Hanks, you’re very welcome, but people with such contempt for higher education should shy away from big words, it just looks ridiculous.  As for there being “no class or race discussion here,” you need to read with an open, unclogged, mind.

Thanks Rockeytonker, for the tips on the caffeine. You realize of course, that you’re giving me the absolute best and professional advise. (and for free no less).

And, I appreciate it. (I do). It’s just that I’ve already given up everything else.

Ya know what annoys me more than anything, is that for the first 40 years of my life, I wasn’t much of a caffeine person at all. Maybe one cup of coffee when I worked the very early morning shift, but that would be it. Never a soda drinker either. NOW I’m a coffee and Coca-Cola-aholic.

BUT..it *is* sort of cyclical with me. So, when it’s time to ease off of it, I can. Still, thanks for the reminder.

Hanks, you are only half correct.  The so-called “political class” are very deeply indoctrinated, and the so-called “post-modernists” are often (not always) too busy inventing new and exclusive lingo in order to keep their careers “specialized.”  But, it’s precisely the lack of a political and social, not to mention media, literacy that keeps the poor poor and acting against their own interests.  You really should read Bageant’s “Deer Hunting With Jesus.”  Then again, it would make you more informed, and we can’t have that if we want our cozy little cliches, “democrats are suckers, republicans are crooks.”  Nice try, but your reasoning will only keep the class war raging against the uneducated and poor.

Caffeine irritates and inflames the walls of blood vessels.  Eliminating caffeine might be more effective than taking another drug to counter its effects.

Outraged,

Thanks so much for the link. I had NOT seen this, on truthout, though I generally do read most of what they have to offer. (my favorite site actually).

I’ve only just skimmed through it, and so I’ll go back to it after some other work. I might just not bother with the substitute for the Lipitor, even though what the Statin’s actually DO, (on reducing the inflammation) is helpful. There’s other stuff that does that, and is far less costly.

I remember though, back to the 80’s when the Pharmies were constantly courting the physicians in a really big way. That tapered off though, and gradually dwindled down to nothing. I don’t think they even bother much with samples any more.

Anyway, thanks again. This is very informative.

Re: Cyrena

Since you mentioned the cholesterol drug, Lipitor it got me a thinkin’.

I know you’ll cite a “Truthout.org” article every now and again, but did you catch this article?  There’s also a hyperlink to the Businessweek article there as well.  Take care.

http://www.truthout.org/article/maggie-mahar-the-ch olesterol-con-where-were-doctors

John Hanks, your apologetics for the anti-intellectual culture championed by BushCo is obvious, think about it.

...and see how people are living.  Or trying to hang on, actually.

I was in Alabama recently, a small country town with just a WalMart, banks, government and lawyers.  You drive 20 miles to get to a city big enough for a mall, movie theatres, a Home Depot.

I walked into a KFC for lunch.  Big sign on the counter—Now Hiring, $6.00 an hour.

Well, gee.  Unless you live next door and can walk to work, you’re likely paying $200 a month to get to work.  After taxes and soc sec, do you have money for health insurance? 

Class is a valid issue and a huge umbrella covering folks of all races.  As more and more people are losing whatever foothold they’d gained in life, courtesy of the Enrons and Countrywides and all the other Corporations that Bush let run amuck, the rationale behind investing 600 billion dollars a year in Iraq seems insane. 

Of course, if we invested that money in programs to benefit our own people that would be called socialist.

By Double U, June 20 at 10:18 pm #

Cyrena writes, “and even among older folks…”
Hey!  I resemble that!  Heh heh.

###

Me too Double U..me too. Happens to the best of us.

Outraged, again you hit the nail on the head.  It is called “neo-colonialism” also.

Outraged,

Thanks for the excerpt and the links. I love the part about their pants falling down around their ankles from the heavily lined pockets. No kidding about the servants to pick them back up..and wipe their butts with our Constitution.

Speaking of Big Pharma and the Big Health Debilitating Industry, I had another recent experience/reminder of THAT on-going theft. All things considered, I recently decided that I simply could no longer afford two health care insurance premiums. (actually, I NEVER could, but the options were limited). So, I decided to try using this part D of the SS plan for my absolutely essential meds. Now I had tried this two years ago, when the thing was first rolled out. (the part D that is). We paid for this ‘benefit’ a full year in advance of when it became available, and when it did, it wasn’t a benefit. (nobody knew what the hell they were doing). So, I haven’t bothered with it since.

That is until a couple of weeks ago, when I realized it was time for essential refills, and I was going to have to use that program, since I’ve been paying for it anyway. Well, to my delight, 2 of my prescriptions were only $12.00 each, for 3-month supplies. ($4.00 co-pays for each 30 day supply). I was tickled pink. Having discovered that, I decided that I could even manage a few of the others that I SHOULD take, but aren’t absolutely required to keep me alive from one day to the next. So, I had my doc phone in a prescription for those as well. One for the protonix. (the gastro system) and the other for Lipitor, (for the high cholesterol that has bedeviled me for years, no matter how I monitor my diet).  Well, that was a mistake. Turns out that there IS now a generic for the protonix, (thank the gods I guess) but NOT for the Lipitor. So, the Lipitor was a mere $87.00 after my ‘discount’ was applied. The $4.00 co-pay ONLY applies to generic forms of whatever the medication is.

Now I don’t have a problem with the generics. I DO have a problem with the fact that so many of the helpful drugs have NOT been allowed in generic form, because BIG PHARMA holds these indefinite copyrights on them. I mean, how long has Lipitor been on the market? I’m not positive, but long enough to be available in generic form, or so it would seem. The difference between what it costs the manufacture to make these drugs, and what they peddle them to the consumer for, involves anywhere between a 110-400% mark-up. (I used to have a chart for nearly all of them). Of course the generic forms involve considerably less of a mark-up. So, there you have it. That’s why their heavy pocket trousers keep falling to their fat ankles.

Anyway, I didn’t get the Lipitor. Couldn’t afford $87.00, so I guess I’ll just have to restrict my diet to oatmeal, and kill 2 birds with one stone. (starvation and high cholesterol). But just in case I’m ever able to afford more food, I checked with the pharmacist to find out if there existed an alternative to the Lipitor, available in generic form. He suggested Zocor, so I’ll have to find out about it, and see what the doc thinks of it as well.

So that’s my tale for the day. We keep on living and learnin’, eh? Learning just how many ways they manage to exploit us.

I’m going to check out the NAFTA videos now. I don’t remember a whole lot of the stuff leading up to the passage, other than that a whole bunch of folks were really pissed off. (like our standard social justice activists). They raised quite a stink, (we often do) but it didn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter when we protested the attack on Iraq, before it happened.

From an article by David Michael Green @ The Smirking Chimp. (excerpt)

“So Reaganism-Bushism Principle Number One is use the people’s government to steal everything you can from them. Principle Number Two is to use deficit spending to steal from their children as well. (Can’t you just see the commercial: “Why wait, when you can bilk it now?!”) Principle Number Three is to destroy as much of the social safety net as you possibly can. After all, some Honest John knuckleheads out there are still going to be fiscally responsible enough to want to pay for what we spend, and if they go looking around for potential tax revenue, guess where they might see a whole lot of it lurking about, untouched? So, welfare programs gotta go. Social Security? Gotta go, though of course you can’t just kill middle class programs like you can for the poor, so you have to pretend your privatization plan is a reform to make the program solvent. National healthcare? Yeah, right. And, if you do have to add a prescription drug benefit because of the need to pander to seniors, make sure it’s written to line the pockets of Big Pharma and Big Insurance so heavily that their pants fall down around their ankles. Don’t worry, they have plenty of servants they can get to pull them back up.

The fourth precept of Reaganism-Bushism is an extension of the first three. Once you’ve exhausted your exploitation of the folks at home and their children, why stop? Americans are only five percent of the world’s population. That leaves a whole world of nice vulnerable people to exploit economically!! And politically. And physically. Can you say “Pinochet”? “The Shah”? “Apartheid”? “Contras”? “Marcos”? And lots more where those good old boys came from. Regressives didn’t prop up those bloody dictators because they were great lovers of democracy, or even because of some concern about communist incursions into the ‘free’ world. They did it because all you had to do was enrich these tinhorns and stroke their egos in order guarantee their assistance in the pillaging of their own people. In Grant’s era, or even Hoover’s, all plunder was local - or at least mostly. Reagan and Bush have taken the hunt for spoils truly global.

But why stop with people, even 6.5 billion of them? There’s an entire landscape to be raped! Doing so with wanton disregard for the consequences is Principle Number Five.”

(entire article) http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15384

>Reality bites.  I would call this the “Austrian School of Economics” in layman’s terms.  Why learn all those “big” words like financial liberalization…right..?

Anyone interested in a blast from the past regarding NAFTA.  This video (there’s 3 parts) highlights the lies and utter nonsense of the reality of NAFTA.  This is an older video of a discussion of NAFTA before it was passed. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uwkmw0nlxc&eurl =http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=nafta+debate&sitesearch; =

Cyrena writes, “and even among older folks…”
Hey!  I resemble that!  Heh heh.

Purple Girl…

Thanks so very much for your essay. I just had a chance to read it all. I appreciate your efforts, and sharing the experience.

Just wanted to let you know that there is another truthdigger in your same area, Purple Wolf. (funny, you both have the Purple in your names). Anyway, she too, is in Flint, around the same age as us, (well about a decade older than you I think, but that’s relative enough). I said that to say that if it means anything, I think attitudes are changing, and even among older folks, and even in places like Flint.

Strive on…

In fact, during the Bretton Woods period 90% of investment went toward infrastructure and 10% went toward speculating against currencies.  After the dismantling, these numbers were reversed.

Outraged and correct.  With the dismantling of Bretton Woods previously accountable financial institutions wasted no time speculating against foreign currencies with blood lust.  This blended in with the “information revolution” now sees trillions of dollars zooming across the globe and back in seconds.  Infrastructure and public interest in general were the most obvious and immediate casualties.

Great comments Outraged. Thanks for the info. It’s a very helpful addition to my ‘database’ (whichever one is handiest).

Lefeller, I know what you mean about I guess we’ll know when ‘the rubber hits the road.’ That’s good!

And, my sentiments exactly! Speculation, (which is a good exercise - don’t get me wrong - since it means we’re paying attention) only takes us so far.

I don’t really know or understand all of the particulars behind the latest Obama decisions. And arguably, I don’t agree with all of them. (I don’t know anything at all about this guy Jason Furman though, but maybe he should have been disqualified for having the same name as that racist creep in the OJ trial who created such a distraction, but proved another point at the same time. Racism IS alive and still putrid, even if it didn’t have a damn thing to do with OJ’s crimes).

Anyway, needless to say, despite all of that, (as well as connections and speculations) there’s a bunch of stuff that we just aren’t gonna know or otherwise be able to ‘test’ or see results of, until the rubber hits the road. I DO love that!

Meantime, maybe Obama really *IS* trying to figure out what makes them tick. (my nephews would do something like that.) OR…he could be a step or two ahead of us, and may already KNOW what makes him (or any of ‘them’) tick, and has decided that they work very well for the specific task that he has in mind. Kind of like using the same source of energy or motion to suck air as is used to blow air. Or, can one blue print be used to create something else with just a difference in how the final product will be used?

Does that make sense, or am I just blowing air?

I posted this recently on another thread but it seems it applies more aptly here.

In Morris Berman’’s book, Dark Ages America he makes this observation:

“Proponents of financial liberalization argue that the post Bretton Woods period, when capital controls were lifted, was the period of greater prosperity, and that this action led to an improvement in the global economy. Close comparison of the two eras, however, shows pretty clearly that the quarter century between the signing of the agreement was the ““golden age””. The volume of trade between America and the rest of the world, for example, rose nearly sevenfold from 1944-1974, while investment increased fivefold, and the median American wage rose 80 percent between 1947-1974. Significantly wages did not rise at all between 1974-2001, and it was only after Bretton Woods was abandoned that a slowdown of per capita GDP growth began to affect both the developing world and the industrial nations. Thus David Felix writes, ““No period of comparable length, past or present, comes close to the high output and productivity growth rates, low sustained unemployment, and distributional equity of the Bretton Woods era.”

*Note: “financial liberalization” as Mr. Berman acknowledges is laisse-faire capitalism or what many like to call the Hayek or Austrian school of economic thought. Or more familiarly, Reaganomics. An idiotic “school of thought” which Mr. Baskerville appears to endorse.

*Note: Bretton Wood Agreement: The chief features of the Bretton Woods system were an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value——plus or minus one percent——in terms of gold and the ability of the IMF to bridge temporary imbalances of payments.

>Obama is going down the wrong road, if he continues with his support of NAFTA, CAFTA, and PAFTA(APEC) or whatever….!  This is a direct assault on his supporters and American workers in general.  We know McCain’s the same old, same old and now Obama appears to be walking in his footsteps.

Possibly by November all the Dems will come together as a nation and vote AGAINST any candidate that ensures the destruction of their livelihood.

The Republican “values” issues should also be framed as class issues.  Roe v. Wade made abortion available to everyone; the elite could always terminate a pregnancy at will, going out of state, out of country or having a D&C;.  The elite don’t need same sex marriage in order to get health insurance or to see their partner in the ICU.

The GOP is the PoP: Party of Privilege.

Wish TD would take the Comment Title line off.

Great grass roots report Purple Girl, we know the people are sincere, we can only Hope Obama will offer more than crumbs.  His rhetoric tone has changed of late, I know he is gearing up for the final lap, but pandering seems to be Washington as usual. 

From article:
“Last week, for example, he named Jason Furman as his top economic adviser. Furman has spent the last few years defending Wal-Mart and working closely with Bob Rubin, the Citigroup chairman who championed NAFTA as Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary.”

From article, me suspects the good old boys are back with influence?  Maybe he is hiring the business as usual and dissecting them to see what makes them tick, we will only know when the rubber hits the road?

Well David, you have given the facts for Obama’s path to the white house. Unfortunately nothing will change. The pre-set agenda is in place and “Same ol’ Same Ol’ will prevail and we will be back to the Clinton sell out days. In essence how long since LB J have we had a true dimmo in office? Carter was a Dixie crat [ repug in dimmo clothing] same with Clinton..the finest repug president, ever. But with Obama the citizens might get a crumb or so. If you think me wrong I turn your attention to the stand of dimmos on the wire-tapping , warp of the constitution. Where is the outrage from the dimmo presidential candidate? Living in the Fascist Republic of Amerika is getting tougher and tougher.

Having been raised in the Burbs of Detriot, now living in a ‘rural’ town outside Flint You may think I am one who has been isloated from diversity.
As a College Student I went to WMU, Kalamazoo is a great Town for getting your feet wet for a girl like me raised in ‘Lily White’ Livonia. In my 20’s the wanderlust hit and I move to Fremont Ca- just outside of Oakland & SF. What an Array of Colors, accents and Cultures.A Gem of a Life Experience.
Two days ago I signed up with the Flint Office Obama Campaign- at the office 4 white, 20 somethings, ‘Can You come to a rally tomorrow?” ‘Can You Make Posters?”- I was expecting ‘can you make Cupcakes’ too- figured I was the official ‘Den Mother’. I got to the Rally in aPark in the N.side of Flint- 8 Posters in hand. an area which was devastated by Plant closing decades ago.I and two other women were the only whites there. We came to find out it was not Just an Obama Rally- it was the June 19th Celebration parade celebrating the last day of Slavery.As the Parade moved down MLK, parts of the city I had not seen were revealed before my eyes,but brightened along the way with the smiling, wave people who occupied the area. What a Joy,All of Us yelling Back and forth- “Yes We Can!”.The parade ended at the river- with a Rally -speakers, music, vendors. I will grant You at times I felt out of place, an intruder.but not from any other persons reaction to me, but only my own- so I ignored it.I was introduced to the Obama Rep for my area- a young Black gal and her adorable little girl. I was told she was a little uneasy with the Towns she was in Charge of- Not a diverse Area. I told her that her concerns were not unfounded- I thought there were a lot of narrow minded people in our area too- but I was availble to assist her in any way she needed. A meeting of the ‘lost but determined Political Souls’ I signed up 5 people to register to vote- the majority Proudly nodding their heads when I asked “all Set for Nov” showing them my clipboard with the ‘Register Here’ sign on the Back.I met many people, listened to music and heard an informative speech on AIDS- the lastest research and findings. I had a blast and I learned more about what I already knew- We are all the same, we all have the same concerns and Hopes. I only hope more of the ‘older ’ generations step out of their Comfort level and are willing to help these far more social mature 20 somethings in finally changing the world- even if it means just making Cupcakes and Posters.