The history of the "war on drugs," and more specifically the
>well-documented history of marijuana legislation, makes it clear
>that the goals of the repeatedly declared "wars" have little to
>do with availability and use of harmful substances, and a lot to
>do with what is called "population control" in the literature of
>counterinsurgency.
The targets are both at home and abroad --
>overwhelmingly the poor and defenseless. The latest phase of the
>war on drugs at home is a component of broader social policies
>that are criminalizing the "superfluous population," those called
>"disposable people" in US domains, the people useless for
>profit-making within socioeconomic programs designed to enrich
>small sectors who control the state and benefit from its
>largesse, while the majority serves their interests in a
>"flexible" -- that is, harsh and coercive -- labor market, and
>many fall by the wayside.
The model is familiar in third world
>dependencies, and is being imposed on the rich countries
>themselves. The "war on drugs" has the dual function of
>eliminating the disposable people (being civilized, we lock them
>up rather than murdering them) and frightening the rest, and has
>been cynically used for these purposes.
The case of Renee Boje
>illustrates this cynical abuse of power. The programs should be
>dismantled at their roots, and replaced by humane and civilized
>ways of dealing with the real problems that they evade.
>
>Noam Chomsky
http://boards.marihemp.com/boards/archive.shtml?1x16199That was the Noam Quote. There's this other thing acredited to Noam, but it doesn't sound like him - Renee, do you know anything about this quote?:
Noam Chomsky: International precedent: Extradition of American back to the
USA denied by Norway!
Cheers to the Norweigians!
Swerve
--------------
"And her (Boje's) judges in that Vancouver courtroom will be looking at the
case of another American exile in the War on Drugs: Henry Hendrickson of
Vermont, 49, who smuggled some 90 tons of hash into the US and Canada over
about 20 years, and yet defeated a US extradition process in Norway last
spring- after his Oslo extradition judges reviewed current US prison
conditions, and found them despicable by any international standard of
common human decency."
excerpted:
http://p199.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionantiwodwarriors.showMessag e?topicID=38.topic
Renee Boje's International Indictment
Noam Chomsky
When Renee Boje appears before a Canadian extradition court at the end of
this month, the 30-year-old American book illustrator will be looking at a
mandatory minimum of 10 years to life in a US prison, if they boot her back
to Los Angeles on charges of watering some experimental medical marijuana
plants there in 1997.
And her judges in that Vancouver courtroom will be looking at the case of
another American exile in the War on Drugs: Henry Hendrickson of Vermont,
49, who smuggled some 90 tons of hash into the US and Canada over about 20
years, and yet defeated a US extradition process in Norway last spring-
after his Oslo extradition judges reviewed current US prison conditions, and
found them despicable by any international standard of common human decency.
Hendrickson currently abides in a Norwegian refugee center, a sole American
among political exiles from Bosnia and numerous Arab countries, awaiting the
processing of their refugee applications.
Renee Boje is holed up in the spectacular autumn wilderness of British
Columbia, finalizing the playbill for her forthcoming three-day Healing Herb
Festival the last weekend in October, promoting sales of her artwork to help
raise her monumental lawyer fees, and holding forth quite brilliantly to
Canadian print and TV journalists, who uniformly find her enchanting.
Since the presentation of her plight on free Web video last month, even
large, Disneyfied US media outlets like ABC-TV News have been drawn into
covering her case--at some serious risk of displeasing their corporate
paycheck-writers.
No Witch-Burnings, Please, We're Canadian
"She is an articulate spokesperson and has a face that TV cameras love,"
smiles Boje's defense-fund strategy coordinator, Maury Mason, a veteran
Greenpeace ecological activist in Canada who has shifted seamlessly into the
international Drug-War spotlight.
Familiar with the political and media pathways of the Great White North,
Mason cogently presents Boje's plea for refuge from the USA's Drug
Warriors--with their phenomenally brutish "zero tolerance" ideology, which
regularly requires spectacular legal crucifixions of petty pot defendants
like Renee, to present "an example to the children"--as a historic
opportunity for Canadians to distinguish their essential civility and
maturity, in contrast to their more prejudicial and temperamental neighbors
South of the Border.
"Canada has an opportunity to flex her sovereignty muscles," Mason notes,
"with an issue that does not threaten the fabric of Canadian society."
Marijuana has never been a burning social issue for Canadians. National
polls consistently show around 80 percent of the population there impatient
with national politicians for refusing to decriminalize pot, and legalize
medical marijuana outright.
Though the federal RCMP incessantly tries to whip up classic reefer-madness
hysteria over "BC Bud" to justify their massive Drug War enforcement budget,
the media up there simply refuse to bite on the bait, unlike their hyper
tabloidized counterparts in the Lower 48. Thus the RCMP and local law
enforcers have never undertaken anything like the spectacular pot
prosecution of Renee Danielle Boje.
excerpted from
http://p199.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionantiwodwarriors.showMessag e?topicID=38.topic
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