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Re: Racism

Subject: Re: Racism
From: "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 31 Dec 2006 06:05:22 -0800
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Helmut Richter wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Dec 2006, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> > > > Scripsit Brian M. Scott:
> > >
> > > >>> No, these days "racism" is a general-purpose curse word
> > > >>> that has no  denotation; it expresses its user's strongly
> > > >>> emotional disapproval of  something.
> > >
> > > >> Depends very much on who's using it;
> > >
> > > > Not any more. As soon as a word has been widely taken into
> > > > curse use, it  becomes virtually impossible to use it in
> > > > any other way, except perhaps in  limited circles, such
> > > > as scholars who can really agree on using such a word  as
> > > > a term.
> > >
> > > While it has certainly started down that road, I don't agree
> > > that 'racist' has reached that point.  'Fascist', yes;
> > > 'racist', no.
> >
> > "Fascist" has been rescued from the brink of meaningless opprobrium
> > (which seems to be what Jukka means by "curse") by the Bush
> > administration, which has largely embraced fascism in the classic
> > Mussolini sense of interpenetration of business and government.
>
> The Bush administration uses the word "fascist" in a non-derogatory way to
> describe their policy? This is news to me.

No, economists use the word "fascist" to describe their policies.
Neo-Con Republicans merely consider it "business as usual."

Did you know that the "provisional government" of Iraq -- the one run
by Viceroy L. Paul Bremer -- decided to do away with the country's
"socialized medicine" system and charge patients a co-pay, like US
"health insurance" companies?


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