11 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. Good Morning, Cory Gardner,

   Do you know where you live?

   (And, no, I don’t mean in which Koch brothers’ back pocket . . . ) 

   http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/no-red-and-blue-divide-when-it-comes-to-renewable-energy-innovation-and-co2-rules/?mabReward=A5

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2. Looks like the public isn’t on the same page as the critics, including Dems like Schumer, of the Iran deal thus far. Plenty of Republicans joining large majority of Dems in supporting the basis for the deal. Too bad Dems like Schumer and Bennet aren’t on board with strong support, instead giving credibility to Republican assessments that it’s worse than no deal, not tough enough, not verifiable enough. It’s being hailed internationally and among policy experts as plenty tough enough with instant outs if there is any sign of Iranian noncompliance.

   A clear majority of Americans support a nuclear deal with Iran, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Friday.

   Nearly 6 in 10 Americans, 59 percent, would support a plan to lift international economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for new limits on its nuclear program.

   Those terms match the language of a tentative framework for a deal agreed to by international negotiators on Thursday.

   Thirty-one percent are opposed to such a deal in the poll.

   Democrats are more willing to support such a deal, with 68 percent in favor and 22 percent opposed. Republicans are more closely divided, with 47 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed.

   http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/237852-poll-majority-back-nuclear-deal-with-iran

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   1. What is Bennet saying about this? 

      Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post lies while trying to nudge Benet to the Pro-War position:

      …it is noteworthy that when the action alert began, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who will be on the ballot in 2016, became a belated signatory on March 10 to Corker-Menendez. Coincidence? Maybe, but perhaps senators do listen to the public, which remains overwhelmingly opposed to letting Iran get the bomb.

      But polls indicate the public does support a fair and strong agreement:

      A decision-making simulation done with the Program on Public Consultation showed that a clear majority of American respondents, including six out of ten Republicans, preferred continued efforts to negotiate a compromise deal that limits Iran’s enrichment, increases transparency, and provides some sanctions relief to the alternative option of ending negotiations and trying to get other countries to impose more sanctions on Iran.

      In July 2014 we conducted a joint opinion poll with the University of Tehran Center for Public Opinion Research, where CISSM associate Ebrahim Mohseni is a senior analyst.

      This survey also found broad public support among Iranians for potential elements of a deal that are consistent with the principles of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

      Would anyone believe Americans are so stupid as to want another war having come to a draw and being unable to disengage from our 2 most recent wars of choice? Will Bennet join the Warmonger Caucus on the right who never met a country they wouldn’t bomb first?

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      1.  “to give the American people a voice on a fundamental national security issue, and for ensuring continuity in U.S. policy after the Obama Administration.”

         translation: Stop the deal, now.

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3. Any politician unwilling to tackle this utter failure head-on and commit to its end isn’t fit for elected office…

   A War Well Lost

   If you had said to me, “Why were drugs banned?” I would have guessed that most people, if you stopped them in the street, would say, “We don’t want people to become addicted, we don’t want kids to use drugs,” that kind of thing.

   What is fascinating when you go back and read the archives from the time is that that stuff barely comes up. Drugs were banned in the United States a century ago for a very different reason. They were banned in the middle of a huge race panic. After the Civil War, Reconstruction failed, and what you had were African Americans and Chinese Americans who—rightly—were pissed off. At various points they showed their anger—in fact, given how extreme their oppression was, it’s surprising they didn’t show a lot more anger. Many white Americans explained this growing rebelliousness at the start of the 20th century by saying that African Americans and Chinese Americans were forgetting their place, using drugs, and attacking white people. If this sounds bizarre, that’s because it was.

   The official statements are extraordinary. A typical one said, “The cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill.” Sheriffs across certain parts of the United States increased the caliber of their bullets because they believed African American men were taking cocaine and ravaging and attacking white people. The main way I tell about that in the book is through the story of how the founder of the war on drugs, Harry Anslinger, played a crucial role in stalking and killing Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, which blew my mind when I first learned it.

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   1. Interesting article. I’d forgotten about the story that Billie Holiday was set up for a bust. She was definitely an addict, but people were using her for their own agendas, as well.

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      1. people were using her for their own agendas

         It happens to a lot of celebrities…sadly. It seems anywhere money and power flow…greed and evil are always stalking.

         I have been telling the Harry Anslinger story since I joined NORML in 1970 and learned the truth. Almost a century of misery so one selfish fucker with NO scruples could improve his job. The professional, for profit penal system and the multi-billion dollar “War on Drug” industry were, in large measure, built on that aroma.

         The unneeded suffering is unquantifiable.

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      2. …and Anslinger was married to Andrew Mellon’s neice (Mellon Banks); Mellon financed DuPont, Rockefeller and Hearst.  Hearst particularly hated the Mexicans as he lost 800,000 acres of timberland to Poncho Villa in the Mexican War and was hell-bent on getting even. 

         Why does this theme sound all-too familiar?

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         1. This is why I refuse to use “the M word” to label cannabis. The government latched on to the word in order the solidify a connection between the plant and “those dirty Mexicans”.

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   2. The Take away in case you missed it- Drug use falls away once a population has other environments , socially sustained, self empowered (identity though work), a reason to be in the “present“.

      But in the 1970s, Bruce Alexander came along and thought, “Hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do except use these drugs. Let’s try this differently.”

      So he built a very different cage and called it Rat Park. Rat Park was like heaven for rats. They had everything a rat could possibly want: lovely food, colored balls, tunnels, loads of friends. They could have loads of sex. And they had both the water bottles—the normal water and the drugged water. What’s fascinating is that in Rat Park they didn’t like the drugged water. They hardly ever drank it. None of them ever drank it in a way that looked compulsive. None of them ever overdosed.

      The rise of misuse of prescribed pharma follows the collapse of the middle class, dwindling social upward mobility, pretend cures of austerity, trickle down hoaxes intent upon rewarding the wealthy. 

      Hardest hit are the ethnic minorities who turn to the only economy available ( The Wire) –travel agents to paradise

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      1. Ethnic minorities may be hardest hit but, thanks to Big Pharma, prescription drugs are the number one scourge now, overshadowing all the street drugs put together. The dire consequences, including death, reach through the middle classes into the most affluent.

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