From the London Guardian:
Computer security experts have warned that the 2013 Oscars ballot may be vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences follows through on its decision to switch to internet voting for its members.
The Academy announced last week that it would be ditching its current vote-by-mail system and allowing its members to fill out electronic ballots from their home or office computers to make their choices for best picture and the other big Hollywood prizes, starting in 2013.
It announced a partnership with Everyone Counts, a California-based company which has developed software for internet elections from Australia to Florida, and which boasted it would incorporate "multiple layers of security" and "military-grade encryption techniques" to maintain its reputation for scrupulous honesty in respecting its members' voting preferences.
The ballot change will be a culture shock for an Academy voting community that tends to be older and more conservative: indeed, concerns are already surfacing as to whether all of the Academy voters even have email addresses.
But Everyone Counts' security claims have been met with deep scepticism by a computer scientist community which has grappled for years with the problem of making online elections fully verifiable while maintaining ballot secrecy – in other words, being rigorous about auditing the voting process, but still making sure nobody knows who voted for what. So far, nobody has demonstrated that such a thing is possible.
"Everybody would like there to be secure internet voting, but some very smart people have looked at the problem and can't figure out how to do it," said David Dill, a professor of computer science at Stanford University and founder of the election transparency group Verified Voting. "The problem arises as soon as you decouple the voter from the recorded vote. If someone casts a ballot for best actor A and the vote is recorded for best actor B, the voter has no way of knowing the ballot has been altered, and the auditor won't be able to see it either."
Dill and many other leading computer scientists have listed multiple potential vulnerabilities to internet systems making vote-tampering possible, including denial-of-service attacks, malware, and penetration of the server's security wall. He reacted with particular alarm to the notion that the Academy's more than 5,000 voters would cast their ballots from their own computers.
"The hardest problem is when you have malicious software on the machine where the vote is cast," he said. "If that's the user's home PC, that's a huge problem, because lots of people have undetected viruses on their machine. A lot of people are under the control of hackers in eastern Europe, or wherever, and don't even know it."
Three years ago – in the wake of a decision by the Democratic party to let overseas voters participate in its presidential primary via internet – Dill issued a formal statement outlining the problems with internet voting, and persuaded 30 of America's top computer scientists to sign it...
Dill said his concern about the arrangement went well beyond the integrity of the Academy Awards themselves. Rather, he worried about the publicity implications of an awards ceremony broadcast to tens of millions of people across America and around the world.
"I don't want this to set a precedent and give a PR push to internet voting generally," he said. "I don't want the message to be: they used it for the Academy Awards, so it's OK to use it to vote for the president."
Full Article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/02/oscars-vulnerable-cyber-attack-experts-warn
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Ancient Wisdom Of The Infinite, Living Heart Of The Amazon
The Ancient Wisdom Of The Infinite, Living Heart Of The AmazonRichard Sauder
dr_samizdat1618@yahoo.com
Sunday, February 12, 2012 http://eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.com/2012/02/ancient-wisdom-of-infinite-living-heart.html
When I was younger I eagerly devoured the books of Carlos Castañeda as they appeared in print. I read and reread his descriptions of his encounters with the allies and the nagual. For me they were mysterious accounts of another world at serious odds with the insanity of the red-white-and-blue mental asylum north of the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo.
However, as I have spent more and more time in Latin America, beginning years ago in Mexico, I have found myself slowly being drawn onto the shamanic path. Back in the 1980s, I somehow managed to stumble across the path of some of Carlos Castañeda´s Mexican associates. A series of improbable events occurred over the course of several weeks that brought me face to face with the realization that, for whatever reason, I was interacting with a shamanic group whose life modus operandi and perception and mnanipulation of reality, whether physical, social or otherwise, was very substantially at variance with the rest of society.
More recently I have been involved with a number of South American shamans and the plant-based brews and concoctions that they use to access other realities. The effect for me has been to drive home the salient point that there is NO dividing line between the so-called physical world and spiritual realm.
The two are in fact part and parcel of the one and same continuum of reality, which is limitless in extent and mystery.
In recent weeks I have been working with malicagua, and even more so than ayahuasca or salvia divinorum, it has driven home to me the reality of the allies that Don Juan Matus taught Carlos Castañeda about. The same would be true of the nagual.
The shaman who is currently instructing me has told me that poweerful shamans of the past sometimes saw the essence of malicagua but that in its essential aspect it is impossible to rationally describe. It is beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Malicagua is not bound in any way that the human mind can conceive. It is limitless.
The variety of beings that it brings calling is truly stunning. Many of them appear to be ordinary, everyday humans; so ordinary, in fact, that repeatedly I have found myself asking the shaman if they are his covert confederates that he has slyly sent to trick me or confound me. He smiles and says, no, that these are all beings that mnalicagua is sending to me for its own unknown purposes and reasons.
In one recent ceremony an ordinary-looking man unobtrusively entered my field of vision as I sat quietly behind the shaman´s house. I perceived that he was sent by malicagua so I asked him if he had a message for me. He slowly turned toward me and silently beckoned for me to come closer. I approached him and he put his face right in front of mine. I then saw that this was no ordinary man and that his response was no ordinary answer, because his eyes were windows directly into the void. As I gazed at his eyes I saw that they opened directly into the limitless, indescribable, infinitude of total nothingness. Nothingness, because there are absolutely no words or mental concepts in our modern languages or cultures to describe or understand the reality of what his eyes expósed to my consciousness.
Sometime later, I became aware that another human being had appeared in front of me. This was a solitary Amazonian warrior wearing a mioderately large, circular feather headdress. He was very solemn, almost regal in his prospect. His head was backlit with a soft golden glow. His face was painted with a greenishish-blue pigment.
Later when I was describing him to the shaman it was his feeling that this man was a shaman-warrior from deeper in the Amazon, perhaps from Brazil or Peru, whom I may meet in person in the future.
When I was studying South American geography, back in the 1980s, the professor used to impress upon the class that the Amazon jungle is the lungs of the planet. Kill the Amazon, and the Earth as we know it is done. Now that I am here in South Amnerica I am sure that he was right. The fortunes of this planet and the human race rise and fall with the fortunes of the natural world, with the fortunes of the great forests on this planet, in particular, the grandest of them all, The Amazon.
As I meet more and more spirits of the forest, as the medicinal plants of South America speak to me and reveal more of themselves and their reality to me, ranging from spirit warrior allies carrying blow guns, bows, arrows and lances, and also a whole slew of very ordinary looking, Western European-type human beings, both male and female, to tree people, to hyper-conscious insect beings, to animals ranging from owls, to armadillos, snakes and javelinas, the veil between the natural spirit world and the everyday world of consensual social reality is becoming more and more tenuous.
In fact, this is what the so-called Powers That Be fear so much. They are in absolute dread of large numbers of people establishing a conscious connection with the natural world, because that fundamentally threatens the machine consciousness, the artificial, mechanical, machine driven control structure they have spent so many centuries clamping down on this planet.
But there is no future in their vision, no life juice in their hollow, mechanical, artificial reality that they impose by genocidal military force on people after people, country after country.
One of the things that malicagua has shown me is that the time is coming when humanity will run joyfully through the forest singing ecstatically at the top of our lungs in a magical, majestic symnphony of life, in planetary concert with the mighty trees of the deep forest. All of humanity in joyful, full throat harmony with the mighty, ancient trees of this world´s forests.
Huge changes will soon be upon us. Much of what is coming will be far different than what the so-called ruling elite of this planet expect. This is because they lack a spiritual core, they are hollow, soulless entities. For this reason, spiritual realities are incomprehensible to them, they cannot begin to fathom them.
But they have had their day. They have held sway and had their say. Chance after chance has been extended to them to turn from their ruinous, self-destructive course. Even now they could express genuine remorse for their multitudinous heinous deeds and throw themselves on the mercy of the Universe. But this presupposes a measure of humility and introspection that they appear to lack. And so it does appear that their fate is sealed. They will continue to cause enormous harm to the planet and all its creatures right up to the last instant --and then they will exit the global stage and a new era will begin
When I first began to drink malicagua the shaman came and took my watch from me. He said it was better for him to do that, because malicagua does not like watches. If people do not remove them beforehand, then after drinking malicagua they routinely remove their watches and fling them away into the underbrush. He also took my belt. Malicagua does not like leather either. People also routinely take off their belts and throw them away in the bushes.
Malicagua does not like to be metered or constrained. Just pure, infinite, natural consciousness, flowing like a mighty river straight from the Infinite Living Heart of the Amazon.
This is what the Powers That Be want to kill. But in the end, Mother Nature does prevail, in a manner that they absolutely do not expect, could never predict, do not comprehend, and moreover will not believe, not even when they are personally confronted with it to their very faces.
dr_samizdat1618@yahoo.com
Sunday, February 12, 2012 http://eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.com/2012/02/ancient-wisdom-of-infinite-living-heart.html
When I was younger I eagerly devoured the books of Carlos Castañeda as they appeared in print. I read and reread his descriptions of his encounters with the allies and the nagual. For me they were mysterious accounts of another world at serious odds with the insanity of the red-white-and-blue mental asylum north of the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo.
However, as I have spent more and more time in Latin America, beginning years ago in Mexico, I have found myself slowly being drawn onto the shamanic path. Back in the 1980s, I somehow managed to stumble across the path of some of Carlos Castañeda´s Mexican associates. A series of improbable events occurred over the course of several weeks that brought me face to face with the realization that, for whatever reason, I was interacting with a shamanic group whose life modus operandi and perception and mnanipulation of reality, whether physical, social or otherwise, was very substantially at variance with the rest of society.
More recently I have been involved with a number of South American shamans and the plant-based brews and concoctions that they use to access other realities. The effect for me has been to drive home the salient point that there is NO dividing line between the so-called physical world and spiritual realm.
The two are in fact part and parcel of the one and same continuum of reality, which is limitless in extent and mystery.
In recent weeks I have been working with malicagua, and even more so than ayahuasca or salvia divinorum, it has driven home to me the reality of the allies that Don Juan Matus taught Carlos Castañeda about. The same would be true of the nagual.
The shaman who is currently instructing me has told me that poweerful shamans of the past sometimes saw the essence of malicagua but that in its essential aspect it is impossible to rationally describe. It is beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Malicagua is not bound in any way that the human mind can conceive. It is limitless.
The variety of beings that it brings calling is truly stunning. Many of them appear to be ordinary, everyday humans; so ordinary, in fact, that repeatedly I have found myself asking the shaman if they are his covert confederates that he has slyly sent to trick me or confound me. He smiles and says, no, that these are all beings that mnalicagua is sending to me for its own unknown purposes and reasons.
In one recent ceremony an ordinary-looking man unobtrusively entered my field of vision as I sat quietly behind the shaman´s house. I perceived that he was sent by malicagua so I asked him if he had a message for me. He slowly turned toward me and silently beckoned for me to come closer. I approached him and he put his face right in front of mine. I then saw that this was no ordinary man and that his response was no ordinary answer, because his eyes were windows directly into the void. As I gazed at his eyes I saw that they opened directly into the limitless, indescribable, infinitude of total nothingness. Nothingness, because there are absolutely no words or mental concepts in our modern languages or cultures to describe or understand the reality of what his eyes expósed to my consciousness.
Sometime later, I became aware that another human being had appeared in front of me. This was a solitary Amazonian warrior wearing a mioderately large, circular feather headdress. He was very solemn, almost regal in his prospect. His head was backlit with a soft golden glow. His face was painted with a greenishish-blue pigment.
Later when I was describing him to the shaman it was his feeling that this man was a shaman-warrior from deeper in the Amazon, perhaps from Brazil or Peru, whom I may meet in person in the future.
When I was studying South American geography, back in the 1980s, the professor used to impress upon the class that the Amazon jungle is the lungs of the planet. Kill the Amazon, and the Earth as we know it is done. Now that I am here in South Amnerica I am sure that he was right. The fortunes of this planet and the human race rise and fall with the fortunes of the natural world, with the fortunes of the great forests on this planet, in particular, the grandest of them all, The Amazon.
As I meet more and more spirits of the forest, as the medicinal plants of South America speak to me and reveal more of themselves and their reality to me, ranging from spirit warrior allies carrying blow guns, bows, arrows and lances, and also a whole slew of very ordinary looking, Western European-type human beings, both male and female, to tree people, to hyper-conscious insect beings, to animals ranging from owls, to armadillos, snakes and javelinas, the veil between the natural spirit world and the everyday world of consensual social reality is becoming more and more tenuous.
In fact, this is what the so-called Powers That Be fear so much. They are in absolute dread of large numbers of people establishing a conscious connection with the natural world, because that fundamentally threatens the machine consciousness, the artificial, mechanical, machine driven control structure they have spent so many centuries clamping down on this planet.
But there is no future in their vision, no life juice in their hollow, mechanical, artificial reality that they impose by genocidal military force on people after people, country after country.
One of the things that malicagua has shown me is that the time is coming when humanity will run joyfully through the forest singing ecstatically at the top of our lungs in a magical, majestic symnphony of life, in planetary concert with the mighty trees of the deep forest. All of humanity in joyful, full throat harmony with the mighty, ancient trees of this world´s forests.
Huge changes will soon be upon us. Much of what is coming will be far different than what the so-called ruling elite of this planet expect. This is because they lack a spiritual core, they are hollow, soulless entities. For this reason, spiritual realities are incomprehensible to them, they cannot begin to fathom them.
But they have had their day. They have held sway and had their say. Chance after chance has been extended to them to turn from their ruinous, self-destructive course. Even now they could express genuine remorse for their multitudinous heinous deeds and throw themselves on the mercy of the Universe. But this presupposes a measure of humility and introspection that they appear to lack. And so it does appear that their fate is sealed. They will continue to cause enormous harm to the planet and all its creatures right up to the last instant --and then they will exit the global stage and a new era will begin
When I first began to drink malicagua the shaman came and took my watch from me. He said it was better for him to do that, because malicagua does not like watches. If people do not remove them beforehand, then after drinking malicagua they routinely remove their watches and fling them away into the underbrush. He also took my belt. Malicagua does not like leather either. People also routinely take off their belts and throw them away in the bushes.
Malicagua does not like to be metered or constrained. Just pure, infinite, natural consciousness, flowing like a mighty river straight from the Infinite Living Heart of the Amazon.
This is what the Powers That Be want to kill. But in the end, Mother Nature does prevail, in a manner that they absolutely do not expect, could never predict, do not comprehend, and moreover will not believe, not even when they are personally confronted with it to their very faces.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
http://vimeo.com/35404908
Moonbot Studios, the animation studio behind this film, is gaining hype as "The Pixar of the iPad age." If this is any indication, the studio has earned the hype. To read more about Moonbot on The Atlantic and see more photos from the film:
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/02/the-pixar-of-the-ipad-age-goes-to-the-academy-awards-with-its-short-film/252703
Moonbot Studios:
http://www.moonbotstudios.com
Moonbot's description of the film:
Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/ illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a new narrative experience that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals. “Morris Lessmore” is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.
“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” was the winner of best animated short film of 2011 at the 84th Academy Awards...
The 'Mac' of all trades
Glenview woman reflects on naming famous burger, 45 years later
Alan P. Henry
January 30, 2012
http://www.glenviewlantern.com/Articles-News-c-2012-01-30-235637.114133-The-Mac-of-all-trades.html
Robalini's Note: Esther Rose is the mother of Konformist Kontributing Editor Scott Rose.
The next time you prepare to chomp into a Big Mac, take a moment first to thank Esther Glickstein Rose of Glenview.
She's the one who named it, and without her dogged persistence, the iconic sandwich may never have become a McDonald's product.
The story begins 45 years ago on a snowy winter day in downtown Chicago in 1967.
With ten dollars to her name, the 17-year-old Von Steuben High School graduate saw an ad for a secretary at McDonald's corporate headquarters. Poorly dressed and soaking wet from the commute into the LaSalle Street office, she was spotted in a hallway by a company official, who promptly hired her.
"I guess she felt sorry for me, the way I looked," said Esther, 65, who has lived in Glenview since 1978.
One day soon thereafter, the head of product development stopped by her desk, told her he was headed to a board meeting where they were going to name a new double burger product and asked for her suggestions.
"I just said off the top of my head, 'Big Mac, that's it!'"
He dismissed her idea and told her they were going to name it the Blue Ribbon Burger.
"I started laughing and told him that was a dumb name," she said.
He then told her, while he stood there, to write down ten reasons not to name it the Blue Ribbon Burger, and also to list ten other names.
She quickly typed ten reasons to nix their choice, and only one name: Big Mac.
The board chose Blue Ribbon Burger, test marketed it in Quad Cities, and it bombed.
A few months later, the manager said they were going to try again, this time calling it the Aristocrat.
She laughed, called it a "dumb" idea and again made the case for the Big Mac.
The board went with Aristocrat, test marketed it in Peoria, and it bombed again. The idea of a double burger dropped out of sight.
Fast-forwarding to 1972, Esther decided not to follow McDonald's out to its new headquarters in Oak Brook, got married and moved to Niles.
One day she walked into the McDonald's on Milwaukee Avenue in Glenview and there, on the menu, was the Big Mac!
Word spread over the years that the name Big Mac was Esther's idea.
Word also spread that McDonald's refused to compensate her, first arguing that she was an employee when she came up with the name, then many years later arguing that the statute of limitations had run out on a claim.
There were letter writing campaigns at several Glenview schools, supportive interviews with the likes of radio hosts Wally Phillips, Uncle Bobby, and Eddie and JoBo and, to this day, periodic stories on TV and in the news.
Maxim magazine even talked to her about a photo shoot using Big Macs in strategic places. "No, thank you," she said.
In 1985, McDonald's did finally send her a plaque, thanking her for her "contribution to the development of the Big Mac." But no money.
"I am not bitter," said Esther. "We've had so much fun with it. Over the years, people would say, 'there's the Big Mac lady.' And they'd want an autograph." She recalled that one fan letter was sent from New Jersey to the Glenview post office addressed to "Big Mac Lady."
But the events of forty years ago have played only a small role in Esther's life.
Her parents were among the very few members of their two families to survive the Holocaust, and came to America in 1948. Esther was eight when her mother died of cancer in 1955. But suffering only made her stronger.
"I pledged to make a good life for myself and make the best life for my children and pass a smile on to others," she said.
True to her pledge, Esther became a woman with many passions and interests, none of them requiring a toasted sesame seed bun.
At the head of the line are her two sons, Scott and Bradley, and two grandchildren.
In 2010, she received the Illinois Association of Park Districts Community Service Award in recognition of what is now 34 years of service supervising the Glenview Park District's adult volleyball program. A lifelong volleyball player, standing 5 feet 1 inch tall, she currently runs two programs a week for 28 players per class.
Theater is another of her passions. She is on the board of the Highland Park Players, which will soon be celebrating their 25th anniversary and has performed in numerous community theater productions.
A lifelong animal lover, she volunteers as an administrative assistant at the Heartland Animal Shelter in Northbrook, "where [she feels] most rewarded."
"I have never seen such dedicated people who come rain, sleet or snow to care for these animals and work so hard to find them a good home," she said.
One of her favorite quotes is: "Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." She followed that message as two of Heartland's cats, Petey and Delsie, now live with Esther.
Esther can also be found at the Glenview Library assisting people, golfing, making photo collages, and riding with her partner, Rick Metz, on his Harley. She's penned numerous short stories and produced a book of over 100 poems, too. Her latest fascination?
"Tap dancing," she says with an enchanting smile. "A teacher once commented about me, 'I try my best.' I may not be the best at many things, but I always try my best."
She also worked for 14 years as an advertising sales assistant for Gulf Publishing, and would love to pick up a similar post-time position today to help make ends meet.
Of course, in that regard, there's always the chance McDonald's may at long last make amends, too.
"It is not too late," smiled Esther. "If they still want to give me something I would love it."
We Must Free the Revolutionary Health Discoveries of Dr. Hulda Clark
Steven A. SwanDr. Clark Consultant
Over the past few years Big Medicine (i.e., the huge, multinational pharmaceutical companies as well as the beneficiaries of other high-profit medical modalities [surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, diagnostics, cancer research, etc.) and the corporate-controlled mainstream media (MSM) have effectively marginalized the revolutionary health-related discoveries and inventions of Dr. Hulda Clark, Ph.D., N.D. Big Medicine has done so using its vast financial resources to fund its many willing minions, including the mainstream medical research industry. The mainstream media has proactively aided and abetted Big Medicine. We must not allow this travesty to continue.
Dr. Clark’s Discoveries and Inventions
Hulda Regehr Clark received her Ph.D. in the biological sciences way back in 1959 when it was much more difficult to earn a doctorate degree than it is today. Her many years of subsequent research in this field led her to discover the two true reasons behind virtually every disease—1) that the increased number of toxins which we continually take into our bodies compromise our immune systems’ ability to protect us and directly cause some of our ailments and diseases, and 2) that our compromised immune systems are unable to repel foreign invaders such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc., which also can contribute to or directly cause some of our ailments or diseases by (among other things) manufacturing toxic chemicals of their own. These two factors working in conjunction with each other cause virtually every one of our ailments or diseases.
In addition to using traditional scientific methods to confirm these realities, Dr. Clark discovered another revolutionary method for doing so. Even though she was an expert in the biological sciences, her curiosity had introduced her to electromagnetism and the electromagnetic spectrum—from the largest radio waves to the smallest rays of ionic radiation. In conjunction with her research into this field, she took up the hobby of amateur (or ham) radio operation.
Her research into radio waves led her in 1988 to one of her most important breakthrough discoveries—that everything in existence, whether living or dead, animate or inanimate, produces and emits a radio frequency (RF) or a range of radio frequencies. Microscopic entities such as viruses emit a single radio frequency, whereas larger entities such as human beings emit a wide range of radio frequencies.
Using this information, Dr. Clark invented a device with which she could accurately identify substances or entities based upon the radio frequencies they emit. She also determined how to pinpoint the exact locations of these substances or entities within other entities, such as the human body. Astonishingly, using radio frequencies to identify substances is thousands of times more accurate than the latest analytical methods employed by scientific researchers today. It is also much quicker and much less expensive.
Using this information, Dr. Clark was able to identify the particular toxin or toxins responsible for causing any given ailment or disease. She was also able to identify any foreign invader or invaders which might be associated with that ailment or disease.
After Dr. Clark made these important discoveries, she studied many human ailments and diseases and ascertained the factor or combination of factors causing each one. Armed with that information, she was then able to articulate each one’s cure.
Dr. Clark realized that the first step to take to cure ailments and diseases is to reduce the flow of toxins into the body as much as possible. Once this feat is accomplished, our immune systems may recover to the point where they can remove many of the remaining toxins on their own. However this effort is seldom totally effective by itself so the next step is to proactively work to remove the toxins which have accumulated.
Dr. Clark’s many years of research also taught her how valuable herbs are in removing toxins from the body and in exterminating our foreign invaders. These insights led her to become a master herbologist. She also became a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.) during her career.
Dr. Clark’s research into radio frequencies also led her to discover that by subjecting our foreign invaders to their own frequency ranges for a few minutes at a time using a frequency range generator, they could be exterminated. Unfortunately this technique is not effective on all parts of the body because some of them are shielded from the frequency ranges. However using a frequency range generator in conjunction with the proper herbs to exterminate our foreign invaders is extremely effective.
The Dissemination of Her Revelations
Dr. Clark did not conduct her scientific research in a vacuum. Much of her research into specific diseases was prompted by the conditions of actual disease sufferers with whom she was acquainted. She assisted her first patient in 1963 and went on to assist many thousands more over the years.
Even though Dr. Clark had discovered the basic causes of and the basic cures for many diseases, there was much more to be discovered about each one. Dr. Clark subsequently focused her research efforts on discovering further information relative to the causes of and curing the disease that was killing a large number of people—cancer. She also focused her research efforts on refining the causes of and the cures for HIV and AIDS.
Dr. Clark did not want to wait the many years necessary for the mainstream medical research industry and government agencies to analyze and accept her revolutionary discoveries using their conventional methods (double-blind studies, etc.) because too many people (including the control groups in the studies) would needlessly suffer and die in the interim. So she decided to make her discoveries known directly to anyone who was interested in learning them. She did so by authoring books detailing the causes of and the cures for particular diseases and publishing them herself.
In 1993, Dr. Clark published two books. One of them was entitled The Cure For All Cancers. This book detailed the basic causes of and the basic cures for all types of cancer. The other book was entitled The Cure For HIV and AIDS. This book did the same for these two diseases.
Because of Dr. Clark’s many years of research, she possessed vast amounts of information regarding the causes of and the cures for many other diseases. This led her in 1995 to publish a book entitled The Cure For All Diseases. In this book she detailed the causes of and the cures for many diseases individually.
The Demonization of Dr. Clark
Even though Dr. Clark discovered a method for analyzing substances much more accurately and quickly than any modality in existence in the scientific community, which in turn allowed her to discover the causes of and the cures for virtually every disease, not surprisingly, these revelations were met with strenuous hostility from the mainstream medical industry, the mainstream scientific community (which is highly influenced by the mainstream medical industry), and the corporate-controlled mainstream media. The first two groups are much more interested generating profits and longevity for themselves than they are in helping individuals cure their ailments and diseases. All three of them did everything imaginable to try to marginalize Dr. Clark’s revolutionary health discoveries and inventions. However, undaunted by the tremendous opposition to her fantastic discoveries and inventions, Dr. Clark persevered.
In the ensuing years, Dr. Clark made further discoveries into the causes of and the cures for many ailments and diseases. Since one of her primary foci was on curing cancer, she published three subsequent cancer books over the years detailing her discoveries. The last one was published in 2007. In 2003, she updated her HIV and AIDS book. Although she never updated The Cures For All Diseases, many of the discoveries delineated in her subsequent books are applicable to many other diseases as well.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Clark wished to use her discoveries to actually help people cure their ailments and diseases. Early on in her career while she was living in Indiana, many afflicted individuals had learned of her ability to cure a vast number of diseases. So naturally they sought her help in to try to cure their own diseases. So she accommodated them.
On one occasion a couple of officials from the State of Indiana surreptitiously spoke with Dr. Clark about the contrived disease from which one of them was purportedly suffering. After meeting with them, Dr. Clark made her recommendations. She never heard from them again and subsequently moved to California.
Then in the late 1990’s (approximately seven years after that encounter and as she was becoming famous after publishing some of her books), Indiana justice department officials indicted her for practicing medicine without a license. (Do you think that they could have been put up to this by the profiteers of Big Medicine?) Dr. Clark was arrested in California and extradited to Indiana to stand trial. However when the judge realized how much time had elapsed since the initial encounter, he dismissed the charges against Dr. Clark and she returned home.
Helping Individuals Cure Their Ailments and Diseases
Because Dr. Clark possessed a doctorate in science rather than a medical degree, she was precluded from practicing medicine within the United States. However she was not precluded from practicing medicine in Mexico. She therefore established a clinic just over the border with California.
As with her research, her primary focus at the clinic was on assisting individuals suffering from cancer, HIV, or AIDS. Many of her patients were ones whom the mainstream medical industry had already given up hope. However Dr. Clark was willing to admit them and cure their diseases.
In addition to all of the time she spent conducting her other research, Dr. Clark also spent an enormous amount of time with each one of her patients. She would analyze their conditions using radio frequencies when they were first admitted; make recommendations and provide them with various supplements, medicines, and protocols to purge toxins from their bodies, exterminate any foreign pathogens and parasites and remove their remnants, if necessary, bolster their immune systems, etc. She would then spend an enormous amount of time monitoring the progress of each patient to ensure that the protocols were being effective. Another tremendous burden upon Dr. Clark must have been the fact that many of her patients were terminal cases with only short amounts of time to live if she were not there to save them.
Dr. Clark’s Detractors
As Dr. Clark became more famous, her establishment detractors became more vociferous. One group or individual after another decried her discoveries and inventions. They called her a quack and asserted that her discoveries could not be true and that her inventions did not work. However even in the face of all of this negative criticism, Dr. Clark persevered with her work.
Dr. Clark Violated a Cardinal Rule
Unfortunately in her zeal to help others cured their diseases before their time on Earth expired, Dr. Clark violated the first rule of life—one must first ensure one’s own health before helping others. She was so caught up in her research, in disseminating her discoveries to others, and in saving people’s lives that she neglected her own health. She worked seven days a week, she probably did not eat properly, did not get any exercise, did not get enough rest, etc. One can watch her condition deteriorate on videos in which she appeared over the years. In one speech she even remarked that one day she should take the time to regain her own health, but that she was finding it difficult to do so because she was working so hard researching four interrelated diseases—cancer, HIV, AIDS, and malaria. Finally in 2009 at the age of eighty, the time of this wonderful person ran out.
Her detractors seized the opportunity to marginalize her discoveries and inventions even more. They offered as proof that she was a charlatan the fact that she had declared innumerable times over many years that she could cure cancer and then she succumbed to cancer herself. However it was not cancer to which this amazing lady had succumbed, it was her neglect of her own health.
The Marginalization of Dr. Clark’s Revelations and Inventions
After Dr. Clark’s death, the popularity of her revelations diminished. This was largely due to the marginalization of them by her detractors. They did such a fantastic job that, not only was the mainstream public persuaded that her assertions about her discoveries were not true and that her inventions did not work, but many believers in alternative therapies were deceived into believing that she was a charlatan as well. The situation went from being that, at one point, many people were aware of her and talking about her and her discoveries to no one talking about them. At one point you could walk into any given bookstore or health food store and see a number of her books for sale. Now there are none of them on display. It was like she had never even existed.
Another reason that her cancer books did not gain universal acceptance in the first place was because they are relatively difficult to comprehend. This is because cancer is not caused by a single entity, it is caused by a number of entities working in conjunction with each other. As a result, in order to stop a cancer malignancy as well as shrink the tumor or tumors down to nothing, there are numerous steps one must take and numerous toxins to remove. Many individuals simply did not wish to or were unable to expend the time or effort to try to comprehend all of these steps. Further exacerbating the problem was the fact that Dr. Clark included a tremendous amount of scientific information in each book.
Fortunately, Dr. Clark Still Has a Large Number of Passionate Followers
Another reason that Dr. Clark’s revelations were not widely accepted was because the device she invented to analyze substances using radio frequencies is relatively difficult to master. However there are many individuals who have mastered it and who use it to monitor their own health as well as the health of their friends and relatives. In addition, many individuals who worked with Dr. Clark while she was alive continue to use and promote her revelations. There is also a solid core of many thousands of individuals who continue to use Dr. Clark’s revelations to keep themselves healthy.
Partial evidence of the number of individuals who use Dr. Clark’s revelations to keep themselves healthy is the number of testimonials made to her and her accomplishments after her death. These testimonials can be found on the Internet at http://inmemoryofdrhuldaclark.com. There are approximately 550 heartfelt testimonials there. More evidence of her continued popularity is the large number of individuals who still use and promote her remarkable discoveries and inventions on the Internet and elsewhere.
Summary
In summary, we should do everything within our power to stop the vested medical interests and the corporate-controlled mainstream media from marginalizing the revolutionary discoveries and inventions of this remarkable woman and preventing them from becoming widely accepted. This information has the potential of improving the health of virtually everyone on the planet. It is long past time for it to be freed from its confinement. Moreover, Dr. Hulda Clark should be recorded in the annuls of history as one of the greatest scientists and human beings who ever lived.
Copyright 2012 Steven A. Swan
Steven A. Swan is a longtime follower and user of Dr. Clark’s discoveries and inventions. He is now offering his expertise to others who might wish to learn how to use them to cure their own ailments or diseases or who might wish to understand them better.
Contact: contact@drclarkconsultant.com
Website: Dr. Clark Consultant.com (http://www.drclarkconsultant.com)
Over the past few years Big Medicine (i.e., the huge, multinational pharmaceutical companies as well as the beneficiaries of other high-profit medical modalities [surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, diagnostics, cancer research, etc.) and the corporate-controlled mainstream media (MSM) have effectively marginalized the revolutionary health-related discoveries and inventions of Dr. Hulda Clark, Ph.D., N.D. Big Medicine has done so using its vast financial resources to fund its many willing minions, including the mainstream medical research industry. The mainstream media has proactively aided and abetted Big Medicine. We must not allow this travesty to continue.
Dr. Clark’s Discoveries and Inventions
Hulda Regehr Clark received her Ph.D. in the biological sciences way back in 1959 when it was much more difficult to earn a doctorate degree than it is today. Her many years of subsequent research in this field led her to discover the two true reasons behind virtually every disease—1) that the increased number of toxins which we continually take into our bodies compromise our immune systems’ ability to protect us and directly cause some of our ailments and diseases, and 2) that our compromised immune systems are unable to repel foreign invaders such as viruses, bacteria, parasites, etc., which also can contribute to or directly cause some of our ailments or diseases by (among other things) manufacturing toxic chemicals of their own. These two factors working in conjunction with each other cause virtually every one of our ailments or diseases.
In addition to using traditional scientific methods to confirm these realities, Dr. Clark discovered another revolutionary method for doing so. Even though she was an expert in the biological sciences, her curiosity had introduced her to electromagnetism and the electromagnetic spectrum—from the largest radio waves to the smallest rays of ionic radiation. In conjunction with her research into this field, she took up the hobby of amateur (or ham) radio operation.
Her research into radio waves led her in 1988 to one of her most important breakthrough discoveries—that everything in existence, whether living or dead, animate or inanimate, produces and emits a radio frequency (RF) or a range of radio frequencies. Microscopic entities such as viruses emit a single radio frequency, whereas larger entities such as human beings emit a wide range of radio frequencies.
Using this information, Dr. Clark invented a device with which she could accurately identify substances or entities based upon the radio frequencies they emit. She also determined how to pinpoint the exact locations of these substances or entities within other entities, such as the human body. Astonishingly, using radio frequencies to identify substances is thousands of times more accurate than the latest analytical methods employed by scientific researchers today. It is also much quicker and much less expensive.
Using this information, Dr. Clark was able to identify the particular toxin or toxins responsible for causing any given ailment or disease. She was also able to identify any foreign invader or invaders which might be associated with that ailment or disease.
After Dr. Clark made these important discoveries, she studied many human ailments and diseases and ascertained the factor or combination of factors causing each one. Armed with that information, she was then able to articulate each one’s cure.
Dr. Clark realized that the first step to take to cure ailments and diseases is to reduce the flow of toxins into the body as much as possible. Once this feat is accomplished, our immune systems may recover to the point where they can remove many of the remaining toxins on their own. However this effort is seldom totally effective by itself so the next step is to proactively work to remove the toxins which have accumulated.
Dr. Clark’s many years of research also taught her how valuable herbs are in removing toxins from the body and in exterminating our foreign invaders. These insights led her to become a master herbologist. She also became a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.) during her career.
Dr. Clark’s research into radio frequencies also led her to discover that by subjecting our foreign invaders to their own frequency ranges for a few minutes at a time using a frequency range generator, they could be exterminated. Unfortunately this technique is not effective on all parts of the body because some of them are shielded from the frequency ranges. However using a frequency range generator in conjunction with the proper herbs to exterminate our foreign invaders is extremely effective.
The Dissemination of Her Revelations
Dr. Clark did not conduct her scientific research in a vacuum. Much of her research into specific diseases was prompted by the conditions of actual disease sufferers with whom she was acquainted. She assisted her first patient in 1963 and went on to assist many thousands more over the years.
Even though Dr. Clark had discovered the basic causes of and the basic cures for many diseases, there was much more to be discovered about each one. Dr. Clark subsequently focused her research efforts on discovering further information relative to the causes of and curing the disease that was killing a large number of people—cancer. She also focused her research efforts on refining the causes of and the cures for HIV and AIDS.
Dr. Clark did not want to wait the many years necessary for the mainstream medical research industry and government agencies to analyze and accept her revolutionary discoveries using their conventional methods (double-blind studies, etc.) because too many people (including the control groups in the studies) would needlessly suffer and die in the interim. So she decided to make her discoveries known directly to anyone who was interested in learning them. She did so by authoring books detailing the causes of and the cures for particular diseases and publishing them herself.
In 1993, Dr. Clark published two books. One of them was entitled The Cure For All Cancers. This book detailed the basic causes of and the basic cures for all types of cancer. The other book was entitled The Cure For HIV and AIDS. This book did the same for these two diseases.
Because of Dr. Clark’s many years of research, she possessed vast amounts of information regarding the causes of and the cures for many other diseases. This led her in 1995 to publish a book entitled The Cure For All Diseases. In this book she detailed the causes of and the cures for many diseases individually.
The Demonization of Dr. Clark
Even though Dr. Clark discovered a method for analyzing substances much more accurately and quickly than any modality in existence in the scientific community, which in turn allowed her to discover the causes of and the cures for virtually every disease, not surprisingly, these revelations were met with strenuous hostility from the mainstream medical industry, the mainstream scientific community (which is highly influenced by the mainstream medical industry), and the corporate-controlled mainstream media. The first two groups are much more interested generating profits and longevity for themselves than they are in helping individuals cure their ailments and diseases. All three of them did everything imaginable to try to marginalize Dr. Clark’s revolutionary health discoveries and inventions. However, undaunted by the tremendous opposition to her fantastic discoveries and inventions, Dr. Clark persevered.
In the ensuing years, Dr. Clark made further discoveries into the causes of and the cures for many ailments and diseases. Since one of her primary foci was on curing cancer, she published three subsequent cancer books over the years detailing her discoveries. The last one was published in 2007. In 2003, she updated her HIV and AIDS book. Although she never updated The Cures For All Diseases, many of the discoveries delineated in her subsequent books are applicable to many other diseases as well.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Clark wished to use her discoveries to actually help people cure their ailments and diseases. Early on in her career while she was living in Indiana, many afflicted individuals had learned of her ability to cure a vast number of diseases. So naturally they sought her help in to try to cure their own diseases. So she accommodated them.
On one occasion a couple of officials from the State of Indiana surreptitiously spoke with Dr. Clark about the contrived disease from which one of them was purportedly suffering. After meeting with them, Dr. Clark made her recommendations. She never heard from them again and subsequently moved to California.
Then in the late 1990’s (approximately seven years after that encounter and as she was becoming famous after publishing some of her books), Indiana justice department officials indicted her for practicing medicine without a license. (Do you think that they could have been put up to this by the profiteers of Big Medicine?) Dr. Clark was arrested in California and extradited to Indiana to stand trial. However when the judge realized how much time had elapsed since the initial encounter, he dismissed the charges against Dr. Clark and she returned home.
Helping Individuals Cure Their Ailments and Diseases
Because Dr. Clark possessed a doctorate in science rather than a medical degree, she was precluded from practicing medicine within the United States. However she was not precluded from practicing medicine in Mexico. She therefore established a clinic just over the border with California.
As with her research, her primary focus at the clinic was on assisting individuals suffering from cancer, HIV, or AIDS. Many of her patients were ones whom the mainstream medical industry had already given up hope. However Dr. Clark was willing to admit them and cure their diseases.
In addition to all of the time she spent conducting her other research, Dr. Clark also spent an enormous amount of time with each one of her patients. She would analyze their conditions using radio frequencies when they were first admitted; make recommendations and provide them with various supplements, medicines, and protocols to purge toxins from their bodies, exterminate any foreign pathogens and parasites and remove their remnants, if necessary, bolster their immune systems, etc. She would then spend an enormous amount of time monitoring the progress of each patient to ensure that the protocols were being effective. Another tremendous burden upon Dr. Clark must have been the fact that many of her patients were terminal cases with only short amounts of time to live if she were not there to save them.
Dr. Clark’s Detractors
As Dr. Clark became more famous, her establishment detractors became more vociferous. One group or individual after another decried her discoveries and inventions. They called her a quack and asserted that her discoveries could not be true and that her inventions did not work. However even in the face of all of this negative criticism, Dr. Clark persevered with her work.
Dr. Clark Violated a Cardinal Rule
Unfortunately in her zeal to help others cured their diseases before their time on Earth expired, Dr. Clark violated the first rule of life—one must first ensure one’s own health before helping others. She was so caught up in her research, in disseminating her discoveries to others, and in saving people’s lives that she neglected her own health. She worked seven days a week, she probably did not eat properly, did not get any exercise, did not get enough rest, etc. One can watch her condition deteriorate on videos in which she appeared over the years. In one speech she even remarked that one day she should take the time to regain her own health, but that she was finding it difficult to do so because she was working so hard researching four interrelated diseases—cancer, HIV, AIDS, and malaria. Finally in 2009 at the age of eighty, the time of this wonderful person ran out.
Her detractors seized the opportunity to marginalize her discoveries and inventions even more. They offered as proof that she was a charlatan the fact that she had declared innumerable times over many years that she could cure cancer and then she succumbed to cancer herself. However it was not cancer to which this amazing lady had succumbed, it was her neglect of her own health.
The Marginalization of Dr. Clark’s Revelations and Inventions
After Dr. Clark’s death, the popularity of her revelations diminished. This was largely due to the marginalization of them by her detractors. They did such a fantastic job that, not only was the mainstream public persuaded that her assertions about her discoveries were not true and that her inventions did not work, but many believers in alternative therapies were deceived into believing that she was a charlatan as well. The situation went from being that, at one point, many people were aware of her and talking about her and her discoveries to no one talking about them. At one point you could walk into any given bookstore or health food store and see a number of her books for sale. Now there are none of them on display. It was like she had never even existed.
Another reason that her cancer books did not gain universal acceptance in the first place was because they are relatively difficult to comprehend. This is because cancer is not caused by a single entity, it is caused by a number of entities working in conjunction with each other. As a result, in order to stop a cancer malignancy as well as shrink the tumor or tumors down to nothing, there are numerous steps one must take and numerous toxins to remove. Many individuals simply did not wish to or were unable to expend the time or effort to try to comprehend all of these steps. Further exacerbating the problem was the fact that Dr. Clark included a tremendous amount of scientific information in each book.
Fortunately, Dr. Clark Still Has a Large Number of Passionate Followers
Another reason that Dr. Clark’s revelations were not widely accepted was because the device she invented to analyze substances using radio frequencies is relatively difficult to master. However there are many individuals who have mastered it and who use it to monitor their own health as well as the health of their friends and relatives. In addition, many individuals who worked with Dr. Clark while she was alive continue to use and promote her revelations. There is also a solid core of many thousands of individuals who continue to use Dr. Clark’s revelations to keep themselves healthy.
Partial evidence of the number of individuals who use Dr. Clark’s revelations to keep themselves healthy is the number of testimonials made to her and her accomplishments after her death. These testimonials can be found on the Internet at http://inmemoryofdrhuldaclark.com. There are approximately 550 heartfelt testimonials there. More evidence of her continued popularity is the large number of individuals who still use and promote her remarkable discoveries and inventions on the Internet and elsewhere.
Summary
In summary, we should do everything within our power to stop the vested medical interests and the corporate-controlled mainstream media from marginalizing the revolutionary discoveries and inventions of this remarkable woman and preventing them from becoming widely accepted. This information has the potential of improving the health of virtually everyone on the planet. It is long past time for it to be freed from its confinement. Moreover, Dr. Hulda Clark should be recorded in the annuls of history as one of the greatest scientists and human beings who ever lived.
Copyright 2012 Steven A. Swan
Steven A. Swan is a longtime follower and user of Dr. Clark’s discoveries and inventions. He is now offering his expertise to others who might wish to learn how to use them to cure their own ailments or diseases or who might wish to understand them better.
Contact: contact@drclarkconsultant.com
Website: Dr. Clark Consultant.com (http://www.drclarkconsultant.com)
Apple’s Foxconn Auditing Group ‘Surrounded With Controversy’
Apple’s Foxconn Auditing Group ‘Surrounded With Controversy,’ Critics Say
Christina Bonnington
February 13, 2012
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/apple-foxconn-investigations
Following ongoing public outcry and organized protests at Apple stores last week, Apple has announced that an organization called the Fair Labor Association is conducting independent assessments of worker conditions inside the factories of Foxconn, its manufacturing partner in China.
The FLA audit began this morning in Shenzen’s “Foxconn City.” In the inspections, FLA representatives will interview thousands of factory employees about their living and working conditions, delving into topics such as compensation, health and safety, working hours, and the workers’ communication with management. The results of the inspections will be posted on the FLA’s website in early March.
“We were hoping for a quick response, but I don’t know if we were actually expecting such a fast response from Apple,” said Sarah Ryan, a human rights organizer at Change.org, one of two groups that orchestrated last week’s protests at Apple stores. “It’s especially exciting that these audits are going to be transparent and public.”
The FLA said the audits will be conducted by “a team of labor experts” composed of FLA staff and representatives from two accredited service providers, Openview and INFACT. They’ll be visiting another Foxconn facility in Chengdu, China in the coming weeks.
While encouraged by today’s Apple announcement, Ryan also conceded the FLA is “surrounded with controversy in terms of effectiveness and objectiveness.” Still, Ryan says Change.org recognizes Apple has an existing relationship with the FLA, and as long as its findings are open and transparent, that’s a good thing.
But another key advocate of the Foxconn workers was even less impressed with Apple’s Monday announcement. Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs.org, told Wired, “We’re hopeful that this is a step towards the solution, but it’s not even close to the solution itself. The FLA does not have a great track record of conducting effective investigations.”
SumOfUs and Change.org co-sponsored a petition asking Apple to respond to allegations of Foxconn worker abuse, and to commit to developing “ethical” products. More than 250,000 people signed the petition, which was hand-delivered to Apple Stores across the globe on Thursday morning. A second petition, from Hong Kong group SACOM, takes last week’s protest one step further by outlining five specific areas in which Apple needs to improve, including ending the use of student workers and providing a living wage for factory employees.
Although knowledge of poor working conditions inside Foxconn has existed for years, after Apple’s record earnings in 2011, the issue struck a big nerve with much of the public. A New York Times piece that highlighted some of the dire conditions inside Apple’s Chinese factories motivated people to start taking action against the status quo.
The new FLA investigations, detailed in an Apple press release, appear to be a direct response to this outcry. Apple has conducted more than 40 supply chain audits of Foxconn since 2006 and over 500 audits of its factories total.
“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in the release.
“As an Apple consumer, I’m relieved to hear that Tim Cook is taking this seriously and is breaking ground in the industry with Fair Labor Association auditing,” said Mark Shields, the consumer who originally launched the Change.org petition, in a statement. “But Apple still needs to use some of their trademark creativity and problem solving to create a worker protection plan for new products — especially the upcoming iPad 3 — so that they’re proactively taking care of their workers.”
But for those looking for Apple (as well as other tech companies) to really change their ways, the FLA may not be the best company to perform these assessments, if its history is anything to go by.
Stinebrickner-Kauffman pointed out a site called FLA Watch that’s dedicated to monitoring the company’s well-publicized audits. It calls the FLA “a public relations mouthpiece” for corporations (particularly the apparel industry).
“The FLA was created in response to student protests around the sweatshop issue in the late 90s, specifically to monitor garment shops, with NIKE as a founding member,” Teresa Cheng, international campaigns coordinator with United Students Against Sweatshops (the organization behind FLA Watch), told Wired. “Ten years later, we see little to no reform of sweatshop conditions in NIKE’s supply chain, and no positive changes can be attributed to the FLA.”
Another veteran of the garment industry backs up Cheng’s opinion of audits.
“Reading that Apple has been auditing their vendors since 2006 does not mean anything,” says Sindy Sagastume, production manager for a fashion c'ompany called Aimee Lynn, which imports clothing for distribution to companies like Walmart, Target, and Sears. “Audits are truly a tool used by retailers in the US to make themselves seem to be socially compliant, but in fact does nothing to ensure factories are acting appropriately,” Sagastume told Wired.
So how much teeth does the FLA really have behind its audits? The organization has developed a code of conduct with which it judges workplace conditions, but all it does is investigate and report on working conditions; it doesn’t actually instigate any change itself. According to the organization’s website: “The FLA is a brand accountability system that places the onus on companies to voluntarily achieve the FLA’s labor standards in the factories manufacturing their products.”
In other words: The FLA is a reporting agency, not a policing agency. Any real change for Foxconn workers will come from either Foxconn itself, or pressure from the Chinese government or Apple.
“This is at best a decent first step,” echoed Stinebrickner-Kauffman of SumOfUs.org. “At worst, the beginning of a white-washing campaign.”
When asked to comment on its Foxconn investigations, the FLA supplied Wired with an official statement that mirrors the language of Apple’s press release. We will continue to reach out to the FLA for comment.
Christina Bonnington
February 13, 2012
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/02/apple-foxconn-investigations
Following ongoing public outcry and organized protests at Apple stores last week, Apple has announced that an organization called the Fair Labor Association is conducting independent assessments of worker conditions inside the factories of Foxconn, its manufacturing partner in China.
The FLA audit began this morning in Shenzen’s “Foxconn City.” In the inspections, FLA representatives will interview thousands of factory employees about their living and working conditions, delving into topics such as compensation, health and safety, working hours, and the workers’ communication with management. The results of the inspections will be posted on the FLA’s website in early March.
“We were hoping for a quick response, but I don’t know if we were actually expecting such a fast response from Apple,” said Sarah Ryan, a human rights organizer at Change.org, one of two groups that orchestrated last week’s protests at Apple stores. “It’s especially exciting that these audits are going to be transparent and public.”
The FLA said the audits will be conducted by “a team of labor experts” composed of FLA staff and representatives from two accredited service providers, Openview and INFACT. They’ll be visiting another Foxconn facility in Chengdu, China in the coming weeks.
While encouraged by today’s Apple announcement, Ryan also conceded the FLA is “surrounded with controversy in terms of effectiveness and objectiveness.” Still, Ryan says Change.org recognizes Apple has an existing relationship with the FLA, and as long as its findings are open and transparent, that’s a good thing.
But another key advocate of the Foxconn workers was even less impressed with Apple’s Monday announcement. Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, executive director of SumOfUs.org, told Wired, “We’re hopeful that this is a step towards the solution, but it’s not even close to the solution itself. The FLA does not have a great track record of conducting effective investigations.”
SumOfUs and Change.org co-sponsored a petition asking Apple to respond to allegations of Foxconn worker abuse, and to commit to developing “ethical” products. More than 250,000 people signed the petition, which was hand-delivered to Apple Stores across the globe on Thursday morning. A second petition, from Hong Kong group SACOM, takes last week’s protest one step further by outlining five specific areas in which Apple needs to improve, including ending the use of student workers and providing a living wage for factory employees.
Although knowledge of poor working conditions inside Foxconn has existed for years, after Apple’s record earnings in 2011, the issue struck a big nerve with much of the public. A New York Times piece that highlighted some of the dire conditions inside Apple’s Chinese factories motivated people to start taking action against the status quo.
The new FLA investigations, detailed in an Apple press release, appear to be a direct response to this outcry. Apple has conducted more than 40 supply chain audits of Foxconn since 2006 and over 500 audits of its factories total.
“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in the release.
“As an Apple consumer, I’m relieved to hear that Tim Cook is taking this seriously and is breaking ground in the industry with Fair Labor Association auditing,” said Mark Shields, the consumer who originally launched the Change.org petition, in a statement. “But Apple still needs to use some of their trademark creativity and problem solving to create a worker protection plan for new products — especially the upcoming iPad 3 — so that they’re proactively taking care of their workers.”
But for those looking for Apple (as well as other tech companies) to really change their ways, the FLA may not be the best company to perform these assessments, if its history is anything to go by.
Stinebrickner-Kauffman pointed out a site called FLA Watch that’s dedicated to monitoring the company’s well-publicized audits. It calls the FLA “a public relations mouthpiece” for corporations (particularly the apparel industry).
“The FLA was created in response to student protests around the sweatshop issue in the late 90s, specifically to monitor garment shops, with NIKE as a founding member,” Teresa Cheng, international campaigns coordinator with United Students Against Sweatshops (the organization behind FLA Watch), told Wired. “Ten years later, we see little to no reform of sweatshop conditions in NIKE’s supply chain, and no positive changes can be attributed to the FLA.”
Another veteran of the garment industry backs up Cheng’s opinion of audits.
“Reading that Apple has been auditing their vendors since 2006 does not mean anything,” says Sindy Sagastume, production manager for a fashion c'ompany called Aimee Lynn, which imports clothing for distribution to companies like Walmart, Target, and Sears. “Audits are truly a tool used by retailers in the US to make themselves seem to be socially compliant, but in fact does nothing to ensure factories are acting appropriately,” Sagastume told Wired.
So how much teeth does the FLA really have behind its audits? The organization has developed a code of conduct with which it judges workplace conditions, but all it does is investigate and report on working conditions; it doesn’t actually instigate any change itself. According to the organization’s website: “The FLA is a brand accountability system that places the onus on companies to voluntarily achieve the FLA’s labor standards in the factories manufacturing their products.”
In other words: The FLA is a reporting agency, not a policing agency. Any real change for Foxconn workers will come from either Foxconn itself, or pressure from the Chinese government or Apple.
“This is at best a decent first step,” echoed Stinebrickner-Kauffman of SumOfUs.org. “At worst, the beginning of a white-washing campaign.”
When asked to comment on its Foxconn investigations, the FLA supplied Wired with an official statement that mirrors the language of Apple’s press release. We will continue to reach out to the FLA for comment.
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