devilweed (4.00 / 2)

All the above is too true, and more:  We have not even begun to discuss the benefits of hemp.  When marijuana was demonized, hemp went along with it, and the advantages of hemp are vast for both the economy and the environment:  It makes better clothes than cotton, much better paper than wood pulp, good food and it fixes nitrogen in the soil.  It is resistant to pests, and it will grow nearly anywhere.  It is useful for biofuels, and it produces tiny amounts of THC - indeed, many would argue that hemp's low THC content is its only drawback.

I am less than enthusiastic about the idea of publicly selling and taxing marijuana because I fear that it would follow in the footsteps of tobacco, including standardization and additives.  But the way the debate circumvents discussion of the potential benefits of widespread hemp cultivation is appalling.

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by: larryo @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 18:01:30 PM UTC

Yes! (0.00 / 0)

It's horrifying how we've become so scared of something so beneficial. What's so bad about hemp? While I have no problem legalizing, taxing, and regulating cannibis, I'm especially apalled by the demonization of hemp.

Yes, Virginia, there are progressives in Nevada.

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by: Andrew Davey @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 18:28:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

the only bigger taboo than our drug laws (4.00 / 5)

is our prison system. and the dysfunctions of both are closely linked, IMO.

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by: danthrax @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 18:07:45 PM UTC

People have been giving the president hell... (4.00 / 1)

...for his answer at the town hall, but I think they are being unfair.  When I heard the question, I rolled my eyes and laughed, too...

You have to remember, it wasn't all the long ago, that an aspiring president's hopes were nearly dashed over the question of whether he inhaled or not.

For my generation (and I'm not that old, mind you), this question would never have been taken seriously... until now.

I think the blowback over this issue is the truest sign, yet, that we as a nation have really turned away from conservatism.

So, forgive Obama for this... he comes from a generation that could never even thing of something like this as a possibility...  I'm sure the blowback has opened his eyes. I think the next time, you will find his answer more satisfactory.  Even David agrees that Obama does listen to us more often than not.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 19:37:31 PM UTC

....flirting with (0.00 / 0)

Leave it to the government to waste tax dollars on fighting the drug of choice among most consumers. The principals behind Columbian drug cartel are aging, getting shot and are themselves killed, thus leaving the Mexican cartel to dominate the demand / supply market in the U.S. through any means necessary (including the reported 7,000 already dead from the fierce fighting taking place amongst competing cartels). It was disappointing to see President Obama laugh off the questions (asked at the WH internet town hall) of taxing marijuana as an option of dealing with government deficits, but at least he didn't make an azz of himself by claiming he "never inhaled."

I've been surprisingly pleased by Hillary.  She's doing much better as our SOS than I had originally given her credit for.  To acknowledge some of the blame at the front end has long been needed and by taking that kind of step forward (incremental as it is), there is continued optimism for meaningful reform that just doesn't patch up the problems (the recognition that it's not all supply-side economics).  One indication of that is the forward direction taken by the Justice Department in its dealing with drug dispensaries (http://tinyurl.com/czd4bn).

California lawmakers are already flirting with the idea of taxing marijuana; with additional safeguards written into the legalese, I don't see much more difference in the taxing and regulating, as it is already done with alcohol (http://tinyurl.com/c43nuk)  

To address effectively the issue of perception and actually facts, the President could take a lead role by educating and having the willingness to set new priorities when it comes to National dollars being better spent on matters affecting our economic stability and homeland security.  

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by: mariann @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 20:06:45 PM UTC

Huge Kudos (0.00 / 0)

to David Sirota for making this the topic of his column and not including any jokes or snark in his comments.

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by: randy80302 @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 20:16:14 PM UTC

This is why I wanted Clinton (4.00 / 2)

as Senate Majority Leader -- to pressure Obama from the Left. In an appointed position, dependent on staying  in his good graces, I was afraid she would just sit down and shut up.

Glad to see I was wrong.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Fri Apr 03, 2009 at 20:22:17 PM UTC

Interesting (0.00 / 0)

To be honest, it never, ever occurred to me to think of Hillary Clinton pushing anyone from the left (of all places.) Maybe it's because for the past eight years I've been thinking of the Hillary Clinton who seems to be styling herself as the reincarnation of Jeanne Kirkpatrick or Madeleine Albright in foreign affairs, and not the youthful Hillary Clinton who gave the famous commencement speech at Wellesley, or the courageous, if somewhat unwise Hillary Clinton who tried single-handedly to reform our health care system.

I am genuinely curious why it is that you can see the Hillary that I can't. Could it be my cynicism, I wonder, or am I just overly confused by the mixed messages?

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by: William Timberman @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 01:33:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

My theory (4.00 / 1)

is that what you call "the youthful Hillary," i.e. the idealistic one, is who she always meant to be, but she twisted herself up and lost her integrity reaching for the brass ring of the presidency. Hence the Iraq War vote, etc.

But having lost her one shot at the presidency, she is, in a sense liberated. There is no sense in trying to please everyone all the time now, she might as well do the right thing because life is short.

I think a similar dynamic made Ted kennedy the Lion of the Senate.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 12:49:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A plausible explanation, but.... (4.00 / 1)

American politics is a nest of snakes, to be sure, and it's certainly true that balancing ambition and idealism -- or even one's fundamental sense of right and wrong -- is much more difficult in the insane asylum which passes for the public sphere these days. Most of us haven't the stomach for it, and content ourselves with carping and bitching at those who do. Thus both Obama and Hillary are demonized in one way or another, no matter who they are, or what they accomplish.

Still, the truth is that the system is designed to deny us much of the evidence  needed to accurately assess what is driving any of our public figures; only in extreme cases can we be sure that what we see is what we're getting. This makes shamans and storytellers of us all, and often leaves us squabbling over projections as fanciful as any conjured up by mystics and soothsayers.

Your story of Hillary may be correct or it may not. My own experience and prejudices tell me that it's the most plausible story, but it is sometimes hard to reconcile with the known facts. I'm perfectly willing to cut her some slack based on the difficulties of being a woman in a man's game, but the question of why she's so willing to distort her own agenda, even her own personality, to be a player in that game still remains. The same is true of Obama. Maybe they're as good as their supporters claim, or as devoted to power whether or not it's in the public interest as their detractors insist.

It's hard to say. Lacking any desire to climb the ladder myself, it's difficult for me to see what they get out of it, or why, given what they have to do to succeed at it, I should believe that in their mix of motives, the public good must naturally come out at the top of their list of priorities.

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by: William Timberman @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 15:43:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Personally I subscribe to the theory (4.00 / 1)

(and it's not mine, I forget where I read it) that politics is the most deeply human thing we ever do.

You can look at it in evolutionary terms -- reptiles patrol territory and acquire resources. They don't even raise their own young. Birds, and mammals nurture their young, and sometimes live and work together in groups. Then you get primates, who not only live in groups but gossip, groom and socialize. They may even preserve acquired knowledge across generations.

Then there is us, the uber primates. Not only do we strategically share information and resources like other primates, we do it across generations and across continents. We self-organize and we are unstoppable.

And that is how I see politics, as the way humans self-organize in a modern, technologically complex society. It's how we solve problems without (for the most part) killing each other.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 16:23:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The real class war (4.00 / 3)

What we do with what Marx called our surplus population marks us in ways which our never-ending blather about freedom and democracy can never completely conceal.

Our drug laws, our militarized police forces, and our vast gulag of public and private prisons, not to mention the built-in racial biases of our justice system are, to my mind, the seamless expression of a war on the less fortunate, and a great shame on a country which advertises itself as conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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by: William Timberman @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 01:40:54 AM UTC

The real class war (4.00 / 1)

Yes, and Obama seems to be turning out to offer only more of the same, with a slightly more humane face on it.  Smart and popular as he is, he cannot seem to figure out how to stop the banks from looting the treasury in "bailouts" or the bankers and CEO's from putting the money in their pockets and running.  Foreclosure moratorium and credit card reform and curtailing international arms traffickers are not even in the picture, and Summers and Geithner continue to run interference for Wall Street.

Different foxes are now in charge of the hen house, and I guess that's about all the change we can hope for in corporate America.  

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by: larryo @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 05:21:12 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Where I live (4.00 / 1)

the surplus population wears orange jumpsuits and paves the streets. Roofs municipal buildings in August.

You know, the kind of work people would get paid decent money to do in a democracy.

Montani semper liberi

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by: Sadie Baker @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 12:51:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hillary was pressured (4.00 / 2)

like so many women before her when going for a traditionally
"man's job."
I think she made a mistake listening to advisers who convinced her that a "woman" had to make sure she was see as "tough and hawkish in a manly way."  But it did not surprise. I am Hillary's age and all of my life I have heard men (good men, not the conservative, neocon macho type) say "I am not sure men can ever see a woman as "commander-in-chief."

All of our lives women our age have been told over and over, if we don't change our dress, our demeanor, if we show emotion and tears, we can never be respected enough to be in leadership positions.

Hillary and lot of women getting that close to the top position often succumbed to the words of males who insisted she would lose if she did not show her masculine, tough, hawkish side.  Anyone who knew and followed Hillary's career since her youth KNEW her true beliefs, her true persona was not hawkish, not at all, not in the way she was perceived.  She is tough not the war loving, hate mongering person some progressive men spun.  Not at all.

I believe Hillary was more liberal than Bill, than Obama, than Biden, than most of the men she ran against with the exception of Kucinich.  But anyone knowing politics knows that far left candidates do not do well; dems do not have that paternalistic power over the rank and file that repubs do....a far right candidate works because the base of the right wing wants to be told how to think, how to feel....
the left wing, not so much.

Hillary is every bit as liberal as Obama and perhaps more so...but she's not a man.  And whether the progressives want to admit it or not, a woman still has that stereotype to overcome.  Years ago most of my friends (from the political arena) always said that a minority male would take the presidency before a woman would. I did not believe them until I saw what happened in the primaries. I get it now.

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by: Jjc2008 @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 13:42:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A challenge (4.00 / 1)

Hillary is every bit as liberal as Obama and perhaps more so...but she's not a man.  And whether the progressives want to admit it or not, a woman still has that stereotype to overcome.  Years ago most of my friends (from the political arena) always said that a minority male would take the presidency before a woman would. I did not believe them until I saw what happened in the primaries. I get it now.

I would note that several other democracies have had female heads of government (lets leave heads of state out of this, since in most countries this is an appointed or inherited symbolic role), but none has elected an ethnic minority that I can think of.

In the US, you could look at the firsts for governor.  Women were elected governor far ahead of blacks.  Two in the 1920s, while it took until 1990 and Douglas Wilder for blacks.  Women also beat blacks into the senate as far as being elected (appointed is another matter, reconstruction complicates this).

I don't think the claim you're making is all that clear.  I don't know who has it easier between white women and black males seeking elected office, but I'm leery of generalizing too much from the Clinton/Obama primary fight.  

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by: Daniel De Groot @ Sat Apr 04, 2009 at 14:45:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]