Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle has become my
favorite writer. His ability to say it strongly, clearly and colorfully is
unmatched. I am glad someone is out there shouting it at the rooftops and is
not worried about being PC. Here is the link to Mark’s column How
Many Companies Want You Dead?, and here it is in full:
Oh,
don't even pretend to be shocked. You know it's true. You know there are simply
a huge number of big, sweaty major corporations out there in big, sweaty
capitalismland who claim to be in the business of feeding and caring for
the human body, but who actually care about as much for your general health and
well-being as a Republican cares for his meth dealer's lesbian daughter's
organic free-range Vermont wedding.
Deny it at your peril: It is just sinisterly evident that
many corporations -- seemingly far more in quantity and scale than we like to
imagine -- would very much like to see you, well, if not completely dead, then
surely to suffer, wallow, shake and wobble for as long as you shall barely
live.
Why? Because, silly, no matter how you slice it and what
sort of optimistic green/organic/progressive wool you like to draw over your
eyes, the truth remains: Disease and sickness, obesity and mal-education are
still where the real money is. It's just the American way.
Is that too malicious? Too ugly? I'm not so sure. You
have but to ponder: Who wants a healthy and calmly educated populace? Who wants
people attuned and wise, spiritually secure and inwardly stable? Not the
Coca-Cola Corporation. Not Exxon. Not the life insurance industry or Big
Tobacco or Big Pharma. Not the Catholic Church. Not Yum! Brands, Pfizer, big
agribiz and industrial farms, McDonald's, Kraft Foods, or your local school lunch program. Not most of Congress. Not Fox News or
reality TV or the bleating clown car that is the Tea Party. Not fundamentalist
Christianity, Mormonism or about 89 percent of Texas.
After all, the smarter and healthier you get, the more
you are self-defined, attuned to wisdom and spirit, the less power and
influence they have over your life, and the less they can sell you swill and
poison, false hope and a sour idea of a bitter, vengeful little God concocted
by surly white men in a dank Roman basement sometime around 300 AD.
Let us examine one little example. It comes in the form
of a nasty news tidbit that hit my in-box recently, courtesy of a thoughtful
and rather horrified reader, in the wake of the greasy fallout over KFC's
famously vile Double Down meat abomination thing.
It's a story that reveals a rather unexpected, but not
entirely shocking little factoid: It turns out the health and life insurance
industries are just hugely invested in the success of the world's fast food
companies.
How hugely? According to the study, in 2009 the big
health insurance companies owned upwards of $2 billion in stock in the biggest garbage food purveyors in
the land. That's a lot of high fructose corn syrup, guar gum, ethoxylated
monoglycerides, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and buckets of greasy,
synthetically flavored slop, happily sanctioned and supported by the very
companies you would think very much want you to shun those poisons like the
pope shuns Ireland.
You may then rightly ask: What the hell are they up to? What
sort of nefarious forces are at play? At first glance, maybe you can excuse it
as pure capitalism at work. Large corporations often invest in other large
corporations, seeking any means to making as much money as possible; principles
don't usually factor into it.
In fact, as the nation just witnessed, it is inherently
forbidden for ethics to come anywhere within a 100-mile radius of Wall Street.
You want to round out your portfolio? Are you seeking some good cash flow and
(relative) long-term stability in the market? Invest in the classic
cornerstones of capitalism: oil, sweatshops, junk food, pharmaceuticals,
weapons manufacturers, industrial slaughterhouses, coal mining and so on, and
tell your soul to shut the hell up. Daddy needs a new speedboat and some
bullets for the apocalypse.
But that's only part of the picture. It takes no effort
at all to peel back one more layer and say that the health insurance industry
obviously has a vested interest in keeping you fat and sick and ever at their
mercy. After all, they're just hedging their bets.
Much like Big Tobacco's brilliant collusion with Big
Pharma, both cheerfully feeding you a slew of lies and misinfo about smoking's
terrible addictiveness on the one hand, while turning right around and
convincing you of the need for expensive drugs and patches, rehabs and gums on
the other in a vicious cycle of shame, victimhood and failed willpower, so do
the health and junk food companies work together to make each other mountains
of cash, with you as the dumbass hub.
Put it this way: The more successful McDonald's is, the
sicker the nation gets, the higher your insurance premiums will skyrocket, the
more drugs you will demand, the less willpower you will have, the more you will
crave toxic garbage "comfort food," the more you will believe you're
a victim, the less control you will have over the your body and your life, the
happier these companies will be. And lo, the circle of life continues. Until
your heart collapses.
Do not misunderstand. I am not saying these corporations
are intentionally, murderously malevolent. I am stopping just short of implying
a scenario where despicable corporate meatheads sit around bland boardrooms
concocting ways to literally poison and kill you. Well, not entirely, anyway.
Because the truth is, you're just not that important.
Your health and well-being are entirely incidental to the larger goal -- which
is, of course, making a s--load of money. If these companies think of you at
all, it's simply as a means to that end. You're just a bulbous ATM to them. You
are, as always, entirely expendable.
Is there any good news? A little. As Michael Pollan
pointed out, as flawed as the health care reform package is, come 2014, we will
still see a dramatic shift, as heathcos will no longer be able to turn you down
for coverage or charge higher rates for pre-existing conditions. This means
they will have a far greater vested interest in keeping you healthy by eating
better and living a tiny bit smarter.
Of course, it's still for the most part just a thin,
ruthless charade. The fact remains: They're all still for-profit industries.
Much like how KFC -- and its vile parent company, Yum! Brands -- showed that it
could give a dead, hormone-engorged chicken about ethics, corporate
responsibility or anyone's overall health, the instant that many of these
companies sense any new path toward profit, they won't hesitate to glom onto
it.
Does that path just so happen to involve poisoning your
blood, crushing your coronary artery, or running right over you in the street?
Well gosh. Too bad for you.
I can't shake the feeling the style supports "disease and mal-education" by targeting their victims exclusively. Bombast, in particular, assumes people's feelings are deadened, which does happen when you don't feel well or can't comprehend finer arguments.
Here's something in the similar vein, also with strong language, but more logic-based: http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/04/shocking_fraud_from_financial.php
Posted by: Maria Droujkova | April 27, 2010 at 07:14 PM