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why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Why not go back to the CIA and how they wanted to undermine the social & political revolutions of the 60s & 70s? why n

why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Why not go back to the CIA and how they wanted to undermine the social & political revolutions of the 60s & 70s? why not go back to 'reefer madness' and the how it was based almost solely in fear and racism, or how William Randolph Hearst's paper & publishing 'empire' was threatened by hemp? does any of that matter? Not really. We have a problem now that we need to fix. We don't need to dwell in the past or blame people. We're more knowledgeable now - so we need to use that knowledge to fix the problems - or at least work with / around them to the betterment of people.

piva00 9y ago
I don't think that any reasonable person at any point thought that blaming is a solution. It's just important to direct blame so we can understand history and how events unfolded from that point, there are people and policies to blame and a chain reaction of events which culminated in our current situation, not necessarily we're dwelling in the past pointing fingers and then feeling good that something was solved.
- indubitable 9y ago
  The issue with this is that ultimately no individual is ever really personally responsible for a societal level action. To take a contemporary example, it's very possible that within the not so distant future the first amendment may be overturned. And it's equally possible that 50 years later it comes to be that deciding to allow the government to criminalize speech at their discretion somehow doesn't turn out so well. So people would go back to the past to try to figure out what happened. And perhaps they would decide to blame President McPolitic, who oversaw the overturning of the amendment, as the source of the problem. Surely they just used their powers to make a decision that turned out very bad. But of course it wouldn't be that individual - but rather society that somehow moved in a direction that in hindsight might seem otherwise inexplicable. The nice thing is that people looking back at today will [hopefully] have access to internet archives and they can see how things evolved. The NSA's surveillance and data collection are, in this regard, doing society a great service. They are effectively creating the greatest global social archive in the history of our species --- a sort of time capsule that encompasses the entire existence of humanity in the developed world. But we don't have that privilege when we look back at the past today. So all we can do is look at the data. Historic record, such as "the Nixon quote", cannot be taken at face value. Those casting such aspersions (or praises) have their own biases and agendas. What we do from the data is that violent crime in the 50s and 60s was very rare. But then something happened. It started skyrocketing. From the 60s to the 70s the per capita crime rate more than doubled. And drug use and abuse was also skyrocketing. Is it not reasonable to assume that people, somewhat naturally, began to link the two since they did rather often compliment one another? Now we look at drugs much more tolerably, but that too follows an interesting trend. Violent crime started sharply declining a decline in the 90s. That's a trend that continues to this very day. And our views, as a society, are reflective of this change. Ultimately I think leaders are products of society, rather than society being a product of its leaders. And thus attributing blame (or praise) to any individual is, at best, a misrepresentation of an event.
otakucode 9y ago
Blame in itself doesn't have a great deal of use, and is usually not a solvable problem. You'll always face some contributor or condition that came before which, had it been different, feels like it could have changed things. Would Hitler have gotten widely known and ended up elected if Germany had not banned the Nazi newsletter after the Beer Hall Putsch which led most Germans to seek out the newsletters? Probably not, but that can only be a guess. Blame as such is mostly just an emotional thing, something that our brains want to make situations easier to understand due to how our brains process everything as associations. BUT, blame does have an important side as well. Recognizing the possible or likely contribution of Nixon's actions, for example, informs us of the possible dangerous consequences of authoritarian approaches to drug policy. While it can't definitely establish a causal link, it can serve at least as a basic 'this approach can lead to X' or 'this approach was tried and did not prevent X' lesson. Hopefully, it can enable us to have a better discussion and teach us about the realities of the situations involved. Often things can look great on paper, but when implemented on large numbers of varied people they fall apart. Learning what works on those large groups of varied people can really only be done phenomenologically. You have to try things and observe the result. If the result is bad, but the 'on paper' form looked (or felt) really good, it's always a fight to change things. We see this with drug policy, supply-side economics, anti-sex moralism born with the Industrial Revolution, all kinds of things. Knowing where it started, and how people were convinced of things can be useful to show how people might be convinced differently or at least what to be afraid of when you see similar tactics being used in other arenas.
Zigurd 9y ago
Some measure of blame and exposing the dark motives is useful if only to counteract lots of Drug War propaganda.
- slamdance 9y ago
  The best way (IMO) to counteract the WoD propaganda is through facts, education, medical studies, etc... and through these issues, the people that pushed the illogical conclusions will be exposed, embarrassed and hopefully come away more enlightened.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Because if politicians are not held accountable for their actions, it removes the incentive to be genuine and honest on their part.
- slamdance 9y ago
  the vast majority of the politicians responsible for the 'war of drugs' are dead. The ones that continue to perpetuate it are not being held accountable for anything, let alone the WoD. So by continuing to point fingers (at politicians), what is being accomplished? The only movement that I have seen is at the State level, where the people are literally telling the "authorities" to GTFO and legalizing (or decriminalizing) at the state level. If anything the politicians are reaping the rewards by playing both sides of the issue. Blaming them doesn't work.

piva00 9y ago

I don't think that any reasonable person at any point thought that blaming is a solution. It's just important to direct blame so we can understand history and how events unfolded from that point, there are people and policies to blame and a chain reaction of events which culminated in our current situation, not necessarily we're dwelling in the past pointing fingers and then feeling good that something was solved.

indubitable 9y ago
The issue with this is that ultimately no individual is ever really personally responsible for a societal level action. To take a contemporary example, it's very possible that within the not so distant future the first amendment may be overturned. And it's equally possible that 50 years later it comes to be that deciding to allow the government to criminalize speech at their discretion somehow doesn't turn out so well. So people would go back to the past to try to figure out what happened. And perhaps they would decide to blame President McPolitic, who oversaw the overturning of the amendment, as the source of the problem. Surely they just used their powers to make a decision that turned out very bad. But of course it wouldn't be that individual - but rather society that somehow moved in a direction that in hindsight might seem otherwise inexplicable. The nice thing is that people looking back at today will [hopefully] have access to internet archives and they can see how things evolved. The NSA's surveillance and data collection are, in this regard, doing society a great service. They are effectively creating the greatest global social archive in the history of our species --- a sort of time capsule that encompasses the entire existence of humanity in the developed world. But we don't have that privilege when we look back at the past today. So all we can do is look at the data. Historic record, such as "the Nixon quote", cannot be taken at face value. Those casting such aspersions (or praises) have their own biases and agendas. What we do from the data is that violent crime in the 50s and 60s was very rare. But then something happened. It started skyrocketing. From the 60s to the 70s the per capita crime rate more than doubled. And drug use and abuse was also skyrocketing. Is it not reasonable to assume that people, somewhat naturally, began to link the two since they did rather often compliment one another? Now we look at drugs much more tolerably, but that too follows an interesting trend. Violent crime started sharply declining a decline in the 90s. That's a trend that continues to this very day. And our views, as a society, are reflective of this change. Ultimately I think leaders are products of society, rather than society being a product of its leaders. And thus attributing blame (or praise) to any individual is, at best, a misrepresentation of an event.

otakucode 9y ago

Blame in itself doesn't have a great deal of use, and is usually not a solvable problem. You'll always face some contributor or condition that came before which, had it been different, feels like it could have changed things. Would Hitler have gotten widely known and ended up elected if Germany had not banned the Nazi newsletter after the Beer Hall Putsch which led most Germans to seek out the newsletters? Probably not, but that can only be a guess. Blame as such is mostly just an emotional thing, something that our brains want to make situations easier to understand due to how our brains process everything as associations. BUT, blame does have an important side as well. Recognizing the possible or likely contribution of Nixon's actions, for example, informs us of the possible dangerous consequences of authoritarian approaches to drug policy. While it can't definitely establish a causal link, it can serve at least as a basic 'this approach can lead to X' or 'this approach was tried and did not prevent X' lesson. Hopefully, it can enable us to have a better discussion and teach us about the realities of the situations involved. Often things can look great on paper, but when implemented on large numbers of varied people they fall apart. Learning what works on those large groups of varied people can really only be done phenomenologically. You have to try things and observe the result. If the result is bad, but the 'on paper' form looked (or felt) really good, it's always a fight to change things. We see this with drug policy, supply-side economics, anti-sex moralism born with the Industrial Revolution, all kinds of things. Knowing where it started, and how people were convinced of things can be useful to show how people might be convinced differently or at least what to be afraid of when you see similar tactics being used in other arenas.

Zigurd 9y ago

Some measure of blame and exposing the dark motives is useful if only to counteract lots of Drug War propaganda.

slamdance 9y ago
The best way (IMO) to counteract the WoD propaganda is through facts, education, medical studies, etc... and through these issues, the people that pushed the illogical conclusions will be exposed, embarrassed and hopefully come away more enlightened.

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> why does it have to about who we 'blame'? Because if politicians are not held accountable for their actions, it removes the incentive to be genuine and honest on their part.

slamdance 9y ago
the vast majority of the politicians responsible for the 'war of drugs' are dead. The ones that continue to perpetuate it are not being held accountable for anything, let alone the WoD. So by continuing to point fingers (at politicians), what is being accomplished? The only movement that I have seen is at the State level, where the people are literally telling the "authorities" to GTFO and legalizing (or decriminalizing) at the state level. If anything the politicians are reaping the rewards by playing both sides of the issue. Blaming them doesn't work.