That's The Way It Is
for release 04-03-06
Washington D.C.
The subject of our drug laws and the so-called War on Drugs is one upon which I generally refrain from commenting. This is because, given my history in that area, I may not be the most credible voice. But if there is anyone who has a credible voice, it's Walter Cronkite. He has written a blog entry on The Huffington Post which reminds me of why he is one of the most trusted voices in America.
It just carries more weight when Cronkite, the image of sobriety, makes a plea for sensible treatment of our drug control issues, than when LIghtning Rod, the proven profligate drug user who has probably smoked close to a metric ton of pot in his lifetime and has experimented with every drug with even the slightest reputation for euphoria, steps up to protest the stupidity of our drug policies. It would be like Tom DeLay stepping up to the plate in favor of ethics in government. I am hardly the best poster child for this cause. Walter Cronkite is much better.
But you see, I don't need Walter Cronkite to tell me that the drug laws have caused much more misery to the lives of people than the drug use that they were designed to discourage. I have lived it. I spent four years in a steel and concrete cage because I got caught up in the digestive machinery of our criminal justice (oxy) system for my revolutionary activities in the realm of drugs.
As a poet, my keynote issue is Body Sovereignty, the basic tenets of which are outlined here. Drugs and drug laws are only a small part of the over-arching subject of Body Sovereignty.
The problem with the war on drugs is the same as the problem with the war on terror, you can't declare war on a noun. It's meaningless. What we have done in the case of the 'war on drugs' is set up goon-squads and bureaucracies and spend literally billions of dollars to support them. The DEA represents one of the most colossal wastes of American tax dollars in history. It's a welfare program for out-of-work cops and thugs. And the war on terror should be more properly phrased 'the war on terra', just like the president pronounces it.. It's an open-ended excuse to spend excessive money on military adventures and violate the Constitutional rights of our citizens without accomplishing the professed mission.
Any time you hear a politician declare war on something, beware. It means that he has his hand in your pocket.
The Poet's Eye has wearied of watching these rhetorical 'wars'. We can declare war on poverty or war on ignorance or war on drugs or war on terra and all any of them mean is that there will be new layers of bureaucracy and more money spent hiring parasites to do nothing but justify their jobs.
And that's the way it is.
Look at the shoes your filling
Look at the blood we're spilling
Look at the world we're killing
The way we've always done before
Look in the doubt we've wallowed
Look at the leaders we've followed
Look at the lies we've swallowed
And I don't want to hear no more
My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars
---Guns and Roses
