original article: https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/the-shock-doctrine-in-ukra...

 

Naomi Klein, in her book, The Shock Doctrine, told how the global banking system took advantage of crises, and sometimes created crises, in order to force national leaders to accept policies against their will.   This seems to be what is going on in Ukraine.

Ukraine has beem in gave financial difficulties.  Last fall the International Monetary Fund offered Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich a bailout, under conditions that reportedly included a doubling of prices for gas and electricity to industry and homes, the lifting of a ban on private sale of Ukraine’s rich agricultural lands, a sale of state assets, a devaluation of the currency and cuts in funding for schools and pensions to balance the budget.  In return, Ukraine would have got a $4 billion loan, a small fraction of what was needed.

Then the Russian Federation offered a $15 billion loan and a 30 percent cut in gas export prices.  Naturally Prime Minister Yanukovich accepted.  Then all hell broke loose.

A mysterious sniper killed peaceful demonstrators in Maidan square in Kiev and, as has happened with mysterious sniper attacks in Venezuela, Thailand and other countries, the killings sparked a violent uprising.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said in a leaked telephone conversation with the Ukraine ambassador that “we” want the former banker, Arseny Yatsenyuk, installed at Yanukovich’s replacement, rather than some more popular politician.  And that’s what happened.

Yatsenyuk said he will do whatever it takes to get IMF financing, even though this probably will make him the most unpopular prime minister in Ukraine history.  He in fact has little choice.  The Russian offer has understandably been withdrawn, and Ukraine is in a much more desperate plight than it was six months ago.

Elections are scheduled for May, but that’s plenty of time for Ukraine to be locked into binding commitments to the IMF.

Ukraine is a country rich in natural resources but poor in money — an inviting target for financial speculators.   Based on what has happened in other countries in like situations, I look for Ukraine’s resources and assets to be sold off at bargain prices.

I don’t see what business a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State has trying to name the head of a foreign government, or how this in any way benefits the American people.  It seems to be an example of the workings of Wall Street as a component of Michael Lofgren’s deep state.

LINKS

The shock doctrine

Washington’s Man Yatsenyuk Setting Ukraine Up for Ruin by Kenneth Rapoza for Forbes.

The Rape of Ukraine: Phase Two Begins by F. William Engdahl for World News Daily Information Clearing House.

 

Former Ukrainian Minister of Economy Says Aid for Ukraine “Will Be Stolen” by Wolf Richter.

Ukraine Premier States ‘Kamikazi’ Mission As Crimea Erupts by Bloomberg News.

The mysterious snipers

Snipers Are Commonly Used As “False Flag” Terrorists by Washington’s Blog.

Ukraine: Ashton Phonecall on Maidan Snipers by Moon of Alabama.

Everyone Agrees Sniper Attack Was False Flag Operation by Washington’s Blog. [added 3/15/14}

Ukraine's right wingers

Who Are the Protesters in Ukraine? by political scientists Keith Darden and Lucan Way. [Added 3/15/14]

Front and Center in Ukraine Race, a Leader of the Far Right by Andrew Kramer for the New York Times.  [added 3/15/14]

After Ukraine protest, radical group eyes power by Maria Danilova for the Associated Press. [added 3/15/14]

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I think governments should repay their debts, just as individuals do, and I think the Ukraine needs to get its house in order.  But I don’t think debt repayment is the supreme obligation that supersedes all other obligations.

I think two parties are responsible for an un-repayable loan, the borrower and the lender, and the consequences of the bad decision should fall on both.  I think borrowers are morally obligated to make a good-faith effort to pay back loans, but that obligation falls short of selling themselves and their dependents into the equivalence of indentured servitude.

When a government is in the position of Ukraine or Greece, it should be able to freeze its debts and pay off the principal, rather than trying to keep up with compound interest by reducing its population to misery and selling off national assets to speculators at bargain prices.

I recognize that there are other political issues in Ukraine besides foreign debt, including governmental corruption, ethnic divisions and relations with the Russian Federation and European Union, and I don’t claim to understand them all.  And I think these other issues might have been worked out by the Ukrainian people if let alone to decide for themselves.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for New York governor, addressed a crowd at the Flying Squirrel Community Space on April 10. Topics included environmental and energy issues, education, labor, minimum wage and health care.

“The current program of public austerity and tax cuts for the wealthy is not working.” Since 1994, New York has given over $7 billion to selected companies. Those companies have cut 175,000 jobs. Some of those jobs have been moved to nearby Ontario, Canada because it is less expensive for employers to pay their slightly higher taxes than to pay for private insurance in New York.

The party supports single-payer health care, progressive taxation, a tax on financial transactions, and renewable energy including a ban on fracking.

original article: http://queerfamilymatters.com/2013/12/02/no-more-hating-yourself-body-lo...

This post is by K.

People, let’s be frank. We all have complicated relationships with our bodies. Oh, yeah, we do. This couldn’t be more true for W and me. We have both struggled with body image for…most of our lives. We are both fat people. We both have been fat for most of our lives, except for little periods of time when we dieted heavily or were really stressed out and unhealthy. I can only imagine I’ll have even more feelings about my body after pregnancy (assuming our plans go off as we hope).

(EDIT: I have personally gone back and forth between what is considered “average size” and plus size, but I have felt  fat my whole life and I’ve been “overweight” compared to the little doctors’ charts my whole life. It is only recently that I’ve claimed fat as a positive and affirming identity, but I’ve benefited from average size privilege in the past, even if I had crappy self-esteem. There are people that have suffered much harsher and crueler fatphobia than me and I totally get that.)

As an adult, I have made it my goal to love my bod the way it is, to really love myself, not in spite of my size, but inclusive of my size. I have stopped saying things like, “Oh, I’m so fat,” or “Dude, I really need to lose 10 pounds,” to myself. I’ve stopped saying things like, “Wow, have you lost weight?” and “You’re so skinny!” to other people. I tell myself that I look fabulous. I look at my body with and without clothes on and think positive things about myself. I buy clothes that look and feel great. When something doesn’t fit my body, I blame the garment, not my body. I accept that my body is changing as I get older and I try to beat those negative messages out of my head when they pop up. They do pop up. Of course they do. I’ve spent a quarter of a century learning the negative messages, crying over bathing suit shopping, telling myself that I’d be more attractive/desirable/healthy if I was  #   pounds lighter. And I’ve just spent the past few years unlearning it all.

It’s not easy to embrace size acceptance, fat-positivity, body love, whatever you want to call it. We don’t see much body diversity in the media. We see a LOT of negative messages about our bodies all over the place. For those of us female assigned at birth and raised as girls, we know this experience well. We probably saw women in our life model this self-loathing behavior. For those who grew up to be pre-teen and teen girls, we internalized this message hard. By the time we were hitting puberty, we knew to be ashamed of and angry at our bodies, to be jealous of stereotypically hot girls, to always be on a diet, to hate ourselves.

For those who grew up to be pre-teen or teen boys or who did not identify strongly as female or who were gender non-conforming or just didn’t feel comfortable for whatever reason, this body hate was likely even more intense and confusing. And the reaction may have been to hide under baggy clothes, to be jealous of girls who were able to better fit in, or be jealous of stereotypically hot cisgender guys, to always be obsessing about covering up our bodies, to hate ourselves.

For those who were male assigned at birth and raised as boys, you picked up on some of this, too. Body image issues disproportionately affect young women, but they affect men, too. Especially queer, bi, or gay men. According to a 2007 International Journal of Eating Disorders study, more than 15% of gay and bi men at some time suffered anorexia,  bulimia or binge-eating disorder, or at least certain symptoms of those disorders, compared with less than 5% of heterosexual men.

So regardless of gender, many people can relate to this feeling of self-loathing, of actively hating your body.

Of course, now that we can look back on our youth with clearer vision, we realize that everyone hated themselves, including the stereotypically hot guys and girls, the popular ones. This stuff runs deep and it is toxic.

These are the reasons I never wanted to have a kid. I don’t want to expose a lovely innocent little kid to this world that is so full of negative messages and bad stuff. There’s so much bad stuff out there. I’d rather spend my time fighting it.

According to a 2011 national study, the median age of onset for eating disorder diagnoses is 12- to 13-years old. The majority  of adolescents with eating disorders express significant impairment (inability to cope) and a higher risk of suicide. By age 6, girls start to express concerns about their own weight or shape. 40-60% of elementary school girls, ages 6-12, are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat.

Need more proof? Here’s some stats from the National Eating Disorders Association. Be aware that eating disorders have been on the rise every decade since the 1950′s, so some of these older statistics are possibly even higher today.

• 42% of 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner (1991).
• In elementary school fewer than 25% of girls diet regularly. Yet those who do know what dieting involves and can talk about calorie restriction and food choices for weight loss fairly effectively (2011; 2009).
• 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of being fat (1991).
• 46% of 9-11 year-olds are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets, and 82% of their families are “sometimes” or “very often” on diets (1992).
• Over one-half of teenage girls and nearly one-third of teenage boys use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives (2005).

What can parents and/or caregivers do to combat that?! To balance it out? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers! Part of the reason I never saw myself with kids is that I want a better world for a future kid. Even though I’ve decided to become a parent, I still feel deeply that we need to do better.

I will continue to fight for better and more diverse representation of bodies in the media, for better info about the link between weight and health (which is greatly exaggerated), and for more inclusivity everywhere. But it won’t be enough. There will still be magazines and t.v. and peers and THE REST OF THE WORLD to tell my future kid that they are not pretty enough or good enough.

I know one thing I can do. It is simple, but it’s kind of really really really hard, too. I do not want my future kid to hear negative messages about fat, size, bodies, in our house. I want to model positive attitudes towards bodies, especially as a fat person. Future kid will get plenty of negative messages from everywhere else in the world. I can’t do much, but I can give them another perspective, genuine positive reinforcement, and maybe a little emotional armor. So that means I won’t complain about my pant size or weight in front of my kid (or ever). I will compliment myself and my partner as much as I compliment my kid. I will wear things that make me feel great. I will speak positively about other people’s bodies and looks. I won’t comment on other people’s weight. I will encourage healthy habits, but I won’t focus on diet or weight. I won’t starve myself or deny myself dessert and I won’t talk about “good food” and “bad food.” I will probably mess this up sometimes. It’s easy to say now, but may be harder to do than I think with a real, live kid in front of me and a post-pregnancy body. But I’m really going to try. And I’m going to keep practicing being kind and loving to myself in the meantime.

I just don’t think you can tell a kid that they are beautiful just the way they are, then go on to say how much you hate your thighs and think that they aren’t going to pick up on it. I picked up on it as a kid. Future kid will, too. It’s not enough to say the rights things to our kid. We have to say the right things to ourselves, too, or this cycle of self-hate and body-shame will never change.

In 1956,  Ellery Schempp at 16 years of age staged a protest against his high school's requirement that each student read Bible passages and recite Lord's Prayer each day during homeroom. To protest Ellery brought a copy of the Qur'an, even though he did not identify as Muslim, and read from that. He was the primary student involved in the landmark 1963 United States Supreme Court case of Abington School District v. Schempp which declared that required public-school-sanctioned Bible readings were unconstitutional.

Dr. Schempp, a physicist, spoke in Rochester, NY about the SCOTUS case he and his family were litigants in and the important issue of separation of church and state.