STAY-HUMAN
-
"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?"

- Bertrand Russell
alchymista:



The Straw That Can Save Lives

Danish water purification company Vestergaard Frandsen’s latest development could very possibly save millions of lives of those who struggle to find and produce clean water.

Their invention is the LifeStraw, a low-tech, low-hassle personal water filter that enables the user to simply stick one end into a water source of questionable cleanliness, such as a river, and suck. Several layers within the straw manage to filter out 99% of bacteria and viruses. Previously, people of areas with little clean water would be forced to boil water to ensure its safety, using up other resources in the process. With this invention, little maintenance would be required, and it could last for a year or two.

In addition to the personal filter, the company has developed a LifeStraw Family, which uses gravity rather than suction to filter water. By hanging this up in their homes and filling it with water, families would be able to open the bottom for clean, safe water.

These products do, however, have their limitations. While 99% of pathogens are removed, the filter is unable to prevent Giardia Lamblia from entering the filtered water, as this particular parasite is too small for the filters. The company is diligently working on a solution to this problem. Another potential problem is availability, since Vestergaard Frandsen is a small, struggling company that cannot quite afford to give out too many handouts.

Hopefully these problems can be overcome, as this product, in its current state, and especially once perfected, has the potential for aiding many who need it most.

      (Sources 1 & 2)

alchymista:

The Straw That Can Save Lives

Danish water purification company Vestergaard Frandsen’s latest development could very possibly save millions of lives of those who struggle to find and produce clean water.

Their invention is the LifeStraw, a low-tech, low-hassle personal water filter that enables the user to simply stick one end into a water source of questionable cleanliness, such as a river, and suck. Several layers within the straw manage to filter out 99% of bacteria and viruses. Previously, people of areas with little clean water would be forced to boil water to ensure its safety, using up other resources in the process. With this invention, little maintenance would be required, and it could last for a year or two.

In addition to the personal filter, the company has developed a LifeStraw Family, which uses gravity rather than suction to filter water. By hanging this up in their homes and filling it with water, families would be able to open the bottom for clean, safe water.

These products do, however, have their limitations. While 99% of pathogens are removed, the filter is unable to prevent Giardia Lamblia from entering the filtered water, as this particular parasite is too small for the filters. The company is diligently working on a solution to this problem. Another potential problem is availability, since Vestergaard Frandsen is a small, struggling company that cannot quite afford to give out too many handouts.

Hopefully these problems can be overcome, as this product, in its current state, and especially once perfected, has the potential for aiding many who need it most.

      (Sources 1 & 2)

  1. Try to research on health problems.
  2. Everything is a symptom of everything.
  3. World is terrifying and it’s miracle any of us are still alive.
  4. Crawl under covers and never come out.

mohsinaat:

Nominate Abdul Sattar Edhi for Nobel Peace Prize

Abdul Sattar Edhi is one of my role models. He’s a philanthropist and social worker in Pakistan who toils (toil is a very small word for this angel on earth) away day and night to provide shelter, food and aid to the poor and injured for free. His orphanages and ambulances run 24/7 for the welfare of Pakistani people. This man and his wife have basically proven that there is nothing that can stop them from helping and healing people.
Mr. Edhi is an extremely humble, quiet man. He’s almost allergic to publicity but he deserves the limelight many, many influential politicians and other figures don’t. On November 29, 2011 Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani recommended Abdul Sattar Edhi for Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
To make this even more possible, there’s a petition you could sign right here. It’ll only take a minute. He really,really deserves it. folks.
Sign here and please spread the word. It’s worth it.

Okay screw the peace prize, is there anyway to donate to his projects?

mohsinaat:

Nominate Abdul Sattar Edhi for Nobel Peace Prize

Abdul Sattar Edhi is one of my role models. He’s a philanthropist and social worker in Pakistan who toils (toil is a very small word for this angel on earth) away day and night to provide shelter, food and aid to the poor and injured for free. His orphanages and ambulances run 24/7 for the welfare of Pakistani people. This man and his wife have basically proven that there is nothing that can stop them from helping and healing people.

Mr. Edhi is an extremely humble, quiet man. He’s almost allergic to publicity but he deserves the limelight many, many influential politicians and other figures don’t. On November 29, 2011 Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani recommended Abdul Sattar Edhi for Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

To make this even more possible, there’s a petition you could sign right here. It’ll only take a minute. He really,really deserves it. folks.

Sign here and please spread the word. It’s worth it.

Okay screw the peace prize, is there anyway to donate to his projects?

Thirsting for Justice - European campaign to protect Palestinian water rights appeal for support

About the campaign
Welcome to the Thirsting for Justice campaign! Launched in May 2011, the aim of the campaign is to mobilise European citizens to demand that their governments pressure Israel to change its policies and practices in order to comply with international law and respect Palestinians’ human rights.

The main objectives are:
- To ensure that Israel respects Palestinians’ rights to water and sanitation.
- That Palestinians be allowed to develop infrastructure
- Greater accountability for violations of international law

To learn more about the campaign and its objectives, please visit our website.

Take action
Interested in joining the campaign? Here are several ways to support it:

- On Facebook: donate your status for one hour, by pasting the following message: “Palestinians are Thirsting for Justice!” In addition, you can “Like” our Facebook page and write a message of support on the wall.

- On Twitter: you can follow us and join our Twitter appeal by tweeting the following messages:

EU (@eu_eeas) must do more to stop Israeli violations. Palestinians are @thirsty4justice #T4J #Palestine

European Union (@eu_eeas) speak out against Israel´s discriminative policies on water in the oPt! @thirstyforjustice #T4J #Palestine

Ashton (@eu_eeas), water is a basic right, but not for everyone. Support Palestinian right to water @thirstyforjustice #T4J #Palestine

Ashton (@eu_eeas), water cannot be held hostage to the political process. Palestinians are @thirstyforjustice #T4J #Palestine

- Join the photo petition: take a picture of yourself holding a banner with the words “Thirsting for Justice” and send it to us, with your name and city, at info@thirstingforjustice.org. We will publish it on the website and Facebook, and on posters and postcards.

- Sign our petition directed at Catherine Ashton, the European Union´s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

- Become an ambassador and organize activities in your community to raise awareness, link with other ambassadors around the world, and mobilize your school or community to lobby elected officials.

- Or, simply spread the word!

Become a T4J ambassador!

Maram O. Owda is a student in business administration in Al Azhar University in the Gaza Strip. She is also one of several ambassadors for the campaign.

“I joined the campaign because our rights to water and sanitation are violated and neglected. Water [in the Gaza Strip] is not safe for human consumption and the sanitation services are not adequate,” says Maram.

Since becoming an ambassador, Maram has talked about the campaign to her friends and classmates and encouraged them to join it. Along with other ambassadors, she has also participated in the production of a documentary on the sanitation crisis in Gaza. She is currently taking a training course on advocacy and leadership in order to better advocate for these fundamental rights and inform the public of the gravity of the crisis in Gaza.

Thirsting for Justice is backed by The Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, a coalition of 30 leading humanitarian organizations is launching, through its Advocacy Task Force (ATF), the Thirsting for Justice Campaign[i] to mobilise European citizens to demand that their governments pressure Israel to change its behavior in order to comply with international law and respect Palestinians’ human rights.

A Town Without Poverty?: Canada's only experiment in guaranteed income finally gets reckoning | The Dominion

For a four-year period in the ’70s, the poorest families in Dauphin, Manitoba, were granted a guaranteed minimum income by the federal and provincial governments. Thirty-five years later all that remains of the experiment are 2,000 boxes of documents that have gathered dust in the Canadian archives building in Winnipeg.

Until now little has been known about what unfolded over those four years in the small rural town, since the government locked away the data that had been collected and prevented it from being analyzed.

 

But after a five year struggle, Evelyn Forget, a professor of health sciences at the University of Manitoba, secured access to those boxes in 2009. Until the data is computerized, any systematic analysis is impossible. Undeterred, Forget has begun to piece together the story by using the census, health records, and the testimony of the program’s participants. What is now emerging reveals that the program could have counted many successes.

[…]

For four years Dauphin was a place where anyone living below the poverty line could receive monthly cheques to boost their income, no questions asked. Single mothers could afford to put their kids through school and low-income families weren’t scrambling to pay the rent each month.

[…]

As part of the experiment, an army of researchers were sent to Dauphin to interview the Mincome families. Residents in nearby rural towns who didn’t receive Mincome were also surveyed so their statistics could be compared against those from Dauphin. But after the government cut the program in 1978, they simply warehoused the data and never bothered to analyze it.

“When the government introduced the program they really thought it would be a pilot project and that by the end of the decade they would roll this out and everybody would participate,” said Forget. “They thought it would become a universal program. But of course, the idea eventually just died off.”

[…]

Initially, the Mincome program was conceived as a labour market experiment. The government wanted to know what would happen if everybody in town received a guaranteed income, and specifically, they wanted to know whether people would still work.

It turns out they did.

Only two segments of Dauphin’s labour force worked less as a result of Mincome—new mothers and teenagers. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies. And teenagers worked less because they weren’t under as much pressure to support their families.

The end result was that they spent more time at school and more teenagers graduated. Those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did.

[…]

Although the Mincome experiment was intended to provide a body of information to study labour market trends, Forget discovered that Mincome had a significant effect on people’s well being. Two years ago, the professor started studying the health records of Dauphin residents to assess the impacts of the program.

In the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 per cent. Fewer people went to the hospital with work-related injuries and there were fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse. There were also far fewer mental health visits.

Anyone have a miracle cure for Vertigo by any chance -_-?

Seriously, any alternative medicines you may know of- let me know.

Hooray for forced vaccinations-

Drinks on the pharmaceutical company loving the Saudi Health Ministry right now.

Sick Gulf residents continue to blame BP

18th September, 2011

Many people living near the site of the BP oil spill have reported a long list of similar health problems.


Oil, tar balls, tar mats, and dead animals are still common sights along the Gulf of Mexico [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

Just weeks after BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, 2010, Fritzi Presley knew something was very wrong with her health.

The 57-year-old singer/songwriter from Long Beach, Mississippi began to feel sick, and went to her doctor.

“I began getting treatments for bronchitis, was put on several antibiotics and rescue inhalers, and even a breathing machine,” she told Al Jazeera. The smell of chemicals on the Mississippi coastline is present on many days when wind blows in from the Gulf.

Presley’s list of symptoms mirrors what many people living in the areas affected by BP’s oil spill have told Al Jazeera.

“I was having them then, and still have killer headaches. I’m experiencing memory loss, and when I had my blood tested for chemicals, they found m,p-Xylene, hexane, and ethylbenzene in my body.”

The 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf last year was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, affecting people living near the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersants, which are banned by many countries, including the UK. According to many scientists, these dispersants create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil.

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist in New Iberia, Louisiana, has tested the blood of BP cleanup workers and residents.

“Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene and hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP crude oil,” Subra explained to Al Jazeera. “The acute impacts of these chemicals include nose and throat irritation, coughing, wheezing, lung irritation, dizziness, light-headedness, nausea and vomiting.”

Subra explained that exposure has been long enough to create long-term effects, such as “liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure”.

Testing by Subra has also revealed BP’s chemicals are present “in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues”.

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, and skin and eye contact. Symptoms of exposure include headaches, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitisation, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage. The chemicals can also cause birth defects, mutations, and cancer.

Joseph Yerkes, from Okaloosa Island, Florida, was in BP’s oil clean-up programme for more than two months, during which time he was exposed to oil and dispersants on a regular basis.

“My health worsened progressively,” Yerkes said. “Mid-September [2010] I caught a cold that worsened until I went to a doctor, who gave me two rounds of antibiotics for the pneumonia-like symptoms, and he did blood tests and found high levels of toxic substances in my blood that he told me came from the oil and dispersants.”

Since then, his life has been overrun with health problems and trying to get compensation from BP for his health costs and lost livelihood.

“They’ve [BP] not paid me a dime, and I’m scared,” Yerkes, whose lawyers were told by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which was set up by BP to administer compensation payments, that his health claim was “compensable”. Yerkes added, “I’m moving out of my house into a one-bedroom apartment, and have sold just about everything I have. BP is starving us out.”

Yerkes has begun cutting out parts of the detoxification programme his doctor had prescribed for him because he can’t afford it. He then began getting sick again.

If they [BP] don’t do what they agreed to do, I’m in trouble.

- Joseph Yerkes 

“I don’t know what I’ll do now,” Yerkes added, “Because I’ve spent $50,000 on medical, treatments, supplements, and having to move from the Gulf. If they [BP] don’t do what they agreed to do, I’m in trouble.”

His memory loss has become so bad that Yerkes has tried to adjust his life around it by leaving himself notes. Some days, his body aches so much, and his nausea is so severe, he is unable to get out of bed.

“I consider myself a tough person, but this has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” he said.

‘Dying from the inside out’ 

Presley lives three blocks from the coast with her daughter, 30-year-old Daisy Seal, who has also become extremely sick.

Both of them had their blood tested for the chemicals present in BP’s oil, and six out of the 10 chemicals tested for were present.

Daisy Seal has had skin rashes, respiratory problems, and two miscarriages, which she attributes to chemicals from BP’s oil and toxic dispersants [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

“I started having respiratory problems, a horrible skin rash, headaches, nosebleeds, low energy, and trouble sleeping,” Seal told Al Jazeera. “And I now feel like I’m dying from the inside out.”

Seal, who already has an eight-year-old son, has had two miscarriages in the last year.

“In ‘Generations at Risk’, medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body,” Dr Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and Exxon Valdez survivor, told Al Jazeera. “They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2-butoxyethanol [a chemical used in Corexit, an oil dispersant] is a human health hazard substance; it is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders.”

“Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber,” Ott continued. “Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber impellors in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement. Given this evidence, it should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known.”

Dr Rodney Soto, a medical doctor in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, has been testing and treating patients with high levels of oil-related chemicals in their blood streams.

These chemicals are commonly referred to as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

VOCs released in BP’s oil disaster are toxic and have chronic health effects.

Dr Soto, who is Yerkes’ doctor, is finding high levels of toxic chemicals in every one of the patients he is testing.

“I’m regularly finding between five and seven VOCs in my patients,” Dr Soto told Al Jazeera. “These patients include people not directly involved in the oil clean-up, as well as residents that do not live right on the coast. These are clearly related to the oil disaster.”

While there are many examples of acute exposures, Dr Soto’s main concern is that most residents who are being exposed will only show symptoms later.

“I’m concerned with the illnesses like cancer and brain degeneration for the future,” he told Al Jazeera. “This is very important because a lot of the population down here may not have symptoms. But people are unaware they are ingesting chemicals that are certainly toxic to humans and have significant effect on the brain and hormonal systems.”

The toxic compounds in the oil and dispersants are liposoluble, meaning they have a high affinity for fat, said Dr Soto.

Dr Soto continued: “The human brain is 70 per cent fat. And these will similarly affect the immune cells, intestinal tract, breast, thyroid, prostate, glands, organs, and systems. This is also why this is so significant for children.”

Exceeding thresholds

In March the US National Institutes of Health launched a long-range health study of workers who helped clean up after BP’s oil disaster.

According to the NIH, 55,000 clean-up workers and volunteers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida will be checked for health problems, and participants will be followed for up to 10 years.

The study is funded by NIH, which received a $10m “gift” from BP to run the study. BP claims not to be involved in the study, which will cost $34m over the next five years.

But the study focusses mainly on people who participated in the clean-up.

John Gooding, a resident of Pass Christian, Mississippi, began having health problems shortly after the oil spill started. He has become sicker with each passing month, and has moved inland in an effort to escape

Mississippi resident John Gooding moved away from the coast to minimise his exposure to toxic chemicals [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

continuing exposure to the chemicals.

“I can’t live at my home address anymore because it’s too close to the coast,” Gooding told Al Jazeera. “I’m hypersensitive to the pollution, and there is a constant steady chemical smell coming off the Gulf. Even both my dogs had seizures and died.”

Gooding suffers respiratory problems, seizures, and myriad other heath effects. He has filed a claim with BP in hopes of being compensated for his health problems, but it has been denied.

BP hired attorney Kenneth Feinberg and his Washington-based firm, Feinberg Rozen, to manage their compensation fund. BP has paid the firm $850,000 a month to administer the $20bn compensation fund for Gulf residents and fishermen affected by the disaster.

The fund was set up after negotiations between BP and the Obama administration, but over recent months there have been growing concerns among the Gulf Coast’s residents that Feinberg is limiting compensation funds to claimants in order to decrease BP’s liability.

Feinberg told citizen journalism group Bridge the Gulf that he will be calling on “independent experts” to review the validity of the approximately 30 health claims that are currently “in limbo”. Feinberg was unable to name the independent experts, and did not elaborate on the process used to pick them. 

In a previous interview, Feinberg said he had received approximately 200 health claims and denied them all for lack of documentation.

“As long as we have people making excuses for them [BP], they’ll continue to get away with it,” Gooding told Al Jazeera, while walking along a Mississippi beach covered in tar balls and dead birds.

Gooding is visibly sick, and chemicals that are used in oil dispersants have been found in his blood, but he won’t go to the doctor.

“I don’t want to put my family in debt, so I’m weighing my options,” he said, “I don’t have health insurance, but I do have life insurance.”

“We were recently in DC with those people protesting the Tar Sands pipeline,” he said. “I was telling those people living near the proposed pipeline, ‘We are your future, because when you have oil spills, this is what your life is going to look like.’”

Dispersants will continue to be used

The US Coast Guard held an Area Contingency Plan meeting in Biloxi, Mississippi on September 7 to discuss the lessons of the BP disaster.

Oil and sheen on a beach in Mississippi, September 2011 [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera asked Coast Guard Captain John Rose, a sector commander, what has changed regarding the Coast Guard’s dispersant use policy since April 20, 2010.

“We were pre-authorised to use it before, but now we have to get permission from the higher-ups. But it is still in the plan for how we will respond to oil spills in the future,” he said.

During the meeting, Captain Rose continuously referred to the use of dispersants as a “scientific tool” that is “effective in keeping oil from reaching beaches and wildlife”.

Charles Taylor, a resident of nearby Bay St Louis, stood up and announced, “I’ve had bloody diarrhoea nonstop for 45 days, I’m anemic and dehydrated. I’ve had VOC tests done and have ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene, and methelpentates in my blood”.

None of the Coast Guard personnel would address Taylor’s concerns, saying that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss BP.

Taylor asked Captain Rose and the other Coast Guard personnel on the panel, “How much money has BP given you folks? Because it appears to us, who are having health problems, you are being silenced from addressing the dispersant and health issues”.

Inadequate compensation

Untold numbers of Gulf Coast residents continue to struggle with health issues and lack of adequate compensation from BP.

Joseph Yerkes is concerned about his future. ”I’m financially destroyed, and my health is bad,” he said. “I’m having to cut off parts of my treatment because I can’t afford it all, and I’m just trying to survive.”

“I’m one step away from being homeless, and not being able to support my daughter and myself,” Yerkes added.

Follow Dahr Jamail on Twitter: @DahrJamail

See a photo gallery of the current oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico.

My thoughts exactly. Also http://stay-human.tumblr.com/post/8009577386/forget-doctors-prescribing-too-much-medication-whats

My thoughts exactly. Also http://stay-human.tumblr.com/post/8009577386/forget-doctors-prescribing-too-much-medication-whats

oneprickinvolved:

intoxicatedspirit:

intotheordinary:

picturethis-that:

Although this isn’t getting much coverage in the media, protests in Israel are shaping to be very similar in nature to the ones held in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year which spread all over the Arab region.
The demonstrations began two weeks ago in Tel Aviv, where young activists set up a small tent encampment in a central neighbourhood to draw attention to the country’s housing crunch.
The protests, inspired in part by unrest in neighbouring Arab countries, have continued to gain steam and show no signs of slowing.
“This is a great success; people are marching in the streets and living in the streets for the past two weeks,” Stav Shafir, one of the protest leaders, told Channel 2 TV.
“Finally people are choosing to determine how they want to live. We want affordable housing, health, education and welfare.”
The weeks of popular demonstrations are becoming a headache for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with polls showing a sharp drop in his approval ratings and strong support for the protesters.
Netanyahu announced a package of reforms meant to lower housing prices last week but it did little to defuse the anger.
In Jerusalem, thousands marched through the city center to the prime minister’s house.
Protesters held up signs reading, “Netanyahu go home”.

This is somewhat misleading because the protesters in Israel, for the most part, are deliberately avoiding touching on the issue of Palestine. Their demands are “affordable housing, health, education and welfare”— but not for the Palestinians. As long as they continue to ignore the skeleton in their closet, I cannot support their movement. Their existence is inextricably tied in with the Palestinians’; I cannot seriously consider their movement to be pro “social justice” as long as it relies upon treating Palestinians unjustly (by virtue of turning a blind eye towards them). Additionally, not all protesters want Netanyahu to go home; some just want their new house keys (and guess whose land this new housing will be built on?) and they’ll be good to go.

Not to mention there are many immigrants who are homeless. These protesters complain about property costs and decide to tent out to revolt or send a message but right beside them are people from Somalia, Ethiopia, and many others whose only choice is to live in those tents. Whatever.

i agree with the comments above. i find these protests sickening, not only because they are hypocritical but because they will ultimately result in the construction of more illegal settlements on occupied land.
I’d like to echo the comments of those above me…I believe it’s extremely hypocritical to go out and protest about social justice when you don’t believe Palestinians deserve BASIC justice, and freedom in their own land. Ofcourse we all have a right to be annoyed at the cost of rent going up, and erm- cottage cheese in the case of Israelis, but seriously, if you support apartheid and injustice to Palestinians you look like idiots protesting.

oneprickinvolved:

intoxicatedspirit:

intotheordinary:

picturethis-that:

Although this isn’t getting much coverage in the media, protests in Israel are shaping to be very similar in nature to the ones held in Tunisia and Egypt earlier this year which spread all over the Arab region.

The demonstrations began two weeks ago in Tel Aviv, where young activists set up a small tent encampment in a central neighbourhood to draw attention to the country’s housing crunch.

The protests, inspired in part by unrest in neighbouring Arab countries, have continued to gain steam and show no signs of slowing.

“This is a great success; people are marching in the streets and living in the streets for the past two weeks,” Stav Shafir, one of the protest leaders, told Channel 2 TV.

“Finally people are choosing to determine how they want to live. We want affordable housing, health, education and welfare.”

The weeks of popular demonstrations are becoming a headache for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with polls showing a sharp drop in his approval ratings and strong support for the protesters.

Netanyahu announced a package of reforms meant to lower housing prices last week but it did little to defuse the anger.

In Jerusalem, thousands marched through the city center to the prime minister’s house.

Protesters held up signs reading, “Netanyahu go home”.

This is somewhat misleading because the protesters in Israel, for the most part, are deliberately avoiding touching on the issue of Palestine. Their demands are “affordable housing, health, education and welfare”— but not for the Palestinians. As long as they continue to ignore the skeleton in their closet, I cannot support their movement. Their existence is inextricably tied in with the Palestinians’; I cannot seriously consider their movement to be pro “social justice” as long as it relies upon treating Palestinians unjustly (by virtue of turning a blind eye towards them). Additionally, not all protesters want Netanyahu to go home; some just want their new house keys (and guess whose land this new housing will be built on?) and they’ll be good to go.

Not to mention there are many immigrants who are homeless. These protesters complain about property costs and decide to tent out to revolt or send a message but right beside them are people from Somalia, Ethiopia, and many others whose only choice is to live in those tents. Whatever.

i agree with the comments above. i find these protests sickening, not only because they are hypocritical but because they will ultimately result in the construction of more illegal settlements on occupied land.

I’d like to echo the comments of those above me…I believe it’s extremely hypocritical to go out and protest about social justice when you don’t believe Palestinians deserve BASIC justice, and freedom in their own land. Ofcourse we all have a right to be annoyed at the cost of rent going up, and erm- cottage cheese in the case of Israelis, but seriously, if you support apartheid and injustice to Palestinians you look like idiots protesting.

unicornpancakes replied to your post: unicornpancakes replied to your post: Forget…
Only if they have degrees in pharmocology as well as psychology. I’m not disagreeing that people are overmedicated, just pointing that “therapists” as a whole get a bad rap for slapping people with pills when there are a lot of them that don’t/can’t
unicornpancakes replied to your post: unicornpancakes replied to your post: Forget…
Part of the problem imo is that people self-diagnose too much and go to psychiatrists and tell them what problems they have just to get the medication for it. So many people are like “oh I have this” without ever really getting confirmation.

For your first comment; sorry I should’ve worded better, it does sound like I’m grouping all therapists together.

For the second: I wrote this after someone I know was prescribed about 6 different sleeping/depression/anxiety pills and now they’re starting to think they have depression even though they never said anything about that to the doctor and they’ve never felt like they had depression before in their entire life. They were prescribed the pills because the doctors along with a therapist couldn’t figure out the cause of another medical issue and they defaulted to “depression/anxiety”- Also this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen.                                              

Forget doctors prescribing too much medication, what’s up with the therapists?

I thought the whole point of therapy was talking out your problems, having a release. If people wanted prescriptions for a bunch of pills, they’d just go to a doctor. I mean when people “feel better” (temporarily) after going to a therapist, nowadays, is it because the therapist talked to them or because they’re feeling all fuzzy and happy because of a bunch of pills? When did we start medicating emotions? Infact they’re not even emotions anymore, they’re “symptoms”. Feeling sad? That’s a “symptom” of “depression”. Feeling restless? That’s a “symptom” of “general anxiety”. Now I’m not saying those conditions don’t exist but is it just me or does everyone immediately jump to the “you have a disorder” conclusion now. If something horrible just happened to someone, no shit they’re going to be sad but it’s not a fucking disorder. It’s part of being alive. It’s what everyone goes through, we’re treating “symptoms” of being a human being… it’s ridiculous. Not only does it make the situation worse for the person if they’re told that what they’re feeling is some sort of disorder as if something is wrong with them, but it also gets in the way of identifying individuals who actually have actual disorders as in anxiety/depression to extreme extents for prolonged periods of time  because it seems therapists/psychologists become so used to slapping everyone with medication that they’ve begun to disregard the difference. 

#endofoutofnowherrant

Everyone should have access to good quality healthcare

I don’t care what type of political/social system you believe in, I don’t care if it’s free fucking market capitalism, healthcare should be an essential, non-negotiable, universal human right and thus it should be free. Before you start arguing with me on this, have you ever known someone whose been denied healthcare? I detest when people become all self-righteous and belittle others’ problems because they’ve never been in that situation themselves. 

I know this family in a really bad situation right now. This man was cheated by his business partner and he lost everything- he couldn’t do anything about it because they had no written agreement (stupid I know, but it’s done and over with) and the stress caused him heart problems. He’s had a heart-attack atleast twice (from what I know) and now he works some near-minimum-wage 3,000SR ($800) a month job while his wife caters trying to make ends meet. I cannot tell you how hard this woman works, I admire her perseverance so damn much. Education here (as far as non-Arabic schools go) isn’t free, I’m guessing even the worst schools charge around SR15,000 a year per child and they have three. Recently his blood-sugar spiked and he had to be admitted, they asked for SR5,000 up front -that’s more than he makes in an entire month. His wife pleaded with them to give her uptill the next day and we helped her get together the cash. Now it turns out he has to have bypass surgery immediately. I don’t even know how much that’s going to fucking cost but I know they can’t afford it. These people happened to have a nice Kafeel (kind of like employer for foreigners) and he said he’d take up 50% of the cost but the rest they’re going to have to scrape together somehow because this is life-death and they have no choice. My heart is breaking for them right now.

This isn’t even the worst case, I’ve heard worse. Like the patients who die in government hospitals in Pakistan because they can’t afford private healthcare and the hospitals themselves are overcrowded and unsanitary, with under-qualified doctors. You want more cases where private healthcare has fucked people over, go watch the Moore documentary Sicko: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/sicko/

It’s such a horrible feeling seeing someone else struggling with something that everyone should have, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be in that position yourself; what it must be like for a mother to have to watch her child die because she can’t afford to get him treated. It’s cruel that people have to suffer because they happened to be born into less fortunate circumstances by chance due to no fault of their own and that the more fortunate can’t give enough of a fuck to help them (by choice) *insert incoherent swearing here*.

Healthcare should be free, good quality healthcare should be accessible to everyone but considering we’re living in a world where we can’t even get everyone clean drinking water and a child in Africa dies every 8 seconds due to hunger; healthcare is a long way to go. And frankly, that’s fucking sick.

stay-human

15 of the Deadliest Corporations

These corporations, if they were individual human beings, would be locked up for life. Instead, they continue raking in the big bucks. Human rights abuses, murder, war, eco disasters, and animal exploitation keep these evil companies raking in the green. Prepare to be disgusted.

I don’t think the list is in any particular order. Even if you don’t agree with all of them (eg. the cigarette company) most of them are legit horrible. I’m posting a summary but I recommend reading the full article: http://brainz.org/15-deadliest-us-corporations/

  1. Chevron : (then Texaco) discharged 18 billion gallons of toxic water into the rain forests of Ecuador without any remediation, destroying the livelihoods of local farmers and sickening indigenous populations. Chevron was responsible for the death of several Nigerians who protested the company’s polluting, exploiting presence in the Nigerian Delta. Chevron paid the local militia, known for its human rights abuses, to squash the protests, and even supplied them with choppers and boats. The military opened fire on the protesters, then burned their villages to the ground.  
  2. DeBeers : was knowingly funding violent guerrilla movements in Angola, Sierra Nevada, and the Congo with its diamond purchases. In Botswana, DeBeers has been blamed for the “clearing” of land to be mined for diamonds — including the forcible removal of indigenous peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. The government allegedly cut off the tribe’s water supplies, threatened, tortured and even hanged resisters.
  3. Tyson : Even if you don’t care about the horrendous animal abuse that has been documented in Tyson’s factory farms, you have to flinch at Tyson’s appalling environmental abuses and workers’ rights violation- Tyson has allowed e coli tainted beef to enter the food supply. A recent study showed that Tyson’s chickens were the most salmonella-and-campylobactor filled poultry of all the major suppliers and has even been accused of human trafficking to supply themselves with cheap labor.  
  4. Smith & Wesson : In a study of the top ten guns involved in crime in the U.S., the first was the Smith & Wesson .38 Special.
  5. Phillip Morris : is the largest manufacturer of cigarettes in the U.S.
  6. Haliburton : is a huge “oilfield services” company, profited big time from the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq when Cheney called in his boys to quell burning oil wells — and to “help” the Iraq oil ministry pump and distribute oil. Haliburton has also been implicated in countless oil spills, including the BP disaster of 2010. 
  7. Coca Cola : corporation has wrought devastation in India, where its factories use up to one million liters of water per day, leaving tens of thousands of nearby residents dry during the drought months. Then the factories dispose of the wastewater improperly, contaminating whatever water is leftA lawsuit in 2001 accused Coca Cola of hiring paramilitaries in Columbia which suppressed unionization in the cola plant there through intimidation, torture and murder.
  8. Pfizer : the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the U.S., pleaded guilty in 2009 to the largest health care fraud in U.S. history. Pfizer decided to use Nigerian children as guinea pigs. In 1996, Pfizer traveled to Kano, Nigeria to try out an experimental antibiotic on third-world diseases such as measles, cholera, and bacterial meningitis. They gave trovafloxacin to approximately 200 children. Dozens of them died in the experiment, while many others developed mental and physical deformities. According to the EPA, Pfizer can also proudly claim to be among the top ten companies in America causing the most air pollution.
  9. ExxonMobil : is perhaps best known for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill which resulted in 11 million gallons of oil contaminating Prince William Sound. But they have also been responsible for a huge oil spill in Brooklyn and for aiding in the decline of Russia’s critically endangered grey whale because of drilling in its habitat. The Political Economy Research Institute ranks ExxonMobil sixth among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States.
  10. Caterpillar : supplies the Israeli army with bulldozers which are used to demolish Palestinian homessometimes with the people still inside. In 2003 a Caterpillar bulldozer ran over and killed Rachel Corrie, an American protesting in Gaza who stood in front of the tractor to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian home.
  11. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily : “The Cruelest Show on Earth” is famous for its abuse of wild animals.
  12. Monsanto : Monsanto’s list of evils includes creating the “terminator” seed which creates plants which never fruit or flower so that farmers must purchase them anew yearly, lobbying to have “hormone-free” labels removed from the labels of milk and infant milk replacer (through bovine growth hormone is believed to be a cancer-accelerator) as well as a wide range of environmental and human health violations associated with use of Monsanto’s poisons — most notably “Agent Orange.”
  13. Nestle : crimes against man and nature include massive deforestation in Borneo — the habitat of the critically endangered orangutan — to grow palm oil, and buying milk from farms illegally-seized by a despot in Zimbabwe. Nestle attracted worldwide boycott efforts for urging mothers in third-world countries to use their infant milk replacer instead of breastfeeding, without warning them of the possible negative effects. Supposedly, Nestle hired women to dress as nurses to hand out free infant formula, which was frequently mixed with contaminated water, or the children starved when the formula ran out and their mothers could not afford more and their breast milk had already dried up from disuse.
  14. British Petroleum : Who can forget 2010’s oil rig explosion in the Gulf Coast which killed 11 workers and thousands of birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other animals, effectively destroying the fishing and tourism industry in the region? This was not BP’s first crime against nature. In fact, between January 1997 and March 1998, BP was responsible for a whopping 104 oil spills.
  15. Dyncorp : is best known for its brutality in impoverished countries, for trafficking in child sex slaves, for slaughtering civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for training rebels in Haiti. This privatized military company is often hired by the U.S. government to protect American interests overseas — and so the government can claim no responsibility for Dyncorp’s actions. 

So yeah.

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