Guatemala leader to propose legalizing drugs

[Peace Patriot]

12. Thanks for clarifying what you meant by "alligators."

Did you know that alligators are actually very good parents, who protect and nurture their young for long periods--something you might not expect from reptiles?

Off point but interesting. We are forever slandering innocent animals by comparing slimy, vicious human beings TO them. I do it myself. Calling some of our leaders snakes, vultures, rats, sharks, barracudas, hyenas and whatnot. Animals just do what they do. They don't have evil intent. They don't have the consciousness to choose good over evil, and when they do have high consciousness--dolphins, elephants, most whales--they seem to be peaceful, communal critters who don't pick fights, and/or their particular "fit" in Nature's scheme doesn't require aggression.

We, on the other hand, are a bloody-minded species capable of demanding ethical behavior of ourselves and others, and, because of this--because we are capable of distinguishing good and evil, and choosing between them--can descend into utter depravity out of greed or other motives, and sometimes out of madness (organic or psychological). Slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people to steal their oil. Torturing prisoners (helpless people). Cutting off ears, dicks, scalps as souvenirs of our dreadful deeds--and yet worse, if you consider most soldiers to be victims (probably true), TEACHING young people to kill without mercy, stoking up hatred and racism and forcing them into situations where they will commit atrocities even if they don't intend to. Ruining their lives, ruining their children's lives, destroying young families--for what? For greed. To get the oil, the money, the power. To be all powerful so you can rain death down on others with impunity.

Nature has never created a monster equal to the human monster, in death-dealing, horror-making, callousness and egotism. No animal compares. We are top of the Kali heap.

So why DO we use animal comparisons for human evil? I really don't know. It's a mystery of language and human psychology.

As for the "alligators" in the swampland of narcotics and corporate rule, I don't think Molina would have dared to propose legalization of drugs if he feared El Narco retribution for his proposal. It's true that El Narco exists because of the illegalization of drugs, and their profits could be drained from them, with legalization, into the coffers of Big Pharma, which, I am quite certain, is poised and ready to try to monopolize the entire dope business the moment that that gate is opened. Molina is not courageous. He is cowardly human rights violator. He is not some kind of champion against El Narco (trying to slay El Narco with legalization, or even just trying to evade them with legalization). I think something else is going on--basically, that the most powerful parts of El Narco are prepared for legalization and expect to be part of it.

You think he's clean? I don't. I think he has drug cartel backing. What we've learned in Colombia is that the rightwing and the drug cartels are as entwined as Siamese twins. There is no distinguishing where one ends and the other begins. They are ONE organism and their crimes are identical--and, in the case of Uribe in Colombia, ordered and organized from the top, from the president's office. Murder, extortion, blackmail, threats, intimidation, massive theft and brutality of every kind. Indeed, conjoined--as they were in Colombia--the beast of government-by-mafia was/is far worse than any criminal organization on its own.

Uribe was using government powers to consolidate the cocaine trade, to eliminate rivals, to steal the land of FIVE MILLION peasants, to commit every kind of crime from murder to election fraud to ponzi schemes, and to spy on judges and prosecutors to protect himself and his closest cronies and his favored drug lords and death squads. A criminal organization alone cannot achieve nearly as much power nor inflict nearly as much mayhem. And criminal organizations often achieve relatively peaceful, "balance of power" arrangements, based on "turf." Not so with Uribe, the Colombian military and the U.S. (Bush Junta) military. They were into making war--NOT to eliminate the drug trade but to consolidate it and profit from it.

Molina is a similar type of rightwinger. He doesn't fear El Narco. He IS El Narco. It's possible that there are several rival El Narcos in Guatemala and he fears one of them--but he is not some kind of innocent on the run from the bad guys. He IS one of the bad guys. The consolidation of the trade that I think that the Bush Junta used the U.S. "war on drugs" to accomplish may not be complete in Guatemala. It certainly is not yet complete in Mexico where the disfavored narc organizations are still fighting the favored ones and their U.S./Mexican backers. When it is all sorted out, that's where legalization comes in, to elevate the trade from crime to monopoly, through "legalization."

Possibly the very criminal organizations behind rightwingers like Uribe and Molina expect to be--or are angling to be--subsumed in the larger, legal corporations that would take over the business with the "legalization" of drugs, or are planning to create new corporations that will have to duke it out with the existing pharmaceuticals and other interested corporations (Monsanto? Chiquita? Bechtel? Dow? Bank of America?). It's called "laundering." Legalization would be the truly Big Time version of it.

That is my thesis. That is what best explains all that has gone on with the U.S. "war on drugs" over the last decade and this current weirdness with rightwing politicians calling for legalization, and the largely innocent parties, those truly into "good government"--the leftist politicians in Latin America--NOT doing so.

I can't quite figure out Santos. (His fellow rightwinger and rival, Uribe, has NOT called for legalization. This may be because he's too dirty to be included in any deal with Big Pharma.) But one thing is clear about Santos--he is the architect, on the Colombia side of things, of the U.S. "free trade for the rich" agreement. So he is likely in even tighter (than Uribe was) with the interested transglobal corporations who would oversee and greatly profit from legalization.

Uribe might have reason to be plenty pissed at this. He got rid of the labor union leaders for these corporations, cleansed the land of peasants and, in every way, did the Bush Junta's bidding--and he doesn't get to be "laundered," too?! The "laundering" of Uribe that Panetta probably arranged--getting criminal witnesses out of the country; cushy academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard--may ultimately be quite thin, as Colombian prosecutors proceed with their investigations of Uribe. I think Uribe is just too dirty and, despite his coziness with the Bush Cartel (or maybe because of his danger to Junior) will have to be jettisoned. Panetta put Santos in power (or, at the least, vetted and approved him). He yanked Uribe, who is very vulnerable to prosecution in Colombia, and here (a couple of lawsuits in the courts, by death squad victims' survivors).

What I can't figure out about Santos is this very thing: Is he El Narco-backed? Bear in mind that much of the Colombian military (of which he was Defense Minister) is dirty with the drug trade. Its paramilitary death squads are, of course, dirty. Many and maybe most office holders in Colombia are dirty. (Some SEVENTY of Uribe's closest political associates--in his government and in the legislature--are under investigation or already in jail for numerous crimes including drug trafficking and ties to the death squads.) Uribe's home territory--Medellin--and other parts of Colombia are notoriously dirty (mayors, police chiefs, etc.) How could Santos have escaped this dirty money and power scene? He ACTS LIKE he's not dirty, but, being of the same rightwing party as Uribe, it's hard to believe. The narc trade underpins EVERYTHING in Colombia.

Now maybe what he's done--and why Uribe hates him so much (he really does)--is make his own accommodation with the favored drug cartels (the ones that the Bush Junta/Uribe empowered and that Uribe thinks that he is "godfather" of), while maintaining a clean image, to muscle Uribe out. Santos doesn't have the "look" of such deviousness, but that doesn't mean that he isn't. It's just hard to figure how anybody gets into such a powerful position in Colombia WITHOUT the agreement of the big drug organizations and without their financial backing. These big drug organizations may be playing for inclusion in the Big Pharma/Big Corporate legalization. They may be lying low, as to their visible political muscle, to see how well they fare. If they get screwed by Santos, they will strike. He may not be "in their pocket." He may not be mafia himself. But he's made a deal. And they know that he has to be "clean" (or appear to be clean) to be in a position to make the legalization deal.

I have not seen ANY evidence that Santos fears El Narco. So, in Colombia--and by analogy in Guatemala, with Molina--El Narco (or important parts of El Narco) must be okay with legalization. They may both end up dead, with two bullets in their heads, tomorrow, and I will be proved wrong. But that's how I make sense of the RIGHTWING calling for legalization while the Leftwing remains relatively quiet about it--as if they are not at all sure that this is a good idea. (Do they feel their jaws dropping, as I have--or are they more in the know, maybe biding their time, checking it out? Not sure. Chavez, of all people, has been strangely silent. Warriors against the U.S. "war on drugs" like Morales in Bolivia have been silent. WHAT is going on with this? The center-right is carrying all the weight on legalization! It's very odd.)