michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Oct 4, 2005 16:36:15 GMT 4
Declaration of the Rights of the Child
Proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 1386(XIV) of 20 November 1959
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, Whereas the United Nations has, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,
Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth,
Whereas the need for such special safeguards has been stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924, and recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the statutes of specialized agencies and international organizations concerned with the welfare of children,
Whereas mankind owes to the child the best it has to give,
Now therefore,
The General Assembly
Proclaims this Declaration of the Rights of the Child to the end that he may have a happy childhood and enjoy for his own good and for the good of society the rights and freedoms herein set forth, and calls upon parents, upon men and women as individuals, and upon voluntary organizations, local authorities and national Governments to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures progressively taken in accordance with the following principles:
Principle 1
The child shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. Every child, without any exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to these rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family.
Principle 2
The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.
Principle 3
The child shall be entitled from his birth to a name and a nationality.
Principle 4
The child shall enjoy the benefits of social security. He shall be entitled to grow and develop in health; to this end, special care and protection shall be provided both to him and to his mother, including adequate pre-natal and post-natal care. The child shall have the right to adequate nutrition, housing, recreation and medical services.
Principle 5
The child who is physically, mentally or socially handicapped shall be given the special treatment, education and care required by his particular condition.
Principle 6
The child, for the full and harmonious development of his personality, needs love and understanding. He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents, and, in any case, in an atmosphere of affection and of moral and material security; a child of tender years shall not, save in exceptional circumstances, be separated from his mother. Society and the public authorities shall have the duty to extend particular care to children without a family and to those without adequate means of support. Payment of State and other assistance towards the maintenance of children of large families is desirable.
Principle 7
The child is entitled to receive education, which shall be free and compulsory, at least in the elementary stages. He shall be given an education which will promote his general culture and enable him, on a basis of equal opportunity, to develop his abilities, his individual judgement, and his sense of moral and social responsibility, and to become a useful member of society.
The best interests of the child shall be the guiding principle of those responsible for his education and guidance; that responsibility lies in the first place with his parents.
The child shall have full opportunity for play and recreation, which should be directed to the same purposes as education; society and the public authorities shall endeavour to promote the enjoyment of this right.
Principle 8
The child shall in all circumstances be among the first to receive protection and relief.
Principle 9
The child shall be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation. He shall not be the subject of traffic, in any form.
The child shall not be admitted to employment before an appropriate minimum age; he shall in no case be caused or permitted to engage in any occupation or employment which would prejudice his health or education, or interfere with his physical, mental or moral development.
Principle 10
The child shall be protected from practices which may foster racial, religious and any other form of discrimination. He shall be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, peace and universal brotherhood, and in full consciousness that his energy and talents should be devoted to the service of his fellow men.
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Oct 9, 2005 10:21:44 GMT 4
WELCOME TO THE ANTI-SWEATSHOP LABOR(ASSL)LEAGUE Stop the use of illegal and immoral sweatshops.WHAT IS A SWEATSHOP?------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A sweatshop is a factory where workers are forced to work with low wages, no benefits, long hours, cramped and unsanitary conditions. Many companies who use sweatshops prefer to use children so they can pay even less or nothing at all. Most sweatshop laborers don't even get paid enough to survive on. Thousands each year die from exhaustion caused by over work(12+ hours per day,7 days a week), injury from machinery, abuse by factory management, and sickness due to unsanitary conditions. Children are the majority of the people who die due to this immoral exploitation of workers. Unions are not allowed and whenever one is formed it is destroyed by union busters(most of the time local thugs and criminals)hired by the companies. Since unions can't be formed the workers can't receive better wages,benefits, or rights. Any organization put together by the workers will be immediately destroyed at once. These people are basicly slaves, they are scared into staying, they are paid very, very low wages or nothing at all, and are denied basic benefits and worker's rights(in some cases human rights too). Some factory management rape, abuse, and assault the workers putting a since of fear in them so they don't leave and stay despite the abuse. WHERE ARE THESE SWEATSHOPS?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sweatshops are known to be widespread in these countries: Bangladesh Burma Cambodia China Colombia Dominican Republic El Salvador Guatemala Hati Honduras India Indonesia Jamaica Macau Malaysia Mexico Nicaragua Oman Pakistan Peru Philippines Romania Sri Lanka Thailand Turkey Vietnam Make sure that you stay away from products made in these countries. WHO USES THESE SWEATSHOPS?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a list of companies who use sweatshop labour, join the ASSLLeague in boycotting them: Nike Phillips-Van Heusen Disney Guess? The Gap Banana Republic Old Navy Tommy Hilfiger Reebok Levi Straus Liz Caliborne Ralph Lauren Mattel Wal-Mart Roohsing(Hong Kong clothing company) Kohl's WHAT CAN YOU DO?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like mentioned above you can join the ASSLLeague in boycotting those companies who use sweatshop labour. You can also send letters to the company demanding them to stop their practices. Also you can send letters and petitions to government officals for them to take action against these companies so they will stop using these sweatshops. You can protest the sweatshops, the companies products who were made by sweatshop labourers, and stores who sell these products. JOINING-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can go to Yahoo!Groups and visit the group:Anti Sweat Shop Labour League. EVENTS/NEWS-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Campaign-Stop buying from exploitative companies today!In an effort to hit the major companies where it hurts,the pocket book,please buy from garage sales,flee markets,used clothes stores,local mom and pop stores,and make clothes yourself so you can make sure that you are not supporting and/or buying clothes directly from companies that use sweatshop labour,or not buying sweatshop made clothes at all. May 1,2006-International Day Against Capitalism and Globalization.November 26,2005-On this day,around the world,just BUY!BUY!BUY...nothing!Yes its the annual Buy Nothing Day 2005.Fight capitalism by not supporting it!www.geocities.com/whydoyoukeepdeletingme/ASSLLeague.html
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Nov 7, 2005 21:58:11 GMT 4
11/07/05 I despise Wal-Mart and their business practices. They have busted unions in the United States and use cheap, overseas labor for all the junk they sell. I NEVER, EVER shop at Wal-Mart! FYI, if you care to take action against the company.....Michelle A coalition of over 600 unions, churches, and small business groups are joining together to launch the new Robert Greenwald film "Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Prices." Can you join them by hosting a screening Tuesday, November 15th? Dear MoveOn member, This week, the director of "Uncovered: The War on Iraq" and "Outfoxed" released his latest film, "Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Prices." It's a powerful exposé on the toll the Wal-Mart behemoth has taken on workers and communities across the country, and how we can help turn the tide. Wal-Mart is going into attack mode. The company has literally created a war room, staffed with political consultants who are working day and night to undermine the movie and spread pro-Wal-Mart propaganda.1 But it's not working: thanks to the questions raised by the film, national media are tuning in to Wal-Mart's high cost to American families—and last week the movie was featured on page 1 of the New York Times.2 Next week, a coalition of hundreds of unions, churches, small business associations and citizens' groups3 are taking this fight to thousands of living rooms around the country, holding viewing parties to watch the movie and get organized. They've invited us to join them. Can you host a Wal-Mart movie screening party next Tuesday, November 15th? Sign up today: www.walmartmovie.com/host.php?track=moveon ; We'll make sure you get the movie before the 15th if you order by Tuesday, November 8th. If you can't host a party, you can still buy an advance copy of the powerful new film online at: www.walmartmovie.com/watch.php?track=moveonThese viewing parties are all part of the national "Wal-Mart Week of Action." This week is a great opportunity for MoveOn members to work directly with the members of our partner groups. If you choose to make your screening party public, it will be added to the central pool and local folks from the Service Employees International Union, (SEIU), the Independent Business Association, or any of our hundreds of other partners will be invited to join you. Once you sign up, you'll receive a special screening packet with everything you need and some easy next steps that your group can take to become part of the solution. In its debut week the Wal-Mart movie was featured on The Today Show,4 on the front page of the New York Times, and Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A-" rating.5 Salon wrote this glowing review: "What makes the movie so powerful is the totality of the portrait, both in its details and its sweep. Most of these people are entirely unexceptional Americans from the working class or lower-middle class, believers in flag and country and God and capitalism, not left-wing activists or academics with some theoretical critique. Most of them believed in Wal-Mart, too, and were genuinely horrified to learn that its low prices depended on enforced poverty, whether theirs or somebody else's."6MoveOn is sponsoring screenings of the film on Tuesday, November 15th, but you can also choose to host another day that week if it works better for you. Please sign up today: www.walmartmovie.com/host.php?track=moveon ; After Katrina, we committed to work together to help rebuild a middle class America. It's critical to examine why so many hard working families are watching the American Dream slip away. Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation and nation's largest employer, is a major piece of that puzzle. Wal-Mart is owned by the nation's wealthiest family,7 but its average salary is below the poverty line8—leaving over half of it's full time employees without health care or dependent on Medicaid.9 It drives down labor standards at home and around the world.10 It has destroyed countless small businesses in thousands of communities.11 And it does it all by absorbing billions of dollars in corporate welfare every year.12We hope you'll be able to join the national Wal-Mart Week of Action and host a screening Tuesday, November 15th (or another day that week that works better for you). When you sign up to host, you'll get an advance copy of the movie, and later an action packet to help your group plan some easy next steps. Please sign up to host right now at: www.walmartmovie.com/host.php?track=moveon ; And if you can't host a screening, you're still invited to purchase an advance personal copy of the new film at: www.walmartmovie.com/watch.php?track=moveonThanks for all that you do, –Ben, Wes, Joan, Micayla and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team Friday, November 4th, 2005 p.s. Here's a note from Director Robert Greenwald to MoveOn members: "Dear MoveOn Members, One year of intense 24/7 work on this film by the Brave New Films team has turned up very emotional, personal stories of how policy affects people. And with your lead, the film will be a tool for initiating and furthering the fight around economic justice and fairness and the American way of life. So with great appreciation and excitement, we at Brave New Films present "WAL-MART, the high cost of low price," available to all of you to view and most importantly, to go out into the world armed with the facts and stories it contains. The film has more folks who identify as Republicans then Democrats, and I was very surprised to discover how the Wal-Mart and corporate greed issue cut across any narrow partisan boxes. We have a chance with your help to reach lots of people who might not agree with us on other issues, but on how Wal-Mart is destroying their families, jobs, communities.....they are with us. Everyplace there is a TV screen and dvd player, can become a screening room for debate, discussion, and change. I look forward to joining with you as we go on the offense and use the film to get a debate going about how the American Dream is being torn apart by a multi-national corporation that only lives by the rule of greed. With the greatest thanks and excitement, –Robert Greenwald and the Brave New Films team" Sources: 1. "A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room," The New York Times, November 1st, 2005 www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/business/01walmart.ready.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1131113232-tfvsWUm71jh8iRyFGKS0Fg3. 2. "A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room," The New York Times, November 1st, 2005 www.moveon.org/r?r=11083. For a list of coalition partners and supporters of the Wal-Mart movie, see: www.walmartmovie.com/screenings.htm4. Veiw the Today Show clip here: www.moveon.org/r?r=11095. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices," Entertainment Weekly, November 4th 2005 www.ew.com/ew/article/review/movie/0,6115,1125297_1_0_,00.html 6. "Beyond the Multiplex," Salon.com, November 3rd, 2005 www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2005/11/03/btm/7. "The Forbes 400 Richest Americans," Forbes Magazine, September 24th, 2004 msnbc.msn.com/id/6082174/8. "Trouble in Wal-Mart's America" The Washington Post, October 26th, 2005 www.moveon.org/r?r=11109. "Low Prices at a High Cost: Who Really Pays for Wal-Mart Workers' Health Care?" Wal-Mart Watch walmartwatch.com/home/pages/healthcare#background10. National Labor Committee www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/he-yi/he-yi.shtml11. "Wal-Mart Conference on Wal-Mart Draws Critics of Pay, Benifits," Bloomberg News Service, November 4th, 2005 www.moveon.org/r?r=111112. "Wal-Mart subsidies top $1B," Kansas City Business Journal," May 26th, 2004 www.moveon.org/r?r=111213. "Workers Win Fair Wages as Bush Backs off Davis-Bacon Suspension," AFL-CIO, October 26th, 2005 www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/ns10262005.cfm
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Nov 16, 2005 23:53:05 GMT 4
If you think you haven't been sickened enough with the Bush administration's fallout, how about this one: The EPA has been attempting to allow pesticide testing on human children. Everytime we believe we've stopped them, they come back with new proposals. Remember when the EPA was a public watchdog? This diabolical insanity is typical of all government institutions created for the public good since the Bush adminstration placed corporate fiends in top postions at these institutions. If you're not from the United States, and think this is not your problem, think again. This testing will be allowed on ANY children outside the U.S. In the U.S., mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. Also inclued are children who have been neglected and abused; no parental consent is needed for testing on these children. In other words the most helpless of the helpless are open game to be experimented on. The EPA wants to hand CHILDREN on a silver platter to the DR. MENGELEs of industry.....Michelle ALERT: EPA TO ALLOW PESTICIDE TESTING ON ORPHANS & MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDRENWednesday, November 16, 2005 Public Comment Period Closes December 12, 2005 Public comments are now being accepted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on its newly proposed federal regulation regarding the testing of chemicals and pesticides on human subjects. On August 2, 2005, Congress had mandated the EPA create a rule that permanently bans chemical testing on pregnant women and children. But the EPA's newly proposed rule, misleadingly titled "Protections for Subjects in Human Research," puts industry profits ahead of children's welfare. The rule allows for government and industry scientists to treat children as human guinea pigs in chemical experiments in the following situations: 1. Children who "cannot be reasonably consulted," such as those that are mentally handicapped or orphaned newborns may be tested on. With permission from the institution or guardian in charge of the individual, the child may be exposed to chemicals for the sake of research. 2. Parental consent forms are not necessary for testing on children who have been neglected or abused. 3. Chemical studies on any children outside of the U.S. are acceptable. OCA's focal concerns with this proposed rule specifically involve the following portions of text within the EPA document (Read the full EPA proposed rule here: PDF --- HTML): 70 FR 53865 26.408(a) "The IRB (Independent Review Board) shall determine that adequate provisions are made for soliciting the assent of the children, when in the judgment of the IRB the children are capable of providing assent...If the IRB determines that the capability of some or all of the children is so limited that they cannot reasonably be consulted, the assent of the children is not a necessary condition for proceeding with the research. Even where the IRB determines that the subjects are capable of assenting, the IRB may still waive the assent requirement..." (OCA NOTE: Under this clause, a mentally handicapped child or infant orphan could be tested on without assent. This violates the Nuremberg Code, an international treaty that mandates assent of test subjects is "absolutely essential," and that the test subject must have "legal capacity to give consent" and must be "so situated as to exercise free power of choice." This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.)70 FR 53865 26.408(c) "If the IRB determines that a research protocol is designed for conditions or for a subject population for which parental or guardian permission is not a reasonable requirement to protect the subjects (for example, neglected or abused children), it may waive the consent requirements..." (OCA NOTE: Under the general rule, the EPA is saying it's okay to test chemicals on children if their parents or institutional guardians consent to it. This clause says that neglected or abused children have unfit guardians, so no consent would be required to test on those children. This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.)70 FR 53864 26.401 (a)(2) "To What Do These Regulations Apply? It also includes research conducted or supported by EPA outside the United States, but in appropriate circumstances, the Administrator may, under § 26.101(e), waive the applicability of some or all of the requirements of these regulations for research..." (OCA NOTE: This clause is stating that the Administrator of the EPA has the power to completely waive regulations on human testing, if the testing is done outside of the U.S. This will allow chemical companies to do human testing in other countries where these types of laws are less strict. This loophole in the rule must be completely removed.) 70 FR 53857 "EPA proposes an extraordinary procedure applicable if scientifically sound but ethically deficient human research is found to be crucial to EPA’s fulfilling its mission to protect public health. This procedure would also apply if a scientifically sound study covered by proposed § 26.221 or § 26.421--i.e., an intentional dosing study involving pregnant women or children as subjects..." (OCA NOTE: This clause allows the EPA to accept or conduct "ethically deficient" studies of chemical tests on humans if the agency deems it necessary to fulfull its mission. Unfortunately, the EPA report sets up no criteria for making such an exception with any particular study. This ambiguity leaves a gaping loophole in the rule. Without specific and detailed criteria, it could be argued that any and every study of chemical testing on humans is "necessary." This loophole in the rule must be removed, based on this inadequacy of criteria and definition.)Learn more and take action now: www.organicconsumers.org/epa6.cfmBetter to put a hard copy in someone's hands; write AND e-mailBy mail: Send two copies of your comments to: Public Information and Records Integrity Branch (PIRIB) Office of Pesticide Programs U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mail Code: 7502C 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC, 20460-0001 Attention: Docket ID Number OPP-2003-0132 While I'm on the subject of pesticides or any other kind of "....cides", how many douse their lawns, pets, and homes with chemicals? What ever happened to pulling weeds, bathing and grooming your pet without hurting them, or just sweeping your house and storing foods properly to avoid pests? Rachel Carson has to be turning over in her grave! rachelcarsonhomestead.org/ Read 'The Truth About Pesticides'.In their relentless quest for dominance over nature, humans have undermined their ability to reproduce and to think and learn. They have become guinea pigs in their own vast experiment with synthetic chemicals. These chemicals are absorbed by your children and the effects are much worse on them. Although the human species is still here while continuing to use pesticides, there are fates worse than extinction.
My 12 year old son is more in tune with truth than most adults I know:WHERE ARE WE GOING?I like to be up in a tree Where I watch the birds And the river glittering under the sun. This beautiful earth has many secrets And much to tell; Like on a page of lovely meadow flowers. But the page is seldom read. The beauty of the earth is fading, And people don't read its messages. Most care keepers of the earth, Have failed, For this is our job to protect all. You can't harm the lowest soil creature Without harming all. When the bird's and the bees go, The plants and the animals will follow. Human where do you think, You are going? We must love and protect all creatures Like family. We must love the earth, For she is our mother, Who supports us all. By: Addam 05/11/05
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Dec 16, 2005 0:42:28 GMT 4
ALERT UPDATE: EPA PROPOSED RULE ALLOWING CHEMICAL TESTING ON HUMANS Thanks to all of you for responding to OCA's recent alert regarding the EPA proposed rule that would allow studies of chemicals on children. Over 20,000 of OCA's supporters sent letters to the EPA on this issue. Last week, EPA's union of scientists joined our ranks and publicly protested the rule. "The main reason that most people came to EPA was because we wanted to protect public health. This rule is really undercutting what EPA is supposed to stand for," said Dave Christenson, an EPA scientist. The public comment period on the proposed rule closed on Monday, and the EPA administrative officials are now discussing what to do with the rule. We will keep you posted. Learn more: www.organicconsumers.org/Toxic/epa6.cfm
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jan 4, 2006 2:40:14 GMT 4
The Age of Autism: 'A pretty big secret'By Dan Olmsted UPI Senior Editor December 7, 2005, Washington Times/UPI www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20051204-060313-6829r.htmIt's a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill. But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don't have autism. "We have a fairly large practice. We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines," said Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, Homefirst's medical director who founded the practice in 1973. Homefirst doctors have delivered more than 15,000 babies at home, and thousands of them have never been vaccinated. The few autistic children Homefirst sees were vaccinated before their families became patients, Eisenstein said. "I can think of two or three autistic children who we've delivered their mother's next baby, and we aren't really totally taking care of that child -- they have special care needs. But they bring the younger children to us. I don't have a single case that I can think of that wasn't vaccinated." The autism rate in Illinois public schools is 38 per 10,000, according to state Education Department data; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the national rate of autism spectrum disorders at 1 in 166 -- 60 per 10,000. "We do have enough of a sample," Eisenstein said. "The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We're all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there's no communication. It's frightening. You can't touch them. It's not something that anyone would miss." No one knows what causes autism, but federal health authorities say it isn't childhood immunizations. Some parents and a small minority of doctors and scientists, however, assert vaccines are responsible. This column has been looking for autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children in an effort to shed light on the issue. We went to Chicago to meet with Eisenstein at the suggestion of a reader, and we also visited Homefirst's office in northwest suburban Rolling Meadows. Homefirst has four other offices in the Chicago area and a total of six doctors. Eisenstein stresses his observations are not scientific. "The trouble is this is just anecdotal in a sense, because what if every autistic child goes somewhere else and (their family) never calls us or they moved out of state?" In practice, that's unlikely to account for the pronounced absence of autism, says Eisenstein, who also has a bachelor's degree in statistics, a master's degree in public health and a law degree. Homefirst follows state immunization mandates, but Illinois allows religious exemptions if parents object based either on tenets of their faith or specific personal religious views. Homefirst does not exclude or discourage such families. Eisenstein, in fact, is author of the book "Don't Vaccinate Before You Educate!" and is critical of the CDC's vaccination policy in the 1990s, when several new immunizations were added to the schedule, including Hepatitis B as early as the day of birth. Several of the vaccines -- HepB included -- contained a mercury-based preservative that has since been phased out of most childhood vaccines in the United States. Medical practices with Homefirst's approach to immunizations are rare. "Because of that, we tend to attract families that have questions about that issue," said Dr. Paul Schattauer, who has been with Homefirst for 20 years and treats "at least" 100 children a week. Schattauer seconded Eisenstein's observations. "All I know is in my practice I don't see autism. There is no striking 1-in-166," he said. Earlier this year we reported the same phenomenon in the mostly unvaccinated Amish. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding told us the Amish "have genetic connectivity that would make them different from populations that are in other sectors of the United States." Gerberding said, however, studies "could and should be done" in more representative unvaccinated groups -- if they could be found and their autism rate documented. Chicago is America's prototypical "City of Big Shoulders," to quote Carl Sandburg, and Homefirst's mostly middle-class families seem fairly representative. A substantial number are conservative Christians who home-school their children. They are mostly white, but the Homefirst practice also includes black and Hispanic families and non-home-schooling Jews, Catholics and Muslims. They tend to be better educated, follow healthier diets and breast-feed their children much longer than the norm -- half of Homefirst's mothers are still breast-feeding at two years. Also, because Homefirst relies less on prescription drugs including antibiotics as a first line of treatment, these children have less exposure to other medicines, not just vaccines. Schattauer, interviewed at the Rolling Meadows office, said his caseload is too limited to draw conclusions about a possible link between vaccines and autism. "With these numbers you'd have a hard time proving or disproving anything," he said. "You can only get a feeling about it. "In no way would I be an advocate to stand up and say we need to look at vaccines, because I don't have the science to say that," Schattauer said. "But I don't think the science is there to say that it's not." Schattauer said Homefirst's patients also have significantly less childhood asthma and juvenile diabetes compared to national rates. An office manager who has been with Homefirst for 17 years said she is aware of only one case of severe asthma in an unvaccinated child. "Sometimes you feel frustrated because you feel like you've got a pretty big secret," Schattauer said. He argues for more research on all those disorders, independent of political or business pressures. The asthma rate among Homefirst patients is so low it was noticed by the Blue Cross group with which Homefirst is affiliated, according to Eisenstein. "In the alternative-medicine network which Homefirst is part of, there are virtually no cases of childhood asthma, in contrast to the overall Blue Cross rate of childhood asthma which is approximately 10 percent," he said. "At first I thought it was because they (Homefirst's children) were breast-fed, but even among the breast-fed we've had asthma. We have virtually no asthma if you're breast-fed and not vaccinated." Because the diagnosis of asthma is based on emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, Eisenstein said, Homefirst's low rate is hard to dispute. "It's quantifiable -- the definition is not reliant on the doctor's perception of asthma." Several studies have found a risk of asthma from vaccination; others have not. Studies that include never-vaccinated children generally find little or no asthma in that group. Earlier this year Florida pediatrician Dr. Jeff Bradstreet said there is virtually no autism in home-schooling families who decline to vaccinate for religious reasons -- lending credence to Eisenstein's observations. "It's largely non-existent," said Bradstreet, who treats children with autism from around the country. "It's an extremely rare event." Bradstreet has a son whose autism he attributes to a vaccine reaction at 15 months. His daughter has been home-schooled, he describes himself as a "Christian family physician," and he knows many of the leaders in the home-school movement. "There was this whole subculture of folks who went into home-schooling so they would never have to vaccinate their kids," he said. "There's this whole cadre who were never vaccinated for religious reasons." In that subset, he said, "unless they were massively exposed to mercury through lots of amalgams (mercury dental fillings in the mother) and/or big-time fish eating, I've not had a single case." Federal health authorities and mainstream medical groups emphatically dismiss any link between autism and vaccines, including the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Last year a panel of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academies, said there is no evidence of such a link, and funding should henceforth go to "promising" research. Thimerosal, which is 49.6 percent ethyl mercury by weight, was phased out of most U.S. childhood immunizations beginning in 1999, but the CDC recommends flu shots for pregnant women and last year began recommending them for children 6 to 23 months old. Most of those shots contain thimerosal. Thimerosal-preserved vaccines are currently being injected into millions of children in developing countries around the world. "My mandate ... is to make sure at the end of the day that 100,000,000 are immunized ... this year, next year and for many years to come ... and that will have to be with thimerosal-containing vaccines," said John Clements of the World Health Organization at a June 2000 meeting called by the CDC. That meeting was held to review data that thimerosal might be linked with autism and other neurological problems. But in 2004 the Institute of Medicine panel said evidence against a link is so strong that health authorities, "whether in the United States or other countries, should not include autism as a potential risk" when formulating immunization policies. But where is the simple, straightforward study of autism in never-vaccinated U.S. children? Based on our admittedly anecdotal and limited reporting among the Amish, the home-schooled and now Chicago's Homefirst, that may prove to be a significant omission. -- This ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism welcomes comment. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Feb 10, 2006 8:34:15 GMT 4
Another example of how the Bush administration has headed institutions designed for public protection with self serving, gluttonous corporate scum who are devouring the United States. I wonder how many public officials, elected and appointed, own stock in the pharmaceutical and drug advertising industries? Michelle Watchdog Group Calls for FDA Advisory Committee Member's Resignation2/9/2006 10:27:00 AM To: National Desk Contact: Sandra Lucas, 801-574-7632 or Jerry Boswell 512-426-4639, both of CCHR GAITHERSBURG, Md., Feb. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A citizens group called for the resignation of psychologist Louis A. Morris from the FDA's Advisory Committee on Drug Safety and Risk Management today. This came as the advisory committee met to discuss sudden deaths and other adverse events possibly related to the use of drugs used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). "We understand that Dr. Morris may not be participating in this meeting," said Sandra Lucas. "But, considering this gentleman's broad consulting interests in the pharmaceutical and drug advertising industries, it is hard to envision a committee meeting in which he would not have a conflict of interest. That's why we're calling for his immediate resignation." Lucas said she was appalled when she visited the website for Dr. Morris's consulting company, Louis A. Morris and Associates. "Apparently, Dr. Morris counts 11 of the top 20 Fortune 500 drug companies among his clients," Lucas said. "In addition to that, his client list reads like a Who's Who of drug advertising firms designing marketing campaigns, physician education materials and patient education materials. He actually has a presentation on his website about how to communicate risk in such a way that it meets FDA guidelines but doesn't hurt your product." Lucas has filed a Freedom of Information Request for all conflict of interest disclosures filed by Dr. Morris in relation to his Advisory Committee work. "Today's meeting is a perfect example of why the FDA needs to be wrung out from top to bottom," Lucas said. "Children die while the FDA plays footsy with psychiatrists and their allies in the pharmaceutical industry."The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Lucas said that one of CCHR's chief concerns is that informed consent for psychiatric treatment is, in many cases, inadequate to warn psychiatric patients of serious risks. Check this out too. I'll bet Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert own pharmaceutical stocks or are at least paid handsomely by lobbyists......Thursday, 02/09/06Hastert, Frist said to rig bill for drug firms Frist denies protection was added in secretBy BILL THEOBALD Gannett News Service WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play. The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member. In an interview, Frist, a doctor and Tennessee Republican, denied that the wording was added that way. Trial lawyers and other groups condemn the law, saying it could make it nearly impossible for people harmed by a vaccine to force the drug maker to pay for their injuries. Many in health care counter that the protection is needed to help build up the vaccine industry in the United States, especially in light of a possible avian flu pandemic. The legislation, called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, allows the secretary of Health and Human Services to declare a public health emergency, which then provides immunity for companies that develop vaccines and other "countermeasures." Beyond the issue of vaccine liability protection, some say going around the longstanding practice of bipartisan House-Senate conference committees' working out compromises on legislation is a dangerous power grab by Republican congressional leaders that subverts democracy. "It is a travesty of the legislative process," said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It vests enormous power in the hands of congressional leaders and private interests, minimizes transparency and denies legitimate opportunities for all interested parties, in Congress and outside, to weigh in on important policy questions." Read the entire article: tinyurl.com/97c56
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Feb 14, 2006 13:09:25 GMT 4
Valentine's Day 2006Break the Chains of Toxic Pesticides and Farm Worker ExploitationValentines Day marks the biggest shopping day of the year, when it comes to chocolate and flowers. But did you know that by purchasing organic and Fair Trade chocolate and flowers (see our buying guide below), your consumer dollars will no longer be going towards toxic pesticides, child slavery, and farm worker exploitation? Over 40 percent of the world’s conventional chocolate (i.e. non-organic and non-Fair Trade) comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and US State Department have reported widespread instances of child slavery. Exploitation of cacao farmers and farm workers is the global norm in the chocolate industry, rather than the exception. Meanwhile organizations such as the Pesticide Action Network point out that commercial flowers, produced in countries such as Colombia, are the most toxic and heavily sprayed agricultural crops on Earth, The high profits of the transnational flower exporters are derived from poisoning the land and farmers, while forcing workers in the flower industry, often young women, to work 18 hour days for poverty wages during peak flower buying times such as Valentine’s Day. This Valentine’s Day, join with the Organic Consumers Association and our allies around the world to put your money where your values lie and to show your loved ones that you truly care. Please break the chains of industrial agriculture and corporate globalization by choosing Fair Trade and organic flowers and chocolate for your Valentine’s Day gifts www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/Watch the OCA's flash animation "SLAMMED" to learn how to avoid getting slammed by your loved one this Valentine's Day www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/slammed.htmSend a message to corporations who make record profits on Valentine's Day by means of toxic pesticides and labor exploitation: (Nestle, M&M's, Wal-Mart, Dole, & Hershey) www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/alert.htm Learn about the issues and find organic and Fair Trade chocolates and flowers near you www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/ Join the OCA's Breaking the Chains campaign! www.organicconsumers.org/btc.htm Two years ago, during 'Black History Month', my son and I studied the cocoa industry and its use of exploitative, and sometimes slave child labor. Since then, we buy Fair Trade products whenever we can, and have boycotted companies who promote exploitative labor. Yes, these products cost more; and we, more than most, have very little money to spare. However, after our study of the situation, we cut back on our consumption so that we could support Fair Trade Companies. There are many links for your awareness from Global Exchange. You may also want to consider downloading the children's activities and present them to your school or study at home. Teach your children that they can change the world through responsible action.....MichelleFair Trade Chocolate: The Sweet Solution to Abusive Child Labor and PovertyWhile chocolate is sweet for us, it can be heartbreaking for the hundreds of thousands of child laborers that pick the cocoa that goes into some of our favorite treats. In 2001, the U.S. State Department, the International Labor Organization and others reported child slavery on many cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, source of 43% of the worlds cocoa. Subsequent research by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture revealed some 284,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 working in hazardous conditions on West African cocoa farms. Of these children, it was reported that some 12,000 child cocoa workers that had participated in the study were likely to have arrived in their situation as a result of child trafficking. The cause of these problems is poverty. With annual revenues for cocoa farmers in the region averaging between $30-$108 per household member, per year, many cocoa farming families face difficult choices about whether to have their children work on the farm or send them to school. According to the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, some two thirds of all cocoa workers do not regularly attend school. Some familes are so poor that their children are tricked or inadvertently sold into slavery in the hopes of earning additional income to help make ends meet. Producer poverty comes at the hands of global corporations like M&M Mars, and other members of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association of America, that manipulate the market to keep profits high while producer incomes stay low. Under intense pressure from consumers and the U.S. Congress, the global chocolate industry agreed to a voluntary protocol to end child slavery on cocoa farms by July 2005. But rather than accept responsibility for their role in exacerbating producer poverty, their plan placed the blame on farmers without providing them the resources they need to feed their families and keep their children in school. Four years after these problems first came to light, little has been accomplished and consumers are once again demanding a comprehensive and lasting solution. www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/Letter From Addam 2/09/2004 to Paul Michaels, President, M&M Mars Inc.Dear Mr. Michaels,
My name is Addam; I am 10 years old. The reason I am writing you this letter is because I am upset with what I learned about using children as slaves on cocoa farms.
These children work all day and are beaten. These children who are as old as I am don't even have family with them to care for and love them. They don't go to school and as adults [if they live that long] have no future to look forward to. I read about one boy named Aly Diabae who told about falling down under a load of bags of cocoa. They beat him and beat him until he picked the bags up. Although he worked many days picking cocoa pods he had never tasted chocolate. "I don't know what chocolate is," he said.
I just thought you should know this brought me to tears.[and it did; my heart was wrenched as I watched the tears fall from my son's face]What I hope this letter has done is changed your mind and your company buys Fair Trade cocoa. If all the candy makers bought Fair Trade cocoa it would help to end child labor and slavery.
I like your products but if this continues you'll have one less buyer of your candy bars. I will be telling other people about this too.
Thank you for reading my letter. If you have any kids of your own when you look at them think of the kids in Africa.
Sincerely, Addam
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Mar 12, 2006 17:23:36 GMT 4
YOUR GOVERNMENT WANTS TO INJECT YOUR CHILDREN WITH A KNOWN BRAIN POISON More insanity from another institution that once protected the public.
NOTE: Refer to reply # 5, The Age of Autism: 'A pretty big secret', of this thread for more info concerning flu-shots containing mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Your government also wants to make flu shots mandatory for school children. Stand up for your parental rights ....Michelle
FROM: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A Poisonous Move for Kids by CDC
On February 22, CDC announced that it is dramatically expanding America's flu vaccination program to include all children between six months and 5 years and their siblings and caretakers. But, guess what CDC forgot to mention? There is not nearly enough thimerosal-free flu vaccine to go around. Vaccine makers produced fewer than 8 million thimerosal-free flu doses this season, which doesn't bode well for the more than 17 million children designated to receive flu shots under CDC's new protocol.
Thimerosal is the mercury-based preservative that has been linked to the epidemic of neurological disorders including speech delays, language delays, hyperactivity, attention-deficit disorder, and autism in American children born after 1989. CDC recommended the removal of thimerosal from children's vaccines by 2001, but most flu vaccinations still contain 25 micrograms of thimerosal in every 0.5ml dose. Under CDC's new recommendations, every American child under five will be injected once each year, with a double dose for first-timers. By his fifth birthday, a child whose parents cannot obtain the child-safe vaccine will have received up to 100 micrograms of thimerosal, which is half ethyl mercury. A recent scientific study indicates that many children will retain the tissue-destroying toxin in their brain and organs for years. CDC has moved aggressively to cut funding and derail follow-up studies that examine the impacts of retained mercury in children's brains.
In its announcement, CDC admitted that the health risks from flu to children do not justify the dramatic expansion of the vaccination program. For the first time in history, CDC rationalized the new protocols by arguing that the inoculations will spare parents and the health care industry significant lost work time now spent taking care of sick children. Although framed as a recommendation, CDC's new protocols function as mandates, since they establish the standards of care for the medical profession. Doctors who fall short of that standard are liable if a patient were to die from flu.
Since CDC is not requiring production of thimerosal-free children's flu vaccines, its expanded recommendations are bound to provoke a scramble among parents, pediatricians and HMOs to get their hands on the limited stashes of thimerosal-free flu vaccines.
CDC's new protocols contemplate inoculating 185 million Americans with influenza vaccines. The industry shipped only 81 million doses this year, so even before CDC announced its new requirements, the battle to secure flu vaccines was ferocious. When vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur opened its phone lines to accept pre-orders on January 31, it was flooded with calls from physicians, hospitals and HMOs desperate to reserve vaccines. During the first 30 minutes Sanofi got 40,000 phone calls and over 200,000 calls within eight hours, collapsing its communications system. By week's end it had received 400,000 calls -- more than the company customarily receives in a year.
Mercury-free flu shots are in particularly short supply. Sanofi, the only commercial supplier of thimerosal-free pediatric influenza vaccines, produced only eight million children's doses this year. CDC's announcement increases the pool of targeted children by over 11 million kids, ages 2 to 5 years old. Only about one-third of America's children under age five will be lucky enough to get the child-safe vaccines. While CDC's Director of Immunizations Dr. Lance Rodewald assured me he expects no shortage of thimerosal-free vaccine, doctors and medical groups are telling a different story. Those who customarily give their patients only thimerosal-free flu shots are already finding that the industry cannot fill their orders for the 2006-2007 season.
Pediatrician Lawrence Rosen, Director of Pediatrics at Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood, New Jersey, told us that his eight-doctor family medical practice had been informed by Sanofi that the company was unable to fill his order for next season. "It was like trying to get tickets to a Rolling Stones concert," he said. Sanofi will give him only 300 of the 900 thimerosal-free doses he needs. "The only other shots I can get contain thimerosal, and I'm not going to do that." According to Rosen, the problem is widespread across the country, with very few practices able to fill their orders for flu shots. "The gist is there's not enough safe vaccine. The government wants us to give more shots, but there's no supply. They are leaving millions of kids between the ages of 3 and 5 with no option -- millions of kids."
Sanofi has said that the company was prepared to double production of thimerosal-free children's flu vaccine, but that there were no requests from CDC or the State Health Departments that it do so. Indeed CDC has ordered 3.5 million doses from Sanofi for its Vaccines for Children Program, which provides vaccines to economically disadvantaged children mainly in minority communities. Only a fraction of these will be thimerosal-free, according to Rodewald. He refused to disclose the precise number.
Why will CDC inject millions of minority kids in America's poorest neighborhoods with poison proven to kill brain tissue and cause learning disorders when child-safe vaccines are available? CDC's spokesperson Glen Nowak explained to me the agency "doesn't have a preference for thimerosal-free vaccines" despite its repeated statements to the contrary since 1999. CDC also admitted it has no efforts underway to further educate the public about thimerosal, or to encourage manufacturers to move more quickly toward 100 percent mercury-free vaccines.
CDC's recommendation to vaccinate millions of additional children without assuring any additional capacity of thimerosal-free vaccines is a bad one. It will almost certainly encounter stiff resistance as skeptical parents and pediatricians balk at injecting young children with a known brain poison by order of bureaucrats that they increasingly don't trust.
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Apr 19, 2006 18:44:15 GMT 4
Immokalee, Fla.: First Stop on Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Poverty Tour4/19/2006 8:00:00 AM To: National and Assignment desks Contact: Jeffrey Buchanan, 202-463-7575 ext. 241, buchanan@rfkmemorial.org Amanda Shanor, 203-247-2195, shanor@rfkmemorial.org - both of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial WASHINGTON, April 19 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights announced the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Poverty Tour: A Journey for Economic and Social Justice. Through the Poverty Tour, the RFK Center hopes to uncover the economic exploitation and social injustices faced by the "invisible" poor across the country. The Poverty Tour will make its first stop in the farmworker community of Immokalee, Florida on April 23 and 24. Forty years ago Robert Kennedy first witnessed the hardships faced by the impoverished farmworkers of Delano, California as part of the U.S. Senate. This marked the first stop of his now famous "poverty tour", which included stops in the Mississippi Delta and Appalachia, that helped to shape many American's views on poverty. On the RFK Memorial Poverty Tour's first stop, Ethel Kennedy, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, original members of RFK's tours, social activists and faith leaders will be touring Immokalee, Florida, home to not only one of our nation's largest migrant farmworker communities but also home to cases of modern day slavery. Thanks largely to investigations by the southwest Florida-based farmworker organization the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) -- www.ciw-online.org -- the FBI and Justice Department have prosecuted six slavery cases in Florida's produce fields in recent years freeing over 1,000 workers held against their will. Pay and conditions have not improved for farmworkers in the forty years since Robert Kennedy first traveled to Delano. A farm worker picking tomatoes in Immokalee earns only 40-45 cents for every 32 pound bucket they pick, a rate that has remained stagnant for almost 30 years. In order to bring home $50 a worker must pick nearly two tons of tomatoes. The average farm workers' income, $7500, is well below the federal poverty line. Workers receive no overtime pay, health insurance, sick leave or other benefits. Current labor laws also deny farmworkers the protected right to organize. The CIW and the Alliance for Fair Food (AFF), a network of human rights, faith student and labor groups, are engaged in a public education campaign against fast food giant and major produce consumer McDonald's and its partner brand, Chipotle. The CIW and AFF are calling on McDonald's and Chipotle to work with the Florida farmworkers to improve wages and partner with the farmworkers in the protection of their own rights in the company's supply chain. Currently, McDonald's has devolved responsibility for human rights violations against farmworkers, including poverty wages, violence, and forced labor, to the very agricultural employers and labor contractors who have perpetrated these abuses. WHO: Ethel Kennedy, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Coalition of Immokalee Workers WHAT: Visit to Immokalee, Florida to Inspect Conditions in Farming Community WHEN and WHERE: Sunday, April 23 o 2-3 p.m.: Presentation by CIW (215 West Main St. Immokalee, FL) o 3-4 p.m.: Tour of farmworker community highlighting places of abuse o (Tour leaves from 215 West Main St.) o 4-4:30 p.m.: Town Hall meeting in Immokalee with farmworkers o (215 West Main Street) o 4:30-5: p.m.: Photo Op: Remarks and Signing of Letter to McDonald's o Letter asking for economic relief, real participation with the farmworkers, and transparency in produce purchases. o 5-6 p.m.: Photo Op: Outdoor mass at CIW parking lot, 100 S 3rd St Immokalee, FL (farmworkers and delegation take part) A second trip is planned for late May to New Orleans to meet with the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The journey will meet with members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and examine the devastating governmental failures following the hurricanes and the continuing challenges faced by New Orleans' low income communities. ACORN is advocating to give those displaced by the hurricanes the right to participate in decisions related to rebuilding their communities. Source: Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, www.rfkmemorial.orgThe Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights is a non-profit organization that engages in long-term partnerships with human rights activists advocating for the social justice goals they champion.
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Apr 21, 2006 13:38:59 GMT 4
public service announcement - things aren't born from nothing peacepalestineApril 18, 2006 Since AP, NPR and others are sending out incomplete reports, we thought your news organization would like to make use of the following information:Bulletin on Suicide Bombing Contact: If Americans Knew: 310.441.8580 / cell 415.847.1782 In the last two and a half weeks (since the previous suicide bombing) Israeli forces have killed at least 26 Palestinians -- at least 5 of them children -- and injured 161 Palestinian men, women and children. A college student lost her right eye today after being shot by an Israeli sniper last week. There have been 369 raids by Israeli forces, mostly into the West Bank. Gaza has undergone sustained shelling by Israeli forces and continued closures, resulting in increasing lack of food and medical supplies. According to UN reports, between March 30 and April 12th, Israeli forces launched 2300 artillery and tank shells and 34 missiles into Gaza. Since the current Palestinian uprising against Israeli military occupation and confiscation of Palestinian land began in fall 2000, approximately 3,863 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis and have been killed. Among these have been approximately 720 Palestinian children and 124 Israeli children. Today, in separate actions, several Palestinian youths were shot, one in the neck. Israeli forces are continuing their ongoing invasions of Nablus and other West Bank cities. Today is Palestinian Prisoners Day. 9,400 Palestinian men, women, and children are in prison. According to numerous human rights reports, Palestinian prisoners are frequently tortured. Defense for Children International reports that 4,000 Palestinian children have been arrested in the past five years, 400 of them currently in prison, including a fifteen-year-old girl, who has been in prison for over a year after being shot in the stomach by Israeli soldiers. DCI reports that the arrests are increasing. Additional Information from Defense for Children International:According to DCI: "The process of arrest and detention of Palestinian children is a process of systematic abuse and mistreatment which flouts international legal standards and denies the basic human rights of detainees first as children and secondly as prisoners...[children are] handcuffed and blindfolded, humiliated and threatened and often beaten and kicked from the moment they are arrested up to and often throughout their interrogation and detention. They are deprived of sleep, food and access to the bathroom until so-called confessions are coerced out of them..."At 5.30pm on Monday 10 April 2006, at least six artillery shells fired by the Israeli military fell on the family house of Mohammed Rabe'eya Ghaban in Beit Lahiya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Shrapnel from the shells pierced the skull of Mohammed's eight-year old daughter Hadeel, killing her instantly. The shelling also resulted in the injury of eight other family members, including Hadeel's brothers and sisters: Rawan Ghaban 1 and a half years old Rana Ghaban 3 years old Munir Ghaban 4 years old Amneh Ghaban 9 years old Ghassan Ghaban 11 years old Bassam Ghaban 15 years old Tahrir Ghaban 17 years old The children's mother, 35-year old Sofia, was the eighth family member wounded in the attack. Several neighbours were also injured including: Jaqueline Mo'ein Maarouf 11 years old Mariam Maher Al-'Assi 15 years old For more information: www.imemc.org/www.ifamericansknew.org/www.nad-plo.org/main.php?view=pmg_daily-reportswww.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=484&CategoryId=1 www.dci-pal.org/english/display.cfm?DocId=483&CategoryId=1 www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/Source: www.uruknet.info/?p=22684
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Apr 25, 2006 15:38:26 GMT 4
Human trafficking is 'slavery that shames world' By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Published: 24 April 2006 Almost every country in the world is affected by the scourge of human trafficking, a UN report will reveal today. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which has compiled the first such study from open sources, there are 127 countries of origin, mainly developing countries, and 137 destination countries, mainly in the industrialised world.The report also highlights 98 transit countries. "The fact that slavery - in the form of human trafficking - still exists in the 21st century shames us all," said UNODC's chief, Antonio Maria Costa. The report, to be presented to the UN crime commission meeting in Vienna, calls for the protection of victims, particularly women and children, and for the systematic prosecution of offenders. "Traffickers are evil brokers of oppressed people whom they deliver in the hands of exploiters," Mr Costa said. "They capitalise on weak law enforcement and poor international co-operation. I am disappointed by the low rates of convictions for the perpetrators of human trafficking."
Germany, Greece and France are among about a dozen countries identified as having a "high" incidence of acting as transit countries. Ten countries are named as the top destinations for trafficking victims: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey and the US. Britain is on the "high" index of destination countries.Human trafficking for sexual exploitation is reported more frequently than trafficking for forced labour at the global level, the report says. It calls for governments to publicise the risks to vulnerable people through information campaigns. "A main challenge is to reduce demand, whether for cheap goods manufactured in sweatshops, or for under-priced commodities produced by bonded people in farms and mines, or for services provided by sex slaves. If people are aware of the dangers of human trafficking, the chances of avoiding its consequences should be improved," Mr Costa said. The absence of data has been a major handicap in tackling the crime of human trafficking, the report says. "Some countries of destination have great difficulty in acknowledging the level of trafficking within and across their borders," Mr Costa said. He urged governments to "try harder" in reporting abuse, saying that efforts to understand the scale of the problem have so far been inefficient and uncoordinated. The report also acknowledges possible dangers in interpreting the available data. Some countries could appear to have a serious problem because their data are honest and accurate, while others "could appear in an unduly favourable light because of inadequate statistics", Mr Costa said. But he said it was "difficult to name a country that is not affected in some way." Source: news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article359820.ece
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michelle
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Post by michelle on May 27, 2006 16:16:57 GMT 4
IS THERE AN ORCHESTRATED PLAN TO DRUG OUR CHILDREN? YES! SHEER INSANITY? IT DEPENDS ON WHAT SIDE OF THE FENCE YOU SIT ON. THE BUSH FAMILY HAS DEEP TIES TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY. AND, WHAT BETTER WAY TO CREATE A DOCILE, NONRESISTANT POPULATION. BY THE WAY, THE U.S. IS HANDING OUT PROZAC IN IRAQ LIKE CANDY....MichelleChild drugs linked to heart attack (March 27, 2006)www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18614238-2702,00.html CHILDREN as young as five have suffered strokes, heart attacks, hallucinations and convulsions after taking drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.Documents obtained by The Australian reveal that almost 400 serious adverse reactions have been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, some involving children as young as three. Cases include the sudden death of a seven-year-old, and a five-year-old who suffered a stroke after taking Ritalin. Children also experienced heart palpitations and shortness of breath after taking Dexamphetamine. Others taking Ritalin or Dexamphetamine - the two most commonly used ADHD drugs - experienced hair loss, muscle spasms, severe abdominal pain, tremors, insomnia, severe weight loss, depression and paranoia. CLIP**************************************************** Think Ritalin Is Safe? - Read What Novartis Says About Its Own Product!www.rense.com/general63/thin.htmIf your child's doctor or a child physiatrist diagnosis your child as suffering from ADD/ADHD - and recommends that you give your child Ritalin each morning before school in order to counter the negative effects of ADD/ADHD, then you should be aware of all the facts surrounding Ritalin. Instead of taking the advice of your doctor - or anyone else whether Ritalin is safe, simply read the packaging label Novartis puts inside each box of Ritalin. I did, and this is what it says: CLIP *************************************************** Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs? (May 12, 2006)blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/tots_used_as_hu.htmlABC News has learned that a Massachusetts hospital is currently recruiting pre-schoolers to test the safety and effectiveness of a powerful antipsychotic drug called Quetiapine. **************************************************** THE PRESIDENT’S NEW FREEDOM COMMISSION ON MENTAL HEALTH (May 14, 2006)www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_george_s_060514_the_president_92s_new_.htmThe Plan to Drug American School Children by George Stone - MEDICALIZATION: Convincing Healthy People They Are Sick (...) Five times as many people are being defined as permanently mentally ill (disabled) today than before the introduction of drug treatment. (Whitaker 2005) Yet, inspite of these ominous facts, millions of American children are routinely being given these dangerous drugs.How did this happen? The drugging of American children is not accidental. (...) Pharma has used its economic power to create an effective lobby, which controls U.S. public health policy as well as watchdog agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). More frightening still, as I will show, the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC) is a creation of pharmaceutical interests. Two of its central policy recommendations are bald-faced drug marketing schemes. The first targets 52 million American school children for mental health screening by a program known as “TeenScreen.” While the second irrevocably links the mental health treatment psychiatric drugs - - not coincidentally, the most expensive and dangerous psychiatric drugs - - using the pseudo-scientific Texas Medication Algorithmic Program or TMAP. Let’s begin with a look at the money trail of legal drugs and some Pharma history. “The US government contributes more money to the development of new drugs in the form of tax breaks and subsidies than any other government. Of the 20 largest pharmaceutical corporations, nine are based in the United States. Yet drugs are more expensive in the United States than in any other part of the world, and the global drug companies make the bulk of their profits in the United States. “The pharmaceutical and health products industry has spent more than $800 million in federal lobbying and campaign donations at the federal and state levels in the past seven years…No other industry has spent more money to sway public policy in that period…its combined political outlays and lobbying and campaign contributions is topped only by the insurance industry.” (Ismail 2005)Pharma’s huge profit margin has allowed it to buy control of the FDA. (...) Since Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 911 and the publication of Kevin Phillips Dynasty, many American’s are aware of the strong ties between the Saudi Royal family and the Bush family around oil. However, not as many know that there are also strong ties between the Pharmaceutical industry and the Bush family as well. (...) TeenScreen plays on fears of teen suicide, just as Fosamax plays on the fears of broken hip bones; mental health screening is hyped as a prevention program that can reduce teen suicide by identifying and “treating” teens at risk. However, a US Preventive Services Task Force report found no evidence that screening reduces suicide attempts or mortality, and that existing screening tools do not accurately identify suicide risk. In addition, the screenings take place at school, often bypassing parental consent. (Pringle 2005d) The TMAP antidepressant drugs, which have been billed as miraculous treatment for depression, do not live up to their hype. They have been shown to increase suicidal thoughts and behavior in children. Their use with children is banned in the United Kingdom. However in the US they have only an FDA “blackbox warning label,” and are not banned with children. Finally, if these drugs were really effective, one would expect to find a significant reduction in suicide rates following their introduction. This is not the case. CLIP
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Jun 7, 2006 15:55:29 GMT 4
Human Rights Watchdog Sues Nestle, ADM, Cargill For Using Forced Child LaborADM is also currently being sued by the International Labor Rights Fund for alleged involvement in the trafficking, torture and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans in the Ivory Coast. [ See today's post at Sustainable Development, reply #10: airdance.proboards50.com/index.cgi?board=oenr&action=display&thread=1143204275&page=1 ] The suit, which is being filed on behalf of Malian children brought against their will to the Ivory Coast, argues that the company, as well as Nestle and Cargill, has knowingly turned a blind eye to the use of forced child labor in the cocoa plantations where the agricultural processor's chocolate originates. "It is unconscionable that Nestle, ADM and Cargill have ignored repeated and well-documented warnings over the past several years that the farms they were using to grow cocoa employed child slave labor," says International Labor Rights Fund attorney Natacha Thys. "They could have put a stop to it years ago, but chose to look the other way. We had to go to court as a last resort."For more information:Human Rights Watchdog Sues Nestle, ADM, Cargill For Using Forced Child Laborwww.laborrights.org/projects/childlab/FinalCocoa-Complaint_Jul05.pdf
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jun 16, 2006 13:51:25 GMT 4
The war on children John Pilger Monday 19th June 2006 The most vulnerable people in Gaza are suffering the worst acute mental and physical trauma as a result of Israel's actions: almost half the population is under 15. By John Pilger Arthur Miller wrote, "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on 9 June when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children. This was approved on 23 May by the US House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organisations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60m a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet," joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the "wrong" party, Hamas, which the US and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognise the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem. The sniper's wound The reason Israel fears Hamas is that Hamas is unlikely to be a trusted collaborator in subju- gating its own people on Israel's behalf. Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace. Palestinians were fed up with the failures and corruption of the Arafat era. According to the former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Centre verified the Hamas electoral victory, "public opinion polls show that 80 per cent of Palestinians want a peace agreement with Israel". How ironic this is, considering that the rise of Hamas was due in no small part to the secret support it received from Israel, which, with the US and Britain, wanted Islamists to undermine secular Arabism and its "moderate" dreams of freedom. Hamas refused to play this Machiavellian game and in the face of Israeli assaults maintained a ceasefire for 18 months. The objective of the Israeli attack on the beach at Gaza was clearly to sabotage the ceasefire. This is a time-honoured tactic. Now, state terror in the form of a medieval siege is to be applied to the most vulnerable. For the Palestinians, a war against their children is hardly new. A 2004 field study published in the British Medical Journal reported that, in the previous four years, "Two-thirds of the 621 children . . . killed [by the Israelis] at checkpoints . . . on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half the cases to the head, neck and chest - the sniper's wound." A quarter of Palestinian infants under the age of five are acutely or chronically malnourished. The Israeli wall "will isolate 97 primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the populations they serve." The study described "a man in a now fenced-in village near Qalqilya [who] approached the gate with his seriously ill daughter in his arms and begged the soldiers on duty to let him pass so that he could take her to hospital. The sol-diers refused." Gaza, now sealed like an open prison and terrorised by the sonic boom of Israeli fighter aircraft, has a population of which almost half is under 15. Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist who heads a children's community health project, told me, "The statistic I personally find unbearable is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma . . . 99.2 per cent had their homes bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shooting; a third saw family members or neighbours injured or killed." These children suffer unrelenting nightmares and "night terrors" and the dichotomy of hav-ing to cope with these conditions. On the one hand, they dream about becoming doctors and nurses "so they can help others"; on the other, this is then overtaken by an apocalyptic vision of themselves as the next generation of suicide bombers. They experience this invariably after attacks by the Israelis. For some boys, their heroes are no longer football players, but a confusion of Palestinian "martyrs" and even the enemy, "because Israeli soldiers are the strongest and have Apache gunships". That these children are now to be punished further may be beyond human comprehension, but there is a logic. Over the years, the Palestinians have avoided falling into the abyss of an all-out civil war, knowing this is what the Israelis want. Destroying their elected government while attempting to build a parallel administration around the collusive Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, may well produce, as the Oxford academic Karma Nabulsi wrote, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society . . . ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and broken into ethnic and religious tribalism, and co-opted collaborationists. Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Ariel Sharon] had in store for us." The new "body count" The struggle in Palestine is an American war, waged from America's most heavily armed foreign military base, Israel. In the west, we are conditioned not to think of the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" in those terms, just as we are conditioned to think of the Israelis as victims, not illegal and brutal occupiers. This is not to underestimate the initiative of the Israeli state, but without F-16s and Apaches and billions of American taxpayers' dollars, Israel would have made peace with the Palestinians long ago. Since the Second World War, the US has given Israel some $140bn, much of it as armaments. According to the Congressional Research Service, the same "aid" budget was to include $28m "to help [Palestinian] children deal with the current conflict situation" and to provide "basic first aid". That has now been vetoed. Karma Nabulsi's comparison with Iraq is apposite, for the same "policy" applies there. The capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a wonderful media event: what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called "action as propaganda", and hav-ing little bearing on reality. The Americans and those who act as their bullhorn have their demon - even a video game of his house being blown up. The truth is that Zarqawi was largely their creation. His apparent killing serves an important propaganda purpose, distracting us in the west from the American goal of converting Iraq, like Palestine, into a powerless society of ethnic and religious tribalism. Death squads, formed and trained by veterans of the CIA's "counter-insurgency" in central America, are critical to this. The Special Police Commandos, a CIA creation led by former senior intelligence officers in Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, are perhaps the most brutal. The Zarqawi killing and the myths about his importance also deflect from routine massacres by US soldiers, such as the one at Haditha. Even the puppet prime minister Nouri al-Maliki complains that murderous behaviour of US troops is "a daily occurrence". As I learned in Vietnam, a form of serial killing, then known officially as "body count", is the way the Americans fight their colonial wars. Put out more flags This is known as "pacification". The asymmetry of a pacified Iraq and a pacified Palestine is clear. As in Palestine, the war in Iraq is against civilians, mostly children. According to Unicef, Iraq once had one of the highest indicators for the well- being of children. Today, a quarter of children between the ages of six months and five years suffer acute or chronic malnutrition, worse than during the years of sanctions. Poverty and disease have risen with each day of the occupation. In April, in British-occupied Basra, the European aid agency Saving Children from War reported: "The mortality of young children had increased by 30 per cent compared with the Saddam Hussein era." They die because the hospitals have no ventilators and the water supply, which the British were meant to have fixed, is more polluted than ever. Children fall victim to unexploded US and British cluster bombs. They play in areas contaminated by depleted uranium; by contrast, British army survey teams venture there only in full-body radiation suits, face masks and gloves. Unlike the children they came to "liberate", British troops are given what the Ministry of Defence calls "full biological testing". Was Arthur Miller right? Do we "internally deny" all this, or do we listen to distant voices? On my last trip to Palestine, I was rewarded, on leaving Gaza, with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering from inside the walled compounds. Children are responsible for this. No one tells them to do it. They make flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and one or two climb on to a wall and hold the flag between them, silently. They do it, believing they will tell the world. John Pilger's new book, "Freedom Next Time", is published by Bantam Press (£17.99). His website is [http://www.johnpilger.com] SOURCE: www.newstatesman.com/200606190029
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