We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The People Vs. the War on Drugs: Filmmaker Tackles the "Predatory Monster"

Click here to access article by Maya Schenwar from Truthout.

The author interviews filmmaker Eugene Jarecki about his recently released film "The House I Live In". 

You may be surprise by what Jarecki discovered through his interviews with people in the law enforcement industry. It appears that the jig is up on the War on Drugs which has been plaguing communities here in the US for the last 40 years. 
Across the country, we found this almost unanimous chorus of voices agreeing that this system doesn't make any sense. It is a victim of the same corruption of politics that's ruining so many walks of life in America: corporate America and Congress are in an unholy alliance with each other, in which Congress members ensure their electability by servicing their corporate patrons, who then bring jobs to their districts and money to their campaign coffers. That unholy alliance is behind the military industrial complex, it's behind the pharmaceutical industry, it's why we have the insurance corruption we have, it's behind the banks, it's why the polluters get away with murder. The prison-industrial complex is just, perhaps, the most obscene example of that phenomenon that has taken over every walk of American life.
However, while doing a search on where it might be showing in my area, I found nothing. Also, I noticed that many other people were having the same experience.