The War on Stupid

The War on Drugs, just like the War on Terror, drags on pointlessly. Wasting billions of dollars, millions of lives, and precious time with no progress made and no goals met. And not just because the Founding Fathers themselves grew hemp either.

Rather, declaring war on anything, especially abstracts, is a cash bonanza like few others. And with hyperreal grifters like the Bush administration, the most deadly weapon in the war chest is language itself. You start throwing around loaded terms and the next thing you know, Congress gives you military authority to do everything from spy on your own citizens to waterboard someone else's in the same torture rooms that caused you to invade in the first place.

Pardon my tone, but some things you just have to laugh at. What else can you do, really? (Ask Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert about that one.) Especially when the terrorists your draconian administration tackles after the Saudi-fueled mayhem of 9/11 end up being people like Seymour Hersh and Tommy Chong, or the National Education Association. This is the type of lunacy I tackled in a piece that went up on Alternet yesterday:

Pot Growers Are New Target in "War on Terror"

Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus between cannabis and terrorism, it was none other than actor/director Tommy Chong who was feeling the Bush administration's post-9/11 wrath. In fact, the stoner icon, whose fabled act was concurrently resuscitated for Fox's drugged and confused comedy hit That 70s Show, was being slapped by John Ashcroft with a nine-month prison bid, a $20,000 fine and over $100,000 in seized assets for selling bongs. The terrorism connection? He was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2003. And if you think that's a specious connection, it's only gotten worse since. In fact, over the last few years, "terrorist" has become an epithet for all seasons... MORE @ ALTERNET

The latest "terrorists" this time around, according to the White House's Office of National Control Drug Policy, are Mexican cartels ferreting undocumented immigrants into Redding's national forests to grow weed. Because nothing says "I want to destroy your country, American infidels!" like raising crops for the sole purpose of getting you and your neighbors totally high.

OK, I'm joking. OK, I'm not. I thought it was hilarity until I recently read that our military campaigns in Afghanistan haven't defeated the Taliban or sniffed bin Laden's trail but have nevertheless managed to make sure the poor nation's heroin trade remained fully functional if not better than ever. Hey, wait. I get it now. They're fighting the War on Terror in Afghanistan, not the War or Drugs. OK, I feel better. OK, I don't.

I'm not here to tell you that anyone should be able to plant and cultivate crops of any type in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest whenever they feel like it. Or that Seymour Hersh can't try to hip the United States to neocon schemes for doomed occupations. Or that the National Education Association's millions of teachers can't have a lobby heckling the father of "No Child Left Behind" for some accountability. Or, at last, that Tommy Chong isn't high some of the time his son is selling bongs.

I'm just here to tell you that these people aren't terrorists. They're just targets, taken down by terminology.

Words have power. We cannot live without them, but we can also use them to imprison, oppress and even kill our fellow inhabitants of this lucky planet called Earth. In fact, we do it all the time, since before the Bible, Koran and every other narrative governments use to consolidate that power and, in the end, watch that contentious power fade into memory.

Comments

[ethanthom]

If I may interject.The purpose of all Goverment is to keep the masses poor and stupid.In fear that someday we will all stand up and ask WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO US.And then take over.

[Sedaei]

We are a war culture. Whenever we have a social, economic or foreign policy problem, we declare war on it and then do nothing about it. But as far as the war on stupid in America is concerned, I definitely think this is an area where some of our European allies can come to OUR rescue!

[horhay]

Scott, the War on Stupid could also be called the Stupid War, which is really the War on Drugs and the War on Terror. It is a War on our personal freedoms. Supposedly, the terrorists hate us for our freedoms. But I don't believe that. They hate us when our government props up a dictator in their country instead of who they elected. They hate it when we invade their country for oil & natural resources. From the beginning of the War on Terror, our Constitution has been under attack by the Bush administration, so the terrorists are winning. But it looks like the terrorists are Bush and Cheney and their cabal.

As for the War on Drugs, Nixon hated the hippies and potsmokers, who he saw as rabblerousers getting in the way of his agenda. Nixon even said,"within the last decade, the abuse of drugs has grown from a local police problem into a serious national threat to the personal health and safety of millions of Americans...a new urgency and concerted national policy are needed at the federal level to begin to cope with this growing menace to the general welfare of the US." (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol.24, 1969, p57A). The Vietnam War was a disaster, many troops were using drugs and Nixon equated drug use among the troops with the failure in Vietnam. America was under seige by drugs! But all the while the CIA was flying tons of heroin out of Southeast Asia.

To bring it to the current era, now cheap heroin is flooding the streets again. Cocaine seems to be back, too. Meth is all to common as well. But marijuana does not belong in this category.

But even more importantly to me, is that marijuana is a beautiful plant. Opium poppies are also beautiful, as the coca plant is too. I just find it ridiculous to demonize a plant. It's what human's have done to control populations and manufacture highly addictive substances that is the real issue. The Opium Wars, Tobacco plantations/ corporations, pharmaceutical companies, financial instutions laundering drug money, etc.

[Pneumaticus]

No wonder we're in such a political stupor.

[Novista]

WOD Scorecard:

Thirty-six years of fighting it, and the illicit drug trade is now a $500 billion industry. The drug cartels are now using submarines!

Corruption in Mexico was so bad that Calderon sacked a swag of high ranking police officials. That didn't work and he sent in the military. Monterrey, once recognised as the safest city in Latin America, is now a war zone. Over 1300 deaths this year, many 'collateral damage'.

But lo! it's Bush to the rescue. He'll give them $1.2 billion of military assistance, including weaponry and Blackhawk helicopters.

Plan Colombia has sucked up in excess of $5 billion with no discernible results. Current street product is higher quality and lower in price. In fact, a recent report suggests crop spraying affect 12% of coca crops but 88% of food crops. Easy to see why a poor but honest farmer decides to 'follow the money'.

Prohibition did not stop people drinking alcohol. The WOD fails for the same reason. What it succeeds at is bribery and corruption for a few, a hugely increased prison population that costs tax dollars, and too many wrongful deaths from SWAT raids gone wrong.

And increased crime by those who need to feed a habit. This does not make the public safer. However, it should be noted, not all drug users are addicts.

[Pneumaticus]

It's the oligarchy, stupid. Or would that be the stupid oligarchy? Alas, not that stupid, apparently, since their mercenary wars and domestic neglect seem to control our "common good." The hypocrisy is stupefying: Liquor is legal, yet pot is not. Reefer Madness and WMDs are just two of the insane distractions of mass hysteria used to deflect our attention from the crimes of state committed every day in our name without our knowledge. They do as they please, for their own fun and profit, and the rest of us can just eat cake. What's it going to take to make the break?

[Pneumaticus]

It's the oligarchy, stupid, as always. Or would that be the stupid oligarchy? Alas, not that stupid, even though it looks that way to the rest of us. The craven hypocrisy is apparent to anyone with half a brain. Liquor is legal, yet pot is not. No wonder our political condition is in such a stupor. Reefer madness and WMDs are just two of the distractions of mass hysteria used to deflect our attention from the real crimes of state committed in our name every day without our knowledge. The oligarchy does as it pleases, for their own fun and profit, and the rest of us can just eat cake. What's it going to take to make the break?

[dontcallmeshirley]

My 21 yr old niece, the spit'n image of Britney Spears (before she got fat) is in jail awaiting her prison sentence for dealing drugs. She got addicted to prescription drugs as a teen, and eventually, needing money to feed the addiction, she chose selling it for her supplier instead of theft, prostitution, or porn (trust me she could've mad good money in porn!). Obviously, when your addicted, quitting isn't one of the options. She was a skilled, gainfully employed professional at the time. What a waste of public resources, and a life!

Note to Scott: It just occured to me, looking at your picture, what a Scott Thill wannabe I must be! http://www.opednews.com/author/author7412.html

[Jason357]

This is an outstanding article. I have no idea why Americans accept this "war on..." garbage. None of these efforts have been anything but a disaster, and an overt attack on the US Constitution, mainly the Bill of Rights.

[larry278]

Could we call it a partial win in the war on drugs since the MSM says that Afghan smack goes to Europe. The USA manages with its old sources of smack in SE Asia & the Americas. Does anybody if Europe gets better & stronger smack than we get; do Turks get a profit from Afghan smack; are there any retraining programs for heroin chemists who are out of work because of Afghan made smack?

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think that drug addiction is an issue that can be addressed through therapy and medical treatment, and if nobody buys the stuff to begin with, then there'll be no market for it, hence no money to be made by doing it, and hence no one in the business of trying to sell something for which there is no market. But, until people start to treat addiction, or get treatment for their own addiction, and improving the borders, the problem will continue. Of course, there's always the consequences of actually WINNING the war on drugs, joblessness, people having to find a new hobby, new competition in the workforce, that kind of thing...the experts say there is no such thing as an accident...

[oldpotsmuggler]

The entire "War on Drugs" is such a sad and sordid story, but it mostly happens in bits and pieces so it never makes it on most peoples radar screen. As bad as things are, I have never run across any situation that illustrates the bout of insanity our nation is seized with as well as tale of Steven Michael Kalish.

Having walked and talked with the man in the prison yard, I feel entitled to call him Kalish. Having read the reports in numerous cases of the testimony he gave, I am certainly glad that I never had any association with him outside of that.

There are any number of people who have been documented as receiving convictions for participating in two of Kalishs" trips that are remarkable because they are the two biggest loads that I personally ever even heard of. Among a lot of other lore, there was a container vessel with 1,000,000 pounds of pot, and a tug and barge run that is said to have hauled 400,000 pounds. Monster loads!

Kalish giving testimony against Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama, doesn"t really much move me one way or the other, but the several hundred other people that he dropped dimes on needs to earn him a special place in hell. The testimony all happened after we shared a prison together, and, since his life term was still on appeal he didn"t really talk about his past. But he sure did start doing some talking after it looked like he was gone for good. Long story short, my favorite recollection from the literature is about Kalish giving up someone from his own family who was small, small fish, and was trying to make a living selling pot because he was otherwise wheel chair bound.

Kalish got blessings in the end, and everyone down chain from him got shit. In this old drug war of ours, it seems, quantity of testimony is more important than quality, and it clearly makes sense somewhere to let the big guys off for giving up the little guys.

How wonderful!

[WillSweet]

Letting the big guys off and throwing the book at small fish is standard operating procedure with the Bush clan. Noriega was allied with Bush sr. from his CIA days and only later needed to be silenced; probably for what he knew about Bush. Look at Abu Graib, low ranking soldiers doing time to protect the real criminals in the White House and Pentagon and upper ranks of the military and intelligence agencies. Same story for the attorney firings, they had to sacrifice nearly the whole Justice Department to keep Gonzales around as long as they did. Same with the Valerie Plame affair, give up whoever you have to to spare Rove and Cheney. Its a tactic always used to hide the existence of something far more nefarious.

[rturismo]

There is a bunch people in these conflicts in these war ridden countries that are killing each other over revenge and power so we can make the Haves more money and for them to eventually see a slice of it. It"s Greed and the ability to use people like chess pieces, 911 was about creating the perfect storm, giving Americans fear like Pearl Harbor did in World War II. It gave us drive to start a war machine and sign over any type of control or rights to the Haves so the can treat us as expendables and constantly monitor us to see if we are threat. Larry Silverstein cashed in his Billions on that day, Merrill Lynch got out of some major SEC investigations that would destroyed our financial economy around the world with all the collusion and trader fraud, one of the reason building 7 fell with no virtual impact and two small fires. If you believe that Arabs hit those towers you have no bearing on Science and education and you probably can't recall any type of history nor do you plan to even read about because you are so wrapped up in your life and worried about how it might change. Reports of the high-jacker's being alive in Morocco and having exile in Saudi Arabia, or the fact that when has anyone made a cell phone call at 37,000 feet, 27,000 feet, or even 2,000 feet. Try it the next time your on a flight, it just doesn't happen!

[NogahdzNoughmasters]

As a pilot, I can say that cell phones work wonderfully at medium-high altitudes provided there are cell towers below (over the ocean won't work). Also, as an aside, you usually aren't allowed to use them in flight not so much because they "interfere with navigation" or whatever, but because they make annoying static over the headsets. :)

[rturismo]

BS..... i'm a pilot as well and haven't recieved any type of cell communication over any stretch of airspace over 1500 feet.

[rturismo]

The people in power have agenda, use power to make money in any way shape or form: Start a War and control the area so our private contracts can pay for the companies to run natural gas lines threw Afghanistan and back door energy profits to lobbyist"s that take our jaded elected legislature on trips and make campaign contributions. Open our borders to allow migrant workers to be used as second class labor force for business to profit so Wal-Mart can sell cheap merchandise from China so those have-nots" can afford some pleasures so we consume more than what is truly needed , it can be every war profiteering ammunition & defense company pushing the people in power to sign bills that enable the conflicts so our hard earned tax dollars pay for the aid, the bullets, the tanks, and policy so these People in power make money and never have anyone piss in their rice bowl.

[rturismo]

This will always be about the Haves and the Have Not"s..... Till we have any type of policy change we will be burdened with this ideology that Americans and the rest of the world will just cower in the face of government on any of these issues because the system has us so wrapped into our daily lives of dealing with our jobs, school, kids, family, health, survival and the pursuit of happiness & etc, that we can't even try to become educated. The Human Population on this patch of corruptive paradise is being constantly manipulated. It's about who is smarter to play the game to have more than the other common person.