Beyond The Broken Spectrum

By: Russ Belville of NORML

I work this issue every day and am well aware of the racist nature of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs. But even I wasn’t aware of the outrageous statistics comparing the Drug War to Jim Crow era. Michelle Alexander lays it all out in her new book, The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste:

• There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently are at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population. (more…)

By Don Cooper, LewRockwell.com

My entire adult life I’ve felt the injustices imposed upon honest, hard-working individuals in our society: frivolous traffic tickets, lying politicians, extorted taxes for things we neither want nor need, abusive law enforcement and the like. I’ve always been passionate about these injustices but not actively so.

After spending nearly a decade abroad living and working in Europe I found myself returning to a country I didn’t recognize. I found it difficult to acclimate and integrate into this politically correct, socially abusive, statist society; a society that seemed to be desensitized to police abuse of all magnitudes. The prevailing attitude seems to be: if the cops have someone in custody then they must deserve it.

Almost immediately I was confronted with the abusive nature of the new state order: driving to get a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning in Syracuse, NY, I was pulled over for talking on my cell phone. Having only been in Syracuse for 3 months I had no reason to believe that such a law existed. Regardless the doughnut feeder pulled me from my car, patted me down in the street, and put me in his car while he ran my license and wrote out the citation. It was humiliating and I felt like a common criminal. (more…)

Former Law Enforcement Against Prohibition member Bradley Jardis has been removed from the organization due to his public stance that he would no longer arrest medical marijuana patients. Here is his announcement: (more…)

The Supreme Court of Minnesota on Thursday upheld the drunk driving conviction of a man caught asleep behind the wheel of a vehicle that would not start. At 11:30pm on June 11, 2007, police found Daryl Fleck sleeping in his own legally parked car in his apartment complex parking lot. The vehicle’s engine was cold to the touch, indicating it had not been driven recently. The keys were in the center console, not the ignition. Fleck admitted to having consumed around a dozen beers that night. Officers at the scene arrested him, and his blood alcohol level was found to be .18.

Laws covering driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) have evolved over the years to cover the situations where police find a parked, but recently driven, vehicle with a drunk behind the wheel. In the 1992 case Minnesota v. Starfield, the court found a drunk passenger sitting in a vehicle stuck in a ditch guilty of DUI, but not because it could prove she really was the one who drove and caused the accident. Instead, the court ruled that “towing assistance [was] likely available” creating the theoretical possibility that the immobile vehicle could “easily” be made mobile. These defendants have been charged under an expanded definition that suggests having “dominion and control” with the mere potential to drive is a crime. Intending to sleep off a night of drinking treated as the same crime as attempting to drive home under this legal theory which does not take motive into account. [Think about this: You're drunk. You get into your car in order to sleep off your condition so that you can be sober enough to drive later on—yet that's still considered drunk driving!!!]

As Fleck was an unsympathetic figure with multiple DUI convictions in his past, prosecutors had no problem convincing a jury to convict. The court took up Fleck’s case to expand the precedent to cover the case of mere presence in an undriven—and perhaps undrivable—car into the definition of drunk driving. The court relied on Fleck’s drunken claim that his car was operable to set aside the physical evidence to the contrary. [This has to be the first time in modern jurisprudence where eyewitness testimony holds more weight than the actual physical evidence!! Talk about setting a landmark precedent.]

In my previous article, I condemned the Supreme Court for their recent decision concerning Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I am now writing this article to inform my readers that I got that one wrong.

The constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This means that any person or group may not have their right to freedom of speech infringed upon, even if that individual’s or group’s choice of speech has a negative impact on anything, anywhere in the world. “One has to wonder if libel laws are unconstitutional, as well as the banning of cigarette ads, among other things.”

I feel that my outlook in my prior article was justified, and much of it I do still agree with, as we do seriously have a problem with special interests infecting and controlling our government. It is obvious that these types of organizations are causing harm, so naturally I reached for a government harness to handle the situation. I had some opposition out there to my viewpoint on the subject though, so I took some time to think about my position. I ended up coming to the realization that I was wrong about my initial reaction because the real problem originated with the government. The reason for this is because the government has given all of these special powers and privileges to these various groups which has given them an unfair advantage through government abuse of power.

As it stands, corporations have the same status as a living person, but little accountability when it comes to the people actually pulling the strings. There needs to be major reform to the corporate law to ensure that there is transparency and accountability behind that faceless corporation. They must be held to the same standards as individuals since they are legally a “person.” This is especially needed when it comes to political advertising, as transparency is of the utmost importance here in preserving and protecting our country.

There are also laws that have been written in their favor that make it hard for their competitors to compete or enter the market. The government has given both corporations and unions special deals when they pass laws that have pretty much ensured that the opposition is largely kept down and silenced. It made absolutely no sense to me after thinking about it that applying more government restrictions would do nothing but make matters worse, especially down the line as government would further abuse that power, since the government is the main factor at the core of the problem. The other problem, as stated in my previous article, is the voters that continuously vote for candidates that give these special favors. So the fact remains, many have no one but themselves to blame.

I have no doubt that many corporations and politicans cheered for the removal of this law because they see it as an opportunity to increase their stranglehold, and that some or even perhaps all of the judges voted that way for the same reasons, and not for the right reasons. These sort of politicians need their career’s ended, and all of these special priveleges that the government gives to these groups has to end. This all has to begin with the people voting out the career and status-quo politicians, and begin refusing the notion of choose between the lesses or two evils by voting in politicians that will not tolerate the corporatism that is engulfing and suffocating our government and economy. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings about my position on this case.

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling has now declared that corporations and unions have the same rights that people do, and will now be allowed to buy elections till their heart’s content. We need to give George Bush a big thank you for making this possible, as his two picks Roberts and Alito  helped to make up the majority ruling along with Kennedy, Thomas, and Scalia to sell we the people out. Short history lesson, Reagan put Kennedy and Scalia in, and Bush Sr. put Thomas on the court, so they deserve our thanks as well for this gracious gift of fascism.

The ruling now allows corporations and unions to finance their own political machines with unlimited amounts of special interest money to campaign for various candidates that will give them special kickbacks when they get into office, and against candidates that would deny government power to help prop up the special interest groups.

A dark period in history for the United States has now gotten even darker, as all three branches of government “four if you count the media”, has now given their stamp of approval in their blatant aid of fascism and corporatism all in their own ways. It is no longer the people who are deciding who gets into office, “in reality, they still are”, but the special interest groups who basically control the politicians because they have deeper pockets than the average person. This only further proves that more controls are needed to ensure our government has less power to enslave us, by setting term limits for all positions within government, including the Supreme Court.

Our country has been stolen from us with the help of the media, politicians, and the judicial system, all enabled by the voters who put them there. Its a sad truth, but the fact of the matter is that most people have no one to blame but themselves, as they take the easy way out and continue to vote for the status-quo politicians in hope that their vote for “the lesser of 2 evils” will eventually pay off and that by some miracle, the trash candidate that they voted for will actually represent their interest in liberty, which never happens. A quote from Albert Einstein defines this issue well “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Senator-elect Brown comes to mind here, where voters wanted something different, yet still voted for a guy that is prime status-quo material, and his horrid record proves it. There wasn’t much difference between him and Coakley, but one has to wonder how many people even saw this. Then there was Joe Kennedy, a true candidate of good change, who received death threats for his involvement in the race. People actually threatened to kill a man, the only candidate running in support of their liberty, so that another candidate that would suppress their liberties, could win. It is mind boggling that these people talk about achieving some real progress in taking our country back, but then turn around and elect more of the same.

Many people falsely believe that we live in a capitalist society, when the truth couldn’t be further from it. Corporatism and special interests thrive and make their dishonest living off the backs of Americans and people from other countries alike through the coercive power of the government. This is a severe problem, but one that cannot be fixed until another problem is addressed, the voters who put people in power that allow this to happen.

Edit: Please see my recent article concerning a reversal of my decision on this subject. This article may only be republished if it includes a clear reference to my second article.

Corporations are pitching a bizarre product — a radical vision of the 1st Amendment. It would give corporations rather than voters a central role in our electoral process by treating corporate political spending as protected speech. If this vision becomes reality, businesses and other big-money players will spend billions either hyping their preferred candidates or running attack ads against elected officials who don’t support their preferred agenda. Voters will be forced into a couch-potato role, mere viewers of the electoral spectacle bought and paid for by wealthy companies. Article continues at the L.A. Times

A United Arab Emirates sheikh was acquitted Sunday of charges connected to the videotaped beating and torture of an Afghan grain dealer.

Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the emirates’ ruling family, was charged with rape, endangering life and causing bodily harm in connection with the nearly three-hour long tape shot in 2004 in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf region.

Article at CNN

The woman, a Muslim of Pakistani descent, was celebrating her engagement to her 44-year-old boyfriend, and was allegedly attacked when she passed out in a hotel lavatory.

Despite approaching police about the attack, she was arrested after admitting to “illegal drinking” outside licensed premises as well as having sexual intercourse outside marriage. Her fiancé was also charged with the same offences.

Article at Telegraph

Thanks to Jeff for the link.

Article by Paul Craig Roberts of LewRockwell.com

Obama’s dwindling band of true believers has taken heart that their man has finally delivered on one of his many promises – the closing of the Guantánamo prison. But the prison is not being closed. It is being moved to Illinois, if the Republicans permit.

In truth, Obama has handed his supporters another defeat. Closing Guantánamo meant ceasing to hold people in violation of our legal principles of habeas corpus and due process and ceasing to torture them in violation of U.S. and international laws.

All Obama would be doing would be moving 100 people, against whom the U.S. government is unable to bring a case, from the prison in Guantánamo to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.

Are the residents of Thomson despondent that the US government has chosen their town as the site on which to continue its blatant violation of U.S. legal principles? No, the residents are happy. It means jobs. (more…)

Counterfeiting is becoming commonplace. Fortunately, nano threads, color-shifting inks, and even built-in windows are improving our currency.

Story at Fox News

Sticking it in his mouth wasn’t the right thing to do, and that is stupidity on his part. I don’t blame him though, as the government sought to punish him for committing a victimless crime. I blame the politicians enforcing prohibition for this man’s death. I also blame the police for failing to act properly here, as they taser him while he is struggling for air and clearly not a threat to anyone, and then improperly do the heimlich maneuver on him.

End the war on drugs, too many people have died due to morality laws, both innocent citizens and police alike.

As of Jan. 1 ordinary Czechs can grow up to five marijuana plants or have several marijuana cigarettes in their pockets without fear of criminal prosecution. Previously what constituted a small amount was not specified and the police and courts loosely interpreted the penal code case by case, often resulting in incarceration of home growers.

The government’s approval of a table specifying what amounts of drugs are permissible is a vital part of the country’s new penal code that was last year approved by both houses of parliament and in January of this year was signed into law by President Vaclav Klaus. Without the just-approved table of amounts that will be used by Czech police, the January decriminalization of the drug would be difficult to judge by courts and investigators.

The plant still remains illegal, however, though from the new year possession of five or less plants is merely a misdemeanour, and fines for possession will be on par with penalties for parking violations. Article at The Wall Street Journal

According to a Fox News article, a woman wanted in New Jersey for insurance fraud with a nationwide alert for her arrest was found to be working for the Department of Homeland Security in Georgia.

If only the US were like this. I don’t necessarily agree with the mandatory training and arming though. However I need more information before making a good speculation on the subject.