The Long Con of William Jefferson Clinton: Part III

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In Part II, I sketched the roots of America’s tradition of work in the biological and chemical sciences within the context of two institutions: the Rockefeller Institute and the Institute for Advanced Study. I dedicated much of that post to making connections between “Rockefeller men” like Simon and Abraham Flexner, Hideo Noguchi, and Cornelius “Dusty” Rhoads precisely because of their work in the study, work and legacy on infectious diseases. From the beginning, the work of US-based scientists (and others who will be discussed as we continue) with respect to infectious diseases has been international, political, adversial, and couched as philanthropy. Historians, by and large, acknowledge that Rockefeller’s immersion in this work served two functions: first, to provide the billionaire with a means to improve the public perception of him and his empire; second, to provide the United States government and those of Europe with a means to understand, control and restrict the provision of health care in various colonial possessions.

Many of the leading figures during this era were advocates of the idea of eugenics. There are several complications with this idea – not the least of which is the biological notion of race and the subjective list of factors which white supremacists have deemed to constitute “race.” By way of example, a Ghanaian person with “black” skin, thin lips and nose (relatively speaking), and liniferous hair is considered “Black” or “negroid.” A person from the Indian sub-continent with the skin color, width of lips and hair with straight hair is deemed “Caucasian.” However, according to racial scientists, hair texture does not determine “race.” While the depth of this particular deception is beyond the scope of this post, it must suffice to say that “Caucasians” (as an international people) are a fiction of a man who had an odd fascination with the skull of a young female war casualty – and that the Indian connection to those mythical “whites” is tenuous, at best. Given all of this, my discussions of “race” seldom, if ever, focus on biology. The focus is on measures of collective and individual control and power, as refracted through the illusion of biology. And the illusion precludes rationality (look below…who is “white” and why? – well, depending on whom you ask, they all are, one is, two are or none are)…