[Marxism] Drug Terrorists = ?

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with Tony about how the left has abandoned the drug wars.
I don't mean in its denunciation of the Drug War as a cover for war
against social
change in the Andean states; there has been good work on that aspect.  I
mean in
the streets here in norteamerica.

On the US west coast, the vanguard for decriminalization has been
libertarians,
whether right-wing, self-centered individualists, or anarchists.  Here
both of these
political trends are relatively strong --not of major weight, but
influential.

   Now, the libertarian right, that is the bourgeois libertarian, wants
drugs legalized
because it coincides with their overall ideology of defunding the state
(with no
economic redistribution), along with giving individuals more freedom to
do whatever
they want, and augments individual libertarians libertine inclinations.
Reagan?s
Secretary of State Schultz supports legalization.  The Economist
published a special
issue on legalization.

Activists calling for Legalization of Marijuana, Medical Marijuana, and
the social
investment in hemp as a good alternative to deforestation, are
invariably
dread-locked, retro-hippies with clip boards.  It was a
Patchouli-scented petitioner
exalting the benefits of hemp who made me realize there was a benefit
for the
bourgeoisie?s criminalization of drug possession, to getting these
subversive wackos out of the way.

I already knew that across the USA, the majority of prisoners
incarcerated for drug crimes are from the working class and/or
minorities.  Obviously, a large segment of the active minority youth
could be politically neutralized either by their collapse into drug
dependency or because of their involvement in a criminalized,
economically-coerced, alternative income project.  It keeps the people
down.  It does the same to a potentially antagonistic element of the
white working class and bourgeoisie: youth who desire a different world,
and some of whom use drugs to alter their reality, to in effect make
that world in their head if nowhere else.  Those people are a
potentially potent political population, too.  Like other youth, they
can be neutralized the same way: socially ostracized in the drug culture
or confined away from society in an insulated institution.

Despite their pretensions to rugged independent individuality, fashion
poses, etc., (this could branch off into another area!), the bourgeois
managers of society want no real deviation from the current order, no
truly threatening Mavericks.  They want people to realize There Is No
Alternative to the way things are, that we already have reached the
Panglossian level of the best-of-all-possible-worlds.  So they must
alienate those who go to far, make them outlaws, take away their rights,
depoliticize them.  The alternativistic kids are the very people we need
to add to our ranks, pushing the limits, defying the status quo.  To
that extent, they do not genuinely wish to get rid of Drugs.  I
sincerely doubt that if they did that there would be so much around.
(Another area of digression, eh?  CIA links, Presidential puffs, etc.)
They need a means to exclude boat rockers.  ?Drugs? does it.

(If they really wanted to attack harmful drug abuse they would do a
little research and find out that their D.A.R.E. program for school kids
is a waste of time and money.  Bringing in some close-shaved cops that
tell kids their mums and dads are drug abusers if they have a beer after
work tells kids that this is a totally bogus set-up.  Don?t laugh!  This
happens!  It would be far better to bring in a toothless junkie with
AIDS to scare the shit out of the kids.  I have seen the best minds of
my generation destroyed by madness brought on by dope.  A beautiful
Puerto Rican boy who got into coke just when crack started coming out.
The last time I saw him was on 51st Street and Eighth Avenue in
Manhattan, skinny, ripped shirt, no front teeth, I gave him ten bucks.
When I knew him, through his brother, he was happy, humourous, and
handsome.  A before and after shot would frighten anyone who?s worked
with or loved children.  See what happens.  A gorgeous young blonde with
a great lust for life; she liked to party.  Last time I saw her she
looked like a crewmember of a ghost ship, skeletal, hideous, addicted.
Don?t for a second think that I regard all drug use as A-okay cool.  But
let?s get over conflating heroine with pot?it?s not.  Let?s get the
facts out there, and help those betrayed rather than betraying them
more, and by doing so show the children what?s going on so they know.
Give them reasons to reject that route.  A decent, loving society
perhaps.  Etc. etc.)

I think a social prejudice exists on some levels that precludes opening
to them.
Traditionally blue-collar unionists think too few minority kids get
jailed on drug charges, and the white kids into alternatives are
parasites and goony goofballs.  Reds don?t want their blue-collar base
to feel they are turning their backs on them in favor
of hardened criminals (in this case a category loaded with racist
presumptions!) and/or will-o?the-wisps.  Perhaps a federated or
group-directed departmental approach may be the answer, but we need to
get on the ball.



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