YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE DOROTHY

We live in a world of statistics and polls – either can be a social barometer, but I think also can be misleading depending on who presents them and how they are conducted.

You can find a poll or statistics to support any position you may take if you look long enough.

I’m always a little suspicious when they involve politics, figuring there may be an attempt to put some lipstick on the pig and manipulate.

In the last election polls favored the Reps to win a majority in the House and Senate, and they did. In the last presidential election depending on who you talked to and what polls you favored both sides were predicting victory and it was the Dems who won.

Loyalty can be a good thing, something honorable, but it can also be misplaced – that’s kind of the way of it in the human condition.

Polls are big business, there are entities devoted specifically to that.

Loyalty, as in consumer loyalty, is big business as well – something to cultivate and rely upon to generate revenue.

Consumer loyalty may not actually be loyalty though, it may only be a matter of necessity – a necessity that has led to what are referred to as “dollar stores” featuring for the most part cheap products offered at cheap prices.

What interests me is in these dollar stores you can find a name brand product available at a significantly lower price.

If you look at the label and information it is written in Spanish – the clear indication is the same product if labeled in English and marketed directly in the U.S. comes with a higher price tag.

Companies don’t sell at a loss, neither do stores. They may claim they do for tax purposes but they don’t. And that begs the question what are the profit margins? What level is acceptable in a foreign market and what on home ground? How much gouging takes place?

Obviously it is higher in the U.S.  for the same item than elsewhere.

Obama is heading to India for a conference, a part of the agenda is related to pharmaceuticals India manufactures, maintains a high level of quality in doing so, and yet markets them for a significantly lower price. Specifically drugs related to the treatment of HIV.

Another example is the same drugs manufactured in this country by the same company are sold in Canada for less.

Pharmaceuticals aren’t dish soap or a can of Vienna sausage, and therein lies the difference – I can’t image a president fronting for a company that makes Vienna sausage, maybe though depending on the amount of campaign donations they make and the level of influence that gives them.

Big pharma doesn’t like what India is doing and advancing the usual proprietary claims, copyright infringement, intellectual property, and issuing false alarms about “safety” as if they and they alone should steer the course of treatment and world health. As if they alone should be trusted.

So time to fuel up Air Force One and journey to the land of mendicants, sacred cows, and extreme poverty.

To begin with I don’t believe the president of this country or any country for that matter should under any pretext act as a corporate agent – to further sully the office by attempting to advocate for corporate gluttony – but that’s the reality as corporations pull the strings

Maybe that’s just me though, maybe it’s appropriate for treatment, medication,and access not to be affordable.

Maybe somehow the affects and ravages of a disease are different depending on personal finances and economic station, maybe if  you’re poor or disenfranchised it doesn’t matter if you’re healthy or if you live or die.

That’s a prevalent corporate mindset from pharmaceuticals to GMOs, something people have come to expect, but the prevalence of politicians as corporate stooges isn’t acceptable in any way, shape, or form – doesn’t matter if they are local, state, national, or occupy the highest office in the land, and something that needs to addressed.

India I believe is what is referred to as an emerging nation, as in getting their feet under them after decades of British rule, my hope is they will continue to tell big pharma to stuff it and presidents to clean up their backyard before they even attempt to lobby anyone.

Unless a country is considered a super power or a close associate of one the concept of self determination doesn’t set well – an example would be Greece whose recent elections loudly proclaim they have the right to control their own destiny, their own economy,and their own country – not the EU, the IMF, or any banking conglomerate.

Little Greece giving the finger to and spitting in the eye of giants. Little Greece, a modern day David taking on Goliath – gotta love it.

They’re going to catch hell now as the forces of commerce will be marshalled against them – but they’re preparing as public determination translates to volunteerism, sharing, and solidarity – a model being providing not just in Greece but in other nations like Iceland and Ecuador.

Ecuador who has taken the same approach relative to Monsanto, likewise telling them to stuff it and spitting in their eye.

An effort related to such defiance is always to portray such countries as being rogue nations and socialists.The bastard child of dubious character who doesn’t belong in the family of nations it they refuse to tow the line.

Socialism is a dirty word, but if socialism is a great evil it surely can’t be any more vile than the reality capitalism has become. If socialism is such a threat it can’t be any more of a threat than a system that commodifies health, education, legislation, and the general well being of it’s populace.

That will withhold these things if the price isn’t met.

A system where forty plus percent of the national wealth is held by one percent and control everything.

Come on now, you don’t have to be Dorothy to know things aren’t the way they should be in Oz.

You don’t need to be Dorothy to know that someone  behind the curtain is feeding us a line, or that we no longer are in Kansas.

Am I advocating for Socialism, or any of the “isms”? Nope, only my ism of choice, equalism and equality in the home, marketplace, justice, job site, and most importantly…government.

Whoa, wait a minute…..equalism?  Isn’t that the definition of a democratic representative government? Damn, that will never work, doesn’t even make sense. Some people huh?

Guess that makes me a real radical….but then if you aren’t marching in lockstep following the Pied Piper you have to be labeled something right?