It is a very difficult thing to stop an insider takeover of a government. It is even harder, however, to UNDO an insider takeover – or any other kind – once it is accomplished.

"We must all die. But that I can save a person from days of torture is what I feel is my great and every-new privilege. Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself." Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 1953

So far I’ve written about numbers, medications, other treatment and so on. I’ve mentioned other things, but haven’t gone into detail. I’ve been told that none of this information really hits home until it gets personal, so in this article I’m going to tell you a little about my own journey in pain. It isn’t one of the worst I’ve heard of by far, but it should still give those of you who have healthy bodies a good idea of what faces you and those you love around the corner of one injury or botched operation.

Pain: The Emotional Journey

Warning: Long-assed diatribe: Folks, there are a few things I’d like to say about abortion and women’s right to choose.

The War On Drugs has become a war on doctors and patients, especially patients. It is an easy group to attack because they cannot defend themselves.

Today I completely lost it with a blogger. He misspelled almost every word he used, and he came up with every piece of propaganda from the Bush administration they’ve used in the last five years. It looked like he’d done his typing with his toes. He hit me with every radical right, pseudo-Christian fanatic piece of bullshit I’ve read since the Bush years started.

Here follows an imperfect but essentially accurate history, and a sad and frightening prognosis and prognostication that I desperately hope is wrong:

The U.S. is NOT “the richest country on earth”; it merely plays host to the largest pieces of the largest corporations on earth, as well as to several of the richest families on earth. It plays host in the same way a human body plays host to a virus.

George Walker Bush is a counterfeit – everything.  He is a coward who wants desperately to be a war hero.  He was born to old money, but he is rude, crude, and even sober, he is an embarrassment whenever he is thrown onto his own resources; he has the wit of a drunken stevedore with the intellect of a slow eight year old.

I don’t believe in The Devil any more than I believe in an old, white-bearded Caucasian (or any other flavor of human) sitting on a throne on a cloud in Heaven judging us all – while committing every sin we’re forbidden, plus a few. That just sounds too human.