Santa Claus runs a foreign sweatshop that works around the clock to deliver material items to the world's richest nations.
Living in a Material World
As a child, I remember this holiday used to be about sharing love, giving, and caring for one another. I have seen this idea evaporate as the years have passed, and I refuse to further participate in this distortion. So, this Black Friday, while millions were out searching for bargains, I found my own bargain – peace and tranquility, for free.
I find the word "bargain" quite ironic when talking about retail prices. One must realize that these really are not the great deals that are advertised; the standard retail markup is astronomical, and much of the goods sold on Black Friday are produced and priced specifically for these "sales". Many United States corporations employ workers in sweatshops in countries like Bangladesh, India, China, Haiti, etc., paying far below minimum wages to people working in deplorable working conditions – typically 14-16 hours per day for seven days per week. It costs pennies to make these products, which attract massive markups that provide enormous profits for these corporations and their CEOs.
Here are the top ten annual salaries paid to the CEOs of retail corporations in the United States (as of 2013):
The total? Over $180 million paid to just 10 retail executives.
Don't kid yourself into thinking retailers are taking a loss on Black Friday sales — it is their most profitable day of the year.
The Symbolism of Modern Christmas
Christmas is not a complete lie, we just need to understand that it has to do with symbolism. Santa Claus no longer has anything to do with St. Nicholas or helping the sick and needy. Santa Claus now represents the fat and jolly CEOs distributing merchandise around the world. The elves symbolize submissive sweatshop workers that get paid next to nothing, to provide your annual haul of material possessions. (Perhaps the reason they are so small in stature is because they represent the 10 year olds working 16 hours per day to provide wealth for their respective Santa Claus.)
Then, we tell children Santa delivers only to the "good" girls and boys, creating further separation. Again, it is symbolic — in actuality, only those children who have money and wealth receive gifts. How do you explain to a child in poverty that he did not get gift this year? By this mythical logic, poor children learn that they are "bad" children because Santa did not bring him gifts.
This tale of Christmas we share is a stark contrast to the true story of St. Nicholas. The real St. Nicholas was a kind, charitable bishop who made sacrifices to help those in need. Today, Christmas is a celebration that revolves around fulfilling greed, not need, at the expense of the poor.
The problem of sweatshop labor sporadically pops up in the news, but it has never gone away; we just selectively decide when we want to pay attention. It was all over the news in the 1990s with Nike and Gap found to have 10-13 year old kids working as slave in their sweatshops, earning those companies record profits. Every few years, there is a story on the slave labor that produces the clothes we wear. Then the corporation tells us they have looked into things and have made changes. Yet, just a few years ago a factory collapsed in Bangladesh killing thousands of people and we come to find that Walmart, Gap, Target, etc. were all having clothing made at these factories. If that had happened in the West, what kind of furor would have followed? But the public outrage over the torturous conditions it takes to make our consumer goods is quickly forgotten once we see the "great deals" on Black Friday and begin preparing for another Christmas consumer-fest. We forget what is real and important, and revert instead to societal patterns, consuming faster than any nation on earth, just because "Christmas time is here again."
How did we get here? Through mass marketing schemes and the manipulation of human nature. We are collectively a group of people watching television, listening to the radio or surfing the internet, and the marketers simply pay money for air time — time in our minds — to tell people (particularly children) what they "need". In true marketing fashion, the message they convey is: You're not okay, but once you have these items, then you will be okay. It is based on fear, simultaneously creating a sense of lack in consumers and providing a way to temporarily 'fill' it.
A quote from Marilyn Manson says it all:
[T]he media wants to take it and spin it, and turn it into fear, because then you're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, "buy the Acura", "buy the Colgate", if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to f**k you… It's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume'.
The Christian Connection
The real genius-work behind this big façade is the connection between Christmas and Christianity. This too, stems from fear. We remind our children all year that if you are good then you will spend eternity in the clouds with a God, a nice old man who knows all, sees all and judges all… Or, if you are bad, you will burn in a pit of fire with a horrid man with horns. This patriarchal symbolism is then extended at Christmas time, when children are told that if they are good, a magical man from the North Pole who, just like God already knows if you've been "naughty or nice", will deliver presents to them, rewarding their conformity to increasingly out-of-touch religious standards.
We instill this relationship between God, kindness and consumption into our children's minds when they are impressionable — at a time in their development in which they believe it is true --with lasting impacts on their perception of the world.
Then, we plop our kids on Santa's lap to place an order, listing out all of the things they want, then send them to school where they learn that those who do not participate in this ritual will not receive presents — and they become the social outcasts each December. After all, only "bad" kids don't receive a visit from Santa Claus! When all is said and done, unspoken pressure to adapt to the model of goodness=gifts is put on children by television and media, by their parents and their society, and is subsequently reinforced by their peers — a cycle that now continues from generation to generation in an increasingly materialistic society.
I'm all for bringing joy and wonder to the lives of children, but is this really the only way we know to do it?
And all this in a so called "Christian nation." Speak to any Christian at Christmas time and they will say, "What? You don't believe in Jesus? You don't want to celebrate this man who preached love and acceptance?"
My answer is No.
The bastardized Christian interpretation of "God" and the son "He" sacrificed due to our inherently "sinful" nature, has manipulated generations of humanity — and it is the foundation of this day's celebrations. Love and acceptance are not what Christmas is about today, nor is it the function of organized religion in our modern world.
The father-figure God is dead. He has to be, in order for us to move forward. This interpretation of God has done more harm than good. It is a fairy tale that causes fear in children, has caused countless wars to be fought, and has caused many folks to keep secrets in shame rather than live their lives openly, as they are (religious intolerance of divorce and homosexuality are prime examples).
As George Carline once eloquently stated:
"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it, religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man… living in the sky… who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten special things that he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time… but he loves you… He loves you and he needs money. He always needs money! He is all powerful, all perfect, all knowing, and all wise. Somehow he just can't handle money! Religions take in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more."
Many of the patrons inside the church that stand so faithfully behind their doctrines of unconditional love and kindness, are the same ones who walk out the church and instantly abandon these teachings; the same people who use religious scripture as leverage to judge, condemning others in the name of "the Lord"; the same people who complain about the poor receiving "handouts" while building million dollar churches that don't pay a dime in taxes, while the poor go on without food or shelter. Several religious pastors have proven this hypocrisy among their own congregations…
In June of 2013, newly appointed pastor of Sango United Methodist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, reverend Willie Lyle spent four days disguised as a homeless man living on the streets. He wanted to see what it was like to truly live without anything and see who would offer food and assistance. Then, he transformed back into the role as pastor to address his the congregation:
"Too many of us want to serve God one hour each week. That doesn't cut it. That is not God's plan."
Similarly, in November of 2013, Mormon bishop David Musselman posed as a homeless man outside a Taylorsville, Utah church one Sunday morning. At least five people asked him to leave the church property, some offered money but engaged him only as a charity case (not a fellow human being), and many were completely indifferent to his presence. He addressed the congregation, reminding them not to be so quick to judge one another.
"Many actually went out of their way to purposely ignore me, and they wouldn't even make eye contact," he said, "I'd approach them and say, 'Happy Thanksgiving.' Many of them I wouldn't ask for any food or any kind of money, and their inability to even acknowledge me was very surprising."
Saving Christmas
Spending my Black Friday in this small town, it occurred to me how I am forced to conform. Regardless of my beliefs, it is impossible for me to neglect Christmas; for if I were to not purchase my children presents then they would feel that I do not love them. I was really conflicted with this scenario as I pulled up to the gas station and noticed a woman struggling to carry a few turkeys and other groceries in a pull cart. It allowed me to reflect on some of my religious upbringings from the past. While people literally would put on their "Sunday Best" before walking into church to bow, chant, hug, and love each other, we were really just putting on an show for each other. We all put on our masks and went through the routines of Christianity, dressed up to the nines and all on our best behavior. But, once we walk out of the church, if we were to see a woman such as this, would we help her? Generally not. We would be encouraged not to do anything, because they were likely to scam us out of money, or harm us, and her struggle is her problem, not mine.
This is how extreme our society has become. We don't consider the problems (or successes) of others to be our problem, and are afraid to actually stop and help a stranger, in fact the very word "stranger" has become loaded with assumptions of "danger" — something we teach our children from the youngest of ages. As a result, we are guided by fear rather than love, living in separation instead of our natural instinctual reaction — to connect.
This is where spirituality differs from religion. Spirituality is about finding a connection to the world both inside and outside of ourselves, finding a sense of purpose and meaning, and living in harmony with the present moment and our surroundings. Spirituality teaches us that we are all one, interconnected expression of life, and that at our true core, there is only unconditional love.
Religion was initially based on human spirituality, but it has steered it toward rules, judgement and separation. It is meant to offer all of the above. In fact, if you look into the basic teachings at the foundation of all religions, you will find this exact same message. However, as these messages have been misinterpreted and misappropriated throughout the years, we have slowly come to accept the opposite message of religious institutions. They create separation and judgment, of each other and of our own fundamental nature, which is the opposite of its intent – much like Christmas.
As explained by Don Migeul Ruiz:
There is an old story from India about the God, Brahma, who was alone. Nothing existed but Brahma, and he was completely bored. Brahma decided to play a game, but there was no one to play the game with. So he created a beautiful goddess, Maya, just for the purpose of having fun. Once Maya existed and Brahma told her the purpose of her existence, she said, "Okay, let's play the most wonderful game, but you do what I tell you to do." Brahma agreed and following Maya's instructions, he created the whole universe, the sun and the stars, the moon and the planets. He created life on earth: the animals, the oceans, the atmosphere, everything.
Maya said, "How beautiful is this world of illusion you created. Now I want you to create an animal that is so intelligent and aware that it can appreciate your own creation." Finally Brahma created humans, and after he finished the creation, he asked Maya when the game was going to start.
"We will start right now," she said. She took Brahma and cut him into thousands of teeny, tiny pieces. She put a piece inside every human and said, "Now the game begins! I am going to make you forget what you are, and you are going to try and find yourself!" Maya created the Dream and still, even today, Brahma is trying to remember who he is. When you awake from the Dream, you become Brahma again and reclaim your divinity. You now know the trick of Maya and can share the truth with others who are going to wake up too.
This story explains how we are to find ourselves, and find God, in every person we encounter. We don't do this buy purchasing items at a store, or showing our goodwill for a few designated days of the year, but by helping those in need and showing unconditional love to each soul we encounter, every day of the year. Especially those who need our love — not our judgment — the most.
As all these thoughts were going through my mind, my friend came out of the store and started speaking with the elderly woman. As they continued to chat, I got out of the car to see what was going on. As I approached them, I noticed the woman's wheel on her pull cart was missing. "We are giving her a ride home," my friend told me without asking. She never hesitated, she saw an opportunity and did the right thing without thinking or judging. We packed her bags into the car and drove her about another mile to her house. It was a very cold day and her bags were awfully heavy. There is no way she would have been able to make it that far on her own. Many people saw her, but no one did anything — all because of fear and the sense of separation it creates.
I was overcome with emotion, and was told by my friend not to talk about it. She said "that is just what we should do, so I do it." I thought that is so true and so simple. We should do what we should do. Yet, no one seems to do this — and I am not excluding myself! It is a social conditioning I am working to deconstruct even to this day. But it reminded me of the difference between being guided by fear, not love. As John Lennon said:
"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."
This is the real meaning of life. This is the real meaning of Christmas. To help, to give, to be with others and to love unconditionally. It doesn't have to be some big act.
"People who move mountains begin by carrying away small stones."
Christmas — and life — is about helping the lady struggling with her groceries. It is about loving each other on a daily basis. It is about calling your parents, family, and friends and just being there for anyone and everyone. If we treated everyone like they were a piece of God, not just there to bejudged by God, then maybe then we would behave differently.
It doesn't matter what we call our God, it is all the same. It is similar to the story of nine blind men that were all reaching out and touching an elephant. Each of the men were touching a different part of the elephant and describing what they felt. One is touching the elephant's leg and says "it is a tree"; another is touching its tail and says "it is a rope"; another is touching its trunk and says "it is a snake"; another it touching a tusk and says "It is a spear"; another is touching its body and says "it is a wall". However, they are all touching the same elephant. Imagine if they all fought and killed each other over this argument. How ridiculous that would be? They are all blind, and they are all correct. They are merely fighting over their perspective — the same way humanity fights wars over who is right about religion. Is it possible we are all right? And we are all wrong? The foundational stories and principles of religions can all be boiled down to a mutual essence that reveals their common origins. And although people frequently get caught up with the literal differences, their central tenets are proof that – despite varying 'faiths' – we are more alike than we are different.
And yet, we are told we need "this" God or "that" God in our lives to survive. In reality, the opposite is true. For it is these perceptions of God, and our attempts to define God, that are leading us to kill each other, to undervalue our divinity and that of others, to destroy the world that supports us for short-term comforts, and to celebrate the holidays with a festival of gross over-consumption. In order to survive, we need to remove the mask of God and remove the mask of Christmas, and return to its natural foundation. As author Jack Adam Weber succinctly described:
Christmas marks the return of the sun after the winter solstice — the resurrection of light and the perseverance of unconditional love (symbolized by birth of Jesus) which nature manifests each year in the new life and returning warmth of springtime, from the desolate depths of winter.
In order to save Christmas, let us celebrate the unconditional love of the cycle of life itself, which renews itself at this time each year.
How the Grinch Saved Christmas
While the children's story claims the Grinch stole Christmas, it is clear he did the opposite. He saw the true meaning of Christmas and put an end to the charade. While his means were extreme, by stealing all the presents he learned that the real meaning of Christmas had nothing to do with exchanging gifts, but exchanging love.
In this story, the Grinch was not the bad guy, he was a catalyst. He was a revolutionary but was misguided with fear, which led to his extreme actions. But the mindset he confronted was actually the problem. Once all the gifts were gone, the masks were removed, the focus on consumption and acquisition shifted, everyone lived together in harmony.
In the real world, Wall Street, organized religions, media, corporations, and the governments that serve them, have "stolen" Christmas by hijacking the holiday and changing its meaning. Originally a celebration of St. Nicholas who gave up all material wealth to help those in need, the title was co-opted and its meaning slowly turned into a festival of greed, consumerism and patriarchal judgement. Today, only the name remains.
While the story of the Grinch is fictional, its lesson is real. In order to heal, and make Christmas a sustainable part of our culture, we must change the way we celebrate it. Let's each of us be that Grinch, and take consumerism out of the Christmas mythology. Let's steal back this holiday and remember its true meaning — a celebration of life.
About the Authors
Cortland Pfeffer founded Taking The Mask Off in 2014 to help shine a light on the mental health industry (as well as other areas of our society that are shrouded in deceit and misinformation). Sharing insider perspectives and real life stories that have been gathered over 20 years in the field, Cortland (a pen-name) is a psychiatric Registered Nurse who was himself once a patient in psychiatric hospitals, jails, and treatment centers. He now wishes to share his experiences with others, and has recently made several public speaking appearances. Cortland can be contacted for speaking engagements through Facebook.com/takingthemaskoff.
An avid historian, Irwin Ozborne (a pen-name) is a survivor of childhood abuse and torture over a period of 13 years, and a recovered alcoholic. As a mental health practitioner, today Irwin practices holistic care and incorporates eastern philosophy into his work with clients. He is available for speaking engagements as well, and can be contacted via email: firstname.lastname@example.com. Please visit www.takingthemaskoff.com.
Makia Freeman, Contributor
A false flag formula is becoming readily apparent in the face of so many mass shootings and bombings in the US. The phenomenon has become so commonplace in the last 3 years that it's becoming more American than apple pie. According to ShootingTracker.com, there have been 353 mass shootings in the USA for 2015 so far. However, as scary as that number is, the good news is that you don't have to be afraid of them like you may think. A very large number of them – and all of them with any mass media significance and attention – are false flag staged terror events.
Some have real victims, some do not, but either way, the most criminal of all institutions – the Government – is the orchestrating force behind them. They are scripted, pre-planned operations which are definitely not the result of random gun violence. Just as Obama stated (by hiding the truth in plain sight), there is a pattern behind these mass shootings. The Controllers are following a definitefalse flag formula. Below is a list of the top 15 elements of this formula, which you can now use to detect a false flag operation as it occurs:
False Flag Formula #1: Drill at the Same or Nearby Time and Place
The exercise or drill – at the same time, at the same place – has became the sine non qua or indispensable element of the recent false flag operation. Sometimes there are slight variations on this when the Government plans a drill nearby (a few miles away) rather than at the exact place, or plans a drill earlier on in the day, so it can just coincidentally "go live". There was a twist in the case of the recent San Bernardino shooting: the Government planned regular drills in the building where the shooting took place every month! (Think about it – what are the chances of a real mass shooting occurring in a building used for mass shooting drills?)
As Captain Eric H. May, a former US Army military intelligence officer, stated:
"The easiest way to carry out a false flag attack is by setting up a military exercise that simulates the very attack you want to carry out."
In the case of 9/11, there were no less than 46 drills occurring simultaneously during the event, according to Webster Tarpley, author of Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. In the case of the London 7/7 bombings, Peter Power admitted on radio that he was leading a team who were training for that exact scenario when it unfolded! There were active shooter drills in all of the false flag attacks ofSandy Hook, Boston Marathon, Charleston, San Bernardino, the Norway attack, the 2nd Paris attack of 2015 and many many more.
What's the point of having a drill at the same time and place? Here are a few of its purposes:
False Flag Formula #2: Foreknowledge
Another way you can tell that a mass shooting is a false flag op is if you find proof of foreknowledgeof the event. As it so happens, all of the notorious and publicized mass attacks of late have had evidence of foreknowledge. Going way back in time, there was foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 that got the US into World War 2. There were many aspects of foreknowledge on 9/11, including the BBC reporting WTC7 falling before it actually did, and mysterious calls to people like author Salman Rushdie and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown advising them not to fly to NYC on Sept. 11th. Sandy Hook had blatant foreknowledge (with various webpages put up days before the event), as did the Boston Marathon.
False Flag Formula #3: Eyewitnesses Have Conflicting Accounts
You can also spot a likely false flag operation when you see or hear of multiple conflicting witness accounts. In the case of the Aurora Colorado "Batman" mass shooting, eyewitnesses claimed they saw an entire team of shooters, rather than the single shooter James Holmes of the official narrative. With Sandy Hook, we saw multiple scenes of law enforcement chasing men into the surrounding forest, yet the official narrative declares the only shooter was Adam Lanza. In San Bernardino too, witnesses stated they saw 3 white athletic men, not the 2 brown husband-and-wife team we were told did the shooting.
Conflicting eyewitness accounts can destroy the official narrative no matter what the detail is. On 9/11, various fireman told us there were bombs in the building, contradicting the official story that planes alone took down the Twin Towers. With Sandy Hook, Gene Rosen's testimony itself was full of holes and was contradicted by that of the school bus driver and the official report.
False Flag Formula #4: MSM Quickly Name and Demonize the Patsy
Have you ever wondered how quickly the MSM (Mainstream Media) discovers the name of the patsy? They had somehow deduced that Osama bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 just hours after the attacks. Have you ever wondered why the Government is so good at telling us who supposedly executed these attacks right after they happen, with almost no time to investigate, yet can't seem to manage to actually stop these alleged terror attacks? Without any evidence, the MSM endlessly repeated "bin Laden" like a crazy mantra after 9/11, despite the fact bin Laden himself denied involvement in the attacks and that in the end he was never formally charged by the FBI. Have you ever wondered why many of the patsies, or sorry, deranged mass shooters, are Muslim? That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the Zionist Government and MSM are trying to paint all Muslims as crazy and scary, would it? Nothing like a good dose of Islamophobia to take your freedom away …
False Flag Formula #5: Patsy Has No Military Training, Yet Shoots Extremely Fast and Accurately
Another element of the false flag formula is theskilled and lethal patsy. According to the official narrative of false flag ops like Sandy Hook and Aurora, we are supposed to believe that skinny and non-muscular youths, without any discernible military training, were able to acquire expensive military gear (including armor, guns, ammunition and more), wear that gear without getting bogged down in speed, and shoot incredibly fast and accurately. In San Bernardino, we are supposed to believe that a young mother was strong and skilled enough to participate in killing 14 and injuring 17 people while she was strapped up with body armor and holding heavy weaponry! In these cases and more, the official story would have you believe that it's no big deal or just a coincidence that the patsy can acquire all this high-end gear and use it so well.
False Flag Formula #6: Patsy Gets Killed, Drugged or "Suicided"
It is also part of the false flag formula to ensure that the patsy, who is earmarked before the event to take the fall, cannot speak out to rationally defend themselves. This is achieved in a number of ways. The simplest is to have the patsy kill himself or herself by committing "suicide". Another favorite way is to take the patsy out in a thrilling high speed chase, which has the added benefit of drawing clueless people in through the MSM and gushingly promoting the police state. Sometimes a patsy is killed in plain sight, just because it's so important to suppress his testimony (e.g. Lee Oswald in the JFK assassination). A third way is to mind control and drug the patsy to such an extent that they become a zombie vegetable unable to articulate anything, as was the case with James Holmes.
False Flag Formula #7: Shooter Leaves Manifesto
In this day and age, writing a manifesto is a strange and anachronistic thing to do. Yet, for some strange reason, shooter's manifestos seem to crop up an awful lot after mass shootings. Conveniently for the Controllers, these manifestos provide a perfect explanation for the official narrative, and help fill in the missing (non-existent) motive for the attack – which probably pushes those on the fence over into believing the Government's version of the event. While the manifesto is not an element in every false flag operation, it is present in enough of them to be regarded as part of the false flag formula.
False Flag Formula #8: Evidence Gets Conveniently Destroyed
Another element of the false flag formula is the deliberate destruction of evidence, so that the Controllers can cover their tracks. In 9/11, the scrap metal (in the smoldering ruins of the WTC towers) was immediately shipped off to China right from the start; with Sandy Hook, the entire school was demolished; in San Bernardino, the supposed landlord of the supposed shooters actually allowed MSM reporters into the suspects' house to poke around and touch all their stuff, in complete disregard for what could be a possible crime scene! Could it get any more blatant?
False Flag Formula #9: No Obvious Motive for the Mass Attack
Have you ever wondered why there is no obvious motive in any of these mass shootings? Crimes are supposed to be solved on the merit of motive and opportunity, yet to hide the reality of a false flag op, the MSM just lies about the motive part, and chalks it up to a deranged shooter. Other times we are offered the flimsiest of motives, such as people going on an all-out rampage because they had a grievance with a co-worker. In San Bernardino, we were told the young mother, with a 1 year old child, was aggressive and psychotic enough to help kill 14 and injure 17 people – at the risk of never seeing her child again! Meanwhile, the real purveyors of these operations profit immensely from the ensuing fear, yet somehow the majority of people don't seem to see that motive …
False Flag Formula #10: Immediate Calls for Gun Control
Gun control is obviously one of the key agendas behind all of these false flag mass shootings, since a disarmed population is far easier to exploit and manipulate than an armed one. It is an obvious aspect of the false flag formula. Sometimes gun control is even pushed in the immediate aftermath of the event when people are still in a highly emotional and suggestible state. Take a look at the behavior of Andy Parker, who we were told was the father of a victim killed in the Virginia mass shooting of 2015. Within hours of hearing the news of the death of his child, Parker had already contacted and talked with the Governor of Virginia, and then appeared on TV saying he would be devoting his entire life to gun control. In a similar fashion, Richard Martinez, the alleged father of a Santa Barbara mass hooting victim, appeared on TV right after the death angrily pleading for more gun control. In both cases, the political agenda of gun control angrily dominated their reactions, rather than grief or other emotions.
False Flag Formula #11: Fake "Victims" = Crisis Actors
The above 10 points are a useful outline of the false flag formula as it pertains to mass shootings with real victims, i.e. where real people die. However, ever since the surreal Sandy Hook event, which still contains many unanswered questions, we have entered the twilight zone of the false flag hoax. This is a term used to describe the false flag mass attacks where no one dies – where fake bodies, fake blood and fake victims are used instead. In this way, the entire operation is more tightly controlled and less messy. A hallmark of the false flag hoax is that the authorities never produce a credible piece of evidence showing an actual dead body of a victim
The following 5 points relate to false flag hoaxes, and specifically to the people employed to pull them off – crisis actors. It is truly a testament to just how utterly fake our normal world is (the Matrix) that false flag ops have now descended to the level where we have to question whether the event even happened at all. There are organizations of crisis actors in the US (such as the IIF), and there is clear evidence crisis actors were used at Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon and many others. Government officials have been caught using the word "actor" to describe various players in these dramas; the MSM has even resorted to calling them actors too (it was one of the buzzwords of the recentSan Bernardino mass shooting).
False Flag Formula #12: "Victims" Get Killed Twice
The surreal quality of the false flag hoax reached point of absurdity when it was discovered that one of the "victims" was reportedly killed twice! We were told that Noah Pozner was one of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, yet his picture was also among those killed in a Pakistan Taliban attack. Apparently the recycling of fake victims is another part of the false flag formula.
False Flag Formula #13: Families of "Victims" Have Elite or Acting Backgrounds
Is it just a coincidence that the families of mass shooting "victims" have either elite or acting backgrounds? At the Sandy Hook event, local CEO of the Newtown bank John Trentacosta (whose house was next to the Lanzas and had a lot of unusual activity occurring there the day of Sandy Hook) was connected to the New York Federal Reserve (and thus the international banking elite). Francine Wheeler was formerly the personal assistant of former chief Democratic National Committee fundraiser Maureen White whose husband Steven Rattner is a Wall Street investment banker and member of the Rockefeller CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)!
It was also noteworthy at Sandy Hook how acting showed up in the resumes of so many of the key players there. Gene Rosen, David and Francine Wheeler (both professional actors) and others all had a background in acting. Father of Virginia mass shooting "victim" Andy Parker is an actor (and a politician too). This fact supports the idea that another element of the false flag formula is to watch for people with elite connections and acting backgrounds.
False Flag Formula #14: Families of "Victims" Show Little to No Emotion, and Even Snigger and Laugh
Luckily for truth seekers, the majority of crisis actors used in these false flag events are poor actors who are utterly unconvincing in the roles they play. The majority display little or no emotion after an alleged tragedy like losing a family member child to a random and violent mass shooting. It is true that humans do vary widely with emotional response and expression. However, with many of the crisis actors, judging by their reactions, it simply strains credibility too much to believe that they have just have been through a harrowing and traumatic ordeal. Given the range of possible reaction to a tragedy like losing a loved one in a mass shooting, what are the chances that many of the "victims'" family members are so non-emotional, or so understanding, or so quick to forgive?
It's shameful enough that the crisis actors playing these roles are perpetrating a monumental deception on the public, tugging at the average person's heartstrings solely to trick them. However, on top of that, these actors have the gall to actually laugh – to smile, snigger and giggle – while pulling off their atrocious stunts. The only conclusion to draw from this is that it must be pretty funny to get a paid gig like this fooling millions of people …
False Flag Formula #15: Families of "Victims" Receive Millions in Federal Payoffs
In the US, the land of the lawsuit, people are generally pretty fast to initiate a lawsuit if they feel they have been wronged. It is highly strange, therefore, that none of the alleged parents of the Sandy Hook event decided to sue the Government for negligence or to demand redress for any other grievance. Additionally, many of the alleged parents received a total of millions in unsolicited federal payouts (check out the free houses they magically got on Christmas day 2009) – that's right, unsolicited. The Federal Government just gave it over to them without asking! Ask yourself: is is more likely the Government would just do this out of the goodness of its heart, or that the money was more like a bribe/blackmail/payout all rolled into one, awarded to actors playing a part in a role and being sworn to silence?
Conclusion: Use the 15 Elements of the False Flag Formula to Be More Aware
These are 15 elements I noticed forming the false flag formula. There may well be more. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. Meanwhile, use the knowledge you have of the false flag formula to become more aware, wise and hip to the deception, so that the next time it unfolds (as it surely will), you will be among those that spot the fakery, rather than among those who are too scared, shell-shocked and gullible to do anything other than buy the official narrative.
About the Author
Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the global conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.
Alex Pietrowski, Staff
The business model for bringing lucrative new pharmaceutical drugs to market includes very robust marketing budgets, and 9 out of 10 pharmaceutical companies spend more on advertising than they do on research. And why not? Americans spend an average of $1000 per person, per year onpharmaceutical drugs, and the effort to capture these dollars is leading more companies to fast track or even fabricate the research involved in bringing a new drug to market.
Here's a look at how much the largest pharmaceutical companies spent on marketing vs. expenditures on research and development in 2013:
The push to push drugs on the American people is heavily dependent on the ability to produce favorable research that backs any and all claims that marketing departments wish to make about the drug in order for it to stand out in the competitive field of retail drug sales. Thanks to the admissions of some of the most influential people in this industry, we are now discovering that much of the research being presented in support of many new drugs, vaccines and procedures is fake, and even leading medical journals are agreeing that big pharma manipulates medical research at the expense of public health.
Consider the following statements and admissions by very important people who are close enough to the inner workings of the industry to know for sure just how bad the public is being deceived.
In 2015, the editor of one of the world's most respected medical journals, The Lancet, went public with his admission that research fraud was rampant in the field of medical clinical research:
"Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness." – Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the world's most respected medical journal, The Lancet
Furthermore, Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal, which is also one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, shared a similar opinion:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine." –Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal
Public statements like these from some of the world's most influential medical journals has not triggered any type of official investigation or regulatory response, proving that it is up to consumers to approach this industry with caution. Even cancer research is being exposed as manipulated, and several prominent physicians have come forth to express their concern that cancer organizations are producing cherry-picked research in order to make their medications or procedures seem like better, safer, and more viable options than they really are.
"Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organisations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them." –Linus Pauling, Ph.D
20 year veteran of the National Cancer Institute and former journal editor, Dr. John Bailer spoke to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and stated:
"My overall assessment is that the national cancer program must be judged a qualified failure. Our whole cancer research in the past 20 years has been a total failure." –Dr. John Bailer
The following clip is from the documentary 'One More Girl,' about the startlingly damaging effects of the Gardasil vaccine. In the clip, former Pfizer Vice President, Dr. Peter Rost candidly discusses the truth about the influence of money in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Rost wrote the book, The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman to contribute to the growing body of evidence that blows the whistle on corporate fraud within the medical establishment.
Dependence on so-called clinical research to support the claims made by pharmaceutical marketing departments is proving to be dangerously misled. Can the public trust the medical establishment to bring effective and safe medicines to market? Increasingly, the evidence is suggesting that it is not.
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and Offgrid Outpost, a provider of storable food and emergency kits. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
This article (Pharmaceutical Marketing Supported by Deceitful Clinical Research) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
Isaac Davis, Staff
"I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one." -President Theodore Roosevelt
The American public and the world have long since been warned of the dangers of allowing the military industrial complex to become such an integral part of our economic survival. The United States is the self-proclaimed angel of democracy in the world, but just as George Orwell warned, war is the health of the state, and in the language of newspeak, democracy is the term we use to hide the reality of the nature of our warfare state.
In truth, the United States of America has been engaged in some kind of war during 218 out of the nation's total 239 years of existence. Put another way, in the entire span of US history, this country has only experienced 21 years without conflict. For a sense of perspective on this sobering statistic, consider these 4 facts about the history of US involvement in military conflict:
As the world moves closer and closer to an official beginning to world war III, and as many people are seeking opportunities to de-escalate the situation in the Middle East, it is important to realize that the US state and the American people are simply not equipped or conditioned to pursue and realize peace. War is indeed the health of our state.
Here is a year-by-year timeline of America's involvement in military conflict, as compiled by Danios of Loonwatch.com. It is noted that this list is not exhaustive, but rather a compilation of events that fit the definition of 'war,' excluding acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing such as were carried out against Native American populations during the establishment of the empire, and also excluding foreign interventions by America's covert security agencies such as the CIA :
Year-by-year Timeline of America's Major Wars (1776-2011)
1776 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamagua Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War
1777 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Second Cherokee War, Pennamite-Yankee War
1778 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1779 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1780 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1781 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1782 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1783 – American Revolutionary War, Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War
1784 – Chickamauga Wars, Pennamite-Yankee War, Oconee War
1785 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1786 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1787 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1788 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1789 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1790 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1791 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1792 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1793 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1794 – Chickamauga Wars, Northwest Indian War
1795 – Northwest Indian War
1796 – No major war
1797 – No major war
1798 – Quasi-War
1799 – Quasi-War
1800 – Quasi-War
1801 – First Barbary War
1802 – First Barbary War
1803 – First Barbary War
1804 – First Barbary War
1805 – First Barbary War
1806 – Sabine Expedition
1807 – No major war
1808 – No major war
1809 – No major war
1810 – U.S. occupies Spanish-held West Florida
1811 – Tecumseh's War
1812 – War of 1812, Tecumseh's War, Seminole Wars, U.S. occupies Spanish-held Amelia Island and other parts of East Florida
1813 – War of 1812, Tecumseh's War, Peoria War, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in West Florida
1814 – War of 1812, Creek War, U.S. expands its territory in Florida, Anti-piracy war
1815 – War of 1812, Second Barbary War, Anti-piracy war
1816 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1817 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1818 – First Seminole War, Anti-piracy war
1819 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1820 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1821 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)
1822 – Anti-piracy war (see note above)
1823 – Anti-piracy war, Arikara War
1824 – Anti-piracy war
1825 – Yellowstone Expedition, Anti-piracy war
1826 – No major war
1827 – Winnebago War
1828 – No major war
1829 – No major war
1830 – No major war
1831 – Sac and Fox Indian War
1832 – Black Hawk War
1833 – Cherokee Indian War
1834 – Cherokee Indian War, Pawnee Indian Territory Campaign
1835 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War
1836 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Missouri-Iowa Border War
1837 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Second Creek War, Osage Indian War, Buckshot War
1838 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars, Buckshot War, Heatherly Indian War
1839 – Cherokee Indian War, Seminole Wars
1840 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade Fiji Islands
1841 – Seminole Wars, U.S. naval forces invade McKean Island, Gilbert Islands, and Samoa
1842 – Seminole Wars
1843 – U.S. forces clash with Chinese, U.S. troops invade African coast
1844 – Texas-Indian Wars
1845 – Texas-Indian Wars
1846 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars
1847 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars
1848 – Mexican-American War, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War
1849 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians
1850 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, California Indian Wars, Pitt River Expedition
1851 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars
1852 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, California Indian Wars
1853 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Utah Indian Wars, Walker War, California Indian Wars
1854 – Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians
1855 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Cayuse War, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Yakima War, Winnas Expedition, Klickitat War, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay
1856 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Puget Sound War, Rogue River Wars, Tintic War
1857 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Utah War, Conflict in Nicaragua
1858 – Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Mohave War, California Indian Wars, Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War, Utah War, U.S. forces invade Fiji Islands and Uruguay
1859 Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, California Indian Wars, Pecos Expedition, Antelope Hills Expedition, Bear River Expedition, John Brown's raid, U.S. forces launch attack against Paraguay, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1860 – Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Paiute War, Kiowa-Comanche War
1861 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign
1862 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Dakota War of 1862,
1863 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Southwest Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Goshute War
1864 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Cheyenne Campaign, Colorado War, Snake War
1865 – American Civil War, Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Colorado War, Snake War, Utah's Black Hawk War
1866 – Texas-Indian Wars, Navajo Wars, Apache Wars, California Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah's Black Hawk War, Red Cloud's War, Franklin County War, U.S. invades Mexico, Conflict with China
1867 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah's Black Hawk War, Red Cloud's War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, U.S. troops occupy Nicaragua and attack Taiwan
1868 – Texas-Indian Wars, Long Walk of the Navajo, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Snake War, Utah's Black Hawk War, Red Cloud's War, Comanche Wars, Battle of Washita River, Franklin County War
1869 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah's Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War
1870 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah's Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War
1871 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Utah's Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Franklin County War, Kingsley Cave Massacre, U.S. forces invade Korea
1872 – Texas-Indian Wars, Apache Wars, Utah's Black Hawk War, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Franklin County War
1873 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Modoc War, Apache Wars, Cypress Hills Massacre, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1874 – Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Red River War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1875 – Conflict in Mexico, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche Wars, Eastern Nevada, Mason County War, Colfax County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1876 – Texas-Indian Wars, Black Hills War, Mason County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1877 – Texas-Indian Wars, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Black Hills War, Nez Perce War, Mason County War, Lincoln County War, San Elizario Salt War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1878 – Paiute Indian conflict, Bannock War, Cheyenne War, Lincoln County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1879 – Cheyenne War, Sheepeater Indian War, White River War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1880 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1881 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1882 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1883 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1884 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1885 – Apache Wars, Eastern Nevada Expedition, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1886 – Apache Wars, Pleasant Valley War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1887 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1888 – U.S. show of force against Haiti, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1889 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1890 – Sioux Indian War, Skirmish between 1st Cavalry and Indians, Ghost Dance War, Wounded Knee, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1891 – Sioux Indian War, Ghost Dance War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1892 – Johnson County War, U.S. forces invade Mexico
1893 – U.S. forces invade Mexico and Hawaii
1894 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1895 – U.S. forces invade Mexico, Bannock Indian Disturbances
1896 – U.S. forces invade Mexico
1897 – No major war
1898 – Spanish-American War, Battle of Leech Lake, Chippewa Indian Disturbances
1899 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1900 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1901 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1902 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1903 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1904 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1905 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1906 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1907 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1908 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1909 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1910 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1911 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1912 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars
1913 – Philippine-American War, Banana Wars, New Mexico Navajo War
1914 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1915 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico, Colorado Paiute War
1916 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1917 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S. invades Mexico
1918 – Banana Wars, World War I, U.S invades Mexico
1919 – Banana Wars, U.S. invades Mexico
1920 – Banana Wars
1921 – Banana Wars
1922 – Banana Wars
1923 – Banana Wars, Posey War
1924 – Banana Wars
1925 – Banana Wars
1926 – Banana Wars
1927 – Banana Wars
1928 – Banana Wars
1930 – Banana Wars
1931 – Banana Wars
1932 – Banana Wars
1933 – Banana Wars
1934 – Banana Wars
1935 – No major war
1936 – No major war
1937 – No major war
1938 – No major war
1939 – No major war
1940 – No major war
1941 – World War II
1942 – World War II
1943 – Wold War II
1944 – World War II
1945 – World War II
1946 – Cold War (U.S. occupies the Philippines and South Korea)
1947 – Cold War (U.S. occupies South Korea, U.S. forces land in Greece to fight Communists)
1948 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)
1949 – Cold War (U.S. forces aid Chinese Nationalist Party against Communists)
1950 – Korean War, Jayuga Uprising
1951 – Korean War
1952 – Korean War
1953 – Korean War
1954 – Covert War in Guatemala
1955 – Vietnam War
1956 – Vietnam War
1957 – Vietnam War
1958 – Vietnam War
1959 – Vietnam War, Conflict in Haiti
1960 – Vietam War
1961 – Vietnam War
1962 – Vietnam War, Cold War (Cuban Missile Crisis; U.S. marines fight Communists in Thailand)
1963 – Vietnam War
1964 – Vietnam War
1965 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic
1966 – Vietnam War, U.S. occupation of Dominican Republic
1967 – Vietnam War
1968 – Vietnam War
1969 – Vietnam War
1970 – Vietnam War
1971 – Vietnam War
1972 – Vietnam War
1973 – Vietnam War, U.S. aids Israel in Yom Kippur War
1974 – Vietnam War
1975 – Vietnam War
1976 – No major war
1977 – No major war
1978 – No major war
1979 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)
1980 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan)
1981 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), First Gulf of Sidra Incident
1982 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon
1983 – Cold War (Invasion of Grenada, CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Lebanon
1984 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua), Conflict in Persian Gulf
1985 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)
1986 – Cold War (CIA proxy war in Afghanistan and Nicaragua)
1987 – Conflict in Persian Gulf
1988 – Conflict in Persian Gulf, U.S. occupation of Panama
1989 – Second Gulf of Sidra Incident, U.S. occupation of Panama, Conflict in Philippines
1990 – First Gulf War, U.S. occupation of Panama
1991 – First Gulf War
1992 – Conflict in Iraq
1993 – Conflict in Iraq
1994 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti
1995 – Conflict in Iraq, U.S. invades Haiti, NATO bombing of Bosnia and Herzegovina
1996 – Conflict in Iraq
1997 – No major war
1998 – Bombing of Iraq, Missile strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan
1999 – Kosovo War
2000 – No major war
2001 – War on Terror in Afghanistan
2002 – War on Terror in Afghanistan and Yemen
2003 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, and Iraq
2004 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2005 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2006 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2007 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen
2008 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2009 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2010 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen
2011 – War on Terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Conflict in Libya (Libyan Civil War)
About the Author
Isaac Davis is an outspoken advocate of liberty and an honest society from the top down. He is a contributing writer for WakingTimes.com. Follow him on Facebook, here.
Tracing the Occult Origins of Christmas
Makia Freeman, Contributor
Is Christmas really magic mushroom, sun and Saturn worship in disguise?
Christmas has come around again, and as we all scurry about hanging lights and stars everywhere, and adorning our trees with red and white ornaments, how many of us reflect on the occult origins of Christmas? How many of us realize that this merry festival has roots, in fact, in ancient traditions of magic mushrooms, Saturn worship and sun worship? Today's Christmas is truly a hodgepodge of ancient rituals and celebrations, with roots as far back as 4000 years to the Mesopotamians. This is not surprising, for Christianity itself is a borrowed religion, built on top of previous Coptic (Egyptian), Mesopotamian and Babylonian religions. Christmas really has nothing to do with the alleged historical birthday of a human called Jesus. Let's take a look at some of the traditions which have formed Christmas, so we can gain a deeper understanding of its symbolism.
The Christmas-Magic Mushroom Connection
John Allegro was a free-thinking Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and archeologist. In 1970 he wrote a fascinating and highly controversial book entitled The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, whose subtitle was A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East. In it he put forth the unique idea that Christianity was an expression of an ancient cult which worshipped sex and mushrooms. To straight-laced scholars and prim-and-proper Christian apologists, this idea was simply too much for them to contemplate, but Allegro provided an impressive amount of evidence to back his claims.
He showed how the mushroom – specifically the red-and-white magic mushroom Amanita muscaria– came up again and again in Christian art. He explained how the Eucharist – where Christians believe the bread wafer is transformed into the body of Christ – is a re-enactment of the sacred ceremony of ingesting the flesh of the Amanita magic mushroom. Allegro argued that the entire story of the Jesus in the Gospels was a code for the ancient journey of conscious self-exploration, the hallucinogenic "trip". You can imagine how the majority of people reacted to his "sex-and-mushroom cult" theory in 1970 in England!
Yet his ideas have merit. James Arthur and others after Allegro further developed the idea of the Christmas-magic mushroom connection. Amanitas are also linked to fertility and sex; they have a sexual appearance, representing both the male and female. At different stages of their growth life cycle, they resemble a phallus, breast and yoni.
It is interesting to note that Jesus pictured in religious artwork with amanita mushrooms around him. Is the red-and-white Santa Claus or St. Nicholas a modern representation of the village shaman who had the knowledge of pharmacopeia? Is the holy grail actually the mature Amanita with its edges curled up? Were Amanitas the source of power and insight for the old ruling class of priests? And perhaps most importantly, what part does the Amanita play in humanity's origins and the extraterrestrial Annunaki who were mining for "gold"? These are interesting questions to ponder as you decorate your tree in red-and-white with mushroom ornaments this year.
The Christmas-Sun Worship Connection
Thanks to groundbreaking research of investigators like Jordan Maxwell (whose work was the basis of one major segment of the hit movie Zeitgeist), people have begun to become aware of the link between Christmas and sun worship. At its core, the Illuminati and secret societies that run the world are deeply intoblack magic, which, defined, is the use of mostly unseen and unknown forces to gain power and control over others. The Illuminati are black magicians. They utilize certain powers and then, through their control of the media and academia, put out disinformation and lies to prevent people from believing in and accessing those very powers, lest their power base be eroded.
Christmas is all about the birth of the "son". But what if it is actually the birth or rebirth of the "sun"? A sun that goes through a "spring", ascends to a height (summer solstice), then goes through a "fall" (autumn)? Christianity tells us that Jesus the son is our savior. Yet literally speaking the "sun" is our savior; without the sun there would be little or no life on Earth. So it is only natural that sun worship was practiced by early cultures all over the world, especially in the keys days following the winter solstice, when the sun disappears over the horizon in northern latitudes for 3 days. Jesus was dead for the 3 days. Is this the symbolic "death" of the sun? December 25th is the first day when the son or sun makes his triumphant return. Many people make fun of early religions and brand them as primitive, without actually realizing that Christianity itself has either stolen or built upon (depending on your viewpoint) these exact traditions.
Is it purely a coincidence that the date of Christmas is always December 25th every year, exactly 3 days after the 22nd (or night of the 21st), the date of winter solstice? Is it another coincidence that Jesus is pictured everywhere throughout Christian art on top of a sun cross, showing the sun's journey through the 4 seasons every year? Is Christmas an elaborate ritual to lure back the "prodigal sun" from death?
The Christmas-Saturn Worship Connection
Finally, we come to the Saturn connection. The Christmas-Saturn connection is far from the only connection Saturn has with many modern (dark) activities. Saturn is the ancient roman god of time, harvest, law, tyranny and death. In the ancient Greek pantheon he was Chronos, meaning time, and from which we get words like chronological. For those investigating the global conspiracy, Saturn has particular significance. Why? Because Saturn – and what it represents – is the object of worship of some of the secret societies that are running the planet today. Indeed, the worship of Saturn is a theme running through the priest, the lawyer and the academic classes, as can be seen by the use of gowns and square mortarboards in the color of black – Saturn's color.
To quote Jordan Maxwell:
"When you graduate from high school you come out processionally with a black robe … and wear the square mortarboard on top of your head. The square mortarboards are, of course, used by the Freemasons for their plaster, so that is why you wear a square mortarboard when you graduate, ultimately becoming an Alumni. It all has to do with Freemasonry; it all has to do with the control of education in this country."
In the early first centuries A.D., Saturn had a very strong presence in the most powerful city in the world: Rome. Every year from December 17th to 25th, there was a wild, licentious festival in his honor, named Saturnalia. For these 8 days of the year, people would cut loose in a period of utter lawlessness; Roman courts were closed and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the festival. There was widespread intoxication, people running around naked, rape and orgies. There was even human sacrifice – a theme that continues to underly some of the strange, dark rituals practiced by today's ruling elite at places like Bohemian Grove.
According to some sources, Christmas was invented to compete with the pagan celebrations like Saturnalia, because it was just so popular. It was a successful strategy. Over time, the Church adopted many pagan rituals in their attempt to make Christianity more attractive to converts.
What Does Christmas Mean to You?
Ultimately, we all imbue our lives and activities with our own sense of meaning. You can decide what Christmas means to you. However, it is always good to be aware of the occult origins andhidden symbolism of traditions and events, for as Confucius said, the world is ruled by signs and symbols, not words or law. Symbols communicate directly with our subconscious and guide our lives from behind the scenes, so choose consciously to which things you give your attention and energy.
About the Author
Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the global conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.
Phillip Schneider, Staff
There is a lot to know when it comes to current events, but to someone who doesn't know about hidden powers such as the Bilderberg group these events might not be fully understood. Knowledge of this powerful group is absolutely essential if you want to have a grasp not only on what is happening, but why it is happening, and what influences might be behind current events. Most people still don't know about this group, but many more are starting to hear about it, and are connecting the dots as to what it is and the influence that it has.
The Bilderberg group is a secretive association of roughly 140+ of the worlds most powerful people, which have closed-door meetings once a year in what are supposed to be clandestine locations around the globe (although the location is always leaked). The 2011 meeting was held in switzerland, the 2012 meeting was in Chantilly, Virginia, and the 2014 Bilderberg meeting was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The group was actually never given an official name until many years after its formation when they were dubbed the Bilderberg Group after the name of the hotel in which their first meeting was held in 1954, the Bilderberg Hotel or Hotel De Bilderberg in Oosterbeek in the Netherlands.
Some say that the Bilderberg group is nothing more than a harmless get-together of wealthy elites who just want to relax and have a nice time discussing business matters without undesired scrutiny from the public. This may be partially true, but is not the entire case. By and large, the people who suggest that this group is a harmless entity are either those who are totally ignorant of the group, or those working in the mainstream media, which plays an important role in keeping the activities of Bilderberg out of sight of the public.
This incredibly important and influential group had received nearly zero press coverage since its formation in 1954, that is, until the alternative media discovered it and began reporting on it years ago. Alex Jones, one of the main reporters exposing this, was in fact called a 'conspiracy theorist' for even suggesting that this group existed over a decade ago. However, now that he and others have brought forth volumes of information on Bilderberg, even mainstream media outlets, which have attended meetings in the past and formerly refused to touch it in reporting, have been forced into covering it. However, the mainstream media always makes sure to put enough spin on the story to make you think that it is really nothing worth paying attention to, while leaving out critical information that suggests otherwise.
A few politicians, mainstream media representatives and other power-men have been confronted about Bilderberg, and they all either refuse to acknowledge its existence, give ridiculous explanations to avoid legitimately answering the question, or refuse to speak about it at all.
Here, you can watch MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell confronted by We Are Change's Luke Rudkowski claim to know nothing about it, saying that he is "way too lazy" to look it up, then just say some pretty bizarre stuff all around, all while having a disturbingly blank look on his face:
CNN's Paula Zahn also claimed to know nothing of the group. PBS's Charlie Rose voice shook as he gave very specific and evasive talking points about the group during his confrontation. The first time that Rose was asked about the group he simply walked away to avoid making a statement altogether. The list goes on and on to include politicians and other associated 'elitist' individuals and the response virtually does not change. Nobody who has gone to Bilderberg dares say a word about what went on during these meetings.
Luke Rudkowski confronts Paula Zahn of CNN about Bilderberg:
33rd Degree free mason, Charlie Rose doesn't like to be asked about the shadowy elite group:
Guest lists of the elite meetings have been leaked several times, revealing who actually attends these highly secretive events. The guest list from 2011 includes David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), Charlie Rose (PBS), Craig J. Mundie (Microsoft), Keith B. Alexander (director of NSA), Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com), James B. Steinberg and many more. The group's attendees also regularly include a whole list of foreign officials, which makes this groups very existence a violation of the Logan Act passed in 1799 under the John Adams administration, making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interestsof the United States.
A chart from business insider reveals the connections that the Bilderberg group has to corporate and government entities and it is massive!
Once you understand how influences global politics, business, media and much more, you will understand just how much power some people have over the rest of the population, which is imperative in understanding how our world works.
About the Author
Phillip Schneider is a student and a contributing author to Waking Times.
Zen Gardner, Guest
There's no question about it. We're there. And I'm not just talking about the globalist takeover bid they're hastily and clumsily trying to execute.
The awakening is erupting.
Many feel lost and afraid right now all across the spectrum of humanity. This deliberate creation of chaos is designed to do just that. However, parallel and simultaneous to their psychotic designs is a massive arousal of the human spirit, spurred on by an arising of conscious awareness and a deep sense of growing personal realization and empowerment.
Most may not recognize these rising seemingly confusing energetic changes as being the creative process at work, but it is. Awakening is first of all a destructive process, eliminating everything that is unreal and inhibitive of personal development and progress. These two dynamics work concurrently.
When you stand back and observe with washened eyes you'll see it, and it brings great peace in the midst of these stormy times.
What Price Awakening?
Being awake comes with a price, and it may have been upped a bit or even a lot lately. You're being worked on. Letting go and getting the most out of challenging circumstances and conditions is vital to growth. Don't fight it, whatever you do.
It's very sad to see unawakened humanity being tossed to and fro without a clue as to what is really going on. But even that is an "engineered" shake up designed by Universe to help every one of us come to our senses and transcend this false reality. Millions are flocking to alternative news sources to try to make sense of what's going on, and they're stumbling on realities they never considered before.
And that's a wonderful thing. It will cause a lot of pain to make the realizations they're being presented with but again, that's alright. Truth comes with a cost – the end of the lies and illusions they had previously based their entire lives on. And it's an ongoing process.
Many will be forced to enter the "dark night of the soul" whether they want to or not. I can tell you from personal experience that it's a hell of a lot easier and quicker if you elect to let yourself go through it, and in many ways the sooner you do, if you haven't already, the better.
What Do We Do?
So what should we do? If we know the truth, we're responsible not only to share it passionately, but also to live it. This is where it gets even more uncomfortable, but it must be done. The hour is late and the times we are living in are dire. There's no alternative any more.
We have to rise to the occasion. It's virtually us or them, life or death, truth or lies, freedom or slavery – for not just ourselves but our loved ones, progeny and the entire human race. That's what makes this the opportunity of a lifetime, and our marvelous creative Universe is there to meet you if you dare walk the path.
In fact, you'll even meet your true self, what you've been looking and longing for your whole life!
The Tipping Point
I posted two remarkable videos today (see HERE and HERE) that to me are clear signals that the tide is not just turning, but the tide of humanity awakening is rising quickly. What we do from here is supremely important as we have a growing array of opportunities for active participation unfolding before us. And there will be more, but waiting to start somewhere is not an option.
The time to activate is now. Let anything that hinders this fall away from your life, whatever the cost. The call for our inner warriors to rise could not be any clearer
You'll see these manifestations of the tipping point we've reached everywhere if you look. People's tones are changing, minds are tossed about but exploring new perspectives, truths are being outed like never before. It's an amazing time. Don't stare at the machinations of the powers that shouldn't be, they're designed to distract and disempower. This is crucial.
And don't think Gaia is going to take all this lying down either. We're talking about a massive energetic change we have the privilege to be a part of. Remember, nature bats last.
Fed Up? Good!
Many are getting fed up with false flags, mass shootings, war drums, complete media bullshit and the fear riddled bloviations of the psychopaths in the news. That's actually good, and one of the main symptoms of what I'm addressing here. You're fed up – you've had enough. So turn it off. Just get the essentials from the independent and alternative news to keep an eye on things then turn it off. Draw on empowering sources that feed your soul and inspire your heart and draw close to supportive loved ones.
Take the exploration of self you're no doubt being presented with and see where it takes you.
That's the primary battle at hand. We need to become who we truly are if we're to finish this out the way we should, could, can and will. But don't dwell on your own damn ass all day either. Activate and proliferate the truth and build community and bonds of love with those you're being called to be with. We all need this support and strength, and environments where we can be our authentic selves and grow into the full stature of awakened, empowered souls.
Enjoy the ride, but don't buck at the pain and sacrifices when they present themselves. They're small fry compared to the glorious new world being birthed in the hearts of our beloved mankind.
Love always,
Sol Luckman, Guest
I believe … a most curious phrase. We've heard about the biology, but what is the etymology of belief?
Belief stems from Old English and once meant trust in God. This made belief a close bedfellow of faith.
But with the spiritual-materialist split known as the Enlightenment, where soul and body were declared by Church and State to have parted ways, we in the West lost our faith as belief came to mean merely mental acceptance of a thing as true.
This was when belief got a bum rap, as in the phrase blind belief. Believers—in whatever—were lampooned by the "enlightened" as playing a foolish, perhaps dangerous game of blind man's bluff with God and Nature.
"Show me the proof" became the order of the day as the scientific method turned into the only method of apprehending so-called reality. That is, until quantum mechanics, bursting on the scene, burst reality's bubble.
Some, going further, have attempted to deconstruct belief itself, pointing to the potential tyranny of belief as a reason not to believe anything.
Yet try as the Controllers of Thought, the High Priests of Materialism and the Rebels without a Clue resisting them might to co-opt, subvert and eradicate belief, it stubbornly persists.
Belief hangs around because it's basic. Ultimately, we humans aren't built to make-believe; more fundamentally, we're made to believe. When all is said and done, it's through belief that we construct the good, the bad and the ugly of our "reality."
Apparently, we're capable of being made to believe anything—even that we should believe in nothing. We can be brainwashed, bamboozled, lobotomized by a simple commercial on TV, a political debate, an alternative news story.
We can also harness the immense power of belief. Belief in the self-healing nature of our biology, as mentioned. Belief that have we ourselves, like Gandhi or Peace Pilgrim, have the power to make the world better. Belief in the ability of our consciousness to alter reality, for better or for worse.
Blind belief may well lead to destruction, but belief with eyes (and heart) wide open is the engine of creativity.
"I think, therefore I am," stated Descartes. Wrong. We are, therefore we think.
We've been told our mind is our brain, but our mind is really all around us.
Philosopher Teilhard de Chardin called humanity's collective mind the Noosphere. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake prefers Morphic Field. Author David Wilcock writes about the Source Field. This writer sometimes uses the Sound Domain.
These are just descriptive phrases. They point to an essence, an integral part of ourselves, yet fail to capture it because it can't be captured.
The unmeasurable is maddening to the rationalist, the realist. The ineffable is, if you inhabit Baudrillard's Desert of the Real,"like a splinter in your mind," as Morpheus would say, "driving you mad."
That which can't be weighed and measured must be eradicated. And if that fails, it must be violently denied.
Essence—that field of creative potential from which we spring and to which we return—cannot be seen, tasted, felt, touched or heard. Nevertheless, it's like belief: essential to our humanity.
We can't exist without our essence, just as we can't live without something to believe in—for better or worse.
I believe in signs. I believe guidance is always there for the following, if only we're willing to listen to our essence, which communicates to us through symbols. I refer to this guidance as the Language of the Spirit.
For the past couple months, I'd been feeling down about the state of the world, wondering if there's any reason to hope for a brighter future, when I decided to go for a beach walk a few days ago.
There are many things in nature that inspire me: canyons, mountains, deserts, trees. But the ocean has the deepest place in my heart and I turn to it when all else fails to buoy me up.
I told myself I wanted a sign that things would start to improve soon, that the evil planetary controllers known to those of us in the Conscious Resistance as the Cabal would be disempowered and brought to justice and the world would, at long last, begin to change before our eyes.
Just then, while I waded in the shallow surf, a starfish washed up over my toes. It seemed perfectly formed—yet when I held it in my palm and examined it more closely, I saw that three of its limbs had regrown from what must have been a gruesome dismemberment.
"Gruesome dismemberment" could describe many of my losses over the years—from my health (since recovered via energy medicine) when I was in my twenties, to my mother to cancer when I was in my thirties.
I thought of all the Chiron in my astrological chart, how for years I was the epitome of the Wounded Healer. Then I extrapolated this notion to the Earth and all her children striving for a healthier, happier way forward … and floundering along without much to show for it.
Maybe we're like this starfish, I thought. We've allowed the Elites to cut our legs off. We couldn't stand on our feet if our lives depended on it—which they do, by the way. Through our indoctrinated beliefs in our limitations, we've forgotten that within us exists the power to regenerate ourselves, individually and collectively.
I took another walk along the shore today. It was cloudy and looked like rain—perfect for my mood that felt like rain on the inside. Rain did, in fact, come splattering down the instant I walked back in the door.
This suggested there had been some "divine timing" to my insightful excursion when I strolled through the lapping waves wondering how best to navigate this insane present where, judging by the stream of Cabal-based propaganda that passes for news bombarding us 24/7, Orwell was quite the oracle:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
Just as I reached the turning point of my walk, I found myself thinking about the Cabal/ISIS-spearheaded farces that are Syria and Ukraine, the NWO-sponsored demonization of Russia and Putin, the latest Illuminati playbook terrorist shootings in Paris complete with on-cue passport-toting dead perpetrators (or patsies), the campaign for universal injection of deadly toxins into the population through vaccines that wiped out my health back in the day, contamination of the water supply through fracking …
You get the picture. I was back in a funk. Chiron was kicking my butt again.
Then a new thought came to me. Actually, it was an old thought, one that hadn't occurred to me in a while.
The thought was to simply surf over these trying times like riding a big wave that would eventually run its course and deposit me safely back on the sand.
In that exact instant—no joke—a black object about the size of a notebook washed up out of the foam and knocked against feet. I picked it up. It was an old surfboard fin.
Beyond any doubt, my essence was speaking to me again through the Language of the Spirit.
Based on this synchronistic "evidence" and much more I've experienced like it, I believe we're meant to strap on our wetsuits and hang ten over the Apocalypse until it's revealed as merely a revelation of the beginning, not a declaration of the end.
About the Author
Sol Luckman is a pioneering ink painter whose work has been featured on mainstream book covers and an award-winning author whose books include the international bestselling CONSCIOUS HEALING and its popular sequel, POTENTIATE YOUR DNA. His latest novel, SNOOZE: A STORY OF AWAKENING, winner of the 2015 National Indie Excellence® Award, is the riveting, coming-of-age tale of one extraordinary boy's awakening to the world-changing reality of his dreams. Written with young adult and young-at-heart readers in mind, SNOOZE further proved its literary merit by receiving an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Beach Book Festival Prize competition. Sol is also author of the BEGINNER'S LUKE Series of seriocomic novels characterized by Reader Views as a "modern-day ALICE IN WONDERLAND" and by Apex Reviews as a "mind-bending journey through the mind of the ultimate iconoclast." Follow Sol on Facebook here and learn more about his work at www.CrowRising.com.
**This article (Hanging Ten Over the Apocalypse with Belief in Our Essence) was originally featured at Snooze 2 Awaken.
A Simple Step to Know Your True Self
Frank M. Wanderer Ph.D, Contributor
A tiny seed of Truth is found in every human being. Similarly to the seed of a tree, the tiny seed contains great potential. If the spiritual Seeker protects and nourishes that tiny seed, it will grow into the mighty tree of Truth. But it can only protect and nourish it, if it's aware of its existence. How can the spiritual seeker realize this and how can the Truth be revealed?
The World of Forms and Shapes
A lot of people are unaware of this, and they try to find the Truth outside themselves, in the world of forms and shapes, wishing to make forms eternal. So the modest little seed in us stays dormant, waiting for better times. The better times come when the spiritual Seeker realizes that all the external shapes and forms are transitory, so they turn their attention from the world of shapes to the internal world. Under the effect of turning inward, the small seed begins to sprout, and it starts slowly growing. I revitalizes the spiritual Seeker, and a deep desire arises in them to see the flower that the small seed may become.
Then one of the spiritual Seekers may try to use the little sprout to decorate his/her ego with it. Another one says: "Look, there is a lily of the valley growing in me! But I want to be a rose!" In their effort to become a rose, their attention turns back towards the shapes and forms, so the gentle sprout dries and the seed falls asleep again.
That is how the spiritual Seeker has been playing games in the world of forms and shapes for a long time. It is true that the game is beautiful and relaxing. The spiritual Seeker will soon have favorite games and toys, as well as favorite playing partners. The more beautiful and better toys the spiritual Seeker invents, the more powerfully they will insist on them. If they do not cling to the toys, they will cling to their partners in the game or to the game itself. By playing these games, the spiritual Seeker will be trapped in the world of shapes and forms, and the modest little seed will sleep forever. When the spiritual Seeker gets tired of playing, and during a brief rest turns inward, there is still the danger of treading on the gentle sprout during the next game.
Some spiritual Seekers gather extra strength during the time they spend in internal silence, and with renewed force they abandon themselves into the busy world of the forms and shapes. In the internal silence they find a means that extends their power and efficiency in the world. Naturally, it means that they will be lost even deeper among the forms, which sooner or later brings them new suffering, perhaps even worse than previously. Then they turn inward one more time, and the whole cycle starts all over again.
This process may be repeated infinitely in the life of the spiritual Seeker. Still, the process does have its benefit, as the Ego may become tired of it after a while, give up the effort and fall into the silence. Only the deep-rooted desire for the flower remains in the soul of the wanderer. Then they realize that the real flower bed for the little seed is the silence, the non-action, staying in the alert Consciousness, free of concepts. In this internal silence the small seed develops into a beautiful flower. The world of forms and shapes loses its significance for the spiritual Seeker. Only the Existence remains, as the only reality.
Turning Inward
The spiritual Seeker's turning inward is therefore a precondition for the germination of the small seed. Turning inward may be interpreted differently by different people, according to their own conceptual knowledge. In general, turning inward means that the person's attention is diverted from the world of forms and shapes towards their internal world.
In this interpretation, there is a subject who is watching and an internal object (breathing, thought, concept, a conceptual image of God etc.) that is being watched. Here the intensification of the attention is equal to the increase of the duration of the attention. The little seed begins to sprout in the internal silence.
The next level of turning inward is when the attention is not focused on inner objects, but on the Consciousness sensing it. E.g. when somebody is watching his/her own respiration, after a while their attention will be shifted from the act of breathing (which is something outside the subject) to the subject itself (the Consciousness watching the respiration). One is only able to perform it lastingly when their abilities of concentration are sufficiently strong, trained by watching internal objects.
In this interpretation, intensifying attention means that the spiritual Seeker submerges into this Consciousness to an increasing extent. After a while they realize that the Consciousness they focus their attention on is not yet the Self (at that point a lot of the spiritual Seekers lose their way), but the Ego (the I-concept, body awareness). The little seed is now growing and becoming more powerful.
As the power of attention increases, the spiritual Seeker begins to seek where the Ego is emerging from, and what nourishes that Consciousness. That is how they finally return to the source of the Ego, which is the Self (the witnessing Presence, the absolute Consciousness). Now the little seed is in full bloom, presenting the spiritual Seeker with its wonderful scent, which is the pleasure of Existence itself.
The Point is Being a Witness
When the seed is in bloom, the roles of the personality of the spiritual Seeker, their reactions, the work of the mind continue to exist, but the spiritual Seeker no longer intends to change them. The spiritual Seeker does not want to be performing better or to obtain a better role. They plainly watch their own reactions. They no longer identify with the roles and allow the quality of their reactions to determine their self-image. They learn to laugh at themselves. As Witnesses they see and recognize that the Ego is nothing but a bundle of conditioned patterns of behavior and emotion, and as such, it does not have any particular reality.
Intensity is Required for Awakening
The spiritual Seeker realizes that for awakening, that is, for the sprouting and blooming of the little seed requires intensity in the Now. What is that intensity provided by? The intensity is provided by the recognition that the spiritual Seeker does not identify with the body-mind complex, but with the conscious Presence of true life. Once this recognition permeates the entire self of the spiritual Seeker, then the intensity necessary for Awakening is ready and provided.
About the author
Frank M. Wanderer Ph.D. is a professor of psychology, a consciousness researcher and writer. Frank is the author of the books The Flames of Alertness: Discover the Power of Consciousness!, The Biggest Obstacle to Enlightenment: How to Escape from the Prison of Mind Games? andseveral books on consciousness. With a lifelong interest in the mystery of human existence, Frank's work is to help others wake up from identification with our personal history and the illusory world of the forms and shapes, and to find our identity in what he calls "the Miracle", the mystery of the Consciousness. You can also follow his blog HERE.
From the book: Frank M. Wanderer: The Chant of the Heart: Enjoy the Nectar of Being
Steven Maxwell, Contributor
With the battle for the legalization of marijuana being considered one of the more prevalent issues in today's society, it is upon scientists and researchers to now look deeper into the chemical makeup of marijuana and indicate whether smoking marijuana yields less dangerous side effects than consuming alcohol.
In this article by NBC, marijuana is grouped first among nine other drugs including heroin and hallucinogens and was considered the safest by a landslide. Then, when compared to alcohol and tobacco, marijuana was considered "by far…the safest, even when compared to alcohol and cigarettes."
The article then follows to discuss the long-term effects of both recreational and chronic use of marijuana as compared to alcohol and tobacco. The findings showed that chronic tobacco and alcohol consumption led to serious intestinal problems and cancer, while chronic marijuana use was loosely linked to some lung problems and early onset psychosis. The only threat that chronic marijuana usage poses is developmental issues in young adolescents.
If marijuana were to be considered legal, it would likely be regulated by the ATF, just like alcohol and tobacco, and these factors would be taken into consideration when determining what the legal consumption age would be, dosages available, and so forth.
The US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health have provided details and statistics regarding "illicit" drug usage. For more information about the statistics and scientific reasoning behind the findings listed in this article, see here for more information.
See the simple meme below for the common-sense comparison of marijuana versus alcohol:
Keeping to the topic of regulation, the thought of legalizing marijuana becomes a little less intimidating to some, but not all. April M. Short posted an article on Salon.com that recounted the impression that a commercial about marijuana shown during a NASCAR race left on its viewers. Essentially, the commercial advocated that marijuana was a safer and more health-conscious alternative to drinking beer, with beer drinkers being one of NASCAR's targeted audiences.
The goal was to show marijuana in a more positive, appealing light, but it was quickly pulled due to negative responses by the viewers. The MPP (Marijuana Policy Project) stated that its intentions were good and that their goal is "to 'wipe the slate clean' and replace fiction with facts about marijuana use."
By providing statistical evidence through the length of the article, especially focusing on illness and death counts, Short's aim is to convince her audience through scientific findings that marijuana is pinned as the "bad guy," but in reality is actually less addictive and poses no recorded overdose, abuse, or fatality risks, while alcohol and tobacco have annual numbers in the thousands.
By accessing the official MPP website, those who are curious to read statistics about marijuana use and its comparison to alcohol and tobacco use are welcomed with straightforward, research-based facts. Addiction is one of the points that is repeated throughout marijuana research, and the results were recorded as:
A comprehensive federal study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine arrived at a similar conclusion: 'Millions of Americans have tried marijuana, but most are not regular users [and] few marijuana users become dependent on it … [A]lthough [some] marijuana users develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs.'
Low addiction rates yield more welcoming reviews when posed next to other drugs, such as alcohol, which has a high addiction rate as well as higher rates of illnesses and death. Marijuana has been pinned as a "gateway" drug to harder substances such as pills, heroin, and hallucinogens, and has also gained a "lazy" stereotype, leaving people with the impression that marijuana users do nothing productive; they just kick back on the couch and smoke for days on end. Even if they did, which is not recommended, there is no documented "overdose amount" for marijuana. There are not any DEA categories for marijuana-related causes of death to date.
Using mortality as an attention-grabbing basis for research, this article written by Justin Alford discusses the rates and causes of death that are brought on by drug and/or alcohol use. The opening statement ends with the credited phrase "alcohol is the deadliest, while marijuana is the least risky" which is used to uphold viewer engagement and encouraging them to keep reading.
The article proceeds to discuss how these marijuana statistics are out for the public knowledge, but are not advertised because they are not what the government wants the public to see.
With an anti-marijuana legalization mindset, the government wants to uphold the "lazy," "deadbeat," and "dangerous" lifestyle terms that are pinned on marijuana users. Alford ends the article with a though-provoking message: "time would be better spent focusing on managing the risks of alcohol and tobacco, rather than illegal drugs", which is directed toward the policing of marijuana usage. Which, after reading through articles about legalization, makes perfect sense.
Why is the federal government focusing so intensely on a substance that does not yield any life-threatening issues, when tobacco and alcohol provably cause illness and death counts in the thousands?
About the Author
Steven Maxwell is a staff writer for Activist Post where this article was originally featured.
Phillip Schneider, Staff
A rare documentary from the 1990's reveals an other-worldly side to secret government projects. Stansfield Turner, CIA Director 1977-1981:
"When I was first introduced to this idea of parapsychology I was very skeptical. Then I began to think about it and we all know of people who seem to have some kind of psychic powers."
During the cold war era, the United States government received intelligence that the Soviets had been delving into research on the use of psychics and remote viewers for a number of secret aims. In response, they decided to start similar operations and were interested in creating spies with extra-sensory perception, or ESP. They apparently thought that if the Russians were having success, then they could potentially create the perfect spy with something akin to super natural abilities.
According to General Ed Thompson, an interviewee of the documentary, the Soviets had intentions of using these psychic powers not just for reconnaissance, but to potentially disturb government officials of other countries, likely of the U.S. He refers to this as "telepathic hypnosis," But the primary focus, he says, was long distance telepathic communication.
Major General Ed Thompson, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Army 1977-1981:
"…the whole program appeared to go classified, hidden from view and was presumed to be funded by either the KGB, the military or some other 'governmental interest'…There was evidence that they were particularly active in long distance telepathic communication. Also in PK that they call telekinesis and possibly in telepathic hypnosis to disrupt individuals in key positions or handling sensitive equipment."
Research into psychic phenomenon was conducted partially at Stanford Research Institute in California. The narrator calls it "America's second largest think tank with more than 70 million dollars in government funding annually". This is one of the locations where psychics were recruited and tested for an ability with remote viewing, amongst other things. One of the most disturbing parts of this is that in addition to mind-reading and remote viewing, they were apparently testing individuals for their ability to cause physical illness, or even death, by psychic attacks.
Colonel John Alexander, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1981-1984:
"Multiple Laboratories were involved, they were screening Civilians for natural talent, if you will, employing psychics and healers and things of that nature in a wide variety of experiments. One of the things reported was that they were actually talking about attempting to induce death, physical illness, things of that nature."
Thompson also made note of the fact that artists were one category of people who tend to excel at remote viewing. For those who don't know, remote viewing is the apparent ability to choose a location on the planet and visualize the exact location and what is happening in that spot at that time. It was said that remote viewing sometimes came in images and sometimes in feelings. Remote viewers would often describe sounds, tastes, emotions and the like and then begin describing a more vivid scenario of what they were seeing. Some were better with viewing people, and could actually describe their state of mind, according to one official. One of the remote viewers even claimed to have been able to detect nuclear bombs by seeing a green glow that he likened to Kryptonite. They also claim to have had a fair amount of success in this whole endeavor, and some of the individuals even recounted UFO experiences as well.
Major General Ed Thompson, Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, U.S. Army 1977-1981:
"One category of person who was good at remote viewing was imagery interpreters. A good imagery interpreter sometimes can see more in a picture than the unpracticed eye and they had a knack for visualization that appeared to work very well for remote viewers. Other categories of people who were said to excel at remote viewing were people like artists, entrepreneurs, risk takers. By the nature of the intelligence business we had some risk takers too.
Colonel John Alexander,U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1981-1984, describes his experience with telekinesis, or the ability to move physical matter by using consciousness:
"We had seen on a number of occasions what we call macro-psychokinesis where major events occurred in front of us and what I brought along were two forks and what we would do is have individuals hold these as I am now, one in each hand, where there's no physical force available. These two forks used to sit snugly next to each other and what was happening is that we had a group of Colonels and Generals mostly, the individual truly untrained, was holding this, turned his head and when he did this particular fork dropped a full 90 degrees. And then when everyone was watching this same fork came back up, went down and came back to the position it's in now…and that happened, witnessed by many qualified observers."
The government has been engaged in these secret programs for decades, however, there is little information on how these programs are actively being used today.
About the Author
Phillip Schneider is a student and a contributing author to Waking Times.
Tracy Kolenchuk, Contributor
It's been almost 20 years since I met my first disappearing patient — a nurse in her early 40s, let's call her Kate. Kate was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a nurse, she had seen the results of breast cancer treatments. She was terrified, and determined. She was not heading for surgery, nor chemotherapy, nor radiation.
But Kate worked in a hospital. She worked with the doctors who diagnosed her cancer, and she worked with the surgeon, who wanted to schedule her into surgery "as soon as possible."
The first thing Kate did was slow down. She did some research. It didn't take her long to remind herself that in Canada, and in the USA, the treatments for cancer are akin to law. No hospital would dare deviate from the deadly three (cut, poison, burn).
Kate's cancer was not large. She had been tested for cancer last year and no cancer was found. She knew it took many years for cancers to develop. At first, she was furious, "If it is here today, it must have been here last year. Why didn't you find it last year?" It had not metastasized. It was not growing rapidly and was not affecting her health in any way. In theory, she had lots of time. So, she took some time.
But Kate didn't look for magic cures. She didn't search for the latest "cancer medicine." She wasn't interested in curing herself. She knew she was a nurse, not a doctor. She searched instead for the "cured" – patients who were diagnosed with cancer, and no longer had cancer. She knew from her work in the hospital, from conversations with patients, and with some staff, that these people existed — but from the perspective of the medical establishment, they seemed to disappear.
It didn't take her long to find some patients who claimed they were cured. They hadn't disappeared from life. They were eating, drinking, loving, and living full healthy and prosperous lives. But according to the medical records, they didn't exist. They were "never cured."
The medical system treated their cures as "anecdotal." It ignored them. There was no attempt by any doctors to understand what happened to these cancer patients. They were no longer sick. The medical system looks after sick patients, treats sick patients. These patients were not sick.
Kate looked and listened. Her interest was not clinical science vs. anecdotal evidence. Her interest was personal. She talked, listened, compared stories. From several, she learned about a clinic that did not claim to cure cancer. It did not use medicines to treat cancers. But patients were cured, somehow. This clinic was not in Canada. It was not in the USA. She would have to go to Mexico to learn more.
There are lots of alternative treatment clinics in Mexico. Are some of them valid, using important techniques to cure cancers? Are some of them scams, wanting to take money from desperate clients? Do some of them have a cure that works sometimes, but might not work for her? Kate didn't know. She did more research. She called the clinic.
The staff did not claim to cure cancer. Claiming to cure cancer is dangerous, even for a clinic outside of North America. They suggested Kate visit the clinic and see what happens there, no charge for a visit, but she would need to pay for her travel to Mexico. Kate had done her research. She had met and talked to patients whose cancers had disappeared.
Kate made her decision. She was familiar with cancer diagnosis techniques in Canada. She had undergone a physical examination, a mammogram, that detected a lump in her breast. Then she had a biopsy, where tissue was taken from the lump and was sent to a lab for analysis. The lab technician tested and examined the sample and issued a diagnosis "cancer" or "not cancer." Once the diagnosis is issued, everybody swings into action. Kate knew that the mammogram had a high false positive rate and a false negative rate. Many people who are diagnosed with a "possible cancer" by a mammogram do not actually have cancer. She was also aware that cancer biopsies have a false positive rate and a false negative rate, as well. Her work in the hospital, with real patients, had made this very clear.
She didn't really know for certain if she had cancer. Her surgeon, on the other hand, was still pressing her to schedule treatment.
Kate knew one thing. She had time. She cashed out some savings and booked a "holiday" in Mexico.
At the clinic, Kate was surprised that there was no "cancer diagnosis." They did check the presence and size of the lump on her breast. But they didn't repeat the biopsy. The clinic read her diagnostic reports, but did not investigate them further. There was instead a very thorough analysis completed by a suite of doctors. It took two full days of tests and interviews, if I remember correctly.
Kate was asked about her family's medical histories. She gave blood samples. She was questioned extensively about her diet, about what she eats on a regular basis. What foods does she like and eat often. What foods does she not like and never eat. Doctors examined her lungs, her heart, liver, and other bodily organs with various tests. Her immune system was tested. Extensive interviews about her life, her work, her relationships, and more.
At the time I talked to Kate, I didn't realize that she was not getting a "medical analysis," she was actually getting a "healthicine analysis." Her tests and questions fit perfectly to the hierarchy of healthicine: genetics, nutrition, cells, tissues, organs, bodily systems, body, mind, spirit, and community.
Kate's genetics were analyzed through family history. There may have been further genetic analysis, I don't remember all of the details. Her nutritional status was analyzed, not just by analyzing what she ate, and what she preferred to eat, but also by studying what she didn't like to eat, what she deliberately never ate, what foods she believed she was allergic to. Her cells and tissues were analyzed directly, through blood samples and physical examination, and indirectly through medical history and other tests. Many of her organs were tested for healthiness. Her bodily systems, immune system, circulatory system, respiratory system, hormonal systems and more were analyzed and assessed. Her physical body was measured, weighed, and examined. Her mental health was assessed, as well as her spiritual healthiness. She was in good spirits, even in light of a potentially life threatening illness. Her community health was analyzed as well. Her family, her relationships with her children, her spouse, her parents, her work community, and more.
After a few days, Kate met with a group of doctors to discuss her health, not her illness, her healthiness. Diagnosing illness is difficult. Analyzing healthiness is more complex. It took several doctors and several hours for Kate to learn and understand what they had learned about her healthinesses and her unhealthinesses.
They then "prescribed" two weeks, if I remember correctly, of healthiness training, tailored to Kate's specific situation. She spent the next two weeks at the clinic, learning to be healthier, not learning how to be "healthier in principle," rather – learning what Kate needed to do to make her diet, her body, her mind, her spirits, and even her relationships with her communities healthier. She could not change her work community. But she could change how she reacted to and interacted with it – to improve her own health. After two weeks of learning at the clinic, her breast lump had started to shrink.
Kate went back to Canada, to put her learning into action. The lump disappeared. Her diagnosis was still there on paper. But her "cancer" had disappeared. She was retested at her hospital and no cancer was found.
Then Kate began to disappear.
When the surgeon asked again, she explained that she was not going to surgery. The surgeon looked away. He refused to look her in the eye after that.
But Kate didn't disappear from her family. She went back to her family. She didn't disappear from her job. She went back to her job. She disappeared from the cancer system. Her cancer disappeared, so, as a cancer patient, she disappeared.
Was she cured? We don't know. There is no useful definition of a cancer cure. No medical or scientific test that can prove a patient has been cured of cancer. Our cancer treatment statistics have no count for people who are cured of cancer. Patients that are cured, whether they are cured with medicines or not, are not counted. No breast cancer patients are officially cured by medicine. If their cancer goes away without treatment, they disappear from statistics. If their cancer is killed by radiation, chemotherapy or surgery, they are not cured, they are a "survivor." Everyone knows that cancer survivors are always waiting for the cancer to reappear. Their symptoms are in remission, but their cancer is not cured. They are not cured. With no proof of a cure, it might just be hidden.
Kate no longer has cancer. She paid, from her own pocket, for her trip to a clinic in Mexico. After the trip, her cancer disappeared. She had medical insurance. But her insurance wouldn't pay for her trip. Insurance pays for treatments, not for cures. It pays for treatments, even if they fail. But it does not pay for success. Success disappears.
There are two ways for a cancer patient to disappear. You might be cured by health. Or you might be cured by a medicine that is not approved. In both cases, the medical system will ignore the cure, and ignore the patient.
In healthicine, there are no incurable diseases. If it is not curable – it is not a disease, it is a handicap, a disability, a deficiency, or simply an attribute of the person. All diseases can be cured by definition.
I have since met several cancer patients who have disappeared, and not just cancer patients. Maybe you have too? I've met more by internet, email, etc. There is no way for me to determine if a disappeared patient actually had cancer, if their treatment cured their cancer, if their body cured their cancer or if they still have cancer. We can only tell if there is another cancer diagnosis. Nothing can be told from the absence of a diagnosis.
There is no way for any doctor to tell either. There are no tests for a cancer cure. There is no way to recognize, much less document a cancer cure. There are no statistics for cancers cured.
Many cured patients don't disappear quietly. They speak out. They write books and newspaper articles. They blog. But it doesn't matter. They still don't count. Once cured, they disappear. The medical system does not study their cases, does not study their diagnosis, does not study their cures. For chronic diseases, like cancer, arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, even obesity, and many more, there are no techniques to document "cured patients." As a result, there are no statistics for "cured patients" of any chronic illness.
Once they are cured, they disappear. Health doesn't cure illness, it disappears illness. And medicine doesn't count people who have disappeared.
To your health, Tracy
About the Author
Tracy Kolenchuk is the founder of Healthicine.org. Author of two books about healthicine; Healthicine: The Arts and Sciences of Health and Healthiness Healthicine: Introduction to Healthicine.
Phillip Schneider, Staff
Ramses Sanguino is a very unique child. He is five years old, comes from L.A., is learning at least seven different languages which his mother claims he started on when he was two, and he has a high-functioning form of autism. But perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that he has also been found to display signs of telepathic ability.
After his mother had posted videos of his activities on the internet, a neuroscientist and former faculty member at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Diane Powell, became interested in Ramses and began studies to prove if telepathy is a real phenomenon.
During a study with Ramses, Dr. Powell and his mother Nyx generated random numbers on a computer and then selected cards whose value, from Ace to nine, represented the randomly chosen values. His mother, all while hiding these cards from Ramses view, asked him which number she was thinking about and received surprising answers. The child was able to answer three of five correct with no help whatsoever from his mother or Diane.
Dr. Powell, who believes that he has seen signs of telepathy in a handful of people before, believes that telepathy may be an alternative form of communication for children to speak with their parents, such as those with handicaps like autism, who "desperately want to communicate with one another, but can't."
The Daily Mail reports in another test with Dr Powell, Ramses was able to correctly guess 16 out of 17 numbers hidden out of sight – including one double-digit number, according to his mother.
I am as confident that telepathy exists as I am a lot of things that have actually been accepted by science."
Powell also makes the points that many people refuse to comment on the phenomenon of psychic ability and telepathy simply out of fear.
"I have met privately with many people who have said they would never publicly state that they believe in telepathy but tell me that they have actually experienced it or witnessed it themselves…Many of them say the reason they don't come forward and say anything is that they are actually afraid that they would be ridiculed or possibly even lose their job… It's very risky to one's credibility to take on a subject like this – but I knew that when I got into it."
Ramses is also able to solve complex mathematical equations and Dr. Powell calls him 'one of the smartest five-year old's on the planet'.
Many people, of course, already believe in the phenomenon of telepathy or have had experiences that acclimated them to believe that just because something is invisible doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The pineal gland may play a key role in the presence of psychic ability as presented by a growing number of scientists and researchers today. Perhaps modern science is going through a new renaissance and this heightened awareness that we see with Ramses is a part of our new understanding of life and the world around us.
About the Author
Phillip Schneider is a student and a contributing author to Waking Times.
Gary 'Z' McGee, Staff
"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend." –Possibly misattributed to Albert Camus
How fitting. How apropos. To begin an article about leadership with a quote on leadership that may or may not be misattributed to Albert Camus (was that a double negative or an inverted positive?). Alas, misattribution happens. I doubt Mr. Camus is rolling in his grave. But if he is, he's more than likely leading by rebellious example. After all, he did write my favorite quote of all time: "I rebel; therefore we exist." Which is also apropos, and not a misattribution. But don't take my word for it. I'm no authority. I'm just some dude on the internet with the audacity to put things in perspective. Question all authority, to include the authority who told you to question authority (Was that a double entendre or a non-authoritative Mobius strip?). Which leads us to reason number one for why we need more empowering leaders and less disempowered followers…
1.) Leading by example trumps leading by authority:
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." – George Bernard Shaw
We don't need more self-serious bossy-types waiving their authority around like a bludgeon nicknamed Ultimatum. We need more self-deprecating guides tossing up doorways leaving it up to us to decide if we walk through or not. We don't need leaders who want followers. We need leaders who want a sense of comradery on their journey through the unknown. We don't need preachers up on high talking down to the flock. We need trailblazers blazing up their own trails and showing by moral/amoral example how others can do the same.
On the flip side: We don't need more whiney followers unquestioningly going along with the status quo. We need more self-questioning, world-questioning, open-minded autodidacts. We don't need followers who think they need leaders. We need self-educated individuals seeking guidance and the shoulders of giants. We don't need the bleating heart of sheep who are mesmerized and compromised by the shepherd's spell. We need the courageous heart of lambs-turned-lions who have the audacity to break the spell. In short: we need more self-empowered individuals willing to take on the fates. As Seneca said, "The fates guide those who will; those who won't they drag."
2.) Learning for guidance trumps following out of laziness:
"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." – George R.R. Martin
There are giants in those hills! I beseech you: seek them out. By "giants" I mean geniuses from human history. By "hills" I mean books. Climb aboard. The Giant's shoulder can often be a bumpy ride, but it's usually worth it; because you're either learning what works or you're learning what doesn't. Or, even better, both.
We don't need more crutch-leaning hangers-on who put all their eggs into one basket or all their thoughts into one book; we need more people who are willing to learn from the wisdom of geniuses past, and then have the audacity to question that wisdom if need be. We don't need more unthinking sycophants clinging to blind faith; we need more open-minded free-thinkers questioning everything to the nth degree. We don't need more people taking the easy route and following the lemming-like herd just because "that's the way it's always been done," we need more people willing to question the way it's always been done and then have the courage to create a path of their own.
More questions, less answers. Instead of one book, many books. Hell, with enough books you can build a goddamn giant of your own!
3.) Courageous self-liberation leads to the lib
3.) Courageous self-liberation leads to the liberation of others:
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." – Ezra Pound
The follower who clings to one basket, one book, or one hand-me-down way of being, becomes a fear-ridden, soul-crippled slave to the parochial past who never discovers authentic leadership, only base bossiness and corruptible authoritarianism. They lead by one-right-way weak example.
On the other hand, the follower who can seek out guidance from the intellectual giants of the past, connect the dots between them, question them, and then use it all as brain-food that feeds their own soul-craft, becomes a self-liberated leader par excellence. They lead by flexible and robust example.
The self-liberated leader who can lead by flexible and robust example, in turn liberates others. They are beacons of hope in the hopeless dark. They are beacons of dark in the holier-than-thou light. Their needle-in-haystack hearts nevertheless manage to pierce the entire haystack. They shine like diamonds in dark times. They are not afraid of becoming the Hero with a Thousand Faces, no matter how often they have to painfully recondition their conditioned face (Nietzschean self-overcoming).
4.) Empowering others trumps disempowering others:
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." –Shakespeare
All-too-often the powerless are kept that way because those in power are fearful, one-right-way leaders who lead by weak example. The so-called "powers that be" are afraid because on some level they realize that their power is false, lacking in any authentic prestige. And so they disempower the powerless so as to maintain their inauthentic, non-prestigious, authoritarian power. In short: they are incapable of empowering others because they themselves have never truly been empowered. Greg Prescott said it best: "We need leaders, not politicians. But in this world of followers, we have forgotten to lead ourselves. Stop waiting for change and be the change you want to see. We didn't get to this point by sitting on our asses. The human race survived not because we are fastest or the strongest, but because we worked together."
True power empowers. Authentic power does not need to cling to power, it releases it instead. It spreads it out. It expiates it. Think Harry Potter breaking the Elder Wand. Think Maximus (Gladiator) informing Senator Gracchus that after taking over Rome he would just leave. Empowering others through expiation trumps disempowering others to maintain power. Why? Because true power is prestigious and built upon respect, not rigid and built upon fear.
5.) Learn-liberate-empower-repeat is far superior to follow-limit-disempower-stagnate:
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." – Nietzsche
As it stands, we live in a follow-limit-disempower-stagnate type of world filled with inauthentic leaders flexing authoritarian pseudo-powers. They would rather lead by weak example and maintain their grip on inauthentic power than lead by robust example and empower others and thereby discover prestige and authentic power. Since they gained their power through fear and hand-me-down authority, they don't realize that there is far more power in prestige than there ever could be in authoritarian fear-mongering.
False leaders create tyranny through invulnerable power-grabbing. True leaders create freedom through vulnerable power-expiation. Power-expiation directly and indirectly empowers others. We don't need more so-called leaders creating more followers; we need more authentic leaders empowering more would-be-leaders.
Just as cooperation is primary and competition secondary, in order for the human condition to thrive; so too is empowering others primary and competition with others secondary, in order for leadership to be authentic. This is vitally important to understand. It strikes at the heart of the human enigma. It plucks at the deepest chord of our propensity, or lack thereof, toward achieving a healthy human evolution that moves in harmony with the cosmos. It beats upon the primal drum of the human leitmotif. If we cannot resolve the way we follow and, in turn, the way we lead, then the human race will not be equipped to adapt and overcome to an ever-changing world and a never-permanent, unforgiving universe.
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.
Makia Freeman, Contributor
The propaganda of Islamophobia and the agenda of painting all Muslims as crazy and evil is in full swing. In the face of the latest mass shooting in San Bernardino, California (another blatant false flag attack) we need to be careful to avoid the knee-jerk reactions you can see among mainstream politicians and media. All Muslims are not evil. Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Anglo-American-Israeli controllers of the New World Order have been looking for another bogeyman to give the Western public. Communism has expired and outlived its usefulness. Terrorism became the next substitution – especially Islamic terrorism. Thus, ever since Bin Laden and the 19 Muslim hijackers were framed and falsely accused of committing the9/11 attacks (when it was really an inside job with the help of the Israeli military agency Mossad), we have been bombarded with endless propaganda by the Zionist MSM (mainstream media) to hate and fear Muslims as the great new enemy.
Even Segments of the Alternative Media Falling For the Islamophobia Propaganda Trap
Knee-jerk reactions come from the reptilian, emotional part of the brain (the amygdala). It's time to use the mammalian, rational part of the brain (the neo-cortex) to think this issue through. If the thoughtless reaction of the alternative media to this latest false flag mass shooting is merely to cry out that all Muslims are evil, that the entire religion of Islam is evil, that we need to eradicate all mosques, that Western nations like the US are about to get invaded by ISIS and that Obama himself is a sleeper agent for an Islamic terror cell, then how is the alternative media any different to the mainstream media? Judging by these kind of reactions, the NWO plan of divide-and-conquer via Islamophobia is working very well.
Before I go on, let me point a few things out here. I am not Muslim, Christian or part of any organized religion (in fact I consider all religion to be a form of hijacked spirituality and mind control); I understand why people are becoming afraid of Islam when they are bombarded with Islamic terrorism propaganda; and I understand people's grave concerns when they see videos like this andthis showing the appalling behavior of Muslim "refugees" (who are not all genuine refugees) rioting, destroying, acting with self-entitlement and refusing to show respect for the country's culture and law to where they have been migrating.
However, despite the above, here are some basic facts that it's very important to remember with the issue of Islamophobia, amidst all the racism, rhetoric and fear:
1. Terrorism is the new faceless enemy the NWO manipulators have created to advance their aims; the war on terror is a complete and utter fraud; Islamic terrorism is terrorism with an Islamic flavor because it's working so well to divide and rule, and as predicted by former 33° Mason Albert Pike, will be used to foment a WW3 between Zionism and Islam;
2. Islamic terrorism in general does not represent Islam or the majority of Muslims;
3. ISIS in particular does not represent Islam or the majority of Muslims;
4. ISIS is a CIA-Mossad creation; in other words, the group has only come into prominence with the help of US-Israeli backers (and fake beheadings) who are using it for a very specific purpose;
5. The Mass Migration to Europe is being orchestrated by forces using Muslims as pawns in a grander geopolitical game;
6. The specter of ISIS (whether real or not) will continue to be used in false flag mass shootings in the US (and other Western nations too as we saw with theParis attacks) to terrorize the average American who is incapable of seeing through the propaganda of Islamophobia;
7. ISIS is the toy slave of the New World Order, and will be continue be used both for domestic purposes (frightening and terrorizing people, gun control, justification to impose draconian regulations) and foreign purposes (igniting WW3 [UN just declared a war against ISIS, despite the fact they are not an official country]).
Some such as researcher Jim Stone have suggested that Israel pays off the crisis actors to the tune $600,000 each for participating in false flag gigs like San Bernardino (which demonize Islam and generate massive Islamophobia), then flies them out of America to a comfortable life in Tel Aviv. This may not be far from the truth, given the Mossad's motto "by way of deception, thou shalt do war" …
It's also worth checking out this article on Counterpunch: "Five Truths You Should Know About Terrorism And Islam".
Here are a few questions for some in the independent media to ponder: how well have you researched Islamic terrorism and ISIS? Do you realize the entire thing is a NWO concoction to fool you? Do you realize ISIS is a CIA-Mossad creation? Just checking, but is your deepest analysis of this entire issue to reduce it to terms of a Muslim invasion against a "superior White Christian culture"?
What Some Muslims Have to Say About Islam, Islamic Terrorism and Islamophobia
Here what Muslim Dr. Zakiah Sayeed Ali has to say:
"Out of the 1.6 billion or more Muslims, some misguided people, who do not represent Islam, take it upon themselves to create their own cells of hate. These so-called Muslims do not know a word of the Quran it seems. Nowhere in the book does it say to kill an innocent person. In fact, killing of an innocent, unarmed person, is the same as killing all of mankind. Even in a war, it is decreed that a Muslim cannot kill a woman, a child or destroy trees or crops. These murderers call their "Cry of Faith" as Islamic States. Really and truly, there is nothing Islamic about their behavior."
The overwhelming majority of Muslims condemn terrorism. Islamic law itself explicitly classifieshirabah (terrorism and highway robbery) as a major sin. The Koran states:
"If anyone kills a person without justification, it is as if they have killed the whole of humanity."
Bible Found to Contain the Same Kind of Violent, Sexist and Absurd Teachings as Koran
Speaking of the Koran and other religious texts, it is interesting to see the amount of prejudice people have surrounding them. This video (embedded above) shows some Dutch-speaking guys disguising a Bible as a Koran, then quoting from it and watching people's reactions. Most people are very quick to condemn it – and are equally as shocked when they realize the lines come from the Bible not the Koran! The truth is that all organized religion contains a massive amount of dogma and distortion of the original spiritual message of love. There is no one right religion because all of them have become bogged down in meaningless rules, ritual and doctrine. Christianity is no better than Islam.
Yes, the Koran does contain a lot of passages advocating war against infidels (non-believers) (109 verses according to this source), as well as verses promoting peace. It's a mixed bag of contradictions, just like the Bible. If you're didn't know, the Bible has plenty of verses promotinggenocide, sexism,homophobia, slavery, racism and anti-semitism – plenty of ammunition for any misguided "holy crusader" to seize upon to justify whatever harebrained scheme he or she might have to steal, kill and destroy.
Ultimately, Islamophobia is getting in the way of a deeper understanding of the issues at stake here. Let's hope people can see through it and rise above it …
About the Author
Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the global conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance.
Alex Pietrowski, Staff
A potentially dangerous new product, Enlist Duo, from Dow Chemical might actually undergo the scrutiny it deserves, now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to abandon its approval of the herbicide. New information that the EPA discovered in a review of Dow's patent application for Enlist Duo – which Dow seems to have conveniently omitted in its application to gain the agency's initial approval – suggests that the weedkiller may be more toxic to endangered plants and animals than initially thought.
With the proliferation of GMO crops, and the increased use of agrochemicals these plants are developed to withstand, farmers in the U.S. are now faced with the propagation of "superweeds," fast-growing weeds that have developed defenses against cancer-causing glyphosate, the main chemical in Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. To combat these superweeds, Dow Chemical created Enlist Duo, which is made of glyphosate mixed with a new version of 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), a decades-old chemical that was an ingredient in Agent Orangeused in the Vietnam War.
The EPA has now discovered that the new herbicide may have synergistic toxic effects, as stated in Dow's patent application for the chemical mixture. Yet, in its application with the EPA filed in 2011, Dow stated that Enlist Duo is no more toxic than if glyphosate or 2,4-D were used separately. These contradictory claims have let to the EPA now asking more questions regarding the safely of the new herbicide.
Enlist Duo was approved by the EPA for sale in 15 states, a decision that was challenged by severalenvironmental advocacy groups including the Pesticide Action Network, the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity. These groups believe that the new herbicide is a potentially significant threat to endangered plants and animals. Now, the EPA has abandoned its original decision and states that farmers may need to follow more-stringent guidelines to protect plants nearby crop fields. It has asked the court to revoke its approval as it reviews what it calls "extensive information" provided by Dow to explain the synergistic effects of its new product.
The appellate court will finalize the reversal once it receives a formal response from Dow Chemical. Dow is still planning for Enlist Duo herbicide to be available for sale for the 2016 U.S. growing season.
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and Offgrid Outpost, a provider of storable food and emergency kits. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
This article (Dow Chemical Punished for Lying About the Safety of New Herbicide) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowskiand WakingTimes.com.
It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
Alex Pietrowski, Staff
Debate around the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) continues to mount. The recently-released 6,000 page agreement, encompassing 18,000 categories of goods and services and a region that accounts for 40 percent of the global economy, hasn't been ratified by the U.S. Congress or Senate. Yet, the U.S. President has made his support clear with statements such as, "We are both soon to be signatories to the TPP agreement," a comment Obama made on Nov. 19, 2015, after his bilateral meeting with new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Barack Obama's confidence stems partially from the Trade Promotion Authority fast-tracking bill, which passed the U.S. Senate in May 2015, with a vote of 65-33. What has led to such strong support of the agreement?
Part is the work of U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who is one of the biggest supporters of the TPP on Capitol Hill. He's been very effective in selling U.S. Senators on the pretense that the TPP will economically benefit the U.S., although many believe that the benefits really fall to U.S. corporations and not the country's citizens.
"Just to make sure corporations extract every pound of flesh, any public law interpreted by corporations as impeding projected profit, even a law designed to protect the environment or consumers, will be subject to challenge in an entity called the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) section. The ISDS, bolstered and expanded under the TPP, will see corporations paid massive sums in compensation from offending governments for impeding their "right" to further swell their bank accounts. Corporate profit effectively will replace the common good." ~ Chris Hedges, Truthdig (source)
Aside from the debate over what the TPP will actually accomplish, corporate payoffs to U.S. Senators played an important role in the fast-track bill, as they do with most U.S. political matters. Looking at the money trail, it once again becomes clear that U.S. corporations are running the U.S. government, with little regard to the people's interests. Here's what the corporate cash spigot looks like:
Using data from the Federal Election Commission, this chart shows all donations that corporate members of the US Business Coalition for TPP made to US Senate campaigns between January and March 2015, when fast-tracking the TPP was being debated in the Senate:
Frankly, the money trail couldn't be any more evident, especially when looking at campaign contributions made by pro-TPP corporations to Senators running for re-election in 2016:
The fast-track bill gave Obama the authority to speed the TPP through Congress, without having its contents available for debate or amendments. Critics argue that the TPP will "favor big business but harm US jobs, fail to secure better conditions for workers overseas and undermine free speech online." (Source)
"How can we expect politicians who routinely receive campaign money, lucrative job offers, and lavish gifts from special interests to make impartial decisions that directly affect those same special interests? As long as this kind of transparently corrupt behavior remains legal, we won't have a government that truly represents the people." ~ Mansur Gidfar, spokesman for the anti-corruption group Represent.Us (Source)
The TPP is being rammed down our throats by paid off politicians, and our sovereignty is being further destroyed in favor of a new kind of global fascism. Is this the reason why we need government in our lives?
About the Author
Alex Pietrowski is an artist and writer concerned with preserving good health and the basic freedom to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. He is a staff writer for WakingTimes.com and Offgrid Outpost, a provider of storable food and emergency kits. Alex is an avid student of Yoga and life.
This article (This is How Much Big Business Paid US Senators to Fast-Track the TPP Deal) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Alex Pietrowski and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
March 2019
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