Over the past 5 decades, there has been:

    * a breakdown in the extended family
    * a dispersal of communities
    * an increased focus on material wealth
    * an overwhelming prevalence of news media
    * and an increase in focus on 'the self'.

All of which, and more besides, add up to a potent recipe for depression.

...it is estimated 35 to 40 million Americans living today will suffer from major depression at some time during their lives, with about half of this amount suffering from recurring depression symptoms.

You know what?  All those depressed Americans?  Those are potential Democratic voters.

According to a few reports, some from back in July:

As part of a broad new effort to better understand how diabetics manage their illness, the New York City Board of Health is ordering laboratories to pass along detailed information on individual tests that measure blood sugar levels to the city's health department.

It is the first such reporting and tracking effort in the country, and it is being closely watched by public health officials nationwide wrestling with ways to better control the epidemic of diabetes.

[...] By gathering data on the tests, the city hopes to coordinate intervention programs. Within six months, officials hope to use the information to reach out to local doctors and, in some cases, patients, to urge lifestyle changes and other measures to better control the disease.

Emphasis mine. More below the fold.

Ken MacLeod is a Scottish science fiction author (and a good one, too, I think).  His most recent blog entry has some thoughts on Bush's legitimification (heh), and advice to his friends in America.  Not sure how I feel about all of his suggestions, but I thought I'd pass it on anyway - it's food for thought, at least, and I haven't seen most of these ideas on dKos before.  

Excerpts below the fold:

Hi everybody!

I'm looking for debate drinking games.  I saw this one over at Wonkette.  It wasn't bad, but I'm wondering if there are any other ones out there, better or worse, in blogland?  Anyone seen any others?

Or even what are your suggestions for a 2004 debate drinking game?

Reason mag, though sometimes publishing articles that go well against its name, has recently published an intriguing article claiming that Kerry should attack Bush from the right on foreign policy.  It's an interesting idea - before you tune out, take a breath and consider, it doesn't have to mean war and empire.  Kerry has already done it a little, when he talks about working better with other countries and bringing up our respect in the world.

Reason's model and example?  JFK's 1960 campaign against Nixon.  So, maybe Kerry needs to rachet it up a notch?

[my apologies if this has already been celebrated, but I don't see it mentioned anywhere recently, and the search function isn't working for me at the moment]

As Bob says over at Polizeros, "It's amazing what happens when bright flashlights shine into murky, dark places. ... Let's keep on shining that flashlight. No, wait - let's ramp it up, and get  dozens of searchlights instead - and make sure Florida voting is clean this year."

I just got back from seeing Patriot Act at the New York Theatre Workshop.  If you're in NY, go see it.  Better than Fahrenheit 9/11.  Forget the ties to the Saudis and his corporate lovefests.  Forget the oil and the lying.  This play exposes the Bush team's ties to those in the right who want to turn America into an Old Testament-style theocracy.  It's not really a play, it's more of an interactive multimedial lecture, like experiencing a book live.  But it's great.  I mean, I'm already anti-Bush, pro-America, pro-reason and pro-democracy... but this really redefined my view of the Bush administration and the forces behind it.

It's billed as "A Public Meditation" - an evening with media critic and political commentator Mark Crispin Miller, author of books including The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder and the upcoming Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order.  It's great - go see it if you can.  It's playing through July 22.  Otherwise I guess you can just get his upcoming book, it probably covers a lot of the same material.

Congress.org is having a thing where you pledge your vote - currently Bush is at 62% and Kerry is just under 38%...  I know these things don't matter, but can we help shove that together a bit?

[i posted this at my blog the other day, but it's been festering in my mind and no one's ever going to see it there so I'm reposting it here at dKos, maybe someone will care :P ]

I love Disinfopedia.  It's "a collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Sponsored by the Center for Media and Democracy, the Disinfopedia was started in February 2003 and are now working on 4998 articles."  Based on the popular Wikipedia, you can get involved and help create and edit articles.

What's so great about Disinfopedia?  Well, let's say, just for example, you're Googling for global warming.  As I write this, the second major result is a site run by "the Cooler Heads Coalition, a sub-group of the National Consumer Coalition."  Who are these groups?  They sound rational, unbiased, concerned about consumers.  Well, don't take their own PR for granted, go check out the CHC at Disinfopedia and also the NCC.  You'll quickly discover that they are highly industry-friendly organizations run by Consumer Alert, a group once approached by Philip Morris as a possible ally, and identified by PM as a " "DC free market consumer group, antithesis of the Nader effort."  Not that I particularly love Ralph Nader, but it chaps my hide that there are these groups out there which basically front for corporations, through multiple degrees of separation and gratuitous Orwellian use of words and phrases like "consumer concerns".  At least, thanks to Disinfopedia, you can look up groups as you hear about them and find out where their funding comes from and who is behind them.  Now you know...

BTW, a better site for global warming information is Global Warming: Early Warning Signs, a more fact-based site run by actual scientists & real citizens' groups.

I believe in free speech - these corporate front groups are made up of fellow citizens, and they have just as much right to spread their views as anyone else.  But they aren't really spreading their own views, they are paid to spread someone else's, and even if they claim the views they spread as their own, theirs are opinions formed through the filter of corporate profit hunting.  Free speech is great, but it's unfortunate that concentrations of wealth are so able to fund these disinformative public relations efforts to encourage continued growth of said wealth.  While we, the actual citizens, bumble about with very little money or power, trying to counter their efforts when we become aware of them, with little PR expertise and therefore little effect, usually.

What we need is some sort of citizens' PR umbrella group like Moveon.org or Democracy For America, but whose sole job is to research & combat these corporate PR front groups.  A Public Relations resource for citizens instead of organizations, something like the National Lawyers Guild, but made up of socially conscious concerned Public Relations professionals (if any exist - maybe I should become one).  It's a nascent idea that needs tons of work, but I think it could be a good one.

Thoughts?

I love stuff like this: this guy's great thoughts on "reconstituting America".  Things to dream about.  I don't suppose any of them but the last would be impossible, if we would just start controlling the dialog in this country.  Time makes anything possible, right?

This seems to be a good summer for lefty documentaries, what with Fahrenheit 9/11 and a couple of others I've seen mentioned heare and there.  I want to draw your attention to another one you may not have heard of: The Corporation

At the moment I'm working my way through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present.  I highly recommend the book in general; you can learn more about it elsewhere.  I bring it up now to highlight some of what I've learned, and implore everyone to never forget it, even after Kerry wins.  The two main points:

A) The class war has been going on here in full force since the first colonists arrived

B) The tactics used today are virtually the same as those used over 150 years ago.

C) The most effective tactic is the presentation of two political parties, not much different from each other, that voters can switch between when they feel they need a "change".