Question Everything

There is no such thing as "reverse racism" because racism = prejudice + power. Since Whites have power and People of Color do not it isn't possible for PoC to be racist towards whites. PoC may be prejudiced against whites but that's not racism. There's a big difference between the two: White racism against PoC actively harms and oppresses PoC (examples include police brutality, discrimination, genocide, etc.) while PoC prejudices against Whites does very little to oppress Whites. To equate the two, which is what the concept of "reverse racism" does, is itself racist because it values Whites so much more than PoC that merely disliking whites is viewed as bad an offense as the real oppression which comes from racism. Of course, whether anti-white prejudice is racism is a different issue from whether anti-white prejudice is justified. Obviously, our goal should be to end all hierarchy which requires going beyond narrow anti-white prejudice.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari's decision to step down as Iraq's Prime Minister shows the power the US has over the Iraqi government. If the US doesn't like Iraq's Prime Minister, they can have him dismissed. In reality Iraq is a US puppet government, not a sovereign democracy like Bush & the democrats would have us believe.

There have been very few geniune conflicts about states rights. Most so-called states rights conflicts are really conflicts over one issue or another. When a faction is out of power on a national level it uses 'states rights' as a cover to fight against the other factions attempts to implement its agenda. The pro-slavery faction didn't have a problem with federal authority when they were in power, that only changed when they were out of power. The confederacy used force in an attempt to prevent anti-confederacy areas from seceeding, denying them the very same right they proclaimed for themselves, and soon gained power comprable to the US federal government. Conservatives used to be big supporters of states rights, but now that they're in power on a national level they don't have a problem trampling over that. Liberals used to be the opposite but recently discovered the virtues of states rights now that they're no longer in power on a national level.

If Rumsfeld resigns, as a number of military officers are now advocating, it would reduce opposition to Bush and boost his poll numbers by making it seem like he's made a significant break with the past. There wouldn't be any significant change in policy (the new guy would still be implementing Bush's militarism), but it would create the illusion that there's a change and thereby improve Bush's image without any actual improvement in policy.

The arguements against Rumsfeld within most of the mainstream media and by the generals focus mainly around competence. He's allegedly a bad leader, who bungled Iraq and isn't doing a good enough job advancing the "national interests" (which is a euphemism meaning the interests of the empire). That's actually a good thing - the less competent the leadership of the empire the easier it is to defeat the empire. The danger of replacing Rumsfeld is that the next guy might actually be competent, which would prolong the existence of the empire. Fortunetly, the arrogance and loyalty of the Bush 'cabal' makes it unlikely that Rumsfeld will be ousted.

Italy's elections were tied. The center-left technically won, but by such a tiny margin that the election was basically tied. If every voter in Italy flipped a coin, you'd get results like this. Obviously, not everyone in Italy decided randomly but it's very interesting that the collective decision of Italian voters so closely resembles a coin flip. In this, Italy is part of a pattern within the Western world. The last two elections in the US were more or less tied, as was the last election in Germany. I don't know what's causing this pattern, but it's very interesting. It's possible these "coin flip" elections are in part a byproduct of rising cynicism about politicans and representative democracy.

Race doesn't exist biologically because different societies have different racial systems and because race changes over time at a rate much faster than biological evolution. For example, Latin America has races that don't exist in the US like Mestizos and Mullatos. When Mestizos or Mullatos come to the US they're usually considered Native American or Black. What are multiple different races in Latin America are grouped together into a single race in the US. A century ago Irish in the US used to be considered an entirely different (and inferior) race. Today they're considered white, even though their genetic makeup hasn't changed significantly. If race was a biological construct then it should be constant in all societies, not change all the time. Race is really just a modern variant of caste.

So-called race-specific diseases do not exist. Take Sickle-Cell Anemia:

"because sickle cells offer immunity to malaria, the condition exists wherever malaria exists. American blacks descended primarily from West African blacks, where malaria is abundant. But Graves notes that the disease is also present in Greece and Yemen. Had colonial American slaves been Greek or Yemeni, sickle cell anemia would be known to Americans as a Greek or Yemeni disease, not a black one." (Source)

In the US, Greeks are generally treated as Whites and Yemeni as Arabs.