Used to be, when I flipped channels, I\u2019d go from one movie to another, one drama to another, one news show to another, etc. These days, I\u2019m more likely to go from one commercial to another\u2014and more likely than not, it\u2019s a prescription pill commercial!<\/p>\n
Wasn\u2019t there supposed to be a \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d? Pinch me awake, but I\u2019m guessing that we Baby Boomers lost\u2026 because it\u2019s pretty clear that drugs\u2014especially the \u201clegal\u201d ones\u2014have proliferated in the heart of the Empire the way drones have darkened the skies over Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the little stans.<\/p>\n
The commercials are getting longer, more numerous, and more absurd. At least half of what they\u2019re packaging is the sound-track! A commercial starts out with Cajun music, folks enjoying themselves over barbecue. Congenial, upbeat. Think shrimp, crabs, Tabasco. They\u2019re selling you something for diabetes or high blood pressure or\u2014it almost doesn\u2019t matter. Next time you\u2019re feeling bad in any way, you\u2019ll call your doctor\u2014do people still call their doctors?\u2014you\u2019ll go to the hospital and you\u2019ll ask whomever it is who\u2019s giving you a 5 minute exam if \u201cInvokana\u201d or whatever is what you need? (You\u2019ve heard it will \u201clower your numbers.\u201d) Doc will stroke his\/her chin, and probably prescribe\u2014you asked for it by name, didn\u2019t you? Politicos<\/p>\n
Whatever it is, you get caught up in the music, the sound track about how good this stuff is for you\u2014you can be \u201cdown with Crestor\u201d! You can wear an orange bowling jersey, pretend you\u2019re still in your carefree college days; with all that cheerful musak playing in your head, you tend to forget the side effects. Yes, it can \u201clower your blood sugar\u201d and you\u2019ll \u201clove your numbers,\u201d but\u2014soft voice here<\/em>\u2014could cause dehydration, kidney problems, yeast, rash, difficulty breathing or swallowing\u2026.<\/p>\n No time for any real cogitation. It\u2019s throw the worms out there, and reel the fish in! Our politics works the same way.<\/p>\n Every third time I flip, I land on a \u201cnews\u201d program where there are yakking heads (used to be talking, now they just yak\u2014kind of like real yaks!)\u2014giggling, oohing, ah-ing, laying odds on latest announcements by Hillary Shrillary, Jeb the Bush, Rand the Paul, Ted the Harvard-Hispanic guy, and Marco the Cuban-American guy.<\/p>\n To be fair, I should not call her \u201cShrillary.\u201d That was the old Hillary\u2014or rather, the young Hillary of the early 90s when she refused to stay at home and bake cookies. New model is \u201cmature,\u201d \u201cexperienced,\u201d \u201cseasoned\u201d who wants to be the \u201cchampion of the Middle Class.\u201d Great! Let\u2019s narrow the gap between the gazillionaires and the rest of us. Isn\u2019t it time for a woman in the White House?<\/p>\n Side effects<\/strong>: Likely to cause \u201cbuyers\u2019 remorse.\u201d Not the \u201cbuyers\u201d who will put up the $2.5 billion her campaign managers estimate she\u2019ll need to run and keep running for the next 560 days+ days. No, those buyers\u2014people like Soros\u2014will be fine because Lady McHillary will deliver. (It\u2019s all there in the secret, somehow erased, emails!)<\/p>\n Switch to Jeb the Reliable. You got to trust this guy because\u2026 didn\u2019t he step aside to let his nincompoop younger brother play at the presidency for 8 years? His family is famous, man! And didn\u2019t he run the Sunshine state just impeccably\u2014that state where they fire scientists who utter the phrase \u201cclimate change\u201d in public! (Google it!) Didn\u2019t his old man do a bang-up fine job with the Gulf War?<\/p>\n Side effects<\/strong>: Endless wars seem to run in the family, and may be habit-forming.<\/p>\n Switch to Rand Paul. I admit: I liked his father. Principally, because he spoke out against the American Empire\u2019s proclivity to make war upon all those who are not<\/em>, in the judgment of Madelyn Albright types, \u201cindispensable.\u201d Ron also suggested we might, just might, maybe, a teensy-weensy, consider re-balancing our lopsided, unbalanced, out-of-kilter relationship with the new Goliath of the Middle East\u2014Israel. Rand, of course, has learned well from his father: learned what not<\/em> to do. In his announcement speech he said he was not afraid to name the enemy\u2014\u201cIslamic Fundamentalism!\u201d He said he wants to \u201crestrain government and expand freedom.\u201d (Just what is this \u201cfreedom\u201d stuff they all talk about, but never bother to define or qualify?)<\/p>\n Side Effects<\/strong>: Likely to precipitate Adelsonitis, a $100-million ailment, from which Mitt Romney suffered, causing quixotic delusions.<\/p>\n Switch to ad for Symbicort: Open with paunchy, grandfatherly type seated on couch with cute 5-yr old boy; grandfather reading from a children\u2019s book of fairy tales. Cut to pictures in children\u2019s book, suddenly animated, showing big, bad wolf in front of final dwelling of the 3 little pigs. Grandfather\u2019s over-voice: something about wolf \u201chuffing and puffing.\u201d Cut to grandpa and kid on sofa. Kid: \u201cKind of like you, Grandpa.\u201d Grandpa: \u201cWell, if you have COPD, it can be hard to breathe.\u201d Cut to bedraggled, animation of wolf, huffed and puffed-out, in female wolf-doctor\u2019s office. (We\u2019re supposed to feel sorry for the wolf, not happy for the pigs!) Solution for COPD sufferers (wolverines and humans, supposedly): Symbicort!<\/p>\n Side Effects<\/strong>: Those who bother to Google, will find on the first page): \u201cGeneric Name: budesonide\/ formoterol.\u201d \u201cIt is possible that some of the side effects of Symbicort may not have been reported. These can be reported to the FDA\u2026.\u201d \u201cMore common\u201d side effects include, \u201cdifficulty with breathing\u201d (!), fever, body aches or pain, loss of voice, shortness of breath (!).<\/p>\n Switch to Prilosec commercial. Redneck comedian is about to run his little rowboat–with revved-up, back motor right thru a burning hoop. This clown has box of Prilosec in his hand, as we cut to long shot of boat jumping thru the hoop (obviously a different actor). Cut to Redneck comedian still hawking Prilosec to conquer heartburn.<\/p>\n Side Effects: <\/strong>May cause idiocy!– a belief that one can eat any kind of garbage one pleases and survive to jump rowboats thru burning hoops!<\/p>\n Switch to short interview with Bernie Sanders on CNN\u2019s Wolf Blitzer show. Highlights: Sanders is unsure he\u2019ll run because of the gargantuan task of taking on the special interests\u2014the huge costs of a campaign. Says we\u2019ve got to take on the billionaire class, overturn Citizens United (Amen to that!). Notes that the top 1\/10 of 1% of Americans control more money than the bottom 90%; and, some 99% of the money \u201creturned\u201d to Americans since the \u201cGreat Recession\u201d has gone to the top 1%…. Sanders notes in passing that he\u2019s the longest-sitting Independent US Senator in US history. (I\u2019ll note, in passing, that he comes from Vermont\u2014perhaps the best state in the US, and I\u2019ve been in 40 of them.)<\/p>\n Side Effects<\/strong>: After some topical applications of Bernie-think, one might develop an incurable case of AutoCogitationitis\u2014an incorrigible desire to think for oneself.<\/p>\n _______________________________<\/p>\n Gary Corseri has performed his work at the Carter Presidential Library, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has published novels and collections of poetry, has taught in US public schools and prisons and in US and Japanese universities. His work has appeared at <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>, The New York Times,\u00a0Village Voice, CounterPunch, The Japan Times, Outlook India,\u00a0and hundreds of publications and websites worldwide. Contact: gary_corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Used to be, when I flipped channels, I\u2019d go from one movie to another, one drama to another, one news show to another, etc. These days, I\u2019m more likely to go from one commercial to another\u2014and more likely than not, it\u2019s a prescription pill commercial! Every third time I flip, I land on a \u201cnews\u201d program where there are yakking heads (used to be talking, now they just yak\u2014kind of like real yaks!)\u2014giggling, oohing, ah-ing, laying odds on latest announcements by Hillary Shrillary, Jeb the Bush, Rand the Paul, Ted the Harvard-Hispanic guy, and Marco the Cuban-American guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}