TRANSCRIPT: AL GIORDANO VISITS THE DRUGSENSE CHAT ROOM

Al_Giordano: Hello América!

laurence: Good day to you Al and thanks for being available to join us here.

laurence: read some of the narcnews pages today earlier and found it most
interesting. Congratulations on your patience and perseverance.

Dean_Becker: Hi Al, great to see you.

Kkraig: High Al

laurence: Small first question if I may...were you doing much of the
central America stuff in Spanish??

Al_Giordano: Hi Laurence, I do try to speak the language of the home team
wherever I am. Tonight it's English, right?

laurence: Yes, this is true however often times you can have fun telling
people that we are all speaking another language....just for the fun of
breaking the ice...

laurence: Mentioned the Spanish to give us a good understanding how much
more effectively you could succeed by being closer with their native tongue.

Richard_Lake: Welcome, Al Giordano, to the DrugSense Chat Room!

Dean_Becker: Al, it's great to hear about the movement within the
legislatures and governors offices, what does the populace think, are they
forcing these moves?

Al_Giordano: This being a globalized world, I caught Judge James Gray on
CSPAN2 today - great to see him on TV promoting the cause

Al_Giordano: When I started narconews.com in April 2000, one of the main
points was that Latin Americans...

Al_Giordano: don't have the same illusions that many US citizens (present
company excepted) have about the war on drugs...

Al_Giordano: there is no consensus in favor of drug prohibition in
Colombia, and probably never has been...

Al_Giordano: almost nobody feels that governments are sincere about
combating drug abuse...

Al_Giordano: folks see it as an easy money corruption source and a pretext
to persecute political movements...

bob: Al do you think Florida or anywhere else should get away with
Involuntarily pumping stomachs as a means to obtain evidence then convict
for felony possession and felony tampering charges?

Al_Giordano: Bob, of course the State should not have a right to your stomach.

pedro: *AL* you're an inspiration... question, what is Anne Patterson's
background?

Al_Giordano: Pedro, Ambassador Patterson is fairly new in Colombia, about a
year on the job

pedro: AL, where did she come from, background?

Al_Giordano: I don't have a full dossier on Patterson. But It does bear
further investigation

Al_Giordano: I can tell you she is not a Colombian citizen, but she seems
to want to tell Colombians how to run their country

Al_Giordano: when we consider that a stated US foreign policy aim is
"strengthening democracy"...

Al_Giordano: her behavior is abhorrent

huangpo: Al, what are your thoughts on how mainstream media here in the US
is influenced by the US govt and/or corporate interests? Does it happen? Is
there a litmus test to know who is authentic or not?

Al_Giordano: Huangpo, for example, independent and honest journalists can't
even get access to most US officials...

Al_Giordano: as for US correspondents in Latin America or anywhere abroad,
their editors instruct them to have "access"

Al_Giordano: so it is self defeating, from the standpoint of authentic
journalism...

Al_Giordano: then there is the tired old chestnut that "no accusation is
publishable unless confirmed by official sources"

Al_Giordano: but if you are an authentic journo, you have to investigate
these same officials who the home office wants you to keep as sources

Al_Giordano: in the commercial media, the days of Watergate-era
investigative reporting are over

Al_Giordano: it's just not allowed, although they pose a lot to seem as if
they do it...

laurence: still tricky stuff though to get the real info and then get out
to the public.

pedro: *AL* but don't you think the public is more skeptical in general,
thanks to Watergate investigation??

Al_Giordano: yes, the public is not stupid, pedro, thank goodness

Lindy: AL: I'm Canadian. Where do you think we should focus our attention
in helping Colombia? The UN? The USA? The World courts?

Al_Giordano: Lindy, if Canada keeps moving toward harm reduction and drug
policy reform, that is the best way to help Colombia or Latin America...

Al_Giordano: the problem is caused by domestic prohibition policies that
drive the price up of, in Colombia's case, cocaine

huangpo: Al, have you heard of RSS (RDF Site Summary)? It is a technology
that can help spread the word about your reports by automatically notifying
RSS aggregators that a new story has been posted. Are you interested? I'm
thinking about volunteering my time to make this happen for you.

Al_Giordano: huangpo, please send me an email about it at
narconews@hotmail.com - I am interested, want to hear more

Al_Giordano: back to the issue of the press: Did anyone see our report on
Juan Forero of the NY Times this week?

stv: i was just reading that

stv: so is he trying to be a little anslinger wannabe?

Dean_Becker: I saw it Al, kinda makes you wonder.

Al_Giordano: Forero did an interview with mercenary pilots in Plan Colombia...

Al_Giordano: but he didn't disclose in his Times story that a US Embassy
official was in the room during the "interviews"...

Al_Giordano: still, he called it a "casual roundtable discussion" - funny
idea he has of "casual" with the boss eavesdropping...

Al_Giordano: By the way, the mention of that Forero story in the Drug Sense
Weekly newsletter was much appreciated

pedro: impressive ( sad to say ) that the AP reporter disclosed this

Al_Giordano: Pedro, interesting point. The NY Times beat AP by a day on the
story, even though both were in on same interview...

Al_Giordano: and I wonder whether, perhaps, the Times jumped the gun on an
agreed upon deadline and thus the payback

Al_Giordano: because, as we know, AP is no shrine to authentic journalism
either in our America

"g": Al games, they play games with the truth, yet we read and believe.

pedro: *AL* also, whose pocket is AP in?

Al_Giordano: in answer, AP is run by something called the AP Managing
Editors Association...

Al_Giordano: it is a nonprofit corporation, actually, which surprises a lot
of people...

Al_Giordano: the newspapers that subscribe to AP elect a board of directors...

Al_Giordano: these newspapers include the NY Times but also hundreds of
others..

Al_Giordano: but, basically, it is the same demographic gang that edits
your hometown daily newspaper, times a few hundred of em

Al_Giordano: so the coverage at AP is not as centralized through powerful
editors as that at the NY Times...

Al_Giordano: more real news sneaks through AP / the control system is not
as hard

Al_Giordano: still, we see what happened in Bolivia with AP correspondent
of 18 years Peter McFarren...

Al_Giordano: where one guy controls the English language news from an
entire country...

Al_Giordano: and he falls into an arrogance and abuse of power...

Al_Giordano: and if not for the Internet, he'd still be there!

Al_Giordano: but the Internet gives us, as citizen-journalists, the ability
to bypass these control systems

Al_Giordano: Now, the NY Times is a much more centralized operation...

Al_Giordano: especially the International Desk at the Times...

Al_Giordano: for years, one guy, Andrew Rosenthal, ran it like a fiefdom...

Al_Giordano: he's the son of the ex timesman Abe Rosenthal, one of Bill
Bennett's best friends

pedro: yikes, re: Bennett!!

huangpo: yeow

Al_Giordano: he also came out of the Washington Bureau

Al_Giordano: Rosenthal is, in my opinion, a nefarious force on the Times'
international coverage

Al_Giordano: you can read a recent interview with him by Cynthia Cotts of
the Village Voice, in which he reveals his agenda

pedro: fyi all: I believe this is the link re: analysis of NYT
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0133/cotts.php ( from AG's earlier reference
re: Village Voice )

Al_Giordano: The interesting question now is whether the new editor at the
NY Times, H. Raines, will clean shop at International desk or not

FatFreddy: Al: How does the internet effect the newspapers in this world?
Like mapinc has done.

Al_Giordano: FatFreddy, I can tell you one way that Mapinc has definitely
caused more accountability among many news outlets...

Al_Giordano: simply by archiving their articles, it is harder for the press
to hide its mistakes

Al_Giordano: you can go to MAPinc's search engines and type in the name of
any reporter, and, viola!, there is his or her work on the drug war!

Al_Giordano: I do that with all these Latin American correspondents. Helps
me keep tabs on em

Al_Giordano: Whereas, at many newspaper websites, they pull the archives
down after a week, or limit access to people with credit cards

Al_Giordano: the key with the Internet, I think, is to do what MAP, DRCnet
and others have done, which is keep it simple and low budget

Al_Giordano: the dot.com explosion imploded because too many internet sites
were profit oriented. Now, only the low budget sites are surviving

Jo-D: AL, are all American papers pretty much the same? any standout in
your mind?

Al_Giordano: Jo-D, with the proviso that none of the US dailies are all
that super, I do think that...

Al_Giordano: the LA Times and the Washington Post, in that order, are
giving fairer coverage than the NY Times...

Al_Giordano: the Texas papers are pretty obnoxious when it comes to Mexico
and Latin America...

Al_Giordano: the recent series in the Houston Chronicle on the FARC was
pure myth and garbage

Al_Giordano: one of the Chron stories was titled "Is FARC a drug cartel"...

Richard_Lake: Actually, Al, I agree on the reporting. OTOH, the drift of
the editorials and columns in general has been in our direction over the
last couple of years. No major daily questioned the WOD five years ago.
Many, if not most, do today. The Denver Post for the first time questioned
it seriously just a couple of days ago. Progress, IMHO!

Al_Giordano: a "cartel" is an organization that fixes the price and
controls or monopolizes a particular product...

Al_Giordano: like OPEC or the Seven Sister Oil Companies do with oil...

Al_Giordano: since the FARC guerrilla is not on the sales, marketing or
delivery end of cocaine at all...

Al_Giordano: and it's main connection is simply in protecting the farmers
who grow coca and taxing them (along with farmers who grow anything, like
bananas)..

Al_Giordano: the question of whether it is a "cartel" is deceiving

Al_Giordano: even the grand Mexican "cartels" are not cartels. They are
more like Teamsters or middlemen...

Al_Giordano: the price is set by government prohibitionist and enforcement
targeting priorities...

Al_Giordano: thus, if you referred to "the Potomac Cartel" you would be
closer to using the word correctly

Al_Giordano: so why then did the Houston Chron float that question?

Al_Giordano: for propaganda purposes. Watch the language, the scapegoating
language on drug war stuff, or any war...

Al_Giordano: the press uses words like "druglords" or "kingpins" etc. for
stigmatizing reasons...

Al_Giordano: See Thomas Szasz's fantastic book, "Ceremonial Chemistry: The
Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts and Pushers"...

pedro: much like "marijuana".... as a word itself!!!

Al_Giordano: yes, pedro, I think everyone here knows that marijuana was the
"mexicanization" of good ol american hemp...

Al_Giordano: it was meant to play into anti-Mexican sentiment...

Al_Giordano: and here we are in the year 2001, after so many decades of
civil rights struggles, and they still continue with this propaganda game

pedro: did the chair of the NY Stock Exchange actually visit the FARC last
year, was this reported in any mainstream print?

Al_Giordano: Pedro, yes the president of the NY Stock Exchange did visit
the FARC last year...

Al_Giordano: the FARC is a problem for Wall Street. Anybody care to
speculate as to why before I state my opinion?

Ginger: Ummm.... because FARC isn't taking or spending investment outside
of their own economy?

"g": because they could destroy the control that is on SA now. thereby
loosening there plan to strip it of value

Al_Giordano: as said earlier, the FARC collects a tax on the coca farmers,
and it adds up to a lot of money...

Al_Giordano: but unlike the "favored" or "permitted" channels of drug
trafficking that invest their profits in banks and money laundering...

Al_Giordano: fast money that goes back into the Wall Street economy...

Al_Giordano: the FARC invests it in Colombia, among the peasant base...

pedro: vs. investing in the Casino economy!

Ginger: Al, so the peasants like FARC (not across the board, I'm sure, but
... you know what I mean)

Al_Giordano: of course, the FARC also buys arms with that money, I'm not
saying it's 100 percent charity - it's an armed insurgent organization...

Al_Giordano: but another thing that distinguishes the FARC from others in
the drug business is that the FARC is in favor of legalization of drugs...

Al_Giordano: which might be its ultimate crime as far as Washington was
concerned...

Ginger: So what happens to FARC after legalization?

Al_Giordano: well, on the one hand, there is no more big money to be made
off protecting coca after legalization...

Al_Giordano: and on the other hand, peaceful social movements by labor,
environmental, student, human rights, and other causes in Colombia...

Al_Giordano: will be able to fight peacefully without the constant threat
of being framed on drug charges by a corrupt police and military state...

Al_Giordano: there's an interview I did with an exiled Colombian
journalist, Alfredo Molano, I'll give you the URL here...

Al_Giordano: http://www.narconews.com/exiled.html

Ginger: I understand that various rebel forces are already pre-empting
official local governments around the countryside. Is that true? How
widespread?

Al_Giordano: one thing about a guerrilla movement, it does not need money
to succeed...

Al_Giordano: and a guerrilla is only made necessary when the paths are
closed to peaceful struggle...

pedro: but, for weapon??

Al_Giordano: weaponry does not win revolutions. the rebels are always outgunned

Al_Giordano: even in peaceful movements, like the drug policy reform
movement in the US, we will never have the resources that the adversary has...

Al_Giordano: but that is no barricade against victory. All successful
social movements come from behind and from below.

pedro: yeah for peaceful struggle, ala Gandhi

allan: so, there is a similarity between us here and FARC eh?

Al_Giordano: Yes, Allan. Although the tactics are different, both have come
to the conclusion that the prohibition must be ended

Ricardo: Hi Al. How much did the media in Mexico say about the recent
legalisation proposals from democratic Colombian and South American
institutions?

Al_Giordano: Ricardo, I have not yet seen anything in the Mexican press
about the Colombian proposals this week. Have you?

Ricardo: None, but I am not a good newspaper reader.

Al_Giordano: give it a few days. The Mexican press is in general a big
Narco News reader, seriously. Our stuff gets picked up all the time in Mexico.

pedro: *AL* are you familiar w/ your fellow muckraker, Greg Palast, of the
London Observer... he, like you, seems to be a target of the corporate
imperialists.

Al_Giordano: Pedro, Greg Palast came to our Narco News defense party in New
York last April. He's a great guy...

Al_Giordano: he wrote a story on the stealing of the Florida elections and
mentioned a mining company...

Al_Giordano: the mining company was a very small part of his story, which
was published in the Guardian of London...

Al_Giordano: the Guardian of London is a progressive and good newspaper,
but still a commercial venture...

Al_Giordano: and rather than fight the lawsuit by the mining company, the
Guardian folded its tent and took Greg's entire article down off their
website...

Al_Giordano: which supports the idea of staying small - here we are, little
puny narco news, still standing up to the billionaires suing us...

Al_Giordano: whereas the big London daily had to settle, and free speech
loses when we surrender these battles

Ginger: `Course, it's not possible to sustain a huge, multinational
enterprise without exclusionary regulation by force of law.

Al_Giordano: that is why, Ginger, I think "small is beautiful" when it
comes to a political movement...

Al_Giordano: If we are an ever evolving bunch of local and small groups,
they can't get us all

Al_Giordano: the worst thing for, say, the drug policy reform movement
would be to become monolithic, all part of the same institution...

BigBong: which they are we talking about?

Al_Giordano: BigBong, it is the proverbial "them," the they of POWER

BigBong: understand, that al

BigBong: but they are as hard to pin down as is who we are

Ginger: Them folks who hate plants, all plants it seems. These days, them
others seem to have it in for citrus trees. Can you IMAGINE!

"g": we are close now. Al. all the lawyers are fighting. both sides went to
same school

Al_Giordano: I do think, G, that we are very close to breakthroughs, big
ones, on drug policy...

Amanda: That is very interesting, Mr. Giordano...about not becoming
monolithic. Many people think we should get together and be stronger under
one organization.

Al_Giordano: I feel more like Groucho Marx, Amanda, "I would never belong
to a club that would have me for a member."

Al_Giordano: I don't belong to any organizations. That doesn't mean I don't
work in concert with people or even organizations on specific projects...

Al_Giordano: it just means that I'm not so ready to sign up for duty with
anyone, even my friends...

Al_Giordano: nor should my friends do everything I tell them to do!

Ginger: I want no credit for your accomplishments and no blame for your
mistakes.

Amanda: So you think that being sort of all over the place like we
are....is a strength?

Al_Giordano: yes, Amanda, a great strength

Al_Giordano: Well, I'll take a few more questions/comments and then Mrs.
Narco News wants me to watch the Madonna tour on HBO.

pedro: *AL* it seems the attempts of the US gov't/corporate PR is to
substitute cocaine for communism..... the public seems to be pretty
skeptical in general, I hope/don't think the US portrayal will work... your
thoughts?

Al_Giordano: Yes, Pedro, Drug War is a Cold War metaphor, refried

Dean_Becker: Al, would you place any beats on the upcoming bout between
Gov. Johnson and Rabid Hutch in Sept?

Al_Giordano: Dean, in Vegas the odds are with Johnson

allan: Al- is the US, is the "Potomac Cartel" intentionally ignoring
Jennifer Odom and her crew's deaths?

Al_Giordano: Allan, the Jennifer Odom story is terrifying. And it may be
related to the Charles Hiett story, that of "Colonel Cocaine"

Al_Giordano: Salon.com has done excellent work on the Odom story. Do a
search on Salon for Odom.

Al_Giordano: My opinion is that Odom's plane, in Colombia, was shot down...

Ginger: Allan, it was on the local news here a few times (Jennifer Odom is
the rap star who crashed off the Bahamas, right?) Was that a shoot-down?

Al_Giordano: the interesting question is whether certain higher ups sent it
on a mission and may have alerted the shooters in advance

Al_Giordano: In fact, I recommend that folks speak with Jennifer's family
and widower

Al_Giordano: they have pretty strong opinions on it

pedro: why did they target her??

Al_Giordano: I don't know, Pedro. Fact is her superior was laundering drug
money and covering for his wife's coke dealing.

Amanda: It's such an honor to speak with you, Mr. Giordano. I have the
greatest admiration for your bravery in doing all that you do to undo the
injustice of the WOD. Thank you, so much.

Jo-D: al, thanx so much for all you do!

allan: Yeah, thanks mucho Al

huangpo: Thanks, Al. You are truly a hero.

Al_Giordano: well, shucks, thanks to everyone, I think you're cool too

Al_Giordano: well, okay, thanks everyone. You've been a lot nicer than
Connie Chung! Hope I've been more frank than Condit!

pedro: yeah, thanks Al.... *AL* and all, have you heard this PsycOps bs?
Washington Post Service Coming soon: A new drama series takes a close-up
look at an elite U.S. agency and the dedicated men and women who hunt
deadly terrorists and treacherous criminals. The new show is on CBS. It's
also on NBC. And ABC. And Fox

Al_Giordano: Pedro, did you know that the new TV series, "The Agency" or
something like that, about the CIA...

Al_Giordano: passes its scripts to CIA officials before airing them?

Al_Giordano: That was in the NY Times Arts and Liesure section today

Al_Giordano: the Times hailed it as, like, hey, cool, it's authentic.
Didn't even raise the obvious censorship issues

Al_Giordano: anyways, if I haven't responded well enough to anyone, please
email me at narconews@hotmail.com - I gotta go now

Al_Giordano: hasta la victoria siempre...

Al_Giordano: from somewhere in a country called AmErica...

Al_Giordano: thanks everybody for your time. Al