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Episode #162 - Full Spectrum Hypocrisy (The Drug War as a long-time tool of American Empire) |
| ⌚ Sat 12 April 2003 ☻Jeff Blackburn, Dean Becker, Bo Gritz, Kwaku Person-Lynn, Shicon |
 Download Hour1 Download Hour2The war on drugs is the prototype for the endless war, providing an expansion in dictatorial powers for government under the cover of a carefully cultivated popular hysteria , a formula that has been repeated in the war on terrorism. Drug prohibition has the effect of keeping the prices of drugs high so those who do traffic in them may derive maximum financial benefit. This week you'll hear an explanation for why there are as many drugs for sale as ever, in spite of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on this endless war. |
This is not a new story, it's just a suppressed story that remains a relevant as ever, especially to those it continues to victimize. As a result of the eruption of the Iran Contra scandal in the late 1980's, persistent stories surfaced that covert operatives in the Reagan Bush administration were openly collaborating with drug traffickers. Community leaders were asserting that the crack epidemic raging in their cities was the result of intentional importation of drugs by the same US government that was then arresting the people they'd hooked.
Journalists who took on the story, most notably Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News, had their careers or even their very lives destroyed. Earlier, The Chrisitic Instititue, a public interest law firm, tried to sue various high placed Reagan/Bush officials for their role in drug and gun running to fund illegal wars in Central America, But, they were never allowed to bring their case to trial. Instead, they were fined more than a million dollars for filing a "frivolous suit" which put the small non-profit group out of business.
Many of the people named in that suit, or subsequently indicted as a result of a relatively feeble congressional investigation, are once again top jobs in the current administration. We hear about one of them, deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, now, Colin Powell's #2 man.
Meanwhile, about half of Americas 2 million prisoners are in jail because of charges relating in some way to the drug war - most of these prisoners of the drug war are poor and black or brown. Their lives and their families lives have been ruined. As you will hear in our final hour, the corruption of the drug war trickles down in little ways even to Auburn, NY, were these drug prisoners essentially become slaves, with no means of redress against predatory prison guards...★ Start a Discussion about this episode (Login Required)
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