| Columbia History Repeats Itself |
| So our country is spending another 1.3 BILLION to prop up Columbia in its war on drugs. Meanwhile Columbian citizens are begging the U.S. to stay out of there business. The military in Columbia will just use the extra firepower to murder more Columbian citizens. Complete villages have been wiped out numerous times by these corrupt paramilitary units. With the additional helicopters and money, rest assured that the body count will rise much faster. Columbia's biggest gross national product is cocaine. They can't afford to ever quit producing cocaine, but they must make an effort at eradication to appease the U.S. Government. Our Government agencies can't afford to end the drug war because they reap the BILLIONS of tax payer dollars annually to continue the fight. It is a very vicous cycle one that will never end unless the people of the U.S. demand change in policy. Commissions have studied this problem for years and always the conclusion is education and treatment. Even the conservative Rand Corporation agrees that education and treatment are the most effective means to cut drug use and save money at the same time, not Long Mandatory Minimum Sentences. No one mentions the fact that if drug prohibition was ended, the growers, smugglers, cartels, dealers, and robbers would all cease to exist, just as the Bootlegging Empires folded after the prohibition of alcohol ended. Street gang violence is a big issue. Drugs are illegal and make alot of money to finance gang activity, right? You want to disarm street gangs? Take away there main income. Addicts steal to buy drugs. Alcoholics don't have to steal because alcohol is cheap and most alcoholics can still maintain their jobs because their habit is inexpensive, but drug addicts have to spend hundreds of dollars a day or more depending on the drug of choice, and can't afford to work a regular job and have to revert to dealing, theft or prostitution, to support their illegal habit. As a result, many citizens that would not be criminals otherwise get caught up in the system. Would you feel right jailing people for alcohol use? Not drunk driving, but for simply for drinking? Our prisons are full of people that use drugs. They don't need prison, they need treatment. As I've said before, the drug war is the biggest lie our government has perpetrated against us in recent history. They say that drugs are our biggest threat, but yet 400,000 a year die from tobacco use, 100,000 a year from alcohol use, and only 6000 a year from all illicit drug use. Almost all of the drug deaths are from heroin overdoses, because illicit heroin varies in quality, which can result in overdoses. Rusty |
| "If You Give Up a Little Freedom for a Little Security, You Don't Deserve Either" Ben Franklin This is one of the problems with this drug war. Our Congress is continually voting in new laws that are eroding the Constitution to the point that it doesn't resemble what it used to be. Our forefathers would start another revolution to reclaim out lost rights if they were here today. I don't agree with the way our government has used drugs as a scapegoat to build up the prison industrial complex, at the expense of our liberty, and locked up 2 million people in the process. Demonizing drugs is the way they have gotten away with it, but in actuality, the two deadlyist drugs, that kill more people annually, are alcohol & tobacco. People like yourself can make a difference, vote for the new guys on the block. Green Party or Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party is against Helmet Laws, Drug Prohibition, etc. This election won't be won by our people, this time, but by supporting upcoming Representatives and Congressmen from these parties, we will build the power in numbers that are needed to win in the future. Probably not in 2004, or 2008, but it will eventually happen! Urge your friends to get involved. Rusty |
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| Colombian voters reject Plan Colombia The big losers in late-October's state and municipal elections in Colombia were that nation's president Andr�s Pastrana - whose party lost all 30 state governorships - and the US officials who imposed the $1.3 billion dollar "Plan Colombia" military intervention. The Colombian people, on October 29, 2000, soundly rejected Plan Colombia, as new parties and coalitions surged forward to take half the nation's states from both leading political parties - Conservative and Liberal - in a nation that for 40 years has had a US-style two-party system. Civil society, the power of the people, has stepped forward in Colombia to assert itself against the two political parties that have dominated that nation for four decades. What will probably not be noted in the US press is the main difference between Colombia's 1997 state and municipal elections and those held on Sunday, October 29, 2000. In 1997 the guerrilla movement boycotted the elections. This year, they announced they would not interfere. And the right wing fell into the abyss of the ballot box. What did happen in October's elections in Colombia? According to the daily El Espectador of Bogot� (10/30/00, and thanks to NarcoNews translation): The steep fall of the Conservative Party (interpreted by some analysts as a punishment against the government of President Pastrana), the rise of an indigenous candidate to the Governorship of Cauca, the arrival of a shoe-shine man on the city council of Bogot�, the protest of the independent vote in the Colombian capitol and the punishment of the liberal party in Antioquia, are the most significant aspects in yesterday's regional and local elections. The headlines from the daily El Tiempo of Bogot� (10/30/00) repeated the same: Conservativism: the Great Loser in the Elections The main loser in these elections was the Conservative Party The Independents are those who won the most terrain. Coalitions are becoming more and more necessary. Adding flavor to the new political possibilities is the election of the Indigenous Governor of Cauca, Floro Tunubal�, whose platform of governing is notable in its critique of "Plan Colombia" and in favor of manual (not chemical) eradication of illicit crops. The entire South of the country could generate a contradictory dynamic, between the plans of the President, the insurgency and paramilitaries, and platforms of the new governors, say other reports coming out of Colombia. Is this the moment to say that President Andr�s Pastrana has lost all legitimacy in Colombia because he sold out to Washington? According to NarcoNews reports, Pastrana's position was weakened considerably on Election Day relative to the guerrilla forces. Though under-armed, the guerrilla in the first weeks of Plan Colombia has won more military battles than it has lost, and the Armed Forces have suffered more casualties than the guerrilla. A negotiated peace is the only way out. In sum, here is the situation: The Colombian people have rejected the policy of drug war militarization pushed by Washington and accepted by Pastrana. The majority of Colombians have cast their votes: No to Plan Colombia. Regionally, the political left surged in October's municipal elections in Brazil. The US-imposed drug war - for its hypocrisy, its damage to the environment, to human rights, and to democracy - is losing ground in Central and South America every day. There is no justice in the war on drugs. Thanks to NarcoNews.Com and Al Giordano for this story. |
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