We finally have an answer to the nature/nurture debate, and it appears to be yes.
It took billions of years of biological evolution for bacteria to morph into humanity, but the human ability to learn and to teach each other new tricks means that useful behaviors and ideas don’t have to take biological time to spread through the species. Their emergence, the ways we spread them, and the ways they change over time amount to a kind of cultural evolution.
A cultural discovery—our pre-human predecessors’ capture of fire—externalized the digestive system that evolution had shaped for our variety of ape. That freed biological energy to grow a big brain. In Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of A Good Society, Nicholas Christakis argues that this coevolution has equipped us with a “social suite” of traits that arose through genetic evolution and that have been amplified by cultural evolution, which has in turn influenced our genetic evolution toward propensities that support the social suite. These include the “capacity to have and recognize individual identity,” “love for partners and offspring,” friendship, social networks, cooperation, “preference for one’s own group (‘in-group bias’),” “mild hierarchy (that is, relative egalitarianism),” and “social learning and teaching.”
Christakis, a physician and a sociologist at Yale, buttresses his arguments with evidence from social science, evolutionary biology, genetics, neuroscience, and network science. He presents evidence from beyond the laboratory, drawing examples from the history of shipwrecks and communes and from studies of elephants, bonobos, and dolphins. He even addresses philosophical objections to his claim that our genetic and cultural history prepared humans “to make a particular kind of society—one full of love, friendship, cooperation, and learning.”
(If you’re familiar with the “Halloween incident” at Yale, you might be surprised at Christakis’ optimism: After his wife, at the time also a member of the Yale faculty, wrote an email to students pushing back against warnings about “culturally unaware and insensitive” costumes, both spouses were confronted and shouted at by students. He eventually stepped down from his role as head of a residential college but retained his tenured professorship, while she stopped teaching at the university altogether.)
Christakis embraces a “glass is half full” interpretation of human sociality, but he doesn’t shy away from the inseparable shadow consequences of the same traits: Our ancestors learned to be kind when they learned to be more effective groups of killer apes. People all over the world observe social norms of fairness and reciprocity, even without direct reward, in part because our otherwise different societies punish non-cooperators. We cooperate with others in our in-group in order to compete with out-groups. In gene-culture coevolution, contradictory and conflicting behaviors can power a kind of evolutionary arms race. Nature (pre-wired capabilities, such as the capacity for cooperation and social learning) and nurture (cultural development of teaching) can act as complementary forces, together driving the elaboration of cultural forms and the expansion of the social suite.
“Evolution,” Christakis writes, “provides the underlying foundation for human culture by equipping us with the ability to cooperate, make friends, and learn socially.”
Key to Christakis’ arguments are the concepts of pre-wiring and exaptation. While a hardwired trait might equip a species of bird to voice the same tune everywhere in the world, a species pre-wired for birdsong might invent different songs in different environments. The former is often used to describe traits that are reflexive or instinctive. Hardwired compels; pre-wired enables.
Exaptation is an evolutionary trick that human beings are not alone in exploiting, although we are particularly good at it. It means that a species can repurpose a trait like feathers, which probably evolved as a form of thermal insulation, to do other things, such as fly. Exaptation also bridges genetic and cultural forms of evolution. While long, slow, biological evolution provides us (and other species) with a strong tendency for parents to form lasting partnerships—”pair-bonding”—human cultures provide a wide variety of cultural forms, such as monogamy, polygamy, and polyandry.
The biological advantage of pair-bonding is that the father stays around to help the mother take care of the offspring they have produced. This close partnership assures the father that he is indeed helping raise his own children, which is particularly useful in our species, which requires an investment of years of care before a child can act as an adult. And it assures the mother that she has help finding food and shelter while she births and nurtures offspring. As Christakis puts it: “The evolutionary psychology of both men and women is to exchange love for support.”
Christakis claims that over time, humans learned to extend the affection and partnership we have with our mates to our kin, then to our kin’s friends, then to all the members of a strongly defined group—an expanding circle of attachment that enables us to form social networks and complex societies. When maternal love becomes marital love and those forms of love expand to create friendships, a norm of expectations spreads through the group: Friends expect reciprocity, a balance of favors asked and offered. Relationships with in-laws take a variety of forms in different human societies, but in all cases they expand the circle of people one expects to trust. As networks of trust grow, a norm of cooperation emerges: Everybody expects others to help further the aims of the in-group. I may do favors for people in my group, even if they aren’t kin and even if they haven’t done anything for me, because I know that I can also count on other members of my group to do me favors.
In any group, some people will be willing to cooperate and others will “free ride” on the work of the cooperators. When free riding reaches a certain point, cooperation breaks down. Extensive research suggests that “altruistic punishment” may be a kind of social glue that maintains an acceptable level of cooperation. Think of how you’d like to tell off that person who cuts in line ahead of you. That’s altruistic punishment—a norm upheld not by a police force but by public opinion.
Culture, as Christakis defines it, is “knowledge that is transmitted between individuals and across time, that can be taught and learned, and that is distinctive to groups…a set of beliefs, behaviors, and artifacts that are shared by members of the group and are typical of it, and that are socially transmitted.” Other species exhibit social learning, but human beings are by far the best at deliberately inculcating other members of our group with useful knowledge. In other words, we’re the best at teaching.
Human beings have compulsions and talents—some that most would consider “good,” and some that most would consider “not good.” We also have tools to create workarounds for the “not good” part: norms that enable people in groups to cooperate, even if they don’t know each other; punishment that keeps “free riding” low enough that people will contribute to public goods; reputation that enables trust among people who may not have dealt with each other before.
The critical uncertainty is choice: Will our pre-wiring—together with toxic cultural forces, such as racism—lead to fiercer, meaner, better-armed tribal conflict? Or will the part of us that expands love from mates to friends to shipmates come to dominate? Christakis is optimistic. I hope he’s right.
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“Washington lacks a clear strategy in Syria “; those were the recent words of Robert Ford, the last American ambassador to Syria who served prior to and during the first few years of the Syrian uprising from 2010 to 2014. A man of Ford’s intricate knowledge of the Syrian/American political dynamic is surly knowledgeable enough to assess America’s policy towards Syria. He goes on to say, “It is hard to explain the fundamental American mission in Syria… Is it to fight Daesh? Or is it to help promote a Kurdish autonomous district in Northeastern Syria… Or is it to resist Iranian encouragement?” It is partially all three; however, oddly enough, Mr. Ford avoids the obvious top priority and strategic rationale for America’s involvement in Syria: The Protection of Israel.
To alleviate this dereliction by the executive branch for not presenting a clear strategy in Syria, as the former ambassador asserts, the Congress took it upon itself to identify American strategic interests in Syria and make recommendations to Trump.
However, it is legitimate to ask: what do American congressmen know about Syria to qualify them to determine American strategic interests in the country? It is very unlikely for American congressmen to know much about Syria; they are dictated the Israeli narrative and that is all they need to know.
Irrespective of who or what motivated the congressmen to seek information to develop a framework for American strategic interests in Syria and eventually send a letter signed by nearly four hundred congressmen- roughly seventy five percent of the total number of congressmen from both chambers and both parties- to the president about their findings and their recommendations, the congressmen called upon United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to establish a Syria Study Group (SSG) to provide them information about Syria to comprehend the situation and formulate recommendations to Trump.
The SSG was established in February 2019 and gave its interim report to Congress May 1, 2019; the report consists of detailed seven single-spaced typewritten pages.
Subsequent to the SSG submitting of its interim report to Congress on May 1, the four hundred congressmen Letter was sent to the president on May 20.
It would be natural to assume that the Letter is a condensed reflection of what the interim report contained and recommended; that was not the case.
The elaborate and detailed interim report dealt with a multitude of issues centered around American national security. Ironically, the Letter to the President focused on the sources of threats to Israeli security: terrorism, Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iran, Turkey and Russia. Just a note regarding the difference in emphasis in the two documents. In the seven – page single spaced interim report Israel is mentioned nine times, it is mentioned twenty one times in the two page Letter.
The first paragraph of the Letter states “[…] we recommend several specific steps to advance our regional security priorities, including assisting our ally, Israel, in defending itself in the face of growing threats, including on its northern border.” The reference to northern border is Syria and Lebanon. As for Syria, it is suffice to note that Israel occupied the Syrian Golan for fifty two years and annexed it recently with Trump’s blessings. Syria has not fired a shot at Israel in decades while Israel has fired hundreds of shots at Syria just recently; there are no Syrian boots on the ground in Israel, while there are Israeli boots on the ground in Syria. So much for the threat to Israel emanating from Syria. As for the Lebanese scenario, it is similar to that of Syria, albeit on a smaller scale, with one addition: Hezbollah which Israel views it a source of imminent threat. However, it is suffice to note that it is Israel which has been the source of violent onslaughts against Hezbollah. The Letter, in the succeeding paragraphs, elaborates further on the acquisition by Syria and Hezbollah of large and more threatening sophisticated weapons to threaten the security of the regional, nuclear super power: Israel.
Need one point out the ridicule?
In the third paragraph, the Letter asserts: “While our nation has encouraged more stable and inclusive political systems in the Middle East, the regime in Tehran has spread its influence and destabilized its neighbors for its own gain.” To say this is an outrageous distortion of the truth would be an understatement. There is not a sane Iraqi, Syrian, Lybian, Yemeni and most Muslim Arabs who would vouch to such a distortion. In fact, internationally, the US and Israel are viewed as sources of threat to international peace and security; both have boots on foreign grounds but no foreign boots on their grounds.
Russia receives a jab at the fourth paragraph for its role “[…] to ensure the survival of the Assad regime.” It adds “Furthermore, in providing Damascus with advanced weapons like the S-300 anti-aircraft, Moscow is complicating Israel’s ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria.”
The last part of the Letter contains three recommendations which are interrelated and converge on the core of the Letter; the security of Israel.
Beyond any conceivable doubts, the Letter was dictated by Israelis or their advocates in Washington, signed and submitted by the 400 congressmen to Trump; the height of hypocrisy. What is dismaying is that hardly any voices of protests were raised in the American society at large or the political or intellectual segments about the fact that four hundred congressmen, who are elected by Americans to serve American interests, at a time when the US is bogged down in the Arab region, sign and submit a letter to the US President concerned almost exclusively with Israel Security.
These congressmen had an opportunity to make a coherent recommendation on US policy in the Arab region in the interest of American National Interest, but instead chose to make recommendations to safeguard the wellbeing and security of a foreign state: Israel.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XPvRte Tyler Durden
Regardless of whether you are opening a lemonade stand or you’re a leading executive at a Fortune 500 company, Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins points out that risk is an inevitable part of the game.
Taking bigger risks can generate proportional rewards – and sometimes, such as for the companies you’ll read about below, the risk-taking backfired to queue up some of the biggest bankruptcies in U.S. history.
Going For Broke
Today’s infographic comes to us from TitleMax, and it highlights the 20 biggest bankruptcies in the country’s history.
Companies below are sorted by total assets at the time of bankruptcy.
There are times when companies are forced to push in all of their chips to make a game-changing bet. Sometimes this pans out, and sometimes the plan fails miserably.
In other situations, companies were actually unaware they were “all-in”. Instead, the potentially destructive nature of the risk was not even on the radar, only to be later triggered through a global crisis or unanticipated “Black Swan” events.
The Biggest Bankruptcies in the U.S.
Here are the 20 biggest bankruptcies in U.S. history, and what triggered them:
The data set on the biggest bankruptcies is organized by assets at time of bankruptcy. Therefore, they are not in inflation-adjusted terms, meaning the list skews towards more recent events.
This makes the impact of the 2008 financial crisis particularly easy to spot.
The events and consequences relating to the crisis (loan defaults, illiquidity, and declining asset values) were enough to take down banks like Lehman Brothers and WaMu. The after effects – including a slumping global economy – led to a second wave of bankruptcies for companies such as GM and Chrysler.
In total, nine of the 20 biggest bankruptcies on the list occurred in the 2008-2009 span.
A Dubious Distinction
You may also notice that one company was on the list twice, and this was not an accident.
Pacific Gas & Electric, a California company that is the nation’s largest utility provider, has the dubious distinction of going bankrupt twice in the last 20 years. The first time, in 2001, resulted from a drought that limited hydro electricity generation, forcing the company to import electricity from outside sources at exorbitant prices.
The more recent instance happened earlier this year. Facing tens of billions of dollars in liabilities from raging wildfires in California, the utility filed for Chapter 11 protection yet another time.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XqzlTw Tyler Durden
We like to think we live in the “free-est” nation in the world, but do we really? Think about it.
You never own your home outright, even when the mortgage is paid off. Every year, you must make your extortion payment to the city or trust me, you won’t be living in that house for long.
The same thing with your car. If you don’t pay your annual extortion payment on your vehicle and pay a hundred bucks for a tiny sticker that gives you permission to drive it, it will be promptly towed away by the city with the government’s blessing. Then, like a hostage negotiation gone wrong, you’ll have to pay even more money to cover their theft and storage of YOUR vehicle.
On a regular basis, you must pay a fee and ask the government for permission to do any number of things, such as driving a car, traveling outside the country, running a business, adding another bathroom to your home, or even catching a fish for dinner.
Permits and licenses are big revenue generators from start to finish – and if you proceed without asking permission, they will extort more money from you in the form of fines. If you refuse to pay the fines (or if you can’t) they’ll kidnap you and lock you in a cage, where you’ll be forced to perform manual labor for 10 cents an hour for whatever length of time the legal authorities feel is sufficient to teach you a lesson.
There are places in our nation where you can’t use your property the way you want. There are areas where you cannot collect the water that falls on your land. There are places where you aren’t allowed to detach your home from the grid. There are places that dictate where your vegetable garden can grow (or even if you’re allowed to have one), places that won’t allow you to hang your clothes out to dry, and places that make it illegal to sleep in your car.
The bottom line is, some places in the United States are freer than others, but we’re all still serfs paying fealty to lords.
I’m sick of it.
Did you know that, as a business owner, when I write a paycheck of $1200 to an employee, it costs me $1399.91 and that she only ends up with $1042.12? Think about what we could all do with an extra $357.79 per pay period. I bet we wouldn’t go out fighting wars on other people’s soil with it. I bet we wouldn’t enrich politicians and weapons manufacturers with it and special interest groups with it.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of it.
I’m sick of being taxed locally on the business I created using absolutely no municipal resources, of being taxed on the wages I pay to my employees, of being taxed on the car that the bank and I own, of being asked for a list of personal property so the local government can tax me on that too.
Sick.
Of.
It.
And it goes far beyond taxation.
Our government isn’t really made up of the elected officials that it purports. It’s made up, mostly, by people who sell their souls to huge corporations that have an interest in beneficial (to them) laws being passed and laws that would harm their businesses shut down before they ever reach the desk of the presidents.
As well, the supposed watchdog entities, like the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Agriculture are populated and led by those who have been hand-picked to support corporations, no matter what the detriment to the American people whom they pretend to protect. If Congress was like Nascar, the members would have to wear uniforms emblazoned with their sponsors. However, Washington DC does not have the transparency of professional car racing, so we must guess at the sponsors of our “representatives.”
We are buried under silly laws with the sole purpose of generating revenue or adding to the slave labor force in the for-profit prison system. We must work most of our waking hours to be able to pay for our basic necessities. We are convinced repeatedly through entertainment and social media that we must have things that our ancestors would never have considered owning, much less requiring.
They have most people convinced that they must follow the food pyramid, the vaccine schedule, and the rules that force us to have licenses for every darned thing we do. We must pay for and be granted permission to feed ourselves, transport ourselves, build shelters for ourselves, unite in matrimony, and even to own pets.
We’re ruled by fear and manipulation.
Like some kind of frighteningly authoritarian parent, they assure us that it’s for our own safety, these breaches in our independence and that we must comply or face the consequences. They ground us by taking away our licenses. They send us to our rooms that just happen to be located in for-profit prisons. They don’t “allow” us to pursue life, liberty, and happiness because once we taste that sweet freedom, we won’t want to be under their oppressive thumbs anymore.
But some of us have seen the corporate government for what it is: a bully that reigns through fear of reprisal and grievous harm. They hold over us these fears:
We will die if we don’t eat things that were inspected and approved by them.
We will be jailed, fined, or have our children taken from us if we don’t toe the line, vaccinate them as ordered, medicate them as recommended.
We are unable to figure things out for ourselves because we are not “experts” and therefore we must suppress our own judgments and bow to their far greater knowledge.
We will die if we don’t follow their expert health and nutrition advice.
We’ll be murdered by scary foreign terrorists if we don’t allow the TSA to fondle our private parts and perform x-rays that show us naked before we fly.
Some people fear these things and believe these tales so thoroughly, they allow the government to enforce ridiculous, unconstitutional laws “for our own safety.” They say, “Better that I give up my rights as a human being and save the world from a terrorist.”
Whether you call it freedom, liberty, sovereignty, or self-governance, the point remains the same: if you’re reading this, you probably want to determine your own life, whether the result is success or failure. You want to have control over your ability to live, truly live, and not merely exist as a slave to the powers that be.
You can withdraw your consent.
When’s the last time you read – actually read – the Declaration of Independence?
Please allow me to share an excerpt.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Now, I’m not planning to arm up and head to Washington DC to take over Congress, but I am continuing to withdraw my consent in every way possible.
You have a natural human right to be free.
Human beings are born with natural rights, every single one of us. We have the rights to life, liberty, and property. We have the right to benefit from our own work.
And if that’s not enough, there’s a back-up. You also have constitutionally-protected right to be free.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. This means that if you are a slave today, it’s either illegal, or you have voluntarily accepted your servitude.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
You have a Constitutionally protected right to be free. If you aren’t free, then revolution is your motherlovin’ duty.
This isn’t about guns blazing, militias mobilizing, and guerrilla warfare. It’s about small personal acts of independence. The way you lead your life every single day can be a personal Declaration of Independence. By refusing to concede your natural rights, quietly and resolutely, you are performing a much-needed act of revolution.
Anyone can be part of this revolution.
Many people believe that revolution requires that they lead a march, stand in front of a crowd with a bullhorn, or form a militia. They feel like it’s a job for the Julian Assanges and James Wesley Rawleses of the world.
They’re wrong. You don’t have to be a person with thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook. You don’t have to be a person with a military leadership position on your resume. You need not get yourself arrested on the steps of the White House, go to prison forever for telling an unpopular truth, or stare down a bunch of scary-looking thugs in jackboots.
But you do have to do something.
You can’t just sit there and complain unless you really are just another armchair Rambo.
The way you lead your life every single day can be an act of revolution. By refusing to concede your natural rights, quietly and resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution. Walking the walk doesn’t always require civil disobedience or militia membership. It requires your consistent determination not to let others infringe on your own freedom.
It doesn’t matter if you are a soccer mom from the suburbs, a college student in a dormitory, a church-going dad and husband, or a person who has found themselves homeless through the ongoing economic crisis – by living resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution.
Don’t get me wrong – we need the Julians, the militias, and the JWRs. We need the people who stand in protest. We need those who expose wrongdoing. We need the organizers, the shouters, the big personalities, and the leaders. But these are not the only ways to revolt. If every single person was off organizing their own rally, there’d be no one left to march in it.
What it is imperative upon us to do is to find our compass and follow it.
We must make ourselves immune to control by not needing what “they” hand out. We have to be armored against the way everyone else lives and choose our own paths. We must stubbornly refuse to participate in the hoop-jumping that is everyday life in America. By all of us who believe in liberty doing this, we form an army of stubborn non-participants in the status quo.
Random Acts of Revolution
The most revolutionary act is to be self-sufficient and in need of nothing that the government can provide for you in exchange for some small liberty. This list of insurrections is by no means comprehensive.
Question absolutely everything you hear on the news. Always be a skeptic. All major media goes back to just a few conglomerates. Call them out. When you see coverage that is clearly biased, take a moment to call out the media about it. Take the time to comment on mainstream media websites and point out the unbalanced coverage. If you use social media, share this information and post on the media outlet’s social media pages as well.
Get out of the banking system. By opting to “unbank” or “underbank” there is a limit to what can be easily stolen from you. When you have physical control of your financial assets, you are not at as high a risk of losing those assets, and therefore, less likely to be dependent on “the system.”
Educate others. At the (very high) risk of people thinking you’re crazy, it’s important to let people know WHY you do what you do. If you object to a municipal policy, speak at a town meeting or send a letter to the editor of your local paper. If you’re an activist, make a point of explaining the reasons behind your activism. But be calm and rational. By ranting incoherently or by keeping your mouth shut, you influence no one. By providing provable facts, you can open minds and awaken others.
Grow your own food or buy local.Every single seed that you plant is a revolutionary act. Every bit of food that you don’t have to purchase from the grocery store is a battle cry for your personal independence. When you educate yourself (and others) about Big Food, Big Agri, and the food safety sell-outs at the FDA, you will clearly see that we are alone in our fight for healthy, nutritious foods. Refuse to tolerate these attacks on our health and our lifestyles. If you can’t grow your own food, the support local farms.You have the right to food that won’t kill you. Forget CAFOs and industrial crops sprayed with glyphosate. Go local and you’ll be feeding your family foods that are wholesome, nutritious, and unlikely to be subject to recalls like Big Food keeps launching.
Refuse to comply. If you know your natural rights, which are guaranteed under the Constitution and its Amendments, then it makes it much harder for “authorities” to bully you. You don’t have to let them search your home without a warrant, you don’t have to answer questions, and you don’t have to comply with laws that are in conflict with the Constitution. You don’t have to be aggressive or get in a fight with them. You just have to be staunch in your refusal.
Embrace your right to bear arms. Be responsible for your own safety and security. 911 should not be your personal security plan. Save yourself.
Don’t be in debt. No one can be free if they are in debt. If you are in debt, you are forced to work in whatever conditions are present, for whatever amount is offered, complying with whatever criteria is necessary to keep your job. As well, the high interest rates that you pay only serve to make the bankers more wealthy. Instead of borrowing, save until you can afford something or realize that if you could actually afford it, you wouldn’t need to borrow money to have it. If you’re already in debt, this articlecan help you get it paid down fast.
Be prepared for disaster. Have enough food, water, and supplies to take care of your family in the event of a natural disaster. Don’t expect FEMA to take care of you. (Learn more here.)
Be involved in your children’s education. For some, this means homeschooling or unschooling, and for others, this means being on top of what they are learning in a formal school setting. Join the PTA and actively volunteer if your child goes to school. Be an advocate for your child and insist that the teachers teach. If your child goes to school, supplement this at home with discourse about current events and outings that help them learn about the world around them.
Know that any freedom you give up, you will never get back. Remember what we lost in the “Patriot” Act and the Indefinite Detention Act (NDAA)? Those freedoms aren’t ever coming back unless something more drastic than anything I’ve seen in my lifetime occurs.
Maintain your privacy. For the love of crickets, don’t be that ignorant fool who says “If I haven’t done anything wrong, I don’t have anything to worry about. You have plenty to worry about. All information can be manipulated to track you, profile you, make you look guilty, and control you. Trust me, when the social credit program rolls out here, you’ll have more to worry about than you ever imagined.
Stop making excuses for collaborators. The tax collectors who enforce the extortion of your money? The TSA agents who pat you down and dehumanize you? Stop trying to justify their jobs. Stop trying to make it okay. “These agents are only doing their jobs.” They should be ashamed of themselves for having these jobs. Heck, I’ve even heard people in line at the airport thank the TSA for patting them down. F*ck that. I will not be complicit in my own slavery.
As Albert Camus, a French philosopher and author said, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
Get out there and be the squeaky wheel.
If you see something wrong, don’t just ignore it. Say something about it, and keep saying something until it changes. Whether this is some process that infringes on your privacy, a job requirement that impedes your health, or another injustice, pursue it relentlessly. Ask questions publically, write letters, and use social media to bring pressure to encourage a change.
If you’re currently taking the easy way through life, if you recognize yourself as a slave, STOP. You don’t have to continue like that.
According to the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
That means that you don’t have to accept the unjust laws. That means you don’t have to quietly take it, muttering under your breath that it isn’t right, but not daring to raise your voice. That means that “they” are only in control of you if you allow it.
Independence isn’t something you celebrate one day a year. Independence is the way you live your life, every single day, refusing to submit to that which makes you beholden to or less than someone else.
There are nearly 330 million people in the United States. (source)
Only 3% of the population fought in the Revolutionary War, and 10% actively supported them.
If 9,900,000 people quietly and peacefully revolted by withdrawing their consent to be governed by tyrants we could not be silenced.
If 33,000,000 people supported those revolting, we could not be stopped.
The government might be watching us, but we can watch them right back.
Make the way you live your life a revolutionary act. Show people what freedom really means, and maybe it will catch on.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XugY0f Tyler Durden
A small study conducted by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan adds to the growing body of evidence that cannabis can be used to successfully treat seizures in children, according to the CBC.
A study funded by Jim Pattison’s Children’s Hospital Foundation monitored seven children suffering from severe pediatric epilepsy, in which up to 1,200 seizures a month are common.
On average, the overall reduction in seizures was close to 75%, while three of the seven children stopped having seizures altogether.
“Some people might say that’s not perfect, that’s not 100 per cent, but you have to take into consideration these are kids that have failed multiple anti-seizure medications, multiple treatments. The likelihood of getting a good result with another medication is really, really low,” said pediatric neurologist Dr. Richard Huntsman, one of the study’s authors.
During the study, the children were administered their typical medication in addition to the cannabis. No participant was administered a placebo.
After one month of observing their seizures, the children received increasing doses of a herbal cannabis extract. The dosage was then increased each month for six months.
A major barrier to the study was the notion that the cannabis-based medicine would make the children intoxicated.
But the actual medication consisted of 95 per cent cannabidiol (CBD) and five per cent THC. CBD is derived from cannabis plants but does not create a high, whereas THC can be intoxicating. –CBC
“What we were able to show is that the THC levels, even at the highest doses in this study, remained low,” said Huntsman. “Based on this —and, again, this [is] preliminary data for seven patients of study so we have got to keep that in mind — but what we’re able to show so far is that the concerns about THC intoxication, maybe it’s not as much of a concern.”
And while this study may have been small, it confirmed a growing body of evidence supporting the known efficacy of cannabis for a variety of ailments. In fact, there are already FDA-approved treatments for seizures associated with certain conditions, such as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and Dravet syndrome, both of which are rare.
CBD for seizures is nothing new
The non-psychoactive CBD cannabinoid found in Marijuana was famously used in 2013 to treat seizures in Charlotte Figi, a 3-year-old from Colorado who suffered from severe, 30 minute seizures.
The twins were 3 months old when the Figis’ lives changed forever. Charlotte had just had a bath, and Matt was putting on her diaper.
“She was laying on her back on the floor,” he said, “and her eyes just started flickering.” –CNN
Charlotte’s doctors weren’t able to pinpoint what was going on; her blood tests and scans were all normal, telling the Figis “It is unusual in that it’s so severe, but it’s probably something she’ll grow out of.”
As the years went on, Charlotte got worse.
With medical and recreational marijuana having been approved in Colorado, the Figis – who had previously been against marijuana use, turned to cannabis after Matt Figis found a video online of a California boy whose seizures were successfully treated with cannabis.
The strain was low in the psychoactive THC, and high in CBD.
By then, Charlotte had lost the ability to walk, talk, and eat, and was having 300 grand mal seizures a week. Charlotte’s heart had stopped several times – only to be resuscitated over and over.
At just five years old, the Figis turned to CBD cannabinoid treatment as a last resort.
“(But) they had exhausted all of her treatment options,” said Harvard-trained physician, Alan Shackelford, who added: “There really weren’t any steps they could take beyond what they had done. Everything had been tried — except cannabis.”
The results were stunning…
“When she didn’t have those three, four seizures that first hour, that was the first sign,” Paige recalled. “And I thought well, ‘Let’s go another hour, this has got to be a fluke.’ “
The seizures stopped for another hour. And for the following seven days.
Paige said she couldn’t believe it. Neither could Matt. But their supply was running out.
Enter the Stanley Brothers
With their expensive supply of CBD oil marijuana running out, one of Colorado’s largest marijuana growers, the Stanley Brothers, stepped up and created a strain of marijuana high in CBD and low in THC, just for Charlotte, and named it Charlotte’s web.
“The biggest misconception about treating a child like little Charlotte is most people think that we’re getting her high, most people think she’s getting stoned,” Josh Stanley said, stressing his plant’s low THC levels. “Charlotte is the most precious little girl in the world to me. I will do anything for her.”
Years later, Charlotte was thriving – only having 2-3 seizures per month, mostly in her sleep. Not only can she walk, but she’s riding a bicycle, feeding herself, and talking.
“I literally see Charlotte’s brain making connections that haven’t been made in years,” Matt said. “My thought now is, why were we the ones that had to go out and find this cure? This natural cure? How come a doctor didn’t know about this? How come they didn’t make me aware of this?”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xrmcts Tyler Durden
During the course of the G20 important agreements and alliances were reached between Russia-China and the USA which indicate that President Trump is not “just another neo-con” as some of his cynical detractors have claimed, but is actually working to re-orient the United States into a strategic alliance with the Eurasian superpowers. This was seen with his announced lifting of the Huawei ban on American companies, his promise to cancel the additional $300 billion in tariffs with China, his cancelling the sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of Russia’s S400 defense system (which renders a big chunk of the NATO ABM shield against Russia impotent), not to mention the president’s historic visit to North Korea’s de-militarized zone to meet with Kim Jong-un.
While not directly discussed at the event, the melt-down of the Trans-Atlantic banking system now bursting at the seams with over $700 trillion of derivatives, and corporate debt bubble which the Bank of International Settlements is warning will be the new sub-prime junk bond meltdown was on everyone’s mind. Whether the USA would be willing to re-organize itself in harmony with the new system driven by the Belt and Road Initiative was a question which only the braindead could avoid thinking about.
While some commentators are trying to spin this emerging re-orientation in global affairs as a mere “trick to get re-elected”, the reality goes much deeper than many realize, as Trump is merely tapping into an American strategy which was firmly established during the 1941-1944 presidential term of America’s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his loyal collaborator Henry A. Wallace who had planned a grand design for a US-Russia-China New world order founded upon principles enshrined in the Atlantic Charter and enunciated in his 1942 “Century of the Common Man” speech.
Wallace’s Fight for a Just World Order
While serving as FDR’s Vice President, Wallace wrote in his 1944 book Our Job in the Pacific:
“It is vital to the United States, it is vital to China and it is vital to Russia that there be peaceful and friendly relations between China and Russia, China and America and Russia and America. China and Russia Complement and supplement each other on the continent of Asia and the two together complement and supplement America’s position in the Pacific.”
In another 1944 piece Two Peoples-One Friendship (Survey Graphic Magazine), Wallace described the destiny of the US-Russia for mutual arctic development with transportation connections across the Bering Strait:
“Of all nations, Russia has the most powerful combination of a rapidly increasing population, great natural resources and immediate expansion in technological skills. Siberia and China will furnish the greatest frontier of tomorrow… When Molotov [Russia’s Foreign Minister] was in Washington in the spring of 1942 I spoke to him about the combined highway and airway which I hope someday will link Chicago and Moscow via Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Molotov, after observing that no one nation could do this job by itself, said that he and I would live to see the day of its accomplishment. It would mean much to the peace of the future if there could be some tangible link of this sort between the pioneer spirit of our own West and the frontier spirit of the Russian East.”
Expressing a mode of long term thinking and sensitivity to the Asian psyche rarely seen by westerners, Wallace wrote that “Asia is on the move. Asia distrusts Europe because of its “superiority complex”. We must give Asia reason to trust us. We must demonstrate to Russia and China, in particular that we have faith in the future of the Common Man in those two countries. We can be helpful to both China and Russia and in being helpful can be helpful to ourselves and to our children. In planning our relationships today with Russia and China, we must think of the world situation as it will be forty years hence.”
So What Went Wrong?
With the early death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1945, the nest of Wall Street lackeys (many of them Fabians and Rhodes Scholars) embedded in the American bureaucracy quickly took over under the Presidency of Harry Truman. Wallace was quickly demoted to Commerce Secretary, and the Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF and World Bank were cleansed of all New Deal economists loyal to the Wallace-FDR vision of the post war world. This was done through the creation of a fascist police state run under the control of Hoover’s FBI and McCarthy’s House Committee on Un-American Activities which ran the witch hunt that destroyed the lives of countless patriots, labelling them as “Soviet agents”. The 1947 Security Act evoked the Executive Order 9835 that made “reasonable grounds for belief that a person is disloyal” grounds for firing someone from any government position.
One early victim of the witch hunt was the IMF’s first director Harry Dexter White who had been accused of being a soviet spy and died in 1948 after a McCarthy hearing. Wall Street agents such as John J. McCloy, Averell Harriman, and George Keenan quickly took control of these banks and re-organized them as instruments for a neo-colonial enslavement of the world rather than as the issuers of long term productive credit which they were meant to be.
Truman’s immediate belligerence to Russia caused the Russia cancellation of its $1.2 billion subscription to join the World Bank agreed to in 1944, and Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech enshrined the bi-polar dynamic of Mutually Assured Destruction as the bedrock of the post war age of nuclear terror. As Truman unleashed the “Truman Doctrine” of US foreign entanglements in the new Cold War against Russian expansion starting with America’s enmeshment into the Greece-Turkey conflict orchestrated by London in the Spring of 1947, Churchill said in Fulton Missouri: “Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.” The Truman doctrine and Special Relationship represented the total reversal of the “community of principle” policy to avoid “foreign entanglements” advocated by George Washington, John Quincy Adams and adopted by FDR and Wallace.
Wallace Fights Back
Before being fired from his post as Commerce Secretary in 1946 for giving a speech calling for US-Russia friendship, Wallace warned of the emergence of a new “American fascism” which has come to be known in recent years as the Deep State.
“Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.”
In his 1946 Soviet Asia Mission, Wallace said “Before the blood of our boys is scarcely dry on the field of battle, these enemies of peace try to lay the foundation for World War III. These people must not succeed in their foul enterprise. We must offset their poison by following the policies of Roosevelt in cultivating the friendship of Russia in peace as well as in war.”
Henry Wallace did not disappear as his enemies would have liked, but became a third party candidate for the 1948 presidency acquiring the support of leading patriots and artists, not the least of whom being the great African American activist/singer Paul Robeson who set into a motion a process that blossomed under Martin Luther King’s Civil Rights movement. Wallace’s presidential speeches are a stirring call to action which can educate and inspire today’s generation. It is a tragic reminder that the American people, having just heroically given so much to stop a global fascist movement during WWII, failed to stop the emergence of a new fascism in America itself and did not vote for Wallace when they had the chance.
A Last Chance?
Although John F. Kennedy did attempt to revive the spirit of FDR during his three years in office, his early assassination, (followed by those of his brother, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X), sabotaged the re-awakening of the true constitutional America.
Decades after the assassinations of the 1960s, many cannot be blamed for having believed that all hope for America was lost. Yet in spite of this disbelief, we have found a US President at war with the same Deep State structures that took control of America over FDR’s dead body, not only meeting with the leadership of Russia, China and India but calling for good relations and an end to the age of war.
Today, the great infrastructure programs driven by credit which epitomized the New Deal under Wallace and FDR is alive in the surprising Belt and Road Initiative. Russia and China have thus found themselves in the ironic role of having become more American than the America which has ran roughshod over the world for the past half century. Whether Wallace’s dream finally be revived by a US-Russia-China alliance for a new just economic order will occur or not has not yet been answered.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XvQcoa Tyler Durden
As the overall economy cycles down through summer, real estate markets on the West Coast have materially weakened.
A new report from CoreLogic, and also reported by The Mercury News, shows Bay Area home prices for May have experienced their most significant drop in nearly seven years.
The median price of a home in the Bay Area is about $860,000, sustained a 1.7% decline in May on a YoY basis. Momentum in sales is also fading, down 2.7% YoY, another sign the top could be in.
“So far this year, the annual change in the Bay Area’s median sale price has been close to flat, whereas early last year the median experienced double-digit annual growth,” CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage said.
“This change reflects the erosion of buyer affordability after years of rising home prices and last year’s run-up in mortgage rates. The combination caused would-be buyers’ mortgage payments to far outpace income growth, pricing out some and causing others to back out of the market.”
The Bay Area has experienced seven years of increasing prices, but as of March, sale prices YoY started to flatline. The last time this happened was in January 2012, according to CoreLogic.
In the Bay Area’s nine counties including Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma, overall existing home sales dipped by 1%.
Sales in tech-heavy and ultra-expensive San Mateo and Santa Clara counties plunged by 10% and 6%, respectively.
Bay Area, real estate agents, have become more cautious of a deteriorating housing market since last year’s top when the median sale price hit a record of $928,000 in May 2018 but has since reversed.
Median sale prices for existing homes dropped 5.9% to $1.27 million in Santa Clara, declined 3.2% to $912,500 in Alameda and slid 1.5% to $1.53 million in San Francisco YoY in May.
The recent softening in the Bay Area market has “created a window of opportunity for a lot of first-time buyers,” said Phil Kerr, CEO of multifamily developer City View.
Ramesh Rao, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Cupertino, said sales have slowed in tech-heavy neighborhoods.
And it was only in April when we first suggested that the Bay Area housing market experienced a ‘blow-off top,’ which would likely result in declining home prices for the quarters to come.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2Xqtj0s Tyler Durden
Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, according The Daily Beast. Epstein is reportedly due to appear in court on Monday, about 12 years after the 66 year old received a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls.
The new charges claim that “Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage girls in a now-familiar scheme: paying them cash for ‘massages’ and then molesting or sexually abusing them in his Upper East Side mansion or his residence in Palm Beach.”
Epstein’s abuse allegations date back more than a decade and have been recently brought to light by his victims and authorities. Up until now, and even in the midst of the #MeToo movement, Epstein has been able to avoid any type of meaningful jail time.
In an era where #MeToo has toppled powerful men, Epstein’s name was largely absent from the national conversation, until the Miami Heraldpublished a three-part series on how his wealth, power and influence shielded him from federal prosecution. For years, The Daily Beast reported on Epstein’s easy jail sentence and soft treatment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which ultimately scrapped a 53-page indictment against Epstein. An earlier version of Epstein’s plea deal included a 10-year federal sentence—before his star-studded lawyers threatened to go to trial in a case prosecutors feared was unwinnable, in part because Epstein’s team dredged up dirt on the victims, including social media posts indicating drug use.
Employees and associates of Epstein allegedly recruited the girls for Epstein, and some victims also became recruiters themselves. The girls were as young as 14 and police allege that Epstein knew they were underage. Epstein’s attorney, Martin Weinberg, declined to comment Saturday night.
Epstein has been accused of transporting young women on his private jet to facilitate the abuse, according to his alleged victims. For more background the allegations already made in lawsuits and in the public domain against Epstein, you can view The Daily Beast’s longform article here.
Recall, back in 2017, we wrote about former secret service agent Dan Bongino threatening to reveal new details about Bill Clinton’s 26 documented trips aboard notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the “Lolita Express.”
Bongino dropped a ominous-sounding threat at the time: “…people know things not yet released publicly about your messiah Hillary. Don’t poke the bear loser, you may not like the results. #Epstein #EmailGate,” tweeted Bongino.
For those who are unfamiliar with his story, Jeffrey Epstein is a New York City financier who pled guilty in 2008 to a single count of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He eventually spent 13 months in prison and was forced to register as a level three sex offender (considered the highest risk of re-offending) though stories of his lust for girls as young of 12 have spread like wildfire in recent years.
Epstein allegedly installed beds in his custom jet, and also purportedly filmed powerful men during romps with underage girls to obtain materials for blackmail.
According to Fox News, Epstein allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on Epstein’s “Orgy Island,” an estate on Little St. James in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein now lives permanently in the US Virgin Islands.
A month ago all appearances indicated Moscow was rapidly drawing down military support to the Venezuelan armed forces, especially given the surprisingly rapid exit of one of the largest Russian state defense contractors, Rostec; however, this week top foreign ministry officials have reaffirmed “Russia will facilitate development of Venezuela’s armed forces,” according to state sources.
“We will continue our multifaceted efforts on developing partner relations with brotherly Venezuela,”declared Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Friday. “We will continue to implement projects in various areas, to hold events within the existing agreements that would strengthen the military potential of this country’s armed forces.”
In late 2018, Venezuelan Defense Minister Padrino Lopez with Russian servicemen, via state sources.
However, Ryabkov sought to debunk what he called the “myth” of recent media headlines suggesting Russian military advisers were seeking to prop up Nicolas Maduro amid external pressures from Washington and its regional allies. Moscow has for the past half year sought to cool tensions that could turn to a new US-Russia “proxy” cold war type scenario in Latin America.
“Reports concerning Russia’s military presence in Venezuela have been debunked many times. I would like to stress once again that this concerns maintenance of equipment delivered there,” the deputy foreign minister declared.
At the start of June a Wall Street Journal report was headlined, In a Blow to Maduro, Russia Withdraws Key Defense Support to Venezuela. That report noted the following:
Russian state defense contractor Rostec, which has trained Venezuelan troops and advised on securing arms contracts, has cut its staff in Venezuela to just a few dozen, from about 1,000 at the height of cooperation between Moscow and Caracas several years ago, said a person close to the Russian defense ministry.
The report described a “gradual pullout” which has been noticeably ramping up of late, citing sources to say further it’s due to “a lack of new contracts” and crucially “the acceptance that Mr. Maduro’s regime no longer has the cash to continueto pay for other Rostec services associated with past contracts.”
The oil-rich but cash poor socialist country has long been deep in default on payments to international creditors, totaling in the billions owed to Russia and China alone with oil-for-debt swaps no longer able to keep up, given plummeting oil production over the past two decades since Huge Chavez’s rule.
But despite this, it appears Russia will remain active in Venezuela at least in terms of military hardware assistance, which notably involves S-300 anti-air missile deployment and operations outside Caracas.
There’s no alarm expected out of the White House over any of this information though, considering President Trump is rumored to have “given up” on pursuing regime change as he’s reportedly “bored” with meddling in this complex Latin America political climate. This despite a few months ago the president saying that “Russia has to get out” of the region amid US efforts to install opposition leader Juan Guaido as “interim president”.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2XwBKfo Tyler Durden
The Iran crisis which recently saw a US military build-up in the gulf region has actually begun to fade from the headlines, at least compared to the bated breath coverage in the aftermath of last month’s US drone shoot down, when potential major war was immediately on the horizon. The White House’s rhetoric seems to have cooled or at least slowed in terms of frequency of bellicose statements for the moment (it’s been a little while since Trump has tweeted threat of war), especially with attention focused on Trump’s historic walk across the Korean DMZ with Kim a week ago. And there’s even rumors that uber-hawk John Bolton could be on his way out as national security adviser (keep your fingers crossed).
But now it seems Tehran’s leaders are in a dangerous gambit to provoke a response from the White House, which means we could be days away from a crisis level where the proverbial finger is again on the button, ready to let tomahawk missiles soar. Here we again with a rapidly escalating situation, as Reuters reports:
Iran on Sunday will announce an increase in uranium enrichment to 5%, a concentration above the limit set by its 2015 nuclear deal, an Iranian official told Reuters, in a move signaling a deepening challenge to escalating U.S. sanctions pressure.
Iranian technicians work at a uranium processing site in Isfahan. Image source: Reuters
Iran is intent on waging its own “counter-pressure campaign” after feeling the brunt of the White House’s “maximum pressure” in the form of unprecedented sanctions, leaving the country’s spiraling economy starved of the ability to freely export its desired level of 2.5 million bpd (which is what Iran had been shipping in April 2018, on the eve of Trump’s pulling the US out of the JCPOA).
Reuters cited the Iranian official as saying: “The main announcement tomorrow will be the increase of the level of enrichment to 5% percent from 3.67% that we agreed under the deal”— a move no doubt meant to urgently grab Europe’s attention amid Iranian accusations of EU indifference and inaction.
Senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi will announce the further cuts in Iran’s commitments to terms of the JCPOA at a news conference at 10:30 a.m. (0600 GMT) in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian media reported.
Though French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly in desperate talks with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani seeking to restart dialogue on the nuclear question, Iran has for months been signaling to Europe that it’s “too little, too late” while Iran’s economy and energy sector are being gutted by sanctions, and with the latest unprecedented move of Britain seizing a tanker transporting Iranian oil, as it had allegedly been in contravention of EU oil sanctions on Syria.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32n4HcK Tyler Durden
