Tag: obesity
‘MURICA
Who says we have an obesity problem in ‘Murica? I’d love to see a picture of the bride and groom.
I KNEW I WAS ABOVE AVERAGE
The average woman now weighs what an average man weighed in 1960. Who says women don’t have equal rights?
I find it fascinating that our weight started soaring at the exact same time that consumer debt began soaring in the early 1980’s. Corporate fascism and the banking cabal captured our economic system and used their propaganda machine to sell toxic processed chemicals, disguised as food, to the increasingly dumbed down and sedated masses. TV, iGadgets, carbohydrate rich corporate carb enriched crap, and suburban sprawl requiring autos to get anywhere have combined to create the Obese States of America.
Who benefits?
The mega-corporations peddling toxic faux food.
The medical industrial complex peddling pills to treat all the ailments created by the toxic faux food.
The bankers supplying the debt to consume the faux food and pay for the pills to treat the symptoms.
He ain’t heavy, he’s your obese brother.
THE REAL REASON THE AMERICAN DREAM IS UNRAVELING
Marketwatch posted an article this week titled Why the American Dream is Unraveling, in 4 charts. As usual, the MSM journalist and the liberal Harvard academic can create charts that reveal a huge problem, but they completely misdiagnose the causes and offer the typical wrong solution of taking more money from producers and handing it to the poor, with no strings attached. This has been the standard operating procedure since LBJ began his War on Poverty 50 years ago. Do these control freaks ever step back and assess how that war is going?
The poverty rate had plunged from 34% in 1950 to below 20% before LBJ ever declared war. It continued down to 15% just as the welfare programs began to be implemented. The percentage of people living in poverty hasn’t budged from the 15% range since the war began. This war has been just as successful as the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. Any time a politician declares war on something, expect a huge price tag and more of the “problem” they are declaring war upon.
The Federal government runs over 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and targeted social services to poor and low-income Americans. Over 100 million Americans received benefits from at least one of these programs. Federal and state governments spent $943 billion in 2013 on these programs at an average cost of $9,000 per recipient (not including Social Security & Medicare). That is 27% of the total Federal budget. Welfare spending as a percentage of the Federal budget was less than 2% prior to the launch of the War on Poverty.
In the 50 years since this war started, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs. Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American Revolution. In terms of LBJ’s main goal of reducing the “causes” rather than the mere “consequences” of poverty, the War on Poverty has utterly failed. In fact, a large proportion of the population is now completely dependent upon government handouts, incapable of self-sufficiency, and enslaved in a welfare mentality that has destroyed their communities.
Continue reading “THE REAL REASON THE AMERICAN DREAM IS UNRAVELING”
Has “Fat Acceptance” now become “Fat Encouragement”?
Guest Post by The Jesus at The Single Dude’s Guide to Life & Travel™
We’ve discussed the obesity epidemic in the US and the western world in general over, and over, and over, and over. It seems like it just keeps getting worse and worse. We used to question “Fat Acceptance” but now I can’t help but wonder aloud, is “Fat Encouragement” the new movement in the west? Is the way we want to encourage future generations to live?
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), United States has already rocketed past an obesity rate of one third of the population with an overall obesity rate of 34.9% (or 78.6 million) adults. For statistics geeks here’s a pdf with more detail and for the rest of us here is a map of US obesity rates by state as of 2013:
I won’t bore you with all the details for other countries individually but I’m sure that if you do your own home work you will find many other western countries like the UK, Germany and Spain to name a few have similar obesity rates that are only getting worse. The overall data from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that more than 50% of adults in the “European Region” were overweight or obese as of 2008; for sure it’s much worse now.
This is no longer a laughing matter, this is a world wide health epidemic of monumental proportions. Its causes are clear, the sedentary lifestyle of modern man greatly, greatly exacerbated by the poison factory farmed garbage food that makes up such a large proportion of the modern, western human’s diet. But what are we doing about it? Are we trying to attack this problem and reduce obesity? No, of course not. Instead we are starting movements for “fat acceptance” and being told “everybody is different but beautiful in their own way” even if their “own way” is morbidly obese! I mean look at this chick, this is size 22 mega plus-sized model, Tess Holliday.
Continue reading “Has “Fat Acceptance” now become “Fat Encouragement”?”
A BRIT FIGURES OUT WHY WE’RE THE MOST OBESE NATION ON EARTH
The U.S. makes up only 5% of the global population but tallies 13% of the world’s obese, the largest percentage for any nation, according to a study from the Lancet medical journal.
Some British dude arrived in San Francisco a few months ago and was so amazed at the quantity of food eaten by the obese American masses that he posted some snapshots on Reddit of his recent months of gluttony. It has almost 1.2 million views.
He kicked off his odyssey by acknowledging that “this country knows how to eat.”
Continue reading “A BRIT FIGURES OUT WHY WE’RE THE MOST OBESE NATION ON EARTH”
ARE YOU FATTER THAN A 5TH GRADER?
After viewing these charts and the data presented, it is clear the obesity epidemic has been purposely created by the mega-corporation purveyors of toxic processed food, with the cooperation and support of the mega-corporation media/advertising/propaganda entities, and the silent consent of parents across the nation. Parents are so frightened their little cherubs will be killed, molested, or abducted (taught to fear by the government control freaks), they don’t allow them to venture out of their houses (tombs) into their suburban paradises. Kids don’t ride bikes, play in the woods, dam up creeks, play hide and go seek, or start their own pick-up games of baseball, basketball, football or street hockey. Riding your bike to school is unheard of. Parents drive their kids five houses down to the bus stop in their monster leased SUVs.
Letting TV raise your children, letting fast food mega-corporations and mega-corporation food companies poison your children with toxic processed crap peddled on TV, locking your children in all-day holding pens with minimum wage workers, and shuttling them around in one of your three leased vehicles to organized sports events where they receive trophies for finishing in 6th place, is the ultimate in failing them.
Look around. Failure is everywhere. We are a failed nation, but we think we’re winners. How pathetic.
Natural Approach to Weight Loss
Finally I know how to lose weight. If I just breath slower between bites of my Philly Cheesesteak, the pounds will melt away. Having a global warming and a fatty post on the same day may cause AWD to have a brain aneurism. I can’t wait for the flurry of fatty pictures to follow.
People can diet, work out, track their calories and do everything right—but still not lose weight. Most people are misled and told how easy it is to lose weight–just take this pill, follow that diet or buy this piece of equipment and the pounds will melt off.
Whenever anyone talks about weight loss, we usually get a fragmented picture of what is necessary to reduce the ever-increasing plague of obesity. Why is it so difficult to lose weight even when eating very little?
“If you haven’t been able to lose weight and you can’t understand why, you need to determine whether there’s a medical condition underlying your weight problem,” says Dr. Peter LePort. Dr. Rebecca Kurth, says, “When you live with anxiety, stress, or grief, your body can produce chemical substances — like the hormone cortisol — that make your body more likely to store fat, especially around the waist. If your thyroid is underactive, your body may not produce enough thyroid hormone to help burn stored fat. As a result, your metabolism is slower and you will store more fat than you burn — especially if you’re not physically active.” Dr. Ken Fujioka, says, “It’s very common for medications to cause weight gain.”
Humans are getting taller, fatter, and even living longer but not as healthy beings—as sick suffering beings. Being overweight is a disease. Obesity is a disease that happens before we get a potentially long list of other diseases starting with metabolic syndrome or dysmetabolic syndrome, formerly known as Syndrome X, and then diabetes, which eventually leads to vascular and heart disease and cancer. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of insulin resistance, leptin resistance, glucose intolerance, hypertension and high triglycerides. Obese people generally have hyperinsulinemia (high levels of insulin in the blood) and insulin is a fatty storage hormone.
Overweight and Obesity-Related Health Problems:
- Coronary Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure
- Stroke
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Abnormal Blood Fats
- Metabolic Syndrome
- Cancer
- Osteoarthritis
- Sleep Apnea
- Obesity Hyperventilation Syndrome
- Reproductive problems
- Gallstones
- Health problems in children and teens
If contemporary medicine does not address obesity in a more complete way there will be no way of stopping any of the epidemics in chronic disease. In the UK, the proportion of adults with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) decreased between 1993 and 2012 from 41.0% to 32.1% among men and from 49.5% to 40.6 % among women.
There was a marked increase in the proportion of adults that were obese between 1993 and 2012 from 13.2 to 24.4 among men and from 16.4% to 25.1% among women. More than one-third of U.S. adults (34.9%) are obese according to information from the CDC.[1]
Since 1980, overweight rates have doubled among children and tripled among adolescents – increasing the number of years they are exposed to the health risks of obesity.
According to the New York City Department of Health, 43% of public elementary school students are overweight and 76% of New York City children are not getting the recommended five daily servings of fruit and vegetables. The CDC states that the primary behaviors causing the obesity epidemic are well known and preventable: physical inactivity and unhealthy diet.
According to a study published in the journal Lancet the number of overweight and obese people globally increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013. This is one-third of the world’s population.[2]
Overweight people can be suffering from gross malnutrition because the nutritional values of the basic foods we eat have been steadily dropping for the last fifty years even as toxic exposures increase. Fiber intake tends to be much lower in obese people meaning they are eating too many processed white foods with not only the fiber removed but also most of the vitamins and minerals.
Magnesium and Weight Loss
White foods are poisonous and can never satisfy because they do not provide the basic nutrition, and especially the magnesium that the body desperately need. Obese people are suffering from malnutrition and specifically from massive magnesium deficiencies. Studies do show that the calorie-adjusted magnesium intake in obese children was lower compared with lean children. Hypomagnesaemia (serum magnesium 0.78 mmol/l) was present in 27% of healthy lean children and 55% of obese children.[3]
Dr. Carolyn Dean says, “Food craving and overeating can be simply a desire to continue eating past fullness because the body is, in fact, craving nutrients that are missing from processed food. You continue to eat empty calories that pack on the pounds but get you no further ahead in your nutrient requirements.”
Dr. Dean also said, “The stress chemical cortisol signals a metabolic shutdown that makes losing weight almost impossible. It’s as if the body feels it is under an attack such that it must hoard all its resources, including fat stores, and won’t let go of them under any inducement. Magnesium can effectively neutralize the effects,”
Another cause of magnesium deficiency is over-medicating with synthetic pharmaceutical drugs approved by the FDA and prescribed by doctors. They prevent the body from absorbing magnesium. It is a cruel reality that diabetics are prescribed medicines that further reduce their magnesium reserves putting them into a fatal tailspin. That is one of the basic reasons I consider the FDA to be one of the most appalling organizations in the world. They prey on sick people and make them sicker.
Vitamin D has co-factors that the body needs in order to utilize vitamin D properly. Magnesium is the most important co-factor for vitamin D. Researchers have shown that there is a connection between vitamin D and weight loss.
Correct Breathing and Higher Oxygen Levels are Crucial
Stress management is one of the most important keys in fighting obesity and slow abdominal breathing is important because it brings the oxygen levels up so more fat can be burned. People often wonder why they cannot lose weight and keep it off and one of the most central reasons is that they do not have enough oxygen. The lack of adequate oxygen and low metabolism will add pounds no matter what or how little we eat. Overweight people, like cancer patients, need to slow their breathing down, which will increase concentrations of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the blood. This can be accomplished with the use of a breathing training device called the Breathslim.
Exercise with Oxygen Therapy
Everyone knows how important exercise is for losing weight but few know that adding intensive oxygen while exercising cubes the results. Higher oxygen levels and higher carbon dioxide levels (created with exercise) lead to high metabolism. My book Anti-Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy explains why extra oxygen can help no matter what health challenge one is facing. Exercisers are less likely to die of their cancers than non-exercisers. The same medical principle is in operation with weight loss especially when you add oxygen to the mix.
Iodine and Metabolism is another Crucial Key
I just have to say it. The Natural Allopathic protocol is perfect for losing weight. Iodine and thyroid function is another important ingredient to a sane weightless program. An estimated 30 million Americans are thought to have difficulty losing weight because of thyroid problems and iodine deficiencies get in the way. If the thyroid, which is the primary regulator of your body’s metabolism does not function properly people will have an extraordinary time losing weight.
Conclusion
The Natural Allopathic Medicine protocol will assist anyone who is trying to lose weight and keep it off. Infrared treatments will also go a long way in helping to increase body temperature and metabolism, shifting the body to literally burn more calories. Moreover, with the BioMat one can do this even while one sleeps making weight loss easier and more comfortable. I would suggest those who are interested in weight loss read my essays on gastric diseases
[1] http://www.cdc.gov/pdf/facts_about_obesity_in_the_united_states.pdf
[2] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/ifhm-noo052114.php
[3] Magnesium Deficiency Is Associated With Insulin Resistance in Obese Children;
Milagros G. Huerta, MD et al;.Diabetes Care May 2005 vol. 28 no. 5 1175-1181
FAT DRUNK & STUPID IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH LIFE SON
I can’t understand why an employer wouldn’t be hiring these weight challenged people. It’s a mystery.
Welcome to Amurika.
Maybe a few more people should have listened to Dean Wormer’s advice.
Gallup’s Stunning Explanation For America’s Unemployment Epidemic: Obesity
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/18/2014 21:32 -0400
Two things became abundantly clear during today’s Yellen press conference: i) the Fed no longer has any idea what it is doing, or where it is steering the economy, exemplified by the Chairwoman’s response that she has little “confidence” in the Fed’s current set of forecasts (because one can be wrong only for so long about the economy before one indeed loses all confidence in one’s abilities), however since everyone is benefiting for now as the asset bubble is still growing and asset prices are still rising, there is nothing the Fed will change about its current line of action and ii) the Fed has no idea how or why unemployment – as massaged as it may be courtesy of tens of millions of Americans dropping out of the labor force – is as high and as structural as it is.
Of course, all of this should have been quite obvious to everyone else years ago when trillion after trillion in excess liquidity did nothing to stimulate the economy (as can be seen in the -2.0% GDP Q1 GDP is set to print in its final revision), and certainly nothing to boost employment, particularly long-term unemployment – those who are out of work for 12 months or more – to above-consensus levels.
So it appears there is something far more structural with America’s long-term unemployment problem, something not even the “smartest academics in the (Marriner Eccles) room” can diagnose. Surprisingly, earlier today Gallup reported one factor that may be contributing to America’s unemployment malaise – the same problem that is the reason for the insolvent US welfare state coffers: obesity.
According to Gallup, Americans who have been out of work for a year or more are much more likely to be obese than those unemployed for a shorter time. The obesity rate rises from 22.8% among those unemployed for two weeks or less to 32.7% among those unemployed for 52 weeks or more.
How does Gallup keep track of the Body Mass Index of America’s millions of unemployed?
Gallup tracks U.S. obesity levels daily using Americans’ self-reported height and weight to calculate body mass index (BMI) scores as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. Individuals with BMI scores of 30 or higher are considered obese. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index also tracks the percentages of Americans who report that they have ever been diagnosed with various health conditions related to obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
These results are based on nearly 5,000 interviews throughout 2013 with the long-term unemployed (defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as being unemployed for 27 weeks or more) and more than 13,000 interviews with the short-term unemployed (those out of work for less than 27 weeks).
Gallup and Healthways also track the percentages of Americans who say they currently have or are being treated for health conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In both cases, the differences between the short-term unemployed and the long-term unemployed are striking: Those who have been jobless for 27 weeks or more are nearly twice as likely to say they currently have high blood pressure, and to say they have high cholesterol.
Gallup’s shocking finding: Americans who have been unemployed for less than 27 weeks are somewhat less likely than those with jobs to have each of these conditions.
But is unemployment the cause of obesity, or vice versa, are the obese Americans simply more unwilling to look for work, or are just considered less “attractive”, less hireable, and more of a “health insurance cost” threat to potential employers?
While these results offer evidence of a strong relationship between unemployment and obesity-related health concerns, the causal direction is not clear. Unemployment may cause some people to engage in behaviors that lead to health problems, while pre-existing health conditions may make it harder for others to find and keep work. For many individuals, both dynamics may be at work, perpetuating a negative cycle of declining job prospects and worsening health.
Gallup observes that jobless Americans may be more likely to fall into such a cycle if a higher incidence of health problems hinders their efforts to find a good job. Those out of work for 27 weeks or more report experiencing an average of 4.7 days out of the past 30 when poor health kept them from doing their usual activities. That compares with an average of 2.8 lower-productivity days for those unemployed for a shorter period, and just 1.4 days for full-time workers.
Over the longer term, one of the most worrisome implications of these relationships is that many of those who have been unemployed for a prolonged period may suffer chronic health problems even if they successfully re-enter the workforce. A 2009 study of Pennsylvania workers laid off in the 1970s and 1980s found that even 20 years later, these workers were 10% to 15% more likely to die in a given year than those who had not suffered a job loss.
Gallup’s conclusion:
With record-setting rates of long-term unemployment in most U.S. states, the health consequences of extended periods of joblessness have become a rising concern for policymakers. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index makes it possible to examine health and well-being conditions associated with long-term unemployment more closely than is possible using smaller-scale studies. Importantly, the tracking data can be aggregated to produce the large sample sizes necessary for studying well-being among specific employment groups.
One key concern raised by the current analysis is that employers in industries that require manual labor, such as manufacturing and construction, may be less likely to hire candidates who are clearly out of shape. If so, workers in these industries — who already earn lower wages, on average, than those in knowledge-based sectors — may be even more likely to be caught in a negative cycle of joblessness and poor health.
And there is another aspect, one where Obamacare also comes into play: private employers’ high healthcare costs might lead them to avoid taking chances on those who pose greater health risks, particularly in a tenuous economic climate. As a result, candidates who are obese and who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more may have two strikes against them even before they sit down for an interview.
So perhaps instead of dumping trillions into the stock market in hopes this record “wealth”, already accruing to the wealthiest 1%, will trickle down to the average American, a far better use of the Fed’s cash would be to launch weight-loss initiatives for America’s record obese population: perhaps offering a monthly prize of $1,000 for every 10 pounds that Joe Sixpack manages to lose, and keep off every month. While it is arguable if this will help solve America’s unemployment (and obesity) problems, it certainly will lower US healthcare costs in the long-run, and will also make for a far more fit population… At least until those who are not obese and also can’t find a job accuse the Fed of discriminating against them.
Of course, considering the efficacy of the Fed’s behavioral experiment this could simply backfire and force ever more Americans to become obese in hopes they too will be “subsidized” by free taxpayer money to lose said weight.
Perhaps, in retrospect, there is no fixing these two intertwined problems. Which leads to a sad conclusion: America’s population may be increasingly unemployed, but at least it’s fat…
AMERICA’S OBESITY EPIDEMIC
American Obesity Epidemic Traced To Single Heavyset ‘Mayflower’ Passenger
BOSTON—In a startling discovery that sheds new light on the link between the earliest American colonists and their modern descendants, researchers at Boston University announced Thursday they have traced the U.S. obesity epidemic back to a single heavyset Mayflower passenger.
Through an exhaustive analysis of genetic samples, as well as diary entries, ship logs, and tattered medical records from the early 17th century, a multidisciplinary research team has reportedly determined that the majority of severely overweight individuals in the United States today share key genetic markers and unhealthy eating behaviors that appear to be passed down from a 307-pound Plymouth Colony settler named Jeremiah Alden.
“At a time when the average European male weighed perhaps 135 pounds, Jeremiah’s tremendous size was an exceedingly rare trait, which is indicated by contemporary accounts of him as a ‘startling behemoth’ and ‘wide-across as three men together,’” biologist Allan Fortner said of the man who, by fathering nine portly children, is believed to have introduced a predisposition toward slow metabolism and sedentary personal habits into the American genome. “After carefully sequencing the DNA of his remains, we have pinpointed this hefty Pilgrim’s appearance in the New World as the single most crucial event giving rise to modern Americans’ elevated BMIs, tendency toward overeating, and aversion to exercise.”
“We would certainly not have a situation in which 62 percent of the U.S. population is either overweight or obese had this man simply stayed in England,” he added.
Noting that early American colonies were frequently plagued by starvation, researchers said Alden’s sheer caloric intake—a 17th-century journal claimed he “consum’d three-and-twenty biscuits every noonday”—allowed the separatist Puritan to thrive despite the odds, resulting in a selective genetic advantage. The study’s authors also confirmed that the United States’ high rates of Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, knee joint pain, and sleep apnea are almost solely a result of this one enormous man’s contributions to the gene pool.
Researchers said they were first inspired to study Alden after reading several passages in William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, which described the settler as a “slothfull fellow who erupteth through his waistcoat with girth” and “labours hard for his breath, the swett allways upon his crimson-hued face.” Though he counted for only one of the Mayflower’s 102 passengers, logs kept during the voyage claimed he had “near devowered rations set a-side for one man’s intire voyage” before the ship had even left port in England, enraging his gaunt and scurvy-prone fellow travelers.
“Upon their arrival in the New World, the Pilgrims quickly got to work laying the foundation for a new civilization, but it appears Jeremiah just sort of hung out on board for a few days, nibbling on salt pork,” historian Karen Harmon said. “And once he disembarked, he made quick work of the colony’s stores of grain and dried provisions, leading to around half the settlers dying in that first winter.”
Citing records that indicate Alden required “the skines of seven otters to cloathe wholy his great bodily expance,” the research team suggested that his excess reserves of adipose tissue allowed him—and the genes he would pass along—to survive until spring.
Numerous artifacts provide further evidence of Alden’s rotundness, including a contemporary woodcut that depicts a nearly spherical man, the buckles on his doublet straining to contain his frame as he stands among a group of rail-thin Pilgrims and Native Americans. Additional documents also describe first Thanksgiving in 1621, at which, according to one account, this ancestral forerunner of U.S. obesity “did go back for double, treble, and quadreble servings” of wildfowl and maize.
“Mr. Alden hath the breadth of many men & eats as such, w’out nary a mite of shame, his wide, flesh-ly hands etern’ly imparting morsels unto his happy mouth,” reads an entry from the diary of Mayflower captain Christopher Jones. “The savages cry at his immense appearance, be-lieving they that he is some terrible monster.”
“This morn we went to gather straw fit for thatch and return’d to finde Jeremiah eating merrilee of our common victuals, which did anger us plenty,” it continues. “Yet he merely shrugged & smiled in a bashfull way, in accordance with his gener’ly joyous & agreeible comportment.”
The researchers stressed, however, that their discovery of a single obese progenitor should not be used as a scapegoat by modern Americans for their poor dietary habits and dangerously high body masses.
“While this is a significant discovery, we must not blame Jeremiah Alden alone for today’s pervasive obesity problem,” Fortner said. “He certainly set our nation on the wrong path in terms of excessive weight and unhealthy food choices, but we must all take responsibility for our own health. Otherwise we might end up just like Jeremiah, who died of a heart attack at age 46 after being accused of witchcraft.”
Via The Onion
BIG FOOD CORPORATIONS PURPOSEFULLY CREATE OBESITY THROUGH ADDICTIVE INGREDIENTS
DECLINE, DECAY, DENIAL, DELUSION, & DESPAIR
The majority of Americans seem OK with just waddling through life, accepting the lies and misinformation blasted from the boob tube and their various iGadgets by their owners, gorging themselves to death on Twinkies and Cheetos, paying 15% interest on their $10,000 rolling credit card balance, and growing ever more dependent on the welfare/warfare state to provide and protect them from accepting personal responsibility for their lives. A minority of critical thinking people have chosen to question everything they see and hear being spewed at us by the propagandist mainstream media, the corporate fascist government, and the powerful banking cabal that has an iron grip upon our throats as they choke the life out of the global economy in their never ending desire for more riches and more power.
The decline of the Great American Empire cannot be attributed to one factor or one bogeyman. There are a multitude of factors, villains, and choices made by the American people that have led to our moral, civil, social, and economic decline. The kabuki theater that passes for our electoral process is little more than a diversion from our imminent fate. Neither candidate for President has any intention of changing the course of the U.S. Titanic. Our rendezvous with destiny has been charted, and there aren’t nearly enough lifeboats. Those who built the ship and recklessly navigated it into a sea of icebergs will be the 1st into the few lifeboats. The leaders we’ve chosen, the choices we’ve made, and our unwillingness to deal with facts and reality have set in motion a disaster that cannot be averted. It’s a shame the majority of Americans have the math aptitude of a 6th grader, because the unsustainability of our empire can be calculated quite easily. Math is hard for Americans, but denial and delusion are easy.
Oddly, a couple of late September days in Wildwood NJ were able to crystalize many of the aspects of our cultural and economic decline in my mind. I should have just enjoyed the 72 degree temperatures, a few beers, and the freedom to read a book on my deck. I wish I was just oblivious to my surroundings, but my weekend in Wildwood NJ was an eye opener. Everywhere I turned I saw something that made me laugh, shake my head in disgust, or wonder how our government could have become so inane, incompetent and out of control. We all generalize based upon our preconceived beliefs, but sometimes what you see is what you get. The weekend started normally with a morning bike ride on the boardwalk with my wife and son to the Hereford lighthouse in North Wildwood. Along the way we passed the usual suspects on the boardwalk: the obese, the tattooed, the pierced, and the blue haired. I wish I was exaggerating, but I saw a dozen hoveround and rascal scooters carrying extremely obese Americans on par with this person:
If I wanted to be politically correct, I’d call the fat asses cruising on their “free” rascal scooters, the weight challenged disabled on their powered mobility enhancement vehicles. You know a trend has become a massive scam, when South Park dedicates an entire show to the shame of obesity and the scooter brigade. The majority of the scooter squad jamming up the boardwalk was less than 50 years old. They weren’t disabled. They were just too obese and lazy to wobble down the boardwalk to the next junk food joint. They were certainly in the right place. The Wildwood boardwalk is home to pizza topped with cheese fries, chocolate covered bacon, fried Oreos, funnel cake topped with powdered sugar, and 64 ounce sugar laced lemonade. The place would make Nanny Bloomberg’s head explode.
We’ve all seen the commercials for the Scooter store urging anyone on Medicare to rush in and get a power scooter or wheelchair “at little or no cost to you”. The entitlement “free shit” mentality permeates our culture. There is a cost and it is over $800 million per year, paid for by the 53% who pay Federal taxes. Records from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show that the cost of motorized scooters and wheelchairs to the government health service for senior citizens rose 179% between 1999 and 2009, the last year for which full records are available. This data is fascinating as the number of Americans over the age of 65 only increased by 18% over this same time frame. The bill in 1999 was $259 million; in 2009 it was $723 million – and is surely over $1 billion today. This is another billion dollar scam being funded by your tax dollars, but there are no spending cuts possible according to our beloved Congressmen.
A recent report by Medicare’s inspector general also showed that 61% of the motorized wheelchairs provided to Medicare recipients in the first half of 2007 went to people who didn’t qualify for them. (Only people who cannot get around without one are supposed to be eligible.) The inspector general found that Medicare is billed an average of $4,018 for a motorized wheelchair that normally sells for $1,048. As a taxpayer, you will be shocked to find out that people are selling their “no cost” Rascal 600 B mobility scooters on eBay. I’m sure the keen eyed government drones working in the Health & Human Services agency are policing the resale of taxpayer paid for scooters. I find it amusing that scooters have various naming classes, just like BMW and Mercedes. The vast majority of people I see tooling around on their “mobility scooters” are just plain fat. They aren’t over 65 years old. On my Sunday bike ride I was flabbergasted and amused by the sight of a 350 pound woman on a Rascal with the pedal to the metal pulling a 275 pound man in a wheelchair attached by rope. The plague of slow metabolism is sweeping the countryside.
While I was relaxing on my deck reading and trying to blot out the nightmare visions of obese boomers in Rascal formation like German panzers invading Poland, a brand new SUV pulled into the parking lot across the street. After five minutes, the driver’s side door opened and out sidled a four foot five, two hundred and fifty pound female senior citizen in all her girth. She waddled to the back of the SUV and opened the hatch to extract her walker with wheels. She began berating the three hundred pound dude that got out of the passenger side to come and get his walker. Then she motored off towards Laura’s Fudge, while her hubby conserved his energy waiting by the SUV. Minutes later she scooted her way back hauling a sack of fudge. They then trundled off towards the boardwalk, most likely headed for Kohrs Bros for a double dipped fudge ice cream cone or some Boardwalk fries smothered in cheese.
Based upon my unscientific assessment of the people walking on the Wildwood boardwalk, I would conclude that 35% of the people are obese, 40% are overweight by 20 or 30 pounds (myself included), and 25% are in relatively good shape. After checking the government statistics, my assessment appears to be accurate. Who is to blame? The easy answer is to just blame the individual for their lack of self-restraint and inability to contain their impulses. But when you consider that 160 million out of 232 million adults in this country are either overweight or obese, along with 11 million adolescents, there must be something more sinister behind the phenomenon. There is no doubt that a major portion of the blame must be laid at the fat feet of those who could have exercised restraint over their cravings, but the words of master propagandist Edward Bernays provides another factor in the equation:
“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.” – Edward Bernays
Bernays reveals a truth that is self-evident to those with critical thinking skills. Sadly, few Americans exhibit any thinking skills whatsoever. Our society has bifurcated into those who control and those who are controlled. The overlord Double Plus Alphas in our society consist of the Wall Street banker cabal, the executives of our mega-corporations, Federal Reserve governors, Washington DC politicians, Federal government apparatchiks, the propaganda experts in the mainstream corporate media, and the secretive billionaire set that manipulate and maneuver behind the scenes. The first step in controlling the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, as Aldous Huxley knew in 1931, was to indoctrinate them with propaganda in our government run schools. This mission has been accomplished. The vast majority of school children graduate from the government school system with no ability to think critically or question what has been spoon fed to them as facts. The fascist alliance of corporations and the state begin in the public schools, with product advertisements by corporations now subsidizing school budgets. The road to obesity is paved with chicken nuggets, fries and pizza dispensed by the government schools on a daily basis.
Just as in Huxley’s Brave New World, America has been built upon the principles of Henry Ford’s assembly line—mass production, homogeneity, predictability, and consumption of disposable consumer goods. In the dystopian novel, members of every class, from birth, are indoctrinated by recorded voices repeating slogans while they sleep. Huxley didn’t imagine the power of TV and other mass media outlets to do the same while we are awake. We are bombarded day and night by propaganda from mega-corporations to buy their products. Mass consumption of processed food sold by the likes of multi-billion dollar corporations Kraft, Pepsico, Coca Cola, General Mills, Nestle, and Unilever is the chief cause of the obesity epidemic in America. The few know how to manipulate the many through messaging, repetition and persistently molding the opinions of the feeble minded non-thinking masses. The billions spent by corporations on advertising to convince the masses that eating a Wendy’s Baconator, KFC extra crispy bucket, or Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, washed down with a two liter Mountain Dew or Cherry Coke, is a tribute to the invisible government running the show. Huxley and Bernays had it all figured out eighty years ago:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the masses by the invisible government Alphas has transmuted citizens into overweight, non-thinking, debt dependent, egocentric consumers. This was not a mistake. The powerful interests used their control over the banking system, media outlets, and political system to lure the willfully ignorant into a debt financed lifestyle through the Federal Reserve created inflation, Wall Street peddled credit cards, auto loans and “creative” mortgages. The manipulators convinced the manipulated that borrowing today to buy houses, cars, bling, tech gadgets, clothing, and fast food was preferable to what previous generations of Americans had done – save to buy things they wanted or needed. This behavior seems to be completely irrational as a people that once saved 12% of their income and carried a moderate amount of debt chose to reduce their savings to 0% and not worry about tomorrow.
It is easier to understand when you realize who benefitted from this purposeful shift in societal norms. The low debt, high savings, production era from 1950 through 1980 benefitted the working middle class, allowing millions to improve their standard of living. The rising debt, low savings, consumption era, from 1980 through today, benefits the 1% Alphas while impoverishing the middle class and sentencing the lower class to a lifetime of dependent servitude to the state. Who benefitted from debt fueled conspicuous consumption and continues to benefit today? The peddlers of consumer debt on Wall Street and the mega-corporations that convinced Americans they couldn’t live without that 5,500 square foot McMansion, BMW X5, stainless steel appliances, 84 inch 3D HDTV, iPhone 5, diamond encrusted Coach handbag, and thousands of other Chinese made trinkets that pile up in underwater homes across the land, benefitted tremendously. The proliferation of debt resulted in obscene profits for the financial sector, record profits for the mega-corporations that shipped production to Asia in order to take advantage of the slave labor, and three decades of wage stagnation and increasing debt for the average working middle class American.
The financialization of America was a conscious decision by the oligarchs. They controlled the issuance of credit. They controlled the currency and level of inflation inflicted upon the masses. They controlled the corporations selling consumer goods on credit. They controlled the Congress, courts, and government agencies with their deep pocket lobbying and buying of influence. Lastly, they controlled the media messages and molded the opinions and tastes of the masses through their Bernaysian propaganda techniques perfected over the decades. In one of the boldest and most blatant acts of audacity in world history, the Wall Street/K Street oligarchs wrecked the world economy in their insatiable thirst for profits, shifted their worthless debt onto the backs of taxpayers and unborn generations, threw senior citizens and savers under the bus by stealing $400 billion per year of interest from them, and enriched themselves with bubble level profits and bonus payouts. Meanwhile, median household income continues to fall, real GDP is stagnant, true unemployment exceeds 22%, and 47 million people are living on food stamps.
The propaganda being flogged by the oligarchs since 2009 is the supposed deleveraging by the American consumer and trying to convince the ignorant masses to resume borrowing and spending. It’s working. Consumer credit outstanding is at an all-time high of $2.73 trillion as the Federal government has dished out billions in student loans to 50,000 University of Phoenix MBA aspirants sitting in their basements quivering with anticipation of on-line graduation and future six figure job with Goldman Sachs. The Feds have also added the impetus to the “strong” auto sales through their 85% TARP ownership of Ally Financial by doling out 7 year 0% auto loans to subprime borrowers in urban enclaves around the country. The oligarchs aren’t worried about these loans being paid back, because they are reaping the profits today. The future losses will just be foisted onto the taxpayer, as always. Total credit market debt of $55 trillion now exceeds 350% of GDP. The National Debt of $16.2 trillion will exceed $20 trillion in 2015 no matter who wins the Presidency in November. The oligarchs adapt and control whoever occupies the White House. It is essential for our owners to keep debt growing at an exponential rate or the Ponzi scheme collapses.
Narrow minded ideologues want a simple answer to a complex interaction of generational, cultural, economic, political, and criminal factors that have conspired to put the country into a predicament that, at this point, will inevitably lead to economic collapse. The truth is the American people have learned to love their servitude. They have willfully chosen ignorance over truth. They’ve chosen to believe what their keepers have instructed them. They’ve chosen to trust the storylines generated by the corporate media rather than think critically and question everything. They’ve chosen obesity and sickness over health. They’ve chosen debt financed faux wealth over savings based real wealth. They’ve chosen safety and security over liberty. They’ve chosen dependency over self-reliance. These choices were aided, abetted and promoted by the Alphas through their ability to manipulate and control the unthinking masses. Huxley understood the power of propaganda and brainwashing decades before it was perfected by our owners.
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” – Aldous Huxley
The saddest part of this episode of the Decline & Fall of the American Empire reality show is the continued delusion of the majority of the populace, as their desire for material goods and fair share of the entitlement pie outweighs their sense of obligation to their children and grandchildren. Their chosen ignorance is fulfilled through their attachment to their personal digital ignorance gadgets and supported by what passes for government education. The truth is obscured and hidden under waves of triviality, reality TV, and data manipulation by our government masters. The dystopian nightmare that engulfs our country has thus far resembled Huxley’s vision of a shallow populace easily distracted by consumerism, pleasure seeking, cultural trivialities, and a never ending ability to be distracted by meaningless minutia. Orwell’s darker vision of surveillance, captivity, information control, authoritarianism and pain will become the norm once the existing social order falls.
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.” – Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death
I despair for my country that has chosen to eat, amuse and borrow itself to death. But my despair is deepest for my children and their future. The greed, corruption, myopia, selfishness, and disregard for the well-being of future generations by current and past generations has left a barren and bleak landscape for my children. The Huxley vision of America consuming and amusing itself to death is coming to a painful conclusion, as the limits of a fiat currency and debt based lifestyle become evident. Those in power are preparing the masses for a more Orwellian vision of America when they are forced to pull the plug on the existing paradigm. The Patriot Act, NDAA, military exercises in our cities, militarization of local police forces, warrantless surveillance of our communications, searches and seizures in our airports and train stations, purchase of millions of rounds of ammo by government agencies, implementation of drone technology, camera surveillance, attempts to control the internet, manipulation of economic data, and executive orders allowing the President to take over all commerce while imprisoning citizens indefinitely without charges, are the next step in our descent into a dictatorship of tears.
The question is whether we will stand idly by, fiddling with our gadgets, tweeting about Honey Boo Boo, or will we regain our sense of duty to the future generations of this country. The manipulators are powerful, rich, connected and FEW. Those being manipulated, controlled, and abused are MANY. There will be a revolution in this country whether you like it or not. The existing social order will dissolve during the next fifteen years. What replaces it is up to us. George Carlin described what our owners want.
“Politicians are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and the City Halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear.
They’ve got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want—they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest.”
What do “We the People” want?