DIVIDE AND CONQUER - RUSSIA vs EUROPE

Armies are EXPENSIVE. Propaganda is CHEAP.

I am convinced that Russia is deliberately causing chaos in Syria.

The streams of Syrian refugees cause open borders to be closed. Closed borders make the shipment of goods around Europe MUCH more expensive. More expensive goods make life more difficult for everybody. The good thing about free trade is that it make oranges from Greece inexpensively available in a German winter.

But closing the internal borders in order to control the thousands of refugees makes all goods stop to be inspected for stowaways, thereby making the cost of a winter orange much higher. Such an easy way to caused economic chaos in the EU.

By causing millions of refugees to flee to Europe, Russia makes the Europeans worried that their jobs will be taken over by a desperate refuge. It is easy to trigger this fear into a "Let's get out of the the EU."

I would not be at all surprised to learn that Russian spies encouraged the disaffected into violence. Fear is so much easier to trigger if the news shows horrible scenes of destruction.

Fear makes selling xenophobic propaganda much easier. If you do not trust your neighbor, it is easier to convince you that making treaties to support each other is not a good idea.

The EU is humanity's path to stop wars. But Russia is really upset that it was not allowed to steal Ukraine.

So Russia is trying to end up with a smaller EU. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest war games on Earth.

BLAMING THE WRONG PERSON

Black Lives Matter blames Bill for the crime bill that put a generation of Black men into prison.*

It is actually the War on Drugs** that has imprisoned Black people at a rate WAY higher than White people for the same drug offense. Blacks are 13% of drug users, but are 74% of people sent to prison for drugs.

The War on Drugs was designed as a racist law. Asslinger stated that marijuana is horrible because it makes a Black man think that he can look a White woman in the eye.

Opiates were favored by Chinese immigrants. Cocaine was favored by the bright young things who believed that Blacks were equal to Whites.

By making these substances illegal, Asslinger knew that he could then arrest anyone who got too "uppity".

Nixon used propaganda to keep the Drug War running. The hippies not only used these substances, but they were advocating repealing all laws which controlled the behavior of consenting adults. Like Asslinger, Nixon wanted to be able to arrest anyone who got in his way.

WE NEED TO STOP THE WAR ON DRUGS. Like prohibition of alcohol, the War on Drugs is causing chaos wherever it is waged. Terrorists use drug profits to fuel terror. The intercity poor sell drugs as a way out of poverty.

President Obama has the authority to remove all recreational drugs from the Federal Schedules. He can then require scientific proof that a drug is worse than alcohol before a drug is allowed back on the Federal Schedules. It is time to use science rather than propaganda to make our drug decisions.

The neat thing about stopping the War on Drugs is that drug dealers are very territorial. They will take their illegal profits and invest those profits in legal businesses in their own neighborhoods.

Not only will the chaos stop, but poor neighborhoods will get the investment needed to become middle class neighborhoods.


* Most of the Black people imprisoned were the results of states passing "three strikes" laws. In California prosecutors swore, "If you pass three strikes I would NEVER use it for petty crimes." It passed and soon people were put in prison for life for stealing a bicycle or a six pack of beer.

** Drugs here means marijuana, cocaine, crack, heroin, LSD, magic mushrooms, etc. These drugs are MUCH less harmful than alcohol. I believe the increase in heroin deaths is because the DEA has made pain pills unavailable. I react badly to modern arthritis medication, and to Tylenol.  But I am consistently denied effective pain medication. I really understand being in so much physical pain that heroin seems to be the only choice available.

WASTING THE WORLD

The world wide war on drugs is laying waste to the world.

In rich countries, way too many people are in prison for drug use, sale and importation.

In poor countries, the profits on illegal drugs is sucking money (capital) away from investments that benefit the country. It is trivially easy to hide drug profits because there will alway be sleazy lawyers and poor islands that provide absolute privacy.

I honestly believe that Afghanistan would become fairly peaceful if they could continue their centuries old practice of providing pain medication.

Worse, drug interdiction is not working. The profit motive is a very strong motive. The search for profit has resulted in more and more drugs being available for less and less monies.

As we know from alcohol, the ONLY WAY to stop an addict is for the ADDICT TO ASK FOR HELP and for the addict to work hard on becoming unaddicted.

Sometimes social experiments do not work. Too often, instead of admitting that the social experiment is a failure, people just try harder to make the experiment work.

IT IS WAY PAST TIME TO ADMIT THAT TRYING TO STOP ADULTS FROM PUTTING ENJOYABLE SUBSTANCES IN THEIR BODIES CAUSES UNACCEPTABLE SOCIAL CHAOS.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

A royal duchess should be setting a good example for all of the little girls who want to be just like her. Playing soccer (football) in three inch heels is setting a BAD example. In fact, wearing any heels in BAD for girls. Women need to be on LEVEL FOOTING with men or they risk losing the race to the top.

Senator Sanders has asked his Independent supporters to talk to their friends who are Democrats. When Sanders supporters talk to Democrats, they should be careful about their approach. Many Sanders supporters are so intensely for Sanders that they refuse to listen to any rational reason as to why someone would support Secretary Clinton. This is not usually a way to win someone over to your side.

An AMBER alert went out this morning in Northern California. I am really glad that this service exists. However, I worry about how someone driving a car might react. The noise from your phone is a distinct buzz, making you pull out and look anxiously at your phone, which shows a text message. This is not a good thing to happen in traffic. There does not seem to be a reason why new phones can not say out loud what is going on. Apple could do this to show their social consciousness.

I feel really sorry for a young man who's parents taught him to expect women to react as if all women were in a Doris Day movie. Modern Hollywood romantic comedies do not help at all. Hollywood would be much better off if they tried to teach men how to woo an intelligent modern woman.

DUTCH ANGER AT WRONG PEOPLE

The Dutch just held an advisory vote regarding helping Ukraine.

They voted NO.

Putin is really pleased with this vote.

It is EASY to turn anger into illogic.

The Dutch are extremely angry about their many citizens who died from a missile which shot down a passenger liner over Ukraine.

This missile was NOT the fault of the Ukrainian government. I am almost certain that the missile was fired by the Ukrainian rebels. I am almost certain that the person who fired the missile had training from Russia.

Ground to aircraft missiles capable of downing a civilian aircraft require sophisticated training to fire. It may actually have been one of the fabled little green men from Russia who fired the missile.

In any event, Russia is very good at propaganda.

It is too bad that the Dutch are taking their anger out on the innocent people of Ukraine who just want to live a life without fear of a Russian invasion.

PASSION FOR POLITICS

I discovered my passion for politics when I helped my parents try to get Barry Goldwater elected.*

I was a Libertarian until I saw my first ghetto. It was wrenching to become a Democrat. Especially since I was then unable to discuss some political issues with my parents.

I was a government major** in college.

I learned that passion was much less important than a strongly held pragmatic belief that progress on social issues is often slower than us Democrats would like, but we could slowly make social progress happen.

I followed Hillary Clinton's career since Bill started running for President. I watched her be trolled*** again and again.

For newbies, it seems like the office of President is the only important office. What a Party does is elect a President AND senators, representatives, governors, prosecutors, etc. Very little progress on social issues can happen without ALL the members of a Party cooperating.

Unfortunately, Bernie is a brand new Democrat, who may not be willing to campaign for other Democrats.

Bernie is also behind the curve on big banks. Legislation to curb the activities of big banks has already been passed. It is one of the laws that Republicans seem to really hate.

But the financial crises was caused by an insurance company insuring all the toxic loans. The banks believed that no insurance company would be so stupid as to insure loans that would not be repaid.

The reason we need specific and complex regulations is that these huge organizations have really good attorneys. Greed seems to be a very powerful vice.

The problem with newbies is that it is really easy to convince them that a simple solution will solve everything. Often that simple solution helps the greedy and hurts the poor.

* I did such a good job that I was gifted with a a pin of a gold elephant head, wearing black glasses. I held on to this pin until I showed it to my children. Somehow after that the pin disappeared.

** The Dean of the Government Department at the University of South Dakota was not willing to accept the new-fangled term, 'political science.'

*** Back then, we did not have 'trolls', but we had men who were determined to cut down any woman who had any power. We still have these people in my generation. It is sad that so many millennials are trolls.