In the name of increasing the corporate bottom line, the government watchdog industries of the DEA and FDA, as well as the office of the President, have become the willing lap dogs for Big Pharma and this unholy alliance is serving to endanger our children.

Big Pharma has gone to great lengths to increase sales to the youth of America either through chemically castrating our children’s brains or by producing drugs with very serious side effects which serve to seriously degrade both the brain and the body. Our children are being systematically destroyed by the pharmaceutical industry.

The Ritalin Conspiracy

Let’s make up a brain disorder, which parallels normal restlessness of children and then transform a dangerous drug, methamphetamine, and get as many kids on the drug as possible. It is good work if you can find it and pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Eli Lilly are leading the way in medical fraud and in the name of record corporate profits

The use of Ritalin has become so rampant, that even the DEA has become alarmed by the tremendous increase in the  prescribing of these drugs in recent years. Since 1990, prescriptions for methylphenidate have increased by 500%, while prescriptions for amphetamine for the same purpose have increased 400%. The American Pediatric Association claims Ritalin is over prescribed by 600%.

For well over a decade, many scientists have speculated that ADD drugs are dangerous and can cause serious injury and death. Etta Brown, a licensed educational psychologist and author of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the Problem and Managing the Challenges explained in response to her study that drugs like Ritalin actually destroy the neural function in children’s brains. As a result, children who have undergone treatment with Ritalin will actually have a much more difficult time processing information and learning new things. This kind of defeats the purpose of getting children to sit still in school while placed in a zombified state.

Brown further reported that Ritalin is responsible for the development of a permanent tic in the face, neck, and head of many of the children who have taken or are taking it. Ironically, Ritalin is responsible for causing far more serious neurological damage than the problems it is alleged to treat. Meta analyses studies over the years have revealed that while drugs like Ritalin visibly place children into a trance like state, these drugs destroy the vulnerable, delicate and developing nervous systems which can and does permanently cripple their ability to function as normal human beings.

The Gardasil Conspiracy

Last year a bill sponsored by Toni G. Atkins, D-San Diego passed into California state law which places every child in danger in California. Atkins bill begs the question of who has the ultimate authority of the welfare of our children. Is it the state or is it the parents? Well, if you live in California, the nanny state purports to have the final say. The Atkins bill makes it legal for  a school district or a doctor to medicate or inoculate a child without parental notification.

In an era when Gardasil has resulted in needless tragedy for over 40,000 children who have been vaccinated by well intentioned doctors who are ignorant of the side effects, we are now witnessing states like California mandating the forced inoculation of young girls with Gardasil.

What the medical establishment is not telling you is that thousands of girls are having adverse reactions to the HPV Vaccines, some have even died -at last count, at least 103 lives have been lost to Gardasil. This is a brilliant strategy being invoked by California. Let’s kill the girls, thus preventing them from having sex, thus, preventing STD’s.

You remember MERCK don’t you?  They were the creator of the wonder death drug,  Vioxx. This is the same Merck, who only after intense pressure from the medical community and the media decided to pull the dangerous drug, Vioxx, from the market after an estimated 140,000 adverse reactions had already occurred. And the pulling of Vioxx occurred only after a safety trial was stopped because there was an undeniable and increased risk for serious cardiovascular dangers such as heart attacks and strokes from using the drug.

Merck has been no less reckless in their administration of Gardasil as they were with Vioxx. First and foremost, Merck and the Food and Drug Administration’s clinical trials have been called into question for blatant fraud committed during the required FDA testing period. Both the control group and the experimental group, in the clinical trials, were given the aluminum adjuvant contained in the Gardasil. Control group and experimental group comparisons are done to ensure public safety from adverse side effects as much as possible. In this case, it would have be standard practice to provide the control group with a saline solution instead of the aluminum adjuvant in order to determine the risk posed by the adjuvant given to the experimental group. In failing to follow these research norms, Merck and the FDA have endangered the public health.

These research protocols violate every known tenant to proper research; it represents an air of unprofessionalism, not to mention criminal fraud, which clearly demonstrates collusion to commit fraud against the general public on behalf of Merck as sponsored by the FDA. In fact, Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit under the Public Records Act in order to obtain the obfuscated side effect results as the FDA tried to cover up their own complicity in this research fraud by refusing to release the relevant documents.

Gardasil is marketed as a vaccine that prevents cancer, but the drug has not been evaluated for the potential to cause cancer or genotoxicity. Gardasil is a prophylactic, preventative vaccine and is of absolutely no value in the treatment of a pre-existing HPV infection. It is neither a cancer vaccine nor a cure; yet, the public has been led to believe that this is the case. The New England Journal of Medicine found that there remains no conclusive proof that Gardasil altered the course of HPV-16 or HPV-18 infection for which the patient was symptomatic prior to the administration of the first dose. In other words, this is fraud in the first degree.

Gardasil is the most costly vaccine ever to be approved by the FDA. However, its long-term effectiveness is not known and several estimates state that Gardasil’s life as a vaccine could be only two to three years. This opens up the distinct possibility that a Gardasil vaccinated child will require several booster shots which will undoubtedly increase the bottom line for Merck, but the risk for side-effects among the vaccinated could increase exponentially with each successive vaccination.

The VAERS reports show that as many as eighteen people have died after receiving Gardasil. The VAERS reports document identifies 38 reports of Guillain-Barre Syndrome among juvenile females who previously received the Gardasil vaccine. Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a catastrophic illness that attacks the nervous system which can and often does result in paralysis. Ironically, Gardasil is being developed against only four types of HPV. However, there is over 100 strains of HPV, 30 of which are transmitted sexually. Just what could have Governor Brown and Atkins been thinking?

Do you not think that this is the first time that this kind of dangerous medical fraud has been and will be visited upon your children for profit and political career advancement?  Think again! The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that boys of the age of 11 to 12 years should be vaccinated with the vaccine against HPV with the Gardasil vaccination. Even my doctors are serving the Big Pharma agenda, as evidenced by the fact that my son’s former pediatrician relentlessly tried to give my then 11 year old son the Gardasil injection. When I presented the good doctor with some of the data contained in this report, he replied “your ideas are not contained within the mainstream of medicine.” Since when is scientific research required to reflect the mainstream of the Big Pharma agenda? The moral of this story is to fire your doctor and find a health care provider who is committed to the welfare of their patients.

Gardasil Victims

The Teen Screen Conspiracy

On the surface, screening the mental health of children for suicidal tendencies is a noble idea worth pursuing. Yet, when the screening is mandated by the President of the United States and is done without the knowledge and consent of the parents of the children being tested, an eyebrow should be raised. When children, under this program can only be medicated with the most expensive psychiatric drugs which contain 2 to 20 times higher suicide rates and arecontraindicated for use by children, all of America should begin to dismantle this unholy marriage of the Police State and the pharmaceutical fraudsters.

There is an ongoing battle for the psychological health and welfare of America’s children and eventually all Americans, under the New Freedoms Commission (NFC), as it is the eventual intent to screen and  treat, with mind numbing drug, all Americans for mental illness by using criteria designed to elicit false positives. The relatively new mind control programs have commenced with the intent of compelling the mental health testing of all 52 million school children and the 6.5 million adults who walk through doors of every school in America on any given weekday. Acting under the authority of the NFC, all 50 states are mandated to implement compulsory mental health screening. The screening exams are to be administered in kindergarten, fourth and ninth grade. The screening program requires no parental notification and carries the force of law and this program continues unabated to this day. As is the case with vaccinations, the diagnosis and treatment, under the mind control policies of the Bush and Obama administrations will eventually be universal because of an executive order signed by Bush upon taking office!

Teen Screen, created by Laurie Flynn, arose out of the expressed desire of the NFC to test all American school children for suicidal tendencies. There are several problems with this screening instrument. For example, the screening device has a high rate of false positives. The rigor (e.g., measure of reliability and validity, utilization of genuinely representative population samples used in the norming process) of the screening mechanics have also been called into question. Additionally, Teen Screen allows for the use of unsupervised nonprofessionals to both administer and interpret the screening instrument. In an effort to cover their malpractice behinds, Teen Screen is careful to state that the program is not a substitute for clinical evaluation, but they act as a substitute for clinical evaluation. Remember, freedom is slavery, war is peace, and being drugged on medication which will damage a developing brain is exciting in this version of pharmaceutical 1984.

Despite its self-proclaimed message that Teen Screen has a wonderful diagnostic tool from which to predict suicidal behavior resulting from depression, Teen Screen states that the instrument is not a diagnostic tool. If you had to reread the previous four sentences in order to try to make sense out Teen Screen’s, “doublespeak,” you are not alone. Although the diagnostic tool is not heralded as a clinical tool, the schools which use the Teen Screen tool can still label the child as being emotionally disturbed and this label can follow this child for the rest of their life. Further, school-initiated treatment protocols can be triggered as a result of the findings. Recent research demonstrates that Teen Screen is on the rise and is promoting the most dangerous psychotropic drugs. In fact, according the National Institute of Health, psychotropic drugs should only be given to children only under the most dire set of circumstances.

Teen Screen Penetration

Teen Screen is now in almost every state.

The diagnostic instrument devised by Teen Screen produced a false positive rate of 84% in comparison with other tried and tested diagnostic instruments. Here is an example of a typical Teen Screen diagnostic question:

Teen Screen Diagnostics

When at a party, have you ever felt lonely or misunderstood?

Of course the average person would answer in the affirmative. However, in Teen Screen speak, you would be diagnosed with social phobic disorder and possibly a mild case of depression. And what prize do children win when they volunteer to misdiagnosed 84% of the time? The win access to the world of psychotropic drugs in which even The National Institute of Health even states that the use of psychotropic drugs is contraindicated for young, developing minds and they do permanent damage. And just as devastating, when these children receive their false positive diagnosis, their ability to obtain health insurance down the road is severely impaired.

Teen Screen, just as it is with Gardasil, is a scam designed to get the children hooked on psychotropic drugs through the use of a bogus screening instrument and it was done without parental notification and permission in the same manner being implemented in California.

Everyone Has a Price

Undoubtedly, school districts will be provided incentives as they do in the Teen Screen scam as another Big Pharma giant, Eli Lilly, is attempting to entice every school district in the country to test pre-teens and teens for suicidal depression.

As was the case with Teen Screen, your children will be bribed with movie tickets and coupons for pizza in order to get them to line up for their Gardasil vaccination. And of course, as was the case with Governor Brown and Gardasil, the government lent their support to the TeenScreen effort as well when President George W. Bush issued an executive order which sanctioned this insanity. Bush, Brown and every other Gardasil endorsing politician drink from the same troth and your children need you to protect them from people and organizations such as these.

Unfortunately, Merck has its long financial arm in many state legislatures and soon every child in the country, both boys and girls, is going to be at risk thanks to this unholy partnership between the school districts, Merck and the politicians who are all too eager to curry favor from this pharmaceutical giant.

Everyone of these drugs has debilitating side effects on children’s brains and on their bodies

Your children are not the property of Eli Lilly, Merck, Governor Brown or any of the other political prostitutes. Your children look to you, their parents, to protect them from evil 1% such as the ones discussed here.

Occupy Big Pharma

Perhaps what we need to do in order to best protect our children is to begin an “Occupy Big Pharma” movement.  Until that day arrives, and in the meantime, what will you do when the Gardasil fraud debuts in your community? I can unequivocally state that organizations like Teen Screen and the Big Pharma will never get their hands on my 12 year old son. Not now, not ever! Can you say the same for your child?

For the good of your children, distribute this article to your family, friends, neighbors, local school board members as well as your elected representatives. And at the end of the day, pray to almighty God that he will guard our children from the purveyors of Gardasil, Ritalin and the use of psychotropic drugs of Teen Screen.

Source: Dave Hodges -  thecommonsenseshow.com

Israel’s very much involved. It abhors peace and stability. Its history reflects belligerence. It’s a direct threat. It borders Syria. Both countries are longstanding imperial partners. The Israeli Lobby plays a key role. So do major media soundrels. More on Israel below.

Orwell once said “(w)ho controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Saving the future requires understanding both past and present. Preventing imperial annihilation depends on it.

So-called “rebel” forces are no match against Syria’s military superiority. Al-Qusayr is a strategic western Syrian city. It’s about 18 miles southwest of Homs.

It’s located on Lebanon’s border. It links Damascus with government controlled Mediterranean coastal areas.

It’s a key smuggling route. Insurgents, weapons, munitions and supplies pass cross-border into Syria. Stopping them is strategically important.

Fighting for control continues. On May 21, Press TV said Syrian forces control over 70% of the city. According to a Syrian source:

“We managed to enter the city from several directions. We encountered heavy resistance but we overpowered them and seized control of these places and we will pursue them and eliminate them wherever they go.”

According to Voice of Russia, Syria captured the city. Russia’s Rossia-24 TV reported it. Insurgents controlled the city throughout the conflict. No longer.

Capturing Al-Qusayr prevents supplying insurgents from key parts of Lebanon.

Voice of Russia and Rossia-24 reported “mopping-up operations” around Aleppo.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), “Army units restored stability and security to the full eastern area of (Al-Qusayr) in Homs Countryside after killing big numbers of terrorists and destroying their hideouts.”

“A military source added that army units dismantled a number of explosive devices, planted by terrorists in al-Souk area in the middle of the city.”

“The source added that army units are continuing hunting the remnants of terrorists in some hideouts in the northern and southern areas of the city.”

Insurgents suffered heavy losses. Leadership elements were killed or captured. “Tens of terrorist” surrendered. Others were arrested.
SANA said insurgents were routed in several provinces.

Local journalist Abdallah Mawazini told Russia Today that Syria’s army “managed to make a full circle around the city, fighting the opposition fighters. The main achievement is to stop the line of supply chain between Lebanon and Syria.”

“They started from the western side of the city, in the rural areas. They control this zone with some fighters from Lebanon.”

“Some extremist groups were preparing to go into Syria to fight with the rebels, they were going to go make a bigger front in order to fight and expand the fighting line between the government and the opposition.”

America’s war of words continues. Assad’s wrongfully blamed for US-backed insurgent crimes. They’re death squads. They’re US proxy foot soldiers. They’re foreign invaders. They’re recruited from many countries.

They’re funded, armed, trained and directed. Don’t expect US government sources to explain. Nor will media scoundrels.

On May 20, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Washington “strongly condemns the Assad regime’s intense air and artillery strikes this weekend on the Syrian town of (Al-Qusayr), along the Lebanese border, where more than 90 people were reportedly killed.”

“The Assad regime deliberately provoked sectarian tensions through its assaults, which we saw recently in Sunni massacres in the towns of Bayada and Banias.”

“We reject the regime’s use of sectarian-driver war to divide the Syrian people. The Assad regime and its supporters who continue to commit crimes against the Syrian people should know that the world is watching and they will be identified and held accountable.”

Insurgents bear direct responsibility for numerous massacres wrongfully blamed on Assad. Hezbollah elements are aiding their Syrian ally. They’re doing so responsibly. They’re confronting US imperialism. Not according to Ventrell.

He “condemn(ed) Hezbollah’s direct intervention in the assault on (Al-Qusayr) where its fighters are playing a significant role in the regime’s offensive.”

“Hezbollah’s occupation of villages along the Lebanese-Syrian border and its support for the regime and pro-Assad militias exacerbate and inflame regional sectarian tensions and perpetuate the regime’s campaign of terror against the Syrian people.”

“We reject Hezbollah’s efforts to escalate violence inside Syria and incite instability in Lebanon.”

Hezbollah and Syrian forces are trying to end conflict. They want peace. They want stability restored. They want Washington’s imperial intentions defeated. Much rides on their success.

On May 20, Lebanon’s Daily Star headlined “Situation in Syria against US, Israel: Hezbollah.”

According to Hezbollah MP Nawaf Musawi, Syria’s conflict hasn’t gone according to US and Israeli plans. He warned both countries against toppling Assad, saying:

“If some were betting on weakening our ally in Syria and toppling him, he should keep in mind that two years into the (conflict) have passed while betting on delusions.”

“Those who were banking on US power and Israeli threats of war and victory of the US-Israeli attack on Syria are mistaken.”

He added that Hezbollah won’t hesitate to plunge “Israel into the abyss. If the enemy – through its aggression – is practicing brinkmanship with the resistance and its allies in this region, the resistance is not afraid to push the enemy itself into the abyss.”

“Hezbollah has enough potential to make any Israeli official aware that the threat of war applies to him, and that he will be the first to lose as a result of his behavior.”

Syria’s military displayed a captured Israeli army vehicle. It did so in Al-Qusayr. Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television aired video proof.

Military uniforms, wiretapping and jamming equipment were found in the vehicle. Damascus called it evidence of Israel’s involvement.

Last June, insurgents were captured with Israeli weapons. Israel’s very much involved.

On May 21, SANA said

“the seizure of an Israeli military vehicle refutes the allegations made by Israel to justify its aggression on Syria and proves the scale of Israel’s military and intelligence involvements in the events in Syria.”

“(T)he Israeli military support for the armed terrorist groups proves the involvement of Qatar, Turkey and Israel in the aggression on Syria which is waged through a single central operations room.”

“(T)he Israeli military support for terrorism in Syria proves once more that Israel was and still is adopting the policy of organized state terrorism, stressing that the world must act to confront this terrorism.”

“(T)he questions raised by the seizure of the Israeli military vehicle and the surveillance and jamming equipment show that the armed terrorist groups with all their different names are merely headlines for a single structure led by Israel, Qatar and Turkey.”

Syria understands Washington’s key role. Partnered with Israel, other NATO countries, and rogue Arab states, they’re waging imperial war against a non-belligerent country. Doing so is lawless aggression. It’s the supreme crime against peace.

Israel escalated things further. In response to alleged cross-border gunfire, it “returned precise fire,” according to IDF officials.

Tammuz missiles were used. Twice before they targeted Syrian sites.

Incidents are easy to manufacture. Doing so provide pretexts to respond. On May 4 and 5, Israel bombed Syria. It did so preemptively. It was a joint US-Israeli provocation. It suggests further aggression ahead.

On May 21, Mossad-connected DEBKAfile (DF) claimed a “Syrian-Israeli confrontation loomed closer”

DF alleges Damascus admitted responsibility for Monday night’s cross-border gunfire. No source was cited. Syria’s gone out of its way to avoid challenging other countries.

It hasn’t retaliated against previous Israeli and Turkish provocations. It’s unlikely to change tactics now. Doing so would be self-defeating. Assad has no death wish. DF’s allegations don’t wash.

It cites unnamed Israeli military sources claiming his “readiness for a war of attrition on Israel from the Golan.”

It says Hezbollah will be involved. On Sunday, Netanyahu sent mixed messages. On the one hand, he said Israel won’t intervene in Syria’s conflict.

On the other, he stressed it will act if its own interests are affected. He said he’ll topple Assad if he responds to Israeli attacks. He suggested further bombings may follow. Allegedly they’ll target weapons transfers to Hezbollah.

Bombings and other belligerence are willful provocations. At issue is goading Syria to respond. Doing so would provide pretext for direct US/Israeli intervention.

Assad’s not about to give them reason to attack. He’s gone out of his way to avoid it. His ability to do so depends on US/NATO/Israeli plans. Direct intervention appears likely. How and when remains to be seen.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html - Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com . Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

Both opposition and army sources on the ground in Qusayr agree that the town – taken by opposition fighters early on in the Syrian crisis – will be in the hands of the regime in a matter of days.

For weeks now, government forces have been conducting military operations around the strategic town, which is located to the southwest of Homs, a few kilometers from the northern tip of Lebanon.

After securing nearly all the villages in the surrounding area, the Syrian army entered Qusayr Sunday morning under heavy fire power, killing 90 opposition fighters and injuring hundreds, according to opposition sources inside the besieged town.

Many fighters managed to break the government siege and escape through a secret route that led to Josiah and the Qalamoun Mountains to the south. But, according to opposition sources, the regime found out about the escape route nearly a week ago and blocked it, killing and injuring around 30 fighters in the process.

Starting around two years ago, the opposition started to gather a large number of fighters in the town, estimated to range between 6,000 and 10,000. They built a network of bunkers and trenches in some neighborhoods in preparation for any attack by government forces.

But all talk of a Grozny-like scenario if the regime dared enter Qusayr melted away as the Syrian army – assisted by Hezbollah fighters, according to opposition sources – stormed the town and reached the central market within a few hours. It will, however, take a few more days before government troops have full control.

The turning point in the battle of Qusayr came six days earlier, when regime forces managed to take the strategic area of al-Tal, which overlooks the town and much of the surrounding area.

Opposition sources claim that the Tal area “was sold out to Hezbollah by some of our leaders, who then fled the fighting,” adding that this “betrayal” cost the two main opposition groups who control Qusayr – the Salafi Farouk and Wadi Brigades – heavy losses. Some of the fighters on the ground even named several commanders, whom they accused of buying their way out of Qusayr at the last minute.

Regime forces used heavy fire power, including air strikes, in addition to the element of surprise to break through opposition defenses in the city. “We mobilized our forces to the north to repel an expected attack by the Syrian army and Hezbollah,” a local commander told Al-Akhbar, “but we were surprised when they entered from the south, east, and west.”

Opposition sources say that they were expecting the military to attempt to retake those villages that were still not under its control before trying to enter Qusayr. Instead, an opposition fighter explains, they were surprised by an attack “that was launched from the Shia villages to the west of the Assi river…with Hezbollah fighters descending on us from the Tal area.”

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

Source: Radwan Mortada | Al-Akhbar

Homs Palestinian Refugee Camp, Syria…

Historically, Palestinian refugees, wherever they have sought temporary sanctuary following the ethic cleansing of their country by the 19th Century Zionist colonial enterprise, and pending their Return to Palestine, have insisted on avoiding local and international conflicts while seeking a modicum of interim civil rights from the host countries.

This was true at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil war, in Jordan during the run up to Black September,

the 1991 Kuwait crisis as well as the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and obtains especially today in the current crisis in Syria. For a number of reasons including poor tactical decisions by their leadership they have not always succeeded, and consequently they have paid s steep price in lives, jobs, housing and expulsions from host countries.

In Syria, the largest Palestinian refugee camp, Yarmouk (approximately 125,000 residents), and the second largest of the 14 camps, Khan al-Sheeh (approximately 45,000 before the crisis which has swelled its population by 26,000 mainly from Yarmouk camp) have become virtual war zones with large sections of the camps being overrun by gunmen fighting in support of the “Free Syrian ‘Army.” All but two of the camps in Syria have been infiltrated by opposition forces and consequently have been targeted by government forces seeking to destroy the rebels. At times the camp residents have resisted both sides by demanding that the camps strict neutrality be respected. Engaging initially in peaceful protects when outsiders invaded, some protests turned violent when their demands for camp neutrality were rejected.

Khan al-Sheeh, whose residents are from tribes and clans in northern Palestine, and who lost 22 camp residents to Zionist occupier gunfire during the May 2011 Nakba Day events on the Golan Heights, will be a formidable foe if they take up arms which they have not done for the past 33 years. In January 2013, the Syria conflict entered into the camp when opposition forces – a combination of Free Syrian Army (FSA) and al-Nusra Front fighters arrived and insisted on recruits, offering $ 200 per month cash, free cigarettes, a uniform plus boots and an AK-47.

For the past five months, again like Yarmouk, Khan al-Sheeh and the other camps in Syria has been caught in the crossfire as opposition fighters try to advance toward the capital, while regime forces used cannons and rocket fire to block their advance, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries. This week, so far in vain, the camp popular committees yet again appealed to both sides to accept a ceasefire within any Palestinian camp in Syria and Lebanon, the latter currently experiencing increased challenges for this country’s 12 camps to stay out of the conflict.

Pressuring Lebanon’s camps to join Syria’s civil war

Lebanon’s widely respected independent leftist daily, As-Safir, has reported that veteran security and intelligence officers of the Lebanese security services are claiming to have information, but not precise details regarding number and location, of “organized Takfiri (Sunni) networks” in Lebanon. The head of one security service told As-Safir that “the monitoring of the terrorist networks cannot be very detailed since they are solely located in the Palestinian camps, mainly in Ain el Helweh.”

This statement, like others these days in the Lebanese sectarian media, appears intended to incite the public against the refugees forcing them to join the fighting. Another officer closely working on the Lebanese government “terrorism file” claims, again without offering any probative or material evidence, that the “only serious faction in Lebanon right now consists of the Ziad al-Jarrah Units that are affiliated with the Abdullah Azzam battalions” . Both have some Palestinian gunmen. Abdullah Azzam is the most experienced group and it is present in Ain el Helweh…” The officer indicated that he agrees with the general theory that has it that as long as the military situation in Syria remains unsettled, the Lebanese Palestinian camps are open to all possibilities, including Palestinian armed involvement.

Other calls are being heard from Beirut, Saida, Tyre and up north in Tripoli, for Palestinians to comply with the fatwas being issued for all Sunni to fight the Bashar Assad regime and to build a “Sunni army” patterned after the civil war era PLO forces. There is virtually not known significant sentiment favoring this dangerous call. However, in all of the above noted areas, some Palestinians, mainly unemployed youngsters have been lured by offers of cash to take part in training, much like occurred before the 26 month old Syria conflict.

Some salafist-jihadist types in Lebanon, especially near Tripoli’s Bedawi, and Nahr al Bared camps, as well as Ein el Helwe down south in Saida, are pushing among Palestinian youth the argument that if Palestinians join the war in Syria they will have the power to take their internationally guaranteed civil rights that all refugees on earth receive except Palestinians in Lebanon. Part of the argument being pitched is that they are not going to get even elementary civil rights here in Lebanon from Israelis, the UN or the international community, and certainly not from the EU or the Americans. Palestinians in Lebanon’s camps are being lectured that they will get civil rights here only when they take them which is their right and their jihadist religious duty..

These arguments will fail, with few exceptions, among the quarter million Palestinian refugees actually still in Lebanon, as they have in the past. But the Palestinians decent here in Lebanon into deepening sectarian and religious divisions is worrisome. Scholars and political analysts and even elements the National Lebanese Resistance are counseling that an effective, moral, religious, and political measure that could bring Sunni and Shia together in Lebanon while thwarting the schemes being hatched to get the Palestinians involved in the Syrian crisis would be as follows:

For the Lebanese Parliament to use 90 minutes of its ample amount of free time, in as much as the Parliamentary elections will not take place next month as scheduled and the current Resistance government will remain in power both in Parliament and effectively at the Grand Serail.

By using 20 minutes of the proposed 90, recommended by the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign here, Lebanon’s Parliament can in one fell swoop reach out to the Sunni community and the Christian community (about 90% of Palestinians in Lebanon are Sunni and approximately 10 % Christian) by quickly repealing, employing a quick and tidy yea-nay vote, the 2001 racist law that forbids home ownership for Palestinian refugees here. This law outlawing the home ownership civil right for Palestinians only, as expressed to this observer by the two initial sponsors still in Parliament, was only ever meant as a 2001 election year gimmick to garner anti-Palestinian votes and not ever intended to be implemented.

History teaches us that the 2001 law was in fact part of the vast and continuing anti-Palestinian “pay-back” for the PLO’s seven year involvement in the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil (1975-1990) war until its leadership, in what many in the camps here objected to and continue to view as a cataclysmic error, ignominiously withdrew from Lebanon in the late summer of 1982) under Zionist and Reagan administration pressure and false promises of an immediate Palestinian homeland.

With the remaining 70 minutes, the Resistance dominated Parliament could reach out to the Sunni and Christian communities as noted above, and grant Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the same right to work that every refugee everywhere has, including those under the apartheid state of occupied Palestine. The same right, as everyone has when their passport is stamped at any Lebanese immigration or border post.

This single act by Lebanon’s Parliament, would help repair Shia-Sunni relations globally and would damp down and expose for what they are, the extremist Salafist, Jihadist, Wahhabist incitements to religious hatred— intra-Muslim and Christian. It would also keep Palestinians out of the Syrian conflict according to several Palestinian NGO’s here in Lebanon.

Allowing Palestinians in Lebanon the internationally guaranteed right to work, would also, according to studies by the UN International Labor Organization and other academic studies, substantially build up Lebanon’s fragile economy by creating more than twice the number of jobs that Palestinians could work at, including the currently banned 32 professions.

When it comes to the political world, I was dismayed to learn that the illiteracy rate among South Africans exceeds 70 percent, 60 percent of school teachers lack a college degree, only 10 percent pay income tax, the public health care system is abysmal, virtually every house is surrounded by an electrified security barrier, and though apartheid is formally and legally gone the small white population at about 10 percent still rules the economy. Nelson Mandela is universally revered, almost closer to a deity than a political leader; his image and name are ubiquitous. Sadly, there is no one in the South African system with similar public respect and capability to help the country solve its severe root problems.

Countless people from all over the globe book African safari tours because of the widespread desire to see exotic, beautiful animals in their native habitat. I can attest as someone who has traveled very widely internationally for decades that taking a safari vacation is one of the best, most rewarding things a tourist can do. I want to share some things I have learned from my recent trip that can help others make good decisions, because these safari tours are pretty expensive. The toughest decision is what tour company to select of the great many in the market.

A critically important issue is how many game drives you actually get, usually one in the early morning and one in the evening at safari lodges. These drives in specially designed vehicles usually last for three hours or more and can be very rough rides over dirt roads and sometimes directly into the bush landscape. Each vehicle has a ranger who drives and provides information continuously to usually four to six guests in the vehicle. He also has a rifle that is always at hand, just for that remote possibility of an animal charging people. Check out this reference for general information on safari trips.

Up front on a special seat sits a tracker who, in the daylight, is continuously examining the ground for evidence of specific animals. At night the tracker continuously directs a large flashlight into the bush to spot the eyes of animals. It is truly amazing how the trackers actually locate various animals, including lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos, giraffes and many more so that guests can get up close to magnificent creatures.

On my tour there were blankets for passengers because of the chill in the morning and nighttime hours. In the morning there was also a much appreciated hot water bottle. Midway during the drives drinks and snacks are served. Upon return from drives there is a sumptuous breakfast and dinner.

Everything is done to make it easy for people to take pictures of the wildlife, often getting extremely close to the animals. Most people take many hundreds of photos on these trips.

For months my wife and I researched a great many African safari tours and finally selected the Tauck company and its South Africa: An Elegant Adventure tour; it offered eight animal drives in two different safari areas in Kruger Park; and the itinerary included seeing more than just wildlife in safari regions, including Cape Town and surrounding areas as well as Johannesburg and Victoria Falls. Second, we had the distinct impression that it would be a luxury tour with true first class hotels and other amenities. Other tours at lower cost, perhaps half as much, mean roughing it and this may appeal to many people.

Let me emphasize that we absolutely loved our trip just as everyone else we met while traveling who were on different tours, mostly because of so many wonderful experiences seeing all the animals in glorious settings. Local guides and staff were excellent. Yet there were some disappointments. Of the five hotels the first three were wonderful five star hotels with great food and amenities, including the waterfront Cape Grace hotel in Cape Town, the best South African city, and the two safari lodges, Tinga and Sabi Sabi. But all the satisfaction of staying there set us up for disappointment.

The last two hotels did not live up to the Tauck reputation for elegant accommodations and supplying comfort to its clients. The rooms at the DaVinci hotel in Johannesburg were in the two star category, small, poorly designed and dysfunctional in many respects. The tour director upon hearing complaints justified the hotel on the basis of its location, the safe Sandton suburb with interconnected underground malls. But nearby was an Intercontinental hotel and the Saxon Boutique Hotel that would surely offer superior rooms. Whatever safari tour companies you consider, question them not only about what hotels or lodges they use but also what type rooms in them you will get; all too often tour companies like Tauck buy the cheapest rooms.

You definitely want to see Victoria Falls if you travel to Africa; they are truly electrifying. Boat rides along the Zambezi River that feeds the falls are usually included in tours; ours was wonderful, including close up views of an elephant and a hippo. But disappointing was the much acclaimed Victoria Fall Hotel. While the location, grounds, exterior and public rooms define a historic, elegant five star venue, nearly all the guest rooms were quite small with very old and drab furnishings and poor views. There are some very fine rooms which a few people on the tour got (including suites), which raises ethical questions why some people were better treated by Tauck. Our room was so awful with a thick smell of tobacco that we demanded and received a different room, which still was a one star accommodation. There are other hotels and lodges in the Victoria Falls area that merit consideration when researching possible safari tours, including The Kingdom, a modern hotel, and the luxury Royal Livingstone Hotel. If you go to the falls, definitely go to the local market where artisans sell their goods; the variety and prices are just about the best we saw on our entire trip.

Tauck proclaims that it offers personalized service with each guest treated as an individual, with their own needs understood, and most safari tour companies also seem to promise this. However, we did not experience this. Unlike luxury, small ship cruises where the cruise director and other staff go out of their way to make you feel cared for, at no point did the Tauck tour director seek to discover whether or not we were fully satisfied and having all our needs satisfied. In particular, it was very disappointing that the tour director did not facilitate shopping at local artisan venues, especially in Victoria Falls. Lastly, there is a valid view that Tauck tours like other companies are relatively small group ones, but there were 31 people in our group, not exactly small and intimate. Pay close attention to any safari tour company with regard to group size.

Most important, give serious thought to going to Africa for a memorable safari tour. Though there are other countries where safari trips are highly praised, starting with South Africa and seeing some of its cities is a good choice, especially for people interested in politics and culture.

The foundation of the Soviet model of trade and investment was centralization under the guise of “universal public ownership”. The entire goal of communism in general was not to give more social and political power to the people, but to extinguish alternative options and focus power into the hands of a select few. The process used to reach this end result can vary, but the goal always remains the same. In most cases, such centralization begins with economic hegemony, and it is in our fiscal structure that we have the means to see the future. Sovietization in our financial life will inevitably lead to sovietization in our political life.

Does the U.S. economy’s path resemble the Soviet template exactly? No. And I’m sure the very suggestion will make the average unaware free market evangelical froth at the mouth. However, as I plan to show, the parallels in our fundamentals are disturbing; the reality is that true free markets in America died a long time ago.

The Tyranny Of Planned Economy

The characteristics of a free market society defy the use of centralized planning. Adam Smith’s original concept of free market trade stood as an antithesis to what was then referred to as “mercantilism,” a select few “joint stock companies” (corporations) monopolizing production while using government ties to destroy any new competition. Unfortunately, there are to this day economists and politicians who believe that corporate centralization is a “natural” function of a free market. In reality, corporate monopolies are an unnatural creation of collusion between governments and big-money interests designed to suffocate any entrepreneurship outside of their sphere of influence. Over time, as we now see in the United States today, government power and corporate power begin to hybridize, until one can barely be distinguished from the other.

The bottom line is that you cannot have planned structures, monopolized production or controlled capital flow within an economy and still claim it to be a “free market. There are no exceptions to this rule.

The Soviet system was the ultimate in centralization. Every aspect of financial life was dictated by the communist government, from industrial input and output to investment to food production and rationing to wages and retail prices. Some people might argue that this structure is a far cry from what we now have in the United States, but let’s look at the fundamentals.

Controlled Money Creation

One of the primary tenets of The Communist Manifesto was the creation of a central bank meant to keep tight controls over currency issuance. The existence of a central bank immediately disrupts any chance of a true free market. Central banking without competition allows an oligarchy, whether corporate or political or a meshing of the two, to manipulate interest rates as well as adjust prices through inflation. Lending standards (which the central bank determines arbitrarily) built on fractional reserve banking opens the door to murky debt instruments and toxic financial products that are further used to either fabricate a “high” standard of living (as we saw in the U.S. in the 90s and early 2000s) or execute a bubble implosion causing a lower standard of living (as the U.S. is experiencing today).

Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve through subversive collusion between banking interests and corrupt politicians in 1913, America has not had a free market system. From that point forward, every boom and bust, every interest rate disaster, every inflationary increase in prices has been scientifically engineered.

Dominance Of Industry

Soviet controls on industrial output are legendary. Every part of the resource allocation process became subject to bureaucracy, and this led to stunted manufacturing growth as well as a culture of misrepresented economic data. In the United States, the establishment has taken a slightly different approach but with the same end result.

Heavy taxation on business ventures within the U.S. against entrepreneurs not lucky enough to run in elitists circles has erased incentives for manufacturing experiments within our borders. In the meantime, members of the corporate glee club receive government subsidization while they simultaneously outsource industrial projects to Third World nations. Controlled industry within communist Russia was meant to force the population to depend upon the government for every means of survival. In the United States, dependency on government has been replaced by interdependency on the globalized model in general. Necessities are now compartmentalized, and only select international businesses with cooperation from government have the ability to bring all the pieces together to keep our domestic economy running smoothly. Our society has been so distanced from self-sufficiency that many people now consider the globalist dynamic indispensable.

The next step in this degradation of free market industry is the introduction of “public works projects” by the federal government, which gives the illusion that job creation through centralization is possible.  This is the same strategy used in the Soviet Union and to this day, socialists still argue that the communist design for industrial expansion was “effective”.  In truth, the soviet public works plan with all its trains and transits and bridges and buildings was an absolute failure, as the collapse of the country made clear.  Tax funded infrastructure is no replacement for free market invention, and at bottom, no public works enterprise can be undertaken without the government first stealing capital from one area in order to fund another.  Governments can never and will never create wealth or jobs.  They can only present the semblance of economic progress while siphoning wealth away from private citizens.

Bureaucracy And Food Production

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, based on dubious junk science and often instituted on high without congressional oversight, further erode business possibilities, especially for young companies as well as private agriculture, while giving free reign to elitist entities like Monsanto, an organization the government actually PROTECTS through specialized legislation making it nearly immune to civil litigation.

While farms in the United States are not exactly “controlled” by the Federal government in the Soviet sense, many of them are subsidized through welfare on the condition that they grow only particular kinds of crops, raise particular animals or grow nothing at all. This subsidization is an indirect form of price control, creating engineered scarcity or abundance. At the same time, agricultural empires like Monsanto make private farm ownership increasingly difficult by using their government protection to harass and squeeze out independent food producers.

This destabilization of private resource management by common citizens has culminated in the passage of President Barack Obama’s executive order National Defense Resource Preparedness, which allows under a “national emergency” (which the President can declare for any reason) the confiscation of any and all private resources, including farms and businesses, to be redistributed by the government to ensure security conditions. This is the Stalinist model, pure and simple.

Centralized Control Of Investment

We now know that since at least 2008, the U.S. stock market, often presented by the mainstream as a paragon of free market prowess, has actually been propped up and inflated by Federal Reserve fiat. Both former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and current branch head Richard Fisher have openly admitted in separate news interviews that the central bank spends considerable energy in “artificially sustaining” equity markets. This has been done, I suspect, with full knowledge of the U.S. Treasury and the Obama Administration.

The Soviet model for investment was to remove all uncertainties from their domestic markets, often in the name of preventing manipulation by “speculators.” The speculator rationale was generally a distraction away from the attempt to dictate the natural forces of supply and demand. The idea was that if the government could dismiss legitimate demand or lack of demand or hide excess supply or lack of supply, the perception of a balanced economy could be conjured for the population. This led to strict redirection of capital to areas where manipulation was needed to artificially pump up (or deflate) a particular part of the economy. The government became the sole investor of the Soviet system and, thus, the sole determinant of the success or failure of any particular market.

This is EXACTLY what is going on in America today, in what mainstream economists now call “the new normal”. Federal Reserve fiat is being printed and dumped into every financial mechanism that supposedly maintains our country’s fiscal health, including stocks, Treasuries and municipals, while trade volume remains low and private investment disappears. The Federal government now owes its very existence to the continued support of central bank dollars, and the Dow Jones does as well. If this is not the Soviet ideal, then I don’t know what is.

Labor Oppression, Dismal Living Standards And Government Dependency

Poverty levels within the United States are at record highs. Nearly 50 million Americans are now dependent on government-subsidized food stamps for their survival. Nearly 100 million Americans receive welfare (or Social Security) in one form or another from the establishment. That is almost one-third of our entire population that relies on the system for at least a part of their sustainment. If Obamacare is fully realized, millions more Americans will also be conditioned to become dependent on government-designated healthcare providers. The point is not to pass judgment on those people who get money or services from the government, only to make clear our progression away from freedom and into centralized servitude.

For a Soviet structure to thrive, poverty among common citizens has to be institutionalized. Dependency requires a constant state of desperation. In America, this has been accomplished through a combination of inflated prices and reduced wages in conjunction with the destruction of labor options.

At the height of the communist machine in Russia, employment was ample; but the kind of employment one could apply for was dependent on bureaucratic red tape and availability based on a worker’s record. Only the academic “elite” within the government-run cesspools of Soviet universities and military schools had their choice of employment; even then, they were often pressured into particular specialized fields, depending on the kind of labor the state needed done at that particular time.

In the United States anyone can certainly aspire to do whatever job he hopes to do. But again, options have been removed economically; and the same academic elitism pervasive in Soviet Union labor markets exists in America today. In a recent installment of his weekly radio show,New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was better for “so-so” high school students to pursue a career in plumbing rather than go to college.

Though I rarely agree with Bloomberg on anything, my initial reaction was surprise at his willingness to steer American youth away from university indoctrination centers. However, upon further examination, it became clear that Bloomberg was not trying to save the next generation time and money. Instead, he is promoting a shift in the labor dynamic of the U.S. economy toward a Soviet-style foundation. Bloomberg knows well that the U.S. labor market will never return to its former glory, partly because he is a supporter of the globalist policies that ruined our economy in the first place. Instead of suggesting ways to reverse the trend of progressive poverty and the lack of high-end jobs that engender ingenuity and invention, elitists like Bloomberg are saying “forget your dreams and get used to being a drone.”

In a 70% service and retail economy, where job availability is increasingly degraded and independent business is discouraged, Americans will have two choices:  Excel in the world of federally funded and propagandized education and sell your soul just for a chance at obtaining a professional career in a field of influence, or, settle for the leftovers.  Modern socialists often sing the praises of the soviet educational model for raising the literacy rates of once agricultural and isolated people to 98%, but what they fail to mention is that this literacy was only encouraged in order to create a more efficient servant class that was easier to propagandize.  The U.S. is moving into a similar paradigm.  For some people, being a plumber is a fine thing; but it should not be the only thing. In a true free market, a smart man can make his own way, even if he does not conform to the ideologies of the educational racket. In a Sovietized market, a smart man is prohibited from accomplishing anything unless he conforms to the ideologies of the educational racket.

Some people may respond that the centralization conspiracy within the American economy is an obvious thing today, and that there is little need to expose it any further.  I would point out that centralization is not the only issue here; the guidebook by which that centralization is being implemented is also important.  This has all been done before on the other side of the world only decades ago, and the end result was a horrifying cascade of social enslavement and mechanically inclined death.

In the end, the Soviet economy was so utterly fraudulent that the final breakdown of the system came as a complete surprise to many in political and economic fields of the era.  This is what happens when governments control all source data for financial statistics; transparency dies and collapse creeps in. Centralization is an absolute affront to the natural laws of supply and demand and an oppressive hindrance to the innovation that humanity thrives on. Such systems require constant theft from the populace in the form of reduced employment, reduced wages, reduced resources, increased taxes, increased price controls and a highly ignorant citizenry in order to function even for a short time. Sadly, the United States is well on its way in all of these areas, emulating a poisonous fiscal system and lending itself to a global economic tyranny in which all of us work much harder, for much less, and all for a government that seeks to use our very labor against us.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Lois Lerner, head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt filings, will take the Fifth in front of Congress tomorrow.

She won’t answer questions. She won’t say, for example, why she never informed Congress that she knew there was criminal fiddling going on at the IRS, where employees “gave extra scrutiny” to tea party, conservative, patriot, and other groups during the application process.

Instead, as the DOJ launches a criminal investigation, Lerner will tell the House Oversight Committee, “I decline to answer. I invoke my Fifth Amendment right.” Multiple times she will say this.

Meaning: “If I answer, I could incriminate myself.”

Her lawyer, William Taylor, has asked the Committee to excuse Lerner from testifying tomorrow, Wednesday, since she won’t be answering questions. Taylor wrote to the House Committee, “[Forcing her to testify would] have no other purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.”

Tsk, tsk. Mustn’t embarrass a person who has committed crimes. Be nice. Be kind. Yes, Lois Lerner failed to tell the Committee anything about IRS crimes, when she testified four times last year, but so what? Give her a break. Goodness gracious, don’t put her through an ordeal.

Somehow, Lerner’s lawyer’s logic doesn’t stand up. But he’s a lawyer, so that’s no surprise.

Then there was this: a presidential election last year. 2012? Obama? Remember?

If Lois Lerner had blown the whistle then, and the full-blown scandal that’s erupting now had occurred before the election, who knows who would have won the presidency.

Lois was obviously protecting a president running to win a second term. She’s “pre-taking” the Fifth now and hoping she won’t have to appear before the Committee tomorrow, so the Obama administration won’t have to risk hearing a Congressman ask, WERE YOU PROTECTING THE PRESIDENT FROM SCANDAL IN AN ELECTION YEAR?

WERE YOU LYING SO OBAMA COULD WIN REELECTION?

Ahem…the Fifth Amendment wasn’t designed for that purpose. It was designed so a person wouldn’t have to incriminate himself/herself. The Fifth doesn’t exist to protect someone else from scandal.

We get it, Lois. We get what you’re up to.

If you do stand before the Committee tomorrow, why don’t you just say, “I refuse to answer on the grounds that I would cast doubt on the 2012 presidential election and the president.” Come out with it.

One question, though. Are you sure the president you’re protecting isn’t named George Bush? Because this sounds a lot like what Bush’s people were doing all those years.

Am I dreaming here? This is the Obama administration, right? The presidency that was supposed to be transparent and good and different and transcendent, and prophetic of a New Age?

Gee, you mean it’s just biz as usual? It’s every presidency and every administration that pulls dirty tricks? It’s one continuous, unbroken line of diabolical scum at work?

What a shock. Let me hold on to my chair, because the room might start spinning.

Lois, what if there is no Clark? What if he’s not in some phone booth taking off his suit and turning into Superman, so he can rescue you? What if the president and his henchmen are just throwing you to the wolves?

Consider that. Then consider what would happen if you changed your mind at the 11^th hour, and instead of taking the Fifth, you checked into the Committee room tomorrow and told everything, and I mean everything, you know.

You could rock the vote, retrospectively. You could make the kind of splash we rarely see. You could upset so many apple carts it would be wondrous to behold.

Wasn’t this administration supposed to be about a massive healing and cleansing? You could make it so, Lois. You could engage with the people, for once, and tell the truth.

I know you’re sweating bullets right now, but think about it.

Imagine the looks on the faces of Steven Miller, Eric Holder, Barack Obama.

The truth and the whole truth.

Priceless.

Lois, your lawyer, Taylor, has written to the House Committee, “[Lois] has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation, but under the circumstances, she has no choice but to take this course [and invoke the Fifth].”

Wow, Lois, do you see how crazy it’s getting? Your own attorney is basically saying you have no reason to take the Fifth…except for the fact that you have to protect other people. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what he really means? So who is he really working for?

You’re out there alone. You’re exposed. Why not give them all the shaft and tell the whole sordid story?

Jon Rappoport

The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Source: Jon Rappoport Blog

Last year, my long time friend Mike discovered his kidney cancer in November and died in February.  Twenty years ago, my sister suffered from melanoma cancer, which doctors cut from her body.  Eighteen years ago, doctors cut a cancerous growth out of me.  My sister and I enjoy our lives every single day.

I don’t mind telling you that cancer scared the living hell out of me and it sobered me to the daunting enormity of its presence within our society.

The American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year and compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality and survival based on incidence data from the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics. A total of 1,638,910 new cancer cases and 577,190 deaths from cancer were projected to occur in the United States in 2012.

An estimated 12.7 million cancer cases occurred around the world in 2008. The number is expected to rise to 21 million by 2030.

When cancer hits, you cannot believe it would happen to you.  At first, I felt dumbfounded. When the doctor cut into me, I felt all alone.  Why me? I feared the outcome.  He told me about a 10 percent chance that my cancer would return.

That did it!  I decided to take my life into my own hands and make sure I prevented a return of any cancer in my body.  In the ensuing months and years, I continue my vigilance for the care of my body.  I never take a day for granted and I never give cancer a second chance.

My actions may help you or a friend.  But I know one thing: you may avoid cancer and you may beat cancer’s attack on your body by following some excellent nutritional protocol.  As most of you know, I became a vegetarian 43 years ago.  I exercise with enthusiasm six days a week by swimming, cycling, running and lifting weights. I avoid plopping down in front of the television 29 hours a week, which continues as the norm for American males.  A mere 24 hours a week for American females! I cannot understand why so many people waste their lives in front of the boob tube.   I let my body know that I care about it and make sure that every muscle knows that I need it by using it.  I complete 100 sit-ups every morning.

But more than that, it’s what I put into my mouth that makes all the difference in the world.

First of all, my wife Sandi and I eat everything organic.  We eat every natural. We avoid genetically modified foods of any kind.  We drink filtered water and lots of it to keep our systems clean and flushed.  We moved away from the city to insure cleaner air for breathing into our lungs.

Second, we consume twice a day—fish oil tablets, flax seed, Omega 3s and krill oil to increase the power of our bodies to combat cancer cells from establishing themselves in our bodies.

Third, we eat greens, greens and more greens.  We eat kale, broccoli, Brussel sprouts,  raw carrots, celery, green beans, spinach and all other dark green plants to create an “alkaline PH” in our bodies that makes it extremely difficult for aberrant cancer cells to form and reproduce in such a “toxic” alkaline environment.  This point three really needs to be followed.

Fourth, we avoid virtually all canned and packaged foods.  We never, ever eat fast food of any kind.  We avoid dairy products like milk, cheese, ice cream, butter and yogurt.

Fifth, we avoid refined sugars found in candy bars, table sugar, cookies, ice cream or any product that contains refined sugars.  We learned that refined sugars feed cancer cells. They thrive on sugar.

Sixth, we avoid sodas of any kind. We avoid aspartame-loaded soda pop and yogurts and other “sugar free” products.

Seventh, we eat raw fruits and vegetables every day.  In fact, I blend 10 organic fresh fruits with aloe vera and flaxseed every day for my energy drink which I sip all day.  That drink contains incredible anti-oxidants that protect my cellular tissue.

Eight, we avoid any and all “artificially colored” products with all those dyes in them.

Ninth, when we go out to eat, we pick restaurants that care about our health as much as they care about their own.

Tenth, we make sure we are happy and peaceful every day.  We work at a job that we choose to enjoy. We maintain friends that support us with joy, spiritual blessings and grace.  We are thankful every day to the Infinite Intelligence, God, the Great Spirit and the Grand Mastermind of the universe.  However you perceive the Creator in your life makes for great appreciation.

Eleventh, we read everything about maintaining a cancer free body.  One of the best books on avoiding cancer: Cancer Free: your guide to gentle non-toxic healing by Bill Henderson and Carlos Garcia.  You may find many other books on preventing breast, prostate and other cancers by going to Amazon.com.

What else can you do?  I think we as a civilization need to move away from fossil fuel burning cars, boats, trains, planes and all combustion engines that pollute our air that we breathe.  We need to change from coal to alternative clean energies such as solar, wind and wave.  We need to stop spraying and injecting our air, land and water with 80,000 chemicals that humanity created and inserts into our biosphere 24/7.   When you think about our total disregard for our planet home and all the other living creatures that share it with us, it’s all coming back to haunt us.

The price we pay grows greater by the day as we add 1 billion humans every 12 years, net gain to this finite planet. Something has got to give at some point.  We destabilize our atmosphere with all our pollutants and carbon footprint.  We contaminate our land and water at breakneck speed.  We show no regard for our soils with the injecting and spraying them with billions of tons of insecticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.  We need to change our actions as a civilization if we hope to live rich, abundant and healthy lives.  What are you doing to make change for the betterment of your children and future generations?

How many more toxins will we permit in our food supply before we stand united and simply say “we’ve had enough?” How long will it take until we assertively proclaim that we will not allow any more chemicals or toxins in our foods?

Since food and health regulators cannot properly do their job to protect the public, there will come a tipping point when the people will have to do it for them. We discuss toxic chemicals almost every day, but what percentage of the population is interested enough, curious enough or most of all disciplined enough to actually make the dietary changes necessary to rid all the toxins from the foods they eat? How many people can avoid all processed foods every single day? I would estimate that percentage to be extremely small. Barriers are typically societal pressure, convenience and income. The reality is that we could all have a safe and healthy food industry if we truly wanted it. There are just not enough of us that want it that badly….yet.

Every year or two we have a new chemical terrorist making its way into the food supply almost like clock work. Once the public becomes savvy to the harmful nature of the new toxin, it is then renamed, rebranded and often modified into a deadlier form than its predecessor. Aspartame and aminosweet, and high fructose corn syrup and corn sugar are two excellent examples.

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest offenders that are in more than 80% of the foods we eat.

Artificial Flavors and Colors

Artificial flavors and colors means it is derived from a chemical made in a laboratory and has no nutritional value. Every single artificial flavor and color in the food industry has some kind of detrimental health effect. These include neurotoxicity, organ, developmental, reproductive toxicity and cancer.

* Examples
- Glutamates
- Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)
- Maltodextrin
- Autolyzed Yeast Extract
- Disodium Guanylate
- Disodium Inosinate
- Blue 1, Blue 2
- Yellow 5, Yellow 6
- Red 3, Red 40

Genetically Modified Foods

GM Foods causes allergies, organ damage, cancer, immunotoxicty, and damaging transgenes which affect future generations. Many fruits and vegetables for sale in the U.S. are already genetically modified. The most commercialized GM fruit is papaya from Hawaii—about half of Hawaii’s papayas are GM.

* Examples
- Corn flour, meal, oil, starch, gluten, and syrup
- Corn Sweeteners such as fructose, dextrose, and glucose
- Modified food starch
- Soy flour, lecithin, protein, isolate, and isoflavone
- Most vegetable oils and vegetable proteins
- Canola oil (also called rapeseed oil)
- Cottonseed oil
- Anything not listed as 100% cane sugar

Toxic Preservatives 

Artificial preservatives are responsible for causing a host of health problems pertaining to respiratory tract, heart, blood and other. Some are very neurotoxic especially when combined with specific nutrients.

* Examples
- Antimicrobials
- Nitrites (i.e. Sodium Nitrite)
- Nitrates (i.e. Sodium Nitrate)
- Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA)
- Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT)
- Sulfites (i.e. Sodium Sulfite)
- Potassium Sorbate
- Benzoic Acid
- Propyl Gallate
- Sodium Benzoate

Toxic Emulsifiers 

An emulsifier replaces surface proteins and aids in forming the network in specific food recipes. There are no healthy non-organic emulsifiers. They are all toxic causing everything from infertility, digestive disorders and migraines.

* Examples 
- Polysorbate 80
- Mono-diglycerides
- Carrageenan
- Xanthan Gum (non-organic)
- Guar Gum
- Soy Lecithin or Soya Lecithin

Toxic Sweeteners

Sweeteners such as Neotame are thousands of times sweeter than sugar. They are all very potent, neurotoxic, immunotoxic and excitotoxic.

* Examples
- Aspartame
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Neotame
- Sucralose
- Sodium cyclamate
- Acesulfame-K

Toxic Adulterants 

Food fraud and economically motivated food adulteration is highlighted by some very toxic substances which cause cancer, glaucoma, digestive and liver disorders. These are added to foods to increase their color, volume or weight.

* Examples
- Metanil Yellow
- Potassium bromate
- Malachite Green
- Tamarind seeds
- Washing powder
- Argemone seeds

This list is by no means extensive. There are now hundreds of toxic additives in our food supply. Chemical terrorism in our food supply must end and it starts with you.

Please look at the ingredient lists before you purchase any processed foods. If you see any of these, don’t buy the product. Continue to educate yourself on the influx of new toxins introduced every year. Eventually, if we investigate enough the answers come. Rule of thumb, if the ingredient list has one chemical or more…it’s one too many.

About the Author

Marco Torres is a research specialist, writer and consumer advocate for healthy lifestyles. He holds degrees in Public Health and Environmental Science and is a professional speaker on topics such as disease prevention, environmental toxins and health policy.

Source: The Waking Times

I am having a great deal of trouble typing this post.  I am so upset and outraged over what was done to Jodi Ferris and her baby at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania shortly after she gave birth that I am having difficulty staying composed enough to write a coherent story.

If you recall, this is the same area of the state where officials allowed a serial child molester like Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State assistant football coach, to go free for decades and continue to abuse children unfortunate enough to come across his lecherous path while a mother who gives birth in a government hospital has her baby taken away for questioning whether vaccination with Hep B is truly necessary.

Does something seem very very wrong with this picture?

Jodi and Scott Ferris’ Story

Jodi had hoped to have a homebirth.  After going into labor early and given the distance to the nearest hospital, Jodi and her husband Scott were advised by their midwife to call an ambulance and get to the hospital.

Jodi and Scott’s baby girl was born in the ambulance in the parking lot of Hershey Medical Center.  Attending personnel at the government run facility took charge of “Annie” and Jodi very quickly.

Jodi was unable to see and hold Annie after the birth and hospital personnel were totally unresponsive when she continued to inquire about her newborn.   Jodi was also given an injection of oxytocin without first being told what it was.  Hospital personnel only inquired whether she was allergic after the injection was given.

Jodi’s persistent inquires about Annie continued to go unheeded.  She was simply told that “she is in good hands and you’ll be able to see her soon”.

Finally, a doctor told Jodi that Annie had scored a 9 out of 10 on the APGAR test given to newborns which was very good considering that an 8 or above indicates a healthy child.

A short time later, a different doctor told Jodi that Annie was very sick and would need to stay in the hospital.  This doctor also arrogantly indicated his dislike for midwives with the comment “too many people think they know what they’re doing”.

About an hour after being told Annie was very sick, Annie was finally brought to Jodi.  She was told Annie was doing well and would be able to go home shortly.

Baby Detained at Hospital For No Medical Reason

A few hours later, the story changed yet again as another hospital staffer told Jodi and Scott that Annie would have to remain in the hospital for 48-72 hours for observation.

When they inquired why, they were told that the “law” required Annie to stay for at least 48 hours.

There is no such law in Pennsylvania, by the way.

After consulting with risk management about why Annie had to stay at the hospital, it was admitted that even though Annie was fine and there was no reason she couldn’t go home, she was being held prisoner at the hospital for 48-72 hours not for any health reasons but out of concern that if anything went wrong after Annie was discharged that the hospital might get sued.

Hospital risk management ultimately relented and said a 24 hour waiting period was sufficient and that Jodi and Scott could stay with their baby overnight.

A Parent’s Worst Nightmare Begins

Later that day, a social worker came to Jodi and Scott’s room and announced that she was going to conduct an investigation of them.

The social worker also claimed that it was “against the law” to show Jodi the allegations before she was questioned.

When Jodi resisted and said that she was not comfortable answering questions when she didn’t even know what was going on, the social worker threatened to call police and take custody of her baby.

It soon became apparent that the problem was Jodi and Scott’s apparent refusal to consent to medical treatments for Annie.  The social worker claimed that she had refused the Vitamin K shot for Annie. Jodi said that no one had even asked her about the shot and that Annie had already been given the shot based on a conversation she overheard from hospital personnel.

The social worker was unable to provide a single example of necessary medical treatment that Jodi and Scott had refused.

Scott had to leave shortly after that as their older children were staying with friends and he had to go attend to them.

Hep B Vaccine Questioned

After Scott left, hospital staff demanded that Annie be given the Hepatitis B vaccine.  Jodi said that would be fine if she and Annie were tested to see if they actually had Hep B first.

The social worker pressed Jodi to consent to the shot immediately even though no testing for Hep B could be done that day.  Jodi asked if she could wait until Scott got back before a decision was made.

Once again, the social worker threatened to call police and take custody of Annie if Jodi did not make an immediate decision about the Hep B vaccine.  She also pressed for Jodi to sign a “safety plan” so she could conclude her investigation.

Jodi said that she wanted her husband and an attorney present before she signed such a document as she felt that she was in no physical state to read and sign it at that time.

Annie Taken Into Police Custody

When the social worker could not pressure Jodi to sign the document, she went and called police.

With no court order, police took custody of Annie claiming she was ill which was completely false.

With Annie now in her custody, the social worker approved the Hep B vaccine for Annie, completely overruling the desires and wishes of her parents to have their baby tested for Hep B first before the vaccine was administered.

Then, the hospital kicked Jodi out of the hospital where she was told she could return every 3 hours to nurse Annie.

Scott rushed back to meet Jodi at the hospital entrance as she was being escorted out and with nowhere to go, they spent the night in the parking lot of the hospital, sleeping in the car while their baby was in the hands of police and social services inside the hospital.

Annie Finally Returned to Parents

No doubt exhausted and emotionally distraught, Jodi and Scott attended a shelter care hearing with a judicial officer the following morning.

After hearing the evidence, the officer immediately returned custody of Annie to her parents.

Parent Rights Being Eroded

The moral of this story is that government and hospital workers will lie about the health of your child and quickly violate your Constitutional Rights in order to force medical treatment upon your children without your consent.

Jodi and Scott Ferris have bravely decided to take their case to court in order to put an end to this madness so no other parents ever have to endure the ordeal they suffered at Hershey Medical Center after the birth of Annie.

If this case moves you as it has me, please consider donating to the Homeschool Freedom Fundwhich will assist the Homeschool Legal Defense Association with the funds necessary to support Jodi and Scott’s case in court.

No social worker should be able to play God with someone else’s baby and get off on her own power making up “rules” and “laws” as she goes for her own convenience and personal satisfaction.

There is no doubt that this social worker’s intentions were entirely personal; she was aiming to teach these homeschooling, homebirthing parents a lesson they would never forget.

It’s high time a court of law draws a line in the sand once and for all to establish that parents and not the government have the ultimate right to determine both medical and educational decisions for their children.

There is no such thing as “your government family” as Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is so creepily fond of saying.

Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist

Source:  Newborn Seized in Hospital by Police, Social Worker