Thursday, April 29, 2004
Big Drug Companies Are Killing Us.
Big Drug Companies are killing us. I’m sick of these international drug dealers clogging up the air waves with their drug pushing TV ads. Where is the FCC when you need them, silencing dissent instead of looking after the public interest. The big drug companies are killing us with their patent and expired patent drugs. Now they want us to become addicted to Prilosec, 1 pill, 24 hours, no heartburn. What else can the big drug companies be called but drug pushers when they push people to take a drug every day. Why is this even happening? Why an epidemic of heartburn? Is it the food we eat, or the way we eat. Fast food is the reason we need Prilosec. The food is fast both in preparation and consumption. We are rushed by work pressure to eat greasy, fat, empty calorie food, then naturally we get heart burn, which then leads us to taking drugs every day just to get by. Bad food followed by worse drugs, which we don’t know the long term effects of. We know the long term effects of fast food, heart attacks, diabetes, early death. What kind of a drug trial are we being made part of by addicting people to Prilosec? The long term effects of the drugs are always a surprise to the drug maker, Prosac and pregnancy problems, Ritalin and stunting growth, Prilosec and WHAT? The Food and Drug Administration is asleep at the switch.
What is the real problem here. The first real problem is the way work is structured in this country. Work should benefit the workers as well as the wealthy. Work should not harm the personal relationships of the worker. Family life, the daily 2 hour meal, that is what family life is all about, eating together, should be sacrosanct in the American arrangements for living. Work should come second to personal life, work should adjust to the needs of the worker’s personal life. Work is suppose to reward the worker, not harm them. But I want to address another systematic failing, another aspect of our system that should be changed.
How can we stop this epidemic of harmful but money making drugs being foisted on the American people? Abolish patented drugs. Ooooo, but nobody will do research? What age are we living in? We have a whole public infra structure of chemical research, they’re called universities and they are everywhere and their research is used for private gain by the drug companies, the drug companies are parasites of the university. All drug research should be done in public institutions. The production and selling of drugs can be done by private individuals based on publicly available research. There would be only generic drug producers.
Abolish patents for drugs. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We are no longer an agricultural society. We are a postindustrial idea society in a silicon age. Economic nostrums for an agricultural economy may no longer apply. In fact such agricultural nostrums may pervert the course of business development to the detriment of the larger public good. Take patent drugs, please, and abolish them.
When patents were instituted in an agricultural economy they were meant to increase research and invention. Now drug patents just pervert the course of scientific research. Drug companies look for drugs that will sell, for drugs not only that there is a market for, like Viagra, but for drugs that they can create a market for, like Ritalin. All drug research should be done in publicly supported universities in an atmosphere of academic freedom that encourages knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Research will be driven by the interests of the researchers, not to exploit people’s weaknesses. There will always be researchers who are intent on solving the most pressing problems of their day. All of society will benefit, not suffer, from this change. But what of royalties. The generic drug makers, the only kind left, would pay royalties back to the universities to use for salaries, scholarships, fellowships, equipment and facilities. The royalties would feed the system of public research itself. The results of all research, from individual data points to conclusions and discoveries, would be completely publicly available. Then any, and every, individual would have the opportunity to exploit this knowledge economically. No restrictions on use apply. Royalties to the universities. Equal access to knowledge means equal opportunity to exploit which means equal power. NO secret research. That makes tyrants. Power to the people. Abolish drug patents, convert private drug laboratories to centers for new public universities. Ooooo, but how?
Use eminent domain and take a phased approached. As for the drug patents themselves, we set one fixed drop dead date for all patents, say 2021, 17 years form now. Every drug patent issued in the next 17 years will expire on that date. After that no drug patents will be issued. As for the drug companies private research facility assets and staff, they will be taken by eminent domain, private property taken for the public good, the public’s long term good health, with just compensation. What’s the compensation, tax breaks, enormous probably, but in the end worth it. These private drug company facilities will be converted to center’s of new public university facilities. This will convert drug production to a level playing field in which companies will be competing on quality and price, not novelty, nor with the impetus to create diseases that can be cured with drugs.
What is the real problem here. The first real problem is the way work is structured in this country. Work should benefit the workers as well as the wealthy. Work should not harm the personal relationships of the worker. Family life, the daily 2 hour meal, that is what family life is all about, eating together, should be sacrosanct in the American arrangements for living. Work should come second to personal life, work should adjust to the needs of the worker’s personal life. Work is suppose to reward the worker, not harm them. But I want to address another systematic failing, another aspect of our system that should be changed.
How can we stop this epidemic of harmful but money making drugs being foisted on the American people? Abolish patented drugs. Ooooo, but nobody will do research? What age are we living in? We have a whole public infra structure of chemical research, they’re called universities and they are everywhere and their research is used for private gain by the drug companies, the drug companies are parasites of the university. All drug research should be done in public institutions. The production and selling of drugs can be done by private individuals based on publicly available research. There would be only generic drug producers.
Abolish patents for drugs. We’re not in Kansas anymore. We are no longer an agricultural society. We are a postindustrial idea society in a silicon age. Economic nostrums for an agricultural economy may no longer apply. In fact such agricultural nostrums may pervert the course of business development to the detriment of the larger public good. Take patent drugs, please, and abolish them.
When patents were instituted in an agricultural economy they were meant to increase research and invention. Now drug patents just pervert the course of scientific research. Drug companies look for drugs that will sell, for drugs not only that there is a market for, like Viagra, but for drugs that they can create a market for, like Ritalin. All drug research should be done in publicly supported universities in an atmosphere of academic freedom that encourages knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Research will be driven by the interests of the researchers, not to exploit people’s weaknesses. There will always be researchers who are intent on solving the most pressing problems of their day. All of society will benefit, not suffer, from this change. But what of royalties. The generic drug makers, the only kind left, would pay royalties back to the universities to use for salaries, scholarships, fellowships, equipment and facilities. The royalties would feed the system of public research itself. The results of all research, from individual data points to conclusions and discoveries, would be completely publicly available. Then any, and every, individual would have the opportunity to exploit this knowledge economically. No restrictions on use apply. Royalties to the universities. Equal access to knowledge means equal opportunity to exploit which means equal power. NO secret research. That makes tyrants. Power to the people. Abolish drug patents, convert private drug laboratories to centers for new public universities. Ooooo, but how?
Use eminent domain and take a phased approached. As for the drug patents themselves, we set one fixed drop dead date for all patents, say 2021, 17 years form now. Every drug patent issued in the next 17 years will expire on that date. After that no drug patents will be issued. As for the drug companies private research facility assets and staff, they will be taken by eminent domain, private property taken for the public good, the public’s long term good health, with just compensation. What’s the compensation, tax breaks, enormous probably, but in the end worth it. These private drug company facilities will be converted to center’s of new public university facilities. This will convert drug production to a level playing field in which companies will be competing on quality and price, not novelty, nor with the impetus to create diseases that can be cured with drugs.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
America Embraces The Deadlies.
America embraces the Deadlies, the seven deadly sins that is.
Gluttony of course is our favorite deadly. We are a nation of gluttons. We eat all day, every day, everywhere, at home, at work, at leisure. We never stop eating. We are a nation of obese gluttons. The new Cheez-it ad slogan proclaims this value without shame: “Get your own box.” Be a glutton.
Look at restaurants like Claim Jumper and Outback Steakhouse, they serve portions that quite literally only a glutton could stomach. Socially responsible corporate governance requires that products produced and services provided be healthful. Serving gluttonous portions of food is socially irresponsible behavior because it is anti good public health. It doesn’t matter if we eat at these feeding troughs, restaurant is a misnomer, once a day, once a week, or once a month, it is not healthful to stuff your face. No exceptions. These restaurants should be made to change their corrupt corporate behavior. I’d like to see some religious groups put their congregations where their collective mouths are and start a campaign to picket restaurants and protest the gluttonous portions they serve. They are making us fat, they are making us sick, they are symbols of decade, of the falling away from American democratic values into the decadent values of Empire, in this case, the decadent value of conspicuous waste.
These feeding trough’s gigantic portions are a symbol of decadence, because it is decadent to waste food when others are starving. Yes, it does make a difference to starving children wherever they are, not if we clean our plates, but that we put so much on our own plates in the first place. The planet Earth has limited resources. The energy and resources we eat up to over produce food for ourselves, means those resources can not be used to produce food somewhere else, for someone else. It takes technology and natural resources to produce food in an industrial economy, tractors require gasoline. If we steal raw resources cheaply from resource rich countries then the resources are not going to be there for the locals to use to support themselves, to buy and fuel tractors for themselves.
Americans are gluttons. We pig out on things that aren’t even nutritional. We devour chips, cakes, candies, sodas. We pig out on things that are in fact anti-nutritional, like high fructose corn syrup that turns the other calories we eat with it into fat. We’ve even created synthetic comestibles to pig out on, things like fluorescent blue “juices”. Why? We are gluttons. Do we want cheaper health cost? The we have to straighten up and fly right nutritionally and stop being gluttons.
Still wondering why we’re overweight? Let’s try putting less food in our mouths, eat only at meal times, and see if that doesn’t make a difference. And if we can’t do that, if we can’t even for one day have nothing but a glass of water at our desks, then we know we are gluttons, because we can’t stop eating. Then we will have to ask ourselves what in our society promotes gluttony so much that we are addicted to having food in our mouths at all times. Why do we need this pacifier? How wrong have we gone that we need this pacifier?
How do we eat? How much time do we spend at meals? Are meals rushed and harried? Why can’t we have one leisurely, relationship friendly, two hour meal each day, every day? What kind of society do we live in that we have been convinced we must abandon this simple and sanity inducing pleasure for stress, frustration and loneliness? What is the greater good for which we abandon this everyday pleasure that makes live worth living? Is there any greater good for the worker caste? Or is it only for the greater good of the wealthy caste that the worker caste is enslaved daily and isolated from their families and friends? Why do we consent to enslavement? So we can become isolated gluttons and eat junk all the time to soothe the pain of the absence of real companionship provided by a leisurely, shared meal? Stop being a glutton. Share a meal slowly. Demand two hour lunch brakes. Do it for our long term health and sanity. All Americans, all people, are entitled to the simple pleasures of living a healthful life. Let us abandon our devotion to at least one of the deadlies.
Gluttony of course is our favorite deadly. We are a nation of gluttons. We eat all day, every day, everywhere, at home, at work, at leisure. We never stop eating. We are a nation of obese gluttons. The new Cheez-it ad slogan proclaims this value without shame: “Get your own box.” Be a glutton.
Look at restaurants like Claim Jumper and Outback Steakhouse, they serve portions that quite literally only a glutton could stomach. Socially responsible corporate governance requires that products produced and services provided be healthful. Serving gluttonous portions of food is socially irresponsible behavior because it is anti good public health. It doesn’t matter if we eat at these feeding troughs, restaurant is a misnomer, once a day, once a week, or once a month, it is not healthful to stuff your face. No exceptions. These restaurants should be made to change their corrupt corporate behavior. I’d like to see some religious groups put their congregations where their collective mouths are and start a campaign to picket restaurants and protest the gluttonous portions they serve. They are making us fat, they are making us sick, they are symbols of decade, of the falling away from American democratic values into the decadent values of Empire, in this case, the decadent value of conspicuous waste.
These feeding trough’s gigantic portions are a symbol of decadence, because it is decadent to waste food when others are starving. Yes, it does make a difference to starving children wherever they are, not if we clean our plates, but that we put so much on our own plates in the first place. The planet Earth has limited resources. The energy and resources we eat up to over produce food for ourselves, means those resources can not be used to produce food somewhere else, for someone else. It takes technology and natural resources to produce food in an industrial economy, tractors require gasoline. If we steal raw resources cheaply from resource rich countries then the resources are not going to be there for the locals to use to support themselves, to buy and fuel tractors for themselves.
Americans are gluttons. We pig out on things that aren’t even nutritional. We devour chips, cakes, candies, sodas. We pig out on things that are in fact anti-nutritional, like high fructose corn syrup that turns the other calories we eat with it into fat. We’ve even created synthetic comestibles to pig out on, things like fluorescent blue “juices”. Why? We are gluttons. Do we want cheaper health cost? The we have to straighten up and fly right nutritionally and stop being gluttons.
Still wondering why we’re overweight? Let’s try putting less food in our mouths, eat only at meal times, and see if that doesn’t make a difference. And if we can’t do that, if we can’t even for one day have nothing but a glass of water at our desks, then we know we are gluttons, because we can’t stop eating. Then we will have to ask ourselves what in our society promotes gluttony so much that we are addicted to having food in our mouths at all times. Why do we need this pacifier? How wrong have we gone that we need this pacifier?
How do we eat? How much time do we spend at meals? Are meals rushed and harried? Why can’t we have one leisurely, relationship friendly, two hour meal each day, every day? What kind of society do we live in that we have been convinced we must abandon this simple and sanity inducing pleasure for stress, frustration and loneliness? What is the greater good for which we abandon this everyday pleasure that makes live worth living? Is there any greater good for the worker caste? Or is it only for the greater good of the wealthy caste that the worker caste is enslaved daily and isolated from their families and friends? Why do we consent to enslavement? So we can become isolated gluttons and eat junk all the time to soothe the pain of the absence of real companionship provided by a leisurely, shared meal? Stop being a glutton. Share a meal slowly. Demand two hour lunch brakes. Do it for our long term health and sanity. All Americans, all people, are entitled to the simple pleasures of living a healthful life. Let us abandon our devotion to at least one of the deadlies.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
I’ve Been Walkerbushed To Death.
I’ve been walkerbushed to death. John Kerry us to peace. Please. How can we make this right when we’ve got it so wrong? First, we apologize. I want the President of the United States to go to the United Nations and stand up and say:
“I and the people of the United States are sorry we did not abide by international law and invaded Iraq without the agreement and support of the United Nations. It was a serious mistake, an abuse of our power, a failure of our system and ourselves that we allowed our government to fall into the hands of mercenary men. We repent and regret our arrogance of power. We now submit to the rule of international law. To prove our good faith and affirmation of shared principles, we now submit to the justice of the Permanent International Criminal Court. Please do not make the people of Iraq suffer because of our mendacity. The people of Iraq need an international force to help them stabilize their society and help them ultimately to prosper. We are willing to help in any capacity the United Nations chooses to use our resources. Please accept our apology, we are as human as others and were corrupted by power. Power must be shared equally if fair play and substantial justice are to prevail for all.”
Or something to that effect. Will this ever happen? My daughter says, “No.” She says no one ever apologizes for at least two hundred years. She says people don’t like to acknowledge their mistakes in their private life, why would they do it in their public one.
Why indeed? There is no pressure from any part of our society to look at ourselves honestly. “Examine Your Conscious.”, as my sister tells her high school students. I think she’s probably the only one who has ever intimated to them that they might have something called a conscious. Do you have a conscious? A conscious part that sees clearly, and without self congratulating, self-serving or fear mongering hype, the consequences of our actions. This Bush War has done no good for any one. I stand corrected. It has filled the pockets of the Arms Dealers, the Death Dealers who run this country, The Cheney-Bush Gang. Who else? Not the Iraqis, they look in for a long time of semi turmoil. Not us. The cost of this Bush War will bankrupt not only this generation but the next. Why? Because we will not be able to invest in our children’s future. But, what the hey, take the Walker Bush view, what does he care, he’ll be dead, screw OUR grandchildren, of course his will be forever cared for from the proceeds of a war profiteering that bankrupted the rest of US and OUR grandchildren.
You know what guru syndrome is? Guru syndrome happens when some one is surrounded by yes-men. Pop star Michael Jackson suffers from guru syndrome. No one tells him when he has gone too far, everything he does is great. Just like no one here is telling us we have gone to far. Well, I’m telling you now. You have to be a brainwashed, frightened, little drone to be in support of Walker Bush. Invading Iraq without United Nations support was flat out, unavoidably Wrong. We broke international law. There is no way around it. We are the international outlaws, we are the bullies. American Bullies, a new reality TV show, formerly called the nightly news.
Only 7 countries voted against a Permanent International Criminal Court for the United Nations. The United States voted against it. Want to know who was in America’s company of seven, in OUR company? China, Israel and Iraq, other model bullies. Want to know why we voted against it? We didn’t want our soldiers to be subject to international law. Why not? Are our soldiers so brutal, undisciplined, vicious and cruel that their actions couldn’t stand the scrutiny of international criminal justice. Well, we have a pretty big problem here, folks, if our military forces can’t take the heat of criminal justice. We are Bullies, no doubt about it if we can’t stand up and defend what we do in a CRIMINAL COURT. That makes us criminals, those without a conscious.
“I and the people of the United States are sorry we did not abide by international law and invaded Iraq without the agreement and support of the United Nations. It was a serious mistake, an abuse of our power, a failure of our system and ourselves that we allowed our government to fall into the hands of mercenary men. We repent and regret our arrogance of power. We now submit to the rule of international law. To prove our good faith and affirmation of shared principles, we now submit to the justice of the Permanent International Criminal Court. Please do not make the people of Iraq suffer because of our mendacity. The people of Iraq need an international force to help them stabilize their society and help them ultimately to prosper. We are willing to help in any capacity the United Nations chooses to use our resources. Please accept our apology, we are as human as others and were corrupted by power. Power must be shared equally if fair play and substantial justice are to prevail for all.”
Or something to that effect. Will this ever happen? My daughter says, “No.” She says no one ever apologizes for at least two hundred years. She says people don’t like to acknowledge their mistakes in their private life, why would they do it in their public one.
Why indeed? There is no pressure from any part of our society to look at ourselves honestly. “Examine Your Conscious.”, as my sister tells her high school students. I think she’s probably the only one who has ever intimated to them that they might have something called a conscious. Do you have a conscious? A conscious part that sees clearly, and without self congratulating, self-serving or fear mongering hype, the consequences of our actions. This Bush War has done no good for any one. I stand corrected. It has filled the pockets of the Arms Dealers, the Death Dealers who run this country, The Cheney-Bush Gang. Who else? Not the Iraqis, they look in for a long time of semi turmoil. Not us. The cost of this Bush War will bankrupt not only this generation but the next. Why? Because we will not be able to invest in our children’s future. But, what the hey, take the Walker Bush view, what does he care, he’ll be dead, screw OUR grandchildren, of course his will be forever cared for from the proceeds of a war profiteering that bankrupted the rest of US and OUR grandchildren.
You know what guru syndrome is? Guru syndrome happens when some one is surrounded by yes-men. Pop star Michael Jackson suffers from guru syndrome. No one tells him when he has gone too far, everything he does is great. Just like no one here is telling us we have gone to far. Well, I’m telling you now. You have to be a brainwashed, frightened, little drone to be in support of Walker Bush. Invading Iraq without United Nations support was flat out, unavoidably Wrong. We broke international law. There is no way around it. We are the international outlaws, we are the bullies. American Bullies, a new reality TV show, formerly called the nightly news.
Only 7 countries voted against a Permanent International Criminal Court for the United Nations. The United States voted against it. Want to know who was in America’s company of seven, in OUR company? China, Israel and Iraq, other model bullies. Want to know why we voted against it? We didn’t want our soldiers to be subject to international law. Why not? Are our soldiers so brutal, undisciplined, vicious and cruel that their actions couldn’t stand the scrutiny of international criminal justice. Well, we have a pretty big problem here, folks, if our military forces can’t take the heat of criminal justice. We are Bullies, no doubt about it if we can’t stand up and defend what we do in a CRIMINAL COURT. That makes us criminals, those without a conscious.
Monday, April 26, 2004
Smushed By Accident.
Smushed by accident. I killed a crane fly. Didn’t even know it was there. I could have missed it’s demise entirely if I hadn’t thumbed it to death. I squished it between those two fingers as I was reaching between my legs to pull a cushion forward as I sat down. Maybe we are all already on the way to being smushed to extinction and don’t even know it. The next big meteor hit could be just over our event horizon, speeding, without malice of forethought, towards our own accidental demise.
We have all smushed other people by accident. That is the horrifying tragedy of life. The most harm we do is unintentional, accidental, and most frightening, unrecognized.
A childhood friend told me a story about her aunt and her cousin. Mother and daughter were discussing the daughter’s childhood. The mother wanted to apologize for a particular incident. She knew she was unfair at the time, but everyone has bad days, especially stressed parents, and she always regretted her actions, was sure it had scarred her daughter for life. The daughter had no conscious memory of the incident, it made no impression. But she did have an incident, which she recounted, that she felt had scarred her for life. The mother had no conscious memory of the events related, it meant nothing to her. Such is life. We are all living on the same planet, but in parallel universes.
This brings to mind the gnostic story. A person is walking on a fence like a tight rope walker. There is a group of people on one side. They yell to their neighbor, “Who is that person in black walking on the fence?” The neighbor replies, “I don’t know, but that person is not in black, that person is dressed all in white.” They proceed to argue. Of course, the fence walker is dressed in clothes black on one side, white on the other. The people on either side of the fence are viewing only one aspect of the fence walker’s reality.
This is the story of everyone’ s life. The tragedy of everyone’s life. We have limited views. We can’t read minds. We are all operating from our own hurts, prejudices, limited experiences. We look out of slits in our mental boxes and interpret life how we’ve been taught to interpret it. People who look into a mirror don’t see themselves objectively, they see what they’ve been taught to see. If they have been taught to see ugly, they see ugly. If they have been taught to see stupid, they see stupid. There is no escape from misunderstanding. It’s is inevitable, it is the bane of people’s existent. No one is going to understand you. Every one will get it wrong. Every one is an accidental smusher.
We have all smushed other people by accident. That is the horrifying tragedy of life. The most harm we do is unintentional, accidental, and most frightening, unrecognized.
A childhood friend told me a story about her aunt and her cousin. Mother and daughter were discussing the daughter’s childhood. The mother wanted to apologize for a particular incident. She knew she was unfair at the time, but everyone has bad days, especially stressed parents, and she always regretted her actions, was sure it had scarred her daughter for life. The daughter had no conscious memory of the incident, it made no impression. But she did have an incident, which she recounted, that she felt had scarred her for life. The mother had no conscious memory of the events related, it meant nothing to her. Such is life. We are all living on the same planet, but in parallel universes.
This brings to mind the gnostic story. A person is walking on a fence like a tight rope walker. There is a group of people on one side. They yell to their neighbor, “Who is that person in black walking on the fence?” The neighbor replies, “I don’t know, but that person is not in black, that person is dressed all in white.” They proceed to argue. Of course, the fence walker is dressed in clothes black on one side, white on the other. The people on either side of the fence are viewing only one aspect of the fence walker’s reality.
This is the story of everyone’ s life. The tragedy of everyone’s life. We have limited views. We can’t read minds. We are all operating from our own hurts, prejudices, limited experiences. We look out of slits in our mental boxes and interpret life how we’ve been taught to interpret it. People who look into a mirror don’t see themselves objectively, they see what they’ve been taught to see. If they have been taught to see ugly, they see ugly. If they have been taught to see stupid, they see stupid. There is no escape from misunderstanding. It’s is inevitable, it is the bane of people’s existent. No one is going to understand you. Every one will get it wrong. Every one is an accidental smusher.
