Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com By-wrangler-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-use
September 22, 2021,
Usually, typically, invariably, it knocks at your door when you least expect it and BOOM, you are right smack dab in the middle of it.
A crisis is virtually always unwanted but mostly unavoidable.
With a crisis, there is good news and extremely bad news.
Which one do you want to hear first?
Let’s start with the good news. If you survive a major crisis in your life, you will be stronger because of it and you will absolutely grow from it. You will never be the same person again. You will be a better person. Believe it.
Sometimes an entire society will be better off because of the principled stand that you took.
Now for the bad news.
Many times, you may not emotionally or physically survive a crisis. That is why it is called a crisis. It can be overwhelming and mentally and emotionally draining.
Heaven forbid if it is a crisis of conscience, now you have others involved who may try and impose their will upon you. You then have a decision to make. Cave in or stand up for your principles.
Easier said than done.
We turn to film to hopefully learn something without having to experience the crisis ourselves.
The Insider is a 1999 American drama film directed by Michael Mann, from a script adapted by Eric Roth and Mann from Marie Brenner‘s 1996 Vanity Fair article “The Man Who Knew Too Much”.
It stars Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, with supporting actors including Christopher Plummer, Bruce McGill, Diane Venora and Michael Gambon.
A fictionalized account of a true story, it is based on the 60 Minutes segment about Jeffrey Wigand, a whistleblower in the tobacco industry, covering his and CBS producer Lowell Bergman‘s struggles as they defend his testimony against efforts to discredit and suppress it by CBS and Wigand’s former employer.
If Mr. Wigand speaks out about the dangers of tobacco he would be violating a confidentiality agreement. Doing so could economically cost him his lifestyle and marriage.
What do you do? Remain silent? Do so and millions will continue to die.
Talk about a life crisis.
It is one of those situations where you wish you were anywhere but there. You wonder how you fell into this situation.
The master reviewers at rogerebert.com infuse, “Wigand possesses information from the tobacco industry not only proving that nicotine is addictive (which the presidents of seven cigarette companies had denied under oath before Congress), but that additives were used to make it more addictive–and one of the additives was a known carcinogen!”
Mr. Wigand paid a massive price in standing up for principle in his life crisis and now the world, through a masterful film, will remember him forever as a hero for doing so.
What if he had just taken the money and remained silent?
Not only would the world not remember him, he in the privacy of his thought would never forget what he didn’t do.
What are the root causes of a national crisis?
Often it stems around human dishonesty, corruption, not standing up for what is right and very bad leadership.
There is an opioid crisis in the United States.
According to drugabuse.gov, “In 2019, nearly 50,000 people in the United States died from opioid-involved overdoses. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.”
Criminal justice involvement means massive criminal involvement.
On June 17, 2021, the team at bloomberg.com add, “Before the Covid-19 pandemic was the drug epidemic. Its relentless toll added a record 90,722 overdose deaths in the U.S. for the year through November 2020.”
Its reach is spreading.
The article goes on to share that at some white-collar companies, only 4 out of 10 applicants can pass a drug test, with many showing recent opioid use.
How did this crisis all begin? With the usual suspects.
The government agency at drugabuse.gov educates, “In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive.”
An exceptional film that speaks to this is appropriately titled, Crisis.
Crisis is a 2021 crime thriller film written, produced and directed by Nicholas Jarecki. The film stars Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer, Evangeline Lilly, Greg Kinnear, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, and Lily-Rose Depp, with Scott Mescudi, and Martin Donovan.
Here is the storyline.
Set against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic, three stories follow a drug trafficker arranging a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation; an architect, recovering from oxycodone addiction, searching for her missing son; and a university professor who battles unexpected revelations about his employer at a pharmaceutical company, bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market.
The professor, masterfully played by Gary Oldman, has some very tough decisions to make in terms of alerting the public that this new-fangled painkiller is actually very addictive and deadly.
What was intriguing is how those in University leadership positions reacted to his principled behavior, including having his tenure removed and eventually firing him.
The leaders at the drug company made a compelling case that many will indeed benefit from this drug, even if others die. Is it up to him to play God and decide that this drug should never make it to market?
Who did the FDA, representing the United States Government support?
Who do you think? It is always about the leaders. Money talks.
Our heroic professor was offered the usual enticements, primarily funding and the usual threats, job loss, lawsuits and being publicly discredited.
Yet, through it all, yes he wavered and yet finally stood firm.
The question we have for all of us as a society is, when people are willing to stick their necks out and face a firing squad from many powerful angles, to bring to light something that we all need to know about that could save millions of lives, do we support them?
If we don’t, that is an even greater crisis than the one from which the deadly societal impacting crisis originated.
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OPENING PHOTO Femcompetitor.com, grapplingstars.com, fciwomenswrestling.com, fcielitecompetitor.com, fciwomenswrestling2.com By-wrangler-Shutterstock-photo-credit-Editorial-us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insider_(film)
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-insider-1999
https://www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis
https://www.fcielitecompetitor.com/
https://fciwomenswrestling.com/
