Work Sucks: The Case for Quitting Your Job

The Great Everything and the Nothing

The Oumun Group (2016)

Film Review

The Great Everything and the Nothing is a semi-satirical documentary elucidating the philosophy of the Oomun Group. The latter is a loosely knit organization in the UK which advocates the formation of a new society devoid of the corrupting influence of government and money. The film is cleverly constructed by interspersing clips of group members doing random interviews on the street with those of Prince Charles, John Lennon, Ricky Gervais and other comic figures.

The video is divided into 5 parts:

Part 1 is the trailer.

Part 2 asks why human beings have created a system causing “shitloads” of unnecessary suffering. It proceeds to propose an alternative system based on self-governance.

Part 3 outlines the various crises (debt, climate, energy, food, etc) that presently confront humankind. The first half of Part 3 is excerpted from the film Money as Debt and explains how private banks create money out of thin air (ends at 13:00).

Part 4 focuses on the food and energy crises, exploring various technological innovations that could potentially resolve these crises in a society unfettered by government or money.  Specific innovations include aeroponic food production, distributed energy and the use of hemp and cannabis to replace timber, plastics, paper, leather and the poisons used in cancer chemotherapy.

Part 5 advances the premise that politicians who make war and torture people are mentally ill and should be required to undergo psychiatric treatment (in a secure facility where they can’t hurt anyone). The filmmakers believe all human beings are capable of “grotesque” actions of this nature. They also maintain that people are soft wired for engagement, belonging and attachment, needs which are easily manipulated to create phony empathy based on religion and nationalism. They assert this systematic manipulation has created a “veil” between us and reality that allows us to accept barbarism such as war, homelessness and malnutrition.

This final section also explains how the Ouman Group proposes for our current society to transition to one based on self government. Above all, they advocate for people to quit jobs that suck to actively explore other ways of meeting their basic needs (eg squatting and producing their own food and water).

Rethinking Cancer Treatment

 

Restoring Immunity Rather than Destroying It

As western medicine comes under ever greater domination by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, a growing health freedom movement advocates for patients’ right to choose non-corporate health care options. Nowhere is the importance of choice more urgent than in cancer treatment. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy, the primary treatments recommended by the health industry, rarely “cure” or eliminate cancer. These treatments are associated with low survival rates, especially in aggressive and advanced cancer;  a high recurrence rate; and brutal, often fatal, side effects. There’s also something innately illogical about a treatment approach that destroys immune function in order to eradicate cancer.

Anyone watching a family member or close friend go through the cruel agony of chemotherapy can’t help but question this treatment approach. An oncologist recently gave a friend of mine with severe metastatic bowel a 33% chance of extended her life for a two to three months with chemotherapy. The continuous vomiting, soul destroying lethargy and pneumonia (her immune system shut down) made these last few months a living hell. It baffled me the oncologist would even recommend this approach. Especially given the growing research into cancer treatments that enhance immunity rather than destroying it.

The first video is an interview with Ty Ballinger, author of Cancer: Step Outside the Box. In it, Ballinger focuses mainly on the origin of the current cancer epidemic and cancer prevention. In 1900, one person out of fifty people developed cancer. In 2014, one out of two residents of the industrialized world suffers from it.

Epidemiological research reveals this massive increase clearly stems from environmental causes. According to Ballinger, the main environmental causes of cancer include ionizing (nuclear) and electromagnetic (from cellphone and wifi technology) radiation, heavy metals, industrial toxins, fluoride, chlorine, genetically modified (GMO) foods and the endocrine disruptors found in herbicides, pesticides, cosmetics and cleaning products.

Avoiding processed foods and eating organic fruits, vegetables and meat is an important first step in avoiding GMOs, herbicides, pesticides and other industrial toxins.

Though he only briefly discusses treatment, Ballinger is clearly part of the growing movement that views cancer as symptomatic of impaired immunity, rather than a foreign body to be cut out and burned away with radiation and toxic poisons.

Although he has detailed knowledge of multiple natural and alternative cancer treatments, he only has time to discuss one:  high cannabidiol (CBD) cannabis oil, presently legal in all fifty states.  Current scientific research shows CBD to be highly effective in treating twelve types of cancer.

Ballinger writes in depth about other holistic cancer treatments at his website: http://www.cancertruth.net/

Dying to Have Known

The second video Dying to Have Known (2006) concerns Gerson therapy, the most extensively researched immunity-focused cancer treatment. Most of the research is Japanese (500 case studies) although Gerson published more than thirty studies (mainly in German) during his lifetime. There are also Gerson clinics in Mexico, Netherlands and Spain.

Gerson therapy consists of a diet based mainly on raw organic fruits and vegetables and juices, accompanied by coffee enemas. Max Gerson originally came up with the treatment as a cure for tuberculosis. He also found it to be effective for a wide range of “degenerative” illnesses, include migraines and multiple sclerosis. Detailed dietary instructions can be found at Get Started

The film features numerous interviews with patients with documented cures, via the Gerson method, of so-called “untreatable” cancers. Filmmaker Steve Kroschel also interviews some of Gerson’s staunchest critics. The latter repeatedly emphasize the need for cancer treatment to be “evidence based” – yet refuse to examine any of the European or Japanese research into Gerson therapy.

What comes across most clearly is the greater freedom European and Japanese doctors enjoy in prescribing non-pharmaceutical treatments for cancer and other degenerative conditions. Filmmaker Steve Kroschel drives this point home when he reveals that numerous traditionally trained US doctors refused to speak on camera, owing to fears of being blackballed (or worse) by the American medical establishment.

photo credit: faith goble via photopin cc

Also posted at Veterans Today

Medicinal Plants and Poison-Free Cancer Treatment

(In my last of four posts about the effectiveness of natural health care, I offer two videos.)

1. Video #1:  Numen: The Healing Power of Plants by Terrence Youk and Ann Armbrech (2009).

Numen is as much about the environmental health crisis as about plant-based medicine. It stresses that herbal medicine, the primary form of medical treatment for most of human history, remains the primary form of medical intervention for most of the world’s inhabitants. The western medical model that developed in the industrialized world is a fluke. It also has major drawbacks as well as advantages. Rates of chronic illness – such as diabetes, arthritis, and autoimmune and neurodegenerative disease – a far higher in developed countries. Even as our deaths from trauma and infectious disease decline sharply.

According to the film, it’s not western medicine per se causing an increase in these chronic illnesses. The main cause is heavy exposure to a score of industrially produced chemicals. A 2005 study by the Center for Disease Control reveals that Americans carry an average of 148 toxic chemicals in their bloodstream. Even more alarming, these toxins concentrate in breast milk which, ironically, has become the most toxic baby food available.

The scientific explanation Numen offers for the effectiveness of plant-based medicine seems quite reasonable. Human beings, who share 60% of the same DNA as a banana, co-evolved with advanced plant species over millions of years.

The video can’t be embedded owing for copyright reasons. However it can be seen for free at Dr Mercola’s website

Video #2:  The Cancer Report Health Wyze (2011)

The Cancer Report is really a slide show set to music (I recommend turning your volume down). It also explores the link between a dramatic increase in environmental toxins and the current cancer epidemic. Prior to the 20th century, cancer was considered a medical oddity. Much of the film traces the role of oil and chemical baron John D Rockefeller in funding medical schools in the US and Canada – provided they agreed to discard traditional holistic methods in favor of drug-based (chemical-based) treatment.

I found the section on Dr Otto Warburg, who won the 1931 Nobel Prize for Medicine, particularly enlightening. Warburg identified how and why cancer cells develop – specifically as a result of cells being deprived of oxygen. According to the video, most “alternative” cancer therapies are based on Warburg’s work, in that they try to increase cell oxygenation. In chemotherapy, in contrast, patients are given powerful poisons that often kill them rather than the cancer. Moreover chemotherapy never cures the cancer, but merely sends it into remission.

The last half of The Cancer Report catalogs the most effective alternative cancer therapies, providing a detailed description of how they were developed, how they work, and their relative success rate.

The data presented about the poor survival rates related to chemotherapy and radiation therapy are both accurate and concerning. Five years ago, a close friend opted for a grueling course of chemotherapy that offered zero chance of remission and a 33% chance of extending her life for six months. In her shoes, I definitely would have opted for one of the alternative treatments outlined in the film.

Caveat: There are a number of claims made in the video that can’t be substantiated – for example that mammograms cause breast cancer. It’s true that any radiation exposure increases cancer risk and that mammograms don’t reduce breast cancer deaths (see How Mammograms Don’t Save Lives). The fact remains medical science still has no way of linking a specific cancer to a specific environmental exposure.

photo credit: BioDivLibrary via photopin cc