Wartime penicillin (discovered in 1928) actually had two miracles.
The first miracle was how the Allies managed to keep new of penicillin's wondrous lifesaving abilities from their own wartime public for so long.
The other miracle was that the Allies managed to produce at least some penicillin - despite their own best efforts - before the war's end.
Bruce Springsteen reminds us that blind faith in our leaders - be they political , military or medical - can get us all killed.
And this was as true during WWII as it still is today.
There are times when the only moral thing to do - the only patriotic thing to do - even during a Total War - is to Act Up.
And because seven cripples had the courage to Act Up over the immoral weaponization of wartime penicillin, the whole world got cheap abundant non-patented penicillin....
Showing posts with label acting up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acting up. Show all posts
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Nature bowls last , 1939-1945
Treat your enemy as subhumans ---- as the Axis regarded its Slav and Chinese opponents and as the Allies regarded the Japanese.
Regard many of your allies and colonies' citizens as not much better.
Combine that with regarding your national own working class in almost as dismissive terms.
All this certainly widens the scope of what the people who ran WWII from the top regarded as aspects of 'the natural world', rather than beings fully civilized humans like themselves.
So when I say that Nature bowled last, Nature's bowling could run a very wide gamut indeed .
Not just freezing cold and machine-ruining dust, or harvest failures or microbial resistance to sulfa drugs.
Not just what five thousand of Nature's kilometres really means to an overtaxed human logistic system.
It moves onwards to include all those lowly Slav and Chinese peasants who turned into deadly partisans --- rather than simply turning turtle as predicted.
It is working class East Enders defying the uncaring 'Teflon Winnie' to turn Tube Stations into the effective bomb shelters he had failed to provide.
And it is immigrant and minority American patients and families,together with their GPs ,"acting up" to defy the penicillin-denying medical elite of the OSRD/NAS death panels.
In this six year long stage drama, the 'natural world' scenery ends up eating even the hammiest of 'human world' actors....
Regard many of your allies and colonies' citizens as not much better.
Combine that with regarding your national own working class in almost as dismissive terms.
All this certainly widens the scope of what the people who ran WWII from the top regarded as aspects of 'the natural world', rather than beings fully civilized humans like themselves.
So when I say that Nature bowled last, Nature's bowling could run a very wide gamut indeed .
Not just freezing cold and machine-ruining dust, or harvest failures or microbial resistance to sulfa drugs.
Not just what five thousand of Nature's kilometres really means to an overtaxed human logistic system.
It moves onwards to include all those lowly Slav and Chinese peasants who turned into deadly partisans --- rather than simply turning turtle as predicted.
It is working class East Enders defying the uncaring 'Teflon Winnie' to turn Tube Stations into the effective bomb shelters he had failed to provide.
And it is immigrant and minority American patients and families,together with their GPs ,"acting up" to defy the penicillin-denying medical elite of the OSRD/NAS death panels.
In this six year long stage drama, the 'natural world' scenery ends up eating even the hammiest of 'human world' actors....
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