John Erlichman admitted that the whole point of the federal War on Drugs

[tblue37]

was to enable the Nixon administration to go after poor black people and the antiwar hippies. I found this Erlichman quote in a comment posted on this WP article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/12/28/federal-judge-drinking-tea-shopping-at-a-gardening-store-is-probable-cause-for-a-swat-raid-on-your-home/

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Here is a chapter from a book about the political machinations involved in setting up the federal War on Drugs--as well as the reasons for doing so:

Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure
by Dan Baum

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/smoke.htm

[NaturalHigh]

1. You have to give it to them; they played their cards well.

[underthematrix]

4. Their cards are called the white working class aka

blue collar workers who are so easily manipulated. Nixon was the law and order president who turned out to be a criminal

[whathehell]

19. It wasn't always the case..Until Reagan, most of the white working class were democrats

at least in Northern and industrial Midwest states like Illinois.

It's worth noting that, prior to Reagan*, we had "The Fairness Doctrine" and no

lying, hate-filled right wing stations (television OR radio) like Fox.

My blue collar Democrat father disliked Nixon, detested Reagan and wouldn't

vote for a Republican if you'd put a gun to his head. He wasn't racist either.


*Reagan effectively killed The Fairness Doctrine which mandated television networks

present 'both sides" of an issue -- A Republican viewpoint would be followed by

a Democratic viewpoint and vice versa. Certainly the advent of cable made this more

difficult, but no effort was made, either.

[TBF]

34. We had strong unions in the midwest -

until those manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas. The only other prime gathering space for working class whites in the midwest were their churches. Looking back this was also about the time the right co-opted the churches. So it all kind of fell into place. Now these same folks decide they are conservative because their fears are fed on FOX news, and then they have those feelings affirmed in their churches.

[cannabis_flower]

76. I said something about the Fairness Doctrine..

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1294184

And got this comment:

GGJohn
67. The Fairness Doctrine is a dinosaur of a bygone era with the advent of
the internet, cable and sat. TV, of which the FCC has no authority over.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of different sources for viewpoints, news, opinions, etc, the FD is no longer needed and it would be irrelevant in today's world.


Is that a Republican talking point about the Fairness Doctrine?

[whathehell]

82. It certainly sounds like it..

For whatever reason, the poster sounds very hostile toward it.

[tblue37]

46. Here is a telling passage from the epilogue to Baum's book:

In his epilogue, the author visits a Chicago courthouse to see for himself how drug arrests are processed, and is taken on a tour of the place by a Cook County public defender. At a window the defender points to a building surrounded by what Mr. Baum describes as "a kind of garishly lit industrial park that stretches to a distant highway and, beyond that, the blackness of Lake Michigan."

" 'That's Cook County Jail,' " the defender explains.

" 'What are all those buildings around it?' " Mr. Baum asks.

" 'You misunderstand,' " the defender says. " 'That's all Cook County Jail. All the buildings you see between here and the highway. We have six times more people locked up than in the biggest prison in the United States. Twelve thousand. Aside from a few serving short sentences, all of them are waiting for trial and presumed innocent.' "

The drug war was a deliberate step toward a police state.

[ChicagoLocal705]

72. Cook County Jail is the Largest Single Site Holding Facility in the US, if not the world ...

It does not stretch all the way to lake Michigan. It sits on 96 acres of Chicago's west side stretching roughly from 26th and California south to 28th and east to the east side of Western Avenue. All of it's buildings have several underground floors and they are all connected by massive underground tunnels the size of a two lane street with high ceilings. On any given day there are roughly 12,000 detainees, 4,000 correctional and law enforcement officers, and 7,000 civilian employees. That's 23,000 people spread out over 10 city blocks. The LA County Jail system is larger but it is spread out over multiple sites.

[Scuba]

2. True, as far as it goes. There was also a third reason ...

v

[Human101948]

3. Nice chart...what's the source?

Another arm of the military industrial complex.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Try the CIA.

[happyslug]

26. That is a Stupid Comment, this is NOT a CIA Chart so telling someone to look at the CIA just STUPID

Last edited Tue Dec 29, 2015, 12:27 PM - Edit history (1)

A smart ass comment is NOT the way to answer a question asking for help. Such comments do NOTHING to further the discussion;.

By the way I found the cite he was asking for and it is NOT the CIA:

http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/drug-war-statistics/

The original site (the owner of the cite updates the chart on a regular basis):

http://www.mattgroff.com/questions-on-the-1315-project-chart/

[mountain grammy]

61. Fascinating.

Thank you for these links.

[Dont call me Shirley]

14. Stunning graphic! Follow the money.

[Lucky Luciano]

16. I agree with the sentiment, but that is a bullshit graph.

The integral (area under the curve) from 1970 to 2010 for the green line function is less than the integral of a constant function of $20B from 1970-2010 which is $800B - tge area under the curve is probably roughly half that at $400B - far from the random $1.5T presented in the graph.

[Fed up in NJ]

25. My math isn't the best....

..... could the $1.5T be representative to the total spent since 1970 be in todays dollars or would that still fall too far short of said $1.5T?

[salib]

40. You have a good point and I considered the same.

Looking at http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php, one could certainly get closer to 1.5 trillion (e.g, if 10billion in 1988 is 33 billion in 2015 dollars). However,t hat still does not get you over half a trillion, and that is assuming the radical upper end of dollar equivalences.

So, I do not understand the 1.5 trillion either.

[Locrian]

63. I agree it's misleading - author's explanation here

I agree it's misleading - author's explanation here


http://www.mattgroff.com/questions-on-the-1315-project-chart/

How does the chart add up to $1.5 trillion?

A few astute viewers have noted that at its peak spending, the chart I’ve included only hits approximately $20 billion, which extrapolated over 40 years would yield only $800 billion. Yet we can clearly see that the chart itself is not flat at the $20B level, but climbs sharply beginning in the mid 1980s. So in short, the chart, as shown, does not add up to $1.5 trillion.

So why did I do this? This graphic was initially not meant to stand on its own but rather illustrate an interviewee’s assertions about the costs and efficacy of drug prohibition. In a tight production schedule, I utilized a data set that I thought most accurately illustrated the nature and growth of the costs of the War on Drugs and that data is US federal drug control spending. But the $1.5 trillion figure, as mentioned by Jack Cole in his interview, accounts for many more costs, including state level costs, prison costs, lost productivity costs due to incarceration and others. I trust Jack’s estimate of $1.5 trillion after a quick review of the ONDCP report from 2004 gave me confidence that he was right on the money. You can check out the ONDCP’s The Economic Costs of Drug Abuse in the United States, 1992-2002 here.

[Scuba]

70. Thank you for finding that!!!

[Locrian]

80. your welcome

[lark]

69. Drug control spending

aka need for more cops and more jails and more profits for private prison industries. That's the real goal, more money, more police control, more marginalized citizens who aren't allowed to vote. They sure got a lot of gain (for themselves and their ilk) with that one change. Dastards!

[cantbeserious]

5. Power Corrupts - Absolute Power ...

Democracy has been dead in America for many decades.

[fredamae]

7. Which may be part of

the reason why Obama has not been allowed by the GOP to fill so many judicial vacancies. The GOP waits and hopes they'll get to fill those vacancies with their Own brand of judges...like the one in this story.

[truedelphi]

10. Your post would make more sense if the SCOTUS members with an "R" after their names were

Not actually BETTER about medicinal cannabis issue.

Back in the Nineties, the SCOTUS folks had a more sensible approach than the people recently serving.

So there is that.

[fredamae]

11. It isn't just about

cannabis, however. It's who the drug war targets...for anything.

Could you please offer a bit more info re: 1990's SCOTUS/medical cannabis? I'm not sure I understand your reference.

[truedelphi]

30. My timeline was off and for that I apologize.

In 2002, there was a huge celebration among all my medicinal activist friends, as the Calif Supreme Court ruled that medicinal cannabis was A-okay.

However in a 2005 lawsuit relating to the issue, SCOTUS members voted down medicinal cannabis use.

The three dissenters to the decision were ALL Republicans:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/06/AR2005060600564.html
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissented.

Writing for the three, O'Connor noted that she "would not have voted for the medical marijuana initiative" in California, but she chided the majority for stifling "an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently."

In a separate dissent, Thomas added that if "the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states."
####

And then, very significantly, late last December, 2014, the Republican-led Congress issued a decree that the DEA and DOJ could no longer use any Federal funding to persecute the many medicinal cannabis users anywhere in the USA.

This Congressional action led to the favorable decision that offered my friend and total marijuana activist and hero Lynnette Shaw to be able to reclaim her life. Lynnette's life has been absolute hell ever since the moment that Janet Reno and Bill Clinton signed off on the paperwork that stole her life's assets, including her Social security payments, seized her car, and bank account and forbade her from ever pursuing any work inside a med marijuana facility here in California.

You can read more about her situation here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027270398

#######
One of the things that really irks me is when people go - the economy is bad because, wait for it -- Ron Reagan!

Okay, but wasn't Bill Clinton the President for eight years? So surely during his two terms, he could put things right again? But no, instead, he basically fast-tracked NAFTA, which has done a world of hurt to everyone that is not part of the upper five percent!

It is important to note that during the Reagan era, only 8 to 9 cents out of every dollar of profit generated inside the USA went to the Big Banks. But these days, after Obama's buddy Mr Geithner and Mr Bernanke had their way, the fact is that some 48 to 49 cents out of every dollar of profit now goes to the big Financial People. This is why small business people are putting their business needs on plastic, at rates of 19%, while the bakers merrily continue their plunder of our economy.

And then there are articles like these. I think it is good for people to realize what a fuckwad Nixon was in terms of the War on Drugs, but Bill Clinton certainly did everything he could to help that drug war prosper!

This is why we need a Bernie Sanders in the mix - the Democratic Party has to become the Party it was during the 1930's to mid-1960's. And the Democratic Party leadership has to be forcibly removed from their total support of the Big Prison Industry. (Did you know that a higher percent of women became prisoners during Obama's two terms than ever before? What a legacy!)

[dragonlady]

13. Yes, this judge

is a Yale graduate appointed to a lifetime seat on the federal court by George H.W. Bush.

[truedelphi]

8. Many of us in Chicago suspected this at the time. Few younger people

these days realize that the penalty for possessing a whole pound of marijuana, in Illinois, circa 1969 to 1970, was a $ 200 penalty. (If it was your first offense.)

[shadowmayor]

9. Nixon

Too many blame the fall of our empire on Saint Raygun without giving Nixon the credit he so richly deserves. From Ailes to Cheney to Rumsfeld and more it was Nixon who placed the foundation stones on what would become the modern Repuke party! As Hunter said, he belongs in the belly of a hammerhead shark in the deep waters off of Easter Island. Because when the President does it, it's not illegal!

[NBachers]

42. Evil

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. And none of them are in federal prison because........?!

[padfun]

15. Because when Republicans do it, it's not illegal!

n/t

[ErikJ]

17. And Reagan eliminated tuition free colleges in Calif to punish the protesters. nt

[Enthusiast]

18. Kicked and recommended! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

[billhicks76]

20. Holy Shit...Treason!

This needs to go viral.

[starroute]

21. Nixon also intended the DEA to serve as a domestic surveillance agency

This was after E. Howard Hunt and his pals had already gotten involved in assassinations and related covert activities as part of the drug wars.

http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/agency/chap34.htm

The proposal for a new narcotics superagency was submitted to Congress on March 28, 1973. Even though the House Committee on Government Operations noted, "The plan was hastily formed.... Administration witnesses were able to give the Sub-Committee only a bare outline of the proposed new organization and its functions," Congress refused to block the reorganization plan which purported to heighten the efficiency of the war against heroin. Accordingly, Reorganization Plan Number Two automatically became effective sixty days later, and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was created on July 1, 1973. The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which itself had been created by Reorganization Plan Number One, in 1967, was absorbed into the superagency, along with the Office for Drug Abuse Law Enforcement and the Office of National Narcotics Intelligence. In the process John Ingersoll's position as director of the BNDD was abolished, and the directors of the two other offices-Myles Ambrose and William Sullivan-resigned. Five hundred special agents of the Customs Bureau were transferred to this new agency, which employed. on paper, at least, more than four thousand agents and analysts and resembled the FBI as a domestic law-enforcement agency. John R. Bartels, the son of a federal judge who had been recommended for ODALE by Henry Petersen, was now named acting director of this new conglomerate.

If the Watergate burglars had not been arrested and connected to the White House strategists, the Drug Enforcement Agency might have served as the strong Investigative arm for domestic surveillance that President Nixon had long quested after. It had the authority to request wiretaps and no-knock warrants, and to submit targets to the Internal Revenue Service; and, with its contingent of former CIA and counterintelligence agents, it had the talent to enter residences surreptitiously, gather intelligence on the activities of other agencies of the government, and interrogate suspects. Yet, despite these potential powers, the efforts of the White House strategists had been effectively truncated by the Watergate exposures: Ehrlichman and Krogh were directly implicated. in the operations of the Plumbers; Sullivan had been involved in the administration's wiretapping program; and Liddy and Hunt were in prison. The grand design could not be realized, and DEA became simply a protean manifestation of the earlier narcotics agencies.

[tblue37]

22. Well, subsequent administrations can justifiably say to

Nixon's ghost, "There, FIFY."

[dixiegrrrrl]

59. Keeping in mind.....both Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the Nixon WH.

The Nixon Administration and Watergate
Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Ford Neoconservatives

Dick Cheney, a long-term college student who avoided the Vietnam War by securing five student deferments [Washington Post, 1/17/2006] and now a Congressional aide, is hired by Donald Rumsfeld, who had been a congressman but resigned to run the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Cheney is a young staff assistant to Representative Bill Steiger (R-WI), who took Cheney under his wing and taught him what he knew of the ins and outs of Washington bureaucracy.
There are two versions of how Cheney comes to Rumsfeld’s attention. Rumsfeld sends a letter to Steiger asking for advice on how to run the OEO. The official story has Cheney spying the letter and writing a ten-page policy memo on how to run a federal agency, a memo that so impresses Steiger that he recommends Cheney to Rumsfeld’s attention.
Authors Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein will write, “A more plausible version has Steiger (who died in 1978) assigning Cheney the task of collecting information on the OEO for Rumsfeld.” Either way, Rumsfeld is so taken with the memo that he hires Cheney on the spot.
Rumsfeld, who is also an assistant to President Nixon, takes Cheney with him to morning and afternoon meetings in the White House.
Cheney later says these meetings taught him “what [a president] has to do in the course of a day.”

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?nixon_and_watergate_tmln_other=nixon_and_watergate_tmln_rumsfeld__cheney__and_ford_neocons&timeline=nixon_and_watergate_tmln

And all thru the other Republican adminsitrations, Cheney was there, learning.
so is no surprise that the Patriot Act followed the PNAC plans, and was rushed into law mere weeks after 9-11.

[valerief]

23. John E., we knew it, too. nt

[Hekate]

24. Nixon ... again. nt

[lastlib]

27. Cheney & Rumsfeld et al had to have learned it somewhere......

The Nixon White House has become the focal point of far more evil even than I realized at the time. Remind me to save up a big, fat, soaking piss for that basturd's grave.

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . .

[Hekate]

31. I know, I know. It's mind-blowing and chilling and I could not have imagined it at the time...

I just agreed with Barbara Jordan, "The Constitution is whole." My only regret at the time was that Nixon got off with a resignation. I just did not imagine the true depths of his evil, nor that the Oval Office served as a schoolroom for perpetuating that evil into future generations.

[ms liberty]

28. Smoke & Mirrors is an excellent book

I read it some years ago.

[mahina]

29. Holy Moses.

[Uncle Joe]

32. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, tblue.

[tblue37]

44. Thanks for the K&R. I thought the thread would sink since I posted in Good Reads and

didn't have time to X-post in GD for more visibility.

[Uncle Joe]

47. The positive side of Good Reads

is that particularly good articles stay on the front page longer.

General Discussion moves much quicker, so while you may get faster exposure, visibility drops sooner as well.

[tblue37]

48. True. nt

[Uncle Joe]

50. Having said that, 165 recs on Good Reads is off the charts,

you did good.

[tblue37]

51. I don't post many OPs because it takes time and effort to post one I think people

might want to read. Therefore, I mostly post only when I find something I think is really cool or really important. I am glad that so many people usually agree with me about my post topics.

[Uncle Joe]

53. I believe this topic is extremely important, some people like to tout

how "liberal" Nixon was compared to present day Republicans and while there may be some elements of truth to that, his paranoid, racist and lust for power policies at all cost set the stage for future Republicans to emulate with increasingly toxic results.

Nixon was absolutely no friend to Civil Rights nor the concept of justice.

[Uncle Joe]

84. Did I say 165 recs in Good Reads was off the charts!

[saltpoint]

33. Ugly words (Erlichman's) from an

even uglier administration (Nixon's).

Not every U.S. voter supported Nixon. The 1968 election was very close.

Unfortunately, Nixon's landslide win over McGovern in 1972 came during some of the early allegations of serious wrong-doing by certain parties apparently linked with the Nixon administration. We learned later on how linked they were.

Some of these reports trickled out into the media. But not surprisingly, the media didn't want to follow the trail.

[Dr. Xavier]

35. Anything that came out of that administration

had some nefarious intent to it. Tricky Dick killed more Americans than any other US President and he should have been executed (and I am anti-death penalty), instead he was pardoned by that idiot Ford.

[dreamnightwind]

36. I may have found the source for the Erlichman quote

This is just some random poster saying the content is in the book mentioned below, would need to verify it, looks real though:

https://www.quora.com/Is-this-quote-below-a-real-quote

According to The ugly origin of the war on drugs, the quote comes from The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-changing Stories. Edited by Larry Smith, Harper Perennial, 2012. Amazon link:
amazon.com
The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists Famous & Obscure: Larry Smith: 9780061719653: Amazon.com: Books

[gordyfl]

37. John Lennon & Yoko

were anti-war activists. Nixon tried to get them deported on a misdemeanor marijuana charge.

[zentrum]

38. Hideous people. n/t

[Dawson Leery]

39. Nixon opened the door for Ronnie and Shrub.

Nixon did not deserve to be pissed on if he were on fire.

Never forget this mongrel expanded a failed war and murdered another 25,000 U.S Troops.

[47of74]

52. Add in the corrupt Gerald Ford

Letting that demonic spawn off the hook.

[Dawson Leery]

78. Ford would have won in 76' had he not pardoned Dicky.

The country was shifting rightward. He shot himself and I have no sympathy for him.

[niyad]

41. nice of him to finally confirm something most of us have known all along.

[lovemydog]

43. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

We need to end the 'war on drugs' and release people from prison who are there only for possession.

[Downwinder]

45. Nixon started it, but no one since has diminished it.

[Botany]

49. Nixon appointed our next door neighbor's brother Ray Shafer*, (Gov. of PA) to study drugs ...

.... and marijuana and when Ray came back in 1970 or 71 that pot should not be a crime
Nixon ignored Ray Shafer's study.

From wiki.
President Nixon appointed Shafer as chairman of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, also known as the Shafer Commission. He was criticized in this role by many conservatives after the panel recommended the decriminalization of marijuana use.


* Very middle class neighborhood

[Akamai]

54. This really, really enraged me when I read it about 8 months ago.

How many hundreds of thousands of lives have been ruined by this drug policy, with incarceration, loss of jobs, men and women incarcerated?

And all for cynical political reasons? (Those incarcerated for pot cannot vote, at least in many, many states.)

Another great book is Johan Hari's "Chasing the Scream," this about the drug wars and the evil people who started then.

Thanks for reminding us of how Republican perfidy ruined so many lives.

What a terrible legacy that Nixon and other national Republican leaders left for their party. Truly hideous, destructive and immoral.

But so many of those vicious bast**** will do anything to win at the polls.

[Judi Lynn]

55. Thank you, so much. n/t

[BeanMusical]

56. Kick and R

[jomin41]

57. The fact that the drug war is

obviously ineffective, hugely destructive, counterproductive, grossly racist, and born and bred in lies, has been known for at least 20 years (from the beginning for many people). Yet, for some reason, our system cannot seem to acknowledge this horrible "mistake". It's like Lady Liberty has had her ears covered, going:"Lalalalalalala- I can't HEAR you!".

[tblue37]

64. Same thing with the Cuban embargo. Too many powerful, connected people have become

"stakeholders" in maintaining the status quo.

Whenever some stupid, destructive policy gets put into place, the vultures quickly settle down to grab their share of the feast (power, money, ability to get their preferred policies into place despite popular opposition). Sometimes that was the intention all along--as with the drug war's real intentions--but sometimes it just happens as the bureaucracy and enforcement rules/laws get established to enact the policy. Once those stakeholders have their claws into it, they will do everything in their often considerable power to make sure that the policy dos not get changed or rescinded.

Look at Guantanamo. Obama wants to close it, has tried to close it, but he can't get past those in the deep state who don't want it closed.

[AllyCat]

58. Link does not go to article referenced

Another interesting article about the topic, but not Ehrlicman.

[tblue37]

65. The link is to a different article. The quote comes from a reader's comment on that

article. I have read other articles, though, that also reference that Erlichman quote. Apparently it is from an interview he gave to Dan Baum (the author of Smoke and Mirrors), and it is included in another book.

Here is a reference to that interview and book:

http://waliberals.org/the-ugly-origin-of-the-war-on-drugs/2012/06/21/

After serving his time federal prison, John Ehrlichman granted an interview to author Dan Baum, who reports that Ehrlichman explained the origin of the war on drugs this way:

The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.

Source: The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-changing Stories. Edited by Larry Smith, Harper Perennial, 2012.

[AllyCat]

68. Need to read this book. Thanks!

[raouldukelives]

60. K&R Same as it ever was. nt

[mountain grammy]

62. Great post, great thread.

[world wide wally]

66. The saddest part is that America is still buying this bullshit more and more everyday...

And the Republican candidates are happy to sell it.

[Eleanors38]

74. All prohibitions are driven by the desire to punish. nt

[Baitball Blogger]

67. Civil Rights?

Can people begin to understand why there is growing resentment in our population? Especially with leaders who are using the laws to put their prejudices into action?

[deutsey]

71. I don't think many Americans, even most liberals,

are aware of the large-scale (and highly coordinated) right-wing reaction in the late '60s/early '70s against the New Deal/'60s rebellion and how it has been brilliantly successful in derailing progressivism in America since the '80s.

Quotes like Ehrlichman's should be remembered in that context. It wasn't just bad ol' Dick Nixon against African-Americans and hippies, it was those whose interests he represented and their contempt for real democracy and economic justice.

[Eleanors38]

75. Oh, some of us are. Gingrich (an old pot head) Tied liberal Democrats to the joint...

...he considered the actual physicality of the weed joint as signifying the 60s, and said tying Liberal Democrats to pot would be their undoing. He was right. Democrats cowed wonderfully, and aided and abetted the WOD and the INEVITABLE incarceration of vast quantities of young black males. This was a message to social liberals and those who believed in social and economic reform Directly from Gingrich and the FR: "See that hippie? Even your own corrupt party doesn't want you." He was rght again.

It reminded me of that line from the Exorcist after the movie-maker/friend of the mother was found dead 3 stories down from the possessed kid's window with his head backwards: The kid turns her head 360 and says to her Mom "now you know what you're fucking daughter did."

I was just another howl in the wind, but a proud member of the Marijuana Policy Project for 18 years.

[tblue37]

85. Lewis Latham has written frequently about how the powerful, wealthy right wing individuals and

groups played the long game. They still do. BTW, the creation of think tanks to flood the media with "experts" and white papers is pzrt of their game, as is the buying up of print and broadcast media to "catapult the propaganda." They always keep their eyes on the prize. Unfortunately, though, true liberals and Democrats generally suffer from a terminal case of political ADD.

[deutsey]

86. Very true

Latham is one of my main sources. So was one of his colleagues at Harper's, Walter Karp.

[Eleanors38]

73. I've said for years the WOD was a way to jail thousands of YBMs....

...completely cow -down the Democratic Party (soft on drugs), and to feed desire to punish (which accompanies, even drives, the social policy of Prohibitionism©), and in turn invigorate the FR's ONLY outlook regarding social policy: Vast use of policing powers and Vast emprisonment. But when I and others spoke of this over a generation ago, we were considered on the radical fringe, dealing with back-burner issues, conspiracy minded, etc. And those criticisms were from so-called progressives.

Now, hear this: Since the GOPers own the Democrats on the WOD, they stand the best chance on capitalizing, politically and economically, on the coming regulatory scheme for marijuana. The GOPer knows how to advocate and dominate, and they Will continue to do so.

[tblue37]

81. Not to mention the added "benefit" (to the GOP) of depriving huge numbers of

PoC and marginalized people in general if the right to vote for those who might enact policies that would benefit the poor and oppressed.

[Truprogressive85]

77. War on drugs= war on black lives

Now that herion epidemic is hitting white neighborhoods there seems to be softening of this failed policy on the so called "war on drugs"

[WillyT]

79. K & R !!!

[Fumesucker]

83. And the Democrats bought it, including Hillary

Hippie punching, the all American pastime.