Saturday, Aug 4, 2012 06:30 PM CDT

How to be alone

We all have to learn to be by ourselves, whether it's after a breakup, a move or a divorce -- but how, exactly?

By Tracy Clark-Flory

• 

I recently went through a breakup. It was the worst — they always are — but as I wrestled with sadness over the end of the relationship, another perplexing challenge arose: how to be alone.
I’ve been through a million — OK, three — breakups before. I’ve spent plenty of time single in between. I thought I’d be good at this alone thing by now. I’m an only child, for crying out loud. Instead, on the heels of another split, I’m amazed at how difficult just being by myself can be. I have friends – they are wonderful — but I feel a suffocating solitude at the end of the night, in the morning or at any moment of the day that isn’t scheduled with distraction. It wasn’t this way when I was coupled. Just the knowledge that I had “a person” to call my own (even though I know in my bones that you can never truly call another person “your own”) was a comfort; that knowledge itself was a constant companion.
How does one become good at being alone? This question might be uniquely poignant for those of us fresh out of a breakup, or still in our 20s, but it’s a question people confront at all stages of life and for all sorts of reasons, whether it’s a big move to a new city, an unexpected death, a divorce or any countless number of things that life can throw your way. And regardless of your romantic status or friend count, it’s nice to be capable of enjoying a movie or dinner alone. A friend told me a story about an acquaintance who is married with kids: She has a meltdown whenever her family goes out of town; she doesn’t know what to do with herself.
So, I decided to seek out the world’s wisdom on how to be alone. (As I tweeted earlier this week, “One of my favorite things about being a journo? Being able to take my own burning questions to experts under the pretense of public service.”) In terms of romantic aloneness, Anna David seemed like a good first stop: She wrote the memoir “Falling for Me: How I Hung Curtains, Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love,” and understands the ache of singlehood all too well. “I spent so much time where everything was filtered through this lens of ‘but I’m alone.’ And I was haunted by the thought, ‘I’m going to be alone forever,’” she says.

It took a long time to move past that fear. In fact, it took setting out to write a book about bettering herself in order to land a man. “The idea I pitched Harper Collins was very much ‘Let me get totally perfect so that I can find the perfect guy to fall in love with me and the last chapter will be about how in love we are,’” she says, but none of that happened. While the book ultimately delivers a happier message of self-love, she privately felt like a failure for still being single. Shortly thereafter, though, she “bottomed out” in a relationship where she says, “I just got crazy and obsessive and I started to believe … it’s this guy or a lifetime of eating dinner with my cat.”
Either through the writing of the book or that final relationship disaster, she says, “I basically realized that it was the old cliché: that no guy was ever going to make me happy,” she says. “I was buying into this age-old fairy tale that at the end of the movie you end up with a guy.”
In my search for wisdom on spending time alone, regardless of relationship status, I quickly found that very few experts want to talk about being alone; they’d rather talk about how to not be alone. Judy Ford, the author of “Single: The Art of Being Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent,” is a rare exception to that: “We are born alone and die alone, and deep within our souls we live alone,” she tells me in an email, instantly invoking those universal truths that hurt the most. “No one else ever abides in our skin. If we haven’t yet come to terms with this ultimate truth, we are scared out of our minds to be alone.”
She adds, “The fear of public speaking is a mere tickle in comparison to the seismic ripples of horror that reverberate through the heart when faced with spending the weekend alone,” says Ford. “People are more courageous about going to the dentist than they are about eating in a restaurant alone.” That’s true for young as well as old: Many seniors feel lonely “because they have not developed their inner life,” she says.
Her practical tips for conquering solitude are to get creative (“creativity is the cure of loneliness”), push yourself to “do something you have never done before” (like taking yourself out to dinner), admit your loneliness to others (“you might be surprised that they feel lonely too”), “get cozy with the gaps,” those empty spaces in between plans, and remind yourself, “Loneliness is not going to kill me.” These aren’t easy fixes — and may induce eye-rolls from self-help haters — but they’re crucial to happiness, she argues: “To experience wholeness, first we experience the void.”
Speaking of happiness, Gretchen Rubin wrote the book on it — she’s the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Happiness Project” — and has a slightly different take. “Ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that probably the key to happiness is strong relationships with other people,” she says. “You need to feel like you have intimate long-lasting relationships, you need to feel like you belong, you need to feel like you can get support and give support.”
Her emphasis isn’t on learning to be happy alone, but rather recognizing what level of social interaction makes you happiest — and it’s different for everyone: “Maybe you don’t have a sweetheart, but being around a lot of other people might make you feel happier even if you wish you had that,” she tells me. “I think people sometimes aren’t very aware of how much they need to be around other people.”
As for making the most of whatever degree of aloneness that you have — whether it’s being a bachelor or living in a new town with no friends — she says, “You don’t wait for circumstances to change in order to have the life that you want. If you want to go to France, don’t think, ‘Oh, as soon as I have a boyfriend I’ll go to France’ or ‘As soon as I get married I’ll fix up my apartment.’ Have the life that you want as much as you can now.” That’s instead of putting your life on hold, or living in ignorance of what you do have: “It’s things like electricity, the minute your electricity goes out you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, if only I had electricity I’d be so happy!’ But it’s not like we walk around in an ecstasy every day over electricity.”
As for simple, radical acts of public solitude — like taking yourself out to dinner — Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist and author of “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone,” says a large part of people’s discomfort is the result of social expectation. “There are some [activities] that are socially approved to do alone, like you wouldn’t think twice about going to a coffee shop by yourself, but going to a fancy restaurant or a play feels strange.” That strangeness is typically the result of our knee-jerk assumption that doing things alone equals desperation.
Two years ago, the video “How to Be Alone” starring writer Tanya Davis and her poem about the “freedom” of being by yourself — eating, dancing, reading, hiking — went viral. The video got more than 4.5 million hits: Clearly, her sweet and simple advice (for example, “We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library”) resonated with people. As she says in the four-minute clip, “Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.”
It’s odd that being alone requires any instruction. As Ford so exquisitely and painfully put it: We’re born alone, we die alone and “deep within our souls we live alone” — but it’s one of life’s many poetic ironies that we couldn’t be more together in our aloneness.

Continue Reading

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter.

I got God, the grey cat and me......being alone does not mean lonely...... but the opportunity to grow, emotionally and spiritually , do nice things and reward yourself finding for yourself the joy and beauty of life, forgive yourself, truly accept and love yourself. Then armed with self love I am ready to love any and all anytime at will. I will play the hand life delt me with my god given talents and extraordinary capacity for pain to be absorbed by the light of my life,and let it go to God forgetting outcomes as long as I do my part he will take care of the rest.

Not Understood
Dear Not Understood,
I’ll bet your boyfriend is trying to accept you and you are trying to accept him but you are not clear on the difference between acceptance and understanding.
Acceptance is an act of love. Accepting you as you are can be as simple as just saying, I accept you as you are.
Acceptance is a leap of faith. It’s available to everyone. It’s sort of like the Protestant act of accepting certain propositions about the status and capacities of Jesus. They’ll tell you, those Protestants who collar you in malls and at festivals down South, that all you have to do is accept certain things, and you’re good to go. They’re saying that “being saved” does not require knowledge or understanding, just a willingness to accept certain things.
Likewise, being in a sacred relationship with another human being does not require complete understanding. It just requires acceptance of, you might say, another person’s “otherness.” That otherness is beyond conscious understanding, just like the idea of the son of God coming down and healing the souls of humans.
If you and he disagree about something, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand you. I find it scary when people don’t disagree. It means each person has no idea what the other person thinks. Disagreeing is understanding. Or, as William Blake said, “In opposition is true friendship.”
OK, speaking of leaps of faith, follow me here:
This blackbird wants my oatmeal. I am sitting outside at Java Beach in the chilly August fog and this blackbird wants my oatmeal. When I am through he can have some. But I don’t want him in my bowl. So I shoo him off. I don’t have to understand him. That doesn’t mean I don’t accept him. I’m just not giving him my oatmeal. Not until I’m done.
You don’t have to give your boyfriend your oatmeal. He doesn’t have to give you his oatmeal. You can both sit outside at a table and he can hop around but when he gets too close to your oatmeal you shoo him off. That doesn’t mean you don’t understand him or accept him. He just has to get his own oatmeal. Likewise, he’s not giving you all his corn flakes. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. He’s just eating his corn flakes.
We cannot even know, ourselves, how completely we accept this or that. Nonetheless, we can say to each other, I accept you completely. That isn’t exactly lying. It’s stating an ideal that we then attempt to live up to.
He may say, “I accept you completely and utterly,” and then the next sentence may be, “Don’t use your napkin like that.” That’s how we are. We’re always in each other’s stuff.
Here is my bottom line: You are who you are and you have the right to be who you are and other people’s degree of acceptance is out of your control.
We’re imperfect creatures, able to imagine perfection but unable to attain it.
Close Cary Tennis writes Salon's advice column, leads writing workshops and creative getaways, publishes books, writes an occasional newsletter and tweets as @carytennis.


.....................keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons............
............kosmicdebris.................

 
"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... 
 
"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible. 

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."einstin"

espos'e the folly

Over the course of our adult lives:

We watched in shock and horror as the country turned to a Hollywood washout, who was literally a national joke candidate five years earlier, and made him president, following him down every path of joyful self-destruction and absurd deceit.

Our jaws dropped in the 1990s at the visage of New Gingrich, the most overtly petulant and destructive piece of self-loathing to ever occupy a human body, as he was elevated to the highest position in the United States Congress, and pioneered the basest politics and the shattering of our government that remains our inheritance today. As if that weren’t shameful enough, at the same time Gingrich’s buddy down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue was destroying the meaning of the Democratic Party, aping the Republican sell-out to corporate thieves and the abandonment of the public interest – especially the poor, the first to be thrown under the bus.

And, despite the fact Bill Clinton deserves to rot in hell for the damage he did in exchange for his personal joyride in the White House, we were nevertheless forced to watch in horror the relentless and destructive lunacy of the president’s impeachment for the high crime of lying about a blow-job.

We had to endure the travesty of Bush versus Gore, one of the most egregious tramplings of democratic practice imaginable, then watch the sickening product of that judicial rape: the swaggering wars based on lies, the torture, the doubling of the national debt, the environmental depredations, the economic melt-down, and the raison-d’etre for it all: the radical shifting of wealth from the 300 million of us to the one-tenth of one percent who own everything in sight.

Perhaps most emotionally devastating of all – Et tu, Brute? – we’ve suffered the betrayal these last years of another Democratic sell-out, a supposedly liberal-if-not-socialist president actually so conservative and so sold-out that he couldn’t even bear to pursue his own personal interest sufficiently to produce a successful presidency, but has rather continued and amplified the worst characteristics of the open sore that was the Bush presidency, even in the midst of crisis opportunities not seen since the 1930s.

So, no, by this time, my heart was not really broken when my former home-state, Wisconsin, voted emphatically to commit suicide this week. But only because there’s so little of that heart left to break. Shards here and there were crushed and extinguished, to be sure, but I am becoming rapidly beyond caring about the country I live in, a place and a people so determined to get it wrong at every juncture imaginable. At some point, don’t you just have to stop trying and let the substance-abuser finish the job on their own?

This country is dying, let’s be clear. It may live yet. It may survive for decades in slow decline. It may find a way in utter crisis to throw off, before it is too late, the fat slimy boa which is squeezing every last cent of value out of it. Its political class may invent a devastating foreign crisis with massively grim consequences in order to deflect public attention from its manifest failings. Maybe it will even be some combination of all of the above.

Who knows? What we can be sure of, however, is that what was once a great and promising idea as much as a nation is now decrepit to the core, and rapidly rotting away, and that these wounds are entirely self-inflicted. That, for me, is the kicker. The Soviets didn’t invade and take us over. We didn’t succumb to some raging virus like the Black Plague. A meteor didn’t blast a hole in the middle of North America.

We just killed the goose ourselves, through a toxic mix of greed, laziness and stupidity.

Imagine the conversation to be heard if nations like America were to go to the Pearly Gates when they die, seeking forgiveness, and anxiously awaiting their dispensation for the rest of eternity:

St. Peter: So, the Big Guy wants to know what the hell (get it?) you’re doing here.

America: Um, well, we’re dead.

Peter: Yeah, we get that. Even if we did create the Catholic Church, we’re not complete idiots up here, you know. What he means is, how did a country like you, with all the tremendous advantages you were given, wind up so dead, so fast?

America: Well, uh, we made some bad choices, I guess.

Peter: Do you mean like when you traded George McGovern for Karl Rove, for example?

America: Well, I suppose. But McGovern...

Peter: Shut up, you insolent little turd. Do you mean like when you traded Franklin Roosevelt for Barack Obama or George Bush – sorry, I always get those two confused – is that what you mean?

America: Yeah, that was prolly not the smartest deal.

Peter: Or could it be when you swapped the First Amendment to get Citizens United instead?

America: Golly, you mean corporations really aren’t people, after all?

Peter: It’s really not looking too good for you lot, I’m afraid.

America: Listen, do you have to go to Hell for just being stupid, or is something worse like wholesale venality or mass murder required?

Peter: Dude, you’re America! Isn’t that question kinda moot?

America: What does moot mean? And what happened to the pearls that are supposed to be on the gates?

Peter: Koch Brothers got ‘em.

America: Really?!

Peter: Jesus Christ, you’re dumb. Maybe an exception could be made for you, come to think of it. After all, we don’t send microbes or amoeba to Hell either, even when they’re very bad.

America: Oh, thank you, Mr. Peter. You’re very kind. Say, where do we sign-up for our choice of cable packages?

This is how Ron Paul rolls!!

When Will We Attack Syria?

By Rep. Ron Paul

We are about to engage in military action against Syria and at the same time irresponsibly reactivate the Cold War with Russia. We're now engaged in a game of "chicken" with Russia which presents a much greater threat to our security than does Syria.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31657.htm

Because of apathy, ignorance, arrogance, indifference, greed, selfishness. 
You do not have to be a profit to know what happens next:  The involuntary surrender of the American way of life.  I am ready to get this thing over with so who or whatever is left, if any, can start over. Just like Einstein said,  The next will be with sticks and stones. Americans are the cannibalistic zombies the rest of the world is suffering from. Will the real patriot please stand up!!

....................................keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons................
........kosmicdebris..

 


Dear Larry,
"They killed my sons, the dearest things I had, and then they desecrated their bodies by setting them on fire. How can a mother endure such pain?” A woman in Sarmin, Syria - March 2012¹
This is first hand testimony gathered by Amnesty International researcher Donatella Rovera who, at great personal risk, secretly travelled into the north of Syria in defiance of the Syrian government’s refusal to let us in.
She told me of hearing the same stories again and again of systematic, cold-blooded attacks on civilians, including children, by government security forces and their militias. Of men and boys executed, often found with gunshots in their heads and their hands tied behind their backs. Of people who only knew their loved ones were dead when they found their bodies burning in the streets.
This cannot go on. Please support our work to end the atrocities in Syria
Some of the atrocities she uncovered include:

• Near Jebel al-Zawiyah, a 54 year old father of eight shot in the legs and arms and trapped in a small stone building to burn alive¹
• Near Jebel al-Oustani, three children aged 8, 11 and 14 shot dead as they herded sheep. A relative told us: “Little Juma’a, eight years old, was shot in the throat and in the palms of both hands; he was holding his hands up when he was shot”²

Donatella told me: “Everywhere I went, I met distraught residents who asked why the world is standing by and doing nothing.” Support our work to end the killing and human rights abuses in Syria
To end the cold-blooded killing in Syria, we need timely, credible evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed. Evidence we can use to hold those who commit grave human rights abuses to account, and to push for international action – including a referral to the International Criminal Court.
This is why we continue to call for more UN monitors with a specific human rights mandate to both deter and verify human rights abuses. And it’s why Donatella took the risk of going undercover to gather the harrowing testimony of ordinary Syrians to corroborate what we’ve been told by brave activists and citizen journalists.
Remember, the work of brave researchers like Donatella is only possible because of your support. Please donate now to help us expose crimes against humanity in Syria
As long as the Syrian security forces think they can get away with it, the death toll – now at least 10,000 – will continue to rise and we’ll hear more stories of men, women and children slaughtered, their bodies burned and their loved ones left traumatised. Donate now to end the killing in Syria
Thank you,

Kristyan Benedict
Crisis Response Campaign Manager
Amnesty International UK
Under 18? Please take action insteadWe are not asking you to donate. Instead, please take our updated action calling for international action: Russia must act to help stop the bloodshed in Syria
Read about Donatella’s mission into SyriaFind out more about Donatella’s mission into Syria and see photos, videos and read the first hand testimony she uncovered in towns and villages around Aleppo and Idlib. Read our blog: Deadly Reprisals
¹ Deadly reprisals: Deliberate killings and other abuses by Syria’s armed forces (Amnesty International, June 2012), p. 7
² Deadly reprisals, p.30
³ Deadly reprisals, p.25
==============================================================================================


 Another urgent plea from avaaz


 Dear friends,

18 million people are desperate for food in Africa’s drought-struck Sahel, but urgent appeals for help are being met with deafening silence by governments worldwide. Senegalese musician Baaba Maal has started a petition to get the US, Japan, France and Germany to pledge their fair share of aid. Let’s join him -- sign the urgent petition below and sound the massive alarm needed to shake these leaders into action:

My name is Baaba Maal, and I’m a Senegalese musician writing with a personal plea for help. I live in Africa’s drought-struck Sahel region where 18 million people are on the brink of disaster, including 1 million children at risk of starvation. But our urgent appeals for help are being met with deafening silence. Only a targeted and overwhelming demand for action can stop this catastrophe from turning deadly.

The UN says millions of lives could be destroyed unless $1.5 billion in aid is channeled in immediately, but governments have pledged less than half the required sum. The countries who can make all the difference are the US, Japan, France and Germany, but they’re stalling -- that's why I started a petition on Avaaz's Community Petitions website to appeal to the world for help.

In days, world leaders will gather in Brussels to discuss the Sahel -- if they decide right there and then to pledge their fair share, we can avert disaster. Sign this urgent petition now -- Avaaz, Africans Act 4 Africa, and Oxfam will deliver it in a coordinated stunt when we reach 1 million signatures:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_grain_sacks_are_empty/?bNxfadb&v=15195

Terrible drought, political unrest, and sky high food prices have wreaked havoc on an area the size of the US, stretching from Senegal in the west all the way to Sudan in the east. People here are doing everything they can to survive, but the crisis has hit so hard that it’s difficult to stay hopeful. I’ve seen women and children trying to grow food in patches of land that are bone dry. They know that people are talking about what is happening in the Sahel, but they don’t know if aid will ever arrive.

The UN has only received 43 percent of the $1.5 billion needed -- it’s a shortfall of gargantuan proportions. But this gap must be filled, and can be filled by the world’s richest countries, if there’s political will. We don't have much time to avert mass suffering, and I'm determined to speak on behalf of the people here until they get the help they need.

The world has turned a blind eye to crises like this before, but this time we can make the difference between life and death by forcing our governments to respond. Sign this urgent petition now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_grain_sacks_are_empty/?bNxfadb&v=15195

Avaaz members have come together time and time again to respond to natural disasters, saving thousands of lives by ensuring that crucial aid was delivered to Burma, Haiti, Somalia and Pakistan. We have the power to force our leaders to stop idling away in the face of a crisis we can prevent. Let's stand together now to demand that the world respond to the pleas of the millions living in the vast Sahel region.

With hope and determination,

Baaba Maal, with the Avaaz team

MORE INFORMATION

A distress call from Africa's Sahel: Millions might starve (CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/05/world/africa/sahel-hunger/index.html

UN: 18 Million in West Africa to Go Hungry in 2012 (The Associated Press)
http://news.yahoo.com/un-18-million-west-africa-hungry-2012-142100935.html

Meeting of like minds can save the hungry millions in Sahel (Sydney Morning Herald)
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/meeting-of-like-minds-can-save-the-hungry-millions-in-sahel-20120529-1zgm8.html

Baaba Maal: people in the Sahel region need food and water now (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/may/25/baaba-maal-sahel-food-water

Coming weeks critical to tackle Sahel hunger – U.N. humanitarian chief (AlertNet)
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/coming-weeks-critical-to-tackle-sahel-hunger-un-humanitarian-chief

Support the Avaaz Community!
We're entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way.

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Avaaz.org is a 14-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people shape global decision-making. ("Avaaz" means "voice" or "song" in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 19 countries on 6 continents and operates in 14 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz's biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

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The Peoples Press - Powered By People - For People  Not For Profit - For Global Justice          An empire founded by war has to maintain  itself by war." -Charles de Montesquieu "In the eyes of empire builders men are not men  but instruments" -  Napoleon Bonaparte  "The government, which was designed for the people,  has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set  up above the forms of democracy." - Woodrow T. Wilson "Basically, what Economic Hit Men are trained to do  is to build up the American empire. To create situations  where as many resources as possible flow into this  country, to our corporations, and our government,  and in fact we've been very successful." - John Perkins

  

Congress Pushes for War with Iran By Stephen Zunes A huge bipartisan majority of Congress has essentially told the  president that nothing short of war or the threat of war is an  acceptable policy.    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31577.htm Syria: NATO Plans New Sykes-Picot, Middle East Chaos By M.D. Nalapat On May 16, 1916, in the middle of World War I, Paris  and London approved a secret agreement to dismember  the Ottoman Empire and divide the Middle East between  themselves.   http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31586.htm Let's Admit It: The US Is at War in Yemen, Too By Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman The latest drone attack happened early Wednesday in the  Yemeni town of Azzan, killing nine people. It's the 23rd  strike in Yemen so far this year, according to the Long  War Journal. In Pakistan, there have been only 22.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31579.htm "Indirect Rule" The Imperial Agenda Of The US's 'Africa Command' Marches On By Dan Glazebrook With mission accomplished in Libya, Africom now has few  obstacles to its military ambitions on the continent.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31581.htm The New Obama Doctrine, A Six-Point Plan for  Global War By Nick Turse Special Ops, Drones, Spy Games, Civilian Soldiers,  Proxy Fighters, and Cyber Warfare.    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31583.htm In Case You Missed it Blueprint of the PNAC Plan for U.S. Global  Hegemony By Bette Stockbauer Some people have compared it to Hitler's publication  of Mein Kampf, which was ignored until after the war  was over.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3249.htm A Third Intifada The Warnings We Should Be Hearing By Amira Hass The eyes of a non-Mideast expert can see at least five  structural occupation-induced ills, which separately a nd together could lead to a popular uprising.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31580.htm Sheldon Adelson's Pro-Romney Donations Will Be  'Limitless,' Could Top $100M By Steven Bertoni Adelson, who has built Las Vegas Sands into an global  casino empire, will do "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31584.htm Imposing a President Mexico's 30-day Lesson in Democracy By Marta Molina Peña Nieto is a candidate invented by Mexico's media  duopoly (Televisa and TV Azteca), along with other  media outlets, to win the presidential elections this July 1.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31578.htm World Bank President Says President Hugo Chavez's " Days Are Numbered" By Paul Dobson Without a trace of irony he talked of how the US could make  Latin America "a place of democracy, development and  dignity" rather than one of "coups, caudillos and cocaine."  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31585.htm In The Land Of No Opportunity This Next Generation Will Be Left Behind By Salvatore Babones The United States has some of the lowest rates of entrepreneurship  in the world. Even at the top of the boom in 2005-2007, only two  countries (Belgium and Norway) had lower levels of new business  formation than the United States.   http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31582.htm New York to Repeat Chicago's Parking Privatization  Catastrophe By Matt Taibbi Chicago is leasing 75 years of its parking meter revenue to  a coterie of private investors, some of them from the Middle East.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31575.htm  Hard News              72 killed in wave of Iraq bombings: -  A wave of apparently coordinated bombings and shootings rocked Iraq during a major Shia commemoration on Wednesday, killing at least 72 people and wounding more than 250, many of them pilgrims. http://is.gd/i670A1  At least 16 killed in Yemen's Al-Qaeda clashes:  A military official said six civilians, "three women, two children and one man, were killed in a Yemeni air raid on the town of Shuqra," one of the last remaining Al-Qaeda bastions in Abyan. http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/111942/  Fourteen killed in Libya militia clashes: Rival Libyan militias armed with heavy weapons clashed for the third straight day on Wednesday in fighting that has killed 14 people, underscoring the country's volatility months after Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow. http://is.gd/UArnwq  U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa:  At the heart of the surveillance operations are small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes. Equipped with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals, the planes refuel on isolated airstrips favored by African bush pilots, extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles. http://is.gd/o6YmvI  Egypt court orders to dissolve parliament, requiring new election:  Egypt's highest court says recent election was unconstitutional; court also allows Mubarak's last prime minister Ahmed Shafik to run for presidency. http://is.gd/Wppvxk  US attack kills 4 in Pakistan: :  At least four people were killed Thursday in a US drone strike in Pakistan's northwest tribal region, media reports said. http://is.gd/92bzAY  How Drones Help Al Qaeda:  When a U.S. drone missile kills a child in Yemen, the father will go to war with you, guaranteed. Nothing to do with Al Qaeda," a Yemeni lawyer warned on Twitter last month. President Obama should keep this message in mind before ordering more drone strikes like Wednesday's, which local officials say killed 27 people, or the May 15 strike that killed at least eight Yemeni civilians. http://is.gd/PMBbL4  Lawmakers want legal justification for drone strikes:  A group of more than two dozen anti-war lawmakers wants the White House to explain the legal justification for "signature" drone strikes, in which drone attacks can be launched when the identity of those killed is not known. http://is.gd/vIEPyA  British occupation force soldier killed in grenade blast in Afghanistan;  The soldier, who has not yet been named, was on a patrol to disrupt insurgent activity in the north of Nahr-e Saraj district in Helmand Province when he was caught in the blast from an enemy grenade yesterday. http://is.gd/r9XXTM  Are U.S. military leaders lying about Afghanistan?:  Senior military officials are lying to the American public about conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. http://is.gd/W4M3aT  Car bomb damages major Shiite shrine in Syria:  A suicide bomber detonated his van packed with explosives in a Damascus suburb on Thursday, wounding 14 people and damaging one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, according to Syria's state-run news agency and witnesses. http://is.gd/oApxI5  Syrian "Rebels" Now Using EFPs in Bombs, Bane of US in Iraq:  "Rebels" in central Syria are constructing bigger and more effective bombs, and a steady flow of money from the militants' leadership in Turkey has allowed them to purchase sufficient amounts of small arms. http://is.gd/e7U4Ef  How the U.S. Is Using Technology to Aid Syria's Rebels:  Syria's regime may have overwhelming firepower, but the rebels are winning in another arena- with U.S. help http://is.gd/OLXkIK  Israel may use military force 'to secure' Syria's alleged chemical arsenal:  Israeli Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, the country's deputy military chief, warned that Syria could pose a threat to Israel with its chemical weapons. He declared Syria has "the largest chemical warfare stockpiles in the world," http://is.gd/Y0h4np  A closer look at Russian arms sales to Syria:  Some Russian military analysts said the helicopters mentioned by Clinton could be some of the older Soviet-supplied ones that are being sent back to Syria after maintenance in Russia. http://is.gd/DS2YcI  Iran arrests suspects over nuclear scientists' assassination:  Iran intelligence ministry claims detained suspects are linked to assassinations of nuclear scientists and have ties with Israel http://is.gd/eklckF  Japan to pass bill to insure Iran oil imports -report:  Japan's lower house is set to pass a special bill on Friday to allow it to provide insurance for continuing Iranian crude imports, making it the first country to attempt to initiate sovereign cover once EU sanctions on Iran are expected to start in July, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Thursday. http://is.gd/NyuGMX  Gaza water too contaminated to drink, say charities:  The charities Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians say the number of children being treated for diarrhoea has doubled in five years. They say Israel's five-year blockade of the territory is preventing crucial sanitation equipment from getting in. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18436602  Obama honors Israeli criminal with Medal of Freedom:  US President Barack Obama has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres, the man who has overseen the killing of Palestinian women and children by Israeli forces in the occupied territories for decades. http://is.gd/1Nvofc  Israel's Dublin embassy planned to smear Palestine activists as sexual deviants and Mossad agents:  Israel's deputy ambassador in Dublin proposed to her superiors a plan to personally smear Palestine solidarity activists - especially Israelis - to "humiliate and shame them" as suffering from psychological and sexual problems and imply that they work for Israel's spy agency Mossad. http://is.gd/Osjate  Chavez says Venezuela has started making drones, assembling Kalashnikov rifles:  Venezuela has spent billions of dollars for Russian arms and military aircraft since 2005, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets, dozens of attack helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles."We are a free and independent country," Chavez said. http://is.gd/DCDGMU  World's Richest Man Calls For Increasing Retirement Age To 70:  Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim, who is the world's richest manwith a fortune of $65 billion, believes that struggling countries need to raise their retirement age to 70 in order to help fix their finances: http://is.gd/gMWLWZ  Greeks pull money from banks ahead of poll:  People stocking up on non-perishable food amid fears Sunday's election result will see Greece ultimately exit the euro. http://is.gd/En5jTQ  Obama scapegoats Euro for miserable US economy Video -  Michael Hudson, economics professor for the University of Missouri, joins us with more. http://is.gd/xxCBoh  Robert Reich: Why Taxes Have to Be Raised on the Rich : 2 minute video - Video http://is.gd/DawUhc  Murder cases in Chicago hit record high at 228 murders in 6 months:  The number of murders in the city is reportedly twice as many as the number of Americans lost on the battlefields of Afghanistan over the past six months. http://is.gd/SW4snk                         "Let us be peace and joy" Tom Feeley

Cost Of War   Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq "1,455,590" Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq:  4,807 Number Of  International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 3,047 Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan Total Cost of Wars Since 2001   $1,342,317,292,141                 http://www.costofwar.com/ ...........................keep fighting the good fight, with your minds as weapons........ ........................kosmicdebris..............................................

   

London2012 DOW Bhopal

Framing the issues.

Next month, London plays host to an Olympic Games that promises to ‘Inspire a Generation’. At its heart will be the flagship East London stadium, encircled by a fabric ‘wrap’ sponsored by Dow Chemical, sole owner since 2001 of Union Carbide.

That is, sole owner of the company responsible for one of the worst cases of corporate negligence in living memory: Bhopal. Tell LOCOG chair Lord Coe to stop defending Dow Chemical

On the night of 2-3 December 1984, a cloud of toxic gas leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India towards nearby shantytowns. Between 7,000 and 10,000 people were killed immediately and a further 15,000 people died as a result of the disaster over the next 20 years.
Today, contamination at the site continues to directly affect 100,000 people,                                           denying their rights to health, water and housing. Victims of the disaster are still fighting for justice from Dow in both Indian and US courts, justice that involves the long overdue clean-up of their environment.

That fight may have been made a lot harder as a result of LOCOG Chair Sebastian Coe’s public statement that Dow were not responsible for the events of 1984. In doing so, he effectively declared victims’ claims to be unfounded. Send an email: End LOCOG’s shameful defence of Dow Chemical

Not only does this association with Dow damage the Bhopal victims’ quest for justice, it taints the London Olympics itself. Yet it’s not too late for LOCOG to retract its defence of Dow, apologise to victims – and help bring the day closer that Dow finally accepts responsibility for the Bhopal disaster.

Tell LOCOG chair Lord Coe to stop defending Dow Chemical

Thank you,



http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=15017&utm_source=aiuk&utm_medium=mass_email&utm_campaign=Dignity&utm_content=dow_email











Acceptable Risk: "Acceptable Risk™

Acceptable Risk™ is a voluntary initiative of Dow to safely predict the precise point at which profitability is threatened by danger to the public.

Using our new Acceptable Risk Calculator™ ARC , we weigh profits against costs in human life or health, thereby involving the public in the decision-making process about whom to put at risk, and where to locate risk globally. The ARC is available free for industry use; log on below to test-run it for yourself.

Acceptable Risk™ and the ARC were launched on April 28, 2005 at the International Payments 2005 conference, London, in solemn commemoration of the April 30 anniversary of the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Dow owes a debt of gratitude to the people of Vietnam for helping Dow define the limits of Acceptable Risk™. Dow s contribution to the War effort was very profitable, and recent appeals for damages by VietNAMEse people who received coatings of special Dow herbicides were rejected by US courts two weeks ago, proving the Dow adage: A skeleton in the closet is quite often golden.

Acceptable Risk™ is practiced by Dow all over the world. While Acceptable Risk goes above and beyond what is legally required for doing business in most countries, we hold ourselves accountable by making Acceptable Risk a condition of membership in the most modern way of d"
Acceptable Risk™ and the ARC were launched on April 28, 2005 at the International Payments 2005 conference, London, in solemn commemoration of the April 30 anniversary of the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. Dow owes a debt of gratitude to the people of Vietnam for helping Dow define the limits of Acceptable Risk™. Dow's contribution to the War effort was very profitable, and recent appeals for damages by Vietnamese people who received coatings of special Dow herbicides were rejected by US courts two weeks ago, proving the Dow adage: "A skeleton in the closet is quite often golden."
Acceptable Risk™ is practiced by Dow all over the world. While Acceptable Risk goes above and beyond what is legally required for doing business in most countries, we hold ourselves accountable by making Acceptable Risk a "condition of membership" in the most modern way of doing business.

• Text, photos and video of April 28 launch by Dow VP for Acceptable Risk™, Erastus Hamm
• Official announcement
• Conference web page (archive)

To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION

Wow Dow, Did you send me the above-referenced email, and if so why? The contents are an indictment of your company, and in no way absolve Dow nor justify Dow's position. The argument made is that the financial interests of corporations in general, and yours in particular take precedence over the suffering for which they are responsible. Instead of taking responsibity you offer this rationalization and call it "clarity"! May I suggest, if this email is genuine, that you save even more money and fire your PR department.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
I must respond to your very strange and unsettling message!
> "Company responds to activist concerns with concrete action points"
There are no concrete action points here -- only paper-thin alibis.
>Dow Chemical (http://www.dow-chemical.com) has
> issued a statement explaining why it is unable to more actively
> address the problem.

You have NOT explained why you are unwilling to extend further compensation to the thousands upon thousands of people whose lives YOU HAVE DESTROYED through negligence. It's called impunity.
When you absorbed Union Carbide, you took on their liabilities -- and this is a fact you are still evading.
> "We are being portrayed as a heartless giant which doesn't care about
> the 20,000 lives lost due to Bhopal over the years," said Dow
> President and CEO Michael D. Parker. "But this just isn't true. Many
> individuals within Dow feel tremendous sorrow
"Sorrow" doesn't cut it. It's a cavalier way of stiffing the victims of Union Carbide's negligence. The terrible tragedies of Bhopal were caused by Union Carbide's willingness to risk a disaster to save a few pennies of operational cost...
> "Unfortunately, we have responsibilities to our shareholders and our
> industry colleagues that make action on Bhopal impossible. And being
> clear about this has been a very big step."
This is the most absurd statement I've ever read. You are blaming your own Stockholders and OTHER COS. for your irresponsible, callous, inhumane greed! Just when I thought corporate America couldn't sink any lower, you found a way!!!!!
> Although legal investigations have consistently pinpointed Union
> Carbide as culprit, both Union Carbide and Dow have had to publicly
> deny these findings.
Had to? What in the world are you talking about. You just stated Union Carbide was the source of the accident, and then you say you "had" to deny the findings? You are making no sense at all.
> "We understand the anger and hurt," said Dow Spokesperson Bob Questra.
> "But Dow does not and cannot acknowledge responsibility. If we did,
> not only would we be required to expend many billions of dollars on
> cleanup and compensation"
Obviously, a greater tragedy as far as you are concerned than the loss of life. Your attitude is that of a MASS MURDERER.
> "much worse, the public could then point to
> Dow as a precedent in other big cases. 'They took responsibility; why
> can't you?' Amoco, BP, Shell, and Exxon all have ongoing problems that
> would just get much worse.
That's not worse my friend, it's better. It's called corporate responsibility -- a concept that apparently you are too depraved to understand.... Aren't you kind? Looking out for other company's welfare.
> "We are unable to set this precedent for
> ourselves and the industry, much as we would like to see the issue
> resolved in a humane and satisfying way."
God, what humanists you are! Maybe you should share the Nobel prize with Netanyahu and Kissinger!

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
You and most corporations are poor excuses for human beings. Do you really consider $300 to 500. compensation for a person's life??? Why don't you admit you're at fault and do the right thing. I once owned Dow shares and I'm really glad I sold them years ago. Your loyalty to the other corporations is akin to the Mafia's loyality to its "family".

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Referring to Dow Chemical as having a constructive part in the birth of the environmental movement is like crediting Hitler and Eichman's racial cleansing policies against the jews as having led to the origins of international ethical and moral judgements at Nuremberg. Or crediting cancer with the origins of chemotherapy. Your letter can only lead a normal person to question the reliability of the people running your corporation. Is it legal for a deranged and certifiably insane group of people to run a company selling stock to the public? By the way, a minor point, but when at the close of your letter, you refer to Dow's products as "solutions" for industry, you proudly include Agent Orange and DDT but forgot Napalm. As i recall that one added a significant amount of profit to those shareholders about whom you are so concerned.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Let me paraphrase your message: "For me (the murderer) to accept responsibility for my crime would be impossible, as it would mean I'd have to go to jail...I'd like to effectively admit guilt without paying the consequences."
This is total bullshit. In what kind of world can you actually try to pass off such a weak position as 'honest and clear'? $300-$500 per person??!!! Pay up some real money you cheap bastards!

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Feeling responsibility and sorrow is just not the same as taking responsibiltiy for the actions of the company. May I suggest a hefty pay cut for executives and members of the board to help pay for the disaster. Perhaps Michael Parker could lead the way.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: the daily improvement of living
Brilliant! I love it. My life has improved simply by pointing and clicking on your website. Give me more!

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION [!!!]
Gentlemen,
I find the response by the Dow Chemical Corporation not in the least satisfactory. There must be, and we will continue to insist upon, more satisfactory ways for the large corporations -- including their directors and managers -- to be held accountable for the consequences of their actions and installations. All of them. Otherwise 'bancruptcies' and other ploys will continue to be used as 'escape hatches' for corporate responsibility.
The use of the word "unfortunately" here and in most cases is deviously and insidiously misleading. What we are dealing with has nothing whatever to do with "fortune" or misfortune", good "luck" or bad "luck". What we are dealing with are human - "man-made" - provisions, constructions and situations which therefore need to be dealt with, and dealt to, by human action: socially, financially, and above all *politically*.
It is evidently and completely unfair, unjust, and reprehensible that *some* (few) people can reap huge rewards and high incomes, while (many) others are killed, injured, starved, and continue to live in miserable degraded conditions.
That 'situation' is not simply "unfortunate" --- it must and will be changed, by people, sooner or later, one way or another. Whoever does not see this is blind.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Dear Mr. Questra, Dow Spokesperson,
As a Dow retiree, and a Social Activist, a lot of correspondence has come across my desk that has made me either shake my head in disbelief or feel a huge sense of outrage, and in some cases both. So when I say that this bit of corporate spin is the most irresponsible, reprehensible, and nauseating piece of whitewashed corporate-speak that I have ever seen, I speak from truth. And it makes me ashamed of my long association with the company....

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Dear Dow Press Office:
This is in response to Dow Chemical's statement explaining why it is unable to more actively address the problem of the tragedy in Bhopal.
When corporations were given personhood in the early nineteenth century by the U.S. Supreme Court, it was not envisioned that such personhood gave only the benefits but none of the responsibilities of personhood.
Bhopal was ruined by the destruction of a chemical plant, and responsibility lies with the corporation who was benefitting from it OR its successors.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring
For Dow to take "credit" for poisoning the planet with DDT, and thereby to take credit for Rachel Carson's alerting the world to your company's poison represents a new low in corporate ethics.
Combining this with the thoroughly amoral statements of your CEO on why Dow cannot acknowledge responsibility for Union Carbide's legacy at Bhopalmakes Dow Chemical a blight on the hope that corporations can act ethically and morally even if it has an adverse effect on profits.
If you compare Dow's behavior with that of Johnson & Johnson when some of it's McNeil Division's Tylenol was poisoned by a criminal, you would find that corporations can remain profitable, even highly profitable, in the long run by sacrificing short term profit for moral and ethical reasons.
Incidentally, Rachel Carson died in 1964 after authoring Silent Spring in 1962, not 1969 as your web site states.
Would you be kind enough to remove this disgusting paragraph from the home page of your web site?
Thanks for allowing me this opportunity to communicate with you.

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
Is this supposed to make me feel BETTER??? Or is this some mentally-deranged person's idea of a joke???
You people are HORRIBLE!!! and your position is illogical, to boot.
You are saying that you (SOME of you) care, but it's just not convenient to do anything about it.
These are human LIVES we are talking about. Impoverished people, sick people (and their sickness caused BY YOUR CHEMICALS)
You are saying that MONEY is more important than PEOPLE.
You are saying that shareholders are more important than the innocent people you killed, maimed and sickened.
Right is right. If you made the mess, it IS your job to clean it up. Most of us learn this in kindergarten. It's part of the GOlden Rule. Or do you have different rules you play by (apparently!), and if so, who gave you the right to decide when you would and would not take responsibility for what YOU (and no one else) DID?!?!?!
I am shocked, appalled, horrified, sickened and disgusted with you. I guess "corporate responsibility" is the biggest oxymoron of them all. Rest assured, you will never receive a dime from me as a customer. I will make sure I boycott any company that has any connection to yours.
Some time ago I had a debate with a friend about whether or not "evil" exists.
I took the side that it doesn't. People are just misguided, I said.
Well, I take it back.
You are EVIL INCARNATE!!!!!!

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Bhophal disaster
To Michael Parker, President:
The statement issued recently regarding Dow's lack of willingness to take responsibility for what happened at Bhopal declares that your stockholders and the business you are in makes this impossible. Profiting richly from the cover-up of your culpability in the miserable and painful deaths of some 20,000 poor and humble people is clearly, however, not beyond the capacity of Dow and its subsidiary Union Carbide. Could there be any clearer demonstration of the venality and cruelty of Capitalism? I think not.
The world, however, is full of people who unlike you, have not lost their moral compass. There is a growing tide of righteous anger building toward people like you, your board of directors and your stockholders. A day of reckoning will one day come. Meanwhile, if you have any gods I suggest you pray for your immortal soul. This may comfort you. But if you, like me, are guided only by my own sense of right and wrong, may you never have a good night's sleep or moment of personal peace or happiness until you make things right with the people of Bhopal.
Have you no sense of decency?

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To: press@dow-chemical.com
Subject: Re: DOW ADDRESSES BHOPAL OUTRAGE, EXPLAINS POSITION
I guess that the almighty dollar is more important than human lives. Yes, Dow is a heartless giant that does not care about people. Shareholder value > moral responsibility. Shame on you......

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.........................keep fighting the good fight,  with your minds as weapons!!...............................
.............................kosmicdebris...........................