Americans are wondering out loud why we’re getting ripped off by giant insurance companies when every other developed country in the world has healthcare as a right…
This is yet another example of how racism hurts many people, including those who are not its intended targets. It remains one of the most destructive forces in this country.
I agree. Just this morning, before Thom published, we were in a conversation about the economy.
A comment by Harvey Krevitz: "The billionaire class running the show are capitalists in name only (CINOs). In reality, they function as oligarchs or plutocrats. They fail to grasp—or deliberately ignore—that while capitalism offers many benefits, it inherently drives wealth toward the top of the economic pyramid. For capitalism to function equitably, wealth *must* be redistributed through taxation. Yet, this essential mechanism of redistribution is precisely what oligarchs oppose."
I responded in part. "I only know a few people who were CEOs but whenever we'd talk, I'd always ask why they did not support Medicare for all. I'd have to tell them about the collateral source rule, and remind them they could lay off exposure for future medical, health insurance, and that it would cut the cost of stuff like workers comp, liabilty insurance, etc......
"I think that if I were a corporate raider, or for that matter, a shareholder. that would be a reason to attack management."
Daniel, employee benefits are tax deductible,and more importantly they keep people "enslaved" to an employer,We've heard or read it many times, that if benefits were portable, employers would have to be more careful and considerate. As it is they are virtually enslaved to their employer.
My wife is a retired building official, her benefits were portable, PERS, and every municipality offers health care. If you don't like the way management treats you in in one jurisdiction, you just interview for a job in another. And in many cases jurisdictions are close enough together that you don't have to uproot yourself and your children.
As if they don't get sued. The savings in liability exposure standing alone should be huge, even if they can write them off. It reduces the cost of goods sold from an accounting standpoint.
This why cars made in Windsor, Canada, are more profitable than if made across the river in Detroit.
I have a piece of shit 2001 PT Cruiser, only 22,000 miles, electronics are crap,key fob doesn't work, tire delaminated, it was built in Mexico, shipped to Quebec, transshipped to Victoria BC and then shipped to Burlington, WA were I bought it for $25,000 way over price, because my wife thought it would be a classic.
Chrysler cars are POS, especially their Vans, transmission go out at 60,000 miles or sooner, their Jeeps have ignition problems..
They sport wire antennas that went out in the 1990's.
Mercedes bought Chrysler, then unloaded it to Fiat, and Fiat was bought out by Stellantis, and not a dollar has been spent on correcting problems or updating....This is not planned obsolescence but they are obsolete on the production line
America was always about making a profit, otherwise there is no reason to invest, built a company or an industry, but it has degraded now to where they are nothing but financial institutions, and delivering a product is secondary to their real business.
One imagines that the real business of insurance company is insurance. It is not. back in the 1980's when I was working on my masters, the largest farmer in the country was Prudential.
Insurance companies are financial investors, and their principal owners are the same that own most media, PhrMA, health Chemical and even defense indusries like Raytheon, Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Group
It's true that they have interlocking corporate boards, whch IMHO should be a violation of the Clayton Act.
From an investment standpoint, "growth" has eclipsed "value" investing. The real business is scamming their own investors, employees and customers.
But I bet Putin views these captains of industry as marks. "One theory is that he has "strongarmed Russia's oligarchs" into handing over cash and shares in companies, "threatening them with arrest or worse" should they refuse, said CNN."
"Another is the "mafia model", said Forbes, in which Putin helps friends and family members "become rich by awarding them government contracts or ownership in businesses" and in return receives "kickbacks"."
The Putin model is shortly to become the Trump model. Worse he is going to rebrand America as Trumplandia.
I is just historically conversation Daniel, but IIRC it all started under Reagan with the the Merger and Acquisition mania.
The business model shifted from production to financialization, and now it has shifted again. To a subscription based economy,, everything from software to TV.
There are a lot of services missing out on my money, because I will not subscribe, because it is a pain and near impossible to cancel. This includes Haaretz and substack, I've made an exception for Thom Hartmann and Robert Reich, I do have Dish because nothing else is available,not even over he air, and my wife signed up for Netflix. My ISP, my wife's Cell service,
I am still using Windows 7, and my Office 2007 is just fine But almost everything I have an interest in these days is subscription, with automatic renewal and I am just not that interested
A person couldn't pay their utility bill if they signed up for all of the streaming services, substacks and news services that interested them.
Then there is the charities, Yegads its $19 a month for this, $19 a month for that, there is no end to it, and politician and political parties are forever trying to get into your wallet, even after they lost an election or won it,it doesn' t stop.
I have a couple of favorite charities and I donate big to them, but they are one time donations, and they give me the option, if they didn't I would not donate at all.
What sours me on politicians and charities (I worked for the Red Cross) is that basically the donor is paying for the mortgages and lifestyle of well paid executives and employees. Politics is worse, you have armies of professionals, fund raisers, strategists, analysts, lobbyists, if they were all fired DC would be a ghost town, and you could drive in peace in NY.
It's amazing how concern trollers from Frederick Hoffman(n) to the present-day white supremacists can throw up a gumbo of damned lies and statistics to "prove" what they have always felt. And people are so ready to accept such nonsense at face value because they have always yearned for a "scientific" rationalization for their brutal prejudices.
The myth of the rugged individual in the frontier, particularly the west, combined with prejudice of other groups has been devastating. People have always needed to be cooperative to survive, but we are too easily manipulated by the pride of the self-made man. But our founding documents and religious tenants say otherwise. “We the people” and “love your neighbor” are simple but powerful!
And isn't that a myth, the rugged individual. By avocation I am a genetic genealogist,and I have done a lot of research, reading not only documents, but scouring census, deeds, wills and reading long out of date books.
Those of us with long roots in America have ancestors that packed up and moved every generation, either because the land had gone fallow due to monocultuure or because of fecundity, the older son inherited the property of Dad and younger sons had to pack up and move to newly opened land.
And when they moved it wasn't a single ox drawn wagon it was in the company of family and friends, groups of families razed (to collect nails) and then raised homes and barns together, There were no rugged individuals.
After the Creek Indian war in Georgia, the federal road, created by an infantry company out of Columbus, became an interstate highway, with thousands of Georgians and South Carolinian's flooding into Alabama and Mississippi. One traveler,on horseback, noted that as far as he could see in either direction thee was nothing but a trail of wagons and slaves..
Travel at most was 10 miles a day, and they would stop to camp, and eat before sunset, everyone one pitched in.
In 1848, the pastor of Ocmulgee Baptist Church owned cotton land that became fallow, so he put together a wagon train of people related to is wife, and driving slaves and cattle before them it took a month to reach Union Parish, LA. losing quite a few cattle and slaves on the trip.
When they arrived at their destination, all of the kin folk helped each other in establishing their own homesteads, none of them could do it own their own.
Yeh, kind of blows away the myth of Christian charity, or even Christians helping each other.
I lived with my uncle an ordained southern baptist preacher who built his church from a chicken coop, with his own hands until he could con his congregation into backing a building fund and turn it into a brick church.
I am more than familiar with Christian charity, hypocrisy and bigotry.
Great writing! I would add that Ronald Reagan was hired by the American Medical Association in the sixties to air radio and later TV spots linking government health care with communism. Much later we find out that the AMA’s concern was really about racism. At the time many hospitals were segregated as were medical practices. Medicare for all would have given blacks the right to demand equal health care.
Let's hope the economic slap of tariffs and mass deportations will sting so much even Fox viewers will understand what happened. Maybe then democrats will get behind the revolution instead of defensively reacting to it, with health care, climate and truth in the news at the top of the agenda...
I am sure Sabrinia that what you say will come to pass, but I am also sure that Trump and his clown car of criminals, will blame the misfortune on the libs and minority populations, unless they can find an external threat, a new Pearl Harbor.
Something else too. People who feel they have to stay at companies and work they really dislike just for the health benefits are tied to their jobs almost like Medieval serfs were tied to their farms. And I am sure employers like it this way.
Bravo for a great article & information that was not on my radar regards the history of healthcare in our nation & the man called Frederick Hoffman.
".......In this, Koch and his Libertarian friends were echoing Frederick Hoffman.
In his 1896 book Race Traits, Hoffman laid out his “scientific” assertion that when government steps in to help people, it invariably ends up hurting them instead. Not only should there be no government assistance given to help African Americans recover from three centuries of property theft, forced labor, and legal violence, but it is scientifically wrong to even consider the idea.
White people and government programs to better the lives of Black people, Hoffman wrote, deserve “the most severe condemnation of modern attempts of superior races to lift inferior races to their own elevated position.”
The damage done to Black people by offering them any sort of help, government assistance, or even a minimum wage, he wrote, is “criminal” behavior for a “civilized people.”
In the same way that AA citizens of Ferguson, MO were paying local taxes and gratuitous fines, to be profiled, abused, imprisoned, and occasionally shot dead by a tax-funded, occupying army (i.e. Police Dept.), in that same way did Prudential encourage states and the Feds to kick tax-paying AAs in the teeth by turning their backs on them.
Denying AAs healthcare, but charging them 1/3 extra to insure them against such an inevitable loss of teeth.
Diabolically genius, if more than a tad cruel, vicious, and sick. With one tragic flaw, it hurt poor Whites in the same way, except for the greater insurance premiums.
Thank you for this. So much to consider and share. I published a piece several days ago and it has certainly sparked a lot of conversation - a lot of bipartisan conversation. With 62% of Americans wanting some type of single payer system, calls for change need to remain loud and clear.
Thank you. I’m sharing this fabulous piece with many. We’ve been so brainwashed and poorly educated for so long in the public school system that few Americans can even distinguish fact from opinion and commentary. Its too a large extent why we are where we are. Thank you.
I am left with the question of why so many people, especially whites, are receptive to ideas and beliefs such as those Hoffman spread about racial inferiority and the nonsense about poor and minorities becoming dependent on aid when it is provided as a temporary or emergency helping hand. I suspect that one has to have a constitutional or elemental tendency toward selfishness, envy, irrationality, mean-spiritedness, or the need to feel superior to buy into these irrational "theories" and sales pitches. There can be no doubt that Hoffman himself and most of the so-called scientists who promoted eugenics as a justification of discrimination and neglect or abuse had a fundamental personal belief system or world-view which was hard, cold, and cynical. How much of this is a consequence of capitalist ideology and the dog-eat-dog mentality of life in the industrial age? How much is the result of wealth justifying its own existence?
My eldest grandson inadvertently gave me a metaphor that I would like to see become a meme. The obscenely wealthy are a dead weight around our neck. (He was actually speaking about another kind of dead weight.) They are the over-indulged, spoiled children who are typically unproductive and anti-social who no longer contribute anything of value to society, if they ever did. Who needs them?
Rosenthal's "An American Sickness" is another good book on our medical extortion system, along with Thom's "The Hidden History of American Healthcare."
Outstanding and salient piece. However, when I consider the overall context, it exhibits to me the inability of this society to confront its Anti-Blackism. "Racism" is what other non-Europeans experience, but Anti-Blackism is a specialized, vicious and pernicious form of racism. From U.S. not being humans, but property (as articulated in the U.S. Constitution), to enslavement, to voter suppression, to lynching to police murder, the society has a problem being honest in that WE are subjected to things no other group is. For instance, you, quite accurately, point out that "Blacks" are the reason why there is no national health care. Logic, and reality, must extrapolate from that that sans Black People in the United States, there would exist such a thing (for Asians, European-Americans, Latinos, etc). Which is true. That is why those other groups will refer to a Black Person in the United States as a "nigger" in a heartbeat.
This tragedy will never be eliminated because of the manner in which we arrived here on "The Island." So, as Donald Trump promises to "deport" millions, I suggest he "deport" those of U.S. who wish to leave. Now, many on "The Island" (or plantation) love Massa and would opt to stay. But I guarantee you a whole bunch of U.S. will take the offer. The fact that the largest deportation in the history of the planet was what is, in Whiteyspeak, "the North Atlantic Slave Trade" of Alkebulanians to North America from crime to time notwithstanding, why does this country not rid itself of its problem?
I think I've told you previously that my dad attended Geneva College when eugenics was a required science class. He learned that our people are inferior, have criminal tendencies, are often feeble minded, and can't benefit from a liberal education. Guess who got the top grade?
I also remind you that during the early part of the 20th century, many states had eugenic programs. The targets in many places were Melungeons and Lumbee "Indians." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon
There isn't a black M.F. anywhere in the United States that has a casino. Though we, singularly, gave it its so-called "wealth." Lastly, I don't know you and you don't know me, we have never had a conversation and I am unaware of who "our" people are. Ergo, you don't "tell" me anything.
There are several Black-owned casinos, including the Richmond Grand Resort & Casino in Richmond, Virginia and Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Indiana:
Richmond Grand Resort & Casino
A $562 million casino project in Richmond, Virginia, developed by Urban One Inc. in partnership with Churchill Downs Inc. The casino will include a 250-room hotel, a 3,000-seat concert venue, media production studios, and a 55-acre public park.
Majestic Star Casino
Located on two boats in Buffington Harbor, Gary, Indiana, this casino features keno machines, live blackjack dealers, and R&B and hip hop music. Don Hamilton Barden was the first Black casino owner in Las Vegas, acquiring Fitzgeralds Las Vegas in 2001.
Majestic Star was taken over by Europeans in 2018; November to be exact. In November 2018, the company agreed to be acquired by Spectacle Entertainment, a new firm owned primarily by two Indiana-based investors. Richmond does not yet exist. Eugenics, like all racism, including many holocausts, is a European construct executed by Europeans and was considered "science." I cannot tell if you are Jewish, homosexual, heterosexual, Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or effing monk...by looking at you (potential garb and adornment notwithstanding). I trust your considerable intellect arrives at the desired destination.
So, again, European-American, you come with false equivalencies. Then you have the temerity to suggest you are something other than that in the amorphous mass of electronic nothingness known as "cyberspace." Funny how you people will hurry up and claim, as in Snow White Elizabeth Warren, that you are "Native-American," but nary one of you ever claim to be Alkebulanian (one drop rule, can you dig it) and a bunch of you ARE.
My ORIGINAL AMERICAN ancestors (Choctaw) were at home before my enslaved Alkebulanian ones arrived to The Island. They, therefore, were familiar with the geography, the topography, the flora, the fauna, food sources and climatic conditions. Matter of fact, the Original American is the only M.F. in the so-called United States that is not an interloper. The DIFFERENCE, for U.S., is that WE were forced to come to THIS "shithole" which could not exist without the other "shitholes." We remain treated accordingly.
Now, you have received ALL of the attention I might muster whilst you drown in your denialistic intoxication.
Odd that the final solution is still active in killing people today. Misinformation is the stain of society and the greatness of America. I wish truth had as much influence as misinformation.
The tenacity with which these White Supremacists attack Native Americans , Blacks and any people of color are evil.
I feel like the designation of evil towards these made up ‘Scientific’ haters is becoming more and more appropriate every day .
The White Christian flame throwers , fired at anyone who does not share their twisted beliefs regarding their made up version of Christianity and their superiority gets uglier everyday .
This is yet another example of how racism hurts many people, including those who are not its intended targets. It remains one of the most destructive forces in this country.
I agree. Just this morning, before Thom published, we were in a conversation about the economy.
A comment by Harvey Krevitz: "The billionaire class running the show are capitalists in name only (CINOs). In reality, they function as oligarchs or plutocrats. They fail to grasp—or deliberately ignore—that while capitalism offers many benefits, it inherently drives wealth toward the top of the economic pyramid. For capitalism to function equitably, wealth *must* be redistributed through taxation. Yet, this essential mechanism of redistribution is precisely what oligarchs oppose."
I responded in part. "I only know a few people who were CEOs but whenever we'd talk, I'd always ask why they did not support Medicare for all. I'd have to tell them about the collateral source rule, and remind them they could lay off exposure for future medical, health insurance, and that it would cut the cost of stuff like workers comp, liabilty insurance, etc......
"I think that if I were a corporate raider, or for that matter, a shareholder. that would be a reason to attack management."
Daniel, employee benefits are tax deductible,and more importantly they keep people "enslaved" to an employer,We've heard or read it many times, that if benefits were portable, employers would have to be more careful and considerate. As it is they are virtually enslaved to their employer.
My wife is a retired building official, her benefits were portable, PERS, and every municipality offers health care. If you don't like the way management treats you in in one jurisdiction, you just interview for a job in another. And in many cases jurisdictions are close enough together that you don't have to uproot yourself and your children.
As if they don't get sued. The savings in liability exposure standing alone should be huge, even if they can write them off. It reduces the cost of goods sold from an accounting standpoint.
This why cars made in Windsor, Canada, are more profitable than if made across the river in Detroit.
I have a piece of shit 2001 PT Cruiser, only 22,000 miles, electronics are crap,key fob doesn't work, tire delaminated, it was built in Mexico, shipped to Quebec, transshipped to Victoria BC and then shipped to Burlington, WA were I bought it for $25,000 way over price, because my wife thought it would be a classic.
Chrysler cars are POS, especially their Vans, transmission go out at 60,000 miles or sooner, their Jeeps have ignition problems..
They sport wire antennas that went out in the 1990's.
Mercedes bought Chrysler, then unloaded it to Fiat, and Fiat was bought out by Stellantis, and not a dollar has been spent on correcting problems or updating....This is not planned obsolescence but they are obsolete on the production line
America was always about making a profit, otherwise there is no reason to invest, built a company or an industry, but it has degraded now to where they are nothing but financial institutions, and delivering a product is secondary to their real business.
One imagines that the real business of insurance company is insurance. It is not. back in the 1980's when I was working on my masters, the largest farmer in the country was Prudential.
Insurance companies are financial investors, and their principal owners are the same that own most media, PhrMA, health Chemical and even defense indusries like Raytheon, Vanguard, Blackrock and State Street Group
It's true that they have interlocking corporate boards, whch IMHO should be a violation of the Clayton Act.
From an investment standpoint, "growth" has eclipsed "value" investing. The real business is scamming their own investors, employees and customers.
But I bet Putin views these captains of industry as marks. "One theory is that he has "strongarmed Russia's oligarchs" into handing over cash and shares in companies, "threatening them with arrest or worse" should they refuse, said CNN."
"Another is the "mafia model", said Forbes, in which Putin helps friends and family members "become rich by awarding them government contracts or ownership in businesses" and in return receives "kickbacks"."
The Putin model is shortly to become the Trump model. Worse he is going to rebrand America as Trumplandia.
I is just historically conversation Daniel, but IIRC it all started under Reagan with the the Merger and Acquisition mania.
The business model shifted from production to financialization, and now it has shifted again. To a subscription based economy,, everything from software to TV.
There are a lot of services missing out on my money, because I will not subscribe, because it is a pain and near impossible to cancel. This includes Haaretz and substack, I've made an exception for Thom Hartmann and Robert Reich, I do have Dish because nothing else is available,not even over he air, and my wife signed up for Netflix. My ISP, my wife's Cell service,
I am still using Windows 7, and my Office 2007 is just fine But almost everything I have an interest in these days is subscription, with automatic renewal and I am just not that interested
A person couldn't pay their utility bill if they signed up for all of the streaming services, substacks and news services that interested them.
Then there is the charities, Yegads its $19 a month for this, $19 a month for that, there is no end to it, and politician and political parties are forever trying to get into your wallet, even after they lost an election or won it,it doesn' t stop.
I have a couple of favorite charities and I donate big to them, but they are one time donations, and they give me the option, if they didn't I would not donate at all.
What sours me on politicians and charities (I worked for the Red Cross) is that basically the donor is paying for the mortgages and lifestyle of well paid executives and employees. Politics is worse, you have armies of professionals, fund raisers, strategists, analysts, lobbyists, if they were all fired DC would be a ghost town, and you could drive in peace in NY.
It's amazing how concern trollers from Frederick Hoffman(n) to the present-day white supremacists can throw up a gumbo of damned lies and statistics to "prove" what they have always felt. And people are so ready to accept such nonsense at face value because they have always yearned for a "scientific" rationalization for their brutal prejudices.
The myth of the rugged individual in the frontier, particularly the west, combined with prejudice of other groups has been devastating. People have always needed to be cooperative to survive, but we are too easily manipulated by the pride of the self-made man. But our founding documents and religious tenants say otherwise. “We the people” and “love your neighbor” are simple but powerful!
And isn't that a myth, the rugged individual. By avocation I am a genetic genealogist,and I have done a lot of research, reading not only documents, but scouring census, deeds, wills and reading long out of date books.
Those of us with long roots in America have ancestors that packed up and moved every generation, either because the land had gone fallow due to monocultuure or because of fecundity, the older son inherited the property of Dad and younger sons had to pack up and move to newly opened land.
And when they moved it wasn't a single ox drawn wagon it was in the company of family and friends, groups of families razed (to collect nails) and then raised homes and barns together, There were no rugged individuals.
After the Creek Indian war in Georgia, the federal road, created by an infantry company out of Columbus, became an interstate highway, with thousands of Georgians and South Carolinian's flooding into Alabama and Mississippi. One traveler,on horseback, noted that as far as he could see in either direction thee was nothing but a trail of wagons and slaves..
Travel at most was 10 miles a day, and they would stop to camp, and eat before sunset, everyone one pitched in.
In 1848, the pastor of Ocmulgee Baptist Church owned cotton land that became fallow, so he put together a wagon train of people related to is wife, and driving slaves and cattle before them it took a month to reach Union Parish, LA. losing quite a few cattle and slaves on the trip.
When they arrived at their destination, all of the kin folk helped each other in establishing their own homesteads, none of them could do it own their own.
Sounds like a communal (federal) effort.
I live in a disaster area still in WNC. There were no helicopters rescues from neighbors and no interstate roads repaired by churches.
Yeh, kind of blows away the myth of Christian charity, or even Christians helping each other.
I lived with my uncle an ordained southern baptist preacher who built his church from a chicken coop, with his own hands until he could con his congregation into backing a building fund and turn it into a brick church.
I am more than familiar with Christian charity, hypocrisy and bigotry.
Great writing! I would add that Ronald Reagan was hired by the American Medical Association in the sixties to air radio and later TV spots linking government health care with communism. Much later we find out that the AMA’s concern was really about racism. At the time many hospitals were segregated as were medical practices. Medicare for all would have given blacks the right to demand equal health care.
Let's hope the economic slap of tariffs and mass deportations will sting so much even Fox viewers will understand what happened. Maybe then democrats will get behind the revolution instead of defensively reacting to it, with health care, climate and truth in the news at the top of the agenda...
I am sure Sabrinia that what you say will come to pass, but I am also sure that Trump and his clown car of criminals, will blame the misfortune on the libs and minority populations, unless they can find an external threat, a new Pearl Harbor.
Something else too. People who feel they have to stay at companies and work they really dislike just for the health benefits are tied to their jobs almost like Medieval serfs were tied to their farms. And I am sure employers like it this way.
Bravo for a great article & information that was not on my radar regards the history of healthcare in our nation & the man called Frederick Hoffman.
".......In this, Koch and his Libertarian friends were echoing Frederick Hoffman.
In his 1896 book Race Traits, Hoffman laid out his “scientific” assertion that when government steps in to help people, it invariably ends up hurting them instead. Not only should there be no government assistance given to help African Americans recover from three centuries of property theft, forced labor, and legal violence, but it is scientifically wrong to even consider the idea.
White people and government programs to better the lives of Black people, Hoffman wrote, deserve “the most severe condemnation of modern attempts of superior races to lift inferior races to their own elevated position.”
The damage done to Black people by offering them any sort of help, government assistance, or even a minimum wage, he wrote, is “criminal” behavior for a “civilized people.”
In the same way that AA citizens of Ferguson, MO were paying local taxes and gratuitous fines, to be profiled, abused, imprisoned, and occasionally shot dead by a tax-funded, occupying army (i.e. Police Dept.), in that same way did Prudential encourage states and the Feds to kick tax-paying AAs in the teeth by turning their backs on them.
Denying AAs healthcare, but charging them 1/3 extra to insure them against such an inevitable loss of teeth.
Diabolically genius, if more than a tad cruel, vicious, and sick. With one tragic flaw, it hurt poor Whites in the same way, except for the greater insurance premiums.
Thank you for this. So much to consider and share. I published a piece several days ago and it has certainly sparked a lot of conversation - a lot of bipartisan conversation. With 62% of Americans wanting some type of single payer system, calls for change need to remain loud and clear.
https://open.substack.com/pub/danismart/p/healthcare-in-america-analysis-paralysis?r=1c5095&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Thank you. I’m sharing this fabulous piece with many. We’ve been so brainwashed and poorly educated for so long in the public school system that few Americans can even distinguish fact from opinion and commentary. Its too a large extent why we are where we are. Thank you.
The "silent" tool of white racism in the US continues today as "The Song of the South!"
I am left with the question of why so many people, especially whites, are receptive to ideas and beliefs such as those Hoffman spread about racial inferiority and the nonsense about poor and minorities becoming dependent on aid when it is provided as a temporary or emergency helping hand. I suspect that one has to have a constitutional or elemental tendency toward selfishness, envy, irrationality, mean-spiritedness, or the need to feel superior to buy into these irrational "theories" and sales pitches. There can be no doubt that Hoffman himself and most of the so-called scientists who promoted eugenics as a justification of discrimination and neglect or abuse had a fundamental personal belief system or world-view which was hard, cold, and cynical. How much of this is a consequence of capitalist ideology and the dog-eat-dog mentality of life in the industrial age? How much is the result of wealth justifying its own existence?
My eldest grandson inadvertently gave me a metaphor that I would like to see become a meme. The obscenely wealthy are a dead weight around our neck. (He was actually speaking about another kind of dead weight.) They are the over-indulged, spoiled children who are typically unproductive and anti-social who no longer contribute anything of value to society, if they ever did. Who needs them?
Rosenthal's "An American Sickness" is another good book on our medical extortion system, along with Thom's "The Hidden History of American Healthcare."
Outstanding and salient piece. However, when I consider the overall context, it exhibits to me the inability of this society to confront its Anti-Blackism. "Racism" is what other non-Europeans experience, but Anti-Blackism is a specialized, vicious and pernicious form of racism. From U.S. not being humans, but property (as articulated in the U.S. Constitution), to enslavement, to voter suppression, to lynching to police murder, the society has a problem being honest in that WE are subjected to things no other group is. For instance, you, quite accurately, point out that "Blacks" are the reason why there is no national health care. Logic, and reality, must extrapolate from that that sans Black People in the United States, there would exist such a thing (for Asians, European-Americans, Latinos, etc). Which is true. That is why those other groups will refer to a Black Person in the United States as a "nigger" in a heartbeat.
This tragedy will never be eliminated because of the manner in which we arrived here on "The Island." So, as Donald Trump promises to "deport" millions, I suggest he "deport" those of U.S. who wish to leave. Now, many on "The Island" (or plantation) love Massa and would opt to stay. But I guarantee you a whole bunch of U.S. will take the offer. The fact that the largest deportation in the history of the planet was what is, in Whiteyspeak, "the North Atlantic Slave Trade" of Alkebulanians to North America from crime to time notwithstanding, why does this country not rid itself of its problem?
I'll be on the first thing smokin'.
There were Blacks in the ghettoes of Europe. Some were included in the Holocaust. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/afro-germans-during-the-holocaust
I think I've told you previously that my dad attended Geneva College when eugenics was a required science class. He learned that our people are inferior, have criminal tendencies, are often feeble minded, and can't benefit from a liberal education. Guess who got the top grade?
I also remind you that during the early part of the 20th century, many states had eugenic programs. The targets in many places were Melungeons and Lumbee "Indians." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon
And your point is what?
There isn't a black M.F. anywhere in the United States that has a casino. Though we, singularly, gave it its so-called "wealth." Lastly, I don't know you and you don't know me, we have never had a conversation and I am unaware of who "our" people are. Ergo, you don't "tell" me anything.
There are several Black-owned casinos, including the Richmond Grand Resort & Casino in Richmond, Virginia and Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Indiana:
Richmond Grand Resort & Casino
A $562 million casino project in Richmond, Virginia, developed by Urban One Inc. in partnership with Churchill Downs Inc. The casino will include a 250-room hotel, a 3,000-seat concert venue, media production studios, and a 55-acre public park.
Majestic Star Casino
Located on two boats in Buffington Harbor, Gary, Indiana, this casino features keno machines, live blackjack dealers, and R&B and hip hop music. Don Hamilton Barden was the first Black casino owner in Las Vegas, acquiring Fitzgeralds Las Vegas in 2001.
Majestic Star was taken over by Europeans in 2018; November to be exact. In November 2018, the company agreed to be acquired by Spectacle Entertainment, a new firm owned primarily by two Indiana-based investors. Richmond does not yet exist. Eugenics, like all racism, including many holocausts, is a European construct executed by Europeans and was considered "science." I cannot tell if you are Jewish, homosexual, heterosexual, Atheist, Christian, Agnostic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or effing monk...by looking at you (potential garb and adornment notwithstanding). I trust your considerable intellect arrives at the desired destination.
So, again, European-American, you come with false equivalencies. Then you have the temerity to suggest you are something other than that in the amorphous mass of electronic nothingness known as "cyberspace." Funny how you people will hurry up and claim, as in Snow White Elizabeth Warren, that you are "Native-American," but nary one of you ever claim to be Alkebulanian (one drop rule, can you dig it) and a bunch of you ARE.
My ORIGINAL AMERICAN ancestors (Choctaw) were at home before my enslaved Alkebulanian ones arrived to The Island. They, therefore, were familiar with the geography, the topography, the flora, the fauna, food sources and climatic conditions. Matter of fact, the Original American is the only M.F. in the so-called United States that is not an interloper. The DIFFERENCE, for U.S., is that WE were forced to come to THIS "shithole" which could not exist without the other "shitholes." We remain treated accordingly.
Now, you have received ALL of the attention I might muster whilst you drown in your denialistic intoxication.
https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/p/a-note-to-our-audience-and-the-european
Odd that the final solution is still active in killing people today. Misinformation is the stain of society and the greatness of America. I wish truth had as much influence as misinformation.
The tenacity with which these White Supremacists attack Native Americans , Blacks and any people of color are evil.
I feel like the designation of evil towards these made up ‘Scientific’ haters is becoming more and more appropriate every day .
The White Christian flame throwers , fired at anyone who does not share their twisted beliefs regarding their made up version of Christianity and their superiority gets uglier everyday .