Time Traveling Alien Anthropologist

                He sat down at my table at the coffee shop where I was reading a book and taking a break from my bike ride.  “What is two plus two?” he asked.  “A mathematical equation,” I replied.  His thin lips curled into a small smile.  I’m visiting here do you mind if I ask you a few questions

                No, as long as I can ask a few myself.  Where are you visiting from?

                Form a distant time and planet.

                Really?  So, what brings you to this particular intersection of time and space?

                Research, I’m an anthropologist whose specific area of study is human origins and history.

                From the future, eh?  Wouldn’t happen to have a line on this year’s Super Bowl winner, would you?

                Super Bowl? Is that a reference to one of the primitive contest of speed and strength that your society frequently and with much fanfare likes to engage in?

                Yeah, we shortened all that up and just call it football, but your description is accurate.

                I don’t the winner of any particular contest but the idea as a whole is part of my study.

                Why would you research bring you to this particular time if you are able to travel to any?

                This is what your calendar refers to as 2017 BC, correct?

                If you are looking for 2017 BC you missed by about 4,000 years buddy.  You may need to tweak those dials on your time machine.

                Hmm, I’ve been here for a couple of your weeks and all of the other data confirms that this is the year 2017 BC.

                It is 2017…AD not BC.

                AD?

                After Death

                The death of what?

                Jesus Christ

                I’ve come across that name many times in my research.  He is a hero, of sorts.  Elevated to cult status by the superstitious.  Revered with monuments and symbols throughout this society.  He gained notoriety when he was executed by the rulers.

 

                Never heard it preached that way myself, but that is the Christ story in a nuthouse.  That’s why this is referred to as AD, After the death of Christ.  BC refers to the time before Christ.  What did you think it meant?

                BC stands for Before Collapse.

 

                Oh, Before the collapse of what?

                Human civilization on this planet.

                You paint a rosy picture.  You should be running for office.  So, when does human civilization collapse on this planet?  It’s been a question I’ve been curious about.

                The first interstellar voyagers leave this planet somewhere between 2084 and 2184 on your calendar.  Ancient history is not an exact science so there is a range given by the best data we could collect.

                What’s so interesting about this time that you decided to come to now?

                The calendar years between 2017 and 2024 are the years when the events occurred that accelerated the collapse of human civilization on this planet.  My research is aimed at better understanding what daily life was like here leading up to those events.

                What events are you talking about specifically?

                The dramatic increase of intra and interspecies conflicts that disrupted the planetary support systems and made human civilization inevitably unstainable.  I have observed that the occupying troops are already here in great numbers and we know that is one of the accelerants of violent conflict.

                Occupying troops?  Where did you see them at?

                They have been in great numbers everywhere I have gone.

                If there were occupying troops in the United States I would know about them.  What do they look like?

                You have not seen the uniformed soldiers that are openly carrying weapons and drive specifically marked military vehicles? They are ubiquitous every place I’ve been on the continent.

                I don’t know about the rest of the continent but I’ve not seen any occupying troops and I have lived here my whole life.

                There’s one right there.  He pointed out the coffee shop window at a patrol car that had pulled up to the curb with two police officers getting out.

                Those aren’t occupying troops, that’s the police.

                What is the difference?

                The police aren’t soldiers they are just law enforcement.

                Are your laws so unjust that you need armed and uniformed soldiers to force people to follow them?

                Well, I never thought of it like that but I guess we do.  It’s just the way it’s always been and they aren’t really soldiers.

                They wear uniforms?

                Yes

                They openly carry weapons?

                Yes

                Do they communicate with a central command?

                They radio dispatch, I suppose, or dispatch radios them.

                Are they able to stop, question, search, detain and execute other persons who are not in uniform?

                Cops do shoot people.  A lot more lately, but they are not supposed to.  They can stop, question, search and arrest you though.

                Are you allowed to resist them if they do so?

                Not if you don’t want to get shot.  You do have the right to remain silent.

                Would you consider that resistance?

                No, more self-preservation.

                Then why do you not consider them occupying soldiers?

                Because they aren’t foreign and they aren’t in the military.

                What makes them different than the military?

                The color of their uniforms.

                Why does it make a difference if they are foreign or not?  From my study of your contemporary maps the borders of what you call countries are primarily arbitrary and fluid.

                The borders are not really arbitrary, they were agreed upon in treaties and such.  Also, I haven’t known them to be fluid.      

   

                Has your country always had the same borders?

                No, we started out at 13 colonies and then expanded west.

                If your borders are able to expand then they are also able to contract and that would make them fluid.  What’s the difference between what you called a colony and what your map defines as a state?

                They were colonies under English rule but after the revolution they became states.

                So, the borders of the country of England used to be on this continent?

                I see what you are saying, the borders have been and can definitely be fluid.  But that hasn’t happened for a long time.

                That’s a very subjective view of time.  What you call Alaska wasn’t part of this country until 1959. 

                I never really thought of it that way.  I guess I just took for granted that the U.S. has always had 50 states.   

            

                Take from me and I’m a time traveler.  Always doesn’t exist. 

                How do you travel through time anyway?

                By utilizing gravity and the curvature of the universe.

                The universe is curved?

                It’s a sphere.  It was shaped that way by the force of gravity.

                The universe is a globe?

                That’s one way to look at it.

                How do you use gravity to travel through time?

                Gravity warps the fabric of space/time.  So, a time vehicle travels by tuning into the gravitational waves of the universe and then amplifies them.  This creates a high gravitational field centered on the vehicle.  Then you pick an arc of the already established space/time continuum and you can travel to a different place and arrive in a different time.

                Sounds interesting.  Harnessing gravity instead of fighting it isn’t something I had ever considered before.

                What is it that you do consider?  What do you think about on a day to day basis?

                Shit man, I work seventy hours a week.  I don’t have all that much time to think.  When I’m not at work I have to take care of the wife and kids.  I like to drink a beer and watch ESPN if I can get a chance.  Otherwise I just follow the scores on my phone. 

                Doesn’t that life seem like a flawed system to you?

                Fuck yeah it does, but what else can I do.  I have bills to pay.

                What do you mean by bills?

                You really aren’t from this planet.  I have a mortgage, HOA, health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, trash bill, water bill, electric bill, two car payments, I have three kids in school, my own student loans, food, clothes, fuel, cable/internet, cell phone, Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify, Dollar Shave club, gym membership, and the list just keeps going. 

                And you must work to meet these obligations?

                Yes, and even then, just barely.

                How long do you have to work before you have meet all of these obligations?

                Are you fucking kidding?  These go on for the rest of my life. 

                That does not make any sense.  Why burden yourself with so many obligations that you can never fulfill?

                It’s just the way things are.

                Hmm. Are there not enough dwellings available to live in?

                There are plenty if you can afford them.

                Is there not enough water to meet the demand?

                No there’s plenty of water in this area but it cost money?

                Are there not enough sources of power or fuel?

                No there is plenty of fuel and power, you just have to pay for it.

                Is there a scarcity of places to obtain an education?

                No there are public schools, and charter schools, and private schools, and home schooling is an option.

                Is there a shortage of modes of transportation?

                No, you can buy a bike, ride the bus, buy a car, fly in an airplane.

 

                Is there not enough food to feed everyone?

                No there’s plenty of food.  Hell, we waste tons of it every day.

                Is there not enough medicine to treat the sick?

                The only medicine we are short of is the death penalty drug.

                What is that?

                It’s the drugs we use to inject people on death row to end their life.

                Is that considered a medical treatment?

                Ha, no it’s considered justice.

                How is it considered just?

                Because they did bad things, unless they were innocent, which happens occasionally, and they deserve to die.

                Everyone dies.  How can it be considered just to do something that is going to happen anyway?

                Well, they usually killed people, and murder is wrong so their punishment is to be killed.

                What’s the difference between killing them and murder?

                A bunch of paperwork.

                I do not follow.

                There’s legal system and a bunch of paperwork and a trial, so it’s not the same as murdering someone.

                You said that sometimes innocent people are executed.  Is that considered murder?

                It should be but it isn’t.  We all know the system is going to make some mistakes. 

                So, if the system makes mistakes it goes on unchanged, but if people make mistakes they are punished. 

                If they don’t have enough money to hire a crafty lawyer.

                So, some people who kill are not punished?

                Yeah that happens.  OJ is a good example.

                What is an OJ?

                He’s guy who was a football star and then an actor.  He murdered his wife and her lover and he was found not guilty. 

                So, your legal system kills innocent people and lets the guilty go free.

                It happens.

                That does not sound like a good system.

                What kind of system would you have then?

                If killing people is wrong than a system that doesn’t kill people.

                Then they just stay in prison for the rest of their lives.  That doesn’t seem like justice for the people that they killed.

                If you kill them do the people they killed come back to life?

                No.

                Then I do not see the justice in killing them.  What is a prison?

                It’s where you go if you are sentenced for a crime.  It’s a cage we keep criminals in, kind of like an absurd human zoo.

                How does that help?

                It keeps them away from the rest of society so they can do no more harm.

                They are kept in cages by themselves until they die?

                Well, no they are in there with other criminals.

                Are all of these criminals guilty?

                No, I told you the system sometimes makes mistakes and innocent people get convicted too.

                Can the guilty harm the innocent in these human zoos?

                Yes, prison is a bad place no one goes there on purpose

.

                Once they are there they can no longer contact society?  This is their punishment?

                No, they can have visits and phone calls, and write letters and such.

                So, they are still part of society they just are required to live in a cage?

                Yes, that pretty much sums it up.

                How is this considered justice?  What is the good that comes from this practice?

                It makes the rest of society feel safer.

                Is the rest of society safer?  Has this practice put an end to crime?

                Not by a long shot.  It’s just the way it is.  What would you do with the criminals?

                I would examine the most frequently broken laws to see if those laws were, in fact, just.  If they are found not to be just I would remove them.  Of those who broke the laws that are found to be just I would look to see why that person was broken and work with the rest of the society to restore them to wholeness.

                That sounds like some hippie shit to me.

                I do not know what hippie shit is?  It is a system that works for the betterment of all.  It has worked for millennium on my home planet.

                A planet without prisons and cops.  I would like to go there.

                You do not have to go there.  You could help make the same system here.  It seems to me that origins of the collapse of human civilization on this planet are obvious.  More so than I ever suspected they would be.

                What origins of collapse are you talking about?  Nuclear weapons, global warming, World War III. 

                All of those are the logical conclusion of this system.  So, they are symptoms not the cause.  The causes are obvious.  You have more than enough food but people go hungry.  You have more than enough dwellings but people are denied them.  You have the technology to promote life and wellness but you restrict access to it.  Your laws are unjust and therefore must be enforced with the club and the gun.  You believe that justice is the practice of capturing, caging and killing people.  This is not a sustainable system.  It will always collapse.

                What kind of system would you suggest?

                You feed the hungry.  Provide a safe space to live to all persons.  All access to medical technology and treatments for all.  Clothe the naked.  Provide access to transportation to everyone.  Educate all persons.  End unjust laws.  Stop capturing, caging and killing people.  This is the model of every successful civilization in the universe. 

                Where are you supposed to get all the money it would take to do that?

                Why is money important?

                All of the stuff you said we need to do cost money?

                It cost money to end unjust laws?  It cost money not to capture, cage and kill people?

                Those would be the cheapest aspects of your plan.  But where would you get the money for the rest of it?

                It does not take money.  It takes cooperation.

 

                I promise you it would take a great deal of money to get the people who own the food, the hospitals, and the houses to cooperate with a plan of providing it to those who cannot pay. 

                Who owns all these things?

                Mostly a bunch of different corporations.

                Corporations are a cooperative, correct?

                In a manner of speaking.

                Then why would they not provide these things?

                Because there would be no money in it.  They would all lose their ass and go out of business.

                Why would they go out of business?

                Because they wouldn’t collect any money and there would be no profit so they would run out of money and have to shut down.

                Why do they need money to provide these basic things?

                So, they can pay the people doing the work and pay for the goods.  If they didn’t, people wouldn’t do the work or provide the goods.

                Why would the people need this money?

                So, they can buy things.

                What would they need to buy?  They would be provided with food, medical care, housing, clothing and transportation.   

                What if they wanted cell phones?

                Then there could be a cooperation that provides cell phones and operates a cell phone network.

                Why would people do that if there was no money in it.

                Because there is a desire for it and it helps the people of the planet.

                It wouldn’t happen without the profit motive.  People are motivated by the opportunity to make money.

                Then the people need to be reeducated.  Do you think that your form of currency will be accepted on any other planet in the universe?

                I hadn’t thought of that, but no probably not.

                I assure you it won’t.  Any other civilization in the universe who has the technological ability to reach you would easily replicate your currency and take command of your digital networks as soon as they realized how easily you are plied with it.  A realization they would come to with a quickness you cannot comprehend.  A planet wide system of cooperation that works for the betterment of civilization, however, is much harder to, if not impossible to overcome. 

                Is that what you plan to do?  You came here from both a distant planet and another time so you must have that technology.

                No, I have no interest in that.  I’m only here for research.  Your civilization collapses and those voyagers you are able to send out before the collapse must seek assistance from those they come in contact with and therefore already know the wisdom of cooperation. 

                Why don’t you provide us with some future technology to prevent the collapse?

What you need to prevent the collapse is already here. The change must come from you.

                Don’t you have some future time travel technology that could save us.

                No visiting intelligent life form with ever provide you with more advanced technology than you can develop on your own.  This planet’s first priority would be to weaponize any new technology that they receive and this would have ramifications, not just for this planet, but the whole universe. 

                Is there anything you can do to save us?

                Your salvation comes from an accurate assessment of your problems and the cooperation that is required to implement the necessary solutions.  It will never come from an outside source.

                So, we are fucked.

                If you choose to be.  I have appreciated our conversation it has provided me insight that will be helpful in completing my research.

                Are you taking off?  Do you have an appointment that you are afraid you will be late for?  Sorry, time travel joke.

                No need to apologize for having a sense of humor.  It is one of the finest qualities of any intelligent mind.

                As he got up and left my table I took a sip of my now watered-down coffee.  Intelligent mind huh?  I wonder where I’m going to find one of those.   

Buyer’s remorse gets Trumped

Every time that Trump does something stupid and disastrous that will have lasting effects on both our national and foreign policy and disgraces the office of the President, so about seven times a day.  I see yet another article by some news outlet pondering the question of whether or not the Trump voter will now finally regret their decision to have voted for him.  The answer is and always will be no. 

                This question is analogous to asking if a habitual lottery ticket purchaser regrets the money they have wasted each time they don’t win the jackpot.  You can sit down every day with this person and go over the numbers.  You can show them that their odds of winning are miniscule.  You can show them how much money they could save every year and every decade if they just chose not to spending it on the lottery.  This will have no effect on their mindset or their behavior.  Someone who buys five dollars’ worth of lottery tickets twice a week will continue to do so in spite of your best logical arguments.  The fact that you have worked out the numbers and can show them the facts of these numbers will make no difference. 

                This is because playing the lottery fulfills one of the basest human needs that there is, it provides a sense of hope that allows the purchaser to continue to dream impossible dreams.  They say that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.  If this is true, then in the waiting room of the first brothel someone started a numbers racket and everyone present bought a ticket.  This racket has been alive and well ever since and it isn’t going to end. 

You may be asking me what sense of hope Trump inspired that would have caused someone to cast their vote for him?  The answer is simple.  He said he would make America great, again.  I know that great is an ambiguous and manipulatable term just like patriotism, which can mean completely different things to each person, but this doesn’t change the fact that he hit a nerve.

 

                The people that felt America was no longer great don’t have to be completely bigoted, racist, misogynistic, homophobic pricks.  They just have to live with an underlying and daily sense of dread, real or imagined.  Though I will concede that a false sense of dread not tied to reality is much harder to overcome then one based on actual threats.  The majority of those who feel this sense of dread are not ignorant, openly racist rednecks.  They are the pseudo-educated, who hold certificates of education whose main purpose is the constant reminder of the debt burden they accumulated for such a privilege.  They are those that just signed for a loan on an overpriced house on the “right” side of the tracks.  Those who make $75,00 to $150,000 a year and still live paycheck to paycheck.  Those who do whatever it takes to get their children into charter schools and still feel that their kids won’t have it as good as they did.  Those who distrust and dislike law enforcement but still put blue lights out on their porch in solidarity because they believe that the alternative to militaristic law enforcement is to be overrun by those who are worse off than they are. 

                These people believe that the “system,” however they define it, is and has for a long time been rigged.  The reality of the situation is that they are right, for all the wrong reasons, and the reasons fucking matter.  Trump played to these fears and promised to be something different.  This is what jumpstarted his campaign for President.  He was able to win because he was the perfect storm of the American illusion.  Trump is the icon of modern extravagant wealth.  He’s a thin-skinned braggart that believes his wealth is the source of meaning and purpose in life.  He openly states that this wealth is a sign of his betterness and that he is therefore entitled to act as he pleases in all situations without fear of consequence or retribution.  Something he believes he is entitled to dole out to others on a daily basis. 

                This sales pitch is not new.  It has been the mantra of monarchs and depots throughout long course of human civilizations.  If you want a biblical reference for the same type of herd behavior look no further than the people of Israel beseeching God to provide them a king.  They perceived that they were surrounded by overwhelming threats both foreign and internal.  They willing gave their functioning form of tribal democracy for the presence of a strong leader.  In spite of the warnings by their own prophets of what type of destruction such a leader always does to their own people.  If you want to know the aftermath of this horrible decision read Kings and Chronicles. 

                Many of the people in the United States today feel those same pressures the tribes of Israel felt, and have turned to the same solution.  It is my opinion that much of this fear is real even if it is grossly misplaced.  The constant cycle of endless consumerism driven debt coupled with a digital permanent record of all financial and personal failings that can and do occur over a lifespan of seventy plus years.  Removes a sense of wellbeing from most individuals that is impossible to get back.  In a vain and misguided attempt to do so we elected a blowhard charlatan who promised greatness with even not knowing what the term meant. 

                I believe Trump as President will cause much great and irreversible damage to the once sovereign country of the United States.  He already has with his actions in the realm of foreign affairs.  This so-called, travel ban, just being the latest blow. 

                Our Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  Yet, we as a people have forgotten that those masses are not supposed to remain forever tired, poor and wretched. 

                As the wealth gaps grows daily by leaps and bounds, between the wealthiest few and the rest of us.  The gap between those who are just getting by and those who aren’t closes just as rapidly.  This is the real terror that we should be waging a war on.  Yet we are giving up our freedoms that allowed for us to prosper together. In exchange for a false sense of security, which we will find out to late, is going to be our undoing. 

                The Trump voter can see all this happening but they will still never regret their choice in the ballot box.  This is because, just as the lottery player, they never truly expected to win.  They voted on the outside chance that something other than their worst fears would become reality.  When those fears and more, do become reality, which they will, those who voted for and still support Trump will recite the same tired excuses they were taught in place of an actual education.  It would have been worse if we elected the other one.  

Hippocratic Oath vs Capitalism

The Hippocratic Oath taken by medical professionals and capitalism mutually exclusive.  Once you introduce the idea of health care being a profitable business you remove the health and the only thing anyone cares about is making money.  To see how this violates the Hippocratic Oath on several levels lets first review the modern Hippocratic Oath.

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.

To see how every part of this covenant is incompatible with the profit motive we will take it one part at a time.  First, I will respect the hard-won scientific knowledge of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.  Profit motive is incompatible with the concept of sharing.  Therefore, everything from medicine to vaccines to genes are being patented.  Those who hold the patent will not share their knowledge they will only sell it to the highest bidder.  Who in turn will pass this cost on to those in need of treatment.  If you cannot pay you do not receive treatment which directly violates other parts of the covenant we will discuss later.  The reason that sharing is part of the covenant is because it is this sharing that allows health care to progress in ways that provide a healthier and more stable society.  If you take out the sharing part and replace it with the profit motive then health care moves only in directions that can be capitalized for profit and not in the best interest of the patient receiving care or society. 

This brings us to the second part: I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.  The first thing that the profit motive is in direct conflict with is, “for the benefit of the sick.”  In a for-profit health care system, this becomes for the benefit of the owners of the hospitals, treatment centers, pharmaceutical companies, patent holders, and shareholders.  This then changes all measures that which are required to, only the measures which the patient or the patient’s insurance will pay for.  Medical care in a for-profit environment does not avoid the twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism, it exacerbates them.  The more you proscribe the more money you make.  This is evident in the pill epidemic in this country.  As for therapeutic nihilism, this is forced to be a medical professional’s fallback position when a patient doesn’t or runs out of money.  They say, “There is nothing more we can do.  All the other treatments that are available are expensive.”  Which again violates the entire second part of the covenant.

This brings us to the third part: I will remember that there is an art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist drug.  Nothing erodes sympathy and understanding faster or more completely that a focus on the bottom line of turning a profit.  This is why CEO is such a psychopath laden position.  Medical professionals are put in a no win scenario when they are trying to be sympathetic while saying “I’m sorry but your insurance doesn’t cover that.”

The fourth part states: I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.  Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death.  If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks.  But it may also be within my power to take a life: this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty.  Above all, I must not play God.  This part of the oath is about trust between a medical professional and their patient.  This trust has been compromised as the public comes to see medical professionals as salesmen.  This has given rise to such theories as undisclosed cures for illnesses that require long term treatment and are often fatal.  This belief only has a foothold if the patient feels that the medical professional must consider profitability when considering how to treat an illness. 

The fifth part states: I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability.  My responsibility includes those related problems, if I am to adequately care for the sick.  If viewing a patient only through the prism of their medical chart can reduce the medical professional’s empathy towards them as another human being, then worrying about turning a profit will do this tenfold.  If instead of worrying about the affect an illness will have on a patient’s economic stability the medical professional must consider their ability to pay then they are unable to adequately care for the sick.  This is because not all the options for treatment will be viable, only the ones that the patient can afford.

The six part strikes directly to the heart of this matter when it states: I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.  While someone cannot be turned away from an emergency room with a life-threatening illness, they are consistently turned denied preventive medical treatment due to inability to pay.  This is the most common and obvious violation of the Hippocratic Oath in service of the profit motive.

The seventh part of the oath states: I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those of sound mind and body as well as the infirm.  The profit motive trumps any obligation to other human beings, special or otherwise, as shown above.

The final part of the oath states: If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter.  May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.  This part of the oath is violated in its entirety due to the violation brought on my subservience to the profit motive as stated in the first seven parts. 

All of this is to say that introducing the capitalistic concept of running health care is mutually exclusive from adhering to the oath which is the foundation of the profession.  I do believe that medical professionals should be paid well for the service they are task with providing.  What needs to be completely removed from the health care system is all the leeches attached to it.  These include, but are not limited to the pharmaceutical companies, the private hospitals, and the insurance companies.  These entities are making a killing by killing off the health of a nation by focusing entirely on the health of their own bottom line.      

American Military Coup of 2017

“Right now we have an armada heading toward North Korea,” President Trump.  This statement by the current Commander In Chief was proven to be the opposite of true.  The armada in question was sailing away from North Korea.  This is actually a big deal.  All of the regular sources of American/World continuous advertising tried to make the case that this was just a gaffe.  There was even some discussion about this being a communication mix-up, or a statement that was true, just not when he said it.

                What was never once mentioned, as is corporate media policy, was the truth.  This was blatant proof of the successful military coup that has taken place in this country.  Let us consider the facts; the POTUS is the Commander-In-Chief of all American military operations.  This means that if he makes a statement about what the military is doing it better damn well be happening.  The military, American or otherwise, demands a rigid structure of chain of command that is to be followed unquestionably and to the letter of its orders.  For a member of the military to do otherwise is misconduct and if that soldier were to do the exact opposite of his order it would be an offense for which he would find him/herself, minus Toto, but very much in Leavenworth, Kansas.  Probably occupying Michael Vick’s old cell.  Yet this did not happen.

                When it was brought to the public’s attention that there was no armada sailing toward North Korea, and that the ships in question were actually sailing in the opposite direction only the President was said to be in the wrong.  The President’s public relations staff scrambled to provide an explanation of how the President was making an accurate statement.  Most of their explanations ran along the Magellan line of thinking, i.e. the ships were going to North Korea but they were circumnavigating the earth to get there.  Or, even less believable, they were sailing to North Korea by the usual maritime route of sailing around Australia first.  All woke folk know this is complete bullshit.

                The implications of a direct order from the Commander-In-Chief being defied in such an obvious manner have served to turn Trump from the President of the United States in the Parrot of the United States Military.  Hence, vis-a-vi, ergo, a successful military coup has taken place.  This direct and publicly acknowledged violation of a direct order is not the only proof that the military controls this once sovereign nation.  The fact that Trump’s often stated, and seemingly only attainable goal, is to increase military spending should have been seen as another white flag of surrender by civilian power. 

                This creep of insidious military control in our society has been going on for quite some time.  The undemocratic election of Parrot Trump is the culmination point of what has been a several decades long process.  The military’s momentum gaining power play was to convince the American people to declare a War On Drugs.  This came during height of the most recent age of American civilian protest against unwarranted and excessive military power.  Those profiting off of military operations realized that they could no longer openly engage against sovereign nation states with the compliance or complacence of the American public.  As a result they changed strategies.  They began classifying their military targets as consumable natural products, i.e. some drugs.  This lead to the creation of the paramilitary branch of government operating openly on American soil, the DEA. 

                Once the American public began to read about and see on TV, these military operations on American soil, and they accepted them unquestionably, in fact, encouraging them.  The military began to take its next step to militarize the law enforcement branches on the federal, state, and local level.  Any protest against this was silenced by the notion that this militarization of public services was necessary to win the war against inanimate, consumable objects, aka some drugs.

                The military did not have to change the time tested propaganda in order to gain support for this war.  They drew the battle lines as always and said ‘you are either with us or you are with the drugs!’  The well-oiled propaganda machine that has been up and running since the Second Great American Power Grab, continued to run as smoothly as ever.  In order to increase the fear needed to gain compliance from the general public, sensationalized horror stories became the common fodder of the news feeds.  Fear mongering, ambiguous claims about the stated enemy of this war were required reading in the public education systems.  As always, youth groups were organized to lead the fight for the hearts and minds of the people.  All the while being used as human child shields against any critique of the war effort.  This program was so successful that every public and private institution threw its full support into the war effort in hopes of getting a ticket aboard the money train.    

                Efforts to show the patriotism of the aforementioned institutions included, but was not limited to, the creation of drug free school and work zones.  This was a blatant lie, drugs were readily available in these places, but never free.  Mandatory drug testing for students, athletes and wage slaves became common and accepted practice.  The legal system, taking its cues from their military master’s, took full advantage of this war, and the profits came rolling in.  Profits, not only monetary, but also in the form of a lever of control to return semi-free citizens to their former position of absolute slaves.  Social and economic mobility became more and more restricted, while the marketing companies, as obedient entrepreneurs, sold simultaneously, the lure of glamourous disobedience and the false sense of security of blind obedience to all unwitting participants caught in this fabricated struggle. 

                The real military genius of this war wasn’t the age-old techniques applied to wage it, but rather the way in which it was declared.  By declaring a war whose battle lines are drawn by arbitrary economic restrictions of long used consumable goods, those waging it could keep the fighting going for the foreseeable future.  This is due to the fact that the enemy in this case cannot surrender.  Not unconditionally or otherwise.  An inanimate object, that is a naturally occurring plant in many cases, perpetuates the war simply by its very existence. 

                IT has taken well over 50 years, but the American citizens have begun to recognize the arbitrary nature of the battle lines in this conflict and have begun to challenge the long-established demarcation lines of the war zone.  In the future the war on drugs will come to an end.  Not because those waging it will be able to claim victory.  They never intended for there to be a victory.  The goal was endless and exponentially profitable warfare. 

                The military industrial complex saw that this war could possibly have an endpoint so they made sure to start another one.  This one will be much harder to ever end because it is a war on a feeling.  The feeling of terror.  The battle lines of this conflict are not only arbitrary they are also fluid.  Today’s terrorist will be tomorrow’s ally.  Anyone can and will be denounced as a terrorist on any grounds.  And anyone who stops being terrified will be called unpatriotic and moved automatically into the classification of a terrorist.  The same, you are with us no matter what we say or do, or you are an enemy combatant, black and white thinking, is being employed to wage this war. 

                This, no end in sight, ever expanding war, was giving a golden egg laying bird in the form of Parrot Trump.  He is Commander-In-Chief in name only.  He repeats was is told to him and he pushes for expanding the war on every front as he has been instructed.  This is what a military coup, stated or not, looks like.  Everyone born in the U.S, since 1970 has been born into a war-torn country.  Now that the military is firmly and unquestionably in control, this status will be expanded to include everyone on this planet. 

                The only way to stop the fighting is to stop the feeling.  If, we the people, want this conflict to end we must actively not engage in it.  This starts by looking in the mirror and not fearing what you see.  This comes from embracing the mortality of all things, including feelings, ideas, and power structures.  Only together, with concentrated and determined, mass disengagement from the front lines of this conflict we can force a surrender by those who profit from this conflict.  If we together change the definition of what is profitable, those to whom profit is sacred, will follow us instead of the other way around.