March 30th 2009
By Louise
We are having server problems - Listen at www.620KPOJ.com - if you are having trouble logging in or listeningMonday – Peter B. Collins filling in for Thom today (Thom is on his way home from Germany)
Topic: Escalating violence in Mexico and the failure of the U.S. war on drugs...is legalization and regulation the answer...Global Exchange Media Fellow John Gibler guests www.citylights.com
Topic: "Labor news" - Andrew Sum, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, on the "blue collar recession" www.clms.neu.edu
Comments
#2
I think what really bothers about this issue is that it seems to have reduced all definitions of freedom to purely economical considerations that stay within the parameters of our role as producer consumers. To listen to the mainstream, you get the feeling that Freedom is little more than a choice between Coke or Pepsi, or which SUV to buy, or our questionable right to achieve prosperity. It fails to recognize that authentic Freedom is about how the individual chooses to live and experience their point A to point B. Prosperity and things are little more than a means to those things.
I’ve watched this change saturate our culture since the 80’s. And Obama, by flippantly dismissing the idea of legalization, showed that there is little hope of this development turning back anytime soon.
#3
Three-Mile Island's problem was human error. Not to mention that humans have actually learned something in the last 30 years. Nuclear power plants don't have to be designed exactly the same way.
#4
This website sucks so bad. I logged-in and now I can't log-out. I usually have to go to community and then to my home to find a log-out button. Today that button isn't there. But it does have a place for me to login, So I tried to login hoping that I would then be able to log-out, but it tells me my password isn't correct.
When I tried to log-in during the first hour, the site couldn't find couldn't find the page and gave me a 404 error. So I came back a while ago, I was able to login, but now I can't log-out.
Then there's the fact that it's not uncommon for the home page to not format correctly, and several times it just wouldn't load.
I have no idea what might happen when I hit the post comment button. I hope an asteroid come through the roof. I'm under the desk now and I'm going to click.
#5
B Roll: To log out, click on the word "members" in the Welcome in the upper right. It takes you to the page you get when you log in, and it has a log-out button at the top right..
#6
Thanks mathboy... I found it. Last week I was able to get there through another route.
Adios, amigo
#7
as for the website, I tried to sign in a while ago and my password didn't work, so I asked for a new one: first they said they didn't recognize my email. But then later they did send me a new password: however the one they sent me didn't work, but now my original one does work
so I am now signed in, but I am unable to get to the Community forum, where I was following a couple of threads
Is this about having to now be a paid subscriber ? or am I being banned?
#8
Between censuses, any dysfunction of society, will introduce a set of numbers which are in error. And the social problem of drug abuse may obviously 'hurt' the three layers of the American Pie: the institutional, structural, and familial layers. Decriminalization, may unravel the 'business' of illicit drugs, as it has woven its way ito these abstract, layers.
#9
Couple of things: 1) The only people who are for the war on drugs are the people who cannot follow logic (ie.; what did prohibition do for "curing" drunks?) or economics (without the blackmarket, the problems associated with drugs would not exist) or have a vested interest in the economics (CIA funding, cops getting fast cars for "undercover work", city, county governments getting extra funding to fight the losing battle.
2) What was the name of the man that was on speaking with Peter B about 3 mile Island? and the name of his book? I think it is very scary that we are even considering nuclear energy and "clean coal",
#10
mathboy: The problem at 3MI was a valve that didn't close and instruments that didn't tell the people operating the plant that it wasn't closed. The operators were just reading their instruments responding to pressure problems the way they should have, never realizing that their instrumentation was inaccurate. Consequently they were making the problem worse. It was a human who figured out what was going on and saved the plant from complete meltdown. A good description of the events is provided by James Chiles in his book "Inviting Disaster" which I think was also made into a series on the History Channel. Good reading.
#11
For people who want to legalize all drugs, what about prescription medication? Shall we just take the doctor out of the equation and let patients self medicate, or do you anticipate disaster with that scenario? Just something to think about.
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I don't know about outright legalization of all drugs. For instance, I certainly can't see any justification for legalizing krank, which to me is a nasty bathtub drug. At the same time, it would be nice to see some rational and considerate discourse on the matter -that is as compared to the one sided dictation that has been primarily dominated by hysteria.
What tiffs me off about this is the way politicians play it cool on the subject when they're trying to get elected, then fall back on typical mainstream militancy when they're in. Obama did it when he dismissed the notion of legalization offhand. And if you were to read the Obama website during the election, you might have noticed how they completely downplayed Biden's role in the War on Drugs and how he was the loudest voice in calling for the establishment of a drug czar, Clinton did as much when asked, on MTV's Rock the Vote, if he had it to do all over again, would he inhale. Clinton just chuckled and said he would have but couldn't because of his allergies. Then, after he got in, promised to raise the riot act when San Francisco legalized pot for medicinal purposes. It's like want to court the casual users vote then, when in, want to resort to the politically safe anti-drug stance.
The thing is, both he and Obama threw away an opportunity to show an enlightened and considerate intellect that was above the common fray.