Nixon's tapes reveal his true motivation and misinformation re: cannabis.

[Uncle Joe]

The wiretapping felon and subverter of our democratic republic overruled his on commission's report, but the tapes reveal why.

http://www.alternet.org/story/12666/once-secret_%22nixon_tapes%22_show_why_the_u.s._outlawed_pot

Congress, when it passed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, temporarily labeled marijuana a "Schedule I substance" -- a flatly illegal drug with no approved medical purposes. But Congress acknowledged that it did not know enough about marijuana to permanently relegate it to Schedule I, and so they created a presidential commission to review the research and recommend a long-term strategy. President Nixon got to appoint the bulk of the commissioners. Not surprisingly, he loaded it with drug warriors. Nixon appointed Raymond Shafer, former Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as Chairman. As a former prosecutor, Shafer had a "law and order," drug warrior reputation. Nixon also appointed nine Commissioners, including the dean of a law school, the head of a mental health hospital, and a retired Chicago police captain. Along with the Nixon appointees, two senators and two congressmen from each party served on the Commission.

(snip)


After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization. When Nixon heard such talk, he quickly denounced the Commission -- months before it issued its report.

(snip)

Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."

(snip)

It is not too late for the U.S. to move to a more sensible path. We are approaching three quarters of a million marijuana arrests annually. Every year that the U.S. fails to adopt a policy based on research, science and facts we destroy millions of lives and tear apart millions of families.

There is much more on this link, but unfortunately I'm limited to four paragraphs.

[TeamPooka]

1. Prohibition is a failed public policy. nt

[Uncle Joe]

2. The irony is the person most responsible for promoting this particular prohibition

because he feared it would "destroy the United States" (on the link) would abuse his power and come closer to "destroying the United States" than any other President.

[TeamPooka]

4. +100

[malaise]

22. +1,000

Rec

[Deep13]

3. A majority of the country wants it de-criminalized at least. nt

[Uncle Joe]

6. Nixon's Commission was leaning toward legalization until Nixon interfered/preempted their report

before it was even finished.

The Shafer Commission -- officially known as the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- took its job seriously. They launched fifty research projects, polled the public and members of the criminal justice community, and took thousands of pages of testimony. Their work is still the most comprehensive review of marijuana ever conducted by the federal government.

After reviewing all the evidence, these drug warriors were forced to come to a different conclusion than they had at first expected. Rather than harshly condemning marijuana, they started talking about legalization. When Nixon heard such talk, he quickly denounced the Commission -- months before it issued its report.

[Deep13]

9. No! The science must support my preconceptions, no matter what the facts are!!!

fucking politicians.

[liberal_at_heart]

5. "He saw marijuana tied to radical demonstrators." And that is the whole reason for starting and

continuing the war on drugs.

[Uncle Joe]

7. According to the tapes, Jews, Communists, and the counter culture

basically the strongest opponents against his administration.

You don't need to take a major leap in morality or logic from criminalizing one major segment of your political opposition to illegally wiretapping other segments, anything to maintain power just for power's sake.

[Rex]

8. God, Nixon was such a piece of crap.

A perfect template for future GOP leaders.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Well at least crap has the benefit of fertilizing the earth and helping things to grow.

Nixon knew only how to destroy.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. And he was probably drunk and geezed on pills at the time. nt

[Uncle Joe]

12. I would wager that you are correct sir, this all happened during the same general time period

as the Watergate break-in and attempt at wiretapping the Democratic Party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal

The Watergate scandal was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, on August 9, 1974—the only resignation of a U.S. president to date. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of forty-three persons, dozens of whom were Nixon's top administration officials.

[matt819]

13. Radley Balko addresses this in The Rise of the Warrior Cop

Nixon's policies were the start of the War on Drugs, and they laid the foundation for where we are today. Balko goes into detail on the thinking behind the war on drugs and the underlying and not at all subtle racism behind it.

What is beyond tragic is what has been lost over the past 40 years as a result of implementing the war on drug policies. Multiple generations of incarcerated families, mostly black, but really all races have been affected. The elimination of any useful drug treatment or drug avoidance programs. The implementation of a warrior cop mentality that has put the military into action in the US against American citizens and military weaponry in towns small and large across the US. Asset seizure and forfeiture policies that make police work an income stream for communities. And it's all been a failure. And, notwithstanding efforts at legalizing marijuana, nothing's really changing.

[Uncle Joe]

14. That's a good post but I do believe things are beginning to change,

the dam is cracking.

Remain tenacious.

[Catherina]

15. Fascinating read

Nixon reacted strongly to the report. In a recorded conversation on March 21, the day before the Commission released its report, Nixon said, "We need, and I use the word 'all out war,' on all fronts ... we have to attack on all fronts." Nixon and his advisors went on to plan a speech about why he opposed marijuana legalization, and proposed that he do "a drug thing every week" during the 1972 presidential election year. Nixon wanted a "Goddamn strong statement about marijuana ... that just tears the ass out of them."

Thanks for the thread Uncle Joe

Rec'd

[Uncle Joe]

16. That's what Nixon did, isn't it?

Waged war against the American People.

Thank you for being here, Catherina.

[gopiscrap]

17. what a fucking idiot!

[Uncle Joe]

21. + Infinity with a cherry on top. n/t

[gopiscrap]

24. Why, thank you...it's the cherry that made my day!

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Control Freaks and Paranoid Authoritarians seem to share a certain number of mental traits

obsessively focusing on imagined "enemies", delusions of self-righteous grandeur, personality disorders, etc. etc.

[Uncle Joe]

26. I believe you summed Nixon and his ilk up pretty well.

[grahamhgreen]

19. He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalizatio

Omg

[Uncle Joe]

27. Among his other shortcomings, Nixon

was most definitely a bigot.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

20. "people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun.""

I've heard this before.

Usually from people who motion a lot while slurring their words, thus spilling gin on your shoes.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Talking about your classic double standard

and if they're not spilling gin on your shoes you can get it another way.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Thought I'd share from 14 years ago...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.tasteless.jokes/MRFUxks1r2M/00zbFMkNxKQJ

Nixon should have gone though this kind of "fun".

[Zorro]

23. It was Nixon's "fuck you" to the college crowd for protesting the war

Nixon is the progenitor for all the rotten policies inflicted by Republicans on the country for the past 45 years.

[Uncle Joe]

30. Smart and/or educated people threatened him and intelligencephobia

still carries forward with the Republican Party to this day.

[WillyT]

25. HUGE K & R !!!

Thanks for the thread, Uncle Joe !!!

[Uncle Joe]

31. Thank you, WillyT

[Scairp]

28. I can't believe the country survived this fool

His defenders, and even some who are really not but willing to concede, always want to point out he did a couple of good things, his visit to China to normalize relations with the Chinese, creating the EPA (which some of today's repuke's would like to dismantle), and whatever else they point out which I can't come up with at the moment. But the fact is he did more damage and left more wreckage in his wake from his presidency than if the rest of them had all gotten caught getting a blow job in the Oval Office. I fail to understand how so many right wing pundits say, with a straight face no less, that Obama is the most destructive president we have ever had when in my lifetime we've had at least two (Nixon, Reagan), R presidents who did so much more, in different ways, to damage this country nearly beyond redemption. Obama is indecisive, not destructive. Nixon wanted to fuck up the whole world then force democracy down it's throat and I guess bombing the living hell out of a couple of Third World countries was the way to get it done. Also, propping up merciless dictators in Central and South America. Reagan did this as well. Then of course there was Iran/Contra. I will NEVER see Reagan as someone who was instrumental in the dismantling of the Soviet Union, bringing down the wall and the eventual reunification of Germany. Gorbachev did these things. If I believed in hell I would hope that Nixon and Reagan are currently sharing the same burning pit, each eternally reliving the fuck ups they committed in life, but since I don't I'll just be happy that they did not succeed in killing the country they claimed to love and pledged to defend by the god they both said they believed in.

[Uncle Joe]

33. The Cuyahoga River catching fire in Ohio and a Democratic Controlled Congress

is what really spurred the environmental movement, Nixon was reluctant and resitant at best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_river

The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire helped spur an avalanche of water pollution control activities, resulting in the Clean Water Act, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA). As a result, large point sources of pollution on the Cuyahoga have received significant attention from the OEPA in recent decades. These events are referred to in Randy Newman's 1972 song "Burn On," R.E.M.'s 1986 song "Cuyahoga," and Adam Again's 1992 song "River on Fire." Great Lakes Brewing Company of Cleveland, Ohio named their Burning River Pale Ale after the event.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epa

Beginning in the late 1950s[6] and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing public concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. A key legislative option to address this concern was the declaration of a national environmental policy.[citation needed] Advocates of this approach argued that without a specific policy, federal agencies were neither able nor inclined to consider the environmental impacts of their actions in fulfilling the agency's mission.[citation needed] The statute that ultimately addressed this issue was the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4347).[7] Senator Henry M. Jackson proposed and helped write S 1075, the bill that eventually became the National Environmental Policy Act. The law was signed by President Nixon on January 1, 1970. NEPA was the first of several major environmental laws passed in the 1970s. It declared a national policy to protect the environment and created a Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President.[citation needed] To implement the national policy, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The "detailed statement" would ultimately be referred to as an environmental impact statement (EIS).

In 1970, President Richard Nixon proposed an executive reorganization that would consolidate many of the federal government's environmental responsibilities under one agency, a new Environmental Protection Agency. That reorganization proposal was reviewed and passed by the House and Senate.[8] For at least 10 years before NEPA was enacted,[9][better source needed] Congress debated issues that the act would ultimately address.[citation needed] The act was modeled on the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959,[citation needed] introduced by Senator James E. Murray in the 86th Congress.[citation needed] That bill would have established an environmental advisory counsel in the office of the President, declared a national environmental policy, and required the preparation of an annual environmental report.[10][better source needed] In the years following the introduction of Senator Murray's bill, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment and Congress's potential responses to perceived problems. In 1968, a joint House-Senate colloquium was convened by the chairmen of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (Senator Henry Jackson) and the House Committee on Science and Astronautics (Representative George Miller) to discuss the need for and potential means of implementing a national environmental policy. In the colloquium, some Members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment.[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Administration

Nixon was a late convert to the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election; the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject. He saw that the first Earth Day in April 1970 presaged a wave of voter interest on the subject, and sought to use that to his benefit; in June he announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Nixon broke new ground by discussing environment policy in his State of the Union speech; other initiatives supported by Nixon included the Clean Air Act of 1970 and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA); the National Environmental Policy Act required environmental impact statements for many Federal projects.[165] Nixon vetoed the Clean Water Act of 1972—objecting not to the policy goals of the legislation but to the amount of money to be spent on them, which he deemed excessive. After Congress overrode his veto, Nixon impounded the funds he deemed unjustifiable.[166]

[Coyotl]

34. That paranoid asshole wanted to punish his political enemies and deny voting rights to millions.

The tapes do not reveal the scope and depth of the efforts to rat fuck real and perceived political opponents.

[Uncle Joe]

35. But he was successful despite equal, fair and just democratic principles being anathema to him

for even after his disgrace became public, followed by the pardon of his handpicked successor, his political spawn and legacy went on to flourish under Reagan, Bush the Lesser and Bush the Least.

How many countless lives have been lost or ruined and how many families destroyed because of his toxic legacy?

It boggles the mind.

[Oilwellian]

36. What a Dick n/t

[Coyotl]

37. ^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^

[Uncle Joe]

38. Now now, let's not be giving dicks a bad name, when used properly they perform important and

sometimes pleasurable functions.

There was nothing proper about Nixon.

[NightWatcher]

39. "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?"

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, that Nixon was one misguided fuckstick.

[Uncle Joe]

40. The nation has been pretty much consistently misguided since he

came to power.

As I posted up thread, Nixon was successful in passing on his political spawn and toxic legacy even after his public disgrace and downfall.

[Uncle Joe]

41. Thanks to everyone that posted and/or recommended this thread,

I'm retiring for the evening.