Other sponsors of this International Obesity Conference include:
Sanofi-Aventis (third-largest pharma company, makes diet pills)
Reductil (diet pill)
Roche (another big pharma with diet pills on its product list)
Jenny Craig
Weight Watchers
Novartis Medical Nutrition (sells diet and "health" products)
Merck Sharp & Dohme
If I had to vote for worst sensationalist comment out of this whole tacky commercial it would be obesity is as big a threat as global warming. Even if they weren't exaggerating the health claims, obesity takes a few years off the lives of people in Western societies who don't even know how they are going to handle that many seniors anyway. Global warming can destory life as we know it for future generations. Can one really compare a few years off the life of a 75yr old to the aftermath of Katrina times 100 (or even one Katrina for that matter.) It is absolutely disgusting. What is even more disgusting is this scare mongering headlines have been going on for decades. Meanwhile crash dieting makes us fatter, but that is good for business. Risky diet pills and surgery make us sick, but that is good for business too. Billions of dollars a year go into this sick obsession (and the hands of few who control the business
On the other hand, it we declared a truce on the war on fat for 5 years and just walked instead of using cars when possible, obsessing over our carbon footprints instead of our waistlines, we could spread that money around and do some good, have healthier bodies even if they are not going to be as thin as we have been lead to believe, and possible save the planet. Too simple I guess!!!!!!!
"Weight obsession is a social disease. If we cared more about CO2 than BMI there would still be time."
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
Since this appears to be the few venues on earth where these issues are discussed intelligently, it might be useful to go into some detail about the kind of work the Rendon Group actually does since that seems to have been left out of the narrative.
I don't know Rendon's background or training, but essentially what he offers the government is a privatized version of psychological warfare operations, something I'm fairly certain Lt. Brand has more than a passing acquaintance with.
Some of Rendon's greatest hits:
* Created the propaganda agaist Manuel Noriega which greased the chute for the Bush I adminstration invasion/civilian massacre in Panama in 1989.
* Produced the carefully choreographed lie-fest that sold Americans on the idea of dying to liberate Kuiwait. (The false "babies taken out of incubators" story.)
* Marketed falsified atrocity stories to get the US involved on the side of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a terrorist organization which supported itself through drug trafficking and extortion (Source: Interpol) and against the sovereign state of Yugoslavia.
"I am an information warrior and a perception manager" Rendon stated matter of factly in a talk at the US Air Force Academy in 1996.
Like Brand, Rendon is a part of a group of amoral technicians in the tradition of Edward Bernays who've decided that democracy is a bad idea and working covertly on behalf of the existing power structure, however that power structure chooses to conduct itself, is the wise path.
Though fighter planes and battleships get most of the glory, the military makes a significant investment in psychological warfare operations and considers it an essential element in its efforts.
During World War I, the British taught the US that US civilians were a fit and proper target for such operations.
This lesson was greatly expanded upon by the boatloads of Nazis who were embraced by US intelligence after World War II.
The CIA and other intelligence organizations absorbed the Nazi world view and their tactics and have used them liberally around the world and at home ever since.
Brand's chemical warfare operation against US civilians - the mass dosing of an activist, anti-war generation with LSD - was, quite frankly one of the masterpieces of psychological operations of the Cold War era. It was all the more remarkable because he carried it out in broad daylight and, to date at least, has been able to maintain the illusion he is an intellectual with no particular political loyalties.
His immensely cynical presentation of John Rendon as a source of refreshing and insightful insights into the "war on terror" - itself a joke to anyone who has made even a casual inquiry into it - was pushing his luck.
Whether or not the news is fake, and how much of it is fake, is one matter.
It obviously comes from a very warped and single strata of social perspective (corporate), rather than from any cross section of society. (Sometimes the news is made to APPEAR more or less from a cross section of perspectives, or it even does when the matters are more or less trivial and non-threatening to corporate agendas.)
Anyway what I wanted to harp on was the bone-chilling report done on one of the major evening news broadcasts the evening after Steve Irwin's tragic death.
His death was so very tragic to begin with, but what I found somewhat bone chilling was how on their news report they could only excitedly talk about the genetic make-up of risk takers.
This was a death God damn it and here they were in their usual excited pep talk voice, excitedly talking about the genetic make-up of risk takers. Obviously they were not prepared for a story on his death and were just grabbing something out of the hat.
Since this pep talk voice was business as usual, I was not too very shocked. But nevertheless I did find it a morbid and inappropriate way to announce a death, and proceed with a "story" on it. It was not about his life so much as excited talk about his hot genetic make-up, like it was a hot commodity or something.
Anyway this is going to sound even more morbid yet but to be frank, they sounded like they just couldn't wait to dissect his body to find his valuable genetic make-up (since he had "risk taker" genes), and like market up his genes or something. That is exactly how this news story sounded to me.
No they did not actually SAY they wanted to dissect him to harvest his genetic make-up. But the way the story was reported, it might have been little wonder if they had said this.
Anyway what sort of perspective it is that we get our news, to me is obviously something weird.
Julia Schopick
www.honestmedicine.com
Hi, Diane:
This blog entry/article is really amazing! I will be
adding it to my "articles of importance" on my
website.
Thanks for the truly wonderful work you are doing,
and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Julia Schopick
www.honestmedicine.com
JuliaS1573@aol.com
Other sponsors of this International Obesity Conference include:
Sanofi-Aventis (third-largest pharma company, makes diet pills)
Reductil (diet pill)
Roche (another big pharma with diet pills on its product list)
Jenny Craig
Weight Watchers
Novartis Medical Nutrition (sells diet and "health" products)
Merck Sharp & Dohme
If I had to vote for worst sensationalist comment out of this whole tacky commercial it would be obesity is as big a threat as global warming. Even if they weren't exaggerating the health claims, obesity takes a few years off the lives of people in Western societies who don't even know how they are going to handle that many seniors anyway. Global warming can destory life as we know it for future generations. Can one really compare a few years off the life of a 75yr old to the aftermath of Katrina times 100 (or even one Katrina for that matter.) It is absolutely disgusting. What is even more disgusting is this scare mongering headlines have been going on for decades. Meanwhile crash dieting makes us fatter, but that is good for business. Risky diet pills and surgery make us sick, but that is good for business too. Billions of dollars a year go into this sick obsession (and the hands of few who control the business
On the other hand, it we declared a truce on the war on fat for 5 years and just walked instead of using cars when possible, obsessing over our carbon footprints instead of our waistlines, we could spread that money around and do some good, have healthier bodies even if they are not going to be as thin as we have been lead to believe, and possible save the planet. Too simple I guess!!!!!!!
"Weight obsession is a social disease. If we cared more about CO2 than BMI there would still be time."
The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.
The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.
Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment
Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.
Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.
If there are no gaps there is no emotion.
Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.
When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.
There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.
People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.
Emotion ends.
Man becomes machine.
A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.
A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.
FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.
SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.
A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.
To read the complete article please follow either of these links :
http://www.planetsave.com/ps_mambo/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=75&func=view&id=68&catid=6
http://www.earthnewswire.com/index.php?option=com_forum&Itemid=89&page=viewtopic&t=11
sushil_yadav
Whether or not the news is fake, and how much of it is fake, is one matter.
It obviously comes from a very warped and single strata of social perspective (corporate), rather than from any cross section of society. (Sometimes the news is made to APPEAR more or less from a cross section of perspectives, or it even does when the matters are more or less trivial and non-threatening to corporate agendas.)
Anyway what I wanted to harp on was the bone-chilling report done on one of the major evening news broadcasts the evening after Steve Irwin's tragic death.
His death was so very tragic to begin with, but what I found somewhat bone chilling was how on their news report they could only excitedly talk about the genetic make-up of risk takers.
This was a death God damn it and here they were in their usual excited pep talk voice, excitedly talking about the genetic make-up of risk takers. Obviously they were not prepared for a story on his death and were just grabbing something out of the hat.
Since this pep talk voice was business as usual, I was not too very shocked. But nevertheless I did find it a morbid and inappropriate way to announce a death, and proceed with a "story" on it. It was not about his life so much as excited talk about his hot genetic make-up, like it was a hot commodity or something.
Anyway this is going to sound even more morbid yet but to be frank, they sounded like they just couldn't wait to dissect his body to find his valuable genetic make-up (since he had "risk taker" genes), and like market up his genes or something. That is exactly how this news story sounded to me.
No they did not actually SAY they wanted to dissect him to harvest his genetic make-up. But the way the story was reported, it might have been little wonder if they had said this.
Anyway what sort of perspective it is that we get our news, to me is obviously something weird.
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