Heroes of the Revolution and Other Things

Heroes of the Revolution

My father's village was burned to the ground by the communists during the Greek Civil War and he never lost his visceral loathing of Marxists and their ilk. I am an old-school cold warrior and generally despised the former Soviet Union and everything that dark statist empire stood for. Still, you have to admit they had some awesome motivational posters; full of square-jawed, burley heroes of the revolution laboring mightily in the service of some fantastic five-year plan to double the production of pig iron or tractors. Sure, Homo Sovieticus was generally a paunchy, pasty, time-serving hack in some government bureau but their hearts were in the right places when it came to propaganda.

What will our posters look like? I don't think the heroes of our Marxist revolution; 25-year-old men on Methadone for fibromyalgia, polybabydadic tattooed fat chicks, prissy government bureaucrats in the Bureau of Compliance, and sleek Civil Rights lawyers will have quite the same effect. I mean, a poster showing the ideal citizens of 21st Century America with implements of labor in their hands would be so ridiculous as to be unbelievable. I picture instead a large banner showing The People, in solidarity, marching with their food stamp cards thrust defiantly into the future, their other hands holding cigarettes or greasy sacks of fast food.

Out of Control

The obsession of hospital bureaucrats with "Patient Satisfaction" has gotten completely out of hand. I am leaving my current job for a new position in part because the unwritten but official policy of the place is to give the patients whatever they want for whatever reason. Many of you who do not work in Emergency Medicine think we are exaggerating the depth of the problem but I assure you that hospitals will tie themselves in knots over complaints, the majority of which are the result of either not dispensing narcotics like a good little doctor-faucet or not being a bland, compliant, personality-less doctorbot who will just do what he's told.

Either that or telling a dental pain drug-seeker who smokes two packs a day that he actually can afford to see a dentist if he would only divert some of the money he spends on irregular pleasures to his own medical care.

The weight of Press-Gainey ridiculousness of course falls mostly on Emergency Physicians as we are the initial point of contact for a large majority of patients with the hospital. This is kind of ironic because Emergency Physicians, by temperament are the least likely to be as bland and inoffensive as is required not only in corporate medicine but in American society in general.

I know many of you get your knickers in a wad when I say this but American Society is collapsing at an increasing rate mostly because in the name of Empowerment every vestige of personal responsibility, shame, and respect for authority has been eradicated from the people who need it the most. It is a ridiculous kind of empowerment as it does not include any expectation of work or responsibility but only that the the Empowered be prepared to air their grievances at every opportunity.

You are powerless for a reason, Motherfucker. Your opinions don't matter because you are 25, on the public dole for drug addiction disability, and sucking down enough Methadone to sedate an entire town. I don't care what you think and why anybody else does is unfathomable.

Heck, we are all powerless when you get down to it. Most of us are slaves to The Man. The only people who are truly free are those on the public dole because absolutely nothing is expected of them and they are free to live as they please.

Where's my Press-Gainey survey where I get to critique the polybabydadic hordes, the drug seekers, the medically non-compliant, the bureaucracy, the government and all of those things that bother me?

Come On Now

32-year-old "dental pain" Meth-addict with the signature oozing stumps of teeth from the corrosive effects of sucking down toxic fumes for a living:

"It's bottle teeth from when I was a baby."

Dude. Have some respect.