Social Context Statement
The story begins in 1998 as America prepares to enter the third millennium. The nation faces the same problems that have characterized the last decade: unemployment, deepening class divisions, accelerating medical costs for the treatment of AIDS, massive Federal deficits, and a progressively less competitive economy. Americans feel they are losing their place as world leaders, but in lieu of the reforms needed to re-create their former successes, they drift into reactionary scapegoating.
The radical right (political and religious) believes America has "fallen" because it has tolerated homosexuality, drug experimentation, racial integration, and any other form of liberal thought based on greater than an eighth grade education. Their notion of traditional life has been undermined by the complexity of society, and their response has been to idealize an imaginary past -- a white, middle-class, Christian, patriarchal society. The radical right's power has waxed and waned with the flow of events, but throughout the last two decades of the 1900's the charismatic spokesperson for their nostalgic aspirations has been Leona Tiller.
Tiller, while an outsider to the middle class (much as is Pat Robertson) has maintained the loyalty of the religious right and an eclectic group of military and political figures. The U.S. president had to give her a position as an assistant in the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) to quiet and pacify her backers. Through Leona, the president can articulate a simple vision of America. However, Leona Tiller's charisma makes her far more than a mouthpiece. She and her followers relentlessly pursue their nostalgic vision. Never satisfied with a victory or conquest, they always push for more. They are fanatical, but intelligent enough to use propaganda quietly and efficiently. When the economy and society are going smoothly, they seem eccentric, but when disorder threatens they are ready with a coherent history/program that seems to offer stability.
Chief among America's problems is the medical crisis. Unfortunately, the AIDS virus and many cancers have broken through the various vaccines that had emerged in the early 1990's. The diseases now are wildly virulent. By 1995 the diseases had spread rampantly, threatening and frightening every citizen. Statisticians predicted that if this continued, the results would be roughly equivalent to the havoc wrought by the Black Death of the 14th century. Other countries tightened control over their citizens to prevent these diseases from spreading to their shores, a contraction of rights that moved many liberal democracies more toward repression just as the highly repressive Soviet Bloc was liberalizing. The result was that the democracies were less free and the totalitarian regimes were less totalitarian.
The eruption of AIDS and cancer was essentially confined to the Americas and Africa, and in America the poor, the black, and the Hispanic suffered disproportionately. The middle and upper classes waited fearfully for the inevitable spread of these diseases to their own groups. Health care costs skyrocketed as money was spent to unsuccessfully treat these illnesses and keep alive people, "who deserved the disease." The general sense of collapse created a terrified longing for a strong parental figure to take charge and restore order. Leona Tiller's words and philosophy began to draw more attention and make good sense for the salvation of America.
By 1995, America is panicked, demoralized, and ashamed that their individualistic ethos has produced such chaos. Medical costs are so high that Federal deficits spiral out of control. Federal borrowing absorbs all available capital and pushes up interest rates to the point that industry cannot afford capital investment. As industry stagnates and becomes less competitive, unemployment rises. America is a financial ruin, and foreigners sift through the debris to buy up what has any value at all. The middle class view is that blacks and Hispanics are responsible -- that their "laziness" and "promiscuity" drive the insatiable consumption of medical and unemployment benefits. Racial tension grows and the traditional forms of bigotry assert themselves: anti-Semitism, racism, and nationalism.
The middle class believes that liberal law makers are passing out Federal money to lazy, lower class non-whites on an irrational basis. The military is suffering from severe cutbacks because of reduced world tensions and the needs of the sick.
The white, middle-class American family fears unemployment, suffers from high taxes and a lowered standard of living. They are in a beleaguered and viciously reactionary mood. "Infection," both literal and figurative drives their fear: infection with the virulent forms of AIDS and cancer; infection with the lower classes, i.e., the fear of losing their place in society.
Even the elites are frightened, for their privilege is threatened by the scale of collapse confronting America, and thus and odd coalition of elites, the military, the religious and political right emerges. They need a solution, and they don't particularly mind if it is a final one. Democracy and individual freedom have failed.
Leona Tiller's Program
- teaches that many diseases are morally based, racially linked, and that good medical care is only merited by "good people.
gradually reduces health care to the lower classes and phases out welfare programs
- sets up a 3-tiered medical system
- National Health Insurance for the middle class
which is heavily subsidized but with partial pay
and multiple options (HMO,PPO, etc.)
- staffed by both M.D.s and a new class
of doctors (almost exclusively male) called
AHS who have completed a 3 year course
- No birth control or abortion available
- Medicare and Medicaid: still heavily subsidized,
but many procedures are restricted, e.g., dialysis,
palliative care [see appendix A]. M&M is meant to
systematically exclude certain groups from both
preventive and symptomatic care.
1. staffed only AHS people
- Private Insurance for the elites
- Medicine as control
- no medical treatment for addicts, prostitutes, retarded, diabetic, inherited disease
- Controlling medical costs.
- Veterans: No bypass, no cardiac cath, no chemo,
no dialysis, no ventilators: "not a covered service"
- Elderly: no vaccines for flu, no pneumovax.
Nursing homes use no anti-biotics.
- restrict surgeries to "non-ambulating"
patients,
- Newborns: no oxygen, no oral/dg, no antibiotics
first month, no surgeries first month
- expands the prison system
- crimes such as illegal protest, possession of
banned material [drugs, books] carry a co-penalty
of sterilization
- any felony conviction requires sterilization: prostitutes, addiction, alcoholism,
- all drug offenses have mandatory sentences. Urine tests required on all citizens by 1997. If positive for drugs, the person is committed first to expanded Rehabilitation Centers for an indefinite period of "treatment" determined by government doctors. If a second test proves positive, prison is automatic. Search and seizure of homes, cars, offices is unrestricted. Any drug paraphernalia, drug dealing is punishable by prison. As currently, drug charges are often a screen for political arrests. Laws are closely link sexual offenses with
drug offenses
- Prisons in remote areas surrounded by high tech lethal fences. Have no guards. People are dumped into these and have to farm their own food, produce own necessities, etc. so that the prisons are "cost efficient."
- stops all non-white immigration to "protect" the country from foreign influences, to preserve jobs, keep out illness
- builds cheap housing projects in isolated areas. These quickly become concentration camps with high fences, police guards, no internal police, bad food, with M&M medical clinics and forced labor for all able-bodied residents. Trucks round up workers each to take them to socially useful jobs: cleaning nuclear plants, volunteering for medical experiments, etc. Those who do not participate are in violation of the law and serve "alternative sentences" doing the same jobs. Children are neglected and die of preventable diseases, drug abuse, shooting, or are killed when they rebel against their conditions.
- censorship and book burning ceremonies are staged to mock the ludicrous pretensions for those pointy headed liberals whose defective sense of respect for tradition might threaten Leona's vision of America.
- operatives disguised as undesirables incite riots. Swift and merciless military response kills many and the poor are continually stripped of leaders.
- Ethnic business are boycotted by legal recognition of terms such as "reverse discrimination."
- Street drugs are allowed to flow unimpeded. Lethal overdoses with powerful or contaminated drugs are frequent, and random sweeps put people in Rehab or prison.
- AHS medical schools flourish
- "Boot Camps" are set up for white, rebellious adolescent that either makes "men" of them, kills them, or directs them to prison.
- Every recipient of a public health insurance benefit must sign a "living will" which gives the government medical service the right to withhold extraordinary efforts.
- "Diagnostic Related Care Conservation" (DRCC) is the euphemism for euthanasia.
- Flawed research studies are deliberately used to formulate policy, cf, order to Koop to produce data that showed abortion was psychologically harmful.
- Spurious lab work guarantees that most minorities who contact health services will be sterilized.
- real medical research into new drugs, artificial body parts, genetic splicing etc., are defunded. Only one or two high-tech centers exist, and their results are intended only for the elites.
- "Informed consent" disappears. Many patients are infected with virulent diseases and returned to their communities.
- Absolute and total gun control is instituted: possession of a firearm is a capital offense.
(r)LM5¯5. stops all non-white immigration to "protect" the country from foreign influences, to preserve jobs, keep out illness
6. builds cheap housing projects in isolated areas. These quickly become concentration camps with high fences, police guards, no internal police, bad food, with M&M medical clinics and forced labor for all able-bodied residents. Trucks round up workers each to take them to socially useful jobs: cleaning nuclear plants, volunteering for medical experiments, etc. Those who do not participate are in violation of the law and serve "alternative sentences" doing the same jobs. Children are neglected and die of preventable diseases, drug abuse, shooting, or are killed when they rebel against their conditions.
7. censorship and book burning ceremonies are staged to mock the ludicrous pretensions for those pointy headed liberals whose defective sense of respect for tradition might threaten Leona's vision of America.
8. operatives disguised as undesirables incite riots. Swift and merciless military response kills many and the poor are continually stripped of leaders.
9. Ethnic business are boycotted by legal recognition of terms such as "reverse discrimination."
10. Street drugs are allowed to flow unimpeded. Lethal overdoses with powerful or contaminated drugs are frequent, and random sweeps put people in Rehab or prison.
11. AHS medical schools flourish
12. "Boot Camps" are set up for white, rebellious adolescent that either makes "men" of them, kills them, or directs them to prison.
13. Every recipient of a public health insurance benefit must sign a "living will" which gives the government medical service the right to withhold extraordinary efforts.
14. "Diagnostic Related Care Conservation" (DRCC) is the euphemism for euthanasia.
15. Flawed research studies are deliberately used to formulate policy, cf, order to Koop to produce data that showed abortion was psychologically harmful.
16. Spurious lab work guarantees that most minorities who contact health services will be sterilized.
17. real medical research into new drugs, artificial body parts, genetic splicing etc., are defunded. Only one or two high-tech centers exist, and their results are intended only for the elites.
18. "Informed consent" disappears. Many patients are infected with virulent diseases and returned to their communities.
19. Absolute and total gun control is instituted: possession of a firearm is a capital offense.
(r)IP0,0¯
The middle class is happy to have the sick, dirty, lazy, irresponsible, foreigners and minorities off the streets, controlled and not threatening to spread infection. There is a general feeling of righteous revenge when the undesirable are beaten, die, kill themselves, etc. Americans share the belief that the country will soon be rid of its problems. Everyone knows what is happening, but no one will protest.
As happened in both Germany and Italy, fascism proves efficient. The economy and standard of living improve, jobs increase, and for the favored, life is better. "The first argument of tyranny," says Auden, "is efficiency."
OUR STORY IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS PLAN BY OUR GOOD GUYS
Individuality and freedom versus the social good. Chaos and freedom vs. order and control.
