Placebobama
By Pat Racimora on September 1, 2009 at 6:01 PM in President Barack Obama
The use of placebos in medicine is absolutely fascinating. The effects can be stunning, despite the fact that they are, by their very definition, composed of inert matter. Some may not understand that placebo effects do not result in a cure in and of themselves. Rather, when they work, people feel better. They are told what will happen, they are led to believe it, and things seem to improve.
Quoting from a masterful article by Harriet Hall, here is how they work:
The placebo effect is mainly subjective.… Placebos don’t keep women from getting pregnant. They don’t cure cancer, heal broken bones, or do anything you can measure objectively. They work for more elusive complaints like headache, depression, itching, shortness of breath, tension, indigestion, and other symptoms that require us to accept the patient’s self-report of what he is experiencing.
There is a hierarchy of effectiveness as well:
Placebo surgery works better than placebo injections.
Placebo injections work better than placebo pills.
Sham acupuncture treatment works better than a placebo pill.
Capsules work better than tablets.
Big pills work better than small pills.
The more doses a day, the better.
The more expensive, the better.
The color of the pill makes a difference.
Telling the patient, “This will relieve your pain” works better than saying “This might help.”
So what does all this have to do with President Obama? Well, I think he is a human placebo. We were suffering from deep depression and excruciating pain after 8 years of the George W. Bush administration. Then along comes Barack Obama, telling us to just hope and there will be great change.
He promised he would alter everything about Washington: Deep surgical removal of lobbyist influence and other nasty goings on.
He would inject our country with renewed purpose and goals.
He would do things in a BIG way.
“Yes we can!” Not “Maybe….”
Just HOPE!
This might have been a good thing. Most all of us needed a boost, after all. Even being in a better mood might have helped us get up, out, and moving in a more positive direction. But I don’t see it working out that way. Economic downturns, huge rewards for corporations that screwed up while the rest of us who are paying for this mess struggle to make it through each month, continuing wars, some important broken promises, an ineffective and bumbling Congress and other seemingly myopic government offices, and a president with way too little relevant experience appear to be breaking the spell.
So the question now becomes, are Barack Obama and his administration simply inert?
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Timely commentary, Pat. The thing that irks me about all this emphasis on hope is that it is inactive. In lieu of “hoping” for change, why didn’t these lazy, shirking bots and supporters of That One actually DO something to make their lives and the lives of others better? This goes hand-in-hand with the “Community Organizer” claptrap. I think organizing a community is great–if it means someone is actually doing something concrete to make the community better. Organizing for handouts or political clout does not equate to making a better community but, rather, one that needs a crutch.
They do love handing out crutches, Ferd. I’m afraid 0zer0’s plan is to organize us into a welfare/3rd world country. His “Czars” are extremely troubling. We can’t get him out of office too soon.
Amen, Martha
OMG – Hope is inactive. So true.
The human placebo. Perfect!
Absolutely wonderful post… and cartoon.
“Human placebo” so aptly describes Barack, the vile vial!
Thank you, Pat.
Love that play on words!
Agreed!
Absolutely brilliant, and apropos, analogy.
And I fear this truly applies to the disastrous healthcare bill. We will save the day, the Obamatrons have insisted. And what do we “really” have? A bill that favors Big Pharma, the insurance companies, a schtick that continues the spin that DC “knows better in all things”
Look at the track record? Is unemployment turning? No. Is the economy turning around? No. In fact, the “green shoots” are becoming all the more obvious: rank weeds. Has the banking situation been cleaned up? No, we’re aiding and abetting outright fraud. It was started by Bush & Co and is being blissfully continued by Obama and koolaid crowd. Is the housing market been addressed? Hardly. And now we can wait for the commercial real estate market to blow up as the piper plays his merry tune of: Recovery for all!
Has consumer confidence been restored? No. Have import/export and/or retail numbers improved? No. Has the stock market numbers increased? Yes. But I would argue that we have a pump and dump manipulation going on. Any questions? Refer to Karl Denninger. Or Larry Doyle for facts and figures.
And now we come to health care reform [after the riduculous notion of tax and trade]. Is there any indication that this will save us money? No. Is there any assurance that “quality” will not be compromised? No. Despite what the AMA would have us believe, do most “practicing” doctors think this plan is a good idea. No.
So then, we come back to your toon, Pat. Does that needle carry hope? A placebo? Or a national poison?
I think we’re being offered poison, and then being told: “this will hurt us, more than it will you.”
I belong to the “you” group. And I say NO! I say Hell No!
This alleged bill does nothing to mitigate the real problems with our system and only magnifies them. The insurance companies already have a bureaucracy that is the envy of the government, efficient in their denial of claims on the weakest of excuses and answerable to no one. That’s what our pin-headed bureaucrats and politicians would love to tap in to. The other is delivery. The insurance companies deliver nothing but commercials and claptrap in lieu of actually serving the people who pay into the system. The government wants a part of that racket, too.
Insurance companies and the government can go to blazes.
Had a spam gobble, Pat. If you can retrieve it, I’d appreciate it. Unfortunately, my “save” did not work this time. Thanx.
Oh, btw…another good one, Pat. You always hit the bulls eye.
this is one of the best descriptions of backtrack that I have read. It really tells it like it is.
We needed help for our country and got zilch.
WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS
PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE
I think they are worse than inert. They preyed upon people who believed them and now issue after issue he has shown that he is not the idealistic do gooder that he promised them to be. He is just doing everything opposite.
Another winner, Pat!
Obama may on the one hand be dispensing placebo-like prescriptions, but on the other hand, he first feeds into the hypochondrai. Long before he peddles his snake oil cures, he first has to convince the potential sucker that he is suffering some imagined malady. How many times have we heard things like “Our health care system is broken”, “It’s worse than we thought.”, “We must act IMMEDIATLY or face dissaster”, “Capitalism isn’t working”, “We’re losing in Iraq”, “Man made global warming will doom us all”, “H1N1 will be the next great pandemic”, “Talk radio is responsible right-wing extremism”, “47 million people can’t get healthcare”, and on and on. In each case, this administration (and the left in general) has amplified the problem beyond reason and recognition, and in each case, their proposed cure is far more debilitating than the illness. It’s all part of an Alinsky stratagy aimed at drastically changing this country, and the most ironic and sad aspect is that they have convinced an easily snookered populace to beg for the means of their own destruction.
P.J. O’Rourke wrote that the government will break your legs, then, to prove their great concern for you, they’ll give you some crutches.
Gahan Wilson has a great cartoon along these lines. At one sidewalk stand, a little boy is selling “Iced drink” for 5 cents, while around the corner, people that consumed the iced drink are struggling to get to the next sidewalk stand (run by the little boy’s partner) that has the sign “Iced Drink Antidote, $100″. Both young lads are promising future politicians.
Excellent points, Onofre’s arm, and very apropos analogy from Gahan Wilson.
I’ve always loved Gahan Wilson. I first remember seeing his cartoons in True Magazine back in the 50’s. I assumed he was dead, but I see he lives on: “Gahan Wilson is the subject of a feature length documentary film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird.” (Wikipedia)
Ooooops–that was Virgil Partch (VIP) who was always in True Magazine. Wilson was in Playboy a lot. I remember buying that magazine only for the cartoons . . .
LOL, ozero the human placebo. I think the people are catching on (thank goodness) that he is ONLY a placebo and not the real thing.
Another home run, Pat – fantastic cartoon!
I saw a letter to the editor in my local paper in which the author said Obama had NOTHING to do with Lehman Bros., or coal mining co.’s leveling mountain tops, etc. Another Obot who prefers the placebo to taking the medicine of Obama’s actual record and secret meetings.
Perfect toon!
Great topic and great ‘toon, Pat. Obama is a snake oil salesman, so I’d wager that’s his venom in the syringe. He’s not to be trusted with anything.
Interesting cartoon. And, I think it hits the nail on the head.
One could argue that there is a difference between wishful thinking and the placebo effect. In my opinion in the placebo effect there is a specific problem and you are told of a specific solution that will help in resolving the problem. Wishful thinking is this pill will cure whatever ails you, and you believe it. That is what the American people were sold and so many bought it. Others knew better than to believe that an inexperienced person could somehow solve all of the problems, large and small, to the satisfaction of everyone’s needs.
In the placebo effect, if you are over-promised then the good that the placebo starts out doing is quickly eroded and then you lose all trust, which makes things even worse than what you were experiencing before. This will interfere with any real cure making the real cure take longer.
As I said, I believe that the Democratic Party and Obama oversold what they could do and people’s wishful thinking made them believe it. This is why Obama and many Democrats got elected. Now that the cold truth is setting in that Obama and the Democratic Party, even with a majority, cannot do what was promised, it will make the real cure harder to take and will take longer to work. Believing is important. Believing with some real-world-basis is even more important.
Rich
Rich: you are exactly right. That’s what is so sad about the corruption that cut Hillary out.
Good work Pat!
A placebo and a stiff shot might take the stiffness from my neck! LOL!
I’ve heard several statements that Obama is willing to be a one-termer.
I think even he has had enough of his brand of medicine!
He is just putting us on. He doesn’t intend to be a one-termer. He’s setting up a dictatorship, one czar at a time, one fraudulent election at a time, one census fixed at the WH, etc.
lol Maybe he’s a 12-stepper!
Nah–he’s only a half-stepper. There’s no corner too good to cut in his world.
lol!
Great article, Pat.
Here’s one from the Washington Post that everyone simply must go comment on. According to the author Obama’s brilliance is in creating a purposely vague bill that no one understands and then appearing to stumble around on it. In that case 0zer0 is the most brilliant prez we’ve ever had.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102913.html?nav=hcmoduletmv
Great article. I overheard a conversation at lunch. A table of women. One woman was a doctor’s wife. She explained to everyone else how in the ’60s, the government took over clinics in poor areas and ran them to provide healthcare for the poor people. You had to live in the neighborhood and qualify financially.
This woman said it worked very well and no insurance companies were ever involved. I got the impression the ladies were liberal, but opposed Obama’s healthcare plan as a giveaway to insurance companies. That’s how it seems to me.
I agree with Martha Washington. He’s trying to turn us into a third world country.
Another hopey-changey lie:
http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/09/01/obama-breaks-another-hopey-changey-promise/#more-27091
It is a candy coated covering around a “rabbit candy” center.
If only Ozero was inert… He is actually a candy-coated cyanide pill. (And it looks like the candy coating has THC in it.)
Very evocative cartoon, Pat. Thanks.
Well, there’s lots going on in this drawing. The little color starbursts in the lower left are reminiscent of cartoon intoxication bursts and fireworks at the same time. Somebody is razzle-dazzled and is going “Ooooooo! Ahhhhhhh!” That the starbursts are below rather than above indicates that this is an ersatz and phony euphoria–local and insubstantial. Nothing real. The source of the brain pyrotechnics coming from the hypo is clear: high grade hopium.
The giant hand holding the hypo is, by position above the intoxication-fireworks, godlike and in control. The giant figure is in the clear blue, so He does not share in the intoxication, but keeps us razzle-dazzled by calculated design. It is as if we were patients in a mental hospital coming out of a narcotics induced stupor, only to see the by-now familiar comforting hand with another hypo, and nothing else. This is Doctor O’Feelgood who has promised to heal us, but in the context of the “death panel” discussions concerning the O-Whole-Health plan, waking up to see that giant hand with hypo should at the same time seem very sinister . . . but still–”Doctor, just another shot! It’s so sooooothing, so pretty . . . “
Oooooh, I like that oowawa.
For this one I wrote the story first. I have been wanting to do it for a while now.
So, toon time all I could see was that big hand delivering the stuff from on high. The placebo had to be pretty and catch the eye, but fragile as if it could just disappear in an instant, sort of like a sparkler.
A sparkler–yes I see it now, though I didn’t make that connection at first. As you say, the “hope” hypo-sparkler is unusually slim–slim or slender hope. The little entranced eyes of the children watch a sparkler as if they are hypnotized as it waves around in the dark. Yikes! Thanks Dr. O’Feelgood, but I’m feeling much better now: I think I’ll just have an aspirin, please?!?!
I think the Obama effect is wearing off as shown in the poll numbers–he better hurry and give everyone another shot of Obamaphine–It’s only been 8 months and people are already admitting they have a problem and their lives are becoming unmanageable because of the radicals that took over the WH.
I had a friend about ten years ago who finally divorced her alcoholic creepy husband. But she had been so traumatized she started dating the first charmer that came along in hopes of feeling better. Well(and this is true) he turned out to be a thousand times worse than her alcoholic-she actually ended up in the hospital. So maybe BO should be called the rebound president.
I agree, cathn. The trance is wearing off even among the those who swooned to the “rapture.” The downward slide of Independents is pretty astounding.
I think voters did want change after 8 disastrous, costly years. But this simply wasn’t the change they were banking on.
“Obamaphine”–I like it! There are so many wonderful things you can do with POTUS’s name(s). For those of us who play around with words, it’s a godsend–like a President with big ears, a halo, and a messianic demeanor would be for a cartoonist. (Unless by some miracle Henry Waxman gets elected, there will probably never be another POTUS as cartoonogenic as O.) Obamaphine, Hopium, Barackodone, Husseinodine, but why not just call it what it is: Dope. And your brain gets fried on it.
Truly I am seeing a change here as well; the young one’s who were gung ho,are not amused. I had a wonderful discussion tonight with a young college student who identified he felt the one was trying to turn the younger generation against the boomers, and he felt insulted that he was being treated as if he was stupid. He understood divide and conquer. Now that is change I can believe in!
Mom? Dad? Is that really you? Oh God–I just had this horrible dream–there was this man with a fake halo that kept slipping down but his ears kept it up and he made us drink this awful Kool-Aid that made us all chant “Yes We Can, Yes We Can” over and over again until our throats got sore and he kept telling us he was going to take us to the Big Rock Candy Mountain on the Good Ship Lollipop but he never took us anywhere and there were all these horrible Czar-things who wouldn’t let us go anywhere or do anything except watch reruns of long boring speeches by the halo man and he kept turning his head back and forth while he was talking and O Mom! O Dad! I’m so glad to be back here in Kansas with you! There’s no place like home!
No shit!! ROFL. Oowawa, you have a great way with words. thank you for the laugh. feeling great tonight must be the mystery drug for the test, this is the first time in 2.5 years I have no physical pain whatsoever.
LOL Katmoon–I’m truly glad to hear you’re not hurting. I recall a severe arthritis? The “mystery drug for the test”? Kind of a double-blind thing? Wow–that would go right to the heart of thinking about the efficacy of a placebo–one of those tests where you don’t really know if you’re getting a placebo or the real thing? In my experience, everything mixes together into a hodge podge of confused associations: this cartoon and your experience–life is strange, and full of synchronicity.
I know weird huh, and thank you for your well wishes, I appreciate it.Yes that’s right RA, and the placebo/or not drug for Pfizer. Now there has been some hair loss but in the great scheme of things, I can get a weave if I get concerned, the pain thing, I can’t turn off. Yes double blind, but I am a gal who knows my body well. I would get a twinge of reminder pain right before the pm dose, not today. I had the tests yesterday and that was for the first three months, there was a reduction in swelling but not pain, so they took the too old bottles and gave me two new ones. took my afternoon nap, and I knew something was different when I woke up, but couldn’t figure it out. Then, I realized, no lobster pincer hands! I snapped my fingers; wow!
So no placebo here I don’t believe. I will not know until month six. But maybe in this case the blind will lead the blind, and I will actually be able to have this experiment offer some relief to others, that would be wonderful. I cannot take a H1N1 vaccine as that would foul the test, and to come full circle, I would much rather volunteer, willingly to take a possibly dangerous substance, or a placebo and share my good fortune, than be forced to take a flu vaccine that is also just as experimental, with no control group, under force.
“I take my chances; yeah, I don’t cling to remorse or regret
I take my chances; I take my chances every chance I get
I take my chances…
(Mary Chapin Carpenter)
My choice, my life my chance, not the government’s choice.
Well, my heartfelt best wishes. I know the pain can be excruciating with this ailment. “I take my chances . . . ” and you’ve got lots of dear animals to take care of, and to take care of you. Not to mention Ferd.
Kat does have her hands full, at that.
Katmoon—Here’s wishing for you continued pain-free episodes. Bless you, kiddo.
So kind of you Cindy and than you.
Hysterical, oowawa!
Classic!
As usual your clever toon highlights how a large number of Americans were sold a bill of goods and fell for it. During the campaign, I was amazed at how many of my friends were sucked in by the Obama mystique. One of them even covered the Hillary sticker on my car bumper with an Obama sticker. That lasted about 20 minutes till I got home and peeled it off. I am sure some of these friends now realize how duped they were by this chameleon who has not delivered on promises that were important to them. Who’s sorry now!
Pat, what a wonderfully illuminating persective.
Like Red said, “Hope is a dangerous thing, it can drive a man insane.”
Obama as the Placebo Man…”never smack”?
I really like the tension in your art work, My mind is trying to fill in who is attached to the arm and what shape they’re in.
Teak, you and oowawa! You guys see a lot more than I can. I just assumed that it was Obama’s hand
. But I like your observation better about the tension and that we actually don’t see who the hand is attached to. Very good..
I just assumed that it was Obama’s hand
.
==
Like the Hand of God in modern political terms, (for reference, Pat just shows the hand).
My Apologies to Pat, as this may seem off topic and not a source of my general taste, however there is a screen shot, and the topic is related to those of us who do not agree with this health care plan.
Is this their idea of hope and change? It’s obscene to see something like this was posted on o’s grass roots page before it was scrubbed. Source has the screenshot.
http://www.redstate.com/
For a placebo to work, it not only takes belief in the placebo but it also takes ignorance about what the placebo really is. I agree many people were depressed after 8 years of Bush but we must not forget that despite the continued war in Iraq that seemed to be going “south” in 2004, Bush was re-elected. I’ll never forget an acquaintance – a life-long democrat – who voted for Bush in 2004 because she liked Laura Bush and thought she was a good first lady.
I think there were a number of people who supported Obama in 2008 out of “sheer ignorance”. I wouldn’t be surprised if a sizable majority of these people either stayed home in 2004 or voted for Geo. W. simply because he was the “devil they knew”.
Great point – if you know it’s a placebo it won’t work. Ahhhh ignorance ignorance is part of his plan.
Nobody could say that about the Clintons.
Wasn’t it Maxine Walters, when she was on the campaign trail for Hillary, who said, “we don’t need HOPE we need HELP”?
Yes, it was.
Oh, but it FEELS so good!
Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
I think you guys are being too cynical. After all, Obama did prevent the end of the world in his first 100 days.
The over-riding strategy to date has been to demonize the objectors, demonize insurers, demonize providers.
Insurance is a “risk management” process.
Consumers may choose to contract with an insurance company, and may opt to cancel said contract.
It may be a different “tail” with Uncle Sam Proctologist!
Great cartoon Pat. I think Obama is a little like a placebo because some people mistakenly feel better. A true placebo should be inert and do no harm. Obama is a deadly cancer growing in our body politic. He wishes to destroy us a free people.