Topic awaiting preservation: Sensenbrenner At It Again

Last month it was him trying to create federal regulations on making obscenity on cable television and satellite radio punishible as a criminal offense. Now he has a new bill on the table to make drug offenses much more severe. At 2 million at the last known stats taken in 2003, we already have the highest prison population of any country in the world; this bill (HR 1528) would increase it drastically, and as anyone wih common sense knows the so-called 'War on Drugs' is already one of the biggest failures of social engineering.

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H.R. 1528, Defending America's Most Vulnerable: Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005, is one of the worst drug war bills that Congress has ever considered.

Among other things, HR 1528:

--Virtually eliminates the ability of federal judges to give sentences below the minimum sentence recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, essentially creating a mandatory minimum sentence for every federal offense (including both drug and non-drug offenses).

--Expands the federal ?three strikes and you?re out? law to include new offenses, including mandating life imprisonment (with no possibility of parole) for anyone convicted a third time under the RAVE Act.

--Mandates a 10-year minimum sentence for anyone 21 or older that gives marijuana or others drugs to someone under 18 (i.e. a 21 year old college students gives a joint to his 17-year old brother). A second offense would be life in prison.

--Expands what is considered to be a ?drug-free? school zone to include almost any place in an urban area, and increases penalties for selling or distributing drugs in that area. (The result will be enhanced penalties for people in inner cities, while people in rural and suburban areas get less time for the same offense).

--Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that commits a drug trafficking offense near the presence of a person under 18 or in a place where such person resides for any period of time. The sentence is 10 years if they are parent. (I.e. a mother that sells her neighbor a joint will get a 10-year minimum sentence, even if her kids were at school at the time).

--Creates a new offense for persons who witness or learn about certain drug offenses that fail to report the drug offender to the police within 24 hours or fail to provide full assistance to the police in tracking and prosecuting the offender. Offenses that would get someone a 2-year minimum sentence, including failing to report a neighbor that is storing or selling drugs when that neighbor has kids, failing to report anyone that gives a joint to someone under the age of 21, and failing to report a college student that is selling marijuana on a college campus.

--Mandates a 5-year minimum sentence for any person that offers, solicits, encourages, or induces a person enrolled in drug treatment, or previously enrolled in drug treatment, to purchase, possess or receive drugs.

--Makes it a federal crime to provide "drug paraphernalia" to anyone. While the goal is to make it a crime - punishable by up to three years in prison - to give someone a bong as a birthday present, it would also make it a federal crime to provide someone with sterile syringes (except where it is explicitly authorized by local or state law). If enacted, it would essentially criminalize many needle exchange programs.

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source: http://actioncenter.drugpolicy.org/action/wacmoreinfo.asp?item=26179

Outrageous. Imigine how high the US prison population would go if this were to pass.

As a side note, what is your personal stance on drugs? Legalize or no?


Ramasax

Legalize, make religion against the law.

I bet this guy is a right wing xian nut.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Would you seriously, if you had the power, actually ban religion? If this is just your usual sarcastic "take a jab at those xians" rant, just explain that I am taking you too seriously, but if not I would really like to see how you justify that considering your main point on the abortion stance is that it's her body, her choice. Does that mean you are ok with people having control of their bodies, but not ok with them being aloud to have their own thoughts, whether you agree or disagree with what those thoughts are? There is a name for that, it might not be right-wing fascist "I take advantage of peoples beliefs and their ignorance of the role of government in people's lives" nutjob, but it is just as bad IMO.

Now if your are talking banning religion and the capitalization thereof for political gain, then I would have to agree. If you are talking the name of Chrsitianity being drug through the mud in order to institute a theocratic nation which IMO is totally opposite of the message in the first place, I am also with you.

But banning religion altogether from people's personal lives? I really hope you aren't serious. If you are, I'd like to see you try and implement that legislation. Make it a criminal offense so you can herd us all off into camps for re-education by the state. Pretty Orwellian.


Ramasax

It was a sarcastic suggestion Ram.

Obviously people should be allowed to have their own opinion on religion. My singular objection to the religious, is their determination to make others, who don't believe in mythology, follow their shallow tenets.

I agree with the rest of your comments.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

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It was a sarcastic suggestion Ram.

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Ok, I was just checking.

As for the original topic, I am for the legalization of drugs also. I don't like them, I don't do them (anymore), but I'll be damned if I want all the multitude of ill effects that a prohibition on this scale causes, and to increase the penalties for those minor offenses listed above is just moronic, ignorant, and even more harmful to society than what is already on the books.


Ramasax

Yah, the whole thing is highly suspect. I am pretty sure in Canada all political parties get serious funding from the drug lords...else something would have been done. If it gets legalized or at least de-criminalized they stop making all those big bucks fast.

Like the same in the states.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Just had this e-mailed to me...gads and to think one of out political 'leaders' is affiliated with the xina right in the states;

Pogo Was Right
by Edgar J. Steele

May 31, 2005

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
--- George W. Bush, allegedly misspeaking, at a bill-signing ceremony, August 5, 2004

"We have met the enemy and he is us."
--- Pogo, beloved cartoon creation of Walt Kelly

mp3 audio file of this column: http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/audio/pogo16-44.mp3 (1.2 mb, 11 min) (streaming version)

Just three days ago, America's President addressed the graduating class at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. George Bush spoke glowingly of the progress in his "War on Terrorism." Apparently, he has no access to Internet news sources.

Bush said, "We are taking the fight to the enemy abroad so we do not have to face them here at home," and received a burst of applause. He also noted that, "The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive." More applause - at least, according to the official White House transcript.

Well, let me tell you a little about what's going on here at home, meanwhile, that seems to deserve such protection.



Recently, high school students in Goose Creek, South Carolina received a surprise visit from the local drug task force. Police had been monitoring students via cameras mounted throughout the school and thought they saw suspicious conduct. CBS News quoted Goose Creek police Lieutenant David Aarons as saying, "They know where the cameras are. If they stand directly under them, the cameras don't look directly down." Well, duh. Lack of visible proof of innocent conduct via Big Brother Cam apparently now provides probable cause to believe a crime is being committed.



Did Lieutenant Aarons visit the school to peek beneath the cameras for himself? No. Did the police take it up with parents or the School Board? No. Did they search lockers? Well, yes, but only after mounting a full-on tactical-squad raid, during which students were forced to lie flat while police waved their guns threateningly and forcibly searched all kids present and all lockers. Fourteen children who didn't move quickly enough to suit the police were handcuffed and made to kneel down. No drugs ever were found, despite a phalanx of trained dogs set loose in the school's hallways. Can't you just see Colonel Klink...er, Lieutenant Aarons...glued to the monitors down at the squad room right now, growling and vowing to catch those criminals (our kids) in the act sooner or later?



This sort of police-state tactic increasingly becomes commonplace throughout a desensitized and obedient America already manhandled and abused at airport check-in counters. What truly was remarkable about the video released to the local TV station was the obvious presence of a uniformed military officer at the South Carolina school raid, who never was identified and about whom not one word has been said in the controlled media.

Ever since all those women and children were murdered in Waco, Texas by their own out-of-control government, we repeatedly have seen American military men showing up at domestic confrontations. This is the same military, by the way, that George Bush just told cheering Annapolis Naval Academy graduates is "taking the fight to the enemy abroad so we don't have to face them here at home." Indeed.

"The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive," said Mr. Bush, don't forget. Well, he certainly is being offensive...in every sense of the word.

Meanwhile, back in the halls of America's Congress, US House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc) wants to force every American to become an informant by making it a jailable offense not to rat out others - even other family members. Congressman Sensenbrenner has introduced HR 1528, which itself asks to be cited as the "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act of 2005." Tough to argue with a bill carrying a title like that, eh? Well, here's what that bill requires: if you learn about drug offenses, you must report them within 24 hours and provide "full assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of those involved.

So, if you find a joint in your son's sock drawer, you'll have to call the police.

Or, if you overhear your daughter ask a friend in rehab to get her an Ecstasy tablet for an upcoming rave party, HR 1528 says that you go to jail if you don't report her to the police right then and there.

What's more, HR 1528 mandates 5-year prison terms for a great many new offenses, including offering a joint to, or asking for a controlled substance from, anybody who ever has been in drug treatment. Ten years for parents with "substance abuse problems" who commit certain drug-related offenses at home - even if they are alone at the time.

The only thing that America's much-ballyhooed "War on Drugs" ever has done is create more drug criminals and prison inmates, usually out of otherwise solid, law-abiding citizens. Similarly, all that America's "War on Terror" is doing is creating more terrorists. It may have been safe for Americans to travel abroad before, but it certainly isn't safe today. Nor will it be tomorrow. And the mentality has seeped all through society, as exemplified by so many recent and outlandish police interventions in America's public schools. And the police seem to be in league with the military, at that.

As if America, who leads the world both now and throughout all of history in the percentage of population behind bars, needs to make criminals out of still more of her good citizens.


Shortly after 9/11, George Bush told us that Arabs armed with box cutters and no flying experience commandeered three jumbo jets and flew them with air-show precision into three buildings...because "they hate our freedom." Well, he was partially correct.

Those responsible for 9/11 and other atrocities, both here and abroad, do hate our freedom. And we do need to be afraid of them. Problem is, they are us - our own government, actually. Otherwise, why would our own government be taking away our freedoms at such a rapid pace? Why are they so afraid of us and in such a hurry to regiment us, lock us down and throw so many of us into jail? What is going to happen that they need such tight control of us? What, exactly, is it that they plan next to do to us?

We have nobody to blame but ourselves. We may not have elected them, such a sham has America's electoral process become, but we allow them to continue to rule over us. An earlier America would have seen such "leaders" tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. A more responsible population today spontaneously would form leaderless mobs and drag them from their plush Capitol Hill and Wall Street offices, to languish in the prison cells to which they consign our fellow citizens for the slightest offense...and worse. Osama bin Laden, in one of his earliest communiqués, justified the targeting of ordinary American citizens by pointing out that we have both the responsibility and the collective ability to replace our leaders, yet we do nothing while they plunder the world in our name. He was right.

What's more, Pogo was right when Walt Kelly used him to say that "We have met the enemy and he is us." Chicken Little was right, too. Like Winston Smith, George Orwell's leading character from his masterpiece, 1984, Pogo and Chicken Little were characters years ahead of their time. Their time now has come, sad to say. But, then, so has New America's.

New America. An idea whose time has come.


-ed

Copyright ©2005, Edgar J. Steele

Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate

among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet

sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications.

Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

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Just had this e-mailed to me...gads and to think one of out political 'leaders' is affiliated with the xina right in the states;

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Not to get off-topic but the xian right is just a name, a way of gaining votes from the masses, and of also at the same time creating animosity and division. Right-wing perhaps, but xian; their actions speak otherwise. They have hijacked a religion for political purposes and the furthering of an agenda, nothing new of course, but there is nothing more un-Christian I can think of. I guess what I am saying is if it barks like a dog and looks like a dog, just because it says its a cat does not make it one. It is still a dog.

Xian right is also an oxymoron, one is not compatible with the other. Just call them neo-cons, or better yet Straussian extremists. That would be much more accurate. I know you are about as anti-religious as they come, and you think we all believe in fairy tales, and that is fine, don't bother me one bit to be honest, but by constantly referring to them political whores as xians you are playing right into their manipulative hands, and that does bother me.

Just a humble request, do with it what you will.

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Bush said, "We are taking the fight to the enemy abroad so we do not have to face them here at home," and received a burst of applause. He also noted that, "The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive." More applause - at least, according to the official White House transcript.

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Aaahhhh!! You would think with the amount of money and resources that go into presidential speech writing, they could at least change the rhetoric once and a while. Really starting to sound like a broken record. Every time he makes a public appearance it is the same bs.

As for the rest of the article, yup.

The money he spends makes sure it is the same. If you say something long enough and loud enough people start to believe you.

What we should do is come up with a counter slogan and repeat it as much as possible. It can't be heinous, it has to appear innocuous but pack a punch. It needs to have a message as to what people should do. Short, sweat and to the point.

Anyone have any ideas?

Dan @ Code Town

How about " Impeach Dumbya!".

That is subtle. Packs a punch.

Ram, just for the record, I have never made any secret of being ant-religion nor the fact that I consider all religious dogma to be based on old-shepherd's tales and age-encrusted myths.

I find your plea interesting and revealing. Clearly it is irking you to hear xians described as such, but the historical precedence is there to justify the description.

Xians and practitioners of other religions, have always taken to trying to doing their best to control or take-over political movements or governments in order to impose their will upon others who think differently.

The crusades have been described as a political action driven by religious biases.

I am afraid I shall be unable to accede to your request.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

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The money he spends makes sure it is the same. If you say something long enough and loud enough people start to believe you.

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Yes, I suppose there is that, but even so, you would think a rephrasing of the words would be done every couple months so that people do not start to catch on. As for a counter-slogan, how about "where's the beef?" As in, you promised me so much on the commercial, but when I peeled back the bun...

If you ask me though, slogans are for politicians, they are cheap and meaningless and are not going to incite real thought and education. You don't want a bunch of otherwise mindless bafoons chanting slogans on your side, you want people who can really explain their position. The only way to truly wake people up to the reality is by informing them, with documentation of everything you are talking about when possible. Show them what is in these bills that pass, show them the military's own reports about mistreatment not the newspapers which focus on small time petty idiots. Show them the world behind the political rhetoric. It is not really easy because there are those who simply do not want to believe or even consider the reality, the perception that is given them is much more comforting, but once you plant the seed it will fester in their mind until they break out.

In the short time since I have come to my own realizations, I have been able to awaken nearly every "conservative" friend and family member I have, not by saying Bush is dumb (which I think is damaging in the long run, because it is misleading. Dumb or not is irrelevent because it doesn't describe the danger), but by simply showing them the reality. The passage of the Real ID Act a few weeks ago has made this a lot easier, most people are appalled when you explain to them what it means.

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I am afraid I shall be unable to accede to your request.

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Tool.


Ramasax

The beef...is between Wendy's buns.

Yup Ram, I am a hammer.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

You might be able to persuade those that are able to understand things. There are many of these types of people, but they are not as common as you might think.

The slogans are to get those who do not understand what is going on. There are so many people who are really dumb, they don't have the intelligence to understand what is going on, they simply follow the crowd, and they are the crowd.

You might find that your lofty ideals work in certain groups, but you will further find that when it comes down to the wire and you want to move people you will need slogans, and you will need them repeated over and over again without any change.

"Hey, hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today."

That was repeated like a mantra, it woke people up, and even those who really were not aware of the greatness of the ideals behind the it. But those people could get behind the slogan. Lending their body and voices to the movement.

I think we already have enough people out there who know that things are really bad. I know I hear thousands of discenting opinions when I spread over the net, I talk regularly talk with people at the watering holes who are equally as fed up, and I know my friends and family are fed up. The problem is, there is nothing powerful and simple to get behind.

The complexities are what kill the motion. If you can break it down into something as simple as a slogan you will win people over, and you might even get them to do something.

But it has to be universal. You have to have everyone on the same page. And when that happens the flood gates will be openned.

You can not have a revoltution with just the intellectuals, you need the masses behind you. You need to have something to march for, you need to have something to chant and scream for. You need to have something to be angry about, and you need to present it in such a way that people have to simply feel it in their bodies, and not have to think about it and intellectualize it.

This government is robbing us.
This government is destroying the enviornment.
This government is making war on innocents.
This government is sending our brothers/sisters, sons/daughters to their deaths.
This government is commiting genocide against its own people.
This government is desecrating the constitution.
This government is corrupt to the core.

These ideas need to be spread, fast and hard. People need to hear this. People need to know that it is not OK, they need to know others feel the same way. And ultimately they need to be told that it is their duty to rebel agaist it.

Dan @ Code Town

I seem to recall sloganeering was done to a fare-thee-well in 1984 and the USSR.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.
Isaac Asimov
US science fiction novelist & scholar (1920 - 1992)

Ah... but if you leave it a little longer, demonstrating will be an act of revolutionary terrorism!

You kidding? If you leave it long enough sneezing in the middle of a presidential speech will be an act of treason.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

Yeah, or walking the wrong way down the street will make you a suspect. Oh wait, they are already doing behavioral profiling...

Before you can sneeze in the middle of a presidential speech you would have to qualify to be a member of the studio audience. Sometimes it looks like those people have been drugged or perhaps there are a couple of masked men offscreen holding automatic weapons at them. Zombies. And the questions they ask. Gah!

"What do you say to the people against the war?"

"Listen, I know people are concerned, but we're making progress. Freedom is on the march, heh hehe. We are taking the fight to the enemy abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. The best way to protect our citizens is to stay on the offensive. God bless our troops and God bless America." *mesmerizing outward hand gesture*

bleh, such depth.


Ramasax