America’s Drug War Conveniently Intersects With Control Politics
— Originally articulated to beat back Vietnam War protesters, the Drug War emerged not only as a tool for profiteering, but also for isolating people into an underground reality.
[NOTE: Most of the content for this article was written in my Facebook Note, dated April 1, 2016]
Terrorism in America?
Could terrorism be construed as putting a false marijuana war on succeeding generations of young Americans, locking them up, ruining their hopes and dreams and creating consternation within their families?
Could terrorism be construed as quashing back the gains from the Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty by dumping intensive amounts of hardcore addictive drugs into black communities and locking those folks up, ruining their hopes and dreams and creating consternation within their families?
You bet!
It all began with Richard Nixon and has been carried forward to this very day by both Republicans and Democrats. Name me a Democrat who has consistently and staunchly protested against the Drug War. You can’t! All pedigreed national, state and local politicians, ad nauseam, jumped on board and boldly proclaimed “I’m tough on crime, I’m tough on drugs … re-elect me!” It worked!
It didn’t matter innocent people suffered from the process. Politicians, bankers, mobsters, small nation dictators, weapons smugglers, private prison-probation firms, drug-testing companies and others tremendously have benefited from America’s Drug War. America became a police state as local police departments were enriched with funding and excess military equipment. Money from draconian drug forfeiture laws often became a staple for police departments.
Sadly, and ironically, as the Drug War emboldened, police officers became more at risk. Some even becoming targets as drug-dealing gangs are today heavily-armed and they’ve staked out territory in challenging turf wars. The very well-respected Officer Friendly has became an image of the past!
Drug War Effects Elections
Moreover, all of this repressive action served to reduce the pool of voters in America. As the Drug War worsened voter participation declined. This has made the existing voting pool easier to control, especially with corporate money within well-gerrymandered congressional districts. Presently, about half of the people vote in national elections; one-third in state elections and 20 percent in municipal elections. These small numbers make it very easy for a pedigreed politician to keep his or her power base.
Meanwhile, this oligarchy of terror and repression almost saw America elected two Bushes and two Clintons in four of the past five presidencies. Viewed another way, had Clinton won in 2016 and became re-elected in 2020 it would have meant a Bush or a Clinton in 9 of 11 presidential administrations, with Hillary as secretary of state in a 10th.
Who would ever have thought that Nixon’s original drug war could have helped to establish a monarchy in America? Here we quibble over terms. America has been rated the past three years in a row as a “flawed democracy.” In effect, what it has become is an oligarchy (see 2014 Princeton Study on Oligarchy).
It’s time for every true American to say:
“No! We don’t want this anymore! We are sick of seeing our families terrorized by opportunistic-only politicians promulgating a false drug war and a continuing a path of destruction of the middle class in order to benefit only the economics of the wealthy!”
The solution?
Trump, although somewhat of an outsider, is not a rational thinker. He can complain out of the box, but he can’t wisely think out of the box. Besides, there is no such thing in America as a billionaire outsider! As many of you are well aware by now, Trump is no solution.
Trump, who relishes authority — especially when it all leads to his own — is perfectly content to keep America in the Drug War status. Drug gangs are proliferated all around the world and often help to prop up repressive dictators in smaller nations. Drug smuggling routes are also weapons smuggling routes and are often helpful to clandestine black ops. Couple this fact to America providing military assistance to 73% of all the world’s dictators and “Houston, we’ve got a problem!”
There are less than a handful of US politicians who are capable of reversing what’s described above. Bernie Sanders is leader among them.
Bernie is a rational thinker and he knows what’s needed to rebuild America’s middle class, enable workers to earn a living wage and provide hope for the many who’ve become impoverished. He knows American families want their children educated and that all families need comprehensive health care. He knows the Drug War is an impediment to this.
Sanders will end this terrible and militarized drug war that has terrorized and represed too many families for too many decades! He’ll help find a medical and sociological solution, rather rely upon a criminal solution, to the problem of drugs — knows if you can’t keep drugs out of a prison system how can you expect to keep drugs out of a free society!?!
We Americans — the world even — need the wisdom of Bernie Sanders in the White House! Please elect him in 2020!
