Trevor Paglen : Two Lectures !

Trevor Paglen is an artist whose work spans image-making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, engineering, and numerous other disciplines. Among his chief concerns are learning how to see the historical moment we live in and developing the means to imagine alternative futures.

Paglen’s work has had one-person exhibitions at Vienna Secession, Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, Van Abbe Museum, Frankfurter Kunstverein, and Protocinema Istanbul, and participated in group exhibitions the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, and numerous other venues. He has launched an artwork into distant orbit around Earth in collaboration with Creative Time and MIT, contributed research and cinematography to the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour, and created a radioactive public sculpture for the exclusion zone in Fukushima, Japan.

He is the author of five books and numerous articles on subjects including experimental geography, state secrecy, military symbology, photography, and visuality. Paglen’s work has been profiled in the New York Times, Vice Magazine, the New Yorker, and Art Forum. In 2014, he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award for his work as a “groundbreaking investigative artist.”

Paglen holds a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography from U.C. Berkeley.
http://www.paglen.com/

From tapped fiberoptic cables at the bottom of the sea to football field-sized antennas in deep space, the architecture of state surveillance is as ubiquitous as it is invisible. In this talk, artist Trevor Paglen shares more than a decade's worth of images, research, and stories about how to "see" the top-secret infrastructures that are so emblematic of our historical moment.

This annual series is made possible by the generosity of Clarice Smith.

Although people around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the United States' global geography of surveillance, covert action, and other secret programs, much of this landscape is invisible in our everyday lives.
The drone war, for example, seems to happen "somewhere else" while surveillance programs take place among the (largely) invisible infrastructures and digital protocols of the internet and other communications networks. Moreover, the state agencies responsible for secret programs strive to make them as invisible as possible. In this talk, artist Trevor Paglen discusses his work attempting to "see" the various aspects of the secret state. In examples ranging from tracking spy satellites to foraging through the bureaucratic refuse of CIA front companies, Paglen will discuss methods used to identify and exploit structural contradictions in classified programs which render them visible, and comment on the aesthetics and politics of attempting to "see" secrecy.

ISIS = CIA

ISIS = CIA.
Research it - a few sources:

[1]Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6…
[2]Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/…/US-Israel-supporting-Syrian-rebels-f…
[3]Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/…/u-s-pledges-support-for-syria-re…
[4]Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/…/obama-proposes-500-million-to-aid-s…
[5]Reuters http://www.reuters.com/…/us-usa-syria-obama-order-idUSBRE87…
[6]Reuters http://www.reuters.com/…/us-usa-syria-rebels-idUSBREA0Q1S32…
[7]Associated Press http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/us-to-send-aid-to-syria-reb…
[8]Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/us-arming-jihadists-syria-20…
[9]Business Insider http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-admin-admits-to-covert…
[10]The Sunday Times http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/…/Nation…/article1173125.ece
[11]Global Research http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-new-islami…/5361660
[12]The Guardian www.theguardian.com/…/uk-policy-supporting-anti-assad-syria…
[13]Time http://world.time.com/…/time-exclusive-meet-the-islamist-…/…
[14]NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/…/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-t…
[15]http://www.nytimes.com/…/al-qaeda-insinuating-its-way-into-…
[16]CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/20/world/syria-civil-war/
[17]Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/…/SB100014240527487045044045761845315164…
[18]Reuters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/obama--secret-order-libya-s…
[19]Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/…/libya-rebels-will-receiv…/…
[20]Reuters http://www.reuters.com/…/us-libya-usa-order-idUSTRE72T6H220…
[21]Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/…/03/29/AFRlXWyB_story.html
[22]Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…/Libyan-rebel-commander-admits-…
[23]NewYorkTimes http://www.nytimes.com/…/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with…
[24]CNN http://edition.cnn.com/…/me…/syria-libya-fighters/index.html
[25]WashingtonTimes http://www.washingtontimes.com/…/syria-strife-lures-in-mi…/…
[26]Reuters http://www.reuters.com/…/us-libya-usa-order-idUSTRE72T6H220…
[27]Reuters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/obama--secret-order-libya-s…
[28]New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/…/weapons-sent-to-libyan-rebels-with…&
[29]Washington Times http://www.washingtontimes.com/…/libya-rebels-will-receiv…/…

Uroko

Uroko is the Japanese word for 'scale', as in the scale of a fish or serpent. The Japanese expression "uroko ga me kara ochiru", or, "scales fall from one's eyes" is the English equivalent of "waking up to the truth". Uroko is an attempt to strip away the fairy tales we have been told since birth, exposing the true nature of the world we live in.

1:00 In part 1: 'Bank Wars', Uroko begins to unravel the history of the establishment of the Federal Reserve system, starting with the American Revolution, the war of 1812 and the rise of the Rothschild banking dynasty.

9:30 In part 2, 'Bank Wars' continues as we learn about stockholders of the 2nd National Bank of the US such as John Jacob Astor, how Andrew Jackson killed the bank, the rise of National City Bank and the power of the bankers culminating in the assassination of Lincoln. The story continues with 'The Robber Barons', touching on the roots of the Morgan banking dynasty.

17:44 Part 3 delves into alliances between European bankers and the American industrialists they supported such as J.D. Rockefeller and E. H. Harriman, ending with a brief history of the Spanish American war.

25:00 Part 4 deals with the events leading up to passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 including Roosevelt's trust-busting, the panic of 1907 and the meeting of banking house representatives at Jeckyll Island.

31:55 Part 5 looks at WWI and its true causes.

38:02 Part 6 presents excerpts from G. Edward Griffin's interview with Norman Dodd, where Dodd reveals the true nature of the tax-exempt foundations.

47:48 Part 7 deals firstly with the Council on Foreign Relations and its part in the forming of the Central Intelligence Agency, and secondly with the money trust's role in the Bolshevik Revolution and the militarization of Japan.

58:09 In Part 8 the story of the Bolsheviks concludes with the fall of Czarist Russia, followed by a foray into the true roots of the ruling elite. Topics addressed include the Dutch and British East India Companies, Freemasonry and the Templar Knights.

1:08:07 Part 9 continues to explore the significance of the Templar Knights and their relationship to the modern ruling elite, as well as the partnership between the hiers and descendants of the Templars and Jewish financiers in Spain and Portugal up until the Spanish Inquisition and a mirror of that relationship in Holland and England beginning in the 17th century.

1:13:01 Part 10 briefly addresses the Khazarian roots which connect the Jewish financiers of Europe to various ruling houses, including the Stewarts, the Hohens and the Drummond clan of Scotland. This section ends by tying the Templars to the Russells and the Skull and Bones fraternity at Yale University.

1:19:14 Part 11 picks up with the Skull and Bones fraternity, the Bush-Harriman-Rockefeller connection and the Brown Brothers Harriman merger. From there Brown Brothers Harriman and the Dulles Brothers' involvement in Nazi funding is touched on and the 3rd architect of the Defense Act of 1947 is named. Finally, the CIA's true reason d'etre is explained and a brief history of its involvement in coups and interventions around the world is told.

http://www.youtube.com/user/urokomovie
http://www.urokomovie.com

Hidden Influence: The Rise of Collectivism

Hidden Influence: The Rise of Collectivism is the first film in a 3 part saga. This chapter documents how the ruling class, through their billion dollar foundations, have infiltrated the public education system in the west and have used it as a tool to indoctrinate children into a totalitarian ideology. This film explores the chronological paper trail uncovered by Charlotte Iserbyt, who was fired from her post as the Senior Policy Advisor for the United States Department of Education in 1982 when she released classified documents discussing the use of technology, specifically computers to psychologically manipulate American students. We will then examine an investigation into the influence of these foundations, launched by the United State congress in the 1950's. Finally we will fast forward to today and look at how the philosophy these foundations have sponsored for the last 100 years has, and continues to effect the education system today, and how Canadian children are being indoctrinated into the same collectivist brainwashing as their American counterparts. At the same time we will examine the role of these foundations in promoting radical, authoritarian ideologies on college and university campuses.

British Media Acknowledges Toxic Impacts of Vaccines. MSM Censorship on Behalf of Big Pharma is Crumbling?

The censorship Berlin Wall on vaccine injuries is starting to crumble… in the UK, at least, where mainstream media outlets there are suddenly covering the thousands of young girls and boys who are routinely damaged by toxic vaccines.

The pharma-controlled, vaccine-worshipping U.S. mainstream media, of course, hilariously pretends vaccines cause no damage to anyone. That’s part of the reason why no one believes the mainstream media anymore, which explains why mainstream media readership is plummeting while New Media readership is exploding. (Our new GoodGopher.com search engine for the New Media has already received over 4,500 new site submits from webmasters.)


Junk science media outlets like the Washington Post — now entirely controlled by Monsanto – attack vaccine skeptics as anti-science people for pointing out that children are being maimed and sometimes killed by vaccines. See Hundreds of children brain damaged by the swine flu vaccine to receive $90 million in financial compensation from UK government.
It makes me wonder: Will the junk science mainstream media in the United States now ridiculously condemn the UK mainstream media as “anti-science” for reporting on the thousands of children being neurologically damaged by vaccines? Does the lamestream media in the USA even remember what journalism is in the first place?


Major media outlets across the UK now practicing actual journalism on the vaccine issue
Check out what’s happening in the UK press now all of a sudden. No doubt the vaccine industry is pushing hard to censor all these stories, so you might want to check them quickly while they still exist online: (h/t to Health Impact News for pointing these out)

EXPRESS.CO.UK: Tens of thousands of teen girls suffer serious illnesses after HPV cervical cancer jab

• “TENS of thousands of teenage girls have fallen seriously ill and even been left wheelchair-bound after taking the routine cervical cancer vaccination.”
• “…the number is estimated to be only ten per cent of the true number of teens struck down with severe side effects after taking the vaccine.”
• “In more than a quarter of the cases, the effects have apparently been so severe that they were considered ‘life-threatening’ and required immediate medical treatment.”

The Independent: Thousands of teenage girls enduring debilitating illnesses after routine school cancer vaccination

• “Emily is one of the thousands of teenage girls who have endured debilitating illnesses following the routine immunisation. She is yet to recover and has no idea when her health will return to normal.”
•  ”In the 10 years to April this year the agency received almost 22,000 ‘spontaneous suspected’ adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports in 13 routine immunisation categories including flu, MMR, tetanus, diphtheria and polio, according to a Freedom of Information response released earlier this month.”
• PoTS and fibromyalgia are among the diseases he believes have developed after HPV vaccination, and that clinicians should be aware of the possible association between HPV vaccination and the development of these ‘difficult to diagnose’ painful syndromes.”

The Daily Mail (UK): Tens of thousands of teenage girls believed to have fallen ill with debilitating illnesses after routine HPV cervical cancer jab

• “Side effects including chest and abdominal pains, exhaustion, breathing difficulties, fibromyalgia and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.”
•  ”Some have been left wheelchair-bound by apparent effects of vaccine.”
• “Worried mothers have told how their previously healthy daughters have suffered fits, extreme tiredness and even been left wheelchair-bound after being vaccinated in their early teens. In some cases, the girls started to feel ill on the day they were vaccinated. Others became sick several weeks later.”

Even France is now covering the vaccine debate with a sense of logic
 
Check out this story: Mainstream media vigorously debates vaccine safety — in France. It explains:
In the US, Canada and the rest of the English-speaking world, questioning vaccine safety is a taboo subject, one the mainstream press fears to touch, let alone to debate. Not so in France…
 
 
“Should we have doubts about vaccines?” asked a popular radio program last month, marking European Immunization Week. The program, which ran on France Inter, a major public channel that is part of Radio France, introduced the subject by acknowledging the “doubts and concerns about the usefulness of vaccines” that have led the French to have “less and less confidence in vaccines.” France Inter then held a no-holds-barred debate between a controversial proponent of increased vaccine use…
 
 
[Another] example comes from Le Figaro, France’s second largest daily. After the French press last month reported that two infants died and hundreds had been injured after receiving rotavirus vaccines, Figaro examined the various issues at play, including conflict of interest — government regulators have had pharmaceutical industry ties — and the wisdom of having these vaccines recommended by public health authorities.
 
Vaccine violence against children totally ignored by the pharma-controlled U.S. media
 
 
All this vaccine violence being committed against children worldwide is purely imaginary, according to the U.S. mainstream media.
 
 
Anyone even citing such statistics is automatically labeled “anti-science” by pathetic vaccine pushers who profit from the continued medical mutilation of innocent children.
I’ve even heard the idea of vaccine damage being labeled a “conspiracy theory” by the pro-pharma media — the same media that conducted a total nationwide news blackout on the public admission of a CDC whistleblower scientist who admitted that he took part in a CDC cover-up to hide links between vaccines and autism.
 
 
That’s how loony the corporate-controlled media has become: They label you a “conspiracy theorist” if you practice good science and good medicine by observing biological reactions to a routine medical intervention. Meanwhile, what they report as “facts” are actually fairytale delusions… such as the idea that vaccines harm no one and can be safely given to children in essentially unlimited quantities.
 
 
The real anti-science kooks, it turns out, are the blindly obedient vaccine pushers! (They also happen to be extremely angry egomaniacs who reek of vile hatred for humanity… and of children specifically.)
 
 
UK media has realized journalistic integrity requires the practicing of actual journalism
 
 
While tens of thousands of injured young children is no laughing matter, it is rather hilarious that the U.S. mainstream media’s obedience to the total quackery of “vaccine safety” is causing its own rapid loss of credibility, readership and revenues. That’s why the value of old media publishers is rapidly collapsing while, at the same time, alternative media websites are exploding in popularity.
THANK YOU, lamestream media, for creating the journalism vacuum now being filled by independent media outlets like Natural News — websites that never would have grown at all if the media had been doing its job in the first place.
 
 
And what do we want to see with vaccines here in the New Media? We’re not opposed to the theory of immunization, and we most certainly aren’t opposed to good science (I’m the science lab director of the Natural News Forensic Food Lab, conducting PhD-level atomic spectrometry analysis and original research on heavy metals in foods). We merely want to see all toxic chemicals and heavy metals removed from vaccinesand for government to respect parents’ rights in deciding what medical interventions are best for their own children. It doesn’t sound like much of a demand, really. It’s just a demand for protecting children and respecting fundamental civil rights.
I never thought I’d see the day that demanding we stop poisoning children with mercury in flu shots is called “anti-science.” But here we are, and that just tells you how insane the monopoly-run, criminal-minded vaccine industry has become these days. No wonder the public craves truthful reporting on this subject!
 
BOTTOM LINE: Any media outlet that tells you vaccines are safe is knowingly committing journalistic malpractice and lying to your face. They are paid by Big Pharma to tell such lies, and they knowingly put children in harm’s way for their own selfish profits. Even the ethically challenged vaccine pushers they roll out to push vaccines — people like Paul Offit — totally abandon ethics by failing to disclose their own financial ties to the vaccine industry when they’re interviewed on TV.
 
Don’t get your news on the USA from mainstream media within the USA
 
 
Here’s an important takeaway point on all this: Never read the U.S. mainstream media for any purpose other than tabloid entertainment. Most mainstream outlets are totally clueless, compromised and corrupted. Although there are intelligent reporters who work inside the U.S. media, they are handcuffed by censorship and editorial directives that prevent them from reporting the truth on GMOs, vaccines and other important topics. (I know this because many of them have come to me asking for work and explaining the kind of Orwellian censorship under which they operate. You would not believe the number of formerly mainstream media reporters who now work for Natural News… and the number is growing by the week right now as we keep expanding…)
 
 
If you want news about the USA from a mainstream source, start reading the Daily Mail (UK). Or check out Der Spiegel, Al Jazeera, RT, Sputnik News or The Intercept. You’ll never get accurate news about the U.S. vaccine industry from the U.S. sellout media. They are just propaganda tools of the drug makers, and they’re more than willing to see children harmed and even killed as long as they get their precious ad revenue from Big Pharma.
http://www.naturalnews.com/049961_vaccine_injury_media_coverage_real_journalism.html

Fascism and War: Elite Tools to Crush and Kill Dissent

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1937 with Adolf Hitler.

Dr. Jacques Pauwels is not the kind of historian you often hear about in the mainstream media. He’s obviously not the kind of “expert” they refer to for historical facts. Actually, one crucial propaganda method consists in excluding current events from their historical context.

Listening to Pauwels makes one realize the scope of the lies we’ve been fed about the Second World War, fascism and democracy, and how myths related to previous wars need to be upheld in the mainstream discourse to satisfy never ending war propaganda needs.

In a speech held December 15 in Montreal, he explained that World Wars I and II were all about crushing mass revolutionary movements.

The myth of the Good War

Every time Westerners’ approval for war is required, the myth of the good war surfaces: the Second World War was a good war, a necessity to quench Hitler’s blood thirst. Pauwels tears this myth apart, uncovering the vicious nature of the western elite.

The reasons for the US involvement in World War II lie in the social-economic conditions of the time, not in an outpouring of compassion destined to save humanity from fascism. The US elite was actually in favor of fascism, a very convenient tool to crush the mass revolutionary movement embodied by the Russian Revolution and the USSR.

WWII was in fact a continuity of WWI. “We are always told that WWI started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but it’s not true”, Pauwels says. It is indeed a well established myth carried on by various sources, whether history is written by “thousands of eminent experts, scholars, and leaders” like in Encyclopedia Britannica, or by just about anybody, like in Wikipedia:

The outbreak of war

With Serbia already much aggrandized by the two Balkan Wars (1912–13, 1913), Serbian nationalists turned their attention back to the idea of “liberating” the South Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević, head of Serbia’s military intelligence, was also, under the alias “Apis,” head of the secret society Union or Death, pledged to the pursuit of this pan-Serbian ambition. Believing that the Serbs’ cause would be served by the death of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph, and learning that the Archduke was about to visit Bosnia on a tour of military inspection, Apis plotted his assassination. (World War I, Encyclopedia Britannica)

The immediate trigger for war was the 28 June 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. This set off a diplomatic crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia,[10][11] and international alliances formed over the previous decades were invoked. Within weeks, the major powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. (World War I, Wikipedia)

Both WWI and WWII had two dimensions: the vertical dimension, namely the rivalry between empires, and the horizontal one, class warfare, Pauwels explains.

These wars were actually the best way for the western elite to cope with the ever growing revolutionary and democratic movements fueled by dire economic conditions and which threatened the established order.

In Nietzsche’s view for example, Pauwels says “war was the solution against revolution, since in a war, there are no discussions, like there is in a democracy. In a war, the minority, the elite, decides and the majority, the proletarians, obey.”

For members of the elite like Malthus, “the system could not be the cause of poverty since they were profiting from it. The cause of poverty was the poor: there were too many of them. Therefore the solution to poverty and threatening revolutionary movements was simply to eliminate poor people and what better solution than war to kill poor people?”

After WWI though, “revolution was no longer a simple idea but rather something concrete: the Soviet Union.” That’s when fascism came to the rescue. “Fascism was the instrument used by the elite to further the objectives of 1914, namely put an end to revolutions and communism.”

Communism and socialism were gaining worldwide momentum after WWI. “The German industrial and financial elite wished to crush the revolutionary movement and destroy the Soviet Union. Adolf Hitler was their instrument.”

According to popular belief Western leaders were defending democracy, engaged in a war against Germany to save humanity from fascism and the US involvement in the war led to the downfall of Hitler’s war machine. Nothing is further from the truth. “Hitler was supported by other European countries and the US because they wanted him to destroy the USSR, the cradle of the revolution.” The exact opposite occurred: it was the USSR that defeated Nazi Germany, losing over 20 million souls in the battle.

The US even recruited the best Nazi scientists, technicians and engineers to work for them after the war. That piece of history called Operation Paperclip (picture below) has yet to find its way in Encyclopedia Britannica.

WWII was the victory of American Imperialism, a term which is rarely used today even if it best describes the reality the world has been living in ever since.

But even more surprising is the surviving myth that we are going to war to save the world from evil dictators or terrorists and that the western world fights for freedom and democracy. Thanks to the “stenographers of power”, the tactic is still reliable and used several decades later.

By Julie Lévesque

http://www.globalresearch.ca/fascism-and-war-elite-tools-to-crush-and-kill-dissent/5420224

Sugar-Coated Science: Food Industry Uses Deceptive Marketing to Hide Added Sugar

Since 1970, average daily U.S. sugar consumption has increased from 74.7 grams to 82.1 grams—more than double the amount the USDA’s dietary guidelines suggest. Graphic courtesy of UCS

Medical researchers have linked sugar overconsumption to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Despite these dangers, companies advertise products with added sugar using healthy-sounding language. For instance, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios are marketed as “whole grain,” which they are, but the product also contains 10 grams of sugar—10 times the amount in General Mills’ regular Cheerios.

“Companies are going out of their way to promote products with added sugar in them as healthier than they really are,” said Deborah Bailin, an analyst with the center and the report’s lead author. “In many cases, they’re adding sugar to otherwise healthy foods and misleading customers about it. It’s not just soda and snacks, either. Added sugar is in everything from bread to salad dressing and even frozen dinners.”

Since 1970, average daily U.S. sugar consumption has increased from 74.7 grams to 82.1 grams (20 teaspoons). That is more than double the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guideline recommendation of no more than 42 grams of sugar a day. The report documents that eating just a few sugar-added products during the day could easily cause someone to exceed the recommendation level. As Bailin notes in a blog post and via a supporting graphic based on the report, consuming just three General Mills products could exceed the daily sugar cap. Specifically, a Nature Valley Oats ’n Honey granola bar contains 12 grams of sugar, while it is promoted as high in whole grain. Similarly, one serving of Fiber One “Protein” Cranberry Almond cereal contains 16 grams of sugar. Finally, a serving of Yoplait strawberry Greek yogurt contains a whopping 18 grams of sugar, while the packaging emphasizes the yogurt’s protein content.

“The food industry always says people should be free to eat what they want,” said Andrew Rosenberg, the center’s director. “But people also deserve accurate, up-front information about what’s in the food they’re buying and companies simply aren’t giving it to them.”

The food industry spends nearly $7 billion annually advertising its products. About one-quarter of its spending is directed at youth advertising and sugar-heavy products make up the bulk of that spending. GoGurt yogurt, for instance, contains large amounts of added sugar, but has been advertised as healthy because it is free of “high fructose corn syrup.” The report also tracks misleading marketing campaigns for sugar-added products that have been specifically directed at women, minorities and low-income consumers.

Trade groups and front groups also play a significant role in misinforming the public, the report finds. Court documents recently revealed that the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) paid Berman and Company to run a misleading ad campaign through the Center for Consumer Freedom, a non-profit run by Berman and Company’s founder. The ads conveyed the message that all sugars—whether from corn, cane or beets—are “natural” and pose no health concerns. This message is misleading, the report says, because it distracts people from the risks associated with over-consuming sugar in any form. In internal emails, CRA’s then-president Audrae Erickson counseled colleagues to deny that CRA was financing the campaign.

U.S. Food Industry Advertising Spending, 2012. Graph courtesy of Sugar-Coating Science report

Scientific and consumer awareness of sugar-added products is growing. In some cases, companies are trying to respond by highlighting key nutritional information, including sugar, on the front of their packaging. When they do so, however, they preferentially emphasize nutritional information designed to make consumers feel good about their purchase such as grain, fiber or protein content.

Beyond company actions, the report suggests several steps that could be taken to increase consumers’ access to accurate information about the food on store shelves. For one, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering requiring companies to list added sugars on nutrition labels. A public comment period for the rule ends June 2. Some state health agencies, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have also stepped up public service advertising about added sugar. Finally, consumer and advocacy group pressure has also pushed companies to drop inaccurate claims about their products, including Coca-Cola’s health claims about Vitamin Water and General Mills’ misleading claim that Fruit Roll-Ups contain “real fruit.”

The report is being released at a forum on integrating public health science into U.S. food policy, sponsored by Union of Concerned Scientists and the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. The forum will convene a wide range of scientists, policy experts and medical professionals to explore scientifically informed food policies that serve the public interest.

http://ecowatch.com/2014/05/06/deceptive-marketing-hide-added-sugar/

Toxic Candy: GMO's & Petrochemicals

I'll try to make this quick, but I can't promise anything. I have something to say about this picture: 

I've seen it all over Facebook. PETA is sharing a picture of candy that illustrates exactly where the gelatin in much of it comes from - and person after person after person in the comments is talking about how "amazing" all these processed candies are and how they don't really care at all where their "food" comes from. 

PETA is right on this, for the record. Not only is that exactly where non-vegetarian gelatin comes from (the majority in America is said to come from pig skins, but it can also come from other animals including cows and fish), but due to the nature of the way the leftovers are collected, the production of gelatin has been known to be somewhat...inconsistent, to say the very least. 

But that's not even the point. People were clamoring over themselves to talk about how they "don't care" what's in candy, they just love it. I don't know how many comments I read with the words "don't care" and some quip about how they were going to run out and get some candy right now. 

Apparently candy companies could literally piss in these people's candy and they'd be fine with it if it tasted the way they expect it to. 

Regardless of one's stance on PETA, the attitude of not caring where our food comes from is part of why giant corporations are able to give even less of a crap about what they put in our food. They know very well that the blissfully ignorant masses just don't care, so they can totally get away with using low-rent, synthetic and nutritionally void ingredients. 

The truth is, I don't even see candy anymore when I look at that picture, or really, when I look at most conventional candy packages at the grocery store. You know what I see? 

A potential chemical assault on my body. 

GMO sugar beets and dextrose from GMO corn, both courtesy of Monsanto, a company that produces and sells poison for profit. 

Modified soy protein that likely also started there, but because it is in its "modified" state, it could also be a hidden name for MSG, a potent neurotoxin and excitotoxin. 

High fructose corn syrup, (which we can't even really say is "fine in moderation" like thepropaganda commercials try to reassure us it is because HFCS is in so many things, it's hard to avoid let alone moderate) that is probably made in a chlor alkali plant with mercury cell technology because we still have those here, meaning it's likely tainted with the neurotoxic heavy metal mercury. 

Artificial colors dyes made of coal tar, aka nothing more than a byproduct of the petroleum industry. Things that are banned in other countries because they cause behavioral problems in children are in the majority of foods which are straight up MARKETED to children here (like candy, cereals, snacks, cheap sugary drinks etc). Some of these dyes have also caused tumors in lab studies. 

I also recently learned that some well-known, popular chocolate pudding mixes not only contain no real chocolate, but if they did not contain artificial colors, they would actually be green instead of the expected brown. 

Artificial flavors made of random chemical mixtures as well. 

Natural colors could mean things like carmine - a red coloring that is actually created by boiling tens of thousands of female cochineal insect shells in a vat of ammonia or sodium bicarbonate solution. Starbucks took a lot of heat when it came to light a few years back that the coffee giant was using carmine to color it's strawberry frappuccino drinks (you know, instead of...actual strawberries). 

Natural colors and flavors aren't necessarily healthier just because they use the word "natural" in the name. "All natural" on a label doesn't mean jack in this country. Castoreum is a "natural" raspberry flavoring used regularly in the food supply...and that stuff is made from beaver anal secretions. 

Yummy, right? 

Vanilla extract isn't just vanillin, the primary component of the vanilla bean, but vanillin mixed with several hundred different compounds. Pure vanillia is scarce, and thus, expensive. Demand worldwide far outweighs supply. For some people, vanillin and artificial vanilla have triggered allergic reactions and caused migraines. 

The "confectioner's glaze" sometimes called shellac that is used on many hard candies is literally made of the feces of the female lac bug. That's not even the worst thing here by far, but still. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. Again, all natural! 

Propylene glycol, produced by Dow Chemical Company and others, isn't just a plasticizer and chemical solvent that's well-known as the main ingredient in antifreeze, but it's also allowed as a food additive in America, and Americans eat it in tons of products on our grocery store shelves, although like other items on this list, it is not cleared as a general-purpose food grade ingredient or direct food additive in the European Union (meaning it's banned there). 

Or how about soy lecithin? That stuff is in everything these days. Not only is it made of GMO soy (unless it specifically says "organic soy lecithin" in the ingredients list and notjust "organic" on the whole package, see below on that), but the process used to extract it involves harsh chemicals like acetone and hexane, a neurotoxic chemical solvent and jet fuel additive which can cause nerve damage with long-term inhalation exposure. 

There's even a video on it from the Cornucopia Institute: 

Yes, hexane is another lovely byproduct of gasoline refineries, and it has been surmised that the hexane-extraction process may be the leading reason why soy baby formulas have been found to cause terrible irritation to the linings of some baby's stomachs.While the CDC recognizes hexane as a neurotoxin and the EPA declares it to be a "hazardous air pollutant," here in America, that apparently means it's just fine to eat it. 

(Oh, and even though an organic version of soy lecithin has been available since 2004, and the National Organic Standards Board could have voted to dump conventional soy lecithin, instead the board voted to keep the dry version of soy lecithin on the allowed substances National List in 2009, so even organics with the certified seal can still include hexane-extracted conventional soy lecithin in their products as well.) 

The list goes on and on...potentially carcinogenic preservatives like BHT and BHA. Caramel coloring that just might contain a known cancer-causing byproduct called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) which government studies haveshown "caused lung, liver, or thyroid cancer or leukemia in laboratory mice or rats." That's why 4-MEI is on California's list of chemicals known to cause cancer! 

And you can barely even buy a gum without the excitotoxin aspartame in it...but aspartame is a whole separate report by itself. (I know. I've written several. Here's onenow.) 

SIGH. 

Again, let's be clear: we no longer live in a country where you look at a food item and what you see is all it is. 

Far from it. 

A burger patty probably isn't just a burger patty made from nothing but "100% beef". Consumers have to also consider what that cow ate (GMO corn? GMO soy? Trash?Candy?) on top of the cow's treatment as it was raised. 

Think about it. You release stress hormones when you are upset. These can wreak havoc on your body, especially if you are under chronic stress. Animals release similar hormones and when they live in the places many animals are raised in in this country, you better believe many are living in fear with trauma and releasing hormones in response to it. 

And then...what? You slap cheese and condiments all over that stress and trauma andeat it? Can't be good. 

Many animals are raised in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) in America. I've personally visited a few of these places and I can tell you, it's a horror you just have to witness for yourself. They're like animal concentration camps. I saw dead cows lining the street, animals literally piled on top of each other and giant piles of dung, shoved in a pen so thick they couldn't even turn around if they tried. On top of that, you've got all the pharmaceuticals administered to the livestock in this country...arsenic to make chickens fat...antibiotics to cows for the same reason (and to preemptively fight off diseases due to the nasty way they are being raised)...things that make cow's hooves fall off...it's just unreal. 

And we're eating it! 

Our food is a highly industrialized, highly centralized affair in this country. About ten mega corporations own almost all the brands you'll find on the average grocery store shelf: 

It's sad we live in a day-and-age where a person is expected to get a freakin' chemistry degree just to be able to truly comprehend what's listed on their food labels (and then another degree to interpret what effects the inundation of all these synthetic chemicals actually have on our bodies both short- and long-term), but we can't just wait around for the government to protect us from ...well, from our food. They haven't so far. Hell, they can't even protect themselves. 

But reading that PETA picture comments section was more than just disheartening. It's a period on the end of a long sentence about how we're all so disconnected from what's on the end of our forks, most of us have absolutely no idea what we're even putting in our mouths in this country. 

Well, we all need to get right with that, and soon. Hippocrates once said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food". We don't do that anymore. Sickness is rising fast in this country. Food allergies (gluten intolerance, anyone?), autoimmune diseases, diabetes, obesity...all going up and up and up. The government has announced it expects the rates of cancer to double in the U.S. by 2050 - and cancer is already off-the-charts now! 

People need to snap out of it and put down that fork for a sec. Think about what you areeating. Really think about it. 

Not caring about how our food was produced or what's in it is what got us here in the first place - and it's simply not an option anymore.

Source 

http://www.sott.net/article/278104-Toxic-Candy-GMOs-Petrochemicals