Impaired: How Corporate America Learned to Turn Our Emotions Against Us

(archived from July 6 2007)

by Scott Creighton

Through out the country, corporations and special interest groups are writing the laws that affect our lives. On local, state, and federal levels these organizations are remaking the rules by which we live and govern our everyday activities, to benefit themselves. They have found the glitch in the security system, the unlocked bathroom window if you will, and they have crawled in and now claim squatters rights as if it were the intention of the founding fathers to hand over our Constitutional Democracy to insurance companies and global banking conglomerates. 

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But this is not news. The keys to the kingdom have been bought and paid for, a long time ago. What is unique to this time frame is the ease by which they have suppressed the last measure of resistance. Even after the fiasco of Iraq and Katrina’s revealing wreckage of expendable human suffering, the dissidents are still relegated to the fringes as whiners and malcontents. Their claims are touted as the stuff of conspiracy soaked pipe-dreams and partisan posturing for some distant election far off on the horizon.

Why is it so easy to convince the nation of the beauty of the Emperors new clothes? Are we really just the stupid Americans that other nations laugh at; or is it something else entirely?

In the early 80’s the AMA was asked by law makers and the organization MADD to assess what they thought would be a reliable means to test ones ability to safely operate a motor vehicle as well as the level of inebriation that would make it unsafe to drive. It took them 2 years of study to come up with the blood alcohol tests and the limit of .15 B.A.C.

And that was the law, based on medical research and study and sound evidence. Then a funny thing happened around board room tables all across the country; the insurance companies started seeing marked profits from the stiff insurance prices for those with DUIs.

After a couple of years, someone got the idea that the insurance industry could use another infusion of revenue. So, they start meeting with the MADD chapters and some PR guys even joined local chapters in order to see if they could get them to push for lower BAC numbers. And they did. This time they met with the AMA and 2 days later, after a big PR campaign, financed by the insurance industry, they dropped to .10.

They threw two years of research and scientific study out the window in order to cater to a publicity campaign. The human physiology hadn’t changed nor had the chemical composition of Ethanol. What had changed was the TV commercials and the desire for an industry to get more people paying higher premiums. And that’s it.

Now, there are some local law enforcement agencies that are trying to quietly subject their constituents to a “zero tolerance” policy, even though it is clearly illegal.

They got away with it, and still do, by bulling anyone who disagrees with the policy with the numbers of traffic fatalities and the stories of lost innocence. It is their gruesome trump card they wield like the administration uses the memory of 911 to justify horrendous crimes both here and broad. It is the politics of shame and hate. And it works.

This national sales pitch as public interest has been being honed as a corporate tool for many years in this country. It has helped sell wars; arms races; presidential candidates; and dangerous pharmaceutical innovations. Like any other tactic of war, it will be utilized until rendered impotent.