Big Pharma Pud Sucking Doesn't Always Involve Drugs. It Does, However, Almost Always Involve Money And Screwing People.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave my friends, you can be forced to sell your property to the government at any time. You may be surprised to hear this, but it's right in the constitution to which every elected official and member of the armed services of this country swears allegiance. Don't worry though, the Bill of Rights protects you by limiting this power to the confiscation of property "for public use." You know, like an airport, a highway right of way, or research facility for Pfizer, the multinational drug company.

Some of you may have just read that and be saying to yourselves, "Uh, hold on there Drugmonkey, one of those things is not like the other. I don't see how building something for Pfizer would constitute a public purpose"

To which I would say you are obviously not a member of the decision making class of New London Connecticut, a city which in the 1990's decided to bulldoze one of its neighborhoods in order to lure Pfizer to town. They also gave Pfizer a 10 year tax abatement.

"Not to worry" said the residents of the neighborhood. "We have the 5th Amendment to protect us. We'll just get a lawyer and take care of this"

So they got a lawyer. And started a fight with general principles of human decency and the U.S. Constitution on one side, and giant corporate interests and billions of dollars of profit on the other. Do I really need to tell you who won? In one of its most notorious decisions in recent history, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in 2005 that sucking Pfizer's corporate dick did indeed constitute a public purpose. The neighborhood was bulldozed. Let freedom ring.

Before I get to the olive in the martini of this story, let's have a quick word from Pfizer:

Pfizer fully supports the principles in United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the International Labour Organization Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and strives to uphold human rights in all our business activities.

I didn't make that up. I cut and pasted it right from their website.

OK now, where was I? The part where Pfizer came into the bulldozed neighborhood, built their research park, and created thousands of good paying jobs for the people of New London? Let's see how that turned out:

Eight years after opening its state-of-the-art global research-and-development headquarters in New London, Pfizer Inc. announced Monday it will close the nearly $300 million complex within the next two years and consolidate local operations into its Groton campus.

So they'll be padlocking the door right as that tax abatement expires. Funny how that worked out.

"It's very unfortunate what's happened here." said Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler. "Sadly, the economic climate just wasn't conducive to us actually paying property tax to the community that was willing to throw people out of their homes in order to give us some prime waterfront office space. I want to announce today though, that Pfizer will be doing the right thing by those we made homeless. In keeping with our commitment to human rights, we will be spending $5.8 million dollars over the next 5 years to reconstruct new houses for all those we displaced."

"BBBWWWWAAAAHHHHHHAAAAHHHHAAAAHHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!" He then added. "Had you there for a second, didn't I?" Human rights, oh yeah....we totally support human rights, right up to the point where it's gonna cost us something."

You know I made that quote up. What I'm not making up is the fact that Pfizer's stock price jumped 3 percent the day they announced they were fucking the town of New London, or that their 2008 profit worked out to $22 million dollars a day.

Enjoy your freedom.