Bigotry is not racism

Bill Bennet is not a racist, he's a bigot. Most people today that are called racists are not, they're bigots. There s a difference, and it's an important one. By labeling all bigots racists you cheapen the fight against true racism and lessen the impact those who practice true racism have on society as a whole.

People on *all* sides of the debate freely toss the word racist around like a fucking catch all. It's so bad that bigoted conservatives can now plausibly claim 'reverse racism' as a defense of their bigotry.

Stop giving them a rational. Bigotry is bad enough in it's own right and certainly nothing to be proud of, as it highlights their ignorance and prevalent lazyness to remedy it.

Even openly discriminating against someone based solely on their skin color is not racism unless that discrimination is based on a superior/inferior classification of race.

From Websters on racism:
"...a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race"

racial differences produce an inhernet superiority of a particular race.

Read that again and again untill it sinks in.

Again from Websters on bigot:
"...a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices"

his or her own opinions and prejudices.

Read that again and again untill it sinks in as well.

They are not the same thing, and they are dissimilair enough to where you do the cause of righting one a disservice by associating it with a lesser form.

Racism is pure hate. Bigotry is simply ignorance and prejudice. Fear and mistrust of things and people thatare different, simple ignorance, and nothing more. Don't cheapen the cause of fighting true racism, or even that of aleviating simple ignorance, by slamming the two together.

Is corporate speech/advertising the same as freedom of speech/expression?

I'm finding it increasingly hard to deal with the level of whoreness our consumer society has reached. America is not alone in this, it's a small world after all, but we do pretty much represent it's current zenith.

This is a queasy feeling I get now and then, like eating spicy food even though you know you're going to pay for it later. I constantly can't believe I ate the whole thing.

And personally I'm as guilty in my own ways. I bought this big ass 52 oz Thermos brand insulated cup at 7-11 for I think it was $4.99, with a free initial fill, and subsequent fills from then on for $1. Hell of a deal really. Problem is, I don't really need to drink one of these suckers a day, or often more then one, but I buy it because it's a better deal.

I could pay half as much more then that for a 20 os can, of course. Bulk packaging is killing us. It makes perfect economic sense that the more you buy the less you pay. I mean, I have a basic understanding of economics and supply and demand. I know the routine. But can society exist in a system so pure as to almost be a vacuum of all else?

America is some fat bastard’s. I don't know if we're the fattest, but we up there. I myself could lose 50 lbs and still be overweight by a fair margin. I'm single, so I cook for one. What do I do, go buy family freaking sized packs of hamburger for a decent price? Or do I pay half as much again more for a one pound package., or do I go get a freaking double hamburger for $1 at McDonald’s?

People aren't fat because they're lazy, they're fat because they're cheap. And by proxy greedy. Consumers are cheap and retailers are greedy. That's the way the system works. You don't make money, you go out of business, plain and simple. The system works against poor people doubly so in that cheap food is almost without the fail the least healthiest. So the most vulnerable segment of our population, by design of the system we operate by, is put at the greatest risk with the least ability to deal with circumstances.

It's cheaper to drop your employees health insurance, so companies do. It's cheaper to pay low wages, so companies do. It's cheaper to hire temp workers then full time, so companies do. 15 years ago there was maybe *one* temp agency in town, and it was largely focused on office workers. Now there's at least a half dozen, with the larger local outfits having multiple offices at the edges of town or in nearby towns. Business is booming.

15 years ago we had one pawnshop 15 miles out of town in an area called Grawn, know affectionately locally as the armpit of Traverse City. Our hick version of the ghetto, though we had the good sense to push them out of town instead of the other way around. The point being, is it was out of town. Now we have at least again a half dozen of them, with one or two having multiple locations, and though they are right on the edge of town, I don't think there is one actual inside the city limits. Although one is barely a half mile out of them.

We've also had the inevitable coming of the check cashing stores, a handful give or take, and we've long had one regional chain rent to own store, we gots more now. But really, the rent to own never grew as much as everything else.

Local color; one of the pawn shops was started by early retiring local cops. Hey, I'm not saying anything, just saying.

What's the point of the pawn shops and such? Why that's the second stage of whoring ourselves out. When we ran out of money, we invented credit. Yeah yeah, credit as a concept has existed since wandering cavemen vied for a place to sleep before paying off the debt the next day by killing something. But we did invent the credit card. The Diners Club card was started I believe in New York by some wealthy shmoe who kept forgetting his wallet at home and, tired of the continued embarrassment of doing so he started a 'diners club' at local restaurants so wealthy patrons could charge their private accounts and not have to wory about the indignitiy of washing dishes to pay off their bill.

Ok, I embellished a bit, but that is who it happened, Google it *grrf*

And not only did we offer credit, it was taken, then abused, and now we have predatory lending. What a concept. Predatory lending. That a civilized society could even let it happen, yet our entire system revolves around it in the final and most important trifecta of inequities, we market it.

We lie to people and make them want things they don't need. In fact, we're damn good at it. Which brings me I guess, since my buzz is starting to wear down and I'm gonna need a pick meh up so the floor show is over.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2126685/

The article concerns one aspect of commerce that the Chinese have yet to master and take from us. That they have effectively stolen the last tired vestiges of our consumer manufacturing base and made a fine eastern art out of making cheap crap, they seem to have yet mastered how to sell that same crap.

Which is where we apparently come in; We can make money by showing them how to effectively sell us all the cheap crap they make.

The enormity of that sentiment blew me away. Is that what we're reduced to? Is that a bright spot in our national economic scene? That we're reduced to showing our competitors how to more effectively push ourselves out of the market?

Man, that is just messed up.

For a closing, I was listening to NPR in the car a while ago, as I went to Burger King for dinnre because it's easier and quicker. But I kept my integrity, I didn't super size. Anyway, they were talking about some dudes book, and while it sounded interesting, the thing that struck me ws a comment on Jefferson or Harrison, don't remember, who back before the War of 1812, they slapped a total ban on all goods going in or out of the country. No imports or exports.

The point was to get the British to stop harassing our ships, and there was something in there about Napoleon offering up Florida or something, but that's just filler here. And that came back to me as I started writing this. I wasn't originally going to include it but it seemed to cap the train of thought off nice.

At the time we grossly overestimated Europe’s and Britains needs for our then exports. They could last longer then we could, and did, and we eventually had to send some ships down there and smack 'em around. Ah yeah, that was part of the discussion as well, how Oliie Wendell was creating some officer corps or some such.

Anyway, they underestimated then, but we could do it now. The world doesn't need what we got, they need us to need what they got. If the US ended all imports and exports and suddenly went self sufficient (yes I know it's improbably, just illustrating), half the world would be put out of a job.

Not long ago there was some Bush administration hack, can't remember who, I'd Google it but I'm a lazy slut, actually put US debt in the perspective that by creating that debt, America was simply being a good world citizen, by providing all those people in other countries with our jobs. Our debt was actually a good thing for the world.

We aren't the fount of evil in the world, but we do create the atmosphere for it to thrive in; cheap greed. Capitalism, while being a great boon for capitalism, has failed society. The Dad that works a well paying job with good health benefits while Mom stays home and raises the kids is dead. They died long ago. That is so far from the norm it's almost fantasy.

We've elevated it to such a hight that advertising rests on the same lofty level as individual freedom of speech and expression. A corporate entity enjoys the same level of freedom of speech as an individual citizen, and advertising the same level as freedom of expression.

Well crap, that's an inglorious end to my otherwise playful romp. Just spent the last 20 minutes from when I typed the above paragraph and now this one talking to my Dad about work and other crap, and I have no bearing what so ever now.

And so I close.

Our health care system is fucked.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FDA has approved the first generic versions of the AIDS medication AZT, a move that could reduce the expense for people in the United States being treated for the disease.

AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that is also known as Zidovudine, helps prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing in the body. It is often used in combination with other medications to treat an HIV infection.

Generic versions of the drug have previously been unavailable in the United States because patent or market exclusivity restrictions prevented them from being marketed. Now that those patents have expired, versions of drug manufactured by Roxane Laboratories of Columbus, Ohio; Ranbaxy Laboratories of Guragon, India, and Aurobindo Pharma of Hyderabad, India, can go on the market.

The original, sold under the name Retrovir, is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. The Food and Drug Administration first approved Retrovir in 1987. A 300-milligram tablet can cost $7.

``These approvals will now allow those infected with HIV more access to these life-saving drugs within our country,'' said Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in a statement.

I'm sorry, call me a Commie socialist pig dog, I don't care, but drugs that are so integral to treatment such as this simply belong the public domain. Half the shit they come up with is funded partly or better by federal grants and such as well. Too much university stuff gets sucked up by corporations after being developed on the taxpayers dime, who then have no access to the damn thing they just funded.

We give this crap away in third world countries, but it was unaffordable to a significant percentage of our domestic population. That's simply wrong, period. Capitalism should not trump people's lives. Have the feds buy them out after development or something, but make it happen.

Drug companies spend more, a fair amount more actualy, on marketing then they do development, and the marketing is suspect as it is. They give away free stuff to doctors, pay for related 'seminars' at luxery resorts, and constantly fudge findings and risks. They don't deserve the protection they receive, let alone the free giveaway contained in the Medicare bill.

It's time we took back our health.

Role Reversal

Despite anything else these last five years, it has been interesting watching the extreme role reversal between the two major parties.

There is no one alive or dead that could seriously argue that Bush is in any way shape or form a traditional fiscal conservative. His tax cut and spend has put the Democrats to shame. If Democrats were pigs at the trough, then Republicans are the trough.

No, the 'war' on terrorism or even Iraq both don't come close to covering the deficit, so don't even go there. The drug bill giveaway and the recent highway bill (which by the way no Republican (or Democrat) is offering to revisit in the wake of the Katrina disaster)being only the two most egregious examples, Bush has yet to meet a special interest he doesn't like.

Verbatem, copy and paste, it's been proven again and again that Bush has inserted industry lobbyist memo's into federal regulations. Our laws are being written, literaly, but industry lobbyists.

Anyway, Bush has proven that while they may have historicaly cursed the Democrats penchant for throwing money at a problem, Bush has taken it to new hights. No bid contracts abound. He just upped the limit on federal credit cards from $2,500 to $250,000. There's a reason there was a limit on them. In fact, they put the limit on them. Now in the name of national tragedy, Bush has opened them up for abuse again. Money, toss it that way.

The only thing Bush hasen't thrown money at is his 'signature' NCLB Act. That, sadly, stays horribly underfunded. Bah, who needs to pay for federal mandates on states anyway, eh?

Which takes us into a whole new area, states rights and federal authority. Let's just toss the Patriot Act out of the conversation, I won't even argue that point. The aforementioned unfunded NCLB, pushing for Constitutional amendments when they can't pass their morality plays. Buying off religion with the Faith Based initiative, more money to another special interest. Bush has been horrible on states rights.

Should we talk about entitlement spending increases? Nah, they speak for themselves.

And now we have Bush promising to throw hundreds of billions at Katrina. Administration officials are even bragging about how much they're going to spend. Strangly absent, as it has been since Bush took office, has been any discussion on how any of this will be paid for. OR how anything will be paid for for that matter.

Deficits no longer matter, didn't you hear? Reagan proved it. At least for getting re/elected anyway. Fiscal policy is a whole other matter.

Toss in fixin' the Congressional rules to marginalize the Democrats further then they ever marginalized the Republicans, and you get Bush the uniter being the greatest divider we've ever had. The country is more ideaologicaly divided then anytime since before the Civil War. The country is Nalkanizing along political lines, and political increasingly, thanks to Bush personaly, has become synonymous with ideology.

Bush ran an active campaign to tie morality into ideology and thus political affiliatoin. On purpose. He injected morality into the scene on purpose to get elected and reelected. That was the plan all along. Meh, who cares, that's just politics, right?

I'll tell you why the Republicans are still in the majority and why the Democrats aren't; The Republicans are willing to do what it takes to win and the Democrats aren't. That includes doing *anything* to win, not just the bare minimum necesary.

Bush bear out McCain in 2000 in no small part because he effectively questioned his sanity and ability to run the nation. Hell, he mighta been brainwashed? Far fetched? Sure, but you want to take the chance? *Brrr*

Politics of destruction, social spending on a scale not since, well, since when? Ever? Limiting states rights, unfunded federal mandates, massive entitlement spending, federal intrusion into family and personal matters, started a war based on wrong intelligence, and let's admit it, Iraq could be going better then it is.

When the rebels become the tyrants.

Will the neocons regret their wins later on?

Right now I'm just plain lazy and reposting rants and shit from other boards/forums. This one I posted on Slate's The Fray, Ballot Box. Which is like a fucking biker bar of a forum. You want to throw down some piss and vinigar, viniger, vinegar, you want to throw some shit down, head on over there.

Doesn't the whole premise of the neocon agenda seem to balance on the fact that they will stay in power indefinatly?

If Bush, from reading a number of recent articles on the subject, looks to Roberts as someone that will bring power back to the president, won't that kind of play against them later when they lose the precidency? Doesn't their mechinations all depend on them staying in the majority pretty much forever?

I would think there would be some planning, some back door put in place, to counter that eventual reality. I mean, no one party holds the reigns forever, especialy in the White House, so don't they play against themselves by strenghtening the one prospective avenue the Democrats have to challange them in the immidiate future?

Or would Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and whomever Bush appoints next be so blatant as to tailor their rulings to match the party in office; strengthening one side while in office, weaking the other when not?

Is it simple hubris? Man's inherent arrogance? Or are they just stupid?

I'll go with hubris. They're so arrogant in their percieved righteousness that they can't perceive ever being out of power again.

And I say 'immediate future' because I'm not convinced the Democrats are doing enough on the ground localy to change the Congressional makeup enough to shift the actual balance of power. However, Dean, contrary to Republican blather, is doing great things on the ground. That's he's coordinating the effort and occasionaly says something stupid doesn't matter. His job is ti fire up the faithfull, who are the one's out actualy hitting the pavement, and that's what he's doing.

But, having said that, I live by the old axiom that "all politics is local", and that's why the GOP are in the majority; they played a better ground game for the last ten years. However, the same emotional forces that pushed the evangelicals out of their stupor and divided the nation on moralistic lines is starting to shift focus. More and more the outrage is going agasint the grain for the right.

Anyway, despite the why, I find it highly entertaining watching them limit themselves in the future. Do the Republicans somehow think that if they lose the majority, that the Democrats are going to graciously give them back the minority power they so uncerimoniously took away while they were the majority?

Get a fucking clue, heh. When Newt so piously chimed "Now it's our turn!" upon the completion of his rebelion, but before his party ostracized him and cast him out like the hindersome true conservative he was, he had no idea the true consequences of his revolution or he might have scuttled the movement himself.

With us or against us, everything has changed, bring it on.

Rehnquist was a junkie.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125906/?nav=tap3

What it boils down to;

...for the nine years between 1972 and the end of 1981, William Rehnquist consumed great quantities of the potent sedative-hypnotic Placidyl. So great was Rehnquist's Placidyl habit, dependency, or addiction—depending on how you regard long-term drug use—that by the last quarter of 1981 he began slurring his speech in public, became tongue-tied while pronouncing long words, and sometimes had trouble finishing his thoughts.

...to illustrate the ugly double standards that excuse extreme drug use by the powerful, especially if their connection is a prescribing doctor, and condemns to draconian prison terms the guy who purchases his drugs on the street.

...am I unfair to link the reluctance of journalists to zoom in for a close-up on a dead person's warts to a general deference to authority or, in the case of Rehnquist, a class bias that predisposes them to look past his drug habit as purely a medical problem? I think not.

His main gripe was that no one bothered to mention anything about his drug problem in his obituaries. I don't know if that would have been the correct medium to foster a conversation on drug policy and it's inherent class bias, but it does bear exploring in other veneu's.

For the rich and famous, drug abuse is a medical problem. For everyone else it's a criminal problem. The double standard is so blatant and ingrained into our society it's become a cliche'. First thing after OJ was indicted was he was rich and famous and would never be convitced because of that. And famous people do get preferintial treatment, whether by design or not, it's inherent in a capitalsit system. They're rich, they're famous, they got money, they can buy public opinion. Or in the least rent out a shit load of add space to influence it.

The article does bother to point out that there's no proposed degredation of Rehnquists work during the period he was popping hallucinogenic No-Doze, which I find lends credence to some drugs offering insights into how our minds work, but that's another thread.

Celebrities constantly adopt children as single parents. You ever talk to a regular person who was single and tried to adopt? WHy do you think so many foreign babies are being brought into the US? It's not because we're short of babies, it's because other countries are more likely to let anyone adopt, single or not, if they got the money.

Back when i was living in Boulder, Colorado, must have been around 1997/98, I really thought we had a chance to get some meaningfull drug policy discussion going. Some big name federal judge in Denver even wrote an editorial decrying the draconian economic disparities in national and state drug policy.

Nope, nadda, nothing happened. Again and again over the course of my lifetime, only four decades, there have been feelbe attemempts to force a disucssion on faled drug policy that has made the prison industry the fastest growing industry in the late 80's and early 90's. Again and again they have failed. And I think a major factor in tha failing is that we as a society continue to excuse behavior by our celebrities and leaders that we ourselves would otherwise be held harshly accountable for.

We want them to be better then us, but then don't hold them accountable when they aren't, and revel in the spectacle they create to enable us to forget our own existance for a while. It's a self perpetuating distraction.

9/11 24/7 365

WASHINGTON (AP) - The administration dumped FEMA Director Michael Brown as commander of Hurricane Katrina relief operations Friday as President Bush stoked memories of the 2001 terror attacks, hailing the ``extraordinary bravery'' of rescue personnel.
-----------------------------------------------------

What the motherfuck does Sept. fucking 11th have to do with the fucking hurricane?

9/11! 9/11!

Can't criticize me, 9/11!

Hurricane? 9/11!

Iraq? 9/11!

Social Secutrity reform? 9/11!

Why doesn't he just tattoo the fucker on his forehead and save us all time having to listen to the shit dribbling out of his open mouth?

What, if anything, is not related to Sept. 11th?

And I refuse to refre to the attacks from my point as '9/11'. I think it cheapens the tragedy into nothing more then a fucking talking point. Take the God Damn time to spell it out!

/end rant.

And they shit can Brown from the reliefe efforts becuase he's incompetent, but he's still had of the fucking agency? How the fuck does that happen? Can I get a job in this administration?

Damn man, the only way you can get fired from this administration without getting a Medal of Freedom is to do your job right!

Christ, people, can we take a reality check here? I mean it should be past partisanship. The Bush administration has *serious* flaws, even to conservatives, in the deficit and social spending and entitlement program expansion and massive corporate welfare, but no one is holding his feet to the fire for breaking these historicaly Republican tenets!

He turns the whole party's ideology upside down, and no one says a thing! But ti's OK now, becuase WE'RE the one's doing it!

Right.

After five years there's not ONE thing that anyone in the administration should be held accountable for? We seriously underestimated Iraq, that is fact. Rumsfeld admits it, and he's the one responsible for it. Shouldn't someone be held accountable?

The drug bill was a lie! The administration forced the actuary to LIE to Congress about the true cost to keep it under the $440 Billion the GOP leadership said they would support. Everyone in the administratoin knew the guy was lying. Everyone knows it now. Shouldn't someone be held accountable for it?

Lack of armor TWO YEARS into the Iraq war, simply unacceptable, way to support our fucking troops. Shouldn't someone, anyone, be held accountable for that failing?

They snitched out a CIA agent! Spin it all you want, but the legal fact remains is whoever gave her name out in the first place shouldn't have. It did threaten our national security just in the fact that it showed the world the Bush administratoin really doesn't give a shit about the CIA, and in fact has actively worked against the agency. Shouldn't someone be held accountable? For anything? Ever?

And before you scream "Meltdown!", it's my country too, fuckers. It spins both ways, it cuts both ways, it divides both ways.