OK so after watching the Zeitgiest movie I was thinking situations in America that could be fraud as well
How about drugs?
Makes sense...follow
- US creates and grows drugs such as weed, coke, estacy, etc
- agents sell the shit out in mass quantity
- people get addicted so those addicted are distracted from what the US govt is truely doing
- people are put in jail for selling/using drugs and pay legal fees that go to the govt
- society believes that the war on drugs is one of our biggest problems so most of the attention is focused on the war on drugs
There is a way of knowing how many people were not deterred by it. Prohibition is a policy of erradication, period. And it doesnt work. Unless they want to go full out, life sentences with massive fines, it will barely make a dent - ever. I didn't say it was kept illegal just to keep cops in business....tho it is a huge funding source for them.
I didn't say there wasn't a way of knowing how many people weren't deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal. I said there's no way of knowing how many people are in fact deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal.
No one ever expected to completely wipe out drugs with the war on drugs. As I said, it's like expecting to wipe out any other crime, which is impossible. But, the fact that crimes are still committed in the face of their illegality doesn't mean they're being kept illegal for the sake of some hidden agenda.
So, although you didn't say crimes are illegal to keep cops in business, you are essentially taking that point of view by saying drugs are illegal to bring the US government illegal revenue. Like I was saying, you think the analogy is weak because you have trouble making the logical connections.
I get what you're saying...but the analogy is weak. More accurate if you'd said, "it like if we lived in a prohibitionist society, the CIA sold alcohol to youngsters, so you blame underage drinking on them"
Actually, no that would not be more accurate. We don't need to live in a prohibitionist society in order to designate the sale of alcohol to minors as a crime.
There are many liquor stores who make a big portion of their dollars from sales to minors. It's illegal to sell alcohol to minors, yet minors still buy alcohol. In fact, there's a big "effort" in place to stop this activity.
But, under your rationale, because minors are still buying alcohol, the effort to stem this activity has "failed" and is therefore being kept illegal just for the sake of some hidden government agenda.
I didn't say there wasn't a way of knowing how many people weren't deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal. I said there's no way of knowing how many people are in fact deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal.
No one ever expected to completely wipe out drugs with the war on drugs. As I said, it's like expecting to wipe out any other crime, which is impossible. But, the fact that crimes are still committed in the face of their illegality doesn't mean they're being kept illegal for the sake of some hidden agenda. .
What would the hidden agenda be for any other crime? The money to be made is incomparable, and the ability to control “undesirables” isn’t there – not on the same scale. And there is a way to see how many people the WOD has deterred....try something different and see what happens to the abuse rates.
Chomsky on the "hidden agenda" - social control...he touches more on the economic benefits of the goverment in other articles, but I don't have time to find them (at work)...
WOL: Domestically, state, local, and federal governments have spent tens of billions of dollars on the "war on drugs," yet illicit drugs remain as available, as pure, and as cheap as ever. If this policy is not accomplishing its stated goal, what is it accomplishing? Is there some sort of latent agenda being served?
Chomsky: They have known all along that it won't work, they have good evidence from their own research studies showing that if you want to deal with substance abuse, criminalization is the worst method. The RAND report did a cost-effectiveness analysis of various drug strategies and it found that the most effective approach by far is prevention and treatment. Police action was well below that, and below police action was interdiction, and at the bottom in terms of cost-effectiveness were out-of-country efforts, such as what the US is doing in Colombia. President Nixon, by contrast, had a significant component for prevention and treatment that was effective.
US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control. The economic policies of the last 20 years are a rich man's version of structural adjustment. You create a superfluous population, which in the US context is largely poor, black, and Hispanic, and a much wider population that is economically dissatisfied. You read all the headlines about the great economy, but the facts are quite different. For the vast majority, these neoliberal policies have had a negative effect. With regard to wages, we have only now regained the wage levels of 30 years ago. Incomes are maintained only by working longer and harder, or with both adults in a family working. Even the rate of growth in the economy has not been that high, and what growth there is has been highly concentrated in certain sectors.
If most people are dissatisfied and others are useless, you want to get rid of the useless and frighten the dissatisfied. The drug war does this. The US incarceration rate has risen dramatically, largely because of victimless crimes, such as drug offenses, and the sentences are extremely punitive. The drug war not only gets rid of the superfluous population, it frightens everybody else. Drugs play a role similar to communism or terrorism, people huddle beneath the umbrella of authority for protection from the menace. It is hard to believe that these consequences aren't understood. They are there for anyone to see. Back when the current era of the drug war began, Senator Moynihan paid attention to the social science, and he said if we pass this law we are deciding to create a crime wave among minorities.
So, although you didn't say crimes are illegal to keep cops in business, you are essentially taking that point of view by saying drugs are illegal to bring the US government illegal revenue. Like I was saying, you think the analogy is weak because you have trouble making the logical connections. .
Au contraire….I think you’re having trouble accepting them. Aside from the CIA’s use of the drug trade to finance black ops, most of the revenue is not illegal. Politicians take lobby money from industries that support prohibition. The prison industry, local, state and federal law enforcement, the dea, the intelligence agencies, etc etc depend heavily on drug war funding. A foreign government that is promised 15 billion in drug war funding is probably a lot more receptive to a new pipeline thru their country. There are a lot of powerful people who depend on the WOD for their pay cheques, and for the perks that come with fighting it.
Actually, no that would not be more accurate. We don't need to live in a prohibitionist society in order to designate the sale of alcohol to minors as a crime.
There are many liquor stores who make a big portion of their dollars from sales to minors. It's illegal to sell alcohol to minors, yet minors still buy alcohol. In fact, there's a big "effort" in place to stop this activity.
But, under your rationale, because minors are still buying alcohol, the effort to stem this activity has "failed" and is therefore being kept illegal just for the sake of some hidden government agenda.
I’m confused…to be able to use alcohol in a fair analogy, the playing field must be leveled….you have to make it a hypothetical question, because one is illegal for EVERYONE, the other is not. Anyway….the analogy doesn’t apply imo, and detracts from the rest of our talking points.
The deaths annualy from alcohol and tobacco number in the hundreds of thousands. The deaths from ALL illegal substances combined reached a whopping 3500 or so in 2000. And no one has ever overdosed on weed. But they are illegal...
You'll notice many inner cities are basically security zones within the US. Minorities in these zones are kept in a perpetual state of fear and harrassment. Meanwhile those in control keep pushing the hard drugs on these kids and watch them tear eachother apart. It is about control. If these harder drugs were legalized the industry would lose its huge profit margin and many of these inner city kids would find other ways to rise through the social ranks...education maybe. But they would no longer be controlled. As it is there is little danger of another Martin Luthar King uniting all that angst repression and actually progressing society.
Internationally the war on drugs is a ruse for military involvement in many countries, namely Colombia though. Like the war on Communism before and the war on terrorism after. It is very transparent in the case of Colombia though as many of the paramilitaries working directly with the Columbian military (which is working directly with the US military) have been tied to the cocaine trade, including a general who was caught with a plane full of cocaine in a Florida airport. But to focus on these things wouldn't allow the US gov't to do things like give Colombia a 2 BILLION dollar military package (Clinton) Including some 50 apache gunships. How this is fighting the war on drugs is beyond anyone-interesting there is a major rebel group resisting against the system throughout this 'drug war'. FARC is the group.
Anyway the entire 'war on drugs' philosophy is flawed. Studies by many groups (including a US gov't sponsored study by the Rand corporation) have shown that education is the best way to fight the war on drugs. The more people know about the substances they are putting into their bodies the less likely they will be to do them. Would have been true in my case. Since the authorities have completely ignored these studies it seems obvious they have different motives than simply stopping American from using hard drugs.
Since the authorities have completely ignored these studies it seems obvious they have different motives than simply stopping American from using hard drugs.
Most of the opium grown in afghanistan ends up in europe. the heroin that ends up in the US comes from mexico and further south mostly.
I used to think the same thing but a friend who is an inner city drug councilor says that is not exactly the case. The most goes to Eastern Europe, 2nd is the US and then to Western Europe.
But if all did go to Europe it is almost a conspiracy all on its own.
Hmm US lets record amounts of Juice to enter Europe creating havoc and chaos, thus weakening the health care, starting gang wars and distrust of their government. Thus the “sober” people ask for more police control.
Just say in
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
What would the hidden agenda be for any other crime? The money to be made is incomparable, and the ability to control “undesirables” isn’t there – not on the same scale. And there is a way to see how many people the WOD has deterred....try something different and see what happens to the abuse rates.
Again, you've proven my point that there is no way of knowing just how many people are deterred by the simple fact that using illegal drugs will result in entanglements with the law. "Try something different and see what happens" really isn't much of an argument, IMO. No, really, I want to see it from your point of view, but where's the beef?
Chomsky on the "hidden agenda" - social control...he touches more on the economic benefits of the goverment in other articles, but I don't have time to find them (at work)...
WOL: Domestically, state, local, and federal governments have spent tens of billions of dollars on the "war on drugs," yet illicit drugs remain as available, as pure, and as cheap as ever. If this policy is not accomplishing its stated goal, what is it accomplishing? Is there some sort of latent agenda being served?
Chomsky: They have known all along that it won't work, they have good evidence from their own research studies showing that if you want to deal with substance abuse, criminalization is the worst method. The RAND report did a cost-effectiveness analysis of various drug strategies and it found that the most effective approach by far is prevention and treatment. Police action was well below that, and below police action was interdiction, and at the bottom in terms of cost-effectiveness were out-of-country efforts, such as what the US is doing in Colombia. President Nixon, by contrast, had a significant component for prevention and treatment that was effective.
US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control. The economic policies of the last 20 years are a rich man's version of structural adjustment. You create a superfluous population, which in the US context is largely poor, black, and Hispanic, and a much wider population that is economically dissatisfied. You read all the headlines about the great economy, but the facts are quite different. For the vast majority, these neoliberal policies have had a negative effect. With regard to wages, we have only now regained the wage levels of 30 years ago. Incomes are maintained only by working longer and harder, or with both adults in a family working. Even the rate of growth in the economy has not been that high, and what growth there is has been highly concentrated in certain sectors.
If most people are dissatisfied and others are useless, you want to get rid of the useless and frighten the dissatisfied. The drug war does this. The US incarceration rate has risen dramatically, largely because of victimless crimes, such as drug offenses, and the sentences are extremely punitive. The drug war not only gets rid of the superfluous population, it frightens everybody else. Drugs play a role similar to communism or terrorism, people huddle beneath the umbrella of authority for protection from the menace. It is hard to believe that these consequences aren't understood. They are there for anyone to see. Back when the current era of the drug war began, Senator Moynihan paid attention to the social science, and he said if we pass this law we are deciding to create a crime wave among minorities.
That's a lot of nice supposition, but none of that is really substantiated with actual events or statistics. Just because it's the eloquent opinion of Chomsky the leftist superhero doesn't mean it should be accepted without question. You seem like an intelligent person; try formulating your own take on the matter.
Au contraire….I think you’re having trouble accepting them. Aside from the CIA’s use of the drug trade to finance black ops, most of the revenue is not illegal. Politicians take lobby money from industries that support prohibition. The prison industry, local, state and federal law enforcement, the dea, the intelligence agencies, etc etc depend heavily on drug war funding. A foreign government that is promised 15 billion in drug war funding is probably a lot more receptive to a new pipeline thru their country. There are a lot of powerful people who depend on the WOD for their pay cheques, and for the perks that come with fighting it.
Illegal revenue is just one example that I was using. A "hidden agenda" was my overall point. If anything, this just goes to support my notion that there is money to be made in keeping cops (ie agencies, programs...etc) in business, but that doesn't necessarily mean the laws that they are fighting to enforce are being kept in place just to keep the money rolling. Otherwise, the same could be said about any major law enforcement effort. You haven't really said anything that would distinguish the war on drugs from any other activity of law enforcement. Foreign governments accept money from the US Gov for many reasons, why should it be so suspicious when it comes to drug interdiction funds?
I’m confused…to be able to use alcohol in a fair analogy, the playing field must be leveled….you have to make it a hypothetical question, because one is illegal for EVERYONE, the other is not. Anyway….the analogy doesn’t apply imo, and detracts from the rest of our talking points.
You may or may not know this, but heroin metabolizes into morphine in the liver. That's why when heroin addicts were given blindfolded doses of intravaneous morphine and heroin, they could not tell the difference. In fact, there are many heroin addicts who prefer morphine over heroin when given the opportunity.
Morphine is not illegal to everyone, yet it is kept illegal because it has a high potential for abuse. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that pharmaceutical companies push to keep it illegal for the sake of profits because we both know that if it were legal, they would make billions more from over-the-counter sales. If anything, the fact that it's prescription only actually limits their profits.
So, with that in mind, the fact that one drug is illegal to all and the other illegal to specific group sets is irrelevent to the argument at hand because the nature of the analogy relates to the legality vs. illegality, not the severity of the illegality.
Again, the "weakness" resides in your ability to discern between the nuances.
I used to think the same thing but a friend who is an inner city drug councilor says that is not exactly the case. The most goes to Eastern Europe, 2nd is the US and then to Western Europe.
Just say in
You have a friend who is an inner city drug counselor? LMAO. First, you spelled counselor wrong. Doesn't matter anyway because I don't see any reason why someone is suddenly an expert on the origin of drugs just because he counsels addicts.
That's like saying an alcohol abuse counselor would be the go to person when seeking knowledge about distilleries.
Good laugh, though.
But if all did go to Europe it is almost a conspiracy all on its own.
Hmm US lets record amounts of Juice to enter Europe creating havoc and chaos, thus weakening the health care, starting gang wars and distrust of their government. Thus the “sober” people ask for more police control.
Yet, it is a conspiracy. I agree. The US couldn't care less if europe is falling victim to the needle. Of course, that would mean that drugs really are harmful to a stable society, and we can't have people believing that -hence your introduction of the "police state" theory.
OK so after watching the Zeitgiest movie I was thinking situations in America that could be fraud as well
How about drugs?
Makes sense...follow
- US creates and grows drugs such as weed, coke, estacy, etc
- agents sell the shit out in mass quantity
- people get addicted so those addicted are distracted from what the US govt is truely doing
- people are put in jail for selling/using drugs and pay legal fees that go to the govt
- society believes that the war on drugs is one of our biggest problems so most of the attention is focused on the war on drugs
PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE?!?!?!?!!?!?!
"I don't believe in PJ fans but I believe there is something, not too sure what." - Thoughts_Arrive
Progress is not made by everyone joining some new fad,
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
Comments
LMFAO
I didn't say there wasn't a way of knowing how many people weren't deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal. I said there's no way of knowing how many people are in fact deterred by the fact that drugs are illegal.
No one ever expected to completely wipe out drugs with the war on drugs. As I said, it's like expecting to wipe out any other crime, which is impossible. But, the fact that crimes are still committed in the face of their illegality doesn't mean they're being kept illegal for the sake of some hidden agenda.
So, although you didn't say crimes are illegal to keep cops in business, you are essentially taking that point of view by saying drugs are illegal to bring the US government illegal revenue. Like I was saying, you think the analogy is weak because you have trouble making the logical connections.
Actually, no that would not be more accurate. We don't need to live in a prohibitionist society in order to designate the sale of alcohol to minors as a crime.
There are many liquor stores who make a big portion of their dollars from sales to minors. It's illegal to sell alcohol to minors, yet minors still buy alcohol. In fact, there's a big "effort" in place to stop this activity.
But, under your rationale, because minors are still buying alcohol, the effort to stem this activity has "failed" and is therefore being kept illegal just for the sake of some hidden government agenda.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
What would the hidden agenda be for any other crime? The money to be made is incomparable, and the ability to control “undesirables” isn’t there – not on the same scale. And there is a way to see how many people the WOD has deterred....try something different and see what happens to the abuse rates.
Chomsky on the "hidden agenda" - social control...he touches more on the economic benefits of the goverment in other articles, but I don't have time to find them (at work)...
WOL: Domestically, state, local, and federal governments have spent tens of billions of dollars on the "war on drugs," yet illicit drugs remain as available, as pure, and as cheap as ever. If this policy is not accomplishing its stated goal, what is it accomplishing? Is there some sort of latent agenda being served?
Chomsky: They have known all along that it won't work, they have good evidence from their own research studies showing that if you want to deal with substance abuse, criminalization is the worst method. The RAND report did a cost-effectiveness analysis of various drug strategies and it found that the most effective approach by far is prevention and treatment. Police action was well below that, and below police action was interdiction, and at the bottom in terms of cost-effectiveness were out-of-country efforts, such as what the US is doing in Colombia. President Nixon, by contrast, had a significant component for prevention and treatment that was effective.
US domestic drug policy does not carry out its stated goals, and policymakers are well aware of that. If it isn't about reducing substance abuse, what is it about? It is reasonably clear, both from current actions and the historical record, that substances tend to be criminalized when they are associated with the so-called dangerous classes, that the criminalization of certain substances is a technique of social control. The economic policies of the last 20 years are a rich man's version of structural adjustment. You create a superfluous population, which in the US context is largely poor, black, and Hispanic, and a much wider population that is economically dissatisfied. You read all the headlines about the great economy, but the facts are quite different. For the vast majority, these neoliberal policies have had a negative effect. With regard to wages, we have only now regained the wage levels of 30 years ago. Incomes are maintained only by working longer and harder, or with both adults in a family working. Even the rate of growth in the economy has not been that high, and what growth there is has been highly concentrated in certain sectors.
If most people are dissatisfied and others are useless, you want to get rid of the useless and frighten the dissatisfied. The drug war does this. The US incarceration rate has risen dramatically, largely because of victimless crimes, such as drug offenses, and the sentences are extremely punitive. The drug war not only gets rid of the superfluous population, it frightens everybody else. Drugs play a role similar to communism or terrorism, people huddle beneath the umbrella of authority for protection from the menace. It is hard to believe that these consequences aren't understood. They are there for anyone to see. Back when the current era of the drug war began, Senator Moynihan paid attention to the social science, and he said if we pass this law we are deciding to create a crime wave among minorities.
More from Chomsky on the drug war:
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020208.htm
Au contraire….I think you’re having trouble accepting them. Aside from the CIA’s use of the drug trade to finance black ops, most of the revenue is not illegal. Politicians take lobby money from industries that support prohibition. The prison industry, local, state and federal law enforcement, the dea, the intelligence agencies, etc etc depend heavily on drug war funding. A foreign government that is promised 15 billion in drug war funding is probably a lot more receptive to a new pipeline thru their country. There are a lot of powerful people who depend on the WOD for their pay cheques, and for the perks that come with fighting it.
I’m confused…to be able to use alcohol in a fair analogy, the playing field must be leveled….you have to make it a hypothetical question, because one is illegal for EVERYONE, the other is not. Anyway….the analogy doesn’t apply imo, and detracts from the rest of our talking points.
You'll notice many inner cities are basically security zones within the US. Minorities in these zones are kept in a perpetual state of fear and harrassment. Meanwhile those in control keep pushing the hard drugs on these kids and watch them tear eachother apart. It is about control. If these harder drugs were legalized the industry would lose its huge profit margin and many of these inner city kids would find other ways to rise through the social ranks...education maybe. But they would no longer be controlled. As it is there is little danger of another Martin Luthar King uniting all that angst repression and actually progressing society.
Internationally the war on drugs is a ruse for military involvement in many countries, namely Colombia though. Like the war on Communism before and the war on terrorism after. It is very transparent in the case of Colombia though as many of the paramilitaries working directly with the Columbian military (which is working directly with the US military) have been tied to the cocaine trade, including a general who was caught with a plane full of cocaine in a Florida airport. But to focus on these things wouldn't allow the US gov't to do things like give Colombia a 2 BILLION dollar military package (Clinton) Including some 50 apache gunships. How this is fighting the war on drugs is beyond anyone-interesting there is a major rebel group resisting against the system throughout this 'drug war'. FARC is the group.
Anyway the entire 'war on drugs' philosophy is flawed. Studies by many groups (including a US gov't sponsored study by the Rand corporation) have shown that education is the best way to fight the war on drugs. The more people know about the substances they are putting into their bodies the less likely they will be to do them. Would have been true in my case. Since the authorities have completely ignored these studies it seems obvious they have different motives than simply stopping American from using hard drugs.
This is widely considered the most comprehensive study done on mj policy:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/37/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/Com-e/ille-e/rep-e/repfinalvol1-e.htm
Canada started implementing the recommendations, but had to back off after pressure from....guess where?
I used to think the same thing but a friend who is an inner city drug councilor says that is not exactly the case. The most goes to Eastern Europe, 2nd is the US and then to Western Europe.
But if all did go to Europe it is almost a conspiracy all on its own.
Hmm US lets record amounts of Juice to enter Europe creating havoc and chaos, thus weakening the health care, starting gang wars and distrust of their government. Thus the “sober” people ask for more police control.
Just say in
~Ralph Waldo Emerson~
The Tie-Dye Lady is HOT!!!
Again, you've proven my point that there is no way of knowing just how many people are deterred by the simple fact that using illegal drugs will result in entanglements with the law. "Try something different and see what happens" really isn't much of an argument, IMO. No, really, I want to see it from your point of view, but where's the beef?
That's a lot of nice supposition, but none of that is really substantiated with actual events or statistics. Just because it's the eloquent opinion of Chomsky the leftist superhero doesn't mean it should be accepted without question. You seem like an intelligent person; try formulating your own take on the matter.
Illegal revenue is just one example that I was using. A "hidden agenda" was my overall point. If anything, this just goes to support my notion that there is money to be made in keeping cops (ie agencies, programs...etc) in business, but that doesn't necessarily mean the laws that they are fighting to enforce are being kept in place just to keep the money rolling. Otherwise, the same could be said about any major law enforcement effort. You haven't really said anything that would distinguish the war on drugs from any other activity of law enforcement. Foreign governments accept money from the US Gov for many reasons, why should it be so suspicious when it comes to drug interdiction funds?
You may or may not know this, but heroin metabolizes into morphine in the liver. That's why when heroin addicts were given blindfolded doses of intravaneous morphine and heroin, they could not tell the difference. In fact, there are many heroin addicts who prefer morphine over heroin when given the opportunity.
Morphine is not illegal to everyone, yet it is kept illegal because it has a high potential for abuse. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that pharmaceutical companies push to keep it illegal for the sake of profits because we both know that if it were legal, they would make billions more from over-the-counter sales. If anything, the fact that it's prescription only actually limits their profits.
So, with that in mind, the fact that one drug is illegal to all and the other illegal to specific group sets is irrelevent to the argument at hand because the nature of the analogy relates to the legality vs. illegality, not the severity of the illegality.
Again, the "weakness" resides in your ability to discern between the nuances.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
You have a friend who is an inner city drug counselor? LMAO. First, you spelled counselor wrong. Doesn't matter anyway because I don't see any reason why someone is suddenly an expert on the origin of drugs just because he counsels addicts.
That's like saying an alcohol abuse counselor would be the go to person when seeking knowledge about distilleries.
Good laugh, though.
Yet, it is a conspiracy. I agree. The US couldn't care less if europe is falling victim to the needle. Of course, that would mean that drugs really are harmful to a stable society, and we can't have people believing that -hence your introduction of the "police state" theory.
When are you people going to learn?
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE?!?!?!?!!?!?!
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")