Re: PA needs help passing Lyme legislation

From: A_Weisman (a_weisman_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 12/04/04 

Date: 4 Dec 2004 07:38:39 -0800

derdrittemann2003@yahoo.com (derdrittemann) wrote in message news:<f2af2263.0412031710.3f157e34@posting.google.com>...
> a_weisman@yahoo.com (A_Weisman) wrote in message news:<e55e6d97.0412021405.6a86f423@posting.google.com>...
> > derdrittemann2003@yahoo.com (derdrittemann) wrote in message news:<f2af2263.0412011417.fa45358@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > "No and importantly they wouldn't listen to you anyway because they
> > want to do what they want to do NOT listen to common sense because it
> > tells them things they don't want to hear such as there ain't no easy
> > answers, there are more difficult ones but let's begin the long hard
> > journey with the first step now".
>
>
> Honestly...I wouldn't listen to me either...but just from a tactical
> perspective...forgetting whether you should be even attempting to do
> these things in the first place...
>
> ...thry should just find a friendly chief of staff or committee
> counsel who has your interests at heart and ask them HOW to go about
> it...what is the most effective way to reach the objective. Ask them
> "what do you think"?

They wouldn't listen to them either if they told them something they
didn't want to hear Sir Der.

AND of course the friendly chief of staff etc don't know the
situation. The Lymebrains run around as if their view was well
accepted and well established and it is just a question of a tiny
cabal of academics suppressing the "truth."

So what has happened is that, for example, the Senate holds a hearing
and Joe Burrascano, an internist without any impressive academic
credentials or even hospital affiliations (now he is a doctor who
retained his license after being found to have practiced medicine
negligently on more than one occasion) versus Allen Steere who is
credited (falsely) with discovering the disease and has about every
academic credential short of the nobel prize on his resume/curriculum
vitae, and lo and behold, Burrascano and his group LOOK LIKE the
quacks, NOT Steere and the guys from Yale.

The chief of staff doesn't have Lyme, and he actually believes that
Yale is an impressive institution! And that the credentials and awards
make Steere and his group good doctors and scientists!

It doesn't hurt that the sheer weight and volume of academic
literature and I mean literally the weight of it, is on Steere's side.

So the chief of staff is facing a bunch of irate screaming irrational
Lymebrains, some of whom are singing songs and others carrying signs
which mostly say HOORAY FOR OUR SIDE and at least one of them is
dressed up in a tick outfit and the rest have Lyme green shirts with
angry slogans, and well the apparent ostensible picture is: either the
Lymebrains (and Burrascano) are right and the rest of the world is
crazy OR...

NOW FOR THE RECORD FISHCRAPFORBRAINS I PERSONALLY think that is pretty
much the truth-that the Lymebrains are MOSTLY right and so is
Burrascano and Steere and the Yale Lyme brigade have their heads stuck
way far up their butts (shoulda been proctologists!) (I am some great
defender of Steere and Yale, huh?).

DIFFERENT from the AIDS folks who had their doctors on their side but
were being discriminated against because of their lifestyles. And
different because to a large extent they were already well organized
and funded as gay rights groups (yes other people get AIDS too but the
controversy was over the gay people and they were disproportionately
affected). Which is why AIDS Act Up stuff is NOT the right political
model for Lyme.

If there IS a right political model that is and that is far from
obvious.

> For instance, I would be absolutely STUNNED if any staffer of any of
> the elective officials who have been targets of the mass-mailing
> "action-alerts" would tell you this is a good thing to do.

Of course not. The asaults on such people AND THE MEDIA are
counterproductive and ill advised. Angry does NOT equal effective.

> I would guess most would tell you that they are either next to
> irrelevant...or actually counterproductive...in that these messages
> tie up a great deal of a public official's business...and they
> actually DO have other items to deal with...

Irrelevant at best. Counterproductive more likely.

> ...it's a form of legislative terrorism, in a way...and, speaking from
> personal experience...although very sympathetic to the cause of a
> group who engaged in this tactic to start with...it can so paralyze an
> office that the workers there wind up loathing the group
> responsible...no matter how virtuous the cause.

Absolutely. And in this case many of those staffers have become
convinced that Lenny Sigal and Eugene Shapiro are right that
Lymebrains are NUTS!

> Just simple everyday common sense...but recognizing that politics...as
> practiced in virtually every corner of the US...is a game played by
> pros...and there is a definite "art" to the game...with a set of
> rules...

Yup amateurs get eaten alive. And the Lymebrains often don't even
realize when that's happening. Instead they declare that failures are
victories. But that is part of their PR and spin and misleading the
rest of us (attempts to at least, which work with most of the
Lymenutter types and kathloonatics etc).

Used and abused and often not even realizing or admitting it.

And then they go back for more "Thanks sir can I have another?"

Wasted time energy capital politcal capital. Actually obstructive of
the only path that we can take, the long hard one with no guarantees.
And it ain't the political rabble rousing path for the rabbles without
a clue.

I think YOU ARE worth listening to Sir Der! You're about the only one.