CRAZY LIKE A FOX. (NETWORK EXEC)

Fear, paranoia and division, that's what the Bush junta exudes from
every pore.

Despite the fact that they were on watch, despite the fact that they
have screwed the pooch numerous times on live TV, despite the fact
they have squandered hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, despite
the fact they have no plan to extricate us from this fiasco in Iraq,
they claim FEAR, huge hulking fear to be our only salvation.

As a 56 year old Texan, I've been watching little W for decades, (I
managed the audit which collapsed his second "oil company", Harken
energy), and I must warn you, "if his lips are moving... he's lying."

Terror runs rampant in America. People who make a nebulous choice as
to their intoxicants have suffered the same fate as "illegal
combatants" in the US for decades. Loss of freedom, loss of rights
and property, destruction of family and demonization follow closely on
the heels of a drug arrest.

Terror also strikes the soul of the citizenry through unnecessary
violence that visits our neighborhoods when the "dark side" of
prohibition raises its ugly head, seeking profits, locations and
decreased competition. A few days back we learned of another family
abducted, duct-taped and set for slaughter here in Houston. Luckily,
the mother and children escaped, but the father of the family was
found later, in a trash-strewn ditch, with at least 2 bullets in his
back. The police explained the situation by saying the death was
"narcotics related."

To accede that "narcotics" is the problem, is to proclaim that the
only solution ever to be found is to continue funding Osama and the
cartels and in arresting 1.6 million American citizens each year for
baggies of plant extracts, found in their possession.

When presented with the truth, the origins, the feigned science and
the lack of positives within the "morality" of drug war, perhaps 5% of
the general population, refuses to see that the drug war is a complete
fraud, an utter sham.

The biggest fear of this worried 5% is that, even if we manage to
basically control the distribution of "drugs" to only adults, that we
will then have many adults (to include the "worrier") that will become
somehow trapped by cocaine or heroin.

The worriers say they are worried about little Johnny and poor Suzie,
but mostly, they worry about their own proclivity to use. They are so
afraid they might wind up an alleyway junkie that they are perfectly
willing to lock up me and you and untold generations of our children
to protect themselves from themselves.

The politicians and the vast majority of US citizens have never looked
into the origins, the "science" and the "morals" of drug prohibition.
To the great relief of the cartels, violent gangs and street corner
vendors, the citizenry's knowledge remains "narcotics related".

In 1692, judges in Salem heard dozens of cases regarding witchcraft
and demonization in the Americas. The first to be tried was Bridget
Bishop of Salem who was promptly hanged after being found guilty. 19
others were hanged in the following weeks. One man was crushed and 17
others died in prison awaiting trial or execution. A belief in the
power of "witches" to use their invisible shapes to torture their
victims sealed the fates of those tried by the Court.

A belief in the destructive power of "drugs" is all that propels the
drug war along as well. Fear that drugs may somehow cause the
degeneration of our society and that these "evil potions" will possess
our loved ones is the "authority" by which "judges" like Oyer and
Terminer in 1692 and "judges" today, like Ashcroft and Walters
proclaim their mandate and moral supremacy to be paramount and their
desire to disrupt and destroy the lives of those using these herbs to
be necessary and in fact "God's will".

In this election season, when both sides proclaim the need for an
eternal war of terror, we should pause and reflect on the fact that we
began our war on those who possess "chemical weapons" long ago, on
December 17, 1914 with the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act.

We don't hang drug users, but we often destroy whole families, their
possibilities and prospects shot to hell forever by our tactics.

Witch, brujo, shaman, snake oil salesman, drug czar. what's the damned
difference?

DO SOMETHING to end the insanity of this drug war! Listen to the
"Unvarnished Truth" about the drug war on KPFT Radio 90.1 FM in
Houston and on the net at kpft.org Please visit DrugTruth.Net