Sick Dreams of Republican Youth

[donsu]

http://www.buzzflash.com/mailbag/05/06/mai05157.html

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Subject: Sick Dreams of Republican Youth

If there was ever an example of why young republicans need intensive therapy, it's the following quote from a NYT article on Heritage Foundation internships.

Katherine Rogers, a junior at Georgetown, is spending the summer in the Keith and Lois Mitchell room, on the Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Smyth floor, just upstairs from the Norma Zindahl Intern Lounge, which is adjacent to the William J. Lehrfeld Intern Center. Ms. Rogers's father is a longtime Heritage donor, and she is working in donor relations, which she thinks will be useful in her intended career as a pharmaceutical lobbyist.

A pharmaceutical lobbyist? What kind of a young person dreams of that for a lifework?

John Dadmun
Louisville, KY
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a brainwashed young person

[kittenpants]

1. what a noble goal! fighting for the poor, under-represented

pharmaceutical giants. :eyes:

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Sees big money as a pharmaceutical lobbyist, and no "hard work"

Nice car, nice clothes, fine dining, hanging around Washington bribing people. What's not to like?

[NSRose]

3. The New Republic wrote a blurb on this:

PLANNING BORED: In yesterday's New York Times, Jason DeParle writes about the Heritage Foundation's cushy summer internship program for young conservative activists and intellectuals. One sentence in particular stands out: "Katherine Rogers, a junior at Georgetown ... is working in donor relations, which she thinks will be useful in her intended career as a pharmaceutical lobbyist."

Yes, you read that correctly. The earnest young right-wing politico dreams not of a job where she learns new things every day, or grapples with ideas, or experiences the satisfaction of helping other people. She dreams of shilling for a self-interested corporation. And forget the political implications. What junior in college dreams of lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry?

This anecdote may appear to confirm the crudest stereotype about conservatives: that they are greedy. But it is also a reminder of something more disturbing: Many contemporary conservatives see no distinction between the interests of big business and conservative ideology. This crony capitalist conservatism, the sort of conservatism practiced by the Bush administration, isn't true economic conservatism. A true economic conservative believes that government should not favor one company over another or one industry over another so as not to pervert the will of the free market. The pharmaceutical lobbyist, on the other hand, believes the government should favor her company or her industry regardless of whether it creates inefficiency in the economy as a whole. If this perversion of conservative ideals has taken hold even among the youngest members of the right, then what currently passes for economic conservatism is only going to grow even less intellectually honest in the years to come. On the plus side, though, the pharmaceutical industry should stay healthy.

[FreedomAngel82]

4. Oh brother

This girl seems so lazy. Why wouldn't you want to work on something bigger for yourself? :shrug:

[sui generis]

5. nope - just a greedy parasite

pharma lobbyists are one of the highest paying lobby positions you can hold.

Unfortunately it almost always requires both a law degree, some kind of pharma education, and scads of experience, and those jobs, btw are already filled.

So little Miss Evil Empire here's the way it will really play out:

you're going to go to college, flunk out of law school and end up at one of those "special" christian law schools. You'll get your degree, get married to another lawyer who thinks you should quit your career and have babies and fold his underwear - meanwhile, back at the ranch, he'll get jail time for embezzling and diddling hairless young men in his spare time and that's when you'll discover that you have to go back to work. You'll get a part-time job as a grunt attorney for Bristol Meyer Squibb making less money than the executive admins, and you'll be BITTER. About that time your five year old daughter will come out to you as a diesel dyke cylinder head gasket changing plaid shirt wearing peterbuilt mullet sportin' lesbian, and your oldest boy will tell you he's pretty sure he's an atheist, and a democrat.

Eventually, by sleeping with your boss, and her husband you get assigned to the away team in D.C. You show up for work at the lobby offices, and realize you're still making less money than even the manager's admin. And you're BITTER. Eventually you run a cheesy cable ad for PI work since the hospital entrance is right across the street and you can pick up some extra bucks on lunch chasing ambulances until one day when a kind old senator assumes you are a lady of the evening and offers to pay for your services, at which point you will realize you have sold your soul to the devil and your ass to satan.

Have a nice life, and don't spend it all in one place.

[Dr.Phool]

6. Maybe she wants to be the next Donna Rice

Go around boinking married presidential candidates, then take a job as a spokesman for some loony right-wing stink tank.