http://shadow.autono.net/sin001/ashcroft.htm
JOHN ASHCROFT: DRUG WAR ULTRA-HAWK, CONFEDERACY NOSTALGIST AND CORPORATE
SHILL
ACTIVISTS CAMPAIGN AGAINST BUSH AG APPOINTEE
by Bill WeinbergA coalition of civil liberties and drug-policy reform groups
pledges to put up a fight against the confirmation of ex-Sen. John Ashcroft
(R-MO), President-elect George W. Bush's nomination for Attorney General. The
Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet) calls Ashcroft "one of the most
hawkish drug warriors, supporting some of the most extreme drug war
legislation during his tenure in the Senate.
"Capitol Hill crusader for tougher mandatory-minimum sentencing laws,
Ashcroft also blocked efforts to end the disparity between crack and powder
cocaine penalties, and to address racial profiling. DRCNet calls for
activists to visit the new coalition's web site (
http://www.StopJohnAshcroft.org) to find out how to plug into the effort
against Ashcroft's confirmation as head of the nation's Justice Department.
Capitol Hill's Top Drug War Hawk
Where drug policy and Constitutional rights are concerned, John Ashcroft "has
one of the worst records on Capitol Hill," according to DRCNet.
Sen. Ashcroft was a key sponsor of 1999's narrowly-defeated Methamphetamine
Anti-Proliferation Act, which would have outlawed drug-related discussions on
the Internet, and allowed police to conduct secret searches--provisions which
DRCNet says "violate the spirit of the First and Fourth Amendments."
Indeed, Ashcroft is a leading right-wing proponent of tinkering with the US
Constitution. In his six years in the Senate, Ashcroft proposed seven
Constitutional amendments-including one banning desecration of the flag
(creating an unprecedented First Amendment exception), and another making it
easier to push through such Constitutional changes.
DRCNet also charges Ashcroft with blocking Senate efforts to address the
issue of racial profiling in police stops. "While outwardly professing
support for a bill to study racial profiling, Sen. Ashcroft in reality used
his chairmanship of the Subcommittee on the Constitution to bottle it
up...the bill never made it to the Senate floor."
In a related issue of institutionalized Drug War racism, Sen. Ashcroft
blocked legislation sponsored by several black lawmakers--and recommended by
the US Sentencing Commission--to reduce crack cocaine sentences to the same
level as powder cocaines. Instead, Sen. Ashcroft supported a bill to address
the disparity by raising powder cocaine sentences!
Sen. Ashcroft also objected strenuously to spending money on drug treatment
rather than interdiction, claiming treatment "enables" drug users and that
only enforcement is effective.
But his nephew got a suspended sentence!
Meanwhile, journalist Daniel Forbes reports in the Internet magazine Salon (
http://www.salon.com) that Ashcroft's own nephew got probation after a major
pot bust--unusually lenient treatment for a bust of that size. "Although his
arrest for growing 60 plants could have landed him in federal prison, "Forbes
writes, "Alex Ashcroft was tried in state court and avoided jail--despite his
uncle's crusade for tougher federal drug laws and mandatory prison sentences
."
John Ashcroft was Missouri governor when Alex Ashcroft, then 25, and his
brother Adam, 19, were busted in a January 1992 police raid on their
home--which turned up a basement grow-room with lighting, irrigation and
security systems. A housemate, Kevin Sheely, then 24, was also arrested.
Although growing more than 50 plants usually triggers federal prosecution and
two years in prison--thanks to the mandatory-minimum laws John Ashcroft
fought to toughen--Alex was only prosecuted on a state charge. He received
probation and 100 hours of community service in lieu of a three-year
suspended sentence. Adam, who didn't live in the house, was not prosecuted.
Dan Viets, lawyer for Sheely (who was not convicted) told Salon that Alex
even tested positive for drugs in his first post-probation drug test--yet
still remained free. Reached for comment, Alex's father Bob Ashcroft first
denied that his son had failed a urine test, then said, "Anything's
possible." Alex's mom, Beverly Ashcroft, told Forbes, "I have no idea. That's
such an upsetting time, it's all a little foggy." But she insisted, "I think
the facts are clear that his uncle as governor certainly did not bail Alex
out.
"Writes Forbes: "There's no evidence Ashcroft intervened on behalf of his
nephew, but Alex Ashcroft's connection to the governor was widely known. The
arrest made national newspapers, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to USA
Today, as well as the local dailies.
"Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Bush transition team, told Forbes:
"Given Sen. Ashcroft's reputation for zero tolerance, I'm sure if he had
anything to do with it, the penalty would be much worse. He would have
influenced it [the sentence] in the opposite direction." She declined further
comment.
But others convicted of similar offenses in Missouri have faced much tougher
punishment. Forbes cites the case of Eric Edmundson, a Pineville, MO,
electrical engineer who served two years in Leavenworth after his 1993 arrest
for growing 51 plants on his property.
Confederacy Nostalgia
John Ashcroft has also drawn fire for his apparent sympathy for the
Confederacy in the US Civil War. The media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy
in Reporting (http://www.fair.org) cites his contribution to the Southern
Partisan, a white separatist magazine based in South Carolina.
In 1998, the following endorsement from Sen. Ashcroft appeared in the
Southern Partisan: "Your magazine...helps set the record straight. You've got
a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.]
Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Jefferson] Davis... We've all got to stand up
and speak...or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their
lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted
agenda."
FAIR charges that Ashcroft "was endorsing a publication that defends slavery,
white separatism, apartheid and David Duke; a publication that celebrates the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln..."
FAIR cites a series of quotes from Southern Partisan articles that said
Southern slave-owners sought "to further the slaves' peace and happiness,"
called Abraham Lincoln a "consummate conniver, manipulator and a liar,
"referred to "the sinister Emancipation Proclamation" as "an invitation to
the slaves to rise against their masters," characterized Lincoln assassin
John Wilkes Booth as "not only sane, but sensible," praised former KKK Grand
Wizard David Duke as "a Populist spokesperson for a recapturing of the
American ideal," blasted feminism as a "revolt against god," charged that the
University of Georgia "promotes perversion" by sponsoring gay and lesbian
programs, hailed AIDS as "a sign of God's wrath," dissed Miami as full of
"cocaine-pushing trigger-happy Colombians," and proclaimed that non-whites
"have no temperament for democracy."
Southern Partisan senior advisors have included Pat Buchanan and Boyd
Cathey--who simultaneously served as editorial advisor to the
Holocaust-revisionist Journal of Historical Review. The magazine also sells
t-shirts with Lincoln's image over the words "sic semper tyrannis" ("ever
thus to tyrants")-John Wilkes Booth's cry as he fled the Ford Theatre after
shooting Lincoln. Timothy McVeigh was wearing this t-shirt when he was
arrested for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Ashcroft isn't the only Bush appointment with a soft spot for the
Confederacy. Prompted by a speech in which she likened her states' rights
crusade to the cause of Virginia soldiers in the Civil War, the NAACP has
joined with environmental groups opposing the confirmation of former Colorado
Attorney General Gale Norton as Interior Secretary. In 1996, Norton told
Denver's ultra-conservative Independence Institute, "we lost too much" in the
defeat of the Confederacy. "We lost the idea that the states were to stand
against the federal government gaining too much power over our lives." Norton
did concede that "defending state sovereignty by defending slavery" was an
example of the kind of "bad facts" that can undermine a legitimate case.
Meanwhile, Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader charges that
Ashcroft sold his Senate vote for campaign money to the highest-bidding
corporate interest. "Ashcroft has violated his public trust to represent the
citizens of his state," Nader told the press during a St. Louis campaign
stop. Nader charges that Ashcroft "has already been caught publicly with his
hand in the till." According to Nader, the Schering-Plough company gave
Ashcroft's Victory Committee $50,000 while Ashcroft--then a key member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee--pushed to secure a patent extension for its
popular allergy drug Claritin--"at a cost to consumers of $7.3 billion in
monopoly prices." Chuckled the Green candidate: "No wonder he's being called
the Senator from Claritin."
