|
|
John,
I am glad to hear from you. Thanks for responding to this information. Noam Chomsky is by far the most quoted living American writer. He is not only the head of the Linguistics department at MIT but an articulate author. His books address ruling class techniques of maintaining control of society through monetary policy, propaganda models, industrial planning and government intervention. You can tap into lots of his work on the net through ZNET and searches using his name.The reasons I recommend reading Noam Chomsky is this. Your social and economic models are far more accurate than the power structure is willing to admit. Those models threaten their control over this country and the global economy. The drug war is part of this picture.
I became interested in Noam Chomsky myself because, for almost 18 months my research on the drug war was creating far more questions than answers. I interviewed an X intelligence officer for the DEA that Chomsky's work would answer a lot of my questions. I used his economic and political models with my work to draw the conclusions you have read.
I am the author of the work you received. One reason I have not quoted more sources than you would expect is this research is on the cutting edge. I know most of the major players opposing the drug war in this country and I did not fit in any of their camps. I also know many of the governments researchers and found they were actually very accessible to the public. This was not intentional either. The government was betting nobody would have the guts to call their researchers and ask them questions. Very few do. Mainly because they are afraid to question authority. In the government especially, questioning authority risks your job. This reality made the manipulation of research a fact of life. If you control the parameters of research you control the results.
I was not funded by the government or any of the institutions such as the ACLU either. I had three objectives from this work.
1) To separate the accurate information from misinformation and evaluate the motives behind both sources of data.
2) Acquire enough knowledge and understanding on the subject and agendas to dictate future policy decisions. My conclusions could not be validated until those conclusions withstood the test of accurately predicting future policy decisions.
3) If these future policy decisions were not honorable and promoted other agendas, expose those agendas, and hold the parties involved, accountable for their conduct.What I have just described is called citizenship. It is about excepting responsibility for the conduct of this government. The first step in that process is basing policy decisions on accurate information. Thomas Jefferson stated "an informed citizenry is a necessity in a Democracy." He was right.
As far as limited references, I had several motives behind limiting references.
I had to keep the information compact, logical, and credible. I also had to address the bad data that promoted the drug war, the motives behind the bad data, emotional marketing of the drug war, the use of fear to silence opposition to it, our responsibility as citizens to stop it. This is why I concentrated on the power model behind the propaganda and provided little reference material in the article.
The concepts, if properly laid out could turn the meddling masses into ragging mob. The agenda behind the drug war warrants this response. This article was also designed for a magazine or newspaper.When I began sending out my work a few years ago I stated that references were available on request. Here is a typical response to this work. This is heavy information and I really do not want to deal with this. The last thing I want to do is be forced to act like a citizen if this information is correct.
I was also getting lots of angry responses to this information and I wanted to know why. Instead of running from the anger I confronted it head on. I asked these people why they were so angry? I got no answers that made sense until I asked this question. Are you afraid the government knows you have this information? "Yes. There is nothing i can do. Please don't send any more of your work. " At this point I remind them of their obligations as citizens, right to accurate information and the fact that nine of our founding fathers were hanged by the British government. Citizenship has its price.
I also tested the material on the public by reading my work to them and observing when they became overloaded by the information or went into mental shutdown. Mental shutdown results when threatening data causes data cutoff. Glassy Eyes and blank expressions on their faces are the symptoms. Brain dead is the diagnosis. This usually occurs when emotional learning clashes with rational data.
You must attack the emotional messages head on or mental shutdown is inevitable.Crack Babies is an excellent example. I address crack babies as children of undesirables. I explain government research has shown an expectant mother smoking crack cocaine, smokes, drinks, is usually suffering from malnutrition, and has no access to prenatal care or other meaningful health care. They live in the most polluted environments in this country and media propaganda eliminates any legitimate solutions to the problems. Crack baby hype hides government inaction at addressing poverty. media hype covers government conduct up by identifying these other problems associated with poverty as symptoms of crack babies. How do we deal with crack babies? We promote a drug war as the only viable solution to the problem. We effectively address malnutrition with the criminal justice model.
What may surprise you is far more people are aware of this than the media has lead you to believe. The prosperity being created is built on a credit card economy. We are both aware of this and simple economic principals are being ignored for a temporary and false sense of security.
One interesting result to addressing the drug war as a model enforcing economic control, is this. This is an argument the public has no problem understanding. How do you argue with this statement?
"How many people in this room do not believe this statement, would you raise your hands?"
"Is there anyone here that does not believe the rich control the levers of power in America?" ( I very rarely get one hand raised)
"Is it safe to assume they control the drug war agenda as well?"
That introduction turns out to be the easiest and most effective argument against the drug war in America. The American citizen understands RULED BY THE RICH. Your letter shows it was easy for you to relate to the drug war as another example of the inequities in our capitalist democracy.
Sincerely,
Jay
to comment to Web Station #19