Eugenics article (connection to Kellogg)

[SunnyPerch]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rubin-eugenics-mothers-day-20120513,0,4681748.story

Did anyone catch this op-ed in the LA Times yesterday? I found it interesting (yet not surprising) that John Harvey Kellogg, the same man who popularized routine circumcision of infants in the U.S., was also a huge proponent of eugenics.

Kinda makes me wish I believed in heaven and hell, because surely there would be a special place in the latter for this cretin. What a legacy of crimes to humanity...and sadly, all most people seem to know about in regards to that name are corn flakes.

[erinsuzy]

Oh my gosh! I did not know about eugenics until I saw a movie about it last year, but even in that movie they said eugenics pretty much stopped after WWII because of what Hitler did with his eugenics program (which he learned from us and went overboard with it) had given the eugenics idea a bad name. I had no idea they were still practicing it well into 1980...  that is horrible. About 4 minutes in on this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0SsXSPq38&feature=relmfu  they talk about our eugenics program, how it started, and even commercials and pictures of signs showing open endorsment of eugenics that I have never seen before. They actually sterilized people in this country when they got low test scores on their report cards! It made me mad that this was not in our history books, but as they say "the winners write the history".

[Frankly Speaking]

Originally Posted by erinsuzy 

Oh my gosh! I did not know about eugenics until I saw a movie about it last year, but even in that movie they said eugenics pretty much stopped after WWII because of what Hitler did with his eugenics program (which he learned from us and went overboard with it) had given the eugenics idea a bad name. I had no idea they were still practicing it well into 1980...  that is horrible. About 4 minutes in on this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0SsXSPq38&feature=relmfu  they talk about our eugenics program, how it started, and even commercials and pictures of signs showing open endorsment of eugenics that I have never seen before. They actually sterilized people in this country when they got low test scores on their report cards! It made me mad that this was not in our history books, but as they say "the winners write the history".

No, it is not in our history books and for a reason.

I once dated a history and geography teacher.  I was sitting with her kids one day going over the end of WW II with them and trying to get them to think about why the Japanese wouldn't like us very much.  (the US had a lot to be blamed for)

She quickly shut me up.  You see, teachers are not allowed to teach anything that would show The US in a bad light.  She knew this very well and imagined her kids might go to school and repeat what I had told them possibly getting their teacher in trouble.

I can imagine the writers of the text books know this and write them as not to broach these controversial topics.

Frank