Addiction and my Cat-didate

Dear Mouse,

The mother who blamed the whole universe except herself in the article of Cranial Activity is an addict.

According to Jennifer Nelson, if Americans have an addiction, it is an addiction to suing others for problems brought on by their own behavior and choices.

Americans' Real Addiction Is To Lawsuits

Jennifer Nelson, Special to SF Gate

Are your pants a little snug? Are you dreading having to put a bathing suit on this summer? If you are overweight, whose fault is it? Yours? Or McDonald's?

John Banzhaf, a professor of legal activism at George Washington University Law School who was instrumental in the successful class-action lawsuits against the tobacco companies, has said he believes fast food has "addictive-like" properties.

If Americans have an addiction, it is an addiction to suing others for problems brought on by their own behavior and choices.

Take tobacco, for example. Cigarette packs have carried warning labels since the mid-1960s. Cigarette advertising has been banned from radio and television since 1969. Schools have long been teaching children -- as early as kindergarten -- that cigarettes are unhealthy.

Yet politicians and trial lawyers made big headlines -- and money -- off suing the tobacco industry in the 1990s, blaming it for making tobacco-related illnesses the leading cause of death in America.

Certainly, tobacco companies spend a great deal of money advertising their product and making it seem cool to smoke. But, seriously, no one under the age of 50 can possibly say he or she was unaware that tobacco is unhealthy and can cause terminal illnesses before he or she started to smoke. And those over 50 have certainly known for decades that the habit can kill them. Yet people still choose to buy cigarettes and put them in their mouth. Why should R.J. Reynolds be responsible for the illness of someone who knowingly purchases and smokes cigarettes with the full knowledge that tobacco is unhealthy and addictive?

The same goes for Burger King and Taco Bell. No one is forcing people to eat at these fast-food chains. Certainly, the companies spend a great deal on advertising -- most large businesses with a product to sell do. But even a snazzy commercial doesn't force a person into one of these stores -- that's a personal decision.

Similarly, we Filipinos blame everybody but ourselves for the economic and political environment we are in.

We blame the low-income people and the unlettered majority for selling their votes. We blame the corrupt officials. We blame the media and we blame the Church.

According to Benito Lim,

“But in this country, in marked contrast to the United States, a high percentage of lower-income people vote, as high as 80 percent. In part it is because the country's 40,000 village leaders make sure they do, often by handing out $10 to $20 as an incentive.

But the poor also vote "out of conviction," he said, believing the politicians' promises of jobs, health care and school for their children. “

What he failed to mention was the other “g incentives" in order to be sure that they do not cheat by pocketing the money and voting their own candidates---the guns and the goons. These private armies' mission from their employers during election is to terrorize the voters . They were made to believe that they will know who they voted for.

Lim’s other observation was that his students say they cannot be bothered to register to vote because they feel they cannot make a difference, which he finds alarming.

It is not only the students who are suffused with the doomed scenario of hopelessness —even the intellectuals. So they abstain from voting. In case the elected official reneged in his promise, they wash their hands like Pontius Pilate. --- I did not vote for him…

I said they--that means I am excluded…(di ba we always exclude ourselves) Besides, di naman ako kasama sa mga intellectuals and on this election, I will go out and vote.
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EDDIE GIL FOR PRESIDENT—arekup..bakit ba ninyo ako binabato ng kamatis. LROCO nga ako, hindi naman POE ako sirang sira.

The CA t