(VIDEO) The War Plan -- According to (Ret.) U.S. General Wesley Clark

In an interview with Amy Goodman on March 2, 2007, U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.), explains that the Bush Administration planned to take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran

(Video) The War Plan -- According to (Ret.) U.S. General Wesley Clark 

Transcript Below: 

(Ret.) U.S. General Wesley Clark:
About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments.

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." 

This part of (Ret.) U.S. General Wesley Clark's speech is on the longer version of videos that can be found on YouTube: ...I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read

A message from A Sheep No More:  "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  - Lord Acton

That quote speaks VOLUMES ...that's what happens when we allow that power to be consolidated into a few. 

By Michael Snyder on October 4th, 2010 @ theeconomiccollapseblog.com

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.      

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.  But even those areas of the media that the "big six" do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States.  Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.

But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns.  When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think.  They don't call it "programming" for nothing. 

Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media.  But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people....

In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].

--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi

Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest.  Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com.  The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own....

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1

News Corporation

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan

CBS Corporation

CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network

NBC Universal

Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video

These gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively tell the truth to the American people.  Rather, the primary purpose of their existence is to make money.

These gigantic media corporations are not going to do anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest advertisers (such as the largest pharmaceutical companies that literally spend billions on advertising), and one way or another these gigantic media corporations are always going to express the ideological viewpoints of their owners.

Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should not be trusted. According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream media (57%) is at an all-time high.

That is one reason why we have seen the alternative media experience such rapid growth over the past few years.  The mainstream media has been losing credibility at a staggering rate, and Americans are starting to look elsewhere for the truth about what is really going on.

Do you think that anyone in the mainstream news would actually tell you that the Federal Reserve is bad for America or that we are facing a horrific derivatives bubble that could destroy the entire world financial system?  Do you think that anyone in the mainstream media would actually tell you the truth about the deindustrialization of America or the truth about the voracious greed of Goldman Sachs?

Sure there are a few courageous reporters in the mainstream media that manage to slip a few stories past their corporate bosses from time to time, but in general there is a very clear understanding that there are simply certain things that you just do not say in the mainstream news.

But Americans are becoming increasingly hungry for the truth, and they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dumbed down pablum that is passing as "hard hitting news" these days.

So what do you think about the state of the mainstream media?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

SOURCE: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/who-owns-the-media-the-6-monolithic-corporations-that-control-almost-everything-we-watch-hear-and-read

This is how it works! 

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Syria: The “Western Faces” Behind The Terror

Perpetuating adversaries to kill each other is a time-tested tactic .....

by: Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

In her extraordinarily bold and direct speech addressed to the Irish Parliament, Clare Daly (TD, Dublin North) called Obama a “war criminal”and “hypocrite of the century”.

In describing the fawned reception of Obama in Ireland akin to pimping and prostituting of that nation, Ms. Daly hit the nail on the head. Sadly, America dwarfs Ireland and elsewhere in the undignified category of prostitution – the 29 standing ovations from Congress in May 2011 for war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu attests to this tragic fact.

While Daly was quite right in censuring Obama for his criminal policies, including aiding terrorists in Syria, it is worthwhile noting that Obama is merely a willing instrument; the faces and factors behind his handlers and the policies merit greater scrutiny and exposure.

Backing and arming the so-called Syrian opposition distracts from the threat posed by Israel and its expansionist agenda by internalizing the enemy in order to weak the State. As former Israeli Intelligence Chief, Amos Yaldin told the audience at the Israel Policy Forum in February 2013:

“And this military [Syrian], which is a huge threat to Israel , is now also weakening and, in a way, disintegrating. We still have risk from Syria– a risk of being an AlQaeda country, a Somalia-type country — but from military point of view, each one of these are less dangerous than the Syrian regular army.”

Perpetuating adversaries to kill each other is a time-tested tactic – one which was used during the bloody eight year Iran-Iraq war; a war which according to Leon Wieseltier[i]was a “distraction” when Israeli boots were on the ground in Southern Lebanon. In that war, the United States was providing arms and intelligence to both sides. When asked what the logic was in aiding both sides in the bloody war, a former official replied: “You had to have been there”[ii]. But why Syria ?

The Need for Water

The primary goal of the early Zionist leadership was to control and secure the region’s waters. At the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, Chaim Weizmann declared that ‘it was of vital importance not only to secure all water resources feeding the country, but to control them at the sources – and the development of these waters became the primary aim of the Yishuv as a whole[iii]. This policy remained in place. As Israel ’s third Prime Minister Levi Eshkol put it, water was “the blood flowing through the arteries of the nation”.

As previously stated (Here and Here), the chaos we witness in Syria today has been in the making for years with the aid and backing of Israel-firsters in order to accommodate Israel’s agenda – expansion and control of regional water supplies while weakening its adversary/ies.

Israel faced one of its worst droughts in 1990-91. A second more serious drought in 1998, forced it to turn to water rich Turkey . Turkey and Israel engaged in serious negotiations starting in May 2000 to import 50 billion cubic meters of fresh water from Turkey using tanker ships, but using tankers was not cost effective for the transport of water. Alternate plans were suggested.

In September 2000, the same year that young Bashar-al Assad succeeded his father as President of Syria, a strategy paper entitled “The Geopolitics of Water” by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS) opined that “Since extensive water planning proposals will necessitate the establishment of pipelines and energy grids stretching across borders, a political and military structure that can ensure the safety and security of the carriers will be the prerequisite to effective water sharing” ….. “But an effective regional system would require political-military cooperation against Syria ”.

How to achieve this?

Israeli-Firsters to the rescue

Media mogul Haim Saban became involved in politics in the mid 1990’s with a view to support Israel .Saban professes that his greatest concern is the“protection” of Israel . At a conference in Israel , Saban described his method of influencing American politics : ‘Make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets’. (Saban penned an opinion piece in The New York Times in support of President Obama in his 2012 re-election bid).

It was no surprised therefore that in 2002, Saban pledged $13 million to start a research organization at the Brookings Institution called the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Saban Center would play an important role in propping up Syrian opposition (as it did in fermenting unrest post-2009 Iran elections with their June 2009 publication titled: “Which Path to Persia ? Options for a New American Strategy Towards Iran “[1]). In 2006, Time Magazine revealed that that the US had been agitating, funding, and supporting “opposition” in Syria . According to the Time, the U.S. was “supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists” in Europe . The document bluntly expresses the hope that “these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions for all anti-Assad activists.”

It is worthwhile mentioning here that America ’s support of the so-called “opposition” which includes criminals, terrorists, and foreign fighters to effect regime change underscores America ’s stark hypocrisy. According to 18 USC § 2385 -Advocating overthrow of Government (Cornell Law), advocating the overthrow of the government, ‘organizing or help or attempt to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of the government of the United States or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence’bears serious consequences including fines and prison sentence of up to 20 years.

What is most revealing about the abovementioned Time Magazine piece of 2006 is that America ’s efforts to aid the opposition and undermine Assad were run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). Abdulhamid was a visiting Fellow at the Saban Center (2004-2006) before moving on to the Neocon-run National Defense of Democracies.

When in 2008, Israel-firster Dennis Ross met with the “opposition” to discuss “Syria in Transition”, Saban’s fellow – Amar Abdullhamid was present. In February 2009, Dennis Ross joined the Obama Administration team. In April 2009, the US funded, London-based Baraada TV started its anti-Assad propaganda into Syria (The epicenter of the uprisings’ was Baraada over water distribution). Baraada TV’s chief editor, Malik al-Abdeh, is a cofounder of the Syrian exile group Movement for Justice and Development headed by Anas al-Abdah who was in attendance at the 2008 meeting with Dennis Ross.

It came as no surprise that John McCain who was a member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) formed to rid Iraq of Saddam Hossein, and a cheerleader for the Libya intervention, the Egyptian opposition to Mubarak, for bombing Iran, and so on…..visited Syrian “opposition” (via Turkey) in order to encourage more bloodshed. And expectedly, he was de-briefed — not at the White House, but at the Saban Center!

Soon after McCain’s presentation at the Saban Center , the White House disputed UN’s account and claimed that that Syria had crossed the ‘red line’ and used chemical weapons.

It is not the intention of this article to exclude the plethora of other individuals, think tanks, forums, and media pundits who have institutionalized Israel’s policies and promoted them as ‘America’s interests’; these are too numerous to mention here. However, a notable other Israel supporter must be named.

 The Evangelical Factor

While various groups in Washington perpetuate and support Israel ’s aggressive and expansionist policies — at a cost to America , non have the zeal and the zest of the Evangelicals who support Israel to death. According to the dispensational model, a time of turmoil lies ahead, but believers will be “raptured” away before it begins. This period of tribulation will culminate in the final battle at Armageddon, a valley northwest of Jerusalem .

The close association between American evangelicals and Israel has been a clear goal of Israeli politicians, especially those in the Likud party. According to Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of AJC, “the evangelical community is the largest and fastest-growing bloc of pro-Jewish sentiment in this country”[iv]. Israel and Jewish organizations continue to rely on the support of Evangelicals to justify Israel ’s occupation of Arab land even as Christian Zionists zest for evangelizing Jews remains a point of tension.

For example, within days of the June 1982 invasion of Lebanon (with a green light from Reagan), full-page ads appeared in leading papers requesting Evangelical support for the invasion[v]. In 1998, when Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington , he met with Jerry Falwell and numerous fundamentalist Christians before meeting with President Clinton. Similarly, as recently as April 2013,Pat Robertson warned that brokering peace between Israel and Palestine would bring punishment on America.

It has been alleged that funds raised in America by right wing Christians is funneled to West Bank settlements. The mayor of Ariel on the West Bank had estimated that two thirds of all Jewish settlements were funded by Christian Zionists.[vi]

Building for Armageddon?

While Evangelicals (not all) are rupture-ready and encourage Israel ’s expansionist agenda, Israeli politicians are not yet Armageddon-ready; at least, not yet.

In March 2013, Business Insider revealed that the United States is spending hundreds of millions of dollars building bunkers in Israel due to be completed 900 days from February 13, 2013. The project called Site 911 “will have five levels buried underground and six additional outbuildings on the above grounds, within the perimeter. At about 127,000 square feet, the first three floors will house classrooms, an auditorium, and a laboratory — all wedged behind shock resistant doors — with radiation protection and massive security. Only one gate will allow workers entrance and exit during the project and that will be guarded by only Israelis”.

Each door of the facility will have a detailed description of the mezuzahs written in“in-erasable ink”.

This should be heartwarming news to Americans whose taxes are spent on such projects while the bridges at home are crumbling.

The Future

The political establishment and the media has pimped out the nation. The list of conflicts awaiting us is long and bloody.

Syria will not be the last conflict. This has been a brief and incomplete overview of what drives our nation, and where we are headed, the handlers and the willing instruments (in the words of Clare Daly, pimps and prostitutes).

We continue to sink our head in sand and hope for a hero – for ‘something to happen’. There is only one hope for the future, and the only one power that can alter this destructive path: “We, The People”.

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the role of lobby groups in influencing US foreign policy.

Notes

[i] Wieseltier , Leon ,“ Israel meets Iran in Lebanon ; The Wrong War”, The New Republic, Apr 8, 1985

[1]Chapter 6 reads: “The United States could play multiple roles in facilitating a revolution. By funding and helping organize domestic rivals of the regime, the United States could create an alternative leadership to seize power. As Raymond Tanter of the Iran Policy Committee argues, students and other groups “need covert backing for their demonstrations. They need fax machines. They need Internet access, funds to duplicate materials, and funds to keep vigilantes from beating them up.” Beyond this, US-backed media outlets could highlight regime shortcomings and make otherwise obscure critics more prominent. The United States already supports Persian language satellite television (Voice of America Persian) and radio (Radio Farda) that bring unfiltered news to Iranians (in recent years, these have taken the lion’s share of overt US funding for promoting democracy in Iran). US economic pressure (and perhaps military pressure as well) can discredit the regime, making the population hungry for a rival leadership……”

[ii]Stephen R. Shalom, The United States and Iran-Iraq War, citing Stephen Engelberg, “Iran and Iraq Got ‘Doctored Data, U.S. Officials Say,” New York Times, 12 Jan. 1987, pp. A1, A6.

[iii]Jan Selby, “Water, Power & Politics in the Middle East ; The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

[iv]Donald Wagner, “Evangelicals and Israel : Theological roots of a political alliance”, The Christian Century, Nov. 4, 1998).

[v]Donald Wagner, “Evangelicals and Israel : Theological roots of a political alliance”, ibid

[vi]Colin Shindler, “Likud and the Christian Dispensationalists: A Symbiotic Relationship”, Israeli Studies, March 31, 2000

SOURCE: http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-the-western-faces-behind-the-terror/5340493

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Big Pharma invents yet another disease to sell deadly drugs: 'Shift Work Disorder' now used to push medication that may kill you

by: Mike Adams

Ever heard of "shift work disorder?" It's a new disease being played up by the pharmaceutical industry to sell drugs so dangerous that even the home page of the drug website admits the drug may kill you.

One such drug is called "Nuvigil," sold by Cephalon, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The warning text on the Nuvigil website says:

NUVIGIL (armodafinil) Tablets [C-IV] may cause serious side effects including a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may affect parts of your body such as your liver or blood cells, and may result in hospitalization and be life-threatening. If you develop a skin rash, hives, sores in your mouth, blisters, swelling, peeling, or yellowing of the skin or eyes, trouble swallowing or breathing, dark urine, or fever, stop taking NUVIGIL and call your doctor right away or get emergency help.

Wow, mouth sores? Yellowing eyes? Trouble breathing? Dark urine? Hospitalization? Where do I sign up!

According to the Nuvigil website, the drug is, "a prescription medicine used to improve wakefulness in adults who experience excessive sleepiness due... shift work disorder (SWD)"

Yet another fictitious disease

SWD, of course, is a made-up "disease" now being propagandized for the sole purpose of selling drugs like Nuvigil. The pushing of fictitious disorders is generally known as "disease mongering" across the industry. The premise of so-called Shift Work Disorder is that the tiredness you feel when you stay up all night working a night shift is actually some sort of disease requiring chemical intervention.

You're not simply tired because you're out of sync with the sun, the fictional narrative says: you're tired because you have a disorder! And unless you pop these pills -- which might kill you -- you'll never be normal again!

This is the incessant lie of all drug advertisements: these pills will make you normal and healthy, they claim. Yet people who take their pills aren't normal and healthy; they're chronically diseased and suffering kidney failure, liver failure, skin disorders, sleep disorders and often dying from FDA-approved medications.

An incredible 783,000 Americans die each year from conventional medicine. Roughly 100,000 of those are killed by FDA-approved prescription medications. Yet the industry's answer is to keep inventing more and more medications to add to the toxic burden patients are already experiencing from the half-dozen meds they're already popping on a daily basis.

That's the business model of Big Pharma, of course: invent a fake disease, promote the disease to push a new pill, then get as many people to take those pills as possible while government Medicaid and Medicare programs write the checks.

The patient, in essence, is just a proxy for profit. The patient's body is essentially a chemical dumping ground so that drug companies can collect profits while claiming to have offered some sort of "treatment" that never actually treats anything other than symptoms.

"NUVIGIL may help the sleepiness caused by these conditions, but it may not stop all of your sleepiness and does not take the place of sleep," says the Nuvigil website. In other words, you'd probably have similar results by slamming a couple of Monster energy drinks (not that I'm recommending energy drinks, of course).

Highly addictive controlled substance

But wait, there's more: "NUVIGIL is a federally controlled substance (C-IV), so use NUVIGIL only as directed and keep in a safe place to prevent misuse and abuse. It is against the law to sell or give NUVIGIL to another person."

Ah, and now we get to the real heart of the matter. Nuvigil is a highly addictive controlled substance.

"NUVIGIL is a federally controlled substance [C-IV] because it has the potential to be abused or lead to dependence," says the Nuvigil website. "Selling or giving away NUVIGIL may harm others and is against the law."

What they mean, of course, is that you selling Nuvigil to someone else is against the law, but it's not against the law for the drug industry to conspire with your doctor to sell you the drug. Keep this in mind when you hear about front groups like the Partnership For A Drug-Free America. Nearly all these front groups are funded by Big Pharma, and their goal is to get drugs off the streets so that people have to buy those very same drugs via prescription. It's a turf war, and Big Pharma wants to be your dealer.

By the way, the company that makes Nuvigil is running clinical trials now in an effort to get the pill approved for treating depression and "bi-polar disorder," yet another fictitious disease invented by the psychiatric industry to sell more high-profit pharmaceuticals that harm people. If they get their way, you'll soon be able to buy highly addictive, class IV controlled substances to treat your "bi-polarness."

One of the most common side effects of Nuvigil is insomnia

"In placebo-controlled studies, the most commonly observed side effects were headache, nausea, dizziness, and insomnia," says Wikipedia, a website I don't always trust but nevertheless tends to have useful information about drug side effects.

So wait, let me get this straight: The pill people are supposed to take when they feel too sleepy and can't stay awake somehow causes insomnia? Say it isn't so...

Taking the pill, then, can cause you to be unable to attain normal, healthy sleep. This causes your next night shift to be worse than the previous one, making you feel so tired you start popping extra Nuvigil. Then the hallucinations from sleep deprivation start to kick in, probably, and you find yourself playing out the opening sequence of "Fight Club" starring Ed Norton.

Keep in mind that the people who are likely to be targeted for this drug are paramedics, EMTs, doctors, nurses and other night-shift workers who need to have their heads on straight. If I'm in a late-night car accident and end up in the emergency room, I don't want some pill-popping medical addict trying to patch me up.

A safer alternative: phototherapy

So what can late-night workers do to stay alert on their night shifts? The answer is found in nature: phototherapy (light therapy).

Your endocrine system has its own light sensors that control the levels of hormones like melatonin. When your body senses light, it tells you to wake up and be alert. When it senses an absence of light, it tells your body to produce hormones that wind you down and help you go to sleep.

The simple solution for late-night work shifts is therefore twofold:

1) Avoid all light sources when sleeping (wear a blindfold or have window shades that can block out nearly 100% of outside light).

2) Supplement your light before or during night shifts. This may mean purchasing and using a high-intensity phototherapy device. Sunlight is quite intense, after all. Search for "light therapy device" or "Seasonal Affective Disorder" lamp to locate such products.

In addition, having a healthy endocrine system will further support your ability to work late-night shifts without compromising your overall health. This means avoiding all hormone mimickers such as BPA and drastically reducing your exposure to heavy metals.

In the end, however, there is no replacement for natural sunlight. Your body is engineered to work in harmony with Mother Nature, and that means waking and sleeping in rhythm with the orbit and rotation of planet Earth. Working late-night shifts will inevitably accelerate your aging, suppress your immune system, worsen your moods and disrupt your hormones. No drug will reverse this. Ultimately, the best solution is to work night shifts only temporarily and return to normal waking schedules as quickly as you can.

SOURCE: http://www.naturalnews.com/041769_Shift_Work_Disorder_Nuvigil_phototherapy.html#ixzz2d2O0mCpm

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