The war on drugs was nothing more than a war on democracy and equality

The third essay in the War on Drugs series is the one that I found most upsetting to write and still find difficult to read. Even though, in terms of the Pax Americana, the 1960s was the decade that many of the calls for equality came together, I would argue that it was during the 1970’s when the establishment strategy of presenting authoritarianism as democracy really began to unravel at pace, in the public arena at least. Over the preceding decades ever increasing numbers of people sought to utilise the democratic system to represent themselves. However, it was exactly this sort of behaviour that the democratic system had been designed to stifle. And of course, as the unrepresentative nature of the system became evermore clear, the people sought other ways to represent their views. Armed with the intellectual mediocrity that only an elitist educational system can create, the ruling class knew of only one response to this demand for democracy, more of what had worked for them before. And so, the ‘crisis in democracy’ was met with more oppression, more lies, and more exploitation. Or to put it simply, more war on drugs.

By the 1970s, across much of the world, but specifically in the US, the pantomime was winding down. It was in this period, that I would argue one of the major totalitarian crimes perpetrated by the US state against its own people in recent years, was committed. There has been some debate over this. But, what is beyond doubt, is that as part of the war on drugs strategy crack cocaine was allowed to spread like a modern plague through the poorest communities of the United States because it met the imperialist desires of a small section of the ruling elite. The debate, if any, revolves around how much the rest of the ruling elite knew about this particular strategy within the War on Drugs. That being said, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that a few people were honestly surprised when it eventually started to come out. Nevertheless, that doesn’t detract from the fact that sections of the US government aided and abetted, before the fact, the flooding of the poorest communities in the mainland USA with crack cocaine.

It was precisely these sort of events that inspired me to tell others about what I was learning. There are some, who for whatever reason, will blindly accept anything their master tells them. Even when, such as in the case of the War on Drugs, it is so patently a web of lies. However, I genuinely believe that the vast majority of people sense that there is something wrong with the way the establishment manages the exploitation of the masses, regardless of how they PR it. We can all see the lie when we are commuting into work, packed into trains like factory farmed livestock bound for slaughter. We know it when generations of women are been enculturated into subordination, under the guise of liberation. We know it when the entire political class can take six weeks off, when there is still clearly work to do. We know it when sections of the establishment focus all of their anger over child abuse onto one minority ethnic group, when we all know that the problem is much wider than just that, involving major institutions, technology companies, and of course, more often than not, even occurring in our own streets. But perhaps the greatest sham, and the one that umbrellas all other shams beneath it, is that sneaking suspicion that many of us have that what the establishment calls democracy is in fact a heavily rigged pantomime.

A fundamental aspect of this charade, is the illusion of free speech. And it is in that, that I think one of the greatest dangers for the radical left exists; allowing the ruling elite to dictate the terms of the debate. By constantly consigning our history of dissent and their history of oppression to the dusty tomes of academia we are in danger of repeating a cycle of conflict in which we are culturally hobbled. I would argue that one of our greatest strengths, is in our diversity of experience and our numbers. If we share our knowledge with one another, we are potentially unstoppable. And that includes our insights into the past, and our ideas about the future. Now, perhaps more than ever we have the means, motive and opportunity to question the structure of global society, and to imagine another world. While they are rabidly protecting their privilege, they will never be able to make the paradigm shift required. After all, elitism inbreeds mediocrity. And educational elitism inbreeds intellectual mediocrity. They are shackled by the need to maintain and extend their privilege. We, on the other hand, have no such limitations.

To build a better and fairer tomorrow, we must be clear from where we are starting. And, if we are to truly understand the structures and relationships of the societies and communities that we live in now, I think it is paramount to remember exactly how it is we got here.

This third essay in War on Drugs series outlines how the pantomime began to unravel, and the subsequent steps certain sections of the establishment took to refocus and rebuild. The essay picks up with Watergate, and moves quickly to the various US government committees set up in the 1970s to look into the excesses of sections of the Intelligence community, while overlooking the wider collaborations of those groups, both nationally and internationally. It goes on to outline the international shift in focus from South East Asia to Central America, Southern Asia and the Middle East. From there it goes into how sections of the CIA and the White House found themselves aiding and abetting cocaine trafficking death squads across the Americas, and crack dealing paramilitaries in the United States itself.

No wonder this period has received such little scrutiny. It is arguably one of the darkest times in recent US domestic history. Znet was kind enough to publish this essay on 14th September 2017. To read it here or to download a .txt version of it please click through to the page.