Hi all, Although this review is now a bit dated, having been published back in Feb. 2000, the book "Drug War," by Dan Russell, is now available, and can be purchased at Russell's site, as well as through other on-line book-shopping sites, such as Amazon, (and www.copvcia.com, the rather large site of CIA-intelligence-narcotics tracking and research of Mike Ruppert's), so I do urge you to check it out. You will not be disappointed. http://www.hightimes.com/News/2000_02/drugwar.tpl Drug War: Covert Money, Power And Policy FILED 02/02/00 'Prohibition is, as it has always been, a fascist protection racket.' There is a war going on in this country, and it is being fought against American citizens by American citizens. Prisons are being built at breakneck speed, Americans are receiving mandatory sentences for victimless, non-violent crimes, and the airwaves are full of propaganda and lies, primarily to justify these repressive policies of the military-industrial-law enforcement combine. THE ETERNAL INQUISITION These are points well covered by Dan Russel in his new book, DRUG WAR--COVERT MONEY, POWER AND POLICY. Written in an easy-to-read, flowing style that is entertaining, amazingly detailed, concise and to the point, DRUG WAR covers one hell of a lot of ground. With a 16-page bibliography, and copious footnotes, this is a very in-depth look at the orgins, and the current state of affairs, the whys and wherefores of War on Drugs. Brutality Bred Into The Bone Beginning with the first official arrival of Medieval Europeans on these shores, and the decimation of the indigenous cultures here, Russel takes the reader on a tour de force of inhuman greed and oppression, perpetrated to this day on American citizens, targeting minorities, the poor, and the sick. "What the fascist structure wants is the militarization of global industrial culture," explains Russel in a chapter-essay titled "The Active Enemy:" "a stranglehold on policy and wealth, absolute control of the industrial machinery. 'Drug interdiction' is a necessary adjunct to this. It's a way of stealing tribal lands by criminalizing tribal sacraments--a way of criminalizing the culture itself, and a way of organizing the sports fans behind the patriotic campesino-stomping. And it's a way of attacking America's poor for being poor, a way of attacking the painkiller rather than the pain. It's a way of channeling all the cash needed to do something about the structural poverty into the military-police complex." A few paragraphs later he writes, "Drug Prohibition has made the illegal drug trade the economic, and political, basis of military power throughout much of the world. It is the most significant policy disaster in American history, as a loss of control of CIA covert operations is the most significant structural disaster. Together they are the major tools of military fascism today. By artificially exploding street violence, Prohibition effectively diverts the culture's political eye, and wealth, from structural poverty, industrial ecocide, industrial oligarchy, and confiscatory taxation. Prohibition is, as it has always been, a fascist protection racket." Russel's DRUG WAR follows in the footsteps of those select few books, such as THE POLITICS OF HEROIN: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, by Alfred McCoy, and WHITEOUT: CIA Drugs and the Press, by Cockburn and St. Clair, that lay open the deceit and duplicity of the power structure and its social strategies in terms of the drug war. Covering such diverse angles as the Kennedy assassination, the CIA and its cornucopia of nefarious misdoings like the MK-ULTRA assassination and mind-control experiments, its cocaine and arms-supply networks, its funding of terrorist organizations, all the way to the struggles of assorted tribal peoples around the world who are adversely affected by this country's fascist policies, on into the medical aspects of this war, Russel goes into detail about how the Drug War is splitting this country apart. Hi! We're The American Inquisition! Besides the obvious money-making going on, Russel also focuses on the classically pharaco-phobic, anti- shamanic aspects of the mindset behind Prohibition, and how this makes it that much easier for the power structure to foist its Drug War on the rest of us. Using age-old tactics, and even terminology, those responsible for this war are still waging an "inquisition," which though modern, has not changed much since the witch-burning eras of medieval Europe. "The Drug War is a propaganda-fed neurotic repeat of the medieval Inquisition," Russell charges. "I don't mean that metaphorically. The most common evidentiary bust of the medieval Inquisition was 'the possession of prohibited substances.' In fact, the legal phrase 'prohibited substance' can be found in the MALLEUS MALEFICARUM of 1484, in relation to the 'witches' medicines' of the curanderas. 'Possession,' one of the premier indicia of 'witchcraft,' was the most common evidentiary bust of the Inquisition." Russell takes the position that it is a necessary, indeed essential part of human existence to alter consciousness by the personal investigation of inebriative substances, that plant and animal species evolved simultaneously, in evolutionary synergy on this planet, and therefore that sacramental herbs--not "drugs"--are an integral part of the human experience, one of the oldest ways for humans to get in contact with time, history and the human environment as a whole being. It necessarily gets a bit "metaphysical" at times, but political activists need this reminder of a basic message of love, kindness, and trying to understand one another, rather than creating hysterical populations and sick criminals. Reading DRUG WAR is actually an antidote to the depression which more strictly political polemics about the overwhelming viciousness and hypocrisy of the Drug War can engender over time. Russell bolsters his message with examples of indigenous cultures, "primitives" whose pharmacological knowledge far outstrips Western preconceptions of "primitive" backwardness. He again and again stresses the difference between industrially "purified" plant alkaloids, and the whole plant as a sacred element in autochthonous religious and medical applications. We are reminded that traditional coca-leaf mate tea is as inoffensively stimulating as, say, Orange Pekoe, and that it isn't until the leaves are boiled down into the refined cocaine hydrochloride--one very small percentage of the actual plant, converted chemically into its fastest-acting molecular form--that it becomes something potentially dangerous or addictive in human beings' receptor sites. As Russel points out, it takes a thousand pounds of coca leaves to make seven pounds of cocaine. He points out that we don't only use one small molecule of the spinach plant and throw away the rest, we eat the whole thing. So why is it not the same with the inebriates, the Soma of ages past, is his question. He asked the same question earlier in his book on Shamanism, but without so many brutally contrasting examples of "civilized" oppression of native human wisdom. This book is an exhilarating and educational read, while at the same time infuriating and depressing, in that it threatens to overwhelm with the reader with images of deliberate manipulation of America's psyche, turning whole targeted segments of the population into scapegoats for the ills of our society. DRUG WAR is a worthwhile addition to the library of anyone interested in seeing behind the veil draped between trusting, misguided Americans, and the truth about the War on Drugs. Preston Peet - Special to HT News -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. 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