I’m Not Depressed, I’m Angry
By
Leonard Zwelling
For quite a few weeks now I have been feeling lousy. Not so much physically lousy, although my back has given me more than enough of that. No, this is different. This is a real sense of dread. It is also a feeling of not being seen or heard. I even have the sense that I am seeing what no one else is seeing. I see “a bad moon risen’” to quote John Fogerty, but everyone else is going about their lives. Don’t they see what I see?
However, the more I bring up the subject, the more I realize that I am not alone. Let’s see if I can flesh this all out even though it won’t make me feel better. Then again, maybe it will.
I’m going to work my way in from the outside.
World affairs are a mess. Even though there is no world war going on, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are wars of blatant aggression over tracts of land that have been in dispute for years. Either could blossom into a global conflict with one wrong move. Aren’t such conflicts what the United Nations was supposed to prevent? When I was in junior high school there was such hope for the UN. Now, for sure we were told in 1962, there would be no more wars when there was a forum in the United States at which disagreements can be reasoned out. HA! The United Nations has proven to be both corrupt and inept.
The United States was also playing a beneficial role in decreasing the threat of disease and hunger in the world as recently as two years ago, but the Trump Administration has virtually put an end to that. Our so-called soft power to control suffering in the world with foreign aid has been virtually ended. There is little doubt that the world is worse off than it was ten years ago.
So is the situation in which most Americans find themselves here at home. Having survived the inept government handling of Covid by both the Trump and Biden Administrations, we find ourselves as a country without a vision beyond fighting with each other. We have a president who wishes to be a king and a Congress and Supreme Court that just might get him there. The anti-Constitutional bent of the current White House occupant is largely the cause of fear and aggression in the country. So many work from home and never meet their colleagues face-to-face. Gen Z’s values and craving for both work-life balance and an early retirement baffles the older generations causing friction in the few remaining office spaces. And professionalism in medicine is almost gone.
We also live in a world and country of “alternative facts” as per Kellyanne Conway. I had a conversation just last night with a Trumper and I was shocked that we couldn’t even agree on basic facts. He was convinced that the Biden Justice Department pursued Trump just like the current Trump Justice Department is pursuing Trump’s enemies. Most of the suits against Trump were at the state level and God knows January 6 was a crime on someone’s part and those who were convicted are now all free.
My dinner compatriot was convinced that the 2020 election was fixed by the Democrats and when I asked then why the Democrats didn’t fix the 2024 election he said that his side had learned what the Dems had done in 2020 and made sure it didn’t happen again. That’s not even true of the 2024 election which Trump won handily without doing anything illegal. Over 50 legal suits found no wrong doing in the 2020 election by any Democrat. I did not pursue the discussion, but it made me realize that he and I were living in different countries.
The professions are no longer trustworthy. Doctors are on the clock, on salary, and on keyboards. That’s no way to take care of sick people. Lawyers, accountants, and clergy are all stretched thin and yielding to temptations to be a little less a fiduciary than previously. And as for the government, the President of the United States doesn’t trust the government and is waging war against those in government now or in prior years whose jobs had them investigating or prosecuting him. If he sets this tone, the next administration will go after him. No one will want to serve if the minute their side is out of power they are liable to be sued or worse.
In my previous world of academic medicine, the threatened government cuts in research support and the actual waging of war against research at some of the country’s most elite institutions putatively as punishment for anti-Semitism on campus, but really just another swat at perceived dens of liberalism, is crippling academic medicine. As I cover in my book Conflict of Interest: Money Drives Medicine and People Die, the corruption of academia has been going on for at least twenty years of which I am aware. Unscathed healers are hard to find.
Finally, closer to home, my son Andrew and I have been doing our podcast, A New Prescription, for a while now. We have had some very good guests explaining various aspects of health care delivery, policy, and research. While these things may be important and we may have educated a few listeners, there are more immediate issues on my mind. See the list above.
In the near future I will be changing the podcast format. I will discuss the subjects covered in these blogs on my own although I will be looking for equally outraged guests, especially those who disagree with me. I have a fair amount on my mind at this point in my life and I need to get it out in any way possible.
So, stay tuned and watch your email and this blog space for an announcement about when the new show will start. Its title will be: A New Prescription-I’m Not Depressed, I’m Angry.
