Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War

Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War - World Public Opinion:

Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War

October 2, 2003

Study Finds Widespread Misperceptions on Iraq
Highly Related to Support for War

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A new study based on a series of seven US polls conducted from January through September of this year reveals that before and after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war in Iraq.

The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks, also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals' primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.

An in-depth analysis of a series of polls conducted June through September found 48% incorrectly believed that evidence of links between Iraq and al Qaeda have been found, 22% that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and 25% that world public opinion favored the US going to war with Iraq. Overall 60% had at least one of these three misperceptions.

Such misperceptions are highly related to support for the war. Among those with none of the misperceptions listed above, only 23% support the war. Among those with one of these misperceptions, 53% support the war, rising to 78% for those who have two of the misperceptions, and to 86% for those with all 3 misperceptions. Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments, "While we cannot assert that these misperceptions created the support for going to war with Iraq, it does appear likely that support for the war would be substantially lower if fewer members of the public had these misperceptions."

The frequency of Americans' misperceptions varies significantly depending on their source of news. The percentage of respondents who had one or more of the three misperceptions listed above is shown below.

Variations in misperceptions according to news source cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographics of each audience, because these variations can also be found when comparing the rate of misperceptions within demographic subgroups of each audience.

Another key perception--one that US intelligence agencies regard as unfounded--is that Iraq was directly involved in September 11. Before the war approximately one in five believed this and 13% even said they believed that they had seen conclusive evidence of it. Polled June through September, the percentage saying that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11 continued to be in the 20-25% range, while another 33-36% said they believed that Iraq gave al-Qaeda substantial support. [Note: An August Washington Post poll found that 69% thought it was at least "somewhat likely" that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11--a different question than the PIPA/KN question that asked respondents to come to a conclusion.]

In the run-up to the war misperceptions were also highly related to support for going to war. In February, among those who believed that Iraq was directly involved in September 11, 58% said they would agree with the President's decision to go to war without UN approval. Among those who believed that Iraq had given al Qaeda substantial support, but was not involved in September 11, approval dropped to 37%. Among those who believed that a few al Qaeda individuals had contact with Iraqi officials 32% were supportive, while among those who believed that there was no connection at all just 25% felt that way. Polled during the war, among those who incorrectly believed that world public opinion favored going to the war, 81% agreed with the President's decision to do so, while among those who knew that the world public opinion was opposed only 28% agreed.

While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, in fact, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.

The level of misperceptions varies according to Americans' political positions. Supporters of President Bush and Republicans are more likely to have misperceptions. However, misperceptions do not appear to only be the result of bias, because a significant number of people who do not have such political positions also have misperceptions.

For the entire study of seven polls the total sample was 9,611 respondents, and for the in-depth analysis for the polls conducted June through September the sample was 3,334 respondents. The polls were fielded by Knowledge Networks using its nationwide panel, which is randomly selected from the entire adult population and subsequently provided Internet access. For more information about this methodology, go to www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp. Funding for this research was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation.

The Lies That Fox News Viewers Believe:

The Lies That Fox News Viewers Believe:

Six years ago the Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study that showed that Fox viewers are far more likely to believe things that are demonstrably false, than are viewers of other networks. It’s still true.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) featured on the Rachel Maddow Show (video below) included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:

On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will…	MSNBC/CNN Viewers	Fox News Viewers
Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants:	41%	72%
Lead To A Government Takeover:	39%	79%
Pay For Abortions:	40%	69%
Stop Care To The Elderly:	30%	75%

Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It’s bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates.

The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can’t get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.

They have enjoyed a fair measure of success in the past couple of weeks as raucous town hall meetings and shrill political disputes have dominated news coverage. There have been episodes of chaos and hostility erupting in what used to be neighborly community gatherings. Television pundits are peddling insane conspiracies that link shadowy cabals to absurd plots with tentacles reaching into evil government agencies. And weirdos with weapons are showing up at presidential events to wander around menacing peaceful demonstrators and anxious Secret Service agents.

It is vitally important that sanity and honesty be restored to public discourse. As people become more aware of truthful representations of the issues, the tide could rapidly turn back to permit a rational debate to take place. The results of this poll could go a long way toward persuading people that they have been the victims of a deliberate con job. That can only occur if this poll is distributed broadly enough to be seen by a substantial portion of the electorate, including those who watch Fox News. Of course, Fox itself would never broadcast these results, so it’s up to us to be the distributors of the truth; to pass this information along; and to expose Fox as the perpetrators of hoaxes that they are.

Fox News viewers are being led around like Ritalin-sodden sheep. There is a case to made that they would be outraged at being so brazenly mislead – if they only knew. Data like this makes it difficult to pretend that Fox News respects its audience. This is the sort of evidence that could cause many FoxPods to revolt and free themselves. We need to help them see the light. Let’s just hope that it isn’t too late.

One News World full of BS!

BBC News - Murdoch's News Corporation takeover bid:

Agreement between News Corporation and BSkyB would go some way to clear the way for Mr Murdoch's ambitions, though any deal would also need regulatory approval.

"Both parties have agreed to work together to proceed with the regulatory process in order to facilitate a proposed transaction," said News Corporation.

A successful deal would strengthen Mr Murdoch's media power

BBC business editor Robert Peston said that if the deal did go ahead, it would "erase any scintilla of doubt that Mr Murdoch's News Corporation would be the most powerful of all the traditional media groups in the UK".

"The combination of Sky with his newspapers, such as the Sun and the Sunday Times, would generate annual revenues of around £8bn, compared with the £4.6bn income of the next largest player, the BBC."

Our editor added that any agreed deal between News Corporation and BSkyB may cause problems for the UK's coalition government.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The opportunities for cross-promoting those newspapers on Sky will be seen by other newspaper groups as giving News a huge advantage.”

End Quote Robert Peston BBC business editor

• Read Robert Peston's blog

He said this was because while the Conservatives had benefited from the support of News Corporation's newspapers during the general election, the Liberal Democrats were far more hostile to Mr Murdoch's media empire

The Bad Daddy Factor | Smart Journalism. Real Solutions. Miller-McCune.: "The Bad Daddy Factor

Drinking, smoking, taking prescription meds or failing to eat a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future children.

The Bad Daddy Factor

Drinking, smoking, taking prescription meds or failing to eat a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future children.

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By Emily Anthes

(Illustration by Mark Fredrickson)

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The fathers weren’t supposed to matter. But in the mid-1960s, pharmacologist Gladys Friedler was making all sorts of strange findings. She discovered that when she gave morphine to female rats, it altered the development of their future offspring — rat pups that hadn’t even been conceived yet. What’s more, even these rats’ grandchildren seemed to have problems. In an effort to understand the unexpected result, she made a fateful decision: She would see what happened when she put male rodents on the opiate. So she shot up the rat daddies with morphine, waited a few days, and then mated them with healthy, drug-free females. Their pups, to Friedler’s utter shock, were profoundly abnormal. They were underweight and chronic late bloomers, missing all their developmental landmarks. “It made no sense,” she recalls today. “I didn’t understand it.”

For the next several decades, Friedler tried to understand this finding, ultimately assembling a strong case that morphine, alcohol and other substances could prompt male rodents to father defective offspring. There was only one problem: No one believed her. Colleagues questioned her results — her former adviser urged her to abandon the research — and she struggled to find funding and get her results published. “It didn’t occur to me that you’re not supposed to look at fathers’ roles in birth defects,” Friedler says. “I initially was not aware of the resistance. I was one of the people who was actually naïve enough to work in this field.”

Over the last half-century, as scientists learned more and more about how women could safeguard their developing fetuses — skip the vodka, take your folate — few researchers even considered the possibility that men played a role in prenatal health. It would turn out to be a scientific oversight of significant proportions. A critical mass of research now demonstrates that environmental exposures — from paints to pesticides — can cause men to father children with all sorts of abnormalities. Drinking booze, smoking cigarettes, taking prescription medications and even just not eating a balanced diet can influence the health of men’s future kids. In the several decades since Friedler started her work, the idea that chemicals in a man’s environment can influence the health of his future children has, she says, “moved from lunatic fringe to cutting edge.”

So why don’t we ever hear about it?

As an andrologist, Bernard Robaire has spent his career studying the functions and dysfunctions of the male reproductive system. In the early 1980s, he was giving grand rounds at the McGill University Health Center in Montreal when an oncologist approached him with a question. The oncologist had been treating men with testicular cancer; chemotherapy and radiation were generally expected to render the patients infertile. But lo and behold, tests were showing that, even after the cancer had been licked, some of the men still had viable sperm. The patients had concerns, however: Were the sperm defective? Was it safe for them to have kids? The oncologist, surprised that reproduction was even an option for his patients, had no idea. He put the question to Robaire.

Robaire was equally stumped. He combed through the scientific literature but couldn’t find a clear answer. So he decided to research the question himself. He paired up with a specialist on birth defects, and together they put together an application for a grant to study whether cancer drugs might damage sperm in ways that put men’s future children at risk. They submitted their application to the Medical Research Council, Canada’s equivalent of the National Institutes of Health. “And I had the absolute worst ranking on a grant I’ve ever had in my life,” Robaire recalls today. The scientists reviewing the application rejected it outright. “This makes no sense,” they had written. “How can you expect drugs given to the male to affect the progeny?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable question. There was no obvious physiological mechanism that could explain the connection. It’s the woman who makes her body home to a developing fetus, and damaged sperm were widely thought to be too weak to successfully fertilize an egg. The conventional wisdom, among oncologists, was that anti-cancer drugs would kill sperm, but after stopping treatment, sperm production would begin again — and the germ cells would be normal.

But that’s not what Robaire found. In his early rodent studies, he discovered that chemotherapy agents could degrade the quality of sperm. These sperm were still capable of fertilizing eggs, but the embryos would often spontaneously abort themselves. Among those that actually survived to term, the rodent pups had abnormally slow development. Since then, Robaire has continued to study the effects of chemotherapy drugs on sperm in rodents and humans; some of his most recent work reveals that some men continue to manufacture damaged sperm — with abnormal numbers of chromosomes and breaks in DNA — for as long as two years after their last dose of chemo. “The chemo causes really dramatic damage,” Robaire says.

While Robaire was slogging away, other scientists were quietly accumulating similar evidence. Some of the early work showed that women had more miscarriages when their male partners worked in manufacturing jobs where they were exposed to heavy metals, such as lead and mercury. Men exposed to pesticides were more likely to have children who developed leukemia. (For years, studies have linked Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War, to birth defects in the offspring of veterans, but a causal link has not been definitively established.) Other research suggested that men who worked with solvents, cleaning solutions, dyes and textiles, paints and other chemicals were all more likely to father kids with birth defects or childhood cancers.

Scientists also showed that it didn’t require industrial-strength chemicals to wreak havoc on men’s sperm. Smokers seemed to produce sperm with the wrong number of chromosomes, a DNA error that could lead to miscarriages or Down syndrome. (A stunning 2008 paper revealed that men with deficiencies in folate, that superstar maternal vitamin, had the same problem.) Paternal smoking has also been linked to childhood cancer, and even alcohol and caffeine can cause sperm abnormalities that derail child development.

We now know that what started as an inconceivable mystery — how could men’s environments and lifestyles possibly affect the children they would later father? — has not just one but several answers. Certain substances interfere with the earliest phase of sperm production in the testes, prompting errors in cell division that lead to genetic mutations in immature sperm cells. Chemicals can also cause what are known as epigenetic mutations, which don’t change the DNA sequence itself but alter how the body reads these genetic instructions. Essentially, an epigenetic change involves turning certain genes on or off, telling the body to pay more or less attention to the code they contain. (If genetic changes are akin to changing the lyrics of a song, epigenetic changes are like fiddling with the volume.)

Drugs can also interfere with sperm transport. A 2009 study revealed that a standard dose of paroxetine — the active drug in the antidepressant marketed as Paxil — causes a fivefold increase in the number of men who show evidence of “sperm fragmentation,” which can increase the chances of miscarriage. Researchers have known that certain antidepressants can influence ejaculatory response; it turns out that they seem to slow the transportation of sperm through the male reproductive system, causing the cells to age prematurely. “Sperm are being damaged because they’re not traveling properly through the body,” says Peter Schlegel, who led the study and is a urologist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College.

And these findings are just the beginning. Consider, for instance, that there are some 84,000 chemicals used in American workplaces, says Barbara Grajewski, a senior epidemiologist at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Only 4,000 of these have even been evaluated for reproductive effects in men or women, and males are particularly understudied. “There’s a whole range of effects in men that really are not being given attention or are well understood,” Grajewski says. “The whole area of men’s reproductive health is way behind women’s health.”

The implications of this research deficit are huge. Some 60 percent of all birth defects today are of unknown origin; tracing even a small fraction of these back to men’s environmental exposures would constitute a major public health advance.

Despite the accumulating findings, the idea that fathers can somehow contribute to birth defects has gained little traction in the public sphere. Cigarette packs have no warnings about the association between male smokers and birth defects. A woman who drinks while she’s pregnant can be prosecuted, but most men have no idea that drinking in the months before conception is risky.

“Why would we not look at the paternal side of the equation? To me that’s really a social and political puzzle,” says Cynthia R. Daniels, a political scientist at Rutgers who studies gender and reproductive politics. “We seem to politically be in a place where we overprotect and over-warn women, but where men and fathers remain almost completely invisible. You’re not likely anytime soon to see signs in bars that say, ‘Men who drink should not reproduce.’”

We still assume that men are secondary partners in reproduction, that their biological contribution to a child is fleeting and ultimately less important than women’s, Daniels says. What’s more, both men and women can find the research threatening. After Friedler organized a scientific symposium on the paternal-fetal connection, she found herself in the elevator with two male colleagues. They turned to her and said, “Why are you picking on men?” On the other hand, when Friedler later had a fellowship at an institute for female scholars, some of the women there challenged her, demanding to know why she was spending so much time researching men. She couldn’t win.

Even when the science is unambiguous, policy seems to lag. For decades, only women were banned from the lead trade, though the evidence suggested the metal could cause stillbirths and fetal problems regardless of which parent had been exposed. Today, federal occupational and health standards protect men from lead, but there are lots of regulations missing for other dangerous compounds.

Consider the well-documented hazard presented by anesthetic gases. The female partners of men who work as dentists, operating room technicians or anesthesiologists are more likely to experience miscarriages. On its website, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a lengthy document devoted to the hazards presented by anesthetic gases and how companies can protect their workers. But, in a prominent message at the top of the page, the agency comes straight out and says, “These guidelines are not a new standard or regulation, and they create no new legal obligations. The guidelines are advisory in nature. …”

By law, employers are required to provide what are known as “material safety data sheets” that outline the hazards involved in any chemicals their workers might encounter. A team of researchers discovered that these sheets were 18 times more likely to mention risks to female reproduction than male reproduction. To be fair, it’s harder to figure out what to do to protect men. With women, it’s obvious — keep them away from these chemicals during pregnancy. But what do you do with men who are constantly making sperm and could contribute to a pregnancy at any point?

Well, we should start with a thorough review of the evidence, Daniels says, and then establish a commission to develop appropriate policy. It’s also clear more research is needed — particularly research that asks the right questions. The FDA requires that new drugs be tested in rodent models for any potential effects on sperm production. But while these sorts of analyses will reveal whether a drug drastically affects sperm count, they may not show more subtle changes, says Schlegel, who conducted the study on antidepressants. Unless a chemical has “a huge and dramatic effect on sperm numbers, it often can be missed,” he says.

An obvious step toward better fetal health would have obstetricians and gynecologists consider fathers’ chemical exposures when trying to ensure healthy pregnancies and children. Ideally, men would be engaged even earlier, with the government issuing guidelines for young men that deal with environmental toxins and lifestyle choices that might jeopardize the health of future children. The time may be right for more engagement; many occupational health and safety guidelines, for men and women, were loosened by the Bush administration. “I think there’s a great opportunity now to rebuild standards to include risks to male reproductive health,” Daniels says.

There’s a generational opening, too, she says. In recent years, she’s noticed a change in the reaction male college students have to learning about the risks they face. “I’ve found, especially among young men, a sense of outrage and alarm,” Daniels reports. “They say, ‘How could this be? How could it be that no one has ever suggested to me that alcohol might have an impact on my ability to have healthy children?’ They’re angry that they don’t know about this.”

Kozyrev’s Mirrors « Quantum Pranx

Kozyrev’s Mirrors « Quantum Pranx: "Trofimov’s work has consisted of “remote viewing” experiments across both distance and time. They discovered that results are more positive when the “sender” is in the far north, where the electromagnetic field is less powerful. So they invented a second apparatus that shields an experimental subject from the local electromagnetic field. Within this apparatus, their subjects can reliably access all place and time — past, present, and future — instantaneously. Construction specifications for these apparati are published in Russian scientific literature.

Among Trofimov and Kaznacheev’s conclusions are:

1) our planet’s electromagnetic field is actually the “veil” which filters time and place down to our everyday Newtonian reality — enabling us to have the human experience of linear time,

2) in the absence of an electromagnetic field, we have access to an energy field of “instantaneous locality” that underlies our reality,

3) that the limiting effect of the electromagnetic field on an individual is moderated by the amount of solar electromagnetic activity occurring while that person was in utero, and

4) that once a person has accessed these states, his or her consciousness remains so enhanced.

The implication is that the global electromagnetic soup of cell phones, radio, television and electric appliances actually impedes our innate communication abilities. The further implication is that expanded human consciousness is mechanically producible now, which raises the vast ethical question of how these apparati can be most beneficially used.

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

The Solstice Initiation: "stronger Magnetic Presence substantially increases our ability to draw forth and manifest all that we imagine and require, as this energy is drawn from the zero point field 

America: The Grim Truth

America: The Grim Truth: Information Clearing House - ICH: By Lance Freeman

April 08, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.

No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.

While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?

There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).

Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.

Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.

On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.

Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.

I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.

So what should you do?

You should leave the United States of America.

If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.

You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.

In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?

The Fight Over Food Deserts – Corporate America Weighs In

The Fight Over Food Deserts – Corporate America Weighs In | Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy:

Some 38.2% of households seeking food aid are home to at least one working adult. As the nation’s largest employer, it would seem obvious that the first step Wal-Mart would take to end hunger is ensure that the jobs it provides don’t leave its employees needing food aid. In 2008 alone, Wal-Mart settled 63 cases of wage theft.The settlement totalled $352 million in unpaid wages and involved hundreds of thousands of current and former Wal-Mart employees across the country.iv]

Even when the company does pay the agreed upon wage, workers still come up short. According to Good Jobs First, taxpayers subsidize Wal-Mart stores through numerous forms of public assistance--Medicaid, Food Stamps, public housing--that often allow workers to subsist on the company’s low wages. A report by the House Education and Workforce Committee conservatively places these costs deferred by the retail giant at $420,750 per store; the Wal-Mart Foundation's per-store charitable giving is just 11 percent of that amount ($47,222).[v]