Thursday, August 20, 2009

Holy healthy frustration!

Over-prescribed America: the pharmaceutical industry has successfully turned everyone into hypochondriacs. Nikki, my roommate, works at a pharmacy, and has to deal with getting harassed by individuals who firmly believe that without their medication, they will surely die. Yes, they literally question her, "Do you want me to die?"

Nikki spoke of how pharmaceutical companies, who send reps around with a big wad of money to descend upon doctors and shower them with freebies (in the form of computers and other high tech gadgetry) to use their crap (yes, crap), even make medication for side effects to their own product.

Say, a migrane medicine? Ah yes, I should stock up on high blood pressure and nausea pills too. Or maybe, I could really just drink more water.

Words escape me feeling this utterly painful pit in my stomach in regards to the sadness felt towards the current state of society: that it seems, no one can just fend for themselves: they must always be desperately seeking out some instant temporary relief.

Where's the journalists who are questioning Obama for essentially getting secretly financially involved with all these big company juggernauts? The muckrakers who want to go in and dissect these soulless (albeit beneficial, at times) burdens upon our country? Where's the writers who want to urge Americans, as well as every country, to re-learn how to take care of themselves, in which they wouldn't have to bow down to these modern day carpet baggers?

Under rocks, I suppose. Maybe I can coerce them out with a stick... heeere journy-journ. Come out, come out...

3 comments:

Delta said...

The problem is, liberals believe the only way to fix society and its people is through big government and wealth redistribution, that it is "unfair" that the rich have everything and the poor don't. Conservatives believe that society decides who wins and who loses, and poor people lose a lot because they either can't or won't play the cards. Neither side is good or bad, but too much of either leads to bad things. Obama leans hard-left, even though he pitched himself center in the elections. Glad to see more people are coming to realize just how destructive hard-left really is in this country, where we're handing over almost everything to the urban minorities, poor white trash whites, and immigrants who aren't even pitching in taxes to help.

Nyamujal said...

Huh?
Well Delta, the first line of your comment is based on false assumptions. First, what liberals? Surely you're confusing the "left" with liberals, some of whom consider themselves to be the heirs of classical liberals like Locke and Adam Smith - People who believe in capitalism as an economic system and democracy, but are "liberal" on social issues. Obama is part classical liberal, part Keynesian and part establishment shill, but he surely isn't a wealth-distributing, class-warfare-waging, leftist as you seem to be suggesting... Karyn is right to be angry at that establishment shill side of Obama which doesn't mind getting in bed with the corporations. As a conservative you should be celebrating this new avatar of Obama, no? After all, the GOP is the party of big business and pseudo-libertarian market romantics who falsely believe that privatizing everything will lead to an increase in 'liberty'.

"Conservatives believe that society decides who wins and loses"

Really? Is society a bigger version of survivor or American Idol? Which number do I text to if I want a single mum to lose her welfare or if I want to get rid of a soup kitchen?

"Poor people lose a lot because they either can't or won't play the cards"

Surely you think that the system is fair and that centuries of unequal distribution of resources, racism, etc has nothing to do with the way society is structured today...The statement above eerily resembles social Darwinism- The very unscientific, pseudo-religious ideology that underlies the petty-bourgeois roots of Fascism.

"we're handing over almost everything to the urban minorities, poor white trash whites, and immigrants who aren't even pitching in taxes to help."

Oh, immigrants do pay taxes. And Obama so far hasn't pushed for government takeover of private industry (having a stake in GM, banks equivalent to 0.22% of the American economy isn't socialism by anyone's standards), hasn't raised taxes to the levels of some other countries and hasn't redistributed wealth in any way. This sort of rhetoric is just psychotic and is based on a very limited understanding of history, sociology and political economy.

BTW Karyn here is something that Jeremy Scahill said after Obama was elected: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDZ7Z3Rtk8g . These days the mainstream media no longer has a tradition of muckraking journalism that reminds us of Ida Tarbell, Hersch, etc. But, don't despair! Muckraking is still alive, but you have to look to alternative sources like counterpunch.org, bbc, der speigel, le monde, the new left review, etc for it. They hold both democrats and republicans accountable unlike the partisan shills in the mainstream media (NYT and print media included).

DeMorro said...

Obama wants to tax the fuck out of anybody making more than a million bucks, or any business with a payroll exceeding $500k, to pay for insurance for the uninsured.

That is wealth re-distribution if ever there was such a thing.

See how fast I pledge allegiance to Canada when that happens.