How about cutting her some slack for actually calling people out on their BS in a way that pretty much no one else ever does?
32 Likes
Drawing public attention to the issue is a critical first step for creating support for legislative action.
42 Likes
Best thing about grilling pharma execs is they’re already greasy.
22 Likes
Unfortunately, with the notable exception of Shkreli, they are also non-stick. 
22 Likes
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d posit that anti-vax movements were being stealthily funded by the pharmaceutical industry to bring back conquered illnesses so they can charge $1780 per vaccination once the public health crisis gets out of hand.
I don’t have any proof of that, but one need only look at Purdue Pharma, how they created the opioid epidemic with OxyContin, and how they created new drugs to sell to fight the epidemic they denied they created. The profit incentive to create cures for illnesses you’ve caused is enormous.
7 Likes
As I understand capitalism, if there weren’t government sweetheart deals and pressure from public health institutions, then pharma companies wouldn’t make vaccines at all because they’re mostly not profitable if it were relying on customer demand.
6 Likes
I’ll take, um, “Capitalism”, for $1780!
8 Likes
Right… Public opinions is what passes bills. I forgot that. Remind me, where do I get and send my ballot for that?
Well, that’s also why we don’t have a Coca-cola that fights plaque and tooth decay.
5 Likes
I thought that was New Coke?!?
5 Likes
Public opinion is a major part of what pushes politicians into taking action, yes.
27 Likes
AOC! Stop making sense!
3 Likes
Being unable to see the future, we can’t know if we’re closer to the beginning of capitalism or the end.
1 Like
kinda don’t think we’re in the heyday. it does seem finished more or less, with the capitalists getting all the money. Hard to do it over again.
2 Likes
There are these people called “lobbyists” who are hired by companies or industry groups (like pharmaceutical companies) to talk to Congresspersons directly. They will offer arguments to vote certain ways on bills, and the companies and groups can give money to the campaigns of those who vote the way they want.
The public has no lobbyist. They have no campaign funds tied directly to issues. What they do have is the vote. They can make it clear to the politician that they will not vote for someone who acts against their will. If lots of people are not upset - visibly, vocally upset - at these prices, nothing will ever change.
21 Likes
In this clip, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez demonstrates her usual admirable directness and factual footing to expose the hypocrisy and self-serving bullshit of the looters who are making themselves very rich by destroying the world: in this case
Not to mention, she’s getting ALL ON RECORD in plain English. You know, so maybe the records can help them next time they “can’t recall”.
16 Likes
Well “end-stage” could be “late-stage” (not noticed you or anyone else objecting to that more common descriptor, just because we cannot see the future) but we are surely far closer to too many people being unable to afford capitalism’s output than we are to not enough output to go round, and we must make more.
And why can’t they afford it? Well perhaps in small part because of what @Paul_McEvoy said - the 0.1% have got too much of the money. And the key canary in the mine is that the 50s and following couple of decades saw the middle class grow and get more affluent, and today the equivalent people** are much, much more impoverished. What did that? You get one guess - it begins with C and it is not communism.
** and I use the term “equivalent people” rather than “middle class” because for some weird reason the middle class today seems to encompass everyone who is not minimally affluent. Nobody admits to being “working class” these days. Used to be white- (middle) and blue-collar(working) but too many of those jobs and professions have gone (entirely or abroad) and “service-collar” (low wage non-labouring jobs) have appeared. So everyone is apparently “middle class”.
Or, if you prefer a slightly pithier response, “end-stage” and "late-stage’ just represent slightly different degrees of the cynic’s sardonic epithet for what is clearly a slowly breaking system and are not firm predictions from any reliable crystal ball. Nobody’s trying to foresee the future, we’re just describing what we see now, compared to what we saw in the past, and the clear direction of travel… to date.
7 Likes
My concern lately and I think it’s the thing a lot of people want to say but many are not saying is that we are at end stage everything. End stage humanity.
People have been saying that for probably as long as there have been people but the evidence seems to be stacking up.
And to state the obvious, despite how obviously fucked up humanity is, it makes me sad. Human life is pretty interesting. I’d like to see it continue.
5 Likes
Yes. This. And ‘end-stage’ replaces ‘late-stage’ because late-stage refers to the thing (capitalism) itself, whereas end-stage encompasses it also being one of the major causes (if not THE cause) of end-stage humanity.
2 Likes
