home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter Blood Diamonds: the Inside Story An amazing expose by T.R. Naylor: How the "Blood" or "Conflict Diamonds" Myth peddled by NGOs Helped a Vicious Mining Company Shore Up Its Monopoly, Made a Pile of Money for A Washington Post Reporter and Leonardo di Caprio, Served As A Propaganda Myth in the "War on Terror" and had Nothing to Do With Osama Bin Laden. Pinochet is gone, and the world is a cleaner place. JoAnn Wypijewski recalls 1988 in Santiago, when Chile lost its fear. And yes, here they are in charge of Congress again, ready to facilitate a troop hike in Iraq. Alexander Cockburn re-introduces an old acquaintance: the Democrats--Party of War. Remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year Remember: You Only Have a Few More Days to Make a Year End & Tax Deductible Contribution to CounterPunch!
Today's Stories December 30 / 31, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Tariq Ali Paul Craig Roberts Douglas Valentine Brian M. Downing Nick Dearden Missy Beattie Dan La Botz
Norman Finkelstein John Borowski Abid Mustafa Greg Moses Uri Cohen Bailly / Caudron
/ Lambert Website of
the Day
December 28, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Anthony Cowell John Ross Hilaria Cruz Greg Moses Brittany Bond Website of
the Day
December 27, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Faruq Ziada Christopher Brauchli Michael Ortiz
Hill Nikolas Kozloff Mark Schneider
Peter Stone
Brown Tito Tricot Gary Leupp John V. Walsh Reza Fiyouzat Ron Jacobs Website of
the Day
Saul Landau Lang / McGovern Michael Dickinson Website of
the Day
Marjorie Cohn Jeffrey L.
Gould Diane Christian William Loren
Katz Greg Moses M. Shahid Alam Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Azmi Bishara Ralph Nader Seth Sandronsky William Hughes Ron Jacobs Jeffrey St.
Clair
December 22, 2006 David Rosen Christopher
Brauchli John Ross J.L. Chestnut,
Jr. Rahul Mahajan Arthur Neslen Peter Rost, MD Website of
the Day
Rosa Mariam
Elizalde Arundhati Roy Brian Cloughley Daniel White John V. Whitbeck Sam Smith Paris Reidhead Kevin Wehr Website of the Day
Gabriel Kolko Winslow T.
Wheeler Tariq Ali Saree Makdisi Bruce Jackson Dave Lindorff Leslie Radford Dave Jansson Johnny Barber Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn Jonathan Cook Greg Moses Sean Penn Dave Lindorff Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Carlos Villarreal Website of
the Day
Luis J. Rodriguez Norman Solomon Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Phil Gasper Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi William Blum Jim Goodman James Brooks Maria C. Khoury Website of the Day
Vijay Prashad Saul Landau Anthony Arnove Paul Cantor Annie Nocenti Nicole Colson Stephen Gowans Jordan Flaherty Fred Gardner P. Sainath Seth Sandronsky Nadia Hijab Deb Reich Susie Day Albert Wan Missy Beattie Martha Rosenberg Lee Ballinger Michael Dickinson Jeffrey St.
Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
December 15, 2006 Eliza Ernshire Virginia Tilley Mike Ferner John Ross Fred Wilhelms Kevin Zeese David Severn Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor Website of
the Day
December 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook Riz Khan Jason Hribal Pennick / Gray Richard Levins Pat Williams Peter Rost, MD Website of
the Day
December 13, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Greg Moses Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank Debra Eschmeyer Leon Hadar Peter Rost, MD Margaret Knapke Reza Fiyouzat Fred Wilhelms Website of
the Day
Fernando A.
Torres Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen Soldz Uri Avnery William S. Lind Missy Beattie Dave Lindorff George Pyle Norman Solomon Website of
the Day
December 11, 2006 Virginia Tilley Roger Burbach Col. Douglas MacGregor Fawwas Traboulsi Ron Jacobs Gideon Levy Mary McGrane Bernardo Ruiz Website of the Day Video of the
Day
December 9
/ 10, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Sen. Gordon Smith Greg Grandin
Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Rev. Willliam Alberts James T. Phillips Bennis / Leaver Dave Lindorff Nikolas Kozloff Seth Sandronsky Lucinda Marshall Mike Whitney John V. Whitbeck Faisal Kutty Hugh Sansom Robert Gold Boots Riley Jeffrey St.
Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Leutisha Stills Norman Finkelstein Will Youmans Peter Rost, MD Jonathan Demme Ray McGovern Lucinda Marshall Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn Website of
the Day
December 7, 2006 Alex Friedman Maureen Webb Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal Yifat Susskind Rodriguez / Jones Website of
the Day
Robert Bryce
William S. Lind Zoe Blunt Corporate Crime Reporter Amira Hass Richard W. Behan Sophie McNeill
Virginia Tilley Sharon Smith Joe Bageant Ron Jacobs Norman Solomon Mike Whitney Derrick O'Keefe Julian Assange Missy Beattie Website of
the Day
December 4, 2006 Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Ray McGovern John Ross Walden Bello Peter Rost,
MD Stephen Lendman Gideon Levy Website of the Day
December 2
/ 3, 2006 Barucha Calamity
Peller Paul Craig
Roberts Ralph Nader Winslow T.
Wheeler Amira Hass Maymanah Farhat Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner Col. Dan Smith Raed Jarrar Seth Sandronsky K.-Y. Taylor Yifat Susskind David Rosen Ron Jacobs Nikolas Kozloff Talli Nauman Alan Gregory Joe Allen St. Clair /
D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
December 1, 2006 Greg Grandin Linn Washington,
Jr. George Ciccariello-Maher Brian J. Foley Dave Zirin Joshua Frank Chris Floyd Ingmar Lee Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Website of the Day Video of the
Day
Jonathan Cook Tariq Ali Winslow T.
Wheeler Manuel Garcia,
Jr William S. Lind Ray McGovern Fidel Castro Agustin Velloso CP News Service Website of
the Day
Glen Ford Chris Sands Rochelle Gause Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Norman Finkelstein Peter Rost,
MD Gary Leupp Joe DeRaymond Christopher Fons Sibel Edmonds Website of the Day
November 28, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler Michael Ratner John Ross Molly Secours Peter Rost,
MD Lucinda Marshall Website of
the Day
November 27, 2006 Kathleen and
Bill Christison Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Michael Donnelly Ben Terrall / John Miller Robert Jensen Sol Littman Website of
the Day
November 25 / 26, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Saul Landau William Blum Ralph Nader Fred Gardner Daniel Wolff M. Shahid Alam James J. Brittain George Ciccariello-Maher Contingency and Counter-Contingency in Venezuela Aseem Shrivastava Seth Sandronsky Julian Assange Christopher Brauchli Michele Naar-Obed Ramzy Baroud Christiane
Passevant / Adam Engel Jeffrey St.
Clair / Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
November 24, 2006 Charles Glass Gideon Levy Jonathan Cook Ron Jacobs Brian McKenna Kim Ives
November 23, 2006 Alexander Cockburn
Kathleen Christison Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Roselle Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Dave Zirin Nadia Martinez Sherwood Ross David Kalbfeisch Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
November 21, 2006 Robert Bryce John V. Walsh Luis Hernandez Navarro Kevin Zeese Peter Rost, MD Evelyn Pringle Roger Morris Don Monkerud Website of the Day
November 20, 2006 David H. Price Col. Dan Smith Katherine Hughes Dave Himmelstein Robert Jensen Joe Mowrey Mike Whitney Carl N. McDaniel Robert Fisk Ramzy Baroud Website of the Day
November 18
/ 19, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Barucha Calamity Peller John Ross Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Larry Portis Frida Berrigan Wes Enzinna Elizabeth Schulte Peter Rost,
MD Martha Rosenberg Seth Sandronsky Missy Beattie Adam Engel Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
November 17, 2006 Greg Grandin Joseph Massad Kevin Zeese Gideon Levy Bill Quigley David Swanson Sherry Wolf Jerry Beisler Website of the Day
November 16, 2006 Kathy Kelly Col. Douglas
MacGregor Norman Solomon Nikki Thanos Cindy Sheehan Lena Khalaf
Tuffaha Gloria La Riva Pat Williams Kerry Joyce CP News Service David Letterman James Ridgeway Website of
the Day
November 15, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein David Rosen Ashley Smith Landau / Hassen Walden Bello Sibel Edmonds Austin / Bernstein Yitzhak Laor James Rothenberg Gail Dines Website of the Day
Werther Ray McGovern John Walsh David MacMichael William S.
Lind Sharon Smith Laura Carlsen Ron Jacobs Peter Rost,
MD Carol Norris Website of
the Day
November 13, 2006 Kathleen and
Bill Christison Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Uri Avnery Joe DeRaymond Norman Finkelstein Col. Dan Smith Shepherd Bliss Dave Lindorff Missy Beattie Trenticosta / Fleming
Subscribe Online
|
Weekend
Edition Nixon on Pot, Booze and the Fall of the Roman EmpireComes Now the Ghost of "Decrim"By FRED GARDNER Along with the man who pardoned Nixon, a man who disappointed Nixon left us this month: Raymond Shafer, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania appointed in 1971 to lead a bipartisan "Presidential Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse." (Such a commission had been mandated by Congress in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.) Nixon told Shafer he wanted a report that would blur the distinction between marijuana and hard drugs, according to declassified oval office tapes. Instead, the Shafer commission would call for decriminalization of the personal use of marijuana. Nixon's public rationale for rejecting decriminalization made good sense: "I do not believe you can have effective criminal justice based on the philosophy that something is half legal and half illegal." The oval office tapes reveal Nixon's more nuanced views on marijuana. On May, 12, 1971, as the commission was beginning its investigation, Nixon told his aide Bob Haldeman, "I want a goddamn strong statement about marijuana. Can I get that out of this sonofabitching, uh, domestic council? I mean one on marijuana that just tears the ass out of them." Two weeks later Nixon saw something in his news summary that inspired him to tell Haldeman, "Every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them? I suppose it's because most of them are psychiatrists, you know, there's so many, all the greatest psychiatrists are Jewish. By god, we are going to hit the marijuana thing, and I want to hit it right square in the puss. I want to find a way of putting more on that." On September 9, 1971, Nixon had Shafer in for a meeting at which he advised, "I think there's a need to come out with a report that is totally oblivious to some obvious differences between marijuana and other drugs, other dangerous drugs ... And also that you don't go into the matter of penalties and that sort of thing, as to whether there should be uniformity in penalties, whether in courts, I'd much rather have uniformity than diversity ... You're enough of a pro to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels and ITAL what we're planning to do END ITAL would make your commission just look bad as hell... Keep your commission in line." Nixon's aide Egil (Bud) Krogh asked at the Sept. 9 meeting if the commission was contemplating "endorsement of legalization of marijuana." Shafer replied, "Absolutely, absolutely... At least one of the opposition would like to take over. We've prevented that. I think that we've got the commission moving in the right direction. We're seeking unanimity. I think we're going to have that. And we're staying away from that quote legalization endquote syndrome." Shafer brought his commission's report to the White House March 21, 1972. The findings did not justify ongoing prohibition. As culled by Doug McVay of Common Sense for Drug Policy, they included:
The executive director of the Shafer Commission, Michael Sonnenreich, was a Democrat who'd been kept on at the Justice Department after Nixon was elected in 1968. Sonnenreich helped draft the Controlled Substances Act, which transferred control over drug policy from the Surgeon General to the Attorney General (John Mitchell), and gave the AG the power to create the drug "schedules." Congressional opponents of the Controlled Substances Act questioned marijuana's placement on Schedule I as a dangerous drug with no medical use, but were mollified by the creation of a commission that would review its status. The Shafer report ignored the scheduling question, but reformers did not protest, choosing instead to trumpet the demand for decriminalization. As recounted in a Washington Post profile of Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML, "Nixon rejected the report, but Stroup used it as a lobbying tool in his increasingly successful campaign to reduce penalties for pot. In 1975, five states -Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine and Ohio- removed criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the weed." "Decriminalization" is a one-word lie. It means that the citizen caught by the cop with a small amount of marijuana will get a ticket and pay a fine instead of getting booked. He or she can be arrested and face criminal charges if caught again, or even on the first encounter if the cop doesn't like the cut of his or her jib. The basic relationship between citizen and cop is unchanged. The citizen remains fearful and illegitimate. No right to consumption has been established and the penalties generally become stiffer for growers and dealers. It's no coincidence that "decriminalization" entered the lexicon at the end of the about the same time as "affirmative action," with which it has much else in common. Both strategies were devised in response to movements involving millions of people asserting their rights. Both serve the interests of only a small fraction of the large population that supposedly benefits. Both get sold to the rank-and-file as necessary steps forward, but actually represent the end-point of the political movement(s). Both are jargon. Liberal reforms like "decrim" are sops that our rulers provide when the natives get seriously restless; then, when the restlessness subsides, the reforms are curtailed or even withdrawn entirely. In response to the medical marijuana movement, we can expect another push in Congress for decrim, accompanied by fundraising pitches from Washington-based reform groups. What we need instead is a complete revision of the Controlled Substances Act. I recently asked Dale Gieringer of California NORML what measures the national reform groups would be promoting now that the Democrats controlled Congress. Dale said he was very favorably impressed by Nancy Pelosi, whom he'd met at a fundraiser, and advised not to expect much in the way of legislation because "nobody wants to vote for a dead bill and everybody knows that this president is not going to sign any meaningful reforms." There was something weary and paternalistic in his tone, as if he was reminding me and others at the meeting not to do or say anything that would embarrass his lovely new acquaintance. Afterwards I thought, "Why shouldn't the Democratic Congress pass a bill the president has to veto? Why not make him stand naked as a prohibitionist? Don't they want to win in 2008?"
From the oval office tapes, May 26, 1971, President Richard Nixon in conversation with Art Linkletter, a radio and TV "personality." Nixon: Radical demonstrators that were here the last, oh, two weeks ago. [unintelligible] They're all on drugs. Oh yeah, horrible Linkletter: They sit down with a marijuana cigarette to get high- Nixon: A person does not drink to get drunk. Linkletter: That's right. Nixon: A person drinks to have fun. Do you know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. The last six. Nero had a public wedding to a boy. Yeah. And they'd [unintelligible]. You know that. You know what happened to the Popes? It's all right that, po-po-Popes were laying the nuns, that's been going on for years, centuries, but, when the popes, when the Catholic Church went to hell, in, I don't know, three or four centuries ago, it was homosexual. And finally it had to be cleaned out. Now, that's what's happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France. And let's look at the strong societies. The Russians. God damn it, they root them out, they don't let them around at all. You know what I mean? I don't know what they do with them. Now, we are allowing this in this country when we show [unintelligible]. Dope? Do you think the Russians allow dope? Hell no. Not if they can allow, not if they can catch it, they send them up. You see, homosexuality, dope, immorality in general: These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us. Nixon: I have seen the countries of Asia and the Middle East, portions of Latin America, and I have seen what drugs have done to those countries. Uh, everybody knows what it's done to the Chinese, the Indians are hopeless anyway, the Burmese. They have different forms of drugs [unintelligible] China and the rest of them, they've all gone down Why the hell are those Communists so hard on drugs? Well why they're so hard on drugs is because, uh, they love to booze. I mean, the Russians, they drink pretty good." Linkletter: That's right. Nixon: But they don't allow any drugs. Like that. And look at the north countries. The Swedes drink too much, the Finns drink too much, the British have always been heavy boozers and the rest, but uh, and the Irish of course the most, uh, but uh, on the other hand, they survive as strong races. There's another, it's a very significant difference. Linkletter: That's right. Nixon: And your drug societies, uh, are, are, inevitably come apart. They- Linkletter: They lose motivation. No discipline. Nixon: Yeah. Linkletter: You know I did a show- Nixon: At least with liquor I don't lose motivation [unintelligible] Fred Gardner is a former Public Information Officer
for the District Attorney of San Francisco. He can be reached
at fred@plebesite.com
|
CounterPunch Books / AK Press Buy End Times Now! Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh |