Become a doctor because you want to help people be healthier and you’ll discover that being a doctor is not what is portrayed in movies and shows. You will find yourself a pimp peddling for the pharmaceutical companies enslaved to debt and overhead without the time to really learn how the diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe.
You are 100% correct. I’ve been a nurse for decades and have seen doctors being completely controlled by hospital administrators, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies pressuring them into submission. If COVID taught us nothing, it’s how powerless the medical field is to control patient care. It’s true, too many doctors silently went along to hang on to their careers but I saw too, how isolated and vulnerable individuals are against this machine.
A deliberate campaign to eliminate private practice was set into motion in the 1960's, to make it increasingly more expensive and impractical to run a small private practice. When all doctors are working exclusively in hospitals and large institutions they are beholden to managers and administrators, obediant and compliant, no opportunity to deviate from the status quo. This was planned long ago.
My brother was an internal medicine MD, now retired, and saved the lives of countless patients, I believe in part due to his sixth sense. He still runs into former patients who tell him, Doc, I cannot find another doctor who comes close to you. I’m saying that not all doctors should be painted with the same broad brush, but I’m afraid the era of my brother’s practice has ended.
" learn how the diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe" ... Just three clear examples, backed by peer-backed logic and scientific multi-patient national or international evidence, please!
There's an even broader class of iatrogenic illness (induced unintentionally by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures) that we like to ignore but that responsible microbiologists have been trumpeting caution about for around 60 years with lots of deafness by for-profit hospitals and that's HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED INFECTIONS like MRSA. In other words, as a physician, prescribing admission to a hospital where antibiotics were/are over-prescribed falls under the rubric of a prescribed therapy causing illness, often death. In 1985/86, I showed my freshman university biology students a video by an Australian microbiologist who described how the excessive use of antibiotics led to patients breathing out antibiotic dust which could be found on surfaces like windowsills and which selected for survival of the hardiest resistant bacteria (MRSA) making the hospital a hellhole of a place to go to die from bacterial sepsis un-treatable by any of the standard antibiotics of the era, except vancomycin, a drug with extreme kidney toxicity. Took another 15-20 years before the alarm reached the ears of hospital greedocracy, and the problem has still not been entirely dealt with to this day. Physicians still grotesquely over-prescribe antibiotics in hospital settings
During the 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan Iran was awash in cheap opium. I tried to get 4 day laborers for a job, 2 were addicts - and I tried hard to find clean ones. The Taliban took over and opium vanished.
I am one of those who took a low dose of Norco RESPONSIBLY. I am in constant pain due to having lived a very physical life. When it came down to having to pee in a cup to prove that I was taking it and not selling it, I quit, plus I believe it looked bad for my doctor prescribing it to me.
So now I take 4000 mg of acetaminophen daily, which will eventually damage my liver. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Hey gypsy. I get it. I spent years on methadone for severe chronic occipital/ left shoulder pain/spasms secondary to a stroke (central pain or "Thalamic Syndrome"). Hated the GI side effects (methadone better than oxycodone, a longer story), but it allowed me to go back to work and function cognitively as a writer. But after my state legalized medical cannabis and I retired, I started using it to control my pain/spasms and am still doing so. I function quite well as a writer, editor and musician/composer (one-handed). The irony is that I couldn't ditch the opioids until I retired because my employer was fine with them but cannabis was a no no.
I'd bet you must've tried, but it'd be better if you could cut the acetaminophen dose and substitute an NSAID like naproxen, unless they either don't work for you or destroy your stomach -- everyone's physiology reacts differently to these babies. As someone in chronic pain, I hate to hear that someone else has to deal with it too. Blessings.
Actually, State protected producers like Australia have a solid grip on pharmaceutical opiate supply. Tasmania is a major producer I recall. They firmly opposed Afghanistan's attempt to cut in on their monopoly on supplying big-pharma in the 2000's after the invasion - Afghan opium product is primarily sent illegally to countries like Russia and those 'adversaries' that the MIC seeks to socially undermine. (Trying to recall the name of the well-known neocon who boasted and celebrated the fact that so much Afghan heroin was being sent to Russia, but it eludes me at the moment)
Although, there are instances in which it may be true that “diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe,” this seems an overly broad condemnation, and as such does your argument a disservice. The issue is the subservience of the medical system to corporate profits, rather than healthy outcomes.
One can look at any number of diseases, injuries, and infections, that are not caused by treatments, such as malaria, tuberculosis, asthma, appendicitis, broken limbs, burn injuries, and sepsis during childbirth. There are many others. It undermines positions to make overreaching statements that are clearly unsupported.
And for those in the USA who have dewy-eyed visions of the UK's NHS - you are out of date . It depends on money from drug companies which is also what patients want . Very little money/effort goes into prevention because no one can make lots of money out of it . Yes you can get vaccinations against 'flu, Covid etc . What you can't get is proper health education . As my mother's patients said "why should I bother with exercise and fresh food when I can always get medicine ?" .
I became an architect thinking I would help build housing for people. But then you realize you're working for bankers and developers, pumping up a speculative housing bubble in the service of reaping fees for developers, ladening people with debt, keeping neighborhoods segregated, and controlling in private hands the asset of land and housing.
I became an engineer thinking I would work on fascinating technology, only to find my career coraled into killing people for a living, whence I retired to the country and live minimally.
Become a teacher. I did frankly because I seemed to be good at it. But then I started seeing the "I'm understanding science" lights go on in their eyes. And ultimately, after a few years, I realized they'd open their ears to me about anything -- like how we were screwing the biosphere; all over the world. And I was a pariah among my peers but it didn't matter. No longer doing that, I feel deprived as hell, But that's what it's about. You have to make people believe you care about their minds before they'll listen.
You’re so right the modern society is built on lies. No one cares about the truth, or seeks out truth - probably a consequence of modernist thought which claims that no one’s truth is better than another’s.
So the result is just a world of lies and lies. And you’ve done a good job pointing out many I haven’t even thought of
Lying has become normalized. Truth is suspect. We are taught to hate the other. We are under pervasive surveillance. Speaking truth to power may earn one a terrorist classification.
This is why so many are needlessly stuck on psychotropic meds to deal with anxiety and depression: "A huge amount of the anxiety and depression your clients bring you cannot be resolved in therapy because they arise from the poverty, toil and lack of support which is built into the abusive and exploitative society in which we live."
It's one reason I like working in 12 Step groups and staying away from the pill pushing doctors. Medicating people into "feeling better" about their life in this sick and twisted society isn't helping them or society. It's making more unhappy and unwell people. We need to acknowledge that it's the system that is sick, and that our reactions to it are normal and to be expected and that we can help each other deal with it and make things better. Thanks for pointing this out, Caitlin!
I asked my doctor for help with depression, and he told me there was a two year waiting list to get onto the waiting list to see a psychologist. But as a 'favour', he sent me to a psychiatrist friend of his who had an hour spare soon.
Despite misgivings, I went. Towards the end, he said i could choose any pills I wanted, and he recommended something that would "Reduce the complexities". I was incredulous, and enraged. I pointed out to him that intelligence is literally the ability to spot patterns, which he shifted nervously about and agreed. And then I pointed that therefore he was offering me a pill to be STUPID. He was not at all happy about this insight, and we ended on pretty bad terms. But he paid me back: he wrote a REALLY nasty report that went into my permanent medical records - DESPITE my demanding of my doctor it be removed, he point blank refused.
That'll teach me to go meet with pill-pushing dealers who hand out drugs they refuse to take themselves. Good people these most certainly are not. I guess he got a free golfing holiday if he pushed enough of them out.
Thanks for the warning. If the doctor doesn't like you they can blemish your record. Fortunately, I've been anti-doctor my whole adult life and have no medical records of any kind.
I wish I could say the same but at 72 years old I have been put in the position of needing surgery on a very nasty double hernia. In the last few months they have acquired more information on me than they acquired in the previous 54 years. It is upsetting but I have no choice if I want to continue my independent back country lifestyle.
Israeli intelligence monitors all American and British healthcare data. Do what you have to and then keep away. Most doctors do not understand medicine or healing. And their diagnostic skills are pretty bad. Be careful. Doctors are taught to dispense drugs.
Been there done that. Almost Died. Living in retirement. Loving God and enjoining good ethical business and people brave enough to show goodness mercy and compassion. We who love God and fellowship are among you. Try smiling first.
How dare you speak your mind! Affronting those in the know.
Take the pill prescription, pick them up - but dont take them. Medical report evaluations are done looking at what you have been prescribed and are taking (in general, except maybe a very caring primary care physician, or specialist, no one is interested about your "progress") - which in turn may give you the financial benefit, from the powers in charge, that you want.
If you realize how much pharma reps are making per year, compared to ie individuals working in non-medical R&D, or as an engineer, it makes your head spin....
The USA is the Wild West for the pharma industry, in the true sense of the meaning.
And you first have to become seriously sick, before the doctor is able to prescribe the medication that would have prevented that sickness.
You might be interested in the book "A Profession Without Reason", by Bruce Levine. A critique of contemporary psychiatry partly based on the philosophy of Spinoza. And from my neurobiological perspective, the brain is a far too complex adaptive system for them to really understand what those single or dual-pathway biochemistry-altering drugs are doing -- what their consequences really are in the brains of individual patients whose life experiences are reflected in nuances in those brain pathways..
Psychiatry is a quack 'profession'; from beginning to end. I'd advise nobody to have any dealings with them.
They are using their "patients" as pure, unpaid guinea pigs, and wash their hands when it inevitably goes wrong. Frankly, street-dealers usually have more credibility and honesty. I know which of two *I'd* be locking up.
Yeah that's him. Bruce is down on antidepressants and positively hostile to antipsychotics, and of course I agree with him; they're neuronal poisons. The book came out in '22 but I somehow stumbled on it a few months ago. It's thick with Spinoza in places, but his head is definitely in the right place with respect to the voodoo, or quack, if you prefer.
You're only a bit more hostile toward the entire psych entrerprise than me, I'm more globally hostile toward pharma on all drug pushing fronts, like this latest craze to get people to shut down their freaking gut motility - Ozempic et al. This shit is a violation of human physiology and should be against the law.
We must have nothing to do with their systems. When we make that decision, we will find other systems or start them ourselves. Good doctors are laving orthodox medicine now and starting private member associations to take patients.
That's why one must never bring up any mental issues with "doctors". You'll be steered towards pills or made a note of in your record. Deal with issues yourself. If you get to the point when you can't handle them it's the others who will deliver you to the doctor and at that point indeed you'll need help and you won't care.
Use it as awake up call to pull yourself out of your depression. Focus on the realization that these people are pure greedy evil actors. Use your anger to find your inner strength. You don't need drugs and Quacks to tell you what is wrong with you. Look inside to what you know is right with you and you will be alright. Less delicately put Screw them. They are all part of the fearmongering cartel that is big pharma.
I have suffered from clinical depression since childhood. It had nothing to do with poverty or abuse. I grew up solidly middle class with a particularly loving father.
I have three suicide attempts under my belt.
I suffered anorexia as a teenager.
When I developed full blown OCD in my late 20’s, it was time for professional help. For anyone who has not experienced this, I assure you it is HELL ON EARTH. A wonderful psychiatrist literally saved my life with the correct antidepressant.
I have since had to switch because after 20 years the original one stopped working. Now I have another wonderful psychiatrist who got me on a different one that works well for me.
Nothing makes me angrier than people who describe antidepressants as a “feel-good” drug. It is a CORRECTIVE drug, and no different than diabetics who take insulin.
I'm glad you found a wonderful doctor to help you, Gypsy. I'm not against medicines per se for folks with depression, but I am against the over-prescribing of meds for those who might not actually need them, and can start feeling better through talk therapy alone. But I worked in a psych ward at a VA hospital, and I know that some of the guys wouldn't have made it through their rehab without the help of anti-depressants or other meds to treat their condition. There is no "one size fits all solution" to any problem a person might have. We need a universal health care system in the US that will provide both talk therapies and meds when folks need them and without putting people into bankruptcy trying to pay for them!
Well, some things we can pin down. You were unhappy, for one. Serotonin made you happier, for another. (Hardly a surprise to any clubbers from the 90s).
Presumably, there was one or several causes for your unhappiness. Also presumably, you never saw a psychologist to dig deep to find that - you were happy with the band-aid of the chemical stimulant, it ticked your boxes, and you felt better. Sure, it didn't CURE you, but at least you're still alive.
Now, you would be a remarkable person indeed if you'd never had previous experiences that made you unhappy, and you don't like thinking of them. The same goes for my Danish friend.
I'm not opposed, and neither is the critical scientist above, to short-term remedies as interventions. But when they become life-long, there starts to be a problem. Your brain adapts, you see. And that is something you REALLY don't want to happen. Addictions are nasty, whether the drugs are illegal or legal. But you're OK with that, it seems.
What stuns me is that you ignore the vast quantity of data that overwhelmingly points to these dangerous drugs being misusued, and countless millions severely harmed by them. Are YOU the only person that matters? I don't believe you think that - although the drugs themselves do tend to boost the ego, despite the best efforts of the underlying person. They reduce empathy - and empathy is usually, but not always, where the psychological trouble began.
I would strongly advise to find a therapist who is able to unpick your life BEFORE you started on the drug treatment, although in all truth the changes from long-term addiction will always leave their imprint.
If you are at all like my friend, you won't even have read this far, and all you will be seeing is bright red rage.
Druggies are impossible to argue with, same as alcoholics. To compare antidepressants with insulin is preposterous. Like comparing nicotine with marijuana.
The main question is - does the drug alter your mind? Does it affect (correct/heal in equivocal manipulative language) your personality? If yes, you should recognize you're under the influence, you're not yourself, you're DUI, DWI (replace the D with appropriate action).
Everybody suffers from some mental conditions at one point or another, or constantly to a certain degree. EVERYBODY. The fact some are weaker than others is just that - they are weaker mentally. But then it's true about physical characteristics. Only imbeciles start pumping themselves with steroids to try to match somebody who naturally is stronger. The normies take their condition and adapt it to their lives.
Anyway, I don't mean to fix or correct anybody. Just saying my piece.
Actually, nicotine and MJ do have similar psychotropic effects, albeit one is considerably weaker.
Did you when Raleigh met the Amerindians, the locals had two variants? One, tobacco rusticus, had a stronger psychedelic effect, and low addictiveness. the other, far less commonly smoked for obvious reasons, had lower psychedelic effect but considerably higher addictiveness?
Take one guess which one the English ruling classes brought back for sale.
But a simple test of this is to grab a vape, and high - 18 or 24+ strength liquid, and take some really big lungfuls. You'll be tripping, and not in a nice way.
ALL drugs affect personality, as your personality also includes your physical state.
"Everybody suffers from some mental conditions at one point or another, or constantly to a certain degree. EVERYBODY."
Yes.
"The fact some are weaker than others is just that - they are weaker mentally."
Define "weaker"? Some may be more vulnerable to some experiences, and yet will brush other experiences of with a shrug, that would destroy a person barely affected by the former. People can have weak moments, when something they would normally shrug off hurts them greatly. And vice versa.
Everyone can be helped through those experiences, so they become integrated, dealt with, and the individual becomes stronger.
An alcoholic from childhood abuse may be the bravest person in a crowd in certain situations.
It really doesn't help to see some as 'weaker', and some as 'stronger'. those are far too rigid definitions. Especially where chemicals are concerned.
Physically, it may be simpler, but even there, in moments of stress I've seen physically weak people do extraordinary things, and physically strong people back off and hide.
Human beings are extraordinarily complex creatures, not to be shoved into boxes.
Everyone would benefit from meditation, just as they would daily physical exercises. A muscle trained is a stronger muscle.
Drugs can be a useful tool in many psychological areas, microdosing shrooms has shown to reduce depression in EVERYONE, with little to no side-effects.
As Terrance McKenna argued, we evolved alongside psychedelic drugs, they are a part of our heritage. We may not even be sane without them. Needless to say, misuse can push us in the opposite direction too.
"nicotine and MJ do have similar psychotropic effects" - have you heard of a cop writing a ticket to somebody for having smoked too many cigarettes?
Of course nicotine has an effect. It's stimulating, clarifying, whatever. But it doesn't impair you or change your personality. You still are who you are.
"Define "weaker"" - in terms of how people overcome those moments.
And once again - I do not slight people for being weak, everyone is at some points to some degree. I am though for people to be honest about it and not make excuses for submitting to drugs and claiming it's normal. It's not. If you can't handle yourself without drugs or alcohol - fine, but admit it. That's all.
I can assure you that tobacco changes your personality. It may not impair certain abilities - such as driving - as much as say LSD, or whiskey, nonetheless a smoker - ie, an addict - has a marked change in personality from the drug.
The same is also true of coffee, and to a lesser extent tea. There are some people who should not be behind a wheel after drinking coffee - or on withdrawal from coffee.
The only difference really is that these are 'socially acceptable' drugs, not that they do not have significant changes to mood and behaviour.
In places where pot has been socially acceptable also for generations, people would look at you for being weird for claiming it was dangerous, or harmful, in moderate doses. Ever talked to a hardcore Muslim about alcohol, and heard how deranged they are about even one mouthful of beer? Well, that's how it'd comes across in those societies.
I don't think societies should be limiting people's choices, certainly not through coercion and threats of extreme violence, such as "Imprisonment"; at the same time, I agree that individuals must also take the full consequences of their actions, and not try to claim "The drug made me do it". No, that's BS. I've been drunk many, many times, but I've never even remotely tried to rape someone. That's not the alcohol, that's YOU, buddy.
But this distinction between 'drugs', and 'drug-free' is largely false. Historically, it comes down to whether the item could be controlled and taxed by and for elites. When you look at it biochemically, you find it gets a great deal more complicated. Look up the effects of processed sugar on the nervous system, fx. If you think that's funny, try giving up ALL products with sugar in for 3 months. You'll find all the symptoms of drug addiction as you go through that, if you know what they are.
"Just one little bit won't hurt..." - just as any old heroin addict who can't quit.
Obviously, these 'natural' - or more natural - drugs are not in the same league as the manufactured utterly synthetics of Big Harma. Opium is a millionth less harmful and addictive than the Big Harma synthetic opioids. Even so, opium destroyed an entire civilisation under British gunboats to force entry.
People have been killed due to caffeine withdrawal. And nicotine withdrawal. Especially nicotine withdrawal.
Ultimately, "You are what you eat", or more generally, imbibe. It ALL affects your mood, behaviour, psychology, consciousness. I cut out meat for two years in my late 20s - I was a different person in important respects.
What I'm getting at here, badly, and longwindedly, is that generally the distinction of "drugs" is entirely synthetic itself. It is socially subjective - to some extent.
Every single person on this planet, is addicted to SOMETHING. Be it meat, sugar, salt, heroin, dope, alcohol, tobacco, or their phones (But that's another topic).
Pointing fingers of superiority at others is ignoring our own problems, which we only admit in secret to ourselves in the dead of night.
We're all addicts. Every single one of us. Addiction is part of the Human Experience.
I'm cool with that, and maybe you are too.
But I'd like the pill-pushing "psychiatrists" to simply call themselves the more honest "Dealers".
Within a system that tightly controls everything the student does and brainwashes him into thinking that chasing good grades and test scores is the same thing as “learning?” A system built on the authoritarianism, exploitation and abuse Johnstone refers to in this piece? Yeah, right.
There used to be some loopholes where excellent teachers could teach fascinating things! But I'm 71 and this was during my childhood and youth. I don't think most teacher said that independence now.
They can if they want to be shown the door inside of a month, which I suspect would be a relief for any thinking person who went into teaching in a conventional school.
I was a teacher of chemistry. Did not get bothered by administrators on subject matter. I am sure
they knew next to nothing. But my time with students became less over the years because more time was needed for sports, and testing, and meetings. And I saw dumbing down and a push to give better grades for less work. I've been retired for almost 20 years but still miss my students and subject matter
Right, Caitlin. -- Focus, focus, focus. To cut to the chase, it must be acknowledged that the foremost global scofflaw, Colonial Zionism and its myriad minions, are demented-mania intent, via FOCUS, on maintaining their omnipresence and dominance. We dissenters must, in our own right of resistance against evil, focus-focus-FOCUS on tearing down and apart that Colonial Zionist malevolent frenzy...while maintaining our own sanity, humanity, and desire for the advancement of civilization for ALL. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! FOCUS!
They want us to intend tearing them down, because actually that gives them more power. It makes you part of their energy which is the energy of entropy or deconstruction. So you're actually adding to that energy, making them more powerful. The way to crack it is to put energy into building the new. They will wither away anyway and you would put yourself into the opposite energy, the energy of regeneration or creativity.
What is "the new"? -- your "energy of regeneration or creativity"? Sadly, that hasn't worked for the hapless Palestinians for 3/4s of a century plus. Their sumud, and their surely 95 percent rate of non-violent resistance over that span, amaze and awe me; I admit that if I were a 22 yo or so Palestinian Muslim male, I'd be a suicide bomber, taking out violently the *true terrorists* "on the ground," in a heartbeat.
There's a lot there to answer to - I'll give it a go. The Palestinian situation is everyone's responsibility. We humans are a weird lot, we can "live it up" while others of our species are tortured and in dire situations. That only gives fuel to psychopaths who know humans are like this. One day it will be our turn because psychopaths are never satiated. And to reiterate, wanting to blow people up, will not advance humanity in the least. It shows consent for violence. The way to deflect violence is to condemn it in peacetime and make the conditions (through social cultivation) unfavorable for so much as speaking in threats of violence. Violence must be condemned outright and that makes the conditions unfavorable for violence. What would replace it would be reason, communication, debate. All done with words. And no words should be censored, because all words can be debated. This perspective is the perspective of half the population - the feminine perspective - which doesn't get an airing and where most females are not even aware there is such a perspective (that's because we have all been trained by solely the man's perspective). That is a fact, it is not a bias. The way to solve that is for women to speak up and to be heard in as much a ratio as men are.
Nicely presented...Go, women! I'm an eight-year widower now 81 yo, dad of two daughters, 56 and 53...repeat: Go, women!--Speak up and be heard!
I'll take some issue here, based on my (male?) cup-half-empty dourness: "And to reiterate, wanting to blow people up, will not advance humanity in the least. It shows consent for violence." Doesn't it equally or better show righteous anger; a refusal to accept further endless humiliation; hopelessness; desperation...? (HDThoreau: "The mass of humanity live in quiet desperation." ... that desperation eventually erupts into disquiet-cum-payback violence...tragic but understandable and compelling, no?)
Yes indeed it can be that however it's indulgence in revenge and not thinking at all, because if you're going to kill because you're angry that someone killed, then it just keeps on perpetuating death. It's like a circular firing squad. We have to go beyond this barbarity. We need proper structures and principled behavior and practice them and teach it. We must discourage any going to war, and any execution. The enemy is death, entropy and the energies that use humans to do this. The opposite energy is reason, regeneration, solutions, negotiation. And we need to set up those structures as we are at the end of one era and the beginning of another. You sound like you are blissed with two daughters and they with a father who elevates women. So honor to you. You are a rare model of which boys and many men can look to as an alternative to the mainstream models. We will not be able to make it without women being heard - in equal proportions.
Please, please, please, Denise Ward: Start right now with the intention and passionate determination toward becoming elected in 2028 as our POTUS! I've been thinking of this a lot of late and will type here: How good/enlightened would it be for the POTUS to interact with her constituents by re-engaging FDR's weekly "fireside chats"?
Become the kind of lawyer who wrote the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts and who defends people who can’t afford a lawyer when they’re arrested or who defends those of us who commit civil disobedience. Don’t become a teacher; become a facilitator at a Sudbury school so you don’t have to spend your career drilling and killing and teaching kids that reading, math and history suck. Don’t become a child “protective” social worker because they don’t help abused kids; their job is to protect society from future “super predators.” Don’t become a doctor because they don’t make money unless you’re sick. Do become a journalist like Sy Hersh, Chris Hedges, and Glenn Greenwald.
The police are not there to serve you. The military is not your friend. The people who covered up Kennedy's death are not your friend. Science has been in the service of its master, capital. The people who killed Kennedy are not your friend. There is no small government conservative. There is no Constitutional Republic. There is no free market. The property of Congress should not be respected in any way. There is no Court that is Supreme. There is no rule of law. The Jews are killing Anne Frank out front. Human Rights are for suckers. Obama should've abandoned hope before he entered here. Wall Street is not the economy. Welcome to America. The show's about to begin. All that's left is entertainment.
All the jobs you mentioned are exactly as difficult as you say. But, I have still managed to meet some people who were able to transcend some of the worst aspects and hold people up just long enough to begin to move forward. I have been listening to this to help me get moving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI15W-BBhrw
Become a doctor because you want to help people be healthier and you’ll discover that being a doctor is not what is portrayed in movies and shows. You will find yourself a pimp peddling for the pharmaceutical companies enslaved to debt and overhead without the time to really learn how the diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe.
You are 100% correct. I’ve been a nurse for decades and have seen doctors being completely controlled by hospital administrators, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies pressuring them into submission. If COVID taught us nothing, it’s how powerless the medical field is to control patient care. It’s true, too many doctors silently went along to hang on to their careers but I saw too, how isolated and vulnerable individuals are against this machine.
A deliberate campaign to eliminate private practice was set into motion in the 1960's, to make it increasingly more expensive and impractical to run a small private practice. When all doctors are working exclusively in hospitals and large institutions they are beholden to managers and administrators, obediant and compliant, no opportunity to deviate from the status quo. This was planned long ago.
My brother was an internal medicine MD, now retired, and saved the lives of countless patients, I believe in part due to his sixth sense. He still runs into former patients who tell him, Doc, I cannot find another doctor who comes close to you. I’m saying that not all doctors should be painted with the same broad brush, but I’m afraid the era of my brother’s practice has ended.
" learn how the diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe" ... Just three clear examples, backed by peer-backed logic and scientific multi-patient national or international evidence, please!
Opioid crisis
Overprescription of statins.
That drug that killed the osteoclasts.
There's an even broader class of iatrogenic illness (induced unintentionally by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures) that we like to ignore but that responsible microbiologists have been trumpeting caution about for around 60 years with lots of deafness by for-profit hospitals and that's HOSPITAL-ACQUIRED INFECTIONS like MRSA. In other words, as a physician, prescribing admission to a hospital where antibiotics were/are over-prescribed falls under the rubric of a prescribed therapy causing illness, often death. In 1985/86, I showed my freshman university biology students a video by an Australian microbiologist who described how the excessive use of antibiotics led to patients breathing out antibiotic dust which could be found on surfaces like windowsills and which selected for survival of the hardiest resistant bacteria (MRSA) making the hospital a hellhole of a place to go to die from bacterial sepsis un-treatable by any of the standard antibiotics of the era, except vancomycin, a drug with extreme kidney toxicity. Took another 15-20 years before the alarm reached the ears of hospital greedocracy, and the problem has still not been entirely dealt with to this day. Physicians still grotesquely over-prescribe antibiotics in hospital settings
Yeah, drugs are a HUGE problem in America… the whole continent, really
Opioid crisis authorized by the FDA and supplied by the CIA that brought the ingredients in from Afghanistan. And given to you by your doctor.
I want to know where the fine money is going because I haven’t received a penny from the settlements. Sweet gig.
During the 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan Iran was awash in cheap opium. I tried to get 4 day laborers for a job, 2 were addicts - and I tried hard to find clean ones. The Taliban took over and opium vanished.
Hi Sam
I am one of those who took a low dose of Norco RESPONSIBLY. I am in constant pain due to having lived a very physical life. When it came down to having to pee in a cup to prove that I was taking it and not selling it, I quit, plus I believe it looked bad for my doctor prescribing it to me.
So now I take 4000 mg of acetaminophen daily, which will eventually damage my liver. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
Hey gypsy. I get it. I spent years on methadone for severe chronic occipital/ left shoulder pain/spasms secondary to a stroke (central pain or "Thalamic Syndrome"). Hated the GI side effects (methadone better than oxycodone, a longer story), but it allowed me to go back to work and function cognitively as a writer. But after my state legalized medical cannabis and I retired, I started using it to control my pain/spasms and am still doing so. I function quite well as a writer, editor and musician/composer (one-handed). The irony is that I couldn't ditch the opioids until I retired because my employer was fine with them but cannabis was a no no.
I'd bet you must've tried, but it'd be better if you could cut the acetaminophen dose and substitute an NSAID like naproxen, unless they either don't work for you or destroy your stomach -- everyone's physiology reacts differently to these babies. As someone in chronic pain, I hate to hear that someone else has to deal with it too. Blessings.
Actually, State protected producers like Australia have a solid grip on pharmaceutical opiate supply. Tasmania is a major producer I recall. They firmly opposed Afghanistan's attempt to cut in on their monopoly on supplying big-pharma in the 2000's after the invasion - Afghan opium product is primarily sent illegally to countries like Russia and those 'adversaries' that the MIC seeks to socially undermine. (Trying to recall the name of the well-known neocon who boasted and celebrated the fact that so much Afghan heroin was being sent to Russia, but it eludes me at the moment)
And which particularly evil osteoporosis drug was that - the one that killed the osteoclasts?
The COVID injections have killed and maimed millions throughout the world.
And most importantly are hunger, depression, and bankruptcy, as the result of the exorbitant costs of needed or prescribed care.
Generally still very incomparable with the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, Lebanon and some parts of the West Bank, though
Although, there are instances in which it may be true that “diseases you’re attempting to alleviate are actually caused by the therapies you prescribe,” this seems an overly broad condemnation, and as such does your argument a disservice. The issue is the subservience of the medical system to corporate profits, rather than healthy outcomes.
One can look at any number of diseases, injuries, and infections, that are not caused by treatments, such as malaria, tuberculosis, asthma, appendicitis, broken limbs, burn injuries, and sepsis during childbirth. There are many others. It undermines positions to make overreaching statements that are clearly unsupported.
Well said, Joy!
Last year my daughter broke her fibula and tibia simultaneously. Where would she have been without doctors?
And for those in the USA who have dewy-eyed visions of the UK's NHS - you are out of date . It depends on money from drug companies which is also what patients want . Very little money/effort goes into prevention because no one can make lots of money out of it . Yes you can get vaccinations against 'flu, Covid etc . What you can't get is proper health education . As my mother's patients said "why should I bother with exercise and fresh food when I can always get medicine ?" .
I became an architect thinking I would help build housing for people. But then you realize you're working for bankers and developers, pumping up a speculative housing bubble in the service of reaping fees for developers, ladening people with debt, keeping neighborhoods segregated, and controlling in private hands the asset of land and housing.
I became an engineer thinking I would work on fascinating technology, only to find my career coraled into killing people for a living, whence I retired to the country and live minimally.
Become a teacher. I did frankly because I seemed to be good at it. But then I started seeing the "I'm understanding science" lights go on in their eyes. And ultimately, after a few years, I realized they'd open their ears to me about anything -- like how we were screwing the biosphere; all over the world. And I was a pariah among my peers but it didn't matter. No longer doing that, I feel deprived as hell, But that's what it's about. You have to make people believe you care about their minds before they'll listen.
Teach always. If necessary, in a classroom. (Apologies to Francis of Assisi.)
A spectacularly astute and well-written analysis of the realities of our dystopian situation, Caitlin! Bravo!
You’re so right the modern society is built on lies. No one cares about the truth, or seeks out truth - probably a consequence of modernist thought which claims that no one’s truth is better than another’s.
So the result is just a world of lies and lies. And you’ve done a good job pointing out many I haven’t even thought of
Lying has become normalized. Truth is suspect. We are taught to hate the other. We are under pervasive surveillance. Speaking truth to power may earn one a terrorist classification.
This is why so many are needlessly stuck on psychotropic meds to deal with anxiety and depression: "A huge amount of the anxiety and depression your clients bring you cannot be resolved in therapy because they arise from the poverty, toil and lack of support which is built into the abusive and exploitative society in which we live."
It's one reason I like working in 12 Step groups and staying away from the pill pushing doctors. Medicating people into "feeling better" about their life in this sick and twisted society isn't helping them or society. It's making more unhappy and unwell people. We need to acknowledge that it's the system that is sick, and that our reactions to it are normal and to be expected and that we can help each other deal with it and make things better. Thanks for pointing this out, Caitlin!
I asked my doctor for help with depression, and he told me there was a two year waiting list to get onto the waiting list to see a psychologist. But as a 'favour', he sent me to a psychiatrist friend of his who had an hour spare soon.
Despite misgivings, I went. Towards the end, he said i could choose any pills I wanted, and he recommended something that would "Reduce the complexities". I was incredulous, and enraged. I pointed out to him that intelligence is literally the ability to spot patterns, which he shifted nervously about and agreed. And then I pointed that therefore he was offering me a pill to be STUPID. He was not at all happy about this insight, and we ended on pretty bad terms. But he paid me back: he wrote a REALLY nasty report that went into my permanent medical records - DESPITE my demanding of my doctor it be removed, he point blank refused.
That'll teach me to go meet with pill-pushing dealers who hand out drugs they refuse to take themselves. Good people these most certainly are not. I guess he got a free golfing holiday if he pushed enough of them out.
Thanks for the warning. If the doctor doesn't like you they can blemish your record. Fortunately, I've been anti-doctor my whole adult life and have no medical records of any kind.
I wish I could say the same but at 72 years old I have been put in the position of needing surgery on a very nasty double hernia. In the last few months they have acquired more information on me than they acquired in the previous 54 years. It is upsetting but I have no choice if I want to continue my independent back country lifestyle.
Yes, that kind of thing - a definitely necessary op to maintain your independent lifestyle - is different - good luck.
Thank you Judy.
Israeli intelligence monitors all American and British healthcare data. Do what you have to and then keep away. Most doctors do not understand medicine or healing. And their diagnostic skills are pretty bad. Be careful. Doctors are taught to dispense drugs.
Just say no and mean what you say. Like all cowards they tuck tail and run when stood up to.
Been there done that. Almost Died. Living in retirement. Loving God and enjoining good ethical business and people brave enough to show goodness mercy and compassion. We who love God and fellowship are among you. Try smiling first.
How dare you speak your mind! Affronting those in the know.
Take the pill prescription, pick them up - but dont take them. Medical report evaluations are done looking at what you have been prescribed and are taking (in general, except maybe a very caring primary care physician, or specialist, no one is interested about your "progress") - which in turn may give you the financial benefit, from the powers in charge, that you want.
If you realize how much pharma reps are making per year, compared to ie individuals working in non-medical R&D, or as an engineer, it makes your head spin....
The USA is the Wild West for the pharma industry, in the true sense of the meaning.
And you first have to become seriously sick, before the doctor is able to prescribe the medication that would have prevented that sickness.
America. The beautiful.
You might be interested in the book "A Profession Without Reason", by Bruce Levine. A critique of contemporary psychiatry partly based on the philosophy of Spinoza. And from my neurobiological perspective, the brain is a far too complex adaptive system for them to really understand what those single or dual-pathway biochemistry-altering drugs are doing -- what their consequences really are in the brains of individual patients whose life experiences are reflected in nuances in those brain pathways..
Psychiatry is a quack 'profession'; from beginning to end. I'd advise nobody to have any dealings with them.
They are using their "patients" as pure, unpaid guinea pigs, and wash their hands when it inevitably goes wrong. Frankly, street-dealers usually have more credibility and honesty. I know which of two *I'd* be locking up.
You might enjoy:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/do-you-still-believe-in-the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-mental-illness/
I thought I'd recognised the name. I try to catch all of his articles on CP. Hadn't realised he'd written books tbh.
Yeah that's him. Bruce is down on antidepressants and positively hostile to antipsychotics, and of course I agree with him; they're neuronal poisons. The book came out in '22 but I somehow stumbled on it a few months ago. It's thick with Spinoza in places, but his head is definitely in the right place with respect to the voodoo, or quack, if you prefer.
Voodoo - more correctly Hoodoo - has infinitely more validity than psychiatry.
They are toxic drugs, from toxic people, created by toxic industries.
Imo the aim of the entire industry is to create drugs that will force people to be 'happy slaves', aka 'Soma'.
"Sure, the life of a slave is miserable, but with this wonder drug, we can make them accept it placidly!".
And the patients of the past 40+ years have been the unpaid, and often unwilling, guinea pigs of the sadists.
You're only a bit more hostile toward the entire psych entrerprise than me, I'm more globally hostile toward pharma on all drug pushing fronts, like this latest craze to get people to shut down their freaking gut motility - Ozempic et al. This shit is a violation of human physiology and should be against the law.
You are full of shit. Read my reply above to the Revolution Continues.
We must have nothing to do with their systems. When we make that decision, we will find other systems or start them ourselves. Good doctors are laving orthodox medicine now and starting private member associations to take patients.
That's why one must never bring up any mental issues with "doctors". You'll be steered towards pills or made a note of in your record. Deal with issues yourself. If you get to the point when you can't handle them it's the others who will deliver you to the doctor and at that point indeed you'll need help and you won't care.
Use it as awake up call to pull yourself out of your depression. Focus on the realization that these people are pure greedy evil actors. Use your anger to find your inner strength. You don't need drugs and Quacks to tell you what is wrong with you. Look inside to what you know is right with you and you will be alright. Less delicately put Screw them. They are all part of the fearmongering cartel that is big pharma.
Hi TRC
I have suffered from clinical depression since childhood. It had nothing to do with poverty or abuse. I grew up solidly middle class with a particularly loving father.
I have three suicide attempts under my belt.
I suffered anorexia as a teenager.
When I developed full blown OCD in my late 20’s, it was time for professional help. For anyone who has not experienced this, I assure you it is HELL ON EARTH. A wonderful psychiatrist literally saved my life with the correct antidepressant.
I have since had to switch because after 20 years the original one stopped working. Now I have another wonderful psychiatrist who got me on a different one that works well for me.
Nothing makes me angrier than people who describe antidepressants as a “feel-good” drug. It is a CORRECTIVE drug, and no different than diabetics who take insulin.
I'm glad you found a wonderful doctor to help you, Gypsy. I'm not against medicines per se for folks with depression, but I am against the over-prescribing of meds for those who might not actually need them, and can start feeling better through talk therapy alone. But I worked in a psych ward at a VA hospital, and I know that some of the guys wouldn't have made it through their rehab without the help of anti-depressants or other meds to treat their condition. There is no "one size fits all solution" to any problem a person might have. We need a universal health care system in the US that will provide both talk therapies and meds when folks need them and without putting people into bankruptcy trying to pay for them!
Oh, my best friend, who is Danish says the same. "He needed a drug to save his life" blah blah. He also has a loving and supportive family.
And yet there IS NO SUCH THING AS A "CHEMICAL IMBALANCE". It was just an advertising scam, and so say the people who invented it. https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/29/do-you-still-believe-in-the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-mental-illness/
And so how do we square this circle?
Well, some things we can pin down. You were unhappy, for one. Serotonin made you happier, for another. (Hardly a surprise to any clubbers from the 90s).
Presumably, there was one or several causes for your unhappiness. Also presumably, you never saw a psychologist to dig deep to find that - you were happy with the band-aid of the chemical stimulant, it ticked your boxes, and you felt better. Sure, it didn't CURE you, but at least you're still alive.
Now, you would be a remarkable person indeed if you'd never had previous experiences that made you unhappy, and you don't like thinking of them. The same goes for my Danish friend.
I'm not opposed, and neither is the critical scientist above, to short-term remedies as interventions. But when they become life-long, there starts to be a problem. Your brain adapts, you see. And that is something you REALLY don't want to happen. Addictions are nasty, whether the drugs are illegal or legal. But you're OK with that, it seems.
What stuns me is that you ignore the vast quantity of data that overwhelmingly points to these dangerous drugs being misusued, and countless millions severely harmed by them. Are YOU the only person that matters? I don't believe you think that - although the drugs themselves do tend to boost the ego, despite the best efforts of the underlying person. They reduce empathy - and empathy is usually, but not always, where the psychological trouble began.
I would strongly advise to find a therapist who is able to unpick your life BEFORE you started on the drug treatment, although in all truth the changes from long-term addiction will always leave their imprint.
If you are at all like my friend, you won't even have read this far, and all you will be seeing is bright red rage.
It CANNOT be your family.
It CANNOT be your friends.
It MUST be your brain.
But brains don't work like that, simple as.
But I'm not going to convince you, ever. :shrugs:
Sorry we had this disagreement.
Druggies are impossible to argue with, same as alcoholics. To compare antidepressants with insulin is preposterous. Like comparing nicotine with marijuana.
The main question is - does the drug alter your mind? Does it affect (correct/heal in equivocal manipulative language) your personality? If yes, you should recognize you're under the influence, you're not yourself, you're DUI, DWI (replace the D with appropriate action).
Everybody suffers from some mental conditions at one point or another, or constantly to a certain degree. EVERYBODY. The fact some are weaker than others is just that - they are weaker mentally. But then it's true about physical characteristics. Only imbeciles start pumping themselves with steroids to try to match somebody who naturally is stronger. The normies take their condition and adapt it to their lives.
Anyway, I don't mean to fix or correct anybody. Just saying my piece.
Actually, nicotine and MJ do have similar psychotropic effects, albeit one is considerably weaker.
Did you when Raleigh met the Amerindians, the locals had two variants? One, tobacco rusticus, had a stronger psychedelic effect, and low addictiveness. the other, far less commonly smoked for obvious reasons, had lower psychedelic effect but considerably higher addictiveness?
Take one guess which one the English ruling classes brought back for sale.
But a simple test of this is to grab a vape, and high - 18 or 24+ strength liquid, and take some really big lungfuls. You'll be tripping, and not in a nice way.
ALL drugs affect personality, as your personality also includes your physical state.
"Everybody suffers from some mental conditions at one point or another, or constantly to a certain degree. EVERYBODY."
Yes.
"The fact some are weaker than others is just that - they are weaker mentally."
Define "weaker"? Some may be more vulnerable to some experiences, and yet will brush other experiences of with a shrug, that would destroy a person barely affected by the former. People can have weak moments, when something they would normally shrug off hurts them greatly. And vice versa.
Everyone can be helped through those experiences, so they become integrated, dealt with, and the individual becomes stronger.
An alcoholic from childhood abuse may be the bravest person in a crowd in certain situations.
It really doesn't help to see some as 'weaker', and some as 'stronger'. those are far too rigid definitions. Especially where chemicals are concerned.
Physically, it may be simpler, but even there, in moments of stress I've seen physically weak people do extraordinary things, and physically strong people back off and hide.
Human beings are extraordinarily complex creatures, not to be shoved into boxes.
Everyone would benefit from meditation, just as they would daily physical exercises. A muscle trained is a stronger muscle.
Drugs can be a useful tool in many psychological areas, microdosing shrooms has shown to reduce depression in EVERYONE, with little to no side-effects.
As Terrance McKenna argued, we evolved alongside psychedelic drugs, they are a part of our heritage. We may not even be sane without them. Needless to say, misuse can push us in the opposite direction too.
"nicotine and MJ do have similar psychotropic effects" - have you heard of a cop writing a ticket to somebody for having smoked too many cigarettes?
Of course nicotine has an effect. It's stimulating, clarifying, whatever. But it doesn't impair you or change your personality. You still are who you are.
"Define "weaker"" - in terms of how people overcome those moments.
And once again - I do not slight people for being weak, everyone is at some points to some degree. I am though for people to be honest about it and not make excuses for submitting to drugs and claiming it's normal. It's not. If you can't handle yourself without drugs or alcohol - fine, but admit it. That's all.
I can assure you that tobacco changes your personality. It may not impair certain abilities - such as driving - as much as say LSD, or whiskey, nonetheless a smoker - ie, an addict - has a marked change in personality from the drug.
The same is also true of coffee, and to a lesser extent tea. There are some people who should not be behind a wheel after drinking coffee - or on withdrawal from coffee.
The only difference really is that these are 'socially acceptable' drugs, not that they do not have significant changes to mood and behaviour.
In places where pot has been socially acceptable also for generations, people would look at you for being weird for claiming it was dangerous, or harmful, in moderate doses. Ever talked to a hardcore Muslim about alcohol, and heard how deranged they are about even one mouthful of beer? Well, that's how it'd comes across in those societies.
I don't think societies should be limiting people's choices, certainly not through coercion and threats of extreme violence, such as "Imprisonment"; at the same time, I agree that individuals must also take the full consequences of their actions, and not try to claim "The drug made me do it". No, that's BS. I've been drunk many, many times, but I've never even remotely tried to rape someone. That's not the alcohol, that's YOU, buddy.
But this distinction between 'drugs', and 'drug-free' is largely false. Historically, it comes down to whether the item could be controlled and taxed by and for elites. When you look at it biochemically, you find it gets a great deal more complicated. Look up the effects of processed sugar on the nervous system, fx. If you think that's funny, try giving up ALL products with sugar in for 3 months. You'll find all the symptoms of drug addiction as you go through that, if you know what they are.
"Just one little bit won't hurt..." - just as any old heroin addict who can't quit.
Obviously, these 'natural' - or more natural - drugs are not in the same league as the manufactured utterly synthetics of Big Harma. Opium is a millionth less harmful and addictive than the Big Harma synthetic opioids. Even so, opium destroyed an entire civilisation under British gunboats to force entry.
People have been killed due to caffeine withdrawal. And nicotine withdrawal. Especially nicotine withdrawal.
Ultimately, "You are what you eat", or more generally, imbibe. It ALL affects your mood, behaviour, psychology, consciousness. I cut out meat for two years in my late 20s - I was a different person in important respects.
What I'm getting at here, badly, and longwindedly, is that generally the distinction of "drugs" is entirely synthetic itself. It is socially subjective - to some extent.
Every single person on this planet, is addicted to SOMETHING. Be it meat, sugar, salt, heroin, dope, alcohol, tobacco, or their phones (But that's another topic).
Pointing fingers of superiority at others is ignoring our own problems, which we only admit in secret to ourselves in the dead of night.
We're all addicts. Every single one of us. Addiction is part of the Human Experience.
I'm cool with that, and maybe you are too.
But I'd like the pill-pushing "psychiatrists" to simply call themselves the more honest "Dealers".
I disagree on the teaching part! You can be incredibly subversive in good ways as a teacher.
Within a system that tightly controls everything the student does and brainwashes him into thinking that chasing good grades and test scores is the same thing as “learning?” A system built on the authoritarianism, exploitation and abuse Johnstone refers to in this piece? Yeah, right.
There used to be some loopholes where excellent teachers could teach fascinating things! But I'm 71 and this was during my childhood and youth. I don't think most teacher said that independence now.
They can if they want to be shown the door inside of a month, which I suspect would be a relief for any thinking person who went into teaching in a conventional school.
Dustin, I agree with you if you're "allowed" to present that curriculum....which isn't always part of their larger picture...
And please pardon my typo. No way to edit seems available.
I wish you were wrong, but you aren't! Dammit!
I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, ‘til we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.
William Blake.
Great list and I think very true.
I was a teacher of chemistry. Did not get bothered by administrators on subject matter. I am sure
they knew next to nothing. But my time with students became less over the years because more time was needed for sports, and testing, and meetings. And I saw dumbing down and a push to give better grades for less work. I've been retired for almost 20 years but still miss my students and subject matter
Thank you for your service.
If you’ve impacted/improved a young person’s life/learning, you’ve earned your accolades.
Retired???
From teaching, or just from “the grind”???
Retired from teaching and the grind.
I still try to educate by sending copies of articles to people I think might be interested
This is really excellent. Thank you!!
Caitlin, What a brilliant, insightful, precise way to warn the uninitiated to breakaway from the brainwashing and conditioning they are subjected to.
Right, Caitlin. -- Focus, focus, focus. To cut to the chase, it must be acknowledged that the foremost global scofflaw, Colonial Zionism and its myriad minions, are demented-mania intent, via FOCUS, on maintaining their omnipresence and dominance. We dissenters must, in our own right of resistance against evil, focus-focus-FOCUS on tearing down and apart that Colonial Zionist malevolent frenzy...while maintaining our own sanity, humanity, and desire for the advancement of civilization for ALL. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite! FOCUS!
Focus First on this : VIVA PALESTINE!
They want us to intend tearing them down, because actually that gives them more power. It makes you part of their energy which is the energy of entropy or deconstruction. So you're actually adding to that energy, making them more powerful. The way to crack it is to put energy into building the new. They will wither away anyway and you would put yourself into the opposite energy, the energy of regeneration or creativity.
Well, I've "LIKED" you, but...
What is "the new"? -- your "energy of regeneration or creativity"? Sadly, that hasn't worked for the hapless Palestinians for 3/4s of a century plus. Their sumud, and their surely 95 percent rate of non-violent resistance over that span, amaze and awe me; I admit that if I were a 22 yo or so Palestinian Muslim male, I'd be a suicide bomber, taking out violently the *true terrorists* "on the ground," in a heartbeat.
There's a lot there to answer to - I'll give it a go. The Palestinian situation is everyone's responsibility. We humans are a weird lot, we can "live it up" while others of our species are tortured and in dire situations. That only gives fuel to psychopaths who know humans are like this. One day it will be our turn because psychopaths are never satiated. And to reiterate, wanting to blow people up, will not advance humanity in the least. It shows consent for violence. The way to deflect violence is to condemn it in peacetime and make the conditions (through social cultivation) unfavorable for so much as speaking in threats of violence. Violence must be condemned outright and that makes the conditions unfavorable for violence. What would replace it would be reason, communication, debate. All done with words. And no words should be censored, because all words can be debated. This perspective is the perspective of half the population - the feminine perspective - which doesn't get an airing and where most females are not even aware there is such a perspective (that's because we have all been trained by solely the man's perspective). That is a fact, it is not a bias. The way to solve that is for women to speak up and to be heard in as much a ratio as men are.
Nicely presented...Go, women! I'm an eight-year widower now 81 yo, dad of two daughters, 56 and 53...repeat: Go, women!--Speak up and be heard!
I'll take some issue here, based on my (male?) cup-half-empty dourness: "And to reiterate, wanting to blow people up, will not advance humanity in the least. It shows consent for violence." Doesn't it equally or better show righteous anger; a refusal to accept further endless humiliation; hopelessness; desperation...? (HDThoreau: "The mass of humanity live in quiet desperation." ... that desperation eventually erupts into disquiet-cum-payback violence...tragic but understandable and compelling, no?)
Yes indeed it can be that however it's indulgence in revenge and not thinking at all, because if you're going to kill because you're angry that someone killed, then it just keeps on perpetuating death. It's like a circular firing squad. We have to go beyond this barbarity. We need proper structures and principled behavior and practice them and teach it. We must discourage any going to war, and any execution. The enemy is death, entropy and the energies that use humans to do this. The opposite energy is reason, regeneration, solutions, negotiation. And we need to set up those structures as we are at the end of one era and the beginning of another. You sound like you are blissed with two daughters and they with a father who elevates women. So honor to you. You are a rare model of which boys and many men can look to as an alternative to the mainstream models. We will not be able to make it without women being heard - in equal proportions.
Please, please, please, Denise Ward: Start right now with the intention and passionate determination toward becoming elected in 2028 as our POTUS! I've been thinking of this a lot of late and will type here: How good/enlightened would it be for the POTUS to interact with her constituents by re-engaging FDR's weekly "fireside chats"?
Become the kind of lawyer who wrote the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts and who defends people who can’t afford a lawyer when they’re arrested or who defends those of us who commit civil disobedience. Don’t become a teacher; become a facilitator at a Sudbury school so you don’t have to spend your career drilling and killing and teaching kids that reading, math and history suck. Don’t become a child “protective” social worker because they don’t help abused kids; their job is to protect society from future “super predators.” Don’t become a doctor because they don’t make money unless you’re sick. Do become a journalist like Sy Hersh, Chris Hedges, and Glenn Greenwald.
The police are not there to serve you. The military is not your friend. The people who covered up Kennedy's death are not your friend. Science has been in the service of its master, capital. The people who killed Kennedy are not your friend. There is no small government conservative. There is no Constitutional Republic. There is no free market. The property of Congress should not be respected in any way. There is no Court that is Supreme. There is no rule of law. The Jews are killing Anne Frank out front. Human Rights are for suckers. Obama should've abandoned hope before he entered here. Wall Street is not the economy. Welcome to America. The show's about to begin. All that's left is entertainment.
All the jobs you mentioned are exactly as difficult as you say. But, I have still managed to meet some people who were able to transcend some of the worst aspects and hold people up just long enough to begin to move forward. I have been listening to this to help me get moving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI15W-BBhrw