
Billie Holiday and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ Early Fight for Survival - benbreen
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/drug-war-the-hunting-of-billie-holiday-114298_full.html#.VL7NFS7F_jZ
======
striking
I have never read a more shocking indictment of "The war on drugs" and I can
only hope that this book gets its message across to everyone willing to
listen.

I can't believe I live in a country with the gall to do this. My biggest
question is, how can I help change this? Can I change it?

It's just sad. I can only hope that someday, some country will create
opportunities and futures like those of the United States. I hope there will
be someplace for people to move where they don't have to worry about something
as atrocious as this. Because this sickens me.

~~~
rizumu
There is such a place already, Europe. With Portugal paving the way:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal)

~~~
striking
I'm not even specifically talking about drugs: these so-called "wars" (drugs,
terrorism, etc.) are just wars on citizens. I have a Polish passport, so if I
ever need to go somewhere safe, I can. But Poland lacks the same opportunity
that exists here. Y Combinator, Silicon Valley... everything's right here.

Portugal seems very interesting and I'd really like to hear what happens with
their drug policy.

But in the end, it's all for naught if I can't get any opportunities there.
Which is why I live in the US.

~~~
coldtea
Well, I don't like this viewing of societies/countries as just venues for
"individual opportunity".

I mean, it's not just about getting were you can get the most benefits, money,
tax breaks and whatever.

It's also about working with your fellow citizens to improve the conditions
where you live, and also fighting when the bad times come there, not just
saying "so long suckers" and leaving for the next opportunity abroad.

The latter just makes everybody a selfish bastard, and ends up in a
(non)-community of cowards stepping on each other to get to the top.

~~~
greggyb
Or expressing voice through exit is much stronger than expressing voice
through vote.

If I express dissatisfaction with my mobile carrier, should I work with my
fellow customers to improve the conditions of the service we get, or should I
just switch to a competitor? If I switched I would just be a customer of a
company with lots of satisfied cowards stepping on each other for the best
deal they can find.

~~~
coldtea
> _Or expressing voice through exit is much stronger than expressing voice
> through vote._

Expressing voice to what? To some greater power (ie. the government) to come
and fix the issues?

What I said was about people HELPING solve the issues themselves.

> _If I express dissatisfaction with my mobile carrier, should I work with my
> fellow customers to improve the conditions of the service we get, or should
> I just switch to a competitor?_

See, that's my point. A society is not some company that owes you service,
it's something you build.

For a better example, if you express dissatisfaction with an OSS software, you
should very much work with your fellow users to improve its conditions.

~~~
greggyb
By "expressing voice" I mean showing your preferences and acting in some way
to make your reality closer to those.

I am not a fan of many window managers available on Linux. The most reasonable
solution is not for me to attempt to change the first one I happen to use
(Unity in Ubuntu for me) into one I prefer, but to find a community which
better suits my use case (i3 now, in Arch - I've clearly made a big jump in
communities here).

What you are arguing is that the happenstance of where one starts should
absolutely dominate opinions and preferences developed through experience. Or
do you think I should have fought Canonical and the entire Ubuntu community to
turn it into a much more minimalist distro with i3 as the default WM? There
are thousands of orphaned projects out in the wild. If I find one that I like,
is it the best use of my time, or is it best for the community for me to take
it over, or is it best for me to focus on one of the communities where I find
up to date and functioning software?

Similarly, I was born to a pair of Christian parents (one Catholic, one
Episcopalian) and experienced two (admittedly very similar) religious
traditions growing up. I am now firmly agnostic. Should I follow your line of
reasoning and work night and day to turn one of these religions into a bastion
of agnosticism, or should I act as a reasonable adult and abandon the
community I have no communion (pun intended) with in favor of a community of
my choosing? Which community should I choose to fight against in order to make
it more pleasing to myself?

Why should the circumstances of my birth bind me inextricably to an
arbitrarily delineated geographic region and whatever society predominates
there? Why do you expect me to care more about those who live within 500 miles
of my birth place than those who live further? Are these people more worthy,
more human?

If you admit that the happenstance of birth is exactly that, and that those
who share a birthplace with me are not more deserving in any way than those
who don't, then how can you demand that I pay more attention to them and make
more effort to make them better off?

A strict utilitarian would argue I should go to the worst-off country I can
find and help them. I do not believe either of us is a strict utilitarian.

If I find a society that I fit into better than the one I am born into, is it
not a cruelty to forbid me to join it? Is it not a qualitatively identical
(though quantitatively lesser) cruelty to discourage me from doing so by
attempting to make me feel immoral for desiring to join another?

If you value individual choice, why not allow me the pleasure of choosing my
own company and my own society? I would argue that the best way to improve
societies is to allow anyone to make that same choice.

------
gojomo
Compelling story. Would be a lot easier to follow if author were clearer on
relative dates. (How long after the 1939 threat was the first bust? The later
SF bust? The final hospitalization?)

Note the author, Johann Hari, has had some issues with accuracy and
attribution in the past, and some argue that even his recent work is sloppy
with quotes for dramatic purposes ([http://www.jeremy-
duns.com/blog/2014/9/7/kdgwxcbsned1rknh0h3...](http://www.jeremy-
duns.com/blog/2014/9/7/kdgwxcbsned1rknh0h3zdvqrebxa3x)).

~~~
refurb
Thanks for posting that. The story is compelling, but without sources for
quotes and more details, I'm left wondering how much of it was "artist
embellishment".

There are enough factual stories about the war on drugs that will make your
stomach turn. There is no need to "spice up" the story.

------
j_m_b
The "war on drugs" is steeped in racism and plays a large part in the state
repression of people to this day. I have hoped for years that people would
start realizing this connection. Sadly, the racial witch hunters of the day
prefer to focus their energy on symptomatic outliers (e.g. Ferguson) instead
of the root source of legal injustice. The powers granted to the state through
the drug war and all the side effects thereof are crippling generations.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Keep speaking and people will eventually hear what you have to say.

------
fnordfnordfnord
If there is anyone with anything good to say about Anslinger, I've never heard
of them. Police in the US need to stop lionizing people like Anslinger and J.
Edgar Hoover.

Erowid has a list of links of Anslinger's congressional testimony and a couple
other references.
[https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/anslinger_harry/an...](https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/anslinger_harry/anslinger_harry.shtml)

~~~
rntz
How can you simultaneously claim that nobody speaks well of Anslinger, and
that he is lionized? That seems flatly contradictory.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
You're right. s/anyone/anyone with half a brain/

~~~
lovemenot
s/Scotsman/True Scotsman

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
+1 It was pretty lazy of me.

------
penrod
I wonder how many people would cite the War on Drugs as the primary reason
they identify as Libertarian.

