Breaking News: The Death of "Expectations" - News Paper

A woman sits passed out on heroin under a bridge where she lives with other addicts in the Kensington section of Philadelphia which has become a hub for heroin use on January 24, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (AFP photo)

Photo courtesy PressTV

The above scene, depicting the hopelessness and despair associated with the homelessness epidemic in North America is a familiar one.  Why, I can just take my dogs on a walk not more than five blocks from my home and see a similar sight here in the Vancouver Lower Mainland...the drug-addicted and mentally ill...with their mountains of trash...taking up habitation on some public lands...mainly public park land, depressing and demoralizing all who happen to come upon them in their spreading filth and disease.

It's almost...wait...let's not kid ourselves...it IS as if the PTB are deliberately encouraging this breakdown of society...to lower public expectations...so they can spend our tax dollars...not on the social needs of society...but on the avariciousness of the already rich.  Tax dollars in the billion$ for military and corporate hegemony rather than shoring up society.  You won't see photos like the above in the M$M...they're ordered to avoid such "truthiness" because it might stir up the somnolent citizenry.  But you will see them in foreign media, like Iran's national news organization, "PressTV" where I saw the photo.  Iran is one of the countries that is the target of the perps.  They want to destroy it and steal its resources.  It is military spending for the coming "War on Iran" that makes it impossible to deal with the growing putrefaction of society at home.  So, it is in Iran's interests to hold up a mirror for North Americans so we can see what we look like to others.

Please read the accompanying article from PressTV and I will have final thoughts to follow:

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Drug , alcohol abuse lowering US life expectancy: Report

US life expectancy fell for the second year in a row in 2016 as drugs, alcohol and suicide contributed to a public health crisis, according to a British medical study.

Americans are more likely to engage in "unhealthy behaviors" like drug abuse, firearm ownership and high caloric intake, based a report released Wednesday by The BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

The study said the opioid epidemic is "just the tip of the iceberg" of an even larger public health crisis in the United States. The report is based on data from the World Bank.

"Between 2000 and 2014, the rate of fatal drug overdoses rose by 137 percent, a crisis fueled by the growing use of highly addictive opioid drugs," the BMJ report said.

"In 2015 alone, more than 64 000 Americans died from drug overdoses, exceeding the number of US casualties in the Vietnam War."

The study found that US life expectancy fell to 78.6 years in 2016, a decrease of 0.1 years from the year before, a statistically significant drop. Life expectancy in 2017 has not yet been calculated.

The research said suicides and alcohol use have also been growing, with the suicide rate climbing 24 percent between 1999 and 2014 , an increase affecting mainly European Americans, persons with limited education and women.

"The answer [is] likely some combination of factors in American life-must explain why the rise in mortality is greatest in white, middle aged adults and certain rural communities," the report said.

"Possibilities include the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed."

The BMJ report added that although the United States is a rich country, its wealth is "not inclusive" and the "American Dream" is increasingly out of reach.

The study comes after a report in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that life expectancy for Americans had fallen for the second straight year due to drug overdoses.

A total of 63,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, up 21 percent from 2015, the CDC said.

In November, US President Donald Trump declared the US drug crisis a “public health emergency.” He also announced an advertising campaign to combat the epidemic, but did not direct any new federal funding toward the effort."

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Greencrow comments:  Human beings lying around in the open, exposed to the elements like trash have become the "new normal" in North America.  You're not supposed to say anything to them when you see them.  You have to act like they're not "there" and avert your eyes.  No kidding! This is what you have to do.  Otherwise, you're breaking some unwritten "code" if you call them on their disgusting spreading squalor.  You're risking that they might attack you with one of their needles or fling one of their toilet paper rolls in your direction. Most of them are mentally unstable, after all.  Suddenly, it's as if they "own" that tiny clearing under the cedar tree by the stream.  It's their "right" to "do their thing" for as long as they want.

This is the new "expectation".  Who is condoning and encouraging it?  Well, I'm old enough to remember when it just didn't exist.  There were NO homeless druggies in the bushes.  In fact, this new "expectation" is only about 15 to 20 years old.  Coinkadynkally...the rise in homelessness and drug addiction coincides with the length of time the US has been in Afghanistan...running the global drug trade from there.  Do you think "BIG PHARMA" has something to gain from it?

I have travelled far and wide enough to have visited countries where homelessness STILL is not a "normal expectation".  How is it that Russia and Turkey, with much smaller economic bases...still have no homeless in their societies?  Turkey, in spite of the millions of refugees it has been forced to accept and maintain--due to the Ziofascist driven wars in the Middle East, STILL had no homeless when I visited there in 2015.  Perhaps in those societies there is still the concept of "family" and "community" who are able to provide more than "the great outdoors" to the weak and addicted. 

So, in summary, I have to ask the age old question..."Qui bono"?  Who is benefiting from the drastic lowering of expectations in the West...resulting in the "death" of expectations in the young.  Starting from the pathetically unchallenging "education" system [garbage in--garbage out] resulting in a youth so intellectually, psychologically and socially maimed that they're offing themselves with opiates at an epidemic rate.  Two young men within my own circle of family and friends offed themselves in the past year.

Well, I spoke about the Octopus of Lawlessness in a recent post.  I think I can connect the dots between those who benefit from chaos [in all its forms] i.e.,...the global, coordinated breakdown of the Rule of Law...and "The Death of Expectations".

from Greencrow As The Crow Flies http://ift.tt/2Bl4POD
Breaking News: The Death of "Expectations" - News Paper