Those Lousy Democratic Senators

Alcohol is bad, apparently. It's legal in this country, and so companies are allowed to manufacture it. But the fact that some companies choose to manufacture it is immoral. And the fact that black Senators and Representatives don't fight against alcohol with every breath they have is proof that they've been bought off with dirty alcohol money. This is the thesis of Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, in their latest article.

They report the horrifying news that Hennikin has committed $250,000.00 to create the Louis Stokes Health Policy Fellows Program to help narrow the gap between the health status of black people and white people. Hennikin also produces alcohol for profit. Some of that alcohol goes into the African American community where it fuels African-American alcoholism. You see the problem? Here is a company making money selling a legal product that some people misuse--of course the African Americans who choose to drink themselves are blameless, it's Hennikens fault. And even if they are willing to pump hundreds of thousands of money into helping African-Americans, that money is dirty and evil.

They complain that promotional material that Henniken puts out discussing this program doesn't focus on the ravages of alcoholism. This just in, Congress has passed the Mokhiber-Weissman resolution requireing all coorporate promotional material to attack the company producing it.

They castigate the Black Senators and Representatives for failing to fight alcohol. Of course there's no point wasting time speculating that perhaps the Congressional Black Caucaus has better things to do than focus on this particular issue. And at any rate, what are they supposed to do? Are Mokhiber-Weissman suggesting we give prohibition another go? Maybe just for black people?