From the Seattle Times

Finally, a little honesty about America's inept war on drugs

Through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the drug cartels rely on. We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

By David Sirota

Syndicated Columnist

Finally, a little honesty.

Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland, and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out of control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy.

It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians hardly ever discuss. In a speech about rising violence in Mexico, she said, "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," and then added that "we have co-responsibility" for the cartel-driven carnage plaguing our southern border.

She's right, of course. For all the Rambo-ish talk about waging a "War on Drugs" that interdicts the supply of narcotics, we have not diminished demand — specifically, demand for marijuana that cartels base their business on.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot.

Add that to the roughly $36 billion worth of domestically produced weed, and cannabis has become one of the continent's biggest cash crops. As any mob movie illustrates, mixing such "insatiable" demand for a product with statutes outlawing said product guarantees the emergence of a violent black market — in this case, one in which Mexican drug cartels reap 62 percent of their profits from U.S. marijuana sales.

That last stat, provided by the White House drug czar, is the silver lining. Every American concerned about Mexico's security problems should be thankful that the cartels are so dependent on marijuana, and not a genuinely hazardous substance like heroin. Why? Because that means through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade out of the shadows and into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the cartels rely on. And here's the best part: We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

Though President Obama childishly laughed at a question about legalization during his recent town-hall meeting, his government implicitly admits that marijuana is safer than light beer. Indeed, as federal agencies acknowledge alcohol's key role in deadly illnesses and domestic violence, their latest anti-pot fear mongering is an ad campaign insisting — I kid you not — that marijuana is dangerous because it makes people zone out on their couches and diminishes video gaming skills.

(This is your government on drugs: Cirrhosis and angry tank-topped lushes beating their wives are more acceptable risks than stoners sitting in their basements ineptly playing Halo ... any questions?).

Despite this idiocy, despite polls showing most Americans support some form of legalization, and despite such legalization promising to generate billions of dollars in tax revenue, Clinton only acknowledged the uncomfortable reality about demand. That's certainly no small step, but she did not address drug-policy reform. Confronting that taboo subject was left to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

Last week, this first-term lawmaker proposed creating a federal commission to examine potential changes to the prison system, including a relaxation of marijuana statutes.

Webb hails from a conservative-leaning swing state whose criminal-justice laws are among the nation's most draconian, so there's about as much personal political upside for him in this fight as there is for Clinton — that is to say, almost none. That isn't stopping him, though.

"The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal-justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration," he said in a speech, later telling the Huffington Post that pot legalization "should be on the table."

Finally, a little honesty — and now, maybe, some action.

David Sirota is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future. Find his blog at OpenLeft.com or e-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com

Obama's Marijuana Buzz Kill

Obama's Marijuana Buzz Kill
by Kathleen Parker
March 30, 2009 | 9:25am


The formerly cool president could have given a reasoned response to a question about legalizing pot. Instead, he was dismissive and insulted his stoner constituency.

Barack Obama’s first online town-hall meeting may have been a new media success, but he lost the stoner vote.

Asked whether he would seek to legalize marijuana as a strategy to boost the economy, the usually long-winded president—who famously admitted to his own youthful inhalations—answered with little more than a dismissive “No.”

Whereupon America’s laid-back lobby recoiled in, well, withdrawal. Where was the love?

Obama may rue his decision to offend America’s no-longer-so-mellow cannabis consumers.

More than 64,000 viewers posted about 104,000 questions online for the virtual meeting, the topic of which was the president’s budget. Of those questions, Obama answered seven that were preselected based on interest as measured by online votes.

Apparently, a significant portion of those casting 3.6 million votes wanted to talk pot.

Obama joked that he wasn’t sure what the question’s popularity said about his online audience (snarf, snarf), but said he doesn’t think legalization is a good strategy to grow our economy.

Dude.

While a live audience applauded approvingly, Obama’s virtual audience sank into despair. Internet threads in the days since have reflected disappointment and disillusionment. What happened to the president they thought they knew? You know, the cool one who once said that inhaling was “the whole point”? What happened to the guy who loves online audiences? You know, the ones who put Obama in office?

The pot questions—there were variations on a tax-and-regulate theme—had been stoked by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Within hours of the president’s rebuff, NORML got to work organizing reform-minded Americans in a letter-writing campaign. Obama may rue his decision to offend America’s no-longer-so-mellow cannabis consumers.

Just what’s so funny about marijuana-law reform, asks Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director. An American is arrested for pot every 38 seconds, he says. Since 1965, more than 20 million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses, 90 percent of them for simple possession.

And despite baby boomers being in charge in recent years—the relevance of which can be enumerated as 1-9-6-8, otherwise known as the year America turned on—annual pot busts have tripled since the non-inhaling Bill Clinton took office.

It isn’t only marijuana consumers who want to see weed legalized. (None other than William F. Buckley was for it.) Ending prohibition is also a popular cause for at least 10,000 cops, narcs, judges, and others who make up the membership of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

From LEAP’s down-and-dirty perspective, prohibition exacerbates rather than ameliorates America’s drug problem. Prohibition not only diverts resources from the pursuit of more-serious crimes, it empowers criminals and enhances black-market incentives. Money spent fighting what adults seem to want could be better allocated toward education and rehab.

The argument, meanwhile, that pot is a gateway drug to harder substances is true only to the extent that kids who try pot realize they’ve been lied to. If the pot-will-make-you-insane warning is so obviously false, then kids may figure that warnings about more serious drugs must also be so much smoke.

Far more dangerous to pot consumers than severe munchies, or the risk that one may become temporarily riveted by the charms of tiny things, is the gateway marijuana now serves to the criminal world. Legalization (or at least decriminalization) may not eliminate the black market, but it would severely diminish its power and appeal.

Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron recently urged legalization of all drugs, not just marijuana, as the only way to eliminate violence associated with the drug cartels now moving into the United States. More border patrol and more narcotics agents are more likely to exacerbate than reduce violence, he argues. Did we learn nothing from Al Capone?

As for the economic ramifications of legalized weed, there can be little doubt that marijuana would provide a welcome cash transfusion for a financially anemic nation. By Miron’s estimates, federal, state, and local governments spend roughly $44 billion a year to fund prohibition. Through regulation and taxation at rates akin to those on alcohol and tobacco, those same governments could collect $33 billion a year.

And that’s not good economic strategy?

As a bonus, we’d empty court logs of frivolous possession cases; redirect resources to deal with, for instance, 400,000 rape kits that today sit unopened (and in many cases useless as the statutes of limitations have passed) because the cops were too busy busting adults for gazing too long at sunsets. We might also minimize the attraction of the illicit and make kids less likely to visit the black market.

All while raking in billions! Put a smiley face on that bailout.

Obama’s tone-deafness Thursday was unaccountably odd, given that the success of his virtual town-hall meetings depends on an online audience. And given that a healthy chunk of the online audience is youngish, possibly potheadish, and voted Obamaish, why not toss the marijuana lobby a crumb, preferably chocolate chip?

How hard would it have been to say something like: “Cool idea, brah, but...” OK, maybe not. But why not something reasonable and presidential, such as:

“Look, I’m not ready to legalize marijuana tomorrow, but I do think it’s time to take a fresh look at the effectiveness of some of our criminal justice policies. And I support Sen. James Webb’s current efforts to do just that.

“I also don’t mean to make light of this issue because I know that a lot of kids wind up in jail who shouldn’t. And I know from personal experience that smoking marijuana is not a career-ender. But I do want to study this issue carefully before I suggest any broad changes in policy. Thank you for your question.”

Everyone would have gone home reasonably satisfied, if not quite ready to celebrate. Instead, Obama enjoyed a brief flashback and insulted his merrier minions.

As pot smokers blanket the White House with letters of protest, Obama may want to rethink his position. He not only has ticked off a portion of his grass-roots, so to speak, but, when the Chinese come to collect interest on those trillions, he may find it preferable that more, rather than fewer, Americans be mellow.

Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group and author of Save the Males.

Jon Stewart bitch-slaps Jim Cramer

I think most people have seen this already, but I am consistently amazed by Jon Stewart's ability to hold people accountable for things no one holds them accountable to... especially since he is comedian. I wasn't even thinking about being angry at the business news network, I was just mad at the jack-offs who read it, but they should bare responsibility for promoting a system that is so unapologetically greedy.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Pt. 1
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things w/ Demetri Martin Political Humor

Howard Zinn on YouTube

I just read the comic that this is, more or less, a trailer for. It was fantastic and I'm looking forward to reading his A People's History of the United States as soon as I can commit myself to such a dense book.

Also, Howard Zinn on democratic socialism and anarchism:

Joe Rogan on atrocity and the internet

Check out this latest post on the Joe Rogan blog for details on Christian missionaries conducting genocidal witch hunts on children in Africa, the cost of the War on Drugs in Mexico, and the effect of the internet on global awareness.

My two cents: The internet increases the ability of individuals not only to be aware of the news, but to offer the resources to connect the current news to old trends. Rogan references how quickly Blackwater would have been exposed back in the day, but few people really know what Blackwater is.

You've heard of the School of the Americas right? SOA was a Latin American-based private army training corporation which developed military outfits to support American business interests in the third-world without "direct" American involvement. This way you can overthrow a democratically elected leader in a foreign country without dirtying your hands. It was closed in 2000 due to protests in the United States and reopened on January 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

The internet does not expose everything.

Stephen Colbert bitch-slaps Ayn Rand

This was so very satisfying. Ayn Rand is to philosophy what Mike Tyson is to ballet.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - Rand Illusion

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
NASA Name Contest

What I would socialize...

Socialism is not an either/or proposition. Being socialist, I do not think that EVERY business would be better run by the government. Of course not. What I believe is that people are dependent upon certain industries which are capable of gross abuse of power which must have government control in order to be ethical. These are the industries which I think could be better run by the government:

Medicine - This is the most obvious and while I'm pretty much required to make a post about it sooner or later, let me just say that opponents to socialized medicine are selfish idiots. Every other first world country has universal health care. It is not, in anyway, controversial to those who have it. By offering universal health care to everyone who needs it, we can more efficiently protect ourselves from outbreaks, have a stronger work force, prevent the spread of STDs, and start cutting off pharmaceutical companies who are pushing their products into doctor's offices to supplement their income. We've needed this for a long time and the only reason we don't have it is Republican propaganda and fear mongering.


Banking - I know of no industry that is so restrictive, manipulative, and necessary for average Americans. They sneak in additional charges and restructure plans to exploit the ignorance of their customers. They make money off of our investments and pay back an extremely small percentage. They are inefficient and most often provide poor service. There is nothing to be lost by nationalizing the banking system and a whole lot to be gained. Imagine if your credit and loan payments could be deducted from your taxes? Maybe not the whole thing, but if you are swamped with debt, wouldn't it be nice to know that money was going to possibly help improve roads or pay for schools instead of just going to a bunch of rich guys? What about school loans? I pay to a company called Direct Loans... which I know nothing about. When I took out a federal student loan, it defaulted to this private business. I know nothing about the politics of this business which obviously has an fiscal interest in higher education rates and less scholarships and grants. If I were paying directly to a government institution, they might not spend it wisely, but at least they would be accountable.

Insurance - As far as I'm concerned, insurance is a scam. I will talk about auto insurance since this is the only kind I have. The first problem with it is that you are legally required to have insurance if you have a car. While I understand the necessity, part of the reason is to make sure that others are covered for medical damage which wouldn't be an issue if medical coverage was provided by the state. But the insurance companies can discriminate against you based on information that no other businesses would be able to including age and marital status. They are able to do this because they have convinced married adults that their rates will go down if they don't have to pay for the statistically higher damages associated with young, single people. Well, fuck you. We have anti-discrimination laws to prevent judgments based on these kinds of gross generalities, but you think that just because it isn't racial or sexist, it's okay? Or what about neighborhoods? Sure, different neighborhoods have more traffic accidents, but this policy discriminates against people who live in poor, inner city environments leading to more uninsured drivers and more hit-and-runs. But insurance companies don't take the same risks that we do. They have statistical experts (not unlike casinos) who can assure them that the gains are greater than the losses. While we take the risk, they just cash the check. Maybe that is how it needs to be, but let's make it a government institution so that (A) their discriminatory practices can be held to scrutiny and accountability, and (B) those profits can go to the government and not the rich business owners who don't have to do anything to earn it.

Energy - Energy is not a private concern. It is a public concern and private businesses have abused their power far too often. In the wake of eight years of scandals, it can be easy to forget the California energy crisis of 2000 and the abusive manipulation of the Enron corporation. Small businesses went under because they couldn't afford rising energy prices. Millions of Californians were paying increased rates based on manipulation of energy production. Many people suffered so few could benefit. The failure was laid at the feet of California Governor Gray Davis leading to his impeachment and the election of Republican puppet Arnold Schwarzenegger. I often hear companies say that coal and nuclear power produce so much more energy than solar, but solar is clean and infinitely renewable. What they really want is the most energy for the least expense. And if you have ever driven along I-5, you know that there is no shortage of empty land to build solar plants on. Our energy concerns should be placed in the hands of the people who have to deal with the long-term reprecussions of our environmental policies. Businesses look at the bottom line and the short-term needs of their investors.

Communications - The communications industry is another big capitalist scam. Their rates are entirely determined by one another and bear absolutely no relation to their actual spending cost. Cell phones, cable, and internet were a fantastic market to try to instigate new business practices which had already been rejected by their parent land-line telephone services and broadcast television. AOL charged (and still charges, as far as I know) internet services per hour. Cell phones give you packaged plans, yearly commitments, free text for people under certain conditions. It's all bullshit and they get away with it because they can. Communications are vital to the public health and public interest which is why I think this industry should be nationalized under a single, low annual payment for all calls in the US and Canada including cell calls, text messages, and land-lines. Private businesses can market their own hardware including cell phones and modems, but these hyper-inflated plans need to go away.

So there you have it. Five industries which I believe should be nationalized for the good of the people and the strength of the government. Am I worried that nationalization could make these industries as frustrating to deal with as the DMV or USPS? Absolutely, but let's face it, are they any better now? These are incredibly powerful businesses who have consistently demonstrated a selfish abuse of their power over the citizens. By nationalizing these businesses, we would not only help to defend ourselves from present and future monopolistic practices, but enable us to dictate responsible future growth while providing desperately needed income on the federal, state, and local level which could, amongst other things, be used to supplement tax income and lower overall rates.

When I have time to do more research, I will analyze the reasons for and benefits of nationalization for each of these industries in greater detail in a later post.

In the meantime, are there any industries which you would nationalize? Why or why not? What about the opposite? Is there anything that you would privatize? I would like to know.