North Korea uses prisoners in their various prison camps to breed rabbits, which are killed for meat. (not for the prisoners, who must eat bugs, worms, raw rats, etc. in order to survive) Kang Chol-Hwan who was imprisoned with his entire family in the 'redeeemables' area of the Yodok prison camp wrote a book that describes his experiences, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang". For anyone interested in North Korean human rights, its a must read. Kang Chol-Hwan is now a reporter for the South Korean newspaper the Chosun Ilbo on North Korean affairs. He's one of the most successful North Korean refugees living in South Korea.
Most North Korean refugees who manage to escape into China lead hunted lives in a terrible limbo of exploitation, terrified that they may be returned to North Korea, where people are often executed for the crime of trying to leave the country and bringing shame upon the Dear Leader.
If you read Aquariums realize that Kang Chol-Hwan's nine years in the Yodok prison camp as a boy were in the least brutal area of the least brutal camp, the only area where people are ever released. Many are sentenced to work on secret underground projects, similar to Hitler's rocket works at Peeneemunde, that only offer death through overwork as an escape, once you go in, you never come out.
Sun Ok-Lee is a North Korean refugee living in the US who worked as a bookeeper in another slave labor camp and her account to the US House is probably the most realistic account of these camps. She is one of less than five people known to have ever left one and lived.. Thousands die each year in these camps. They work people to death. (Each person, and their fat, represents useful energy to be extracted before killing them, as you will see)
I think that the future will bring a host of new automation technologies that have the potential to dramatically increase the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, because much of the kinds of work done today are going to be unnecessary, and the kinds of new jobs that are created will require a level of skill held by very few, and the number of those jobs will also be far less than the number of jobs they eliminate.
The bright side is that borth rates in the developed world are also falling.
However, the situation isn't as bright for the developing world.
The future will probably also bring some incredible new abilities to mankind, which can be shared to benefit all of us, but if we want to avoid a world in which the vast majority of people have much less of an income than they do now, we are going to have to forsee both the negative and positive implications of these new technologies and find ways to change the path we are on.
We should basically re-engineer society so that the kinds of activities that are a detriment to society as a whole are discouraged. If we can't figure out a way to do that (don't ask me, I wouldn't begin to know..) we are doomed..
If we can't figure out a way to share this wealth more evenly, in particular, the human race will probably destroy itself within our lifetimes.
Modern American workplace an abusive relationship?
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Understanding Burnout
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Is it?
Maybe not all workplaces, but many are heading in that direction.
We have to stop allowing the corporate world to determine our national priorities.
This is only tit-for-tat in that clearly, corporations are not loyal to any one nation. If we don't do that we will be like rats in a treadmill, running faster and faster for less and less. We have to say no, stop the addiction cycle. They will thank us for it, but they can't do it themselves.
This is an abusive relationship. Increasingly, the carrots are being replaced by sticks, and people are incentivized not by pleasant rewards, but by the absence or reduction of punishment. This is a sick way to run a society and it is not sustainable. Its a symptom of the decline of America. We ignore the increasing rate of burnout at our own peril.
Obstacles to talented people helping..
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Open Source Spying
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What this all adds up to is that there are myriad obstacles to a number of different kinds of people who could be very helpful to US national security joining the intelligence services, which becomes a contributing factor to perpetuating the situation, i.e. a vicious circle. I don't think its the nature of government, its the nature of the present administration, that is scaring people off.
SGI always poured the lions share of its income into research, and to the best of my knowledge they, even now, continue to do so.
SGI is the company that today has the very fastest Linux computer - the Altix shared memory multiprocessing family - available at any price, really a technological marvel because it runs a single OS kernel and has memory architecture which is truly phenomenal - it scales better than any other multiprocessing/clustering solution.
So any defense of their patents, however 'unpopular' with the video gaming set, should be welcomed because it could help a company that we really owe a lot to in many ways get back into the game. Honestly.
They would not be a 'patent troll'. Don't forget, SGI open sources a LOT of its technology. Much more than most other hardware vendors. Much more.
I used to work at NASA and our division was largely an SGI shop, and yes, they were expensive, but at the time, there was nothing else out there that was comparable in ANY way. You won't ever find me saying anything bad about SGI except maybe that it would be great if they were cheaper.
Lets not forget that Saddam was supported by the US for much of his reign of terror..
After that, we DID have a responsibility to remove him... But for this administration to remove him was the right thing for the wrong reasons.. because we all know they did it for the oil and for the chance to profit from the obscene profits of war..
Its like giving them a license to steal..
These cowboys don't even understand what honesty is..
People like Osama Bin Laden terrify me.. (which is clearly their intent.)
I don't deny, though that I do see our current leadership as having an uncomfortable cult-like arrogance to them that makes me feel that they are dangerous leaders for a nation like ours. They simply do not see the importance of guiding America on a path that includes the interests of all of us.
In fact, bluntly, I read a lot of history and in recent history I have often seen this kind of contempt for the common people before and it always leads to disaster.
The most important aspect of America, I feel, for most of us is democracy. When we think of the freedoms that make this country great, at the core of that greatness lies an inclusiveness and humanity that brings together all of our strengths and weaknesses to form a wisdom that self-styled guardians of property rights (how I think the GOP leadership primarily sees themselves) lack.
I don't think the #1 priority of 99% of all Americans is so much preserving the status quo as it is forging a future in which we all can participate.. even if it means hashing out workable compromises on important issues like healthcare, etc. But unfortunately, our leadership doesn't see it that way. They see themselves as duty bound to preserve the ever-increasing pie of the few at the expense of everyone else, even if it destroys this country and all it stands for. They want to hold back progress on things Americans agree on, poll after poll shows. And in order to do that they have repeatedly, desperately tried to do everything in their power to divide all of us.
The motto of this nation, translated, as I understand it, is "Out of Many, One". The people who founded this nation had a profound distrust of governments and they set out to create a government that had limits on its ability to exercise power over the common people. They were terrified of the threat of state-sponsored religion, and they were also terrified of the greed and power of corporations unchecked.. (like the British East India Company, for example)
We need to re-prioritize our goals in order to preserve something that was at one time unique to the United States and which is now the pathway to a global peace and that is the strengthening of a strong middle class and its values..
Otherwise, in 50 years, ALL wealth will be inherited wealth, everything worthwhile will be unattainable for most people. If we can keep our eyes on that prize, much unnecessary pain will be avoided..
To do that we have to reign in the corporation.. if we don't do that, its all over..
Is it better to have whatever weapons of mass destruction Iraq produced scattered to the winds, as they are now, or as they were before? Neither.
The thing that disturbs me the most is this. "Knowing" what we claim to know about Iraq's aims and programs, WHY WEREN'T WE MAKING IT MUCH MORE OF A PRIORITY WHEN WE WENT IN THERE TO FIND THESE WEAPONS AND MATERIALS AND PUT THEM UNDER LOCK AND KEY???
It's a matter of historical fact that when we invaded Iraq, we were EXCEEDINGLY CARELESS about allowing Saddam's weapons, INCLUDING EXTREMELY HIGH EXPLOSIVES AND HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR MATERIALS to be STOLEN from *completely unguarded facilities*.. during that period of weeks, even months, before the MEDIA put pressure on the Bush administration to FINALLY go in and lock them up and even then, this was not adequately done..
I don't even know if it has been done NOW..
One would almost think that they covertly WANTED THE INSURGENCY TO HAPPEN!!!
Also, this story was in the Washington Post.. its gone now..
Boy, do I feel secure.... NOT..
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted: U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing by Barton Gellman
NEAR KUT, Iraq, May 3 -- A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing.
The discovery at the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility was the second since the end of the war in which a known nuclear cache was plundered extensively enough that authorities could not rule out the possibility that deadly materials had been stolen. The survey, conducted by a U.S. Special Forces detachment and eight nuclear experts from a Pentagon office called the Direct Support Team, appeared to offer fresh evidence that the war has dispersed the country's most dangerous technologies beyond anyone's knowledge or control.
In all, seven sites associated with Iraq's nuclear program have been visited by the Pentagon's "special nuclear programs" teams since the war ended last month. None was found to be intact, though it remains unclear what materials -- if any -- had been removed.
Enclosed by a sand berm four miles around and 160 feet high, the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility entombs what remains of reactors bombed by Israel in 1981 and the United States in 1991. It has stored industrial and medical wastes, along with spent reactor fuel. Though not suitable to produce a fission bomb, the highest-energy isotopes here, including cesium and cobalt, have been sought by terrorists interested in using conventional explosives to scatter radioactive dust.
One team member said the quantities measured today would not suffice for that purpose, but others expressed doubt that the survey was complete. It was impossible to determine what may have been removed -- by unknowing looters, by knowledgeable thieves bent on black-market trade or by former Iraqi officials seeking to conceal evidence of banned weapons programs.
The most important looted nuclear site, less than a mile down the road, is the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, where U.N. weapons inspectors had catalogued tons of partially enriched uranium and natural uranium -- metals suitable for processing into the core of a nuclear weapon. Iraqi civilians have stripped it of computers, furniture and much equipment; whether dangerous nuclear materials were taken is unknown.
U.S. authorities do not know what is missing, if anything, because of an ongoing conflict between the Bush administration and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as a dispute within the administration about how much to involve the IAEA in Iraq. The unresolved struggle
The stakes are very high. Do you mean you would rather see us ALL, (meaning all of us in humanity) potentially dead than change your (by all accounts narrow) worldview?
Because that is the current 'default' situation... Thats the path we are going down..
Did you know that the one month (1/12) of the annual cost of the US war effort in Iraq would feed and provide basic medical care for all the hungry people in the world for one year..
Don't you think that that would be a better way to prevent terrorism? (Rather than subsidizing a bunch of obscenely wasteful and arrogant corporations)
Its a positive survival trait to be able and willing to share..
Why can't we do more to end global poverty? The US could do so much more to make us secure that way with 1/10 or our war chest than all the smart bombs and dumb missiles in the world..
My theory on this is that there are many subtle neurotoxins in our environment that we are in denial about. They disproportionately impact the lives of poor people, but they also are increasingly present in the bodies of all who live in modern societies unless we take steps to ban them.
Perhaps this is why people from certain nations seem to be excelling at math now while others from richer societies are falling behind.
I read recently that there are entire regions of the US that are contaminated with lead from old lead mine tailings. These tailings reduce IQs by an average of seven to ten points and there is nothing that can be done about it besides moving away.. (even aggressive cleaning, HEPA vaccumming, wiping, etc, do not result in the reduction of blood lead levels they would need to to avoid this, its probably because the particles in the air and water, etc. are too small to be stopped by filters)
We need to eliminate lead from the environment because it also effects neuron growth in older people (adults)
Mold is inside of many buildings and several mold toxins effect brain development and the aquisition of new knowledge dramatically.
See this month's National Geographic for a good article on the effects of environmental toxins..
Honestly, most of what you said went above my head. I was speaking from my gut and my gut tells me uneqivocably that we are far less secure under a neocon government than a non-neocon one. This has been my feeling since the day I heard that George II was running. My first thought then was 'oh no, in six months we will be in a war'. I guess I was wrong..
(It was actually nine months)
The most distressing aspect of the current administration is their jettisoning of the "no first use' doctrine that had served us and the rest of the world well for so very long. Even Saint Ronald Reagan felt strongly about no first use. (he supported it, at least in theory)
We also are strongly fighting universal standards of law and human rights - a prime example is our opposition to the International Criminal Court - a court that could be used to try the leaders of nations that commit genocide. (and first use of nuclear weapons is inevitably genocide because civilians are always the bulk of the casualties of nuclear war.)
Perhaps we oppose the ICC so strongly because members of our own government and/or their advisors fear prosecution under it. (A prime example is Henry Kissinger, who ordered such obscenities as the secret bombing of Cambodia against US law, initiating a chain of events that led to the breakdown of civil law in that country. And many other US-sponsored, still largely unknown CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY)
Look at it this way. If the US did not reject no-first-use and fight organizations like the ICC we would have a FAR STRONGER PLATFORM from which to argue against countries like North Korea gaining nuclear weapons.
Why? Because of North Korea's terrible, terrible record on human rights.. their huge gulag of prison camps with the worst conditions one could ever imagine. Because they are guilty of a level of amoral and Machiavellian manipulation of world events that makes this imperative (that a nation like that should NOT have nuclear weapons) obvious.
The only problem? We have now lied so much and postured so much and yes, even killed so much, that many people who *should* know better now naiively equate us with North Korea in terms of evil.
Without a moral United States, human rights in the rest of the world suffer greatly.
That is why I do NOT trust this regime to make peaceful use of space. They politicize everything they touch. They do not understand science except as another tool of warfare. They suffer from a scarcity-driven mentality that pushes us back into the Dark Ages in our interpersonal relations with the rest of the world.
The United States needs to 'stop terrorism' not by fighting so many mindless wars that we create a whole new world of new terrorists.. (even the CIA admits this) but by ENDING THE KINDS OF POVERTY AND INEQUALITIES THAT CREATE TERRORISTS.
Until we realize that we will be our own worst enemy... Until we realize that we should not go into space, because we can't even handle or our own planet..or our own future..
In 50 years technology will do almost everything workers do now.. That means most of the kinds of people who would be people working today won't have jobs.. You will work not because you need to.. (obviously, that argument doesnt hold water) but because you love to..
If we keep the current mentality going into that future (which is inherently apolitical and non-denominational) our leaders will soon be panicking about the huge numbers of 'useless' people and another world war.. a genocide... will be the only possible result..
Thats why it is imperative that people realize that we can change our future.. War is not inevitable.. It is not the natural fate of man..
If there is one message the Jesuses, the Buddhas, the other enlightened people who could see ahead were telling us it is that..
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..
It is within our power now to eliminate poverty and make terrorism irrelevant.. We are not doing that because we are ADDICTED TO WAR..
The nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s caused thousands of cases of cancer in the US, they now realize.
Thousands of 9-11 survivors are also now battling for medical care for the COPD=like symptoms that they have. Nobody wants to pay. These people were called heroes. Now their health is gone. The EPA claimed everything was safe. They lied.
See the New York Times website for an excellent series of stories on this medical nightmare that they are dealing with and the serious denial they are facing from society on their sicknesses.
Seriously. Don't you realize that the various countries on Earth have arsenals that exceed 50,000 nuclear weapons. Even a few of those detonated in populated areas would cause huge parts of the Earth to become inhabitable.
I don't think that the younger generation here in the US in any way realizes the implications of this. Imagine Ground Zero in every US city. Remember, metal and plastic burn, if heated enough. There would not be any survivors in the inner cities and the outlying areas would be contaminated for centuries by radioactivity, toxics, heavy metals, etc. It would bankrupt the US in every possible way.
Would you like to suddenly have to move to South America? Even if the South Americans welcomed us with open arms (not likely) neither health or home insurance cover cover "acts of war", so even if you were not killed, along with your job, your equity would be gone and you would also be on your own for any and all medical costs related to it, forever.
Last time I looked, medical care for cancer cost thousands of dollars a day.
We all have to deal with difficult people. Some days we can be pretty difficult ourselves. Recognizing the difference between normal difficulties and personality disorders can be crucial to decisions about entering new relationships and continuing existing relationships.
The material on Narcissistic Personality Disorder that is published for lay readers is not very informative, even though most people have had to cope with a narcissist at one time or another. If you were raised by a narcissistic parent, then you've been taught that the narcissist is always right and you're the one who's wrong. A lifetime of such mistreatment typically instills lack of confidence in your own judgment, along with habitual shame at never getting it right or being good enough to deserve the air that you breathe. The children of narcissists may not have realized that the quirks and oddities of their impossible-to-please parents are not in any way unique or special but are in fact the symptoms of a personality disorder.
The information on the Web is very repetitive and amounts to little more than the diagnostic criteria from DSM-IV. Clinical descriptions of Narcissistic Personality Disorder don't describe the things that are most shocking and puzzling in everyday interaction with narcissists.
This material is offered for comfort and solace to people who've had bad (or merely weird) experiences with narcissists. If you're looking for ammunition to attack someone, please look elsewhere. If you're looking for a diagnosis, you'll need to consult a psychiatrist. If you're looking for help with your term paper, go here.I've written entirely from my own experience and personal interest; I'm not a therapist or counselor, have no relevant credentials, and can't refer you to lawyers. -- Joanna Ashmun
"The study of human nature may be thought of as an art with many tools at its disposal, an art closely related to all the other arts, and relevant to them all. In literature and poetry, particularly, this is especially significant. Its primary aim must be to broaden our knowledge of human beings, that is to say, it must enable us all to become better, fuller, and finer people." -- Alfred Adler
I have often wondered if they have some kind of secret agreement, ever since the NK missile test on the eve of Japan's vote on purchasing an expensive US missile warning system in the 90s.
When US will to continue spending on obscenely expensive, unproven missile systems or neocon popularity falls, NK rattles the saber.
Not to say that North Korea isn't a hellhole, perhaps the worst place on Earth to live, it is. However, the US should be doing more constructive things to upset Kim Jong Ils apple cart. Instead, everything we do plays into their movie of us and conversely, them of ours of them. Its like a VERY bad movie, except its unfortunately true.
Thats what happens when narcissists rule. Terrible things happen. For example, look at World War II. (Hitler, Stalin were narcissists according to the OSS psychological analysis of them)
Nobody is questioning whether Bush and Cheney are narcissists either. They are the classic examples. So is Kim Jong Il.
There are imaging tools now that can identify these people by barinwave patterns. They should be used to weed out politicians with NPD, before they are allowed to gain power.
The uber-narcissistic Bush administration is terrified of one of the most exciting potential benefits of space research, its potential of making human beings realize just how alike we are and how precious the Earth is for our species survival, and so they hope to militarize space research and exploration to prevent its powerful, unifying effect on humanity.
This kind of thinking has the potential to hurt the US tremendously because the rest of the world will cooperate on space research despite us, setting us back still further both scientifically and economically. The US is coasting on past achievements now. It won't last.
than most other people here.
On June 4 1989, a friend and I were the second and third persons in my (US) city to demonstrate, by the end of that day, there were hundreds there, the next day, thousands.
I am also against repression in other totalitarian countries. And I've gone on the record with that.
The reason I pointed out this similarity is that I'm very afraid totalitarianism could come to the US. And I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Extremism only leads to more extremism. History shows us that. The surest route to communism is fascism, for example. Before every communist 'revolution', there was a fascist dictatorship.
Fascism makes a lot of promises, but it never keeps them. Both kinds of totalitarianism are climax ecologies of lies.
We have never learned the lessons we should have learned from WWII, it is pretty clear. Until we support international, binding standards on human rights of all kinds.. (The US, as well as China, oppose these) we will keep on repeating the same mistakes.
For example, what will we do when technology makes it nobody 'has' to work anymore? How will we handle the economics of that situation?
We need to start discussing this future dilemma now.
Not doing so - could lead to genocide.. It could also lead to a level of hatred and global war - and the end of the human race..
When you look at the four thousand years of Chinese history, it can't help but scream one clear message, and that is the message of repeated lost opportunities due to their obsession with preserving the established order at all cost. That is why they are trying to create their own, closed "internet" and that is also why the US is so obsessed with controlling what is really a global resource as well. I think that this obsession with control will profoundly hurt bith nations, although since China's obsession is so much more total and clueless, I think that the damage done to China's future in the long run will be greater, if it is expressed as a percentage of "what might have been".
However, I don't think that we in the US should deceive ourselves, in both cases, the result is tragic.
Corporations (and their desire to make a quick and easy buck at the expense of the American consumer and real innovation), control US Internet policy almost as profoundly as the China's obsession with preventing any kind of real change controls theirs.
Are the two really that different? I don't think that they are... they are two sides of the same coin..
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever"
George Orwell --from Nineteen Eighty-Four
Slashdot Mirror
North Korea uses prisoners in their various prison camps to breed rabbits, which are killed for meat. (not for the prisoners, who must eat bugs, worms, raw rats, etc. in order to survive) Kang Chol-Hwan who was imprisoned with his entire family in the 'redeeemables' area of the Yodok prison camp wrote a book that describes his experiences, "The Aquariums of Pyongyang". For anyone interested in North Korean human rights, its a must read. Kang Chol-Hwan is now a reporter for the South Korean newspaper the Chosun Ilbo on North Korean affairs. He's one of the most successful North Korean refugees living in South Korea.
l us.pdf
Most North Korean refugees who manage to escape into China lead hunted lives in a terrible limbo of exploitation, terrified that they may be returned to North Korea, where people are often executed for the crime of trying to leave the country and bringing shame upon the Dear Leader.
If you read Aquariums realize that Kang Chol-Hwan's nine years in the Yodok prison camp as a boy were in the least brutal area of the least brutal camp, the only area where people are ever released. Many are sentenced to work on secret underground projects, similar to Hitler's rocket works at Peeneemunde, that only offer death through overwork as an escape, once you go in, you never come out.
Sun Ok-Lee is a North Korean refugee living in the US who worked as a bookeeper in another slave labor camp and her account to the US House is probably the most realistic account of these camps. She is one of less than five people known to have ever left one and lived.. Thousands die each year in these camps. They work people to death. (Each person, and their fat, represents useful energy to be extracted before killing them, as you will see)
Her account is at http://ncafe.com/northkorea/SunOkLeeTestimony_w_l
If you ask me, New Line got a deal..
"quarter of a billion dollars" ha ha.. come on...
I think that the future will bring a host of new automation technologies that have the potential to dramatically increase the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, because much of the kinds of work done today are going to be unnecessary, and the kinds of new jobs that are created will require a level of skill held by very few, and the number of those jobs will also be far less than the number of jobs they eliminate.
The bright side is that borth rates in the developed world are also falling.
However, the situation isn't as bright for the developing world.
The future will probably also bring some incredible new abilities to mankind, which can be shared to benefit all of us, but if we want to avoid a world in which the vast majority of people have much less of an income than they do now, we are going to have to forsee both the negative and positive implications of these new technologies and find ways to change the path we are on.
We should basically re-engineer society so that the kinds of activities that are a detriment to society as a whole are discouraged. If we can't figure out a way to do that (don't ask me, I wouldn't begin to know..) we are doomed..
If we can't figure out a way to share this wealth more evenly, in particular, the human race will probably destroy itself within our lifetimes.
Is it?
Maybe not all workplaces, but many are heading in that direction.
We have to stop allowing the corporate world to determine our national priorities.
This is only tit-for-tat in that clearly, corporations are not loyal to any one nation. If we don't do that we will be like rats in a treadmill, running faster and faster for less and less. We have to say no, stop the addiction cycle. They will thank us for it, but they can't do it themselves.
This is an abusive relationship. Increasingly, the carrots are being replaced by sticks, and people are incentivized not by pleasant rewards, but by the absence or reduction of punishment. This is a sick way to run a society and it is not sustainable. Its a symptom of the decline of America. We ignore the increasing rate of burnout at our own peril.
What this all adds up to is that there are myriad obstacles to a number of different kinds of people who could be very helpful to US national security joining the intelligence services, which becomes a contributing factor to perpetuating the situation, i.e. a vicious circle. I don't think its the nature of government, its the nature of the present administration, that is scaring people off.
SGI always poured the lions share of its income into research, and to the best of my knowledge they, even now, continue to do so.
SGI is the company that today has the very fastest Linux computer - the Altix shared memory multiprocessing family - available at any price, really a technological marvel because it runs a single OS kernel and has memory architecture which is truly phenomenal - it scales better than any other multiprocessing/clustering solution.
So any defense of their patents, however 'unpopular' with the video gaming set, should be welcomed because it could help a company that we really owe a lot to in many ways get back into the game. Honestly.
They would not be a 'patent troll'. Don't forget, SGI open sources a LOT of its technology. Much more than most other hardware vendors. Much more.
I used to work at NASA and our division was largely an SGI shop, and yes, they were expensive, but at the time, there was nothing else out there that was comparable in ANY way. You won't ever find me saying anything bad about SGI except maybe that it would be great if they were cheaper.
Why? Because they are the best.
Lets not forget that Saddam was supported by the US for much of his reign of terror..
After that, we DID have a responsibility to remove him... But for this administration to remove him was the right thing for the wrong reasons.. because we all know they did it for the oil and for the chance to profit from the obscene profits of war..
Its like giving them a license to steal..
These cowboys don't even understand what honesty is..
meant..
People like Osama Bin Laden terrify me.. (which is clearly their intent.)
I don't deny, though that I do see our current leadership as having an uncomfortable cult-like arrogance to them that makes me feel that they are dangerous leaders for a nation like ours. They simply do not see the importance of guiding America on a path that includes the interests of all of us.
In fact, bluntly, I read a lot of history and in recent history I have often seen this kind of contempt for the common people before and it always leads to disaster.
The most important aspect of America, I feel, for most of us is democracy. When we think of the freedoms that make this country great, at the core of that greatness lies an inclusiveness and humanity that brings together all of our strengths and weaknesses to form a wisdom that self-styled guardians of property rights (how I think the GOP leadership primarily sees themselves) lack.
I don't think the #1 priority of 99% of all Americans is so much preserving the status quo as it is forging a future in which we all can participate.. even if it means hashing out workable compromises on important issues like healthcare, etc. But unfortunately, our leadership doesn't see it that way. They see themselves as duty bound to preserve the ever-increasing pie of the few at the expense of everyone else, even if it destroys this country and all it stands for. They want to hold back progress on things Americans agree on, poll after poll shows. And in order to do that they have repeatedly, desperately tried to do everything in their power to divide all of us.
The motto of this nation, translated, as I understand it, is "Out of Many, One". The people who founded this nation had a profound distrust of governments and they set out to create a government that had limits on its ability to exercise power over the common people. They were terrified of the threat of state-sponsored religion, and they were also terrified of the greed and power of corporations unchecked.. (like the British East India Company, for example)
We need to re-prioritize our goals in order to preserve something that was at one time unique to the United States and which is now the pathway to a global peace and that is the strengthening of a strong middle class and its values..
Otherwise, in 50 years, ALL wealth will be inherited wealth, everything worthwhile will be unattainable for most people. If we can keep our eyes on that prize, much unnecessary pain will be avoided..
To do that we have to reign in the corporation.. if we don't do that, its all over..
Is it better to have whatever weapons of mass destruction Iraq produced scattered to the winds, as they are now, or as they were before? Neither.
The thing that disturbs me the most is this. "Knowing" what we claim to know about Iraq's aims and programs, WHY WEREN'T WE MAKING IT MUCH MORE OF A PRIORITY WHEN WE WENT IN THERE TO FIND THESE WEAPONS AND MATERIALS AND PUT THEM UNDER LOCK AND KEY???
It's a matter of historical fact that when we invaded Iraq, we were EXCEEDINGLY CARELESS about allowing Saddam's weapons, INCLUDING EXTREMELY HIGH EXPLOSIVES AND HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE NUCLEAR MATERIALS to be STOLEN from *completely unguarded facilities*.. during that period of weeks, even months, before the MEDIA put pressure on the Bush administration to FINALLY go in and lock them up and even then, this was not adequately done..
I don't even know if it has been done NOW..
One would almost think that they covertly WANTED THE INSURGENCY TO HAPPEN!!!
See:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2002076232_weapons29.html
Also, this story was in the Washington Post.. its gone now..
Boy, do I feel secure.... NOT..
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted:
U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing
by Barton Gellman
NEAR KUT, Iraq, May 3 -- A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing.
The discovery at the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility was the second since the end of the war in which a known nuclear cache was plundered extensively enough that authorities could not rule out the possibility that deadly materials had been stolen. The survey, conducted by a U.S. Special Forces detachment and eight nuclear experts from a Pentagon office called the Direct Support Team, appeared to offer fresh evidence that the war has dispersed the country's most dangerous technologies beyond anyone's knowledge or control.
In all, seven sites associated with Iraq's nuclear program have been visited by the Pentagon's "special nuclear programs" teams since the war ended last month. None was found to be intact, though it remains unclear what materials -- if any -- had been removed.
Enclosed by a sand berm four miles around and 160 feet high, the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility entombs what remains of reactors bombed by Israel in 1981 and the United States in 1991. It has stored industrial and medical wastes, along with spent reactor fuel. Though not suitable to produce a fission bomb, the highest-energy isotopes here, including cesium and cobalt, have been sought by terrorists interested in using conventional explosives to scatter radioactive dust.
One team member said the quantities measured today would not suffice for that purpose, but others expressed doubt that the survey was complete. It was impossible to determine what may have been removed -- by unknowing looters, by knowledgeable thieves bent on black-market trade or by former Iraqi officials seeking to conceal evidence of banned weapons programs.
The most important looted nuclear site, less than a mile down the road, is the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, where U.N. weapons inspectors had catalogued tons of partially enriched uranium and natural uranium -- metals suitable for processing into the core of a nuclear weapon. Iraqi civilians have stripped it of computers, furniture and much equipment; whether dangerous nuclear materials were taken is unknown.
U.S. authorities do not know what is missing, if anything, because of an ongoing conflict between the Bush administration and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as a dispute within the administration about how much to involve the IAEA in Iraq. The unresolved struggle
The stakes are very high. Do you mean you would rather see us ALL, (meaning all of us in humanity) potentially dead than change your (by all accounts narrow) worldview?
Because that is the current 'default' situation... Thats the path we are going down..
Did you know that the one month (1/12) of the annual cost of the US war effort in Iraq would feed and provide basic medical care for all the hungry people in the world for one year..
Don't you think that that would be a better way to prevent terrorism? (Rather than subsidizing a bunch of obscenely wasteful and arrogant corporations)
Its a positive survival trait to be able and willing to share..
Why can't we do more to end global poverty? The US could do so much more to make us secure that way with 1/10 or our war chest than all the smart bombs and dumb missiles in the world..
My theory on this is that there are many subtle neurotoxins in our environment that we are in denial about. They disproportionately impact the lives of poor people, but they also are increasingly present in the bodies of all who live in modern societies unless we take steps to ban them.
Perhaps this is why people from certain nations seem to be excelling at math now while others from richer societies are falling behind.
I read recently that there are entire regions of the US that are contaminated with lead from old lead mine tailings. These tailings reduce IQs by an average of seven to ten points and there is nothing that can be done about it besides moving away.. (even aggressive cleaning, HEPA vaccumming, wiping, etc, do not result in the reduction of blood lead levels they would need to to avoid this, its probably because the particles in the air and water, etc. are too small to be stopped by filters)
We need to eliminate lead from the environment because it also effects neuron growth in older people (adults)
Mold is inside of many buildings and several mold toxins effect brain development and the aquisition of new knowledge dramatically.
See this month's National Geographic for a good article on the effects of environmental toxins..
Honestly, most of what you said went above my head. I was speaking from my gut and my gut tells me uneqivocably that we are far less secure under a neocon government than a non-neocon one. This has been my feeling since the day I heard that George II was running. My first thought then was 'oh no, in six months we will be in a war'. I guess I was wrong..
(It was actually nine months)
The most distressing aspect of the current administration is their jettisoning of the "no first use' doctrine that had served us and the rest of the world well for so very long. Even Saint Ronald Reagan felt strongly about no first use. (he supported it, at least in theory)
We also are strongly fighting universal standards of law and human rights - a prime example is our opposition to the International Criminal Court - a court that could be used to try the leaders of nations that commit genocide. (and first use of nuclear weapons is inevitably genocide because civilians are always the bulk of the casualties of nuclear war.)
Perhaps we oppose the ICC so strongly because members of our own government and/or their advisors fear prosecution under it. (A prime example is Henry Kissinger, who ordered such obscenities as the secret bombing of Cambodia against US law, initiating a chain of events that led to the breakdown of civil law in that country. And many other US-sponsored, still largely unknown CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY)
Look at it this way. If the US did not reject no-first-use and fight organizations like the ICC we would have a FAR STRONGER PLATFORM from which to argue against countries like North Korea gaining nuclear weapons.
Why? Because of North Korea's terrible, terrible record on human rights.. their huge gulag of prison camps with the worst conditions one could ever imagine. Because they are guilty of a level of amoral and Machiavellian manipulation of world events that makes this imperative (that a nation like that should NOT have nuclear weapons) obvious.
The only problem? We have now lied so much and postured so much and yes, even killed so much, that many people who *should* know better now naiively equate us with North Korea in terms of evil.
Without a moral United States, human rights in the rest of the world suffer greatly.
That is why I do NOT trust this regime to make peaceful use of space. They politicize everything they touch. They do not understand science except as another tool of warfare. They suffer from a scarcity-driven mentality that pushes us back into the Dark Ages in our interpersonal relations with the rest of the world.
The United States needs to 'stop terrorism' not by fighting so many mindless wars that we create a whole new world of new terrorists.. (even the CIA admits this) but by ENDING THE KINDS OF POVERTY AND INEQUALITIES THAT CREATE TERRORISTS.
Until we realize that we will be our own worst enemy... Until we realize that we should not go into space, because we can't even handle or our own planet..or our own future..
In 50 years technology will do almost everything workers do now.. That means most of the kinds of people who would be people working today won't have jobs.. You will work not because you need to.. (obviously, that argument doesnt hold water) but because you love to..
If we keep the current mentality going into that future (which is inherently apolitical and non-denominational) our leaders will soon be panicking about the huge numbers of 'useless' people and another world war.. a genocide... will be the only possible result..
Thats why it is imperative that people realize that we can change our future.. War is not inevitable.. It is not the natural fate of man..
If there is one message the Jesuses, the Buddhas, the other enlightened people who could see ahead were telling us it is that..
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..
It is within our power now to eliminate poverty and make terrorism irrelevant.. We are not doing that because we are ADDICTED TO WAR..
the stakes are huge.. all of our survival..
There will not be a World War IV...
Sorry..
But hopefully, you get the point.
The nuclear tests in the 50s and 60s caused thousands of cases of cancer in the US, they now realize.
Thousands of 9-11 survivors are also now battling for medical care for the COPD=like symptoms that they have. Nobody wants to pay. These people were called heroes. Now their health is gone. The EPA claimed everything was safe. They lied.
See the New York Times website for an excellent series of stories on this medical nightmare that they are dealing with and the serious denial they are facing from society on their sicknesses.
Seriously. Don't you realize that the various countries on Earth have arsenals that exceed 50,000 nuclear weapons. Even a few of those detonated in populated areas would cause huge parts of the Earth to become inhabitable.
I don't think that the younger generation here in the US in any way realizes the implications of this. Imagine Ground Zero in every US city. Remember, metal and plastic burn, if heated enough. There would not be any survivors in the inner cities and the outlying areas would be contaminated for centuries by radioactivity, toxics, heavy metals, etc. It would bankrupt the US in every possible way.
Would you like to suddenly have to move to South America? Even if the South Americans welcomed us with open arms (not likely) neither health or home insurance cover cover "acts of war", so even if you were not killed, along with your job, your equity would be gone and you would also be on your own for any and all medical costs related to it, forever.
Last time I looked, medical care for cancer cost thousands of dollars a day.
a disease:
See Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) :
How to Recognize a Narcissist
at this URL
http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/index.html
We all have to deal with difficult people. Some days we can be pretty difficult ourselves. Recognizing the difference between normal difficulties and personality disorders can be crucial to decisions about entering new relationships and continuing existing relationships.
The material on Narcissistic Personality Disorder that is published for lay readers is not very informative, even though most people have had to cope with a narcissist at one time or another. If you were raised by a narcissistic parent, then you've been taught that the narcissist is always right and you're the one who's wrong. A lifetime of such mistreatment typically instills lack of confidence in your own judgment, along with habitual shame at never getting it right or being good enough to deserve the air that you breathe. The children of narcissists may not have realized that the quirks and oddities of their impossible-to-please parents are not in any way unique or special but are in fact the symptoms of a personality disorder.
The information on the Web is very repetitive and amounts to little more than the diagnostic criteria from DSM-IV. Clinical descriptions of Narcissistic Personality Disorder don't describe the things that are most shocking and puzzling in everyday interaction with narcissists.
This material is offered for comfort and solace to people who've had bad (or merely weird) experiences with narcissists. If you're looking for ammunition to attack someone, please look elsewhere. If you're looking for a diagnosis, you'll need to consult a psychiatrist. If you're looking for help with your term paper, go here.I've written entirely from my own experience and personal interest; I'm not a therapist or counselor, have no relevant credentials, and can't refer you to lawyers.
-- Joanna Ashmun
"The study of human nature may be thought of as an art with many tools at its disposal, an art closely related to all the other arts, and relevant to them all. In literature and poetry, particularly, this is especially significant. Its primary aim must be to broaden our knowledge of human beings, that is to say, it must enable us all to become better, fuller, and finer people." -- Alfred Adler
Both need the other to 'justify their exisTENSE'.
I have often wondered if they have some kind of secret agreement, ever since the NK missile test on the eve of Japan's vote on purchasing an expensive US missile warning system in the 90s.
When US will to continue spending on obscenely expensive, unproven missile systems or neocon popularity falls, NK rattles the saber.
Not to say that North Korea isn't a hellhole, perhaps the worst place on Earth to live, it is. However, the US should be doing more constructive things to upset Kim Jong Ils apple cart. Instead, everything we do plays into their movie of us and conversely, them of ours of them. Its like a VERY bad movie, except its unfortunately true.
Thats what happens when narcissists rule. Terrible things happen. For example, look at World War II. (Hitler, Stalin were narcissists according to the OSS psychological analysis of them)
Nobody is questioning whether Bush and Cheney are narcissists either. They are the classic examples. So is Kim Jong Il.
There are imaging tools now that can identify these people by barinwave patterns. They should be used to weed out politicians with NPD, before they are allowed to gain power.
The uber-narcissistic Bush administration is terrified of one of the most exciting potential benefits of space research, its potential of making human beings realize just how alike we are and how precious the Earth is for our species survival, and so they hope to militarize space research and exploration to prevent its powerful, unifying effect on humanity. This kind of thinking has the potential to hurt the US tremendously because the rest of the world will cooperate on space research despite us, setting us back still further both scientifically and economically. The US is coasting on past achievements now. It won't last.
than most other people here. On June 4 1989, a friend and I were the second and third persons in my (US) city to demonstrate, by the end of that day, there were hundreds there, the next day, thousands. I am also against repression in other totalitarian countries. And I've gone on the record with that. The reason I pointed out this similarity is that I'm very afraid totalitarianism could come to the US. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Extremism only leads to more extremism. History shows us that. The surest route to communism is fascism, for example. Before every communist 'revolution', there was a fascist dictatorship. Fascism makes a lot of promises, but it never keeps them. Both kinds of totalitarianism are climax ecologies of lies. We have never learned the lessons we should have learned from WWII, it is pretty clear. Until we support international, binding standards on human rights of all kinds.. (The US, as well as China, oppose these) we will keep on repeating the same mistakes. For example, what will we do when technology makes it nobody 'has' to work anymore? How will we handle the economics of that situation? We need to start discussing this future dilemma now. Not doing so - could lead to genocide.. It could also lead to a level of hatred and global war - and the end of the human race..
When you look at the four thousand years of Chinese history, it can't help but scream one clear message, and that is the message of repeated lost opportunities due to their obsession with preserving the established order at all cost. That is why they are trying to create their own, closed "internet" and that is also why the US is so obsessed with controlling what is really a global resource as well. I think that this obsession with control will profoundly hurt bith nations, although since China's obsession is so much more total and clueless, I think that the damage done to China's future in the long run will be greater, if it is expressed as a percentage of "what might have been". However, I don't think that we in the US should deceive ourselves, in both cases, the result is tragic. Corporations (and their desire to make a quick and easy buck at the expense of the American consumer and real innovation), control US Internet policy almost as profoundly as the China's obsession with preventing any kind of real change controls theirs. Are the two really that different? I don't think that they are... they are two sides of the same coin.. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever" George Orwell --from Nineteen Eighty-Four