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July 26, 2007
Futility (Political)
Recent entries on Hinchey-Rohrabacher and the You Tube debate have dealt with items that can be seen as indices of the degree to which an undermanned, under-funded, and demonstrably inept "Reform" bureaucracy has been unwittingly helping its federal opponents. The annual H-R vote yesterday showed that Congressional support for the medical use of marijuana had grown by only two votes over last year as the fifteen Republicans who broke ranks with their colleagues were not nearly enough to offset the 79 conservative ("Blue Dog") Democrats who remained loyal to the memories of Reagan, Nixon, and Harry Anslinger.
We don't know how many of the videos submitted to a small panel representing Time-Warner-CNN dealt with either medical marijuana or drug policy, but neither issue was mentioned in the thirty-nine they selected. The candidates, ever eager to hold forth on the host of other errors and injustices perpetrated by an historically unpopular White House, predictably had nothing to say about drugs
I have, of course, dealt extensively with the "kids" issue in the past. It's been the one that most reliably defeats reformers because they still don't seem to realize that "recreational" pot use is a lot less acceptable to most Americans than recreational use of alcohol. The probable reason: the image of the novice pot smokers immortalized by Cheech and Chong still scares parents more than any outrage sparked thus far by the relentless persecution of patients in California by an unholy alliance of federal and local cops.
There's still another indicator of Reform cluelessness I haven't mentioned yet: MPP's expensive efforts to secure passage of a "legalization" initiative in Nevada, a state which may be symbolized by the "Sin City" of Las Vegas, but is also one in which Mormons have long been heavily invested.
Talk about naive...
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at July 26, 2007 05:18 PM