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When George W. Bush campaigned for the presidency, more than a few people had the impression that he wasn't quite the brightest bulb on the tree.
In American politics and popular culture, that doesn't hurt. Hollywood often offers movies wherein the brilliant but ruthless protagonist suffers a brain injury or the like, and then becomes a decent and caring human being, even if he is somewhat feeble-minded.
Thus in one major cultural influence, intelligence is often equated with evil, and our pop culture villains have been geniuses ever since Lex Luthor first thwarted Superman, and probably long before that. As for politics, Bush was following eight years of Bill Clinton -- and even Clinton's worst enemies would never accuse of him of being stupid, no matter how many stupid things he did. Someone who mangled English syntax could look like a refreshing change.
That said, every day I am more impressed by the cleverness of the Bush administration in the vital art of packaging -- tying things together, even if they don't really fit.
In this case, it consists of taking a popular policy, the war against Al Qaeda, and packaging it with a failure, the War on Drugs. The result is a $3.2 million propaganda campaign that began as Superbowl commercials and have continued to infest our airwaves.
The ads tell us that the purchase of illegal substances helps finance terrorist organizations, and the United States is, of course, at war with terrorist organizations.
That's not entirely a lie, but as truth goes, it's more like a Clinton statement, in that it takes a fair amount of contortion to make it even technically true.
For instance, if you purchase an uncontrollable substance which originated in Colombia -- either marijuana or cocaine -- some of the money might end up in the hands of the rebel army which controls part of the country. From what I read, they're not nice people.
But it's mostly happenstance that drugs are involved, since rebel forces use whatever they can get their hands on when they need money. Colombia happens to enjoy the proper climate and soil to produce cocaine and hemp. But note that a few years ago, some not-so-nice forces in Africa were financing their dirty work by exporting diamonds, since their territory held some diamond mines.
The drug politics of Afghanistan make this even weirder. According to the United Nations International Drug Control Program, in 2000, there were about 220,000 acres devoted to opium poppy cultivation. Then the Taliban cracked down; in 2001, that dropped to less than 9,000 acres. But as the Northern Alliance now gains territory with our support, farmers are switching back to poppies. The connection between terrorism and the drug trade runs precisely opposite of what we're told by our government's drug propaganda ministry.
Further, if it's a global financial network which puts
drug money into terrorist organizations, then why are the
feds still so rabid in going after people who grow their
own? It's hard to imagine how they could be helping a
bomber get a passport
but the Bush administration
believes that we're stupid enough to believe such things,
especially if they're repeated often enough during prime
time.
This does inspire some speculation. Will we soon see
ads that say The next time you turn on, that is, turn on
a light switch, you could be helping finance more Enron
shenanigans
or When you pay your phone bill, are you
aware that Qwest has supported corrupt enterprises like the
Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee?
And then there's the big question -- why is there so much money in the drug trade? Because the drugs are illegal. The last time I checked -- this was a long time ago, so the numbers have likely changed -- legal cocaine was $5 a gram, and the illegal stuff was $100.
That $95 difference is what the government says finances all manner of nasty business, and that $95 difference is also the result of governmental actions. If we were serious about taking the immense profits out of the drug trade, then we'd be trying some other approach.
But the White House hasn't announced any other approaches, just more of the same draconian stuff that hasn't been working for the past 30 years and shows no promise of working at any time during the next 30.
People were catching on to that. Medical marijuana initiatives were passing in many states, including Colorado. Some elected officials, like New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, had become brave enough to utter the truth in public -- that the War on Drugs was and is a miserable failure, with no prospects for victory, no matter how many urine samples we take and how many prisons we build.
And of course, those developments had to be thwarted, or else thousands of snoops, informants, meddlers, counselors and prison guards would lose their jobs.
So, the Bush administration contrived a new scheme: Package the unpopular war on drugs with the popular war on terrorists. Such cleverness speaks well for their intelligence. Believing this swill, though, would not speak well for ours.
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