tagged w/ Communism
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Joseph Hittelman dies at 100; physician persecuted in McCarthy era
L.A. doctor's advocacy of reforms such as healthcare for the poor brought the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to answer their questions and was blacklisted for several years.
By Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
July 17, 2011
Dr. Joseph Hittelman, a Los Angeles physician whose advocacy of reforms such as healthcare for the poor led to his persecution as a subversive during the McCarthy era, died Tuesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 100.
The cause was complications of a heart attack, said his son, attorney Paul M. Hittelman.
Joseph Hittelman was a family practitioner in the early 1950s when he was called before government committees seeking to remove Communists from positions of power and influence. The most famous targets were members of the entertainment industry, but other professional groups also were scrutinized, such as lawyers, journalists and teachers.
Hittelman was one of 11 Los Angeles physicians questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in October 1952 after a fellow doctor alleged that they were members of a medical unit of the Communist Party. Like the writers and directors of the so-called Hollywood 10, the doctors argued that questions about their political views violated their constitutional rights and refused to answer.
A lifelong progressive, Hittelman believed that he and his colleagues had raised the suspicions of Red hunters because they favored health programs and other benefits for the poor.
"The attitude of the physicians who were called before the committee was one of social activism," he recalled in a 1999 article in The Times. "Most of us worked in clinics. It all goes back to seeing the big gaps in healthcare delivery. We (tried) to liberalize the medical profession. … We got a group together to back Roosevelt, and that was a Red activity."
Hittelman was called before the state Senate Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as the Burns Committee, as well as the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Although he was not prosecuted, he was blacklisted for several years. For most of the 1950s, he was barred from the staff of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, a prestigious facility in Hollywood that later merged with Mount Sinai Hospital to form Cedars-Sinai.
According to a transcript of the House committee's hearing on Communist activities in professional groups, Hittelman evaded questions about whether he had ever belonged to the Communist Party, arguing that he had the right under the Constitution to keep his politics private.
"When I first went into medical school, the first day I was presented with a box of bones and a skull and, lo and behold, the skull had a hinge on top and I could unhinge it and look inside," he told the committee. "My skull does not have a hinge on top, and nobody is going to look inside my skull."
His son said he did not know if his father had ever been a Communist, "but he certainly was a left-wing activist" who was involved in groups that fought for workers' rights, racial equality and the expansion of civil liberties.
The son of Russian Jews, Hittelman was born Dec. 25, 1910, in Rochester, N.Y., where his father established a successful business as a painting contractor and builder. In 1920 he moved with his family to Los Angeles and grew up in Boyle Heights. After graduating from Roosevelt High School, he attended UCLA and UC Berkeley, where he earned a bachelor of science degree. He received a medical degree from UC San Francisco in 1936.
During World War II he served stateside and in the Philippines with the U.S. Army Medical Corps.
After he was blacklisted at Cedars, Hittelman continued to see patients privately and at smaller hospitals in the area. He eventually gained staff privileges at Cedars-Sinai, practiced internal medicine in Beverly Hills and volunteered at the Venice Family Clinic. He retired in 1994.
Survivors include his wife, Helen; three sons, Karl of Corte Madera, Calif., Paul of Los Angeles and Jeff of Butte Valley, Calif.; two siblings, Nathan Hittelman and Celia Frimkess, both of Los Angeles; six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
.Joseph Hittelman dies at 100; physician persecuted in McCarthy era
L.A. doctor's... more
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China is running out of water and can no longer afford to irrigate its northern plains, an expert has warned.
China needs to reduce food production on its dry northern plains or aquifers will diminish to a "dire" level in 30 years, one the country's leading groundwater experts has warned.
Zheng Chunmiao, director of the Water Research Centre at Peking University, said the world's most populous country will have to focus more on demand-side restraint because it is becoming more expensive and difficult to tap finite supplies below the surface.
"The government must adopt a new policy to reduce water consumption," Zheng told the Guardian. "The main thing is to reduce demand. We have relied too much on engineering projects, but the government realises this is not a long-term solution."
Zheng's comments are based on his studies of the aquifers under the North China plain, one of the country's main wheat growing regions. He said the water table is falling at the rate of about a metre a year mainly due to agriculture, which accounts for 60% of demand.
"The water situation in the North China plain does not allow much longer for irrigation," Zheng said. "We need to reduce food production even though it is politically difficult. It would be much more economical to import."
The government will be reluctant to accept such a radical step, which could weaken the country's ability to feed itself. But it may not have a choice.
Over the past 10 years, Zheng estimates the annual water deficit in northern China at 4bn cubic metres. This is increasingly made up from underground sources, which account for 70% of water supplies. Although some aquifers remain 500 metres thick, others are emptying at an alarming rate. This has created depletion cones, the deepest of which is at Hengshui near Xizhuajiang.
Before trimming agricultural production, the government will try to improve usage efficiency. Plans are now being drawn up to measure and centrally manage the remaining resources, which are currently under the control of regional governments that often tend to draw up water unsustainably for the short-term benefit of the local economy.
The Yellow River Conservancy Commission – which has the nation's most advanced river management network – is expected to serve as a model.
"The government is considering a system similar to ours that will collect data on underground water resources and connect it to our Yellow River monitoring system," said Pei Yong, director of the water regulation division. "I think it will start three or four years from now."
Even before this begins, controls on underground water use are slowly being tightened. Well digging – once a lucrative, ubiquitous and poorly regulated business - is already feeling the pinch.
Kaifeng Well Drilling – a company in Henan – charges 100-500 yuan for each metre drilled, but it has recently laid off workers because it gets permission for only two wells a year now, compared to about 30 in the 1980s.
"Business is very bad. Many firms have had to change business," said the director, who only gave his surname, Wang. "The controls are very tight now. You only get permission to drill in areas with severe water shortages."
More at the linkChina is running out of water and can no longer afford to irrigate its northern... more
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On the stealth agenda of the 44th Pres USA to put the "State" in control and management of the people.On the stealth agenda of the 44th Pres USA to put the "State" in control and... more
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A new book Le petit livre bleu (The little blue book) claims that the Smurfs, those sarsaparailla-eating little blue denizens of Smurf village who talk about smurfing this and smurfing that, are anti-Semitic and racist. This, on top of earlier claims that, due to their living in a cooperative-like environment where everybody contributes to Smurf society, the Smurfs are communists, "Small Men Under Red Force," as one American critic says.
The author of the book, Antoine Buéno, a lecturer at Sciences Po university in Paris, says in the Guardian that he's been surprised at the "hyper violent" reaction to his claims among Smurf fans, some of whom have said he has "paranoid delusions" and is a "dream breaker." Some more unhappy Smurf devotee critique via the Telegraph:
"What a disgrace to soil the legends of our childhood," wrote Bibouille on the "Schtroumpfmania" website.
Another, called Anastasia wrote: "It's not hard to find anti-Semitism in Shakespeare or Balzac." The author's arguments spring "from his own obsessions ... the hooked nose of a wizard is neither Jewish nor Goy, it's a traditional for wizards," she wrote.
Buéno has indeed said he has "feared for his physical safety and insisted he meant no harm," according to the Telegraph.
So what's causing the big smurf-roar?
Belgian artist Peyo, whose real name was Thierry Culliford, created the Smurfs in 1958. Since their original appearance in comics, there have been animated films, a TV series, all manner of merchandise, theme parks, video games, an Ice Capades show; Sony is to release the first of three live-action/computer generated Smurf films on July 29. Buéno's critique starts with Peyo's very first work which was title The Black Smurfs in French and retitled The Purple Smurfs in English on the grounds of political correctness:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/06/smurfs-accused-antisemitism-racism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwJKTzq_XPg&feature=player_embeddedA new book Le petit livre bleu (The little blue book) claims that the Smurfs, those... more
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When your wrong, your just plain wrong!
The U.S. government’s half-century campaign to discredit and destroy Cuba’s experiment with socialism has had many ruthless aspects, but perhaps none more so than efforts to disparage and damage the Caribbean island’s widely admired health-care system
by William Blum
In January, the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged.
The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to combat the three deadly pandemics in 150 countries. [Prensa Latina (Cuba), March 12, 2011]
“This mean-spirited policy,” the Cuban government said, “aims to undermine the quality of service provided to the Cuban population and to obstruct the provision of medical assistance in over 100 countries by 40,000 Cuban health workers.”
Most of the funds are used to import expensive AIDS medication to Cuba, where antiretroviral treatment is provided free of charge to some 5,000 HIV patients. [The Militant (US, Socialist Workers Party), April 4, 2011]
The United States sees the Cuban health system and Havana’s sharing of such as a means of Cuba winning friends and allies in the Third World, particularly Latin America; a situation sharply in conflict with long-standing US policy to isolate Cuba.
The United States in recent years has attempted to counter the Cuban international success by dispatching the U.S. Naval Ship “Comfort” to the region.
With 12 operating rooms and a 1,000-bed hospital, the converted oil tanker has performed hundreds of thousands of free surgeries in places such as Belize, Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua and Haiti.
However, the Comfort’s port calls likely will not substantially enhance America’s influence in the hemisphere.
“It’s hard for the U.S. to compete with Cuba and Venezuela in this way,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a pro-U.S. policy-research group in Washington. “It makes us look like we’re trying to imitate them. Cuba’s doctors aren’t docked at port for a couple days, but are in the country for years.” [Bloomberg News, Sept. 19, 2007]
The recent disclosure by WikiLeaks of U.S. State Department documents included this little item: A cable was sent by Michael Parmly from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the run-up to the Non-Aligned Movement conference.
Parmly notes that he is actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess.”
Michael Moore refers to another WikiLeaks State Department cable: “On Jan. 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made-up story and sent it back to his headquarters in Washington. Here’s what they came up with: [The official] stated that Cuban authorities have banned Michael Moore’s documentary, ‘Sicko,’ as being subversive.
“Although the film’s intent is to discredit the U.S. healthcare system by highlighting the excellence of the Cuban system, the official said the regime knows the film is a myth and does not want to risk a popular backlash by showing to Cubans facilities that are clearly not available to the vast majority of them.”
Moore points out an Associated Press story of June 16, 2007 (seven months prior to the cable) with the headline: “Cuban health minister says Moore’s ‘Sicko’ shows ‘human values’ of communist system.”
Moore adds that the people of Cuba were shown the film on national television on April 25, 2008. “The Cubans embraced the film so much it became one of those rare American movies that received a theatrical distribution in Cuba. I personally ensured that a 35mm print got to the Film Institute in Havana. Screenings of Sicko were set up in towns all across the country.” [Huffington Post, Dec. 18, 2010]
The United States also bans the sale to Cuba of vital medical drugs and devices, such as the inhalant agent Sevoflurane which has become the pharmaceutical of excellence for applying general anesthesia to children; and the pharmaceutical Dexmetomidine, of particular usefulness in elderly patients who often must be subjected to extended surgical procedures.
Both of these are produced by the U.S. firm Abbot Laboratories.
Cuban children suffering from lymphoblastic leukemia cannot use Erwinia L-asparaginasa, a medicine commercially known as Elspar, since the U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck and Co. refuses to sell this product to Cuba. Washington has also prohibited the U.S.-based Pastors for Peace Caravan from donating three Ford ambulances to Cuba.
For the rest of the story go to the link provided:When your wrong, your just plain wrong!
The U.S. government’s half-century... more
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According to results of the survey held by news agency Rosbalt, Russian internet users consider Communist Party as leader of campaign. Rosbalt states that in spite of mainly liberal attitude of Internet users, it is liberalism and protest that cause users’ pro-communist orientation.
http://publiciti.ru/en/news/6russian-internet-users-elect-communists92According to results of the survey held by news agency Rosbalt, Russian internet users... more
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mcamca
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The American Scholar and blogger Ted Henken, who was visiting cuba researching the Cuban bloggersphere, was interrogated before his departure, by Cuban State Police at "Jose Marti" Airport in Havana and was warned that he would not be allowed to re-enter the Island.
The heading of his blog called "El Yuma", Henken writes..... Rejecting the derogatory term "Gringos" and the accusatory epithet "Yanquis," Cubans prefer to refer to us, their North American neighbors, as "Yumas." This blog is simply one Yuma's way of sharing his thoughts on all things Cuban, a subject that often generates more heat than light.
http://sunriseinhavana.blogspot.com/2011/05/american-scholar-and-blogger-ted-henken.htmlThe American Scholar and blogger Ted Henken, who was visiting cuba researching the... more
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Zurama
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Martha Roque, a prominent member of the Cuban oppossition reports the sad news that dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, a member of the Coalición Central Opositora (oposition group), has passed away tonight, in Santa Clara, Cuba!! Garcia died of respiratory failure as a result of a beating received at the hands of Cuban opressive state police. May he rest in peace!
http://sunriseinhavana.blogspot.com/2011/05/cuban-dissident-murdered-by-cuban.htmlMartha Roque, a prominent member of the Cuban oppossition reports the sad news that... more
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Zurama
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What terrorist advances the causes of empires?… Except for cheap and untraceable foreign state terrorists for hire. That is the mission of Al Qaeda. To hire cheap impoverished people who are ready to die for their beliefs. Except that they died for America’s interests. What luck America has… and it must be because of God, because it says so on the dollar bill...What terrorist advances the causes of empires?… Except for cheap and... more
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jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine @jasmine #jasminejasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine jasmine... more
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BEIJING—A senior U.S. State Department official rebuked China for "serious backsliding" on human rights amid the country's most severe crackdown on political dissent in more than a decade, and said it has already begun to hurt relations with the U.S.
At the end of two-day talks that were dubbed a "human-rights dialogue," Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, lamented that the Chinese side had rebuffed U.S. efforts to find out about the status of lawyers, political activists, artists, religious leaders and others caught in a police dragnet in recent weeks.
He said American officials were disappointed at the Chinese response to questions about Ai Weiwei, the artist most famous for helping to design the Olympic Bird's Nest stadium who was detained at Beijing's airport this month.BEIJING—A senior U.S. State Department official rebuked China for "serious... more
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If there’s one constant in the elite national discourse of the moment, it is the claim that America was founded as a capitalist country and that socialism is a dangerous foreign import that, despite our unwarranted faith in free trade, must be barred at the border.
By John Nichols
http://www.thenation.com/article/159929/how-socialists-built-america
This most conventional “wisdom”—increasingly accepted at least until the recent grassroots mobilizations in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Maine—has held that everything public is inferior to everything private, that corporations are always good and unions always bad, that progressive taxation is inherently evil and that the best economic model is the one that allows the wealthy to gobble up as much of the Republic as they choose before anything trickles down to the great mass of Americans. Rush Limbaugh informs us regularly that proposals to tax people as rich as he is for the purpose of providing healthcare for kids and jobs for the unemployed are “antithetical” to the nation’s original intent and that Barack Obama’s reforms are “destroying this country as it was founded.”
When Obama offered tepid proposals to organize a private healthcare system in a more humane manner, Sean Hannity of Fox charged that “the Constitution was shredded, thwarted, the rule of law was passed aside.” Newt Gingrich said the Obama administration was “prepared to fundamentally violate the Constitution” and was playing to the “30 percent of the country [that] really is [in favor of] a left-wing secular socialist system.”
In 2009 Sarah Palin raised similar constitutional concerns, about Obama’s proposal to develop a system of “universal energy building codes” to promote energy efficiency. “Our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize, certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us,” a gravely concerned Palin informed Hannity, who responded with a one-word question. “Socialism?”
“Well,” she said, “that is where we are headed.”
Actually, it’s not.......
Continue reading at:
http://www.thenation.com/article/159929/how-socialists-built-americaIf there’s one constant in the elite national discourse of the moment, it is the... more
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Who ever told you the 1950's were innocent and fun-filled was smoking something they grew in the backyard.Who ever told you the 1950's were innocent and fun-filled was smoking something... more
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A look into the heart of Havana from a musician traveler point of view, not skewed beforehand; an objective telling of the personal experience. Nancy Mroczek PhD - www.nancymroczek.comA look into the heart of Havana from a musician traveler point of view, not skewed... more
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“Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, ‘No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.’”
“Obama Seeks a Course of Pragmatism in the Middle East,” The New York Times, March 11, 2011.
Mr. Obama is right.
If you’re president of China, people around the world who are fighting for freedom don’t really expect you to help. If you’re president of China, you don’t have to put up with annoying off-year congressional elections, and then negotiate your budget with a bunch of gun-and-religion-clinging congressmen and senators. If you’re president of China, you can fund your national public radio to your heart’s content. And if you’re president of China, when you host a conference on bullying in schools, people take you seriously.
Unfortunately for him and us, Barack Obama is president of the United States. That job brings with it certain special responsibilities. It’s a tough job—maybe tougher than being president of China. But Barack Obama ran for president of the United States. Maybe he should start behaving as one.
Read more at The Weekly Standard.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/obama-wishes-he-was-president-china#ixzz1GRHij0AO“Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president... more
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"The Zeitgeist solution is Communism re-packaged to rope in the 21st- century-truth seeker."
People have been falling for the Zeitgeist scam, which is nothing more than Communism with a slick, new age wrapper according an article written by by Richard Evans.
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The Venus Project is 94-year old Jacques Fresco, born in the Bronx in 1917. It is associated with the UN and pushes the familiar Communist agenda: forever concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the Rothschild Crime Syndicate until they have it all. [Communism is a ruse to disguise this control as "public" or State ownership.]
In the words of Ernst Fischer, the Venus Project's "solution is Communism re-packaged to rope in the 21st century truth seeker." Here is a detailed comparison of the Zeitgeist philosophy and Communism.
Fresco, former member of the Communist party, wrote a book with Ken Keyes a while back. You don't just write a book with someone you barely know, so I might go so far as to say his good friend and colleague Keyes wrote a charming book called Planethood, go look it up. The book speaks not only of how the UN will fix the planet, but how they will install a One World Government "for the earth" Um, no thanks, what about the people? Or does Skynet just see us as more resources in the resource management program?"
"JACQUES FRESNO"
Fresno started out as an aircraft designer with a government contractor during the 1930's.
After WWII he founded Ravell Plastics. If you ever assembled model airplane kits you probably bought some of his products. If you were into model airplane kits in the 1950's-60's, you remember the powerful airplane glue in the box, and you may recall getting headaches or even passing out.
In Zeitgeist Addendum, Fresco shows his plastic model Utopia. He explains that all current social problems will be solved by technology. For example, his solution for drunk driving is cars that won't start if alcohol is detected. That sounds good........to a control freak. In reality, when you create more technology you have to create more solutions to solve the problems it creates. To see what I mean, visit the technological utopias in the movie "Brazil" (1985).
In real life, designer oversight isn't so funny. Fifty years ago, Fresco's Ravell model airplane kits included a powerful toxic airplane glue in the box. That glue was eventually banned because the breathing the vapor killed brain cells. If the engineer is infallible, was lowering intelligence of boys during the 1950's-60's part of his plan? The folly of Plato's Republic is that the self appointed 'Guardians' is they set themselves up as God, while they outlaw free will for the rest of society.
Fresco says there will be no government in his techno-utopia - but who's going to make these decisions without a visible, accountable government?
Conclusion
Zeitgeist isn't activist, and it's not a movement. The actual purpose of Peter Joseph's work is to manufacture consent for the cashless system the international bank cabal planned a century ago.
Lord Bertrand Russell wrote in his 1951 book "Impact of Science on Society" that the electronic cashless society will be a form of social control.
"Credits" will be given to you on a weekly basis, and they have to be consumed by the end of the week, and cannot be saved up. If you are against the system and do not follow orders, you don't eat. Nobody will be able to help anyone else because all will be dependent on the system.
Like Lord Russell, Fresco is a plutocrat whose retirement hobby is social engineering and raising an army of useful idiots.. During the Cold War hoax, Russell founded the "Pugwash movement" which used the fear of nuclear holocaust to trick hippies into holding rallies in Washington DC begging for world government. They must have been high, or didn't have the vocabulary to comprehend his wordy books.
Zeitgeist One told people to lose their faith in their religion,
Zeitgeist 1,2,& 3 told people that private property, savings, elected national democracy, and the right to your own opinion caused the economic crash, the 'war on terror', and 'global warming'.
Now The Venus Project (Jacques Fresco) is telling you to withdraw all your money, savings and all and throw it away."The Zeitgeist solution is Communism re-packaged to rope in the 21st-... more
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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/030611a.html
For years, whenever it was suggested that the American super-rich should pay more in taxes, the Right’s media machine would blast out complaints about “class warfare.”
However, it’s now clear that the “class warfare” was being waged from above – and the rich were winning, big time – finally leaving the middle- and working-classes little choice but to fight back, a difficult reality that Danny Schechter addresses in this guest essay:http://www.consortiumnews.com/2011/030611a.html
For years, whenever it was... more
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