Friday, March 09, 2012

Governor Pat Quinn Visits Dr. Quentin Young


Dr. Quentin Young: His patients have included Martin Luther King Jr., Mike Royko, Studs Terkel and members of the Chicago 7 conspiracy trial, but after 61 years in private practice, Dr. Quentin Young is hanging up his stethoscope. Phil Kadner Southtown Star


Last month, Governor Pat Quinn, a rock-ribbed Progressive Christian was suffering from pains in his knees, so he visited the doctor - the eminent Progressive founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

'What seems to be the problem, Governor? Right Knee? Left Knee? Wee Knee?'

'The left, Doctor, always the Left. The Right is none too good. Wee knee? Didn't know there was one.'

'Of Course. . . .( examine probe, touch and conclude) . . .You're suffering from a disease that we medical experts call "kneeitis",' said the doctor. 'Take it easy for a month or so and above all don't climb any stairs. That puts a terrible strain on the knees'.

A month later the Governor returned and after a brief examination was found to have recovered completely.

'Can I climb the stairs now doctor?'

'Certainly', replied the doctor.

'Thank Heavens', said the Governor of Illinois, 'I was getting a bit browned off climbing up the drainpipe every time I wanted to go to the toilet'.

The radical internal medicine man and doctor to the evolved smiled and nodded. 'Nature always compensates, when universal government health care gets blocked by systemic racism and capitalism, Governor.'

The gob-smacked Guv had an epiphany brewing, 'twas clear, and the Socialist Sawbones probed on about how Nature sometimes compensates for a person's deficiences. For example', he told the brain-straining Governor, 'if a man is deaf, he may have keener sight, and if a man is blind, he may have a very keen sense of smell'.

'I think I see what you mean', said the Personal Pac acolyte budget busting penman and Christian, 'I've often noticed that if a man has one short leg, then the other one is always a little bit longer'.

'You've noticed that have you? Well, until our next chat, Governor!'

Illinois - you can and must make this stuff up!

*

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

Physicians for a National Health Program

Who is Quentin Young and what is Physicians for a National Health Program? What influence do they actually have?

PNHP claims to be a national organization of 14,000 doctors advocating single-payer national health insurance.

In reality it was long a phonebox size operation run by Quentin Young and a handful of Marxist comrades.

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

In the late 1970s Young was associated with the pro Marx/Gramsci, New American Movement and in 1982 helped found the also Marxist, Democratic Socialists of America-to which he still belongs.

In 1972, in the dying days of the Vietnam War Young led a small radical delegation to Communist North Vietnam.

In 1995 Young attended the famous meeting at the Hyde Park home of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn where Barack Obama was introduced as chosen successor to Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.

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