Maria Full of Grace

[natedogg]

I watched this movie tonight and I thought it was a nice subtle, yet comprehensive critique of the USA's obscene drug war. If you're not furious about the drug war yet, you're just uninformed.

Overall it was a good film. It was a little slow and needed some editing, but enjoyable and succeeded in excoriating an American policy without turning into sheer whiny vitriol against America in general. That's hard to do, and lots of critics fail to avoid that trap, but this film did it well.

Also, Columbia appears to be some kind of hell hole, and the blame obviously lies squarely with us, the americans. It makes me sick. I feel better about invading Iraq than I do about what we've done to Columbia.


I will never, ever, as long as I live, vote for any candidate who doesn't fully endorse abandoning the insane drug war.

natedogg

[ QUOTE ]
I watched this movie tonight and I thought it was a nice subtle, yet comprehensive critique of the USA's obscene drug war. If you're not furious about the drug war yet, you're just uninformed.

Overall it was a good film. It was a little slow and needed some editing, but enjoyable and succeeded in excoriating an American policy without turning into sheer whiny vitriol against America in general. That's hard to do, and lots of critics fail to avoid that trap, but this film did it well.

Also, Columbia appears to be some kind of hell hole, and the blame obviously lies squarely with us, the americans. It makes me sick. I feel better about invading Iraq than I do about what we've done to Columbia.


I will never, ever, as long as I live, vote for any candidate who doesn't fully endorse abandoning the insane drug war.

natedogg

[/ QUOTE ]

I took this stand, and then I realized that I would like to see a voting booth once in my life.

[gamblore99]

I haven't seen this movie. But I know nothing on the drug war. Anyone care to share some knowledge or a link here?

[IronDragon1]

I have not the slightest idea as to whether or not this is sarcasm but here you go

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I will never, ever, as long as I live, vote for any candidate who doesn't fully endorse abandoning the insane drug war.

Welcome to the Libertarian Party [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[canis582]

www.drcnet.org read the weekly newsletter weekly.

Many people don't realize how the money from the war on drugs corrupts our local police.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The War on Drugs has screwed up people far worse than the drugs themselves.

[raisins]

If I could change any aspect of policy in the U.S., ending the drug war would far and away be my choice. Charles Bowden has written some great books on the subject. This quote is from _Down by the River_:

"Drugs are a business, one of the largest on the face of the earth, and this business exists for two reasons: the products are so very, very good and the profits are so very, very high. Nothing that creates hundreds of billions of dollars of income annually and is desired by millions of people will be stopped by any nation on this earth. A Mexican study by the nation's internal security agency, CISEN (Centro de Investigacion y Seguridad Nacional), that has been leaked to the press speculates that if the drug business vanished, the U.S. economy would shrink 19 to 22 percent, the Mexican 63 percent.(1) I stare at these numbers and have no idea if they are sound or accurate. No one can really grapple with the numbers because illegal enterprises can be glimpsed but not measured. In 1995 one Mexican drug-trafficking expert guessed that half the hotel room revenues in his country were frauds, meaning empty rooms counted as sold in order to launder drug money.(2)

page 3

Citations

(1) "The Importance of the Drug Trade in the Mexican Economy," El Diario de Juarez, June 25, 2001.

(2) Todd Robberson and Douglas Farah, "Mexican Cartels Expanding Role in Trafficking," Washington Post, March 12, 1995.

I will leave such aspects of the drug war as larger federal bureaucracies, militarized police forces, mandatory minimums, civil forfeiture, and the effect on other countries, particularly Mexico, Columbia and Peru, to your research.

I think the chance of any change in our drug policy to be slight. Despite the criticism over Iraq I don't see the neoconservatives as having been weakened all that badly. Their position can be summed up as strong government, socially conservative, and a foreign policy that favors engagement in the affairs of other countries. Ending the drug war is not in alignment with any of these.

regards,

raisins

[HDPM]

Article HERE

[Indiana]

I also saw this movie and was very disturbed. Perhaps us americans should think before using coke. Funny thing is, I spent time in Colombia as a kid and found it to be very wealthy. The Bogota airport is full of educated people walking around with american dollars to spare. If you wanna see a real poor and dangerous hell hole, go next door to Venezuela....talk about a disorganized culture and country.

Indy