December 8, 2012

"The Drug War is about control."

"Obama likes control."

And here's the NYT reporting on the way the Obama administration is supposedly mulling over what to do about Colorado and Washington.
Some law enforcement officials, alarmed at the prospect that marijuana users in both states could get used to flouting federal law openly, are said to be pushing for a stern response. But such a response would raise political complications for President Obama because marijuana legalization is popular among liberal Democrats who just turned out to re-elect him.
It's all about Obama!

(Why didn't I have a tag "Obama and drugs" before? All that "choom" stuff and so on....)

ADDED: Meade riffs on Obama and hope and segues into "pocketful of hope... money for dope... money for rope..." and I find the old John Lennon song in my iTunes:
No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky
Is gonna Mother Hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope 
That makes me think about and "10 For 2: John Sinclair Freedom Rally" which took place in Ann Arbor in 1971 — where I was in town, listening to the live feed on the radio — and John Lennon himself showed up and that "inspired the creation of Ann Arbor’s annual pro-legalization Hash Bash rally, which continues to be held as of 2012."

40 years ago. Obama was 10. It was the year Obama returned from Indonesia to Honolulu to live with his grandparents and go to prep school. As David Maraniss tells it:
A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. 180 Choom is a verb, meaning “to smoke marijuana.” As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.” To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled. When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning “numbing tobacco”) instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,” explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.
Obama likes control!

75 comments:

chickelit said...

(Why didn't I have a tag "Obama and drugs" before? All that "choom" stuff and so on....)

Deference and respect?

Ron said...

He doesn't need them anymore! To hell with what they want, America is about him, don't you see?

I am the mandate

Le Mandate, C'est moi!

Shouting Thomas said...

Don't get it.

Obama had his own 420 era, or so I hear.

How come he's not down with the Rastaman?

Anybody got any good conspiracy theories?

Carol said...

Someone at Justice must have told him, *real* blacks, like in the ghetto, have even more of a problem with illicit drugs than whites, and he felt guilty about his own lax attitudes.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Looks like it's time for President Eisenhower to federalize the National Guard.

Humperdink said...

I sure hope Choom lets them flaunt the federal Controlled Substance Act. Next step will be for states to flaunt the Bambi Care Act.

Shouting Thomas said...

Pork and pot!

That's certainly a good start to the day.

We got up late today because the gig dragged out until 2 a.m.

Saturday is funny post day, right?

My new resolution is... I'm going to be a woman-pleaser. You're gonna love it, Althouse. You're gonna be so pleased.

Humperdink said...

ST "My new resolution is... I'm going to be a woman-pleaser."

You've signed up for the impossible. Prepare yourself for failure and disillusionment.

Peter V. Bella said...

Obama got reelected to his last term. He owes nothing. He can do what he wants to whomever he wants. The liberals have been bashing him as hard as the conservatives so maybe a little turn around is in order.

Peter V. Bella said...

Obama got reelected to his last term. He owes nothing. He can do what he wants to whomever he wants. The liberals have been bashing him as hard as the conservatives so maybe a little turn around is in order.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half stoner and half straight. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of marijuana will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become lawful in all the States, old as well as new — East as well as West.
With aplogies to President Lincoln.

Shouting Thomas said...

Maybe Obama just hates White Folks on Dope!

Anonymous said...

The drug cartels certainly don't want it decriminalized. Prohibition creates a lucrative black market. The DEA takes care of the competition. If there were too many people growing it at home, who would buy it from the cartels? Stomp on a baby's head, shoot a couple kids and dogs, set fire to a few houses; send a message, make an example if them, crucify them. That'll teach them not to compete with the cartels.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I'd bet money that the number of voters in CO who pushed O over the line in CO were young college age pot smokers.

MadisonMan said...

How is his zeal for control different from any other politician's?

Palladian said...

How is his zeal for control different from any other politician's?

He won.

Ann Althouse said...

Why does Lennon insert Mother Hubbard into that song?

Wikipedia says: ""Gimme Some Truth" references the nursery rhyme "Old Mother Hubbard", using the rhyme's content (about a woman going to get her dog a bone, only to discover that her cupboard is empty) as a political parallel to the events of the day, a practice that goes all the way back to when the rhyme was originally printed in 1805."

When I asked the question out loud, without reading that tedious Wikipedia bit, Meade said it was a way to say "motherfucker" without saying it.

Aridog said...

Carol said...

Someone at Justice must have told him, *real* blacks, like in the ghetto, have even more of a problem with illicit drugs than whites ...

I doubt anyone at Justice told him that, but if someone anywhere did tell him that, they'd be very right.

How many African Americans did yo see in those celebratory videos of dispensary openings all over youtube? "Legal" weed is a liberal whitey concept.

Weed, as purveyed in the black community on the street is low rate and is very likely to be contaminated with additives to give it a kick/buzz.

Nothing keeps non-wealthy black people on the ghetto plantation as well as anonymous street grade drugs...and that will not go away with the advent of "dispensaries" in little pinko cracker land.

Street weed is the drug of despair and in the ghetto it really is a gateway drug...where elsewhere it may not be. You aren't going to see pretty little exotic weed shops in the ghetto any more than you see banks or supermarkets.

Ann Althouse said...

And, by the way, "Kick out the jams, motherfucker." Did you know John Sinclair was the manager of the MC5?

Ann Althouse said...

"How is his zeal for control different from any other politician's?"

He's controlling over conduct that he flagrantly engaged in himself.

edutcher said...

Let's remember, this is the guy who envies the "President" of Red China.

Anonymous said...

of course this regime loves control.

they also love to choose which federal laws should and shouldn't be enforced.

Shouting Thomas said...

Did you know John Sinclair was the manager of the MC5?

Detroit used to have a great music scene. Maybe it still does, and I just don't know about it any more.

Took in a triple bill many years ago of John Lee Hooker, The James Gang (Joe Walsh's original band), and The MC5.

McTriumph said...

The advent of national legalized weed consumption is going to be a heavily regulated and state revenue producing on the production side. Home grown will go the way of moon shining. Does anyone really believe that the DEA and ATF bureaucracies will shrink?
Think corporate weed, it's easier to control, does anyone think big tobacco hasn't gamed this scenario over the last forty years? Lobbyist will decide this, money.

Shouting Thomas said...

He's controlling over conduct that he flagrantly engaged in himself.

Obama, so far as I've read, is not a hands on person. Remember, he delegated everything about Obamacare to his Congressional lieutenants.

Is he really directly involved in this?

He doesn't seem to care that much for working. He's more into the adulation.

pm317 said...

A woman I know who votes for the Dem party didn't know anything about Obama's drug use. This was after the 2012 election. She was surprised when I told her that he wrote all about it himself in his book. But for 2012, she was more afraid of an inconsequential and losing idiot like Akin than a druggie in the WH.

Shouting Thomas said...

Home grown will go the way of moon shining.

Nah, it's just too damned easy to conceal a half dozen to a dozen plants, which is all the individual needs.

Half of law enforcement, and more than half of the legal profession in my area, I'd estimate, smokes weed.

Aridog said...

Ann Althouse said...

And, by the way, "Kick out the jams, motherfucker." Did you know John Sinclair was the manager of the MC5?

First, anyone from Detroit or Ann Arbor knows that. They also know that MC-5 grew tired of Sinclair and separated ways...but remained cordial.

Next, John Sinclair's involvement with the weed movement per se, and the Hash Bash that still occurs, is a classic example of what I said at 9:15 AM. A bunch of effete white liberals trying too hard....with zero regard for the actual ghetto people and families impacted by it all.

As I said, you'll see legal mother nature dispensaries in ghetto dwelling areas of Detroit about the same time you see supermarkets and local banks.

What the hey...whole foods actually is opening a market in the gentrified island of wealth called "city center" (where my kid now lives)...maybe whole foods will carry designer weed and be patronized by droves of EBT card carriers! Not.

Shouting Thomas said...

I was at a party near Woodstock a few years ago, and a town judge from one of the local jurisdictions was in attendance.

Everybody kept passing the joint around him, until he explained in exasperation...

"Why does everybody think I don't want a hit, too!"

Mick said...

Of course it is about control. We have exited the 1st American Reublic (since there is no law and no Constitution when the President is illegal, i.e not a natural born Citizen due to birth as a British subject of a British subject father).
Now we under the rule of evil men, not a rule of law based on a written constitution. Why do you think SCYTL "counted" your vote? Why do you think Corzine walks free? Why do you think Trillions are being given to criminal bankers and other asundrious political cronies? Why do you think our ambassador in Lybia was killed and sodomized at the OK of the Usurper, and not one peep from the lapdog useful idiot media, or his political "rivals"? Why do you think Mark to Market was removed, and replaced with Mark to fantasy Model accounting, allowing accounting fraud on a mass scale? Why do you think criminal banks, with no standing to foreclose, since they have severed the Notes from the Mortgage during mass securitization, are allowed to continue their fraud, and keep millions of non performing mortgages off the books? Why do you think nonsense "green shoots" "statistics" based on nonsense economic models are allowed to be presented as the truth? Why do you think there is NO BUDGET? Why do you think Obama is allowed to rule by Executive Order? I could go on, but you get the point.

The Tree of Liberty must be watered.

US Code 3 S. 5 stipulates that all "election contests", properly made, be adjudicated with finality prior to the 6th day before Elector voting day by the state where the challenge occured. Until Florida rules definitively on this challenge of Obama's eligibility its Electors will not receive Section 2 status. If the Florida judiciary does not rule on the meaning of "natural born Citizen", and whether Obama is one, it will break that law (US C. 3 s.5). Plaintiff, who has filed a properly made contest, perfectly within the Florida statutes, has standing and a real case and controversy to appeal directly to the SCOTUS before Elector Voting day.

Filed in Florida:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/115893517/In-the-Circuit-Court-of-the-Second-Judicial-Circuit-10

I realize that plaintiff is arguing a defunct law, but the judiciary will have to lie all the way to the top, and the light of history will know who the co- conspirators were in the of the death of the Republic.

Aridog said...

DAmn.. I run of at the mouth too much....and miss my own point.

That point is that if Obama steps on the legal weedies in Washington, Colorado and elsewhere, it will be because it is a nearly 100% a whitey thing.

I think Obama is an idiot, but I also think he's not blind and has been around the despair and progressive addiction I refer to in my screeds...he did actually work as a community organizer, and the ones I know really do see the street issues up close. Whether they care or do anything about it is not the point, they DO see it.

I think Obama might just do the right thing this time. I've been wrong a lot lately, so I'm not gonna sneak on to Intrade through Canada about it.

kentuckyliz said...

How does Obama tell Sasha and Malia not to smoke marijuana?

Or does he teach them how to do it?

Does the same don't waste the precious smoke or be skipped rule apply to their family evenings at home?

Robert Cook said...

"'How is his zeal for control different from any other politician's?'

"He's controlling over conduct that he flagrantly engaged in himself."


How is this different from any other politician?


"'How is his zeal for control different from any other politician's?'

"He won."


And...any other politician who would have won--Mitt Romney--would have called off our disastrous so-called "war on drugs?"


"of course this regime loves control.

"they also love to choose which federal laws should and shouldn't be enforced."


How is this different from any other regime?

Honestly...I don't know whether you guys are ignorant, deluded, or willfully ignoring the reality that we have had an unnamed war on drugs for over a half a century, and a named war on drugs, (named by Richard Nixon) for 40 years.

All this proves is that Obama, as I have pointed out many times, is just a Republican in polite clothing.

In fact, the odd duck here and there excepted--Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, maybe a few others--the Democrats today are all Republicans in polite clothing. (Maybe they mostly always were.)

kentuckyliz said...

If Obama uses his figurehead status to promote the evil weed, urban blacks will feel defiantly vindicated, and become out of control, and we are all George Zimmerman.

Shouting Thomas said...

In fact, the odd duck here and there excepted--Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, maybe a few others--the Democrats today are all Republicans in polite clothing. (Maybe they mostly always were.)

Cookie, you are so fucking crazy out there loony that I've got to admire you... sometimes.

Of course, we've got even better loons in Woodstock! You're a piker by comparison.

I've got one Woodstock FB friend who advocates dumping the U.S. Constitution and reorganizing everything along the lines of the Iroquois Indian Confederacy.

She leaves you in the dust!

purplepenquin said...

Obama had his own 420 era, or so I hear.

How come he's not down with the Rastaman?



'tis weird, ain't it? And it ain't just Obama...the President before him also got high in his youth...as well as the one before that one...and yet once they get into office they all get very Nixion about it.

(Just curious, and perhaps a long-time visitor could help me out with this, but how often did our hostess bring up the War on Drugs before Obama was elected? 'cause a lot of conservative blogs that used to be silent about it are sure making a lotta noise about it now. Not complaining...glad to have 'em on the bandwagon, but just wondering how long they've been on it)

Anybody got any good conspiracy theories?

Someone one said it is as if once a new President gets elected, he gets a VERY special briefing from the CIA...a briefing where classified film footage of the Kennedy assassination is shown to the new C-in-C, and then the CIA asks "So, are we gonna have any trouble with you too?"

DADvocate said...

The heart of the left wing agenda is control, totalitarianism. Pure and simple.

Aridog said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pm317 said...

Although the president pledged to go easy on medical marijuana – now legal in 18 states – he has actually launched more raids on state-sanctioned pot dispensaries than George W. Bush, and has threatened to prosecute state officials who oversee medical marijuana as if they were drug lords. And while the administration has yet to issue a definitive response to the two new laws, the Justice Department was quick to signal that it has no plans to heed the will of voters. "Enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act," the department announced in November, "remains unchanged."

From HERE

So pot headed Obots voted for this guy? They were hoodwinked like the rest of them.

Aridog said...

kentuckyliz .... I get your idea, ... but please read my 9:15 and 9:39 AM remarks. "Urban blacks" will scarcely notice if Obama promotes Whitey's little legal weed dispensaries....or if he steps on them.

If weed is to be legalized, then make it a corporate endeavor with ample inspection and taxation, like cigarettes and alcohol. Only then will "urban blacks" be able to acquire decent weed, even one joint at a time like the cigarettes (usually Kools) in counter cups in ghetto liquor stores.

Paul said...

"How many African Americans did yo see in those celebratory videos of dispensary openings all over youtube? "Legal" weed is a liberal whitey concept.

Weed, as purveyed in the black community on the street is low rate and is very likely to be contaminated with additives to give it a kick/buzz."


Where do you come up with this shit? Pot consumption in the black community is rampant and the weed is every bit as potent as anywhere else. I'm surrounded by potheads, white and black. Many of them grow their own, but regardless it's all very potent bud.

purplepenquin said...

The heart of the left wing agenda is control, totalitarianism. Pure and simple.

It is common knowledge that Nixon started this drug war, and Reagan ramped it waaaaaaay up. So how far to the extreme right does one have to be in order to view those two Presidents as "left wing"?


Seriously...like most other issues, this isn't about left/right but rather up/down. Looks like their "divide and conquer" plan is working as intended.

Paul said...

If the the left-right axis is to be understood as collectivism vs. individualism, statism vs. libertarianism, then drug prohibition is left wing.

In any case Nixon was far from right wing, in fact his policies were to a large degree a liberal's wet dream...OSHA, EPA, wage and price controls, etc.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Some law enforcement officials, alarmed at the prospect that marijuana users in both states could get used to flouting federal law openly, are said to be pushing for a stern response

Woah!!! can't have that! The proles just might get used to the idea that they can actually have free will and that maybe that Big Brother isn't all that he claims he is.

Better squash those uppity people who think that they can 'flout' the will of their betters.

garage mahal said...

So how far to the extreme right does one have to be in order to view those two Presidents as "left wing"?

They just make shit up as they go along. They don't even want non- Republicans to vote, freedom is the last thing on their minds.

Robert Cook said...

"If the the left-right axis is to be understood as collectivism vs. individualism, statism vs. libertarianism, then drug prohibition is left wing."

And if the left-right axis is to be understood as "bad vs. good, God vs. Satan, what I disapprove of vs. what I approve of," then everything bad that happens in the world is left wing, and all things good, right wing.

How convenient

Aridog said...

Paul ... So where is it that you live?

A.) You didn't answer my question, now did you?

B.)You be sure to get back to me when some pretty little weed dispensaries open up in urban ghettos.

C.) I didn't address weed potency per se, but I did say the street weed sold on corners by thugs is low rate because it is low rate ... it is not the stuff home grown by black or white folks...nor is it BC Bud... La'Ja'von and his Homie crew are going to sell the cheapest rank hemp shit they can...and goose it up with additives, and color it with food dye.

But you go on believing what you want.

ndspinelli said...

This is not merely liberal v conservative. Firstly, a lot of conservatives use cannabis. But the biggest tug are 2 of his groups. The classic boomer and young liberal v govt. employees who lose a LOT OF "BUSINESS" if cannabis is legal. It's not that hard to figure out.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

LMAO. Nixon was right wing? Both in his Big Government zeal and his control-freak paranoia he would be perfectly at home in today's Democrat party. And Purple, the conservatives I know have been slamming the War on Drugs for the last 30 years.

Robert Cook said...

"Nixon was right wing? Both in his Big Government zeal and his control-freak paranoia he would be perfectly at home in today's Democrat party."

Which just shows how far to the right the Democratic Party has moved in the intervening decades, and how much farther to the extreme John Birch Society right the Republican Party has moved. The one-time lunatic fringe embarrassments of the party are now the party whole.

Paul said...

I live in the Bay Area and play in Oakland all the time. Many of my black musicians buddies, if not most, smoke pot and most of them have medical MJ cards. None of them smoke imaginary dope laced with PCP or Dust or any other crap. It's all high grade Cali bud.

So where do you live and how close are YOU to the black community? I'm often the only white guy on stage and sometimes the only white face in the place. Places where I bet you'd be pretty nervous.

David said...

"It was the year Obama returned from Indonesia to Honolulu to live with his grandparents and go to prep school."

The lost boy.

No wonder he likes control.

purplepenquin said...

the conservatives I know have been slamming the War on Drugs for the last 30 years.

I know quite a few who have as well, but that would be fiscal conservatives rather than social. Yet since Obama has been elected even hard-core social conservatives, like Pat Robertson, are advocating for re-legalization of marijuana. (Which is a good thing, 'cause a lot of lefties that used to complain about the War on Drugs have suddenly gone silent)

It appears that most of the draconian laws/policies in this war have been enacted when the right is holding the reins (and yes, I understand that ya'll dismiss Nixon & Reagan as RINOS now-a-days, but they were the person chosen to represent right-wing values during their time) yet when we get a lefty President then the enforcement of those laws is vastly increased.(More tokers were arrested under Clinton than Bush-sr and Reagan added together; and Obama has set a record for the number of medical marijuana clinics that have been raided.)

Like I said before, this ain't a right/left issue at all...no matter how much some people try to paint it as such.

Aridog said...

Paul said...

I live in the Bay Area and play in Oakland all the time. Many of my black musicians buddies, if not most, smoke pot and most of them have medical MJ cards.

You live among mostly whites and visit black areas from time to time, right? In other words, gainfully employed blacks and whites in the music community. Not much ghetto in that. Several musicians I know, even the part timers, do weed too...and good stuff. They can afford it. Out of work Joe-Willy and De'Kisha living in section 8 abodes cannot.

So where do you live and how close are YOU to the black community?

Born and bred in Detroit, lived in Detroit in the Cass Corridor for a while when it was ghetto+ (no longer is Cass Ave a ghetto...gentrifying as we speak), then the northwest side...and now in eastern Dearborn few hundred yards from Detroit, on three sides, near Warren Ave...which gets about as ghetto as any place can anywhere east of Livernois. I can assure you that Ralph's Dope House at 23rd and Warren, where Malice Green was infamously killed, did not sell Cali Bud.

I live among dense minority populations, Arabic, bordered by African-American, and Mexican-Hispanic adjacent as well. If I counted them up, I suspect I know more Blacks, Mexicans, and Arabs than whites.

None of all that, provided because you asked, means Jack Squat. My knowledge of various types of weed was gained first hand...period.

Paul said...

Look at the record! Nixon enacted many leftwing policies. Wage and price controls?! Are you kidding?

Reagan was no rino, but he was wrong on drug prohibition. Right about most everything else and a great President.

David said...

A war on drugs would involve American troops in Mexico.

Not happening.

Paul said...

Looks like Aridope disappeared upon his bluff being called.

Bayoneteer said...

Off topic professor but did you know that UM has bought the property Crazy Jim's is located on and is evicting them? Another piece of old Ann Arbor bites the dust. Or is about to.

DADvocate said...

It is common knowledge that Nixon started this drug war, and Reagan ramped it waaaaaaay up. So how far to the extreme right does one have to be in order to view those two Presidents as "left wing"?

I'm talking about today and you want to argue about people who are dead and gone. There are a lot of people who say Obama is like Nixon though. Seems the extremes of left and right like control.

Of course, you approve of the left wing control, thus, don't want to talk about that.

BTW - Nixon convinced me to never vote for a Republican president. His divisive rhetoric was especially rhetoric. Clinton and Gore took up the divisive tactice, demagoguery the Dems have practiced since, and convinced me to change my mind.

n.n said...

Adjusting behavior (e.g. controlling drug consumption) and health care reform (e.g. entitlement, welfare) go hand in hand. You can't reasonably have one without the other.

People, in the slight majority, elected to a progressive exchange of liberty for submission with benefits.

What is worth noting, is that Americans (unlike Russians) welcomed a regressive outcome with full knowledge of its character. That is they voluntarily chose submission over liberty. There is a reason why mommy and daddy circumscribe their children's behavior and freedom.

I would laugh if I weren't also affected by this nonsense.

Liberty is only suitable for individuals capable of self-moderating behavior.

Or its corollary:

Only individuals capable of self-moderating behavior are eligible to enjoy liberty.

purplepenquin said...

Of course, you approve of the left wing control, thus, don't want to talk about that.

Do you have a habit of not actually reading entire posts before responding or are you just trolling for the sake of trolling? 'cause unless you're gonna claim that Obama and Clinton ain't "left wing" then I sure did talk it, and thought I made it clear that I do not approve.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A war on drugs would involve American troops in Mexico.

Not happening.


You sure about that?

Looks like some are even fighting for the cartels.

Steven said...

But such a response would raise political complications for President Obama because marijuana legalization is popular among liberal Democrats who just turned out to re-elect him.

Right, which is why they rallied around a challenger in the primaries, withheld donations, and credibly threatened to defect to the Greens, abandoning their efforts only after he promised to stop raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.

Oh, wait, no, that never happened.

DADvocate said...

Do you have a habit of not actually reading entire posts before responding

As a matter of fact, yes. Point taken. Your last paragraph puts you and I on the same page. I just pissed about having to explain my position on Nixon. Many say Obama is worse than Carter. I say his is worse than Nixon, just from the other side of the aisle.

Aridog said...

Paul said...

Looks like Aridope disappeared upon his bluff being called. 12/8/12 12:09 PM

You missed my response at 12:05 PM, eh?

You aren't calling any bluff, dude...you're addressing somebody who lives among minority folk, black, brown and in between. Only 10% of my local homies are white. And as for knowledge of bud, you're addressing someone who has dealt in the stuff in the inner city...not some alleged musician who buys with phony medical prescriptions from Tinkerbell iz Us Mother Nature Pharmacy and thinks he's adventure man if he goes in to black venues.

As I said earlier, you go on with you fantasy...I don't need one.

jungatheart said...

The war on drugs is about the money. Who profits from the prison industry, who profits from selling drugs, who profits in the making arrests and trying cases?

Paul said...

I did miss your post, but my experience is with a very black town and it is far more than occasional. It is where I play every week, and some of the places the only reason I'm there as a white man is because I'm highly regarded as a musician.

Sorry to hear in your shitty world you can't get good weed, but in California anyone can get a scrip, or buy it cheap. I don't smoke pot or drink booze, but in my line of work I'm around plenty of it. Maybe you should move so you can get a quality buzz on.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The Donks have moved to the right in the intervening decades? JFK would be considered a rabid right-wing extremist in today's Democrat party. The reality is that, though both parties use social issues to scare folks into voting, those horses have left the barn for good. Neither AK's or abortion are likely to be meaningfully limited in the foreseeable future. It's all about money now. Who pays it and who gets it.

Aridog said...

Paul....okay, my point was simply that ghetto people have little or no access to good weed. You can't get much "blacker" and poorer a town that Detroit....with some "islands" of relative wealth here and there...like the one my daughter lives in where lofts rent like penthouses.

The latter folk can afford the good stuff but they won't find it on the street corner or in some local boutique. My kid could care less as she neither drinks or tokes. She would appreciate a real grocery store some day rather than shopping wholesale in open air markets or 75 mile round trips to Costco.

My thinking is simply that these individual state and locality laws that contravene federal law are discriminatory. Only special people, of whatever hue, get to enjoy it.

Today, it means nothing to me personally. I no longer drink anything but an occasional cognac, quit smoking cigarettes, and dropped weed long ago.

In short, "legal weed" is a white thing, and maybe a black thing for those relatively well off. I still doubt that many truly poor blacks in Oakland can afford the good stuff. But I'd not know since I've not been there. California south of Santa Rosa gives me a rash :-)

Clyde said...

I quoted the lyrics for Lennon's "Gimme Some Truth" at length a while back in a thread about Obama's administration lying to us about Benghazi (and many other things). Funny how the cycle turns. The song complains about the politicians that Lennon didn't like at the time (who were conservatives) and yet the lyrics fit perfectly in describing the Obama administration.

You know, of course, that the phrase "money for rope" will be interpreted as racist by liberals...

Paul said...

Well Ari I think we just have different situations. There is so much plentiful cheap pot of good quality out here that even the poor people don't have to settle for shitty weed.

So at least we have good drugs and cheap consumer electronics as we blissfully march down the road to serfdom.

MadisonMan said...

Nixon was right wing? Both in his Big Government zeal and his control-freak paranoia he would be perfectly at home in today's Democrat party.

(and someone else writes)

JFK would be considered a rabid right-wing extremist in today's Democrat party.

So Nixon is now a Democrat, and Kennedy is a Republican.

Ho-kay.

Ann Althouse said...

KenK said..."Off topic professor but did you know that UM has bought the property Crazy Jim's is located on and is evicting them? Another piece of old Ann Arbor bites the dust. Or is about to."

No, I didn't know that, but did you know that I WORKED at Krazy Jim's one summer? Must have been 1972.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Nixon is to the left of the current Republican Party and Kennedy to the right of the current Democrat party. Nothing particularly surprising about that and entirely consistent with the political polarization on the country.

Robert Cook said...

"Nixon is to the left of the current Republican Party and Kennedy to the right of the current Democrat party."

Nixon is to the left of the current Republican Party, yes--which reflects badly on today's Republicans rather than particularly well on Nixon--but Kennedy--never remarkably a liberal, but a good talker, not unlike Obama, only far better and actually possessed of charisma--would be comparatively among the more liberal of today's Dems.