Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1301
March 25, 2016
Third World Mental Health Initiatives Put US to Shame
People and Power – Out of the Shadows
Al Jazeera (2015)
Film Review
Out of the Shadows celebrates the hard work of third world activists who have dedicated their lives to bringing mental health care to their countries. It presents a striking contrast to the neglect and abuse the mentally ill experience in the US.
Globally half a billion people suffer from mental disorders, such as depression, bipolar illness and schizophrenia – more than all AIDS, malaria and TB cases combined. Yet owing to profound stigma, publicly funded mental health services are virtually non-existent in many third world countries. India, for example, spends less than 1% of their health budget on mental health. And in Togo, mentally ill men and women are chained to trees.
The documentary highlights activist-created programs providing free mental health services (funded by private European and Canadian donors) in India, Benin, Ivory Cost, Burkina Faso and Jordan.
March 23, 2016
US Barbarism Towards the Mentally Ill: A Crime Against Humanity
This is Crazy: Criminalizing Mental Health
Brave New Films (2015)
Film Review
This documentary showcases US policies which are shutting down psychiatric hospitals and community mental health centers and warehousing America’s mentally ill in jails and prisons. It features in-depth interviews with two mentally ill women who survived lengthy incarcerations, as well as commentary by psychiatrists, mental health workers and prison reform advocates.
America’s barbaric treatment of the mentally ill constitutes a crime against humanity under international law. Sadly it’s not a new problem. Thanks to the steady cutbacks in mental health services and housing subsidies that began under Reagan, it was clear by the mid-eighties that most mentally ill Americans were ending up in jails and prisons and on the street.
In 2002, Bush junior made even deeper cuts in mental health funding to finance the wars in the Middle East. Meanwhile, thanks to the 2008 global economic scam (which effectively transferred billions in taxpayer dollars to billionaires), states cut an additional $5 billion in mental health services* and eliminated 4,500 psychiatric beds.
Police Harassment of the Mentally Ill
The documentary begins by highlighting the brutal treatment of the mentally ill at the hands of police. When I practiced in Seattle, police routinely underwent crisis intervention training that enabled them to recognize when suspects were psychotic and to appropriately de-escalate threats of violence. This training also made it far more likely mentally ill offenders ended up in treatment facilities – as opposed to jail or prison.
Thanks to ongoing budget cuts and the militarization of local policing, most cities have abandoned routine crisis intervention training. In recent years, it’s become common for cops to kill psychotic individuals when they create a disturbance on the street – either by shooting them or repeatedly tasering or beating them to death. The lucky ones end up with lengthy prison sentences.
To his credit, New York city mayor Bill De Blasio re-instituted crisis intervention training for New York cops in 2014.
Private Prisons (Housing 1/3 of Mentally Ill Offenders)Are the Worst
This is Crazy continues by examining the brutal treatment psychotic inmates receive from prison guards. There is often no effort, especially in private prisons, to ensure they receive their prescribed medication. Instead guards physically abuse them and put them in solitary confinement in a (mostly futile) effort to get them to comply.
Warehousing the mentally ill in jails and penitentiaries also rips of taxpayers – as it costs $15 billion more annually than outpatient mental health treatment.
Once mentally ill convicts are released from prison, they rarely get appropriate aftercare. Conventional probation services make no effort to ensure that they access housing or appropriate aftercare services. Many end up returning to the streets to live.
*Between 2009 and 2012.
March 21, 2016
The Food Sovereignty Prize: Taking Back the Commons
Lucas Benitez, co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers from the United States, makes his acceptance speech after being honored at WhyHunger’s 2012 Food Sovereignty Prize, which honors grassroots leaders working for a more democratic food system, New York, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012. (Stuart Ramson/Insider Images for WhyHunger)
While the corporate media slavishly promotes genetic modification and other technological fixes to global hunger, the food sovereignty movement continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
The Food Sovereignty Prize is awarded by the Food Sovereignty Alliance, which works to rebuild local food economies and asserts democratic control over food production. They assert that all human beings deserve a right to determine how and where their food is grown.
The prize was first awarded in 2009 as an alternative to the World Food Prize, a corporate sponsored award for technological fixes – such as genetic modification – promoted by the global elite as a solution to world hunger.
The 2015 Food Sovereignty Prize winners are the US-based Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH)
The Federation of Southern Cooperatives was created in 1967 as the economic arm of the civil rights movement. Their main purpose has been
• To develop cooperatives and credit unions as a means for people to enhance the quality of their lives and preserve their communities;
• To save, protect and expand the landholdings of Black family farmers in the south;
• To develop, advocate and support public policies to benefit their members and low income rural communities.
At present the federation has over 70 active co-ops across ten southern states, with a membership of more than 20,000 families.
The Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH) was created in 1979 to protect the economic, social and cultural right of 46 Garifuna communities along the Atlantic coast of Honduras. Land grabs for agrofuels (African palm plantations) and tourist resort development seriously threaten their way of life. Most of these illegal evictions stem directly from the 2009 US-backed coup, in which the Obama administration supported the overthrow of a democratically elected president with a strong land reform agenda.
OFRANEH brings together communities to meet these challenges head-on, through direct-action community organizing, national and international legal action, promotion of Garifuna culture (mixed Afro-descendent and indigenous), and movement building. OFRANEH especially prioritizes the leadership development of women and youth.
March 19, 2016
Opting Out of Corporate Rule
Paths Through Utopias
Isabelle Fremeaux and John Jordan (2011)
Film Review
Paths through Utopias is a video diary of a French couple’s tour through European collectives in which citizens are resisting corporate rule and reclaiming control over their own lives. The collectives visited include
• The Climate Action Camp (2007-2010) which blocked the construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport (see Battle of Heathrow Climate Victory)
• Jugoremedija, the chemical factory in Belgrade workers occupied to block its closure and subsequently transformed into a workers cooperative.
• Two self-governing collectives in Catalan (Spain) in which workers reclaimed vacant housing to produce their own food, created their own local currencies and started a citizen-run radio station.
• A self-governing off-the-grid collective in Britain.
• Zegg, an intentional community and eco-village in Germany where members are experimenting with alternatives to monogamy.
March 17, 2016
The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy
People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy
Robert McChesney and John Nichols (2016)
Film Review
An extremely inspiring public presentation in which McChesney and Nichols talk about their latest book (of the same name)
McChesney begins with research indicating that 50% of current jobs will be eliminated by robots and artificial intelligence in the next 10-20 years. He also talks about the inherent inability of a scarcity/profit based economic system to address this crisis.
For me, the most interesting part of his presentation was a discussion of Franklin D Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights.* According to McChesney, both Germany and Japan incorporated this Second Bill of Rights into their constitutions after World War II. This, in his view, explains why both countries have become economic powerhouses.
Both men talk about the crucial need to form a post-capitalist society and economic system. Nichols talks more about the large global movements which have formed to build this new system. He, like McChesney, has been surprised by the popular candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. The book predicts the appearance of proto-fascist and democratic socialist candidates in response to growing popular resistance movements. However neither expected it to happen so quickly.
The best part of Nichols’ talk is his discussion of the massive Luddite and Chartist movements in Britain (and the populist and progressive movements in the US) that would ultimately lead to universal suffrage, honest elections and the rise of the trade union movement.
Nichols stresses that none of these reforms resulted from the heroic efforts of a political savior – they all resulted from the dedicated and persistent mass organizing of ordinary people.
*Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights included the basic right of all Americans to
• Employment (right to work)
• Food, clothing and leisure, via enough income to support them
• Farmers’ rights to a fair income
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
• Housing
• Medical care
• Social security
• Education
March 16, 2016
Study shows 45% drop in Chemicals in just 3 Days of using all natural personal care items
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According to research, reading labels and eliminating corporate beauty and cleaning products from your home can produce immediate improvement in toxic blood levels.
Source: Study shows 45% drop in Chemicals in just 3 Days of using all natural personal care items
With permission of
Posted Monday, March 14, 2016
Teen Study shows 45% drop in hormone-disrupting chemicals in just 3 days of using all natural personal care items!
Natural News readers are well aware of the toxic products being sold to the uniformed public and hopefully are doing a good job avoiding them for their own personal care products. This new study conducted on 100 Teens at UC Berkeley may help us convince others to pay attention.
The results, published todayin the journalEnvironmental Health Perspectives, came from a study of 100 Latina teenagers participating in the Health and Environmental Research on Makeup of Salinas Adolescents (HERMOSA) study.
Researchers provided teen study participants with personal care products labeled free of chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, triclosan and oxybenzone. Such chemicals…
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The Murder of Chávez. The CIA and DEA Cover Their Tracks
Source: The Murder of Chávez. The CIA and DEA Cover Their Tracks
The journalist Eva Golinger (US – Venezuela) has repeatedly questioned the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The website aporrea.org quotes her statement:
«Everything that Washington was trying to achieve during the administration of Hugo Chávez is today being realized in his absence. The cancerous illness from which Chávez suffered was unusually aggressive and suspicious, and every day turns up more evidence that it is possible Chávez was murdered».
The first signs of cancer were found in Chávez in May 2011. In June he underwent two surgeries at a specialized center in Havana. His Cuban surgeons found and removed a malignant tumor that had metastasized with sinister persistence, despite all preventive measures. New operations were needed. This athletic man, who was full of strength and physically robust, passed away on March 5, 2013 at the age of 58.
Expanding on this topic, Eva Golinger writes,
«It is enough to know that one man who had for several years been one of his closest aides, who was often alone with him and brought him his food, coffee, and water, is now a protected witness in the United States. Soon Leamsy Salazar’s covert actions and close collaboration with intelligence agencies in Washington will be revealed».
The name of Hugo Chávez’s chief bodyguard was rarely mentioned in the media while the president was alive. Due to the nature of his work Leamsy Villafaña Salazar shunned publicity, did not like to be photographed, and tried to stay in the shadows. Chávez considered him to be a reliable, incorruptible, and professionally trained Bolivarian officer. This was precisely how the president described him on a TV broadcast about the attempted pro-American coup in April 2002. Conspirators managed to depose Chávez for three days, but with the support of the people and army, he triumphantly returned to the presidential Miraflores palace. From the roof of his palace he was welcomed by the military, among whom Salazar was readily visible, victoriously waving the Venezuelan flag. That image became the symbol of the victory over the counter-revolution.
Oddly enough, little is known about Salazar, and mostly from tight-lipped American sources. He was born in 1974 to a large family living in Petare, a slum district in the Venezuelan capital. After high school he entered the naval academy, graduating in 1998. He was a middling student, finishing 27th out of his class of 55. Nonetheless, in 1999 Salazar was tapped to be a presidential honor guard. Tito Rincón Bravo, Venezuela’s minister of defense and father of Leamsy’s first wife, played an important role in this appointment. Salazar became a personal assistant to Chávez. That job came with a very intense workload, due to the frantic pace of the president’s life.
After the events of 2002, Salazar was unexpectedly posted to a naval base in the provinces – in Punto Fijo (in Falcón State), but in 2006 Chávez ordered Salazar’s return to his former duties in the security detail.
Following Chávez’s death, Salazar provided security for the president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello. But oddities in Salazar’s behavior made Cabello uneasy. At that time debate was still raging about the causes of Chávez’s death and the people who could have been involved, and so Cabello eventually asked the minister of defense to transfer Salazar to another post. At some point during this period Salazar married once again. His new wife was Anabel Linares Leal, a graduate of the military academy who had been presented with her officer’s sword from Chávez’s own hands. For a while Anabel worked with the financial accounts of the Venezuelan armed forces at Banco Bicentenario, which means that she had access to secret information about arms purchases abroad. The newlyweds applied for permission to travel to the Dominican Republic for their honeymoon. That permission was granted, and soon the couple was in Santo Domingo, but from there flew on to Spain. A special plane belonging to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) flew Salazar and his family from Spain to the US.
This is how Emili J. Blasco, a Washington correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC who has often served as a mouthpiece for propaganda from US intelligence services, described Salazar’s escape. He claimed that in Spain the Americans had subjected the Salazars to lengthy interrogations in order to determine the «true objectives of their break with the regime».
The stories about Salazar in the international media, which were similar in tone and had obviously come from the same source, emphasize that while Chávez was alive, Salazar had been a «committed Bolivarian», but that after his death Salazar had decided to break with the regime. Therefore, Salazar had held secret negotiations with the DEA for 13 months, not only to arrange his escape, but also to obtain certain promises regarding his own safety, as well as that of his wife and children. But the CIA is not mentioned, only the DEA. The reason for that is clear – the CIA is a spy agency, and any indicator of possible long-standing secret ties with this «bureau of hit men» was something Salazar’s protectors tried to avoid, knowing that Venezuela’s SEBIN (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional) counterintelligence agency would investigate the story of his involvement in Chávez’s murder.
Now the couple is in the US, living under federal protection, and they give testimony on a wide range of issues, but primarily on the «involvement» of various figures in the Bolivarian regime in drug trafficking, including military leaders. It should be kept in mind that long before Salazar made his escape, US intelligence agencies had begun to plant false information in the media about the existence of a so-called «Cartel of the Suns» (Cartel de los Soles), which was allegedly led by Diosdado Cabello and a group of Venezuelan generals with ties to him. Cabello was compromised as a preemptive measure, because US intelligence agencies saw him as the most likely successor to Chávez, but holding more radical anti-American views. Immediately after his escape, Salazar was recruited into this smear campaign against Cabello. Some of the information obtained from Salazar (or rather from his handlers in the CIA and DEA) was used by Emili J. Blasco in his book Bumerán Chávez, which was published simultaneously in Washington and Madrid in April 2015.
In particular, Salazar recounted how he had accompanied Diosdado Cabello on an excursion during which he had witnessed that leader of parliament’s (!) «direct involvement» in the late-night dispatch of drug-laden speedboats from the Paraguaná peninsula in Falcón State. For whom these drugs were intended and why this was done so close to the islands of Aruba and Curaçao, where there are surveillance outposts for the Pentagon, as well as CIA stations and DEA offices, Salazar did not explain. Based on Blasco’s commentary, one can conclude that the boats were headed for Cuba! What’s more, Salazar claimed that while accompanying Cabello he also had the opportunity to see his «secret armored vaults filled with US currency», with «mountains upon mountains of wrapped bills from floor to ceiling». That’s what a drug lord’s stash looks like in a Hollywood movie. According to Salazar’s account – or rather, the cover story that US intelligence services dreamed up for him – the troubles experienced by one of the guards who refused to take part in the drug deals were the last straw, prompting Salazar’s decision to flee: «They threatened to physically exterminate the man».
The pro-American media does its utmost to gloss over the questions that inevitably arise about Salazar’s participation in the preparations for Chávez’s murder. They claim that there can be no doubts about Salazar: he honorably served the regime and idolized Chávez until he realized that those immediately above him were mixed up in drug trafficking. However, the investigation conducted by SEBIN raises doubts about Salazar’s «spotless rectitude». Even his mother has admitted that Leamsy’s work in the presidential guard weighed heavily on him. But he was in no rush to distance himself from Chávez, because Salazar’s primary employer was someone else, and those people insisted that he strictly discharge his duties.
Recent media revelations about ties between Venezuela’s Cartel of the Suns and the Sinaloa Cartel have demonstrated the imagination and verve with which US intelligence agencies are fabricating «deals», with the intention of compromising their enemy. Allegedly «Chapo» Guzmán himself was in Venezuela in August and September of 2015 in order to discuss some joint projects. Passing mention has been made of his «business» trips to the country in 2009 and 2010 and of the warm nature of his relations with General Hugo Carvajal, a close associate of Diosdado Cabello. This is the same Carvajal whom the DEA tried to kidnap from the island of Aruba in the summer of 2014 – despite his diplomatic passport – and ship off to the US as a drug trafficker. Officials on the island prevented this from happening, and the general returned to Venezuela where he was greeted by President Maduro, Diosdado Cabello, and other Bolivarian leaders as a hero. It would be naive to think the DEA’s hunt for Carvajal was over. He is still on their «wanted list» because of evidence fabricated by US agents. That list also includes the names of others whom the DEA has identified as the ringleaders of the Cartel of the Suns.
Salazar’s statements are sharply at odds with the image of the honorable patriot he had previously cultivated. Quite revealing are Salazar’s allegations that Chávez died not in March 2013 but in December of 2012. Supposedly all of Chávez’s relatives took part in this ruse, as well as the members of the Bolivarian government, the leaders of Cuba, and Cuban counterintelligence. This was done in order to preserve the continuity of government authority serving the interests of «Maduro’s factions». Thus, every decree and resolution signed by the president after December can be declared fraudulent, and the Maduro government – illegal.
Meanwhile, the buzz of reporting on the Venezuelan leaders’ «drug deals» is getting louder. The plan devised by US intelligence is clearly evident: to distract the global public from the fact that Salazar is the most likely candidate to have killed Chávez. The Bolivarian media calls Salazar «Judas». Official (and unofficial) agencies in Venezuela are collecting evidence of his criminal activities, his clandestine meetings with representatives from the CIA and DEA, and the possibility that he gave the Americans information about the president’s travel itineraries and individuals with whom he had planned to meet, as well as biological material that belonged to Chávez.
The Americans are doing their best to impede this work. In Madrid, for example, the CIA station has manufactured a crisis surrounding the Venezuelan Defense Attaché Office staff, accusing them of spying on members of the opposition. But of course the real issue is quite different – the threat of lurid revelations about Chávez’s murder. Right now it is difficult to say who exactly will reveal the whole truth. That could end up being an idealist like Snowden – someone who considers lynching a politician like this to be unacceptable. There is some hope that a material incentive might prove effective: Venezuela’s leaders have decided to offer a financial reward for any specific information about the individuals who coordinated and carried out the murder of Hugo Chávez.
Source: The Murder of Chávez. The CIA and DEA Cover Their Tracks
Elizabeth Warren’s Silence
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As a longtime admirer of Senator Warren, I find her political cowardice really disappointing.
by Brad Benson
Last night Senator Elizabeth Warren weighed in very critically on the Donald Trump Candidacy, calling it “ugly and dangerous” and imploring, “decent people everywhere…to say No More Donald (sic).” Senator Warren’s comment has since “gone viral” and been lauded by many.
Sadly however, the hypocritical irony of her final sentence, “There’s no virtue in silence,” has been largely missed in the mad rush to trumpet her attack on the much-loathed, and greatly feared, Trump. Quite simply, Senator Warren cannot seriously implore others to “Just say no!” to Trump, while she continues to sit on the sidelines of the Democratic Presidential Primary.
Senator Warren has rightfully earned her reputation, first as an economics professor that could not be silenced; next as the visionary behind the legislation that authorized the much needed Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB); and finally, as an outspoken Senator—still demanding Wall Street Reform, even…
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March 15, 2016
Trump Rejects Union Vote in Las Vegas Hotel
Hello!
I am a housekeeper at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. This past December, a majority of employees like me at Trump Las Vegas voted YES to a union. But Trump’s company has refused listen to us and honor the results of our election.
Instead, they’ve blocked negotiations through legal challenges – which so far have gone nowhere. A federal officer recently recommended that the company’s list of objections be “overruled in their entirety” – and that the NLRB certify the union.Instead of sitting down to negotiate a fair contract, Trump company lawyers are still fighting to overturn the election.
If Donald Trump wants to “Make America Great Again,” he should start by negotiating a deal with his us – his Las Vegas hotel employees – just like his company did for workers at Trump Toronto in Canada.
Just last year, Trump workers in Canada voted for a union and have since negotiated their first contract – a deal that gives workers much like us a chance to provide for their families, keep their kids healthy, enjoy job protections and security, and one day retire with dignity.
We just want a fair deal like Trump workers in Canada got.
Donald Trump wrote the book on The Art of the Deal. It’s time he sits down and negotiates with us. We deserve to have our vote counted.
In solidarity,
Maria Mendoza
Please support us by signing our petition
Europe’s Co-op Movement
Together: How Cooperatives Show Resilience to the Crisis
CECOP/CICOPA Europe (2012)
Film Review
Together examines how the cooperative movement enabled tens of thousands of European workers to survive the 2008 downturn. As of 2012, there were 1.5 million co-op workers in Europe. The filmmakers interview workers from French, Polish, Italian and Spanish worker cooperatives. All agree that the traditional capitalist model – in which a financial group loots an enterprise for a few years and abandons it – is obsolete because it inevitably predisposes to financial crisis.
In France, workers converted 150 failed businesses to cooperatives between 2008 and 2012. The first co-op featured is a foundry workers converted with the help of a French organization that specializes in this type of conversion.
The Polish example is a bottling plant that survived Poland’s transformation to a “free market economy” in the 1990s. There were many so-called worker cooperatives in communist Poland, but they were controlled by the state, rather than workers themselves.
The Italian example features the “social cooperatives” enabled by Law 381 in 1991. These are worker-run public-private ventures that provide social services and work integration schemes for the disadvantaged. Italy has a total of 10,000 social cooperatives, and they increased, rather than decreased, staff following the 2008 downturn.
The documentary also showcases the world-famous Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque region of Spain. Mondragon, which was first started in 1943, is actually a consortium of 100 worker-owned businesses. Ninety-four are located outside of Spain.
Mondragon workers believe they survived the 2008 downturn due to their heavy emphasis on research and worker upskilling. They’re especially proud of the Mondragon electric car project. After the global economic crash, 500 Mondragon workers moved to a new co-op when their original work area shut down.
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