American Anomie: Two Excerpts Courtesy of Big Pharma

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in American Domestic Affairs, Political Psychology

Tags

conscience, Big Pharma, Purdue, Questcor, Mallinckrodt

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS SUFFOLK, ss. SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL ACTION NO. COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, v. PURDUE PHARMA L.P., PURDUE PHARMA INC., RICHARD SACKLER, THERESA SACKLER, KATHE SACKLER, JONATHAN SACKLER, MORTIMER DA. SACKLER, BEVERLY SACKLER, DAVID SACKLER, ILENE SACKLER LEFCOURT, PETER BOER, PAULO COSTA, CECIL PICKETT, RALPH SNYDERMAN, JUDY LEWENT, CRAIG LANDAU, JOHN STEWART, and MARK TIMNEY

Dangerous opioid drugs are killing people across Massachusetts. Prescription medicines, which are supposed to protect our health, are instead ruining people’s lives. Every community in our Commonwealth suffers from the epidemic of addiction and death.

Purdue Pharma created the epidemic and profited from it through a web of illegal deceit. First, Purdue deceived doctors and patients to get more and more people on its dangerous drugs. Second, Purdue misled them to take higher and more dangerous doses. Third, Purdue deceived them to stay on its drugs for longer and more harmful periods of time. All the while, Purdue peddled falsehoods to keep patients away from safer alternatives. Even when Purdue knew people were addicted and dying, Purdue treated patients and their doctors as “targets” to sell more drugs. At the top of Purdue, a small group of executives led the deception and pocketed millions of dollars.

Source: https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2018/06/12/Purdue%20Complaint%20FILED.pdf

How is it in this extraordinary country in which vested interests also enjoy the greatest access to liberal education that the same affluent-to-wealthy people think nothing of addicting and gouging their fellow Americans to death?

The effort, the whistleblowers said in a lawsuit against the company, was part of an intentional “multi-tiered strategy” by Questcor Pharmaceuticals, now Mallinckrodt, to boost sales of H.P. Acthar Gel, cheating the government out of millions of dollars.

The price of the drug, best known for treating a rare infant seizure disorder, has increased almost 97,000%, from $40 a vial in 2000 to nearly $39,000 today.

The Justice Department has now intervened in the case after conducting its own extensive investigation — a sign that the government believes the allegations levied by the whistleblowers are credible. In a statement to CNN, Mallinckrodt did not deny the accusations but said the fault lies primarily with Questcor.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/health/mallinckrodt-whistleblower-lawsuit-acthar/index.html

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FTAC: Regarding Palestinian Dissent

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Gaza, Hamas, MEC, middle east conflict, Palestinian Dissent, Palestinian Governance, Palestinian Political Represion, PLO / PA, West Bank

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_boundaries_of_Palestine_(plain).svg (Creative Commons) | Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_(region)

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/23/palestine-authorities-crush-dissent

This is the report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/10/23/two-authorities-one-way-zero-dissent/arbitrary-arrest-and-torture-under

Regarding Palestinian Land Ownership: http://www.badil.org/en/publication/periodicals/al-majdal/item/1055-land-ownership-in-palestine/israel-1920-2000.html

“Palestine”, so declared in the course of Roman conquest, has never been a sovereign power but a suzerainty through all of its existence.

“The Palestinians” have never before been a People, but given 70+ years of the Arab Apartheid that stranded the refugees of 1948, one may grant that the Palestinians are a unique People desperate for autonomous, responsible, and responsive modern governance.

We know the Palestinians are not getting that governance.

This is the kind of “governance” meted to Palestinians by Hamas:

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14057/hamas-gaza-protests-torture

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Pierre Rehov’s Documentary “The Origins of the Palestinian Cause” and Related Reference

24 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia

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MEC, middle east conflict, Palestinian Subjugation, Pierre Rehov, Soviet / post-Soviet politics

Published on Vimeo March 10, 2019

Pierre Rehov’s Middle East Documentaries

The Soviet / post-Soviet Left / Far Left has in it some of Russia’s Olde Anti-Semitic Poison, as batched by Tsar Nicholas II’s secret political police, the Okhrana, and labeled The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Were it not for the transfer of that poison into Germany through White Russian emigre fleeing the Bolsheviks, the 20th Century may have played out quite differently. Credit Max Erwin von Scheubner Richter with pouring the same poison into Hitler’s ears and thereby inspiring The Holocaust.

The Palestinian main base, much defined by post-WWII Arab Apartheid — i.e., political separation of the refugees of 1948 to be exploited as a weapon against Jews, Israel, and the west — seems seldom to have a clue as to just how sorely it has been abused by Palestinian “leaders” who have stood on their backs to make themselves millionaires and billionaires many times over.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/10/20/ftac-mec-palestinians-a-people-waiting-to-be-born-again-honestly/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/23/ftac-these-too-are-palestinians/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/03/08/bds-cult-modules/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/07/29/ftac-antidote-to-what-poisoned-the-palestinians/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/12/29/ftac-middle-east-conflict-back-to-max-erwin-von-scheubner-richter-and-forward-to-the-plundering-of-palestinian-misery-by-palestinian-leadership-elites/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/27/excerpt-1920s-the-spread-of-hate-russia-germany-laqueur/

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FTAC: Brief Note Re. Poland and the Holocaust

21 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Poland, Russia

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

anti-Semitism, Holocaust, Poland

The topic is perennial: “The Poles did nothing to stop Hitler”; “The Poles murdered the Jews”; “The Poles were the worst of anti-Semites”; etc. So here is one fast response to all of that.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shtetl/ –> Marian Marzynski’s documentary on PBS “Frontline”.

The Holocaust may be unique in this overlooked way: it was an event so damning of the character of our species that it has been and may remain visited universally over time. The experience of it has given over to the memory of it. Each soul that visits The Holocaust, and there are many ways now, will experience and respond to it differently.

Compiled by the Polish American Librarians Association, a new list of recommended reading emphasizes books that effectively examine inflammatory questions that may never be fully answered or understood but continue to be asked: Did Poles collaborate with the Germans? Why did Poland have the largest Jewish population of any country in Europe? Why did the West disbelieve information about the death camps that was gathered by the Resistance? Why didn’t more Jews resist? Why was Poland the only country in which the death penalty was imposed for Christians harboring Jews? Why was the response of the Catholic Church so meek? Why, by far, are there more Polish names on the roll at Yad Vashem of Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews than any other nationality?
http://palalib.org/collection/poland/ (current)

Three million Poles were also taken by the Holocaust.

And there’s no denying the theft and inhabiting of Jewish property by the Poles.

Nonetheless, lose the black-and-white thinking.

For the energetic, two lesser known proper nouns might be worth a look-up in relation to The Holocaust: “Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter”; “Michael Kellogg” (The Russian Roots of Nazism).

Kellogg’s book: https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/111/5/1618/14004

I had left the nouns — Kellogg and Scheubner-Richter — without URLs to encourage readers of the thread to make a little bit of effort to know the true kernel of The Holocaust.

Additional basic reference online: http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/ | https://www.yadvashem.org/ | https://www.ushmm.org/

Recommended for viewing: “Image Before My Eyes: A History of Jewish Life in Poland before the Holocaust”.

https://www.amazon.com/Image-Before-My-Eyes-Holocaust/dp/B000CRR3J2

Addendum in Response to Comment

The Polish experience of the Holocaust had been mixed and not in any small or trivial way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish_nation tells a part of the story of horror for those in whom the Nazis found no value.

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FTAC: Briefest Note on Behalf of Palestinian Dissidents

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal

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Israel, MEC, middle east conflict, Palestinian Political Repression, Palestinian Political Security, Phantoms of the Soviet

The inspiration for this post was a “Stop the Lies” (Facebook Group) video showing a well-informed Israeli taking apart an argument made by a pro-BDS type standing up for the “suffering of the Palestinians under occupation”, an Orwellian trope if ever was. Here’s the truth:

The nationalism may be off-putting for showing little regard for the Palestinian main base — those who are ruled — in light of the politically corrupt and suppressive atmospheres maintained by both the PLO/PA (the “phantoms of the Soviet”) and the Islamist Hamas. Israelis may benefit from more widely acknowledging the general political insecurity of the Palestinians (whose repression really is hideous) and the intent of their leaders to keep them intellectually disinformed, misguided, and deeply weaponized (the basic message being “The Jews stole your land and God wants you to take it back!”).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14057/hamas-gaza-protests-torture

Palestinian laws associated with collaboration and cooperation with Israelis have been barbaric (I haven’t looked in a while, but the general condition remains that of war and thus the military occupation and [COGAT] presence in aspects of Palestinian life (http://www.cogat.mod.gov.il/en/about/Pages/default.aspx ).

Pro-Israel liberals may wish to look over the “talking point” that would be the defense of Pro-Israeli Palestinians and Palestinian dissidents who need security for speaking their minds and for civil action.

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For a Moment, All Were Jewish

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christianity, Easter, Exodus, God, Jewish culture and life, Judaism, Moses, Passover

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/%C3%9Altima_Cena_-_Da_Vinci_5.jpg

From the (Still) Awesome Conversation:

I may note that the Jewish Liberation Story — the Exodus from Egypt — has stood signal as God’s affront to human power for almost 6,000 years. In that narrative, God commands Moses while having at the same time control of Pharaoh. While Jews treat Moses with reverence, none ever conflate or confuse Moses with God (he was lucky to have been rescued from among the reeds; spoke with a stutter or lisp (I think — he was most imperfect); and seemed to need a sidekick for courage. Moses was . . . merely human. He didn’t part the waters: God did.

Jesus, rabbi; the first Christians; was it really a Seder?

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/

BackChannels will leave the gathering and weighing of history’s slim evidence to the curious, but as depicted by da Vinci, inspired by The Bible, and inscribed now in the intellectual awareness and evolution of mankind, The Last Supper changed the character of the world.

Here’s “the rest of the story” — at least about the painting.

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Burning of Notre Dame: Indescribable, Ineffable, Inexpressible

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

≈ 1 Comment

Screen capture from CNN video featured at the end of this post.

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/notre-dame-fire/index.html

The heart of Paris has been burning for hours.

It’s sad.

Is that it?

The burning of Notre Dame is beyond sad, profoundly sad, cosmically sad, and sad beyond belief.

Pile on the adjectives — there is nothing that will come close.

What history have you seen?

Think of the history it has seen (start year: 1160 A.D.)

Tonight: grief.

One may hope that grief shared worldwide.

Did you work at Notre Dame or in any of the businesses serving its limitless parade of tourists?

One may hope the governments of Paris and France, first, then God, and then everyone else considers your well being especially this night. Tomorrow will not be just another day.

Tomorrow: expect to read about economic and environmental impacts, the destruction (and possibly saving) of priceless art, and the modern memory of an architectural space that has been ever consoling, reassuring, always there, defining “normal” by day, and beautiful, so I have heard, at night.

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Venezuela and the Liberal Progressive Stance

03 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by commart in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Caribbean Basin, Central America, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Cuba, El Salvador, Epistemology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, Guatemala, Honduras, International Development, Mexico, North America, Political Psychology, Politics, South America, United States of America, Venezuela

≈ Leave a comment

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Addiction in America, Central and South American Mass Migration, economics, Political Ecology of States, Soviet / post-Soviet Far Left, transnational crime, Venezuela

Dickey, Christopher. “How Cuba Helped Make Venezuela a Mafia State.” Daily Beast, June 2, 2019.

InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Seven-part series, May 16, 2018 to May 25, 2018. Full report: InSight Crime. “Venezuela: A Mafia State?” Report (PDF): 1) “7 Reasons for Describing Venezuela as a ‘Mafia State'”, Mary 16, 2018; 2) “Drug Trafficking Within the Venezuelan Regime: The ‘Cartel of the Suns'”, May 17, 2018; 3) “The Devolution of State Power: The ‘Colectivos'”, May 18, 2018; 4) “The Devolution of State Power: ‘The Pranes’,” May 20, 2018; 5) “Colombia and Venezuela: Criminal Siamese Twins,” May 21, 2018; 6) “Honduras and Venezuela: Coup and Cocaine Air Bridge,” May 23, 2018; 7) “Dominican Republic and Venezuela: Cocaine Across the Caribbean,” May 24, 2018; 8) “Venezuela and El Salvador: Exporting Aid and Corruption,” May 25, 2018.

North American Continental Appetite for Narcotics
–> Cash –> Central / South America
–> Cartel –> Gangs –> Related Violence
–> Corruption of Authorities
–> General Insecurity
–> Displacement of Population | Northern Mass Migration

If you’re on the Soviet / post-Soviet flavored Left / Far Left Progressive Movement, the same that might obtain its image of the world from, say, 927+ or Mint Press, at least consider reading Christopher Dickey’s report on the Cuba-Venezuelan connection and the InSight Crime series on narcotics trafficking and the accumulation of wealth by nominally “communist” and “socialist” so-called “leaders” in captive Central and South American states.

Related Online: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2018/November/mexico-and-unodc-present-second-opium-poppy-cultivation-survey.html (November 2018). Other states have poppy fields, of course, but the expansion of cultivation in Mexico for the production of heroin in North America should be perhaps more widely acknowledged.

Breaking: Montoya-Galvez, Camilo. “Senators Introduce bill to send $400 million in aid to Venezuela, strengthen sanctions.” CBS News, April 3, 2019.

In familiar Orwellian fashion, the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left simply ignores the sustained Soviet / post-Soviet investment in the underworld and what it does to societies everywhere it travels.

For decades Venezuela treated its oil reserves — as has Russia — as plunder for The People, which it was, while all the while failing to diversify its internal and trade economies. Who cared? There was money for everything — until oil prices fell.

And then there was nothing.

Or what was left were the sideshows: the selling off of gold reserves; the cocaine trade; sex-related human trafficking; and, nearer to this miserable late date, displacement and the bartering of everything.

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