Michael Wolraich's picture

    Persecution Politics: Slavery Reparations and "Health Redistribution"

    Yesterday, I blogged about Sarah Palin's fear of "death panels" (which sounds like some kind of Indiana Jones booby trap, you know the kind that always impale his intemperate Indian/Arab assistants). In the post, I quoted from the Christian Anti-Defamation Committee website which in turn quoted from an Investors Business Daily editorial. Did you know that the IBD is a hotbed of right wing paranoia? In addition to a piece called "How House Bill Runs Over Grandma," they have another one entitled, "Reparations By Way Of Health Care Reform." "Reparations" refer to slavery reparations.

    Here's the opening:

    Still believe in post-racial politics? Read the health care bill. It's affirmative action on steroids, deciding everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis of skin color. President Obama is on the record as being officially opposed to reparations for slavery. But as with other issues, you have to sift through his eloquent rhetoric and go beyond the teleprompter to get at what he really means.

    What Obama really means, according to our smart investor friends, is that he wants to pass a health care plan that disproportionately benefits black people as a way of offering stealth slavery reparations. Yes, you read that right. Obama is going to steal white folk's health care because he's secretly mad that their ancestors enslaved black folks.

    The racial grievance industry under health care reform could be calling the shots in the emergency room, the operating room, the medical room, even medical school. As Terence Jeffrey, editor at large of Human Events puts it, not only our wealth, but also our health will be redistributed.

    I love the "racial grievance industry" language. I picture an aggressive salesman with a catalog of grievances that he wants to sell you. "200 years of servitude, on sale today! Buy now and get 50 bonus whippings and a lynch mob." Sign me up. We Jews are total grievance mongers. And can I get some of that quality redistributed health with that?

    OK, so maybe Investor's Business Daily is not the world's main source for political news. It's not like one of those popular talk show hosts is spewing this crap.

    Except maybe for Glenn Beck:

    Everything getting pushed through Congress — including this health care bill — is transforming America. And it's all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations... He believes in all the "universal" programs because they "disproportionately affect" people of color. And that's the best way, he feels, to right the wrongs of the past. These massive programs are Obama brand reparations or in presidential speak: leveling the playing field.

    On the plus side, Sarah Palin hasn't gone there yet.

    I leave you with the always astute Daily Show...

    The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
    Reform Madness - White Minority
    www.thedailyshow.com
    Daily Show
    Full Episodes
    Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

    Thanks to seashell and wendy davis of TPM Cafe for the IBD and Daily Show video tips.

    Persecution Politics is a new dagblog series. Send conservative victimology tips to .

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    Comments

    Maybe if we can get poor and middle-class whites to believe that health care will benefit lazy, undeserving black criminals (and all those scary brown people invading this country to go on welfare and take our jobs) -- the nonrich white folks will turn down health care for themselves just to make sure those nonwhites don't get it.

    I guess they're hoping to use racial arguments to get white folks to vote against their own economic self-interest, again.  Works to starve social assistance and public education budgets.  Worked for segregation and slavery.  See, e.g. Derrick Bell, And We Are Not Saved.  See also Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas?

    I like to think it won't work this time -- people of all ethnic groups feel insecure in their jobs, if they haven't lost them already.  They know they and their families could lose their health care any minute.  I like to believe all this embarrassing town-hall-screaming means the Republicans/Big Pharma can't find a genuine groundswell of anti-health-care support.  Or am I just isolated in my comfy liberal bubble?


    I don't think that it will really make a big difference against healthcare. Obama is still too popular. But it's a disturbing trend. This bill will not be the last we hear of the "Obama hates white people" theme, especially if his approval ratings drop.


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