Members of Our Armed Services, I Have a Proposal For You
Yes, I've been reading Salon.com again, so that you don't have to. And yes, I'm now pissed off again. Because, yet again, they have another story of the ways we're fucking over injured soldiers.
This time, it's a heartwarming story of the ways we don't promptly and properly treat people with brain injuries, because it's more fun to claim they're lying or have inherited mental problems or are perhaps crazy.
I've been thinking of how horrible it must be to know that something is wrong with you and to not be able to convince people, how terrifying that must be to know that the medical community that you depend on isn't giving you the help you need.
So, here's what I suggest. If you are a current member of our armed services or a veteran who needs medical help but is not getting it, I will tie you up in my back yard and come by every morning and kick you as hard as I can right in the gut. And that way, when you are laying in the grass and the dog poop wondering why you can't get the medical attention you need, you'll be able to look up at me and say to yourselves "Oh, that's right, because I'm tied up in the back yard of a crazy woman, not in the hospital."
No need to thank me, medical professionals. I'm just doing what I can to make you look good in comparison.
posted by Aunt B at 1/05/2006 07:27:00 AM
5 Comments:
It's directly related to your earlier post about Fat Teenage Moms.
Once Society decided we were going to treat any type of ailment primarily as a causal outcome of behaviour it opened the door to groupthink treatment. Doctors rarely look any longer at a person who is bleeding from the nose and say "let me see what the immediate cause is, remedy that and send the person on their way."
Now they ask you what you did to cause the nosebleed and refuse to fix the presenting problem unless the underlying causes are worthy. I can't count the times (okay--yes I can--3) that I've been to my doctor for a cold/sorethroat/migraine and been forced to endure batteries of tests for diabetes and lectures about weight loss and weight loss medications. The third time--and the last time I went to this particular doctor--they had me go through this charade for 2.5 hours and were going to let me leave without even prescribing cough medicine. Her words? "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot."
Yep. We're so busy trying to blame people's negative behaviours for any negative physical ailments that we're forgetting to make sick people well.
You have a brain disease? Nah. You just drink too much. Screw you.
Actually, I don't know that Aunt B.'s post has anything to do with "Society," except inasmuch as we in "Society" allow our military heirarchies to continue to treat our 'citizen-soldiers' worse than cattle (especially when they get hurt in illegal wars).
For all the pusillanimous and revolting verbal fetishizing I hear about "supporting the troops," you'd think that the current state of the VA would have all these ostensible troop supporters rioting in the streets. But no, it's a yellow sticker on the SUV and let's not look at those coffins coming home.
No, this is less a symptom of a larger societal problem with mental illness and more the behavior of a military structure that treats its soldiers like the cannon fodder they sign up to be.
Of course, when you have large segments of the public willing to give in to jingoistic cheerleading of facile justifications for war, you shouldn't expect to see a great deal of public critical inquiry about those soldiers who come home alive but damaged. And is there alive today anyone who believes that war doesn't damage all its participants in some way?
I guess what I'm saying is yeah, Aunt B., these soldiers are getting screwed, but that's as much our fault as it is that of any bean-counting, jerk-off general.
I guess what I'm saying is yeah, Aunt B., these soldiers are getting screwed, but that's as much our fault as it is that of any bean-counting, jerk-off general.
Who do you think Society is, anyway?
B, your sex fantasies are getting weirder and weirder.
Or, they've remained the same, I'm just getting ballsier about admitting them... Is it too much to hope that you'll be the first veteran to volunteer to spend some time in my yard?
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