Congratulations Chicago!

[LornaDoone]

Legit question.

Jews are one of the most culturally, socially and religiously insulated groups in the West. Within some flexibility, all behavior aligns to Jewish values and culture. At least up until very recently. A lot of people look down on Jews for how insulated they are. But I think that's how they survived.

I don't think blacks had that sort of insulation. Their names were changed, their identities were changed, their religion was changed. That kind of forced identity transformation is deep. Even the Jews didn't have to deal with that in the Holocaust. Through everything they went through, they had a strong identity which allowed their values to survive.

And with slavery, there was a moral component. The Jews knew, without a doubt, what was happening to them was evil. They knew they were human beings and had human rights to aspire to.

But when you're a slave, you tend to become morally indifferent. You don't even believe you have human rights, because you aren't even human.

I'm not a bleeding heart, and I'm not justifying shit. But the human psyche is profound.

Great post. Not to mention Jews get financial support to the tune of billions of dollars per year in foreign aid from America to set up their own country and protect it from their hostile neighbors in the area. Our foreign policy in the Middle East completely revolves around Israel's well being. The government has never been that kind to Black Americans so comparing Jews and Blacks is apples and oranges.

 

[Zsaleem]

How long do you think it will take until the Jews recover from the Holocaust?

Jon recovered pretty fast IMO.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Not to mention Jews get financial support to the tune of billions of dollars per year in foreign aid from America to set up their own country and protect it from their hostile neighbors in the area. Our foreign policy in the Middle East completely revolves around Israel's well being. The government has never been that kind to Black Americans so comparing Jews and Blacks is apples and oranges.

Israel (and a lot of other countries) gets foreign aid, Jews don't. None of the Jewish people I know are getting foreign aid from the US Govt but they seem to be doing OK.

You do realize that Blacks didn't get full civil rights until the 1960s, not "150" years ago.

I was referring to the Emancipation Proclamation, but yes I'm aware that there were Jim Crow laws in some southern states that still affected some blacks into the 60's. I get that. What I don't get is why someone born since then would let that hold them back.

I'm not naive enough to think that your parents or grandparents lot in life has zero effect on you growing up, but at some point as an adult you have to let it go and move on. Every race of people has been enslaved. Every race of people has enslaved others. There are no innocents in that regard, but why the fuck should I care if my ancestors (Irish) were treated like shit? How does that affect me and my kids now?

If I decided not to be a father to my children should I blame that on the hardships of my grandparents or take personal responsibility? If I decided to continue in a life of a crime should I blame that on the hardships of my parents or take personal responsibility?

For me personally, the ONLY way I was able to be free of the mental baggage that was holding me back in life was to stop making excuses for my own actions and take full personal responsibility. Once I did that life immediately got better.

Your mileage may vary, but it's easy to look and see what hasn't worked. Unfortunately, too many people make too much money playing the excuse game.

 

[LornaDoone]

Unarmed Gunman, I'm an advocate of personal responsibility and don't support anyone who shirks it so you and I agree on that. I am talking about the Black community as a whole. The Black community was doing relatively well until the drugs devastated our communities. I lived through some of the worst times of the 1980s and 1990s. Remember all the crack babies born in the 80s? They're the fucked up adults you have walking around now. Who put the crack in the communities? Blacks don't have planes and resources to smuggle drugs from South America into North America. What I'm trying to say is that the infiltration of drugs into our communities led to the moral decay that you are witnessing now. During the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s Black families were intact, our neighborhoods were relatively safe and we were proud business owners and families. The proliferation of single parenthood that exists now did not exist back then. The crack epidemic ruined the family unit and once the family unit is destroyed, everything else will also fail. Black business ownership dropped, the property values plummeted from the resultant crime that the drugs introduced into the communities, educational standards dropped, and all in all just a total breakdown of Black society. Do you have any friends who are in the law enforcement industry? If you do, I guarantee that if you ask them about the crime rate in the Black community they will tell you that at LEAST 90 -95% of the crime can be attributed to the false "War on Drugs".

 

[LornaDoone]

Unarmed Gunman, I'm an advocate of personal responsibility and don't support anyone who shirks it so you and I agree on that. I am talking about the Black community as a whole. The Black community was doing relatively well until the drugs devastated our communities. I lived through some of the worst times of the 1980s and 1990s. Remember all the crack babies born in the 80s? They're the fucked up adults you have walking around now. Who put the crack in the communities? Blacks don't have planes and resources to smuggle drugs from South America into North America. What I'm trying to say is that the infiltration of drugs into our communities led to the moral decay that you are witnessing now. During the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s Black families were intact, our neighborhoods were relatively safe and we were proud business owners and families. The proliferation of single parenthood that exists now did not exist back then. The crack epidemic ruined the family unit and once the family unit is destroyed, everything else will also fail. Black business ownership dropped, the property values plummeted from the resultant crime that the drugs introduced into the communities, educational standards dropped, and all in all just a total breakdown of Black society. Do you have any friends who are in the law enforcement industry? If you do, I guarantee that if you ask them about the crime rate in the Black community they will tell you that at LEAST 90 -95% of the crime can be attributed to the false "War on Drugs".

 

[LornaDoone]

Unarmed Gunman,

Here is an in depth article from PBS from the 90s that highlights a series of meetings between the CIA and angry residents of LA's Black community over their alleged role in introducing crack into Black communities:

Online NewsHour: The CIA's supposed link to crack cocaine -- November 18, 1996

Even since the San Jose Mercury News published a controversial series, Californians have been up in arms over an alleged connection between the CIA and crack cocaine dealers. In response, CIA director John Deutch traveled to Los Angeles and vowed to investigate the charges. NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Kaye reports on Deutch's trip and the controversy surrounding it. [SIZE=+1]Related NewsHour Stories and Online Forums[/SIZE] November 5, 1996:
Gary Webb, author of the Mercury News articles that broke the CIA/crack story, defends himself in an Online Forum. September 5, 1996:
Read an Online NewsHour segment on drug abuse. [SIZE=+1]Outside Links[/SIZE]
Selections from Senate Committee reports on the Contras and drug dealing. JIM LEHRER: Now the second CIA story which is about a most unusual trip that the CIA director made to the West Coast on Friday. It was to respond to charges concerning the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles reports.

REP. MILLENDER-McDONALD,(D): Please join me in welcoming Mr. John Deutch. (Applause)
JEFFREY KAYE: CIA Director John Deutch faced a largely hostile audience Friday afternoon at a community forum in South Los Angeles.
JOHN DEUTCH,

Director, CIA: Thank you, Congresswoman Millender-McDonald, for holding this public meeting, for giving me the opportunity to talk with members of this community about charges that the CIA introduced crack cocaine into South Central Los Angeles in the mid-1980s. It is an appalling charge. It is an appalling charge that goes to the heart of this country. It is a charge that cannot go unanswered.
JEFFREY KAYE: Deutch pledged a thorough investigation. His extraordinary public relations mission to Watts came in response to a public outcry over a report by a California paper, the San

Jose Mercury News. The three-part series, "Dark Alliance," appeared in August on the Internet, as well as in print.
Although the articles drew criticism by several major newspapers, they raised a firestorm of outrage and prompted official inquiries. The newspaper asserted that members of the CIA's army in Nicaragua helped spark a crack cocaine explosion in urban America in the 1980s. The report said two Nicaraguans, Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles drug dealer Ricky Ross. The articles said Blandon and Meneses funneled millions of dollars in profits to CIA-backed rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

The articles showed no direct link to the CIA but did include a photograph of Meneses, on the right, with Adolfo Calero, in the center, a leader in the CIA-funded rebel army known as the contras. Much of the information in the articles is not new. Allegations of Contra/drug connections have been the subject of congressional probes, news stories, and books.
What is new is the link the articles suggest between the wholesalers and the retailers--between men said to be associated with the CIA-backed contras and sales of crack cocaine on the streets. The series was written by reporter Gary Webb.
JEFFREY. KAYE: Did the CIA dump drugs into the black community?

GARY WEBB, San Jose Mercury News: We don't have any evidence so far that they did it directly. And what we have evidence of is that men working for a CIA run army did do that.
JEFFREY KAYE: With the knowledge of the CIA?
GARY WEBB: That's the part we don't know. That's the part we don't know. I mean what we know is that these guys were working for a CIA army, they were meeting with CIA agents before and during the time they were doing this. What happens from there is sort of where we ran into the wall of national security.
JEFFREY KAYE: On Friday, CIA Director Dutch did not directly address the broad question of whether the CIA knew about drug dealing. Instead he cautiously denied a conspiracy.
JOHN DEUTCH: As of today, we have no evidence of a conspiracy by the CIA to engage in encouraging drug traffickers in Nicaragua or elsewhere in Latin America during this or any other period. However, I am going to wait and see what the results are of this Inspector General's investigation.
JEFFREY KAYE: Even without hard evidence connecting the CIA with drug dealing, many have accepted that conclusion. A standing-room-only crowd of about fifteen hundred attended a forum on the subject in September. L.A. Congresswoman Maxine Waters was one of the organizers.

 

[LornaDoone]

REP. MAXINE WATERS, (D) California: (September) Now there are people who will say, Well, Miss Waters, maybe the CIA wasn't directly involved. Maybe it was just the people from Nicaragua and other places who were kind of CIA connected. Maybe they just turned their heads. Maybe they just kind of blinked and said, well, it doesn't make any difference whether they delivered the kilo themselves, or they turned their heads while somebody else delivered it, they're just as guilty. (applause) JEFFREY KAYE: Waters has made this issue a priority.
REP. MAXINE WATERS: We are going to pass out the San Jose Mercury News articles.

JEFFREY KAYE: In the hands of activists, reprints of the series have become political pamphlets. They see the articles as confirmation of a long-suspected conspiracy.
DANNY BAKEWELL, Brotherhood Crusade: We're here today to put a face on our outrage, and our disappointment in what we know is a government ploy and a setup to decimate our communities. (applause)
JEFFREY KAYE: The palpable anger has its roots in the spread of a drug many compare to a plague. Crack cocaine hit hard in the inner city starting in the early 80's. The drug is relatively cheap and highly addictive. It spread quickly. The crack business was lucrative for high-powered dealers like Ricky Ross, the man cited in the series. Ross, now in federal prison in San Diego, became an overnight millionaire.
RICKY ROSS, Convicted Drug Dealer: At our heyday, as much as maybe a million (dollars) a day, two million a day sometimes, maybe more, you know a few days. Now this wasn't every day, but it was like we had days that--
JEFFREY KAYE: That's how much you were taking in.
RICKY ROSS: Right. In one day.
JEFFREY KAYE: Ross says he complained to his supplier Danilo Blandon that he had difficulty counting all the money.

RICKY ROSS: So eventually, he bought us a money machine. And he brought it over to us and it eased the, you know, pain a lot. But eventually, it even got too much for one money machine. We wound up getting three money machines to count it because one money machine would just be money, money, money, and they would have money stacked. And we hired people that all they would do all day was count money eventually.
JEFFREY KAYE: Full time money counters?
RICKY ROSS: Yeah.
JEFFREY KAYE: Even though Ross is a central figure in this story, he can shed little light on the people he dealt with.
JEFFREY KAYE: Blandon-- what did you know about him? Did you know his name?
RICKY ROSS: No, just Danilo.
JEFFREY KAYE: Danilo.
RICKY ROSS: And we used to call him Nika.
JEFFREY KAYE: You don't even know his last name-
RICKY ROSS: No.
JEFFREY KAYE: Did he ever talk about the government, the U.S. government?
RICKY ROSS: No, never.
JEFFREY KAYE: DEA, CIA?
RICKY ROSS: No, never.

JEFFREY KAYE: While Ross made easy money, Dr. Xylina Bean was coping with cocaine's tragic consequences. At the neonatology ward at Martin Luther King Hospital in L.A., she saw 60 babies a month born with cocaine in their systems. Today, Bean's anger embodies a common view that the black community has been victimized.
DR. XYLINA BEAN: Every child, every baby, every child of the substance abusing mother and a substance abusing family should be considered a victim of violence, and be entitled to reparations.
JEFFREY KAYE: Congresswoman Waters says the strong reaction to allegations of government involvement in the crack trade is not surprising. That's because the drug has touched so many lives.
REP. MAXINE WATERS:

One thing that's very striking, when you're out there, people will get up and they'll start crying. I have women who have gotten up and told stories about they haven't seen their daughter for years. Their daughter's on crack. They have the babies. Every audience that I go into, there's always a sizeable number of people who have had it in their families: sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, cousins. So this scourge has touched a lot of people and there's a lot of pain out there; I mean, just a lot of pain.

 

[LornaDoone]

JEFFREY KAYE: At a recent Senate hearing, inspectors general from the CIA and Justice Department promised thorough reviews. The committee also heard from a former Senate investigator, Jack Blum, who in the late '80s looked into drug trafficking by the contras.

JACK BLUM, Former Senate Investigator: The answer you get to the questions you ask depends totally on how you frame the question. If you ask the question, did the CIA sell drugs in the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles to finance the contra war, the answer will be a categorical no. Now, having said that, we have to go back to what is true, and what is true is the policy makers absolutely closed their eyes to the criminal behavior of our allies and supporters in that war. The policy makers ignored their drug dealing, their stealing and their human rights violation.
JEFFREY KAYE: But while Blum lends credence to some of the allegations raised by the Mercury News, major newspapers have criticized the series. The L.A. Times, Washington Post, and New York Times have all run articles, saying the Mercury News overstated the facts. Leo Wolinsky is Metropolitan editor of the L.A. Times.
LEO WOLINSKY, L.A. Times: The main weakness was the basic allegation that the contras had made millions from dealing drugs on the streets of Los Angeles, working through a northern California drug dealer
JEFFREY KAYE: Wolinsky's reporters said the Nicaraguans sent no more than $50,000 to the contras.

LEO WOLINSKY: Also indicated that this drug ring was responsible for beginning the crack epidemic in Los Angeles and spreading it like Johnny Appleseed across the country. Found out those facts were untrue also; that crack started in various parts of the country simultaneously, and that crack was already in Los Angeles far before this story ever took place. The other thing that was questionable was the ties to the CIA, which they never said specifically that the CIA was dealing drugs, but there are a lot of implications throughout the article.
JEFFREY KAYE: Waters says the criticisms miss the point.
REP. MAXINE WATERS: It's not about whether or not this trafficking ring gave fifty thousand

dollars or fifty million dollars to the Contras. The main story is that there has been a connection made between the government, the CIA, and its involvement in drug trafficking to support the Contras. Can American citizens ever tolerate this kind of involvement or connection? We don't know how direct it was, whether or not they just kind of winked, blinked, turned their back, but it needs to be known, and it seems to me that everybody would be interested in getting to the bottom of that.
JOHN DEUTCH: I will get to the bottom of it, and I will let you know the results of what I've found.
JEFFREY KAYE: But if Friday's forum was any indication, members of this community have little faith in a CIA investigation.

MAN IN AUDIENCE: This man coming into this community at this time, as far as we are concerned, most of us in this audience, is a mandate to close the investigation and to prepare us for him to say six months down the line that the CIA didn't do anything.
JEFFREY KAYE: Audience members hurled a series of angry accusations during the fiery, 90-minute meeting. One skeptical speaker after another used the microphone to voice anger and suspicion.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You know, as well as everyone else, that the CIA has been dealing drugs throughout the world and bringing drugs into this country since the Vietnam War. You brought them in here in body bags. You were in the Golden Triangle. So you're going to come in this community and insult us and tell us that you're going to investigate yourself? You got to be crazy.
JEFFREY KAYE: Deutch said repeatedly that any wrongdoers would be brought to justice. As he prepared to leave, he told an emotional audience he would take the charges seriously.

JOHN DEUTCH: Thank you. Thank you for--thank you for letting me come here today. You know, I have learned something. I've learned how important it is for our government and for our agency to get on top of this problem and stop it. I just want to say that I came today to try and describe--(off mike yelling)--the approach that I'm taking--the approach that I'm taking to address these serious charges. But I go away with a better appreciation of what's on your mind. And I go away with a conviction that we're going to do more to stop drugs from coming into the United States. Thank you very much. (applause)
JEFFREY KAYE: The forum broke up in distrust and chaos, just as it had begun. Meanwhile, members of California's congressional delegation say they will push hard for answers to a fundamental question: What did the government know about drug dealing?

 

[LornaDoone]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT5MY3C86bk"]Former LA Police Officer Mike Ruppert Confronts CIA Director John Deutch on Drug Trafficking - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Unarmed Gunman, I'm an advocate of personal responsibility and don't support anyone who shirks it so you and I agree on that. I am talking about the Black community as a whole. The Black community was doing relatively well until the drugs devastated our communities.

Drugs have hit all communities and many families. But like I said, drug use is a personal choice which requires personal responsibility. People that are led to believe (for whatever reason) that they don't need to have any personal responsibility are going to be affected far worse. And we've seen that play out ever since LBJ's "Great Society".

Who put the crack in the communities? Blacks don't have planes and resources to smuggle drugs from South America into North America.

Well we know for a fact that at least some of the drugs were brought in by the CIA to help fund their central American exploits in the 80's. But if you put me in a room full of crack, I'm not going to smoke it. Once again, it comes down to personal responsibility and if you have a group of people that don't believe in personal responsibility, they will act accordingly. That behavior doesn't follow racial lines either, it's cultural. The black community just happens to be more heavily impacted by it.

What I'm trying to say is that the infiltration of drugs into our communities led to the moral decay that you are witnessing now. During the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s Black families were intact, our neighborhoods were relatively safe and we were proud business owners and families. The proliferation of single parenthood that exists now did not exist back then. The crack epidemic ruined the family unit and once the family unit is destroyed, everything else will also fail. Black business ownership dropped, the property values plummeted from the resultant crime that the drugs introduced into the communities, educational standards dropped, and all in all just a total breakdown of Black society.

Agreed, but crack use is way down from the 80's, yet single parent households are still going up. And the trend started long before crack hit, so it's not the only factor. Like I said, I think many of LBJ's Great Society programs have done more harm than good for the black community. I think the drugs are at least partially a symptom of that and not just the cause of what we see now.

Do you have any friends who are in the law enforcement industry? If you do, I guarantee that if you ask them about the crime rate in the Black community they will tell you that at LEAST 90 -95% of the crime can be attributed to the false "War on Drugs".

No argument from me on that, I support full legalization and personal responsibility.

 

[LornaDoone]

Drugs have hit all communities and many families. But like I said, drug use is a personal choice which requires personal responsibility. People that are led to believe (for whatever reason) that they don't need to have any personal responsibility are going to be affected far worse. And we've seen that play out ever since LBJ's "Great Society".

Yes, drug use is a personal decision because no one forces anyone to use it. However, the country had never seen anything as bad as crack cocaine up until that point so there was no way they could have known the devastating consequences that widespread addiction would bring. The Black community had just achieved victory with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 so we were just beginning to integrate into the mainstream with full civil rights that we had never had before so I believe the timing of the crack epidemic hitting the communities was also a factor because the community was still vulnerable because we were not as established as White communities who had long enjoyed basic civil rights and had an established economic presence in this country.

Well we know for a fact that at least some of the drugs were brought in by the CIA to help fund their central American exploits in the 80's. But if you put me in a room full of crack, I'm not going to smoke it. Once again, it comes down to personal responsibility and if you have a group of people that don't believe in personal responsibility, they will act accordingly. That behavior doesn't follow racial lines either, it's cultural. The black community just happens to be more heavily impacted by it.

So the CIA, run by a bunch of White guys, were able to pour drugs into the community, devastate that community for THEIR financial gain to the point where it destroyed entire families, yet the community THEY devastated gets labeled as the "savages", "prone to crime" once they get hooked on the drugs that the CIA brought into their communities, LOL, ....Do you not see the hypocrisy in this?? I don't see anyone being blamed for the high crime rate in inner cities but the Blacks whose communities were victimized by the CIA. Remember now, drugs such as crack lead to breakdown of moral standards in communities, just look at Mexico or any community that has been engulfed in it. So how come the people who introduced it into the communities are never called "savages" and criminals yet their victims are?

Agreed, but crack use is way down from the 80's, yet single parent households are still going up. And the trend started long before crack hit, so it's not the only factor. Like I said, I think many of LBJ's Great Society programs have done more harm than good for the black community. I think the drugs are at least partially a symptom of that and not just the cause of what we see now.
.

Crack use is down because people now see how devastating it is. Those who were initially hooked on it when it was first introduced into the Black communities didn't have the luxury of seeing into the future the damage this new "powder" that all of sudden turned up into their communities would bring. It created a domino effect. What do you think happened to all the crack babies that were birthed in the 80s and 90s? Learning disabilities and just being mentally fucked up all the way around. You don't think there is any long term effects from this that still persist to this day?

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

The Black community had just achieved victory with the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Your timing is off by about 20 years because crack didn't hit until the 80's.

So the CIA, run by a bunch of White guys, were able to pour drugs into the community, devastate that community for THEIR financial gain to the point where it destroyed entire families, yet the community THEY devastated gets labeled as the "savages", "prone to crime" once they get hooked on the drugs that the CIA brought into their communities, LOL, ....Do you not see the hypocrisy in this?? I don't see anyone being blamed for the high crime rate in inner cities but the Blacks whose communities were victimized by the CIA. Remember now, drugs such as crack lead to breakdown of moral standards in communities, just look at Mexico or any community that has been engulfed in it. So how come the people who introduced it into the communities are never called "savages" and criminals yet their victims are?

Fuck the CIA, you're talking to someone who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. But like I said, drug use is a personal choice. I happen to believe very strongly in personal responsibility. Some people like to blame others for their own bad decisions, but I don't buy into that bullshit anymore. That type of thinking landed my ass in prison, and it's sent a lot of other people there too.

Man up, find legit work, be a REAL father to your kids - and watch everything else magically get better. Until then, no sympathy. Understanding yes, but no sympathy.

 

[LornaDoone]

Your timing is off by about 20 years because crack didn't hit until the 80's.

That was just crack, but heroin and LSD were becoming popular before then. The white hippies of the 60s were overdosing left and right but they had their parents money to save them from themselves. Many of the returning Viet Nam vets were coming back hooked on drugs, as well as drugs being smuggled back in the body bags of those vets. The Rockefeller Drug Laws were passed in 1973 to deal with the growing drug problem that began in the 60s, but crack took things to a whole nother level in the 80s

Rockefeller Drug Laws - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fuck the CIA, you're talking to someone who wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. But like I said, drug use is a personal choice. I happen to believe very strongly in personal responsibility. Some people like to blame others for their own bad decisions, but I don't buy into that bullshit anymore. That type of thinking landed my ass in prison, and it's sent a lot of other people there too.

Man up, find legit work, be a REAL father to your kids - and watch everything else magically get better. Until then, no sympathy. Understanding yes, but no sympathy.

I agree. Now before any of the knuckleheads on this forum come in this thread and twist my words, I'm not saying that every crime committed in the hood should be excused and blamed on drugs. There was a case a few years ago where 2 Black guys went on a crime spree, their victims were both Black and White, but the one that really made people angry was when they killed a family including two young kids. They rightly received the death penalty but if I had my way I would have put them in a room with some hungry lions and let them meet their maker that way. So individual criminals who are of sound mind and know right from wrong should be punished severely for their crimes. I am speaking in general terms about the impact that drugs have had on the community which I feel cannot be ignored because the damage is something that I see everyday and lived through during the darkest periods of the 80s and 90s.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Here's another interesting take on the roots of violent crime: America's Real Criminal Element: Lead | Mother Jones.

 

[KennyPowers]

It's weird how the murders are mostly in areas where minorities live. Huh...