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amphtaminedreams · 4 years ago

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COVID-19, Negligent Manslaughter, and a Timeline of Tory Indifference

“I feel sorry for Boris Johnson. He is doing the best he can in the situation and I don’t think anybody else could have done a better job.”

[exhibit A: a gem somebody that I’m Facebook friends with reposted earlier]

It’s a sentiment that I cannot quite wrap my head around. I sit here hopeless and furious and trying to hold back tears because it’s been almost a year since England first went into lockdown and yet here we are, almost 100,000 dead, in an even worse position than we were before whilst other countries begin to slowly return to normality. It is clear to me who is to blame for this, however there are a large proportion of people who don’t want to “politicise” the actions of the PRIME MINISTER with regards to his approach towards handling a virus sweeping the country he GOVERNS.

Typically, these kind of posts making the rounds on social media will be accompanied by some kind of photo of Boris Johnson looking somber as if to suggest that the way things have played out were beyond his control and that he is some kind of broken man beleaguered by the suffering he has, despite good intentions, inadvertently caused.

This one in particular of Johnson with his head in his hands is a staple. In reality, this is a photo taken back in 2018 whilst he was receiving flack from party members for comparing Theresa May to a suicide bomber (for her handling of Brexit, ironically) as well as from the papers due to his rumoured (now also proven, in a completely non-surprising turn of events, to be true) affair with his former aide, Carrie Symonds.

So let’s shut this narrative-where we should feel for Boris because he’s doing his best, and apparently a better job than anybody else could’ve done in his situation- down right here. In a supposedly developed country with one of the world’s largest economies, if we’re talking by proportion, our COVID-19 death toll is up there with the worst of them. It seems that every other state figurehead (bar a small handful), and I mean almost every single one of them, is doing a better job. People love to throw figures out there about how densely populated we are to combat damning statistics as if we haven’t got just as many factors playing to our advantage, as if it’s unfair to compare our response to Germany’s or Japan’s or Singapore’s (both of which are far more densely populated) or New Zealand’s or Vietnam’s, but we are an ISLAND with world-leading technology and infrastructure and healthcare equipment and professionals and a relatively high standard of living. In what world is almost 70,000 dead in a country with abundant time and means to prepare a response reflective of said country’s leaders doing a good job?

Apparently we’re supposed to believe that Johnson feels some sense of moral responsibility for this astronomical failure. A man who refuses to acknowledge the multiple children he has fathered outside of his marriages and who has had repeatedly engaged in affairs and one-night stands throughout said marriages. A man who continued to cheat whilst his most recent wife was receiving treatment for cervical cancer, for fuck’s sake. Yep, a real stand-up guy.

So where does this idea that Johnson must feel remorseful for this catastrophe come from? We haven’t seen a second of remorse or a hint of accountability for the lives lost from him nor any members of his cabinet. That much is really no surprise; I have this hypothesis, and it’s not a stretch, that these people do not have an ounce of empathy in their bodies. These ridiculously privileged, privately-educated individuals who have had everything handed to them their entire lives simply cannot put themselves in the shoes of the average working person and that is the problem. Unable to recognise that what distinguishes them from most others is little more than the luck of being born into wealth and the abundance of recourses and connections that has entailed throughout their lives, they see us as beneath them-as less intelligent, less driven, and thus less deserving of the status and respect they enjoy. They see us as a bunch of whining, unmotivated idiots who do not recognise the chokehold they have over our media nor the fact that everything they do is a desperate grab to keep money and power within the hands of a select group of people, an exclusive members club from which most of us are barred (just take a simple Google search and watch Jacob Rees-Mogg’s opinion of the Grenfell victims or the buried Johnson speech where he talks about how inequality is essential). They know that we will squabble amongst ourselves about who is to blame rather than wising up to the truth which is that every decision they make is fuelled by cronyism and the inability to make and follow through with difficult choices, the pandemic being no exception. The supposedly self-made elite see the life of the average working class person as having far less value than their own, and their parties actions over the last 10 years have made that very clear.

It was in December 2019 that the first case of COVID-19 was declared to the World Health Organisation and on March the 11th that they announced they considered it as a pandemic. In Wuhan, people were dying of pneumonia in their clusters. And what was Boris Johnson doing in this time? Well for starters, here in the UK we didn’t even have a pandemic committee-Johnson had scrapped it six months before. If years of benefits cuts and defunding of the NHS in favour of funding nuclear weapon programs, keeping British troops on other people’s lands, and tax breaks for the mega corporations that donate to their party didn’t convince you that the Conservatives have little regard for human life, them getting rid of this committee-whilst a pandemic has been declared year after year as the greatest threat to mankind-should have been the first sign of trouble. As if that wasn’t enough, he also skipped five of the COBRA (meetings are made up of a cross-departmental committee put together to respond to national emergencies and PMs routinely attend those pertaining to crises on the scale of COVID-19) meetings addressing the situation. Whilst other countries were closing their borders and stocking up on PPE, Johnson and his ministers were selling PPE abroad and simply telling people to wash their hands to the length of the tune of happy birthday. Their only policy was one of “herd immunity”, which was in fact not a policy but just an abandonment of their party’s public duty disguised as one, intentionally obfuscated with pseudoscientific jargon.

Even thinking the absolute worst of politicians you would hope that when it came to the point where the UK’s non-response to COVID-19 was becoming an international disgrace, Johnson and his ministers would take proper protective measures if only to save face. But when they eventually seemed to do so, it became clear that the priority was not the safety of the ordinary people affected by the virus. Outsourcing their test and traces system to companies��such as Serco, Sitel, Deloitte and G4S rather than public health services, Conservative ministers could not resist attempting to line the pockets of their friends and benefactors in the process. According to the Guardian, instead of reaching out to the experts or using publicly funded services to handle COVID containment measures, the Conservative party has awarded a disgusting £1.5 BILLION WORTH of contracts to businesses with explicit connections to its MPs and donors, the majority of which lack any relative experience of the tasks they’ve been trusted to carry out. Unsurprisingly, the National Audit office found that when awarding contracts relating to the production of COVID-19 protection measures and treatment needs, there was a “high-priority lane” for suppliers referred by senior politicians and officials; companies with a political referral were 10 times more likely to end up winning a government contract than those without. On top of this, it is not hard to draw a link between the late initiation of lockdown measures and preemptive openings of pubs and restaurants against scientific advice to the interests of frequent donors such as Wetherspoons owner Tim Martin. Even if one chooses to ignore the blatantly obvious correlation between the owners of the businesses whose profits were prioritised over safety concerns and the number of those owners who donate to the Conservatives, party officials at the very least were reluctant to follow the lead of many other countries in financing furlough schemes themselves and instead avoided this responsibility by using loose lockdown measures to leave it down to the discretion of small business owners, who couldn’t themselves afford to furlough staff, whether or not to stay open.

Time and time again, as the government flounder and fuck about, favouring personal desires to keep their powerful, high-paying jobs and to satisfy the corporate allies who make this possible, blame has been shifted from the public to care homes to NHS workers and back again whilst we, the public, make the biggest sacrifices of all under the illusion that we were being guided out of this pandemic rather than lied to and thrown under the bus. Whilst the elite continue to pick and choose what rules apply to them, it’s students and the elderly and the vulnerable paying the fines and scrabbling to afford basic living costs and hoping that they don’t lose someone dear to them.

Don’t get me wrong, a large proportion of the public have contributed to the spread too with their selfishness and entitlement and the arrogance it takes to develop a sudden refusal to acknowledge basic science from experts who have studied in the field their whole lives so that they can justify their need to go to the pub (speaking of, it’s absolutely HILARIOUS how many “mental health advocates” are suddenly coming out of the woodworks on football avi Twitter after they’ve spent years calling people on mental health Twitter attention seekers). And don't get me wrong, there were inevitably going to be casualties of this pandemic. But it didn't have to spread to this many people, and there didn’t have to be so many deaths due to a lack of preparation, and this wouldn’t have been the case if it weren’t for the inherent apathy of the Conservative party towards the lives of people of lesser status than them, the reluctance to put those lives before party interests. I wish I felt like there was an end in sight, I wish there was some positive takeaway from all of this, but even now, we continue to see corners being cut with the vaccine lauded as our saving grace and anti-maskers gathering outside hospitals to chant about how “oppressive” it is to be urged to wear a bit of cloth over their faces for the short periods of time in which they leave their houses and all I can think of is the selfishness that runs like poison through our country. It makes me sick and leaves me to question desperately where we go from here. I don’t like unanswered questions, I don’t like feeling politically directionless, and I don’t like the growing fear I have about the state of the world which seems to intensify every single day. In the UK at least, it’s starting to feel like nothing will ever change-we’re told we live in a democracy and yet mainstream media is owned by the people whose interest is to keep their Conservative friends in power. The stronghold they have over print media in particular allows them to continually get away with smearing and defaming every person who comes along and seems to want to actually help ordinary people, without being challenged, to the point where the only kind of “opposition” we’re left with promises nothing but a big boss approved tactical reshuffling of the status quo (which they call “electability”); it doesn’t feel like democracy when the majority of the country are being fed misleading information and convinced against voting in their best interests.

This is the result of that. The state we find ourselves in is the inevitable result of being manipulated into helping the elite build their protective wall whilst the rest of us scrabble to get in and step on each others heads along the way, the people inside shouting over that it’s those even more vulnerable than ourselves that are taking our places. Outside the wall, the earth is falling from beneath our feet, and instead of throwing over the ropes to help us out, the people inside are stockpiling them so they can secure their firm place above ground and then later flog the rest. How many more people have to die before we reach some kind of widespread realisation of that? Where do we go from here and what do we do? Well for one, we can stop spreading those god-fucking-awful textposts on Facebook and get our heads out of our arses. Wear our masks over and wear them over our fucking noses. Have some fucking consideration for others. Don’t wait til an issue affects you personally to give a fuck about it. AND START HOLDING THE FUCKING PRIME MINISTER AND HIS MINISTERS AND HIS ENTIRE PARTY AS WELL AS THE OPPOSITION MPS THAT HAVE SAT BY THE SIDELINES AND ALLOWED THIS TO GO ON WITHOUT PROTEST ACCOUNTABLE. That would be a good start.

I’m so tired. Things didn’t need to be this way, and yet because of the selfishness of the few, thousands upon thousands are dead. It’s not about “throwing around blame”, it’s not about “throwing around” anything, it’s about expecting a leader to do his best to protect lives. If that is “throwing blame”, let’s get things clear, I have no issue with hurtling it torpedo style at those who handed out a death sentence to so many in this country rather than do anything that might compromise their own privilege. Honestly, pass me the shovel after and I’ll happily bury the wreckage in the ground. Who wants to join?:-)

#rant #politics #anti capitalism #anticapitalist #covid-19 #covid #england #labour #socialism #fuck the tories #fuck the torys #fuck boris #rant post

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auroraluciferi · 4 years ago

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a white supremacist apparently had an issue with this random post I made.

my post was about the shocked reactions people all over the world were apparently having to American ads for prescription drugs played on the break during the Meghan Markle interview.

the point I was trying to make is that the avalanche of consumer ads for prescription medicine is yet another insane hallmark of the profit-driven US healthcare system which most people fortunately do not experience and no one seems to fully understand.

I feel this one detail helps to breach the facade shielding the dystopian reality which divides us, and it helps to explain for many why the United States has been especially crippled by the effects of the global pandemic. the suffering, deprivation and cruelty of our health infrastructure is an essential feature of capitalism, not a glitch. For many people it has been a time of reckoning.

so this worthless asshole clearly decided now was the time to plant his racist flag - he messaged several times over two days, then I guess he got upset with what I was saying and blocked me.

what follows is unpleasant and contains racist and deeply offensive language, copied verbatim from my inbox and chat.

it has been formatted to fit your television screen.

dee6000 submitted:

Can your socialist BS. The ads/big pharma are separate from or profit medicine. What harmed US medicine was result of democrat politicians copying Europe’s socialists that treated citizens rights with contempt. In the past US medicine was the envy of the world, British, Europeans, Canadians many others would travel here to receive care. Dems blocked enforcement of immigration laws hospitals went bankrupt and taxpayer funded medicaid was overburdened. Just as the influx of tens of millions of illegal aliens and migrants caused rents to skyrocket and wages to be dragged down. Hospital based infection skyrocketed as well hospitals started hiring illegal aliens who did not follow cleaning rules. These infections weren’t new, they are the norm in Latin America and other third world countries. Years later these hospital infections started showing up. Obamacare requires doctors under threat of fines to refuse to perform some diagnostic testing on some patients. Socialist and communist countries have even worse outcomes. And Britain and Europe are experiencing the results of 3rd world imported substandard doctors and nurses.

@auroraluciferi:

lmao. "ads/big pharma" are somehow "separate" from for profit medicine and everything else is the fault of these filthy immigrants from the third world

good luck with whatever ax you're trying to grind

dee6000:

Lmao, people controlling their own labor, by charging for their work, unlike in your communist, socialist sewers where the government elites enslaves people and profit off those slaves like parasites.Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism. Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested. Now drugs made in communist China and socialist India are not manufactured safely, there is no oversight, illnesses have resulted as a result and while workers in those countries are abused hypocrite Chinese and Indian elites profit. You might resent truth but that is your problem. Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules. That is a fact. When US citizens cleaned hospitals and nursing homes there were no superbug outbreaks, before illegal aliens were illegally working in US food manufacturing, children weren’t being sickened and killed from eating ecoli, salmonella, and mold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products as dozens of children and adults were in 2008-2009 when Peanut Corporation of America machinery then operated and “maintained” by illegal alien Mexicans, had developed toxic black mold because the illegals didn’t bother cleaning the machinery despite knowing that was the jobs they were paid to do. Hearings in congress were held and parents spoke about it. I don’t care what you think, I know you are a fascist

@auroraluciferi:

Okay then, I'll humor you - honestly I feel sorry because it clearly took a lot of effort and mental gymnastics to type up that word salad you sent me. Let's look at each of the "points" you just tried to make.

"People controlling their own labor by charging for their work" - that is a laugh. How exactly do you control your own labor if you are forced to sell it to the lowest bidder, competing against millions of others? If a business lays you off or goes bankrupt due to mismanagement, market fluctuations, accidents or a natural disaster, your labor then becomes worthless. The choice you are given as an employee or contractor unsupported by social welfare programs is "accept whatever pathetic wage we decide your labor and time is worth" or "lose your home and starve to death".

Your idea of "control" is an illusion in an economic system where human survival is based on abritrary market conditions and greed rather than the quality of life itself.

"Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism." - are you suggesting that some of the largest and most profitable companies on earth are the result of a global, communist conspiracy? Johnson & Johnson, Bayer AG, GSK and others follow the corporate conglomeration and consolidation model pioneered and perfected by 19th and 20th century capitalists and industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, William Hearst, and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Hardly a group of jaded communist revolutionaries.

The multinational companies they founded and combined have systematically destroyed competition within their respective industries, forced both their consumers and employees to accept substandard, dangerous products and poverty wages, then used their wealth to influence both conservative and liberal politicians to deregulate industries and labor laws for their own benefit. All done by willing and eager students of Adam Smith, not Karl Marx.

"Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested." - I assume here you're talking about NAFTA and Clinton-era regulations, both of which were enormous gifts to those same companies I just described.

These manufacturers left America to gild their pockets by voluntarily exploiting the workers of countries that do not have labor laws, have substandard or nonexistent environmental protections, and would accept even lower wages than Americans. They could have easily remained in the US, paid higher wages to American workers, followed the most basic regulations, and still would have made obscene levels of profit - the demand of shareholders for more profit motivated the outsourcing of US jobs, not because a spineless corporate lackey like Bill Clinton forced them to.

At the same time, NAFTA enabled US agribusiness to flood the Mexican and Central American economy with cheap, government-subsidized corn - instantly destroying the ability of Mexican farms to collectively set fair prices, driving millions facing starvation and poverty into cities and ultimately North into the United States. It's pretty ironic that your illegal immigration crisis was created by massive corporations supported by the US government, but I guess that's inconvenient history for you.

Again, this is another pretty obvious feature of capitalism, not communism or socialism. Businesses have a natural tendency to cut expenses and maximize profit any way they can. In an actual socialist system, there would be no incentive to do that - healthcare and medicine would be provided as a right, rather than a paid-for privilege as exists in our current system. Workers would not have to compete with each other to survive if their basic needs were provided for.

Also just thought you should know, the FDA regulations apply both to drugs that are imported just as they are to drugs that are manufactured in the US. Furthermore, there would be no FDA at all without American socialists, reformers and consumer advocates pressuring Congress into creating it - not sure how you can pretend otherwise. It was made specifically to address how the 19th-20th century market failed to "self-regulate", resulting in toxic food and drugs manufactured here, in the US.

"Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules." - This is pretty racist, and also the opposite of reality. "Superbugs" are the natural result of bacteria and viruses adapting and evolving to ever increasing levels of antibiotics, antivirals, and hyper sanitation in our food supply and cleaning products, as well as natural mutation. Diseases like the coronavirus are inevitable - the US has failed to respond effectively because our for-profit healthcare system does not have a market incentive to create stockpiles or public infrastructure to combat an outbreak, whether it's from China or Cleveland, Ohio.

People from other countries know how to wash their hands. They know how to clean. You have absolutely no evidence which would dispute that, just your own feelings and the idea that filthy brown people caused this totally avoidable disaster rather than a lack of basic planning.

Finally, when people are sickened by improperly cleaned equipment or tainted food and medicine, it is the result of a failure by the manufacturer or producer to properly train and supply their facilities out of negligence, to save on operating expenses, or because they ignore existing regulations and are not penalized for doing so - not because there is an army of dirty, ignorant Mexicans at the controls. Untrained, underpaid, and unsupervised workers will have a greater tendency to make mistakes regardless of if they are White Americans or immigrants.

"Facts" and "truth"? I don't see anything besides your own personal bias, poor logic and uncited bullshit that you have no proof of. The American healthcare system and things like advertising for drugs on TV are mocked and reviled across the rest of the world because people can clearly see how vulnerable it is to inevitable pandemics like this.

But I guess there will always be people like you who are happy to ignore reality and instead demonize normal working people for fleeing their capitalist-raped economies and come here in an attempt to provide for their families - exactly the same thing you would do in their situation.

dee6000:

Lmao! Then explain why for decades and they, the WHO, Doctors Without Borders and other wastes of resources still bemoan the fact that in Latin America, take Mexico for example the majority of the people not only don’t wash their hands before eating a meal, they don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. They send nurses into schools to make a game of washing one’s hands but it doesn’t take. Next you’ll tell me that it isn’t true that child rape is part of Latin American culture. Mexico is so substandard health and hygiene wise that it’s water supply is contaminated with feces. Which is why foreigners are warned not to drink it or anything with ice in it. Because intestinal diseases, parasites are the norm. Go into any hospital in the US that employs illegals and they do not smell like antiseptic but dirty. I do not care what you think, the data shows superbugs started showing up in the US a decade after hospitals and nursing homes felt entitled to ignore employment laws and hire illegals. And yes, US corporations that off shores and were indulged by communist China and the rest that have no environmental regulations, no labor laws (because under communism and socialism the people are slaves of the state) are only paid what the government thinks they deserve which is very little) they could profit more, or so they think. They became addicted to it and allowed their patents etc to be stolen. Under capitalism a worker has the right and power to reject a low wage. Under capitalism in the US a middle class grew and flourished, and poverty shrank. Under democrats and RINOs, who serve the same interests as democrats, the Clinton, Bush’s and Obozo the middle class was decimated, and poverty skyrocketed. Under Obozo more people became homeless, more so than during the Great Depression. You can spin and spin all you like. Your lies fall apart easily. Under illegal alien invaded democrat run California, the streets are tent cities, cholera, typhus and the plague have been found in Los Angeles, as well as other diseases.

At this point, he apparently blocked me. I didn’t realize this until after I was done writing my response, but here it is anyways

@auroraluciferi:

It's pretty clear you feel all of your grievances can be blamed on those black and brown people and "Communist" China that you hate so much. I feel sorry for you, but I don't actually believe that anything I say is going to change that.

Your illusions are so wrapped up this weird ethnocentric pride and your comforting blanket of privilege that you're basically helpless against what's coming. You're burning all this energy being angry at people of color for "wasting" resources you apparently feel you are especially entitled to, when you can't even see that the scarcity of those resources is a dominant feature of capitalism.

The wealthy and powerful who benefit from that scarcity - both here in the US and in China - look down at sad little racists like you and they clink their champagne glasses together and smile. By blaming their crimes on Mexicans or whoever it is you clutch your pearls about, you're just making it easier for them to divide and conquer the working class globally.

So go ahead, do their work for them - whatever makes you happy.

Waste all your time and energy hating someone you do not know, whose experience and culture you do not know. Blame all the diseases and scarcity and crime on them, instead of on the cruelty and pointless waste of capitalism

Squabble over the pathetic little crumbs they kick down to you from above or whatever you can compete with against your neighbors for, then proudly claim your little dirt heap for an imaginary concept of white culture.

Like I said before, good luck with that.

#2021 #us #united states #healthcare #health #racism #meghan markle #oprah #interview #pharmaceutical industry #big pharma #ads #advertising #racist ask #@dee6000

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l-enfer-c-est-les-autres · 6 years ago

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just had a long argument with my roommate about how “violence doesn’t solve anything”, “violence is never the answer, if we kill we’re just as bad as them, look at gandhi”, and “everyone has the right to live/no one deserves to die, even murderers/rapists/fascists/etc”, “if a woman’s being abused she can just walk out the door while the abuser is sleeping”, and how “there’s always jobs available nearby for everyone if you work hard enough, that don’t require transportation and are sustainable for you and your family and you magically qualify for and don’t require any luck”. she’s absolutely a good person, and generally well-informed, but this is where white, middle class privilege shows.

1. self defense IS NOT EQUAL to assault. there is no moral comparison, and those who argue this are brainwashing their victims into allowing themselves to be victimized, to not fight back, to roll over and make things easier for them. if it’s kill or be killed, the aggressors should absolutely be the ones to die.

2. no, i do not value the lives of murderers/rapists/fascists/etc as equal to that of their victims. if it’s kill or be killed, they should absolutely be the ones to die. it’s not about the morality of the death penalty; in the USA, the ‘justice’ system is blatantly broken: prisons are for profit, black kids who smoke weed go to prison for 6 years while white rapists get 1 week of jail time, sexual predators and offenders become president. when the system not only fails to protect you, but is part of the oppression against you and your loved ones, fighting back is self-defense, and you should and must fight back with all the means at your disposal, including violence.

3. india rebelled violently against britain, there was violent armed conflict between indians and british, gandhi just became the figurehead of the movement, and there were other factors such as economics at play; it is total bullshit myth that india achieved independence solely through pacific protest. resisting and fighting against the depredation of a colonizing aggressor is self-defense.

4. sexism, classism, racism, fascism - there is a war going on. people, lots of people, especially the poor and POC, are dying every day, murdered deliberately and though the negligence of the government and the society that is supposed to serve and protect them. you cannot “vote them out” because a) in the USA, the popular vote DOES NOT MATTER, the electoral college chooses the president and most americans don’t vote enough at the lower levels of government to claim any measure of democratic power (not to mention the US has been an oligarchy since Reagan), b) the system is designed by the people in power so that they remain in power. the system literally CANNOT be fought from within. ex: a good number of dictators were originally democratically elected; then once in power they change the laws so the presidency becomes a lifetime office. corrupt governments - and all governments become corrupt over time because enough/too many humans are selfish, greedy, stupid creatures - are self-sustaining and will legalize evil and corruption. bribing officials and buying elections? legal in the USA. under the trump administration, getting rid of the EPA means legalizing known dangers to public health and safety such as toxic waste dumping. the water crisis in flint? perfectly legal for the government to do nothing for 5 years and let an entire city suffer without clean water and get lead poisoning (the citizens are suing the government for damages, but this will not undo their suffering or restore their health). this is why revolution is the only means of destroying corrupt government and restoring power to the people, and revolution is self-defense.

5. the rights we have today - women’s rights, equal rights, LGBT rights, children’s rights, human rights - our grandparents and parents absolutely fought and died for them, they did not wait around pacifically waiting for those in power to give them some, and too many of us today are still fighting for ourselves and others. suffragettes were imprisoned, assaulted, and had their lives ruined; martin luther king jr. was assassinated by the FBI only 50 years ago when my mother was a teenager (don’t let those black and white photos fool you into thinking it was further away than it really is), and countless others died protesting and fighting; the LGBT at stonewall rioted and physically fought the police for 5 days. so many of the LGBT+ community are still fighting today, and being harassed, physically and sexually assaulted, and murdered, and teenagers are especially vulnerable and often are kicked out of their homes and forced into homelessness. those in power never voluntarily relinquish, share, or give power, because it doesn’t benefit them; they have to be forced to do so, including through violent means, and this is self-defense.

6. no there aren’t magically convenient jobs for everyone everywhere, and it is nearly impossible to climb out of poverty. when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, losing a job for even a week can be enough to force you and your family into homelessness, and from there it’s nearly impossible to find work without a permanent address, a phone number, access to regular showers and food, and god forbid you need healthcare in america, etc. you’re disabled or it’s freezing winter outside? financial insecurity and homelessness is a death sentence. in france the gilets jaunes movement began to protest a tax on cars that would have crippled the working poor, because while it’s good in theory to reduce carbon emissions and save the environment, there is not the infrastructure necessary to replace those cars. in north america, you can’t go anywhere without a car; if you live outside the city or in certain neighborhoods there’s no public transportation or it’s unreliable, or what would be a 10min trip from my house to the grocery store would take >2h30 by bus because there’s a highway to go around, which is simply not doable: the more time i spend commuting, the less time i can spend working, sleeping, feeding myself, taking care of dependents, etc. in contrast, you could live without a car in most of Japan because they have amazing public transportation. fighting to maintain the means of self-subsistence is self-defense.

7. i asked her: have you ever had to worry about where you were going to sleep tonight, or whether you could eat? no, she hasn’t. how many homeless people do you know, when you’re talking about how you and your friends all managed to find work within bicycle distance of your house? none. when is the last time you or your loved ones were threatened and endangered, harassed, discriminated against, or killed by neo-nazis, mass shooters, the police, etc? never. (ironically, she agreed that World War II needed to be fought) . when confronted with bigots whose proudly self-professed goal is mass genocide of you and your people, fighting back and killing them to prevent them from killing you is self-defense.

8. nazis, school shooters, domestic abusers, ARE NOT MENTALLY ILL. the majority of them, and this is proven by many, many studies, don’t have mental illness, and ALL of them have VALUE PROBLEMS. as in, they don’t value the lives of POC and women, they hold as a core belief that they are less and deserve to be killed and treated poorly. “if a woman’s being abused she can just walk out the door while the abuser is sleeping”: even discounting the psychological effects of abuse (hopelessness, feeling of being trapped, dependence, fear of repercussions and punishment, etc) abused women usually don’t have any money or means of earning money; if they have children it’s even harder. women’s shelters will only let people stay for a limited amount of time, and an abuser can easily find out the address. i used to live by the only women’s shelter in the area, the gate was dented from all the men who would come and beat it, with their hands, baseball bats, ramming their cars into it, shouting and threatening; i’m sure that more than one woman was caught leaving and beaten even worse for the attempt, and they are often too afraid to ask the police for help, or the police refuse to help because they’re poor/uneducated/POC/don’t give a fuck/don’t believe them because the abuser is an upstanding pillar of the community/etc, or in the USA the abuser is often a cop. and if the police do show up, the abuser might not go to court or serve jail time, meaning he’ll be free to retaliate against the woman and children, and in many cases abusers retain parental rights over their children; even if a restraining order is issued, that doesn’t guarantee it will be enforced, and it will not prevent an abuser from harming the woman and children, only punish him for it after it’s too late. for the woman and her potential children, leaving means homelessness, starvation, immense psychological stress, and huge risk of retaliation up unto being murdered. so if, since she cannot resist or escape her abuser while he’s beating the shit out of her, she decides to take a kitchen knife and kill him while he’s passed out drunk, that’s self-defense.

yes, we can and must educate people, especially children, and yes this is the only way to bring lasting change on a societal level. but in the meantime, my roommate and her loved ones aren’t the ones suffering from chronic poverty, threatened and degraded by discrimination, being denied job opportunities and basic rights, or dying from completely preventable lack of food, shelter, and medical care, or being murdered because they and their lives are considered trash. no violence is not always the only solution, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it is the best solution.

obviously her understanding of the world is going to be heavily influenced by her experience of it. and the reality is, she’s blonde, thin and conventionally attractive, from an educated financially secure family, can afford to be vegetarian and buy high-quality food every day, and she can single-handedly pay her own university tuition (in canada) with her part-time job. but it’s easy for her to say that “violence is never the answer” when she has never, and likely will never, have to fight for her life, her rights, or those of people like her, will never have to defend her inherent worth to people who genuinely don’t care. and this is a good thing, because no one should have to do any of this, but it needs to be true for everyone. so repeat after me,

PACIFISM IS FOR THE PRIVILEGED.

THE LAW IS NOT JUSTICE.

CAPITALISM IS FAKE AND NON-SUSTAINABLE, IT IS A VIOLENT, SYSTEMATIC, MURDEROUS ATTACK AGAINST THE 99%. there is no reason other than the greed of the 1% for the way our society is currently structured or how resources are being distributed. jeff bezos is currently worth 165 billion USD. if you divided that equally among all 7 billion people on this planet right now, we would each have over 22 billion, can you wrap your heads around that? or let’s convert that into time, $1 for 1 second: if i earn 50k/year, i get to live for not even 14 hours; jeff over there will live for 5232 years. so yes, EAT THE RICH. it is horrifyingly evil to have that much money, knowing the only way to have that much is to make it at the expense of the vulnerable, off of slave labor and the exploitation of human suffering, and even worse to choose not to use it to improve the world around you and help your fellow man.

#rant #violence against women #capitalism #justice #human rights #gay rights #pacifism #white privilege #poverty #homelessness #self defense #revolution #jeff bezos #domestic violence

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agrarianradfem · 7 years ago

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The women and veganism post Though I think many people are expecting a post outlining why I believe women shouldn’t go vegan, that isn’t actually the case. I don’t care if you’re vegan, want to become vegan, etc. I also don’t believe it’s impossible to be a healthy vegan. And I feel I need to toss the disclaimer on even though in none of my posts have I advocated against individuals choosing vegan diets, instead focusing on why veganism for humanity is, I believe, not a sustainable nor more inherently ethical diet.

The history of much of vegetarianism is tied to religion, with vegetarian diets supposedly more religiously pure diets. Though a number of religions have had leaders advocate for vegetarianism, such as Buddhism, my studies and my audience are mostly Western, so it’s a more Western framework I will work within. Vegetarianism is also found consistently through the history of Christianity. As Aaron Gross, a Ph.D professor of theology stated, “‘One of the most striking things one discovers in comparative religion is that the potential moral danger of meat eating is a major theme across religious traditions’” (x). In Christianity, this can be seen with traditions of vegetarian monks, vegetarian Christian leaders, and the abstaining from meat during Lent. In the Bible, only once Eve committed the grave sin of eating the apple, did humanity begin eating the animals. Therefore, not only is consumption of meat tied to humanity’s impurity, but to Eve’s failings. Women are responsible, in Christianity, for the consumption of animals.

Never having recovered from original sin, women in the Christian church had to work harder to make it into heaven than men. During the Middle Ages, we see the rise of anorexia mirabilis ("miraculous lack of appetite"), which referred almost exclusively to women and girls who would starve themselves, sometimes to the point of death, in the name of God. Two of the most famous of these fasting girls, Mary of Oignes and Beatrice of Nazareth, both claimed to vomit from the mere scent of meat alone (Fasting Girls, Joan Jacobs Brumberg). Anorexia mirabilis was frequently coupled with other ascetic practices, such as lifelong virginity, flagellant behavior, the donning of hairshirts, sleeping on beds of thorns, and other assorted penitential practices. It was largely a practice of Catholic women, who were often known as "miraculous maids". With their markedly sinful bodies, these women refused food, mutilated their breasts and hips, and inflicted other pain on themselves in order to become ‘more pure.’ Although today, devotion to God as a reason for limiting diet is no longer popular, women have substituted a body marked sinful because of women’s weakness derived from Eve for a body marked sinful by body fat. Although I’m not saying that veganism is an eating disorder, a simple good search of ‘why should I go vegan?’ returns page after page of results that highlight that veganism will help you lose weight, banish cellulite (a female secondary sex characteristic), and get rid of lower tummy pooch. Get rid of your marks of gluttony. This is especially true with raw veganism pages. When you click on videos made by vegans, you stumble upon videos like this (x) where the video host uses the words ‘clean’ to discuss the vegan food and how she feels cleaner eating her raw vegan diet. Veganism is still tied to purity with this emphasis on ‘cleanliness.’ Clean eating turns up instagram accounts of vegan (and vegetarian, though they often post a lot of vegan recipes) social media influencers who promote how ‘clean’ they feel and how ‘clean’ the food is. Sometimes fish gets a pass on being impure (a similarity with Christianity).

The focus on clean eating (and the secondary benefits like ‘detoxing your body of toxins’ which your liver does anyway) reaches religious fervor. How can you tell? Many ex-vegans, especially popular bloggers, when they come to decide veganism is no longer for them, they post these incredibly long posts about why they are no longer vegan, many saying they feel run down, have low iron levels, hypothyroidism, or blood sugar control problems. One blogger, coming out as no longer vegan writes: “My body started craving the “bad” stuff. Namely, meat.” (x). When attempting to exit veganism, some popular ex-vegans have received death threats and hacks (x), (x). When purity ideology leaks into diet choices, especially when applied so aggressively to women (I haven’t found death threats and comments to the same degree with male ex-vegans, in fact didn’t see any), then this is quite coercive. For women looking to leave veganism, this backlash can be incredibly harmful and could keep them vegan even if they are feeling sick while being so. Stop moralizing food - it perpetuates a culture extremely detrimental to women’s health (which is what we all want anyway). On the topic of health, vegans and vegetarians like to cite the Seventh Day Adventist study on longevity as proof that vegetarianism and veganism increases lifespan by about ten years. Yet, when compared to the Mormon Longevity Study, there is no significant difference. The Mormon study finds that Mormons, who as a population eat more meat than Adventists yet have the same strong community ties, focus on spirituality and family, and abstaining from alcohol and smoking, have a lifespan of 9.8 years longer than the average American (x, only easily accessible source though many popsci articles will cite the 10 year number for adventists). Therefore, it appears that meat eating is not the tragedy to human health the Adventist study appears to demonstrate. Additional studies used to support vegetarianism and veganism, like the China Study and the Seven Countries Study, have been proven to have extremely poor study design (x), (x). So a vegan diet can be healthy, but the connections to purity, the ideological fervor and anger at ex-vegans, and the weak science backing veganism as a panacea need to questioned, especially because 79 percent of vegans and 59 percent of vegetarians are women. I have too many oreo and chikin strip gobbling vegetarian and vegan friends who firmly believe that just because they are getting adequate grams of protein and supplementing with b12 that they are being healthier than meat eaters (and let’s all admit to the popular ‘unhealthy vegetarian/vegan facebook memes we’ve all seen). Of course the standard diet of the Western world isn’t healthy - there are so many oxidized fats in fast foods, too many calories, and too much sugar - but that doesn’t mean that moving to a whole foods diet is less healthy than a vegan diet. Make the choice that works for you, but please remember on a class analysis scale that nothing, especially something so important as diet and so dominated by women, is above criticism. I don’t buy that women are vegetarian/vegan at higher numbers just because women are more compassionate/health conscious than men and I don’t think you should either.

#notice how it's not an attack on veganism #I don't care about veganism on an individual level #but instead am very uncomfortable with the connection between veg diets and women going so widely unchallenged #further reading check of the radfem Vegetarian Myth #apologies for only popular articles I don't have database access :(#of course this isn't everything #but that would take me ages and would be less readable #this is some of the core #the important stuff to me

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rulystuff · 4 years ago

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https://servicemeltdown.com/a-disregard-for-serving-the-public-the-united-states-government-at-work/

New Post has been published on https://servicemeltdown.com/a-disregard-for-serving-the-public-the-united-states-government-at-work/

A DISREGARD FOR SERVING THE PUBLIC: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AT WORK

Editor’s note: A recent reader to my blog asked: “I’m interested in your perspective on the recent government stalemate regarding spending. Is this a total disregard for serving the public or rather two sides that are firmly looking to serve their constituents? Your book addresses how to reconcile the seemingly conflicting objectives of pursuing revenue while achieving customer satisfaction. How would you apply the same thinking to this problem?” My response follows.

In today’s economy it is not so much a debate about spending but about debt spending. The debt of the United States is currently in excess of $28 trillion or about 127% greater than the nation’s annual economic output or GDP. This makes the debt-to-GDP ratio the highest since the end of WWII. And, with Democrats at the helm in Washington hell-bent on buying votes the level of spending is expected to grow by many more trillions of dollars before they get voted out of power. Thirty years ago, in contrast, the ratio of debt to GDP hovered around 50%.

Roughly seventy-eight percent of the current debt total or about $22 trillion represents IOU’s – Treasury bills, bonds or notes – held by you and me as taxpayers, corporations, and foreign governments. The rest of the debt or about $6 trillion is money owed by the government to various departments and agencies. The Social Security Trust Fund, most notably, accounts for about 50% of all intra-governmental obligations. Given this backdrop, we have a perfect right to be antsy about when or whether we’ll get paid back. Social Security, particularly, should be of grave concern as it is precariously balanced at a break even between tax revenues taken in and benefits paid out.

The current debt level is financially troubling for the nation. Each U.S. taxpayer now carries nearly $200,000 of national debt on his back. This is roughly three times the debt-load citizens carried when President Obama came to power. That administration was all about spending, driving total debt from around $10 trillion – or about 67% of GDP – to in excess of $20 trillion, while stifling GDP growth by enacting endless regulatory roadblocks, and raising taxes. It is no wonder that the nation’s average annual growth rate of 2% was the slowest in almost a generation. You don’t have to be an economist to conclude that our nation’s lot has not improved over the last twelve years or so and it can be argued, quite convincingly, that it is nearly three times as worse off.

IF YOU CAN MEASURE IT THERE IS A CHANCE YOU CAN MANAGE IT

Granted, not every phenomenon is measurable – pride, purpose, patriotism, etc. But a financial metric indicative of a nation’s economic health is clearly measurable, trackable, and given sufficient political will manageable. George Shultz, former Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury, and economist John Taylor remind us in their book Choose Economic Freedom that the nation was devoid of the economic indicators that would have forecast, if not prevented, the inflationary and interest rate crises of the 60’s and 70’s never mind the fiasco that was the Great Recession of 2007-2009. We are apt to repeat those mistakes, however, if our political leaders fail to act. Incidentally, the Federal Reserve seems nonplussed by any of this while continuing to accommodate deficit spending. Just recently, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the FED indicated that “there is no question of our ability to service our debt for the foreseeable future.” This is the same FED that under Alan Greenspan refused to regulate over-the-counter derivatives which played a huge role in the aforementioned Great Recession.

Leaders in various countries have become more responsive to their citizens by coalescing around a national metric of financial prudence. Countries such as Switzerland, and Germany, have instituted “debt brakes” to keep spending within specified limits subject only to emergency conditions. Poland has gone a step further by constitutionally mandating a debt-to-GDP ratio of 60%. In the United States, nearly all states have balanced budget requirements while some even have specific spending caps. The stringency with which those requirements and caps are applied, however, varies widely from state to state.

Our political system has no such financial unifying principle or metric at the federal level other than the vague aspiration of serving the public and providing for the “common good” to guide the actions of elected officials. The upshot of such ambiguity is that even if in our wildest dreams we could imagine a Congress populated largely by selfless public servants the lack of a concrete metric to gauge the so-called common good would still lead to endless divisions and debates. Clearly, if a metric lacks clarity prescribing a course of action – never mind judging the merit of an action – is hardly an objective exercise.

The United States Congress, despite jawboning the matter for decades, has failed to set an objective standard of performance for which we as citizens can hold its members accountable – at least insofar as the nation’s debt management is concerned. It is little wonder that the debt ceiling is raised almost on cue every year. From 1980 to 2017, for instance, the debt ceiling was raised a total of 46 times. That’s 46 times in thirty-seven years. And, some years especially in the decades of the 1980’s and the 1990’s the debt ceiling was raised multiple times in a given year. The debt ceiling was most recently raised in 2019 by more than $2 trillion.

It is true, that a coterie of GOP senators – John Kennedy of Louisiana, and Rand Paul of Kentucky among them – has long argued for instituting spending cuts to offset debt limit increases but their enthusiasm for such an initiative has never been shared by the big spenders on both sides of the aisle. And, so the hobos dance around the barrel fire while taxpayers endure an eroding standard of living.

CAN GOVERNMENT LEARN ANYTHING FROM BUSINESS?

In business there are metrics aplenty. The vast majority of these metrics are indeed financial in nature. Fortunately, while of recent vintage, the debate has begun to turn so as to temper the uber-emphasis on revenue performance – or more correctly, earnings performance – versus customer satisfaction. And, although there are plenty of ways to directly gauge a customer’s satisfaction the assumption now is that there is no better proxy for the long-term potential of a business in the service and information age than the strength of its customer satisfaction ratings. Yes, there is much lip service that still surrounds the need to to serve customers with avidity. But executive leaders are now nearly unified in their belief – if not in their actions – that a satisfied customer is a most desirable long-term corporate objective.

The battles that now rage are more tactical and center mostly around the planning horizon over which the benefit of achieving high customer satisfaction ratings should be measured. Most executive leaders, unfortunately, are still of a mind that undertaking initiatives on behalf of the customer are fine if the benefit of such initiatives can be seen on the bottom line in the short term. This behavior, of course, is born of ingrained compensation schemes that reward executives for financial performance, this month, this quarter, this year. And, until such time as this myopic view of corporate performance is altered executives will flail in pursuit of sustainable competitive strategies while ironically lining their own pockets at the expense of shareholders.

THE DEBT CEILING DEBATE: A FINGER IN THE EYE OF THE U.S. TAXPAYER

In many ways, the hair-trigger reaction by Congress to raise the debt ceiling as spending nudges ever upward has much to do with voting constituencies that are not willing to give up any benefits that come their way. Keep in mind that roughly 62% of all federal spending goes for mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare so there is little Congress can do in these areas without undertaking major and radical changes. Approximately 8% goes to service the federal debt – a ratio which is apt to explode when interest rates, currently at .25%, return to historical averages. This leaves a not inconsiderable 30% of available budget dollars for discretionary items such as national defense, foreign aid, transportation, and education. It is the magnitude of the discretionary budget that gives rise to the spending jamboree which citizens witness each year as Congress kows to one political expediency or another. If that weren’t the case members of Congress would soon develop a stiff backbone and they would get serious about adopting a more prudent fiscal policy.

The behavior of politicians in the debt ceiling debate has been nothing more than political theater and posturing. In the process, nothing much gets done. And, until unifying principles emerge that can rally a bi-partisan Congress to satisfy the will of the people in this regard the stalemate over the debt ceiling will continue to constitute a finger in the eye of the U.S. taxpayer. If there is a positive to the endless debates about the debt ceiling, however, is that it shines a light on the seriousness of our nation’s financial mismanagement by those in Washington. Clearly, the nation’s debt is growing faster than the economy. That path is unsustainable and will inevitably lead to making painfully difficult spending choices – guns or butter – that will only make the current debate look like kids’ play.

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milatherese · 5 years ago

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Update Numero Cuatro

Ok wow dang update 3 was depressing. That is probably one of the lowest moments of my life. So here’s a happier, I’m-moving-forward update...

I’m currently seeing a therapist (thank you free APU counseling center!) who is helping me forgive myself and learn how to trust others (without expecting bad experiences from past relationships from the others). I am not sure if I actually see the benefits yet as I’ve only gone to 3 sessions (including the first “diagnosing” session) but I am just trusting the process. According to my friend, a self-proclaimed expert on suicide causes and the effects of therapy on depression and at-risk people, therapy really helps after at least 1 year of bi-weekly sessions. I’m nowhere near suicide though, so don’t worry. This post reminds me of where I have been / am most of my life:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bujaxr9npSL/?igshid=vtxzl8lpf1ya

My therapist “prescribed” me the book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life on what constitutes a “good” boundary and how to form one from a Christian perspective. It doesn’t totally resonate with me but I’m only at Chapter 4 of the whole book so we’ll see how it goes.

I still haven’t been able to meet with my Spiritual Director but I think I will be okay for now. I already know what I need to do (my spiritual director and I ironed that out a while ago) and I just need to do it: Finish college and visit communities then enter. Obviously, that’s a simplified version of what I need to do but that’s pretty much it. Easier said than done. I remember reading an article on one of the newly ordained ADLA priests, Father Louis Sung, said that his entering into the seminary was more like he needed to just “jump in” and do it. I feel like that’s what I need to do, too.

I’m currently working on my friendships (acquaintance-ships?). I realized I am involved in a lot more toxic relationships than I thought I was. Sometimes it’s painful facing the truth but it is ultimately for the best. I had to let some people go and let some people into my heart — the latter being something I *rarely* and find very difficult to do. I learned that it’s okay to be a “fixer” (someone who wants to fix broken souls) without actually doing the fixing. God and lots of prayer takes care of the fixing (I have now seen the fruits of prayer and fasting – more on this next time).

I haven’t exactly been working on my physical health (that takes last priority for me) but there are number of people who have been on me for my eating habits (or lack of). My supervisor discovered I don’t typically eat. I refuse to lie so every time she would ask if I had eaten yet, I would tell her the truth: I hadn’t eaten since the previous day. Somehow, this spread to her coworkers (who are also my supervisors? Unsure how terminology works in a workplace setting) and they all make sure I eat (or at least guilt trip me into eating). Ever since I transferred I haven’t been able to exercise regularly (the time I used to allot for exercising is now used for commuting to and from school) but I have been working on bettering (yes, that’s a word) my posture. My bro has a small back brace (typically used for deadlifts) he lets me use. Before this, I had never finished a glass of water with a straight back. It was an interesting experience.

Spiritually, as you may have seen from my previous updates, I have been all over the place from trusting God completely to feeling completely hopeless. (Some may see that as my emotions just taking over me but I believe the root of the problem lies deeper than that -- at the spiritual level.) I reached such a low point I began wondering if what I was feeling was a portion of what Mother St. Teresa had felt during her long dark night.

I’ve slowly gotten back into the groove of praying. With the club, I had been forced (well, I committed, not that I was forced) to pray the Rosary at least once a week, a lot less than what I used to do (twice daily) but way better than what I had begun doing (not praying at all). Remember how I said I put too many things on my plate? I actually thought it was more a time-management issue than a number-of-commitments issue but after realizing I ended up cutting down on number of daily Masses I would attend (3 to 0) and how often I would pray (14 to 4), I have accepted that I had indeed spread myself too thin. Thus, I have resolved to cut down on such commitments next semester because I nearly killed myself this year (even though I never got influenza or pneumonia or bronchitis this year.

I have so much more to share. Despite the bad things I have been venting and complaining about on this, there have been some good moments. But I’ll save that for another time because I need to finish 2 final papers and study for 1 more final now.

#milamusings #discernment

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anxiety-naturalsolutions · 8 years ago

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Self Help for Anxiety & Depression

According to MIND one in four of us will experience a mental health problem during our lifetime and each year over 4,000 people experience enough distress to take their own lives, so we can all benefit from changes in lifestyle to support our mental health.

I have lived with anxiety and depression for over 30 years which has taken me on a journey through the various complementary and standard treatment options. It took me a long time to realise that way I had got used to feeling wasn’t right but I have never given up in my search for an alternative to anti-depressants. After ten years of researching I found out that I am hypothyroid - I have an underactive thyroid which is the most commonly under-diagnosed medical condition in the West and this was the cause of my anxiety, low mood, and debilitating lack of energy.

I have had the conventional medical treatments of psychotherapy, CBT, and SSRIs all of which have been helpful to an extent, but no GP or psychiatrist has ever mentioned the importance of nutrition and the role it plays in good mental health. This is something I have had to find out for myself and I am sharing the information now in the hope that others also find it helpful.

Always go to your GP for diagnosis and ask for psychotherapy and CBT. Most surgeries have a long waiting list for these treatments so it is important to get on the list as soon as possible. If your illness is so debilitating that it is having a negative impact on your life so that you are unable to work or look after your children etc then SSRIs can be an effective short term solution to get you back on your feet. It is important to start doing as much as you can to help yourself so that you don’t become dependant on the drugs starting with daily meditation, diet, and supplements.

Dietary changes and supplements can take three to six months to be effective so they should be started before you try to come off any medication. When you do come off go very slowly, much slower than the doctor recommends. I got a large emery board and filed across the tablet with one long stroke. I increased by one stroke every day to shave off a small amount to prevent withdrawal.

I have been on and off anti-depressants (SSRIs or Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors) five times during a period of fifteen years. I was told by my GP that I should remain on them for the rest of my life, but I refused to accept that. The diagnosis of depression and anxiety is entirely subjective and the knee-jerk reaction is to prescribe anti-depressants. There shouldn’t be any stigma to taking medication for those who need it, but it really is only a short-term solution.

In my opinion the medical profession should be spending more time finding out the underlying cause of the depression and anxiety because they are a symptoms of an underlying condition. This could be: iodine deficiency, underactive thyroid, low vitamin B12, copper imbalance, or a lack of good fats in the diet.

1. Nutrition

There isn’t much point spending any money on therapies or supplements until you have made changes to the lifestyle choices that could be contributing to poor nutrition.

Eat three meals a day with protein at every meal.

Cut out all sugar, caffeine, gluten, processed foods, refined carbohydrates, alcohol, vegetable oils, and margarine.

Sugar is an anti-nutrient that strips essential minerals from your reserves as your body attempts to break it down. Depleted levels of calcium, chromium, magnesium, and zinc leave your body in chaos.

Coffee inhibits iron absorption, affects B-vitamins, and raises cortisol.

Refined carbohydrates, such as baked goods made from white flour, have very little nutritional value and cause your blood sugar to spike. Reduce carbs and eat as advised by Weton A Price http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/be-kind-to-your-grains-and-your-grains-will-be-kind-to-you/.

Alcohol damages the gut lining, causing it to become permeable and ‘leaky’. It also breaks down B-vitamins and antioxidants such as vitamin C.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) is a processed food additive. It is an extremely dangerous neurotoxin (excitotoxin) that shrivels and kills brain cells in the hypothalamus and has been linked to migraines, seizures, ADD/ADHD, heart palpitations, tremors, and MANY other symptoms.

Following a low carb diet such as Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF) for a nutrient dense eating plan that doesn’t remove any food groups. Read Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions.

WAPF also promotes the use of good fats such as lard, goose, and coconut for frying and roasting instead of vegetable oils which are too high in omega 6. Omega 6 imbalance causes inflammation in the body so we all need to increase our intake of Omega 3s. Extra Virgin Olive Oil should never be heated, reserve it for pouring on salads etc.

Read: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon more information at https://www.westonaprice.org/.

2. Testing

B12

Low B12 has been linked with depression and anxiety. This can be tested by your GP. Ask for a print out of your results and check them yourself. On a range of 180-900 a healthy level appears to be 800 or higher. In the 500-800 range, you can benefit from supplementation.

You can increase your levels with B12 injections, by sucking B12 lozenges, or using a spray - sublingual B12, specifically Methylcobalamin, is a better form of delivery than swallowing capsules because the digestive process can inhibit uptake.

Take B12 alongside a good B Vitamin Complex supplement such as Doctors Best which contains the active forms in the correct ratio. People with MTHFR gene mutation cannot process synthetic B vitamins. B vitamins are water-soluble which means the excess is excreted through urine.

Take B supplements in a split dose at breakfast and lunch to give you energy throughout the day - do not take at night as they can keep you awake.

Keep a diary and note down when you started the supplement and how you feel.

Can be tested via finger-prick test with Medichecks https://www.medichecks.com/tests/vitamin-b12-active-folate

MTHFR

Diagnosis is via the 23andMe genetic saliva test. If you feel too overwhelmed at this stage to do this test you can just take the methylated B complex and see if that helps.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D isn’t a vitamin it is an essential hormone and chronic deficiency can contribute to depression and low immunity so it is important to ask your GP for a Vitamin D test.

Unless you are getting 20mins of sun exposure (without sunscreen) daily throughout the year it is likely that you will need to supplement with Cod Liver Oil and Rosita is the best quality. Raw organic milk is also a good source of vitamin D.

Morley Robbins advises against D3 supplements and increaseing magnesium instead. For more information on the Root Cause Protocol go here: http://gotmag.org/vitamin-d-deficiency-mg-deficiency-period/

Ferritin

Ferritin is a blood test that measures your levels of storage iron. The best test is the iron panel which can be done via finger-prick with Medichecks: https://www.medichecks.com/tests/iron-status-check Ensure you stop iron supplements 5 days before testing.

Stop The Thyroid Madness recommendations on interpreting results:

Iron/Total Iron: 23 is optimal

TIBC: optimal 1/4 above the bottom number in the range

Transferrin Saturation: optimal at 25-45% or close to 35%

Ferritin: optimal between 70 and 90 ug/L

Low ferritin can occur with high iron due to the MTHFR gene mutation impairing the ability to break it down.

Morley Robbins advises against taking iron supplements because the oxidise in the liver. Her recommends eating beef liver or taking Perfect Health Beef Liver capsules. http://gotmag.org/category/iron-toxicity/

Cortisol

Abnormal adrenal function can alter the ability of cells to produce energy for the activities of daily life. People who have a hard time rising in the morning, or who suffer from low energy throughout the day, often have abnormal adrenal rhythms and poor blood sugar regulation.

High dose Iodine supplementation above 100mg daily support an antioxidant effect which supports the adrenals and reduces cortisol levels by opposing the strong toxic effects of mercury - Iodine pushes mercury out of the body.

Cortisol levels can be measured by a saliva collection test. This test is recommended by STTM in the UK and I did it myself. I found it very easy to do: https://www.medichecks.com/cortisol-tests/cortisol-saliva-tests-4 .

https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/adrenal-info/faq/

Thyroid

The NHS will usually only test for TSH and Free T4. It is essential to also test for Free T3, Reverse T3, and Thyroid Antibodies.

Ask for a print out of your results which include the lab reference range. Optimal is FT4 mid range with FT3 high. Any lower and you are hypothyroid which causes depression, anxiety, brain fog, and low energy.

If you want to check yourself a cheap way of doing it is a home finger prick test. Medichecks https://www.medichecks.com/ do a range of thyroid tests depending on what you want tested, most of which can be done as a home finger prick test. Reverse T3 needs to be done by blood draw.

https://stopthethyroidmadness.com/recommended-labwork/

If you are hypothyroid the FaceBook group FTPO - UK & Europe can help with interpretation of results.

The best remedy for hypothyroidism is high dose Iodine (50mg for 6 months) and then once you have reached 90-95% saturation, if required, Natural Desiccated Thyroid - NDT. I recommend reading Dr David Brownstein's books - Iodine Why You Need It and Overcoming Thyroid Disorders. Those books have changed my life. And you are welcome to join my group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NaturalThyroidHealth which has further information about iodine supplementation, the Root Cause Protocol, and Stop the Thyroid Madness.

3. Heal Your Gut

There isn’t much point taking supplements if you aren’t digesting the foods you eat properly. Before spending money on supplements, healing your gut is essential so that you body can successfully absorb nutrients. If you drink alcohol or have taken antibiotics your gut flora will be damaged.

Include fermented foods: kefir, sauerkraut etc.

Make your own bone broth and drink a cup per day.

Increase good fats: use animal fats such as ghee, lard, goose fat, or coconut oil for frying, baking, and roasting. Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil for pouring on salads and other cold foods - do not heat EVOO.

Cut out refined sugar and refined carbs. Take Oregano Oil capsules to kill off the bad bacteria.

Read: Gut & Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride.

http://www.doctor-natasha.com/.

4. Nutritional Supplements

Iodine: should be the first supplement to start as it is an essential micronutrient which nourishes every cell in the body. It is difficult to get enough from Western diets as we do not eat enough shellfish or seaweed. Not only does it detox the body of heavy metals and other toxins, it flushes out halides such as fluoride, chlorine, and bromine which block iodine receptors and prevent absorption causing chronic deficiency. Follow the guidelines detailed in the posts on Iodine.

Read: Iodine: Why You Need It by Dr David Brownstein.

Join my group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NaturalThyroidHealth/

Fish Oil: take a fish oil supplement that is high in EPA. I take Rosita Cod Liver Oil. EPA has been found to be effective in high doses in treating depression. It also contains Vitamin D which is a hormone not a vitamin and plays an essential role in the way the body functions. In the UK we don’t get the 20 mins per day sun exposure required to keep the levels normal all year round so supplementing is a requirement. The use of sunscreen prevents natural absorbtion so it is essential to get tested.

Amino Acid Complex: I take Biocare Broad Spectrum Amino Acids, one capsule after breakfast and lunch. It provides the essential building blocks for the brain to regulate chemical production.

Curcumin/Turmeric: reduces inflammation which can be a cause of depression. It acts like a MAOI antidepressant, but without the side effects, by inhibiting the monoamine oxidase enzyme modulating the release of serotonin and dopamine. It should therefore not be taken when you are on SSRI medication. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2929771

Magnesium Oil: lots of people are magnesium deficient due to soil depletion. I use 20 sprays of Better You Magnesium Spray before bed.

Probiotics: BioKult which is recommended by GAPs practitioners.

Tulsi (Holy Basil): reduces cortisol levels - the stress hormone. This should be for short-term use only while the underlying cause is being addressed e.g. removing the cause of the stress. http://www.livestrong.com/article/432475-holy-basil-for-anxiety-insomnia

5HTP: acts like a natural anti-depressant but should be for short term use only while the underlying cause of the problem is being addressed.

5. CBT - Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

After ten sessions of this therapy you will learn how to change your thinking to prevent your own self-talk from making you feel bad about yourself.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr David Burns. This was recommended to me by a psychiatrist and I found it to be a useful self-help manual.

6. Psychotherapy / Counselling

If there are people or life situations that are causing you to feel emotionally stressed through bullying, control, or manipulation then talk-therapies can help you to explore your feelings in a safe environment. This will enable you to gain insight into your own behaviour and that of others.

You can get 12 sessions on the NHS and there are organisations that provide low-cost services according to income.

7. EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) / Tapping

There are lots of clips on YouTube that can help you to learn EFT which uses the tapping of acupressure points with the fingers to release negative feelings.

8. Exercise

Daily exercise for at least 30 minutes, preferably in the sunshine for vitamin D and light. It is important for the exercise to be strenuous enough to cause breathlessness to get the blood pumping. The only exception to this would be if you have chronic fatigue and adrenal issues - exercise will make you feel exhausted.

9. Mindfulness

It is clinically proven that daily meditation reduces anxiety and depression. Find a beginners meditation CD and do some every day.

It is free, you can do it anywhere, and you don’t need a group, teacher, or special equipment. Daily meditation for between 10 and 60 minutes, depending on what your body needs, is the best thing any of us can do for ourselves to overcome stress, anxiety, and depression.

Decided on a time each day for your practice. I find after lunch is best when I put my children down for a nap or sit them in front of the TV for a DVD that lasts at least an hour. Switch off your phone and sit in a chair in a quiet room on your own. Bring your attention to your breath. If your mind wanders, you start thinking, etc calmly send the thought away without judgement and bring your attention back to the breath. When a thought comes don’t see it as a failure but as a sign that you are growing in awareness. You are observing your mind and environment without judgement. You should eventually feel a sense of total calm and peace like you have never felt before. This feeling will come more quickly and easily the more you meditate. You will notice you are calmer and better able to deal with problem solving and you will become more efficient at your work.

The Mindful Way Through Depression - Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Williams, Teasdale, Segal, and Kobat-Zinn. This was recommended to me by a CBT therapist.

Sane New World by Ruby Wax.

10. Reiki

This is a hands-on healing technique performed by a trained professional which delivers universal healing energy via the healers hands. You lay clothes on a couch while the practitioner gradually works around key points on your body. The treatment takes around 50 minutes. You may feel very tired afterwards. It heals on a physical and emotional level and can help to remove deep emotional trauma which is causing anxiety or depression.

I trained as a Reiki Level 1 so that I can treat myself every night in bed. I spend 10 minutes working on the back of my head to calm my brain and then I fall asleep with my hands on my heart to open up my heart.

11. Acupuncture

Acupuncture works to relieve anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Start weekly before gradually working towards monthly top-ups to unblock the energy pathways in the body bringing it into balance.

12. EMFs

As much as you can try to avoid exposure to Electro Magnetic Fields (EMFs) which causes damage to our cells creating artificial stress responses which can adversely affect sleep and the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine which affect mood.

Put your mobile phone on airplane mode when it is in your pocket or in a bag that you are carrying. When you are at home put it on change in a place away from where you or others are sitting. Turn off the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals.

Don’t use Bluetooth accessories for your computer or mobile phone.

Turn off the Wi-Fi signal on your router and use a wired connection for your computer.

Buy a corded landline phone and get rid of any wireless (DECT) phones.

Buy an earthing sheet from The Healthy House so that your body can repair itself during sleep.

Avoid using a microwave by heating things up in pans or in the oven.

Buy a salt lamp for every room in the house.

Put orgonite on electrical devices in the home.

More information about EMFs at http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/.

13. Managing Your Life

If you are fed-up of being bullied or controlled by others take and assertiveness training course and learn how to confidently take control of situations. Learn to avoid such people to make life even easier! Confidently say no with a smile on your face.

14. Detox Heavy Metals

Detoxing is only a good idea once your mood is stabilised

Lemon Juice Cleanse: two tablespoons of organic, preferably freshly squeezed, lemon juice in a glass of filtered tap water daily for three weeks. Then two teaspoons on alternate days.

Apple Cider Vinegar Cleanse: two tablespoons of organic apple cider vinegar with the mother (Biona do a good one) in a glass of filtered tap water daily for three weeks. Then two teaspoons on alternate days.

Take a super greens supplement containing Chlorella to chelate mercury particularly if you have amalgam fillings or if you have had vaccines. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/28/chlorella-for-mercury-poisoning.aspx.

Use only stainless steel, pyrex, or ceramic cookware. Remove all aluminium pots and pans.

Avoid all vaccinations because they contain either mercury or aluminium.

Consult a homeopath or naturopath for chelation therapy to remove heavy metals from the body.

Filter your tap water and buy mineral water in glass bottles. Buy reusable stainless steel bottles to take out with you.

Iodine also pushes mercury out of the body.

15. Journaling

Write three pages in an A5 notebook on waking. This should be a stream of consciousness exercise to allow ideas and feelings to freely come up from the subconscious before the thinking and doing side of the train takes over during the day.

Read: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

16. Hormones

If you are a woman visit my hormones blog at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ovulationsyndrome

Read: A Mind of Your Own by Kelly Brogen MD.

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materialbcy · 8 years ago

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💔 :3c

THE MEME FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE HAPPINESS.

35. My muse dies in your muse’s arms

Rohan, for all of his narcissism and self-love, is not all that great at taking care of himself. He’s always pushing his body to its limits, ignoring his physical needs just to continue his work. He has this OBSESSION with not finishing until he gets the job done, and that often includes staying up well over 24 hours (and well over 48, and so on).

HE IS AWARE that it is bad for his health, especially considering he doesn’t have the best diet (he’s underweight), and he has a bit of a pill-popping problem (sue him—he’s got loads of unresolved issues to deal with).

What makes his situation even worse is he’s been pretty much on his own these last few years. Family gone and friendless, but he doesn’t mind all that much. He supposes it’s his own fault anyway for being such an insufferable asshole. Kira’s increasing involvement in his life changes that though. Kira is someone who, despite his odd tendencies, maintains good health. He’s a respectable man, serial murder aside.

At first Kira didn’t care—was just angry at Rohan for placing him in such an unsightly situation. But then things take an unexpected turn and while still tense they’re friends, for a lack of a better word. Friends with benefits, sure. It’s not really something they’ve discussed. It’s just happens and well. Yeah. Rohan doesn’t dwell on it. But the change is obvious because Kira starts to make comments here and there about how Rohan should eat more, but maybe not so many of those instant noodles. That’s unhealthy.

“What are you, my father?” Rohan rolls his eyes as he asks.

Kira doesn’t offer a verbal response as he only smirks at Rohan, leading the artist’s cheeks to flush red. R-right. Kira doesn’t have to even say it. Rohan already knows.

“That’s different,” Rohan seethes. Kira laughs.

Later on it’s far less light-hearted. Kira nags him more but Rohan waves him off, telling him he’s an adult that can handle himself just fine. He often says this on very little sleep and running solely on coffee, but he heeds no warnings. He’s been doing just fine. On another instance Kira sounds disappointed (angry? He can’t quite tell) with him. Really, Rohan should be the one that’s pissed off.

How DARE he rummage through Rohan’s personal belongings and then have the NERVE to interrogate him about it?

“It’s none of your damn business,” Rohan insists at every question Kira asks. He refuses to answer no matter how much Kira pesters him, so it’s left at that. And from there on Rohan is more careful. He hides his things more carefully. Pretends to go off to eat or sleep when really, he’s working. He’s not sure if Kira buys it, but the man doesn’t say anything.

And then on day it seems Rohan has really pushed his body to its limits. The lack of sleep, the caffeine, the malnutrition, the excess drugs—he could only afflict so much abuse on himself. He passes out at his desk, pen still in hand. Kira’s likely at work or something. He was supposed to come over later and take Rohan out on a date (their dates which consist of eating somewhere nice, Kira picking out an awful woman he’d like to do away with, Rohan reading her pages and passing his judgement if she should be killed, Kira committing the gruesome act, only for the two of them to head on back over to Rohan’s place and do that thing that adults do), but that’s not possible, not anymore. Perhaps if someone had been there early enough Rohan might’ve just ended up in the hospital, but he’s laid out over his desk for hours. Rohan’s been long past the point of returning to consciousness by the time Kira arrives.

And unfortunately for him (or maybe fortunately—Rohan could never tell if Kira actually enjoyed his company or if he was just a fun way to pass the time and make the best of a terrible situation) it takes only minutes after Kira’s arrival and discovery of Rohan for the artist’s skin to run cold and his breath and heart to stop. It’s a surprisingly peaceful death considering who he’s involved himself with these past few months. Ironic, too, that he dies by accident of his own devices rather than at the hands of the murderer that holds him dead in his arms.

#ic;#killaqxeen #//u... get out of my inbox #tw: drugs #tw: death #lmao #okay so this isn't exactly uh. yeah. whatever.#v: this is gonna kill one of us baby

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adamtilford · 8 years ago

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The Next 4 Years...

As I sit at my desk, I’ve become privy to various beliefs and perspectives towards the history that was made today. Some of them were to be expected, small business owners happy about our 45th President, speaking of how things will be better for their companies going forward. Some personal friends suffering from a mix of disgust and fear. Then there’s the ignorant, overly optimistic people who have no clue that maybe the people they’re conversing with aren’t as thrilled and ecstatic as they may be.

I read through my Twitter feed to a hodgepodge of articles, thoughts, rants, tantrums, and I sit, wondering just what these next four years are going to be like. The quick answer to this query, and the general consensus is “bad, it’s going to be a bag of racist, bigoted, misogynistic hell and our country is going to burn, so let’s move to Canada, because that’s super easy to do…..” Fear is to be expected, but is it really necessary to panic to this extent? The answer is, I’m not sure. I’m a bi-racial (Puerto Rican/Scottish) straight dude, so to be honest, my life probably won’t be changed too much. At most I might actually benefit from these four years. If the small business I work for benefits, then by extension, so will my income. I have nothing to fear from these four years, well, except maybe World War III. But that aside, There’s not a lot for me to be truly concerned about. My rights are not going to be threatened, well, as long as no one realizes I’m hispanic.

A friend once pointed out that I’m still privileged. I mean, I am. Everyone has some form of privilege in comparison to someone worse off, that’s a fact of life and honestly, it’s not something you should be embarrassed or feel guilty about. But that wasn’t the point, the point was that even though I’m bi-racial, I can pass as white and as such, avoid the general crap that comes with being of PoC heritage. She wasn’t wrong, it was something I had actually noticed years ago once my skin tone started to become lighter (solely because I became more active in computer work and wasn’t exposed to the sun as often as I was in HS.), but as I did, I definitely noticed a lot of the things that happened before, like being pulled over often, weren’t happening anymore. I used to wear my Puerto Rican heritage like a badge of honor. Had my flag hanging from my rear view mirror in my two door coupe, and I used to get pulled over...a lot. I didn’t really think much of it, that was until I went a few years driving the same way I used to without getting pulled over. The only difference was the lack of the flag.

So what’s the point that I’m making here? Simply that I really don’t have a lot to fear from a Trump Presidency, not in the way that a lot of my friends do.

I said that you should never be embarrassed or feel guilty about a privilege you had no hand in obtaining. But if you refuse to acknowledge that slight or sometimes huge advantage you have over others, then you’re part of the problem. You don’t have to run around with “white guilt” or being extreme about it, but at the very least acknowledge and empathize with those that don’t share what you have.

These next four years are going to be hard on women and LBGT+ people. Groups of American citizens that only recently have been celebrating true equality. Now their rights are in danger. It’s easy to brush these issues off as they may not affect you in the slightest. Your world will continue to move forward without missing a beat because you’re not going to be struggling for health insurance, or maybe you will. Fun fact, the Affordable Care Act is Obamacare, if you didn’t know. Baffling, I know, who’d have known with all those years of calling it “Obamacare” in some form of ironic snark mannerism. Women are at risk of losing Planned Parenthood, and no PP does not steal taxpayer money to perform abortions. It is federal law that the money PP receives does NOT go towards abortions. So if you opposed Planned Parenthood because of abortions, then I’m sorry, you’re misinformed and you have no right to vote whether PP stays funded. You just don’t. I talked about privilege, and you know what else is a privilege? The ability to vote and contribute to decisions that won’t just affect you, but will affect millions of people you’ve never met. And if you plan on using that privilege you better damn well get yourself informed and never, never vote based solely on your personal beliefs.

So again, these next four years are not scary for me. I will never be able to fully understand the fear that women and LBGT+ are experiencing right now. I can afford to forget about the rulings and attempts to alter a law, not because I want to, or because I don’t care, but because my life gets busy and at times things that don’t affect my daily life are bound to get forgotten here and there. But women and LBGT+ communities do not have that luxury. They are all sticking to news sources, television, watching any potential congressional hearing or senate discussion because their lives are always going to be affected.

Yes, these next four years are going to be dreadful for some, not all. But you know what? I’m up for it. I’m up for it because despite of the social media complaining, arguments, tantrums, protests that turn into vandalism, I’ve seen something else come from the chaos; unity. People are banding together, not just those in danger of these four years, but people like myself that aren’t. Compassion and empathy has not left this country, good does still exist in the world, no matter how many news stories that go viral to push a narrative tell you otherwise. The only way left for us as a people is up. It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be hell, it’s going to make some people want to quit. But at the end of it all, you are not alone. No one is alone, and even if people like me can’t fully understand the scope of the fear women and the LBGT+ community are facing, we all can be compassionate and show empathy. We can stand alongside them, refusing to let them face the turbulent waters that are to come. We can show the world that we will not be defined by an ignorant and racist Trump administration. America as a country is good hearted. Even though the outcome was not what most wanted, we got Bernie out of this, we’ve seen people come together through compassion and a strong urge driving them to not sit this fight out.

These next four years are going to be hard. But it is important to remember that you are not alone. We won’t let you fight alone, we won’t stand by and let good people suffer at the hands of the out of touch politicians.

We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our….wait….that’s Independance Day….

But it stands. I know a lot of people are afraid right now, are unsure if they’ll have health insurance with their pre-existing conditions within a few months. We have to make sure we never take our eyes of this REPUBLICAN LED GOVERNMENT. This means paying attention to Congress, the Senate, voting when politician’s terms are up, the battles most of us have never paid attention to because they never received as much pomp and circumstance as the Primaries and Presidential Election received.

The scariest thing imaginable is to have laws passed that will remove civil rights from people, only to find out it happened in secret and could have been stopped if we only paid attention.

While things may be bad for some. We come out of this political season with Bernie Sanders not just being some hack independent, but an actual media hero whose name draws attention and coverage, something he didn’t have before. We come out of this political season with more people being aware and caring about the politics of this nation. And most importantly, we come out of this with a stronger desire for compassion and empathy.

In these dark times, unity is what will get us through it. And unity is what we’re going to need more than ever.

Bless you if you’ve made it this far.

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azveille · 6 years ago

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Health-care law more popular despite Trump’s repeated attempts to destroy it

President Trump has begun a fresh assault on the Affordable Care Act, declaring his intent to come up with a new health-care plan and backing a state-led lawsuit to eliminate the entire law.

But Trump and Republicans face a major problem: The 2010 law known as Obamacare has become more popular and enmeshed in the country’s health-care system over time. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid — including more than a dozen run by Republicans — and 25 million more Americans are insured, with millions more enjoying coverage that is more comprehensive because of the law.

Even Republicans who furiously fought the creation of the law and won elections with the mantra of repeal and replace speak favorably of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

“Quite obviously, more people have health insurance than would otherwise have it, so you got to look at it as positive,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a recent interview.

Ten years ago, Grassley was at the forefront of GOP opposition to the law, ominously pushing the debunked claim that it would allow the government to “pull the plug on grandma” by creating “death panels.”

Today, Grassley is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that would be responsible for drafting a new health-care law, and he has shown little enthusiasm for Trump’s call for congressional Republicans to produce a replacement for the ACA.

President Trump speaks at an event at the White House on April 12, 2019. He continues to push for the elimination of the Affordable Care Act. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Republicans from states that embraced the law’s Medicaid expansion also concede that it has benefited large portions of the low-income population, many of whom were previously uninsured.

“For the people who are in that tranche of expanded Medicaid, I think it has been very helpful,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Nearly one-third of West Virginians are on Medicaid, and the percentage of uninsured has dropped by about 56 percent since 2013.

It is an astonishing turn in the circumstances of a polarizing law that the House GOP voted more than 60 times over nearly a decade to scrap and almost scuttled in 2017 — and one that Trump remains intent on destroying.

[Trump administration asks court to completely invalidate Obama’s Affordable Care Act]

In the past week, the Justice Department sought to expedite the legal challenge to the law, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to hold oral arguments in the case in July. The lawsuit, spearheaded by conservative states and embraced by Trump’s Justice Department, would destroy the ACA, upending coverage for 12 million people newly eligible for Medicaid and 9.2 million more who receive federally subsidized coverage via the law’s state-based marketplaces.

Obamacare imperiled yet again - this time, by the Justice Department

After a district judge ruled that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional, the Justice Department said the whole law should be invalidated. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

The lawsuit also would wipe out consumer protections established by the law, such as allowing children to remain on their parents’ health-care plans up to age 26 and requiring insurers to accept those with preexisting medical conditions without charging them more.

Kathleen Sebelius, who was secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration, said that in the first few years after the law’s implementation, “there was not tangible evidence of what this was going to look like.”

By 2015, however, Sebelius said, the law’s coverage provisions were firmly in place.

“By that time, you really began to see practical benefits,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Then folks are in a different situation, where they are now saying, ‘It might not be perfect, but I do not want to lose my health care.’ ”

Passage of Obamacare has most benefited Americans who lacked coverage before its enactment — about 50 million at the time — and people with workplace-sponsored coverage, whose plans must cover benefits more generously. Insurers in the individual and group markets cover preventive services without charging co-pays and are prohibited from placing annual or lifetime caps on coverage.

The law also sought to save money for seniors by filling in Medicare’s drug coverage gap.

The public’s increasing reliance on the ACA was reflected in the dramatic failure of congressional Republicans to roll back the law or even unify around a plan to replace it as it has grown in popularity.

In March, 50 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of the ACA, while 39 percent viewed it unfavorably, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That is near the record low of unfavorable views of the health reform law — 37 percent viewed it unfavorably in February.

Soon after Trump was elected, favorable opinion of the ACA grew.

Partisan differences still abound: 8 in 10 Democrats viewed the ACA favorably in March, while almost as many Republicans (75 percent) viewed it unfavorably. Independents were split, 45 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable.

Politically, Republicans used their strong opposition to the law to win the majority in the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014 — just over a year after the disastrous launch of the government website Healthcare.gov on Oct. 1, 2013.

The reverse was true in last year’s midterm elections, as Democrats effectively used the GOP desire to eliminate the law — and its protections for people with preexisting medical conditions — to defeat Republicans. Democrats flipped at least 40 seats en route to capturing the House majority.

[Republicans’ claim of health-care protection flies in the face of reality]

Bowing to pressure from some in his own party, Trump recently backed off a new pledge to take another crack at eliminating the ACA and said a vote on a GOP health plan — still unformed — would be delayed until after the 2020 election.

But the administration has also tried to peel back the ACA in smaller ways, expanding leaner plans that do not comply with all of its coverage requirements, conducting only limited marketplace outreach and cutting off extra subsidies that help the lowest- income enrollees with out-of-pocket costs — a move that ironically resulted in making the premium subsidies more generous.

Despite the attacks, the ACA has become increasingly entrenched in the American health-care system.

“I don’t think most people understand the details, but they have a real sense that it would be a setback for health-care coverage in this country if the ACA were wiped out,” said former congressman Henry Waxman (D- Calif.), who helped write the law.

If the law were to be eliminated “it would be total chaos,” said former Ohio governor John Kasich, one of the leading Republicans to embrace parts of the ACA.

“It provided a lot of coverage to a lot of people,” he added.

In the 2018 midterms, voters in the Republican-leaning states of Nebraska, Utah and Idaho approved ballot initiatives expanding Medicaid. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently approved Maine’s Medicaid expansion, which was also approved via the ballot.

Even in states that have tried to reject the ACA wherever possible, the law has had a marked impact. Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia — which are among the 14 states that still refuse to expand Medicaid — have the most marketplace enrollees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

While most legal scholars think it is unlikely the Supreme Court will strike down the ACA should it ultimately hear the case, the lawsuit and the Trump administration’s response frustrates many state leaders who have watched their uninsured rates decline as the ACA has become enmeshed in their systems.

Two Republican state attorneys general — Dave Yost in Ohio and Tim Fox in Montana — recently filed a legal brief outlining the consequences for their states should the courts strike down the ACA.

“The court’s decision, if affirmed, will deprive millions of non-elderly Ohioans and Montanans of coverage for preexisting conditions,” the pair wrote. “It will also negatively affect countless others who organized their affairs in reliance on the Act’s many unrelated provisions.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has stressed that the ACA is the law of the land despite the ongoing lawsuit. “A legal interpretation of a court case is not a policy position about what we want to have happen for people with preexisting conditions,” Azar told Congress this month.

Democrats have often acknowledged that the ACA is not a perfect law and can be improved, particularly by making monthly premiums more affordable. But bipartisanship remains elusive as Trump and many in the GOP demand that the law be scrapped.

“There are problems with the law, and we should be working together to resolve those matters,” Waxman said. “Instead, we’re still, 10 years out, fighting over whether the law should be in effect and should be on the books at all.”

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skeevies · 6 years ago

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Notes From Scooterville Tech Hell

Scooter start-up Skip has announced their intent to use homeless people as scooter gophers to keep their fleet charged. This is perhaps a more comically grotesque news blip than many of merely bloodless or aesthetically depressing ones that have preceded it since the launch of scooter share programs in Portland, but it’s only part of the sickening whole.

Even before the July 26th inauguration of these programs, some predicted they’d come bearing more problems than they solved. This Willamette Week article predicted many problems we’re already starting to see. The scooters splayed across sidewalks, or scooters with their guts ripped out, or scooter riders taking up entire lanes of traffic while travelling a little faster than walking pace did not come as a surprise.

And while it’s not quite worth razing City Hall over, the aesthetic of scooters as class of vehicle has always been awful, too. They require a weirdly erect, board-in-the-shorts riding posture and a riding skill set that rivals professional poker in its anti-athleticism. When I was a kid, the only people who could acceptably ride scooters non-ironically were retirees like my grandpa who bought them with visions of low-impact exercise filling their mid-day La-Z-Boy nap dreams. The scooter is a vehicle on which it is impossible to maintain one’s dignity unless that dignity is socially mandated.

But there are symbolic and pragmatic reasons to be bummed about these scooters that go beyond the visual pollution they bring.

Imagine you are a poor or working-class person in this city who has, over the last decade, seen your cost of living and rent prices skyrocket. Maybe you’ve seen your family members fall into addiction and despair in a city that does effectively nothing to help them. You probably work multiple jobs, and maybe have a hard time getting from one shift to the next due to ever-increasing traffic congestion and over-taxed public transit. Maybe you had a kid and maybe that kid got sick. You can’t afford to take him to the hospital, even with Obamacare (which is, it should be stated, a technocratic, center-right vision of health care), because you can’t afford the premiums. Your life, in every material sense, has become more difficult and more precarious month after month, every year.

It’s hard to know who to blame for your worsening situation because it’s too much to think about all at once. But the one thing you can see right in front of you is the new crop of people moving to the city, the ones who can afford the new high-rise condos and skyrocketing home prices, are now zipping around on scooters, clogging bike lanes, intersections and sidewalks. The place where once you were able to live is now a theme park for the corniest group of affluent people this country has yet produced.

It’s not difficult to understand why this builds resentment. Put more succinctly: There are people in this city that were forced out of the thousand-plus once-affordable homes that are now used as hotel rooms for wealthy tourists.

These scooter programs are just the latest proof that our Silicon Valley tech overlords are much better at inventing problems to solve than solving the ones that already exist. The questions these scooters answers might include, “how do you create alternative transportation for people who are able-bodied but too lazy to ride a bike and too proud to ride a bus? It might also be the answer to the question “how do you unnecessarily tax the flow of bike lanes and increase energy consumption while also clogging the City Council meeting agenda time slots with legislation for this novelty transportation?”

What these programs have not been good at is supplying transportation to riders from a wide range of income levels, physical abilities, and ages. Stop if you’re going to bring up their free rides for low income riders system some of these companies have proposed. You can’t take your toddler, groceries, or work tools on a scooter like you can a bus, bike, or car.

Christ almighty, they haven’t even created an alternative transportation that is functional in our climate! That is a real transportation problem in Portland where waiting for a bus or riding a bike in the pouring rain is a daily problem. The Bay Area may remain a comfortable 70 degrees at its coldest, but the 9-month dead period that happens from October to June in Portland isn’t going to boost ridership.

So back to the idea of using homeless people to wrangle scooters to charging stations, otherwise known as the answer to the imagined question, “how do we charge the scooters that no one will be using in three months?” How exactly will this system work? How would these homeless “juicers” (the company’s deeply awful name, not mine) get paid? Would they need ID? A bank account? These items are not in great abundance among the homeless population. Would helmets be provided? What if they get hit by a car? Would the company cover medical costs? If these companies avoid extending labor protections to contractors, how much worse will this lack of protections affect those who are most vulnerable?

There is just a basic level of cruelty to the whole idea that the tech bro can’t understand in his characteristic lack of self-awareness. Most people with functioning moral compasses can see why it’s disgraceful to pay homeless people peanuts to do a job we don’t want to do ourselves, and it’s only more disgraceful in a city like Portland that refuses to take even basic steps to help them otherwise. The message we are sending as a city is that the homeless aren’t worth enough for a spot in the public commons, but if we can get some use out of them, they can continue to live here. Sort of. As long as they’re not in the way when we want to go shopping.

Silicon Valley tech companies love to union bust, consistently fund Republican politicians, exploit any and every tax loophole they can, and set up their businesses to get around giving their labor full wages and benefits. They may not be entirely responsible for the stagnating wages, rising cost of living, and soaring real estate prices—i.e. the widening economic inequality in our society—that have harmed so many, but they’re certainly an important factor in it.

We cannot use the dirty money of Silicon Valley to try to patch the holes in our social safety net they themselves create. Until we see tech start-ups from the perspective of people whose problems are real and material, we’ll never see that they often create more problems than they solve.

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fashiontrendin-blog · 7 years ago

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I Completely Overhauled My Diet to Tackle PMS

http://fashion-trendin.com/i-completely-overhauled-my-diet-to-tackle-pms/

I Completely Overhauled My Diet to Tackle PMS

When I got my first period at 12, I was home alone. Much like the protagonist of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., I had pleaded with the universe to become a woman, a transformation my two older sisters had already undergone. While I was grateful to have some privacy in that moment, what I didn’t realize was that, in some respect, I would feel alone in dealing with my menstrual cycle for most of my life.

I had never compared and contrasted my symptoms with peers (bleeding so heavy I once told my mom I’d “lost an ovary in the toilet,” lightheadedness to the point of fainting in public, acne, crippling cramps), so I thought everything I experienced was normal. I also thought my symptoms could only be fixed with birth control. That model of thinking went uninterrupted until this year, when I came across an enthusiastic wellness blogger who touted the benefits of something she called “cycle syncing,” which she’d learned from a book called WomanCode.

Written by “nutritionist and women’s hormone expert” Alisa Vitti while in search of a holistic approach to treating her Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), WomanCode teaches women how to stave off hormonal, PMS, and period symptoms by eating a certain way, knowing what types of exercise to do (and when), and even managing work and social engagements.

At first I scoffed at this blogger’s over-sharing of the details of her menstrual cycle (“Off to yoga — I’m in my luteal phase!” she’d say, swigging a superfood-spiked matcha). In a hateful, premenstrual bout, I seethed at her cheery demeanor and clear skin. What could she possibly know about the torture that I endured on a monthly basis? Then it hit me: What did I know? So I dug in further.

WomanCode focuses on healing the endocrine system, which controls your hormones. In addition to the more widely known period systems like cramps, mood swings, and bloating, hormones can cause of a whole host of issues: dandruff, anxiety, cravings, hair loss, and hair growth, loss of sex drive.

Vitti has also created an app, MyFlo, which you can use to predict your period, track your symptoms and get feedback on what to eat, what exercises to do, and even how your significant other can better tend to your needs. Despite the fact I had long ago accepted the fact that getting my period means being tortured on a monthly basis, I figured I had nothing to lose (besides the $1.99) so I uploaded MyFlo and embarked upon a month-long experiment, focused specifically on the dietary suggestions.

Before I share my food diary, let me tell you the basics. The dietary guidance is split up among four phases: follicular, ovulation, luteal, menstruation; I began during my luteal. They don’t perfectly map by week — some are longer than others and they’ll vary by person — but I estimated mine based on the provided info. Also, this isn’t an actual “diet.” The app is structured in a way that, in addition to sharing general nutrition info that corresponds to each phase, you can punch in your various symptoms (sadly, I didn’t see road rage as an option) to customize food suggestions even further. It’s different for everyone. As a nutritionist, Vitta’s food selections are based on their ability to optimize bodily functions. It’s nothing weird — arguably things we should all be eating anyway. That said, from the get-go I nixed (or tried to, at least) a few things that the author explains can cause hormones to go haywire: caffeine (noooooo!), refined sugar, soy, red meat, and dairy. Here’s how it went.

Luteal Phase (Duration: 7-14 days)

The luteal phase “occurs after ovulation (when your ovaries release an egg) and before your period starts.” In other words, it’s the latter two weeks of a four-week cycle.

Recommended Food: B vitamin-rich foods including eggs, seafood, and leafy greens; baked root vegetables; probiotic foods like kimchi and sauerkraut; cilantro; vitamin E-packed foods like almonds and avocados.

The Science: According to my app, this is when “estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone reach their peak concentrations, and then begin to fall to their lowest levels right before bleeding.” Vitamin B foods help manage blood sugar, while the root veggies can cleanse the liver, flushing out excess estrogen. Probiotics reduce bloat, chlorophyll-packed cilantro can clear the skin, and Vitamin E is an anti-inflammatory that can aid breast pain. (All the research is cited in the app.)

How I felt: Leaving Whole Foods with heavy bags full of hormone-friendly ingredients for the week, I felt hopeful—especially after examining my ever-present chin/jawline acne. Eating dishes like baked sweet potatoes topped with black beans and guacamole or scrambled eggs with fermented veggies wasn’t terribly out of my comfort zone (I tend to cook healthfully at home) but a life without caffeine was. I opted to keep up my two-cups-day coffee routine seeing as giving up pastries was hard enough. LET ME LIVE!

Menstruation (Duration: 3-7 days)

Menstruation is, duh, when you’re actually bleeding. After your unfertilized egg unceremoniously exits the Fallopian tube, it breaks apart and your uterine lining begins to shed. A fun time!

Recommended Food: Low-glycemic fruits and veggies; protein; seaweed; Omega 3 fatty acids; beets.

The Science: According to Vitti, if you regularly struggle with cramping, diet could be a part of the problem. The app explains, “your body isn’t making enough of the right type of prostaglandins […] and too much of another type” as a result of a lack of essential fatty acids, which also help fight inflammation. The low-glycemic foods will supposedly keep my blood sugar in check, while beets boost iron for anemic folks like myself, and seaweed can replaces minerals lost.

How I Felt: Out the gate I have cramping that’s not unlike getting a womb massage from Edward Scissorhands, extreme nausea, heavy bleeding, and a shooting pain in my left breast. Fun times all around. I still haven’t kicked my coffee habit but I’m starting to seriously consider because this is one doozy of a period. In short: not only do I not notice any improvement just yet (given, it’s early), but I could swear some symptoms are even worse.

Follicular Phase (Duration: 7-10 days)

The follicular phase is when the follicles in your ovary mature, just before you enter ovulation.

Recommended Foods: Fresh fruits and vegetables; hearty whole grains (like buckwheat); lean protein (seafood or beans, since I’m not doing red meat).

The Science: According to MyFlo, my hormones are at low levels post-menstruation and nutrient-packed foods will get my energy back on track.

How I Felt: Though I was tired as hell, I woke up around 4 a.m. every night (WHY), so I finally vowed to swap out coffee for matcha (that’s something, no?). To help me sleep and curb sugar cravings, I’d have a cup of Four Sigmatic’s adaptogenic hot cocoa after dinner every night, which was a trick I learned during the one-and-only cleanse I’ve done in my life. This tasty little elixir has reishi mushrooms to soothe the stress monster that had taken over my body and cinnamon and coconut palm sugar to give me the sweet fix I’d been hankering for without spiking my blood sugar.

Ovulation (Duration: 3-5 days)

Ovulation occurs when your matured egg is released from the ovary, travels down the Fallopian tube, and patiently awaits being fertilized. This is the phase where those who want to — or don’t want to — get pregnant should be on high alert.

Recommended Foods: Fibrous fruits and veggies and light grains, like corn and quinoa.

The Science: During this phase, testosterone surges, then drops. According to Vitti, “elimination” (read: poop) is an important part of ridding your body of the surplus of estrogen, hence all that fiber. Eating lots of raw fruits and veggies gives you the vitamins and antioxidants for high-functioning and healthy ovaries.

How I Felt: Something strange happened. By this stage in the game, I honestly started to believe that my usual symptoms in each cycle had been magnified. My breast pain returned, but in the form of overall swollen tenderness, and already I was experiencing some cramping. My joints were sore, my chin still hadn’t totally cleared and my bloat was like that last party guest who refused to leave. WHY?!

Right around the 30-day mark, I felt like I was falling apart. Were my hormones totally confused? What the hell had I done?

Out of desperation, I finally cut out caffeine completely, supplementing with herbal chicory coffee. Additionally, I started taking evening primrose oil capsules daily and drinking tea with dong quai — both of which balance hormones and are recommended by Vitti’s text. Then, the clouds parted: my omnipresent chin acne dissipated for the first time in I don’t even know and I began waking up to a (relatively) flat tummy. Some symptoms still have a ways to go (a full night of uninterrupted sleep would still be nice) as I imagine breaking the cycle probably takes a bit longer than a month.

As woo-woo as it sounds, I believe I’ve experienced a powerful transformation in simply being this tuned-in to my body and considerate of what goes into it. As time goes by, and I’m given physiological clues as to what’s benefitting — and not benefitting — my health, I may have (okay, I will have) a cup of coffee or a slice of pizza again. To be honest, what MyFlo has taught me to do is not wholly radical: I ate all the things I should probably have been eating anyways — but perhaps never knew how foods could so directly affect my hormonal health and aid in symptoms I thought I’d never kick for good. But beyond that, I believe it’s been invaluable to have this experiment as a way of engaging with friends about their own “period problems,” knowing that — at the very least — I’m definitely not in this alone.

Ashley Tibbits is an LA-based freelance writer. She’s still not sure whether it’s appropriate to mention her cats in these things. Follow her on Instagram here and check out her website here.

Photos by Louisiana Mei Gelpi; Creative Direction by Emily Zirimis.

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theaviiiv · 8 years ago

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Imagine this country without Duterte

Repost: Imagine a world where Robredo is the president. Imagine a supertyphoon in the magnitude of Haiyan hitting one part of the Philippines, and she is nowhere to be found. The cabinet sectaries she entrusted us to are people like Dinky Soliman. Imagine the agony and the tragedy of Leyte, multiplied all over the Philippines, with increasing regularity as supertyphoons become the new normal. Imagine LP people in power bickering over who should be taking care of this, that. Imagine all of us scrambling to help our fellowmen. Imagine prostituting ourselves to other countries as we continue to collect "utang na loob" because our government couldnt take care of us. Imagine her lack of political will and how baranggay kapitans will again lord it over the distribution, choosing only allies to give aid and relief goods to. Imagine international terrorists reaching Philippine shores. Imagine the havoc they will wreak in the city. And how many foreigners and locals did Abu Sayyaf kidnap or behead in the time of Pnoy? What about Duterte? How come we dont hear from them anymore? Will we see them come back with a vengeance? How will a President Robredo deal with them? By issuing one platitude and press release one after another? Imagine a government with no sense of accountability. You report that small school children have to swim rivers to get to school, and the appointed secretary, chosen by LP, ignoring this, choosing instead to continue "roadworks" on streets that do not need to be fixed, but because of kickbacks in construction projects, one road will be repaired again and again, causing inconvenience to motorists. You will also notice these projects increasing in frequency as elections in the local level near. Kailangan ng budget pangampanya. Imagine when, the minute you post your complaint on the President's FACEBOOK wall, Leni Robredo's cabal of advisers will automatically delete your message and block you. You, a taxpaying, productive member of this society, does not exist as far as your President is concerned. Imagine the loss of free healthcare for the indigent. Imagine the billion peso budget used instead for some congressman's new house and yacht and kids' tuition for schools abroad. Imagine the rape of the Philippines' natural resources, as our congressmen and senators with mining interests continue their irresponsible practices unabated, unchecked, as they have always done. Imagine the rising number of deaths of tribespeople and ethnic groups who died fighting for what is theirs, as mining companies act with impunity, free from the prying eyes of the public, encouraged by permissive and corrupt government officials. Inagine a country where Mindanao, and our brothers and sisters who live there, is ignored yet again. And while malls continue to be built in Manila, our provinces suffer because of our unitary, centralized system. Imagine the resentment as it continues to boil, and then explode. Imagine the unrest and the civil war in forsaken lands we should have given attention to. We could have prevented this, but we did not. We allowed Mindanao to suffer, and then seethe, and then paint them as the bad guys in the story. Imagine a president with no intimate knowledge of this rich land. Imagine a puppet whose strings are pulled by people whose wet dreams are made up of owning Mindanao's riches. Imagine the crime rate going up, when a leader has no courage to fight drug lords, ignoring them as if she could wish them away with her beautiful, softly-spoken words. Imagine how we will all, yet again, be at the mercy of drug lords, snatchers, kidnappers, carnappers. Imagine life a year ago, when criminals feared no one, and so everybody--even the law abiding citizens, lived life in constant fear. Imagine big businesses fearless in their continued exploitation of their workers, just cogs in the wheel, replaceable every six months, no health benefits, no nothing. All those people given regular jobs--nearly 30,000--to be told again that they must return to their unstable careers. Imagine LP's landed overlords with an unquenchable thirst for more, more, more, shutting the gates of the Department of Agrarian Reform once again. Imagine our farmers being told that they have to pay for irrigation. That they do not have a right to the land they tilled their whole lives. That they are nothing but modern-day slaves. Imagine our OFWs voiceless again, those heroes who have left their homes in pursuit of a good life for their families. Made to suffer the indignities of corrupt airport officials, corrupt immigration officials. Their balikbayan boxes taxed to high heavens. Not given the privilege of a streamlined system, asked to run like headless chickens from one building to the next, asked to fall in line to pay their travel tax--as if they owed their government something other than the other way around. Imagine the Church calling the shots again. Because Leni the president bows and kisses their rings in supplication, the bishops will once again be able to tell our women that they cannot have control of their bodies, that condoms are evil. Because of their continued refusal to deal with our problem pragmatically, the country has ballooned to 105 million people. And HIV is on the rise. All over the world, HIV rates are going down--except the Philippines. Who do you think is partly to blame? Imagine the poor and the hungry, hidden from view when the world is watching. Imagine the implicit message that they are an embarassment to a government that ironically put them in that situation. Imagine having a President who has forgotten these people she once promised she would protect. Imagine Leni Robredo as president. Welcome to a crime-ridden, terrorist-infested, oligarch-ruling, selfish, myopic, full-of-excuses, devoid-of-accountability, deaf-to-its-people Philippines. Actually, you don't really need to imagine, just remember. Remember the mess. Remember the dead bodies shoved into one plastic bag, the government refusing to count past 6,000. Remember the crying and the pleading of typhoon victims. Remember the indignities the least of our brothers were subjected to. Remember the unfairness of it all. Remember how we watched them roll in money while we suffered. Remember that criminals partied in jail cells while we lived in fear out in the open. Remember what Leni Robredo stands for. She stands for the rights of the partymates who put her there, not ours. She serves their interests, not ours. She serves LP, not us. She stands for everything that was wrong with this country. My fellow Filipinos who love the Philippines, remember this when you fight for this country. Remember why you fight, and let it give you courage.-Krizette Chu

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