repression and health

this resonated with me hardcore this morning. oh, cultural upbringings....

Dr. Gabor Maté: “When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection”

AMY GOODMAN: You talk about emotions like anger sharing with our immune system the same role of defending our boundaries, saying when we repress emotions, we may also repress our immune defenses. How does that play out in various diseases?

DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, when I looked at the kind of people that would be coming under my care in palliative care, but also the kind of people who would get sick when I was in family practice, a number of salient characteristics presented themselves. One was the repression of anger. People didn’t know how to express negative emotion. They were afraid to do so or did not know when they were angry. People who were pleasers, they tried to always not to disappoint other people. They never knew how to say no. They took on everything without a murmur, because they saw their role as always being the caregivers and the caretakers. And they had an exceedingly powerful sense of duty, role and responsibility.

Now, if you look at the role of healthy assertion of boundaries and anger, for example, it’s actually there to protect you. I’m talking about healthy anger. It’s not there to attack anybody; it’s just there to protect your boundaries. That’s the same role as the immune system have...

read more!

Haiti.

i finally wrote an email this morning, to everyone and no one in particular. i had been writing and re-writing it my head since wednesday and still am not sure exactly what it adds to the atmosphere. but i digress. please read on:

Dear friends,

I've been drafting emails like this all week, not really sure of what I'm trying to get at. As I'm assuming is true for everyone on many levels, the current catastrophe in Haiti is devastating me. The immediate tragedy of it all and also the context; the dread and anticipation about how corporate and global powers contributed to this mess in the first place and may very well only make it worse, long-term-style worse, as recovery unfolds. How can we educate ourselves about the history, of Haiti and beyond, so we can stand at the ready when the corporate interest strikes again? Just one example of how this has already started, a quote from the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

I can't figure out how to react or what to do. What are other people doing? How are we keeping this in our minds and our hearts, and in our actions? I want to know.

I also want to keep at the forefront of our minds the way other issues can be manipulated in this time of crisis. I saw Naomi Klein speak on Wednesday and she so rightfully reminded us how crises are often used as a pretext for pushing through policies that wouldn't otherwise pass during times of stability; how disaster hysteria is taken advantage of to pass controversial or unpopular decisions.

So let's talk about Haiti and its immediate and long-term rebuilding. And let's also talk about how to see the big picture and not let those in positions of power- government, corporate, or otherwise- manipulate our focus and get away with more potentially devastating decisions.

I had been compiling a list of organizations, writings, articles, etc, and then Tyrone posted this very awesome and comprehensive list on Enough (enoughenough.org). Many of them overlapped, so please visit Enough for the full scope! Some highlights include:

~ Ten Things the US Can and Should Do For Haiti -- social justice lawyer Bill Quigley's straightforward, right-on rundown list.

~ Partners In Health's fund, Stand With Haiti: PIH is a longtime health organization working in Haiti. They are reputable among progressives and have pretty rad political analysis. The vast majority of their staff is Haitian and they are already on the ground there.

~ Lambi Fund of Haiti: Rooted in peasant and women's organizations in Haiti and based on the premise that the Haitian people understand how development is best achieved in their country. Doing long-term sustainability and development work.

~ Grantmakers without Borders' criteria for disaster response (they support the two orgs above):

1. First and foremost, provide unrestricted general funding to allow resources to go where they are most urgently needed.
2. Give only to those organizations with an existing presence in the region and a broad familiarity with local conditions, customs and politics. Avoid well-meaning but inexperienced organizations.
3. Give only to organizations that engage local community members in all aspects of disaster response and recovery. Avoid top-down responders.
4. Prioritize organizations with a strong focus on gender and the ways in which women are differently impacted during and after an emergency.
5. Prioritize organizations that link emergency response with recovery and long-term rehabilitation and that build local capacities.

~ Reasons why you should give to Haitian-led, localized organizations and NOT the Red Cross

~ much of this information is coming from and continually updated on DemocracyNow! and other crucial indie media sites.

Please respond with thoughts, additions, information, insights, challenges, ideas, reports on what you're doing or thinking...I don't want to let this fade.

With hope,

Jessie

15 year old Maldives rep at COP 15

damn.

"...So I ask you again, would you commit murder, even while we are begging for mercy and begging for you to stop what you’re doing, change your ways, and let our children see the future that we want to build for them?"

why sometimes i think philanthropy is just.plain.fucked.

"TASINI: That’s correct. I mean, the beauty—and I say that ironically—of [hedge fund owners] is...they like when things collapse, because if they made the correct bet against a currency dropping or something happening that’s bad in the economy...they bet that the housing crisis would happen—they actually make a lot of money. And that’s, to me, moral obscenity.

...if you look back at the guys who ran some of the big hedge funds, the Vanguards and the folks who are out there, and they’re still out there, they were really at the core of that kind of collapse, that they were betting against the housing.

GONZALEZ: You even mention George Soros still is benefiting from—

TASINI: Yes, George Soros, who funds many liberal causes. Actually, he goes back to having bet against the English pound, and he made a huge amount of money on currency trading and betting that a currency would drop. And you make an enormous amount of profit if you get the bet right."

[Read the whole Democracy Now! interview with Johnathan Tasini on “The Audacity of Greed: Free Markets, Corporate Thieves and the Looting of America”]

example: why giant sportsgames suck

South Africa's Poor Targeted by Evictions, Attacks in Advance of 2010 World Cup

Democracy Now! interviewed 18-year-old Mazwi Nzimande, president of the Shack Dwellers Movement’s youth league, and Reverend Mavuso Mbhekiseni, member of the Rural Network in South Africa.

"...to us, this World Cup is a mass eviction of poor people. So that’s what is happening in South Africa...."

Read the full interview!

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