Pharmakeia, Part I: Grift

[kimberlysteele]

 

 

 According to the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):

 

U.S. health care spending grew 9.7 percent in 2020, reaching $4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person.  As a share of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 19.7 percent.

 

When my commercial lease expired earlier this year, I was hoping to make the jump into another commercial space where I could start a library and education center.  I may have had the creative urge and the mojo to make the center happen, but I certainly lacked the funds.  Commercial space is expensive.  When I looked around, I found the usual array of places that had stood vacant for years.  The average going price for a modestly sized, 2000 square foot, one bathroom portion of a building was $3500 a month.  As a private music teacher, I don't charge my students enough to cover that price nor do I want to do that.  For 25 years, I have sought to keep my prices affordable so my "product", which I believe is exceptionally good, can benefit people who are in the middle class and not just a set of upper middle class elites who can afford it.  

The cheapest place I found was a storefront on a minor thoroughfare in a strip mall complex.  They didn't return my calls or emails after I proposed a $1500 a month offer -- they wanted $2500 or bust.  The space is still vacant.  Guess what's there?  A physical therapist and a pharmacy/medical equipment dealer.  Keep in mind the building is within walking distance of a CVS pharmacy.  One block down the street, there is a building with several doctors offices in it.  Less than a mile away, there is a gargantuan hospital campus the size of a small town.

The medical industry has our civilization by the balls.  Hospitals have metastasized into brutalist empires of constantly expanding blobs of steel, concrete, and fifteen thousand dollar machines.  Dentists proliferate in strip malls and office buildings; they are more common than hairdressers.  Despite the onslaught of the Pfizer documents (Pfizer wanted to hide them for the next three quarters of a century but failed in that cover-up) and the hard, cold fact that no test animals survived the MRNA vaccine trials, there are vaccination centers in every chain drugstore.  if one cannot achieve becoming a human test subject at Walgreen's, there is always some brand of the experimental bioweapon available in the mall or at the doctor's office.  

Nobody is exempt from needing medical care, though I am trying my darnedest.  None of us can truly opt out.  The last time I had regular health insurance coverage was the year 2012, which was right around the time my husband was booted out of the salary class when the company he worked for went the way of the Hindenburg.  I had health insurance for a couple of brief stints of a year or so tied to my husband's employment, but unfortunately it was Obamacare one of those stints, which ended up being financially punishing in the extreme.  I have not had health insurance at all since 2017 and I have no plans ever to have it again, come what may.  Luckily for me I have no congenital defects or chronic conditions.  I also have the basic understanding that my health is not someone else's responsibility and if I squander it, it's on me.  The trouble arises if I sprain an ankle or need a root canal.   Some things cannot be helped.  I'd rather take my chances though because the health insurance "product" and its accompanying medications is simply not a luxury a lower-middle class person like me can afford.  

To my horror, I realized that almost everyone I know in the upper middle class either works for the government or Big Medicine in some capacity.  The kids I grew up with in upper middle class suburban Chicagoland whose dads were not architects had dads and moms who worked for the local laboratories (government) or at the hospital as nurses (medicine).  A girl I was friends with had a mom who worked with insurance companies and a dad who was a big wig at a utility company.  Many had parents working at the local prisons (government) or as teachers or school administrators (government) and of course there was no shortage of hospital administrators (medicine). Very few lacked connection to a government or medical job, and the ones who did were often of far more modest means than the Big Medicine or Big Government beneficiaries.

There are three legs to the iron triangle of the grift economy that now collapses all around us.  The first leg is Big Government.  The second is Big Medicine, which I believe accounts for far more than 19.5 percent of the real economy as cited by the CMS.  The third is Everybody Else, the motley collection of independents increasingly crowded out or coerced into joining the grifts of the other two triangle legs.  

Where Have the Vegans Gone?

Vegans are a collective group that have never failed to surprise me in their capacity for hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance.  I am vegan and I fully plan to stay that way for the rest of my life, but I often wonder how I got here because vegans are some of the absolute worst people this planet has to offer.  My distrust of Big Pharma and Big Medicine are shared by other vegans -- or at least that's what I used to think. 

For instance, I will pick two prominent vegans out of my hat at random: popular Youtuber Mic the Vegan and Kip Andersen, creator of Cowspiracy and Seaspiracy.  It's especially interesting that two prominent vegans continue their quest to save animals by promoting the health and environmental benefits of veganism yet have nothing to say about forced MRNA vaccines.  Kip Andersen has done a heroic job exposing the hidden malfeasance of Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Media, Big Government, and Big Insurance when it comes to the promotion of eating animals and animal secretions.  Yet when it concerns a vaccine from Anthony Fauci, a person who forced foster children to suffer through AIDS so he could profit from their suffering, Kip is nowhere.  Fauci funded NAIAD, a group whose "scientists" literally tortured beagles to death by putting their heads in containers where they could be eaten down to the skull by sandflies.  Once again, Kip is radio silence, along with other ostensibly left-leaning vegans.  Vaxpiracy is not in the works anytime soon.

Mic the Vegan has a photograph of himself on Instagram where he sports a homemade mask and says something about it being comparable to an N85.  Mic the Vegan comes from a place of well-researched health expertise, yet even he has failed to understand the mask as a brainwashing tool.  Masks have no utilitarian purpose, they do not prevent the spread of any respiratory disease, including Covid-19, and they reduce the flow of oxygen to the brain.  We are left to wonder whether or not Mic the Vegan got vaccinated or boostered.  I hope he skipped it.  

 

 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kimberly,

LOL at your vegan comments, I am in the same boat. Did you happen to follow Pam Popper during Covid? She's a big vegan personality that has long been suspicious of vaccines (among other things). She seems to have gotten herself in a lot of trouble being outspoken about Covid story. She seems fairly quiet about it now although speaks occasionally in what seems like code about it.

I have been a long time leftist too, but that is because I agree with trying to share the burden for social services and care about worker rights. I was very surprised for instance that only one of my other leftist friends refuses to use Uber on principle and only takes cabs (we don't drive). This was just a non-issue for seemingly everyone else who I guess pass those savings onto their smart phones...

Most of what the left cares about right now honestly blows my mind. People I know are more or less fully deranged now: death to the unvaxxed, no rights/no mercy for any who oppose, all information sources other than mainstream left wing sources are dis-info/conspiracy/far right etc, and now all love for the Ukraine, in a cauldron of constant fear of everything. I try to point out that the press has been wrong about essentially all the things they've been sure about/afraid of for at least 7 or so years (although arguably far far longer) but that just makes them mad. Right now total fear of nuclear war - either my points against are conspiracy nonsense or if I can prove them, yesterday's news.

Did you have a link to the information about the animal tests? I'd like to read more.

Thanks,
Johnny

[kimberlysteele]

I have been a fan of Dr. Pam Popper's long before she took a stand on MRNA vaccines! She is an extremely kind, down-to-earth person. I too noticed she is quieter about veganism lately, but it seems apparent she is still vegan.

Demonic obsession is the only explanation I have been able to come up with as far as how leftists are acting at the moment. Obsession is like demonic possession but with less foaming at the mouth and climbing walls sans gear. It is somewhat amusing watching them try to blame Trump now that he's been out of office more than a year.

I first found out about Beaglegate when the White Coat Waste Project, an organization I knew from my early vegan days almost a decade ago, came out with the exposé. Truly sad.

https://twitter.com/WhiteCoatWaste/status/1448030279797547017

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kimberly,

The weird thing is that it seems so likely you guys will get Trump back in power (or maybe Tulsi Gabbard since Trump wasn't quite as anti war as I think people were hoping Trump would be) - I'm in Canada btw.

I'm starting to find it a little stressful dealing with people as it's been almost 7 years where pretty much every opinion I have on current events is met with anger from most people I talk to. It's weird to me since I mostly don't have firm opinions on subjects, I just entertain ideas I guess you aren't allowed to. Typically best case scenarios are people find me funny, or they are like establishing the full extent of my crazy vision of the world.

I like Pam Popper too, but again I like learning about different ways of thinking about issues. I try to work out "truth" usually over a long time, after playing with different stories in my head and seeing if they fit. I guess it's stressful because part of that process for me has always been talking to people and hearing their thoughts on things.

Thanks,
Johnny

[kimberlysteele]

I personally would much rather see a Gabbard White House over Trump 2.0, but you are right, the US will most likely re-elect Trump. He represents prosperity for the average American at this point and they'll do anything to get that back, including potentially putting cheating Democrat heads on pikes if they attempt to steal the next few elections. I have said for a long time the Left wants to just push and push and push trans rights, CRT, wokeness, Hollyweird, Covid paranoia, and Marxism until its PMC (professional managerial class) members get driven out of their plush homes and apartments with pitchforks. I don't want it to come to that as many of my friends and family are PMCs.

The more intolerant they become of someone like you, who merely states a firm opinion and does not capitulate to the vogue of political correctness, the closer they get to tumbrils and guillotines.

Thank you for being one of the few listeners in the world, meaning one of those willing to keep an open mind. Listeners are sorely needed. Hopefully they are on the verge of making a comeback.

[deng]

Hello Ms Steele,
Gabbard/Desantis in either order works for me. Trump will not win again. Would like to see him back Desantis. Gabbard has the highest moral high ground (is that redundant?) and I love her antiwar stance which is how I could support Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich.

Vegitarian 20 years myself. No meat, fish or chicken. Plenty of dairy and soy. Some health issues and learning they kill all the male chicks to get female egg layers eventually ended that. Paper vs plastic bags. Leather vs synthetic vs hemp vs grass belts... And to many soy boy vegitarians are such axxholes.

I have woke liberal friends that worry about climate change from the drivers seat of their giant SUVs taking their kids to soccer practice.

Lets end with Gabbard Desantis in that order would be best. She'd be a great first female president.

[kimberlysteele]

I could not agree more wholeheartedly. I'm grateful Trump upset the existing order as only a reality show real estate guy from New York could, but it's time for him to enjoy his hard-earned retirement. Enough already.

Gabbard would be my ideal choice as well. She's a military veteran, she is well-spoken, and she doesn't back down. I just hope she does the sensible thing and switches over to being a Republican since the Democratic Party is swaying towards my predictions of going the way of the Whigs.

The vegans I know at least have to some degree lived what they preached, which is why I have been unpleasantly surprised to see them fall in line with Fauci and Bill Gates. Meaning they really try to be crunchy and like me, they carried re-useable bags into stores long before it was cool, they knew recycling wasn't nearly as good as not creating waste in the first place, etc.

Unfortunately it looks like Trump will run again. If he does, he will probably win.

[kimberlysteele]

Oddly enough, Tulsi has said in an interview that she's vegan. It's fairly common in Hawaii to be vegan or vegetarian, at any rate.

https://vegnews.com/2020/2/tulsi-gabbard-on-veganism-climate-change-and-what-gives-her-hope

Dennis Kucinich is also a vegan, along with his wife, Elizabeth:

https://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/kucinich-wants-dc-to-changefrom-a-red-meat-state-to-vegan-081969

[(Anonymous)]

I wish I could countenance a Tulsi run. She was the least bad of all the offerings last time. But unfortunately she is stridently anti 2A, and whether she's coming from a good place or not, strident anti 2A is exactly the wrong thing we need in our leadership. You want to see things go from bad to worse, you make sure the only people who have guns are criminals (with and without a badge)

[kimberlysteele]

Thanks! I had no idea. OK, she just lost my vote, permanently. The Second Amendment is the only reason the current administration's goons didn't show up at my door with a syringe.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for blogging, Kimberly, I love how "out there" you go. Your posts are always a fascinating read.

I too "have the basic understanding that my health is not someone else's responsibility and if I squander it, it's on me."

Of course, as you say, none of us can totally opt out, because there are things that happen for which we need medical care. But I have seen enough in my many decades to know that a lot of what passes for "medical care" is just handing out the candy (Rx not really needed or that turn out, years later, to be contraindicated) and making $$$$$ for the medical industry.

Periwinkle Fuzzy Durian

[kimberlysteele]

Thank you! I'll be going into more detail about the prevailing "my health is someone else's responsibility" attitude in at least one future essay. It's a major peeve of mine and a major driver of the Covid overreaction and misplaced trust in MRNA vaccines.

Admittedly I think modern medicine does some things very well, but general care is not one of them. Chemotherapy is as barbaric as trepanning (drilling into someone's skull in order to let the demons out) in my opinion. It's disgusting. Gastric bypass as a treatment for obesity is another one that I put on the level of the worst medieval medicine has to offer. In many ways, modern allopathic medicine is actually worse than the hideous medical practices of our medieval European forefathers.

[causticus]

Regarding the above subthread: Demonic obsession in the more extreme cases maybe. But I think much of this behavior can simply be chalked up to class-based groupthink and conformity. At the end of the day for the average person, the upholding of one's class interests almost always wins out over sticking to one's principles. Notice now how principled anti-war (and anti-BigPharma!!) leftists who have actually stuck to their guns are now being branded by the lamestablishment as "right-wing apologists" or "conspiracy nuts" even "covert right-wingers." Most "normies" simply don't want to do anything that makes them stick out among their peers, therefore they just nod along with whatever the prevailing groupthink of the moment happens to be.

Regarding those vegan influencers you mentioned above, I would wager that none of their youtube content from past years ever ran afoul of the unofficially-official state religion, which is the Church of Progressivism. It was all "safe" and within the bounds of the overton window. Criticizing Big Pharma was always fine so as long as the criticism was contained within some PMC subcultural niche or "fandom" like veganism, or pop-permaculture, Americanized Yoga, or some other "New Age" hobby, ect. Once the scamdemic happened though, criticizing Big Pharma came to be seen as signaling against the PMC class, therefore it became a no-no. Herd Psychology explains so much of this craziness.

[kimberlysteele]

True, never attribute to demons what you can attribute to plain old human greed and stupidity. I absolutely agree with you that the current stripes of groupthink are a defense of social class (or at least the defense of the social class one desires to be in, quite a few normies are salary class wannabes).

Vegans are truly vile in their worship of Progress as a religion. Part of this is because so many of them are atheists. Humans, I would argue, are religious by nature. Veganism takes the place of religion -- one learns to worship non-human animals as an egregore and a hatred of the human race develops out of it, when we are honest. Antinatalism is fairly common among vegans. That's the belief that having babies is wrong and unethical. Antinatalists believe it is wrong to bring a child into a world where the child has no choice whether or not to be born. I used to share the antinatalist perspective until I did a great deal of discursive meditation on the subject. Nowadays I get the impression that souls want to be born, and that of course it is the whole point of physical incarnation over a series of multiple lifetimes to be born over and over again, but because I am not a god I admit I could be wrong about any and all of it.

I wish other vegans would learn to analyze themselves and their world via discursive meditation. Most are not willing to do that because it is easier to lie back and not do the work. They would rather worship Big Tech and wallow in self-righteous anger because anger is a hell of a drug. They have the nerve to call themselves agitators and rebels, but they are compliant puppets of the regime they pretend to rail against.

[causticus]

I suspect the anti-natalist ideology has become quite widespread among the comfortable classes of the industrialized West. Among these people I wouldn't doubt that the fertility rate is something like 1.2 - 1.5 (I believe 2.3 is the replacement rate). And those who do reproduce often wait until their mid-late 30s to do so. Some of this is economic, as these days it takes more and more years of grunt desk work to become a true member of the PMC. As you say, a lot of this class are actually aspirants, many of whom are relatively low-income until they get their foot in the door; in the meantime they have the cultural and educational background that encourages them to identify with PMC culture. Think of the teal-haired, tattooed and pierced barista who aspires to one day be in charge of some trendy nonprofit org that "saves the world." I've heard the term "elite overproduction" used to denote what the ultra-corrupt university system has been doing to young people for decades now. As you've pointed out many times, the PMC is a game of musical chairs. Today more and more from the younger generations are left holding the rather-heavy bag of student loan debt and endless false promises.

BTW, those progressive vegans are probably only interested in trendy Eastern types of meditation; the ones that involve trying to erase the conscious mind.

[kimberlysteele]

Nailed it. That's why they cling to the "vaccines" -- they are the Holy Communion of Progress as a religion. If you don't participate in Communion, you aren't serious about wanting to work for the fancy NGO. You aren't "saving the world" by offering up your body and your children's bodies to Fauci, so you don't get to save the world from your highly paid position in the PMC.

I have yet to meet another traditional occultist vegan. They are either in the Buddhist "life is suffering so empty your mind" camp or Left Hand Path Satanist-atheist or some mixture of both.

[drhooves]

Excellent post, Kimberly. While Big Med is currently in the headlines, let's not forget that Big Banks, Big Insurance, Big Military, Big Energy, and Big Food (that I believe has the most prominent population of lobbyists in the DC area) are also problem areas. The stool needs more legs. But because we have failed as worthy citizens, Big Gov has not provided the check and balances needed for the other Bigs, and now - well, it's gonna be bad what happens next.

Personal responsibility for our health (and other life choices) is the Third Rail in our "me culture" politics, but I definitely believe it's gonna be the big factor soon. I've been amazed at how Big Med has overtaken such a higher percentage of GDP the last 20-30 years, and the patients are now subjected to "sickcare", as Charles Hugh Smith calls it. My 90 year old father has almost died twice in the last three years when two different doctors changed his meds on a whim, and without thinking of the possible (bad) side effects. Covid? Bah! Watch the characters in the white coats.

I wish I lived further north (I'm in downstate IL), so when I could no longer contribute to the community, the local leaders could place me on an ice flow, and push me out to sea.

[kimberlysteele]

True enough. The next door neighbor on the street where I grew up was a college professor, though it was a state college. College is pure grift at this point. When I went back in the 90s, it was pretty bad, but at least in the case of musicians, they force you to learn a certain skill set.

Ugh, I'm so sad your dad is opting to stick with allopathic medicine. My dad is doing the same. A friend's mother seemed to become progressively more demented. One of her meds got changed and it cleared up. It wasn't the first or last time I'd heard such a story. With the exception of a rare few, doctors are drug pushers who couldn't care less about the humans who come to them for help. They are squarely in the pockets of pharmaceutical reps who give them cushy perks and gifts. The once admirable profession of medicine is so sullied at this point, if I had a daughter, I would prefer she made her living via an OnlyFans channel than allopathic medicine. At least as an OnlyFans girl, she would be making a somewhat honest living and not outright hurting people or aiding and abetting murderers.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the Higher Education racket as one of the legs. Yes, state universities are part of Big Government, but there are also a lot of private colleges and universities that part of the Higher Education racket.

[kimberlysteele]

Yes, of course you are correct. At some point, I need to do an essay about the Higher Ed racket.

Stranger than fiction

[(Anonymous)]

You said "Demonic obsession is the only explanation I have been able to come up with as far as how leftists are acting at the moment." which is where I was until recently.
Hmm, suppose a story where nanotech assigns privileged access for some early adoptors, servitude to the able and termination for the nonperforming assets. All connected to AI. Might make for a good fiction novel.
Count yourself fortunate that you haven't become dependent on the medical machine. Thankfully there are still independent, committed practitioners here in the provinces of the rural midwest.
Gawain

Re: Stranger than fiction

[kimberlysteele]

Conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact very quickly these days, doesn't it? Some theorize that nanotech is inherently demonic.

The medical machine is a form of cannibalism. Now that all the grifts are running down, the grifters seek to throwing everyone they can into the digester to keep the machine going. Their latest stunt, of course, was to turn hospitals into death camps and to force the "vaccine" on children. The old images of Canaanites sacrificing their kids to Moloch spring to mind.

[scotlyn]

Thank you for this series, which I am just diving into. I would hazard that the third leg of the nefarious Big Brother complex that is taking shape around us is Big SmartTech. I am seeing a large number of people in my clinic now who are "wired up" to use some form of "Smart" body tech that measures and records their data - might be sugar levels, might be "steps", might be heart rhythms, might be communications with an actual implanted smart device (a brain stimulator, a pacemaker, and etc). Big SmartTech also wants to join Big Pharma and Big Gov to implement digital tracing and passports and other such instruments of control.

Therefore we have a Big Brother taking shape who stands on three legs - Big Gov, Big Pharma, Big SmartTech. (And then, everybody else, who scramble to find their place either in or out of the story.)

[kimberlysteele]

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Dmitri Orlov calls it the Technosphere and sees it as a voracious egregore that wants to consume the planet. What has struck me about it is that BigSmartTech is ultimately about genocide. Look at Shanghai, basket case of the world right now. I lost the link to the video of a bunch of white suited government medical workers in formation doing martial arts moves. This was presumably to demonstrate how quickly they could beat down anyone who didn't comply with the communist regime, using their bare hands if necessary. It's quite clear the CCP or whatever demon is controlling their brains hates the Chinese people and wants them all to work themselves to death. It's "for safety" and "for China" though. Gotta love the rationales people come up with to massage and disguise their worst human instincts to pillage, rape, murder, oppress.

[scotlyn]

Yes. And thank you for distinguishing between Chinese leadership and Chinese people! (too many people forget to do that!). :)

[kimberlysteele]

I know I would be very insulted if anyone confused me with US "leadership"!