Drug Puppies - Democratic Underground

McCamy Taylor

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Wed May-20-09 10:34 PM
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Drug Puppies

“Yes, as we‘re looking at these pictures of these cute puppies, did these puppies survive? Because, as we talked about, they have to cut them open to put the heroin inside and then stitch them back up.” Rita Cosby, MSNBC Feb. 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10627811/

The topic of recreational drugs is a complex one which can (and must) be approached from several points of view. For the addict, drugs become a source of misery as they compromise their values, health and future in order to feed an addiction. For society, drugs lead to wasted lives, overcrowded prisons, and (sometimes) violence. In recent years, the topic of legalization has entered the mainstream dialogue, as folks begin to realize that jail may not be the best place to treat a medical problem like addiction.

If you are the DEA, the last thing you want to see is legalization. So, what do you do? Change the subject. Forget about drugs. The new issue is puppies . Those cute, furry, adorable little creatures that we all just love to death. Did you know that drugs kill puppies? Every time a junkie shoots up, a puppy cries.

When Rita Cosby gave the DEA a forum two years ago, I was struck by the phrase drug puppies . Those two words summed up a process which goes on all the time. Someone or some institution (usually a person or group in power) finds one particular aspect of multifaceted truth threatening. Since they can not dispute the facts, they do the next best thing. They turn the truth on its head, pull it inside out, paint it in new colors and (ultimately) wind up calling day night to general applause. Like a carnival magician.

Here are some other “drug puppies.”

I. Nancy Pelosi Must Pay for Bush Era Torture

"There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party...and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt--until recently... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties."

Gore Vidal

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/oleeb/2009/04/gore-vidal-and-the-two-right-w.php

Newt Gingrich would disagree. He would tell you that Republicans have a duty to lie, cheat and break the law---like federal and international laws against torture—and in general do whatever they must to make special business interests happy. Democrats, he would tell you, have a duty to save lives, stop wars, protect the weak and—if necessary—throw themselves in front of an oncoming bus in order to save puppies. That stereotype goes double for Democratic women . This is the logic behind his one man crusade to get another speaker tossed out, the way that he engineered the fall of Jim Wright, (D) Texas.

All of us have watched in horror as the Republicans have attempted to change the whole torture debate into a referendum on Speaker Pelosi. The press has played along. Men who torture---shrug. A woman who might have heard about torture and who did not stage her own reenactment of Norma Rae? For shame!

I would like to throw a little logic into this emotional debate. In January, 2003, a former federal employee (of the DEA) was sentenced to prison for talking to reporters at The Times about an investigation. Here is a link.

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1042568651135

A federal judge in Atlanta has imposed a one-year prison sentence on a former intelligence analyst charged with stealing government information and leaking it to a London newspaper.

In a case that the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta says establishes a significant precedent, federal prosecutors assigned a media market price to the leaked information high enough to ensure a felony charge and increase the anticipated prison term.

William S. Duffey Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said the successful prosecution of former Atlanta Drug Enforcement Administration analyst Jonathan Randel stands as a warning to government employees, particularly law enforcement agents, who might consider providing sensitive, unclassified information to anyone, including journalists, outside of the federal government.

Someone tell me again what Pelosi was supposed to have done with the secret info she received from the CIA? Peddle it to a newspaper? Scrawl it on a bathroom wall? Confide in her priest?

Folks like Newt hope the rest of us will forget that the Bush-Cheney administration criminalized whistle blowers. Pelosi did not face censure if she talked. She faced jail time. The Randel prosecution was meant to keep everyone in government silent. Those who are horrified that members of Congress (Republicans as well as Democrats) knew and said nothing need to to focus on stripping the executive branch of its unconstitutional powers, which have gradually accumulated over the last three GOP regimes, Nixon/Ford, Reagan/Bush and Bush-Cheney.

II. Guns Will Keep Us Safe From Guns

The NRA has its own version of Drug Puppies. Logic says that gun violence should prompt our legislators to consider gun safety measures. Like stronger rules for licensing and selling weapons. These could cost U.S arms dealers lots of money. So, the gun manufacturers of America have found a way to turn lead (pellets) into gold. Every time another crazed gunman commits mass murder, we hear a chorus exclaim Those people would not have died, if they had been allowed to carry guns! Amish school children shot down? They were targeted because they did not have weapons. Another church attacked? Jesus wants us to pack heat.

The result of this insanity has became clear in Texas, where the Legislature is planning to approve the possession of firearms on college campuses and at college functions (like football games).

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas_guns_wittapr27,0,5010044.story

Anyone who has ever seen a brawl break out at a sports event knows that the last thing we need is to throw guns into the mixture. Note from the above link that the folks in Austin claim that they will prevent what happened at Virginia Tech from happening on a Texas college campus. However, their law actually strips away one level of protection, since would be mass murderers will now have a right to carry a sniper rifle to the top of the highest building in Austin. I am sure all the kids on the ground at UT carrying small handguns will feel so much safer as the bullets come raining down from the sky.

Behind this bit of sleight of logic is the fallacy Blame the victim! . It is no longer the shooter’s fault that he decided to kill a bunch of church goers or diners or students. Now the blame rests squarely on the heads of the dead folks, who allowed themselves to be targeted and killed. Their unarmed status made them like a girl wearing a short skirt. Of course some one with a gun was going to try to shoot them. This is America.

III. “Let Them Eat Healthcare!”

The problem: Forty million Americans can not afford or get health insurance and therefore they have only limited access to health care. Many more Americans have insurance which does nothing to help them afford quality health care, as Michael Moore demonstrated in Sicko . That’s because health insurers are in the business of collecting premiums, not paying out on claims, and so they have made an art out of building roadblocks that keep people from getting necessary care.

The solution: Force all Americans to buy the same health insurance that does not provide access to care. That way we can all enjoy being part of a health care system that costs twice as much per person as any other country in the world but delivers results that would make folks in Eastern Europe ashamed.

Even as they try to get Congress to force us to buy their overpriced policies, the health insurance industry seeks to frame the issue as one of choice . Public insurance, they are quick to tell us, is the same as welfare. That means that it is something that only the poor can tolerate. Like generics and second hand clothes. The rest of us want shiny, new name brand insurance . We want it so badly that we can not wait for Congress to tell us that we have to go buy it.

Do not be fooled by the people who peddle Drug Puppies. They do not care about puppies (or the unborn or "choice" or your safety or the truth). They are snake oil salesmen who have found a slick way to sell us something we do not want or need.