Justice?

Sources: Too many, but House Season 6, The Devil Came On Horseback, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789.

Dr. Chase, on this season of House, M.D., has lived a dream held secretly by any number of peace-lovers, especially the closeted violent ones. Chase kills a military dictator responsible for death, pain, and genocide. While things don't look like they're going to pan out for Chase's happiness anytime soon, moral quandaries aside, I'm jealous!

I've put off watching the 2007 Darfur documentary The Devil Came On Horseback for a long time, but I knew the combination of guilt, outrage, and impotence that would leave me a smoldering heap of useless human being. But Thursday, while laboring under a quickly approaching deadline, I miraculously used the powers of procrastination to push me to a netflix viewing. You can usually predict reactions, but actually experiencing that film is a whole different kettle of fish. I highly recommend it to anyone able to stomach the images of brutality. I looked on SaveDarfur.org after the film, just to see if there was anything a skill-less incompetent twentysomething could do. "Inform myself" seemed like the best option, so I smoldered in impotence a little while longer.

Recently, I've been plowing through Robert Middlekauff's tome, The Glorious Cause, which answers the question I always asked myself in high school: What would happen if this chapter on the American Revolution in my textbook was expanded to fill 800-odd more pages? While I now have a healthy respect for the Virginia House of Burgesses (alas, no longer in session), I'm left with the indelible impression that the revolution was begun by a bunch of greedy whiners and misfits. Nothing has made me prouder. But I think that when Jefferson made his famous comment about the tree of liberty needing to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, he wasn't really joking. He lived in a brutal age for this continent and, although brutaliy definitely persists in North America (take hockey, for example), a foreign army hasn't invaded since 1812. And when an army has been active, it's been the good ol' US of A's (sorry Grenada...Haiti...Panama...Canada [Operation Leafblower]). The kind of vigilante terrorism that we've preserved for ever in stately portraits of Washington crossing the Delaware rings entirely historical to a culture content to act and react within the limits of the system of government.

This presents a few problems when, say, a head of government like Sudan's Al-Bashir commits crimes of unimaginable proportions and walks free in Khartoum and any other city/country whose boss doesn't give a rat's about what the Internatioal Criminal Court says about crimes against humanity. Because of the complex balance of power (the US wants to stop the Darfur genocide, but China is friends with the Sudanese government, and China has the US' currency by the hindparts), the state can do nothing. Therefore, the American people, unable to visualize Darfur beyond sound bites and 30 second youtube clips, can do nothing. Enter the frustration.

But the Sons of Liberty and Dr. Chase have given me an idea that, if impractical, is freaking awesome. Terrorism is a dirty word, so let's use vigilantism. Imagine a group of ragtag every(wo)men, committed to preventing corrupt officials from enjoying their "exiles" in Paris or Dubai. Real French resistancs style. Dictator Smith is sipping martini when BAM, someone goes all Slim on his Cheese (a The Wire reference, sorry for its arcanity). A vigilante network committed to going off Jack Bauer-style on the bad guys. I know, just by using the term "bad guys" I've oversimplified everything. What is "bad?" Who gives you the right to mete out justice? I don't know. But I would sign up to bust a cap or two in anyone who perpetuates genocide. Wouldn't even feel bad about it.

P.S. I've watched 6 revenge dramas this month. I'm not always this guns-blazing.

The History of Medicine

Sources: This American Life Episode 392 "Someone Else's Money"
             The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

So let's talk about angst. I have an opinion that angst is what makes art art, but we'll save that little gem for another day. Jack Bolling, the protagonist in The Moviegoer is an uncomfortable kind of angsty. Think Holden Caulfield, all grown up, a little racist and a little sexist, and even more girl-crazy, and you have Jack Bolling. He's a stock broker of sorts, although the specifics of his work are hazy for me, but his aunt always thought he would use his intelligence for something more. "My aunt is convinced I have a 'flair for research.' This is not true. If I had a flair for research, I would be doing research" (51). Later on in the narrative, Jack tells of an experience in which he tried research, but was alternately distracted and depressed by the summer light coming through the laboratory windows. Angst, anyone?
Listening to the This American Life podcast about the health reform debate, a little detail snagged my attention. The first medicine that actually cured disease (as opposed to masking or alleviating symptoms) was called salvarsan. What did salvarsan cure, you may ask? Syphillus. The first disease ever cured by modern medicine with Ehrlich's magic bullet was an STD. Immediately, I begin to commiserate with Jack Bolling.
What does salvarsan say about modern medicine and health care? I don't have all the answers, but I mourn for ol' Ben Franklin. Too little, too late, is the expression that comes to mind; his lechery could have continued at least a decade longer.

Why should Jack Bolling feel bullied into entering a profession which, as we learn more and more, is often dominated by dollars but not sense? I wonder how many dollars are going to market cures for gonorrhea and masks for genital herpes that could be going to cancer research or sex education. For me, this little anecdote is not a rock-solid indictment of pharmaceutical companies. But it does help justify my distrust. Capitalism and health care inevitably look for an economic bottom line. Easy cures, marketed for major bucks, improve profit margins a lot more quickly than drugs for terminal illnesses or genetic disorders. What kind of research is really being done? I, honestly, am not informed enough to answer this question, but I would love to know more. Would the government do better? Probably not, but aspects of health care reformed aimed at evaluating pharmaceutical companies and making the real costs of health care readily available would be a refreshing change. Meanwhile, I will continue to be angsty.

My Own Little Discourse Community

I need a spot to write down my ideas. That's all this is. I'll be focusing mostly on my impressions of films I see and books I read. There's always a tangled net of impressions that I can only sort out through writing.