If It Was Allowed, I’d Hold You Down and…

Edward Curtin

I think it is generally accepted that the practice of medicine has changed radically over the past fifty or so years.  The medicalization and corporatization of life have “progressed” simultaneously as most doctors have become obedient servants of the corporate state.

But wait, one may object, and with some justification.

The development of micro-surgical techniques has significantly improved the methods of many operations that were formally very invasive and posed a great risk to the elderly and chronically sick.  Many people have had knee, hip, and heart  surgeries – to name a few – that would have been problematic or impossible in the past.  Body part replacements are now common.

Soon everyone will be half-mechanical on the way to full robotization with a bit of pig and cow thrown in for good measure.  Whether this is good is debatable on many levels, but the “procedures” (a word that seems to have replaced the more gruesome sounding words “operations” or “surgeries”) have clearly become more efficient and less invasive.  These micro-surgical techniques have surely saved lives and improved the quality of life for many.

So much for the technology. I have a little medical tale to tell.

My best friend, an athletic man in his mid-seventies in excellent health and athletic shape, went to a new doctor at a medical practice since his doctor of thirty-five years had retired.  The visit was for an annual physical that was required under the practice’s rules.  He had previously met this doctor for a required brief meet-and-greet introduction and all seemed copacetic.

This time, he was ushered into the examination room where he sat and waited for the doctor.   A nurse took his blood pressure and pulse and departed.  The doctor soon arrived with an iPad and sat down next to him.  He put the man’s records up on the screen.  He then proceeded to review a list of inoculations my friend did or didn’t have.  My friend – let’s call him Joe – has always been a guy who took very little medicine and was rarely sick; at the most he would take an aspirin or a few ibuprofen after a vigorous workout.

“I see you had a tetanus shot,” said the doctor.

“Yes, after I cut my hand.”

“And at your age it’s good you had a pneumonia vaccine.”

“I did,” said Joe, “but I kind of regret it.”

“Oh no, at your age you are at great risk from dying from pneumonia,” replied the doctor.  He added, “And you haven’t had your shingles vaccination, which I highly recommend.  It’s covered by Medicare now.  You don’t want to get shingles; it’s terrifying.”

Joe said nothing.

“And you are due for a flu vaccine.”

“I never had one and never will,” said Joe.

“At your age you can die from the flu.  It’s very dangerous.  I definitely recommend you get it.”

“No thanks.”

“You really should.”

His voice rising, the doctor said, “And I see you have not gotten any Covid vaccines. You are really risking your life by not doing so.  You must get them.”

Joe then succinctly explained his deep knowledge about Covid, the “vaccines,” their lack of testing, the mRNA technique, the deaths and injuries, etc. – all the reasons he opposed them.

The doctor became agitated.  He argued back; explained how he had gone to Yale and studied the mRNA process under Drs F Teufelmeister and AE Newman and that he knew the vaccines were very safe and effective blah blah blah.

Joe said, “It doesn’t matter that you went to Yale.  I emphatically disagree.”

This incensed the doctor, who blurted out, “If it was allowed, I would hold you down and inject you right now.”

“Is that so?” said Joe, incredulous.

The annual physical ended soon thereafter.

The doctor never laid a hand on Joe to examine him.  No stethoscope; no ear, throat or nose checks; no hands on any part of his body – the exam was exclusively about vaccinations, read off a screen.  Technical in all regards.  All about how Joe was so very vulnerable and could die without them. The doctor was Big Pharma’s mouthpiece.  Death threats devoid of any human touch, cold and sterile, and a wish that he could hold Joe down and forcibly inject him, the touch of the fascist mind expressed in a wish.

When Joe told me this story, I, being a student of the sociology of medicine, was reminded of the history of eugenics and the sick minds of people who think they can cull the herd because of their power and prestige. The sordid history that continues under euphemisms such as genetic research.

Here was a doctor who dared to say what others no doubt think as well: “I would hold you down and inject you right now,” if only I could.  But since he can’t, the state must find other ways to coerce, such as compulsory medical requirements.

Such are totalitarian dreams made of, when death has become a commodity used to sell the dreams of reason, and the healer’s art, once linked to working with nature, has become an adjunct of state propaganda.

When I later met Joe at the coffeeshop, I brought him my copy of Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health, one of the great books of modern times.

Thumbing through it, Joe came to a page where I had underlined the following:

The ritualization of crisis, a general trait of a morbid society, does three things for the medical functionary.  It provides him with a license that usually only the military can claim. Under the stress of crisis, the professional who is believed to be in command can easily presume immunity from the ordinary rules of decency and justice. He who is assigned control over death ceases to be an ordinary human. As with the director of a triage, his killing is covered by policy. More important, his entire performance takes place in an aura of crisis.

On my way home I stopped to pick up my sister’s mail. The AARP Bulletin was in the box with her letters. This is one of two publications of the AARP organization, a powerful lobbying group and medical insurance company with 38 million members for people fifty years-old and over. The AARP Bulletin and AARP The Magazine are the largest circulation publications in the United States with a combined distribution of approximately 67 million.

The cover story on The AARP Bulletin is:

Is there anything not to fear in this morbid culture where crises are promoted faster than the therapeutic and hygienic “remedies” offered to deal with them?  Create the diseases and all the bogeymen and then offer pseudo-solutions straight from the sorcerer’s playbook.

Build the fear and they will come, knocking at the sorcerers’ doors.

If it were allowed, I would lift you up with a simple truth.

Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.