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AMBULANCES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE CLIFF

CHOOSE TO BE HEALTHY

We've reached a unique point in history, where we're standing on the edge overlooking that abyss which is the dreadful selective-evidence, symptom-masking, pharmaceutically-based, dependence-generating, dualist, reductionist, blank cheque, junk-medical system.

Ivan Illich, in 1976 described it thus:

'The true miracle of modern medicine is diabolical. It consists in making not only individuals but whole populations survive in inhumanely low levels of personal health.'

It's a belief system that over the last 50 years has encouraged people to throw themselves off cliffs all around Australia and then complain the government is not providing enough ambulances to take them back up to do it again.

The number of fat, weak and depressed people lining up on cliff tops, ready to take their turn has reached, if not pandemic, then epidemic proportions. Crowds are forming, queues are growing longer.

At one site, according to reports, syringes were drawn and shots fired into the crowds in an effort to stem the flow, but still they continued to jump. This is the greatest feat of jumping since Bob Beamon leapt over the pit in Mexico. The crowds are running amok, like lemmings.

It's mayhem out there on the cliff tops.

The governments of Australia are employing more and more security guards in white coats to stem the tide. They're grabbing everyone that comes within an arms length by the scruff of the neck and forcing packets of pills and powders down their throat in an effort to reduce the mania. All they've succeeded in doing is reduce them to zombies.

So now we have the option of watching those who run and jump and those who lurch and topple, like dead fish drifting with the tide; both equally effective in the long run.

More drugs are being developed. Scientists in the sheltered workshops for the academically gifted are double blindedly comparing new drugs with placebos, writing papers and sucking up to pill-making companies at bun-fights and booze-ups around the world; in Las Vegas, Rome, Rio, Sydney - the list of host cities reads like a  Peter Stuyvesant commercial.

Noses and being browned, curries favoured, waist-lines padded, wine quaffed, pockets lined, lips sealed, palms greased, heads turned, eyes rolled, and all back-handers and sweeteners gratefully received. If only the Australian Wheat Board was as smooth as the desert boot's running the medical industry gravy train.

The usual suspects like the Bleeding Heart Research Institute are out there begging for more money to do more research. After 20 years they think they are on the verge of a big breakthrough. Advertisements are being placed in Time Magazine and kids in black suits have been sent to shopping centres to wheedle a monthly tithe out of trolley-pushing mug-punters. Soon they'll be shoulder to shoulder with the Amex kids in the airports.

THERE'S A WAR GOING ON OUT ON THE CLIFFS

The war on cliff falling has started in earnest with every researcher and pill maker seeking to develop new ways to slash, burn and poison the enemy in the fight against the cliff-falling disease. According to the latest reports, the most promising piece of artillery is on the drawing board as we speak, but it will take 10 years before it can be wheeled out onto the cliffs. It works on rats. The drug manufacturers have said that if people can hang off until then they'll be OK. This is the promise.

The reality? People keep jumping. The war continues.

Studies have been commissioned and multiple-concurrent papers sprayed around the world in search of sympathetic publishers and convention organisers. Mates are being rung up, favours being called in, backs scratched, brownie points scored, air fares being purchased, flash pubs booked into. Every one's acting serious.

At the same time legislation is being enacted to increase state funds for more security guards and ambulances. Bureaucrats, burning candles at both ends are feverishly attending meetings, writing policy documents, memos and cabinet submissions. Stakeholders are being consulted and frameworks developed. The medical industry production line is being cranked up, but as yet no backsides have been kicked.

Progress is being made, ... the queues are getting longer.

At last count, the thought police had been brought in and the search for the guilty is now under way. Moves have already been made to punish the innocent and praise is starting to be heaped on those who are sitting on the fence and watching from the sidelines.

This is exceptionally good news for researchers, bureaucrats, journalists, news-readers, airlines, publicans, politicians and pill makers who are rubbing their hands with glee, sending off bottles of Grange Hermitage to the security guards.

Fashion houses are in on the game and new clothes are being brought around for the Emperor to try on.

Only to the Nietzchean observer, is the situation deteriorating.

A few nutters are writing letters to editors urging the Government to put up safety nets at the top of the cliff.

The editors are screening them out, they're dickheads with no medical qualifications. Minders and spin doctors on the Hill are doing the same thing, to even greater effect. Only selective evidence from the sheltered workshops is getting through.

Editorials are, however, fanning the concern and calling for a Royal Commission. At this stage the Government is refusing on the grounds that it can't agree until the outcome is known.

Meanwhile, the cliff tops are littered with the bodies of people who have fallen over themselves in the rush to the edge.

The bottom of the cliffs are littered with even more bodies as ambulance officers, undertakers, priests and pink ladies struggle to cope with each new wave of eager customers. It's worse than Macey's and Myer's at 9 o'clock on Boxing Day.

Some of the people are arriving with cartons, jam-packed with fifty dollar bills to bribe the guards to let them jump the queue to jump the cliff.

Free fall

Most people don't want to pay anything. They just want to jump off/fall over as quick as they can, for free, knowing this is the only way to make sure of increasing the likelihood that there'll still be a spare ambulance waiting to scrape them up at the bottom and rush them back to the top.

Because it's free for most people, demand is outstripping supply. We're witnessing the largest publicly funded rort in the history. They say it's so successful that the Government is thinking of bringing in Carcare (a new car insurance initiative designed to buy more votes) under the Medicare umbrella, then you'll be able to have your car fixed up for nothing as well. There's speculation that it will be followed shortly after by a whole host of 'care' initiatives including Haircare for bald people, Fatcare for men suffering from low libido and Vetcare for pets.

Mug taxpayers are joining in the frenzy and bending over backwards to pick up the tab. Taxes are going up, hip pocket nerves stimulated and shirts taken off the backs of any one who doesn't have kids, earns more than 50 Grand a year and doesn't own a couple of rental properties. But they don't care. Their number could be coming up at any tick of the clock.

People are spending more and more time on the cliff-jumping hurdy-gurdy, lining up, jumping off, lining up, jumping off ... until they're so giddy they collapse in screaming heaps.

Workplaces are being decimated, schools are closing at 2 o'clock instead of 2.30, publicans crying into their beer, compo premiums sky-rocketing and we've reached the point where only stock-brokers, lawyers, merchant bankers, plumbers and plasma screen salesmen can afford health insurance.

Greasy Joe's, Greasy Jack's and Greasy Mack's have set up junk food outlets at the top of the cliffs, as have a new generation of junk food supermarkets. People are loading their trolleys up with junk in readiness for the big jump. The quicker they can wolf down their food the sooner they'll get to the cliff.

The junk supermarkets are the Government's preferred method of screening and prioritizing prospective cliff jumpers because of their ability to provide people with easy access to the junk food that lines the shelves on the inside of their shops. Trolleys are being filled to overflowing with packets, tins, bottles, cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Trolley's are inspected as people pass through the checkouts. If there is enough junk in them they are given a red bullet to the head of the queues leading to the cliffs.

Gambling houses are sprouting up all over the place to cater for the rush of the mindless and vacuous who are buying tickets in the Cliff Jumping Priority Lottery.  The Government is using the winnings from the lottery and increased poker machine revenue from clubs and pubs to pay for the ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. They reckon they're onto a good thing. The stupid are being taxed to give to the stupid.

At one end of the scale, fortunes are being lost. There's talk that soon we'll all be ruined. It's chaos out there. Stocks are falling.

At the other end of the scale, the good news is that junk food distributors, lottery ticket vendors, poker machine operators, security companies and ambulance manufacturers can't keep up with the demand. Fortunes are being made. Stocks are going through the roof.

Stop Press

Mug taxpayers have just donated another billion dollars to underwrite more security guards and ambulances - to go with the billion they donated last year and the billion dollars they've earmarked for next year. We haven't seen anything like this since 1720. This is the mother of all bubbles, set to make the South Seas Bubble look like a pixel on a flat screen monitor. We're living in momentous times. Ring your stock broker, get in for your chop and ride the wave while there's still time. There's money to be made out there on the cliffs.

Because there aren't enough ambulances at the bottom of the cliffs more and more money is going to overtime for the drivers as demand is fuelled. They'll reap a bonanza this year, and so will the Treasurer who knows that 50% of every dollar given out will come back to him. The states cream off 10% every time someone buys a new ambulance.

Meanwhile a few contrarian observers are quietly hedging their bets against the impending crash.

Over the last few years they've been monitoring the gradual, (almost imperceptible) trend of small groups of people extricating themselves from the cliff-jumping frenzy. In secret meeting rooms and underground publications they've started to chronicle the death of the cliff-jumping, junk medical era

It's a movement, heralded not by medical specialists, scientists, politicians or anyone that makes money out of it, but by regular folks who've come to the realization that good health doesn't come from a syringe, a scalpel or a stethoscope. These people believe that they are witnessing the lancing of the iatrogenic boil on the backside of the health rump.

So who are these people and why are they turning back from the edge?

They're people who choose to be healthy because they feel better and it saves them an absolute poultice in the time, effort and money most people spend on being crook. They're as lean as greyhounds, fit as trout and toey as Roman sandals. They're saying 'Yes', not just to Optus, but to life itself. They've chosen to turn their backs on the cliff-jumping fiasco.

They understand that you can't slash, burn or poison yourself back into good health.

They know that good health doesn't come out of a surgery, pharmacy or hospital.

On the contrary they know that health and fitness comes from habitually doing the things that fit and healthy people do to keep themselves fit and healthy. Their motto: discipline, persistence and consistency.

So here's all it takes: just turn your back and walk, shuffle or jog in the direction away from the cliff.

You can take a look at the things we stand for by clicking through to the Health and Fitness Manifesto. Of course, if you don't stand for something you'll fall for everything.

John Miller