Beyond the blunt, crude fact that America is getting less white, there's a more uplifting reason to believe that the political exploitation of race may be losing its force: As a nation we've become much less racist.

No sorry completely wrong.

We've just boxed up our racism and shipped it off to prison where we can't see it right now.

Go watch Ted Koppel's special on the California prison system. The prisons are completely racially segregated.

So-called "race traitors" are punished by harsh beatings.

And the prison guards promote and supervise all this. They make sure the white prisoners stay in the white area and the Mexicans keep to their own kind and so do the blacks.

And they make sure the 18th Streeters stay away from El Eme and they keep the Crips with Crips and the Bloods with Bloods and the Aryan Brotherhood gets to stay together too.

If you think America's getting less racist, then you have your supposed liberal head in the sand.

Those prison guards who promote and supervise this deliberate racism in our prison system -- they are the biggest single political donors in California politics.

So there you go -- the group that decides which Democrat gets to run for Governor also promotes racism on the job every single day.

So shut the hell up about liberalism.

There will never be liberalism again in this country.

Liberalism is dead. I don't know what people call yourselves -- but you don't deserve to call yourselves liberals at all.

If a white prisoner even smiles at a black prisoner, he can beaten up by other whites for being a race traitor, and if the black man smiles back, he'll be beaten up by other black prisoners for being a race traitor.

This is a society getting less racist?

No, I think the spoiled, upper middle class Gray Davis Democrats just don't know what the hell is going on with all those people they threw in the trash.

News flash -- when you throw people in the trash and you don't care if the trash is racially segregated, then you are not doing anything to reduce racism and you don't even deserve to call yourself "liberal" at all.

Almost all of those prisoners end up back out on the streets eventually.

So that racist outlook on who is allowed to mix with whom is not staying in prison.

And the prison guards who oversee this segregation and help enforce it -- they helped put Gray Davis in power.

Salon supported Gray Davis. So Salon supported the Aryan Brotherhood being allowed to deliver punitives beating to white prisoners who smile at black ones.

Imagine that. Supporters of the Aryan Brotherhood. That's not your self-image here at Salon now, is it?

That's why you don't deserve to even use the word "liberal."

I don't the racial separatism in California prisons can wait for campaign finance reform for a solution.

And besides -- do you really think it's campaign finance issues keeping Salon from informing its readers about this?

No, the reason why Salon won't tell people about this problem is Salon backed Gray Davis, who helped make this problem much worse.

The person trying to solve the problem is Arnold -- so if Salon covers the problem and the attempts to solve it, they end up making Gray Davis look bad and Arnold look good.

So tell me -- how can campaign finance reform do anything about THAT?

That's just basic human moral failure.

"Liberal" meant you were against racial segregation and would not tolerate it, to the point of civil disobedience.

If people now are tolerating it because it helps the overcrowded prison system run better, then those people cannot call themselves liberal.

The lesson here: Parents, take serious note of the latest Dove TV spot and tell your daughters (and, good God, your sons) that, as with taking candy from strangers, when it comes to trusting advertisers, just don't do it!

So let's get this straight -- you want mothers and daughters to ACTUALLY WATCH THESE COMMERCIALS instead of just fast-forwarding through them on their Tivo, or using the opportunity for a potty break or a chance to get some ice cream from the fridge?

Personally, I think people today are so inundated by advertising of all kinds, they already know not to take advertising seriously. That's why they fast-forward or go to the loo when the ads are on.

Has no one been to Alanon? I am not speaking here of alcoholism, but dependence. Grown people need to be responsible for themselves. Taking care of them does not teach them responsibility, it teaches them dependence.

Are you seriously arguing that taking care of sick family members is a kind of co-dependent behavior?

Is this REALLY what they teach in recovery programs?

That you should let your sick family members fend for themselves?

??????? !!!!!!!! ???????

Print out this column and your response to it, and save it for your children to read when you are old and you receive your first diagnosis of a serious illness and are depressed and traumatized and in constant pain and feel unable to take care of yourself.

Okay. First, the sister. She lives in fear of Huntington's because she was not proactive, and has chosen to avoid finding out if she has it, as well as whether or not her children have it.

There is no cure or treatment for this illness.

If she were tested and found out that she has it, then she'd be living in fear in even GREATER fear, and so would her children.

This is why many people avoid being "proactive" when it comes to these kinds of diseases.