freshwest

freshwest's Journal

December 17, 2013

Plus a million! Calling them out has to happen from all sides. Put the Kochoctopus down. n/t

December 17, 2013

Oh sweet Jesus! It's stuff like this that make me want to email Obama and say...

'Just do it! Please declare Martial Law and let's get it over with it! All these hysterics are getting on my nerves!

I want to see the fabled Obama Youth marching down the street! Get it over with! The wingnuts want it so bad!

They dream of it night and day, they rant and rave. They wet their undies whenever they hear your name or see your face in the news.

Please! End the madness!'

I'm wondering if anyone has suggested that yet and Obama turned them down...

Hehehe...

December 16, 2013

Yes, I feel like I have never left that vision, at times, that the world would change, get better.

I found a website you might like:

Watching it, I thought their hearts would change.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtokillamockingbird.html

It also has a link to the closing arguments by Atticus Finch:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/mp3clips/newmoviespeeches/moviespeechtokillamockingbird34593593495.mp3

The world is still changing and it is past time for it. I credit our president and his team for this.

December 16, 2013

Comment at the end described a greater problem we have yet to deal with:

Unregulated corporations are psychopaths.

Unregulated corporations are psychopaths. Why?

Psychopaths are characterized by enduring anti-social behavior, a diminished capacity for empathy or remorse, and poor behavioral controls.

A corporation is bottom line driven. This make a corporation essentially amoral, without any capacity for empathy or remorse.

Behavioral controls are either imposed by government regulation or are imposed by the corporations desire not to put off customers. But this last control is rendered moot by the corporate mendacity.

My conclusion is that unregulated corporations are psychopaths.

This is the best reason for laws REGULATING corporations I have seen.

-- posted by David B Teague at 1:45pm, November 15, 2013

I have always felt this way. It's basic logic. The basis is profit for a select group, CEOs, employees or shareholders, not human needs, or even the needs of the Earth to be protected for all species.

We have been gifted to be born and live on this planet and this is not the way of life. Adding this video which is a bit flowery, just to help comprehend what we are faced with now, and in a way, have always been under diffrerent names, like empires.

It says corporations (associations many will always defend as a part of their own livelihood) have more wealth and power than any of the world's governments. This is what our leaders are confronted with, so I don't go with personal bashing.

We worked for and made this. We have to undo it, and there will be, as the video says, 'hell to pay.'

From a climate change thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110219113

December 16, 2013

I'm sure you were sympathetic, but the complaints about his relationships were one sided, no doubt.

The biggest bagger whiners act as if the things bothering them can never be part of what they signed up for, voted for, etc.

I'd have moved away from him immediately. It's not worth it to be around that - but you may have more time and patience.

The OBS in this country has been paid for and promoted more than any other product, it's everywhere. It soaks into the people's minds.

Some are willing themselves into a coma, scared by what doesn't match their past which was likely a fantasy. That's not in the moment.

The pundits selling the most of this are pushing a whitewashed past and a horrible prophecy of the future, until the present when we are able to do good things is lost.

From an ACA success story:

"Before Obamacare, Isaac's pre-existing conditions could have disqualified him from future coverage. Isaac and his family would have had a difficult— if not impossible—time finding insurance that would cover him. And his parents estimate that if lifetime limits were still legal today, Isaac would have already reached his a second time."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110220122#post1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110220122#op

This is the joy of the present. Really, it's all we have. If we don't have joy, we remember that everything passes, good and bad, and that's change.

Okay, off track. The ACA has been saving lives for years now, it's been ignored by media and hyped a website going awry.

I just don't see anything to be hated on there.

December 16, 2013

What a lovely child. Now that's what I call being pro life. And this one here says so much about PBO

December 15, 2013

Close friend in a military explained that this way. VA hospitals regular work isn't always injuries.

Those are the most dramatic cases they have, and what many think of the VA. But some vets are addicted to cigarettes and alcohol and end up with lung disease, cancer, and all the things that attend years years of alcohol abuse. Partly due to experiences and the rest due to policy, or so a friend whose entire family has been military for generations.

I asked - what policy?

Friend said they gave the guys cigarettes as a stimulant and It makes sense. I've heard that the Nazis used meth to keep going and be more aggressive and always suspected that the people in concentration camps who were still working while straving, were likely being given it instead of food. So I looked it up and here is some:

The Nazi Death Machine
Hitler's Drugged Soldiers

By Andreas Ulrich

...Many of the Wehrmacht's soldiers were high on Pervitin when they went into battle, especially against Poland and France -- in a Blitzkrieg fueled by speed. The German military was supplied with millions of methamphetamine tablets during the first half of 1940. The drugs were part of a plan to help pilots, sailors and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance. The military leadership liberally dispensed such stimulants, but also alcohol and opiates, as long as it believed drugging and intoxicating troops could help it achieve victory over the Allies. But the Nazis were less than diligent in monitoring side-effects like drug addiction and a decline in moral standards.

After it was first introduced into the market in 1938, Pervitin, a methamphetamine drug newly developed by the Berlin-based Temmler pharmaceutical company, quickly became a top seller among the German civilian population. According to a report in the Klinische Wochenschrift ("Clinical Weekly&quot , the supposed wonder drug was brought to the attention of Otto Ranke, a military doctor and director of the Institute for General and Defense Physiology at Berlin's Academy of Military Medicine. The effects of amphetamines are similar to those of the adrenaline produced by the body, triggering a heightened state of alert. In most people, the substance increases self-confidence, concentration and the willingness to take risks, while at the same time reducing sensitivity to pain, hunger and thirst, as well as reducing the need for sleep. In September 1939, Ranke tested the drug on 90 university students, and concluded that Pervitin could help the Wehrmacht win the war. At first Pervitin was tested on military drivers who participated in the invasion of Poland. Then, according to criminologist Wolf Kemper, it was "unscrupulously distributed to troops fighting at the front."

During the short period between April and July of 1940, more than 35 million tablets of Pervitin and Isophan (a slightly modified version produced by the Knoll pharmaceutical company) were shipped to the German army and air force. Some of the tablets, each containing three milligrams of active substance, were sent to the Wehrmacht's medical divisions under the code name OBM, and then distributed directly to the troops. A rush order could even be placed by telephone if a shipment was urgently needed. The packages were labeled "Stimulant," and the instructions recommended a dose of one to two tablets "only as needed, to maintain sleeplessness."

Even then, doctors were concerned about the fact that the regeneration phase after taking the drug was becoming increasingly long, and that the effect was gradually decreasing among frequent users. In isolated cases, users experienced health problems like excessive perspiration and circulatory disorders, and there were even a few deaths. Leonardo Conti, the German Reich's minister of health and an adherent of Adolf Hitler's belief in asceticism, attempted to restrict the use of the pill, but was only moderately successful, at least when it came to the Wehrmacht. Although Pervitin was classified as a restricted substance on July 1, 1941, under the Opium Law, ten million tablets were shipped to troops that same year.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html

A good deal more here:

WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth

By Fabienne Hurst

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/crystal-meth-origins-link-back-to-nazi-germany-and-world-war-ii-a-901755.html

And not to be outdone:

WW II German soldiers, civilians dropped amphetamines to give them boost to battle allies Known as ‘tank chocolate’ and ‘pilot’s salt,’ millions of Pervitin tablets were gulped down by German soldiers — but allies had their pep pills, too.

German soldiers during World War II were hyped for killing by a powerful stimulant handed out like battlefield rations...

Pervitin, the precursor to “whites,” “speed,” “crank” and methamphetamines, was considered a wonder drug that not only kept soldiers alert and focused, but also increased morale...

The Brits, the Japanese and the U.S. also shipped amphetamines to their troops.

The U.S. Air Force, in particular, handed out the pills to keep pilots alert during long-haul bombing missions.

The Pentagon continued to dole them out to troops until the 1991 invasion of Iraq...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ww-ii-german-soldiers-civilians-dropped-amphetamines-give-boost-battle-allies-article-1.1362017

So they appear to have a strong military justification to give them smokes and other drugs.