The U.S. War on Drugs by the numbers

In the current edition of Esquire Magazine, John H. Richardson mentions the:

startling lack of controversy that greeted last week's news that Mexico had suddenly decriminalized drugs — not just marijuana but also cocaine, LSD, and heroin.

In his article, Richardson describes the drug war in the U.S. with some staggering numbers. For instance, every year the U.S. "war on drugs" costs:

15,223 dead and $52.3 billion spent each year — which is, incidentally, almost enough to pay for universal health care.

One can't help but think of Einstein's well-used definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Continue ReadingThe U.S. War on Drugs by the numbers

Tortured logic, tortured justice

Sometimes, I cannot comprehend how the United States of America has come to occupy the landscape that it has in the year 2009. Growing up, I learned in school about all of the wonderful things that the United States had done for the world. Out of the tyranny that the British Empire had become, our forefathers had the temerity and the moral fortitude to announce to the world that we would be building a new kind of nation-- one in which the rights of the individual would trump government power. People were inherently vested with natural rights, inalienable rights. Our First Amendment- the right to speak freely, to worship (or not) as one pleases, free press, who could ask for a better check on governmental power? Can the government force the citizenry to quarter soldiers? Not here, we've got the Constitution! Governments stopping people for no reason, or on trumped-up charges? No way, we've got the 4th Amendment! To be sure, there were some stark contradictions, but I didn't realize those until I was a little older. I mean, it's a little hard to take seriously those that would lecture on the topic of liberty while being slave-owners, but the overall idea was pretty great. We were the force for truth and justice and all that is right. We proved it, too. We fought tyranny in World War II, the most recent (winning) war. We saw the evil that was done in the name of National Socialism, Fascism, or whatever label you want to use. We saw the evil in those Nazi bastards and we would have none of it-- and rightly so. The indescribable acts of torture and dehumanization were enough to turn anyone's stomach. I read Night, as well as some other works by holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, and was moved to tears. I looked at the photographs of the concentration camps and saw the shivering, starving groups of people blankly staring at the camera lens. I saw the piles of bodies- massive piles of them! What kind of people could order (or commit?) these horrible, despicable acts? What kind of person could so callously cause the suffering of their fellow human beings? The Nazi experiment was a singular example of the brutality that one group could inflict on another. There is no crime so heinous that it could compare to the atrocities committed by the Nazis. The scale of the suffering defies understanding-- we named it The Holocaust. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingTortured logic, tortured justice

The torture done by the United States, in detail.

Glenn Greenwald reports on the torture done in our names, and it's sickening. You can read succinct descriptions of the sort this terrible conduct. There's a lot of wailing and whining by conservatives that disclosing our own reprehensible conduct is inappropriate. That's because they can't justify this behavior in the least. How was it that we now know about the torture done by the United States? No thanks to Congress:

[I]t should be emphasized that yet again, it is not the Congress or the establishment media which is uncovering these abuses and forcing disclosure of government misconduct. Rather, it is the ACLU (with which I consult) that, along with other human rights organizations, has had to fill the void left by those failed institutions, using their own funds to pursue litigation to compel disclosure. Without their efforts, we would know vastly less than we know now about the crimes our government committed.

If any other country tortured Americans, most conservatives would be making sure that everyone knew about the torture and many of them would be trying to declare war on that country.

Continue ReadingThe torture done by the United States, in detail.

More reasons to be pessimistic

I wish I could be more upbeat today, but I feel great danger all around us and what makes this danger real and pressing is our complacency. We Americans could meaningfully address many of our biggest issues, if only we took the time to inform ourselves and then focused our energy. But too many Americans don't take the time to inform themselves and can't bear the thought of prying themselves from their HD TVs. The result is that the social and corporate forces that are smart and organized will continue to quietly slink around picking our pockets on a massive scale; in the process, they will continue to insidiously demoralize us. Consider this: We have never before seen such income inequity in the United States. It is now even greater than it was during the Great Depression. Paul Krugman indicates that as of 2007, the top decile of American earners . . . pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages. He further indicates that "as a result, in the economic expansion of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent captured two thirds of income growth." These aren't just numbers. This disparity means real-life lost opportunities for real people, and I'm not just referring to the opportunity to buy an even bigger TV set. It means that month by month, this country belongs less and less to you and more and more to someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about you. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but there is no evidence for thinking otherwise. Which leads me to a stunning article written by Chris Hedges: "It's Not Going to Be OK." He starts by characterizing Barack Obama as "a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave." What is the concern?

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

How will we cope with our decline? Will we cling to the absurd dreams of a superpower and a glorious tomorrow or will we responsibly face our stark new limitations? Will we heed those who are sober and rational, those who speak of a new simplicity and humility, or will we follow the demagogues and charlatans who rise up out of the slime in moments of crisis to offer fantastic visions? Will we radically transform our system to one that protects the ordinary citizen and fosters the common good, that defies the corporate state, or will we employ the brutality and technology of our internal security and surveillance apparatus to crush all dissent? We won’t have to wait long to find out.

The great danger is our massively widespread passivity at a time when we desperately need informed and focused action. Our passivity and our ubiquitous proud ignorance make us susceptible to the next demagogue to come around. And we'll probably be sitting around watching it happen on TV and convincing ourselves that it's not so bad and that it was all inevitable and who cares about those olden days when the rest of the world actually looked up to the United States? [Thanks to BJ for his link to the Hedges article.]

Continue ReadingMore reasons to be pessimistic

John Yoo is haunted

Remember John Yoo, the Bush Administration lawyer who was willing to drag his Yale J.D. through the dirt by writing government memos that justified torture? If Yoo thought he could simply walk away from all of the commotion and hide out far away, he was wrong. Here he is (believe it or not) teaching law at Chapman University in Australia. During a recent class, Yoo was haunted by an old "friend" (the video is less than two minutes long): My question: Is this an improper disruption of a classroom, or is it just desserts?

Continue ReadingJohn Yoo is haunted