An End To The War On Drugs?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 9, 2009 by admin in Politics
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009The main casualties in the War On Drugs have been women and drug users, not the people who produce and sell them. Can this finally change?
 This soldier in the war on drugs doesn’t seem to be putting up much of a fight |
I’ve often said that I did my part as a soldier in the war on drugs, but they just kept coming, and I finally had to surrender and stop doing them. Which is part of why I was a little inspired to find out that the White House – although it will probably never end its war on terror – is allegedly ending its war on drugs. Yes, this is old news, but I think it kind of got buried what with that little global economic collapse and health plan business of the last few months. This NYT piece about A. Thomas McLellan, Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, seems to be getting a little traction the last couple of days though, and I find it inspiring that the current administration seems to be taking a radical new approach to the drug problem in America. You don’t have to be a genius (or a conspiracy theorist) to figure out that there are a lot of powerful people (including US intelligence services) who want the drug trade to thrive. So it makes sense that the current administration’s strategy is no more focused on stopping the drugs at the source than previous administrations, but is instead focused on dealing with the realities of the problems that drugs create once they’re here. It’s been widely acknowledged for some time that the biggest enemies of the war on drugs were American women (especially black women) and that filling jails with drug addicts is ultimately not a solution. This Drug Policy Alliance article for instance, points out that almost 80% of the US female prison population is serving time for drug-related offenses. If you’re interested in how the war on drugs has affected our culture and you haven’t seen PBS Frontlines’ Drug Wars, you should check it out, it’s fairly balanced in its approach. Maybe even too gentle, but who wants to end up like Gary Webb, right? Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome To Obamastan
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 3, 2009 by admin in Politics
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009It’s a shame, but whatever mess continues to evolve in Afghanistan will probably be remembered as Obama’s.
I have to admit that I’m a little peeved with the president right now. For the record, I voted for the guy, but now he’s gone and put me in the uncomfortable position of having to watch him actually follow through on a campaign promise. As rare as it is, a politician keeping a campaign promise should be cause for a celebration of some kind. But no. Of all the hundreds of promises Barack Obama made on the campaign trail, he had to follow through on this Afghanistan thing. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that what I was hoping for when I voted for the guy was that he meant it when he implied that he’d get the US out of Iraq, and that he was kind of fudging a little when he said he’d be a man of action in Afghanistan. In fact, I know I’m not alone. Even the usually liberal-friendly Der Spiegel suggested that Obama’s Afghanistan speech sounded like “a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric“. A stance I can’t argue with personally; Obama’s feeble justification that we’re still going after that rascally al Quaeda is patently absurd. Current intelligence suggests there are only around 100 of them in the entire country. That means we’re spending $300 Million per terrorist to deal with each of them. Which sounds a bit pricey to me. And frankly, sounds like bullshit. The president only used the phrase “status quo” twice in his speech, but he could’ve left it out altogether. In my opinion, his speech clarified that he has in many ways completely adopted the Bush era status quo, and is continuing the “War On Terror”. Very convenient for any world leader, because as Monty Python member Terry Jones pointed out back in 2002, It’s hard for abstract nouns to surrender. Aside from the current domestic economic situation, there are many reasons I vehemently oppose the direction Obama is taking regarding US military presence around the world. Amongst them is the fact that I have a nephew that like thousands of other soldiers is being pulled away from his family here at home after two voluntary tours because of the US military’s continued stop loss policies. An atrocious way to treat a young person that has already risked their lives for our country. It’s a shame that this will probably be remembered as Obama’s mess, but he has choices. I personally think he’s making bad ones, but what do you think?
It Takes A Pillage
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 26, 2009 by admin in Politics
Monday, October 26th, 2009The public has been slow to react to investment banks’ plundering of the economy, but some protests are finally taking shape in Chicago.
If you’re amongst the nation’s 14 million unemployed, maybe you should see if you can get a job delivering the plasma screen TV’s and cases of champagne that bailed out bankers will be buying to celebrate another year of million-dollar bonuses. Finally, even people like billionaire investor George Soros say you should be angry about the obscene bonuses received by Wall Street. In spite of the fact that the White House “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg is imposing restrictions on certain companies’ compensation, it’s largely agreed that this is pointless, because what bank executives don’t get in salary and cash bonuses, they get through stock options and other benefits. So while New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo releases a study (see No Rhyme or Reason: The ‘Heads I Win, Tails You Lose’ Bank Bonus Culture) that looks in detail at how bailout recipients Merrill and Citigroup both lost more than $27 billion in 2008 but still somehow justified paying nearly $9 billion in bonuses, and while Treasury Department watchdog Neil Barofsky continually points out the appalling misuse of bailout funds, 2009 bonuses at companies like Goldman Sachs will be double what they were in 2008. Call me naiive, but I remain astounded at the idea that one can run global economy into the ground and get a bonus for it. I was originally going to use the analogy of a man with gambling problem for today’s little rant, and thought it a little corny. But Nomi Prins – author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street
Where Have All The Heroes Gone?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 12, 2009 by admin in Politics
Monday, October 12th, 2009Do you have a hero? Do we need some?
The recent negative responses to Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize reminded me: I need a hero. I’m pretty sure everything they told us in grade school was a lie. George Washington probably didn’t cut down a cherry tree, but he may have been a gay pot smoker. Not that either of those things are bad, it’s just not what they told us as gullible children. So Columbus was a brutal slave trader, and Jefferson had children with his slave wife, Mother Theresa was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and they even try to imply that Lincoln was gay. Which would be AWESOME if it’s true; that would make the first Republican president a gay man! But seriously, I think we need some heroic figures. We’re a mess. The neo-cons tried to use Leo Stauss’ belief in the noble lie to create an enemy to fill the void left by the end of the cold war, and that strategy has clearly failed. Not only did their proposed enemy never materialize, no heroes showed up to vanquish him. I say a lot of these things in jest, but I really do believe we have a crisis on our hands. This collage condensed from Bill Moyers’ “A World of Ideas” 
Thoughts On Tom DeLay: Are You Fucking Kidding Me?
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on October 8, 2009 by admin in Politics
Thursday, October 8th, 2009I’m not surprised that ABC helps whitewash Tom DeLay’s public image. I’m surprised that YOU don’t seem to care.
 Would you let your daughter dance with this man? |
I don’t really swear much, but that was my response when someone told me that Tom DeLay was on “Dancing with the Stars”. I wasn’t surprised that the federally-indicted, lying, self-serving and egotistical asshole would have the nerve to do such a thing – in fact if I were his publicist it’s exactly the sort of audacious thing I’d suggest. What surprises me is that a major media organization like ABC would deliver his image-washing for him, and that the American public would sit there and slurp it up like a bunch of livestock at the trough. Watching the several seconds that I did watch of him wiggling his fat white ass on national television frankly made me “vurp” just a bit. It gave me the same feeling you might get at an old-fashioned ice cream social when the gym teacher that everyone knew had been caught at the local rest stop doing questionable things with a truck driver says “that’s a fine boy you have there” and no-one says anything. On a more fundamental level though, it highlighted why I’m slowly drifting into a more and more apolitical state. It’s nothing new to turn political criminals into celebrities; Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy were trailblazers in this area. But to me, putting smug-faced contemptuous asses like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay on national TV while they’re under subpoena or indictment perhaps makes a bigger statement about you and me than them, in a way. And with a slew of villains like the last administration wandering the streets and major television networks, I might as well get used to it. But I will remain utterly perplexed: why the apathy towards these men?