The barkeeper on a fine kind of compassionate conservatism.
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July 29, 2004
Billmon: Better Living Through Modern Chemistry
Comments
Maybe Susan was offering her own solution to her own problem? If Prozac works for her, then it’s actually rather generous of her to put in a good word for it. She certainly doesn’t speak as a pro, since there’s a wide spectrum of medicines that she doesn’t take into account.
Nor does she speak as an economist, or as a political strategist, and I find this very refreshing.
Posted by: alabama | Jul 29 2004 21:22 utc | 1
It fits this underreported story:
President Bush’s Commission on Mental Health Endorses Screening Youth to Prevent the Development of Serious Mental Health Problems
“For the first time, this Commission has put a governmental stamp of approval on mental health screening as a prevention tool in the fight against mental illnesses,” continued Flynn, who also serves as the director of Positive Action for Teen Health, a national initiative working to ensure all American teens are screened for depression and suicide risk before they graduate from high school. …
About the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
President George W. Bush established the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 as part of his commitment to eliminate inequality for Americans with disabilities. The President directed the Commission to identify policies that could be implemented by Federal, State and local governments to maximize the utility of existing resources, improve coordination of treatments and services, and promote successful community integration for adults with a serious mental illness and children with a serious emotional disturbance.
For more information about the Commission or to obtain a copy of its report, visit http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov
Of course Prozac is far better than
Adolf Hitler’s T-4 “Euthanasia” Program was established in order to maintain the supposed purity of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness (eugenics).
According to the decree from 18 August 1939 the Nazis enacted the obligatory registration of all births of physically and mentally handicapped children. These children up to three years had to be reported to the public health offices. The selected children were sent to several mental homes where they were killed by lethal drugs or withdrawal of food.
Euthanasia
The intention or effect may be the same, but the public will care less about some healthy medication. But this is a paranoid interpretation – forget it – want a pill?
Sure, it´s just some payback for soft money from the relevant industries.
Posted by: Bernhard | Jul 29 2004 21:27 utc | 2
Are there any good investigative pieces on exactly what big pharma is doing in dc? All these Walgreens stores popping up across the USA are there for profits from the prescription drug market. Supposedly they’re making a killing.
Posted by: b real | Jul 29 2004 21:46 utc | 3
My thoughts on Billmon’s piece brought to mind the article posted in the British Medical Journal a couple of months ago. Add the comment made by the Bush staffer, the Bush connections to Eli Lilly and that Eli Lilly has seen a decrease in profits in the past couple of weeks, and you just have the WH trying to help out their friends and family. Government sponsored advertisement.
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 29 2004 22:01 utc | 4
Jeezz,
Bush is a nut cake. Who would of thunk it. Take him to the funny farm, NOW.
Posted by: jdp | Jul 29 2004 22:39 utc | 6
jdp:
Take him to the funny farm, NOW.
I know you meant to write phunny pharm…
And speaking of big pharms…anybody have an idea why those CEO’s can’t corner the market on weed?
You’d think those big weasels would be smart enough to figure a way to incoprorate the world’s second or third most vital drug.
Assuming of course that your list goes like mine:
1) alcohol.
2) aspirin.
3) ganja.
Oh…I think I answered my own question.
1) barley and yeast
2) willow tree bark
3) cannabis weed.
What a horrible trio…that awful shit grows right out of the earth…must be seriously bad for you.
Thus spake your big corporate brother.
Posted by: koreyel | Jul 29 2004 23:26 utc | 7
Wracking my brain. Ouch. Ouch. Recently there was something about a program (repug, of course) to screen everyone all the way down to pre-schoolers to find out who might need drugs to achieve proper mental health. Anyone???
And then there was a story around the time we attacking Iraq about the happy drug they were all taking in D.C. Colin Powell seemed amazed that everyone didn’t know about it. Well………
Posted by: beq | Jul 29 2004 23:43 utc | 8
My opinion is that a reverse Lend-Lease,
Afghanistan To US, could serve each nation well.
That old Black Smoke might clear their heads
and mellow Bush and the NeoClowns out a bit, and
Afghanistan would get some badly needed hard
currency.
I posess many advanced degrees. I could argue
this case Chicago school economics, but I am
speaking psychotherapeutically. Over the past
hundred years or so, I have developed a quite
successful clinical practice here in London.
Posted by: Dr. FuManchu | Jul 30 2004 0:04 utc | 10
bernhard
you may be interested in the novel of my translator, thomas harlan, whose novel ‘rosa’ published by eichborn – deals with T4
i remember a summer searching austria for the son of globotnic(?)/christian wirth – a beautiful country which is not at peace
t4 was the judicial/medical commencement to genocide & was there to the end – terrible histories that have their profound connections today
still steel
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 30 2004 0:30 utc | 11
Love the “just kidding” those bastards always trot out when they let their true colours shine.
Posted by: Gozer | Jul 30 2004 0:35 utc | 12
@ beq the story you were talking about is the British Medical Journal link in my first post.
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 30 2004 0:37 utc | 13
and the drug of choice that Powell was talking about was ambien
Posted by: sukabi | Jul 30 2004 0:39 utc | 14
Drugs? Soma do and soma don’t, as Huxley might have said were he alive today. My baby sister, a pharmacist for 17 years, has always held that the key to successful living was the “proper combination of stimulants and depressant.” 😉
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Jul 30 2004 0:41 utc | 15
I was watching Link TV a week ago and they had a former CIA officer on. He said they used to call the Neo-cons the loonies in Bush 1s admin. Now they are running things. It looks like the whole admin is full of people needing prozac. Oh, in Cheney’s case nitro pills. Gotta keep that ticker going.
Bushies whole admin is a disaster. Boy, I can’t wait for that Repub convention. Prozac will be in the candy dishes and I can hear the fundies (loonies) chanting: four more years, four more years. Ahhh, what an exiting time we live in.
Posted by: jdp | Jul 30 2004 1:17 utc | 16
No joke for the unemployed in certain parts of Tyneside, UK, who from what I hear may be kept out of trouble through all sorts of happy potions. Even in jest it’s a singularly crass comment.
Posted by: TheaLogie | Jul 30 2004 1:31 utc | 17
The secret is out: Bush is a member of the
Sudanese ganjaweed!
Posted by: Ramlad | Jul 30 2004 1:54 utc | 18
StubbierBillmon:
“Compassionate conservatism at its finest.”
Just checked in my well-thumbed copy of the Really Big Book of NeoCon CodeWords.
Finally found it on pg 38…. “compassion”= “only for suckers”. It’s right above “competitive”= “non-union”.
BTW re: What has big pharma done for/to us?….don’t forget Rumskull made a good chunk of his fortune shilling for Searle back in the days when its star product was Metamucil. In otherwords, Mr. Rumsfeld raked it in hand-over-fist by forcing us to make ca-ca.
Posted by: RossK | Jul 30 2004 2:09 utc | 19
Bush campaign new election slogan:
Let them eat Prozac.
Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 30 2004 2:17 utc | 20
@TheaLogie:
I was under the impression that the British government had been very successful in it’s various programs at developing synthethic substitutes, for “black smoke” whatever, and that these indiviuals were, as a result , becoming more productive members of society: providing of course that the UK can create enough jobs to keep everyone occupied.
Actually, in the last hundred years, I’ve moved uptown from Limehouse; now occupy plush space in Harley Street. In the last 20 years or so, advances in psychopharmocology have been profound;and I have seen the results.
And I am not talking take a pill to go to sleep. I’m talking raging paranoid schizophrenics
become productive citizens as long as they take their pills. It works beautifully in cases that were deemed hopeless 20 years ago.
Don’t need to get into theology tonight; perhaps another night.
Most respectfully.
Posted by: Dr. Fu | Jul 30 2004 2:19 utc | 21
Quote:
Wracking my brain. Ouch. Ouch. Recently there was something about a program (repug, of course) to screen everyone all the way down to pre-schoolers to find out who might need drugs to achieve proper mental health. Anyone???
***
This is really horrible and monstrous. And I can tell you if this idea ever officially come to Australia (as Howard’s government is rapidly becoming Bush’s replica) we are leaving…
Posted by: vbo | Jul 30 2004 2:26 utc | 22
From a current yahoo sports article on that famous football player’s premature retirement:
Ricky Williams told the newspaper that marijuana played a larger role in his retirement than he indicated when he walked away after just five pro seasons. He said he learned of the failed test and possible suspension days before telling coach Dave Wannstedt last week that he was through playing.
Williams said, however, that there were “a hundred reasons” for his surprising decision to retire, and his desire to continue smoking marijuana was only one of them.
Guess he had a reason for those dreadlocks.
And while it may not be nice to blow smoke in Corporate Charley’s uptight face and tell him to take his job and shove it–it sure the hell is a bellylaugh…
Posted by: koreyel | Jul 30 2004 3:36 utc | 23
Well gee, wonder ,after reading that Capitol Hill Blue thing ” Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression,Erratic Behavior”,if ole George might like to “screen” himself on out? Or maybe he’s just taking the sound advice of his campaign worker.
Posted by: anna mist | Jul 30 2004 3:50 utc | 24
America’s prescription for individual economic security and happiness:
Prozac,
Credit cards,
A shot at the lottery.
Posted by: pb | Jul 30 2004 4:48 utc | 25
Hey Ross K,
Rumsfeld’s CEO gig at Searle was only to get Nutrasweet (now there’s an oxymoron) through the FDA approval process so the soft drink companies via Monsanto could make a killing. After Nutrasweet made a historically fast trip to FDA approval (of course with a nagging little warning for phenylketonurics, but who reads that stuff anyway), Rumsfeld steps down as CEO to head back to the Beltway and point the way for Monsanto to pony up the most bang for their buck in Texas politics. Rummy eventually made his way to Pappy Bush’s cabinet, Monsanto split off Nutrasweet from Searle, which is now no longer a viable company as it was sold to Pfizer last year. All those good research jobs no longer in Illinois, off to Connecticut with the manufacturing done in Mexico or the Caribbean. Actually, most of the pahrmaceuticals for American markets are manufactured abroad. R and D was conducted in America, but those jobs are heading off shore too.
Posted by: SME in Seattle | Jul 30 2004 4:49 utc | 26
And I am not talking take a pill to go to sleep. I’m talking raging paranoid schizophrenics
become productive citizens as long as they take their pills. It works beautifully in cases that were deemed hopeless 20 years ago.
Don’t need to get into theology tonight; perhaps another night.
Most respectfully.
Posted by: Dr. Fu | July 29, 2004 10:19 PM
Does this mean that Shrub could not have been President 20 years ago?
Posted by: pb | Jul 30 2004 4:56 utc | 27
Speaking of medicine…
Juan Cole gives an asshole a reality enema.
“Although it may be true that al-Qaeda is as determined to destroy the US as the Axis Powers were in World War II, this observation is a Himalayan exaggeration if it is meant to suggest a parallel. Al-Qaeda is a few thousand fanatics mainly distributed in a handful of countries. If Zacharias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are any indication, a lot of them are one step away from from collecting old soda cans on the street in their grocery carts while mumbling about the radios the government implanted in their asses.”
“…I repeat, al-Qaeda proper only has a few hundred fighters, those who pledged allegiance personally to Bin Laden, and a few thousand if you count other Afghan Arabs and their ideological soul mates. Most of them are not wealthy or trained or competent, and a lot are just crackpots. (Read an account of the misadventures of Richard Reid again). September 11 was possible mainly because Ramzi Bin al-Shibh lucked out and managed to recruit some high-powered engineering Ph.D. students in Hamburg who knew something serious about kinetic energy. The organization does not have a lot of persons of that caliber, though Cheney has done everything in his power to make them easier for al-Qaeda to recruit.”
“…The question that I have, though, is why, if Dick Cheney is in fact so desperately worried about al-Qaeda, he hasn’t done more about it. Of the 1000 or so al-Qaeda operatives who fled to Pakistan, 500 or so have been captured, almost all of them by the Pakistani military. Although there are 20,000 US troops in Afghanistan, they have captured no top al-Qaeda leaders at all to my knowledge. In fact, it is difficult for me to understand what exactly they are doing there. The Pushtun warlords all around them are selling $2 billion of heroin annually to Europe, to which you would have thought the US might object (and isn’t it likely some of the $2 billion is going straight to al-Qaeda?)”
“Usamah Bin Laden and Aiman al-Zawahiri, who sat down in a room and planned out September 11 are still free. They are still plotting against the US and its allies. Chatter suggests that the bombings in Istanbul were encouraged by al-Zawahiri.
So let’s get this straight. The US has 138,000 troops stuck in Iraq, which was no danger to the US homeland. They are mainly fighting local clansmen who had never before had any beef with the US, prior to the American invasion of their country.
If Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are the SS of the age, then why aren’t 138,000 US troops combing Waziristan for them? Why haven’t they been captured?”
“…There is no evidence that (Cheney) is making the fight against al-Qaeda any sort of top priority.
Cheney is lying again. Iraq is obviously a much greater priority for him than is fighting al-Qaeda. All the country’s military resources are being sunk into Iraq. Silly decisions are made on macho grounds like deciding to besiege Fallujah or arrest Muqtada al-Sadr (from both endeavors Cheney had to slink away with his tail between his legs, because political considerations got in the way of mere application of massive force).”
Why is Iraq a bigger priority for Cheney than is fighting al-Qaeda? Because there are corporate profits to be made in Iraq. There are virtually none in Afghanistan or the Pakistani tribal regions. Cheney wants to crucify the Bill of Rights on the cross of “national security,” but has avoided doing the one thing that would make us both free and safe. That is developing a serious counter-insurgency plan for the Middle East that wins hearts and minds and deals effectively with asymmetrical threats. All his emphasis has been on dealing with governments, like that of Iraq, which can be defeated militarily, and the defeat of which unlocks national resources for American companies to exploit. The problem is that those governments do not pose a threat to the US mainland. To the extent that there is a threat, it comes from a shadowy network of radical Islamist guerrillas. Cheney is doing virtually nothing about them….”
Posted by: fauxreal | Jul 30 2004 5:04 utc | 28
@PB:
It’s a ChickenHawk and Egg Question.
What Crosses Road First, and Why.
Philosophy Not My Special Forte.
Need to consult Augustine, Aquinas, Occam,
Hegel, and Darwin Too.
Will Report Back Tommorrow.
Posted by: Dr. Fu | Jul 30 2004 5:18 utc | 29
SME in Town of the Death Star and Big Bucks–
I stand corrected. Clearly the Rumskullian One made his millions by putting holes in our brains, making us crap, and stealing our jobs.
Jeez, sorry I went so easy on the poor guy.
But then again, there are things that you know that I know but there are no things we both don’t know unless, of course, you’re talking about things somebody other then us might want to know.
Posted by: RossK | Jul 30 2004 6:57 utc | 30
fauxreal
Jaun Cole, read him everyday,everyday he rolls out the facts on Iraq,the most comprehensive facts,bar none. Everyday,his analysis of those facts are spot on.His overview on the middle east,and our involvement there, should be mandatory reading to all americans.This guy deserves some kind of medal or something.
Back in the late 70’s I had the rare chance to chat with Noam Chomsky after a lecture at the U of Ill.Suprised that he talked politics (as opposed to linguistics), I asked how he managed to do both linguistics and politics? He answered, that linguistics,was difficult and demanding…..politics on the other hand was comparatively easy……what ” they” say is usually inversely proportional to what ” they” are trying to hide.
The problem for Cheny and gang is that the cover rhetoric for the Iraq thing specifically,and the war on terror in general, is that cover has been so completely discredited.The magnatude of this failure, is so huge ,the rhetoric so disconnected from the facts,that their true intentions may actually see the light of day.And that day is a day worth waiting for.Ah,to see it once and for all, laid out there in crystaline, indubitable, truth.Mea culpas,yes….discreditation,yes….careers ruined,yes….prison time,definitely, but most importantly,
to once and for all, to wring this neo-colonial adventurism shit from the consciousness of the american body-politic.To bring forth,to demand, an unmitigated revulsion to even the hint of imperialistic delusion.And to finally, remove fear as the music of conquest.
As a people, we have to find some way to stop buying this bullshit only to once again throw ourselves over the cliff.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 30 2004 8:08 utc | 31
Well, this sorta fits in with the Better Living thread. Here’s an update on Bush’s mental condition via Capitol Hill Blue.
Posted by: sukabi | Aug 1 2004 1:57 utc | 33