To: The Honorable Anthony Williams, Mayor of the District of Columbia; The Congress of the United States of AmericaAt a recent meeting that took place just outside of Washington, D.C. between Lyndon LaRouche and a group of elected officials, trade unionists, and constituency leaders, Mr. LaRouche identified the current groundswell to stop the shutdown of D.C. General Hospital--the capital city's only public hospital--a matter of international importance. We agree with him.
There can be no argument that the world has entered the greatest financial and economic crisis in modern history. In the context of that crisis, the United States is at a crossroads. Either we re-adopt the commitment to the General Welfare clause of the U.S. Constitution that was the basis of both Franklin Roosevelt's policies and Dr. Martin Luther King's, or we will find our nation going the way of Nazi Germany.
Although those who advocate closing the hospital seek to cloak their actions behind the veil of ''fiscal management,'' the fact is, the closing of the hospital is an expression of a social policy that the poor should die. Beginning with Richard Nixon's infamous ''Southern Strategy'' alliance with the Ku Klux Klan, up through the ''globalization'' policies of the Bush (Sr.) Administration, the operating policy of the U.S. government has been one of systematic undermining of General Welfare clause.
This hideous policy has not only served to destroy this nation's productive capability and basic infrastructure, as evidenced by the currently spreading energy crisis that began in California, but also has resulted in the emergence of over 29 new diseases, as well as the re-emergence of new, treatment-resistant strains of old diseases worldwide. AIDS is devastating the population of Africa. BSE and ''hoof and mouth disease'' have placed Europe's entire food supply in jeopardy. As a willful and deliberate consequence of these policies, all of mankind has been put in jeopardy.
The battle for the preservation of D.C. General Hospital can only be understood in this context. To close Washington, D.C.'s only public hospital is to deny medical care to the 135,000 poor people who live there, and is a policy decision to wipe out this largely black ''underclass.'' To do so represents an unacceptable step toward the Nazification of America.
Mr. LaRouche has asserted that the legitimacy of our government rests on ''its authority and responsibility for the promotion of the General Welfare of all living persons and their posterity.'' Once again, we agree, and we insist that that means maintenance of public schools, public roads, the public water and power systems, and, most emphatically, public hospitals and public heath-care facilities.
We face a crisis today even greater than the one FDR faced in 1932, but the choices are the same--either we protect the General Welfare, as FDR did then, or we go the way of Nazi Germany. There is no middle ground. It is time to draw the line. D.C. General Hospital must be kept open and restored to its full operational capability to serve the population of Washington, D.C.
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