Wow, Sensa, sounds great. Use it like salt, you can lose up to 30 pounds quickly.
What a deal! Right?
Think again. Okay, now, think again. This is an old topic. But it's endemic of these kinds of things. Do be aware. When something sounds too good, do consider it probably is. Hard work usually pays off best.
According to Health Hound web site, Sensa's claims are questionable, at best. Check it out:
"[Sensa's] Dr. Hirsch claims there was a peer reviewed study supporting the claim that subjects lost over thirty pounds using Sensa (versus the control group that lost only 2 pounds). The claim is that this study was peer reviewed by the Endocrine Society. The Endocrine Society says they did not review the study. On ABC’s 20/20 news they stated that, “they were surprised and troubled by the promotional nature of his presentation”. In fact, none of the internal “studies” are confirmed by any respectable body."
That would be bad enough to wise you up to at least, "wise up", but there's more.
"Customers simply don’t appear to be happy. Please go through the
comments below. It appears Sensa’s free trial offer is kind of tricky.
It is not only on this blog, but all over the web… Community doesn’t
lie.
So aside from not losing weight, people are getting charged $89 not
once, but twice before they are able to stop the billing. And getting
a refund doesn’t seem to be that easy. In short, it appears to be one of those over aggressive marketing organizations that I love so much."
So, it sounds like these guys are your worst nightmare as far as taking a chance on a product. Of course, Health Hound has an alternative, but rather than that, check out a real backed up program. Some of the most notable food in a box programs, do work but are expensive; they help because they are easy. You open the right box at the right time and eat what's there. Follow the program, you lose weight. Exercise, you lose more.
According to an article on the Mayo Clinic's site by, Katherine Zeratsky, R.D., L.D."
"Alan Hirsch, M.D., who developed Sensa, says proof of its effectiveness
comes from a six-month study he conducted in which participants lost an
average of 15 percent of their body weight. The makers of Aroma Patch
and SlimScents point to another study by Dr. Hirsh to bolster their
claims. That study, which was reported in a medical journal, showed that
volunteers who used an aroma inhaler lost an average of 2 percent of
their body weight over six months. Neither one of these studies looked
at whether participants were able to maintain the weight loss.
"So can these weight-loss products lead to significant, sustainable
weight loss? The jury is still out on that question. Even the makers of
these weight-loss products acknowledge that losing weight comes down to
diet and exercise. It makes more sense, then, to skip the scents and
focus on what's proven to work — reducing the calories you consume and
increasing the calories you burn through exercise"
Exactly, it still takes effort to lose weight. That starts with attitude. You have to want change to effect change.
For a different kind, try Kinetix, backed by Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah's Blue Shield groups so much that they bought the company. I tried it a couple of years ago and it worked pretty well for me. I steadily lost weight and felt much better.
The final word on this is that there is no magic dust you can sprinkle on your food to lose weight. It still takes balance and effort (exercise, denying eating at the wrong times, like after two hours before bedtime). Smaller meals and snacks, properly spread out through the day, watching your intake and output, like someone said, its really a numbers game, take in the right amount, put out the right amount. The rest just happens.
Eat right, workout, you lose weight. Start now. It's January. Begin today, by time its summer, you will appreciate it. Don't be caught in the Summer, thinking, "if I had only started in January, I'd be there now."
Just do it.
Monday, July 30, 2018
Monday, July 23, 2018
Climate Change And The Humans Who Deny
Climate change deniers are on par with the flatearthers. They are purposely ignorant and refuse reality. It's a human based mindset that evolves along the lines of man made religions. And yes, they are all man made, or human if you prefer. Though if I were a woman I wouldn't want credit for what men mostly did in the past and are still doing today. But hey, equality brings with it responsibility. Sometimes even for things you aren't at all responsible for. Though to be fair, women do have some responsibility in the evolution of religions. Even though they seem to be the most abused by them.
As for climate change today you truly are simply stupid to deny it. Who denied it for so long? Conservatives and Republicans, and those who even passed laws denying it in places like South Carolina.
As for humans being responsible, perhaps not just for climate change, but to be sure for excessive climate change, the evidence is clear and again, you are of the mentality of those mentioned above if to deny it. Best case? You're ignorant of the facts.
So let's skip the facts.
Consider this. that humankind once killed one another directly, manually, with sticks and bludgeoning weaponry. When your enemy felt the impact of your attack, you were directly through that weapon connected to them.
Now let's modernize. Mechanize. Which we do so very well.
Once humankind realized they could use simply machines to kill, the thrown implement came into being, the rock, the spear, the arrow. In some ways that began our decline, but also our evolution and our rise to the top of the food chain.
Let's advance that a bit.
We invented the musket, then mechanized it further into the cartridge, beyond that to the bolt action, to the semi and full automatics. Along with this obviously there were explosives.
Then, the atom and nuclear bombs came on the scene.
So to think humankind cannot affect even a planet sized environment when they have mechanized pollution through industry and individual polluting devices such as cars, boats, planes and so on, not to mention, industrialized animal product production, is to exhibit a vast lack of understanding of our history and capabilities that literally boggles the mind.
Not to mention we have extracted fossil fuels from the ground which laid buried for millions of years and we have then used those to energize our lives, releasing into the ari ancient carbons which are quantifiable and qualifiable.
That is, we can track them.
There is no question about it. Humankind is escalating climate change to a massive degree with our 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year intensive world wide mechanized polluting systems which have gone on now for over a hundred years.
We couldn't have done a better job if we had actually been trying to pollute and affect massive climate change. Even polluting massively poisonous substances into our own living spaces, the air we breathe, the water we drink and more.
IF you still deny humankind can and has evoked excessive climate change, then it's only fair and reasonable for you to be labeled: stupid. Sorry, but you're denying reality does not mean the rest of us have to, and as well, die because of it.
It does mean however that we do have to fix this as best we can, altering our current course of progress, or lack thereof, entirely perhaps without you.
Even to your detriment if you stand in the way.
It's your choice really. Help or get out of the way. Or be run over with our progress and positive changes.
Think about it.
#gOP #Republican #conservative #climatechange #climatedeniers #flatearthers #TheIdiotElite #POTUS #realDoanldTrump #VPOTUS
As for climate change today you truly are simply stupid to deny it. Who denied it for so long? Conservatives and Republicans, and those who even passed laws denying it in places like South Carolina.
As for humans being responsible, perhaps not just for climate change, but to be sure for excessive climate change, the evidence is clear and again, you are of the mentality of those mentioned above if to deny it. Best case? You're ignorant of the facts.
So let's skip the facts.
Consider this. that humankind once killed one another directly, manually, with sticks and bludgeoning weaponry. When your enemy felt the impact of your attack, you were directly through that weapon connected to them.
Now let's modernize. Mechanize. Which we do so very well.
Once humankind realized they could use simply machines to kill, the thrown implement came into being, the rock, the spear, the arrow. In some ways that began our decline, but also our evolution and our rise to the top of the food chain.
Let's advance that a bit.
We invented the musket, then mechanized it further into the cartridge, beyond that to the bolt action, to the semi and full automatics. Along with this obviously there were explosives.
Then, the atom and nuclear bombs came on the scene.
So to think humankind cannot affect even a planet sized environment when they have mechanized pollution through industry and individual polluting devices such as cars, boats, planes and so on, not to mention, industrialized animal product production, is to exhibit a vast lack of understanding of our history and capabilities that literally boggles the mind.
Not to mention we have extracted fossil fuels from the ground which laid buried for millions of years and we have then used those to energize our lives, releasing into the ari ancient carbons which are quantifiable and qualifiable.
That is, we can track them.
There is no question about it. Humankind is escalating climate change to a massive degree with our 24 hour a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year intensive world wide mechanized polluting systems which have gone on now for over a hundred years.
We couldn't have done a better job if we had actually been trying to pollute and affect massive climate change. Even polluting massively poisonous substances into our own living spaces, the air we breathe, the water we drink and more.
IF you still deny humankind can and has evoked excessive climate change, then it's only fair and reasonable for you to be labeled: stupid. Sorry, but you're denying reality does not mean the rest of us have to, and as well, die because of it.
It does mean however that we do have to fix this as best we can, altering our current course of progress, or lack thereof, entirely perhaps without you.
Even to your detriment if you stand in the way.
It's your choice really. Help or get out of the way. Or be run over with our progress and positive changes.
Think about it.
#gOP #Republican #conservative #climatechange #climatedeniers #flatearthers #TheIdiotElite #POTUS #realDoanldTrump #VPOTUS
Monday, July 16, 2018
GOP and Conservative Disinformation Must Stop
Dear American Idiots. Stop destroying this country for your desires and pleasures. Pres. Trump, Stop! GOP, Stop! Conservatives, Stop. NRA, STOP.
And now with the Putin and Trump love fest summit today....
It's both rewarding and disconcerting to hear mention so much lately of Russian disinformation tactics and validation of what I've been saying for some very long.
I've been talking about Russia, disinformation, and the GOP and conservatives, the NRA, and others since long before my first blogs back in 2010. I've seen the tobacco cartel using it seemingly forever. The NRA then picked it up. Conservatives loved it and the GOP picked it up. Donald Trump used underhanded even pieces of Russia operations and certainly tactics to become president.
And there are so very many other concerns with Trump as president and I won't even go into what a nightmare it must be for his interpreters to convey his word salad sentence to any other foreign leader and it's a miracle we're all still alive at this point. As example Trump has berated Germany for spending billions and billions on Russian oil, but what about us then? Forbes article.
To have studied the Soviet state and KGB for so long, nearly since childhood for me, then to see it creeping into America, has scared the hell out of me for years. And I know I sounded like some crackpot to far too many. Until hopefully, now. Now because we're seeing investigations into it that go all the way up now to the presidency.
I did a search. My first mention in my Murdockinations.com blog of old Soviet disinformation tactics in America was in July of 2010. First mention in relation to Republicans was in June of 2011 about their flooding the media with lies about cannabis. November 2012 in relation to the GOP and climate change. June 2012 about Edward Snowden (during Obama administration, showing I wasn't blind to what Democrats were doing either, but they cannot hold a candle to what the GOP and conservatives had been, were then and continue to pull). July 2014 in relation to Fox News. March 2015 in relation to Tobacco companies, Congress, even robotics and a thing called Ethics. December 2015 in relation to guns, the NRA and the GOP. In December 28, 2015 in relation to the GOP and memes. I think this may have been around the time Russia was ramping up their disinformation leading to the 2016 election. July 2016 about conservatism, the GOP and disinformation. And many other times I mentioned it in blogs and the many, many times I've posted on social media, especially Facebook about it.
And no one was really listening. No one seemed to be paying any attention.
Until now.
And is now too late? After all, Trump is president. The GOP have Gerrymandered us into insanity. The vile have been empowered. And we are flailing and quickly getting nowhere.
Are we now too late to reverse the insidious crawl of the old Soviet, through the new Russia, through Putin, through their arm in the GOP?
I hope not. Start listening, start acting. Stop listening and start ending this fake news crap, this fake president nonsense, this fake GOP business as usual and let's return to American ideals and actual business and true politics beyond the old Soviet cancer that has spread throughout our media and our country now.
Is there hope? Yes, possibly. From 7/15/18:
Are we finally seeing #Democrats...anywhere, in this case California, beginning to reduce the anachronistic weight of their sedentary bulk to finally be fit enough to fight for us in the present to remove Republicans from their ongoing and abusive, bear trap lock on our government for their incessant and damaging and even anti American actions?
And now with the Putin and Trump love fest summit today....
It's both rewarding and disconcerting to hear mention so much lately of Russian disinformation tactics and validation of what I've been saying for some very long.
I've been talking about Russia, disinformation, and the GOP and conservatives, the NRA, and others since long before my first blogs back in 2010. I've seen the tobacco cartel using it seemingly forever. The NRA then picked it up. Conservatives loved it and the GOP picked it up. Donald Trump used underhanded even pieces of Russia operations and certainly tactics to become president.
And there are so very many other concerns with Trump as president and I won't even go into what a nightmare it must be for his interpreters to convey his word salad sentence to any other foreign leader and it's a miracle we're all still alive at this point. As example Trump has berated Germany for spending billions and billions on Russian oil, but what about us then? Forbes article.
To have studied the Soviet state and KGB for so long, nearly since childhood for me, then to see it creeping into America, has scared the hell out of me for years. And I know I sounded like some crackpot to far too many. Until hopefully, now. Now because we're seeing investigations into it that go all the way up now to the presidency.
I did a search. My first mention in my Murdockinations.com blog of old Soviet disinformation tactics in America was in July of 2010. First mention in relation to Republicans was in June of 2011 about their flooding the media with lies about cannabis. November 2012 in relation to the GOP and climate change. June 2012 about Edward Snowden (during Obama administration, showing I wasn't blind to what Democrats were doing either, but they cannot hold a candle to what the GOP and conservatives had been, were then and continue to pull). July 2014 in relation to Fox News. March 2015 in relation to Tobacco companies, Congress, even robotics and a thing called Ethics. December 2015 in relation to guns, the NRA and the GOP. In December 28, 2015 in relation to the GOP and memes. I think this may have been around the time Russia was ramping up their disinformation leading to the 2016 election. July 2016 about conservatism, the GOP and disinformation. And many other times I mentioned it in blogs and the many, many times I've posted on social media, especially Facebook about it.
And no one was really listening. No one seemed to be paying any attention.
Until now.
And is now too late? After all, Trump is president. The GOP have Gerrymandered us into insanity. The vile have been empowered. And we are flailing and quickly getting nowhere.
Are we now too late to reverse the insidious crawl of the old Soviet, through the new Russia, through Putin, through their arm in the GOP?
I hope not. Start listening, start acting. Stop listening and start ending this fake news crap, this fake president nonsense, this fake GOP business as usual and let's return to American ideals and actual business and true politics beyond the old Soviet cancer that has spread throughout our media and our country now.
Is there hope? Yes, possibly. From 7/15/18:
Are we finally seeing #Democrats...anywhere, in this case California, beginning to reduce the anachronistic weight of their sedentary bulk to finally be fit enough to fight for us in the present to remove Republicans from their ongoing and abusive, bear trap lock on our government for their incessant and damaging and even anti American actions?
One can only hope....
#GOP #Republican #Russia #disinformation #POTUS #realDonaldTrump
#GOP #Republican #Russia #disinformation #POTUS #realDonaldTrump
Monday, July 9, 2018
Food Stamps?
I wrote this blog back in 2011 I think.
I guess to follow up my Fat man comment yesterday about sideshows, the AMA has labeled Obesity a disease now. Really. Is it a disease? Or is it just (for 99% of people) a matter of priorities, discipline, education? Is it more of a last ditch effort to get a handle on this national tragedy?
The more you look into the common diet in the US the more you begin to distrust corporations. Michael Pollan in his new book "Cooked" has said that people who eat food cooked by people and not corporations are showing to be healthier.
"Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) released a statement on Tuesday arguing that food stamps provide a good life for people as long as they use them wisely. Donny Ferguson, who serves as Congressman Stockman’s communications director and agriculture policy advisor, was able to buy enough food to eat well for a week on just $27.58, almost four dollars less than the $31.50 “SNAP Challenge” figure." [from "Continuing the Tradition of Black Intellectual Thought"]
For $21.55 Ferguson purchased at Dollar Tree:
Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
But the food he bought had very little protein and was not the most healthy of choices. I'd like to see this guy actually eat that food for a week, or live on it for months or years and see what it does to his body and mind. Look at the sugars (Honeycomb, Peanut Butter, Grape Jelly, Root Beer, popsicles, fruit drink mix, applesauce, cookies - a plethora of corn syrup products). You may be able to eat on that amount of money, but you are not going to be as healthy as you could if you have more money to spend on food.
I would never have bought those things when I was on food stamps, which I was for a while just after I got out of the military and before I got into college. I used to dream about buying meat and proteins. Maybe I could afford eggs for my Top Ramen (a fabulous cheap product you can throw anything into for a meal that differs day to day). But not the healthiest noodles to eat. One of the things about my post military and later on in college diet was that I got sick of eating the same things day in and day out.
Finally I discovered as many have that Top Ramen rocks.
You may be able to eat on that amount of money but you are not going to be as healthy as you could if you have enough money to spend on healthier food and can afford real proteins (no, vegetarians, we're not looking here for your input, even though you may be right because many people do not see a vegetarian lifestyle as a viable choice for them, even though it may work to their benefit). Baby steps, okay?
When I got out of the military I had a rough time. I was on food stamps for a while until I got into college and could use my Vietnam Era VA benefits. The work I did in the Air Force just didn't translate well back then to a job. I had to take a string of rather demeaning jobs until I simply couldn't take it anymore and gave up. It took me about a year to heal up and get things together.
My then ex wife, as our marriage didn't survive the military years, was a vegetarian and I had eaten well for years. To then go down to what I did after leaving the military was both enlightening and disconcerting. I finally got a job and got off food stamps, and thank God they were there when I needed them.
When I was in my third year at University, after moving to a different city where jobs were few in being available to students, I did't have and luckily didn't really need a job (and frankly I really needed to be a full time student, working day and night on my studies) and so I had very little money.
Both times what I found was that protein is very expensive and you either can't afford it or very much of it. Lots of carbs were cheap and I became more and more disgusted on what I could afford. This wasn't on food stamps because I felt I shouldn't dive into that since I was surviving and others needed it more than I did. Like I had earlier for a while after leaving the service. Others who couldn't attend college at all. But then, thank God for local food banks.
Still, foods you might prefer not to eat are far more affordable on a low income. I realized back then for the first time that you cannot live very healthy on the types of foods affordable at that economic level. There is a lot of talk about alternative lifestyles and how cheap it can be to grow your own, etc, but once again, that's not viable for many people.
TODAY (7/8/2018)
And now Republicans want to cut food stamps, end programs necessary to people's lives and continue to discredit citizens, humans in America, because they are "too lazy to become rich." That is such a stupid statement only an asinine person would even consider saying it and no decent person would.
We need to end this stupidity ASAP with due prejudice and far more than any of the programs these Republican want to end.
I guess to follow up my Fat man comment yesterday about sideshows, the AMA has labeled Obesity a disease now. Really. Is it a disease? Or is it just (for 99% of people) a matter of priorities, discipline, education? Is it more of a last ditch effort to get a handle on this national tragedy?
The more you look into the common diet in the US the more you begin to distrust corporations. Michael Pollan in his new book "Cooked" has said that people who eat food cooked by people and not corporations are showing to be healthier.
"Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) released a statement on Tuesday arguing that food stamps provide a good life for people as long as they use them wisely. Donny Ferguson, who serves as Congressman Stockman’s communications director and agriculture policy advisor, was able to buy enough food to eat well for a week on just $27.58, almost four dollars less than the $31.50 “SNAP Challenge” figure." [from "Continuing the Tradition of Black Intellectual Thought"]
For $21.55 Ferguson purchased at Dollar Tree:
Two boxes of Honeycomb cereal
Three cans of red beans and rice
Jar of peanut butter
Bottle of grape jelly
Loaf of whole wheat bread
Two cans of refried beans
Box of spaghetti
Large can of pasta sauce
Two liters of root beer
Large box of popsicles
24 servings of Wyler’s fruit drink mix
Eight cups of applesauce
Bag of pinto beans
Bag of rice
Bag of cookies
But the food he bought had very little protein and was not the most healthy of choices. I'd like to see this guy actually eat that food for a week, or live on it for months or years and see what it does to his body and mind. Look at the sugars (Honeycomb, Peanut Butter, Grape Jelly, Root Beer, popsicles, fruit drink mix, applesauce, cookies - a plethora of corn syrup products). You may be able to eat on that amount of money, but you are not going to be as healthy as you could if you have more money to spend on food.
I would never have bought those things when I was on food stamps, which I was for a while just after I got out of the military and before I got into college. I used to dream about buying meat and proteins. Maybe I could afford eggs for my Top Ramen (a fabulous cheap product you can throw anything into for a meal that differs day to day). But not the healthiest noodles to eat. One of the things about my post military and later on in college diet was that I got sick of eating the same things day in and day out.
Finally I discovered as many have that Top Ramen rocks.
You may be able to eat on that amount of money but you are not going to be as healthy as you could if you have enough money to spend on healthier food and can afford real proteins (no, vegetarians, we're not looking here for your input, even though you may be right because many people do not see a vegetarian lifestyle as a viable choice for them, even though it may work to their benefit). Baby steps, okay?
When I got out of the military I had a rough time. I was on food stamps for a while until I got into college and could use my Vietnam Era VA benefits. The work I did in the Air Force just didn't translate well back then to a job. I had to take a string of rather demeaning jobs until I simply couldn't take it anymore and gave up. It took me about a year to heal up and get things together.
My then ex wife, as our marriage didn't survive the military years, was a vegetarian and I had eaten well for years. To then go down to what I did after leaving the military was both enlightening and disconcerting. I finally got a job and got off food stamps, and thank God they were there when I needed them.
When I was in my third year at University, after moving to a different city where jobs were few in being available to students, I did't have and luckily didn't really need a job (and frankly I really needed to be a full time student, working day and night on my studies) and so I had very little money.
Both times what I found was that protein is very expensive and you either can't afford it or very much of it. Lots of carbs were cheap and I became more and more disgusted on what I could afford. This wasn't on food stamps because I felt I shouldn't dive into that since I was surviving and others needed it more than I did. Like I had earlier for a while after leaving the service. Others who couldn't attend college at all. But then, thank God for local food banks.
Still, foods you might prefer not to eat are far more affordable on a low income. I realized back then for the first time that you cannot live very healthy on the types of foods affordable at that economic level. There is a lot of talk about alternative lifestyles and how cheap it can be to grow your own, etc, but once again, that's not viable for many people.
TODAY (7/8/2018)
And now Republicans want to cut food stamps, end programs necessary to people's lives and continue to discredit citizens, humans in America, because they are "too lazy to become rich." That is such a stupid statement only an asinine person would even consider saying it and no decent person would.
We need to end this stupidity ASAP with due prejudice and far more than any of the programs these Republican want to end.
Monday, July 2, 2018
Normalizing Death & Independence Day 2018
First off, I would like to wish for you all to have a very happy, fun and safe Fourth of July Independence Day celebration!
I have found memories of my growing up and having very happy 4ths. Until I found myself in the middle of an explosion once back in the early 1980s (an experience that made it into my screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard).
I've seen this in others. They love explosions, until they are involved directly in one either in civilian life, or actual war situations. They are not fun, when you see, when you feel the reality of an explosion. When done in a war situation, where one explosion or even is not the end, where you know you have more coming, perhaps until you die...it's a very different experience than we experience in our mild by comparison, Independence Day celebrations.
Which are by law, to be safe and sane.
Yet I think most of us entirely miss the concept of the Fourth of July celebrations with fireworks. Yes it reminds us of war, kind of, but we've been too far removed from all the danger. All the damage. Well parents and authorities do try anyway. But let's face it, once our children grow up and move out, they can become the province of police, emergency services and ERs around the country.
So many of especially conservatives and our new form of American faux and neo patriots, seem to have missed the point entirely. Just as many of them seem to think that our "right to bear arms" is a fun pastime and guns are toys. That life isn't precious and that we can just chalk up the mass murdered to being collateral damage to our 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.
As we have seen, Afghans and Iraqis, Syrians and others who have had to abandon their countries know full well to what I refer. While many Americans have no clue whatsoever in our privilege and entitlements and do not even recognize it as such, for what is going on in our celebrations of distant explosions and bright pretty lights in the sky.
Which in war still terrify in their beauty. But the key word there is... terrify.
I would suggest this from our government from here forward...
People can have their bright, loud but harmless fireworks displays which authorities limit on power and effect since people will literally (and do) kill and main both themselves and others when due care is not undertaken.
But perhaps, one night a year our government at each of its various levels needs to fire fireworks off above all neighborhoods. Fireworks guaranteed to break at least some windows in homes and terrify the young and elderly, and all the rest of our clueless middle of the road types.
You know, the one's Republicans don't care about except for votes and money and enhancing their positions of power and illiberal permanency through Gerrymandering, voter suppressions and even illegal Russian involvements in our elections.
People should wake on July 5th exhausted from lack of sleep doe to the fear and intensity of the explosions to REMIND us what war is about, what it's like, how you are in living through it. If you are so lucky to do so.
We have forgotten as a nation. To be sure, our soldiers have not as due to our ongoing warmongering, we have so many now who do remember, because they had experienced it for real only a short time ago, if not...yesterday. Or today.
American civilians should feel and see damage in their neighborhoods, experience at least the fake destruction, the trash everywhere from remnants of major fireworks in the air. They should walk a bit like zombies through July 5th and light versions of short term PTS and exhaustion so they can truly experience, or remember, to know (perhaps again) just what it is like to have suffered through what birthed this nation, and what others are currently going through around the world.
Because if we all truly understood it, would there really be anymore wars around the world? Or would we make it our life pursuit to find ways to make diplomacy work and to curtail its ill conceived cousin, corporatism and corporate thinking, which many times have spawned these wars? Or to have set up future groups like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS to start or continue their own versions of the wars they were born from?
That, is the purpose of a celebration like this. And no, I do not really suggest we do this. But we need to find a way to bring this home, to see it and feel it, experience it, to find the enlightenment of the fear involved, the ongoing terror, the resulting damage, death and perhaps permanent PTSD.
Remembering. Knowing. Going forward with the intention to truly be able to appreciate what you have and what has been sacrificed since the birth of this nation in order to give them the safety and prosperity we all now have and have been born into. Or have migrated toward. Legally or illegally.
We have spent decades decreasing the threat of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction into manageable weapons and scenarios. Our attempts to beat our weapons into plowshares has led to our massive wars becoming smaller and more conventional and in some cases we have gone from nukes to knives. More urban warfare. Small groups, drug cartels rather than wars again nation states.
From fears of wars on our soldiers to terror on civilians by terrorists, some with religious bents, bending their religions to mean whatever they wish it to mean. And to be sure, that is one of the concerns about religions and conventions of magical thinking.
So we now have nations and leaders who abuse their people so much, where groups such as ISIS or drug gangs, due to poverty and shutting down crime in one country so it seeks another, that we now have millions of displaced civilians seeking refuge and too many unempathetic ears and hearts turning them away. In some cases, turning away those who are products of our past transgressions. Actions in one place, that have festered and burst in another.
Then when they seek our help, we treat them like filth and criminals. We have situated ourselves in America today where we have a president who calls out these innocents, purely for political power, as just such despicable humans, when those types are actually the ones doing the name calling and barring hopeful innocents from our shores and borders. Even when that is what America was founded upon; even when that is what America was built, certainly in part, to do.
But fear, weakness and consciously structured economies, designed to keep citizens in need, have made us weak, while we cry about our strength. Make us hypocrites, while we proudly announce our great moral authority. Make us despicable while we rant about our intellectual superiority. All which makes us nothing, if not lesser so.
As for those illegals, or for those seeking legal sanctuary, for those refugees we need to turn not our historically blind eyes toward their home nation's conditions, but our enlightened eyes, minds and open hearts to realize, and to avoid in the future, especially where we the ones who set up those conditions for their seeking asylum from us in the first place.
Rather than simple mindedly, unthinkingly, labeling them as criminals. When all they want is what we want. Safety, security, hope. Hope for themselves, for their families and loved ones, and for their children. Children whom we recently and still are abusing on purpose, for political effect and for power.
Then and only then might we actually start to see an outpouring of empathy and a determination to not only help war displaced victims, but to actually and permanently work to put an end to despots. All Despots. Yes, like our own current illiberal overly and unnecessarily conservative GOP and their leader, our greatest and most despicable pathologically lying Pres. Donald J. Trump).
"Mr." Trump is playing world politics like a board game. Monopoly? Or perhaps his own 1980s board game, narcissitically called, Trump: The Game. We are not a game. We are not, something for sociopathic leaders to manipulate for their own pleasure. And yet, he does.
We need to put a stop to all such idiotic beliefs including our current forms of destructive capitalism, the travesty of religions such as evangelicalism, radical Islam or whatever else theistic crap that may crop up, the authoritarianism and populism today that is so destructive in places like North Korea, Russia and elsewhere, all these things that do tend to lead a clear path to abuse if not finally to...war.
We can turn this around. We have done it before. After all, it's why we have Independence Day in the first place. So do go forward, but do it with purpose. Do it with an understanding that to celebrate the Fourth is to know why you do so and to realize that to celebrate it, means you have to, you still have to...fight for what is right. And not just what is seemingly good, right now.
But hey... Have a very Happy Independence Day!
#POTUS #GOP #Conservatives #Dems #realDonaldTrump @realDonaldTrump #VPOTUS #Republican
#4thofjuly #army #baldeagle #eagle #fourthofjuly #independenceday #marines #navy #patriotism #unitedstates #usa #veteran #vintage #vintagedad #supportsmallshops #fourthofjulyweekend #fourthofjulycelebration #fourthofjulyfestivities #fireworks #fireworksdisplay #starsandstripes #redwhiteandblue
I have found memories of my growing up and having very happy 4ths. Until I found myself in the middle of an explosion once back in the early 1980s (an experience that made it into my screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard).
I've seen this in others. They love explosions, until they are involved directly in one either in civilian life, or actual war situations. They are not fun, when you see, when you feel the reality of an explosion. When done in a war situation, where one explosion or even is not the end, where you know you have more coming, perhaps until you die...it's a very different experience than we experience in our mild by comparison, Independence Day celebrations.
Which are by law, to be safe and sane.
Yet I think most of us entirely miss the concept of the Fourth of July celebrations with fireworks. Yes it reminds us of war, kind of, but we've been too far removed from all the danger. All the damage. Well parents and authorities do try anyway. But let's face it, once our children grow up and move out, they can become the province of police, emergency services and ERs around the country.
So many of especially conservatives and our new form of American faux and neo patriots, seem to have missed the point entirely. Just as many of them seem to think that our "right to bear arms" is a fun pastime and guns are toys. That life isn't precious and that we can just chalk up the mass murdered to being collateral damage to our 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution.
As we have seen, Afghans and Iraqis, Syrians and others who have had to abandon their countries know full well to what I refer. While many Americans have no clue whatsoever in our privilege and entitlements and do not even recognize it as such, for what is going on in our celebrations of distant explosions and bright pretty lights in the sky.
Which in war still terrify in their beauty. But the key word there is... terrify.
I would suggest this from our government from here forward...
People can have their bright, loud but harmless fireworks displays which authorities limit on power and effect since people will literally (and do) kill and main both themselves and others when due care is not undertaken.
But perhaps, one night a year our government at each of its various levels needs to fire fireworks off above all neighborhoods. Fireworks guaranteed to break at least some windows in homes and terrify the young and elderly, and all the rest of our clueless middle of the road types.
You know, the one's Republicans don't care about except for votes and money and enhancing their positions of power and illiberal permanency through Gerrymandering, voter suppressions and even illegal Russian involvements in our elections.
People should wake on July 5th exhausted from lack of sleep doe to the fear and intensity of the explosions to REMIND us what war is about, what it's like, how you are in living through it. If you are so lucky to do so.
We have forgotten as a nation. To be sure, our soldiers have not as due to our ongoing warmongering, we have so many now who do remember, because they had experienced it for real only a short time ago, if not...yesterday. Or today.
 |
| Alamy - A Royal Navy fleet bombards Fort Sullivan in Charleston Harbor on 28 June 1776. The Revolution was rife with such fights, large and small, coastal and riverine, making it “without question, the largest and most significant naval war of the 18th century.” |
Because if we all truly understood it, would there really be anymore wars around the world? Or would we make it our life pursuit to find ways to make diplomacy work and to curtail its ill conceived cousin, corporatism and corporate thinking, which many times have spawned these wars? Or to have set up future groups like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS to start or continue their own versions of the wars they were born from?
That, is the purpose of a celebration like this. And no, I do not really suggest we do this. But we need to find a way to bring this home, to see it and feel it, experience it, to find the enlightenment of the fear involved, the ongoing terror, the resulting damage, death and perhaps permanent PTSD.
Remembering. Knowing. Going forward with the intention to truly be able to appreciate what you have and what has been sacrificed since the birth of this nation in order to give them the safety and prosperity we all now have and have been born into. Or have migrated toward. Legally or illegally.
We have spent decades decreasing the threat of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction into manageable weapons and scenarios. Our attempts to beat our weapons into plowshares has led to our massive wars becoming smaller and more conventional and in some cases we have gone from nukes to knives. More urban warfare. Small groups, drug cartels rather than wars again nation states.
From fears of wars on our soldiers to terror on civilians by terrorists, some with religious bents, bending their religions to mean whatever they wish it to mean. And to be sure, that is one of the concerns about religions and conventions of magical thinking.
So we now have nations and leaders who abuse their people so much, where groups such as ISIS or drug gangs, due to poverty and shutting down crime in one country so it seeks another, that we now have millions of displaced civilians seeking refuge and too many unempathetic ears and hearts turning them away. In some cases, turning away those who are products of our past transgressions. Actions in one place, that have festered and burst in another.
Then when they seek our help, we treat them like filth and criminals. We have situated ourselves in America today where we have a president who calls out these innocents, purely for political power, as just such despicable humans, when those types are actually the ones doing the name calling and barring hopeful innocents from our shores and borders. Even when that is what America was founded upon; even when that is what America was built, certainly in part, to do.
But fear, weakness and consciously structured economies, designed to keep citizens in need, have made us weak, while we cry about our strength. Make us hypocrites, while we proudly announce our great moral authority. Make us despicable while we rant about our intellectual superiority. All which makes us nothing, if not lesser so.
As for those illegals, or for those seeking legal sanctuary, for those refugees we need to turn not our historically blind eyes toward their home nation's conditions, but our enlightened eyes, minds and open hearts to realize, and to avoid in the future, especially where we the ones who set up those conditions for their seeking asylum from us in the first place.
Rather than simple mindedly, unthinkingly, labeling them as criminals. When all they want is what we want. Safety, security, hope. Hope for themselves, for their families and loved ones, and for their children. Children whom we recently and still are abusing on purpose, for political effect and for power.
Then and only then might we actually start to see an outpouring of empathy and a determination to not only help war displaced victims, but to actually and permanently work to put an end to despots. All Despots. Yes, like our own current illiberal overly and unnecessarily conservative GOP and their leader, our greatest and most despicable pathologically lying Pres. Donald J. Trump).
"Mr." Trump is playing world politics like a board game. Monopoly? Or perhaps his own 1980s board game, narcissitically called, Trump: The Game. We are not a game. We are not, something for sociopathic leaders to manipulate for their own pleasure. And yet, he does.
We need to put a stop to all such idiotic beliefs including our current forms of destructive capitalism, the travesty of religions such as evangelicalism, radical Islam or whatever else theistic crap that may crop up, the authoritarianism and populism today that is so destructive in places like North Korea, Russia and elsewhere, all these things that do tend to lead a clear path to abuse if not finally to...war.
We can turn this around. We have done it before. After all, it's why we have Independence Day in the first place. So do go forward, but do it with purpose. Do it with an understanding that to celebrate the Fourth is to know why you do so and to realize that to celebrate it, means you have to, you still have to...fight for what is right. And not just what is seemingly good, right now.
But hey... Have a very Happy Independence Day!
#POTUS #GOP #Conservatives #Dems #realDonaldTrump @realDonaldTrump #VPOTUS #Republican
#4thofjuly #army #baldeagle #eagle #fourthofjuly #independenceday #marines #navy #patriotism #unitedstates #usa #veteran #vintage #vintagedad #supportsmallshops #fourthofjulyweekend #fourthofjulycelebration #fourthofjulyfestivities #fireworks #fireworksdisplay #starsandstripes #redwhiteandblue
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