Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Much as I am loathe to take cues from Bill Maher, he had a point recently that spoke to my last entry regarding the ubiquitous “What’s wrong with making money?” dodge.

Put simply, not everything should make a profit.

The news, for example.

As Ben Bagdikan pointed out in The Media Monopoly, in 1983, over 90% of all media (movies, television, radio, magazines, books, newspapers, the recording industry, photo agencies, etc) was in the hands of about 50 corporations.

As of 2004, that number has dropped. To five. Five multinational corporations controlling what we see, hear, read – information itself. That should be enough to make the point, but just to be sure, let’s take a quick look at what passes for news in 2009.

The current headlines are full to brimming with Michael Jackson, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and an assortment of entertainment and sensationalist stories that have similar weight to the preceding two. What’s going on with health care? Who cares? The real burning question is what was Steve McNair’s girlfriend thinking?
Contrast this with the news from just thirty or so years ago.

When networks ran to the bottom line and sold themselves to “parent” companies (one of my favorite euphemisms), those companies put a stop to news for the sake of news. See, before then, the entertainment divisions of the networks carried the financial burdens of the news, as well as advertising. But the news – in order to remain the news – was beholden to nobody. At least, not financially. Fast forward to the takeovers, and the parent companies demanded that the news make a profit – something unheard of before then, unless you count “yellow journalism” like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Of course, news for profit changes everything.
The dissemination of information for the purpose of informing is the news. The dissemination of information for money (or other, less overt gain) is propaganda.

The evolution is well documented and easily grasped. The so-called news now has less actual news in it than the average in-house company newsletter. The rest is fluff, sensationalism, “gotcha” stories, and demagoguery.

A simple piece of evidence, then I’m off to enjoy my weekend: A large majority of voters who cast their ballot for George W. Bush believed that he supported the Kyoto Protocol. What’s wrong with making money? That.

I hear it all too often: “What’s wrong with making money?!?”

Of course, this little bit of misdirection is usually delivered in an angry tone by someone who is oblivious to the nonsensical non sequitur it is. Whenever the argument is made that perhaps those who have benefited greatly from the past 30 years of deregulation, massive decrease in taxation, massive public subsidy, criminal refusal to enforce laws protecting labor, the environment, public interest – you get the idea; you’ll be treated to a rousing chorus of that dogmatic propaganda line so inextricably driven into the public consciousness:

“What’s wrong with making money?”

As if (insert any of the following: a national health care plan, tax cuts or subsidies or services or any help whatsoever for the poor, returning taxes on the superwealthy to a minute fraction of their pre-Reaganomics levels, etc) has any effect on the Working Joe who so vigorously defends the very people who keep him poor and wretched – save possibly a positive one.

So, listen, Working Joe: There’s nothing wrong with you making money. But then, you are not a global corporate CEO with a multimillion dollar golden parachute, who feeds off the public trough.

Yes, that’s right, the public trough. You see, we pay taxes, and that money is funneled into research and development in the state/Pentagon system. This R&D eventually produces technological breakthroughs, which then the public again pays private institutions to apply in the marketplace (which, not incidentally, is full of even more subsidies, tax breaks, and protections, all at the expense of guess who), with all the profit channeled back into those private corporations, further enriching the superwealthy.

What’s wrong with making money? The wrong people are making it. You pay in, and someone else gets richer. Isn’t that your whole objection to welfare? Because that’s what it is: welfare for those who couldn’t possibly need it less.

Nobody’s asking for redistribution of wealth, class warfare, or any of the other buzz phrases kicked out by the monumental public “relations” machine that greases the gears of the monumental high-tech feudalism machine. At best, it’s a re-redistribution of wealth, where in the people (that means you) are allowed to reap a tiny measure of benefit for all the money they give to that fragile, teetering-on-the-edge, barely-making-ends-meet class known as The Top 1%.

Turn Faux News back on and get fed another line of propaganda; yours is getting old.

Well, the government now owns a controlling share of General Motors.

What could possibly go wrong?

Of course, while the federal government is an unwieldy, sluggish, blundering, rarely competent, bureaucratic behemoth, at least it’s not an unwieldy, sluggish, blundering, rarely competent, bureaucratic behemoth with the sole purpose of sucking the blood from the dessicated revenant of of the American consumer base. Mind you, they have been the biggest enablers of the people who’s sole purpose is to suck the blood from the dessicated revenant of of the American consumer base, so don’t get your hopes up.

Anyway, I sincerely hope the Obama Administration is merely spinning when they make all that laissez-faire noise about injecting 30 billion into GM without demanding anything in return. If they haven’t learned that handing rich white men a ton of money guarantees only that the rich white men just got richer – scratch that. Of course they know. My bad.
What I mean is that they’d better be lying about not running GM. Because I’d rather have the snail-paced, tunnel-vision, hidebound bureaucrats calling the shots than sadistic cash-junkies.
General Motors ran their company into the ground through a mixture of greed, arrogance, greed, stupidity, and blind, ugly, gimmie-gimmie-fuck-piggy greed. They were the architects of planned obsolescence; they pushed dreadnought-sized cars and trucks out of union-busting, third-world, sweatshop industrial-vaginas when the entire world was moving toward smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; they laughed at the Japanese (always a bad idea – just ask Sylvania) for their efforts, fought tooth and nail against environmental regulation, unions, anything remotely resembling business sense, and bunnies. In short, they failed in every way possible.

I can’t imagine the government doing worse. Of course, I said that about Reagan, and then we got George W. Bush.

Good luck, all.

Yesterday, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition Hate. Okay, Prop 8. Spot the difference if you can. Here, I give you my open letter to those who funded, supported, campaigned and voted for yet another attempt to create a precedent for second-class citizens:

“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” – Matthew 25:40

Is there something unclear about that passage? Are you so ignorant of the tenets of your own religion that you don’t even know what you’re doing? Or are you just scared shitless?
What is it, exactly, that frightens you so? Pee-pees and hoo-hoos being touched by the wrong gender, out of your sight or any other means of perception? Proof that people who are not like you live just as meaningful, rich, and productive lives as any other?

What you are doing is wrong. There is no argument for it that doesn’t immediately collapse under ten seconds of rational scrutiny. Your behaviors and actions are discredited by reason, science, precedent, history, compassion, and law. So, backed into a corner by all measures of merit and common sense, you cling to your so-called faith (which apparently is so weak that you must denounce the Founding Fathers as godless heathens for keeping church and state separate, and force your very distinct and irretrievably repugnant brand of cultism upon others so that you won’t feel insecure), again and again attempting to sit in judgment of others whom your god alone reserves the right to judge.

“Marriage” has become your latest shield, a threadbare veil to drape over the hate in your hearts. Of course, you tell yourself that you aren’t usurping the one true judge you claim to believe in, arrogantly insisting you know know his mind, and acting without his blessing as his terrible, swift sword; what you’re actually doing is defending “marriage.” A tradition, sacrosanct and pure. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

But your “tradition” of marriage lies at the end of another twisted path through the halls of history, as any historian can tell you that marriage came into being in order to gather wealth. For the umpteenth time, “marriage” is a contract rooted in wealth and property consolidation that was only made a “sacrament” because the clergy wanted more control of wealth and property. In that respect, it was no better than the corrupt and immoral Catholic “indulgences.” Marriage was a contract between two people and the state. Arguing on the basis of your religious beliefs is invalid and cowardly. First, our country was not founded on religious principles. Yes, many of the Founding Fathers were religious. Yes, similar wording can be found in religious texts. But the simple fact is, our country was founded on the principle of rule of law, and that law was deliberately made secular so that the government could not interfere with religious beliefs, and vice versa. Second (as if a second should be needed), as explained above, “marriage” is not the province of any, some, or all religion(s). Never has been; never will be. No religion or group of religions can lay claim to it. It came from Common Law, and to Common Law it will always belong. You have no “tradition” or “sacrament” that predates Common Law’s claim on marriage. You’re wrong. Get over it.

History also teaches us that homosexuality has been, is now, and ever will be, and you don’t “catch” it by being near gay people; thus (for example), the children that they raise will love whomever they desire regardless of their upbringing.

Alas, history and it’s students are just more heathens to add to the ever-growing majority of people who don’t think as you do.

Call it like it is, so-called defenders of “traditional marriage”. You just don’t like gay people. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nobody is going to – or will ever – force you to like another person. That’s your decision to make. And as such, attempts to cloak this dislike by calling on religion is pure and simple cowardice. Anyone who does this is a complete and total pussy. No; fuck you; you’re a pussy. A chickenshit who isn’t man or woman enough to stand up and say, “I just don’t like them, and I don’t want them being equal to me.”

And I know why you don’t do say that. We all do, even you. It’s because you will lose this battle over civil rights if you do. But if you had any guts at all, that’s what you would say.
So what if gay people could marry and adopt? It doesn’t mean you have to like it, or them. In fact, it will have no effect on your life whatsoever. You’ll go right on not liking them, and they’ll go right on living their lives, not giving a shit about you.

No historian, scientist, or gay person has ever invaded your home, forced you to abandon your beliefs, stolen your money, enslaved your children to a lifestyle you find repulsive, burned your dwelling to the ground, spit and hurled curses at you, and/or defiled your holy text(s) because of their “faith”.

Why, then, do you feel you must do unto others as they have never done unto you?
I think your friend Jesus might have said something about that, too.

I have written before about my various and wonderful medical issues. To be clear, none are immediately life-threatening, so there are a lot of people out there further along on the misery scale than I. Which has never been the issue with me; I have a high threshold for suffering. Lots of training. But again, that’s not the issue.

The issue is – and always has been – why I believe they call inflicting health care on people “practice”. It’s not just an amusing coincidence of synonymous terms.

For example, I have a collection of pills I’d compare with any senior citizen’s any day of the week. Some were misfires, some were disasters, and a precious few are useful. Among them is a heavy-duty painkiller called levorphanol tartrate. Originally, they prescribed a large dose – too large, as it turned out, because I was so friggin’ high I couldn’t sleep or function. Eventually, after refusing to switch to something else (despite having done so no less than 4 times in 3 months), they lowered the dose. It wasn’t very effective that way (not that it was very effective in the first place), but it was the best I could expect from doctors.
Now, the problem with treating long-term chronic pain with narcotics (other than the beating you give to your body) is that eventually, you have to be on them all the time, and as your body tolerates the drug more and more, you require a higher dose. Or something stronger.
Of course, my doctors and I crossed that bridge some time ago. I am fully aware of what my treatment means, and what it does. Which is why I find it surprising whenever the doctors act like I’m a ten year-old.
Recently, I began to notice the levorphanol was becoming less and less effective. This is not a new occurrence; other drugs had begun to fail me in the past as my tolerance increased. So, with no other viable explanation, I talked to the doctors on my next visit, and told them what was happening. Their response was yet another example of what a joke “our” “partnership” in dealing with my chronic pain really is. They lied to me. Which, again, is nothing new.
Rather than just bringing the dose back to what they originally prescribed it at, they told me they could recommend a number of “off-label” drugs to supplement the levorphanol. (If you don’t click my links, here’s the deal with off-label use: a drug is approved by the FDA. After that, doctors, in their infinite wisdom, can prescribe them for anything they feel like. Anything. Bumped your toe? Here, have an antidepressant. It’s one of the bigger scams being put on by your friends and mine in the pharmaceutical industry.) They then told me they they weren’t allowed to prescribe levorphanol at a higher dose than the one I was currently taking.
But wait; didn’t you just say that they had prescribed a higher dose already?
Thank you, Straw Man. Yes, they did. In fact, they have a record of it.
So, I told them they were wrong.
So, they told me that they weren’t going to do it no matter what.
So, I thanked them for their time and walked away.

Why bother? Why lie? Why not just say, “We know we prescribed it at a higher dose, but we’ve changed our minds.” What’s wrong with that?
Either they thought I would be too stupid to remember, or they thought I would be too stupid to understand their real reason. Neither option is encouraging.

And there’s the hypocritical rub: Drug-pushers and their self-righteous sanctimony over the drugs they push. It’s bullshit. They’ll gladly give you drugs that are twice as dangerous as the celebrity dope because the media isn’t splashing the headlines with sensational stories about the quieter, more insidious meds. And then they’ll get nosebleeds thrusting their lofty honkers in the air while they condescend to tell you that they “don’t feel comfortable” giving you the tabloid stuff. As if your bone is poking through your skin because you want to start a trendy drug habit. As if you couldn’t get better drugs for far less time, trouble, and money by calling that dude who works at Milio’s.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I am not fond of doctors.