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PROUT TIMES GLOBAL JAN-MAR 2019
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global updates
Toxic masculinity:
American
Psychological
Association says it’s
bad to be a man
Kathmandu, Nepal
The tricky ethics of the
lucrative disaster rescue
business
In retrospect, the choice to book a groundfloor
room was a sound one.
On Saturday, April 25, Andy Fraser lay in
bed at the Rokpa Guest House, a modest
three-story hotel in Nepal’s ancient
capital, a city of 1 million sunk in a valley
bordered by the Himalayan range. Fraser,
a powerfully built 38-year-old British
wilderness paramedic with a shaved head
and prom inent brow, had arrived a few
weeks earlier for an extended business trip.
A lifelong adventurer, he’d cut his teeth in
London’s frenetic ambulance service, taught
English at a salmon farm on an island in
Chi Kathmandu, Nepal
In retrospect, the choice to book a groundfloor
room was a sound one.
On Saturday, April 25, Andy Fraser lay in
bed at the Rokpa Guest House, a modest
three-story hotel in Nepal’s ancient
capital, a city of 1 million sunk in a valley
bordered by the Himalayan range. Fraser,
a powerfully built 38-year-old British
wilderness paramedic with a shaved head
and prom inent brow, had arrived a few
weeks earlier for an extended business trip.
A lifelong adventurer, he’d cut his teeth in
London’s frenetic ambulance service, taught
English at a salmon farm on an island
in Chile, and spent six months treating
snakebites at a clinic in rural Zambia.
Recently, though, things had changed.
He’d gotten engaged to another British
paramedic, Becky, and with 40 approaching,
he’d decided he needed to find what he
called “a real job.”
He’d sought out a position with Global
Rescue, a private crisis-response firm, and
in his first year on the job was dispatched
to Nepal for the Himalayan climbing
season. Global Rescue, which positions
itself as a nimble eject button for those
who frequently find themselves in tough
spots, has in the past decade established a
lucrative client base of large corporations,
government organizations, hunters, and
adventure travelers. The company has
offices in New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Pakistan, and Thailand and a staff that
might make some countries’ armies blush.
Its roster of 200-odd employees includes
wilderness paramedics and former military
personnel, some of them ex-Special Forces
and Navy SEALs. The company’s Nepal
posting is a busy one. Every spring, climbers
and trekkers, many of them Global Rescue
clients, come to test their mettle in the
Himalayas. In 2013 and 2014, the company
evacuated 28 clients and repatriated the
remains of three more who perished in the
mountains.
So far, though, it had been a quiet month.
The mountaineers were acclimatizing
on the lower regions of the Himalayas’
iconic peaks: Makalu, Lhotse, and Mount
Everest. Fraser’s job in Kathmandu was to
assist members in need of medical care or
evacuation. He called Becky around noon
on Skype, as she was just waking up in
England. The couple said good morning,
then Fraser’s room began to move. It was a
steady, primal roll, like a turbulent ocean.
“Holy shit,” Fraser told his fiancée. “I think
there’s a fucking earthquake.” Then the
Wi-Fi connection died. He fell off the bed,
pulled on a shirt, hurtled out, and started
banging on doors, yelling at his neighbors
to leave the hotel. The floor lurched, the
walls swayed. Fraser sprinted for the door,
assuming the building was coming down.
When he reached the lawn he started
screaming up at the hotel’s windows: Get
out! Staffers and guests ran out of the
building and onto the lawn. Fraser was
shocked the Rokpa didn’t collapse.
This had been a long time coming. The
last major earth quake in Nepal took place
in 1934, an 8.0 temblor that flattened
Kathmandu. Before that Saturday in April,
seis mologists had been warning of another
Big One for years. Noting Kathmandu’s
dense population center and the country’s
poor infrastructure—Nepal is currently
ranked 145th out of 187 on the United
Nations’ human development report—some
observers predicted as many as 100,000
deaths in the event of another 8.0 tremor.
At 7.8, the quake that struck on April 25
was smaller than many anticipated. But
it was shallow, causing violent shaking
on the surface. And at two long minutes,
the quake’s duration was the seismic
equivalent of a Jimmy Page solo. When it
stopped, Fraser heard screaming. He sent a
message to Hassan Anderson, a colleague
in Global Rescue’s Bangkok office, via
Line, the free communication app, saying,
“Big earthquake here.” le, and spent six
months treating snakebites at a clinic in
rural Zambia. Recently, though, things had
changed. He’d gotten engaged to another
British paramedic,
The silver bullet to
stop the corporate
state pillage
Every year some US
soldiers decide they don’t
want to shoot people
they don’t know so that
ExxonMobil can have
more oil or Lockheed
Martin can make more
cash or MSNBC/Fox
News can give their hosts
topics for their poetry
books.
Basically, these soldiers
do something horrifying,
something terrible,
something often called
“treasonous” … They —
wait for it — think for
themselves!
(Glass shatters. Woman
screams. Baby cries.)
Nothing is more
frightening for our
endless war machine
than a military grunt who
thinks for him or herself.
They’re supposed to do
nothing more than follow
orders. They’re supposed
to ask a superior officer
for permission to wear
a different color pair of
socks. That’s right —
the biggest, toughest
gladiators in our society
have to get authorization
to switch from boxers to
briefs.
I’ll get to what this has
to do with our inverted
totalitarian corporate
pillaging in a moment.
One of the more notable
soldiers who stood up this
year was Spenser Rapone
— a second lieutenant
discharged on June 18,
2018, for disparaging
the US war machine
online and promoting
a socialist revolution.
(Clearly our enormous
globe-spanning military
complex can obliterate
any possible enemies
except independent
thought, which promptly
turns it to a mush akin
to pea soup.) Apparently
reading about the true
story of Pat Tillman
pushed Rapone toward
the realization that he was
a pawn in the middle of a
massive lie.
To sell the war. Why is it
they would need to sell
a war? Oh, I know —
because it’s completely
unjustifiable. For
activities people naturally
agree with or enjoy
doing, you don’t have to
advertise them. Like you
don’t see ads saying, “Hey,
feed your kids… Don’t
forget.” Or a commercial
saying, “Try having sex
some time. It’s fun!”
That stuff comes pretty
naturally. But you do
need promotion (Read:
media propaganda) for
our endless war games
because it does not come
naturally to most of us.
War comes naturally to
sociopaths, and then it’s
sold to the rest of us,
much like a used car or
an ill-advised timeshare
in Cleveland.
But the military is not
the only place where
conscientious objectors
play a role. It might be the
only one where walking
away can get you locked
up in prison spending
your days sewing
McDonald’s uniforms, but
there are a lot of moments
in our messed-up world
when you can turn your
back and do the right
thing.
For example, fewer
and fewer people are
willing to do the job
of killing millions of
animals every year. A
recent report“revealed
that staff shortages at
slaughterhouses [in the
UK were] threatening
Christmas sales. Some
10,000 positions are
unfilled at major
abattoirs… The report
explains that for most
potential applicants,
the industry’s low pay
is not the problem but
that ‘people simply do
not want to do this work
anymore.’”
Read more
The Pentagon failed its
audit amid a $21 trillion
scandal (yes, trillion) -
Lee Camp The Pentagon
failed its audit amid a
$21 trillion scandal (yes,
trillion) - Lee Camp
Oh come on, you fragile
snowflakes! “Ewww, I
can’t handle chopping
Attention boys: bullying,
homophobia, sexual
harassment and abuse are
all your fault, according
to new guidelines
published by the world’s
largest association of
psychologists.
While traditional gender
roles – under which men
are stoic, competitive,
dominant and aggressive
– have existed for
millennia, the rise of
social justice culture
has seen a new phrase
popularized in recent
years: toxic masculinity.
This idea, that traditional
male traits are ‘toxic’ and
dangerous, has largely
remained confined
to feminist blogs and
social sciences faculties,
but now the American
Psychological Association
(APA) has jumped on
board.
American Psychological
Association
@APA
· Jan 8, 2019
Replying to @APA
The guidelines support
encouraging positive
aspects of “traditional
masculinity,” such as
courage & leadership,
and discarding traits such
as violence & sexism,
while noting that the vast
majority of men are not
violent.
American Psychological
Association
@APA
Traits of so-called
“traditional masculinity,”
like suppressing emotions
& masking distress,
often start early in life &
have been linked to less
willingness by boys &
men to seek help, more
risk-taking & aggression