Digital Addiction
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Digital Addiction
“SAN
FRANCISCO — It’s
well-known that smartphone, or more broadly, digital addiction can result in
many negative mental effects on people over time. Recent research even found it creates a brain imbalance
in teens. Now a new study finds that over-attachment to your phone can cause
serious social problems — boosting feelings of loneliness and isolation — while
worsening anxiety and depression symptoms. Smartphones have become useful,
everyday tools that essentially manage our daily lives. From calendars to
calorie monitors to sleep aids, smartphone owners find themselves constantly
glancing at their screens from the minute they wake up to the seconds before
hitting the sack. Whether it’s reading push notifications, responding to
dings and vibrations, or constantly refreshing one’s Facebook newsfeed on the
go, the need for phone time is becoming a more serious problem…Researchers
behind the study, conducted at San Francisco State University, liken smartphone
addiction to opioid dependency, arguing that overuse of a mobile device is no
different from substance abuse.” Smartphone Addiction Increases Loneliness, Isolation; No Different From
Substance Abuse, Experts Say https://www.studyfinds.org/smartphone-addiction-loneliness-isolation-substance-abuse/
Western society is extremely
addictive. Due to cunning marketing campaigns, social engineering and the mass
manipulation of our tastes, desires, drives, values and lifestyle, we in the
West are becoming more and more like zombies, mindlessly living day to day
responding to the stimuli put out and controlled by the 1% and their
minions. Recent studies and testimonies
by the developers and CEOs of some of the largest telecommunications and high tech
companies have revealed that gadgets and gizmos as well as social media itself
are having a deleterious affect on us personally and collectively. The overuse
of digital devices is having a negative impact on us physically and
psychologically.
“A recent study by Korean
scientists discovered that young people addicted to their smartphones or the
internet have brain chemical imbalances.
The research team led by Dr. Hyung Suk Seo, a professor of
neuroradiology at
Korea University in
South Korea, used magnetic
resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to examine the immediate effect on the brains of
smartphone- and internet-addicted teenagers. MRS is a type of MRI that detects
chemical changes in the brain.
The study
involved 38 teenagers about 15 or 16 years old. Half of them (10 females, nine
males) had been diagnosed with smartphone or internet addiction, while the
other half — the control group — was deemed otherwise healthy. Researchers used
standardized tests to measure the severity of the teens’ addiction, questioning
them on how smartphones or internet interfered with their daily routines,
productivity, and mental health… The researchers found that the addicted
teenagers showed more signs and indications of depression, anxiety, insomnia,
and impulsivity, according to Dr. Seo. One chemical the researchers looked for
changes in before and after the cognitive behavioral therapy was gamma
aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA is a neurotransmitter that slows or speeds up
brain signals and regulates anxiety. They also examined
the glutamate-glutamine (Glx) activity in the participants, which causes
neurons to become more electrically excited. They found that the ratio of GABA
to Glx was notably higher in the screen-addicted teens compared to the healthy
ones.” Doctor: teens Addicted To Smartphone Internet Have Brain Imbalance
https://www.studyfinds.org/smartphone-internet-addiction-brain-imbalance/
Many are
becoming alarmed that smart technology and “social media” are dumbing us down
and atrophying our social and group interaction skills. “According to a 2011
Pew Research Center poll, cell-phone owners between the ages of 18 and 24 send
or receive an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day, whereas all adults (18
and older) exchange a daily average of 41.5 messages, with a median of only 10
texts daily. As for social media, a 2015 report compiled by the marketing
agency We Are Social estimated that more than two billion people—over a quarter
of the world's population—have active social media accounts. For a species
hardwired for social connection, that should be a wonderful thing. And yet the
rise of social media and technology has coincided with an apparent decline in
mental health. In 2014 psychologist Jean M. Twenge of
San
Diego State University analyzed data from nearly seven million
teenagers and adults across the
U.S.
and found that more people reported symptoms of depression in recent years than
they did in the 1980s. Teens, in particular, are now 74 percent more likely to
have trouble sleeping and twice as likely to see a professional for mental
health issues. According to a 2016 fact sheet from the World Health
Organization, depression is now the leading cause of disability globally,
affecting 350 million people worldwide. There are certainly many intervening
factors that may be driving this global trend, but we do have preliminary
research linking depression with social media usage. In 2014 Mai-Ly Steers of
the
University of
Houston and her
colleagues surveyed 180 college students and found that the more time these
subjects spent on Facebook, the more likely they were to experience mild
depressive symptoms. The researchers attributed the link to the psychological
phenomenon known as social comparison—and comparing our lives to others can
seem particularly harsh online, where people tend to post only the highlights.
In a 2014 study, social psychologists Christina Sagioglou and Tobias Greitemeyer,
both at the
University of
Innsbruck in
Austria, found another reason why
people can feel down after Facebook sessions: they feel that the time spent is
not meaningful.”
Generation Z Online and
at Risk?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/generation-z-online-and-at-risk/
It is
important to maintain real social connections not the illusion of friends,
computer generated avatars and networks just as it is important to feel a
genuine sense of gratification and meaning in our lives. Social media cannot
provide this no matter how many “friends” you have or how much time you spend
Online! Life is not a spectator sport we have to be engaged in meaningful
relationships and activities. Online voyeurism and superficial media linkages
are not what we need to live fulfilling, meaningful purpose driven lives. Digital technology is a tool; do not allow it
to become your master or a pusher for your addictions.
-30-
Facebook and the Deep State
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Facebook and the Deep
State
“The company’s
business depends on observing users’ online behaviour and selling their
attention to advertisers, who pay money to reach specific groups of users based
on minute details gleaned about their identities, their interests and where
they are. This requires a delicate balancing act between catering to users,
whose attention Facebook must keep, and advertisers, who pay the bills. To date
the firm has mostly favoured growth over careful checks that its ‘community’,
as it calls its 2.1bn users, is being properly protected.” If Facebook Will
Not Fix Itself Will Congress? https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21740387-if-facebook-will-not-fix-itself-will-congress-fit-it-mr-zuckerberg-goes-washington
The scandal involving Cambridge Analytica’s acquisition
of Facebook user profiles then using them to craft specific ads targeting users
to benefit their clients ( in this case Donald Trump) has not exposed the deep
state connections inherent in such an arrangement. The corporate mind control
apparatus is downplaying and even suppressing the truth about Facebook’s nefarious
ties to the 1%’s shadow government. It is not just a question of Mak Zuckeberg’s
cavalier attitude about privacy breeches, most perceptive people realize
Zuckerberg is merely the public face of Facebook, that the platform is really a
tool of hidden forces including the fascist “deep state”. Mark Zuckerberg’s
recent appearance before US Senate hearings was a choreographed sham. Most of
the Senators who grilled Zuckerberg took campaign contributions (bribes) from
him! See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49195.htm
to discover who got how much.
Facebook
is more than you think it is! “Facebook
is on track to become more powerful than the National Security Agency — so says
a senior advisor to the US
military intelligence community who predicted the rise of artificial
intelligence and robot warfare. In less than a decade, Facebook’s growth will
mean it potentially has the ability to monitor almost everyone on the planet.
This will make the firm more powerful than any other government contractor in
the world. This prospect has dangerous ramifications for democracy. Increasing
evidence reveals that Facebook’s most lucrative business model is to outsource
itself as a conduit for psychological warfare to any third party that wants to
influence the beliefs and behaviors of citizens.” Facebook Will Become More
Powerful Than the NSA In Ten years Unless We Stop It - Nafeez Ahmed https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-facebook-will-infiltrate-national-elections-and-rule-the-world-in-less-than-10-years-unless-732da197b8fd
Facebook
is a Trojan horse that we willingly invite into our lives because it is “free”
but once we sign up some of us become addicted to it. That was by design. Facebook
executives say they have kept the service free by selling ads to companies and
other entities. Anyone can buy Facebook ads https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/how-much-facebook-ads-cost
and advertising on the platform has its advantages because Facebook is an
extremely popular and effective platform.
That
is one positive aspect, but the platform is being used for extremely wicked purposes.
Facebook was originally funded not just by investors looking to profit from the
development of an innovative program, but by corporations and intelligence
services to use the platform as a way to spy on us, sell us stuff, program us,
manipulate our habits and sense of reality and prescribe popular culture. “The
Big Four tech giants control most of the world’s information flow, drug and
food supply. Google and Facebook tried to manipulate the recent presidential
election by prioritising, and sometimes burying content altogether. Throughout
the history of human civilisation, including periods of ecclesiastical rule, no
entity has had as much power to influence and control the social and political
ideals of billions of people with zero oversight or regulation as these tech
giants. Democracy’s only hope is for Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter to be
broken up and regulated… Google and Facebook’s internet supremacy has far
reaching implications; arguably, they endeavoured to manipulate the recent
presidential election by prioritising, and sometimes altogether burying,
content. Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt was even on Hillary
Clinton’s election committee. Facebook goes a step further than Google in
individually curating content, segregating its users into political bubbles so
the users only see their own ideals reinforced. The polarisation of political
views means that users are likely to adhere to an entire set of campaign
positions rather than consider that some positions on each side might be
credible.” Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter Are Evil by Mitch Feierstein
https://renegadeinc.com/google-amazon-facebook-twitter-evil/
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the
US to
regulate Facebook, it’s too well connected.
Facebook’s
connections to Cambridge Analytica and its parent company Securities
Communications Laboratory (SCL and SCL Elections) is just the tip of the
iceberg. “But the relationship between Facebook and U.S. elites and
their intelligence agencies may be closer than that. There are certainly things
that suggest a closer look is required. You have to ask yourself about the
money for example. Facebook is not a small application and even in its infancy
it would have required massive computing power. Who paid for that power, and
why? You also have to note that Facebook itself was created by an elite
student, at an elite university, in a context where elite norms and values rule
the day. Surprising enough when you think about it, but the real kick in
the head is the fact that Facebook executives are conducting massive (and
massively unethical) experiments on users. In a paper published in
the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences entitled ‘Experimental Evidence of Massive-Scale Emotional
Contagion Through Social Networks,’ Facebook scientists reported
the results of a massive CIA linked experiment designed to see if they
could control emotions… The CIA has been conducting experiments on
consciousness and mass consciousness since their LSD work in the fifties and
sixties (look up Project MKUltra), and while Facebook and other social media
may try to distance themselves from military connections, quickly erasing
intimations and implications of connection (Martens and Martens, 2014), the
financial and social linkages are clearly there, if somebody would just bother
to look (hint, hint). And if this doesn’t convince you to question that blue
monstrosity you’ve plugged yourself into, consider Google, the other big
intelligence technology. It has been recently noted that Google is capable of
rigging elections (Epstein, 2015). That’s, incredible and incredibly powerful.” Facebook, CIA, Social Science
Google and You –Mike Sosteric
https://www.sociology.org/facebook-spy-machine/
The
myth about Facebook’s founding propagated by the film Social Network is pure disinformation. There are insidious facts
about the funding and rise of Facebook that are being purposely suppressed. As
I wrote last week, Facebook is not your friend.
-30-
Facebook Is Not Your Friend
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Facebook Is Not Your Friend
“Facebook scans the contents of messages
that people send each other on its Messenger app blocking any that contravene
its guidelines, it has emerged. The
scandal-hit firm, still reeling from revelations surrounding Cambridge
Analytica, checks images and texts to ensure they are in line with
its community standards. While the intentions behind the practice may
be well-meaning, the news is likely to add to users' concerns over what the
social network knows about them.” http://lizzadisu.blogspot.in/2018/04/mark-zuckerberg-admits-facebook-scans.html
Several
years ago I wrote an article warning that Facebook, Twitter, Google and the
giant telecommunications companies like Time Warner, Comcast and Disney were
all colluding with the government to spy on us. In an article entitled Big Brother Is Real I wrote, “Privacy for most of us is non-existent. Facebook, Twitter
and other programs like Instagram are not only part of the government's
programming arsenal they are also potential surveillance tools. http://www.alternet.org/story/155764/6_government_surveillance_programs_designed_to_watch_what_you_do_online.
Government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS are
using social media to track you and create a profile on you.”
Now we’ve leaned through a British news station’s report Facebook
has been collecting, mining user information, creating profiles on members,
using and selling the data and personal profiling to influence and manipulate
elections around the world. Facebook
also sells our information to companies and other third parties.
“As
we all know by now, Cambridge Analytica has apparently utilized highly
sophisticated psychometric algorithms to target mental vulnerabilities within
the United States
and other nations, perhaps swaying votes toward one candidate or another. While
these methods, in and of themselves, are not illegal per se, the data used and
the methods implemented to further propagate such election swaying may
themselves be illegal.
For those of you unaware of the
history behind Cambridge Analytica, it’s an interesting one. A company called SCL
Group launched back in the early 1990s. This company, which Trump’s former
national security adviser, Michael Flynn worked for, then spun off a subsidiary
called SCL Elections. SCL Elections was then funded by the Mercer family for
$15 million, before being renamed Cambridge Analytica. This transformation
basically took SCL Group, with their military ties, and transformed it into a
private for-profit company targeting American citizens… While the whistleblower
has shared their story with the
UK
media, they are fearful that the UK Ministry of Defense will quickly move in
and squash any potential publication. The whistleblower, whom our source says
worked for SCL Group between the years of 2005 and 2013, didn’t understand the
complexity and disturbing nature of what he had been a part of. That is
until a recent
exposé aired on
Channel 4 in
the
UK,
regarding Cambridge Analytica and their shady practices. This individual had
worked mainly in
Iraq for
SCL Group and is revealing that SCL Group was used by the
US and
UK
militaries to devise coercive propaganda in
Iraq during his time there. SCL
Group, via their subsidiary Cambridge Analytica, then took this same exact
approach and used it against the public in the
United States via our elections,
this time for monetary gain. Literally SCL Group created a military propaganda
machine and then targeted the
United
States’ elections and our democracy with
it.” SCL Whistleblower
Claims
Cambridge
Analytica Used a US Military
Weapon Against the US
Elections http://ir.net/news/politics/128310/exclusive-scl-group-whistleblower-claims-cambridge-analytica-used-us-military-weapon-us-elections/
So it wasn’t Russia that influenced the 2016 US election at
all, it was SCL through Facebook! The
full extent of the Facebook-Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL is the
parent company of Cambridge Analytica) collusion is being censored and
suppressed by the US corporate media because they don’t want us to know just
how thoroughly we are being spied on, manipulated and brainwashed by the media,
corporations and government.
SCL calls itself a
strategic communications and behavioral research company. That is corporate
doublespeak/gobbledygook for brainwashing, behavioral manipulation and social
engineering. It is an agency working hand in hand with governments and intelligence
agencies to do their dirty work around the world! Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook
(it is suspected US and Western intelligence services had a major hand in
funding and monopolizing Facebook globally) has admitted Facebook scanned
personal Facebook messages and data and gave them to third parties. http://lizzadisu.blogspot.in/2018/04/mark-zuckerberg-admits-facebook-scans.html.
Currently there is a global movement to delete or unsubscribe
from Facebook. If you choose to remain on Facebook please use it wisely knowing
full well it is spying on you and remember Facebook is not your friend!
-30-
Who Really Manipulated the 2016 Presidential Election
From The Ramparts
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Who Really Manipulated The 2016 Election?
“SCL
Elections, which formed scandal-hit Cambridge
Analytica in 2013, said it had interfered in Nigeria
in 2007, Trinidad and Tobago
in 2010, and also stirred up ethnic tensions in Latvia in 2006. BBC News said it
had seen a brochure published by London-based SCL in which potential new
customers could contact the company through ‘any British high commission or
embassy’” Data Firm’s Parent Boasted of Manipulating Elections
https://www.metro.news/data-firms-parent-boasted-of-manipulating-elections/991612/
For over a year we have been
bombarded day and night with claims first by the Clinton
campaign, the corporate media and the US Congress that Russia hacked
and/or manipulated the 2016 presidential election supposedly because Putin
wanted Trump to win. The media employs the “Big Lie” technique, where the media
talking heads, partisan experts, political hacks or a demagogue repeat a lie
over and over again until the public believes it. In the case of the Russian
election hacking meme, we must remember it has never been evidentially established
the DNC was hacked by the Russians even after over a year’s worth of
investigations and congressional hearings!
Several
recent pieces have surfaced that shed entirely new light on this issue some
more credible than others. Now anonymous sources in the
Netherlands
have come forth with “information”
the
DNC was hacked by Russians. Again no hard evidence has been presented only
anonymous sources claiming a group of Russian hackers infiltrated not only the
DNC but the US State Department! “For the first time in a year, significant new
information has emerged linking the 2016 U.S. Democratic National Committee
security breach to
Russia. A
newspaper in the
Netherlands reports that
U.S.
authorities received evidence of the hack from the Dutch intelligence service,
which had penetrated the Russian hackers. The report partly explains the
U.S.
intelligence community's certainty about what happened to the DNC and its
reluctance to tell the public more. But it also raises new questions. The story
in the daily De Volkskrant is based on anonymous sources, as are almost all
other substantial reports about Russian interference in the
U.S.
presidential election. But it provides enough exciting detail to be a major
addition to what's publicly available. According to the paper, hackers from
AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, penetrated the
network of the Russian hacker group known as Cozy Bear in the summer of 2014.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-26/release-the-dutch-evidence-of-the-dnc-hack
Keep in mind these are ports are based
upon anonymous sources.
The other
revelation has more credibility and is far more scandalous. It seems Facebook
was used by Cambridge Analytica a subsidiary of SCL to data mine and profile
voters in the 2016 presidential election, that Steve Bannon hired Cambridge
Analytica to help the Trump campaign.
The important thing to know here is, SCL (SCL Elections an offshoot of SCL) has
a known history of manipulating and subverting elections around the world.
There is an insidious nexus among SCL,
British intelligence agencies like MI6, GCHQ, the Israeli Mossad and the CIA.
Researchers like Dean Henderson and Lyndon LaRouche have sifted the evidence
and news reports censored in the US
by the ruling class and their mind control apparatus and concluded
SCL/Cambridge Analytica were active in influencing the 2016 US presidential elections!
“If
ever there was smoking gun evidence as to who is behind the constant
manipulation of global geopolitics, it is the emerging scandal involving
Facebook & Cambridge Analytica. The case unravels the Gordian knot
which binds British and Israeli intelligence in the service of the City of London bankers… But a
recent British Channel 4 undercover investigation has revealed far more
nefarious activities which make Cambridge Analytica & Facebook look an
awful lot like a well-orchestrated British/Israeli intelligence
operation. In fact it is a textbook example of how the now-very silent
British Empire still runs the world using its
Israeli and US surrogates. About 12 minutes into the interview Cambridge CEO
Alexander Nix is caught on camera bragging about how British companies often
‘subcontract’ work to Israeli firms since they are, ‘very effective in
intelligence gathering’. The undercover reporter for Channel 4 News posed as an
operative for a wealthy client hoping to get certain candidates elected in Sri Lanka.
Nix told the reporter: ‘…we’re used to operating through different vehicles, in
the shadows, and I look forward to building a very long-term and secretive
relationship with you.’ Nix then brags about how Cambridge and its parent SCL
Group have secretly manipulated elections in over 200 countries around the
world, including Nigeria, Kenya, Czech Republic, Argentina and India.” Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook MI6 Psyop
https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com/2018/03/20/cambridge-analyticas-facebook-mi6-psyop/
‘
LaRouche
documents this nexus this way, “March 20, 2018 (EIRNS)—A bombshell piece
published March 20th by investigative journalist Liam O’Hare, entitled ‘SCL, a
Very British Coup’ in Bella Caledonia raises profound new issues regarding
British meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections. Those following the news may be
aware of stories over the past 48 hours claiming that Cambridge Analytica, a
data mining firm employed by the Trump campaign, stole data from Facebook
compromising the privacy of many Americans. Across the pond, Britain’s news Channel 4 caught Cambridge executive Andrew Nix bragging about
using dirty tricks, including bribery and sex honey pots, to entrap politicians
and subvert elections. Nix was suspended as a result of the Channel 4 sting
videos by the company. Who is supposed to
be at fault here? Donald Trump for hiring this gang of miscreants after Steve
Bannon, the Mercers, and others, dragged Cambridge Analytica into Trump’s
campaign from Ted Cruz’s campaign, where Bannon, the Mercers, and Cambridge had previously
operated? Or Facebook, already correctly called a primary intelligence and
personality profiling mechanism, by Edward Snowden?
O’Hare’s piece indicates that pointing the finger at Trump or at
Facebook are very, very serious diversions here. He profiles the investors,
Board, and activities of the parent company, SCL (Strategic Communications
Laboratories). O’Hare says the Board is ‘an array of Lords, Tory donors,
ex-British army officers and defense contractors,’ offering military-grade
psy-ops as a private company. This is a scandal that cuts to the heart of the
British Establishment. According to The Observer, Cambridge Analytica and SCL
are not separate entities. For all practical purposes they are one and the
same.
The
organization boasts that it has conducted behavioral change programs in over 60
countries with clients including the British Ministry of Defense, the U.S.
State Department, and NATO. SCL has a contract with the U.S. State Department
to counter terrorist propaganda and disinformation. The company participated in
“countering
Russia
propaganda operations” in support of
Ukraine for NATO. This puts them
right in the center of the Christopher Steele, Victoria Nuland, Project
Democracy anti-Russia, pro-Kiev operations in the State Department.”
https://www.larouchepub.com/pr/2018/180320_cambridge_analytica.html
The US corporate media has censored
the Facebook connection in all this because they don’t want the masses to
discover Facebook is a global surveillance, data mining, profiling and social
engineering tool for US spy agencies. How else you do suppose Facebook became
such a pervasive monopoly platform?! Facebook played a major role in recent
US presidential
elections it is not the benign social platform you have been told. The fact of
the matter is we are being spied on, data mined and harvested by a variety of
agencies and methods; Facebook is merely one of them! View this video
http://futurefastforward.com/2018/03/23/obama-campaign-director-reveals-facebook-allowed-mine-data/
to see how Facebook plays us.
The corporate media’s “Putin and the Russians did it” meme is part
of the plan to obfuscate what is really going on, to create a new enemy to
drive up Military Industrial Complex revenues/profits, create fear in the minds
of the US public and prepare us for additional wars to keep America #1. We are
being manipulated on so many fronts. Read Mathias Chang’s book Brainwashed For
War, Programmed To Kill. There is ample information out there if you are
willing to look for it, don’t believe the corporate media/government hype or
fall for their okey-doke.
-30-
Impact of the Opioid Crisis
From The Ramparts
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
Impact
of The Opioid Crisis
“Drug
overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the US, with 52,404
lethal drug overdoses in 2015. Opioid addiction is driving this epidemic, with
20,101 overdose deaths related to prescription pain relievers, and 12,990
overdose deaths related to heroin in 2015.” https://www.asam.org
As the US grapples with an escalating
opioid epidemic that is ravaging this nation, it is important we examine how
this happened and why it is such a huge problem. The opioid crisis is totally out
of control partly due to overzealous physicians prescribing addictive pain
killers such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine, morphine, fentanyl coupled
with illicit street drugs like heroin and cocaine. It has been documented that
US physicians received kickbacks in the form of payments, speaking fees, food
and drink from pharmaceutical reps and companies to write prescriptions for
their products.
A study published in the American Journal of
Public Health revealed
US
doctors were on the take, big time.
“Objective:
To identify payments that involved opioid products from the pharmaceutical
industry to physicians.
Methods. We used the Open Payments program
database from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to identify
payments involving an opioid to physicians between August 2013 and December
2015. We used medians, interquartile ranges, and ranges as a result of heavily
skewed distributions to examine payments according to opioid product,
abuse-deterrent formulation, nature of payment, state, and physician specialty.
Results. During the study, 375 266 nonresearch opioid-related
payments were made to 68 177 physicians, totaling $46 158 388. The top 1% of
physicians received 82.5% of total payments in dollars. Abuse-deterrent
formulations constituted 20.3% of total payments, and buprenorphine marketed
for addiction treatment constituted 9.9%. Most payments were for speaking fees
or honoraria (63.2% of all dollars), whereas food and beverage payments were
the most frequent (93.9% of all payments). Physicians specializing in
anesthesiology received the most in total annual payments (median = $50;
interquartile range = $16–$151).”
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303982
People are hooked because their
doctors got paid to prescribe addictive medications and painkillers. Once the patients
became addicted they sought other means to maintain their high or pain free
status. The opioid menace has reached
crisis proportions in the white communities and this has spurred a totally new
approach to addiction and treatment.
When the US CIA with their organized
crime business associates were dumping heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs in
the ghettos and barrios of America, the official response was to craft public
policy that used this situation to create a bogus War on Drugs that targeted, arrested and convicted users and small
time pushers while ignoring the major traffickers. The major players were
pumping tons of drugs on the streets and billions into the major banks to
launder the money and fuel off book secret operations (think the Iran Contra
scandal) so they received a pass because they were part of the plan.
Drug trafficking is big business! “The most frequently found figures in the
literature range from $300 billion to $500 billion a year and seem to be the
most reasonable estimates. One UNDCP estimate for 1995 reflecting global
illicit drug sales to consumers, gives a figure close to $400 billion. A
similar turnover was also estimated by the International Criminal Police
Organization/ Interpol. Such a turnover of the illicit drug industry would be
equivalent to approximately 8 per cent of total international trade. It would
be larger than the international trade in iron and steel and motor vehicles
(2.8 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively) and approximately the same size as
the international trade in textiles (7.5 per cent), oil and gas (8.6 per cent) and
world tourism.”
Drug trafficking became a big business as did
the prison industrial complex by incarcerating Black and Brown people, but that’s
another topic for another day. Now that opioid deaths and addiction is a white
thing and skyrocketing nationwide addiction is threatening major economic and
public health disruption, the politicians are singing a new tune. Now it’s not viewed
as an indication of moral depravity like when Black folks were caught in the
addiction cycle. Now it’s a public health issue/crisis because white folks are dying
from overdoses.
“Drug overdose is the leading cause
of accidental death in the
US,
with 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in 2015. Opioid addiction is driving this
epidemic, with 20,101 overdose deaths related to prescription pain relievers,
and 12,990 overdose deaths related to heroin in 2015. From 1999 to 2008,
overdose death rates, sales and substance use disorder treatment admissions
related to prescription pain relievers increased in parallel. The overdose
death rate in 2008 was nearly four times the 1999 rate; sales of prescription
pain relievers in 2010 were four times those in 1999; and the substance use
disorder treatment admission rate in 2009 was six times the 1999 rate.
In 2012, 259 million prescriptions were
written for opioids, which is more than enough to give every American adult
their own bottle of pills. Four in five new heroin users started out misusing
prescription painkillers. 94% of respondents in a 2014 survey of people in
treatment for opioid addiction said they chose to use heroin because
prescription opioids were ‘far more expensive and harder to obtain.’” Opioid
Addiction 2016 Facts & Figures
https://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf
Drug addiction is taking a massive
toll on American life and there seems to be no end in sight as the addicts are
younger and younger. “In 2015, an estimated 21,000 adolescents had used heroin
in the past year, and an estimated 5,000 were current heroin users.
Additionally, an estimated 6,000 adolescents had heroin a heroin use disorder
in 2014. People often share their unused pain relievers, unaware of the dangers
of nonmedical opioid use. Most adolescents who misuse prescription pain
relievers are given them for free by a friend or relative. The prescribing
rates for prescription opioids among adolescents and young adults nearly doubled
from 1994 to 2007.” Ibid
What must of us overlook is the
fact Western culture fosters addiction to a myriad of substances: caffeine,
sugar, alcohol, sex and drugs. To resolve this crisis will require a major
transformation of values and lifestyle. It will be difficult to take the profit
motive out of drug trafficking and prescription pushing, so better education
about our divine nature/potential, resilience and resourcefulness is needed. It
will not be enough to just say no or take a pill to make things better.
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Universal Basic Income
From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Universal Basic Income
“Universal basic income (UBI) is a model for providing
all citizens of a country or other geographic area with a given sum of money,
regardless of their income, resources or employment status. The purpose of the
UBI is to prevent or reduce poverty and increase equality among citizens. UBI
is also known simply as basic income. According to the advocacy group Basic
Income Earth Network (BIEN), the essential principle behind basic income is the
idea that all citizens are entitled to a livable income, whether or not they
contribute to production and despite the particular circumstances into which
they are born.” http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/universal-basic-income-UBI
Due
to the rapid advances and application of technology, labor as we know it is
changing. With the increased uses of robotics, animation and Artificial
Intelligence, physical labor and intellectual skills labor will take totally new
forms not in the distant future but immediately. Many futurists and thinkers
realize we are on the cusp of a quantum shift in work, industry, technology,
lifestyle and economics. People like
inventor, entrepreneur, CEO and futurist Elon Musk and Facebook cofounder Chris
Hughes are saying society needs to prepare for the approaching phase out and
outright elimination of work as we presently know it and provide for people who
have been displaced by technology.
At
the 2017 World Government Summit in Dubai Elon Musk said, “I think we'll end up
doing universal basic income, it’s going to be necessary. There will be fewer
and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better. I want to be clear, these are not
things I wish will happen; these are things I think probably will happen. With
automation, there will come abundance. Almost everything will get very cheap.”
He also said some form of
merger between humans and computers is in the offing. “Over time I think
we will probably see a closer merger of biological intelligence and digital
intelligence. It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the connection
between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly output…
Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be something that helps achieve
a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence and maybe solves the control
problem and the usefulness problem” This is what is being contemplated by some
of the driving minds of our time. When (not if) it materializes, most people
will not be prepared.
The more
immediate loss of job opportunities due to technology will cause major social
disruption especially in the so called developed world although some futurists
believe it will impact the so called developing world just as severely. An
article on the Futurism.com Website https://futurism.com/images/universal-basic-income-answer-automation/
includes a chart detailing the impact of robotics and automation around the
world. I highly recommend you read this article to get an idea just how
pervasive and disruptive the new technologies of Artificial Intelligence,
robotics and automation are becoming and will be even more so in the near
future.
The
article mentions the countries such as Finland,
Kenya, Switzerland and Netherlands that are considering,
planning for or actually implementing some form of Universal Basic Income. Go
to www.basicincome.com and see what
they are saying. The devastating impact of disruptive technology is not just
the concern of futurists. A March 9, 2018 Gallup Poll reveals more Americans
fear being displaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots and automation
than they do immigrants or off shoring. http://news.gallup.com/poll/228923/seen-greater-job-threat-immigration-offshoring.aspx.
This is a huge revelation, it means contrary to what many may think there are
Americans who know what is happening in the world and they are fearful about
their future. Rightly so, because the mindset and historical pattern of
capitalists is to find and implement the cheapest labor and lowest production
costs (e.g. slavery, automation) possible. This is not going to change. So the
anxiety revealed in the Gallop Poll is understandable. But what would UBI look
like in the US?
On
the flip side, the 1% is worrying how the masses will respond to these seismic socio-economic
shifts. They are wondering which options Joe and Jane Sixpack will choose; will
they take the torches and pitchfork route or will they continue to passively
submit to their fate? The 1%’s solution in addition to pacification via the
mass media and police state coercion is Universal Basic Income.
Their
immediate problem is how to sell and implement it because both US political
parties have dogged welfare since the 1960’s and they are adamantly opposed to
reparations for Africans; so now they have to come up with a new marketing tool
to generate consensus to sell UBI. Notice in none of the discussions is cost averse
nor is how it will be paid for a major issue. I suspect it is because the 1%
fear the torch and pitchfork option.
-30-
An Afrocentric Discussion of Black Panther
An Afrocentric Discussion of Black Panther
Junious
Ricardo Stanton
On Saturday
afternoon on March 10 the Molefi Kete Asante Institute and Afrocentricity
International held a discussion on the Black
Panther movie at their headquarters 5535 Germantown Avenue. The multi-generation
audience consisted of students, intellectuals, retirees and working folks.
The program included watching
trailers of the film, listening to written critiques of the film, how
propaganda is used and an open discussion regarding the positive and negative
aspects of the superhero movie which has grossed over one billion dollars world
wide in just four weeks.
Dr. Molefi Kete Asante the founder
of the Afrocentricty movement, whose institute owns and operates the building
where the program was held, began the program by reading critiques of the film
by Maulana Karenga and himself. Nabeelah Bey also distributed her critique of
the film. Dr Ama Mazamu began the open discussion about the film.
Dr. Mazamu began the dialogue by
asking the audience to share what they liked about the film and what they
thought were its most positive aspects. Comments ranged from how the film
provided awesome visuals and optics about a fictional African nation in a
manner never seen before in Hollywood productions.
Several attendees mentioned the impact the film was having on pop culture, how
it is generating interest in things African such as culture, history, fashions,
natural hair styles and providing a catalyst for envisioning Africans beyond
the stultifying Hollywood depictions of us by our
oppressors. The portrayal of the women in the film, the talented actresses,
richly hued strong females who did not acquiesce to Hollywood
stereotypical behavior was also mentioned by several members of the audience. A
few mentioned the film was spurring forums and discussions like this one that are
fostering media literacy and analysis. Several expressed their pleasure the
film is so successful.
When Dr. Mazamu asked about the
negative aspects of the film, there were numerous opinions and observations
shared and expressed by the attendees. One
criticism was the film was not a true depiction of African governance; some
disagreed with the film’s portrayal of leadership succession. They said the
film was not consistent with Africa’s history.
Several people felt the T’Challa
character was weak. Several mentioned how despite her brilliance the Shuri
character was disrespectful to her brother in one scene.
The most passionate conversation
centered around the films messages, how it depicted: nationalism,
self-determination, the role of Africans in the global liberation struggle
particularly which point of view was more correct: Prince N’Jobu’s of King
T’Chake. Prince N’Jobu was one of many spies Wakanda sent out
to monitor what is going on around the world who was living in Oakland
California (the home of the real life Black Panther Party) who witnessed the
suffering of Black people around the world and wants to intervene using
Wakandan technology, or King T’Chaka who wants to keep Wakanda inaccessible and
uninvolved. During a fight King T’Chaka kills his brother N’Jobu who has a son
Erik living in Oakland.
T’Chaka returns to Wakanda but doesn’t bring N’Jobu’s body to Wakanda denying
him a funeral and leaving his son abandoned. The unresolved options are
presented to a second generation. Erik
the son of N’Jobu has the same view as his father while T’Challa favors the
policy of T’Chaka.
All the men are complex but the
attendees expressed concerns regarding how N’Jobu and Erik’s
interventionist/liberation views were presented in the film. It was noted both
men were killed by family members: N’Jobu by his brother T’Chaka and Erik by
his cousin T’Challa. Some saw this as not just anti-liberation,
anti-nationalist propaganda but also a metaphor for the high levels of
fratricide we are experiencing in our communities in this country.
Another hot button issue was the
CIA agent Everett Ross character, one of only two whites in the film. It was
pointed out to be successful Marvel needed the two white characters to attract
white movie goers and they especially needed one of them to be a “good guy”.
Almost everyone took exception to the fact the “good guy” was a CIA agent given
the havoc the US CIA has wrecked on the continent of Africa.
Someone asked how was it possible the CIA agent could fly advanced Wakandan
airships?
It was a lively, respectful and
extremely informative discussion. We realized Marvel Studio and Disney are not
in the business of glorifying Africans, or telling our story. Their goal is to
make money and continue building their cinematic universe with the help of a
block buster film like Black Panther.
The final take away was African
people must make and market our own films and tell our stories by tapping into
the deep and rich reservoir of African history and culture for real models and
lessons we can use to empower and elevate our people.
-30-
