A stroll down memory lane … ahhh, nostalgia

One of my favorite teachers growing up was a nun with a mustache, Sister Janice (ju-neese’), who I had in fifth and sixth grade. I probably did not learn anything worthwhile. By that time I knew how to read and cipher, so school was just repetition and testing. I do remember her, standing by the window overlooking First Second Avenue South in Billings as she talked about the death of Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations on September 18th of 1961, the day before. Sr. Janice, of course, thought that it was the International Communist Conspiracy that killed him, and we kids were brought up in that paranoid circus, so we thought that too. She spoke with gloom abut the world we were going to inherit.

Dag Hammarskjold
Dag Hammarskjold
It would be years before I came to learn that Hammarskjold had been gunned down by our old buddies in the CIA, who had not too long before that also murdered Patrice Lumumba. In the coming months CIA would also dispatch Ecuadorian President Jose Velasco and General Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic.

The theme behind the murders was the dominant propaganda meme of the time, that they were communists. The real reason for their deaths was that in the wake of World War II, with Britain and France greatly weakened, former resource colonies were breaking free of chains and charting independence courses for themselves. The CIA, Capitalism’s Invisible Army, was appointed the new keeper of order and was in brush fire mode.

The murders served both to get rid of pesky democratic forces, but also to warn all others in the colonial world that a new sheriff was on the beat. Any who got in the way of American corporations’ access to local resources would encounter assassins, marines, fighter jets and thugs parading as American elected officials.

LBJ pointing at his ...surgical scar.
LBJ pointing at his …surgical scar.
One such thug was Lyndon Baines Johnson, a crude and coarse man who once, when asked why we were in Vietnam, took out his dick and shook it at reporters saying “This is why.” Johnson was a murderer, but only a local thug. Many have inferred that his crimes in Texas suggest he had a role in the assassination of President Kennedy, but he was, in my view, merely controllable due to his corruption, much like Harry Truman. Those who wheeled him into the Vice Presidency, and ultimately presidency, knew he could be easily managed due to his past. His rightful place was in prison, or passing into the netherworld in a Texas gas chamber. He was that corrupt.

That’s just how it works – to the naive it appears that men and women arise from the grassroots and run for office and get elected and do the people’s business. There are indeed many people like that, but they don’t often get elected. They are not corruptible. One key to getting elected is a skeleton in the closet, a lever by which a person can be controlled.

Ashley Dupré, used to honey trap Elliot Spitzer
Ashley Dupré, used to honey trap Elliot Spitzer

  • Side note: Often enough, if a good lever does not exist, it can be supplied. For instance, the amazingly beautiful woman who did business with Elliot Spritzer and brought him down as governor of New York was part of a honey trap, a common ploy used to compromise troublesome officials. Please ask yourself, gentlemen, what you would do if this woman stumbled into your lap.

Many people know about Bobby Baker. He was a scandalous Washington, DC figure in the early 1960’s who ran a club where powerful people could engage in trysts and enjoy some protection. The Kennedy boys were clients, and JFK’s famous dalliance with an East German spy, Ellen Rometsch originated there. But Baker had many irons in the fire, and was tied to Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson, and so JFK had decided that in the 1964 election, Johnson would be dropped in favor of North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford.

Mac-walking-freeThat’s all filthy, but not unusual. Anywhere there is power, there is corruption, hookers, drugs, bag men and assassins. Johnson’s favorite assassin was guy named Mac Wallace. One witness has placed Wallace in a certain book depository on 11/22/63, but that’s more a rewriting of history, as CIA is anxious to do anything to deflect blame from itself in that murder. So there’s a school of thought that traces the JFK murder to LBJ, but it falls apart on close examination. Johnson was not powerful enough to orchestrate an event of that magnitude.

But Mac Wallace was a busy man.

Another friend of LBJ’s was Billy Sol Estes, who was doing a sale/leaseback scam for fertilizer storage tanks in West Texas. It sounds mundane, but there were 33,000 of them and it was a multi-million dollar enterprise. Following the money led back to a man in the Agriculture Department, Henry Marshall, who was tied to LBJ.

Billy Sol Estes
Billy Sol Estes
LBJ ordered Marshall’s death – “get rid of him.” A man resembling Mac Wallace asked direction to Marshall’s home one day, and thereafter Marshall was bound with a plastic bag over his head and a hose running from an exhaust pipe, and was plugged with five bullet wounds. It was very clumsy. His body was moved to a nearby farm, and when the five bullets holes were tied to a shotgun found nearby, it was ruled a suicide. I guess it makes perfect sense in Texas.

In the succeeding months thereafter, George Kritilek (carbon monoxide), Harold Eugene Orr (ditto), Howard Pratt (need you ask?) and Coleman Wade (small plane crash – gotcha!) all turned up dead, and all ties between Billy Sol Estates and LBJ were severed. Billy Sol testified to all of this in 1984, after LBJ was dead, naming LBJ as a participant.

That’s your country, folks, just a small slice of real history. A thief and murderer sat in the White House for four years, in real life a man who should have been sitting in prison. Had he waved his dick at anyone there, it would have been severed.

A Democratic consensus for America

The population of the United States is a smart bunch, generally, well-educated and well-versed in politics. Not much gets by them. I have been in and around politics most of my adult life, and so have familiarity with the attitudes and ideas, and the tactics by which people are grouped, for all our good, into movement politics.

By far the most effective, educated and cagey group is the Democrats. I was born and raised to be a Republican, but as I like to say, I got over to the other side as soon as I could. Once enmeshed with the culture, I found a rich garden, a full life complete with outlets for activism, self-education, and leadership. Democrats had all the bases covered. If I wanted to work to preserve the environment, they offered candidates and pamphlets and legislation designed for that purpose. If I wanted to work for human rights, where else to go? The Democratic program for Central America, the Middle East, South America and Southeast Asia was a feed bag of programs designed to advance development, democracy, and basic human dignity. The national platform included platforms on anti-racism, choice, the environment, control of the corporate sector, and most importantly, peace.

That’s why our society is so well equipped for world leadership. It’s not our leaders – sometimes we introduce clinkers like George W. Bush, but the society as a whole is so vibrant, so well schooled in ground-level organization, and so well-educated that he was but a passing ship in the night, an aberration. Soon enough he was upended and put out to pasture, and a real leader took is place, a highly intelligent man, a scholar, a community organizer, a charismatic figure, and one who was of a minority race. That sort of man could only come to a leadership position by the vehicle known as the “Democratic Party.”

So it is with some regret that I see Barack Obama’s term come to an end. Yet, and this speaks so highly of the party, there is no shortage of leaders. The party has a strong bench. Waiting in the wings is another person of intelligence, compassion, vision and skill, and a woman. I am four paragraphs into this, far enough down that everyone has stopped reading. I’ll return to the theme for the last paragraph, where most eyes generally skip when bored.

James Carville spoke at the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner in Helena last weekend. I should not have put the words “Mansfield-Metcalf” in this paragraph, as skimming eyes might pick up and read what is really being written here. But I think I am safe that most are moving on to the last paragraph. Swede brought me a quote, verified, from Carville, a man who I like for some reason. He said “The voter is basically dumb and lazy. The reason I became a Democratic operative instead of a Republican was there were more Democrats that didn’t have a clue than there were Republicans.” I am feeling a surge of pride in reading that, as I said as much on my own accord in the post below this, that Republican leadership does not have to lie to its base the way that Democrats do, as they are all “Benghazi crazy,” or on the same page ideologically, right-wing extremists who feed on and support one another.

Democrats are a wonderful party. I had to say that at paragraph opening for deflection purposes. Here is what is real. Democrats are a largely ineffective group, tending to be soft and idealistic to a degree, but who care more about winning elections and earning validation points than actually knowing anything about politics and policies. They are so easily buffaloed. Even now, as they are set to say goodbye to Neocon Obama, they are welcoming Neocon Hillary into leadership. She’ll win their nod because she stands a good chance of winning, and because her being a woman feeds their need for that sense of moral superiority they so crave. They’ll ignore her warmongering tendencies and vote her into office, if possible. This country is such a zoo, a well-to-do banana republic with a political iq somewhere in the teens. What was that blockbuster Tracy Jordan movie? Oh yeah. It was called Hard to Watch.

With Obama leaving office, we now might stumble, but I trust the Democrats, with such a deep bench, will put up another person of such intelligence and vision. I hope it’s Hillary, but I trust my party. If not her, someone of equal talent will rise through the ranks. Remember, Obama was known to no one, and by a natural process of grassroots percolation, found himself in Chicago at Grant Park in November of 2008. I saw the tears, the smiles, the hopes of a nation. Maybe that moment will never happen again, but I trust that in 2016, November, an New York, a similar moment comes about when a woman, with her former-president husband and daughter and grandchild at her side, speaks to the throngs of worshiping admirers.

This is our essence, our sense of purpose, our homeland, our hope for the future. We are all Americans, but as a Democratic American, I stand just a little higher in pride and fulfillment than the honorable members of the other permitted party.

Thoughts on death

It was three weeks ago tomorrow that I ate beef carpaccio in Akaroa, New Zealand, and I now feel that I am through the resulting illness. It was probably a staph infection, untreatable by antibiotics, carrying with it smaller attacks on eyes, ears, nose, throat, along with body fatigue and a sense of malaise. I am seven pounds lighter. (That’s the good part.)

Obviously I don’t get sick very often. I haven’t up till now, anyway. The whole episode was so strange to me. I am used to things passing through my body, being gone in a day or two with little aftermath. Such an episode as this helps me realize how vulnerable we are, how easily anything in our environment can take us down. I saw my three brothers, one by one, succumb to cancer, and last year a friend to an untreatable strain of leukemia. Each of these people treated their demise with courage, but there comes a point when they must realize …“Oh my God, this happens to other people. Can it be? This time it is me?”

How profound must be the resulting finality. Maybe it’s a release too, I don’t know, but I will someday. I do know that our friend with leukemia said to his son as he lay in bed dealing with yet another symptom, “It would be so much easier just to be hit by a bus.”

imageFormer Monty Python member Terry Gilliam has had a great career after those halcyon days, and directed and helped write the movie “Brazil.” (I just now learned it is considered a “cult classic.”) It’s a dystopian fantasy about an Orwellian society where the authority figures are buffoons, machines do everything but don’t work properly, and where a mere administrative error has brought imprisonment to the lead character. Unknown to the viewer, this one anyway, he is engaged in fantasy, chasing the woman of his dreams, and near escape when he awakens, realizes he’s in a chair, in prison, soon to die. The trivial administrative error cannot be undone.

That moment, that realization hit me so hard so many years ago seeing that film. It was so well done. It describes what I am attempting to say here, that we are all fools strutting on a stage. I am so thrilled to have come through my illness intact. But down the road, there’ll be another. Am I ready? Of course not!

We’ve been all over the world these last few years, living life to the fullest. We’re lucky, I know. Others are jealous, I know. One thing I know as we plan future travels, one place we are not going: Brazil.

I often don’t know when I sit down to write where a piece is going. So too this one.

Nemstov execution: False flag?

The public execution of Boris Nemstov is well-handled at Saker and by Paul Craig Roberts, and given the usual and expected TASS-like state subservient treatment by FOX and Huffington Post and the other usual suspects.

But worth mention is one important principle: the absence of skepticism in American news media. If the state says it is so, it is so.

The murder most likely was false flag, designed to exacerbate internal dissent in Russia, and part of the overarching attack in that country by the U.S. and its European Union pawns, and of course, the putsch government in Kiev.

There’s little evidence, of course, and the matter will fade to the degree that evidence contradicts official truth, just as with the downing of Flight MH17 last year. I only highlight one certainty, that “Putin,” or the Russian state, is not stupid, and would not do such a clumsy crime. If they thought Nemstov important enough to warrant liquidation, he’d be just as dead, but in a far more sophisticated manner. Wellstone/JFK Jr.-like small plane crash is usually most effective.

I do not claim that the Russian government is innocent and pure. It is in survival mode, under attack by US and its subordinates. But Russians are wary and cagey people, long used to attacks from the West, and very good at self-preservation and self-defense. As demonstrated at Ossetia in 2008, they are also effective military strategists and warriors, quickly and easily dispatching US/Israeli backed fighters at that confrontation, to international consternation.

A direct military confrontation with Russia will be costly, so fomentation of internal rebellion is the next best option, and in that framework, a public murder of an opposition leader in a false flag operation is a natural course of events.

The murder of Boris Nemstov was clumsy and poorly done, timed for maximum effect, but probably having less than desired impact. The US and its agents probably messed up, and I am impressed.

I often think of the US war machine as unstoppable, but then I realize that it has undergone military defeat in Vietnam, Afghanistan/Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and now Ukraine. It might just be growing increasingly desperate. That is an extremely dangerous situation for children and other living things on this planet.

Journalism in a fake democracy

Pat Williams said something true in 1997.
Pat Williams said something true in 1997.

I can tell you from my viewpoint that spinning Montana’s newspapers was as easy as spinning a top. There’s precious little congressional news that is actually broken by a Montana newspaper. That works to the advantage of the politician. Absolutely. When you are free from a burrowing press, you pretty much have clear sailing. (Former Montana Representative Pat Williams, on leaving Congress in 1997)

I was watching episodes of the Daily Show last night, the American version of the court jester. The back-and-forth between the Comedy Central outlet and FOX News leaves one with the impression that we have a rich and full dialogue among factions, and that our democracy is in good shape. In fact, looking over the whole of the landscape, we have vigorous tests of wit between Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals. These exchanges are lively and intense. It appears that ours is a fully functioning system of public debate.

That illusion is very important to those who really run the country. That’s the only reason Daily Show has its perch. Imagine if all we were allowed were FOX, NBC and ABC etc., and the other government mouthpiece outlets. People would begin to suspect that we really aren’t as free as we imagine. The important lesson is that all that noise is ” … a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.*

To those paying attention, this week supplied some important evidence regarding the true nature of American “democracy.” It started when Montana Senator Jon Tester appeared on Montana Public Radio and told a bold-faced lie.

“Unfortunately, every logging sale in Montana right now is under litigation. Every one of them.”

We don’t know the inner workings of his office or his mind, but the lie, so obvious and easily exposed, could have been the result of the man’s own ignorance, a signal that he’s being kept in the dark by his handlers. That was certainly the case with his predecessor, former Montana Senator Conrad Burns. Absent any other evidence, I think that a safe resting spot. He had no clue his statement was false. That would make him a mere sock puppet.

He’s just a man occupying a slot. More important here is the reaction of the Montana media when the lie was exposed. In a fully functioning democracy, Tester’s words would have immediately been challenged by a burrowing journalist fully on top of the issue of logging of our commons. Men like Tester would sweat bullets before appearing in public, knowing they would not be coddled. They would stay on top of issues, facts and figures. They would not lie easily and then stroll away.

But no, it was listeners who pointed out the lie, which is all I can call it, given it is so far from the truth. Tester was allowed a full leash with no challenge on the Montana Public Radio program.

Here is the reaction of Montana Public Radio, given to me in a comment by a reader of this blog:

Based on what I know, MTPR did actually attempt to fact-check Senator Tester’s lies, and literally did so within minutes of being informed of the[m], but it was tough because Senator Tester just issued more incorrect statements and then the USFS dragged its feet….then the weekend hit. Then there was more total silence from Sen Tester and the USFS. Finally the WaPost Fact-Checker article appeared on Wednesday AM. I’m not sure if MTPR has done anything on-air with the WaPost fact-checker story, but again, in my opinion MTPR’s newsroom did a good job trying to uncover the truth, especially when up against a US Senator and USFS that clearly just wanted to sweep all this under the rug.

There’s not much content there, but the reader did link me to an official reaction of MTPR, as follows:

Yesterday, in a story about attempts to boost revenue for Montana counties that are mostly federal land, Montana Senator Jon Tester made the following statement:

“Unfortunately, every logging sale in Montana right now is under litigation. Every one of them.”

Several listeners questioned that statement, so we asked Senator Tester to respond.

His communications director Marnee Banks said he is unavailable this week.

Banks says Tester’s staff checked with the Forest Service, and now says, less than half “of the awarded timber volume in Fiscal 2014 is currently under litigation.”

“I apologize for the error,” Banks said via email.

In the story, Senator Tester also referenced Matthew Koehler, with the Missoula-based environmental group Wildwest Institute. Tester said Koehler “is part of the problem” of litigation costs taking money away from timber management.

Koehler responded that the Wildwest Institute has not litigated a logging sale in at least seven years.

Koehler has asked Senator Tester for an apology, and also takes issue with Tester’s clarification.

“He has now gone from claiming that ‘every logging sale in Montana right now is under litigation,’ and has switched to talking about ‘awarded timber VOLUME,’ Koehler wrote to us.

“As expected, Tester’s response is just total subterfuge and he entirely failed to own up to the fact that he lied to the people of Montana on your news program.”

That sounds like MTPR is following up, doing the burrowing duties, but they are not. They are doing “he-said-she-said.” They have devoted exactly zero resources towards holding Tester accountable.

The next part surprised me, as I don’t expect fact-checking and accountability from any mainstream outlet in this country. The Washington Post Fact Checker got hold of the story, dug deep into it, and came up with facts and figures enough to award Tester “Four Pinocchios,” its highest honor for deviation from truth.

Dennison: Earns four Pinnochios of his own
Dennison: Earns four Pinnochios of his own
At this point, the story had legs, and it is hard for the Montana media to continue its other-way-gazing. Enter the Missoulian, and Mike Dennison. Here are the first two paragraphs of Dennison’s story:

The Washington Post “fact checker” column Wednesday chastised U.S. Sen. Jon Tester for misstating facts last week about the impact of lawsuits on timber harvests in Montana.

Tester, D-Mont., corrected his initial statement within 24 hours of making it last week and apologized, his spokeswoman said.

The whole story is longer, but all of these “journalists” know that readers of news generally read headline and first paragraph, possibly second, so that the body of the intended message is going to be in the words above: Tester “misstated” facts and corrected the misstatement. Dennison did not link (!) to the WaPo story. He made no reference to the extensive research done there. His work was either lazy, or protective of Tester. (They also ran a flattering picture of Tester above the story.)

Fortunately, in the comments below the Dennison piece, Matt Koehler did Dennison’s job by citing the story and its important facts and providing a link. However, his comment, 717 words, was probably not read by the same readers who knew only to read the headline and first graph or two of Dennison’s work. So the public mind is not troubled by a Senator who either is wildly uninformed or deliberately dishonest in his public utterances.

Thanks, Montana media. Truth is, however, this is your real job.

That, to my knowledge this Saturday morning, is the extent of Montana’s burrowing press into the lies and misadventures of its Senator, Jon Tester. They are guilty of gross misconduct, in my view, protecting the man. But remember, this is a fake democracy, and Tester’s job, like Burns before him, has nothing to do with campaign utterances. The media’s job has nothing to do with searching for truth or reporting on the activities of powerful people. These media people routinely lay high praise and awards on one another for doing essentially nothing, and doing it badly.

But then again, their job is to protect those with real power from the public scrutiny. With that in mind, they do a good job, and earn those statues, plaques, and citations collecting dust as they peck away on keyboards, oblivious to the role of real journalism in a real democracy.
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*Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, for forcing this young inattentive student to memorize MacBeth’s Tomorrow speech. I still recite it when I want to sound well-educated.

Too much time on my hands here …

Still trying to shake this New Zealand bug, a persistent little bastard.

My wife says that the last line of this email to William Marcus of Montana Public Radio is uncalled for. I responded that genuflection at the door is not in my nature, that Mr. Marcus would not be in his position had he not already made the necessary compromises required to advance in the journalism profession. As Chomsky once told a British editor who was proclaiming his professional courage, “If you sit in that chair, you buy in.”

Maybe it was better said by the late Alexander Cockburn, describing Obama, and I roughly quote, that any time bombs that existed in the man were long defused before he ever got the nod to be president. The “buying in” process precedes advancement in both politics and journalism. People gotta have their mind right, or they become UPS drivers rather than MTPR director.

Maybe that’s why I like these UPS guys that come to our house so much. They are making an honest living.

To: William Marcus
Director, Media Broadcast Center
Montana Public Radio

Dear sir: Senator Tester was caught telling a huge lie on your network. After a thorough working over by the Washington Post fact-checker, even the Missoulian was forced to report Tester’s remark that all timber sales in Montana were blocked by litigation.

This is Timber Lobby talk, of course, and Tester is but a mouthpiece. Because lawsuits are effective in curtailing government agency abuse in our commons, the Lobby would like to see lawsuits, and not abuse, curtailed. Ergo the meme: Lawsuits are the problem, and not agency and industry abuse.

The forum to correct the lie is the one on which it was told. This means that MTPR is now morally obligated to call out Tester on the same platform on which he lied. Otherwise, you are an enabler. No doubt if you do, he will punish you by shutting off access to his office.

Are you going to call him out, sir? Do you have moral courage? Do ya, punk?

Sincerely,
Mark Tokarski
Morrison, CO

One person’s experience with DMT

I found the following story intriguing. I picked up the book in New Zealand and read it over the interminable flight across the Pacific, twelve hours.

…listening to people describe their drug experiences tends to be tiresome. …But I have one story from my own misadventures that I feel is worth sharing.

Sitting on a beach in Devon in August, 2003, I contemplated grumpily the sprinkling reflection of the swirling ocean that I would return home in three days to Toronto. University, a relentless bar gig, newspaper job, and the usual routine of five hours sleep a night, massive endocrinology textbooks and painfully dry statistics modules. And the upcoming, demoralizing Canadian winter. I wasn’t excited.

“I think I have a solution to the way you feel”, said a friend. I’ve got some DMT: it’s pretty much the world’s strongest hallucinogen.

After pondering, I agreed to try it. Why not? Just this once.

I followed his instructions, smoked three tiny grains from a pipe , and fell to the round in a retching fit, vomiting profusely into the sweet English grass. I emptied the contents of my stomach unceasingly, internally cursing myself for my gullibility. (It felt like hours, but my friends all concurred: the wretching lasted no more than 20 seconds. Such is the nature of psychedelic delusion.)

Once the sickness subsided, I lay back with my eyes closed, gasping for breath, and tried to breathe deeply. Opening my eyes, I looked down at my prostrate body. Every inch of me was covered in grasshoppers. They waved their antennae at me casually, and looked at me with bright compound eyes.

I looked behind me at my friends, and though I had been rendered non-verbal, the look in my eyes clearly communicated what was on my mind … really? Surely this was the spectacular illusion of one of the world’s strongest drugs.

“You are NOT hallucinating,” said one friend. “You are actually covered in grasshoppers.”

“They love you!” another enthused.

Is Dr [Rick] Strassman right? Does DMT wind through all living things – from grass to grasshoppers, hippies, hippos and humans – and is it the key to all spiritual experience?

There’s no hard evidence to back up Dr. Strassman’s beliefs that DMT has some kind of magical property, binding all living things together – and I’m dubious about his claims.

All I can say is that I smoked three grains of his favourite chemical, and found myself covered with grasshoppers. Needless to say, I don’t have a peer-reviewed study to validate the experience with statistical significance. But I do have four friends who saw it with their own sober eyes.

I have been offered DMT many times since – and have never taken it. Once was enough.

Most stories about other people’s drug experiences are boring. I hope this wasn’t.

(Zoe Cormier, Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll: The Science of Hedonism and the Hedonism of Science, p182)

When normal kids need to be drugged

Ed_imagetablets_540_347626aThe following is from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and is a description of the symptoms used in diagnosing ADD and ADHD, two made-up diseases whereby children who are bored in school are drugged to get them out of teacher’s hair. Please note how any of these symptoms can easily be seen to be normal if a child is merely bored. It can only mean that teachers, school counselors, psychiatrists and psychologists got together and brainstormed to find a way of placing the failure of our schools and education system on kids.

What brain malfunction causes a kid to lose focus, not stay in-tune as teacher does a monologue on a matter of no importance, or fail to expend mental effort in things that are boring? What possible brain malfunction affects four million American school children, but only eight thousand in the whole of France?

Kids are almost all born bright. It takes thirteen years of American schooling to get them slowed down enough to live in our society and not go crazy.
__________________________________

    Inattention: Six or more symptoms of inattention for children up to age 16, or five or more for adolescents 17 and older and adults; symptoms of inattention have been present for at least 6 months, and they are inappropriate for developmental level:

  • Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, at work, or with other activities.
  • Often has trouble holding attention on tasks or play activities.
  • Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
  • Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (e.g., loses focus, side-tracked).
  • Often has trouble organizing tasks and activities.
  • Often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to do tasks that require mental effort over a long period of time (such as schoolwork or homework).
  • Often loses things necessary for tasks and activities (e.g. school materials, pencils, books, tools, wallets, keys, paperwork, eyeglasses, mobile telephones).
  • Is often easily distracted.
  • Is often forgetful in daily activities.
    Hyperactivity and Impulsivity: Six or more symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity for children up to age 16, or five or more for adolescents 17 and older and adults; symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity have been present for at least 6 months to an extent that is disruptive and inappropriate for the person’s developmental level:

  • Often fidgets with or taps hands or feet, or squirms in seat.
  • Often leaves seat in situations when remaining seated is expected.
  • Often runs about or climbs in situations where it is not appropriate (adolescents or adults may be limited to feeling restless).
  • Often unable to play or take part in leisure activities quietly.
  • Is often “on the go” acting as if “driven by a motor”.
  • Often talks excessively.
  • Often blurts out an answer before a question has been completed.
  • Often has trouble waiting his/her turn.
  • Often interrupts or intrudes on others (e.g., butts into conversations or games)
    In addition, the following conditions must be met:

  • Several inattentive or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms were present before age 12 years.
  • Several symptoms are present in two or more setting, (e.g., at home, school or work; with friends or relatives; in other activities).
  • There is clear evidence that the symptoms interfere with, or reduce the quality of, social, school, or work functioning.
  • The symptoms do not happen only during the course of schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder.
  • The symptoms are not better explained by another mental disorder (e.g. Mood Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Dissociative Disorder, or a Personality Disorder).

GMO’s and vaccinations – how the PR industry manages public debates

A while back, due to my children residing in Portland and being on Facebook, I was aware of a ballot issue out there to label GMO foods. It failed. What struck me was how the issue was being framed. Posts were appearing excoriating those people so stupid as to believe that GMO foods cause cancer. I immediately spotted public relations at work.

GMO foods do not cause cancer. But that was one “side” of the debate they were having. The other side was that GMO foods are OK. The real issues, capitalist enclosure of the food system and over-reliance on a few strains of seeds for our food supply, were never discussed. Monsanto no doubt wanted it that way. That made the subject win-win. They could point out the stupidity of the debate without ever having the real issue discussed.

That’s how public relations works – an outfit like Monsanto does not cast its fate to the wind and hope for the best. When there is a debate, it wants to own all sides, to “frame” it so that real issues are not discussed.
____________

Jenny-McCarthy-11This came to mind last night as I reluctantly listened to a podcast about the vaccinations debate and the Playboy bunny Jenny McCarthy. That issue too has been framed for our benefit. How many of us, me included, have automatically sided with the drug companies rather than a silly model who poses nude? I was surprised to learn that McCarthy is not anti-vaccination, and does not claim to know that there is a link between that and autism. Something much more interesting is going on, and the arrows point at the usual culprits – not Monsanto this time, but the drug cartel, PhRMA. It is managing the debate by cashing in on public fear of disease.

All I can say at this point is that the podcast opened my eyes a little, so that I have to pay more attention to the issue and stop judging based on stereotypes. McCarthy and others who have taken on the drug giants want to know why the regimen of childhood vaccinations in the United States was expanded from ten of to 36 around 1989 or so. Most other industrialized countries, with reliable public health systems, stuck with the basic ten, including measles, mumps, diphtheria, etc.

McCarthy is suggesting the PhRMA seized the initiative. Because we are a business-run society, decisions about U.S. public health are not made with public health in mind, but rather corporate bottom lines. McCarthy said that it was a $13 billion industry now. She claims that most of the additional 26 vaccinations that have been added to the regime since 1989 are expensive, unnecessary, and not even known to be safe. Research, double-blind studies, have been done on only one, maybe two of the 36, which is the sole “science” behind industry and the AMA’s claim that all vaccinations are safe.

Jenny McCarthy’s entrance into the debate, especially during a time she was dating Jim Carrey, walked us right into a PR trap. Such people can be automatically discredited. I make no claims about McCarthy’s intelligence or sincerity, but rather the public image of a Playboy bunny in a serious debate. It’s born to lose.

Just as Monsanto took control of the Oregon GMO debate by having stupid people appear on public forums claiming that GMO foods cause cancer, so too has PhRMA taken control of the vaccination debate by having Jenny McCarthy as the spokesperson for the opposition. She may be just an unwitting tool, most likely, but the debate needs to get above and beyond her.