coke_politics kx21 * a_point_in_time * A Fairy_tale arond_and_across a_wrong_war_in_21k.... 040721 ... . "around_and_across" 040721 ... kx21 In the space of Coke_politics and sphere of pepsi_folklore:- Saddam_Hussien = ?, given a_'love_triangle'_in_the_21st_century and Blair (War_Promoter)'s Coke_politics_meets_pepsi_folklore from Bush (War_president)... Tell one that... And_I_will_tell_you_how_wonder_you_are... Copyright 2004 (less Coke_politics kx21.com 040722 ... To be exact Saddam_Hussein = ? 040722 ... unhinged any foreign relations with south american countries war on drugs HA the disturbing thing is that the vast majority of the american public believes that we are fighting a war on drugs to win it and that our media is not biased or controlled in any way 040722 ... Strideo the war on drugs is indeed useless ... 040722 ... birdmad The war on drugs like th so-caled war on terror it is based on a useless "Zero-sum" approach that predicates its sucess that the existing problem can be wholly stamped out by attrition without ever considering causative influences. Can you think of a biger waste of time and taxpayer funds than the ONDCP? billions of dollars in revenue spent on ads that have, in my opinion done more to PROMOTE drug use and whose core messaeg is best summed up by Mr. Mackay on South Park "Drugs are bad, Mmmkay." The allure of the forbidden should never be taken as lightly as it has been by the people who have been responsible for this country's drug control agencies. It's the same lesson that any number of dumbasses failed to learn from the Prohibition Era. 040722 ... Strideo "The war on drugs like th so-caled war on terror it is based on a useless "Zero-sum" approach that predicates its sucess that the existing problem can be wholly stamped out by attrition without ever considering causative influences." the war on drugs is ineffective because it does not focus its efforts where they will be most effective: treating and educating the drug abusor you can't, by the way, solve terrorism by treating the terror victims, sorry. the war on drugs creats an inflated value on the drugs because they are now illegal, which introduces a criminal element to a medical problem: addiction terrorist simply are criminals and murderers. by giving in to them sovereign nations simply display that their tactics can work and it gauranties further violence in the future. ... 040722 ... sixstop And 'treating' the terrorists is synonymous with capitulation. Not an option. 040722 ... unhinged capitulation does not have to be the only 'treatment' of the terrorists. most people don't seem to be liking the other treatment very well though. it also allows people to perpetuate the image of america as the tyrant bully strong arm of democracy. i find myself treading on a thin line philosophically these days and what i find myself adopting more than anything else is 'do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else' the 'as long as it doesn't....' part seems to be the part that causes the problems. and honestly, the best way to lower taxes for EVERYONE is to legalize drugs and then tax them. maybe that's a little extreme for drugs like coke and heroin but if we did that with weed, being no more harmful phsyically or mentally than cigarettes or alcohol, the tax problem could be solved. 040722 ... daxle girls first it's that simple 040722 ... birdmad The problem with the current rhetoric is the underlying fascism of it. we are being coached to accept a condition of perpetual warfare. The combination of our energy policy and the force we exert to maintain it as it is should be the first point of examination. The willingness of our (U.S.) government to maintain relationships with dictatorships and other represive regimes so long as they remain lucrative on one hand while talking about "Freedom and Deomocracy" on the other hand isn't swallowed as easily by people who don't have Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Brit Hume or Wolf Blitzer spoonfeding them the latest soup of spin and catchphrases. The notion that the only alternative is "capitualtion" is itself a spin in that it demands black/white, yes/no acceptance even though short of a campaign of all-out genocide, the "war on terror" is, like the "war on drugs" unwinnable because like every fallen drug dealer who can be replaced by another ruthless, ambitious opportunist ever fallen terrorist can be replaced by another "inspired" deranged zealot. One falls another rises to take their place and today's "collaterl damage" becomes tomorrow's ticking timebomb. The other key failure of the US Government's policy toward terrorism is its almost complete disregard of potential domestic terrorists which was most glaringly evident last April when Texas authorities arrested a group of whackos in the Tyler/Noonday area with a large arsenal of weapons including pipe-bombs, firearms, conventional explosive "briefcase" devices, and enough cyanide and other assorted chemicals to kill "enough people to fill a large chain bookstore or s small-town convention center" [CNN, january 30, 2004] ' They were caught by accident when a package of afke ID's showed up at the wrong address in New Jersy with a note enclosed "we would hate for these to fall into the wrong hands" (KLTV 7 Tyler Texas) the recipient notified law enforcement and the ball started rolling from there [ CBS 11, Dallas Ft. Worth, November, 2003 http://cbs11tv.com/investigations/local_story_330180036.html] If William Krar had an Arabic name and had been caught with all the shit they found in Krar's storage unit, you can bet your ass there would have been press conferences and expansive coverage of the issue. Getting back to my original point, looking for a policy that doesn't actually manage to create more enemies while resolving our problems with the enemies we already have is hardly capitulation bit it's also about a million fucking miles away from what is currently happening. 040722 ... Strideo how do we resolve our problems with the enemies we have? ... 040722 ... unhinged one side comment: we had less enemies when we fostered isolationist foreign policies. our government only cares about capitalism, not freedom and democracy. it's not just the republicans either cause most democrats are republicans disguised as liberals cause they are leftist about one key issue. america gets more greedy and as more of the world's wealth is concentrated in our small percentage of the world population, more people will hate us because they see us as the reason that they are unhappy and miserable. not everyone in the world wants to live in a democracy believe it or not. people just want to be safe and people are raised and indoctrinated into other ways of being safe. as long as people are not dying, there is no reason for america 'to make the world safe for democracy' and goddamnit we are not the only democratic nation in the world. yeah, i know the good old arguement that we are the strongest, therefore we have to police the world but i find that to be a bullshit answer for a bunch of rich idiots who believe their way is the only right way (much like the people who bombed us on 9-11) to go around pushing their way on everyone. now it's hard to talk middle road with someone who doesn't have one either, but this problem was created decades ago by greed. as people like to say, there is a growing global community and we have to start acting like it and stop acting like it's the cold war and hoarding everything we can in our basements for the day that someone blows up the world. (although that day probably has a better chance of coming now than it ever did 50 years ago) i guess i sound like a tree/people-hugging hippie but there are many right ways in the world. and no one in any government wants to admit that there are several right ways of doing things. blah. useless arguement. and the exact thing that makes me want to crawl in a hole and never come out. 040722 ... birdmad i don't have a cut-and-dried answer for that, but i can at least say that while there would unavoidably be some killing involved, i also recognize that it's a pretty retarded idea to think that indiscriminate bombing is going to win me any new friends. The biggest failure of much of the planning and strategy of this "war on terror" is that most of the people in charge are still thinking along the lines of the Cold War and applying the same methodologies for assessing the strengths weaknesses and motivations of our enemies. That same rigid thinking is a key reason why the Soviets failed in Afghanistan. Actual diplomacy instead of a mixture of posturing and inane lip-service on one hand would be an effective start, and by this i don't necessarily mean entering into any sort of direct negotiastions with threatening organizations. Remember, the first mistake our "leadership" has been making is oversimplifying the problem and then compounding it with an oversimplistic, ham-fisted "solution" based more on ideology than any pragmatic sense. also, for the sake of not inviting the same weakness that has brought down every other great power in history, a one-war-at-a-time-and-no-new-ones-until-you're-finished policy regarding military engasgement should be considered but wouldn't be as necessary if the leadership in place didn't go out of it's way to piss off our traditional allies and leave us burdened with a coalition of small coutries who send small delegations of questionable utility who are only playing along because we threatened to cut off their aid packages if they didn't. 040722 ... sixstop Corellating to the drug war is unrealistic for many reasons. 1: many street drugs that alot of money floats are ARE dangerous; not made-up, not fabricated and, Not only to the health of the user, either. In addition to the dangers of altered state, like alcohol or MJ, many of these drugs have health risks that you'd have to take insane quantities to equal in alcohol, or are so specific they have no peers. 2:people ARE breaking the law. the law should be upheld. Criminals should be prosecuted. That doesn't mean the law can't or won't change, but as it stands now, to get illicit drugs, there have to be several criminal acts; including illegal importing, growing, use of controlled or regulated stuff, black market sale of regulated stuff, DUI or other stupid stuff done while in an altered state, the list goes on. I think strideo is right in that it needs to be addressed as a medical problem when we deal with the addict, but the addict is a symptom of the other crimes committed when making/distributing drugs. its still criminal and they do need to be found and dealt with. 3. the victims of illegal drug use, abuse, and distribution include the community as well as the addict. Therefore, a better corellation to the drug war would be Dealers are terrorists, and addicts are the victims they prey on. 040722 ... sixstop As far as terrorism itself and the policies that seem to ignore domestic things. . . I have to ask you, what do you think causes terrorism? 040722 ... unhinged addiction as a criminal act only compounds the problem. yeah, i know, i know....you are right. obtaining illegal drugs is obviously illegal a.k.a. criminal. i have barely formed thoughts on this topic so i will abstain for now. all wars are based on drugs legal or not: oil, opium, coke. it has been pointed out that the u.s. involvement in vietnam could be directly related to the cutoff of the supply of opium to the united states. is that crazy? if you think it is.....but one thing is for sure. united states foreign policies have been directly related to the religion of greed practiced in this country. a little democratic socialism never hurt anyone unless you were a rich person hoarding your wealth seeing no reason to help your fellow man. just make sure you go to church tomorrow and put money in the collection plate to buy your way into heaven since money talks and if you don't have any you deserve to rot in hell. 040723 ... birdmad What causes terrorism? a combination of factors related both to economics and various bits of ideology. in this circumstance, both politicl and religious ideology. (For example, before the 1948 dissolution of Palestine and the establishment of the Israeli state, the demographics of violence were the polar opposite of what they are now...in fact, this week marked the 58th anniverary (1946) of a hotel bombing by Israeli insurgents in Jerusalem which killed 90 people) The inane rhetoric that we were attacked by people simply because "they hate freedom" is laughable coming from politicians who, themselves are supported by a base that would prefer to live under a theocracy. As i've pointed out several times, one of the reasons that we are the targets of such ire has been the almost unwavering willingness of our government to place business interests absolutely above all other considerations. There's a lundry-list of times when another nation's government has attempted to exert its rights to profit from its own resources ahead of the American businesses who have held sway, the US Government has stepped in either overtly or covertly to keep its corporate sponsors happy The Philippines, Nicaraqua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Apartheid-era South Africa, Liberia, Angola, Iran, Iraq, [Afghanistan], Pakistan, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Malaysia Our government's penchant for supporting some repressive regimes so long as they are profitable to us does not now, nor has it ever engendered any lasting goodwill towards us and makes our government, and by extension, whether we like it or</