You have no doubt heard about the Nazi rally in Orlando the other day, which Governor DeathSantis never got around to condemning until he was asked about it at a news conference.
The protests have been met with disgust from Democrats and Republicans alike. However, DeSantis did not publicly condemn the marchers until Monday during a press conference, and then largely to deflect blame on to his political opponents.
“So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to do with that, we’re not playing their game,” he said.
Well sure, he doesn't want to alienate his base. But that was just a standard Nazi rally, threatening to murder Jews and singing the praises of Donald Trump. But this one is kind of bizarre. Neo-Nazis protest health equity doctors outside Brigham and Women's Hospital.
BOSTON (AP) — Two doctors who teach at Harvard Medical School and have been working to establish greater equity in health care for people of color say they are undeterred by a recent protest outside Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston by a group of neo-Nazis who claimed they are “anti-white.”
Dr. Michelle Morse, who was formerly on staff at Brigham and Women’s, is now the chief medical officer for the New York City Health Department.
Dr. Bram Wispelwey is an internal medicine and public health doctor at Brigham and Women’s.
Morse and Wispelwey told GBH News for a story published online Wednesday that their approach to medicine addresses the health concerns of those who have consistently been left behind by modern medicine. . . .
About two dozen protesters dressed similarly in khaki pants and dark hoodies, and wearing face coverings, held up a banner outside the hospital on Jan. 22 that said “B and W Hospital Kills Whites.”
They also passed out flyers with pictures of Morse and Wispelwey claiming the doctors promoted “anti-white genocidal policy.”
Now, in case you didn't already know it, there are massively well-documented inequities in health and health care in the United States. You can actually download a whole book about it from the Institute of Medicine if you're interested. The subject is complicated -- obviously it goes back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow when in much of the country, African Americans couldn't get health care at all. Today, medical facilities in predominantly low income and minority neighborhoods are inferior, and despite protestations to the contrary by many physicians, studies have repeatedly shown biases in diagnosis and treatment recommendations.
But the perception that trying to correct injustice and inequality somehow constitutes discrimination against people who are historically privileged seems to be a commonality of conservative thinking. These Nazis are just wrapping it more explicitly in white supremacy than most.We should all want a society with justice for all. That isn't bad for white people. It's what's right for everyone.
BTW: This is Bram Wispelwey.
He received his M.D. from Ben Gurion-University of the Negev.
6 comments:
To quote the “Blues Brothers,” I hate Illinois Nazis.
Now I hate Massachusetts Nazis, too. And Florida Nazis. I hate them the way I hate, say, people who kill and rape and plot and scheme and manipulate and lie.
You know, like Donald J Trump.
As big as this earth is, it’s not big enough for those of us who are tolerant, and the incredibly proliferating number of selfish, deluded, narcissistically starved, power-hungry and/or cynical assholes.
Don,
Trump is a focal point. When it's not him, it will be someone else.
The right sees his flaws. However, they also see an untapped angst among the voters who have been marginalized and demonized by the left. Those who are not on board with the social changes the left has tried hard to implement. Trump seized on that angst, recognized them publicly and gave them representation.
Good or bad, right or wrong, these people vote...and there's a whole lot of 'em. Take a hint from James Carville, a lifelong liberal Democrat who knows how to win elections. The Democratic party ignores them at their peril.
Trump doesn't have is "flaws," he's a raging lunatic. And almost the entirely congressional leadership, and the RNC, support the outrageous lie that the 2020 election was stolen, among many other lies. Yes, I agree that there are people who are not on board with racial and gender equity, multiculturalism, and religious diversity, but I'm not about to abandon my commitment to my values to get those people to vote for Democrats. And they won't anyway, because it's more about tribalism than anything else. I don't ignore them, but I'm not going to give up my own beliefs because some people want to return to the 18th Century.
What you're all missing here is the context of Trump and what he portends for america's political future. Simply put, these people wouldn't mind the social changes if they came with improving, rather than declining, standards of living. That america's political class abandoned everyone below the first quintile in 1975 seems to forever escape these discussions. Now they're scared and angry, and humans with a shrinking pie become far less willing to divide it further.
This focus on Trump is a stupid distraction: he has no ideas, no policies, no will, existing as a media generated spook to scare the left and rally the right. His acts in office were the same GOP crap we've been getting since Reagan, only dumber and slower. As I predicted, his venality was mediated by his incompetence. They love him because, having determined that theatre is all they can ever have, they're going to have it good and hard. It's that underlying sentiment you need to worry, somehting he had no hand in creating.
These culture war arguments are a stupid distraction. Fascism is what you get when liberal democracy stops delivering the goods.
That's fair enough, but Biden did try to deliver quite a bit and the Republicans + Manchinema stopped it. Granted most people don't understand that.
I would say, estemado Cervantes, that you are missing the forest for the trees. This has been going on for 49 years now, with D and R elites largely in agreement, merely quibbling over small details of how the screwing should be carried out. Remember that 2009 began with Ds in full control of congress and the WH, along with a sold bench on SCOTUS. Yet, for some reason, we couldn't even get a public option to Romneycare. And that's before we get into things like NAFTA and MFN for China...
The fact that Biden, the guy who put millions in prison and trapped millions more in debt peonage, couldn't get this particular economic package passed because republicans is completely irrelevant. To anyone waiting for help this is just another broken promise. These people support Trump, as they will the real fascist who follows him, because electoral politics has failed them. They hate R pols even more than they hate D pols.
There are reasons and there are results. Only one of these will be remembered.
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