[OT] "Why Do They Hate Us?"

A former DEA agent described the war on drugs as "a big bag of money
with a lot of hands in it"... referring to all the agencies that get a
fat budget...

On 13 May 2004 13:42:15 -0700, (cddugan)
wrote:

Marc Mulay wrote in message ...
[snip]
Even people who drool, walk backwards and can't effectively count change know
that the long vaunted "War on Drugs" is a total bust.

I disagree. I think the War On Drugs has been a resounding
success! Just look at the long list of proven accomplishments of the
triumphant War On Drugs:

* Lots of new prisons have been built. Now the USA has a
greater percentage of its citizens under lock and key than any other
country on Earth. We're number one!

* Huge numbers of blacks and latinos and low income whites have
been imprisoned and disenfranchized as a result of drug related felony
records. So they will never vote again. Now, thank goodness, we can
just politically ignore them - except to throw them back into those
new prisons if they get tired of being ignored and begin to turn
restive.

* Racist harassment of citizens of color has found a new
legalistic justification in the form of drug-crime-related "profiling.

* Troublesome civil liberties have thankfully been eroded to the
point where police can confiscate someone's cash simply because they
have a lot of it on their person, and never return it, and never have
to prove any wrongdoing on the part of the person, and never have to
charge them with anything.

* Troublesome privacy rights have been diminished to the point
where in order to get a job and provide for their families workers
must submit to a degrading search of their bodily fluids. This sets a
very useful precedent for all sorts of other humiliating and intrusive
future invasions of privacy just a little further down the road.

* Thanks to the War On Drugs we can carry on vicious
counterinsurgency campaigns against the poor in Columbia and elsewhere
for political reasons while pretending that it is all just about coca.
First we use our IMF/WTO influence to pressure developing countries
into making neoliberal reforms and removing trade barriers and price
supports for legal commodities. Then we subsidize American farmers
with price supports of our own and undercut the unsubsidized foreign
competition so that they are left with no other way to support their
families except to grow coca. Then we send in the helicopter gunships
to do what the USA does best around the world nowadays: use military
force to prop up rich minorities against poor majorities. Oh yes, and
when the survivors of our counterinsurgency campaign get driven off
the land and wind up in shanty towns surrounding their capital city.
This gives us a vast reserve of abjectly poor workers for the
sweatshops of US-based multinational corporations - workers who will
be willing to do for $.50/hour what American workers used to do for a
decent living wage before their job got moved overseas.

Drug use in America continues just as before, of course. But
putting a stop to drug use was never the point. The fact that the War
On Drugs doesn't actually stop drug abuse is the sheer beauty of it.
The drug use pretext continues and continues, which enables the War to
continue and continue thus creating more and more of the sorts postive
gains listed above.

Chris, USA

"who dat" wrote in message
news
On 13 May 2004 12:36:32 -0700, (cddugan)
wrote:

My liberal friends are appalled at my support for the 2nd
Amendment. Anyone who argues that guns in private hands help preserve
liberty is dismissed as a "gun nut." But gun control and gun bans
have accompanied every tyranny of the Left or Right since guns were
invented.

Right, just look at all the tyranny in Europe, Australia, Canada, etc
etc. It's shocking.

I know you're being sarcastic, but from what I hear,
Big Brother is EVERYWHERE in those countries.

Kabong!~!~!~!

On Fri, 14 May 2004 02:40:11 -0700, who dat wrote:

On 13 May 2004 12:36:32 -0700, (cddugan)
wrote:

My liberal friends are appalled at my support for the 2nd
Amendment. Anyone who argues that guns in private hands help
preserve
liberty is dismissed as a "gun nut." But gun control and gun bans
have accompanied every tyranny of the Left or Right since guns were
invented.

Right, just look at all the tyranny in Europe,

You really have to be kidding about this one, or you are way to young
for a memory of WWII.

Australia,

Well, there are a number of Aussies that agree with Chris
wholeheartedly. And they are experiencing more than just a tyranny.
Their crime rates are sky rocketing...guess which kind?

GUN CRIME AGAINST UNARMED CITIZENS.

Canada, etc
etc. It's shocking.

You might want to do just a tad bit of research before you spout off.
Ask a french Canadian about this issue.

Not that they are the only Canadians more than a little ****ed.

You need to look at more than one issue and more than one side to an
issue before you babble you bs.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...stralia+canada

And you miss badly on logic as well. Chris didn't claim that gun
control is followed by tyranny...though there is some support for that
position based on one's interpretation of tyranny, but that tyrants
move to control guns in the hands of citizens.

Try again, doofi.

Kane

"TPS" wrote:

Chris -
While I keep an open ear to the gun-rights argument (much, if not most
of it makes sense to me), I have to point out that the same logical flaw
that you attribute to who dat can be applied to you. If I'm not mistaken,
your argument is that we shouldn't outlaw guns (A) because tyrannical
governments outlaw them (B). That does not add up to "A therefore B".

Actually, no, that wasn't my argument. My argument was that
repressive dicatorships and the freedom of private citizens to keep
and bear firearms are incompatible, because firearm possession among
widespread elements of a population creates instability for a
repressive dictatorship. Hence, keeping the right to keep and bear
firearms constitutes a check against tendencies towards repressive
government.

In other words, just because tyrannical governments outlaw guns, it
doesn't mean that outlawing guns leads to tyrannical governments,

I didn't make that argument. I would argue that it makes
tyrannical government more possible, but I wouldn't argue that it
leads to tyrannical government in and of itself. And indeed, if I had
made such an argument, the counterexamples of European countries with
strict gun laws would have been a valid rebuttal.

or that
maintaining gun rights prevents tyrannical governments.

This is the argument I have made. I believe it does just this.

If you can find a tyrannical regime which lasted an appreciable
period of time anywhere in the world at any time in history which
permitted all its citizens to freely keep and bear firearms, that will
constitute a refutation of my assertion. I don't believe such a
counterexample exists.

Chris, USA

"cddugan" wrote in message
om...
Marc Mulay wrote in message
...
[snip]
Even people who drool, walk backwards and can't effectively count change
know
that the long vaunted "War on Drugs" is a total bust.

I disagree. I think the War On Drugs has been a resounding
success! Just look at the long list of proven accomplishments of the
triumphant War On Drugs:

* Lots of new prisons have been built. Now the USA has a
greater percentage of its citizens under lock and key than any other
country on Earth. We're number one!

* Huge numbers of blacks and latinos and low income whites have
been imprisoned and disenfranchized as a result of drug related felony
records. So they will never vote again. Now, thank goodness, we can
just politically ignore them - except to throw them back into those
new prisons if they get tired of being ignored and begin to turn
restive.

* Racist harassment of citizens of color has found a new
legalistic justification in the form of drug-crime-related "profiling.

* Troublesome civil liberties have thankfully been eroded to the
point where police can confiscate someone's cash simply because they
have a lot of it on their person, and never return it, and never have
to prove any wrongdoing on the part of the person, and never have to
charge them with anything.

* Troublesome privacy rights have been diminished to the point
where in order to get a job and provide for their families workers
must submit to a degrading search of their bodily fluids. This sets a
very useful precedent for all sorts of other humiliating and intrusive
future invasions of privacy just a little further down the road.

* Thanks to the War On Drugs we can carry on vicious
counterinsurgency campaigns against the poor in Columbia and elsewhere
for political reasons while pretending that it is all just about coca.
First we use our IMF/WTO influence to pressure developing countries
into making neoliberal reforms and removing trade barriers and price
supports for legal commodities. Then we subsidize American farmers
with price supports of our own and undercut the unsubsidized foreign
competition so that they are left with no other way to support their
families except to grow coca. Then we send in the helicopter gunships
to do what the USA does best around the world nowadays: use military
force to prop up rich minorities against poor majorities. Oh yes, and
when the survivors of our counterinsurgency campaign get driven off
the land and wind up in shanty towns surrounding their capital city.
This gives us a vast reserve of abjectly poor workers for the
sweatshops of US-based multinational corporations - workers who will
be willing to do for $.50/hour what American workers used to do for a
decent living wage before their job got moved overseas.

Drug use in America continues just as before, of course. But
putting a stop to drug use was never the point. The fact that the War
On Drugs doesn't actually stop drug abuse is the sheer beauty of it.
The drug use pretext continues and continues, which enables the War to
continue and continue thus creating more and more of the sorts postive
gains listed above.

Chris, USA

That pretty much sums it up IMO.

Could it be that the interminable 18-months-and-counting
"investigation" of the "blunt force injuries" death of an Afghan man
while in US custody (which I posted about in my previous note on this
thread) is like the "investigation" of the Shu'ale marketplace bombing
on March 28, 2003 by a US missile which left scores of innocent
civilians dead and many others injured? (A fragment of the missile
bearing a unique serial number identifying it as a product of the
Raytheon plant in McKinney, Texas was recovered from the scene.) To
deflect questions from journalists, that "investigation" was invoked
repeatedly by high level military spokespersons in the days following
the tragedy. News of the recovery of the serial number was ignored in
the US domestic media although the rest of the world heard all about
it.

But as fast moving events of the war continued to unfold,
journalists asked fewer and fewer questions about the Shu'ale, and
those who did ask got the same answer: no comment now, details to come
once the "investigation" is completed, please be patient, these
"investigations" take time, etc. Then, on June 11th, the Associated
Press quoted Central Command spokesperson Captain John Morgan finally
admitting that there had never been any investigation to begin with.

High level spokespersons who lied on record about this nonexistent
"investigation" include Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, the deputy
director of operations for Central Command, and his superior officer,
Major General Victor Renuart. And now, over a year later, the victims
and families of victims of this Raytheon "smart" missile gone haywire
have yet to receive even a prefunctory apology from anyone in any
official US capacity, much less a single dime in compensation.

And we wonder... why do they hate us...


Chris, USA
http://www.unknownnews.net/marketbombing.html

In my previous message on this thread, I mentioned senior
neoconservative ideologue, Richard Perle. Recently Perle coauthored a
book, with David Frumyou, laying out the neoconservative program for
winning the "war on terrorism." The unstated premise of their book -
"An End to Evil: Strategies For Victory in the War on Terror" - is
that "terrorism" is only something which other people do to the USA
and its allies, never something the USA or its allies perpetrate
themselves, and that the USA possesses the moral stature to preach
about ridding the world of "terrorism" and to back up such sermons
with military force at its whim.

However, the USA, under both Democratic and Republican
administrations, has a long history of perpetrating acts, either
directly or through proxies, which fit the US Department of Defense's
own definition of "terrorism": "the calculated use of violence or the
threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to
intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are
generally political, religious, or ideological."

The USA is the only country to have been convicted of terrorism by
the World Court. This criminal conviction related to the US backing
of the Nicaraguan "contras," a classic state sponsored terrorist
organization whose behavior plainly matched the US Defense
Department's definition quoted above. Its goal was the
destabilization of a democratically elected government. This
US-backed terrorist campaign took place under the Reagan
administration, which at that time included Richard Perle as Assistant
Secretary of Defense.

During Perle's 1981-87 tenure in the Defense Department, the
administration organized, funded, armed and trained the contras as
well as providing transportation and logistical support for their
attacks on "soft" civilian targets such as farm cooperatives and
health clinics. US fighter jets completely controlled Nicaraguan
airspace during these atrocities, and US pilots in radio communication
with contras on the ground kept them continually appraised of
Nicaraguan Army troop movements. Tens of thousands of Nicaraguan
people died as a result of the state sponsored terrorist campaign
carried on by an Administration in which Perle was a senior figure.
The USA has never apologized to Nicaragua for the devastation
inflicted on its civilian population or economy, nor has it paid so
much as a dime in compensation to any of the victims or their
families.

In a truly rational world, would an individual such as Richard
Perle be in any position to posture as a "hardliner" against
"terrorism?"

Chris, USA

"low income whites". Oh goodness, dear, did you mean impoverished? Ack ack ack.

Ha-WATT TAR-ash ? ack ack ack.

Study THE reason FNMA is dragging down the DJIA.

Hint: Tornado Magnets in "Parks"



cddugan wrote:

Marc Mulay wrote in message ...
[snip]
Even people who drool, walk backwards and can't effectively count change know
that the long vaunted "War on Drugs" is a total bust.

I disagree. I think the War On Drugs has been a resounding
success! Just look at the long list of proven accomplishments of the
triumphant War On Drugs:

* Lots of new prisons have been built. Now the USA has a
greater percentage of its citizens under lock and key than any other
country on Earth. We're number one!

* Huge numbers of blacks and latinos and low income whites have
been imprisoned and disenfranchized as a result of drug related felony
records. So they will never vote again. Now, thank goodness, we can
just politically ignore them - except to throw them back into those
new prisons if they get tired of being ignored and begin to turn
restive.

* Racist harassment of citizens of color has found a new
legalistic justification in the form of drug-crime-related "profiling.

* Troublesome civil liberties have thankfully been eroded to the
point where police can confiscate someone's cash simply because they
have a lot of it on their person, and never return it, and never have
to prove any wrongdoing on the part of the person, and never have to
charge them with anything.

* Troublesome privacy rights have been diminished to the point
where in order to get a job and provide for their families workers
must submit to a degrading search of their bodily fluids. This sets a
very useful precedent for all sorts of other humiliating and intrusive
future invasions of privacy just a little further down the road.

* Thanks to the War On Drugs we can carry on vicious
counterinsurgency campaigns against the poor in Columbia and elsewhere
for political reasons while pretending that it is all just about coca.
First we use our IMF/WTO influence to pressure developing countries
into making neoliberal reforms and removing trade barriers and price
supports for legal commodities. Then we subsidize American farmers
with price supports of our own and undercut the unsubsidized foreign
competition so that they are left with no other way to support their
families except to grow coca. Then we send in the helicopter gunships
to do what the USA does best around the world nowadays: use military
force to prop up rich minorities against poor majorities. Oh yes, and
when the survivors of our counterinsurgency campaign get driven off
the land and wind up in shanty towns surrounding their capital city.
This gives us a vast reserve of abjectly poor workers for the
sweatshops of US-based multinational corporations - workers who will
be willing to do for $.50/hour what American workers used to do for a
decent living wage before their job got moved overseas.

Drug use in America continues just as before, of course. But
putting a stop to drug use was never the point. The fact that the War
On Drugs doesn't actually stop drug abuse is the sheer beauty of it.
The drug use pretext continues and continues, which enables the War to
continue and continue thus creating more and more of the sorts postive
gains listed above.

Chris, USA

"Marc Mulay" wrote in message
...
"low income whites". Oh goodness, dear, did you mean impoverished? Ack ack
ack.

Ha-WATT TAR-ash ? ack ack ack.

Study THE reason FNMA is dragging down the DJIA.

Hint: Tornado Magnets in "Parks"



And your point is..............................................?

On Wed, 19 May 2004 00:39:25 GMT, RonSonic
wrote:

The place is lousy with the stuff.

You apparantly have information that no one else is privy to.