Take yerself a trip down to the (4.00 / 1)

.................Fruitvale neighborhoos of Oakland, CA, be sure and dress accordingly, and get out among the 'homies' and ask 'em.

'Dawg, whyn't you git yerself a job instead of hangin' on the corner sellin' drugs?'

If you get a civil answer it'll go something like, 'What job, fool! Flippin' burgers for minimum wage. You can't afford the rent in this 'hood on minimum wage, fool!'

And you can't. Much less buy a car and purchase yer state mandated car insurance.

I don't know where you live pal but your grasp of what goes on in inner-city America is poor. Many of the people who 'resort' to dealing drugs do so because due to the awesome educational opportunities, the fabulous family life and corporate America's never ending war against the American worker.....

They don't see any other choice. Notice I didn't say there wasn't any other choice.

They can always enlist.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

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by: ACitizen @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 20:33:45 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And now is where I flip to the other side (0.00 / 0)

none of what you describe is an excuse for preying on your own community. I don't accept those arguments and I don't accept it as a justifcation for their actions. My arguments about legalization is to address demand not to address the suppliers rationalizing their actions. And yes, I am black, grew up Katrina level poor and live now in a predominantly black working class neighorhood now.

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by: bruhrabbit @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 20:43:26 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Didn't say that is was. (4.00 / 1)

Question for ya?

Is society gonna solve the problem of drugs by assigning the guys on the corner to the category 'scum'?

Because as I'm sure you know the next step from that, which has already been taken, is to say, like the residents of the 9th ward, 'They don't matter.'

You and I might very well agree that some of the guys on the corner are 'scum' but as soon as we do that folks like Mr. 'Let's genetically engineer pot to fuck people up.' take over.

Me, I know for a fact that the current methods of dealing with the drug problem don't work so something besides labeling a whole lot of folks 'scum' and sending them to jail, on your tax dollar, needs to be done. How, do I know this you ask?

I've been watching the same folks say the same dumb, non-productive shit for 50 years. The same areas of the city are still infested with the same number of folks trying to survive by preying on the community.Only the music has changed from Sly and the Family Stone to 50 cents.....

I'm sure you are familiar with the definition of insane which applies here.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

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by: ACitizen @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 21:05:43 PM CST

[ Parent ]

The guy selling drugs to the detriment of his own (0.00 / 0)

people should be considered scummy in their behavior and not excused for it. They shouldn't be given excuses for their actions, but that's not the same as saying I think it should be illegal. I don't for the reasons I state elsewhere in this thread- namely to reduce demand and rid the community of this problem- think drugs should be illegal. Your argument seems focused on what the "right will think." Mines doesn't even take them into consideration. I am trying to think of how to solve the problem while shaming those who contribute to it.  There are a plenty of people in my neighborhood trying to survive without having to deal. Yes, we need capital and resources. Yes, we need to have people stop giving lip services to us. Yes, it's not the best thing that people are being put in prison. But- none of that changes how this behavior harms the community. And that's what make the behavior scummy.  Two wrongs don't make a right. The solution is to look at both sides differently. I believe my mix of treating selling drugs as scummy while legalizing it so that we can decrease demand makes more sense that anything I've seen thus far along this thread as to how to address the problem effectively.

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by: bruhrabbit @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 21:28:07 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Why pick on drug dealers? (4.00 / 2)

What about the guy selling fighter planes, or land mines, or ballistic missiles - to the detriment of humanity?


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:11:52 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Hey! That's MY Campaign Contributor You're Talking About! (4.00 / 1)

And nor some damn union 527!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 09:35:35 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Bribery (4.00 / 1)

Plus bribing more California Republicans than you can fit ina phone booth.  Those military industrial complex folks.  Spending more money on a single plane or ship than anyone thought humanly possible.  Guess there isn't as much money in providing care at the VA or paying troops decent wages.  No bribes, no campaign contributions. No consideration.

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by: David Kowalski @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 13:04:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

When Did You Contract The Tancredo Bug??? (4.00 / 4)

People who resort to dealing drugs tend to be scum.  It's not like such people are going to become upstanding citizens with legitimate business concerns if drugs were made legal;

Labelling people like that is not just moronic, it's downright Republican.  There are very complex reasons why we have the sorts of drug markets we have, but the character of individual drug dealers is not one of them.

People become scum by doing scummy things.  And they can be redeemed by doing redemptive things.  But they will not redeem themselves in large numbers when the odds are heavily stacked against them.  Only a few will beat the odds.  That's what "the odds" are all about.  People who face better odds aren't inherently better people. Just luckier. That's all.

Obviously, we have a long ways to go in fixing some of the long-term inequities in our society.  We have a system where we give the least resources to those who need the most (how many blackberries do you think there are in your average inner-city school?) and we're fine with that because we don't think of the social costs involved that's going to be paid sooner or later somewhere down the road.

We have a pathologically constricted view that is fixated on a rhetoric of "personal responsibility" that (a) is systematically unequally applied and (b) distracts attention from any systematic analysis of the necessary preconditions for responsible actions to lead to just rewards.

A sensible start toward dealing with this whole situation is to legalize drugs, tax them at a rate that captures the full extent of externalized costs, and dedicate the money captured that way to ameliorating those costs.  And, yes, part of the costs is the damage done to inner city communities. (Though, of course, we shouldn't forget the largely rural and exurban meth economy, either.)

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 21:32:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

See this is a post I can mostly agree with (0.00 / 0)

I believe selling drugs to the detriment of the community should be considered scummy and not something to be respected, but we still have to address the problems. Ie, the idea that you want allow an ex convict to obtain a higher education seems counter productive to making sure that these things don't happen, making sure they can vote to become active citizens again seems like its counter productive to changing the behavior we think is wrong, etc. It's about the incentives and behaviors are how they are structured.

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by: bruhrabbit @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 21:35:16 PM CST

[ Parent ]

It's Definitely Scummy Behavior (4.00 / 2)

And I've lived in drug-infested neighborhoods, so I'll say flat out that I have no love for such people.  But those people are not that way primarily because of what's inside of them--they are that way because of what's outside of them--all around them.

And, of course, they can change.

If one guy fucks up, he may be a fuck-up.  But if a million fuck up, it's the system that's fucked up.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 22:07:25 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Good points (0.00 / 0)

I agreed with almost all of that - dealers of hard drugs tend to be found in areas of social deprivation and the connection is not as simple as drug dealers ruining an area, although that does play a secondary or tertiary role.

My only question would be this - how do you intend to tax the illegal drug trade? Quite aside from the problem of legitimising the new millionaires who've made money from something that used to be illegal, the successful ones are already quite good at avoiding government regulations and cooking the books. I could see the revenues from this being very small.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 11:26:47 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Oops (0.00 / 0)

Oh, you answered that below - continuing to outlaw private sales. There are still problems associated with that - ersatz and possibly deadly copies sold by dealers who don't want to give up the game, increased violence as they compete for the dwindling rewards left etc., but your solution probably outweighs the costs provided one is thinking in at least the medium-term.

It'd probably also serve to calm relations with South America temporarily - if we can stop the War on Drugs there then the indigenous population will be ecstatic and although demand will hopefully decline long term, that can be managed by financially and infrastructurally encouraging them to produce other crops.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 11:32:07 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Actually, No (0.00 / 0)

Beer production and cigarette production benefits from economies of scale. There are no such economies of scale for marijuana production. You can easily grow it in your backyard. If you throw a few seeds in the ground, it's a challenge to *stop* it from growing.

Marijuana would not benefit from corporate farming because of the nature of how it grows.

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by: D'arby Salt @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 00:40:00 AM CST

[ Parent ]

No Fair! You're Using FACTS (0.00 / 0)

And it's a well-known phenomena that once politicians start talking about drugs, facts disappear. Poof! Gone! Vanished!

It's amazing, really.  Someone else takes drugs, and their thinking becomes severely impaired, putting all of society at risk.

See, we told you those drugs were dangerous.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 09:40:32 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Before I became a prosecutor (0.00 / 0)

I was convinced drugs should be legalized.

That view did not survive my second month on the job.

When I left the prosecutor's office, I did so because I became disgusted with the application of the drug laws, which was uneven, and absurdly out of wack with any notion that the punishment should fit the crime.

The fact that drugs are illegal has a beneficial effect: it is the primary reason many wind up in treatment.  The primary problem is that nowhere NEAR enough money has been allocated for treatment.

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by: fladem @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:23:41 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Alcohol Is Legal, But Millions End Up In Treatment (4.00 / 2)

So it's a dubious claim that net of all other considerations more people get treatment because drugs are illegal.  I'm sure that it's true for a lot of individuals, but you can't just aggregate annecdotes to get accurate data.

For one thing, making drugs illegal tends to make them more potent and addictive in the first place.  This happened with Prohibition decades before it happened with our current crop of drugs.  Re-legalizing alcohol didn't undo all that damage, but it did restore a less addictive balance of beer to moonshine, etc.

A similar effect would be virtually certain to happen with drug legalization.  More use of less addictive drugs and less use of more addictive drugs translates into less folks needing rehabilitation in the first place.

The cost side is much more clear-cut, however.  The fact that drugs are illegal drives up the prices, and contributes to huge amounts of property crime, as well considerable violence, which is particularly noticeable in drug wars.  Even if the treatment levels tripled, these tragic, needless costs would still exist.

If you want to substantially increase treatment, then:

(1) Legalize drugs, while continue making private drug sales illegal.

(2) Sell drugs via government outlets--as they do in New Hampshire, for example.

(3) Include a tax that captures the externalized costs of drug use--including the costs of rehabilitation.

(4) Spend the tax receipts on what they are collected for, including rehabilitation.

(5) As with alcohol use, when drug users come to court for something else, where it is clear that drug use is a contributing factor, make drug rehab a condition of their sentencing.

It's not a perfect solution.  Just a damn good one.

The bottom line here is that it shows once again that using the law to enforce morality can be very tricky, and is often counter-productive.  Morality is actually often weakened when it is made a matter of law.  There are very good reasons to keep the two realms separate and distinct--not in all things (slavery is an obvious example of an immoral practice that is and should be illegal), but certainly in situations like drug use where the legal approach is simply foredoomed to failure, and thus makes the moral task more difficult.  All that the legal approach does in such situations is synergize a large mass of individual failings into something much larger and more powerful.

There's a technical name for that: Stupid as shit.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:10:49 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Trouble is, folks (like you?) equate "Use" with "Abuse." (0.00 / 0)

They're not the same thing, quantitatively or qualitatively.

I've been a user--of both thc and c6h12o6--for over 40 years.

Tee-totaling is a choice, not a critique.

---

by: konopelli @ Sun Dec 30, 2007 at 20:30:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

yes (0.00 / 0)

beautiful.  please keep writing about prison issues... if some of the blogosphere energy expended on impeachment and political fundraising was diverted to building an online prison reform "movement," then i'd be more inclined to buy into the netroots triumphalism that has been leaving a bad taste in my mouth since last November.

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by: interested @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 19:44:50 PM CST

Two suggestions for "Start" subjects (4.00 / 2)

I thought that was a great list of overlooked issues.  The fact that they all start with "end" got me thinking--what would be a similar list of things we should be starting?  These are a couple issues that seem like no-brainers to me but that aren't really being addressed by any candidates.

Subject: Start the sustainable economy
Factoid: Sustaining human society is about more than the global climate crisis.

No one is even talking about the enormous challenge to our very way of life presented by sustainability.  Simply put, we cannot maintain our current way of life for very long.  And it's not just a matter of getting hydrogen cars, it's a matter of re-examining the practicality of having a car-based society going forward.  It is, in other words, a matter of re-examining some of the freedoms that come from (essentially) free energy rather than free and open society, since the former is rapidly disappearing.  Our society and our economy are a giant--it takes a lot to get it to fall, and it takes a long time for it to stumble its way to the ground, but once it falls it will fall hard.  By contrast, if we grab the bull by the horns right now, we can help guide ourselves down to a soft landing that will be much more comfortable, with a decent standard of living.

Subject: Start the progressive foreign policy paradigm
Factoid: Geopolitical resource games are not advancing the interests of ordinary people.

It's not just a matter of getting the US out of Iraq.  We need a foreign policy that is based on people, not on nation states.  As long as we stay in the national interest frame, it's always going to be a quick downhill trip into the kind of foreign involvement we all hate.  Iraq is the obvious example, but this Sunday's NYT Magazine article on bribery makes it even more clear.  In it, Maass floats the idea that antibribery laws may no longer be in our national interest with oil resources becoming ever more scarce.  How do you beat back the idea that we should just accept outright corruption because it benefits the country?  We can't do it while staying in the national interest frame.  A sustainable economy with a people-oriented foreign policy is the best way to cut those arguments short: independence from oil means independence from resource wars means we can stop to consider how actual people will be helped or hurt by what we do abroad.

Yes we Kang

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by: I Voted for Kodos @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 19:47:16 PM CST

Sustainability (0.00 / 0)

This is one of the flaws I see with the present focus on global warming. i understand the need to point out that there is a crisis, but it hides the underlying issue. I would, however, not define it as a loss of freedoms, but understanding what freedom is.

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by: bruhrabbit @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 20:38:53 PM CST

[ Parent ]

And of course (0.00 / 0)

Starting the New Media.

But we're doing that right now, and it is why we've seen some success in our attacks on the corporate media.  While we should always maintain our focus on destroying the rotten core of this country that Stoller wrote about, we'll never be able to do it without having the alternatives already in place and growing, building political capital and a constituency for change, as we have online.

Thus, the organics movement and more importantly the buy-local movement are an important point for an attack on industrial agriculture (which could have been listed as a 6th symptom.)

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

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by: Sam L @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 09:45:29 AM CST

[ Parent ]

ending the war on drugs (0.00 / 0)

I've been watching american gangster and I no longer agree with this fully.

End the war on marajuana sure.  However crack (and thus cocaine) can't be legal.  It should be as legal as distributing smallpox.

That being said no offense, but you sound like the people who didn't vote for Gore in 2000.

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by: Astera @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 20:38:23 PM CST

That was a movie (0.00 / 0)

and the point isn't that I want to see drugs like that legalized, but look at the choices in their alternative- what results have occured with it illegal, and what results would occur with it legal? Until we think of it by comparsion rather than in abstract separation, there is no way to fully address the issue with any about of clarity about objective goals.

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by: bruhrabbit @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 20:40:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Its also a documentary tv series (0.00 / 0)

And it pretty much shows that crack devastated the black community in certain areas of the country and that those harsh draconian drug laws are what helped the black community recover somewhat.

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by: Astera @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 22:27:01 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Keep Those Drugs Illegal And In 20-30 Years We'll Have Drugs That Make Them Seem Like Candy (0.00 / 0)

This is what happened with Prohibition: making all alcohol illegal drove the illegal dealers to go for the more potent, more concentrated, more highly-intoxicating, more addictive forms of alcoholl.  The same has been true of our current array of illegal drugs.  It's pure economic incentives.

There was cocaine in leaf form for thousands of years with very little abuse.  The we got it in purified "medical" form and suddenly there was an abuse problem.  But it really took the super-charged "war on drugs" atomosphere to create the right conditions for crack.

The point is, this is a function of multifactor causasion, and once you get to the point where the financial incentives are dominant, the logic I've just indicated becomes dominant over everything else.

There was a time, after WWII, when the international drug trade had been all but wiped out, and there might have been a chance for the sort of approach you recommend.  We might have been able to prevent the economic dynamic from taking hold.  But the US cut a deal with the Mafia--most significantly--though not exclusively--their help crushing the Communist unions on the Marseilles waterfront, and we look the other way on their drug-dealing.  The French police we in on it as well: you can ship, but don't sell locally.  And that's how it all started up again.

Here's a brief passage from an Alternative Radio interview with Alfred McCoy, author of The Politics of Heroin:

During World War II things changed. All global commerce was disrupted. Military controls and war zones intervened with the normal trafficking routes. The drug trade was totally disrupted in the United States. In Asia it continued. The Japanese military intelligence dominated the manufacture and distribution of heroin from China. They used it very explicitly as a weapon against the Chinese resistance. They flooded China with heroin, financed all of their intelligence operations and special operations from the drug trade.

But in the United States and Europe, the drug traffic was disrupted. It largely disappeared. Survival had to do with, in part, some short-term tactical alliances with the Mafia. In 1943 the United States invaded Sicily as one of its two major invasions of Europe, a major event in the history of World War II, secondary to D-Day. That leap from North Africa and fighting up the boot of Italy, bloody horrible campaign that it was, was something that really concerned American military planners at the time. They apparently - the U.S. Navy in particular - forged a short-term political alliance with Lucky Luciano who'd been convicted for operating a brothel that employed something like a thousand prostitutes in New York City; he was in Dannemara State Prison in New York. The Navy cut a deal with him and he used his contacts with the Sicilian Mafia to get Mafia support because the Mafia politically dominated western Sicily which was the area where U.S. forces landed.

Mussolini, for reasons just purely of state, couldn't abide the Mafia. They didn't do what he wanted. He tried to break them. Under the U.S. military occupation of Sicily, the Mafia revived. There were some American Mafiosi deported to Sicily after the war. They provided links back to the United States with their confreres in organized crime. Moreover, as the United States' campaign against communism got underway, particularly in the Mediterranean basin - in Italy and southern France - the United States formed tactical alliances with Corsican syndicates and with the Mafia too. It served as a counterweight to communist dock worker influence in places like Marseilles particularly.

The net result is that as a result of wartime policy and postwar anti-communist policy, you got a revival of organized crime operating initially under some kind of U.S. military-government protection and ultimately under CIA protection.

As the trafficking routes got re-established through the Middle East and Europe, ultimately to the United States, a revived, restored Mafia in Sicily, Corsican syndicates in Southern France, were major participants in this traffic.

Half a world away, in Asia, you get a similar phenomenon. We can talk about that if you want.

Now, however, it is far too late in the game to put the toothpaste back in the tube.  Decriminalization, regulation and taxation to pay for treatment and rehabilitation are the best we can hope for.  There is no need to allow full commercialization. 

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 21:13:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]

to be fair, part of the deal with the mafia (0.00 / 0)

was to crush Italian fascism.  As bad as he was, I think I'd rather be dealing with Lucky Luciano than Benito Mussolini.

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by: Valatan @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 00:19:42 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Because They Didn't Want To Work With Leftists! (0.00 / 0)

The choice wasn't the Mussolini or the Mafia.  Mussolini's main opposition was from leftists.  Rightwingers--who tend to dominate military and intelligence circles--hated the idea of having to ally with Mussolini's leftwing political enemeies, who had actually run the indigenous resistence movement in Italy. And so they turned to the Mafia.

Even so, after the war, they could have easily double-crossed the Mafia, if fighting Mussolini was the only purpose.  But it wasn't.  Fighting leftists was what it was all about--the same reason that we were so cosy with Hitler and Mussolini in the first place.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

---

by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:17:44 AM CST

[ Parent ]

If anybody needs more evidence of this (4.00 / 1)

Check the election results in Western Europe for their last free election before 1939 and their first one after the war ended. Support for the Communists skyrocketed, largely because they were very active in resistance movements and unlike conservative resistance groups (the Chetniks, for example) they didn't cut deals with the Nazis.

Italy went from a Communist Party with a few good intellectuals but a small membership to a Communist Party that took a US-engineered grand coalition to hold out of power (and it still got nearly 30% for decades afterwards). The French Communists in 1939 were mostly Spanish refugees. In 1945 they were the people who'd been fighting Hitler long before the Allies put De Gaulle in power.

Allowing the Mafia to start up the drugs trade again in return for aid against the Reds would have been very appealing to anti-Communist Americans in the post-war years.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 11:41:21 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Say, Englishlefty--You Wouldn't Happen To Have A Few of Those Results Laying Around? (0.00 / 0)

I know what you say is true, but it might be nice to actually post them for folks to see.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 12:46:48 PM CST

[ Parent ]

What I'd like to see on drugs (4.00 / 1)

Is a study on whether 50 billion a year for jails or rehabilitation is more effective. I don't think we will ever even legalize marijuana and I'm not totally convinced we should but we could start by closing the disparities, legalizing medical marijuana and redirecting some of that funding to rehabilitation.

I would add this one too.

Subject: End money in politics:
Factoid: Congress would only have to spend $6 per citizen per year to publicly fund each and every election for the House, the Senate and the White House. Earkmarks  cost every one of us more than $200 last year alone.

The primary reason for all of these problems is that our campaign finance system allows rich people to have about 2,300 times as much influence as poorer people at least. If you really want change on any of these kind of things we need to change the system that allows them to exist.

The biggest issue up there though IMO is Ending corporate media ownership.


John McCain: Beacuse lobbyists should have more power

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by: Populista @ Tue Dec 25, 2007 at 22:30:54 PM CST

"What I'd like to see on drugs" (0.00 / 0)

Just about anything......


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 13:42:05 PM CST

[ Parent ]

So, Basically (0.00 / 0)

So, basically you want to vote for Ralph Nader. I tried that once.

Basically, we need a candidate like Ralph Nader, except without the baggage.

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by: D'arby Salt @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 00:43:06 AM CST

Votes (4.00 / 4)

The war on drugs is also a war that is used to disenfranchise those in jail and in many states those out of jail with a record.  These are predominantly black and to a lesser extent younger hispanics and whites.  Keeping them from voting turned the Senate Republican in the early 1980s and kept it there for much of the ensuing 20 years.

This is a coordinated military-economic-political structure.  The war on drugs is very much part of a wider corporate/class approach to American governance.  Keep the underclass from voting.  Keep them desperately poor.  Add in the mix of illegal immigrants who can be discouraged from union organizing and membership.  Much of this may have evolved rather than being planned but dollars to donuts, the maintenance and continuation of this turkey is planned with malice aforethought.

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by: David Kowalski @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 05:05:11 AM CST

I think the issues (4.00 / 1)

are completely different than in the early nineties.

I find it interesting that the issue of Globalization and its impact on income distribution is not specifically anywhere on your list.

The disconnect between progressices and the person who is trying to come to grips with globalization in their daily life is simply amazing.

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by: fladem @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 08:17:27 AM CST

Fair enough (0.00 / 0)

But the only diaries you write are on New Hampshire!

What do you see as a comprehensive approach to issues of globalization for the American left?

It seems likely that the Republicans are going to mostly continue their outright support for corporate exploitation, and they'll try to cover it up with some China bashing and some immigrant bashing. If I remember correctly you're a little skeptical of the Bowers approach to immigration, so what do you propose?

Personally, I find your way of looking at the issue a little hard to grapple with because I can't tell whether you are opposed to globalization, or just its effect on American workers. I think a movement to really confront globalization will be significantly centered in the "third" world. There's an extent to which building networks with third world environmental, feminist, democratic, human rights and indigenous people's advocates and activists is really important.  The Zapatista's are a good model of a group that used new media and a first world network of supporters to secure a somewhat autonomous territory in Mexico and stop what was effectively a genocide. But if all you're worried about is American wages, then I think most people think unionization and a better safety net are up to the task.

And while Stoller may not have addressed globalization outright, or from the American worker's perspective, I think its pretty clear that the rest of the world recognizes American military bases as one part of the spread of exploitative capitalism. From the perspective of Naomi Klein's Disaster capitalism, an assault on American imperialism will also be an assault on one arm of globalization.

I support John McCain because children are too healthy anyway.

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by: Sam L @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:13:42 AM CST

[ Parent ]

To Be Fair (0.00 / 0)

I think Matt was trying to highlight issues that are largely absent from the national agenda.  While I agree 100% that our policies vs. globalization are woefully inadequate, it is not largely absent as an issue.  It is "just" inadequately addressed.

So, I agree with your point about the need to do much more.  I just don't think it falls into the same category as the above.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:23:02 AM CST

[ Parent ]

HOW? (0.00 / 0)

The prison system and the war on drugs are probably the two issues I think are most important domestically, period. But I don't expect my presidential candidates to say much about them. Do something, certainly. But I really don't see the messaging that sells legalization or decriminalization of drugs, much less prison reform, to a national electorate.

One way to do the war on drugs bit would be a strong libertarian position of "leave us alone." This, of course, is the opposite message for every other position I'd like to see, so this isn't going to work.

Another is a cost-benefit analysis that says we aren't winning. Two problems with this. First, you automatically get in trouble if you say America is losing at anything, or that there are limits to what America can do. Never seen it happen successfully. Second, this is basically a numbers argument. Snooze. There's no moral vision behind it.

Finally, you can make this an issue of racial justice (and to a lesser extent economic justice). But even bringing up connections between blacks and crime... I've seen that movie and know how it ends. There's no need for us to dredge back up memories of Willie Horton, which will happen no matter how well we try to frame it or control the messaging. We're just not where we'd need to be as a country on race for it not to be an issue.

Does anyone have an idea of how a candidate talks about these issues and gets more votes than Jesse Jackson did?

Alternatively, does anyone have an idea of how to figure out who would quietly use the executive branch to work on these issues without having to talk about them?

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by: CT Student @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 09:41:17 AM CST

Interesting Post (0.00 / 0)

I think you give to short shrift to both Edwards stance on Poverty, where he has a serious plan to end 'structural' poverty within 30 years.  Frictional poverty, where people temporarily fall on hard times is something we probably can't eliminate in a market economy, but giving families and children a ladder and guidance back to economic stability is entirely doable.

And his stance against the 'Global War on Terror' 

I think you're right to highlight the lack of candor and vision among all of the candidates on the 'Drug War.' 

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by: AJ MA @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:12:42 AM CST

The slow march of progress (0.00 / 0)

Interesting post, Matt.  However, I find this misleading:

The issues we are dealing with today - health care, jobs, even a war in Iraq - are literally the same issues we dealt with in 1992.  How can that possibly be considered progress?  A real progressive candidate would take an apolitical problem and turn it into a mainstream political subject.  None of our candidates have done that.

The Democrats actually backtracked on all these issues from 1992-2004.  The fact that we have Democrats talking about universal health care actually is progress, if one looks at the past 15 years as a guide.

The issues Matt lists above are all noble causes, but the country isn't at a point yet where it's ready to address these problems.  If you look at how movement conservatism implemented its terrible policies, it began in 1964 with a Goldwater trouncing, and then took another 16 years to elect Reagan, who began implementing policies, which sped up in 1994 and 2000.  I don't expect Democratic presidential candidates to wave magic wands and solve these problems yet.  The best way to do this is to elect progressive candidates to Congress, so the legislative pressure is there.  It's also to continue to drive the progressive discourse, which the netroots has done an excellent job doing.  Then in 15 or 20 years, we'll have politicians addressing these problems. 

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by: BCdem @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:26:46 AM CST

Question (0.00 / 0)

First, I agree with the basic substance of Matt's sentiments wholeheartedly.  Based on the differences of approach I've seen just in the preceding comments in this small corner of the progressive universe, my question is:

If you considered yourself an intellectually honest candidate for president could you present (and sell) specific policy prescriptions that addressed these issues that you believed were both correct in their approach and realistically implementable as legislation in the current political climate?

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by: Rrose @ Wed Dec 26, 2007 at 10:46:14 AM CST

There is too much money in the drug-suppression/recovery/testing/prison industry (0.00 / 0)

for there to be any meaningful reduction in the anti-drug/war-on-drugs rhetoric.

There's too much power--economic & political--at stake for any truce to be arranged. Any reduction in the fervor to suppress ALL 'drug' use will be accorded the same treatment as will accrue to the "retreat" from Iraq. 

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by: konopelli @ Sun Dec 30, 2007 at 20:38:31 PM CST

To me the answer is .. (0.00 / 0)

I'm a lifelong democrat who feels very strongly about these 5 issues as well. And it's because the "mainstream" Democrats aren't really talking any of this stuff that I was so unexcited about supporting any of them and why I am so excited to now be supporting Ron Paul. He *is* talking about these things (except for #2...) I think it's time to move past just thinking about Republicans and Democrats and start thinking about the big picture: Peace & Freedom.