Drug Terrorism

Connor from Newsy.com submitted this excellent video, which I present without further ado.



There is no question that these killings constitute terrorism, and there can be no doubt that United States drug policy is creating and sustaining these terrorist groups. The death toll dwarfs that of 9/11, and the killings are often carried out in the most brutal and torturous manner (beheading, disemboweling, and dissolving victims alive in acid), and yet Americans consider these victims of our drug war to be little more than an afterthought. 

But even for those who believe that one American's life is worth that of a thousand Mexicans, it is impossible to ignore the danger of intentionally breeding massive terrorist groups in a neighboring country with which we share an extremely porous border. Drug terrorism has already spilled across the border, and it will only get worse as the Mexican government is rapidly losing any semblance of control over the situation. 

The solution is simple. Legalize drugs. And I don't just mean marijuana. Our drug policy has succeeded in doing only one thing-creating the largest and most lucrative black market in the history of the world. The violence associated with it has killed hundreds of thousands of people, and many more have died as a result of disease and overdose from using dangerous products that are sold without even the most basic regulation we expect from aspirin. Instead of selling drugs from a regulated pharmacy, we are empowering criminals to sell drugs, and these criminals have no compunction about selling drugs to children, or murdering to protect their turf.

We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, imprisoned millions, gotten countless people killed and ruined countless more lives.

And for all of this, we have not reduced drug use one whit.

Mr. President, end this war!

More Drug Killings

This time traffickers are targeting people connected to the US consulate:

CNN) -- Three people connected to the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were killed in two drive-by shootings, a senior White House official told CNN Sunday.

Two of the victims were an American employee at the consulate and her U.S. citizen husband. Their 1-year-old child, who was in a vehicle with the couple at the time of the shooting, survived the incident, according to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office.

The American couple were found dead inside a white Toyota RAV4 with Texas license plates, according to the Chihuahua state attorney general's office.

The woman was shot in the neck and left arm, while the man had a bullet wound near his right eye, officials said.

The Obama administration's response was predictable:

"These appalling assaults on members of our own State Department family are, sadly, part of a growing tragedy besetting many communities in Mexico," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement Sunday night. "They underscore the imperative of our continued commitment to work closely with the Government of (Mexican) President (Felipe) Calderón to cripple the influence of trafficking organizations at work in Mexico."

Right. In other words, they promise to do what they can to stop the influence of drug cartels, as long as that means they don't have to do anything politically risky.

These cartels are a direct product of American drug policy. If drugs were legal, these cartels would not exist. And these people would not have been brutally murdered.

Our drug policy is clearly counterproductive, immoral and unjust. The president undoubtedly knows this. And yet he refuses to even discuss changing the policy because he is afraid that conservatives will label him "soft on crime."

In the meantime, tens of thousands of Mexican citizens have died, America imprisons people at rates which would make Iran and China blush, tens of billions of dollars are wasted each year, an entire generation of minorities is relegated to second-class citizen status for life, and people still use drugs at the same rate they did before the War On Drug Users. But Obama won't even consider changing any of this because it might hurt his chances for a second term.

Yes sir- Change We Can Believe In!

Harvard Medical School: 45,000 Americans Die Each Year Because They Lack Health Insurance

Here's something we could fix right now...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday.

"We're losing more Americans every day because of inaction ... than drunk driving and homicide combined," Dr. David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, said in an interview with Reuters.

Unfortunately, we may not be able to do anything about this because Republicans are screaming that we can't afford it.

Maybe they have a point. We do have budget priorities, after all. We have to think about the $1 trillion dollars we've spent fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's the $50 billion that we spend each year on the War on Drugs, which, while useless, does make sure that the prison/industrial complex keeps getting paid. And don't forget the $4 trillion we spent this year on bailing out big banks. Because our government can't govern effectively it its close friends lose their yachts.

With all these expenses, it's easy to see why spending $1 trillion over ten years, to save only 45,000 lives, just doesn't make sense.

The Racist Drug War

From Human Rights Watch:

Blacks have been arrested nationwide on drug charges at higher rates than whites for nearly three decades, even though they engage in drug offenses at comparable rates, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Using data obtained from the FBI, the report reveals the extent and persistence of racial disparities in US drug-law enforcement. The data also show that most drug arrests are for nothing more serious than possession.

The 20-page report, "Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States," says that adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American.

"Jim Crow may be dead, but the drug war has never been color-blind," said Jamie Fellner, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch's US Program and author of the report. "Although whites and blacks use and sell drugs, the heavy hand of the law is more likely to fall on black shoulders"
....

"Hauling hundreds of thousands of people down to the station house each year because they have some weed or a rock of crack cocaine in their pocket has had little impact on drug use," said Fellner. "But the stigma of a drug arrest, especially if followed by a conviction, limits employment, education and housing opportunities. A more effective, less destructive drug policy would prioritize treatment, education, and positive social investments in poor communities over arrest and incarceration."

As if the fact that the Drug War is stupid, unjust, destructive, and counterproductive wasn't it enough, it's proponents are increasingly coming to the realization that the policies they defend are racist. And what's more, the public is increasingly coming to this realization as well.

We will soon be at the point where the only people who defend this War on (Americans Who Like) Drugs are the loonies who think weed will kill you, and the massive criminal/military/pharmaceutical complex that profits from it.

Oh, and the biggest supporters of them all- the drug cartels.

Here's great picture, courtesy of the US Department of Justice:



Notice how the pill form of THC is presented as safe, because, of course, it was produced by a large pharmaceutical company with only your best interests in mind, profits be damned.

And the joint is presented as ineffective because it's illegal. And it's illegal because it's ineffective. Drug warriors are legendary for epic circular reasoning for a reason!

There is some more twaddle about how the pill is better than smoking marijuana, because you can be precise with your dosage, and because there is more tar in a joint than in a cigarette.

Brilliant. No one smokes joints anymore, because it's so hard to figure out how much to smoke. Right. And who smokes a pack's worth of joints a day? Seriously, has the DoJ ever even met a pot smoker?

Ex-Governor Palin, You are no President Nixon!

As you've probably heard, Sarah Palin is stepping down as governor of Alaska. She is reportedly doing this so she can focus on a presidential run in 2012.

What exactly is it that makes her think she is qualified to run for president?

This is not a rhetorical question. A CNN/Opinion Research poll in February showed that 29 percent of Republicans would support her as the nominee, which put her in first place among them.

What this means is that a large number of Republicans believe that the correct ideology can overcome just about any lack of experience or talent. They believe that Sarah Palin's belief system is so correct and perfect, that she can use it to make the right decisions on any matter, regardless of her knowledge of the subject at hand. In other words, she has a unified theory of the world which will direct her in any situation. Of course, any Republican could do this, but she has the advantage of being more personable and better looking than Gingrich or Cheney.

Need to know what do if Israel bombs Iran? Refer to the conservative manifesto. Or maybe the neo-conservative one. (I'm assuming she'll settle on one before the Iowa caucuses.)

What's the correct response to a global market crisis caused by unregulated derivative trading? Let's see. That's on page 3 of the 4-page Republican guide to running the universe. Page three is entitled "Economics." The only words on the page are "Free Market!" Never mind that she doesn't know what derivatives are. That's why we have a simplified guide to the world right here in our ideology! Free the markets!

How should we approach the absolute disaster that is the current war on drugs? Easy! Drugs are illegal. Therefore they are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because they are illegal! When people do illegal things, they are criminals. Criminals are a threat to freedom loving people everywhere. We have to put them all in jail!

For this subset of American voters, experience, wisdom and judgement are negatives. The world is simple; therefore nuance, and the ability to think for yourself is redundant, and, in fact dangerous. You might get it wrong. From this perspective, it was important that she resign immediately before getting tainted by too much experience for the job they want her to have.

If you think this is an unfair caricature, you haven't been paying much attention to the Republican Party lately.