Bulletin N° 630
Subject: ON ‘THE EMOTIONAL PLAGUE’, OR ‘HOMO NORMALIS’
IN THE MIDST OF WAR, INEQUALITY, EXPLOITATION, EPIDEMICS, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND
SADISTIC NARCISSISM.
14 October 2014
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of
CEIMSA,
In his book, The Freudian Left (1969), Stanford
University professor of intellectual history, Paul Robinson, attempted a
critical presentation of three 20th century intellectuals who were
influenced by Marxist and Freudian traditions. These thinkers were: Wilhelm
Reich, MD; the anthropologist Geza Roheim, and the political philosopher Herbert Marcuse. His
essay on Reich is particularly interesting, as Reich was a student of Freud’s
in Vienna and whose break from the Master caused considerable scandal in
international psychiatric circles. Robinson recounts the history of this scandal
and offers a clear portrait of the young Dr. Reich as he developed his
independence from the conservative International Psychoanalytic Association,
from which he was expelled in 1934.
The Stanford professor judges the
last two decades of Reich’s career in a surprisingly off-handed manner: “If
Reich’s political ideas were utopian, his biological and cosmological
speculations can only be called insane.” (p.59) He then goes on to qualify his
statement,
Yet a strange logic underlies even
his most extreme formulations, and the student who has immersed himself in
Reich’s early work will find the science of Orgonomy
curiously familiar. In this brief consideration of his final biological
writings, I want to stress those strands of continuity which link Reich’s early
psychological and sociological theories to his ultimate philosophical vision. .
. .
Since the 1930’s it has become
standard practice to distinguish between two major traditions within
psychoanalysis: ‘biologically-oriented’ orthodox Freudianism on the one hand,
and ‘culturally-oriented’ neo-Freudian revisionism on the other, with
ego-psychologists straddling the fence between them. Crudely stated, the issue
between these two schools has been the relative importance of cultural as
opposed to instinctual factors in psychic development. The neo-Freudians have
accused the orthodox of ignoring the social and economic influences of
personality formation, while the orthodox have denounced the revisionists for
soft-pedaling the unpleasant facts of sexuality and aggression. One of the many
anomalies of Reich’s thought is that it defies classification in terms of this
well-established dichotomy. As a result, Reich has remained a complete enigma
to both camps. The neo-Freudians wanted very much to claim him as one of their
own. After all, Reich was among the first to recognize the importance of social
factors in psychic development. He broke with Freud’s narrow ‘biological’
emphasis and directed attention to ‘the whole personality,’ including its
cultural environment. And yet it was Reich who pushed psychoanalysis to the
utmost biological extreme, reducing all psychic life to a manifestation of
bodily streaming and spasms. From the beginning he had been fascinated by
Freud’s penchant for explaining psychic phenomena in terms of energy concepts
derived from the natural sciences. In the final phase of his career, Reich
simply pursued Freud’s hypothesis of sexual energy to its logical ‘scientific’
conclusion: to the horror of Freudians and neo-Freudians alike, he discovered
the physical reality of libido.
The line separating the psychic from
the somatic had never been sharply drawn in Reich’s thought. Even in Die Funktion des Orgasmus (1927) he
had argued that libido stasis could lead to physical as well as mental disease.
. . . If the dualism of mind and body was to be resolved at all, it would be
resolved in favor of the body. Sexual energy was the very concrete product of
‘inner secretory processes.’ Thus the physical
disease brought about by the damming up of libido had just as ‘real’ a cause as
that resulting from infection or mechanical failure.
Although the orgasm theory of the
mid-1920s already contained the seeds of Reich’s later biological
preoccupations, it was only during the 1930’s that he turned his full attention
to the physiological foundation of psychic life. . . .
Sexual excitation was found to be
identical with an increase of electrical charge on the surface of the organism,
particularly in the genitals, while anxiety and other unpleasurable
emotions corresponded to a withdrawal of electrical energy into the center of
the body. Freud’s concept of libido as a measure of psychic energy was ‘no
longer a mere simile.’ Libido was electricity, and the orgasm a spectacular
electric storm. Reich nicely summed up the results of his experiments when he
wrote [in The Function of the Orgasm (1942) that], ‘We are all simply a
complicated electric machine.’(pp.59-63)
Robinson observed that Reich was
alienated from other political refuges of psychoanalytic persuasion, such as
Erich Fromm, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse. He
no longer identified with his Jewish origins, and, since his arrival in the
United States in 1939, he found a new intellectual freedom, at least during the
first years of his residence.
Reich’s basic biological discoveries
were made before he set foot on American soil. His intellectual activities in
the new world consisted principally in a fantastic elaboration of the
cosmological and, ultimately, religious implications of the discovery of the
Orgone. He published book after book in which ever more extravagant claims were
made for his new science. He respected non e of the traditional academic
boundaries. In fact, he disregarded even the restrictions of his own
definitions. Orgone energy had been defined originally as the form of energy
unique to life, but in 1951 Reich announced that it was the primordial stuff
out of which all reality evolved. Matter itself was created through the sexual
embrace or ‘super-imposition’ of two Orgone energy streams. The galactic
systems, the aurora borealis, hurricanes, and gravity were likewise various manifestations
of Orgone energy. In brief, Reich propounded a unified-field theory more
ambitious than even the most undisciplined physicist would have imagined. Every
aspect of reality from schizophrenia to the Milky Way was encompassed within
his system. Only nuclear energy retained its autonomy. In fact, Reich came to
conceive the history of the cosmos as a titanic struggle between Orgone energy
and atomic energy. Remarkable as it seems, the inveterate monist had
arrived at a dualistic cosmology not unlike Manichaeanism.
The eternal antagonism between Eros and Thanatos, of
which Freud spoke so movingly in the final pages of Civilization and Its
Discontents, now received its scientific confirmation. The struggle of love
against hate was only the psychological manifestation of a more basic cosmic
antipathy. . . .
The most remarkable feature of this
meta-intellectual history of Western civilization was Reich’s new-found
sympathy for religion. He had begun his career as a Voltairian
anticlerical. Yet in the end he concluded that religion, reactionary though it
might be, was the legitimate precursor of his own science. . . . Reich
abandoned his Enlightenment prejudices in favor of an interpretation of
religion as psychologically and sociologically ‘functional.’ Religion was not
simply an opiate, a piece of trickery with which the rich prevented the poor
from claiming their just share of the wealth of the earth. On the contrary,
religion represented a positive good, since it alone had preserved man’s
awareness of the forces of life. (pp.67-69)
In 1954, Reich came under
investigation of the Federal Food and Drug Administration for renting as a cure
for cancer the Orgone Energy Accumulator across state lines. In 1956, he was
brought to trial for disregarding a court order and sentenced to two years in
prison. He died eight months later in the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg,
Pennsylvania, on 3 November 1957.
One of the most moving accounts of clinical treatment for schizophrenia that I have ever read is found in the
third edition of Reich’s book, Character
Analysis, Chapter XVI, which is entitled “The Schizophrenic Split”. His
patient, “F.” is an Irish-American female, 32 years of age, who was brought to
Reich’s clinic in early 1942. After more than forty visits, she was eventually
‘cured” by a remarkable process which involved a whole series of vicissitudes
and reversals. Reich’s account of these sessions and the pattern which their
relationship took is a remarkable story of courage, hope and ultimately of
triumph. But most important was the learning process which Reich describes step
by step in each of these encounters by way of systematic observation and
theoretical reflection. His record of detailed observations is supplemented by
comments on the theoretical significance of his discoveries.
The patient was in constant
disequilibrium between rational integration of her feelings and schizophrenic
delusion. I had expected that her schizophrenic process would develop fully
when her self-perception made contract with her bodily excitation in full
force. My expectation proved correct.(p.478)
It is a major objective of this case
history to describe the psychotic crisis in relation to the orgonotic
streaming and emotions of the biosystem. It is of the
utmost importance to concentrate one’s attention on this single fact, and not
to be distracted by the maze of schizophrenic mechanisms and delusionary ideas.
We must penetrate to the common denominator which characterizes the
schizophrenic breakdown, regardless of the contents of the delusions. The
center of the schizophrenic breakdown is determined by overwhelming orgonotic plasma streaming which flood a biosystem incapable of coping with the emotional storm.
Psychiatry has understood that the
psychotic system is an attempt at reconstruction of the lost EGO (=WORLD). But
it could not tell why this world of the EGO breaks down. The psychotic
reconstruction is a result, and not a cause of the disease. This must be kept
well in mind. Also, the ‘narcissistic fixation in childhood’ is not a cause of
the breakdown but only one of the conditions
under which the breakdown occurs. The core of the problem is the
biophysical split between excitation and perception and the resulting
intolerance of the biosystem of strong emotions.
The patient went through the
following three distinct periods at the end and after the treatment: 1. Great
well-being and sanity; 2. Sudden catatonic breakdown; 3. Full recovery, with
free dome from psychosis for over 5 years after treatment.(pp.484-485)
Once the unitary function of the
organism is split, the biophysical processes in the organism will be perceived
as a force alien to the ego, in the form of hallucinations or delusions of
various kinds. The specific mechanisms which distinguish a delusion in general
paresis from a delusion in puerperal fever or a delusion in dementia praecox
are not import5ant here. What is important, however, is the basic dissociation
of the perceiving apparatus from the biophysical system of excitation.(p.489)
After the treatment was completed,
the patient stayed in contact with Dr. Reich. On August 4, 1948, Reich received
a letter from “F.” which began:
I am writing to tell you how very
much I was impressed by your book, “Listen, Little Man!” I cannot write I enjoyed
the book since what you wrote about the “Little Man” is too sadly true, and I
find myself fitting into those shoes.
I want you to know that the
antagonism and even hatred which I showed toward you and your work during
therapy, stemmed from my knowledge (at times even conscious) that I was getting
too close to the break-through of my body into feeling and perhaps love. This
was something I could not permit –I had severely controlled my body all my life
and even consciously damned it to extinction –treating my body as dirt, hating
it and neglecting and torturing myself in punishment for early feelings and
masturbation. This same hate I had for my body was hate which I projected onto
you. Forgive me for this, Doctor, this hate has done a great deal of damage to
my body and mind. I would like to tell you that in s0pite of my ‘maliciousness
and pettiness’ your work with me did me tremendous good, I am aware of what
harm I am doing to myself and others around me and why I am doing these things.
Also, I find myself thinking and feeling that my body wants to be healthy and
that my retreat into the ‘ivory tower’ of mental illness only changed the color
of the picture, but not the picture itself. I might make myself mentally ill to
be something ‘special’ to be certain that my body will keep far in the
background, but I m gradually finding out that a healthy ‘active’ body is more
pleasure –physically and mentally.
So, I think you will see that I am
getting there, however slowly, through your help. The process is slow since I
still have a great number of tensions and sometimes blocks which I can’t seem
to do anything about. Often my small courage fails and then the dark picture of
hate, delusions, and suffering comes back but not permanently so, thanks for
everything and I pray to God I have courage.
F. (pp.505-506)
At the time of publication of this
report in the third edition of Character Analysis (December 1948), seven years
had passed since the therapeutic experiment and Reich’s patient had stayed
healthy. Her continued sanity, wrote Reich at the end of 1948 depends on
whether homo normalis will change his
way of living and thinking. The answer is highly uncertain.
Meanwhile, Wilhelm Reich’s efforts
of vulgarize his discoveries and to heighten self-perception deserves
attention. Below is an excerpt of the introduction of his 1945 book :
Listen,
Little Man! (1945) written by Wilhelm Reich and illustrated by William
Steig
Introduction
Listen, Little Man! Is a human and
not a scientific document. It was written in the summer of 1945 for the
Archives of the Orgone Institute without the intention of publishing it. It was
the result of the inner storms and conflicts of a natural scientist and physician
who watched, over decade first naively, then with amazement and finally with
horror, what the Little Man in the street does to himself; how he suffers and
rebels, how he esteems his enemies and murders his friends; how, wherever he
gains power as a ‘representative of the people,’ he misuses this power and
makes it into something more cruel than the power which previously he had to
suffer at the hands of individual sadists of the upper classes.
This “Talk” to the Little Man was
the quiet answer to gossip and defamation. For decades, the emotional plague
has tried again and again to kill orgone research (note well: not to prove it
incorrect, but to kill it by defamation). Orgone research carries a very heavy
responsibility for human life and health. The fact justifies the publication of
this ‘Talk’ or a historical document. It seemed necessary for the ‘man in the
street’ to learn what goes on in a scientific workshop and also to learn what
he looks like to an experienced psychiatrist. He must learn to know reality,
which alone can counteract his disastrous craving for authority. He must be
told clearly what responsibility he carries, whether he works, loves, hates or
gossips. He must learn how he becomes a Fascist, be it the black or red
variety. He who fights for the safeguarding of the living and the protection of
our children must needs be against the red as well as the black Fascist. Not
because today the red Fascist, like the black Fascist before him, has a
murderous ideology, but because he turns lively and healthy children into
cripples, robots and moral idiots; because with him, the state comes before
right, the lie before truth, war before life; because the child, and the
safeguarding of the living in the child, remains our only hope.
There is only one loyalty for the educator and physician: that to the living in
the child and the patient. If this loyalty is strictly adhered to, the great
questions of ‘foreign politics’ also find their simple solution.
This ‘Talk’ does not imply that one
should make it the pattern of one’s existence. It describes storms in the
emotional life of a productive, happy individual. It does not want a, convince
or win anybody. It pictures experience as a painting pictures a thunderstorm.
The reader is not asked to like it. He may read it or not. It does not contain
any intentions or programs. All it wants to do is to win for the researcher and
thinker the right to personal reaction, which one has never denied, to the poet
or philosopher. It is a protest against the secret and unrecognized intention
of the emotional plague to shoot its poison arrows at the hard-working
researcher, from a safe ambush. It shows what the emotional plague is, how it
functions and retards progress. It also attests to the confidence in the tremendous
un-mined treasures, which lie in the depth of ‘human nature,’ ready to be put
in the service of fulfilling human hope.
The living, in its social and human
interrelationship, is naively kindly and thus, under prevailing conditions,
endangered. It assumes that the fellow human also follows the laws of the
living and is kindly , helpful and giving. As long as there is the emotional
plague, this natural basic attitude that of the healthy child or the primitive,
becomes the greatest danger in the struggle for a rational order of life. For
the plague individual also ascribes to his fellow beings the characteristics of
his own thinking and acting. The kindly individual believes that all people are
kindly and act accordingly. The plague individual believes that all people lie,
swindle, steal and crave power. Clearly, then, the living is at a disadvantage
and in danger. Where it gives to the plague individual it is sucked dry and
then derided or betrayed; and where it trusts it is cheated.
That’s the way it has always been.
It is time for the living a, become hard when hardness is needed in the
struggle for its safeguarding and development; in doing so, it will not lose
its kindness if it sticks to the truth courageously. There is hope in the fact
that, among millions of industrious, decent individuals then an always only
just a few pestilential individuals who cause murderous mischief by appealing
to the dark nod dangerous impulses in the structure of the armored mass individual
and lend them to organized political murder. There is only one antidote to the
germs of the emotional plague in the mass individual: his own feeling of living
life. The living dots not ask for power but for its proper role in human life. It
is based on the three pillars of love, work and knowledge.
He who has to protect the living
against the emotional plague has to learn to use the right to free speech as we
enjoy it in America at least as well for the good as the emotional
plague misuses it for the bad.
Granted equal right in the depression of opinion, the rational finally must win
out. This is an important hope.(pp.9-12)
The latter-day judgments of Reich’s
research in the annals of intellectual history are certainly of interest, but
in my mind the jury is still out in the case of Wilhelm Reich. Any judgment of
his work --his theories and his methods-- which brought him to what he thought
were important empirical discoveries must take into account the social context
in which he lived, which included very real political dangers.
Was he really insane? Perhaps, but were not Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), and what about Sir Issac Newton (1642-1727)? Geniuses driven mad was a subject which Reich also analyzed. We do know, however, that he had little respect for the behavior of homo normalis, and we must presume that the ‘respectable’
professionals in today’s society usually have nothing but contempt for the work of
Wilhelm Reich, the defender of schizophrenics, the convicted felon who died on the floor of a
federal penitentiary prison cell after being persecuted by US federal
government officials for many years.
The 11 items below offer
CEIMSA readers a chance to evaluate their own reactions to events which have
been precipitated by ‘normal’ people living in our world today.
Item A., from Counter
Punch, is a article by Ben
Norton revealing a recent poll which indicates that almost half of the
population in Israel wish Obama death on his 53rd Birthday (after
all that he has done for them!).
Item B., from Information Clearing House, is a short
video exposé of The Carlyle Group’s power
to bring Washington lawmakers to their knees.
Item C., from the
Real News Network, is the first part of a video discussion on
“liberal Islamophobia” in the US, with Dr. Deepa Kumar
speaking with Paul Jay.
Item
D.,
from NYU Professor Mark Crispin Miller,
founder of News
from the Underground, is an article first published by The
Institute of Science in Society describing
the massive contamination of Tokyo after the Fukushima catastrophe.
Item
E., from Jim O’Brien of Historians
Against War, is a series of recommended
recent articles.
Item F., from Information Clearing House, is an
article where Fidel Castro
criticizes the New NATO Chief, Jens
Stoltenberg.
Item G., from Democracy
Now!, is a return to Gary
Webb’s historic report “Inside The Dark Alliance” (1996), covering the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine
Explosion + a TRNN
critique of the new Hollywood film on Webb’s career, "Kill the
Messenger".
Item H., from Mark Crispin Miller, is an article first published by The National
Association for Children and Safe Technology on WiFi sickness in American public schools.
Item I., from Truth
Out, is an article by John
Pilger on the truth history of US bombing missions from Pol Pot in Cambodia
to ISIS in Iraq.
Item
J.,
from Mark Crispin Miller, is an
article by Andrew Emett analyzing employee
health benefits cuts by the mercantile giant, Wal-Mart, as part of a larger
pattern of corporate profit-hunting across the United States.
Item
K.,
from Reader
Supported News, is an article first published in Rolling
Stone magazine by Molly
Knefel, answering the question: “Why
Are Police Using Military-Grade Weapons in (US) High Schools?”
And finally, we invite CEIMSA
readers to view the classic film by Paddy
Joe Shannon,
"Capitalism
& Other Kids' Stuff"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kWM6JZUjv8
http://www.listenlittleman.com/
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor of American Studies
University of Grenoble-3
Director of Research
University of Paris-Nanterre
Center for the Advanced Study of
American Institutions and Social Movements
The University of California-San
Diego
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
_______________
A.
From Counter Punch :
Subject: Live
by the Sword; Die by the Sword.
According to a recent poll, 46% of Israelis “said they wanted to give Barack
Obama an envelope containing the Ebola virus as a present for his 53rd
birthday.”
Happy Birthday Mr. President!
Israelis:
Send Obama Ebola
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/09/israelis-send-obama-ebola/
by Ben
Norton
_______________
B.
From Information Clearing House :
Date: 16
September 2014
Subject: The
Carlyle Group.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
I defy you to watch this 48 minute
documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within
the highest ranks of our government.
Exposed: The Carlyle Group
Shocking
documentary uncovers the subversion of Americas democracy
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3995.htm
Video
_______________
C.
From The
Real News Network :
Date: 10
October 2014
Subject:
Liberal Islamophobia.
If neoliberal globalization
characterizes the economic logic of our age, the "war on terror" has
come to define its political logic. Kumar began her research into the politics
of empire shortly after the tumultuous events of 9/11.
Her second book titled Islamophobia
and the Politics of Empire (Haymarket Books, 2012), looks at how the
"Muslim enemy" has historically been mobilized to suit the goals of
empire.
Islamophobia and a Challenge to Bill Maher –
Deepa Kumar on Reality Asserts Itself (1/3)
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12506
_______________
D.
From
Mark Crispin Miller :
Dates: 12
October 2014
Subject: Tokyo "not fit for habitation," doctor says, charging
cover-up by WHO, IAEA, Japanese government.
Tokyo
Contaminated & Not Fit for Habitation, Doctor Says
http://permaculturenews.org/2014/09/25/tokyo-contaminated-fit-habitation-doctor-says/
Posted by The Institute of Science in Society
All 23 districts of Tokyo contaminated with radiation, worse
than at Chernobyl after the accident, and blood cells of children under ten are
showing worrying changes; the WHO, the IAEA & the Japanese government
cannot be trusted.
by Susie Greaves
In July 2014 Dr Shigeru Mita wrote
a letter to his fellow doctors to explain his decision to move his practice
from Tokyo to Okayama city in the West of Japan [1]. In it, he appeals to their
sense of duty to answer the anxieties of parents in Japan who do not believe
the information coming from the authorities. He says “I must state that the
policies of the WHO, the IAEA or the Japanese government cannot be trusted.”
and “if the power to save our citizens and future generations exists somewhere,
it does not lie within the government or any academic association, but in the hands
of individual clinical doctors ourselves.”
Mita claims that all 23 districts of Tokyo are contaminated,
with the eastern area worst affected — up to 4 000 Bq/kg.
(The becquerel is a unit of radioactivity. One Bq is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in
which one nucleus decays per second.) These findings confirm what the nuclear
physicist Arnie Gundersen
of Fairewinds Nuclear Education found in 2012, when
he picked up five random soil samples in Tokyo from between paving stones, in
parks and playgrounds. The levels of contamination were up to 7 000 Bq/kg; in the US, anything registering these levels would
be considered nuclear waste [2].
While practising in Tokyo, Mita also discovered changes in the white blood cells of
children under 10.
Independent science & independent reporting in Japan
outlawed
In December 2013, the Japanese parliament passed a bill
whereby public officials and private citizens could face ten years in prison
for divulging “special state secrets”, and journalists, five years, for seeking
to obtain classified information. The bill is widely interpreted as a way of
preventing sensitive information about Fukushima (among other topics) reaching
the Japanese public and by extension the rest of the world [3].
The independent organisation
Reporters without Borders has downgraded Japan in its world press freedom index
from 22nd place in 2012, to 53rd in 2013 and to 59th in 2014, following the
passing of the state secrets bill. Reporters without Borders say that Japan“has been affected by a lack of transparency and
almost zero respect for access to information on subjects directly or
indirectly related to Fukushima” [4].
Nuclear lobby put in charge
Back in December 2012, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy
Agency) whose mission is to promote the peaceful uses of the atom, signed
agreements with Fukushima Prefecture, Fukushima Medical University and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. These “Practical Arrangements” have in
effect, handed over the management of the post-accident situation at Fukushima
and its health consequences to the nuclear lobby. Among other clauses regarding
cooperation and funding, we read that “The Parties will ensure the
confidentiality of information classified by the other Party as restricted or
confidential” [5].
But this should come as no surprise. Anyone who doubts the
heavy hand of the nuclear lobby in the “management” (i.e. minimisation)
of nuclear accidents should read the account by the physicist Bella Belbéoch entitled “Western responsibility regarding the
health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and
Russia” [6]. The initial Soviet cover up of the accident is well known.
Less well known are the “stages of submission” in which the IAEA forced the
Soviets to accede to their demands to minimise
estimates of the health effects of the accident. In a series of manipulations
and bullying tactics, they forced the Soviet officials to divide their
estimates of the health effects by a factor of 10. One Soviet delegate, Legassov, committed suicide, a few days after he
capitulated to the IAEA demands, on the 26th April 1988, the second anniversary
of the Chernobyl accident.
A travesty of reporting on risks and cancers
How has the nuclear lobby reacted to Fukushima? A
preliminary assessment published in 2012 by the World Health Organisation (but actually emanating from the IAEA) managed
to draw optimistic conclusions, while ignoring two critical groups, the workers
at the TEPCO plant, and the people who were evacuated from the immediate area
(See [7] WHO Report on Fukushima a Travesty SiS 55). Then in 2013, the UNSCEAR report [8] described the
risks of people developing thyroid cancer, leukaemia
and breast cancer as barely discernible, even though the rates of childhood
thyroid cancer in Fukushima prefecture are already 40 times what would be
expected [9]. The UNSCEAR report has been criticised
by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War because it
consistently underestimates the radiation dose received, underestimates
internal radiation, ignores the vulnerability of the human embryo to radiation,
ignores hereditary effects, ignores the unreliability of the dose received by
workers at the stricken plant, and only considers some cancers as potential
health effects, whereas the experience of Chernobyl shows that every vital
organ and system of the body is affected [10].
Raising the ‘safe’ limit of radiation
The Japanese people are faced with a government whose
response to the dangers of the radiation was to increase the acceptable limit
from 1 mSv/year to 20 mSv/year
and who are now encouraging people to move back into areas that had previously
been evacuated. (The millisievert is a unit of
radiation dose. Before the Fukushima accident, Japan, like the rest of the
world, respected the limit of 1 mSv/year recommended
by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP).) Meanwhile,
the nuclear lobby wants to see the resumption of nuclear power in Japan as
quickly as possible. This is not an atmosphere in which doctors are encouraged
to report health effects that could be the result of radiation, and certainly
not in Tokyo, whose residents have been led to believe that they have nothing
to fear.
Changes in white blood cells in children
Mita began work as a general practitioner in Tokyo in the 1990s.
In the letter to his colleagues explaining his decision to move his practice
from Tokyo to Okayama City, he claims that contamination in the eastern part of
Tokyo is 1000-4000 Bq/kg and in the western part,
300-1000Bq/kg. He compares these levels with Kiev, in Ukraine, after the
accident at Chernobyl, of 500 Bq/kg, and with
measurements taken before the 2011 Fukushima accident at Shinjuku, the site of
the Tokyo municipal government of 0.5 – 1.5 Bq/kg. He
says that
Tokyo should no longer be inhabited, and that those who
insist on living in Tokyo must take regular breaks in safer areas.
Mita conducts thyroid ultrasound tests for parents who are
concerned about the health of their children but he is now concerned about the
results of another test on children under 10, the differential white blood cell
count. This test is undergone routinely by workers in the nuclear industry who
are exposed to radiation. Blood is produced in bone marrow, which is one of the
organs most vulnerable to radiation. The white blood cells consist of five
different kinds of cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, eosinocytes, basophils and monocytes, and it is the relative numbers of these five
cell types that is examined. Mita has found a decline
in neutrophils in children under 10, in areas that
are not considered to be highly contaminated or even contaminated at all. His patients
come from Northern Kanto, the area around Tokyo and including Tokyo itself
[11].
"The pediatricians’ general textbook says that the
reference value of neutrophils for healthy children
(6-12 years old) is between 3000 and 5000. 3000 is considered as the threshold
value.” Mita says. “But the mean value of neutrophils of the children who have visited our clinics
since the accident has decreased to 2500. … It is lower than the threshold
value of 3000. I think this points at a serious
problem."
Mita explains that although the decrease in neutrophil
does not directly cause lowered immunity, it is “the last bastion of the
immunity system” and could play a role in fatal illnesses such as septicaemia in the case of aggressive colds. “In the summer
of 2011, there were many children with bloodshot eyes; and what we saw most
were children with dark circles under the eyes. We also had increased
occurrence of sinusitis. Previously, these patients got better soon after they
were given proper treatment; however, we are seeing more cases of sinusitis
accompanied with mild case of asthma continuing for longer periods. And when
these children spend some time in the West, they get better. If at all
possible, I would like them to move away from East Japan.”
In adults, he has found increased nosebleeds, hair loss, lack of energy, subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary haemorrhage, skin inflammation, and coughs. He has found an
increase in infectious diseases such as influenza, hand, foot and mouth
diseases and shingles. “We also see more patients with diseases that had been
rare before; for example, polymyalgia rheumatica is a disease common among those above age 50 and
contracted by 1.7 people out of every 100,000. Before 3.11, [the date of the
accident at Fukushima] we had one or less patient per year. Now, we treat more
than 10 patients at the same time.” Dr Mita wonders
“Could these be the same symptoms of muscle rheumatism that were recorded in
Chernobyl?”
Finally, Mita says that the
radioactive contamination of Tokyo is increasing because of the Japanese
government’s policy of transporting radioactive waste from the Fukushima zone
all over Japan for incineration or burial. The Japanese government and the
nuclear authorities claimed that filters on the stacks of the incineration
plants would remove most of the radioactivity, but this is not the case, and in
the opinion of many, it is adding to the contamination. Arnie
Gundersen, for instance says, “They are creating 100
to 1000 times more radioactive material by burning debris than keeping it in
concentrated form” [12].
To conclude
Mita is talking about his perceptions of the changes in health
of a population living in an area that is not considered contaminated. It will
be all too easy to dismiss his findings. He himself is not optimistic. He
acknowledges that to prove any of his suspicions would require teams of
doctors, and expensive research projects to compare groups of people, their
radioactive contamination and the illnesses from which they suffer. That’s
something simply beyond the reach of any single physician. In other words,
“it’s impossible under the present state to collect the kind of data that would
be printed in a prestigious science magazine. Still, as long as I know that
something strange is clearly happening, I can’t just sit here doing nothing.”
And here is Professor Yablokov
talking about the difficulties that doctors and scientists experienced in the
Chernobyl territories, to prove a correlation between radiation and illness
[13]: “The demand by IAEA and WHO experts to require “significant correlation”
between the imprecisely calculated levels of individual radiation […] and
precisely diagnosed illnesses […] is not, in our view, scientifically valid.
[…] We believe it is scientifically incorrect to reject data generated by many
thousands of scientists, doctors and other experts who directly observed the
suffering of millions affected by radioactive fallout in Belarus, Ukraine and
Russia, as “mismatching scientific protocols.” It is scientifically valid to find
ways to abstract the valuable information from these data.” Yablokov
goes on to list the ways in which this could be done.
But it was not done in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, and, in
this way, the true health consequences of the Chernobyl accident remain hidden.
The 2 million people, including 500,000 children still living in the worst
contaminated areas around Chernobyl suffer a myriad of illnesses. (According to
the Ministry of Health and Sciences in Belarus in 2000, 85% of the children in
the contaminated areas were ill, whereas that figure was 15% before the
accident in 1986 [14].)
Mita has made a brave decision. The pressure on health
professionals and other citizens in Japan to remain silent about the health
consequences of Fukushima, will lead to a health catastrophe there — not now,
but in the decades to come.
For more on Fukushima and Chernobyl see [15] Truth about Fukushima and other articles
in the series (SiS 55) and [16] Fukushima Crisis Goes Global (SiS 61).
References:
1. World Network for Saving Children from Radiation (2014). A Tokyo doctor who has moved to western Japan urges fellow doctors to promote radiation protection: A message from Dr Mita to his colleagues in Kodaira, Tokyo. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2014/07/16/a-tokyo-doctor-who-has-moved-to-western-japan-urges-fellow-doctors-to-promote-radiation-protection-a-message-from-dr-mita-to-his-colleagues-in-kodaira-city-t/
2. ENENews (2012). Gunderson: Tokyo soil so hot it should be sent to nuclear waste dump – Really severe releases hit city. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://enenews.com/gundersen-tokyo-soil-hot-be-shipped-radioactive-dump).
3. “Japan whistleblowers face crackdown under proposed state secrets law.” Justin McMurray, Guardian, 5 December 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014,http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/05/whistleblowers-japan-crackdown-state-secrets
4. Reporters without Borders (2013). Press freedom index 2013: Dashed hopes after spring. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html
5. Practical Arrangements between Fukushima Medical University and the International Atomic Energy Agency on Cooperation in the Area of Human Health. Accessed 25 August 2014,http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/energy/fukushima_2012/pdfs/fukushima_iaea_en_06.pdf
6. Belbéoch B. Responsabilités occidentales dans les conséquences sanitaires de la catastrophe de Tchernobyl, en Bélorussie, Ukraine et Russie. In Radioprotection et Droit nucléaire (eds. I Rens, J Jakubec, E George). Collection SEBES, 1998. English translation: Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia. http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/western_responsability.html 25/8/14
7. Greaves S. WHO report on Fukushima a travesty. Science in Society 55 2012, 38-39.
8. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionizing Radiation. United Nations, New York, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014,http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/13-85418_Report_2013_Annex_A.pdf
9. Wasserman H. Fukushima, the continuing catastrophe. The Ecologist, June 2014.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2433355/fukushima_the_continuing_catastrophe.html
10. Physicians for Social Responsibility USA et al. Critical Analysis of the UNSCEAR Report “Levels and effects of radiation exposure due to the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East-Japan Earthquake and tsunami.” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Berlin, 2014. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://ippnw-students.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UNSCEAR-Critique.pdf
11. World Network for Saving Children from Radiation. Dr Shigeru Mita addresses the need of blood examination among children in the Kanto area. 2013. Accessed 25 August 2014, http://www.save-children-from-radiation.org/2013/11/11/title-dr-shigeru-mita-addresses-the-need-of-blood-examination-among-children-in-the-kanto-area/
12. “Radioactive rubble reaction to haven in Japan.” Arnie Gundersen, Youtube. Accessed 25 August 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIr-QcsjKxE)
13. Yablokov AV, Nesterenko VB and Nesterenko AV. Consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe for public health and the environment 23 years later. Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences 1181, 2009, 318-326.
14. UN Human Rights Council. Seventh session. Point 3. A/HRC/7/NGO/33 22 February 2008.
15. Ho MW. Truth about Fukushima. Science in Society 55 2012,18-23.
16. Ho MW. Fukushima crisis goes global. Science in Society 61 2014, 4-9.
_______________
E.
From Historians
against War :
Date: 9 October
2014
Subject : Notes
10/9/14: Links to recent articles of interest.
http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/
Links to Recent Articles of Interest
"More
Questions Than Answers in War Against Islamic State"
By William
Pfaff, TruthDig.org, posted October 7
"ISIS in Washington: America's
Soundtrack of Hysteria"
By Tom
Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com, posted October 7
"The
Futility of the Long U.S. War in the Middle East"
By Paul
R. Pillar, The National Interest blog, posted October 6
The
author spent 28 years with the CIA and now teaches at Georgetown University in
security studies.
"Ellsberg
Sees Vietnam-Like Risks in ISIS War"
Interview
with Daniel Ellsberg by Barbara Koeppel,
CommonDreams.org, posted October 6
"The Yasukuni Shuffle: China and Japan Duke It Out on T.V.
Serials on the Wrongs of World War II"
By Philip
J. Cunningham, Informed Comment blog, posted October 6
"Even If
We Defeat the Islamic State, We'll Still Lose the Bigger War"
By Andrew
J. Bacevich, Washington Post, posted
October 3
The
author, retired from teaching history at Boston Univesity,
is now a fellow at Columbia University's School of International and Public
Affairs.
By Scott
McConnell, The American Conservative, posted October 1
Subtitle
is "Netanyahu tries a terrorist bait and switch, like the one that worked
against Saddam."
"Kissinger Considered Attack
on Cuba Following Angola Incursion"
By the National
Security Archive, posted October 1
Includes
links to the relevant documents
"The
Pillars of Arab Despotism"
By Robert
F. Worth, New York Review of Books, posted September 16
Review
essay on books by Juan Cole and Shadi Hamid
____________________
This list was edited by Steve Gosch and Jim O'Brien, with thanks to Frank Brodhead, Mim Jackson, Rosalyn Baxandall,
and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles that are included above.
From : Information Clearing House :
Subject : Israel,
the deadly myth.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
Castro accused the U.S.-led Western alliance of promoting a “war of extermination” against the Russian Federation.
Fidel Castro Compares NATO
Chief to IS
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article39916.htm
_______________
G.
From Democracy Now! :
Date: 18
September 2014
Subject: The People’s Climate March in New York City.
Jeff
Cohen, from Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, says Webb
exposed how the CIA supported the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua by trafficking
cocaine, leading to an epidemic of crack use in major US cities. See:
Journalist Gary Webb Gets the Last Word in the
new Hollywood film, "Kill the Messenger"
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12510
+
Inside the Dark
Alliance: Gary Webb on the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/10/6/inside_the_dark_alliance_gary_webb
_______________
H.
From
Mark Crispin Miller :
Dates: 11
October 2014
Subject: WiFi
sickens teacher, students in Los Angeles (school permits no incident reports).
Los Angeles Unified School District Accommodates Teacher Who Fell
Ill After Wireless Installation
Students
were bleeding from the ears and nose and no incident reports were allowed by
the school states the teacher who required medical intervention.
The National Association for Children and Safe Technology, Oct 10, 2014
YouTube video: http://bit.ly/1vXgwAY (3
minutes)
PRLog - Oct. 10, 2014
- In the Fall of 2014, LAUSD, the second largest public school district in
the US, officially accommodated teacher Ms. Anura
Lawson by approving her request to have the Wi-Fi turned off in her classroom
during the 2014-2015 school year and alternatively approving a reassignment to
a different school site where Wi-Fi has yet to be installed.
The Middle School teacher reported that she fell seriously ill after a wireless
system upgrade in her school in Spring 2014. She described her cardiac
symptoms during a May 28, LAUSD Common Core Tech Project meeting. Ms. Lawson
also stated, “The students are having nosebleeds and the main offices are
refusing to do incident reports. I have had two seventh grade students
bleeding out of their ears.” See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wghaMbzRnb4&feature=youtu.be
This is the first accommodation in a US public school system for microwave
sickness.
Microwave sickness, also known as electro hypersensitivity (EHS), is not widely
recognized in the US. However, physicians in many other countries are
familiar with this medical condition and the diagnosis is more common.
EHS symptoms include: headaches, dizziness, anxiety, rapid heart beat (tachycardia) and irregular heart beat
(arrhythmia), ear and nose bleeds, tinnitus, red and irritated eyes, increased
mucous and upper airway congestion, itchy skin rashes, abdominal pain, poor
focus and attention, memory and sleep problems.
In March 2012, the Austrian Medical Association recognized and developed EHS
treatment guidelines. In the United States, adverse effects were
identified before 1988 when a US Air Force Review stated that
"Experimental evidence has shown that exposure to low intensity radiation
can have a profound effect on biological processes."
The LAUSD Board of Education went ahead with a wireless technology plan in
February 2013, even after they were presented with numerous letters from many
noted medical doctors and researchers, including the American Academy of
Environmental Medicine, imploring them to use wired technology in the classroom
because of the health impacts from wireless radiation. See http://wifiinschools.com/lausd-testimony.html
Wireless LAUSD classrooms typically employ 30+ devices (iPads)
in addition to an industrial-sized router. These devices all emit microwave
radiation and represent an unprecedented level of exposure to children.
Decades of accumulated research show wireless radiation damages neurological,
immune, and reproductive systems in addition to increasing cancer risk.
Professor Olle Johansson, Karolinksa
Institute, Stockholm Sweeden, has stated that
wireless radiation exposure studies have indicated “irreversible sterility
within five generations.” As this damage is cumulative, the longer the
radiation exposure, the greater the health impact over time.
"We are getting reports of headaches and cardiac issues from across the
country. The time to act is now," stated a spokesperson for the
National Association for Children and Safe Technology (NACST).
NACST is an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the health impacts
of wireless radiation on children. They are calling for schools to use
wired Internet only. Their website details both the accumulated research
showing wireless radiation’s acute as well as long term health impacts.
The National Association for Children and Safe Technology
http// www.nacst.org
contact@nacst.org
Joel M. Moskowitz, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Family and Community Health
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley
Center: http://cfch.berkeley.edu
Electromagnetic Radiation Safety
Website: http://www.saferemr.com
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/SaferEMR
News Releases: http://pressroom.prlog.org/jmm716/
Twitter:
@berkeleyprc
_______________
I.
From
Truth Out :
Dates: 12
October 2014
Subject: A Brief History of US Military Bombings.
From Pol Pot to ISIS: US Bombing
Puts "Anything That Flies on Everything That Moves"
by
John Pilger
_______________
J.
From
Mark Crispin Miller :
Dates: 12
October 2014
Subject:
Wal-Mart cuts health benefits for 30,000 workers as its profits rise while also
buying tons of shrimp linked to international slave labor (as does Costco).
Home
Depot,
Target,
Trader
Joe's and Walgreens have likewise cut health benefits for their workers
while their profits rise.
MCM
Wal-Mart Cuts
Health Benefits for 30,000 Employees
as Profits Continue
to Rise
by Andrew Emett
[Starting
in January 1, 2015, employees who work less than 30 hours per week will no
longer be offered health benefits. Meanwhile, Walmart
is showing a growth of 2.8% from last year’s $116.1 billion in net sales.]
Starting
in January 1, 2015, employees who work less than 30 hours per week will no
longer be offered health benefits. Meanwhile, Walmart
is showing a growth of 2.8% from last year’s $116.1 billion in net sales.
Despite
rising income and sales figures, Wal-Mart announced plans on Tuesday to
terminate health benefits for 30,000 part-time employees at the end of the
year. Majority shareholders and heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, the Walton
family refuses to provide a living wage to their workforce who requires public
assistance in order to survive. Endorsing international slave labor, Wal-Mart
purchases inventory from a food conglomerate that routinely commits human
rights violations against unpaid and abused workers.
In
a blog ironically titled “Providing Quality
Health Benefits for Our Associates,” Wal-Mart Senior Vice President Sally Welborn declared America’s largest retailer will no longer
provide health benefits to part-time employees working less than 30 hours per
week. In 2011, Wal-Mart cut benefits for new associates working less than 24
hours per week. And in 2012, the corporation ceased offering coverage to new
employees working less than 30 hours per week. But starting on January 1, 2015,
all associates working less than 30 hours will be affected.
Wal-Mart
joins Home Depot, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Walgreens in dropping health
benefits for part-time employees despite increases in net income and sales. In
Wal-Mart’s most recent quarterly filing, the company reported
$4.09 billion in net income and $119.3 billion in net sales. That is a growth
of 2.8% from last year’s $116.1 billion in net sales.
In
February, Wal-Mart estimated health care costs to be approximately $330 million
for the fiscal year. Due to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, Wal-Mart now
expects an increase of $170 million in health care costs. Currently, Wal-Mart’s
cheapest plan costs employees as low as $18.40 per paycheck, but next year the
cost will rise to $21.90. Employees losing their Wal-Mart coverage will now be
eligible for government subsidies on Obamacare
exchanges.
Wal-Mart’s
low-wage employees cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps,
Medicaid, and subsidized housing. A single Wal-Mart Supercenter costs taxpayers
between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year. Capturing 18% of the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) market, Wal-Mart admittedly accounts for
$13.5 billion out of the $76 billion in food stamp sales last year.
Adding
insult to injury, the Walton family boasts a net
worth of $144.7 billion. Exploiting multiple legal loopholes to
avoid estate tax, the Waltons have retained their
fortune by adroitly evading social responsibility.
“The
whole tax structure since I came to Congress actually has gotten more and more
unfair,” admitted Rep. James McDermott who has sponsored unsuccessful bills
attempting to close estate-tax loopholes.
While
business tycoons like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have given 36.2% and 26.9%
of their respective wealth to charitable causes, the Waltons
have merely donated 0.04% of their fortune. In contrast to America’s richest
family, the average middle class person earning a salary between $50,000 and
$99,000 contributes 6% of their discretionary income to charity.
As
Wal-Mart continues to exploit its own employees, the giant retailer also
purchases massive amounts of shrimp linked to international slave labor. Both Wal-Mart and Costco
purchase shrimp from Charoen Pokphand (CP) Foods, the world’s largest shrimp
farmer. CP Foods feeds its farmed shrimp with fishmeal purchased from suppliers
that own or operate fishing boats manned with slaves. Against their will,
slaves endure 20-hour shifts, regular beatings, torture, and execution-style
killings aboard these boats.
“I
thought I was going to die,” said Vuthy, a former
monk from Cambodia who had been sold from captain to captain. “They kept me
chained up, they didn’t care about me or give me any food… They sold us like
animals, but we are not animals – we are human beings.”
_______________
K.
From
Reader Supported News :
Dates: 11
October 2014
Subject: Police
Using Military-Grade Weapons in US High Schools.
http://readersupportednews.org/
A police officer patrols the hallways at a Virginia high school. (photo: Jahi Chikwendiu/Getty Images)
Why Are Police Using
Military-Grade Weapons in High Schools?
by Molly Knefel