Dam the Dam

There was a time when those who graduated from medical school were among the brightest America had to offer.  Yet throughout time there has always been an exception to the rule even for doctors who were educated in the 1960s. 

Your Lake County Eye found that exception when by chance operatives were enjoying a cup of coffee reading the Lake County News-Sun and came across this “Letter to the Editor” (2/16/21)

Cautionary tale

Recently, a new African-American patient asked me who the portrait of the black man was in my waiting room. I told him it was Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania upon independence from Britain.

Asked why, I told him he was the politician I respected most in the world. After the election he rapidly turned the county into a socialist/communist country, complete with the red flag and sickle. I was known as Comrade Doctor. The schools, hospitals, farms and factories were nationalized.

Steadily, most everything fell into ruin.  Production and the economy steadily declined.

One day on a “flying doctor” mission the pilot pointed down to miles of barren, desolate land. He informed me that this was once a huge green rice plantation. All the people had jobs, money and food. It was owned by a rich man of Asian decent.

The government decided that one person should not be so rich on the labors of others and so the farm was nationalized. The government appointees steadily led it to ruin.

The people no longer had jobs or food, but at least there wasn't a rich person.  After 25 years, President Nyerere stood before his Parliment.

He thanked them for their confidence during all those years, but told them socialism doesn’t work. He asked them to respectfully accept his resignation and turn the presidency over to a businessman from Zanzibar.

Should our current president admit that his run at socialism and attacking the rich is leading our beloved country downhill and resigns, I will find space on my wall for his portrait.

William C. Dam, M.D.

Ingleside

As you can imagine after cleaning up the spilled coffee from the desk and newspaper, one sat puzzled and amazed that a physician mind you could possibly come up with such a piece of ignorant, racist, insulting drivel and to top it off pretty much factually WRONG in every sense.

Then again you had to think of the source,  Dr. William Dam a party hack, and former State Committeeman.  And why shouldn’t he do what so many have done in recent years….make up stories.  It is the way of doing business today for surely Americans have lost the ability to critically think and tend to believe anything they read.   That had to be going through the good doctor’s mind as he penned his Letter to the Editor.

Research has failed to support any of Dr. Dam's statement.  The most one could find was a reference to Nyerere "finally admitting that some of his policies hadn't been successful" when he stepped down in 1990.  But that appears to refer mostly to the collectivization of agriculture alone, or the methods employed in the implementation of his goals, and not to his broader commitment to socialism as a broad doctrine.  Most of the histories available suggest that his country was not sufficiently developed to absorb the transition to complex economic theory, and that the managers of the collective system of agriculture were unqualified.

term in October 1990; became chair of the ruling CCM, 1990."  Source:  Answers.com.  As an aside, Tanzania is the result of a merger, in the early 60s, of Tanganyika and Zanzibar, and Mwiny is a devout Muslim.  Finally, it should also be noted that although Mwinyi's pragmatic and liberalizing policies were credited with reviving the Tanzanian economy, he would deny that he reversed the socialist policies of his predecessor. Mwinyi describes the role of the president and the party in Tanzania by saying, "In our country, the party is supreme and the government is only an instrument which implements the party's policies." Mwinyi continued to assert that socialism is a goal for the Tanzanian economy, but he also acknowledged an active private sector in Tanzania's "mixed economy.”

We challenge the good doctor to a spirited debate or better yet, another Letter to the Editor apologizing for his character assasination at trying to link the President of the United States to socialism.  Real socialist cringe when anyone tries to link this POTUS to their scared socialist values.