Posted on 06/23/2017 9:53:04 PM PDT by logician2u
The History Channel is running a four-part series tracing the history (duh!) of the so-called War on Drugs.
Since I seldom watch TV any more, I learned about this after the third episode had already aired. Rats!
However, as luck would have it those of us who missed out didn't really miss anything.
We can watch at our own pace, a few minutes at a time if that's all we can digest in one sitting (or or are otherwise distracted by barking dogs, phone calls, kids, meals). The site will remember where you left off so you can resume at that point, just like in the old days when you taped a show on your VCR. Nifty!
Here is the link: http://www.history.com/shows/americas-war-on-drugs
I am not especially interested in a pro-con debate on whether laws on drugs of a non-prescription nature are good or bad. We all have our opinions on that.
It would be very useful, as a student of history, to get some FReepers' observations on whether this documentary is plowing the same old ground or -- can it even be possible? -- bringing new facts to the table.
After all, Americans are still learning things about World War II that were locked up in the vault for over fifty years. And that war only lasted four, at least it did for us.
The WOD was officially declared on June 18, 1971 (I had to look it up -- all I knew it was Nixon's war). We're now in the 47th year of fighting it with no end in sight.
You like drugs? Which one is your poison?
Caffeine.
How much progress has been made in the war on poverty?
922 years since the first crusade and we are STILL fighting Islam...or, rather, it is fighting us. And still no end in sight.
Many of the things exposed in this have been common knowledge to some of us for a long time.
Our government is not innocent in this.
looks really good but it’s unwatchable on my computer. I think whoever set up the commercial breaks must have been using LSD at the time.
“You like drugs? Which one is your poison?”
Yes! If I need them. Broke two ribs and ripped uo the cartlage between them. When I coughed it was extremely painful. I’m allergic to synthetic opioids like hydrocodone. Was hard to get my doc to give me codeine. Now I have to deal with my oral surgeon, who prescribes something that really messes with my BP and heart rate.
We lost the War on Drugs when we followed (and merely “monitored”) the aircraft flying drugs in from Latin America. They should have been forced down.
I have only watched the first two but I have an opinion.
These are produced from the perspective of leftist Democrats.
They interview lots of former drug dealers and kingpins. The information may all be “true” but one sided.
I noticed that when the Weathermen were mentioned they briefly showed Bernadine Dorn (not in the news) but they made no mention of Bill Ayres (very much in the news). When speaking of drugs in South America they mention the terrible, unfounded fear of communism in our government. They mention Mena, Arkansas but ignore the Clinton’s involvement.
Yes, our government did some really bad things but drugs in simpler forms were around long before we started meddling. It feeds into the leftist meme that white Republicans dumped (and still does) drugs in the inner city to control the blacks.
So far it appears that it is just a hit peace on Republicans.
my $.02
I agree completely, vanilla. From the ads that hyped it before it aired (I like Antique Archeology and Mountain Men in limited doses) I could tell it was going to be a leftist slamming of the USG from The NY Times perspective. That I find repulsive. Time to say goodbye to DirectTV, if I can pry my dear wife away from her old movies.
TC
That is EXACTLY the right comparison. You are no "fool".
Both are designed to provide government employees and contractors with lifetime employment in the service of a "war" which will never end.
And both are completely unconstitutional as federal government functions.
If this approximately six hour program can be summed up it’s the three words that are constantly bandied about by interviewees to establish a narrative about the war on drugs: “irony,” “inadvertent,” and “backfired.”
1.) MKUltra causes the counter-cultural revolution.
2.) Nixon’s initiation of the war on drugs is a war on blacks and hippies.
3.) American paranoia about Soviet influence in our hemisphere leads to the Colombian/Mexican cartels
4.) CIA is responsible for the heroin and crack-cocaine ‘epidemic’ and other evils.
5.) 9/11 and the War on Terror is just a natural extension to the war on drugs.
Obviously, this is a special about drugs, but in attempting to envelop almost the entirety of 50 years of domestic and foreign policy as a ‘drug thing’ without a semblance of context the people who put this together stepped outside their wheelhouse and the whole thing looks ridiculous.
It comes off as flippant and Oliver Stone-like in its hand-waving dismissal of the national security, strategic, and domestic aims of the United States. They might as well come out and say the purpose of this program was to establish a foundation for the legalization of all drugs in the United States, absent any other suggestions made in the program.
Stripped of emotion drugs are about money. Get control of the money you get control of the problem. At the heart of the drug ‘’war’’ is government. It uses this so called ‘’war’’ as a means of exerting power over the populace. It’s garbage in, garbage out and see how the money rolls in.
Money quote: “Nothing expands the power of the State like a War”.
Will they explain why the left still don’t want a wall and California has a welcome sign at the state line?.
I despise the use of the term “War” to describe efforts against poverty, drugs, etc.... This is not war; war is by it’s nature a very destructive enterprise. You attack an enemy nation, kill it’s young men and increasingly it’s civilian populations, and you destroy all their stuff. “Fighting” poverty or drugs is NOT war.
By calling it a war, we have cheapened the concept of a real war and deluded ourselves that social problems are “winnable.”
“I have only watched the first two but I have an opinion.
These are produced from the perspective of leftist Democrats.”
I haven’t watched at all.
What you say makes sense and is usually the case.
It’s common in the media and it is the New Left perspective.
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