oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith
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Seeking Truth in a World of Propaganda. Links do not necessarily indicate agreement with stories or perspectives.
“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.” - Plato
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
US extends state of emergency against Syrian government
Signs of the Times
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The US government is extending its state of emergency imposed against the actions of the government of Syria, President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to the heads of both chambers of Congress, the White House announced on Tuesday. "The Syrian regime's actions and policies, including pursuing chemical and biological weapons [and] supporting terrorist organizations... continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security... of the United States," Obama stated. Obama wrote that he had therefore determined that it was necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to this threat as well as to maintain in force the sanctions to address the issue. "The regime's brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but could yield greater instability throughout the region," Obama claimed in the letter. Obama added that the US government condemned the Syrian government, which he referred to as "the Assad regime," and demanded that it end military operations against rebel forces then permit a political transition to a different regime.
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The US government is extending its state of emergency imposed against the actions of the government of Syria, President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to the heads of both chambers of Congress, the White House announced on Tuesday. "The Syrian regime's actions and policies, including pursuing chemical and biological weapons [and] supporting terrorist organizations... continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security... of the United States," Obama stated. Obama wrote that he had therefore determined that it was necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to this threat as well as to maintain in force the sanctions to address the issue. "The regime's brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, not only endangers the Syrian people themselves, but could yield greater instability throughout the region," Obama claimed in the letter. Obama added that the US government condemned the Syrian government, which he referred to as "the Assad regime," and demanded that it end military operations against rebel forces then permit a political transition to a different regime.
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Now the 1% Live 15 Years Longer Than the Poorest: The Death Gap's Increasing
AlterNet.org Main RSS Feed
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“The equivalent of the richest Americans winning the war on cancer.”
Rich people live longer than poor people. No big news there—we’ve known that health tracks wealth for quite some time now.
But here’s what we haven’t known: The life-expectancy gap between rich and poor in the United States is actually accelerating.
Since 2001, American men among the nation’s most affluent 5 percent have seen their lifespans increase by more than two years. American women in that bracket have registered an almost three-year extension to their life expectancy.
Meanwhile, the poorest five percent of Americans have seen essentially no gains at all.
Now a three-year gain in average lifespan might not, at first glance, seem earth-shakingly significant. But consider this: If doctors could by some miracle suddenly cure all cancer, federal health officials tell us the average overall American life expectancy would increase by just three years.
In other words, as MIT’s Michael Stepner puts it, the changes in life expectancy we’ve witnessed over the last 15 years rank as “the equivalent of the richest Americans winning the war on cancer.”
The gap widens to a chasm when you look at the 1 percent.
Forty-year-old American women among our nation’s top 1 percent can now expect to live 10 years longer than women of the same age in America’s poorest 1 percent. For men, the gap has grown even wider—to 15 years.
All these stats come from a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. This new research combines IRS tax records with Social Security Administration mortality data to paint a deeply unnerving picture of 21st-century life and death.
That poor Americans “have 10 or 15 fewer years of life,” notes Stepner, a co-author of the study, “really demonstrates the level of inequality we’ve had in the United States.”
So what do we do about this inequality?
Stepner and his colleagues belong to the “practical politics” camp. They see inequality as too entrenched to take head-on. Better, they advise, to spend money on social services for the poor and promote healthy behaviors like not smoking and eating wisely. Poor Americans, they note, live longer in unequal places—like New York City—that take this approach.
But other analysts are pushing back on this perspective. Focusing on the unhealthy behaviors of the poor, they argue, lets the rich—and their political pals—off the hook.
People who engage in unhealthy habits, these analysts point out, don’t smoke or do drugs or overindulge in junk food because they don’t know enough to protect their health. They engage in these habits because they’re seeking relief from the stresses of everyday life.
Deeply unequal societies, researchers have documented over the past four decades, generate far more of these stresses than more equal societies. And this greater stress affects everyone, the affluent included.
In places where the wealthiest don’t make all that much more than everyone else, where you stand on the economic ladder doesn’t make all that much of a difference. You’re not going to obsess—and stress—about it.
In deeply unequal societies, it’s a different story. If you have money in these societies, you’re going to worry about losing it. If you don’t have money, you’re going to feel intense pressure to get it.
Amid all this stress, people will naturally seek relief. The affluent can afford to get this relief from behaviors that support their health. They can go to spas and country clubs. And if they should veer off onto some health-threatening path, they can always afford a stint in a luxury rehab center.
Poor people don’t have those options. So the gap between how long they live and how long the rich live continues to widen. If we want to change that dynamic, we have only one choice: We have to confront, not accept, inequality.
Via Otherwords.org
Related video added by Juan Cole:
ODN: “Life expectancy gap between rich and poor widens”
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Monday, May 2, 2016
A New Digital Cash System Was Just Unveiled At A Secret Meeting For Bankers In New York
Sagacious News Network
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Last month, a “secret meeting” that involved more than 100 executives from some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States was held in New York City. During this “secret meeting“, a company known as “Chain” unveiled a technology that transforms U.S. dollars into “pure digital...
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Last month, a “secret meeting” that involved more than 100 executives from some of the biggest financial institutions in the United States was held in New York City. During this “secret meeting“, a company known as “Chain” unveiled a technology that transforms U.S. dollars into “pure digital...
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Message for the coming Dark Age
Signs of the Times
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"The most striking fact about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not that he slept 20 years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up on the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world - indeed, a revolution which would, at points, change the course of history. And Rip Van Winkle knew nothing about it; he was asleep."—Martin Luther King Jr., Commencement Address for Oberlin College The world is disintegrating on every front—politically, environmentally, morally—and for the next generation, the future does not look promising. As author Pema Chodron writes in When Things Fall Apart: When the rivers and air are polluted, when families and nations are at war, when homeless wanderers fill the highways, these are the traditional signs of a dark age. Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people. They will find themselves overtaxed and struggling to find worthwhile employment in a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion. Their privacy will be eviscerated by the surveillance state. They will be the subjects of a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies and on guard against domestic acts of terrorism, blowback against military occupations in foreign lands. And they will find government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment's notice. As such, they will find themselves forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences. It's a dismal prospect, isn't it? Unfortunately, we who should have known better failed to guard against such a future. Worse, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we neglected to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern civilization. We brought them into homes fractured by divorce, distracted by mindless entertainment, and obsessed with the pursuit of materialism. We institutionalized them in daycares and afterschool programs, substituting time with teachers and childcare workers for parental involvement. We turned them into test-takers instead of thinkers and automatons instead of activists. We allowed them to languish in schools which not only often look like prisons but function like prisons, as well—where conformity is the rule and freedom is the exception. We made them easy prey for our corporate overlords, while instilling in them the values of a celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven culture devoid of any true spirituality. And we taught them to believe that the pursuit of their own personal happiness trumped all other virtues, including any empathy whatsoever for their fellow human beings. We botched things up in a big way, but hopefully all is not lost. Not yet, at least.
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"The most striking fact about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not that he slept 20 years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up on the mountain, a great revolution was taking place in the world - indeed, a revolution which would, at points, change the course of history. And Rip Van Winkle knew nothing about it; he was asleep."—Martin Luther King Jr., Commencement Address for Oberlin College The world is disintegrating on every front—politically, environmentally, morally—and for the next generation, the future does not look promising. As author Pema Chodron writes in When Things Fall Apart: When the rivers and air are polluted, when families and nations are at war, when homeless wanderers fill the highways, these are the traditional signs of a dark age. Those coming of age today will face some of the greatest obstacles ever encountered by young people. They will find themselves overtaxed and struggling to find worthwhile employment in a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion. Their privacy will be eviscerated by the surveillance state. They will be the subjects of a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies and on guard against domestic acts of terrorism, blowback against military occupations in foreign lands. And they will find government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment's notice. As such, they will find themselves forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences. It's a dismal prospect, isn't it? Unfortunately, we who should have known better failed to guard against such a future. Worse, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we neglected to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern civilization. We brought them into homes fractured by divorce, distracted by mindless entertainment, and obsessed with the pursuit of materialism. We institutionalized them in daycares and afterschool programs, substituting time with teachers and childcare workers for parental involvement. We turned them into test-takers instead of thinkers and automatons instead of activists. We allowed them to languish in schools which not only often look like prisons but function like prisons, as well—where conformity is the rule and freedom is the exception. We made them easy prey for our corporate overlords, while instilling in them the values of a celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven culture devoid of any true spirituality. And we taught them to believe that the pursuit of their own personal happiness trumped all other virtues, including any empathy whatsoever for their fellow human beings. We botched things up in a big way, but hopefully all is not lost. Not yet, at least.
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Reasons to Doubt the Official Osama Raid Story — Five Years Later
WhoWhatWhy
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It’s the fifth anniversary of the raid that purportedly removed Osama bin Laden from the face of the earth. But a close look suggests it’s more complicated.
The post Reasons to Doubt the Official Osama Raid Story — Five Years Later appeared first on WhoWhatWhy.
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Is Sandy Hook The New Keyhole To Consciousness? (VIDEO)
The Sleuth Journal
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Today I pose a question. Is the Sandy Hook staged event of December 14, 2012 the new critical event that offers us a window to look directly at the reality which has been hidden from us for so long? The hidden reality of government corruption. A reality whose shadow looms over all of us every ...
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Today I pose a question. Is the Sandy Hook staged event of December 14, 2012 the new critical event that offers us a window to look directly at the reality which has been hidden from us for so long? The hidden reality of government corruption. A reality whose shadow looms over all of us every ...
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Sunday, May 1, 2016
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