Philip Seymour Hoffman dies aged 46

[Rallywagon]

That wasn't the intent of my post, to suggest he was infallible because he was rich. I was responding to you suggesting....


He wasn't treated like scum he was a celebrated actor who had the world by the tail.

He wasn't locked up behind bars nor left to squander in the dregs of society he lived in the lap of luxury and could afford any kind of private treatment he desired.

If you read what I wrote, then you would see that I said this "I'm not trying to absolve him of responsibility for his own death"
Further, I didn't say he was, or wasn't treated like scum, I specifically generalized here. See " To many addicts are treated like criminals and the scum of society" His name is not tied in there.

His case has nothing to do with society or government spending or anything else along those lines. Like a lot of things, addiction is a much more complictated issue than most of us realize and simply throwing money at it, the government solution to all ills, isn't always the right answer, but it does look good on the news. It's always nice to have a scapegoat, even one that's completely irrelevant to the situation.

I disagree here, though I don't remember saying anything about throwing money at anything, it is a great place to start. My point was that we do not look to cure, we look to treat. Why is that? Because treatment makes companies money, curing does not. For another great outside example of just this phenomena, take a look at cancer. More specifically, the Susan Komen Foundation, who touts "A fight of the cure" as their motto, only spends a small percentage on finding a cure. Where does most the money go? In "treatment." Treatment is a FAR cry for a cure. But if you look at that "treatment" then what you find is that even that money, money donoted to them, goes to pharmaceutical companies. These companies exist to make a profit, people not being sick with cancer, makes them no money. They have a vest interest in keeping people just well enough to live as long as possible, to keep selling them their drugs. The same goes with addictions. To quote my rhetoric, "This man is addicted to drugs, so let's give him these drugs, to help him stop using those." I feel it safe to assume, the same guy would follow up by saying. "Sure, its just as addictive and unsafe, but at least he's giving us his money instead of to someone else." The idea here isn't to cure, or ever treat, its to keep money flowing in the the pharma corps. Instead of receiving help, most addicts are treated as criminals and thrown into a system that generally makes things worse.

Now, all of that said, I do question whether he was out there trying to receive real help, if the current news reports are to be believed. Lots of heroin sure doesn't look like an addict trying to quit. Nor does 70 bags sound like it was all personal either...
Regardless, addiction is a real issue, that isn't getting the real attention it should. Regardless of who it kills.

 

[a6m5]

It's a heavy movie - 3hrs and very melancholic - but equally as thought provoking.

Just finished watching Synedoche, New York & I also highly recommend this film. Philip Seymour Hoffman was amazing in it...... You have a whole new respect for the actor after seeing this film. However, what was far more amazing to me was the film itself. I'm so stupid I can watch this film twenty more times & still won't be able to understand half of it, but just the parts that you take away from it alone are more meaningful than a hundred Hollywood blockbusters(that I love ) you may see.

This film can be extremely confusing in the way the reality overlap, or mixes with fantasy, not to mention the progression of decades worth of time(and that's just the story telling!), but it made (enough)sense for me in the last fifteen minutes.

Next time I hop on Netflix, I'm rating it five stars. 👍