Archive for the ‘Geitner’ Category

Oil and pot. One syllable, three letters each. What’s the only difference? One’s legal and one’s not. People die, get kidnapped and beheaded at the behest of both. A simple product. A commodity. The bad people get rich either way. The terrorists are just as sexy.

Among the most dangerous and foolish of games.

The prison industrial complex. Mexican warlords. Where the money goes has not changed since Nixon. The only significant change has been the amount of money. Can you say exponential? The gleaming city is underwater. The levees have failed. The cash overflows. America’s Drug War is the second or third stupidest thing we’ve ever done. After slavery, Viet Nam and Iraq.

It may be the second or third most expensive.

Then there was The Pet Rock, The Osmonds and Spam as meat.

Lives lost and innocent imprisoned in numbers staggering and shameful. Pigs at the trough, persecuting, prosecuting and killing their own while they horde the filthy lucre. You want terrorism? It’s on your southern border and it’s blowing the fuck up. Terror not mutually exclusive with the North American continent anymore.

It’s state sponsored, by your state, by the US of A. As we speak, it spills over. Civilians slaughtered. Juarez, Tijuana, El Paso and San Diego. Every American city bends and groans under the weight of our archaic policies and a draconian incarceration non-solution.

Enforce, enforce, enforce.

We learned in the thirties that prohibition is wrongheaded and the furthest thing from efficacious mankind could possibly muster. Stupid then, stupid now. It gave rise to a brand of crime we came to call ‘organized’. I wonder why we called it that. Seems kinda non-nefarious. A non sequitur. What it is today, is bad news. Organized crime like this, is American made. Homegrown like Jazz and The Blues. Just like a gorgeous and unique art form, we are worldwide with the violence and the ignorance.

I worry about my parents. They winter in Yuma. They have the world’s best insurance but they still cross the border to save money on a few things.

This is where we are. This is what we’ve allowed to happen. It’s sick. The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. The conversation with my mother will be about their safety on the border, because of The War On Drugs and The War On Healthcare. Because they could be killed on a lazy Sunday.

This is bullshit. We need to shut this nonsense down. We reap what we have sown. Did you know Reagan dealt drugs? He also dealt arms to folks we’d all decided as a country we couldn’t do business with because they were brown and kinda socialist. Or was it the other way around? I forget.

Even in my world the clouds part.

Then there’s Our Man’s choice for Drug Czar (head of the ONDCP), Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. I don’t know much about this guy yet but he looks to be pretty progressive. Alternet calls him “a relatively enlightened cop.” Seattle is goddamn liberal. They’ve lowered marijuana as an enforcement priority and have needle exchange.

Maybe there’s potential.

United States Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed he will not be pursuing DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics. A policy shift that’s precisely 180 degrees out from the previous administration. It’s a waste of time and money and it foments distrust and fear. Smart move. Makes me smile.

Pretty big deal the aggregate of these issues alone. The departure they represent, despite them not being secondary or even tertiary to the electorate these days, it’s awesome. Forgive me but it is. It reveals a compassion and pragmatism people won’t recognize because it’s been so long since they’ve seen it.

Trust me, this is big.

My sincere hope is that it’s harbinger of things to come.

It he tells us he’s closing Gitmo, ending torture and the war in Iraq. Gonna wind down the defense budget a little, spend lots on infrastructure, healthcare and education. He seems to understand this is a long term deal. This is not your father’s President. His short game looks good too. Aggressive and decisive. Perhaps we should do something to revive the patient as opposed to speculating ad nauseum over what will be it’s demise.

If we could just stop spending money to kill people or be able to kill them better in the future. Not forever. Maybe for a few years. You know, a three year moratorium would just about get us out of this mess. It could work pretty well in the short term.

End the drug war, stop killing folks. Stop putting them in jail. Let the masses self medicate and get off your asses and allow America to cultivate hemp. Oil, nutrition and textiles in a crop requiring no pesticides that can be turned around every twelve to sixteen weeks. It’s illegal because it scared the shit out of Hearst (paper) and Rockefeller (oil) back in the thirties.

Good green bud has Pfizer horrified and vomiting.

Life is not a game and we’re not necessarily here to compete all the time. But when people succumb, when they become overly cynical and bitter. They have lost. They are losers on the human stage. They may succeed in some ways, but when they lose in important ways, nobody gives a damn.

Drinks for my friends.

Our Man admits he “screwed up”.

One word. Wow. Or maybe, fuckmerunnin.

I’ll state the obvious by pointing out it’s the first time we’ve heard any thing like that in about eight years.

Geitner’s imbroglio was one thing but Daschle’s had become a flaming sack of canine fecal matter on very well known doorstep. Quite another thing, see. I’m confident Our Man ordered it removed. He’s not stupid. He’s doubled the IQ of previous occupants of the big White House on his own.

Sucks cause I really like Tom Daschle. He would have been very effective. Big loss. I think that’s where the rubber met the road here. Obama, being the erudite individual so many of us fell in love with, realized that Daschle was one of the few individuals with the respect and gravitas to spearhead genuinely efficacious healthcare reform. A player.

He knew he was perhaps the best man for the job and therefore America’s best shot at equitable, decent and affordable medicine.

Sad. Daschle screwed the pooch. He did it to his own self. He mayhap would’ve rocked.

This business about Michael Phelps potentially arrested for being photographed doing a bong rip is absurd. Leon Lott, the sheriff of Richland county South Carolina is rather obviously a publicity slut. I like the message, however inadvertently, Phelps is sending. Even record breaking olympian athletes can and should smoke the Devil’s foliage if they want to.

If more Republicans did they would be less inclined to wipe their dicks on their own drapes.

It’s fine with me if you don’t as long as you take no exception to those that do. I should point out that if you read me regularly, you understand that I’m fond of beelzebub’s garden. Yes, I’m on the pot. I also like Bombay Saphire ($28.88 this week at Ralph’s), Vicodon, Percoset, Cheladas and Xanax roughly in that order.

We’re gonna go ahead and nickname him ‘Leon The Lott’ in case he’s stupid enough to pursue this.

I’m trying to make a point but nothing happens.

Denny’s gave away a free breakfast today and I can’t believe I missed it.

Drinks for my friends.