Winning The Drug War

Y'know, someone should start campigning on pot. Seriously, single-issue campaign, "Elect us and we'll let you buy a spliff in your local liquor store". Take the voter registration drive around college dorms, Walmart parking lots, clocking off time at Burger King... I swear, man, every stoner and slacker in the country would vote for you, they'd be lining up to register as voters. That guy buying Zig-Zags and a turbo dog from a gas station at three in the morning? Yeah, you know he'd vote for it.

I figure that we can probably count on virtually all of the 18.5 (or thereabouts) million regular stoners right there. Then you just add a second tier with standard liberal policies and presto, you've got the votes.

Now, yeah, I know politicians are terrified of being called "soft on drugs" but pot isn't a drug anyway. It grows on bushes, you dry it, chop it up and smoke it, cook it or make tea from it. Make tea from it? That's not a drug, that's a fucking condiment. And think of the marketing. OK, the drug companies would hate it ("No, Mrs. Cratchett, don't use the cheap, easy-to-grow natural substance. Use our highly addictive expensive pill that doesn't even work as well") but can't you just see the food industry getting into it. Staag Chilli, now with a new hash-flavoured variety. Would you like your hemp juice with or without pulp? McDonalds could add it to their burgers, be more fun than that couple slices of gherkin they put in everything and since everyone would eat them and start craving munchies, more sales! Now, granted, you might have a problem with staff eating all the product. I gather McDonalds gives it's staff free meals (which is good 'cos on their wages, you can't afford to eat anyplace else) but the poor bastards are so overworked and underpaid, they never get my order right anyway and at least they'd smile if they were high.

Those problems in schools? We got all this fear about juvenile crime, start feeding your kids hash cakes. Drunk young men smash each other with glasses; stoned young men eat Mars Bars, watch re-runs and giggle. I'm not seeing much threat to society there. And they're no problem if they do turn violent. Ever see a stoned guy try and have a fist fight? It's like watching a Weeble, you can't even remember where you left your fists, never mind hit somebody. Oil? Who needs fucking oil? You're in no fit state to drive anyway, just sit your ass down and watch Scooby-Doo. No more health-care problem either, cannabis is the new wonder drug. It's been shown to help treat conditions as serious as Multiple Sclerosis and as minor as insomnia, so why doesn't the pharmaceutical industry lobby for it's legalisation? Because they can't patent it. Cannabis is a weed and an especially virulent one at that, it'll grow pretty much anywhere and it's quite hard to stop it growing once it's started. It'll grow in your windowbox, your back garden or behind your trailer and it's real easy to prepare too. You just stretch it out under a heatlamp for a while. A proven treatment that anyone can make? That's far too simple, where's the profit in that? And war? Forget war. If the world got stoned, there would never be another war. There'd just be this gigantic smoke-up, Rizla, Zig-Zag and Zippo would become the new cornerstones of the global economy. You see Bush and Ahmedinajad rattling their sabres at each other. Seriously, just roll those guys a joint and play some Pink Floyd (Music would improve too: My parents got the Stones, the Doors, the Beatles and Pink Floyd. We got Michael Jackson followed by Britney Spears. We wuz gypped). By the time they've finished the bowl, Ahmedinajad's offering to share the oil and Georgie's wondering why he spent so much money on coke.

That's the solution: Not less pot, more pot. Of course, having seen my parent's teenage photos, fashion might be a problem.

Bush, Comics And Iran

Reading the news is a depressing business these days. Between the latest accounts of Iraq (which has now passed tragedy and become farce), the endless parade of scandals, abuses and corruption, it's difficult to get worked up about any one incident. I live in a kind of permanent weariness these days, as I suspect, do many of you. It's easy to be outraged once in a while but rage is a powerful emotion, it takes energy and there's only so long a body can keep that up for. There's been a few reasons to be cheerful lately: The exit of Alberto Gonzalez is a minor point to cheer but he was only ever an incompetent water-carrier really. Let's have three rousing cheers for the resignation (temporary, I'm sure) of Karl Rove though. Ding, dong, the witch is dead or, at least, disappeared. Darth Maul has exited stage left.

Vader is still around though. I'm referring to Cheney, of course although that may be a false analogy. In the last few moments of his life, Vader showed just a trace of humanity. Cheney still shows none and it appears that Cheney, always the most pressing voice to invade Iran, is now in the driver's seat. President Dimbulb gave a speech a couple of days ago accusing Iran of arming Iraqi insurgents (can we just call them the Resistence yet?). He pointed to a bunch of 240mm rockets seized from Iraqis which he claimed were manufactured in Iran (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_ea... bottom of the article). I'm sure they were. Of course, that doesn't mean the Iranian government had anything to do with handing them over. I dread to think how many weapons manufactured in the USA end up in terrorist hands. Bush claims that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says they are seeking nuclear power. Now, I'm sceptical about why Iran would want nuclear power when they're sitting on a massive pile of natural resources but I suspect the answer has more to do with international power companies and the usual corruption than to do with nukes. What's alarming here is W's (by now, quite normal) bull-in-a-china-shop approach to diplomacy.

By designating part of Iran's army as a terrorist organisation, by trotting out the same tired cliches he used to justify the invasion of Iraq (WMDs, terrorists), the president is making it very clear that he is preparing for a strike on Iran. His phrase "We will confront this danger before it is too late" (same article) echoes his words about a "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud". Whether Iran is arming Iraqi insurgents, I don't know, I doubt it. Even if they were, one has to wonder how that would be so very different from the US arming of Iraq's Northern Alliance during the years between the wars. The US has illegally and immorally invaded Iraq. Not because Hussein (and don't misunderstand me, Hussein was a monster) posed any threat to the US or because there was any evidence that he had acquired or was even making serious efforts to acquire WMDs (the Down Street Memo makes it clear that the Bush admin knew this was bullshit from the start) or even to free the Iraqi people (the US has long supported dictators if they play ball with Washington, see Pinochet and far too many others) but to manipulate the international oil market. Currently, the US occupies Iraq as a hostile, conquering power, ruling through a near-puppet government. Outside those areas under tight military control, Iraq is either in or on the verge of civil war (depending on how you define the term). In those circumstances, Iran MAY be arming the side they think will be most friendly to themselves. The USA would and has done the same. I'm no great fan of the current Iranian president but he seems a damn sight less isolated from reality than Bush (the holocaust denial aside).

The war talk is far too familiar by now. Let's not go over it again. Rather, let's talk to those unconvinced that Bush (and more so, Cheney) are seeking such an attack. What's stopping him? Public opinion didn't stop the Iraq war and still hasn't ended it. Bush has made it very clear that he feels nothing but contempt for the UN as does any true-red Republican. Not because of any perceived corruption (although I'm sure the UN is as corrupt as any large body) but simply because it stands against US global domination. Lack of troops? True, the US troops are currently exhausted but W would think nothing of extending their deployment to be indefinate, it's not him or his loved ones in the line of fire. If that doesn't suffice then he has three options: Merceneries, a draft or an air war. Merceneries seem unlikely because the US can't afford them right now (I'll get to the money in a second). An air war is possible but wouldn't allow Bush the chance to play at being the character from a Tom Clancy novel he so often seems to fantasise he is. So a draft seems likely. Oh, you don't think Bush would dare, in the face of certain opposition from the people and the Congress? Haven't you been paying attention? The will of the people is important only in so far as it agrees with Bush. When it doesn't, it's ignored. Congress, he treats with barely disguised loathing and until impeachment is put back on the table, anything Congress might do can be circumvented by vetos and signing statements. The money? Yes, a strike on Iran would certainly wreck the US economy even more. Via a complex series of international understandings, it could very well bankrupt the US economy. Do you think Bush understands that? Or cares? His money could easily be moved into something less volatile (and possibly already has been), what does he care about the rest of you?

Too many Americans, even Democrats, still seem to be labouring under the delusion that Bush is doing his best, that he's trying or that he has some shred of human decency. He does not. He is now, and has been for a while, an elected (let's leave that one aside for the moment) dictator. He considers himself above the law, above the people. The suffering of the "little people" is simply not a factor in his thought processes, they exist purely to vote Republican and prop up his crown. Comic-book analogies may be awkward here but the Cheney/Bush combo are Dr. Doom and Lex Luthor rolled together. They see ruling the world not just as an American opportunity but an American right, destiny and duty. Yes, "duty". It is the USA's duty to rule the world, the same way it was an American duty to "educate" the Native Americans; the same way it was a British "duty" to "treat the black as a child and deny him the vote"; the same way every nation in history that has had sufficient power to make it stick has considered themselves the moral superior of the rest and therefore, duty-bound to force them to "do it our way". Yes, I'm probably simplifying a little but the desire is the same. It is, and always has been, "global domination, same old dream" as James Bond said. The desire is simply that the US rule the world and the interim step in that is ruling the Mid-East with it's strategically important stockpiles of oil. Latin America is on the list too (hence the demonising of Hugo Chavez) but the mid-east is the first step.

That's why at attack on Iran is inevitible if Bush remains in office. Oil, power, the opportunity to do the "war president" thing. Molly Ivins repeatedly insisted that Bush is not stupid. She was probably right, he's not stupid but he has the emotional range of a pre-teen. His actions, his constant talk of "evil" and "evil-doers", his approach to his faith, his well-established loyalty fetish, all of this speaks of a man who sees the world around him in the simplistic form of the comic-book. Now, I'm a comic-book reader and yes, some comics rise to the level of true art. Some of them have genuine philosophical lessons to impart but Bush's inner child isn't reading the complex (and often misunderstood) morality tale of V For Vendetta or the extended philosophy seminar of the Sandman series or even the moral complexity of modern superhero titles. Bush's inner child is reading the Siegal/Shuster Superman, simplistic tales where the good guy is always right because he's the good guy and those counselling caution are always wrong and often enemies themselves. Bush isn't imaging himself as the conflicted Professor Xavier, every bit as fanatical as those he opposes; he's not imagining himself in the costume of a traumatised and near-psychopathic Bruce Wayne. He's imagining himself as Captain America, square-jawed, always moral, always right.

It's said that pride goeth before the fall. Often, that's wrong. Often, monsters never understand what makes them monsters. They believe themselves to be in the right until death (and after, if certain theologies are to be believed). Bush will never lose his pride, he will never believe himself to have made a mistake because his ego (fragile, as the adolescent's usually is) will not allow it. In order to preserve his sense of self, Bush must continue to belive that he is always right, never wrong, never mistaken, never deluded. Even should he be impeached and/or removed from office (as he surely must be somehow), he will always blame others, it will always be the fault of partisan Democrats or cowardly Republicans or the biased media. Nothing will ever be his fault.When he is replaced in a little under a year and a half (assuming the transfer of power goes ahead which is no longer a certainty), he will leave office believing he has done a "heck of a job" and he will believe that to his dying day. Perhaps, when this Long Night is over, he can be counselled and treated but for now, you have a mean-spritied, bullying adolescent in the Oval Office and his Vice-President (and presumably, closest adviser) appears to be a clincal psychopath. Removal of these two, somehow, anyhow, must be imperative. Your nation cannot afford to wait the year and a bit because as a nation, you may not survive that long.