12/20/2005 06:08:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P|zombienotes | 12.20.2005 |Daily Kos posting with poll. Prohibition - the "War on Drugs" has never had a prayer of working as stated. The triumph of Evo Morales in Bolivia contains a couple plain lessons for Americans, but getting these lessons into thier consciousness is a difficult trick. While cocaine - the potent and psychologically-addicting drug made from concentrating the compounds in the coca leaf - is a genuine problem, the coca leaf itself is not. It's a traditional plant and has been part of the daily life of people in South Americas countries since before "recorded history". Plan Colombia and the "War on Drugs" has been a smokescreen for ambiguous goals of the US Federal Government (it's no small coincidence, for example, that Colombia is known to have significant oil reserves, as yet untapped, and cocaine trafficking provides certain groups with clandestine monies for clandestine activities). The people of South America are tired and very resentful of US interference in thier countries and Morales "landslide win" is nothing less than a reflection of that sentiment.
A View from the Chapare and Cochabamba
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Sunday 11pm: There’s fireworks in the sky and people filling the streets, chanting “Evo, Evo, Evo!” Outside the MAS headquarters once again, I am surrounded by glowing faces and could feel the joy all around me. Evo’s victory is sealed and the people on the streets are elated. Sunday, Midnight: “This day is not about Evo. It’s about the people that voted for him and it’s about what they were voting for,” my brother said to me a few hours ago. He’s right. In their eyes, Evo represents an alternative to a system long dictated by outsiders. “Evo” is hope and change, indigenous self-determinism and people’s sovereignty. Today is about the fact that people made that choice, that the majority of Bolivians want a leader with this message. Perhaps Evo’s proposed policies don’t do justice to these sentiments. Maybe he will have trouble reforming hydrocarbons law or standing up to the US backlash to his coca-decriminalization talk. But his ascendancy to the Presidency represents something unimaginable for the majority poor and indigenous across this country. One of them has arrived. And that’s what today is all about.
Meanwhile, Americans remain amazingly cowed by US Federal (republican) drug propaganda. COWED, dammit. They still believe the lies pumped out of the ONDCP through thier TVs hook, line, and sinker. While the American people are waking up to the clear and present danger of Team Bush and the GOP plan for destroying their futures, they still snooze blissfully when it comes to the realities of the war on (non-pharmaceutical) drugs. It sucks their pockets dry - $20 billion a year for the last decade or longer and absolutely nothing but lies, widespread police and government corruption and dead people to show for this effort. The people in South America have so much to teach Americans about demanding truth and accountibility from their government. And ambitious and caring (sic) American politicians in this country have some valuable lessons to glean from Morales open defiance of the ultra-corrupt "War on Drugs", mainly that it's time to champion a change. It is time to talk about reform, about "moving on" as much of the world is doing.
Bolivia's Morales further slams US drug policies
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COCHABAMBA, Bolivia (Reuters) - Evo Morales, who won Bolivia's presidential election on vows to end a U.S. campaign against coca growing, stepped up his criticism of American anti-drug policies on Monday, accusing Washington of using drug fighting efforts to militarize the region. ****** "The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases and we're not in agreement," he told reporters. "We support an effective fight against drugs. Neither cocaine or drug trafficking are part of the Bolivian culture," he said in his stronghold of Cochabamba as the first official results from Sunday's vote trickled in. Washington considers Morales, who first rose to power as the leader of the country's coca leaf farmers, an enemy in its anti-drug fight in Bolivia, the third biggest cocaine producer after Colombia and Peru. ***** The U.S. government insists much of Bolivia's coca is processed into cocaine, but farmers say they grow the plant for traditional medicinal uses, herbal teas and religious ceremonies. According to UN statistics, Bolivia put 107 tons of cocaine on world markets last year. The United States spends $150 million a year on anti-drug efforts in Bolivia. Some analysts said the United States should move quickly to engage Morales and discuss ways to bridge their differences. "I would hope that Morales' position would lead to the U.S. taking a more realistic policy because if there's one thing we've learned in last 20 years is we can't stop the drug trade," said Nicolas Shumway, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of Texas, Austin. "What I'm hoping is the U.S. will listen to him and try and hear his concerns and not just try to impose a policy on Bolivia unilaterally," Shumway said.
|W|P|113507698555503568|W|P|The Lesson from Bolivia|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com12/14/2005 06:03:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Bill Clinton sings John Lennon's Imagine with 40 Jewish children and 40 Arab children. It's simple and amazing at the same time. It reminds me that better time before we were hijacked and taken hostage by Team Bush. We've been robbed blind, threatened, and taken far, far away from the life we use to have. The video also reminds me that we can and do have hope even though it feels like a rare commodity in these dark days in which we live. It's like a sunbeam in dark woods.|W|P|113460244273617707|W|P|Imagine a better Life|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com12/13/2005 05:37:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|Helen Thomas has some words about Dems being spineless jellyfish when they are not aiding and abetting the GOP. If Democrats Only Had Some Courage
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Washington -- It's about time that the "me too" Democrats, particularly those in Congress who vote with the Republicans so often, stand up and be counted. Too many Democrats are tiptoeing around the major issues facing our nation, afraid to venture out of the mainstream. This is a big mistake at a time when the nation is begging for true leadership. Democrats with the courage to be leaders could have a field day pointing out that millions of Americans lack health insurance and that 37 million have fallen below the poverty line. Soon they will no longer be able to claim that theirs is a caring political party because they won't have evidence that this is true.
E.J. Dionne has noticed that Dems need to fight this spinelessness issue as well. He is talking about their response to Repubs regarding the disasterous amd unpopular occupation, but the dynamics are almost identical to "the war on druuuuuuuugs":
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Attacks on Democrats of this sort are effective because Democrats help make them so. Democrats are so obsessed with not looking �weak� on defense that they end up making themselves look weak, period, by the way they respond to Republican attacks on their alleged weakness. Oh my gosh, many Democrats say, we can't associate ourselves with the likes of Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader who recently called for a troop withdrawal within six months. Let's knife them before Karl Rove gets around to knifing us. Talk about a recipe for retreat and defeat. But the Democrats' problem is not just one of political tactics. It's also rooted in a simple reality: Democrats in both houses of Congress have been divided on this war from the very beginning. House Democrats are, on the whole, more dovish than Senate Democrats. And the party's rank and file are, on the whole, more dovish than its congressional wing. There is no magic solution to this problem, and Republicans will continue to exploit it. But if they do nothing else, Democrats have to stop being defensive in the face of Republican attacks. To suggest that the United States might be stronger if it found a way out from under an open-ended commitment in Iraq is neither weak nor unpatriotic. For a party to have differences over how to solve the seemingly intractable problems the Bush policy has created in Iraq is neither surprising nor feckless.
The People want reform and the Dems should exploit this. They could have a field day with another issue, given that it is so popular that it wins almost all the time when people can get past the corrupt political system to get issues on the ballots. All the whining about how Dems will be painted as "soft on crime" is meaningless bullshit. They should welcome such whining because it is an opportunity to puncture that shit sooner than later. The issue is so highly emotional that it will not change politely - it will be a knock-down, drag-out ugly fight. Reefer madness is built on a foundation of ugly, mean-spirited lying and media control, and is clearly perpetuated by the same. There is no reason to expect it to be resolved over tea and polite discourse.|W|P|113451405099676096|W|P|Dems, Their Spinelessness and Cannabis Reform|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com12/09/2005 07:28:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P| Click the little pic to see how Tom Tomoorow captures the essence of the attempt to hold "polite discourse" with wingnuts "conservatives".|W|P|113413171353107964|W|P|On "Polite Discourse"|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com12/04/2005 06:22:00 PM|W|P|Doc|W|P|On 12.3.2005 I made the front page of "Little Green Footballs", one of those generally hate-filled rightwing blogs. It's not the cover of Rolling Stone, but it's still an accomplishment...of sorts. Now, it is true that I wrote a terse and angry comment about how the right - meaning the Political right with it's massive clout - seems to just hate our freedom, as in our ability to choose. But it really is little more than an off-the-cuff angry and frustrated (dare I say “half-assed”?) micro-rant, but it was sufficient to earn the honor of Bilious Leftist Rant of the Day. I write many other things but THIS is the moment somebody pays attention? C’est la vie. It started with an article posted at Smirking Chimp about Conservative groups push[ing] a la carte cable menus.
WASHINGTON -- Conservative groups love the idea of letting television viewers pay for only the channels they want on cable and are happy it's back on the table in Washington, where lawmakers and regulators are fed up with raunchy television. While the cable industry generally loathes the notion of an à la carte pricing system, at least one cable company and a potentially big cable competitor have embraced it. À la carte would allow cable subscribers to pick and pay for individual channels rather than being forced to buy packages. A parent, for example, could pick Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network -- and not have to take MTV or other channels they may find objectionable as part of a bundled package. The idea attracted attention this week on Capitol Hill when the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Kevin Martin, told industry leaders they need to give parents more tools to help navigate the hundreds of channels on cable and satellite television. ''Something needs to be done," Martin said at an all-day forum on broadcast indecency.
First I should say that I do NOT watch TV. I think TV in America is worthless or filled with “conservative” (rightwing) propaganda: specifically Republican-controlled propaganda. This is not open for debate. But I digress – on with the show. As the original poster - whose perspective I have learned to value - observed, it would seem - at face value - to be the essence of a "good thing": pay for only the channels one wishes to have. But, of course, this is business - and right wing business at that - so bait and switch is the order of the day. If you have not learned to suspect the worst with such things, you have not been paying attention. The import of the article is that certain groups - and you know who I mean - are all in a tither about people being able to watch whatever they want on TV. Some parents have to monitor the electronic babysitter so as to ensure their children are not getting an eye- and earful of stuff that I AGREE they probably should not be exposed to in lieu of supervising them more carefully. Other people, of course, just stay upset because they are offended by dissent and anybody having a good time. It is unfortunate that it is this small demographic that enjoys the ear of the GOP and the folks with the power to make things happen or not happen. Bait and switch is the hallmark of Team Bush. They say one thing and work towards something quite different, and never anything beneficial for you or me – when they are not just lying through their teeth. The bait-and-switch will be that religious and the other conservative/right-leaning programming will be available as part of the basic "service bundle" and anything else will be an a la carte billing. It will be one more effort to limit dissent and contrary values and to impose their values on others. I’d love to be wrong. But, alas, I am probably not. The "distinguished members" of LGF were shocked - SHOCKED! I say - that I ventilated a bit of my disdain for the constant rightwing assault on my freedoms and my future - which is also YOUR future, whether one cares to contemplate that or not. The commentary there simply ran amok with some able to - somehow - decide that I want to take away their gun rights and that I am a child living at home and "Still waiting for you to give us that civil war you keep promising us.". I have elected to clarify my comment since it garnered a good bit of attention. It is amusing to me that this one lone grouchy rant drew attention when everything else is just lost in the dust of the internet. It’s like the one time one would get to be on TV and one has just woke up or spilled coffee all over oneself. The comments at LGF, now exceeding 250, are what one would expect from rightwing sorts – all sorts of “indignation” about the “absence of polite discourse” and “bring it on” style sentiment, as well as the requisite demeaning commentary such as allegations that I am a child living in my parent’s basement, or that – because they were able to read enough to learn that I am a psychotherapist – I must somehow be like Hannibal Lector. Quaint. I do appreciate the chuckles, though. Clarification #1: My angry comments and wishing for the demise of those responsible for the onslaught against American’s rights and freedoms is NOT about freepers and other such wingnuts. They have no power and they are not the ones pushing an avalanche of legislation designed to systematically reduce our abilities to choose what we want – in this case the abilty to choose what is on the “TV Menu”. The “distinguished gentleman and ladies” at LGF seemed to take it that my comments mean them….and they don’t. I don’t give a rat’s ass about them or their opinions but I certainly don’t wish any sort of harm to befall them. It’s bad enough for them that their perception is warped, but they are not the people assaulting your and my freedoms. They are cheerleading these anti-democratic efforts for sure, but they have no more “power” than me. They can’t even unwind their panties let alone take our freedoms. Clarification #2: My wish for the demise are specifically focused on people with the power – the Dobsons, the Robertsons, the Lotts, the Hasterts, the Hannities, the Coulters, the Scalias and Thomas’s, the Frists, the Cheney’s, the Souders and so forth. Oh…and the Bush’s. I expressed myself in such terse terms not so much because these people piss me off – which they do – but because collectively they are ruining the America in which I have grown up and in which I must – more or less – live the rest of my life. America was hijacked in 2001 and we have all been taken hostage, we have been robbed and plundered, threatened and intimidated and driven far away from the life we knew. We are still hostages at this very moment. The hijackers enjoy a good bit of support from the rightwing sorts described in Clarification #1. They are absolutely cheering on these bad people. The hijackers are ensconced in the highest positions of power in these United States and there is little of nothing that I can do to stop the systematic damages they have set in motion - from undoing environmental laws to destroying the social safety net for people, to supporting torture and illegal occupations of other countries. I am just one guy and you can spare me your “one person can make a difference” pep talk. I know 1 person can – such as with Rosa Parks or Cindy Sheehan – but there have to be a variety of other factors in place for those individuals to do what it is they do. So I merely ventilated my angry desire that something more expedient take place to stop some of these people. Their death by natural and routine causes would be sufficient.. Reading my rant closely should reveal that I was just “wishing”, to begin with. I did not make any sort of incitement to riot or harm anybody, nor to mention anything illegal or that would otherwise constitute “terroristic threatening”. Pat Robertson openly calls for God to strike down members of the SCOTUS and for the assassination of Hugo Chavez and nobody gets particularly upset, but I ventilate a wish for the Robertsons and Frists to die of natural causes and I end up on the front page of some wingnut site. I certainly did not say such things as I think we should nuke them until their sand turns into glass. I didn’t say “we should nuke them till they glow and then shoot them in the dark” or anything else hateful that one routinely finds at such sites. Their false indignation is pathetic, but, alas, par for the course.. Clarification # 3: I specifically mentioned in the comment that it has been the right – the GOP, the Republican Party – that has worked to obliterate rational and polite public discourse. This has specifically been done to destroy the ability of people to mount an effective opposition to the hijacking. Anybody who gets a coherent message through the noise and bullshit spewed constantly by their lapdog media is denigrated and smeared in one way or another. Joseph Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, Daniel Ellsberg, just to name a quick few. We all see the intensity of this in the Plame Outing with Team Bush attempting to ruin Wilson’s wife as payback for being able to communicate a rational and coherent message through the Category 5 Bullshit that is the Team Bush “rationale” for invading and occupying Iraq (and killing thousands and thousands of people). One of my central efforts is cannabis reform and relegalization. It is from those efforts I have learned a good bit about the functions of propaganda and media control. Long ago I learned that the propaganda surrounding cannabis is very powerful and deeply ingrained in many people. They simply believe what they have been told – for 3 generations - and no amount of rational discourse can penetrate it. 80 years of lying is a lot to undo. But since at least Nixon’s day, reefer madness has been assimilated into the GOP/rightwing “platform” or value system. Cannabis is one of the major dividing lines in what we call the Culture War. Hence my humble little blog zombienotes: Second opinions on Cannabis and the Culture War. A quick scanning of the blog should reveal that while cannabis reform is the central topic, other culture war issues are addressed, such as support for Cindy Sheehan and bringing our troops home from a war started on lies. My goal is to simply catapult the message of reform. A review of the “commentary” on LGF reveals the usual sorts of comments one is trained to expect when the topic of cannabis comes up: that I am somehow a drooling psychotic pothead who cares about nothing but my next toke. There was even a comment about crack which only further evidences what I say about the pervasive impact of reefer madness. This only shows what these people know and what they don’t. And it demonstrates one more time that “polite and civil discourse” is at least severely damaged at this time. I can engage in such quite well, but it is not really effective in dealing with the issues I find of most pressing importance. While we are trying to be polite and rationally discuss the mountain of lies and deceit perpetrated by Team Bush and the Right, we are powerless to impede their systematic assault on the Constitution (I always like how they accuse people like me of trying to “take their guns”. Some sort of sublimated penis fear, that is…) and our freedoms to choose and make choices for our lives and families. Clarification #4: I almost NEVER use the word “hate” in reference to people. I hate okra, I hate disco, I hate country music, I hate speedbumps in parking lots. That’s when I use that word. In this particular post I did use the word because I feel that “they” – the ones working so hard to limit and remove our freedoms to choose – actually do hate those of us who would seek to stop their plan to eliminate our Constitution and end our Democracy - or what is left of it. I don’t actually “hate” people. In the end – if we are to have a polite discourse – I don’t’ actually “hate” George Bush or DICK Cheney or Rummy et al. I view them as very dangerous people who belong in jail for the death and destruction they have instigated. Regarding some nutty posts at LGF musing as to why “some lefty nut hasn’t assassinate Bush”: Killing Bush, aside from being a ridiculous statement, doesn’t solve 1 problem at all. Neither will impeachment. There are too many of “them” to remove to slow the devastation they have set in motion. Furthermore, I don't hurt anybody. I help people. I have made a career of helping people with mental illness, family problems of all sorts and now I assist people with severe disabilities. The most we can hope for is that somehow, someway the Law will actually get applied to these guys and they will be indicted and sent to trial. That will take a long time and in the interim the devastation goes forward unimpeded. This is what I mean when I lament having to be subject to the law while they aren’t. The GOP has virtually free reign to accomplish as much of their plans as possible before they are stopped. This why I said the ugly things I did: because I get tired of waiting for following the rules to save us from these criminals while they are allowed to freely destroy my country and my future. I suppose that’s enough for now. It’s now run on to too many words. I do wish to thank the fine men and women at Little Green Footballs for drawing attention to me and my little blog and for awarding me with “Bilious Leftist Rant of the Day”. I am the envy of my leftist friends. Cheers! Doc | xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com|W|P|113374006807409474|W|P|I was awarded LGF's "Bilious Leftist Rant of the Day"!|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com12/03/2005 08:58:00 AM|W|P|Doc|W|P|03 December 2005 Stuff NZ
Drinkers who have rallied round assorted research in recent years were told yesterday that drinking two glasses of wine a day may not be good medicine after all. One commonly quoted study has suggested that having up to three drinks a day - each containing about 10g of alcohol - can reduce heart attack risk by a quarter. But Dr Rod Jackson and three colleagues from Auckland University reported in Britain's The Lancet medical journal, that the apparent protective effect of alcohol may be largely due to confused research. The researchers said it might be premature to celebrate the numerous studies which have shown that light to moderate alcohol consumption protects the heart. Any benefit from light to moderate drinking is probably small and unlikely to outweigh the harm to health caused by alcohol, they said. If anything, the evidence of heart protection was more convincing for heavy drinkers: post mortem studies showed that dead alcoholics had relatively "clean" arteries. But for this group, the dangers of alcohol abuse greatly outweighed any benefit from the alcohol. [SNIP]
Time to make alcohol illegal again. It's bad for you. If it's bad for you it must be made illegal, right? Yes, it will cost a lot of money to accomplish this, and a vicious black market will spring up, it will place a greater burden on law enforcement and further pack our prison system (already Number 1 in the world) but we cannot let such details stay us from the goal of saving lives, right? The US Federal Government is still spending many billions of dollars in their attempt to keep cannabis illegal so they can clearly come up with the cash when saving the lives of Americans is concerned, right? They arrested 770000 people just for marijuana touching last year alone. That's a lot of lives saved. (Except the people they killed in the process.) And let's just go ahead and make tobacco illegal too. It kills a couple of people every year. Sure it's an intrusion on our rights to choose, but we shouldn't be able to choose things that harm us, right? Laws are to protect us from harm and to save us from ourselves...right?|W|P|113362010657592441|W|P|Alcohol may not be good for you|W|P|xxdr_zombiexx@yahoo.com