I’m not big on going to meetings. I’d often prefer to skip them and get some work done. Here’s one I’d like to attend.
U.S. President Barack Obama will meet his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon next week at the White House, with talks expected to focus on Mexico’s ongoing drug war efforts, the White House said on Wednesday.
“The president is deeply committed to the strong partnership that the United States has with Mexico. I think that is the reason for the meeting,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in response to a query about the upcoming meeting.
“We admire the commitment and sacrifices of the Mexican people as they confront the criminal organizations that have brought so much violence to Mexico, specifically on those issues which I know have been in the news,” he said.
Since taking office in December 2006, Calderon has boosted efforts to fight drug traffickers by mobilizing troops and police. Official figures show some 32,000 people have died since in the drug war.
I figure I’d just sit back for the first half of the meeting, letting them flail about ineffectively, grasping at the same tired straws that have failed them again and again. And then I’d take over and solve it for them.
I’ve got a fairly busy week next week, but I think I could get away for a day, if they’d like to pencil me in on the calendar.
Oh, to ask these men a few pointed questions!
“Mr Obama, how can matters in Mexico ever change when the only strategies on the table, prohibition and interdiction, have proved massive failures?”
“Mr Obama, after 40 years the Drug War has utterly failed to either reduce drug abuse or drug supplies, yet it creates incredible violence and cripples our national economy. Why do you support this disastrous policy?”
“Mr Calderon, why do you let this clown boss you around?”
Got your back Pete, they can pencil me in too. It would be a challenge to not wet their lips and stick them on the wall so they’d listen.
Send Obama to Mexico. There’s not much discussion going to happen, all Caledron wants is money, money, money.
What escapes me (among many, many other things) is how the Mexican people allow their government to accept money to wage war against their own cannabis industry when surely they can see the rise of the American [grown] cannabis industry just across the way.
It’s like me paying Mexico to halt corm production whilst I keep growing it.
Little wonder though, the American industry want to be in the dominant position when it’s eventually legalised (they’ll have conveniently paid Mexico to decimate theirs).
“Mr Calderone, why do you let this clown boss you around?”…Good one. Very good.
What the hell do they have to talk about unless it’s “how do we stop this right now?”
Oh wait. that’s right. This is where the U.S. through the agency of Obama bribes Calderone to continue this atrocity against his own people. This is where we reassure him that we won’t go after his pet Cartel, (at least not too hard, …gotta keep up appearances, ya know) and that we will continue to prop him up as long as he’s willing to continue to sacrifice his own people for our failed policies.
I’m afraid that meeting would be insanely maddening and very difficult to sit through. I have no confidence at all in my ability to keep from screaming at the top of my lungs. So no, I’m kinda glad I’m not there.
“Mr Calderon, why do you let this clown boss you around?â€
Calderon’s only possible truthful answer:
“Nobody’s bossing me around; if you had been paying attention, you’d be aware that I’m corrupt to the core. The true reason I started this war, some four years ago, was to attempt to illuminate the opposition, leaving all the profits for the Sinaloa cartel, which pays me rather generously for my allegiance and protection.
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“There are no important detentions of Sinaloa cartel members, but the government is hunting down [Sinaloa’s] adversary groups and new players in the world of drug trafficking. “
— Diego Osorno, an investigative journalist and the author of a book on the Sinaloa cartel published in 2009.
Edgardo Buscaglia, a leading law professor in Mexico and an international organized crime expert, has analyzed 50,000 drug-related arrest documents dating back to 2003, and said that only a tiny fraction of the them were against Sinaloa members, and low-key ones at that.
“Law enforcement [statistics] shows you objectively that the federal government has been hitting the weakest organized crime groups in Mexico.”
“But they have not been hitting the main organized crime group, the Sinaloa Federation, that is responsible for 45 per cent of the drug trade in this country.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0HD_6hfq4
“I figure I’d just sit back for the first half of the meeting, letting them flail about ineffectively, grasping at the same tired straws that have failed them again and again. And then I’d take over and solve it for them.”
See, Pete, there’s the rub. You assume that they (Federal Government) actually WANT TO solve the problem. In reality, they only want to remain in power, and they clearly see ending the War on Drugs as a threat to their “mission”. They want to continue, not end, their ticket on the gravy train.
Our Government representatives created the problem. And they are also the alleged “solvers” of that same problem which they created, and which now employs them. How can we expect those folks to “solve” themselves out of a job?
If history is any guide, it’s going to take a (massive) bribe to convince our elected representatives to “do the right thing”. So, you better bring your checkbook to that meeting.
Pete,
Add me to you entourage list. I’ll offer “boots dry” commentary. I won’t be just some “gringo” from the North spouting off about something they don’t know.
Forget it. You would make sense.
Nothing of any Fruition will happen another,wasted trip and day.BUMMER.
Heres another meeting we all should like to attend.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/homepage.cfm
Support Funding Cuts to Failed Drug War Programs
The U.S. House has voted to cut hundreds of millions of dollars used by state and local law enforcement agencies for ineffective drug war policies. Urge your U.S. Senators to support similar cuts!
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No way that works Pete. You’re totally clueless about how the game is played. IIRC you even think that there’s a place in this discussion for rational logic and what best for our society’s long term health. I’ve also never heard you mention that you speak bureaucratese or a word of legalese. Aside from that, people with native intelligence confuse the heck out of those politician people. The long and the short of it is that you need to stop making sense. Then maybe you can get in on the discussion.
Sorry for the bad news old chum, but why not go help get Belgium’s government jump started? They’ve been looking for someone with some jumper cables for about 8 months now. Do you know how antsy people get when their government is shut down for a full 8 months? There are literally hundreds of millions of people who get conniption fits from the confusion of not being able to count on the government to tell them what to do. What about the children? Think about the children man, the children.
Remember, you should never try to teach a pig to whistle. It’ll just frustrate you, and it annoys the pig. (M. Twain sort of)
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Mr. Calderon, why have the people of Mexico forgotten how to grow quality cannabis for enjoyment? I came of age in the 1970’s and have such fond memories of Acapulco Gold, and Oaxacan. I even recall a couple of months in 1979 where we had the pleasure of a practically bleached blond advertised as just being “Mexican”. Man, that stuff could knock your socks off if you weren’t careful. Nowadays the Mexican that I have occasion to evaluate is some of the most foul vegetation I’ve ever seen. Did you know that pot today is supposed to be 20 times better than pot from 1978, not vice versa? It’s true, just ask the ONDCP. Your black market cannabis exporters should be ashamed of themselves, and should be cashiered, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Mexican bunk weed is fast making Mexico the laughing stock of the cannabinoidian world. Already California cannabinoidians consider the word “Mexican” derogatory in the extreme when attached as descriptive to any of Mexico’s #1 cash crop. We’ve waited long enough for Mexico to get her house in order. Now it is time to quit making excuses, to straighten up and to fly right.
Toodles!
I’ve always heard on here to not waste time debating with people who do not respond to rational arguments and to just ignore them and go try to talk to someone who actually can be educated. But I can’t do that in this case. I’m asking the impossible: I want to educate my mom. I’ve tried logical arguments, they don’t work. Knowledge of laws and pharmacology are meaningless if all the person knows how to respond is “but it’s drugs ! You’ll get killed! You don’t know who you’re getting it from! It’s illegal !”
It doesn’t matter that I can address and offer counterpoints to all of these arguments so much that they are irrelevant. I voted for the law, knowing what the implications of the ambiguity were, she didn’t vote. I can buy it directly from growers, grow myself, or buy from stores. I know that it is safer than alcohol or tobacco, she couldn’t even tell you what part of the plant is used. When emotion and morality enter an argument, nothing makes sense any longer. Trying to discuss cannabinoid receptors, supreme court decisions, laws, and the fact that everyone and their mom but mine uses it don’t do anything to change her mind. It doesn’t matter to her that my life is greatly improved by using cannabis, I haven’t woken up in the middle of the night with extreme nausea once since starting to use it (which happened to me a few times a year, every year). Back pain has been constant for years, but isn’t even noticeable with a few puffs every day. I’m less annoyed by trivial tasks, more sociable, and can play video games without screaming at the screen. Yet none of that matters compared to the fact that it gets a little little dark around my eyes. Nevermind the fact that I understand that cannabis dilates blood vessels and therefore can create bruises on the thin skin around the eyes, it’s drugs and that’s what happens when you use drugs.
She complains about back pain constantly. She has no job and feels that she isn’t physically able to do anything. We need money in this awful economy. And I know that there is a simple, legal, popular solution to that problem that is unthinkable to her due to decades of propaganda. Ideally, she would try cannabis and see that it can help her medicinally (which is my ultimate goal). Obviously, this is far out of the question, as she is completely scared that it even exists.
Second to that, she could meet with people such as those in a compassion club or a similar setting to see that it’s not what she thinks it is. Dispensaries are popping up all over my state, so I could show her what those are like (haven’t been to one myself yet). She probably thinks that drug production is like the coke factory in the first Robocop movie – is that seriously what my parents’ generation were raised to think of drugs? My generation won’t make that mistake. In reality, everyday people just like us are the ones growing cannabis and have no intention of harm to others.
Next to that, she could view some documentaries to at least see real people in real situations on TV. I found it funny that when I told my parents on New Year’s that I was eating some hash candy my dad flipped the channel to a newer documentary showing automated production of candy containing cannabis – a nice coincidence. But I think it would be hard to get her to sit down and watch weed movies for hours, much less understand all of what’s going on and why it is happening like that.
But dammit, I haven’t been coming to this site and reading about drugs and drug policy on a near daily basis for over two years just to cede to such stupid arguments. Trying to talk to her is like trying to argue or educate a child, and dammit, I’m going to keep trying. If it were anyone else I would tell them to fuck off for being willfully ignorant. Not being willing to use logic is simply incomprehensible in my mind. I’m attempting something extremely difficult, have willingly accepted to take on the stigma and basically put myself in difficult situations because I feel that with integrity and logic I can overcome stupidity and ignorance, but that’s sadly not how the world works.
People tell me “just move out”. Others think I’m stupid for not just lying to my parents about drug use. What does that accomplish? I firmly believe that drug laws can only change when the idiots who made these laws all die out or we are the majority, but dammit, I can’t wait that long. If I can change my mom’s mind, we can change the chief of police’s mind and many others. Yeah, I’m trying the impossible. It’s damn hard, and it’s making my life hell right now. I hope it’s worth it.
WIKILEAKS:
Mexican President’s Guard Leaked Secrets To Drug Cartels
A Mexican army officer assigned to guard President Felipe Calderon leaked military intelligence to drug cartels, trained hit men and supplied military weapons to Los Zetas, according to a U.S. Embassy cable recently released by Wikileaks. full story
One of the most dangerous places on earth is our own 2,000 mile border with Mexico. Our southern border is a drug war zone, and we are losing the fight. Know it. We have all the laws we need to fight drugs. What America needs is the will-power and a renewed warrior spirit to crush evil and evil doers. Call me, President Obama. Hippies, dope heads, corrupt politicos and various other human debris hate me, which makes me the perfect man for the job.
~ Ted Nugent, Nugent for Drug Czar
Ganjawar Puppets Cave… again
* Mexico Decriminalizes Small Amounts of Drugs
* Mexico legal-drug bill condemned
* Mexico President Seeks Review of Drug Law
* Threats From USA Force Mexico to Drop Decrim Plans
“All Mexicans are crazy,
and this stuff (marijuana) is what makes them crazy.”
~ Texas anti-marijuana proponents official records
Calderon certainly believes in what he’s doing–after seeing all those bodies and knowing they died as a result of his decisions he really has no choice. To believe otherwise would be monstrous. We can expect nothing different from Mexico until he leaves office, but there’s a fair chance his successor will see things very differently.
Obama is different. I think Obama just doesn’t care about the issue and hasn’t given it much though. Obama is a pure politician, through and through, and only thinks of re-election. If he does have a personal opinion that maybe drugs aren’t so bad, or doubts on the drug war, he keeps it quiet.
Men like Obama reach power through extreme sacrifice of self. Who knows his true opinions? He seems to have few hard and fast beliefs, which make him seem like anything a hopeful voter is looking for. That’s a shame, because he has nothing to offer but a caretaker administration that will do little to solve the genuine problems of our day.
I personally feel the best way to prevent the major drug cartels, the murders of US and Mexican citizens and government officials and agents due to drugs such as marijuana is to legalize it for recreational use, which is what I’m personally fighting for. I live in a state in which MMJ is legal and personally deal with my issue of stomach and intestinal cancer causing me huge amounts of pain and nausea, however being in Arizona, no doctors are willing to prescribe MMJ to me for fear of the DEA and no dispensaries exist here yet. Purchasing marijuana illegally does alleviate all my symptoms which brings me to another point. I’d love to see “Tylonol Cold, Flu and Cancer” sold in drugs stores as OTC medicine.