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"After eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 assaults, and four kidnappings, people are still in denial. They say, 'Well, this was just some wingnut guy who just decided to go blow up somebody.' Wrong. This was a cold-blooded, brutal, political assassination that is the logical consequence of 35 years of hate speech and incitement to violence...
Iraq? Afghanistan? Somalia? No - USA
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I found this as a draft but in the light of the previous post it seems apposite.
The sacking of Professor David Nutt, head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is yet another demonstration, if one were needed, that the major parties in the UK (and many of the minor ones) see the politicians' role as one of control.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is an independent expert body that advises government on drug related issues in the UK. It was established under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. That Act works on the principle that drugs are classified by risk with Category A being the highest and Category C the lowest.
Back in 2007, the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to "review the classification of cannabis in the light of real public concern about the potential mental health effects of cannabis use and, in particular, the use of stronger strains of the drug."
They concluded that "after a most careful scrutiny of the totality of the available evidence, the majority of the Council’s members consider – based on its harmfulness to individuals and society – that cannabis should remain a Class C substance. It is judged that the harmfulness of cannabis more closely equates
with other Class C substances than with those currently classified as Class B.
In providing this advice, however, the Council wishes to emphasise that the use of cannabis is a significant public health issue. Cannabis can unquestionably cause harm to individuals and society. The Council therefore advises that strategies designed to minimise its use and adverse effects must be predominantly public health ones. Criminal justice measures – irrespective of classification – will have only a limited effect on usage."
Despite that evidence, the Government decided to reclassify Cannabis from Category C to Category B, in effect, because the PM had already made his mind up. He wasn't really looking for a review, he wanted a post hoc justification of his decision.
Of course this begs the question of whether this is an appropriate area for government to intervene in the first place...
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The idea that any policy has even a tiny possibility of not working is of course anathema to the politicians. That is why we get saddled with such nonsense as the Dangerous Dogs Act. They will spout endlessly about evaluations, about research but it is all a front.
It is one of the most characteristic aspects of the present situation that specific reforms are advocated as though they were certain to be successful. For this reason, knowing outcomes has immediate political implications. Given the inherent difficulty of making significant improvements by the means usually provided and given the discrepancy between promise and possibility, most administrators wisely prefer to limit the evaluations to "those the outcomes of which they can control, particularly insofar as published outcomes or press releases are concerned. Ambiguity, lack of truly comparable comparison bases, and lack of concrete evidence all work to increase the administrator's control over what gets said, or at least to reduce the bite of criticism in the case of actual failure. There is safety under the cloak of ignorance. Over and above this tie-in of advocacy and administration, there is another source of vulnerability in that the facts relevant to experimental program evaluation are also available to argue the general efficiency and honesty of administrators. The public availability of such facts reduces the privacy and security of at least some administrators.
Donald
T Campbell “Reforms as experiments” 1969 (pdf file 409k)
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I'm working on something about Haiti and the way in which the increasingly obvious failures in the relief effort seem to be down to a command and control system that treats Haitians as victims not people and on alternatives to that approach.
In the meantime read the article below from the Centre for a Stateless Society, reposted here under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license.
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After years of being ruled by governments even more destructive than usual, Haiti was far less prepared for the recent earthquake than it could have been. Not inclined to let a serious crisis go to waste, the United States government and the business interests it works with will combine essential lifesaving work with efforts to gain control of Haiti’s future. The alternative to the deprivation of social control and the disasters it will cause is mutual aid.
A Guardian online article described frustration with the United States military control of relief efforts. US Military planes have been given landing priority while The Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières complained about their flights being redirected to the Dominican Republic. Certainly there is a scarcity in available runway space. However, aid organizations operate for the specific purpose of helping the less fortunate, while government operates primarily for the purpose of control. The character of relief efforts will be colored by this fact.
It goes without saying that Haitians deserve help. Unfortunately the ideas that people connect to “help” are often left unsaid. The thought process of authoritarianism requires the authoritarian to take control of the situation in order to improve it – and therefore improvement becomes conflated with getting the right people in charge. Rather than trying to work with people, authoritarians try to get people to work for them.
Naomi Klein warns that the crisis will be exploited by capitalists who want to rebuild Haiti in ways that benefit them. In her “Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert” blog post, she links to a Heritage Foundation post called “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti”. Heritage includes the following position:
“While on the ground in Haiti, the U.S. military can also interrupt the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to destabilize the island of Hispaniola. This U.S. military presence, which should also include a large contingent of U.S. Coast Guard assets, can also prevent any large-scale movement by Haitians to take to the sea in dangerous and rickety watercraft to try to enter the U.S. illegally.”
Authoritarians like Heritage believe that helping people means forcing them to act in ways that benefit certain gangs.
Dominance by United States interests is being challenged by anarchist and anti-authoritarian medical and relief workers. Like Common Ground did for New Orleans, they intend to help Haitians without asking permission.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief for Haiti, a partnership between the Common Ground Clinic and Herbs For Orphans, is heading to the disaster area to help those who need it most. More information, including donation options, can be found at the website http://herbs4orphans.org.
An inquisitive mind might ask what the difference is between what MADRH and the US government are doing. Are they not both seeking to influence post-disaster Haiti?
The difference is who is in charge – anarchists answer to the people instead of to political leaders.
Working on a consensual and inclusive basis, as anti-authoritarians do, assists people in building their lives. Working on the basis of command and control, as authoritarians do, primarily involves handing victims a future that has been decided for them. By helping people build grassroots mutual aid networks, anarchists protect them from further destruction that authority would cause through enforced dependence and deprivation.
Things that should be done, like keeping people from dying, should be done according to your values – especially when doing so offers people the best chance to have a healthy life of their own.
Mutual aid efforts that provide assistance based on consent are superior to authoritarian efforts to sustain that which is to be exploited. While authoritarians try to claim for their own what others have made, anarchists create grassroots networks of support and resistance.
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Darian Worden is an individualist anarchist writer with experience in libertarian activism. His fiction includes Bring a Gun To School Day and the forthcoming Trade War. His essays and other works can be viewed at his personal website. He also hosts an internet radio show, Thinking Liberty, on PatriotRadio.com.
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