When we think of genocide, we ordinarily think of mass killings, perpetrated by governments, mass killings of particular populations made up of people of a given ethnic minority, religious group, or political sub-group. We don't usually think of ordinary Americans of all backgrounds, of all stripes. We don't usually think of our vets, or our children with cancer, or our moms and dads.
Well, think again.
What is perhaps our country's dirtiest secret of all, is the quiet, almost undetectable ongoing genocide of people in extreme pain-their lives ended slowly by a perfect storm of economic and political interests that come together to enrich whole segments of our elite economy-but which feeds off the slow destruction of people who could otherwise be saved by the application of traditional opioid pain relief.
By all estimates-and this includes government estimates-50 million Americans live in chronic untreated pain. Forced to wheedle and beg doctors to help them, sold ineffective and downright dangerous pharmaceutical meds by big pharma....these people's insurance coverage, their families' resources, and finally their very physical substance is sucked dry as they struggle to find actual pain relief in a country-hell, in a world-that has, for many reasons, banned the only medicine that works-that's right-I'm talking about "junk", the stuff that "addicts" you..the evil, demon- ridden opioid molecule.
Astonishingly, the earth has provided the poppy, a beautiful flowering plant, whose extract contains the very same chemical compounds our bodies themselves manufacture so we can deal with normal painful moments, i.e. the stubbed toe, the bad patch at the dentist..even childbirth..
The earth has provided it in the poppy plant for those instances in which our bodies' natural resource of opium has been overtaxed-either because the pain is too great and the body cannot meet the demand for relief-or, when the pain is so ongoing and extreme that the body cannot turn the pain off and keep it turned off...
That is what the miracle of opium affords us...but look what we have done with this extraordinary revelation, this bona fide evidence of God's love. We have demonized it and turned it into an agent of evil...we have made a kind of inviolable social pact with each other and our political elite, that this flower's extract deposits evil in those who would avail themselves of its healing properties..
Can the use of this heaven sent medicine cause some people problems? Of course...
But what do you know about, what cure cannot also sometimes prove to be worse than the disease?
The deaths of Michael Jackson, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and many many others capture the popular imagination...and so we tremble and sort of thrill to the dark possibilities that "beckon us" from the evil opium.
But we do not see the millions of Americans in pain-end of life pain, cancer pain, chronic pain from back injuries or joint disorders-the causes are endless-people who cannot get the only medicine that works to stop the searing agony.
The millions of Americans in pain are people our courts, law enforcement and the mindless media have labeled addicts-that is if these people in pain are ever lucky enough to become dependent on the one medicine that will allow them to move on with their lives...
The rest are doomed to physical failure and unnecessary destruction due to the strain of untreated pain...
And what do we hear of this slaughter? Nothing..
Where are the newstories about the Americans crushed by the thousands every time the DEA "takes down" a doctor's practice?
Shhhhhhhh.
We might come to think a lot less of ourselves if we came to realize what we were all doing to keep this whole thing hushed up...
Shhhhhhh.
We might even end the Drug War....
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Ms. Reynolds, your focus upon the "Drug War" and all of the casualties it has created is clear and exact. And just like any other war that America has dragged its resources and citizenry into since WWI, they have all been actions that were conjured from deceit and trickery. The government created the FDA to "protect" the citizenry. It only protects the profits of the pharmacy industry and at the same time bankrolling the budgets of police departments, armies, and international arms dealers. What allows these lawfully sanctioned crimes of "service", Orwellian truthspeak here.. to be exacted upon our population is that the majority of Americans believe that the major responsibility of government is to protect us. Almost every politician is on record stating that this is the first purpose of government. The Constitution was created to protect us from our own government and to this very day, each and every elected and appointed official must pledge an oath to that Constitution. Unfortunately, in these peculiar days of apathy and ignorance, most Americans have no idea what the Constitution is truly intended to be, and most officials who have taken that oath remember chanting some foreign, cryptic verses that might as well have been written in Swahili. The end result is fascism perfected. Government officials deliver all of their energy to service the corporations, and the rights of corporations are upheld only, to the entire exclusion of the citizenry. Wendell Berry said, "The corporation is a pile of money to which its owners and managers surrender their moral conscience." To mention the word "Constitution" one time too many in a court of law can place you in risk of contempt. This is standard procedure; to quash the demands of any citizen demanding his rights be upheld; because our courts are no longer really courts of the people. A visit to the database of Dun & Bradstreet will reveal that every court, in every city, county, district and state is now a "Private Company" open for business and profit and commandeered by a CEO. Thomas Jefferson once said, "When the people fear their government, it is tyranny. When the government fears the people, it is liberty." Understand very clearly, the government does not fear the American people. They predict we will always willingly be bent over and robbed of our property, our money, and our rights, with only the trifling little whimpers of protest they still allow us to speak. In the face of these abysmal times and conditions, I applaud you, Ms. Reynolds, for daring to speak out with bravery and eloquence. I can only recommend to the dwindling numbers of free speaking, clear thinking beings, where ever they may be, in every other country upon this globe, to use the tools of communication and never stop speaking the truth. Occasionally, there is revolution. The money brokers and power junkies of history understand very well that most of humanity is peaceful, contemplative, and passive. Thus, vast crimes of robbery, suppression, violence, and insanity always reign, far past all boundaries of reason and belief, before the people actually will arise and rebel. I've read a lot of history. It seems to me that every condition is in place for another big time blowout.
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