February 1, 2011

Dr. Joe Guarino, a conservative blogger that the more progressive bloggers in Greensboro (like Edward Cone-of-THE-Cones and Roch Smith, Jr.) love to demonize (in Joe's case, it's usually about the right-or-should-I-say-left, upstanding Spagless inferring that the good doctor is an intolerable "racist"), has had some good posts up over this last week on the "management" (using the term very loosely) of the International Civil Rights Museum by Skip Alston & company (for the uninformed, the museum is located in the old downtown Woolsworth store where, on February 1, 1960, four young black men - N.C. A&T students - staged a sit-in at the counter).

It seems that the folks in Greensboro are having a hard time getting information out of the "non-profit".

I dropped a comment on one of the earlier threads:

Joe, as I have hammered for YEARS (to the deaf ears of the more progressive folk in this blogosphere - Hi Sue!!!), non-profits in this state suffer ZERO oversight from the state of North Carolina and the IRS.

They can do whatever they like - to whomever they want . . . they can lie all day long to individuals and the general public . . . yet NO ONE BLINKS . . . when, as you say, their books and their methods should be entirely open to the public.

In the same thread, Joe eventually makes a call to alter state law in a way that forces non-profits to open their books.

I am familiar with the problem, of course (me being the moderately-conservative doctor that the aforementioned Greensboro goonsquad-of-the-ether loves to call "crazy").  Executives of "non-profit" Randolph Hospital breached government contracts and (thirteen years ago tomorrow) fired me for doing my duty as a physician, then sued me for telling the truth, then lied repeatedly under Oath so they could get out of the mess they made on the cheap. 

(The aforementioned goons in Greensboro's mostly deep-blue goon-squad don't think what happened to me in my own hometown is "relevant" to anything going on now . . . that I should "stop whining" over "ancient history", "get over it" and "move on".  It didn't affect/hurt THEM, you see.  They'll even curl up to cyber-stalkers if that's what it takes to "break" Mary Johnson and shut her up.)

The liars and cheats running Randolph Hospital, who did everything they good to destroy a good/homegrown Pediatrician for doing her job . . . these skum-in-suits who have played their "connections" to the hilt and lined their own pockets on the public dime . . . these publicly-funded bullies . . . have yet to be even investigated or prosecuted by the state or Federal government (I leave out the locals because they are about as useful as the local law enforcement in Lincoln, Yadkin, and Franklin counties), a matter of gross negligence & good-ole-boy drenched corruption (which spits in the eye of Obamacare's notions of "reform") that I hope to take, in some fashion, to Court this year.

Robert Morrison, Asheboro's $700,000/year man, continues to balk at very simple requests for public information - like lists of his Board of Directors and Corporate Membership (the people who were supposed to be looking over his shoulder and who are legally responsible for all of the nasty, despicable, expensive-in-more-ways-than-one, and ultimately ILLEGAL things "Bob" did).

So I expounded on my comment at Joe's . . .

Joe, in terms of modifying state/Federal law to force "non-profits" to be more transparent, that has been one of my goals all along. I came to the blogosphere hoping that accountability and transparency were more than just pretty buzz words for the Edwardses (Hi Sue!!!) and Sleazelys to dole out when it was convenient. Meanwhile, Brad Miller had medical "whistle-blowers" (NOT) from Pennsylvania to champion. 

But Mary's story did not fit the progressive agenda of government-run healthcare . . . no matter what proof there may be out there locally (another buzzword) that if it does not work at the micro-level, there's not a snowball's chance in Hades that it will work at the macro-level. 

If the IRS could not/would not make it right for Doctor Mary Johnson when in-your-face, well-documented CRIMES were involved, what makes anyone think they can oversee the much bigger picture when patients are involved?

In terms of something to rally around, the Museum and Homestead are "hot-potatoes" that most politicians-with-survival-instincts are going to avoid getting anywhere near lest someone pop up in a thread like this can call them "racist". But what happened to me at the hands of a non-profit has no racial connotations [well, unless you count the part about my non-profit bosses preferring not to market to the East side of Asheboro - because that would be dipping into the health department's "business" . . . or questioning the tactics employed by local mill owners when it came to dumping "anchor children" of their cheap laborers on the public school system and Medicaid].

I should be North Carolina's poster child for the Republicans' efforts in Raleigh to clean up the act after decades of irresponsible "anything goes" Dem rule. 

But in the end it's not about black or white . . . it's about power and money and "right people". John Robinson and Ray Criscoe and Ed Cone would all have EGG on their face. And Harold Brubaker has to "live in this town" (Asheboro). So we won't be seeing my face on any milk cartoons until/if I sue somebody. 

I was side-tracked last month by my brother's illness, but as nearly six years in the blogosphere have not produced any results beyond the personal satisfaction of splattering the names of those-who-did-me-wrong all over the ether for anyone to read (and knowing there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING the evil-doers can do about it without putting themselves in the line-of-legal-fire), the goal this year is ultimately to sue somebody . . . specifically the government & oversight agencies that let me swing-in-the-wind.

For all of their pretty words and noble laws, they could not, would not hold Randolph Hospital accountable.  So I will hold them accountable.

The words and laws will MEAN something.

I am SICK of medicine as Walmart.  SICK of a healthcare system that breeds mediocrity and wallows in corruption.  SICK of an utterly broken legal system that caters to the moneyed and powerful.  And SICK of a fifty-year-old now-imploding welfare state - seeped in entitlement - that shores it all up and rewards/breeds all manner of bad behavior . . . bad behavior that SPITS in the face of Dr. King's dream that people should be judged on the content of their character.

As I watch what is going on in Egypt in response to tyranny and corruption (which will likely, unfortunately, breed more tyranny and corruption) . . . and ponder what four brave young men did a half-century ago . . . and remember the courage and humility it took for my own Father to say what he did at an Asheboro City Council meeting the year before he died - to literally BEG smug, mill-town pissants like Keith Crisco for justice for his daughter . . . I have to wonder . . .

. . . WHERE are the people of courage and conviction who should be marching in OUR streets now . . . who should be SHOUTING at the "right people" who've run our city and our state and our country into the ground, "I'm not going to condone this BULLSHIT . . . or PAY for it anymore!!!"

I don't feel like inserting the links today.  February 2nd is always a really bad day and it seems to be wafting in early this year.  The story is on the sidebar.  Not quite in "100 words-or-less".  But it's there for anyone who is really SERIOUS about "justice for all" to read and understand . . .

. . . if not do anything about.

It's crystal cleat that Dr. Mary has always been on her own.