Spiritual Freedom
Nov 06, 1998 04:44 PM
by Darren Porter
The following is from the DRC website, I personally beleive this is the
most theosophical paradigm shift currently underway-
11. EDITORIAL: Message Sent
In the hours and days after the election, the mainstream media was,
predictably, teeming with analysis and debate, provided by the usual
voices, on what, exactly, it all meant. Democrats, to be sure, bucked both
Clinton's lack of self control and the historical trends by gaining, rather
than losing seats in the house in the sixth year of their president's
administration. And Republicans had accomplished what they had not done in
seventy years, keeping control of both houses for three straight election
cycles.
Was the election a referendum on impeachment? On the religious right? Was
it the Democrats' ability to get out the African American vote? Was it
Social Security? Health care? The Budget?
Over and over, on op-ed pages, radio talk shows, and on a dozen or more
24-hour news and political TV stations, the debate roared: What were the
voters saying? What was the trend? What did it all mean?
The pundits and prognosticators, bought and paid for by the corporate
media, are very comfortable discussing politics around the edges. They are
good at debating the often meager differences between the major parties,
offering their opinions on the well-rehearsed theatrics that pass for
political dialogue, and making predictions based on polls made up of
questions devoid of nuance or context asked of the small percentage of
voters who will still take the time to speak to a pollster.
But present the "experts" with the unfamiliar, with a scenario that does
not fit into their experience, confront the editors, the anchors, the
talking heads with a sign of change so dramatic that it portends a seismic
shift in the political reality, and you've lost them. Unable to make it
fit, they will chalk it up as an anomaly and move on to more comfortable
material.
On Election Day 1998, every single ballot measure that would reform an
element of our nation's drug policy passed, and passed comfortably. In
each case, the usual band of drug warriors, including, most significantly,
the federal government itself -- and a majority of both political parties
-- were vehemently opposed. Yet in each case the voters ignored them.
Whether it was medical marijuana, decriminalization of personal,
recreational marijuana use, or an end to jail time for non-violent
possession of any drug, the voters supported reform.
In assessing the media's silence on this trend, one should note that is not
as if the drug war is an unimportant or inexpensive issue. Tens of
billions of tax dollars are spent year after year, while hundreds of
thousands of Americans are forced into a broken justice system. Civil
liberties are eroded, institutions and entire governments are corrupted,
global criminal enterprises are enriched and empowered and the nation's
children are confronted with a black market that is more than eager to have
them as customers.
Neither was it the case that a single initiative, stealthily ushered onto a
ballot, passed under the noses of an unsuspecting public. Initiatives
passed in places as diverse as Arizona, Oregon and the District of
Columbia, often after fierce debate and much media coverage. In addition,
California's voters rejected Dan Lungren, widely known as the state's
staunchest opponent of patients' access to medical marijuana, in his race
for governor. And in Minnesota, the voters shocked the experts by
selecting Jesse Ventura as their governor, a Reform Party candidate who has
publicly stated that the drug war doesn't work.
And yet, in the nation's media, a puzzled silence. Not a word about the
implications for the drug war, certainly our most disastrous and
destructive domestic policy. A policy, it bears repeating, that both major
parties have fallen over themselves to support. Not a word about what the
results tell us about voters' confidence in their leaders on this issue,
after their leaders ridiculed the reforms and warned of dire consequences
in the event of their passage. Not a word about what all of this means for
the future earnings of pharmaceutical companies and the prison industry and
all the other big political contributors who reap enormous profits from the
prosecution of various elements of the war. Not a word about the singular
clear trend to come out of the election of 1998.
Those Americans who were watching with their own, rather than the pundits'
eyes, however, could scarcely have missed it. Election '98 was a sweep in
the most resounding sense of the word. It showed clearly that the people
no longer trust their government, not either party, on the vital issue of
the Drug War. It was a stunning refutation of the status quo.
The experts in the mainstream media, for all their air time and all their
knowledge and experience, missed the boat on the only clear message that
was sent from the voters to the politicos in Election '98. Perhaps they
will get it next time, in 2000, when the victories keep coming and it is
the drug warriors themselves, and not just their policies, that suffer
ignominious defeat. But they will likely be left only to analyze in the
aftermath, as they have already shown that they are too blind to predict
the demise of this ignoble war.
The results, collectively, indicate in no uncertain terms that the movement
has begun in earnest. That movement represents, perhaps, far too
substantive a change to be acknowledged or even comprehended by a media
elite beholden to the status quo. Voters, in 1998, sent a message of
freedom and of personal dignity, of their rejection of absurd and alarmist
rhetoric and of their confidence in the judgment of individuals over the
judgment of the state. And as clear as that message was, it was
predictably unfamiliar to the sorry group of Washington apologists assigned
to explain our political reality to us. But ignoring the signs does not
change their meaning. Nor can it alter the course of events that they
portend.
Adam J. Smith
Associate Director
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