The LA Times has a story today on UCLA's hospital, which, the story suggests, may be giving liver transplants to members of Japanese organized crime syndicates in exchange for large donations. There's much in this that's disturbing, not the least of which is the orientalist frame in which the reporter casts his subjects - "ruthless," etc. (Goto as Togo?) and the undercurrent of economic nationalism which is present in the story and explodes into fullblown white racism at times during the comments.

Not that I think the university and the state get off the hook for this. When millions have no health care coverage, even if the donations are being put to good use, there's no defending a system which allows those with money to receive care and leaves the fates of those without money to chance (and a slim one at that.) None of whihc is to argue that the technologies of medical knowledge are always a good or progressive thing or that forms of care are not themselves implicated in the logics of power and the strategies of managing populations we take to be normal.
(I have no idea who did this or what they were trying to do, but i recognize the text - it's the last few sentences of Hardt and Negri's Empire.)