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The casualties? HA!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Raise Your Fist, Jun 22, 2010.

  1. 1xAntifa

    1xAntifa Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Nov 22, 2019
    Victoria, Australia  Australia
    I was quite partial to the Exploited back in the early 80's but lost track of them in the ensuing years. I'm wondering what wattie has said or done to earn the fascist/racist tag? Care to enlighten me? If its true then those discs can join the nick cave collection that got binned after he played in Israel.
     
  2. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    May 29, 2019
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    Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy of Flipside Magazine Issue #43 which is where the remarks are made, so I can't directly quote Wattie verbatim, but he talked extensively about how he hated Pakistanis, and how he felt that they shouldn't be in the U.K. if they weren't willing to assimilate, and also goes on about how they have given him, and other white people attitude, and even goes on about how they will charge people more money in a place of business than they would another Paki. and closed the statements by comparing them to Mexicans, and understanding why Americans hate them.

    Please keep in mind that these comments were made in 1984, and he might've changed his mind since then. A lot can happen in a 35 year period of time.

    Also, I hope this won't be a decision make for you, and keep in mind what I said about how a person can change in a 35 year period, but if one has an original copy of Troops of Tomorrow, if you look very closely at the pictures on the inner sleeve, you'll notice that in one or two pictures, Wattie is actually wearing a swastika badge on his braces.

    Also you shouldn't have thrown out your Nick Cave collection. You could've easily sold them second hand, and made some money for yourself. At least that's what I would do.

    I still enjoy The Exploited, but haven't really paid attention to them since 1986, but I was friends with their second guitar player, Karl Morris, when he lived in Wisconsin. Very nice person, and not as caustic or abrasive as Wattie as far as personality goes.
     
  3. 1xAntifa

    1xAntifa Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Th
    anks. I had Punks not Dead and Let's Start a War and a live tape I don't remember the name of now. I did an online search and found an interview where he insisted that he was not a nazi and had fought them. It could be a case of using the swastika for supposed shock value a-la Sid Viscious, but then maybe not given his then attitude to Pakistani's. I need to find out more before deciding.
     
  4. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    May 29, 2019
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    I think it's rather tricky. I think he probably wore the swastika pin as shock value, but, at the time at least, I think he had a real prejudice against Pakistanis. I know The Exploited have issued public statements and press releases declaring themselves as anti racist, and anti nazi, but I've known one or two people in my life who have sworn up and down creation that they are anti racist, but yet hate Mexicans. Even worse are those I have known to say they fight against bigotry of all sorts, yet are hostile towards people in the LGBTQ community. They literally freak out when they meet or have to be in the same room with somebody who is openly gay or lesbian. If they're bi, then they try to convince that person that they're really strait, and it's just a phase, and they're experimenting. I can only look down and shake my head......
     
  5. 1xAntifa

    1xAntifa Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    As far as the Exploited go, maybe they have grown a brain. I know it took me a while to outgrow familial and societal prejudices that had been instilled in me. I was born into a military family and was the third generation to join up at 17. I was a homophobic. sexist,racist and militaristic little arsehole at that age. I believed the shit that I'd been told.

    But real life experience eroded all that crap by my late 20's. I put it down to having hung out in Kings Cross. the red light centre of oz, from age 16, where I was exposed to all sorts of people. The army and I parted ways on less than amicable terms when I turned pacifist on them after witnessing what 105mm airburst does to living flesh. Discharged as mentally unstable [no such thing as PTSD in those days] and ineffective.

    That got rid of the anti-Asian racism and militarism I grew up with and that we'd been indoctrinated in during basic. After a few years of unemployment and short term garbage jobs I wound up working in a place that was very multi-cultural, became a union rep and learnt to swear in several languages ranging from Vietnamese, Burmese, Indonesian through to Italian,Greek and Russian. Apart from the entertainment factor, it allowed me to idntify problems when I heard people cussing out the white supervisors [and they were all white] and built a sense of solidarity that helped me look after their interests.

    The homophobia went south in the early 80's, after I saw what was left of a trans person who had had the shit kicked out of them and their face carved up with a broken beer bottle in an alleyway. I thought that no one deserved that type of shit.

    The last thing to go was the sexism in my mid 20's. I'd made a smart-arsed comment towards a female co-worker and she and a couple of others called me out on it and stomped on me hard. I deserved it, and outgrew the teenage bullshit. Getting a regular girlfriend who was a feminist also made me straighten up.

    My wife's nephew is one of the I'm not racist but types when it comes to our Indigenous peeps, He got beaten up by a few of them when he was a teenager and has subsequently tarred them all with the same brush because of the actions of those few.No rational argument can penetrate his mistrust. On the flipside, he was a junkie for 18 years and now he's clean maybe he'll reach the headspace where he can let that, and a lot of other shit go. Here's hoping.

    Both of my kids are LGBQTI. One is gay whilst the other is non-binary who is transitioning F to M. My wife and I are trying to get our heads around the proper words to use but we respect their choice and are as supportive as two old farts can be. We both voted for same sex marriage when the plebiscite on the issue was held here in 2017. I don't get parents that disown their kids over who they love. I just want them to be happy with their lives and contented within themselves. This is one reason, amongst many, why I fucking HATE nazi's. If they had their way they'd go after my kids.

    So if I can do it, there's hope for everybody, including Wattie.
     
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  6. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    My life experiences are a bit different. I grew up in a household that leaned towards the left of center. My gran was a member of the U.S. Communist Party, and my mother is a self proclaimed Marxist/socialist. Not a fan of Marx by any stretch of the imagination, but I grew up with a healthy distrust of the U.S. Capitalist system, and as life went along, I felt more sympathetic towards Anarchy. Other than Crass, I was a bit disappointed that a lot punk bands spoke of "Anarchy" but it was either just throwing around words for shock value (Thanks Malcolm!) or misused/abused as to be synonymous with chaos/lack of order/discipline (Thanks Wattie) Luckily I knew what Anarchy was/is/supposed to be before I became acquainted with punk. People think I got my politics through my favorite bands, but the true fact of the matter is that the bands I like only reinforced what I already knew/believed in the first place.

    I grew up in a neighborhood that was white when I first moved there, but then changed. It's an all black neighborhood now, and sometimes I get stopped by the police when walking around, and I have to prove that I lived there all my life. Also lots of new people that move in tend to give me grief for being there, but people who've lived here a long time usually let it be known that I should be left alone. It's very easy to become a racist in this type of environment, and I've seen a lot of my childhood friends become racist because of it. Since my family's politics leaned towards the left, I had a bit of an understanding of what was going on, and why.

    My mother was involved on many levels in the anti-war movement in the 60s-early70s so that helped shape my views on war, and not wanting to fight in one. This became a problem when I first moved to where I've been living most of my life. I got beaten up every day after school for my beliefs. It was only recently that I sussed out that my being against war might've been an insult to my classmates who either had family in Viet Nam, or had relatives who were veterans. I was also a bit of a hippy, and knew all the hippy bands that most of my peers didn't and that made me a bit of a target. (Also loved glam back then, being especially keen on Ziggy era David Bowie, and early Alice Cooper)

    I grew up around gay people all my life, but, for some reason, I remain straight. But, surprisingly enough, I was never a homophobe, and couldn't understand why everyone around me was. I think one of the main reasons I wasn't a homophobe was due to the fact that I had, for the most part, been accepted by them at an early age, and as I got into punk, recognized the contributions that many of them had made. Lots of the early punk bands loved Ziggy era Bowie, as did I, and many were quite open about their sexuality, and even those that weren't didn't deny it, but just didn't want to talk about it, as it would distract from their music. (R.I.P. Pete Shelley)

    I was a bit of a racist, but not on a conscious level. It was more of an unconscious form of condescending/patronizing form of racism. The old, "Oh black people have had it so bad for so many years, I'm going to help them by......" You know, the old, "How can you call me racist when you know my favorite band/musician is......" Even after all these years, at my age, it's an area I'm not 100% clear on, but I'm still working on it. I do my best to treat people as individuals on a one on one basis, and that has helped a lot. (I'll admit that I still have a bit of a ways to go, though. Nobody's perfect)

    Along with the left wing politics, my mother and grandmother were feminists, and both subscribed to Ms. magazine, so I learned to respect women and treat them as equals at a young age, but that got confusing in my teenage years because I'd want to ask a girl out on a date, and something deep down inside made me feel that I was "Oppressing" them in some way. After a while, I learned what it meant to treat women with respect, and who was hijacking the feminist movement for their own personal gain to make men feel like shit for just saying hello to a woman. It's one of the reasons why I don't support the "Riot Grrl" movement, and will never listen to a Bikini Kill album. Women like Polly Styrene didn't have to use that rhetoric to prove that women are equal to men in many ways, and neither did a lot of female artist/musicians involved with punk music that I like and look up to. (I actually used to have a crush on Polly when I was growing up. Her, and Penelope Houston from The Avengers)

    I have had two friends who I will identify as "Trans" one was part of the early local punk scene since 1977, and we were good friends for many years, and then she developed a coke habit, and I haven't spoken to her since. I don't even know if she's still alive. Doing coke was/is fun every once in a while, but it took over her life, and I saw somebody nearly kill themselves with that poison in my senior year in high school, so I know what that stuff does to a person, physically, mentally, and emotionally. was witnessing with her what I had seen originally with the person in my graduating class. It was very painful to break off that friendship, as we had known each other for about 20 years, but I think it would've been equally painful to watch them do that to themselves. I saw it once, and I didn't want to see it again.

    My second friend came out as "Trans Gender" (her words) a little more than a year ago, and is transitioning from M to F. She is on hormone therapy, and it has caused a bit of change in her physically, mentally, and emotionally. She is very sensitive, and prone to mood swings because of the therapy. Unfortunately, I haven't seen her since September because she runs the Wednesday open mike at the bar I'm boycotting. (The person who gave me grief at the bar is a totally different person, and they run the Sunday night open mike) I recently sent her a card and some stickers for her birthday. She was one of the few open mike hosts that would let me get up and perform. (Luckily at her open mike I never found myself in a situation where I felt compelled to recite White Punks on Hope. I talked to her about the incident, and she's sensitive to the N word, but understands my side of the story)

    My Father's side of the family left Latvia at the outbreak of World War Two, and on their travels through Europe in order to get to the U.S. they saw the devastation the Nazis were causing with their own eyes.

    When I was a freshman in high school, my homeroom teacher's brother was shot and killed by the North Carolina Knights of The Ku Klux Klan. I couldn't understand how/why people were racist, and I always made it a point to call somebody out when they used the N word. Some people would watch their mouths around me, while others didn't understand why I got so upset, and didn't want to understand. I mean I'm white, right? Why should I stick up for them? That was the attitude I faced, and sometimes still face. A few years back, I was at a party and I put on Body Count's first C.D. At first people start head banging when they heard the opening guitar riffs, but when they heard Ice-T's voice all of a sudden it was TURN THAT GANGSTER RAP BULLSHIT OFF without even giving it a chance. And these people claim to be fans of Jimi Hendrix. I wonder how they would react to Hirax.........
     
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  7. 1xAntifa

    1xAntifa Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Apologies for not responding last night. Your post appeared at the end of my PTSD hours (1-4am without fail) and I had to cop some zzz's for a doctors appointment this morning.

    Surprisingly for military folk by mob were centre. Left, voting for the Labor party. Unfortunately they were also profoundly racist. They both hated Asians, which I put down to the governments "yellow peril" scaremongering, the war with Japan when they were youngsters and Vietnam. my father was ok with African Americans and read Martin Luther King but that acceptance didn't extend to our own Indigenous people.

    I didn't meet my first Indigenous person until I was 12/13 when he engaged me in conversation whilst I was window shopping my local model shop. When I got home late and told my parents why, they absolutely freaked. Our Indigenous people weren't even recognised as human under our constitution until 1967 when I was five. Before then they were regarded as fauna. They were kept in missions and reserves and out of towns and cities. Australia was pretty much as apartheid as South Africa in those days. It wasn't until 1972 when I was 10 that they scrapped the White Australia policy that kept out everybody who wasn't European. Even Italians, Greeks and Yugoslavs were suspect of being not quite white. They were allowed in only because we needed a cheap labour force to do the shit work for miserable wages.

    I remember the racial epithets we used at school and we were quite open about it. No adults ever called us out for it and in some cases actively condoned the abuse. That changed for me when I had a history teacher in high school who was known as commo Joe. He wound up going to Mozambique to teach, walking his talk. I still have fond memories of him and he instilled his passion for history in me.

    TW section

    I've also had friends who've become drug casualties. One of them I was directly responsible for. I introduced him to acid, which he took, and then tried to commit suicide in the aftermath of the trip. Major guilt on my part. That friendship never recovered unsurprisingly. I don't prosetylise drug use after that, even though I'm open about my own use if I'm asked.More recently another friend killed himself whilst in the throws of meth psychosis. My wife and I had done what we could to get him off it but all it took was a holiday with some random s and he returned worse than ever. He wound up in a homeless refuge and hung himself on Father's Day. That really hurt.

    I loved that Bodycount Cd. I'll even admit to owning Ice T's first couple of releases. I have trouble these days listening to rap because I'm now hearing impaired and cannot make out the lyrics but I do have fond memories of Fuck the Police way back when. Anyone who couldn't recognise Bodycount as a great metal outfit is basically braindead in my book. Cop killer remains a fave tune of mine today.
     
  8. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    May 29, 2019
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    As I write this, the day begins in the U.S. where we mark the time when white Europeans came over to this continent, and, basically, though the belief of the philosophy of "White man's manifest destiny" proceeded to massacre as many indigenous people as we could, and steal their land in the name of "Expansion".

    We perversly celebrate this occasion by gathering relatives we don't even speak to year round, and sit down at the dinner table and eat loads of unhealthy foods like turkey with bread stuffing, and mashed potatoes and various deserts, and have the nerve to call it THANKSGIVING, and we are supposed to share what we are thankful for. (I'm quite sure the descendents of those slaughtered hundreds of years ago don't have much to be thankful for, though) I suppose serving green bean casserole and Brussel sprouts makes it a little more healthy. (Doesn't change history or bring back the dead, though)

    The indigenous American, that we mistakenly call INDIANS ever since white European settlers have set foot on this continent have been portrayed as uneducated SAVAGES, and in the most racist ways imaginable. They were either the enemy, or if they were allies, portrayed as comedy relief sidekicks, or uneducated manservants. The history of White European's treatment towards people who were here thousands of years before us is a bit too long to go into in this thread at this moment, but I'm sure you already know most of what I'm saying anyway. We kill their people, take away their land, draw up a treaty, give them a place to live where we're sure they'll die out, until we discover something valuable on their land like oil, or precious metals, and break the treaties. Not to mention polluting their water and giving them whiskey. The alcoholism on what we call "Reservations" is not to be believed. And don't get me started on "Indian Schools" where we teach the children to assimilate, and tell them to leave their culture and traditions behind, because that makes them savages, and make them feel like shit because they're not white, and will never fit in no matter what. And how about how they helped win World War Two for the U.S. but yet were never able to discuss it because their services were "Top secret". and don't even get me started on years of forced sterilization of the women. Like I said, I could spend all day talking about this, but I'm sure you knew all of this already.

    First we try to kill them all off, and treat them like shit, and now we pay patronizing condescending lip service. I guess it's the same anywhere you go.

    I don't eat turkey, since the tryptophan makes me sleepy. I'll eat some if I have trouble getting to sleep, though. (Not a vegetarian, except on Tuesday)

    I doesn't surprise me that there would be racism in a military family. People who aren't in the armed forces must be dehumanized and seen as a lesser life form. Makes it easier to kill when one is thought of as subhuman. Again, I'm probably not telling you anything that you didn't eventually suss out on your own.

    I'm sorry to hear about your losing some of your friends to drugs. Especially the one who tried to kill themselves after taking acid. I haven't done the stuff for over 20 years, but I never had a bad experience with it. The world changed after September 11th, and I'm not sure how I would feel/react if I took it, or any psychedelics at this point. I think for now, I'll just stick to cannabis, a shot or two, and a pint of lager. I never got in trouble with that. Well, maybe once or twice I might've had a bit much and became a target for the police, and was told to go home, and at worse had my pot taken away from me, and let off with a stern warning.

    I tried meth, ONCE! I loved it so much I swore up and down creation that I would NEVER touch the stuff again, and I'm proud to say that I never have. I have enough trouble with alcohol, and almost threw my life away on cocaine. Oddly enough, I was able to stop before it got out of hand. I enjoy it on occasion, but some years back I was surrounded by it, and I was hanging out with people who at first were good friends, and then it came to the point where the friendship was based on if anybody had any coke, and then they had nothing else in common after that. Not a strong foundation to build a friendship on, so I got out, and luckily, didn't get physically addicted.

    I still have a copy of the original Body Count C.D. with Cop Killer on it. The only other Ice-T I own is the Judgement Night movie soundtrack, where he jams out with Slayer, and does a medley of Exploited covers. (We Don't Need Your War > U.K. 82 (Retitled L.A. 92) > Chaos) I also liked Public Enemy's It Takes a nation of Millions, but am disturbed by the Farrakhan endorsements and some of the anti-Jewish statements by Professor Griff, and I love Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A. but am disturbed my the mysogynistic sentiments expressed in more than a few songs. (Fuck The Police IS a good song, though)

    One can always do a google search for lyrics if you have trouble making them out when you listen to a song. I've used it to figure lyrics to songs I want to cover.

    Don't worry about swiftness of a reply. I'm pretty slow in that department myself.
     
  9. punkmar77

    punkmar77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Please send those troglodytes my way...
     
  10. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    I lost touch, and wouldn't really want to associate with them. You wouldn't either. Besides, I thought people like that weren't welcome here.
     
  11. 1xAntifa

    1xAntifa Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    We both live in settler colonial societies that were founded on genocide, dispossession and cultural repression. Our 1st nation peoples are still more likely to get offed by cops, die in custody, have their children taken from them, be unemployed etc than the rest of us. And very few see that as a problem. We don't have thanksgiving but we save our bullshit for Australia Day. We get together with disliked relo's, drink too much whilst eating burnt or underdone bbq and generally back-slap about how great we are. Indigenous peeps on the other hand call it Invasion Day and it's a day of mourning. There's currently a political fracas going on about having some local councils holding Invasion Day ceremonies in the morning as recognition of our history. My wife and I don't do Australia Day, preferring to back the Invasion Day ceremonies and demonstrations. My wife sings in chiors and she refuses to do Australia Day, Anzac Day or Remembrance Day gigs.

    I've self medicated with a lot of substances over the decades thanks to complex PTSD, from pot/hash, acid, mescaline, shrooms, speed, meth, opiates, alcohol, eccy and fantasy [GHB]. My mainstay for 40 years was the weed. My favourite were the trips. The speed and meth just made me agitated whilst the opiates put me in a nice numb isolated bubble. The last time I took shrooms I wound up unconscious and unresponsive, they didn't mix with the psych meds I'd been put on. The most dangerous one for me was the fantasy. It made me feel absolutely indestructible. It really fired up my risk taking behaviours. I'm drug free now bar the tobacco and am in counselling for the PTSD. It has taken it's toll on my body though.

    As far as misogynistic lyrics go, you're right. We took a young bloke under our wing 15 years ago, taking him to a festival with our then teenage kids. He found "love" at this festival and made the mistake of referring to her as his "bitch" within our hearing. We both pounced on him and I growled at him to get down and suck on the exhaust pipe of our car [jokingly of course]. He did get down to do it until I stopped him, but he never referred to women as bitches again. He's 30 now and has grown into being a decent human being.

    As far as googling lyrics goes, I have done it but find it very hit or miss. And the ads on those pages drive me batshit.
     
  12. punkmar77

    punkmar77 Experienced Member Uploader Experienced member


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    Oh I was mostly being facetious, I meant in person, of course they wouldn't be welcome here.
     
  13. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    I kind of figured that. I think I was in one of my takes everything too seriously/literally moments.
     
  14. The Hat

    The Hat Experienced Member Experienced member


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    "Invasion Day" is what many of us call Columbus Day in the U.S. (He didn't even make it to the North American continent) Sounds like Australia Day is a bit like Thanksgiving, or, since it comes before Christmas, we call it The Holiday Season. From that one day in November, (Last Thursday of the month) up to New Years Day. on Thanksgiving and Christmas, it basically the same situation you described: Get together with relatives we don't really like or speak to, eat too much, drink too much, back slap each other and convince ourselves we're better than the rest. And then there's the commercialism of the season when all the corporations trot out the bright shiny objects that we don't want or need, costs too much, and convince insecure consumers that they're less of a human being if they don't buy one. The Holiday Season is the worst time of year for this.

    I suffer from PTSD but from the same situations you've probably been in. I never served in the armed forces, nor have I experienced frontline combat, but I've been through some terrible things in life that I'm not quite prepared to discuss at the moment. I WILL share THIS though: September 11th was a permanent game changer for me in many ways, and it has left me scarred for life in many ways. (Some rather personal) I always enjoyed psychedelics when I could get them, and everything was right. Closest I ever came to speed was diet pills, never took amphetamines. Only opiated I ever did was smoking opium on occasions. (It was very rare and scarce, so it was always a special occasion when I was able to purchase and smoke it, so I never developed a habit or got addicted) I did Valium a few times, but didn't care for it. The only time I ever did any heavy opiates, other than smoking opium was the one time I took a Tylenol 3 with Codeine for a back spasm. As it kicked in, I learned rather quickly why people would get hooked on this stuff. Everything was in slow motion and felt like a dream state. Never touched it again after that.

    Your experiences on GHB sound rather interesting. In the U.S. we refer to it as "Roofies" since it's Rohypnol. Are you sure it was GHB you were taking? It sounds like the exact opposite of what it's intended use was made for, and how it's been abused in this country. It was developed as a deep sedative that was supposed to put one into a deep sleep. Unfortunately, in recent years it has been used as a Mickey Finn, and is now referred to in the U.S. as "The Date Rape Drug" since some very disgusting people like to slip it into a woman's drink, wait until they pass out, and do unspeakable things to her. In my humble opinion, any man that has to slip a Mickey into a woman's drink to make her pass out to have sex with them is, to put it politely, a LOSER!

    I swear up and down all whole creation that come the new year I will quit tobacco. AS I said, 40 years of wasting money and destroying my health in such a foolish manner of fashion is long enough. I still smoke pot, and drink lightly when at home. (Usually a few shots and a beer) I gotta smoke pot, because, other than the high, it actually cuts my drinking in half. If it weren't for pot, I would most likely drink myself to death. (Not an over exaggeration)

    Not sure if I 100% agree with your method of teaching this person a lesson, but he seemed to understand that he said the wrong thing around you, and in general. Young people in general, especially teenagers really don't know what's going on, but it sounds like he's changed his ways for the better. I think the only times I ever referred to a woman as a "Bitch" is if I was angry at them, but it was never a term that I ever used casually if at all. Even with all the porn I used to watch in my youth, I knew there was a right way and a wrong way to treat women, and I was taught at a young age, even before I became a teenager to always treat women with respect. I think I would've challenged him to call her that to her face, and see what would happen, but that's just me.

    Please excuse the lateness of this reply.
     
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