After being widely criticized for suggesting that poor children should work as janitors rather than attend classes in failing schools, leading Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrinch doubled down on his Rand-meets-Dickens socioeconomic policy platform by hailing the example of a multi-millionaire who made his fortune in a multi-level-marketing organ-selling business.
"Here's a true hero of the American free enterprise system," said the former Speaker of the House, "a man who literally pulled himself up out of poverty by his kidneys."
Gingrinch was referring to Woodrow Johnson, a former coal miner who lost his job after complaining of debilitating chronic fatigue. It was later determined that Mr. Johnson's fatigue was caused by cancer, likely as a result of exposure to environmental toxins in the unregulated mine where he had worked. But by then his unemployment insurance had expired, his savings were gone, and he had no health insurance to cover life-saving treatment.
Mr. Johnson decided to sell one of his kidneys to finance his cancer treatments. Little did he know, it would be the best decision he would ever make in his life. Four years later, Woodrow Johnson is the President and CEO of Organpreneurs, Inc., a company that matches impoverished people willing to sell their organs with those who need transplants.
As the Organpreneurs.com website explains:
If you sell one of your organs through Organpreneurs, you will become part of our global network of millions of people looking to buy and sell life-saving and life-enhancing human tissue. As a certified Organpreneur, you can not only earn back the organ you had to sell to raise startup capital for your enterprise, but you can earn millions of dollars recruiting other people of limited means to sell their organs. Our company pays you a commission on every piece of tissue you arrange to extract and transfer from a person who can't afford to keep it to a person who can.
Using the Organpreneurs MLM system, you too can an be just like our founder, Woodrow Johnson, who has two kidneys again... and a wallet so big that all the women are asking "is that a roll of Benjamins in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
Woodrow Johnson has since parlayed his fortune from Organpreneurs, Inc. into Phallitech, the world's largest penis-enlargement company, propelling him into the Fortune 500.
"Mr. Johnson should serve as an example to American youths who are wasting their time in schools that don't teach them how to succeed in the real world," said Newt Gingrinch in a policy address sponsored by The Ebenezer Scrooge Memorial Fund, Upward Thrust America, the Galt Society for Raw and Bloody Capitalism, and several other conservative think tanks and lobbying organizations.
Reaction was mixed. Former pizza executive and presidential candidate Herbman Cain cautiously praised the idea: "While it's true that many of America's greatest entrepreneurs have started out by selling at least one of their organs, usually before the age of 12, in order to finance their first boot-shining startup, there are many true American heroes -- such as pizza executive Herbman Cain -- whose organs are fully intact, in excellent working order, and have never been used by anyone else except with their permission, as indicated in the appropriate legal documents filed with human resources."
Rush Limpbaugh challenged the unemployed to go to work for companies like Organpreneurs. "All you have to do is slap down a kidney, a cornea, or maybe an arm or a leg -- just get your lazy liberal butt on the operating table and do it -- and you can live the American dream. There is nothing keeping you from a good job except your sissy, Frenchified, selfish and unpatriotic desire to keep every single body part rather than invest in your own economic future by making a small, temporary sacrifice. Don't want to give up a pound of flesh to finance your startup company? Boo-hoo! That's called business. It's called the American way."
On the other side of the aisle, Democrats ranged from lukewarm to tepid about Mr. Gingrich's proposal. "We certainly need to consider all kinds of new ideas -- ideas from both sides of the aisle -- to stimulate America's economy and get people back to work, get people starting businesses, get people moving up the economic ladder again," said Sen. Mack Baucus. "Although this particular idea wouldn't be my first preference, let's all keep talking, sitting down at the negotiating table and coming up with ideas to move the discussion forward."
It remains to be seen whether Gingrinch's proposal will resonate with Republican primary voters or whether they will be concerned about too many foreigners coming across the border to sell their organs in America and driving down the price. "We need to keep these kind of special economic opportunities for Americans only," said Haight Brown, president of the grassroots organization Patriots for Unlimited Freedom and Impenetrable Borders. "Let's not sell our people short. If they can't get a good price for their own bodies, what hope do they have to ever become wealthy, as all Americans are destined to be?"