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"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew w

by dontbeevil1992 6y ago

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." - John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon's Chief Domestic Advisor

floor2 6y ago
This often-repeated quote is almost certainly fake. A single person claims to have heard this statement and waited until after Mr. Ehrlichman's death, decades later, to publish the quote. tl;dr - You're spreading misinformation because it confirms your biases
- res0nat0r 6y ago
  He made that statement in this interview to Harpers in 1994: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
  - mikestew 6y ago
    No, it is the memory of an interview for a book (which, AFAICT, was never published) back in 1994, and that memory was posted to a Harper's article in 2016 (I mean, it's right there in the URL), long after Ehrlichman was dead. As the inexplicably-downvoted GP comment says, there is no traceable basis for this quote. As far as we know, the author just made it up. The more likely case is that, at best, it is from old interview notes from 1994.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
djrogers 6y ago
Maybe. Or maybe not: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... -- Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. “We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color,” wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN. “The 1994 alleged ‘quote’ we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him,” the Ehrlichman family wrote. “We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father’s death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that’s because we were not raised that way.” -- Just pointing out that your quote is an alleged quote, and may or may not be accurate.
- dontbeevil1992 6y ago
  Of course it's a powerful (alleged) quote, but it's far from the only evidence that the War on Drugs is not based, even in principle, on social good, but rather to serve powerful interests such as private prisons and police. As far as the pushback from the family, I would just say that it wouldn't be the first time that someone is different at work than with his family. The worst people in history still sometimes had families and pets who they treated much better than minorities and political enemies. Furthermore, Ehrlichman may not have been racist enough to spout it unprompted, the way Nixon is recorded as being. But he would not be the first person on Capitol Hill to be craven enough to go along with racism when it helps them attain or maintain power.
  - res0nat0r 6y ago
    He made that statement in this interview to a Harpers contributer in 1994: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
    - 6y ago
cscurmudgeon 6y ago
Then, why are there several countries with much stricter drug laws than the US (e.g. Singapore has the death penalty). Many of them are outside of the US sphere of influence. https://drugabuse.com/blog/the-20-countries-with-the-harshest-drug-laws-in-the-world/ https://drugabuse.com/blog/the-20-countries-with-the-harshes...
- dontbeevil1992 6y ago
  I don't see this as a counterargument for two reasons. First, how do the actions of other countries have bearing on what is true about the history of our country? Second, I don't know the details, but seems to me that powerful people in other countries could, just like the U.S., be reaping political and financial benefits from criminalizing drugs.
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    There was no argument in the first place other than a disputed comment.

floor2 6y ago

This often-repeated quote is almost certainly fake. A single person claims to have heard this statement and waited until after Mr. Ehrlichman's death, decades later, to publish the quote. tl;dr - You're spreading misinformation because it confirms your biases

res0nat0r 6y ago
He made that statement in this interview to Harpers in 1994: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
- mikestew 6y ago
  No, it is the memory of an interview for a book (which, AFAICT, was never published) back in 1994, and that memory was posted to a Harper's article in 2016 (I mean, it's right there in the URL), long after Ehrlichman was dead. As the inexplicably-downvoted GP comment says, there is no traceable basis for this quote. As far as we know, the author just made it up. The more likely case is that, at best, it is from old interview notes from 1994.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

djrogers 6y ago

Maybe. Or maybe not: https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich... -- Ehrlichman died in 1999, but his five children in questioned the veracity of the account. “We never saw or heard anything from our dad, John Ehrlichman, that was derogatory about any person of color,” wrote Peter Ehrlichman, Tom Ehrlichman, Jan Ehrlichman, Michael Ehrlichman and Jody E. Pineda in a statement provided to CNN. “The 1994 alleged ‘quote’ we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father. And collectively, that spans over 185 years of time with him,” the Ehrlichman family wrote. “We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father’s death, when dad can no longer respond. None of us have raised our kids that way, and that’s because we were not raised that way.” -- Just pointing out that your quote is an alleged quote, and may or may not be accurate.

dontbeevil1992 6y ago
Of course it's a powerful (alleged) quote, but it's far from the only evidence that the War on Drugs is not based, even in principle, on social good, but rather to serve powerful interests such as private prisons and police. As far as the pushback from the family, I would just say that it wouldn't be the first time that someone is different at work than with his family. The worst people in history still sometimes had families and pets who they treated much better than minorities and political enemies. Furthermore, Ehrlichman may not have been racist enough to spout it unprompted, the way Nixon is recorded as being. But he would not be the first person on Capitol Hill to be craven enough to go along with racism when it helps them attain or maintain power.
- res0nat0r 6y ago
  He made that statement in this interview to a Harpers contributer in 1994: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
  - 6y ago

cscurmudgeon 6y ago

Then, why are there several countries with much stricter drug laws than the US (e.g. Singapore has the death penalty). Many of them are outside of the US sphere of influence. https://drugabuse.com/blog/the-20-countries-with-the-harshest-drug-laws-in-the-world/ https://drugabuse.com/blog/the-20-countries-with-the-harshes...

dontbeevil1992 6y ago
I don't see this as a counterargument for two reasons. First, how do the actions of other countries have bearing on what is true about the history of our country? Second, I don't know the details, but seems to me that powerful people in other countries could, just like the U.S., be reaping political and financial benefits from criminalizing drugs.
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  There was no argument in the first place other than a disputed comment.