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thedreideldiaries · 5 years

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Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

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ally3bd-blog · 5 years

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*Aristotle: Ethos and Logos and Pathos*

The critical questions that will be discussed in this post are: What is the main purpose of this artifact’s message and how are ethos, pathos, and logos used in this rhetorical artifact to achieve that purpose? Is the way that these rhetorical appeals are used ethical?

The artifact which will be used to answer these questions is a speech uploaded to YouTube on the topic of climate action given by Greta Thunberg. The main purpose of Thunberg’s speech is to spread awareness of the negative effects of climate change and provoke others to take action, which she inspires them to do by using ethos, pathos, and logos to state environmental facts, incite emotions, and prove her credibility all in an ethical manner.

Greta Thunberg’s poignant speech was given at the UN Climate Action Summit to an audience of world leaders. The video is only five minutes and nineteen seconds long, but has rapidly spread across the internet as a result of the videos popularity and Greta’s young age of only sixteen years old. The video starts with an interviewer explaining that Thunberg’s first climate strike was over a year ago and how she has become an inspiration to many kids with her passion for climate action . Thunberg’s speech begins after being asked “What’s your message to world leaders today?” (“WATCH: Greta” 00:14-00:17). The main points of her speech will be stated and elaborated upon during the following discussion of ethos, pathos, and logos.

In “The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction”, James Herrick explains Aristotle’s three artistic proofs taught by rhetoric: logos, pathos, and ethos. He first defines logos as “arguments and logical reasoning” (Herrick 78). Logos has this definition because it “[implies] both thought and speech” (Herrick 79). Logos can be beneficial in rhetoric because it has the ability to show a speaker’s intelligence to their audience. Having a well thought out argument to support your claim is more effective than just stating an idea. Herrick then goes on to mention pathos, which can be referred to as “the names and causes of various emotions” (78) or “putting the audience in the right frame of mind to make a good decision” (79). To be brief, pathos deals with the wave of emotions that the audience experiences from the moment before a speech is given to after it is over. Pathos is incredibly critical in a speech because “emotions do affect judgment” (Herrick 79). If a speaker can ethically or unethically manipulate the audience to feel a certain way, then they are more likely to get them to believe what they want them to believe. Lastly, Herrick elaborates on ethos, which can be defined as “human character and goodness” (78) or “the speaker’s character or personal credibility” (80). People are much more likely to listen to someone who they consider credible than someone that they don’t trust or believe to be worth listening to. Herrick explains that Aristotle believed that there were three different aspects of ethos: “intelligence, good sense”, “virtue”, and “goodwill” (80-81). According to this, a speaker should present themselves as being knowledgeable, having good character, and speaking to promote the good of the people and not for one’s own personal gain. When an audience sees these qualities in a speaker, they become trusting and take what they’re saying into consideration; whereas, if they think a speaker is uneducated, the audience might ignore what is said as a result of believing that the speaker has a lack of background knowledge.

Thunberg starts off her speech by using the rhetorical strategy of pathos in her response to the question of what her message is to the world’s leaders. She states in a devastated and accusatory tone: “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words…”(“WATCH: Greta” 00:37-00:59). By using pathos in the beginning of her speech, Thunberg makes her audience, the world leaders, feel ashamed and disappointed in themselves. She does this by not only showing them by giving the speech, but also telling them that she should not have to be stepping up and taking charge of a situation that the adults should be handling. She continues to shame her audience by inadvertently saying that if their words are truthful, then they are evil. She does this by setting up an argument: “you say you hear us. That you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil and that I refuse to believe. (“WATCH: Greta” 1:49-2:10). In doing this, Thunberg is creating a sense of hope for the future by saying that she won’t believe that her audience is evil; however, she also shines the light on her audience to make them see that they have either been lying about understanding the urgency of climate action or that they have been acting in evil ways by avoiding the current predicament.

Throughout her speech, Thunberg also uses logos in order to prove that climate action needs to happen now and cannot wait any longer. She explains that “the popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control…[this also relies] on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist...” (“WATCH: Greta” 2:17-2:31 & 2:49-3:00). This might be new information for some who are not as informed about the issue of climate change. By stating this statistic along with the fact that it relies on the younger generations to do a lot of the work, Thunberg not only shows that she is well-educated on the topic of climate change, but also that she has done additional research beyond that of most individuals to be able to explain what ideas and practices that statistic is based on. She adds further statistics saying there were 420 gigatons of CO2 to emit at the beginning of 2018 and today the number has dropped to less than 350 gigatons (“WATCH: Greta” 3:20-3:33). This fact proves to her audience that climate change is real and has already been happening at drastic rates. This supports her argument that climate action is needed now.

Lastly, ethos is frequently used throughout the artifact to provide Greta Thunberg with credibility. As mentioned previously, there are three aspects of ethos: “intelligence, good sense”, “virtue”, and “goodwill” (Herrick 80-81). The statistics she provided her audience with that were mentioned mentioned in the logos section of the argument prove that Thunberg is knowledgeable and intelligent regarding the topic of climate change. Thunberg’s virtuousness does not need to be spoken of during her speech, yet it still is. When she states “I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean” (“WATCH: Greta” 0:40-0:47). In this claim, Thunberg is acknowledging that this is not something she should be doing; however, she is doing so regardless believes she believes that fighting for climate action is the right thing to do. This could have gone unstated because the presence of a child speaking on climate action alone shows that she is standing up for her generation when the adults aren’t. Not only does this action show virtue, but Thunberg demonstrates goodwill as well. She is not only fighting for herself, but for the safety of her entire generation and the dying ecosystems surrounding them. She asserts to her audience that “change is coming whether [they] like it or not” (“WATCH: Greta” 4:45-4:49). With this statement, Thunberg shows that she is confident that there will be climate action taken and change will come. She wants what is best for her fellow peers and the world around her.

Greta Thunberg used ethos, pathos, and logos in an ethical manner throughout her speech. Aristotle believed that “the orator has a moral concern for correct judgment, not simply a pragmatic or sophistic concern for winning a debate” (Herrick 79). In this situation, it is obvious that Thunberg is speaking for the benefit of all and not just herself. Most children are not speaking at large events to create climate change. Thunberg’s personal gain would be a gain for the public as well. If her audience acts on her words and call to action, it would result in a thriving planet with a stable environment to support its people for many years to come. Herrick claimed that “the goal of all reputable rhetorical activity should be the improvement of life in the polis, the city-state” (81). This is exactly what Thunberg is trying to do: improve the lives of those living on Earth. Since Thunberg was speaking to increase the wellbeing of the public and did not skew any of the information that she provided, her rhetoric was ethical.

A study by a group of Yale students, led by psychologist Carl Hovland “sought to estimate how important a speaker’s ethos might be, or when pathos might be effective, or what type of logos should be pursued” using scientific evidence (Demirdogen 190). The group of students discovered three characteristics which affect how persuasive someone is: “(1) the source of the persuasive communication, (2) the characteristics of the message, (3) the characteristics of the receiver and the context of the message” (193). This is very similar to Aristotle’s ethos, pathos, and logos. The group first did a study on the source of the communication, or the equivalent to Aristotle's ethos. To test the importance of credibility in persuasion, they looked at two different people who gave the same message about nuclear submarines. The speaker that showed the most expertise ended up persuading more individuals. Some people have argued that Thunberg is too young to understand what she is talking about, despite the fact that she provided. This research would suggest that she get those who are older and more educated on the topic to defend her stance on climate action. In regards to the characteristics of the message, which is similar to logos. The group studied if the order of a message mattered and they found that it is not something that a uniform rule can be given to. The group also researched if it is more beneficial to give a pros and cons argument or only include one point of view. The results were that more educated individuals were persuaded by the pro and con point of view and those who were less educated were more persuaded by the one sided view (Demirdogen 195-196). Thunberg did not represented a two-sided argument because she not only explained why action needs to be taken against climate change, but also what would happen if nothing is done. According to Hovland, this speech would resonate well with educated citizens, but possibly not persuade those who aren’t as educated. Lastly, they studied the context of the message and characteristics of the receiver. They found that with more nuanced topics, two mediums were more persuasive: a written form and a spoken form of the message. If the topic was simple, then a video or speech would suffice (Demirdogen 197). Since Thunberg’s speech was on the complicated topic of climate action, Hovland and his student researchers would suggest that her message be spread to the public through another medium as well, other than just her speech.

In conclusion, Greta Thunberg’s speech effectively used ethos, pathos, and logos to spread awareness of climate change and promote the dire need for world leaders to finally take action to prevent it.

Works Cited:

“WATCH: Greta Thunberg's full speech to world leaders at UN Climate Action Summit.” YouTube, PBS NewsHour, 23 Sept. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU.

Herrick, J. A. (2005). Aristotle on rhetoric. In The history and theory of rhetoric: An Introduction (5th ed.) (pp. 69-81). New York: Routledge.

Demirdogen, Ulku. “The Roots of Research in (political) Persuasion: Ethos, Pathos, Logos and the Yale Studies of Persuasive Communications.” International Journal of Social Inquiry, vol. 3, no. 1, Jan. 2010, pp. 189-201. EBSCOhost, http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=0fe1f8e4-9f94-4c9b-9ea0-533d9c0c9d4a%40sessionmgr101

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ccphotomedia · 6 years

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You’ve probably seen reports in the media about obesity and overweight statistics, and it’s true – the numbers and prevalence of these conditions are definitely increasing. And, we can see the effects in real life… Have you noticed, for instance, when walking down the street, taking the subway/bus, shopping in a store, working at the office, attending public events, or eating at a restaurant, that more and more people seem to be larger and larger and taking up more and more space? I know I definitely have.

The numbers are startling. According to the CDC, about 70% of adults 20 or older are considered overweight or obese… that’s more than 2 out of every 3 people who are facing a higher risk for a variety of diseases and early death. And, even worse, about 1 in 5 teens, about 1 in 6 kids aged 6-11, and about 1 in ten toddlers and kids up to 5 years old are considered obese. What was that old adage how about how our kids are our future? If that’s true, what do these statistics tell us about our future?

Here’s the thing, there are a lot of people that say that it’s totally fine to be overweight. That it’s “normal” and to quit the “fat shaming”… but… to deny that this is a problem is to not live in reality.

This issue of obesity and overweight is certainly complex, and not attributable to one simple cause, and, yes, I agree, people still deserve dignity, but this issue definitively has a huge impact on us, both on an individual level and society at large.

Again, to deny the health impacts on individuals who are overweight is to deny reality. For instance, overweight and obese people pay, on average, $1,429 more per year in health care costs, according to a 2009 study by Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen and Dietz published on Health Affairs. And this is not institutional/systemic bias against “people with larger bodies,” it is a sign that there is a clear correlation between weight and impacts on health, regardless of whether you believe any data from the CDC or scientific studies on the correlations of overweight/obesity on the risk for diabetes, heart disease and other conditions, for instance.

“But, I’m healthy, why should I care,” you might think? Well, because, as I mentioned above, it’s not just about the individual, his/her costs and his/her increased risks of pre-mature death. There is a cost to society as a whole, both financially and progress-wise.

The Finkelstein study above estimated that total annual costs of health care related to obesity came in at about $147 billion dollars for 2008. (Yes, I realize this is 10 years ago… so imagine what that number is now.) If you divvied that up among our current population, to reduce the impact, that works out to be about $451 per person per year.

Don’t think that you foot the bill for any of this? Do you pay taxes?

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, in 2016, health programs including Medicare, Medicaid, Children’s Health Insurance Program and Affordable Care Act made up about 26% of the annual budget. And, according to an article on financial expert Dave Ramsey’s website, a “sample 2011 tax receipt provided by whitehouse.gov shows the total tax bill for a married couple with two kids making $80,000 was just over $9,000″ total, and of that, about 21% was designated to health care related programs. And, in that Finkelstein study, they determined that 8.5% and 11.5% of Medicare and Medicaid spending, respectively, are directly related to obesity/overweight. That means, about $1,800 (or more) of this sample family’s income taxes are going to medical programs in general, and about $360 obesity related care directly. How much of your money do you want to spend on obesity care for society, or on yourself, for that matter?

And, to top it off, this isn’t even taking into account the cost of lost productivity… based on time out of work due to health issues connected to obesity, obesity-related disabilities, and so on, which I don’t have numbers for at the moment.

So, why am I so passionate about this? It’s not really about the money, for me. I personally grew up over weight and out of shape, and not for a lack of exercise, as I was pretty active doing soccer and dance throughout my childhood. I later realized that the food I was eating, and I don’t blame my parents, but the food I was eating was not properly fueling my body. In addition to eating too much processed food and sugary foods, I also ate a lot of refined carbs and not a lot of nutritious veggies/etc. I am partially to blame/responsible for this, having been a picky eater for most of my youth, and busy/on the go a lot… And it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I decided I would do something about it. So, I set about to learning about food, nutrition and going down the rabbit hole of attempting to figure out “the truth” about healthy eating.

I got so passionate about this area that I decided to devote some of my professional work in photography to this area – particularly through food photography – but also started a podcast exploring topics around food, health, food systems, food entrepreneurship, nutrition and more with entrepreneurs, game changers and experts.

This all, ultimately, led to my attending the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference, this past February, where I met a woman named Sophie who works in the Culinary Institute of America’s strategic department. When I mentioned my podcast, Put a Fork In It, and how I’m on a mission to create a healthier, wealthier and happier world, she told me about a conference she was working on through the CIA – the Menus of Change.

I didn’t know what it was at that time, but she mentioned to follow up and she could connect me with the right people to get a press pass, on behalf of the podcast and my blogging.

Being the diligent person I am, I did just that, and with that deal of networking, a few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to attend this 2.5 day leadership summit at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY (not too far from where I live).

This conference was founded several years back as a way to include the food service and food consumer packaged goods industries in the good fight: helping to shape these industries to influence healthier options/choices for consumers and adapting our current food system to a healthier and more sustainable version that prioritizes personal and environmental health and, ultimately, delicious food.

It was truly a great opportunity to be among the CEOs of large food companies, chefs and culinary/nutrition directors, scientists, and more who are all on the cutting edge of this work.

My eyes were opened to the fact that the food industry and agriculture are one of the leadings contributors of climate change. Something I realized while at the conference, since I really try to be apolitical and not polarizing, and try to find the middle ground on these types of things, is that whether you believe in human caused climate change or not, there are definitely measurable and important impacts on the environment from our current behaviors in the food/ag industries, and we can always improve. In retrospect, that should of been pretty obvious, considering that we use land to grow our food, both plants and animals, which certainly has impacts on the soil, and, how about erosion of soil from replanting crops annually, or methane coming from livestock, or waste and pollutants of all sorts from shipping materials, or pollutants from herbicides, or decreasing bee populations, or getting rid of “sub par” produce, or packaging from processed goods (or otherwise), and so on.

If you want more specific information, here are a few resources to get you started:

Environmental Effects of the US Food System, a report on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website, and

Environmental Impacts of Food Production and Consumption, a report from the UNESCO- Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, which catalogs “state-of-the-art, high quality, peer reviewed, thematically organized archival content in many traditional disciplines and interdisciplinary subjects with including the coverage of transdisciplinary pathways”.

Or, if you prefer something a little simpler to follow, check out the this Vice piece about the impacts of Climate Change on the wine industry.

Another interesting show is Rotten, on Netflix.

So, similar to above, regarding denial of health impacts of obesity, to deny that our actions in the food/ag industry has an environmental impact, is to deny reality. So, again, whether we believe in climate change or if we do believe it exists, but aren’t sure that we could really do anything about it, the fact is that we are currently doing things that impact the environment and, again, if we believe in our kids being our future, it’s really in our best interests to take care of the environment, to do a better job, and create a sustainable world where our kids can grow up and raise kids of their own.

This event, the Menus of Change, really opened my eyes to this. And while, at first, I did have some resistance and skepticism to what was being said, since environmental issues are often a politicized and therefore polarizing and propagandized issues with a lot of buzz words designed to make us feel guilty and shameful (from both sides of the spectrum), I’ve opened my mind back up to this topic and it’s true importance, because it’s critical to recognize that our actions, individually, as as people and businesses, as well as in the collective industry and society at large do really matter for the long term success of our species and life on earth. And, if we don’t take care of our environment and resources, we all lose out in the end regardless of whether you’re on the left, on the right, believe that humans have caused climate change, or that we can’t do anything to prevent or reverse climate change.

So, as you might expect, the conference included presentations from industry leaders in various sectors of the culinary and food system, entrepreneurs, scientists, chefs and so on, as well as networking opportunities. But, what was unique was really how deeply the concepts and values were actually applied. What I mean is… they actually practiced what they were preaching about plant-forward menus, the “protein flip” and the “Mediterranean diet”/using unique ingredients and local sourcing. It wasn’t just a load of preaching or trying to “inspire” or “educate” or propagandize to make change, there was actually a full-reaching application of the principles during their own meal times. They sampled some of the dishes that were discussed or shown during cooking demos, and even provided the recipes for the foods that were served, through the conference app. It was certainly a refreshing change to be at an event that actually served delicious AND nutritious foods – a pet-peeve and big weakness for me.

This really is exciting and makes me grateful to have been a part of it and to meet so many people that also want to improve the food system and public health. It’s very encouraging and, even if there are certain things that may be polarizing or pique my skepticism or critical side, it really comes back to one of my favorite guiding principles, from Ghandi himself, to the CIA: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” and, therefore, lead by example.

It was really wonderful to be a part of that experience and be able to be a part of something that embodies this philosophy – it’s one of the reasons that I do what I do and pursue the goals that I pursue, in spite of challenges and naysayers. I really believe that if you want to change the world, you have to start with your self and act in accordance with your values, first, and if you do that in your own life, the more people around you will see that it’s possible and be inspired to try it too. And to me, this is the greatest approach we can take to create the positive changes we wish to see. One small act and one person or organization at a time.

Here are some of my photos:

Pork Tsukune and Shishito Skewer, tare glaze over warm lentil salad

Kozy Shack Rice Pudding with slow roasted strawberries and crispy citrus pistachios

Illy coffee rubbed blended mushroom and beef slider with coffee barbecue sauce

Improved Nature Mini Bites Creamy Pistachio Pesto Pizza

Wonderful Pistachio and Almond Orange Energy Bite

Menus of Change: a summit aimed at making a healthier world through the food industry You've probably seen reports in the media about obesity and overweight statistics, and it's true - the numbers and prevalence of these conditions are definitely increasing.

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exit-is-everywhere · 3 years

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The danger is that if we invest too much in developing AI and too little in developing human consciousness, the very sophisticated artificial intelligence of computers might only serve to empower the natural stupidity of humans.

While science fiction thrillers are drawn to dramatic apocalypses of fire and smoke, in reality we might be facing a banal apocalypse by clicking.

The economic system pressures me to expand and diversify my investment portfolio, but it gives me zero incentive to expand and diversify my compassion. So I strive to understand the mysteries of the stock exchange while making far less effort to understand the deep causes of suffering.

So we had better call upon our lawyers, politicians, philosophers and even poets to turn their attention to this conundrum: how do you regulate the ownership of data? This may well be the most important political question of our era.

Each of these three problems – nuclear war, ecological collapse, and technological disruption – is enough to threaten the future of human civilization. But taken together, they add up to an unprecedented existential crisis, especially because they are likely to reinforce and compound one another.

Yet it is precisely their genius for interpretation that puts religious leaders at a disadvantage when they compete against scientists. Scientists too know how to cut corners and twist the evidence, but in the end, the mark of science is the willingness to admit failure and try a different tack. That’s why scientists gradually learn how to grow better crops and make better medicines, whereas priests and gurus learned only how to make better excuses.

Human power depends on mass cooperation, and mass cooperation depends on manufacturing mass identities—and all mass identities are based on fictional stories, not on scientific facts or even on economic necessities.

Religions, rites, and rituals will remain important as long as the power of humankind rests on mass cooperation and as long as mass cooperation rests on belief in shared fictions.

As long as we don’t know whether absorption is a duty or a favour; what level of assimilation is required from immigrants; and how quickly host countries should treat them as equal citizens –we cannot judge whether the two sides are fulfilling their obligations.

If a million immigrants are law-abiding citizens, but one hundred join terrorist groups and attack the host country, does it mean that on the whole the immigrants are complying withthe terms of the deal, or violating it? If a third-generation immigrant walks down the street a thousand times without being molested, but once in a while some racist shouts abuse at her, does it mean that the native population is accepting or rejecting immigrants?

The less political violence in a particular state, the greater the public shock at an act of terrorism.

Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering. If you really understand how an action causes unnecessary suffering to yourself or to others, you will naturally abstain from it.

Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.

The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realise just how ignorant they are of what’s going on. Consequently some who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose policies regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map.

How is it possible to avoid stealing when the global economic system is ceaselessly stealing on my behalf and without my knowledge?

In a world in which everything is interconnected, the supreme moral imperative becomes the imperative to know. The greatest crimes in modern history resulted not just from hatred and greed, but even more so from ignorance and indifference.

Most of the injustices in the contemporary world result from large-scale structural biases rather than from individual prejudices, and our hunter-gatherer brains did not evolve to detect structural biases.

Even if you personally belong to a disadvantaged group, and therefore have a deep first-hand understanding of its viewpoint, that does not mean you understand the viewpoint of all other such groups. For each group and subgroup faces a different maze of glass ceilings, double standards, coded insults and institutional discrimination.

Should we adopt the liberal dogma and trust the aggregate of individual voters and customers? Or perhaps we should reject the individualist approach, and like many previous cultures in history empower communities to make sense of the world together? Such a solution, however, only takes us from the frying pan of individual ignorance into the fire of biased groupthink. Hunter-gatherer bands, village communes and even city neighbourhoods could think together about the common problems they faced. But we now suffer from global problems, without having a global community. Neither Facebook, nor nationalism nor religion is anywhere near creating such a community.

In fact, humans have always lived in the age of post-truth. Homo sapiens is a post-truth species, whose power depends on creating and believing fictions. Ever since the stone age, self-reinforcing myths have served to unite human collectives.

In practice, the power of human cooperation depends on a delicate balance between truth and fiction.

Humans have this remarkable ability to know and not to know at the same time. Or more correctly, they can know something when they really think about it, but most of the time they don’t think about it, so they don’t know it. If you really focus, you realise that money is fiction. But usually you don’t focus.

Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate ways. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions. If you want to know the truth about the world, at some point you will have to renounce power. You will have to admit things – for example about the sources of your own power – that will anger allies, dishearten followers or undermine social harmony. Scholars throughout history faced this dilemma: do they serve power or truth? Should they aim to unite people by making sure everyone believes in the same story, or should they let people know the truth even at the price of disunity? The most powerful scholarly establishments – whether of Christian priests, Confucian mandarins or communist ideologues – placed unity above truth. That’s why they were so powerful.

One of the greatest fictions of all is to deny the complexity of the world, and think in absolute terms of pristine purity versus satanic evil.

Whenever you see a movie about an AI in which the AI is female and the scientist is male, it's probably a movie about feminism rather than cybernetics.

Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching “the four Cs” – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Due to the growing pace of change you can never be certain whether what the adults are telling you is timeless wisdom or outdated bias.

You might have heard that we are living in the era of hacking computers, but that's hardly half the truth. In fact, we are living in the era of hacking humans.

The god Krishna then explains to Arjuna that within the great cosmic cycle each being possesses a unique ‘dharma’, the path you must follow and the duties you must fulfil. If you realise your dharma, no matter how hard the path may be, you enjoy peace of mind and liberation from all doubts.

Most successful stories remain open-ended.

A crucial law of storytelling is that once a story manages to extend beyond the audience's horizon, its ultimate scope matters little.

A wise old man was asked what he learned about the meaning of life. "Well", he answered, "I have learned that I am here on earth in order to help other people. What I still haven't figured out is why the other people are here.

Most people who go on identity quests are like children going treasure hunting. They find only what their parents have hidden for them in advance.

Almost anything can be turned into a ritual, by giving mundane gestures like lighting candles, ringing bells or counting beads a deep religious meaning.

Of all rituals, sacrifice is the most potent, because of all the things in the world, suffering is the most real. You can never ignore it or doubt it.

Just as in ancient times, so also in the twenty-first century, the human quest for meaning all too often ends with a succession of sacrifices.

Similarly, you can find plenty of Bernie Sanders supporters who have a vague belief in some future revolution, while also believing in the importance of investing your money wisely. They can easily switch from discussing the unjust distribution of wealth in the world to discussing the performance of their Wall Street investments.

If by 'free will' you mean the freedom to do what you desire – then yes, humans have free will. But if by 'free will' you mean the freedom to choose what to desire – then no, humans have no free will.

The process of self-exploration begins with simple things, and becomes progressively harder. At first, we realise that we do not control the world outside us. I don’t decide when it rains. Then we realise that we do not control what’s happening inside our own body. I don’t control my blood pressure. Next, we understand that we don’t even govern our brain. I don’t tell the neurons when to fire. Ultimately we should realise that we do not control our desires, or even our reactions to these desires.

Many people, including many scientists, tend to confuse the mind with the brain, but they are really very different things. The brain is a material network of neurons, synapses, and biochemicals. The mind is a flow of subjective experiences, such as pain, pleasure, anger, and love.

- Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

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scarleteenconfidential · 7 years

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Scarleteen Confidential: Supporting, and Understanding, Youth Activism

To say we're living in tumultuous times is putting it mildly. If you live in the U.S., waking up in the morning brings the question of what new, disastrous, and cruel actions your government will attempt today. Globally, countries are seeing an increase in conservative extremism that's concerning to anyone with a good grasp of history and a desire to see their fellow humans treated with dignity and compassion.

There are, however, innumerable bright spots slicing through the bleakness. Protests and activism of all kinds are sprouting up to face what's happening and what's coming. Some, such as Black Lives Matter, are continuing a fight for justice that began years ago. And as we saw in last fall's elections in which multiple trans individuals and people of color won political positions (often by beating out vocally bigoted opponents), activism can have concrete consequences.

Young people are a core part of this resistance and often the driving force behind it. They're organizing, marching, protesting, petitioning, and writing to fight for what they believe in. Their bodies and faces are present at capital buildings, campuses, airports, and in the streets, raising their voices to reject fascism and fear and call instead for justice and love.

As these examples from throughout history demonstrate, adults have always had opinions about what young people are doing. Lots of opinions. For the sake of this article, we'll divide those opinions into three categories.

First are the adults who are active activists themselves and are darn proud to see young people carrying on the tradition of resistance.

Next are the adults who want to support the activism of the young people in their lives, but aren't sure how to do so and/or have some concerns about the well-being and safety of those young people. These adults may not quite grasp where the drive towards activism is coming from, but are willing to learn.

Finally, there are adults who think young people might be complaining a bit too much and that the current political and social situations are "just the way things are."

I want to address the "young people are overreacting" group first. I understand it may feel as though young people are constantly protesting one thing or another. That much, if not all, of what they're protesting seems silly, overstated, or made-up to you. Maybe you can't figure out why they care about trans people being able to use a certain bathroom. Or why they're angry about how there are so few people of color represented in the media. Or why they're demanding that people resign over sexual harassment that seems mild to you.

Here's the truth: the reason young people appear to be protesting everything is there is a lot of messed up stuff in the world. Climate change, LGBTQ victimization, an uptick in global fascism, and a host of other terrible, gut-wrenchingly awful events. Messed up situations are never changed by the oppressed waiting quietly for oppressors give them more freedom. There's a reason we remember the Freedom Riders, the Stonewall Riots, the Suffragettes. Why in twenty years we'll remember Black Lives Matter. They were, and are, movements of protest that sparked greater social change by demanding it, rather than waiting for it.

Most people's teenage and young adult years are when their social consciousness kicks into overdrive. They're maturing, becoming more independent, and starting to explore the world outside of their homes and schools. As that happens, they view or experience moments of discrimination or oppression and may feel as though they are finally old enough to do something about those moments. The injustices of the world start coming into focus for them, and their ability to articulate how messed up those injustices are is increasing. They're noticing all the ways that oppression and bias harm them and the people they care about. Speaking out against injustice gives young people the ability to make their voices heard on issues that affect them. That is something to be celebrated!

How to Move from Unsure to Supportive

What if you're just a little nervous about youth protest, and you're worried about the safety of young people on the front lines? Take some time to reflect on where your feelings are coming from. Maybe you don't feel informed enough on an issue to know if you agree with those who are protesting. Maybe you don't believe a given form of protest is effective. If that's the case, read up on the issue in question and on the history of different activist movements. The suggestions below are a great place to get started, and reading them can give you context for why young people are resisting and why they've chosen the methods that they have for that resistance. While you still may not agree with them, you'll at least be able to understand where they're coming from.

More Like This

Rebel Well: A Starter Survival Guide to a Trumped America

Rebel Well No Matter Where You Are

Popaganda: A Guide to Trump Resistance

Want to Organize a Protest?

Reframing Faculty Critiques of Student Activism

Amnesty International Explains Youth Rights for Protesting in High School

Youth Activists Explain How they Lowered the Voting Age in Their City to 16

- Sam

This is part of our series for parents or guardians. To find out more about the series, click here. For our top five guiding principles for parents or guardians, click here; for a list of resources, click here. To see all posts in the series, click the Scarleteen Confidential tag at Scarleteen, or follow the series here on Tumblr at scarleteenconfidential.tumblr.com.

#scarleteen confidential #scarleteen #activism #youth #protest #politics #resist #safety #violence

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bufordsez · 6 years

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Fear

I just finished re-reading Frank Herbert’“Dune” and it's caused me to ponder the nature of fear. This emotion is likely the strongest we experience and as such, are the one that is most easily invoked by those wishing to manipulate.

In my opinion, fear is a primal reaction that is rooted in the survival instinct inherent in every creature. The causes of the fear are many, but essentially fear is the result of some external threat, be it real or perceived. As thinking beings, humans have the capacity to control their reactions to fear and find a way to overcome the threat. However, this requires the self-discipline to step back from the threat and view it objectively. Failing to do so has inevitably resulted in bad decisions being made based on faulty reasoning and this seems to be true in every case. Sadly, there have been individuals and groups of individuals who intentionally use fear as a means of pushing a large group of people into making decisions and taking actions that produce disastrous results.

Let's take a look at a couple of examples. Climate change is a hot political topic these days, not because the politicians understand it, but because it's played up in the media. The truth is that the climate is changing and man's actions likely have an impact on the pace of that change. The non-fearful rational person can understand and accept that statement because we have scientific evidence to back it up. However, the issue has been blown up to an outrageous point where at least one member of Congress has predicted the end of the world in 10-12 years. We also have climatologists publishing alarmist papers that do little more than pump fear in the hopes of "making something happen". The reality is that unless the entire planet makes a conscious change to move away from harmful practices, the hype does little more than provide a rationale for the funding of more alarmist papers that increase the level of unthinking fear. While we should be teaching our children to be respectful of the environment and to make good choices what appears to be taught in schools is that doomsday is just around the corner, thus building unthinking, irrational fear into future adults. In turn, these same children, with the best of intentions, merely push the agenda of the climate fearmongers. Don't get me wrong, we need to address the climate change issues, but we need to do so intelligently and not fearfully. We cannot "just quit" using fossil fuels without wrecking the economy and causing widespread chaos. However, we can continue moving away from fossil fuels in a reasonable manner and we should do so. Safe nuclear energy would be the nearest path but that has its own issues. Wind and solar energies are not constant and therefore are unreliable as replacements. There is also the matter of energy storage where the batteries used in just about everything are more harmful to the environment in their manufacturing processes than mining coal or drilling for oil. It should be obvious at this point that the problem of climate change and man's impact on the environment is far more complex than just "drop fossil fuels". Having said that, it is still not acceptable to manipulate people through fear of the issue.

Another example is the ongoing "crisis" at the southern border of the United States. Every nation has immigration laws (federations like the European Union with it's open borders policies should be treated as a single nation in this regard) that are part of each nations sovereignty. The United States is no different although I would submit that US immigration laws eschew the restrictions that most other nations wield. There is a crisis at the southern border, but like most issues, it is not as black and white as some would paint it.

The US and other countries have a right and a responsibility to their citizens to ensure that immigration occurs through lawful means. As such, enforcement of those laws is paramount to maintaining national sovereignty, national security, and looking after the safety and well-being of a nations citizens. Illegal immigration is a violation of the laws of the land, and I would posit that state and local governments who willfully violate those laws put the national interest at risk for their own selfish goals. That being said, I and many others believe that the immigration laws need to be revised instead of languishing in the continual gridlock that Congress seems to promote. However, that does not constitute a valid reason for breaking existing laws.

Back to the problem of the US southern border. The border patrol agents continually report the issues with the drug cartels, human trafficking, and other acts where illegal aliens enter the US unlawfully. It is a real problem and not a made up one as some members of Congress would suggest. With the recent events of large migrant caravans approaching the southern US border through Mexico, fear is being stoked to push for a "solution". To many people who do not live on the border, the fear is not real because they are not in any immediate danger. However, this is not the case for those who live near the border. There has been a lot of posturing on both sides of the issue by the Executive branch and the Legislative branch over the issue. There is a crisis at the southern border, but it's not a black and white issue as painted by the media. The large numbers of migrants threaten to overwhelm the intake capability of the agencies responsible for processing applicants. Additionally, certain groups with an agenda are demonstrably coaching the prospective immigrants in defrauding the system by falsely claiming asylum which further muddies the waters for genuine immigration claims. The crisis for the citizens who live near the border is the ongoing real threat from the drug cartels and their activities.

The solution to this complex issue is far removed from the simplistic "just open the borders and let everyone in" answer that keeps getting tossed around. Likewise, the notion that disbanding ICE is a "good" idea merely demonstrates the shallow thinking used to create a sound bite. The government has a responsibility to protect its sovereignty and its citizens while providing a path for legal immigration. However, the country cannot support ongoing illlegal immigration and cannot continue to provide federal assistance for illegal immigrants without bankrupting itself. The issue is being painted as one of racism by one side and as security on the other with both using extreme, hyperbolic terminology. With these elements in play, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to resolve the issue in a win-win fashion. However, if the continuing fear-based hype on both sides continues then I have serious doubts that it will ever be solved.

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theextraspoon · 5 years

Link

Hemp is legal, so what’s the deal? Is it your privilege or your narrative causing changes in your online experience? Be it the ads shown in your browser, the results when you search, the news you’re allowed to read, the accounts you’re allowed to have, the thoughts you’re not allowed to have. It seems far-fetched for the average person, but censorship and silencing may be closer to home than it seems. We all would like to feel like we have free speech but how would we know our speech is being stifled if we aren’t allowed to speak about it?

When it comes to calling to action and social marketing, no one has been “in the loop” more than Kimber Mc, CEO of multi brand hemp and cbd distribution company Natural Healthy CBD, which is not an an easy task. One hundred and 50 or so brands in the most taboo industry since the adult industry trust her to list only the most honest companies beside them and place their products in the hands of influencers and reviewers they can trust to remain unbiased. This mission, based on the need for honesty to remain in the hemp market as long as possible, had her in the center of Vidcon's preferred advertisers conference late 2015 listening to Youtube's newest CEO, Susan Wojcicki's plan for the popular platform responsible for 75% of Googles shared social adspace? According to the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 65% of marketers with 3+ years social media experience are interested in YouTube. So why choose to create and dev a private ad to influencer platform instead of following the funnel into Youtube's adspace? As many CBD companies are aware, they were forced into it.

What happens the day your channel is suspended and deleted from Youtube? What do you do? Who do you tell? What if Facebook bans you? Then twitter? Your phone goes off to alert you that your bank account has been shut down and so has your paypal. Suddenly no one wants to so much as utter your name on youtube less they risk their channel as well, having had their pay cut down to a fourth this year already. Who do you tell? Who would believe you? Strap in for this one and wrap your tinfoil hat tight, we’re jumping into a deep rabbit hole here.

Youtubers are getting hit hard in the name of political correctness causing them to lose their careers in the name of censoring wrong think. Many channels have had to change paths when it comes to content or the ways they present theirs, often causing harm to the very people Youtube claims to want to protect in the first place. However with news breaking about Antitrust and Big Tech in US Federal Court, is it too late? Is there still time to save free speech on the internet? Strap in for this one and wrap your tinfoil hat tight, we’re jumping into a deep rabbit hole here.

While most CBD companies do their best to stay away from politics or personal opinion in general today's political climate makes it near impossible for the average hemp business to stay away. While youtubers are getting demonetized with a handful losing their paypal entirely, no one is speaking up about those leading the way in the revolution and legalization losing their ability to take payments being taken from over them a year ago. Law abiding, tax paying citizens have been without paypal and most without processing since we've been a legal industry. This isn't a pity party, it's a revelation on how much we all have in common and what we can accomplish if we work together.

To understand entirely we have to go back to about a year ago when we were one of two CBD companies privately sponsoring youtubers. We noticed an influx of millenials now unemployed or unable to pay bills with absolutely no education or work ethic, no understanding of how hard it was to make a dollar or anything making them employable in average society making it nearly impossible to do anything other than the one thing they've done since childhood, Youtube. Our CEO was a preferred ad partner with Youtube, a program for top level management and ad agencies along with corporate and famous channels and networks. That's around the time we began trying to get word out about the dreaded Blacklist. Since October 18th 2018, shortly after our return, we reached out to many regarding this blacklist having it laughed off and even having our Twitter at the time deleted.

When our tweets were taken down, we were quoted only by failed journalist theQuartering (Who now goes by multiple youtube channel names) whom claimed he had "reached out for quote but of course the company hasn't responded." While his video had been made public only a few hours after our tweet was quoted, he never reached out. In fact, when we tried to reach out to correct the misinformation spread by theQuartering, we were surprised to see he had blocked us instead. What's more, he attempted to block us from speaking to every youtuber he could, including now banned theRalphRetort and Mister Metokur. TheQuartering attempted to slander us as "crazy," blaming us for the removal of Tim Pool and Bearing, of which we had absolutely no part in. He refused to correct this information and thus our attempt at publicizing the censorship that was to come was... well, censored.

The truth, now that you're all being forced to listen,

is that Google wants you to funnel your money through them they want total control of business relationships on youtube and the internet.

Ask @thequartering where his insider info was to protect your channels from this?

— Natural Healthy CBD ( @CbdHealthy) October 18, 2018

The call to inform everyone that their free speech was at risk due to political bias and a push from Google had fallen on deaf ears. At the time it seemed like a theory for those in tinfoil hats but it was just as evident and scary to us then as today. The difference is maybe we could have spread the message further, faster, and prevent the loss of 50% of all creator earnings at the risk of everyone's free speech.

While never corrected, theQuartering has since released a video regarding google being exposed in which he claims he knew and how proud he is of Project Veritas. We don't like to share fake news, but we do like to give credit where it's due and no one deserves credit like Josh Pescatore and Tim Pool (yes, aforementioned Tim Pool) at Project Veritas.

See the most recent video as of the writing of this article, in the link EXPOSED: Political Censorship in Big Tech where Project Veritas, taglined "Whistleblowers Welcome" exposes Google's top level executives exposing this plan for Google as a whole.

We're sure the timing was just on point, however it wouldn't be the first time an online deep dive has caused us to cross pass with the journalists at Veritas. Pool, punished by youtube was first introduced to us above. However Pescatore, once part of the DramaAlert Youtube News Team, has entered the same circles while working on our autoads system and affiliate upgrades, including what many in the hemp industry and live stream communities know as SBAI or ScoutBuddy AI and the upcoming twitter BluntBot, both in development. It came as no surprise that when we came upon a Google conflict, Veritas was right there as well. This goes to show how in the know Veritas is, their reach further than even they're aware, leaving one to believe that many are against corruption. Like the CBD industry made it through their banning of payment processing, it would seem journalists at Vertias are breaking though the walls of search censorship. Even today you can't find them on the front page of Google but they're being mentioned in news articles across the internet that aren't silenced. Who knew people would stand up for free speech?

When it come to our CEO, she's made her stance clear as she stands for the sick and the small and built Natural Healthy CBD, herein NCH, on that principle. She's gained notoriety originally at patient 01 for medical marijuana in her state and has been extremely influential in legalization while battling her own chronic ailments, was made a victim of the state, punished as a warning to those who pushed for legalization. She later lead the campaign for etsy to open its services to disability service dog gear, now leading in helping to out the scam registries. Now she're in the process of providing a safe place to buy gear and discuss for trainers and handlers of the working dogs, such as herself,a fact many don't know about her while others take into high regard when working directly with her when it comes to dog products and services. Having experience in both the medical and legal fields, she's no stranger to fighting for the rights of the people and her current fight is the largest for free speech and equal ability to work.It should come as no shock she's a big fan of Veritas, having bantered and spoken with Pescatore in chats and on Twitter. We don't know when he found out about Google but we can promise at this point he does listen and investigate.

We recommend Veritas to anyone looking for fact driven information. Pescatore is seeminly in support of free speech and freedom of information, which is exactly what Project Veritas sets out to protect, which is probably the second biggest reason they've been deleted and banned from the internet's biggest platforms.

The number one reason would absolutely be the glorious work they did at getting insider information proving Google was bias and they were changing search algorithms and thus, video content, in their favor. Google, the biggest search platform in the world, claimed it would be bias for the greater good to prevent the election of President Donald Trump again like he had been in 2016... which is election meddling... isn't it?

Not for Google! Google it!

See the issue here?

Google having the ability to change the past and socially engineer the future sounds quite Orwellian in nature. Truth is it's a duopoly, meaning that with Facebook and it's subsidies, Google (and parent company Alphabet) controls the public square. They are acting both as platform and publisher, leaving them to get away with whatever they wish, like election meddling.

Recently, Youtube ( a Google/Alphabet Company) declared it would be removing monetization and possibly banning creator on creator related content. Ironically, Josh Pescatoire said it best on his Twitter:

This statement right here should worry a LOT of creators on Youtube right now.

For Google to have this much confidence in their advertiser algorithm is astonishing. You mean to tell me that this algorithm is so advanced, has been so well trained that it now can determine INTENT?

— Josh Pescatore ( @JoshPescatore)

Our first published mention of the hidden goings on at Google was July 2018 in an article titled YOUtube is DONE with YOU! Shane Dawson & Jake Paul Predict the End of Youtube where we laid out all the unjust things we saw coming into play at Youtube and Google that just didn’t sit right. Shane Dawson is not a new character around here. His connection to us actually helped us to see the difference in how Youtube treated its creators of larger size with benefits, like allowing them to do what others lose their channels for, like his meowjuana campaign with CBD while the rest get banned for it. Also choosing only three creators being chosen to sit down with Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Shane was one of them. His display and constant change of content has been very insightful when it comes to Youtube’s favoritism, to no fault of his own.

Other noteworthy topics included a theory that Shane’s platform was being used to give a voice to those who had it taken away. However, these voices weren’t the one’s the public wanted, choosing the likes of Logan Paul and Tana Mongeau (of infamous Tanacon scandal.)

The big points we tried to outline was that Susan Wojcicki isn’t for creators or Youtube as a whole and the changes she’s outlined and put into motion have failed the platform on a global scale. First, failed move to remove Pewdiepie, slandering the voice of the only person who controls the narrative of her platform, someone she considers right leaning. Not to mention Youtube hasn’t made a profit in a long time, hemorrhaging an astounding $80 billion dollar market cap in 2018 alone. Taking that into account,if you own a small business no matter the size, is more successful than current Youtube. Let that sink in. Sadly, essentially the golden years of youtube are over for creators since the first algorithmic shift into what Youtube creators call the “ad-pocolypse” or era of lost revenue. Wojcicki’s job on the line, youtube needed to do something! Susan’s plan was to obviously cut the earnings of the very people that caused it to exist in the first place, then giving an approx. $20 million instead to corporate Vox media, declaring they would now be held accountable for fact finding and weeding out fake news, ironically. Don’t take our word for it, allow parent company Verge to explain how they were the only Youtuber to get a $20 million dollar grant towards “educational content.”

In October, we released Why is Everyone So Depressed?! What Does Your Mental Health, Youtube, and Data Mining Have in Common? Here we introduced you to our friend @AntonioChavezsn over at Memology101, the main person behind breaking and exposing the Betterhelp scandal. Following the likes of Candid and now Betterhelp it’s no surprise that youtube also pushed itself into your privacy by minding your data by collecting your DNA. It is Memology101 that helped lead us to information regarding Susan’s sister, Anna Wojciciki, and her being the founder of another forced Youtube ad campaign, 23andme.

Sound familiar? It should as they’re now on Amazon and aiming for Twitch, gaining popularity from creators the likes of Keemstar and WoahVicky. 23andme is a genetic DNA and testing facility, an odd service to push to the youth of youtube. We suggest you read both of these articles to better inform yourself of the falsities in Youtube Advertising, one that uses creators such as Phillip Defranco to push the exact narrative they want pushed.

So when Phillip Defranco comes out and pushes new channel like Jennelle Eliana it immediately caught the attention of the Memology101 and BluntMed team, who recognized her as someone who attempted to use one of our ad services but was removed due to number manipulation. Now she’s gaining followers it takes most Youtubers years to obtain, Philly D, owner of advertiser network Rogue Rocket, known for their shady ads practices pushing her above all the other hard working creators, and Youtube themselves even publishing tweets and instagrams pushing a channel with only two videos and that barely uploads. Memology 101 is currently keeping everyone informed with his series YouTube Manages to Artificially Grow a Channel Under Our Noses.

In his series (as of this article’s publication is up to 5 parts) he calls out Defranco and the growth but he hasn’t quite touched on the fact that the channel is being supported by Google, the same antitrust culprits who may lose their ability to rig search results in federal court. What can we do to control the youth if not change their search habits? Plant a celebrity with a narrative.

Yes, Google and Youtube is being investigated along with top line Big Tech companies to get to the bottom of the thousands of complaints the FTC received against the company this year alone.

Attorney General William Barr's Justice Department has opened a broad antitrust inquiry into potentially anti-competitive behavior from Amazon, Google and Facebook.Third party analysts have been hired to audit and investigate these Tech giants and their key players. Among those to work on the audit were some of the original reporters to the FTC, who’s asked for data and findings into the claims that Google has been illegally working while breaking antitrust laws. Oh boy, are we going to give it to them!

CEO of Natural Healthy CBD owns the biggest international marketing and distribution agency of legal hemp in the USA. They’ve recently been stepping into tech when it comes to their influencer marketing, chat read system known as SBAI (Scoutbuddy AI) and theBluntBot, in development. NHC is the first company to push the publicizing of lab results, something becoming a now standard in the industry. NCH CEO, Kimber Mc and those at Natural Healthy CBD have always been in support of free speech and as a victim of the state that dedicated her life to fight for legal medicine, is no stranger to conspiracy and exposing it. When Blunt Media began it simply started as a brand dealer network, hoping to skip giving the money to Youtube and risk the take down of their albet new but legal industry. Not to mention taking back the control of the increasing 35% taken by Youtube while punishing creators and advertisers who dare attempt to make money without paying them. However we seem to be growing into something much more, finding creators, editors and businesses alike becoming more active in the fight for free speech.

NHC, now a year later, is in charge of auditing the very company who tried to destroy them, their business, industry partners, sponsored creators and friends. That's right, we were among the first to call to action your complaints to the FTC or Federal Trade Commission, in control of Antitrust and Fair Competition.

What makes Facebook and their child companies of instagram and snapchat a part of the problem?

When Steven Crowder sued Facebook, it was due to them being hidden from the public.

Today, and since the day our audit was announced, we’ve been banned from even PRIVATE personal messaging. Facebook is censoring what you see and say in PRIVATE messaging, since it’s illegal to just downright delete our business, who’s profile connects to Google business shopping and advertising, often popping you into Amazon to purchase with your paypal or credit card. As a legal, tax paying, licensed business we run our ecommerce like any other, with legal banking and processing in the United States, they can't just delete an entire company.

That is, unless payment and internet presence were taken from you because of who you voted for as president or because you refuse to sell your share of a very new industry to. One that hasn’t yet been tainted like the big pharmaceutical corporations, but will be soon as shares of hemp are purchased and companies dissolve daily wiping out the families that started it for the sick in the name of large profits. This is easy if your friends are the credit card companies, most banks and social media and advertising platforms. What control for someone who has yet to win the election.

NHC has a goal to prevent this as long as possible in their small industry with their collab not to compete principle.This is actually how we at NHC outline our business, giving every single company that can pass a lab test and sample quality survey a fair chance to visibility and criticism. Incorporating Blunt Med we were able to maintain our unbiased point of view while providing creators a chance at assisting in the spread of information and advertising of the industry at large. Our network of creators are just as much a part of our service as every single company and collectively we were all being shut down, at one time NHC being the only sales some of these companies we able to make as their processing was taken from them with no rhyme or reason.

When the audit started we were shocked that our personal business messages were being blocked. Facebook had deliberately blocked us on their social site, which is okay because no one really uses Facebook anymore anyways.

So, even with our link blatantly blocked and that report link going absolutely nowhere,we find ourselves faced with possibly the biggest change to Big Tech since Google... and we’re the 3rd party auditors.due to our original FTC complaint.

While we originally thought it would be just Google to be held accountable for the past indiscretions, Facebook was also dragged into federal court earlier this year due to their overstepping their rights to your privacy. Not even a year later, news is already buzzing regarding a Facebook owned and operated cryptocurrency.

With so many options already available along with the Facebook data breach, who in their right mind would want to place their trust (and money) into the hands of Zuckerberg? Why, those with no other options and no other platform because together with Mastercard and some well placed threats from Google, they’re sure of your desperation. Not only are they attempting to create a solution to a seemingly illegal method of business, Facebook may have been behind creating the actual problem in the first place.

Now in the wake of the antitrust investigations on Facebook and Google, we now find payment systems like Mastercard, Streamlabs, Paypal, and Apple Pay that seem to be next on the audit line with the companies they coincide like Twitch, Youtube and Discord for laundering and fraud accusations among antitrust breaches they committed themselves.

In the wake, suddenly 8chan, an anonymous image board, lost their cloudflare service after its founder called in to action the site close its doors. At the moment, connection to 8chan is spotty, working more for some than others.This is troublesome and seems like a quickened, if not panicked progression to what we feared, censorship over the internet. Not just censorship, but bias algorithms in search, ads, and finances that the average person not working in youtube or censored themselves would even notice. It's like subtle brainwashing en masse.

Is it too late? With entire works deleted from youtube, websites hidden from Facebook and Google, an Amazon-Apple alleged scandal, corruption and antitrust violations from the very websites we hoped to allow us the freedom to be social censoring our words, what's keeping us safe from losing places like reddit, 4chan, or the kiwi farms or will places like Amazon’s Twitch be over taken by Microsoft’s Mixer or will it all crash and burn because who’s to say what’s wrong or what's offensive and where the line stops? The VPN services we suddenly trust our information to?

NHC’s dev team has been collecting as much as they can in regards to their audit however they’re not in the business of detective work, their CEO working with a small team at a time to manage that and the audit, as she is quoted as having multiple app and web development projects in the works. With 150 partnerships, one would need to keep up, It brings business to a near halt when you can’t use money or advertising and you’re given a project. We all hope the project does what we set out to do, Keep speech free and stay out of the american election. Let us make our own decisions.

The situation has caused NHC CEO to open a “board of trustees” featuring the likes of other hemp and cannabis industry CEOs, industry journalist, scam investigators, journalists, insiders, reviewers, labs, cultivators, lawyers, doctors and more and she’s going to bring them together in a way that fits their busy positions yet allowing them to discuss important industry news without censorship or paid bias that we can then share with the public in the most transparent and responsible way possible.

As for Google, they’ve prevented us from publishing as news and thus not many people except those that already follow us in some form or another, will ever see this publication. Our audit will hopefully do much more however, if you feel it’s important for others to know about the information in this article please share it wherever you see fit and check back soon for updates! Together we can do this!

or check out our Instagram at Hemperpedic (@hemperpedic)

If you would like access to more folks fighting for freedom of speech or those mentioned in this article, please follow the accounts below and show them you support them!

Kimber Mc

Project Veritas

Josh Pescatore

Tim Pool

Memology101

Bearing

theRalphRetort

Mister Metokur

via Natural Healthy: Latest News

#IFTTT #Natural Healthy: Latest News

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gethealthy18-blog · 6 years

Text

12 Reasons Going Vegan Is The Best Decision You Can Take

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/getting-healthy/getting-healthy-women/12-reasons-going-vegan-is-the-best-decision-you-can-take/

12 Reasons Going Vegan Is The Best Decision You Can Take

Charushila Biswas March 25, 2019

When a friend told me about veganism, I laughed and shut him up saying, “I am a carnivore. I can’t do it!” For the longest time, I believed that veganism is a fad and there’s nothing called “mock meat”. Veganism seemed impossible to follow on a daily basis. From buying cruelty-free products to not shopping online – I’d have to become a monk to be a vegan!

And then… Okja happened.

National Geographic’s documentary on starving polar bears happened.

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The climate is clearly changing. A few clicks online unearthed scientific evidence that pointed to our diet and lifestyle. “Can’t I change that a little bit?” Since that realization, I have been going back and forth about going vegan. It sure is a struggle for a “carnivore”. But now, I am AWARE of what my actions can lead to. This post is about creating awareness. One small decision to not order a takeaway can help save the planet and lives. Read on to know why going vegan is the best bet for humankind’s survival.

For Health

1. Lowers The Risk Of Heart Disease

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Consuming too much of meat and meat products can cause an increase in cholesterol levels. This, in turn, can cause arterial blockage and increase the chances of cardiovascular diseases (1).

When you go vegan, you will consume a lot of antioxidants and other phytonutrients that can help reduce inflammation and decrease oxidative stress in the body. As a result, the risk of cardiovascular diseases decreases (2).

2. Lowers The Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is the modern plague. Our diet and lifestyle choices are mainly to be blamed for it as we tend to consume high animal protein, processed foods, frozen foods, and high-sugar, and high-salt foods.

Going vegan can help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by making your body insulin sensitive and improving metabolism (3), (4).

3. Improves Digestion

Going vegan can also improve your digestion significantly. Scientists found that people on a vegan diet had fewer pathobionts and more number and variety of good gut bacteria that aid digestion (5).

Vegan diet or plant-based diets are loaded with dietary fiber, which helps in bulking the stool, thereby preventing constipation and bloating. You can read more about it here.

4. Aids Weight Loss

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Obesity is a global epidemic (6). Scientists believe that there’s a direct link between central obesity and excessive meat consumption (7). That’s because meat is high in fat and energy. If you follow a sedentary lifestyle, you will not burn off the calories/fats you consume. As a result, you tend to accumulate fat in your body, leading to further health complications.

Going vegan can help you shed the pounds without having to huff and puff at the gym. The dietary fiber in the plant-based foods forms a gel-like layer, thereby slowing down the transition of food through the gut and increasing satiety.

5. Improves Mental Health

Ask any vegan, and they will tell you that since they have gone vegan, they feel calm and stable mentally. Like obesity, mental illness is a global problem. The WHO reports that more than 450 million people suffer from various mental illnesses (8).

A vegan diet is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats that provide the brain with proper nutrition (9). As a result, your brain functions better and is less triggered by stimuli.

6. Improves Skin

Acne, dark spots, fine lines – all are signs of bad food choices and a sedentary lifestyle. Dairy, poultry, fish, meat, and processed meats are loaded with artificial additives and antibiotics that have a grave effect on your health. This, in turn, reflects on your skin.

Going vegan will help you get rid of various skin problems by boosting metabolism, improving digestion, and increasing your energy levels.

7. Improves Fitness

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It’s a myth that you need to consume animal protein to be fit or have a toned body. If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many successful vegan athletes! In fact, the truth is just the opposite.

Consuming plant-based foods helps you get various essential amino acids along with dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients. Unlike animal sources of food, plant-based foods are devoid of toxins and harmful chemicals. Moreover, there are plenty of plant-based protein shakes available that can fulfill your body’s protein requirements.

For Animal Welfare

8. Kindness Toward Animals

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Being kind costs nothing. Showing kindness to animals only brings joy to society. The slaughterhouse horror is real, and animals understand that their life is in danger. This causes their stress levels to increase, releasing a lot of toxins. When you consume this meat, it adds to your body’s toxin build-up.

By preventing mass forceful breeding and mass animal slaughter to meet the market demands, you will not only save lives but also show compassion, empathy, and kindness to other living beings, just like yourself.

9. Horrors Of The Dairy And Poultry Industries

Milk, eggs, and chicken – we buy these ingredients from a well-lit, air-conditioned supermarket without knowing the horrific truth behind where these foods come from. There are videos online that show the udders of goats and cows attached to a milking machine that pump out milk. That too, within hours of giving birth. Imagine the trauma the mother and the calf have to go through!

While watching one such video, I couldn’t help but feel violated and sad for the animals being treated in the most inhumane manner. In the poultry industry, chickens are kept in small cages, where they cannot move around or spread their wings. The beaks of hens are cut off to prevent them from nervous pecking. Moreover, billions of chicks die every year due to overcrowding.

10. You Don’t Really Need Animal Products

Yes, your body’s protein requirements can be met through plant proteins and phytonutrients. Getting all the essential amino acids from a plant source is better than an animal source, given the way the animals are treated in meat farms, dairy farms, and slaughterhouses.

For The Environment

11. Animal Agriculture Is Detrimental For The Environment

Animal farming is the leading cause of greenhouse gas production, water pollution, deforestation, loss of habitat, species destruction, air pollution, and land degradation. The more the demand for meat, the more we destroy the environment that supports the survival of all living beings on this planet.

12. Melting Ice

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Every year, the temperature of the planet is rising, and it is a warning bell (10). The lives of polar bears, orcas, Arctic wolves, walruses, penguins, seals, and other Arctic animals and humans are in danger.

As the ice melts, the danger of more heat being absorbed by the earth’s surface increases. The sea levels will rise, the ocean currents might change, and methane and carbon dioxide release might further aggravate global warming.

The recent environmental disasters and animal pain are reasons enough to turn into a vegan. There’s nothing that can go wrong if you change your diet and lifestyle. Yes, it is tough and will not happen in a day. But take baby steps and keep at it.

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There’s a reason we are referred to as humankind. Spread awareness, and you will start to see things from a different and open perspective. Once that happens, you will not look back at your old eating habits and lifestyle. The door to veganism is open – and there’s no good time to step in than now. Think about it.

References

“Red meat consumption and risk of cardiovascular diseases-is increased iron load a possible link?” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, US National Library of Medicine.

“A Review of Plant-based Diets to Prevent and Treat Heart Failure” Cardiac Failure Review, US National Library of Medicine.

“A plant-based diet for the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes” Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, US National Library of Medicine.

“Plant versus animal based diets and insulin resistance, prediabetes and type 2 diabetes: the Rotterdam Study.” European Journal of Epidemiology, US National Library of Medicine.

“The Health Advantage of a Vegan Diet: Exploring the Gut Microbiota Connection” Nutrients, US National Library of Medicine.

“Obesity and overweight” World Health Organization.

“Meat consumption is associated with obesity and central obesity among US adults” International journal of obesity, US National Library of Medicine.

“Mental disorders affect one in four people” World Health Organization.

“The Vegan Brain” Psychology Today.

“Global Temperature” NASA.

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Source: https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/why-go-vegan/

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