Sidney Thorne

Political Science
5 July 2016
"Eugenics in the 21st Century
George D. Fournad, had specific ideas on the betterment of society
back before WWII. He felt that Eugenics counseling would produce better
marriages, more stable children and less chaos and crime. His theory was
that the difficulties of society came from the careless breeding and raising of
kids by those who did not care to nurture the children they produced. He
championed what he termed the Eugenic Marriage.
Many people claim that there is a subtle but definite push by
those in power to dumb down the American people, to marginalize the
middle class and to create a class of elite and a class of poor. All this is part
of a modern Eugenics program, instead of the extremes of the Nazis and
other countries in History. In the eyes of Fournad; those with ample
resources raised more stable and well rounded children, and yet did not
spend their resources to do so hoarding their genetics and influence to one
or two, yet the less resources a person had, the more children he noticed
were produced which increased the population of less desirables in the
society. He did not champion forced sterility but instead choosing self
limitations of procreation, namely birth control, which would allow for greater
time and energy spent on the children produced which in turn would increase
the quality of children produced at all economic levels.
This idea is still held onto, however current US policy is not to force
anything, instead subtle influences are done in the passing of policies,
encouragements to build families a particular way. "The science of better
breeding cannot be separated from the forces that initiated, financed and
directed the research." This is done with welfare by the government, paying
low wages by businesses, reinforced by the media to stereotype those who

need help as a way to continue to keep down the poor, and even expand the
lower class by destroying the middle class. However this trend is not seen as
Eugenics, and is therefore not documented as such.
Eugenics does not have to be about building a superior people, it can
be about building a population that can be controlled, refining one portion of
the population and keeping the rest out of reach of that pool of refined
people. Economics can be used to create those barriers and keep the
sections of people separate. While this can be disheartening, the argument
of "those of higher caliber find a way to rise to the top and therefore prove
by their actions their exception." This argument helps to keep the upper
class feeling virtuous in their actions as they manipulate the conditions that
keep the classes separate.

Government Policies
The prevalence of welfare can be argued to be a program to keep the
poor, poor. In a paper by the Policy Director of Civitas Institute in Raleigh, it
is stated that welfare sets up a paradox, that once a person gets a job over a
certain amount, they cannot receive welfare anymore, and this leaves them
little incentive to look for better or train to better only to end up without
benefits like health care, daycare vouchers and housing assistance. It is
stated that a single mother would have to make $55,000 a year to have the
same level of living as what she had making $15,000 a year, although that is
a generalization, as it could be more or less depending on where she lived.
Now there is a lot of argument over the issue in the comments, however no
matter the intentions of the policy makers, the reality of the effects cannot
be denied.
Statistics gathered by Statistic Brain, state that roughly 35% of all
Americans receive some sort of assistance outside of tax credits, which if

included would raise the number higher. These numbers do not change, and
the Government keeps cutting benefits. A conspiracy theorist would claim
that the government wants to keep the people down, keep people under
control. However that is what has been done since the civil war, in the
aftermath, the cost of freedom has been balanced with control, and those
who wanted to keep others down found ways to do so, and those who
wanted freedom for all were deterred by the cost of it. In class we discussed
the policies made by Democrats in the South designed to keep the Blacks
down, refusing to allow them to mix with a "higher race." This form of
Eugenics is not found in Governmental polices today, but there is still
evidence that welfare policies are used to control the people and create a
population that will vote for those who they feel are helping them out even if
the reality is that they are trapped by those same policies.
In a report conducted in 2015 by NewsHour Productions, single
mothers living on welfare are trapped on welfare because they are not
finding funding to get the training they need to get a better job in order to
break the cycle. The funding has been cut for such programs, and the only
jobs they can find are service jobs in retail and restaurants which do not
always give them enough to make ends meet, even with assistance, leaving
them trapped on the system. In the same program a former welfare recipient
said that it is harder now for those wanting to work their way out of the
system then it was 20 years ago.
Government policies for businesses allow them to get away with
paying the bare minimum to their employees, or even keep them in a
"voluntary hour" situation. I used to work for a company that proves this to
be true. The company in order to "stay competitive" would not pay more
than minimum wage for its regular employees and would not guarantee
them more than 10 hours a week. Their "full time" employees were the
supervisors who would receive more than minimum wage, but not by much,
and were penalized if they worked more than 28 hours a week. The only

employees that would get 40 hours a week were salary and would end up
working closer to 60 hours a week in order to get the work done that needed
to be done or they would end up being written up and their job security
threatened. The reason always given by the corporate office was that
"Obamacare makes it too expensive to function any other way." Yet they
have money to open a new store every year.
These actions point support the suspicions that Government policies
are no longer designed to help people better themselves but instead to
make them dependent on the system. This does not mean that all such
support programs should cease, instead the results of the policies should be
looked at before further decisions are made on how to handle these support
programs.

Business Policies
The interests of big business often conflict with the interests of the
lower class. Businesses want money, they convince anyone who will buy it,
that they do not need to save, they can live on credit and still make a
success of themselves. They use marketing to sell the line that everyone
deserves the Cadillac, the hot tub in the back yard, the house that can be
bought for 0% interest. The average citizen becomes nothing more than a
source of income, and to hell with the consequences on the common person,
just so long as business interests are protected. This was seen in the housing
bubble crash of 2005, and the subsequent foreclosures after the banks were
bailed out by government. Using their 70% power over the Government,
which Professor Gutaj stated was his belief, big business, namely big finance,
gained at the sacrifice of the average citizen. I watched two of my friends
lose their home to this corrupt banking practice which forced a foreclosure.

As stated above, many businesses, use their power and influence in

congress in order to support policy that helps them to create revenue, and
protect their bottom line. This comes into conflict when legislature such as
Obamacare goes into effect and businesses make adjustments to protect
their bottom line, which hurts the average citizen trying to get out of debt
and find some financial security in life.
Some corporations such as Walmart, praised by many legislators as a
top job creator, keep the majority of their employees as part time
employees, claiming it allows their employees to stay home more which is
their wish, offer more people employment, and allows them to be more
flexible with their schedules. While these claims may be true, the reality is
that part time employees do not need to be offered benefits such as paid
vacation, health care, and retirement planning, which saves the bottom line
for companies such as Walmart. The biggest complaint many employees
have, is not the lack of benefits but the lack of hours offered to them, this
was documented in an article in the NY Times in February of 2015. Some
companies, as has been my experience, will even penalize their employees
for going over a specified amount of hours.
The result of these business practices is that their employees become
part of the "working poor" and need Government assistance to make ends
meet, or at the minimum, provide the health care that their hours deny their
access to. This puts pressure on the legislatures and raises the question of
the effectiveness of the Social programs. This emphasizes the difference
between the social elite who have money and power, and can influence
Social policy, and the poor who often get lost in the shuffle becoming
discouraged, and even trusting more in criminal activities then their own
worth, which is a way to separate classes and follow the modern Eugenics
program to keep the rabble from rising above their proper station.

Role of the Media

One cannot ignore the role the media plays in the modern Eugenics
program of the United States. The media loves to portray the poor as lazy,
criminals, and worthless. These actions help to influence the perspective of
the people and the legislatures when it comes time to decide the fate of
social assistance programs. From movies to news reports, the media shows a
biased representation of those who live at or below the poverty line. Movies
such as "Lean on Me" and "Music of the Heart" show schools where only the
very best have the strength to overcome, leaving behind the impression that
if someone does not overcome, they have not put forth the effort.
In an article for Yale published in 1999, it was stated that while the
population is all for programs such as college scholarships and job training,
giving money directly is not looked on favorably by the public. A great deal of
this has to do with the way the news sources present information on those
who are poor. As stated in the article the percentage of blacks among the
poor differ depending on location, places such as North Dakota and Utah
have very few blacks among their population of poor.
It is my speculation, that the reason these negative stereotypes are
reported by the media is to discourage the wealthier Americans from
supporting the programs, which will allow for the poor to fall more into the
power of those who wish to separate out the wealthy from the poor. A good
question is why the media would assist in this effort, but the answer is
simple, sensationalism sells, entertains, and feeds on itself, giving more
news to hype up, as what has happened to the Black Lives Matter movement
recently. It has gone from a positive "we are the most forgotten speaking for
all," to "Black Lives Matter, and everyone is racist against us." A situation all
created by the way the media has reported the event.

Other efforts to keep the people either unaware, or dumbed down, it

the prevalence of "Reality Television" which helps to encourage the
stereotypes, and give the citizens something more entertaining to talk about
then the true state of affairs in the nation. In an age where news does not
sell, sensationalism does, it becomes easy to hype up the bad, inflaming and
polarizing views which create distrust, and a natural wall to aid in the
Eugenic effort to keep those without power from gaining it.

Conclusion
Nowadays the Eugenic efforts of those in power, are about keeping
power, keeping the people in a position of powerlessness. From the
destruction of the middle class by business efforts, to the trap that comes in
the package called welfare, to the manipulation of public opinion about the
poor, the mingling of classes becomes harder and harder, which in and of
itself shows that these efforts are nothing more than a new way to achieve
Eugenics.
Thanks to the past efforts of the Nazis, the idea of Eugenics is shied
away from, instead the modern terms used are class warfare and racism.
Even though the script is still being written, and it is difficult to tell what kind
of society is being created by the powers trying to shape this country, it is
clear this time the Eugenic efforts are about power, not creating a master
race that is better than other countries, but keeping the citizen themselves in
line and following the lead of those in power.
While much of this is dismissed as mere conspiracy theory, the trends
and overall direction, is alarming. Unless the people allow themselves to see
beyond the polarization of the issues, they will be playing into the hands of
the efforts to shape the future of this nation into classes of elite and cattle,
from where genetics cannot mingle, proving finally my theory that these

efforts are nothing more than a modern form of Eugenics based not on
ethnicity, but on money and power.

Bibliography

Fournad, D. George. "Eugenics and Eugenic Marriages." The Journal of

Educational Sociology 3.3
(1929): 171-80. Web.
Balfour, Brian. "How to Keep Poor People Poor." Civitas Institute. Civitas
Institute, 02 Jan. 2014. Web. 08 July 2016.
<https://www.nccivitas.org/2014/keep-poor-people-poor/>.
Harden, Seth. "Welfare Statistics." Statistic Brain. Statistic Brain Institute
2016, 22 Jan. 2016.
Web. 20 July 2016.
<http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/>.
NewsHour Productions LLC. "Why Its so Hard to Get off Welfare." PBS. PBS,
16 Apr. 2015.
Web. 20 July 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/hardget-welfare/>.
Tabuchi, Hiroko. "Next Goal for Walmart Workers: More Hours." The New York
Times. The New York Times, 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 30 July 2016.
Music of the Heart. Dir. Wes Craven. Prod. Marianne Maddalena. Perf. Meryl
Streep, Angela
Bassett, Aidan Quinn, Cloris Leachman, Gloria Estefan, Jane
Leeves, and Kieran Culkin.
Miramax Films, 1999. Netflix.
Gonzolaz, Susan. "A Conversation about Welfare and the Media." Yale Bulletin
and Calendar News. Yale, 17 May 1999. Web. 20 July 2016.
<http://www.yale.edu/opa/arcybc/v27.n32/story7.html>.
Lean On Me. By Michael Schiffer. Perf. Morgan Freeman. Warner Brothers,
1989. Netflix.