Daily Archives: July 10, 2008

Barack Obama Open Thread

As expected, Barack Obama stood on the wrong side of the issue re: the FISA amendment. How many more times are we going to be duped by “progressive change” he claims to represent?

John Nichols of The Nation and Roberto Lovato of Of America put out an interesting report now on Alternet.org. The headline is

“Obama Retreats From Key Progressive Issues.”

Obama votes like a Republican on FISA and backs off from Iraq, keeping corporate America happy.

Read the article and let us know what you think.

Is he still worth our vote? Given the nature of our community, I think Obama is only going to aggravate us the next four years. Speaking for me, after yesterday’s FISA vote…. I’m seriously reconsidering. I won’t even dare vote Nader. I’ll just leave it blank and vote for the other races. Much better! – CA

So whadda you think folks? Discuss.

Beef flavored prozac…

Some U.S. cities waste water and water supply is actually showing signs of residue from prescription drugs .Recently VPR had a segment on the Vermont law that requires  pharmaceutical companies to report how much money they spend on marketing to doctors.

Drug companies spent more than $3 million last year to entice Vermont physicians to prescribe their products. The payments include consulting fees, travel, gifts and money for lectures. Not included are free drug samples, or payments for clinical research studies……. Drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression were among the top five in terms of total dollars spent.

This report is the 5th that the State has complied .Drugs in search of diseases is the way some of the new marketing has struck me ,and this law is good for providing a window into big pharma drug dealing .

Too many drugs and not enough human patients .The New York Times has a window of another sort into the pharma world of big profit drugs ……..Beef flavored prozac for your dog.In the big scheme of war ,peace and etc.dogs,pets on drugs probably rates low,but it is an astounding illustration of big pharma marketing .

The practice of prescribing medications designed for humans to animals has grown substantially over the past decade and a half, and pharmaceutical companies have recently begun experimenting with a more direct strategy: marketing behavior-modification and “lifestyle” drugs specifically for pets. America’s animals, it seems, have very American health problems. More than 20 percent of our dogs are overweight; Pfizer’s Slentrol was approved by the F.D.A. last year as the country’s first canine anti-obesity medication. Dogs live 13 years on average, considerably longer than they did in the past; Pfizer’s Anipryl treats cognitive dysfunction so that absent-minded pets can remember the location of the supper bowl or doggy door. For lonely dogs with separation anxiety, Eli Lilly brought to market its own drug Reconcile last year. The only difference between it and Prozac is that Reconcile is chewable and tastes like beef.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07…

http://www.vpr.net/news_detail…

SVR Breaks from the League of the South

Believe that? Me neither.

Shay Totten has the story that the Second Vermont Republic has decided to make a clean break from the (openly) racist League of the South.  

UPDATE–MAKE SURE TO READ THE COMMENTS AT SEVEN DAYS!! 

 The famous Thomas “Don't Call Me a Racist” Naylor has published a letter called (I'm not making this up)  

To The League of the South From Vermont With Love

Yes, you read that right: “With Love”. That's only the first reason to question the sincerity of this “break”, however. If you read the letter, you will see that, far from acknowledging the racism of the League of the South, Naylor treats it as no more than a PR problem.

Naylor thinks racism is no more than a problem of perception.  Naylor covers some history, and then begins with the racist aroma surrounding secession movements: “Secession is often equated with Southern, redneck, Christian fundamentalist racism. Anyone who is a secessionist is considered a likely racist, but a Southern secessionist is a racist a priori. Since the LOS is a Southern secessionist group, it’s hardly surprising that there is a widespread perception that it is racist”. Get it? There's nothing racist about LOS, but for some bizarre reason, people think that southern secessionists have some racist ideas. According to Naylor, this idea is no more than a “knee-jerk reaction” on the part of most Americans. It's not that there actually is any racism involved in secessionists, it's just “equated with” southern racism. The problem isn't the racist ideas, it's that people can't stop thinking about them. There's nothing wrong with it except those unfortunate associations with “images of the Civil War, slavery, racism, violence, and preservation of the Southern way of life.”

This unfortunate perception even infects the cultural symbols of the South. For instance, here's Naylor on the Confederate flag: Whether justifiably or not, most Southern blacks view the Confederate flag as an overt racist symbol aimed at rubbing salt in their 400-year wounds.

 “Whether justifiably or not?” He really thinks there is some question about this? Try this little thought experiment: “Whether justifably or not, most Jews view the Nazi flag as an overt anti-Semitic symbol aimed at rubbing salt in their wounds.” If you read this as a serious proposition, would you conclude that the author understands that the Nazi flag is actually a symbol of anti-Semitism, or would you think that the entire problem is in the eye of the beholder? Clearly, if Naylor thinks that the display of the Confederate flag (maybe it's just a coincidence that many southern states started flying it during the Civil Rights Movement) has nothing to do with racism, he lacks the ability to detect racism in himself and others, a basic tool for identifying and extirpating it.

Or, take this line:  “And in a similar vein, nothing enrages Southern blacks more than the singing of “Dixie.” Oh yeah, like when Jesse Helms used to start singing Dixie whenever Carol Moseley Braun got on the Senate elevator, vowing that he would keep singing it until he made her cry. Yup, in Naylor's view, the only people who have any objection to these racist displays are “Southern blacks”. Funny how touchy a few centuries of slavery and oppression can make you, isn't it?

  Naylor ignores the reality of modern racism. In the world according to Naylor, racism is all in the past, but since Bush 43 became president that's all gone away. Bush's appointment of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “sent a very clear signal to white racists everywhere that racism was no longer part of the national agenda.” Really? Well, here's what Bush's pal, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just said about racist dog Jesse Helms: “He put duty above all else — duty to God, to country, to family … the simple duty of treating other people well.” And famous right wing preacher Billy Graham called Helms “a man of consistent conviction to conservative ideals and courage to faithfully serve God and country based on principle, not popularity or politics.”

And yet, to hear Naylor say it, racism is gone from the modern scene, except when practiced by Democrats like Bill Clinton, and even then it doesn't work.  “White South Carolina Democrats got the message and voted for Obama. Guess what, Tom? That's because the white racists who used to make up the Democratic Party in the South became Republicans! 

 Naylor attacks anti-racist organizations. For instance, he refers to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has spent decades investigating and suing the KKK and other racist organizations a “race-baiting” organization.

Naylor is blind to true racism. Up is down, black is white in Naylor's world. After reciting a long history of racism, the use of racist symbols, and calling on them to start letting black people to join, who does Naylor think is ideally suited to unite all southerners, black and white? You guessed it, the League of the South.

 

So there we have it. In the world according to Naylor, the Southerners who run the League of the South, fly Confederate flags, and sing “Dixie” aren't really racists, they just suffer from unfortunate associations. The real racists and race-baiters are people like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Bill Clinton, who have actually worked for the cause of racial justice. And the reason SVR can't continue to work hand0n-hand with the LOS is not because the LOS is an irredeemably racist organization, but because it makes SVR look bad. If they could just fix those pesky perceptions they can be friends again.

For us here at GMD, though, it's clear that Naylor hasn't changed, and we continue to believe that SVR has no place in the legitimate debates on Vermont's future. 

let’s get meta: history and vocab primer with GMD

In our next segment longhaired slouchy pen-tapping bloggers examine and reinforce stereotypes about bloggers, the blogosphere and blogosity. A brief recounting of the creation myth of GMD follows. John Odum closes this segment by acing his vocab quiz on the terminology of blogology.

I will get the remaining pieces of the debut episode of VTblogosphereTV up in due time. I am also pleased to announce that there will be an episode two. Despite imperfections, episode one went better than I could have expected and I think we exceeded the “boring and amateurish” public access TV threshold.  Again much thanks to John and thanks generally for the feedback and interest.