Season 3 Episode 1

 Season 3 Episode 1

Well, hello! Welcome to season three! On this episode of the Listening Tube, we’ll hear about why it’s good to be the King (or Queen), the evolution of the Department of the Treasury, and a brief history of a very long-winded Senator, but first (not the headlines)…

I saw a commercial on the television the other day that commanded me to tell my government that they were making a big mistake and they shouldn’t do it, but didn’t really tell me what they were doing wrong or offer an alternative solution. It seemed like it was asking for my help, but at the same time threatening me if I failed to act. It wasn’t a direct threat. They didn’t say they’d shoot a dog if I didn’t do what they told me to do. It was an indirect threat, as in if I didn’t do what they wanted me to do, they might not be able to help me if I needed help somewhere down the road. They made it clear that the implications could be serious, and not effect just me, but a large number of other people. It said I had a choice to make. Either do what they say, or lives will be sacrificed. 

When most of us see commercials paid for by businesses, we’re asked to buy their products. They tell us why we should buy their product, how it can make your life better. But not this commercial. This commercial was a pharmaceutical commercial. But not the kind with old people doing things that only young people should be doing, or the kind of pharmaceutical commercial that has four different sets and four different sets of actors because the budget was so huge that the advertising agency had to find ways to spend more money on the production than they really needed to spend, just to get you to ask your doctor about the drug, or to get you to believe you have an illness that you don’t have. NO. This commercial was a warning to us, you and me, that if the federal government institutes price limits on life-saving drugs, the pharmaceutical industry will stop working on new ones. Not all new ones, of course, but the script is written in such a way that it makes vulnerable people think that of all the drugs being worked on now, the one you need will be the one that gets canceled because of the government. Let me play if for you right now…

Paid for by Pharma. Pharma is a lobbying organization set up by pharmaceutical companies to do their dirty work. It’s board is made up of drug company executives. Somehow, Pharma generates revenue, but I can’t figure out how, and they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying. Their biggest gripe was the possibility that Medicare would someday be able to negotiate drug prices for their participants. Well, that just happened. It was included in the poorly-named Inflation Reduction Act. Plus, they give a lot of money to political groups that are willing to parrot their cries. Now, the pharmaceutical companies themselves claim that they’re not the ones causing the high prices. They blame the health plans and the companies that manage them. Pharma even started a website called Let’s talk about cost that they use to explain why drug prices are so high. My question is, if that’s the case, and the drug companies aren’t the ones charging the high prices, then why will their ability (or willingness) to develop new drugs suffer? Are the middleman health plans paying for the research and development of new drugs? If so, why does Pharma feel the need to threaten our lives? There’s a contradiction there. IT’s almost as if Pharma is not only working for the companies who research and make the drugs, but also the health plans they blame for inflating the prices. If you don’t know who to believe, don’t believe either of them. An April article by Adriana Belmonte for Yahoo Finance tells the story of a California Democrat named Katie Porter who went face-to-face with a drug company CEO during a congressional hearing. She pointed out that in the five years between 2013 and 2018, the company spent nearly two-and-a-half billion dollars on research and development of new drugs. During the same time frame, the same company spent almost twice that much, 4.7 billion, on marketing. So, obviously, R&D isn’t their top priority. But here’s the real gem: Executive compensation during the same 5-year period was 334 million dollars, and 50 million dollars on stock buybacks. The Congresswoman correctly pointed out that this man’s drug company was not so much a drug company anymore than it was a mechanism to create more income for the stockholders. Which was why they were buying back their own stock. The congresswoman also reminded him, and us, that it is the American people who already pay for most of the research being done. The pharmaceutical companies have an important role to play in bringing drugs to the market, she said, but “there simply is no set of facts that supports that allowing the government to negotiate drug prices would reduce innovation. If anything, having a more competitive market would put a premium on companies who do put the profits that they earn back into inventing the next product, rather than excess profit price gouging going to line their shareholders’ pockets.” I would add that no amount of research and development money can justify why the prices of drugs that are a decade or more old continue to rise way faster than the rate of inflation. Even with inflation as high as it is. Right now, the inflation rate is around 8 or 9 percent compared to a year ago, while the prices of life-saving drugs climb at a rate of hundreds of percent. That’s price-gouging. So who ever it is taking advantage of the consumer, be it the drug company, the health plan, the middle man somewhere in between, it need to brought under control. Now you might say, “But Bob, what about supply and demand? Shouldn’t that dictate the prices?” Well, for your average consumer products, sure. But drugs are a different category. Normally, if the price of a product is too high, people will decline to buy it, demand will drop, and the price will follow. In this case, the demand will only fall when people die because they can’t afford the medication. The price may come down then, but it’ll be too late for the sacrificial lambs created by the greed of the people in control of the treatment. The strangest part of this whole web is that the pharmaceutical companies think they have us by the throat. They can do what they want because we need their products to live, not just to make our homes more comfortable or our clothes feel softer. What they don’t tell you, even though they call themselves pharmaceutical manufacturers, is they actually outsourced most of the industry to other companies. So, if the people who claim to be drug manufacturers aren’t actually doing the manufacturing, who is making many of the pharmaceutical drugs we depend on? China. That’s right, a communist country known for genocide has near complete control over the health of millions of Americans. American pharmaceutical companies aren’t in control of the research, the development, or the manufacturing of our medicines .The pharmaceutical companies that threatened to deny us life-saving drugs if we don’t tell Washington to do what they say, ultimately answers to the Chinese Communist Party. Poisoning our young people with Fentanyl might be just the opening act. 

Side effects may include death, and death may be permanent.

Let’s go back liner...

This week in 1715, King Louis XIV of France dies after a reign of 72 years – the longest of any major European monarch. It’s good to be king! Or Queen. Queen Elizabeth is in her 70th year of monarchy. The Queen is also the only person who has a chance to outrule King Louis XIV. Anyone else who ever came close it already dead. But Queen Elizabeth isn’t just the Queen of England, she’s also the Queen of Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and of course, the United Kingdom.

In 1777, in the American Revolutionary War, during the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge, the Flag of the United States is flown in battle for the first time. That’s the legend, anyway. 

This week in 1786, Shays’ Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens. Shay’s rebellion was the beginning of a long history of America forgetting the people who fought to make it, and keep it free. These Massachusetts farmers were mostly Revolutionary War veterans. After fighting for American freedom, these soldiers, who had been through, by today’s standards, a primitive and brutal war during which a mere wound could wind up meaning certain death because of our lack of medical knowledge at the time, were happy to earn a peaceful living, working the land and providing for their neighbors in exchange for support. There was no paper money at the time, no gold or silver was available to the farmers to pay their debts. Barter was the rule of the day, and farmers in New England could only produce goods during the summer. Yet residents were being taxed more by the new state than they were by the British. Ultimately, the farmers were being deprived of their property, and the revolt led to blockades of courthouses so the laws could not be enforced. President Washington was made aware of the rebellion. Samuel Adams, now known for a brand of beer, wanted the protesting farmers to be executed! The rebellion eventually failed. Some of the protesters fled to Vermont, where they were given refuge by Ethan Allen, now known for a brand of furniture. The rebels were banned from certain jobs after the uprising, including any public office, schoolmasters, and liquor salesmen for three years. Less than a year later, John Hancock, now known for his large signature on the Declaration of Independence, became Governor of Massachusetts, and eased the burden on the rebel farmers. Our American war veterans have ever since been in many ways neglected after their services are no longer needed. We’ve tried harder, it seems, in recent decades to recognize their service and our dependence on it. Full disclosure: I’m a veteran. But I’m not talking about guys like me. I’m a veteran of the Cold War. I was never shot at or had to shoot at someone. Our force was a deterrent. It worked for a long time. But the soldiers who see battle, the people who literally put their lives on the line for the rest of us deserve our support even after they’re home safely. 

In 1789 The United States Department of the Treasury is founded. It was staffed by the following officers: Secretary of the Treasury, to be deemed head of the department; a Comptroller, an Auditor, a Treasurer, a Register, and an Assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury. Six people. Today, the department of the Treasury encompasses six different bureaus, including Engraving and Printing, Financial Crimes Enforcement, the U.S. Mint, and of course, the Internal Revenue Service. They also administer five different Inspector General offices, including the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery. That department certainly has it’s job cut out for them. By the way, I hear the Department of the Treasury is hiring. I don’t know where they’re going to find anybody in our nation’s current situation, but if you know anybody that wants to work there, they can just check out the website at treasury dot gov. According to some reports, successful candidates will be equipped with an AR-15 and a tank. Or maybe just a cubicle in a vast office building. Equal opportunity employer. 

1861

American Civil War: Confederate General Leonidas Polk invades neutral Kentucky, prompting the state legislature to ask for Union assistance. Wait a second. He invaded a neutral state? 

Look that up liner…

Well, not exactly neutral. There were five states, Kentucky being one of them, that were slave states but didn’t secede from the Union or join the Confederacy. All of them but Delaware bordered both Southern and Northern states. The others were Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia, which was a new state at that time. Wikipedia says Polk’s invasion of Kentucky is considered one of the biggest blunders of the Civil War, as it essentially handed Kentucky over to the Union when the Governor asked the United States government for assistance. General Polk was a unique character. He was the second cousin of President James Polk, and a West Point graduate. He resigned his commission to attend seminary school, and eventually became a bishop in the Episcopal church. He also had slaves, and was ready and willing to preserve the trend. He resigned from the church to join the Rebel army. Because of his familiarity with the Mississippi valley, he was appointed Major General by Jefferson Davis, despite his lack of combat experience. He died in battle almost three years after the invasion of Kentucky, near Marietta, Georgia, while in an exposed area with a nuisance of Generals and their staffs, by an artillery shell. 

1895

German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon.

1898

Caleb Bradham invents the carbonated soft drink that will later be called “Pepsi-Cola.” I like the Mango Pepsi. I just found some on the store shelves again after a long absence.

This week in 1914, St. Petersburg, Russia, changes its name to Petrograd. Petrograd was a way for the Imperial government to remove the German-sounding “burg” from the name. Petrograd translates to Peter’s City. So they also took away his Sainthood. So they changed the name to honor some guy named Pete. Not necessarily Saint Peter the Apostle. That didn’t last long, though. About a decade later, it was again re-named, this time to Leningrad, or “Lenin’s City.” And no, not John Lennon, despite his socialist ideals. But Vladimir Lenin, the father of the October Revolution that gave the Soviets the power to control Russia, and led to the Communist Party. The name was changed back to Saint Petersburg in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union. If all goes well for the current Russian dictator, it will someday be re-named again, to Putingrad, or “Putin’s City.” Not even Putin would dare try to change the name of Moscow. 

1917

Ten Suffragettes are arrested while picketing the White House.1955

Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.

This was a big week for the medium of radio. This week in 1920, The first radio news program is broadcast by 8MK in Detroit, Michigan.

In 1936, Radio Prague, now the official international broadcasting station of the Czech Republic, goes on the air.

And in 1939, Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II.

That would lead to this week in 1945, when combat ends in the Pacific Theater: the Instrument of Surrender of Japan is signed by Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and accepted aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. That ended World War II. That was the last world war. I hope it remains that way.

1957

U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, a Democrat from South Carolina, begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator. Because of time restrictions, I’m not going to recite if for you. But I will tell you that Senator Thurmond seemed to have planned his lengthy speech well in advance. He reportedly took steam baths in the days prior to draw liquid from his body so he didn’t have to stop to go to the bathroom. He did, once, but it was while Barry Goldwater made an insertion to the congressional record. He had throat lozenges and small pieces of bread and meat to provide sustenance. This guy was hell-bent on segregation. He was bound and determined to do whatever he could to prevent black people and white people from mingling together. It was all for naught, though. The bill was passed two hours after he stopped speaking, and the Civil Rights Act became law about two weeks later. 

In 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place. Martin Luther King, Jr. gives a speech that many refer to as the “I Have a Dream speech.” Unless you were there that day, and heard Doctor King deliver the speech, you probably never heard the entire thing. I was just over a year old that day. It may be available on the internet in its entirety, but most of us are only familiar with the “I have a dream” part. It touches more points than that, though. Please allow me to recite it for you here, as it was delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end but a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “for whites only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends — so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father’s died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi — from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring — when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children — black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics — will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Dr. King didn’t call for equity, he called for equality. Know the difference. He called out police brutality, but also recognized that peace and respect for authority are necessary. Much of what Dr. King called for that day has been accomplished. Black people are free to vote, stay in the same hotels and drink from the same water fountains as anybody else. There is still work to be done, for sure. Dr. King recognized the American dream, and how his dream was deeply rooted in it. Today, there are many who believe the American dream cannot be achieved. Today, organizations like Black Lives Matter have given up on not only the American dream, but Dr. King’s dream. They don’t support a world where little black children and little white children can hold hands and sing “My Country’s ‘tis of thee.” They reject the notion altogether, along with the Star Spangled Banner and the American Flag. The question we need to ask ourselves is how Dr. King’s dream turned into the nightmare of race relations we’re experiencing today. Here’s what I know. I know that at the street level where I am, I can hold a door open for a black person, or they for me, and we’ll say thank you. But when you look at the news, it paints a totally different picture of how different races interact with each other. For now, I’m going to trust what I see for myself, rather than what I see from the media. We know that the media, or at least the people who control it, have an interest in keeping us fighting with each other. Not just black and white, democrat and republican, but also any other way they can figure out to divide us. The best way to overcome this artificial divide is to get to know our neighbors. Regardless of their income, religion, race, creed, color, ethnicity or heritage. What you’ll find is people with the same hopes and dreams as you. You also might find a real ass, but some people aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. It’s still worth a try. 

1967

Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

1974

The SR-71 Blackbird sets (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London in the time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds at a speed of 1435.587 mph. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

1991

Collapse of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party.

1991

Ukraine declares its independence from the Soviet Union. This year, Ukraine celebrates its independence while at war with the country from which it declared independence! The United States government, as well as many U.S. based organizations have continued to help the people of Ukraine since the Russian invasion began. They’ll continue to need help, and the rest of the free world needs to continue, or begin to contribute. The burden of this war cannot be left to only the people of Ukraine and the vault of American weapons. The Chinese Communist Party is patiently waiting for the moment America runs short of weapons, so that they might pursue their own objectives. 

1991

Kyrgyzstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

1991

Uzbekistan declares independence from the Soviet Union

The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly. Copyright 2022. Thank you for putting your ear to the Listening Tube. I’m your host, Bob Woodley for thou ad infinitum.