All of a sudden you have everything in common with everyone in that "club".

I have been doing internet searches on "countries that have conquered racism", "countries that have eliminated racism", and have gotten back pages and pages of examples of racism and intolerance in most countries and history. Maybe cancer is the answer.

Leukemia guy, he testified before Congress, to pry out more research money, that a cure for leukemia was imminent. His mom died of brain cancer at MD Andersen while he sat with her overnight. She had been vain all her life, but refused to wear a wig or a hat when she lost her hair to cancer treatment. That had to have been huge for her.

Scary, scary thing about my relative. He told me he ignores directives wherein the patient has asked to be allowed to die under certain circumstances. His reason? When the patients can speak to him for themselves, they beg for anything he can do that might keep them alive longer. Incredible that he does not see the difference between a patient who is on life support and a patient who is able to speak to him for himself or herself.

Anyway, when he told me that, I could not believe my ears. What the actual fuck? That thought had never occurred to me.

IF the family were aware of the directive and his actions, they could seek an injunction and cross their fingers that the Texas state judge who is assigned the case is not a pro life extremist. Otherwise, what is the remedy? I know of no lawsuit by an estate against a doctor for having tried to keep the decedent alive longer, despite a medical directive to the contrary.

This resonates on so many levels. The idea of The Great Equalizer. The path to socialism. Truly becoming our brother's keeper.

I wish there were other ways to cure your racism, America, but I don’t see one. Frankly your immune system seems to be the problem. Installed by history and maintained by privilege, it is too robust, too entrenched to be undone by anything less than disaster. That’s how it is for a lot of us. If you are white and doing well in America, a voice whispers to you incessantly, repeating that you deserve to be on top, that to profit is your just reward. And it’s not only white people who need the cancer cure; it’s any person who thinks that someone of another religion, color, or background is somehow not indisputably, equally human...

This strange country of cancer, it turns out, is the true democracy — one more real than the nation that lies outside these walls and more authentic than the lofty statements of politicians; a democracy more incontrovertible than platitudes or aspiration.

In the country of cancer everyone is simultaneously a have and a have-not. In this land no citizens are protected by property, job description, prestige, and pretensions; they are not even protected by their prejudices. Neither money nor education, greed nor ambition, can alter the facts. You are all simply cancer citizens, bargaining for more life.

If we'd just awaken a little more in our daily lives we'd be able to recognize the universality and commonality of life ever present. You get reminders of it all the time, but we dismiss them just a s quickly. As this piece points out we're heavily invested in all kinds of armor or identity that seeks to separate us.

On the subway in a packed car you're jowl to jowl with humanity. And once you get past whatever preconceptions of which you've been conditioned that feeling of universality strikes you. In less severe ways being teammates or working on a project and definitely engaging in activism brings forth a togetherness that opens up the channels to recognizing oneness and squashing division.

It's weird as a relatively new Dad, to be intimate with the beginnings of life, and to think that there could be any parent who could have any other overriding feeling than that of the universality of it all. It's inconceivable to me to look at people or babies now and not at some point imagine the collection of people who took are of and helped nurture that person. Being a parent should enhance feelings of empathy and compassion, not make you a self-centered, cutthroat capitalist with a he-man individualist, superiority complex. What the fuck, people; there's a whole host of the same things everybody desires, no matter how much some Libertarian asshole will try to dispute that. Warm bed at the end of the day? Hot and cold running water? Electricity to run things you need/want? Clean streets? There's more than enough resources to take care of everyone, relieve anxiety about it and make sure we all have access to the basics.

On another note this parlays right into the theme of Briahna Gray's most recent piece at the Intercept (which is making the rounds),"Beware The Race Reductionist."

A hostage situation has emerged on the left. And progressive policies like “Medicare for All,” a $15 minimum wage, free public education, a “Green New Deal,” and even net neutrality, are the captives.

The captors? Bad faith claims of bigotry.

According to an increasingly popular narrative among the center-left, a dispiriting plurality of progressives are “class reductionists” — people who believe that economic equality is a cure-all for societal ills, and who, as a result, would neglect policy prescriptions which seek to remedy identity-based disparities.

Of course, race and class are so interwoven that any political project that aims to resolve one while ignoring the other does a disservice to both. As Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., presumptive leader of the progressive movement, put it this spring when I asked him about the never-ending race versus class debates: “It’s not either-or. It’s never either-or. It’s both.”

The fear that identity-based issues might be “thrown under the bus” in favor of more populist, “universal” policies is legitimate: The Democratic Party has certainly done as much in the recent past for causes less noble than class equality. But the irony is that anxiety over class reductionism has led some to defensively embrace an equally unproductive and regressive ideology: race reductionism.

If you’re #online, like I am, you’re probably already familiar with the main argument. It goes something like this: If a policy doesn’t resolve racism “first,” it’s at worst racist, and at best not worth pursuing.

According to one popular iteration of this theme, “Medicare For All” is presumptively racist or sexist because it won’t eliminate discriminatory point-of-service care or fully address women’s reproductive needs if it’s not thoughtfully designed. Perhaps you remember Rep. James Clyburn’s claim that a free college and university plan would “destroy” historically black colleges and universities. Maybe you’ve heard that the minimum wage is “racist” because it “Kills Jobs and Doesn’t Help The Poor,” or that it’s an act of privilege to care about Wall Street corruption, because only the wealthy could possibly mind what the banks do with the mortgages and pensions of millions of Americans. Perchance you’ve even been pitched on the incredible notion that rooftop solar panels hurt minority communities.

Libertarian journalist Conor Friedersdorf recently entered the fray with a piece titled, “Democratic Socialism Threatens Minorities.” His argument? That “top-down socialism” (which progressives want just about as badly as they want top-down capitalism) would create a tyranny of the majority and put minorities at risk. Completely ignoring the market failures of our current system, and eliding the widespread prejudice and violence black Americans face under capitalism, he concern-trolls by imagining a world in which black women struggle to find suitable hair products. Of course, this is a world we already live in.

The cruel irony is that as much as it wouldn’t have ended racism, breaking up the banks, and properly regulating them, would have a positive effect on the economic, and consequently, the social status of black and Hispanic Americans. Banks, left to their own devices, systematically give blacks worse loans with higher interest rates than whites with worse credit histories. Yet there was little talk of those racial impacts when, this spring, 33 Democrats (including 9 Congressional Black Caucus members) joined with Republicans to roll back protections contained in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

African-Americans are disproportionately victimized by predatory lending, and as a result, we were among the worst affected by the 2008 housing crisis (from which the bottom still hasn’t recovered). Of course, the goal of breaking up banks was to avoid a repeat of the collapse which wiped out 40 percent of black wealth — hardly an incidental issue to African Americans, who rank the economy, jobs, health care and poverty above race relations when asked to rate our chief political concerns.

Beyond racism we consider our species of paramount importance. Not only should we seek equality among ALL humans but all lifeforms. We are just a part of a larger biosphere. We all are in that ongoing experiment everyday...most blind to their place in the scheme. The planet has a cancer or at least a virus or flu...Homo Sapiens. Our extinction may be the cure.

Regrets for hijacking HAWs comment above, just because it said Luekemia. He was making a different point and I didn't even acknowledge it I just started my own rant, all big industries are cancerous. acK! This is the current version of NorCal "environmental planning", purple plastic pipe:

Published on Jun 27, 2018
The first three phases of the city of Ukiah's Purple Pipe Project will have 38,000 feet of lavender-colored pipe delivering reclaimed water to vineyards, parks and the golf course. More than 5,000 feet is already in the ground.

Ukiah Purple Pipe Project

It doesn't seem smart to be using so much plastic pipe, what about the wildlife? don't answer

More benzene found in Santa Rosa water tests after Sonoma County fires
City installed filters for people, and for the animals? All of our water systems are polluted, no one can drink straight from a city water tap without paying the consequences. The Russian River stinks like sewer in a lot of places, and toxic algae is now an annual occurrence. wtf