Meanwhile… the drug war continues and people die.
The Atlantic – this is a photo essay with warnings about them being graphic and stark. I’ve seen much more graphic photos of the violence in Mexico. Comments on the article are a mixed bag — a fair number who see legalization as part of the solution, but also some idiots…
Mexico has been soft on drug lords for years, largely because they are in control of much of the corrupt government. Nobody knows who can be trusted, and there is no accountability for being a violent criminal in Mexico. There is no death penalty, and your buddies will break into the jail and get you out in a few months anyway. It’s a free for all, and it’s a cop out to say that the US is to blame. These guys aren’t fighting drug agents – they are fighting each other for a larger piece of a country that is out of control. If the US is to blame, it is only because we tolerate drugs too much here. […]
I don’t use. My conscience is clear.
If you use, you deserve to be laying on the side of the road more than most of the people shown here. Party on. I hope the karma comes around. […]
50k don’t really make a difference, especially if they are criminals.
Your Latest Reminder That Obama Has Taken the War out of the War
In Honduras: Four dead in one operation, including a 14-year-old and two pregnant women. Then, a village raid, in which agents put a gun to the head of a teenager, threatened to kill him, then dumped in the jungle, still tethered. The DEA and Pentagon are playing coy about their involvement.
Federal judge: GPS use illegal in Chicago-Kentucky drug bust – Hmmm… a pro-Fourth Amendment ruling?
Penn did a solid job on Sean Hannity’s radio program yesterday too fwiw.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/05/24/153525631/medical-marijuana-101-you-cant-smoke-that-on-campus
Interesting NPR article
Wonder how much of that new trillion dollar budget for National Security is going to the DEA for this non war?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/national-security-budget-1-trillion-congress
That information is classified!
I thought hell had frozen over yesterday when I ran across The Mike Huckabee Show on a.m. Huckabee was giving President Obama quite a tongue lashing over the drug war. Basically he was ranting what we all know, that the drug laws do more harm than good and unfairly damage peoples lives. He also called the president out on the hypocrisy of his past vs. his policies of present.
So now another evangelical hard right winger is ahead of President Obama? I really wonder if the right is on to the fact that President Obamas base has been eroded over the wo(s)d and intend to flip the issue against him.
Given that the Republicans have generally been the Party that worked for ever more Draconian drug laws (which cuts deeply into minority Democratic Party voter rolls, a fact which is seemingly evident to all but Democratic Party leaders) the idea that Establishment Repubs will try to use the DrugWar against Obama is not a viable one.
However…Ron Paul’s strategy of getting his people in on the ground floors of Repub caucuses may very well end up doing that. Paul’s ‘moles’ are digging quietly but furiously, undermining the reigning power structure in the Republican Party, and it has the Establishment types very upset.
The Establishment Repubs’ normally good ol’ boy, cut-and-dried, inflexible, done-deal apparatus is being infiltrated from below by the very ‘Paleoconservatives’ they previous sneered at, and the Establishment types are getting worried…as well they should be.
The Republican Establishment types have been the font of bad drug laws that the Paul people have every intent of getting rid of. The Establishment types rotted the ideological timbers of the Republican Party’s house, and Ron Paul’s people are on the verge of (very quietly) kicking it down.
Thanks for the insight Kap’n. Sounds like I need to educate myself a bit more on the Ron Paul establishment infiltration.
Your comment “Draconian drug laws (which cuts deeply into minority Democratic Party voter rolls…” gave me a different perspective. Kind of a light bulb moment. Honestly, how convenient is that…. Jail the oppositions constituents for a victimless crime, then paint yourself as taking the moral high road, thereby appearing to be protecting the public! And if the opposition complains? Well just tell everyone they are soft on crime and do not have their children’s best interest in mind. Diabolical? Yes. But a brilliant scheme that could have been cooked up by Stewie Griffin himself. Gerrymandering at a whole new level.
Well, time to go put ciggies out on my Kerli doll.
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Cigarette taxes are too high to use them for that. Cheap cigars work just as well. Some people prefer the smell of cigs over cigars but I recommend a charcoal air filter either way, or at least a very powerful fan pointed out the window. Of course at this time of the year you can enjoy yourself while sitting on the stoop and not worry about the smell so much.
Jose, the way I see it, it’s just an extension of the original intent of the ‘controlling the barbarians within the gates’, a racial and ethnic containment policy begun by the American WASP power structure early in the last century. It’s no accident that the drug laws had greater support in Southern States than it generally did in Northern ones…not to say that Northern ones were any less racist in their formulation and application of them.
Again, I have to rely on the (late) Dr. Whitebread, as other sources that might even be more germane are not available on the Web, yet:
“Probably the best single statement was the statement of a proponent of Texas’ first marijuana law. He said on the floor of the Texas Senate, and I quote, “All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff (referring to marijuana) is what makes them crazy.” Or, as the proponent of Montana’s first marijuana law said, (and imagine this on the floor of the state legislature) and I quote, “Give one of these Mexican beet field workers a couple of puffs on a marijuana cigarette and he thinks he is in the bullring at Barcelona.”
And of course every drug law reformer worth their salt knows about Anslinger’s infamous testimony about who uses cannabis:
““There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.—
You get the picture. The WASP power structure couldn’t deport their minority ‘problem’ (or use even more drastic methods; see lynching). So they used a more ‘civilized’ methodology to visit pain and suffering upon those they hated and feared, in order to ‘control’ those then thought by the dominant section of society to be dangerous, emotionally explosive, lacking in self-restrain or work ethics and the ability to reason, and hopelessly incapable of assimilation.
Really nothing more than Jim Crow extended outside the African-American community, but Jim Crow, all the same. A policy that has been applied to poor Whites as well, but the main targets were and have always been ‘people of color’.
Are you referring to Pat Robertson’s comments on the drug war a little while ago?
Drug war opposition is coming from both the left and the right, these days. It’s an issue where both the head and the heart can be right. Anyone with a conscience can see the truth.
The photo essay is also not the worst I’ve seen… but every time I see something like that and hear a politician saying that they “believe” that we have to prohibit drugs (well.. their possession, production, supply etc.) for our own “safety” I think back to an image of a man who had his face peeled off whilst still alive and think that it is directly the politicians responsibility; with the stroke of a pen, brutal torture methods would be supplanted for tedious, but ‘safe’, courtrooms…
Newark Mayor Cory Booker declares drug war a failure and endorses medical marijuana:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/cory-booker-drug-war_n_1541082.html
New one on Truthout, worth a read:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9333-yesterday-35948-arrested
MD says smokers are victims so we should criminalise the sale of tobacco: http://sunriserounds.com/?p=648
Screw that jackass = James Salwitz, MD
Its just more of the – “Obviously you would quit if you weren’t an Addict” – crap!
[I’ve already gone through my choice to smoke cigs in moderation = last week or so – and at least once (or twice? maybe more) before that – over the last couple years. Short story =’s I cut-down to about a pack or so a week, =’s between 3 to 4 cigs a day – on steady average, over the last 7+ years… a carton last me 2 months.
And, those bastards are gonna take them away from me outta my cold dead hands (or pocket, whatever), Same thing with my Dr. Pepper = they’re trying to tie that to obesity & rising medical costs -yada,yada,yada… And add a Sumptuary/”Sin” Tax.
The Uber-Liberal (Nanny-staters) that give the rest of the “Left” a bad name are trying to say “its a matter of national security”.
(Yeah, right like we’re gonna need a whole bunch of foot soldiers anytime soon – Unmanned Death From Above IS The Future! And we flat-out can’t afford another damn ground-war for at least another couple decades, if ever.)
I’ll start drinking diet soda when they create one that doesn’t have an after-taste that’s worse or roughly similar to what I’d guess/presume salad tossing does. If they wanna save money they should put a couple billion $ into finding a decent sweetener without all the calories.
And/OR a diet drug/’speed’ that doesn’t send people into ‘sleep deprivation-insanity’…
Your next ground war will be Iran, due to start sometime around September. That’s darkcycle peering into his ancestral crystal ball. Should be close enough to the election for Obama to take advantage of the popularity surge a war brings, but not so far in advance that the corpses are able to start stinking before November.
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I’ve really missed the ongoing threat of nuke-u-lar war since the fall of the U.S.S.R. when we all knew that sudden death and being conquered by the commies were imminent. I’m glad we’ve finally had the sense to engage a Country with the bomb. Gosh, those were the days. Who here agrees that “The Day After” was a compelling, classic movie? Shucks, it’s been decades since I’ve seen it. I’m off to the Pirate Bay to see if it’s there for download!
edit: It is! Happy happy joy joy!
Enjoy your prophesies of doom and destruction.
Weed, weed weed weed weed. I loves me some weed! Pass that thing this way.
Idiot zero-tolerance school drug policies nearly results in the death of a high school student from an asthma attack.
A high school nurse refused to let the student use his inhaler, locked the door behind them, refused to call 911, and stood there watching him as he suffocated:
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Nurse-refuses-student-inhaler-during-asthma-attack/-/1637132/13560430/-/wm13uaz/-/index.html
Worth a read:
Ron Paul has already won