Have you read Starhawk’s story about Palestine? http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2008/12/thoughts-and-action-on-gaza-from-starhawk/

This is the part that I like in particular:

To know and see the enemy, you must let them into the story.  They must become real to you, nuanced, distinctive as individuals.

But when we let the Palestinians into the story, it changes.  Oh, how painfully it changes!  For there is no way to tell a new story, one that includes both peoples of the land, without starting like this:

“In our yearning for a homeland, in our attempts as a threatened and traumatized people to find safety and power, we have done a great wrong to another people, and now we must atone.”

Just try saying it. If you, like me, were raised on that other story, just try this one out.  Say it three times.  It hurts, yes, but it might also bring a great, liberating sense of relief with it.

How do we atone? Open your eyes.  Look into the face of the enemy, and see a human being, flawed, distinct, unique and precious.  Stop killing.  Start talking. Compost the shit and the rot and feed the olive trees.

Happy New Year!
Arja

Israel could put an immediate stop to the rockets being fired from Gaza. It only has to end the siege of Gaza. This it refuses to do.

No matter how patient, how moderate, or how conciliatory the Palestinians have been, Israel continues to take away their land. There comes a time when people will choose to die on their feet than to live on their knees.

Hamas fires rockets into Israel for the same reason that Palestinian children throw stones at Israeli soldiers and slaves spit in the soup of their masters — they refuse to submit to their oppressors.

Israel must end its occupation of Palestine. That is the only way to secure the safety of everyone in the region.

Israel is a major military power that dominates the Palestinians in every way. And the defiance of the oppressed cannot be equated with the violence of the oppressors.

The Palestinians elected Hamas because they were losing ground with moderate parties that tried to negotiate with Israel. Despite what it says, Israel does not want to negotiate. It has been consistent in its efforts to destroy the Palestinians.

To ask the Palestinians to stop fighting back is to ask them to meekly submit to their annihilation.

There is only one solution to this conflict. The Jewish state must be replaced by a democratic, secular state that grants equal rights to ALL of its residents.

As long as Israel remains a Jewish state, it will oppress the Palestinians, and they will fight back with every means at their disposal.

I live in the City of Ashkelon in Israel. I have read Appeal from Gaza and I asked myself a very simple question.

Why is this person not demanding that his chosen government for an immediate stop to the bombing of Israel and bring peace to end this situation?

Me and my family live in a terrible fear. He describes “Israeli authorities telephone families, calling them to evacuate their homes within 5 minutes before they are bombed”

Me and my family, don’t have any alert, as the Hamas don’t care about me and my family when they shoot their rockets.

So please ask Mahmoud to press his government to stop the shooting and in this case both of us will be safe.

You should ask Mahmoud instead of asking foreign governments to solve our problem, to act and stop this situation

Yours
Jonathan Rosenthal (no relation to Susan Rosenthal)

People go to doctors because they don’t feel well, and, yes, the first duty of the physician is that of diagnosis. However the first question posed by the duty to diagnose is: “Is there a physical abnormality, the same thing as a disease, yes or no?”

Not all persons with complaints-symptoms are subsequently found by examination or tests, to have an abnormality-disease. In fact, in most GP or internal medicine practices, as many at 40-50% are found to have no objective evidence of abnormality-disease. Those who are anxious, depressed, or sleepless have complaints but no disease. The diagnosis for this group (which includes all with psychiatric diagnoses) is “no evidence or disease” or NED. Sometimes they are called “no organic disease,” NOD. The persons in the NED/NOD categories, having been found to have no abnormality-disease are not medical patients and do not warrant medical or surgical treatments. Those found to have an abnormality-evidence of disease are then subjected to “differential diagnosis,” the second and final part of diagnosis, which asks: “Which disease?”

Not only are psychiatric diagnoses “not at all scientific,” they are anti-scientific-pseudoscientific-fraudulent, because those making such diagnoses are trained physicians who are knowingly calling subjective classifications abnormalities-diseases, while knowing perfectly well they are not. All physicians, even those who go into psychiatry (leaving organic, physical medicine behind) take a basic course in medicine which teaches them of all things normal (anatomy, chemistry, physiology) all things abnormal (pathology-disease) and how to tell the difference. Nowhere in psychiatry are there actual diseases, i.e., gross, microscopic or chemical abnormalities.

In his 1990 editorial “In Bed Together at the Market: Psychiatry and the Pharmaceutical Industry, psychiatrist-of-conscience, Matthew P Dumont, MD (Amer. J. Orthopsychiat. 60 (4), October, 1990:484-485) wrote: “Some years ago Nathan S Kline, one of the luminaries of psychopharmacology, wrote that ‘The contacts of psychiatry with the pharmaceutical industry have been so overwhelmingly beneficial that it would be well-nigh criminal to jeopardize them.’ As if one could! The profession should give up its coquettish claims to psychotherapy and social science and openly declare its identity as an arm of the drug industry. It need fear no indignant response from a federal government that defines private profit as its raison d’etre. Indeed, the May-June 1990 issue of the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Administrations newsletter featured a front page announcement of its own ‘partnership to speed up and intensify the development of medications for addictive and mental disorders.”

For much of the 1800’s and first half ot the 1900’s neurology and psychiatry were combined as neuropsychiatry, with its clinicians practicing both, finding organic diseases in their role of neurologist and finding no evidence of disease, only subjective, emotional and behavioral problems in their other role, as psychiatrist.

In 1948 neurology and psychiatry were established by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as separate specialties. Neurology is to deal with the diagnosis and treatment of physical diseases (abnormality = disease) of the brain, more specifically, with the central and peripheral nervous system, and muscle. Psychiatry, on the other hand, was to deal with the emotional and behavioral problems of physically normal persons—not with actual disease ( with feeling anxious, depressed, manic, panicky, “hyper,” etc.) Patients referred to psychiatrists are previously determined, by neurologists and other non-psychiatric physicians, to be free of organic disease.

The more psychiatry claims that its diagnoses are actual diseases, the more it seeks to link itself with neurology, to give the suggestion of organic, medical legitimacy to diagnoses that have none.

Psychiatrists do not examine or test for physical/organic diseases. Their claims that they diagnose “chemical imbalances” of the brain is fraudulent. In contrast, neurologists, and all non-psychiatric physicians, determine (1) whether or not organic disease is present, and, (2) if so, which one it is. The process of distinguishing which, of several diseases a patient may have is called “differential diagnosis”. When no organic disease is found, but emotional and behavioral complaints persist, the patient is referred to a psychiatrist or some other type of mental health professional.

In 1970 “hyperkinetic disorder (HKD)/ Minimal Brain Damage/Dysfunction (MBD) was first represented by psychiatry, in a Congressional hearing, chaired by Cornelius E. Gallagher, D-NJ, to be an actual disease. This made it fitting and acceptable to give truly-normal children drugs. Dr. Thomas C. Points, Deputy Assistant Secretary , Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW): “Hyperkinesis is recognized by the medical community as one of the more common behavior disorders of childhood which, when diagnosed by a competent physician or medical team, lends itself to safe and effective drug treatment.” A letter to the Honorable Cornelius E. Gallagher, Chairman of this, the Right to Privacy Inquiry, from the Honorable Elliot L. Richardson, Secretary HEW 11/03/70: “As you notice stimulant drug treatment of children with this disorder began in the late 1930’s and has been widely accepted as safe and effective by the medical community.” “We have no vested interest in the use of any one treatment modality and are continuing to look for the most effective treatments and treatment combinations for this disorder.” NIMH is currently supporting a number of studies which involves other drugs, attempting to compare their efficacy to the stimulant drugs which are presently considered the standard reference drugs for the treatment of Hyperkinesis.” Elliott L. Richardson, Secretary. Here we have the secretary of HEW touting for the pharmaceutical industry.

This is all-important, but can hardly be imagined by most unless it has happened to them or theirs. The “disease” labels become part of all official records, whether they are a child or adult, and those records follow them everywhere and assure they are known to one and all as “seriously mentally ill.”

But labels alone are not enough. They are drugged with chemicals that make them more or less physically dependent or addicted to the drug and more or less conspicuously abnormal and “seriously mentally ill” whereas, with the label alone there were no stigmata to see. This is why psychiatrists defy every urging that they diminish the dose. To do so means they give up control of the patient. The infamous case of Nate Tseglin of San Diego and Orange County, just stripped by his parents from the clutches of psychiatry is fresh in mind.

Despite the serious adverse effects of the especially-dangerous anti-psychotics, the psychiatrists of the psychiatric hospital where Nate was a “pay-point” did nothing but increase the doses of drugs. By doing so, they kept control of Nate, making him one more “pay-point” in the extended industry. When Nate’s nightmare began he had no discernible disease. He has since suffered from seizures and grotesque involuntary movements (dyskinesias)due only to psychiatric drugs. this drug-poisoning is the only real disease in psychiatry.

The following quote is from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) published in 2000, pages 88-89.

“There are no laboratory tests, neurological assessments, or attentional assessments that have been established as diagnostic in the clinical assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Tests that require effortful mental processing have been noted to be abnormal in groups of individuals with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder compared with peers, but these tests are not of demonstrated utility when one is trying to determine whether a particular individual has the disorder. It is not yet known what fundamental cognitive deficits are responsible for such group differences.”

With no evidence of an actual disease or abnormality (to be made normal), on April 10, 2001, the Frontline production “Medicating Kids” reported that 6 million US schoolchildren have ADHD. And, as we know, children diagnosed with depression, ADHD, or a combination of the two (dual diagnosis) almost all take Schedule II, controlled, stimulant medication, mostly Ritalin and amphetamine.

The clear, written intention of the APA to deceive and victimize the U.S. and the rest of the world (where they (with Big Pharma) vigorously export their scam) is found in the Introduction, xxi of the DSM IV under the definition of Mental Disorder. It reads:

“Although this volume is titled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the term mental disorder unfortunately implies a distinction between “mental” disorders and “physical disorders that is a reductionistic anachronism of mind/body dualism. A compelling literature documents that there is much “physical” in “mental” disorders and much “mental” in “physical” disorders.”

The crux of the fraud is here: “A compelling literature documents that there is much “physical” in “mental” disorders and much “mental” in “physical” disorders,” without supplying a single citation-reference to a single proof that any one psychiatric “disorder” is real, i.e., a disorder/disease/physical abnormality.

Author: The ADHD Fraud—How Psychiatry Makes “Patients” of Normal Children

Really good post.

I’ve been using the term state capitalist, to describe the bailout. It isn’t a 100% accurate term, but it beats it being called socialism, as by liberals and conservatives. Mischaracterizing socialism has a long history, as done by capitalists and Stalinists.

Obama is hostile to the universal healthcare, despite his rhetoric. His economic advisors are from the University of Chicago (Friedman).

With Dems coming to power, it’s time to escalate the fight for a labor party.

Regards.

“Cooperation counters the downward cycle of alienation and dissociation. When people refuse to be divided, when they work together to solve their common problems, they feel stronger and more hopeful. They work harder to find solutions, thereby increasing their chances of success.”