Obama, Health Care "Reform", and the Terminal Illness of Hope

According to Derrick Jensen, our collective efforts to facilitate change will amount to nothing as long as we remain trapped in the billowy vice grip of hope. In order to be truly free, we must all experience the death of hope--cognitively,viscerally and spiritually.

I submit that gnawing off a foot to escape the comforting trap of hope only solves half of the problem. We must also euthanize whatever vestiges of trust we still have in the assumptions, principles, practices and institutions that comprise the fetid carrion of our liberal capitalist "democracy". Once we shed the beautiful delusions of hope and trust, we will know true freedom. We will at last have unfettered cognitive and emotional access to the full repertoire of resistance strategies.

When we stop hoping that capitalism--a system that is overtly based on greed-- can somehow be reformed to benefit the working class, we are no longer limited to thinking purely in terms of reform. When we stop trusting the saccharine myth that the sanctioned paths for achieving such reforms in our divinely-inspired constitution were ever intended to be successful, we can start thinking beyond the boundaries of legally-sanctioned remedies (i.e., voting for a political savior, peaceful protests, boycotts, candlelight vigils, etc). Once hope and trust are dead, we have the potential to be effective.

Rather than trying to convince you to gnaw off your own foot to escape hope, perhaps I can spare you from the pain by providing some information. Let's use Obama's "health care reform" as an example. Think about the implication of the following facts for hope and trust:

1) In the 2008 election cycle, Obama received more money than any other candidate-by a breathtaking margin- from: "health professionals" ($11,716,570), Health Services/HMO's" ($1,425,501) , the pharmaceutical industry ($2,124,560), and hospitals ($3,335,944). However, if your hope and trust are still clinging to life, prepare the crash cart before reading on.


2)The pharmaceutical industry is funding a massive ad campaign in favor of ObamaCare to the tune of about $160 million. Now, if your hope and trust still have a pulse, I recommend that you start getting their affairs in order. Also, be sure to sign a DNR order.

3) Consider that Obama is a PR genius. That's why he won the title "Marketer of the Year for 2008" at the Association of National Advertisers' conference, beating such PR lightweights as Apple, Nike & Coors. This is the man who made the "war on terror" disappear after escalating it, and who bragged about how he intended to get the American people to accept the Wall Street bailout scheme by "re-branding the program"...et voila! No more bailouts...we suddenly had a Troubled Assets Relief Program. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Obama intentionally sabotaged any hope of a public option from the very beginning. He is certainly aware that (a) most Americans want universal health care; (b) a lot of these same Americans have been conditioned to froth at the mouth when they hear the word "socialized". They also decompensate into a psychotic rage if they hear words like "government run" or "public option"; (c) these same people who hate all things socialized or public absolutely love Medicaid and Medicare, which are both wildly popular government run health programs.

So, how does this PR mastermind market this health care plan he is oh-so-passionate about? Does he frame it as a simple adjustment to the eligibility criteria of Medicaid so that people who aren't eligible to receive it for free can choose to purchase it? Nope. Instead, this brilliant Harvard-trained lawyer who is surrounded by the best PR experts in the world announces that he want to create a "government-run option" or a "public option".

He might as well have issued an executive decree to place a fucking hammer and sickle on the American flag.

Of course, those terrified hyenas who mainline Fox News reacted exactly as Obama had hoped they would react. After the "public option" gets negotiated away (or reduced to the point that the monthly premium cannot be justified given how little it actually covers....thus few people will choose to buy it) and the requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance becomes the law of the land, Obama can tell his "progressive" supporters that he tried so hard to get universal health care, but he was thwarted by the mean Democrats in Congress. At the same time, he will have paid his debt to the health care industry and earned the money he will need in 2012.


4) When you get a chance, I urge you to watch the following documentary on the political power of the pharmaceutical industry and its danger to our health. This documentary isn't the work of crazed conspiracy theorists; it contains numerous interviews with physicians and former pharmaceutical company sales reps. You'll never want to take anything beyond an aspirin again for the rest of your life.

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