Unnecessary deaths....

Unbelievably eloquent words from a soldier. 

It is a shame to see young lives go to waste for no real reason except corporate profit. We (myself included), as a country, never seem to care, except for the meaningless mouthing of a few words of support or patriotism every now and then, or whenever convenient. We never try to understand the trauma we put our soldiers through with our silent support of criminal wars; through our silence when the government, in the name of efficiency and political finagling over budget issues closes VA (Veterans' Affairs) hospitals in the more rural reaches of the country making it even more difficult for an unemployed veteran to seek medical help; through our silence at documented instances of denial of treatment to some of these soldiers; through our silence at the daily suicides of veterans who come back with demons running around in their minds...... 

Oh, this list can go on and on, but none of it means anything and none of it is as eloquent as this dead soldiers last words....

http://gawker.com/i-am-sorry-that-it-has-come-to-this-a-soldiers-last-534538357

Walmart!!!

While lauding the success of Walmart (at keeping prices low and raking in profits year after year), no one really looks at how those low prices are achieved and the price paid for those low prices by the citizens of the country.

Sure, management professionals and laymen (well perhaps not all laymen) alike wax eloquent about the super-efficient supply chain Walmart has set up and, I must admit, it is no mean feat, at that.  But does an efficient supply chain alone explain the lower cost of goods and the success of the company, or is there something deeper at work?  Are we to believe that no one else can create as efficient or better a supply chain?

There are many in this country who make a career out of vilifying those on government welfare (fondly called low-lives who won't or refuse to work and live off the hardworking tax-paying public) on public media; and there are many citizens who unquestioningly lap up and wholeheartedly believe this rhetoric, and a whole political party dedicated to a similar effort!

At one end (the supply end) of the supply chain are strong armed bullies who use all kinds of tactics (intimidation, bullying, guile, stick and carrot, etc.) to force suppliers (who are looking for a break with the world's largest retailers) to cough up goods at low prices.  At the other end there are the low-paid and often temporary workers that man the stores and warehouses, working without benefits or any kind of job security.

While most people who shop at Walmart think they are getting a good deal, they rarely see the drain on the nation's coffers in the form of corporate welfare (tax breaks given to corporations under various guises as well as the cost of social welfare that has to be extended these low-paid workers, which is indirectly corporate welfare because the government now steps in to fix what the likes of Walmart broke in the first place).

In this vein, this study released by the Democratic Committee on Education and the Workforce is quite poignant.

http://tinyurl.com/kpu5gam

The Scientific Method

Many folks attend universities, get degrees and assume that is the end of knowledge acquisition. Rarely do they think of how that body of knowledge they acquired came to be. Even more rarely do they apply the principles used to consolidate that knowledge to their own thought processes. 

This is equally true of those that study the sciences or the arts. This is equally true of folks who secure admissions to the much vaunted Ivy League universities or the less-hyped local universities.

That said, the scientific method has been the cornerstone of education for centuries now. It's application has produced most of the scholarly knowledge we have today. It is based on open, rational, logical thought that analyses a subject from all currently possible angles, postulates hypotheses and tests those hypotheses through experimentation and other methods. The whole process fosters objectivity (a willingness to view a subject without preconceived notions about it) over ideology (where a "researcher" comes to a conclusion and then gathers "evidence" to prove his or her point) And above all, the process requires research to be repeatable (ie. able to be performed by others and come to similar conclusions or refute the findings - the ability to refute the original researcher's findings being central to the theme of objectivity). And the beauty of the whole process is that scholarly publications of this nature are peer-reviewed for logical fallacies and errors.

The scientific method, however, does not preclude ideologues from finding their way into reputable institutions of learning as the following post demonstrates. Neither does it prevent shoddy work from emanating from such institutions. The post refers to a dissection of a Harvard PhD thesis. The following sentence, which I feel is one of its most poignant lines, encapsulates the scientific method:

"Remember that in good science, we work to prove our hypothesis WRONG, not to substantiate a pre-formed idea."

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/05/30/race-iq-immigration-harvard-thesis-richwine/

Violence against women and other minorities - how complicit are we, as a society?

In the wake of all the violence against women that has come to light in India in the past few weeks and months, there has been an uproar about not bringing the perpetrators to justice, a lot of hand-wringing about what can be done about theissue and what can be done to prevent such incidents from happening in the future, etc. However, most of the talk revolved around having harsher laws enacted, stiffer punishments being handed out and the like, ie. letting government handle the issue.

It is as if nobody feels they are to blame for these problems simply because they were not the perpetrators of the crime. No one has talked about (and it seems like nobody wants to talk about) what can be done at a personal level (so much for all that personal responsibility spiel!!!). After all, when we as a society think it is fine to demean, ridicule and make fun of the weak, and don't think twice about such things as they happen around us (or worse think it is all part of machismo), then we are as much a part of the problem as the perpetrators of the actual crime. It isn't just enough to display public outrage when graphic details of the crime appear on the news, in print or images or video streams.

We (especially men, and I've seen it among women in many communities too - you know, comments like, "Oh! that's fine he's a boy!! Boys do such things all the time", when a boy annoys or hurts his sister) think it is somehow okay to make fun of women, gay people, or other people who are perceived as somehow being inferior. We (at least most of us) don't speak up when such minor but crass incidents happen; we even join in the fun and laugh along, when we should be stopping such behaviour right there, nipping it in the bud.

While I can understand that these behaviours are ingrained in us and in society over the course of centuries, we can all make a conscious effort to change, and to accept that we have done something incredibly stupid or wrong when we unconsciously do it and it is pointed out to us. And over a course of time, our perceptions and that of society will all change for the better.

In that vein the following video, shared by a friend, highlights some of these issues I just talked of and more; and more importantly, it points out that such behaviour by dominant groups within society, more often than not, transcends geographical boundaries. It also prescribes a simple solution to such problems, part of which includes changing the perspective of the narrative and rightfully assigning responsibility to perpetrators and also small but important things we (everyone of us) can do on a daily basis that can change the outlook of society towards the problem and lead to the betterment of mankind in the long run. (That's assuming we as a race still exist on this planet. Haha!! That's me being cynical in the wake of the wildly varying climate changes we've been observing in recent months and the resultant climatic violence around the world including here in the US)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8

www.upworthy.com

Violence and Silence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8

We get the governments we truly deserve

We all love yelling and screaming at our political system, politicians, the government and all that appears to be failing around us. And yet, the truth is that we are responsible for the failures around us. We get the government we truly deserve.


When we never step up and voice our dissent when the SEC or the FTC chooses ignore anti-trust laws, when we choose to ignore when the FDA decides to approve chemicals for consumption that have warnings written all over them, when we choose not to punish politicians who have successively voted to destroy or water down our rights, we are part of the problem.


When we stop taking an interest in our democracy, in understanding what made this nation work, in understanding the part played by special interests in government, in the mechanisms at work that dismantle regulations put in place to protect people or the environment (usually in the name of some free market ideology), then we should not be surprised at the outcome - which I usually describe as a regression into Third Worldliness (those of us who come from the Third World easily see and understand the patterns from back home).


Reagan and his successors very much decimated much of the protections that Wilson and FDR put in place in and around the build up to and after the Great Depression. (While the links in the previous sentence to Wikipedia do not necessarily replace a reading of history, they do provide an overview of the events of the period).  Clinton, in particular, can take the blame for today's mess in the financial markets for having repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented conventional banks (that are involved in the sound, low-risk business of lending money to people) from merging with investment banks (that are involved in the highly risky business of speculation in the markets).

The truth of the matter is that media plays a huge role in shaping our thoughts as well as directing the course and content of discussions around the country. And as long as we have a vibrant and diverse media that discusses a wide array of issues, we can be sure that the national discourse will also follow suit.

However, in this day and age of free markets and corporate takeovers and the race by media companies to fulfill Wall Street's expectations, coupled with the bypassing/dismantling of regulations meant to prevent the creation of monopolies, we have come to a state where a handful (around 6 as of this writing) major corporations that control almost all media consumed by this nation. The link below provides a pretty graphic depiction of what has happened to the media since '83. This is the direct result of the neoliberal (or as we call it here, neo-conservative) policies espoused by Reagan who is, to this day, held in great esteem by conservatives and was, till recently, by many progressives and who was largely influenced by the writings and ideas of Milton Friedman. And the continuation and radical expansion of those ideas and policies by conservative and "liberal" or "left-wing" (the quotes are deliberate because neither of the two politicians I mention is liberal nor left-wing) politicians like Clinton and Obama that followed did nothing to help matters.

At every stage of the dismantling of this country, the citizens had opportunities to actually try and understand what was happening and stop it. But who the hell cared, as long as we got our daily fix of instant gratification in the form of any nonsense that prime-time TV could throw at us?


And now every one is pissed at the state of affairs? Really??!!!

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

Copenhagen Sham

This is just me expressing my disgust at the leaders of the Western world and hence a repost of an  opinion from the president of Friends of Earth U.S.

Source: http://www.foe.org/friends-earth-us-reaction-sham-deal-requires-nothing-accomplishes-nothing

Friends of the Earth U.S. Reaction: Sham Deal Requires Nothing, Accomplishes Nothing

"Climate negotiations in Copenhagen have yielded a sham agreement with no real requirements for any countries. This is not a strong deal or a just one -- it isn't even a real one. It's just repackaging old positions and pretending they're new. The actions it suggests for the rich countries that caused the climate crisis are extraordinarily inadequate. This is a disastrous outcome for people around the world who face increasingly dire impacts from a destabilizing climate.

"The blame for the failure to achieve a real deal lies squarely on the rich countries whose pollution has caused the climate crisis -- especially the United States. Rich countries refused to budge from the grossly inadequate emissions reduction proposals they brought to Copenhagen, and they failed to put sufficient money on the table so that poor countries that did not cause this crisis have the capacity to cope with it.

"With the future of all humans on this planet at stake, rich countries must muster far more political will than they exhibited here. If they do not, small island states will become submerged, people in vulnerable communities across the globe will be afflicted with hunger and disease, and wars over access to food and water will rage.

"The devastation will extend to those of us who live in wealthy countries. If we cannot find a way to cooperate with others to produce a real agreement to solve this problem, climate change impacts will devastate the U.S. economy, undermine our security, and inflict irreparable harm on future generations.

"The failure to produce anything meaningful in Copenhagen must serve as a wake up call to all who care about the future. It is a call to action. Corporate polluters and other special interests have such overwhelming influence that rich country governments are willing to agree only to fig leaf solutions. This is unacceptable, and it must change.

"Fortunately, while the cost of solving the climate crisis rises each day we fail to act, the crisis remains one that can largely be averted. It is up to the citizens of the world -- especially citizens of the United States, which has so impeded progress -- to mobilize and ensure that true solutions carry the day. I firmly believe that together, we can still achieve a politics in which climate justice prevails."

The Obama Healthcare Bill and Women's Healthcare coverage.

The Obama Healthcare bill as it stands now is a bum deal for women.

The watering down of women's healthcare - Mikulski amendment won't be discussed on the floor. (http://bit.ly/56Murn)

The Mikulski Amendment is designed to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage quoting current guidelines for procedures like routine mammograms which were recently modified to start only at age 50 and to happen biennially instead of annually, especially if a specialist recommends the patient have one.  The Mikulski Amendment: (http://bit.ly/4CPg2G)

The other thing is abortion coverage.  The Stupak-Pitts Amendment that made it possible to pass the Bill through the House and had similar language added on in the Senate version prohibits insurance companies from offering plans on the exchange with abortion coverage to anyone that receives governmental aid.  An NY Times Op-Ed on this issue: http://bit.ly/iw0WS

The problem, as I see it and perhaps my physician friends can clarify, is that the procedure that removes a foetus is termed a D&C (Dilation and Curettage).  This same procedure removes a foetus in an unwanted pregnancy or removes the remains of a miscarriage or foetal demise.  It is also the same procedure that is used to remove intra-uterine polyps.  The medical term for all these procedures, irrespective of the pathology, is the same.  And since the language of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is so broad and vague, it is highly likely (extremely likely, I would argue given past history) that insurance companies will use its language to deny women coverage.

All this because the Catholic Church and a bunch of religious fanatics are worried about the life of an unborn child to the point where they don't care about the lives of the living that can and will be jeopardised by not having access to this procedure.

If Obama really means what he says when he says that people who like their current medical coverage can keep it, then he needs to do real work on modifying this Bill as it progresses through the debating process.  If even the larger companies that currently offer such coverage to their employees were to decide to let its employees purchase insurance from the exchange, then it is very likely that many, many more women stand to lose abortion coverage, in the unlikely event of their ever needing it.

I love the slogan of one of the women's healthcare advocates: "Being a woman is not a pre-existing condition!".