Lunatics in charge of the asylum... "but we're all normal, and we want our FREEdom" ... Free-dom.. freeedum ... (whispers & cackling in the background..) -most likely from a Frank Zappa album, but I was high on acid at the time, so I might've made the whole thing up. I was hangin' out today with an ex-special forces buddy, who's been around a bit and been in business, and he basically agrees with everyone else I've spoken with who has any awareness of drugwar/drugmoney: Our present bull-market "economy" is COMPLETELY DEPENDENT on laundered drug money. The DOW is high on coke. Our "economy" is a drug-money economy, which has been absorbing in excess of $200 BILLION per year for a few years, probably an average of over $100 Billion per year for the last 10+ years. The phoney drugwar is a socio-political double whammy. NO ONE INVOLVED in the "drugwar" at an informed policy level wants or expects a significant reduction in drug importation. Read that simple sentence again. It's completely true. Drugs/mood alterants have been part of human social experience since pre-history, and aren't too likely to be killed or eradicated any time soon. PROHIBITION of drugs has a totally predictable result: Criminalized drug importation/distribution, with IMMENSE profit potential. (again, this is SO simple, and completely true.) The increasingly militarized law enforcement community is HIGH ON COKE. The criminal justice system is managed in such a way as to fill jails (which are recently becoming highly profitable private industries with subcontractors and ownership in common with defense industry and ties to the elements of government who are associated with illegal drug importation) -with a very disproportionate number of "undesireable" young "minority" men, and other members of the underclasses. Asset forfeiture (legalized theft of private property by "law enforcement" and/or other governmental agency) is a VERY LARGE source of funding, with very MINIMAL oversight. Now we have the political and military building-up to another Vietnam in Colombia. Drugwar? Yeah, right... war against "we the people" using drugs as a tool to eliminate constitutional freedoms... Lunatics in charge of the asylum, and criminals in charge of the government. Very clever and persistent criminals, who have learned to leave enough table scraps for "the masses" .. anyone with any sense who is confronted by the simple truth can easily verify it for h/ir/self.. but hey - the kids have to be driven to soccer practice, there's the favorite show on the TOOB, and oh.. what's for dinner? Complacency uber alles... Dave Hartley http://www.asheville-computer.com/dave -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of dana redding Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2000 1:03 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ncndiscuss] Drug Control or Biowarfare? To my dad, who this policy is currently driving nuts:-) He has a point, how would we react if we had planes dumping loads of toxins on our land. The effect of this policy has been to increase the cocaine supply, since the folks end up knocking down more of their precious rain forests to grow more cocaine. Heck of a smart guy. Dana http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/coca.html Drug Control or Biowarfare? The US is strong-arming Colombia into unleashing the latest weapon in the war on drugs: a powerful new herbicide. But along with killing coca plants, the toxic fungus may pose serious dangers to the environment and human health -- threats so compelling that Florida has suspended plans to test the fungus for its own anti-drug efforts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <FONT COLOR="#000099">Missing old school friends? Find them here: </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/7079/6/_/475667/_/964396276/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ------------------------------------------------------------------------