News in Briefs 17/06/12

Well this week was a week for keeping fear alive. I haven’t seen this much scaremongering since 9/11, and even that wasn’t talking about the global meltdown of the capitalist world. But it’s not a very good campaign of fear as I don’t really feel scared. I sort of feel like ‘meh’. And even in the face of all of these carefully constructed arguments for why we are on the precipice of destruction, I still find that I’m not that scared.

Political Oops of the Week

This week it has to be that old bitch Theresa May who has now unveiled plans for web monitoring. To put it simply, she wasn’t content with making the police force want to hang her from the Tower of London so she now decided to annoy every taxpayer. The plans will involve internet companies holding onto all email messages, web histories, and basically everything else that goes on on the internet for up to one year. In other words, she is part of the move for the state to take over the freedom of the internet.

Theresa May

The only defence she has given for this is that it will help stop crime. What a load of putrid donkey vomit! Those who carry out crime on the internet will easily find a way around it, and even those who are not dealing in crime will still find a way around it. Take a look at the ban they put on The Pirate Bay in the UK. I was around that ban within five minutes and I can still access that site now. All it will do is damage the privacy of the novice computer user. And in all honesty this obsession with crime is going too far as now we are sacrificing all privacy and all freedom in the name of the law. It’s just not worth it.

With any luck there will be such overwheming opposition when the bill eventually goes to parliament that it will be rejected like America’s latest SOPA act. Oh, and did I mention that these plans will cost the taxpayer £1.8 billion to implement?

The Painful…

There was a show called The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 this week, and my god it just showed how deluded the large majority of people really are. Now, I’m not saying that you should start by going off to watch it and then you should come back and tell me what you think; there would be too much blank space on this blog whilst I wait. Just look at the title. It’s already blaming others for the fact that people are so fat these days. If everybody was fat then that would be perfectly acceptable and it would be somebody else’s fault, but it’s not.

The fact is that lots of people managed to stay fit and healthy, so why not everybody else? We really have to start taking some responsibility for ourselves as we have blamed others for too long. A few years ago we blamed McDonalds for making our kids fat. No, it’s your fault your kids got fat because the only way they can get that food is if you got it for them. “Oh but what if my kids got it on the way home from school?” Well they obviously got the money from you in the first place. If your kids are fat then it’s your fault because you’re a bad parent. End of discussion.

It really is painful to still see the media and so many others blaming the people who make the food. Haven’t they heard of supply and demand? If there’s a demand then they’ll keep making it, and that’s what they are doing. You don’t have to buy it.

…And the Pointless

This week Tony Blair came back into the news whilst he was in Hong Kong giving a lecture on faith and globalisation at the Hong Kong University. He made the news because Tom Grundy, a 29-year-old Briton living in the country, attempted a citizen’s arrest on the former PM. Of course, he only really managed to heckle him as his men and a crowd of photographers kept him a few meters away from the stage, but he said the move was symbolic.

Regardless of how you feel about the Iraq War, you can’t help but think that it was a completely pointless and half-arsed attempt at doing something. People won’t remember this move a few weeks from now at all. In fact, he (Blair) probably couldn’t care less either. People need to start letting these things go because no government has declared him a war criminal and he’s not a wanted man. If he’s not a wanted man then that’s the end of it. It might not be a popular decision, but that’s how it is no matter what anyone else thinks.

Tony Blair

Although he did bring up a point about how his faith is meaningless since he angered the whole Muslim world. If he’s a Christian, which he is, then if he angered the entire Muslim world then surely history tells us that he should be made a saint?

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

It has to be Euro 2012 and the fact that UEFA still think that holding the tournament in Ukraine and Poland was a good idea. Ok, I admit that the problems have mainly emanated from Poland, but neither country is free from blame. Let’s list just some of the problems that we have seen so far.

  • Before the tournament began the Dutch team were racially abused during their training session in front of 20,000 people.
  • Mario Balotelli racially abused in both of Spain’s games, as well as having a banana thrown onto the pitch.
  • Russian supporters attacked stewards and sent a few to hospital after their win against the Czech Republic in their first game.
  • Russian and Polish supporters fought running battles through Warsaw during Russia’s national day, as well as a flag that said: “This is Russia” somehow making it into the ground during the game.
  • Multiple flares thrown onto the pitch during Croatia’s game against Italy, which actually stopped the game for a few minutes.

And this is just the group stage of Euro 2012. We haven’t even made it to the end of that yet and only four teams have been officially eliminated so far. Surely this tells you that Eastern Europe isn’t yet fit to be hosting a major tournament. This is not racism on my part either, all of these incidents have been caused by supporters from Eastern Europe. It makes you wonder why so many Western supporters have refused to attend the tournament doesn’t it?

Euro 2012

Anyway maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

It’s time to end the drug war

 

According to a fairly recent Gallup poll, 50% of Americans are now in favor of legalising marijuana, a number that is up from the 12% that supported legalisation back in 1969. A growing number of Americans are also in favour of decriminalising the simple possession of all illegal drugs. Growing support for the legalisation of marijuana is so wide in fact, that support now includes endorsements from some very unlikely public figures. It’s hard to believe, but television evangelist Pat Robertson has come out not only in favor of decriminalisation, but for all out legalisation. “Regulate it like alcohol”, he says emphatically. Indeed, we are living in changing times, for it is clear that we are witnessing a monumental sea change in public opinion that has expanded exponentially beyond that of young liberals and libertarians. The common denominator has become such: End the drug war!

Marijuana possession is a victimless crime wherein the only real solution, both economically and morally speaking, is to tax and regulate it as we would any other commodity.  We need substance abuse treatment rather than incarceration. Many people of sensible means now recognise the war on drugs for what it has become: a drain on society both socially and fiscally.  In this time of budget cuts and furloughs, it is time for us to take another look at how we deal with drug use and abuse amongst otherwise law abiding citizens. The costs have simply become too onerous a burden for cash strapped states to endure. Many people want to know why we continue to dump so much time and money into a war that has clearly failed to achieve its objective.

Whilst we have witnessed a sea change in public opinion in the United States, many of our elected government officials do not appear to mirror the needs and interests of their own constituents. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden recently came out against the decriminalisation of drug possession while attending the sixth annual Summit of the Americas that was held in Cartagena, Columbia in April.  When questioned on the current status of the drug war, President Obama replied: “I, personally, and my administration’s position is that legalisation is not the answer.” Several South American leaders, however, have highlighted the need for a return to a more pragmatic approach in dealing with drug use and abuse by declaring the need for drug decriminalisation.  This is the type of enlightened thinking that harbours the potential to usher in an era which has long been overdue. It is time to alleviate some of the pressure that has been foisted upon our neighbors and friends that live and die in many of the war torn nation states that lie directly south of the American border. They have quite clearly had enough of what’s not working, and we should support them in this new endeavour to curb the violence that has claimed so many lives.

Though this sea change may appear to be a new and novel idea, there used to exist a time in pre-prohibition America where one could openly patronise opium and tea dens, free of legal and moral retribution. Amazingly, the sky did not fall and though there were addicts, no plague of mass indoctrination to the counter drug culture was exhibited.  This little known history disavows the prohibitionists’ argument at its core, for legalisation does not equate with higher consumption. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now. We only need to look to the likes of Portugal, where all drugs were decriminalised 11 years ago. As a result of this bold move, drug abuse in now down by half. That’s a fact and no one can dispute it.

We have witnessed a direct correlation with the proliferation of the industrial prison complex industry in conjunction with the dawn of the modern drug war. Law enforcement can no longer focus solely on what’s important: public safety.  What the people have been subjected to is a stark increase in violent crime, human rights abuses, and blight in many of America’s impoverished neighbourhoods and beyond. One in 10 African American men in their 30s is incarcerated on any given day.  Blacks and Latinos account for three-fourths of those imprisoned for drug related offenses.  Arrests for drug offenses have increased exponentially since 1980, but I and everyone else knew that already. All that we need to do is to take a look around and there lies the truth in bold neon lights.

I had the pleasure of engaging in a thought provoking conversation with an acquaintance of mine recently. We talked mostly about violent crime, the proliferation of gun homicides, and the seemingly never ending dilemma of violence in our cities. In describing the neighbourhood that he grew up in, he mentioned how there only used to be about one shooting a month, as opposed to what we are now witnessing on the nightly news. The murder rate has statistically become closer to almost one a day in some cities like New Orleans. “It just never used to be this bad; there used to be more black owned businesses, and now we just have all of this shooting going on all around us all of the time; this is because of the drug war”, he stated emphatically. My acquaintance is not a criminologist (nor am I), nor is he a statistician; he doesn’t need to be. He has lived and grown up in the lower ninth ward of New Orleans for all of the 50+ years that he has inhibited this green earth. He has witnessed firsthand the war on drugs, therefore I believe him when he tells me that he knows what he’s talking about.

So while the failed experiment of alcohol prohibition has hopefully been left to the dustbins of historical reference, the idea of prohibition itself has not officially been dealt its final death blow, for it continues to proliferate despite the massive change in public opinion. It is easy to naively assume, however, that we are moving ever more close to achieving the objective of a post-prohibitionist world, for public has made it clear what the trajectory of the 21st century should entail. Though we have witnessed many signs of hope that appear on the surface to indicate that we are in fact moving ever closer to the decriminalisation of drug possession, it is clear that the opposing forces are as strong and as determined as ever.  As of 2012, 16 states, along with the District of Columbia, have legalised medical marijuana and 14 states across the county have decriminalised the simple possession of small amounts of cannabis.

At the federal level, a very different approach has been taking place under the Obama administration. Thus far, there have been more than 100 federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries across the country, an impressive track record that makes the efforts of Obama’s predecessor pale in comparison.  So while the public perception of the war on drugs continues to evolve, it appears that there are two very distinctive and opposing forces currently at work. In the meantime, gross injustices continue to be foisted upon many of our nation’s poor and un-connected in what appears to be a feckless war with no end.

America has the highest incarceration in the world, beating out such countries as Iran, China, and Germany.  Among the 50 states, Louisiana is ranked at number one, with the highest incarceration rate in the United States, and thus the world. This shocking statistic seems to coincide with the observations of my acquaintance from the lower ninth ward, for he lives in one of the most dangerous places in the world where it is an exception, rather than the rule, not to have a brush with the law. The blight in some neighbourhoods that has resulted is simply unfathomable in a country that claims to be as advanced as ours. Something clearly has gone wrong, for instead of progressing into the 21st century with dignity, it is clear that in many ways we continue to revert backwards. The drug war is largely responsible for this disparity; it’s time that we end it once and for all.