Arianna Huffington: The Other War: Democratic Candidates are Deafeningly Silent on the Drug War

[marmar]

Arianna Huffington

04.05.2007
The Other War: Democratic Candidates are Deafeningly Silent on the Drug War (181 comments )

There is a major disconnect in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.

While all the top candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed War on Drugs, a war that has morphed into a war on people of color.

Consider this: according to a 2006 ACLU report, African Americans make up 15 percent of drug users, but account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, 59 percent of those convicted, and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Or consider this: America has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70 percent) are black or Latino.

Such facts and figures have been bandied about for years. But what to do about the legion of nonviolent -- predominantly minority -- drug offenders has long been an electrified third-rail in American politics, a subject to be avoided at all costs by our political leaders, who fear being incinerated on contact for being soft on crime.

You might have thought this would change during a spirited Democratic presidential campaign. But a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them -- not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson -- even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions.

The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-other-war-democratic_b_44063.html

[AX10]

1. kick

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. great topic. I K&R

Now, where is Hillary on the issue? I'll tell you where. Hiding. Ignoring it and hoping that it goes away. Starting a focus group to tell her what she should say and how to say it without taking a stance that could harm some triangulatory target.

As for Obama, this could be a great opportunity. His speaking ability is rivetting. He can easily explain just how destructive the war on drugs is to so many people now convicted of victimless crimes like smoking pot. This could be the issue that wakes up the black vote in big cities.

[SteveM]

3. No surprise, here. Dems are also silent on gun prohibition, too.

When one supports and advances prohibition policies, you end up getting into a rat race with other political interests to see how "tough" you are. And the Dems aren't very tough. During Clinton's eight years in office, the nation's prisons were fairly engorged by drug offenders, esp. small-time ones. Theodore Bilbo would have blushed to see how many YBMs were jailed. Yet Dems let this policy of social control continue with little objection, cowed as it were by a bullying GOP.

Then, when things go bad, like having a Democratic constituency under siege via the prison system, or just plain losing elections over 2A, Democrats go silent as usual. This is why the Party has a reputation of not being strong, lacking in trustworthiness and lacking in leadership. Prohibition does not work except for those who wish to effect powerful social control over the nation. The GOPers have done this with the WOD and have in fact used the WOD as a blueprint for the Patriot Act: "When critics complained about threats to civil liberties in the Patriot Act, President Bush defended it by noting that the government was already using some of the powers against drug dealers." -- John tierney, N.Y. Times, May 6, 2006. But no one, including Democrats, complained when it was drug dealers.

Culture war-based prohibition: The Dems are as sick with it as the GOPers.