I'll even go a step further...

Provide a comprehensive list of the liberal politicians at *any* level of government who are in favor of ending the drug war.

It couldn't get any easier than that.

Liberals are so in favor of personal freedom, right?

Also, given that the great majority of arrests and imprisonments in the drug war are for cannabis, I would like to hear a rational argument why cannabis should be illegal. -- Aycharaych

I have been watching this tete-a-tete between you and LWM and I fail to see the point of any of it. You want and admission that "liberal" politicians don't care about and indeed promote the war on drugs? They absolutely don't care and they absolutely do promote it... but then they aren't "liberal" either.

I find the entire argument ridiculous and cannot for the life of me understand why you are pushing it so hard. From what I can gather it seems you are a hard core Libertarian and are just trying to call out both of the two parties for their blatant disregard for civil liberties. Fine. I agree whole heartedly. So?

Listen, with the exception of a very few (and I mean maybe 3 or 4 that I can think of) politicians that set themselves apart, there is one party in this country not two. A liberal position on drugs or drug laws would more properly represented by a nation such as Holland. Their laws are convoluted and even a bit strained and perhaps do not go far enough in decriminalizing drugs but they have a much more "liberal" view of the situation than we do.

So, having said all of that, if your point is to show us all how non-liberal the supposed liberals in this country are I think you are explaining things to us that we already know. I can only speak for myself as what I perceive to be a liberal but I am not fooled by the Clintons and people like Obama. They are "moderate" to center-right, placating corporate politicians. Calling them liberals doesn't make it true. Perhaps I have missed something wrt to argument here but from my perspective the conversation is becoming tiresome not because you have a point but because we already know these things.

Chris Floyd said...

So while we can all hope and work to see such noncooperation and dissent spread throughout the general public -- a long-term cultivation looking toward the harvest of a better, more honorable society down the line -- the immediate evil embodied in the crooked Bush-Cheney regime can only be thwarted by action on the institutional level. As I've noted elsewhere, Thoreau's answer should be taken up by every person in public life, beginning with the senators and representatives in Congress.

Jeebus man! WTF? Even you have reverted to advocating that we beg "the opposition" to do the right thing when we all know they never will because they are not, in fact, in opposition at all? What happened to you man? Did I miss something? What happened to the completely true idea that, working within the fundamentally and irrevocably broken system is, at this point, a tacit admission of ignorance and/or complicity and a certain path to failure? You are really calling for the folks on high to change who they fundamentally are and practice their own form of "disobedience" this late in the game? You actually think there is a snow balls chance in hell of that happening? You have got to be kidding! This is something I would expect from Kos, FDL and yes, even Greenwald. Not from you. Not after your Post Mortem America piece.

Wait..is this really Chris Floyd or did Glenn forget to change the by-line? I am undone. I simply cannot believe this. Mobilizing a citizen powered, grass-roots, direct action effort may take too long to stop the impending horrors but begging the Pelosi's, Reid's and Clinton's to save us is a fantasy that is guaranteed to fail, both in the short term and in the long run. Direct action is the only avenue at this point. It doesn't matter how long it takes. It doesn't matter the outcome of coming elections. It doesn't matter how long it takes precisely because the elections will simply empower the status quo. How can people not see that? We have had ample opportunity to organize. We have seen outrage after outrage and we have done nothing. We have citizen leaders (those with a voice and a following) that have helped write us into this hole by not wanting to realize how dire our predicament truly is. Saying it is too late now and that we should write more letters in an attempt to get the pig to change its own lip-stick is not a plan and it is not leadership. It is giving up. It is being content to record the fall... record history and be able to say "I told you so," instead of attempting to engender real, lasting change.

The long run IS what counts. We never get there by begging the criminals to police themselves and everyone knows it.

A professional military spokesperson wouldn't engage in the kind of polemics and outright, easily disproven lying which Boylan demonstrates.

Riiight. What is really important is the professionalism of the propagandist and how artfully they disseminate their propaganda. So your real beef with Boylan is that he isn't very bright and is "inartful" in his propaganda dissemination. As opposed to the larger issue that Glenn is speaking to which is the fact that the military is becoming/has become increasingly politicized and this Boylan is just one example of many. Boylan is just a bad (dumb) apple and you know this because you have a very good friend....

I see.