Why Hilary Clinton Should Not Run For President

Clive Davis

New York Times Shill-fest for Murderous Industry Mob Vampyre Clive Davis

No mere vulgar showbiz reminiscence — and that’s kind of a pity — Clive Davis’s autobiography has the ceremonious heft we associate with presidential memoirs. At 586 dense pages, “The Soundtrack of My Life” is dwarfed by Bill Clinton’s herculean “My Life.” But it leaves the shrimpy 497 pages of George W. Bush’s “Decision Points” looking like an amuse-bouche.

Not that Davis is overestimating his own stature. As the head of Columbia Records in the 1960s, he discovered, among others, Janis Joplin. As the founder of Arista and then J Records later on, he not only sprang Barry Manilow and Kenny G on a blameless world, but presciently signed Patti Smith and revitalized the careers of Aretha Franklin, the Kinks and the Grateful Dead. Then he turned Whitney Houston into a superstar and helped hip-hop go mainstream in the 1990s. Those are just the highlights of a career studded with too many lesser coups to count, though “The Soundtrack of My Life” invites us to try.

As he’s eager to remind us, Davis hasn’t exactly slowed down in this millennium, playing Svengali to Alicia Keys as well as masterminding Kelly Clarkson’s post-“American Idol” recording career. (He and Clarkson have bickered lately over who masterminded what.) When he amusedly quotes a musician who was nervous about auditioning for him — “Clive was just sort of the name that you hear, like Moses” — he isn’t being unduly immodest. It’s probably an accurate reflection of the awe he’s held in by industry insiders.

What about us outsiders, though — those for whom “Clive” is just sort of the name we hear, like Dagwood? We might not grasp his full achievement. So not one of Davis’s successes goes unchronicled, however minor or else fatiguingly replicated ad infinitum. No musicians he helped to reach the big time are mentioned without their sales figures and the Grammys they won under his tutelage larding the text. We’ve been turned into potential stockholders who need a full report as we contemplate investing in his legend.

Davis is clearly a born educator, and anyone considering a career in entertainment will learn a lot. “The Soundtrack of My Life” brims with shrewd observations about the difference between rock and pop markets, how to placate stars whose sense of their own gifts clashes with what they’re in demand for, and how veteran acts should navigate changing tastes: “What’s most effective is to make a fresh statement in a familiar way.” (That the adjectives can be reversed doesn’t matter; the key thing is the blend.) Yet those who don’t approach the book as pupils may pine for less master-class sagacity and livelier, punchier tale-telling.

Since Davis is renowned for his perceptions of a given audience’s needs, his muddled sense of his own readership is a surprise. It’s most glaringly displayed in the book’s introduction, “Welcome to the Party,” an infatuated description of the exclusive pre-Grammy Awards bash he’s hosted for almost 40 years. The more we hear about it — the star-studded guest lists, the intimate live performances we huddled masses will never see — the less welcome we feel.

Far more pleasurable is his account of growing up Jewish in Brooklyn in the 1930s and the war years. Substituting “Crown Heights” for “Newark,” this is Philip Roth territory — the two are near-exact contemporaries — and Davis and his amanuensis, Anthony DeCurtis, do well enough by Catskills vacations and loving the Dodgers. Next came N.Y.U. and the first of the glittering prizes: Harvard Law School. Yet practicing law didn’t stimulate Davis, making him glad when an offer to become Columbia’s counsel led to running the company.

Aside from its big early-1960s catch, Bob Dylan, Columbia was still effectively mired in the Pleistocene. Once the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival showed Davis the light, he transformed the label into a rock-era leader. Though he wasn’t always right (he thought Simon and Garfunkel could use a name change), his instinct for adapting old-fashioned career-molding to countercultural fashions may have been unequaled. No wonder he felt shocked when, in 1973 — not long after Columbia had acquired a promising newcomer named Bruce something — he was abruptly fired for expense-account fiddling.

THE SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE

By Clive Davis with Anthony DeCurtis

Illustrated. 586 pp. Simon & Schuster. $30.

Davis’s account of this episode is more outraged than illuminating. Anyhow, it ended up as a blip, since he reacted by founding Arista — “the House That Barry Built,” thanks to Manilow. Davis is irritated enough by the implication that it wasn’t the House That Clive Built to quote himself mocking Manilow’s yen to be valued for his songwriting, not his showmanship: “Well, if you were Irving Berlin, we would know it by now!” You wonder how many zingers about other artists — not to mention fellow execs — have been buried by Davis’s insistence on keeping “The Soundtrack of My Life” anodyne.

It’s around this point, however — with 30-plus years to go — that dramatic interest starts to fade. His part in the 1960s music revolution done, his redemption assured by Arista’s success, Davis is simply a brainy man running a profitable record company. One sign he and DeCurtis know as much is that straightforward chronology gives way to potted chapters about different music genres in which Arista made its mark. Yet he can’t stop vaunting his own undimmed brilliance, going into wearying detail about his acumen in handling performers few of his readers are likely to care about. (Face it, Clive: civilians are in it for Joplin or maybe Manilow, not Maroon 5.) Except as more feathers in his already brimming cap, Davis doesn’t seem to care much about them either — other than, no surprise, Whitney Houston, who rates her own, atypically emotional chapter.

He’s also so reticent about his personal life that you’d think he was worried Clive Davis might sue him. Though we do hear about his failed first marriage, his second and its aftermath go M.I.A. for several hundred pages before he awkwardly cops to being “bisexual” and in “a strong monogamous relationship for the last seven years” with another man. When we’re belatedly and sheepishly told that his first gay encounter was the result of a pickup at Studio 54 in that glitz emporium’s heyday, the mind reels at the book “The Soundtrack of My Life” might have been if he hadn’t spent most of it playing politician.

Over all, he has such good material that he’d have benefited from having an impresario. You know, someone savvy about recognizing the nature of a given project’s appeal, unabashed about vetoing its weaknesses and irrelevant vanities, and charmingly ruthless in overcoming the talent’s qualms about who knows best. Isn’t it a shame he doesn’t know anybody like that? In more than one sense, “The Soundtrack of My Life” could have used lots more Clive.

FAUSTUS.  On these conditions following:
First, that Faustus may be a spirit in form and subtance;
Secondly, that Mephastophilis shall be his servant, and at his command;
Thirdly, that Mephastophilis shall do for him, and bring him whatsoever;
Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house invisible;
Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus at all times, in what form or shape soever he please:
I, John Faustus, of Wittenberg, doctor, by these presents, do give both body and soul to Lucifer, and furthermore grant unto them that 24 years being expired, the articles above written inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods into their habitation wheresoever. By me, John Faustus.
MEPHAST. Speak Faustus. Do you deliver this as your deed?
FAUSTUS. Ay, take it, and the devil give thee good on't.
MEPHAST. Now, Faustus, ask what thou wilt.

Theodore Herzl - Zionist and Self-Hating Jew

"Even after becoming interested in the "Jewish question," Herzl's writing retained traces of Jewish self-hatred. 

According to Amos Elon,Herzl considered himself to be an atheist."

An Atheist does not merely doubt God - an Atheist makes the affirmative statement:

"God Does Not Exist".

18 In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

19 The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,

20 And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,

21 And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

Theodore Herzl Did Not Believe This Occurred.

Theodore Herzl Did Not Believe in God.

34 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land of Canaan; (this is the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan with the coasts thereof:)

3 Then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the outmost coast of the salt sea eastward:

4 And your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass on to Zin: and the going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadeshbarnea, and shall go on to Hazaraddar, and pass on to Azmon:

5 And the border shall fetch a compass from Azmon unto the river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea.

6 And as for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border: this shall be your west border.

7 And this shall be your north border: from the great sea ye shall point out for you mount Hor:

8 From mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath; and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad:

9 And the border shall go on to Ziphron, and the goings out of it shall be at Hazarenan: this shall be your north border.

10 And ye shall point out your east border from Hazarenan to Shepham:

11 And the coast shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain; and the border shall descend, and shall reach unto the side of the sea of Chinnereth eastward:

12 And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea: this shall be your land with the coasts thereof round about.

13 And Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying, This is the land which ye shall inherit by lot, which the Lordcommanded to give unto the nine tribes, and to the half tribe:

14 For the tribe of the children of Reuben according to the house of their fathers, and the tribe of the children of Gad according to the house of their fathers, have received their inheritance; and half the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance:

15 The two tribes and the half tribe have received their inheritance on this side Jordan near Jericho eastward, toward the sunrising.

16 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

17 These are the names of the men which shall divide the land unto you: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun.

18 And ye shall take one prince of every tribe, to divide the land by inheritance.

19 And the names of the men are these: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.

20 And of the tribe of the children of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud.

21 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon.

22 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Dan, Bukki the son of Jogli.

23 The prince of the children of Joseph, for the tribe of the children of Manasseh, Hanniel the son of Ephod.

24 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Ephraim, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan.

25 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Zebulun, Elizaphan the son of Parnach.

26 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Issachar, Paltiel the son of Azzan.

27 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Asher, Ahihud the son of Shelomi.

28 And the prince of the tribe of the children of Naphtali, Pedahel the son of Ammihud.

29 These are they whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance unto the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.

Theodore Herzl Did Not Believe This Occurred.

Theodore Herzl Did Not Believe in God.

Theodore Herzl Did Not Believe in God.

"The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. 

Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. 

We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. 

This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level. 

The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America."

In the view of Herzl, so-called "Anti-Semitism" (Jews are not Semites) is the fault of the Jews themselves - it is inherent in their nature, which they spread acros. The globe wherever they go, like a contagion, like an infectious disease, of which Jews and Jews alone are the carriers of anti-Jewish hate, exposing Gentiles to their mutagenic contamination through the Disapora. 

"Next we came to the heart of the business. I said to him: [Theodor Herzl to Rev. William Hechler] 'I must put myself into direct and publicly known relations with a responsible or non responsible ruler – that is, with a minister of state or a prince. Then the Jews will believe in me and follow me. The most suitable personage would be the German Kaiser.'"

Felix M. Warburg - Clairvoyant Zionist

"The successive blows of contending armies have all but broken the back of European Jewry, and have reduced to tragically unbelievable poverty, starvation and disease about 6,000,000 souls, or half the Jewish population of the earth.

The Jewish people throughout Eastern Europe, by sheer accident of geography, have suffered more from the war than any other element of the population."

Tells Sad Plight of Jews

New York Times,

12 November 1919

Nice house, Felix.

Felix was a grandson of Moses Marcus Warburg, one of the founders of the bank, M. M. Warburg (in 1798). Felix Warburg was a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.. 

He is known as a leading advocate of a Federal Reserve System for the United States. 

Volgograd

"This city caries the name of The Boss!"

Marshall Zhukov,

Enemy at the Gates

Control Eurasia, you control the world.

Take Stalingrad, and you Control Eurasia.

'Approaching this place, [Stalingrad], soldiers used to say: "We are entering hell." And after spending one or two days here, they say: "No, this isn't hell, this is ten times worse than hell."'

Vasily Chuikov

In another part of the city, a Soviet platoon under the command of Sergeant Yakov (Jakob) Pavlov fortified a four-story building that oversaw a square 300 yards from the river bank, later called Pavlov's House. 

The soldiers surrounded it with minefields, set up machine-gun positions at the windows and breached the walls in the basement for better communications.

The soldiers found about ten Soviet civilians hiding in the basement. 

They were not relieved, and not significantly reinforced, for two months. 

The building was labeled Festung ("Fortress") on German maps. 

Sgt. Pavlov was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions.

759,560 Soviet personnel were awarded this medal for the defence of Stalingrad from 22 December 1942.

War Plan Red

Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red, also known as the Atlantic Strategic War Plan, was a plan for the United States to make war with the British Empire (the "Red" forces). 

It was developed by the United States Army following the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference; and approved in May 1930 by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of Navy and updated in 1934–35. In 1939 it was decided that further planning was no longer applicable but that the plan be retained.

Canada (Crimson), Great Britain, Northern Ireland and Newfoundland (Red), British Raj (Ruby), Australia (Scarlet), New Zealand (Garnet), Ireland - by that time no longer part of the British Empire (Emerald), and other parts of the British Empire (Pink-not part of the plan), United States (Blue).

Snowden the Spook

• Raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina and later moved to Maryland.

• Attended a community college, but never completed his coursework and never graduated from high school.

• 2003-2004: U.S. Army, discharged after training accident

• 2005: NSA, Security Guard, University of Maryland.

• 2006: CIA, IT security.

• 2007-2009: CIA, diplomatic cover, Switzerland.

• 2009-2013: NSA Contractor, Dell and later Booz Allen Hamilton.

"I Have Nothing BUT Contempt for This Court..."

FORT MEADE, Md. — A military judge on Tuesday twice expelled Ramzi bin al-Shibh — one of five Guantánamo Bay detainees facing a death penalty trial — from a courtroom at the military base there in Cuba after he disrupted proceedings by shouting about his treatment.

Col. James L. Pohl, the judge presiding over the pretrial military commission hearing, clashed with Mr. bin al-Shibh at the start of both the morning and afternoon sessions. Each time, Mr. bin al-Shibh began loudly complaining about torture instead of answering a question from the judge about whether he understood his rights. He is charged with aiding the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

As guards took him away the second time to watch the hearing on a monitor in a nearby holding cell, Mr. bin al-Shibh’s voice faded from the closed-circuit feed that reporters — some at a media facility on the base, some here at Fort Meade — are allowed to watch. He appeared to be shouting something like “I am not a war criminal; you are a war criminal.”

The outbursts contrasted with the fairly technical arguments debated the rest of the day. Since the five detainees were arraigned in May 2012, after the collapse of the Obama administration’s plan to prosecute them in a federal civilian court, their pretrial hearings have been bogged down in numerous challenges by defense lawyers about the fairness of the tribunal process. Any actual trial remains a distant prospect.

Among other matters, defense lawyers have challenged the decision by the military official who oversees the tribunals to classify the case as a potential death penalty matter. They argue that various obstacles had prevented them from having a meaningful opportunity to persuade him to take the possibility of execution off the table because, they say, the Central Intelligence Agency tortured their clients.

The official, Bruce MacDonald, a retired admiral who has since ended his tenure as the tribunals’ “convening authority,” testified about his decision-making process in February. On Tuesday, defense lawyers argued that two former MacDonald aides should also be required to testify about what they did or did not tell him about C.I.A. torture — and why. But Colonel Pohl, who had already ruled that their testimony was unnecessary, declined to change his mind.

In addition, Walter Ruiz, a reservist Navy commander who represents another of the five defendants, Mustafa al Hawsawi, made a lengthy presentation about problems he had experienced in obtaining a translator and death penalty mitigation specialist with security clearances before Mr. MacDonald made his decision.

But the most vivid events of the day involved Mr. bin al-Shibh, 41, a Yemeni accused of passing money and messages from Al Qaeda to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

At the start of the day, Mr. bin al-Shibh’s lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Bogucki of the Navy, complained that guards had kept his client awake the night before with bangs and clanking sounds. As a result, he argued, his client was groggy and not able to be “meaningfully” present to aid his defense.

Colonel Pohl noted that the government disputed such complaints, and that Commander Bogucki had not made any motion seeking a remedy. After that exchange, Mr. bin al-Shibh declined to address a question from the judge about whether he understood his rights to be present or absent on subsequent days.

While each of the other four defendants, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, answered yes in turn, Mr. bin al-Shibh said, 

“I totally refuse to answer this question as long as the judge is taking position against me and against my allegations.”

He then started in on a monologue. It was difficult to make out what he was saying on the audio feed, but it included something about “torture” and “a secret C.I.A. prison.”

“Nobody knows about it. Nobody enters it. Nobody sees it,” he said.

When Mr. bin al-Shibh refused requests to quiet down, the judge ordered guards to remove him until the hearing resumed after lunch. A similar scene ensued after the break.

When the detainee was removed the second time, Colonel Pohl told Commander Bogucki that he would not allow Mr. bin al-Shibh to provide other than “yes” or “no” answers because he might divulge classified information.

That explanation called into question Colonel Pohl’s order this week adjusting rules for the protection of classified information. The order has not yet been made public.

But in a statement on Monday, another defense lawyer, James Connell, said the judge had lifted a rule that deemed as classified the “observations and experiences” of the defendants about their time in custody.

Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a military spokesman, instead portrayed the order as merely removing a rule that the judge deemed “superfluous,” and warned that “interested observers are well advised to read it prior to opining on what it says and means, the opinions of defense counsel notwithstanding.”

Ed Snowden's Christmas Message to the Commonwealth

Well, of course.

The US Government asked Verizon if they could put in a man-in-the-middle tap on ALL their customers communications, and they said "Yes. "

Because that's totally legal.

It's their property, their hardware, their infrastructure. They just didn't tell their customers. But why should they? 

They're not obliged to. They certainly never said that they wouldn't.

What's your point, Ed?

It's a Wonderful Life... : COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

To: The Director

D.M. Ladd

COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

(RUNNING MEMORANDUM)

There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been brought up to date as of May 26, 1947....

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [redacted] related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. 

Further, [redacted] stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."

[redacted] recalled that approximately 15 years ago, the picture entitled "The Letter" was made in Russia and was later shown in this country. He recalled that in this Russian picture, an individual who had lost his self-respect as well as that of his friends and neighbors because of drunkenness, was given one last chance to redeem himself by going to the bank to get some money to pay off a debt. 

The old man was a sympathetic character and was so pleased at his opportunity that he was extremely nervous, inferring he might lose the letter of credit or the money itself. In summary, the old man made the journey of several days duration to the bank and with no mishap until he fell asleep on the homeward journey because of his determination to succeed. On this occasion the package of money dropped out of his pocket. Upon arriving home, the old man was so chagrined he hung himself.

 The next day someone returned the package of money to his wife saying it had been found. [redacted] draws a parallel of this scene and that of the picture previously discussed, showing that Thomas Mitchell who played the part of the man losing the money in the Capra picture suffered the same consequences as the man in the Russian picture in that Mitchell was too old a man to go out and make money to pay off his debt to the banker.

Rockerfeller's Bane - The Biggest Boondoggle of Them All

"...Machiavelli notes '..there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things...' "

"Following the attacks, Silverstein filed TWO insurance claims for the maximum amount of the policy ($7B), based on the two -- in Silverstein's view -- separate attacks. The insurance company, Swiss Re, paid Mr. Silverstein $4.6 Billion — a princely return on a relatively paltry investment of $124 million.

There’s more. You see, the World Trade Towers were not the real estate plum we are led to believe. From an economic standpoint, the trade center -- subsidized since its inception by the NY Port Authority -- has never functioned, nor was it intended to function, unprotected in the rough-and-tumble real estate marketplace. How could Silverstein Group have been ignorant of this?

The towers required some $200 million in renovations and improvements, most of which related to removal and replacement of building materials declared to be health hazards in the years since the towers were built. 

It was well-known by the city of New York that the WTC was an asbestos bombshell. For years, the Port Authority treated the building like an aging dinosaur, attempting on several occasions to get permits to demolish the building for liability reasons, but being turned down due the known asbestos problem. 

Further, it was well-known the only reason the building was still standing until 9/11 was because it was too costly to disassemble the twin towers floor by floor since the Port Authority was prohibited legally from demolishing the buildings.

The projected cost to disassemble the towers: $15 Billion. Just the scaffolding for the operation was estimated at $2.4 Billion!"

South Sudan

Salva Kiir Mayardit, the first President of South Sudan. 

His trademark hat was a gift from United States President George W. Bush.

"The oilfields in the South have kept the region's economy alive since 1999. South Sudan has the third-largest oil reserves in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The economy of South Sudan is one of the world's most underdeveloped with South Sudan having little existing infrastructure and the highest maternal mortality and female illiteracy rates in the world as of 2011.

South Sudan exports timber to the international market. The region also contains many natural resources such as petroleum, iron ore, copper, chromium ore, zinc, tungsten, mica, silver, gold, diamonds, hardwoods, limestone and hydropower.

The country's economy, as in many other developing countries, is heavily dependent on agriculture.

"In the run up to independence, northern negotiators reportedly pressed for a deal maintaining the 50–50 split of oil revenues, while the South Sudanese were holding out for more favorable terms.

Oil revenues constitute more than 98% of the government of South Sudan's budget according to the southern government's Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and this has amounted to more than $8 billion in revenue since the signing of the peace agreement.

However, after independence, South Sudan objected to Sudan charging US$34 per barrel to transport oil through the pipeline to the oil terminal at Port Sudan. With production of around 30,000 barrels per day, this was costing over a million dollars per day. In January 2012, South Sudan finally suspended oil production, causing a dramatic reduction in revenue and food costs to rise by 120%.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is a major investor in South Sudan's oil sector.

South Sudan's economy is under pressure to diversify away from oil as oil reserves will likely halve by 2020 if no new finds are made, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)."

South Sudan is acknowledged to have some of the worst health indicators in the world.

The under-five infant mortality rate is 135.3 per 1,000, whilst maternal mortality is the highest in the world at 2,053.9 per 100,000 live births.

In 2004, there were only three surgeons serving southern Sudan, with three proper hospitals, and in some areas there was just one doctor for every 500,000 people.

The epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in the South Sudan is poorly documented but the prevalence is believed around 3.1%.

At the time of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005, humanitarian needs in Southern Sudan were massive. However, humanitarian organizations under the leadership of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) managed to ensure sufficient funding to bring relief to the local populations. Along with recovery and development aid, humanitarian projects were included in the 2007 Work Plan of the United Nations and partners. More than 90% of the population of South Sudan live on less than $1 a day, despite the GDP per capita of the entirety of Sudan being $1200 ($3.29/day).

Who is Watching the President...? - Part 3849

This is a good one.

Bare in mind, the woman on the left is the Commander in Chief of the Arizona National Guard, commanding 5,206 troops and a total of 7,627 men at arms during this conversation.

And none of them like him very much.

They just had a liberal congresswoman shot in the head over there.

This is not safe.

103

Professional journalists and Federal Agents have been killed for telling you the story I am about to tell you.

"The crash was covered decently and modestly by the medias. The Lockerbie-people saw and felt a somehow stronger version: I am very familiar with Lockerbie, both the locality and the circumstances surrounding PA103. 

My family spoke of that dreadful night with a horror that is hard to describe. Of course newspapers and television use discretion when publishing photographs of crash-sites. They usually publish photographs of a teddy-bear or a broken doll to symbolise the human casualties. 

The image that we all associate with PA103 is that famous one of the flight deck section 'Maid of the Seas' lying on its port side in Jim Wilson's field on the North side of Tundergarth churchyard. The visual memory that the locals have is less sterile: it is of the vast quantity of human flesh littering the countryside, on the roofs, in the gutterings, on rosebushes, in the mouths of dogs etc. Horror turns to grief and grief turns to anger. 

There is no doubt that there WAS a major cover-up of a large amount of circumstantial evidence by US government agencies with the connivance of the UK govt. The official line that two Libyan spies did the bombing is blatant horse-shit. That convenient explanation did not come about until long after Lockerbie. Not until the geopolitical effects of Desert Storm did it become 'necessary' to ease off the belligerence towards Syria and Iran who were the prime suspects for the placing of any bomb and the fabrication of a 'case' against those two Libyans. " 

It is now two years and two months since Gaddafi was slaughtered by Libyan rebel forces. 

Since that day, formerly secret files held in Gaddafi's compound and state security offices have been pored over by the CIA, FBI and British MI6. 

All were, and still are, studying the actions of Gaddafi's regime and his state security services headed by Moussa Koussa.

Focusing on Lockerbie, retiring FBI Chief Robert Mueller confirmed yesterday: "We have FBI agents working full-time to track down every lead, as we have since it occurred 25 years ago."  

Gaddafi's files were readily available at the end of the Libyan conflict. For example, Human Rights Watchtrawled through them more than a year ago to reveal Gaddafi's brutal regime of imprisonment and torture. 

(We invite you to study the HRW report and its link to PDF photographs of documents sent to Libya by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. In particular one listing the redacted names of seven CIA agents based in a CIA station set up in Libya in 2004. The documents include a shocking record of renditions, international agreements and flights, and the use of Guantanamo facilities to "interview" Libyan nationals. One document describes arrangements for the secret rendition of a father, mother and four children.)

As for Lockerbie, we might also ask what, throughout these two years, has emerged by way of evidence regarding the Lockerbie bombing of December 21st 1988?

If evidence had been found to add to the prosecution case surely the intelligence services would have made it public by one means or another?

And yet they have remained silent. It is therefore a fair conclusion that they have so far found nothing.

For the Scottish Crown Office, however, this is not enough. They persist in pure hope, hope that something, just something, might possibly, hopefully emerge to justify their denial of the truth:-

Namely:

1. The key forensic witness in the Lockerbie trial, Allen Feraday, gave false evidence about the fragment of bomb timer said to have been found at Lockerbie, and 

2. The only identification witness, Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, had secretly badgered the US and Scottish police throughout a two year investigation, for the US offer of "unlimited monies" in exchange for his evidence.

Whatever might be discovered by further searches in Libya, one thing is clear: it is not enough to record "witness statements". The Lockerbie trial record is littered with dozens of such, all regarded by the judges as mere hearsay.

What justice requires is hard facts.  And these, in the conviction of Al-Megrahi, have proved to be non-existent.  

The Scottish Crown tactics are now clear. They possess a cruel and cynical strategy of delay. And by such delay a belief that campaigners who wish to find the truth of Lockerbie will soon be dead or infirm.

They have pursued this strategy over the thirteen years that have elapsed since the trial. A further five or ten years would be an easy achievement. 

Their latest move is to negotiate with Libya for the appointment of "two Lockerbie investigators", in the hope that something might turn up. 

We quote: "Scottish investigators have said they hoped the Libyan revolution, which deposed Col Muammar Gaddafi in August 2011, would open up new lines of inquiry."

So, for the Americans and the Scottish Crown Office it's all a matter of hope. Or is it, as many are now beginning to believe, a cynical attempt to kick the ball once again into the green green grass of Libya?

Cocaine - by Aleister Crowley

                               Aleister Crowley 

 Cocaine 

 In its original publication, in The International XI(10) for October 1917 EV, 
this article carried this editorial note: `

`We disagree with our gifted con-
tributing editor on some points, but nevertheless we regard this article as 
one of the most important studies of the deleterious effects of a drug that, 
according to police statistics, is beginning to be a serious menace to our 
youth.'' 

Now, some sixty years later, it is more relevant than ever, especially to Americans, since Crowley was residing in, and largely writing about, the
United States. It is also interesting to note that the broad outlines of the 
social and -- well, moral -- crises predicted by Crowley are now standard 
Newsweek and Time magazine cover material. 

While Crowley's prescription for 
ending the drug-abuse crisis may appear harsh to some readers, it had a deeply
-rooted religious basis for Crowley in The Book of the Law (see his comment-
aries to AL ??:??.) 

Readers should however consult Crowley's Synopsis of Six 
Articles on Drugs (Magical Link I(?), new series, Sept.? 1987), his ``stopping 
herion diary'' Liber 28 (Ibid., I(?-?), Aug.-Sept. 1987), and finally his 
novel, Diary of a Drug Fiend (first published 1922 EV) for his later, more 
fully-developed thoughts on the subjects of drug addiction and rehabilitation. 

 ``There is a happy land, far, far, away.''

Hymn


                                      I. 

 NEW YORK CITY

OF ALL THE GRACES that cluster about the throne of Venus the most timid and 
elusive is that maiden whom mortals call Happiness. None is so eagerly pur-
sued; none is so hard to win. Indeed, only the saints and martyrs, unknown 
usually to their fellow-men, have made her theirs; and they have attained her 
by burning out the Ego-sense in themselves with the white-hot steel of medita-
tion, by dissolving themselves in that divine ocean of Consciousness whose 
foam is passionless and perfect bliss.

To others, Happiness only comes by chance; when least sought, perhaps she is 
there. Seek, and ye shall not find; ask, and ye shall not receive; knock, and 
it shall not be opened unto you. Happiness is always a divine accident. It is 
not a definite quality; it is the bloom of circumstances. It is useless to mix 
its ingredients; the experiments in life which have produced it in the past 
may be repeated endlessly, and with infinite skill and variety -- in vain.

It seems more than a fairy story that so metaphysical an entity should yet be 
producible in a moment by no means of wisdom, no formula of magic, but by a 
simple herb. The wisest man cannot add happiness to others, though they be 
dowered with youth, beauty, wealth, health, with and love: the lowest black-
guard shivering in rags, destitute, diseased, old, craven, stupid, a mere 
morass of envy, may have it with one swift-sucked breath. The thing is as 
paradoxical as life, as mystical as death.
     
Look at this shining heap of crystals! They are Hydrochloride of Cocaine. The 
geologist will think of mica; to me, the mountaineer, they are like those 
gleaming feathery flakes of snow, flowering mostly where rocks just from the 
ice of crevassed glaciers, that wind and sun have kissed to ghostliness. To 
those who know not the green hills, they may suggest the snow that spangles 
trees with blossoms glittering and lucid. The kingdom of faery has such jewels.
To him who tastes them in his nostrils -- to their acolyte and slave -- they 
must seem as if the dew of the breath of some great demon of Immensity were 
frozen by the cold of space upon his beard.
     
For there was never any elixir so instant magic as cocaine. Give to no matter 
whom. Choose me the last losel on the earth; let him suffer all the tortures 
of disease; take hope, take faith, take love away from him. Then look, see the 
back of that worn hand, its skin discolored and wrinkled, perhaps inflamed 
with agonizing eczema, perhaps putrid with some malignant sore. He places on 
it that shimmering snow, a few grains only, a little pile of starry dust. The 
wasted arm is slowly raised to the head that is little more than a skull; the 
feeble breath draws in that radiant powder. Now we must wait. One minute -- 
perhaps five minutes.

Then happens the miracle of miracles, as sure as death, and yet as masterful 
as life; a thing mroe miraculous, becasuse so sudden, so apart from the usual 
course of evolution. Natura nono facit saltum -- nature never makes a leap. 
True -- therefore this miracle is a thing as it were against nature.

The melancholy vanishes; the eyes shine; the wan mouth smiles. Amlost manly 
vigor returns, or seems to return. At least faith, hope and love throng very 
eagerly to the dance; all that was lost is found.
     
The man is happy.
     
To one the drug may bring liveliness, to another languor; to another creative
 force, to another tireless energy, to another glamor, and to yet another lust. 
But each in his way is happy. Think of it! -- so simple and so transcendental! 
The man is happy!
     
I have traveled in every quarter of the globe; I have seen such wonders of 
Nature that my pen yet splutters when I try to tell them; I have seen many a 
miracle of the genuis of man; but I have never seen a marvel like to this. 

 II. 

IS THERE NOT a school of philosophers, cold and cynical, that accounts God to
 be a mocker? That thinks He takes His pleasure in contempt of the littleness 
of His creatures. They should base their theses on cocaine! For here is 
bitterness, irony, cruelty ineffable. This gift of sudden and sure happiness 
is given but to tantalize. The story of Job holds no such acrid draught. What 
were more icy hate, fiend comedy than this, to offer such a boon, and add 
``This you must not take?'' Could not we be left to brave the miseries of 
life, bad as they are, without this master pang, to know perfection of all joy 
within our reach, and the price of that joy a tenfold quickening of our 
anguish?
     
The happiness of cocaine isnot passive or placid as that of beasts; it is self-
conscious. It tells man what he is, and what he might be; it offers him the 
semblance of divinity, only that he may know himself a worm. It awakes dis-
content so acutely that never shall it sleep again. It creates hunger. Give 
cocaine to a man already wise, schooled to the world, morally forceful, a man 
of intelligence and self-control. If he be really master of himself, it will 
do him no harm. He will know it for a snare; he will beward of repeating such 
experiments as he may make; and the glimpse of his goal may possibly even spur 
him to its attainment by those means which God hass appointed for His saints.
     
But give it to the clod, to the self-indulgent, to the blase;aa; -- to the 
average man, in a word -- and he is lost. He says, and his logic is perfect: 
This is what I want. He knows not, neither can know, the true path; and the 
false path is the only one for him. There is cocaine at his need, and he takes 
it again and again. The contrast between his grub life and his butterfly life 
is too bitter for his unphilosophic soul to bear; he refuses to take the brim-
stone with the treacle.

And so he can no longer tolerate the moments of unhappiness; that is, of normal 
life; for he now so names it. The intervals between his indulgences diminish.

And alas! the power of the drug diminishes with fearful pace. The doses wax; 
the pleasures wane. Side-issues, invisible at first, arise; they are like 
devils with flaming pitchforks in their hands.
     
A single trial of the drug brings no noticeable reaction in a healthy man. He
does to bed in due season, sleeps well, and wakes fresh. South American 
Indians habitually chew this drug in its crude form, when upon the march, and 
accomplish prodigies, defying hunger, thirst, and fatigue. But they only use 
it in extremity; and long rest with ample food enables the body to rebuild its 
capital. Also, savages, unlike most dwellers in cities, have a moral sense and 
force.
     
The same is true of the Chinese and Indians in their use of opium. Every one 
uses it, and only in the rarest cases does it become a vice. It is with them 
almost as tobacco is with us.
     
But to one who abuses cocainefor his pleasure nature soon speaks; and is not 
heard. The nerves weary of the constant stimulation; they need rest and food. 
There is a point at which the jaded horse no longer answers whip and spur. He 
stumbles, falls a quivering heap, gasps out his life.

So perishes the slave of cocaine. With every nerve clamoring, all he can do is 
renew the lash of poison. The pharmaceutical effect is over; the toxic effect 
accumulates. The nerves become insane. The victim begins to have hallucinations. ``See! There is a grey cat in that chair. I said nothing, but it has 
been there all the time.''
     
Or, there are rats. ``I love to watch them running up the curtains. Oh yes! I
know they are not real rats. That's a real rat, though, on the floor. I nearly 
killed it that time. That is the original rat I saw; it's a real rat. I saw it 
first on my window-will one night.''
     
Such, quietly enough spoken, is mania. And soon the pleasure passes; is 
followed by its opposite, as Eros by Anteros.
     
``Oh no! they never come near me.'' A few days pass, and they are crawling on
the skin, gnawing interminably and intolerably, loathsome and remorseless.
     
It is needless to picture the end, prolonged as this may be, for despite the 
baffling skill developed by the drug-lust, the insane condition hampers the 
patient, and often forced abstinence for a while goes far to appease the 
physical and mental symptoms. Then a new supply is procured, and with tenfold 
zeal the maniac, taking the bit between his teeth, gallops to the black edge 
of death.
     
And before that death comes all the torments of damnation. The time-sense is 
destroyed, so that an hour's abstinence may hold more horrors than a century 
of normal time-and-space-bound pain.
     
Psychologists little understand how the physiological cycle of life, and the 
normality of the brain, make existence petty both for good and ill. To realize 
it, fast for a day or two; see how life drags with a constant subconscious 
ache. With drug hunger, ths effect is multiplied a thousandfold. Time itself 
is abolished; the real metaphyscial eternal hell is actually present in the 
consciousness which has lost its limits without finding him who is without 
limit. 

 III. 

 MUCH OF THIS is well known; the dramatic sense has forced me to emphasize what 
is commonly understood, because of the height of the tragedy -- or of the 
comedy, if one have that power of detachment from mankind which we attribute 
only to the greatest of men, to the Aristophanes, the Shakespeares, the 
Balzacs, the Rabelais, the Voltaires, the Byrons, that power which makes poets 
at one time pitiful of the woes of men, at another gleefully contemptuous of 
their discomfiture.
     
But I should wiselier have emphasized the fact that the very best men may use
this drug, and many another, with benefit to themselves and to humanity. Even 
as the Indians of whom I spoke above, they will use it only to accomplish some 
great work which they could not do without it. I instance Herbert Spencer, who 
took morphine daily, never exceeding an appointed dose. Wilkie Collins, too, 
overcame the agony of rheumatic gout with laudanum, and gave us masterpieces 
not surpassed.
     
Some went too far. Baudelaire crucified himself, mind and body, in his love 
for humanity; Verlaine became at last the slave where he had been so long the 
master. Francis Thompson killed himself with opium; so did Edgar Allen Poe. 
James Thomson did the same with alcohol. The cases of de Quincey and H.G. 
Ludlow are lesser, but similar, with laudanum and hashish, respectively. The 
great Paracelsus, who discovered hydrogen, zinc and opium, deliberately 
employed the excitement of alcohol, counterbalanced by violent physical 
exercise, to bring out the powers of his mind.
     
Coleridge did his best while under opium, and we owe the loss of the end of 
Kubla Khan to the interruption of an importunate ``man from Porlock,'' every 
accursed in the history of the human race! 

 IV. 

 CONSIDER THE DEBT of mankind to opium. It is acquitted by the deaths of a few
wastrels from its abuse?
     
For the importance of this paper is the discussion of the practical question:
should drugs be accessible to the public?
     
Here I pause in order the beg the indulgence of the American people. I am 
obliged to take a standpoint at once startling and unpopular. I am in the 
unenviable position of one who asks others to shut their eyes to the 
particular that they may thereby visualize the general.
     
But I believe that in the matter of legislation America is proceeding in the 
main upon a wholly false theory. I believe that constructive morality is 
better than repression. I believe that democracy, more than any other form of 
government, should trust the people, as it specifically pretends to do.

Now it seems to me better and bolder tactics to attack the opposite theory at
its very strongest point.
     
It should be shown that not even in the most arguable cse is a government 
justified in restricting use on account of abuse; or allowing justificaiton, 
let us dispute about expediency.
     
So, to the bastion -- should ``habit-forming'' drugs be accessible to the 
public?
     
The matter is of immediate interest: for the admitted failure of the Harrison
Law has brought about a new proposal -- one to make bad worse.
     
I will not here argue the grand thesis of liberty. Free men have long since 
decided it. Who will maintain that Christ's willing sacrifice of his life was 
immoral, because it robbed the State of a useful taxpayer?

No; a man's life is his own, and he has the right to destroy it as he will, 
unless he too egregiously intrude on the privileges of his neighbors.
     
But this is just the point. In modern times the whole community is one's 
neighbor, and one must not damage that. Very good; then there are pros and 
cons, and a balance to be struck.
     
In America the prohibition idea in all things is carried, mostly by 
hysterical newspapers, to a fanatical extreme. ``Senstion at any cost by 
sunday next'' is the equivalent in most editorial rooms of the alleged German 
order to capture Calais. Hence the dangers of anything and everything are 
celebrated dithyrambically by the Corybants of the press, and the only remedy 
is prohibition. In practice, this works well enough; for the law is not 
enforced against the householder who keeps a revolver forhis protection, but 
is a handy weapon against the gangster, and saves the police the trouble of 
proving felonious intent.
     But it is the idea that was wrong. Recently a man shot his family and 
himself with a rifle fitted with a Maxim silencer. Remedy, a bill to prohibit 
Maxim silencers! No perception that, if the man had not had a weapon at all, 
he would have strangled his family with his hands.
     
American reformers seem to have no idea, at any time or in any connection, 
that the only remedy for wrong is right; that moral education, self-control, 
good manners, will save the world; and that legislation is not merely a broken 
reed, but a suffocating vapor. Further, an excess of legislation defeats its 
own ends. It makes the whole population criminals, and turns them all into 
police and police spies. The moral health of such a people is ruined for ever; 
only revolution can save it.
     
Now in America the Harrison law makes it theoretically impossible for the lay-
man, difficult even for the physician, to obtain ``narcotic drugs.'' But every 
other Chinese laundry is a distributing centre for cocaine, morphia, and 
heroin. Negroes and street peddlers also do a roaring trade. Some people 
figure that one in every five people in Manhattan is addicted to one or other 
of these drugs. I can hardly believe this estimate, though the craving for 
amusement is maniacal among this people, who have so little care for art, 
literature, or music, who have, in short, none of the resources that the folk 
of other nations, in their own cultivated minds, possess. 

 V. 

 IT WAS a very weary person, that hot Summer afternoon in 1909, who tramped 
into Logron;ti;o. Even the river seemed too lazy to flow, and stood about in 
pools, with its tongue hanging out, so to speak. The air shimmered softly; in 
the town the terraces fo the cafe;aa;s were thronged with people. They had 
nothing to do, and a grim determination to do it. They were sipping the rough 
wine of the Pyrenees, or the Riojo of the South well watered, or toying with 
bocks of pale beer. If any of them could have read Major-General O'Ryan's 
address to the American soldier, they would have supposed his mind to be 
affected.


Alcohol, whether you call it beer, wine, whisky, or by any other name, is a 
breeder of inefficiency. While it affects men differently, the results are the 
same, in that all affected by it cease for the time to be normal. Some become 
forgetful, others quarrelsome. Some become noisy, some get sick, some get 
sleepy, others have their passions greatly stimulated.


As for ourselves, we were on the march to Madrid. We were obliged to hurry. A
week, or a month, or a year at most, and we must leave Logron;ti;o in 
obedience to the trumpet call of duty.
     
However, we determined to forget it, for the time. We sat down, and exchanged
 views and experiences with the natives. From the fact that we were hyrrying, 
they adjudged us to be anarchists, and were rather relieved at our explanation 
that we were ``mad Englishmen.'' And we were all happy togetherl and I am 
still kicking myself for a fool that I ever went on to Madrid.
     
If one is at a dinner party in London or New York, one is plunged into an 
abyss of dullness. There is no subject of general interest; there is no wit; it 
is like waiting for a train. In London one overcomes one's environment by 
drinking a bottle of champagne as quickly as possible; in New York one piles 
in cocktails. The light wines and beers of Europe, taken in moderate measure, 
are no good; there is not time to be happy, so one must be excited instead. 
Dining alone, or with friends, as opposed to a party, one can be quite at ease 
with Burgundy or Bordeaux. One has all night to be happy, and one does not 
have to speed. But the regular New Yorker has not time even for a dinner 
party! He almost regrets the hour when his office closes. His brain is still 
busy with his plans. When he wants ``pleasure,'' he calculates that he can 
spare just half an hour for it. He has to pour the strongest liquors down his 
throat at the greatest possible rate.
     
Now imagine this man -- or this woman -- slightly hampered; the time available
e slightly curtailed. He can no longer waste ten minutes in obtaining 
``pleasure''; or he dare not drink openly on account of other people. Well, 
his remedy is simple; he can get immediate action out of cocaine. There is no 
smell; he can be as secret as any elder of the church can wish.

The mischief of civilizaiton is the intensive life, which demands intensive 
stimulation. Human nature requires pleasure; wholesome plesaures require 
leisure; we must choose between intoxication and the siesta. There are no 
cocaine fiends in Logron;ti;o.
     
Moreover, in the absence of a Climate, life demands a Conversation; we must 
choose between intoxication and cultivation of the mind. There are no drug-
fiends among people who are primarily pre-occupied with science and 
philosophy, art and literature. 

 VI. 

 HOWEVER, let us concede the prohibitionist claims. Let us admit the police 
contention that cocaine and the rest are used by criminals who would otherwise 
lack the nerve to operate; they also contend that the effects of the drug are 
so deadly that the cleverest thieves quickly become inefficient. Then for 
Heaven's sake establish depots where they can get free cocaine!
     
You cannot cure a drug fiend; you cannot make him a useful citizen. He never 
was a good citizen, or he would not have fallen into slavery. If you reform 
him temporarily, at vast expense, risk, and trouble, your whole work vanishes 
like morning mist when he meets his next temptation. The proper remedy is to 
let him gang his ain gait to the de'il. Instead of less drug, give him more 
drug, and be done with him. His fate will be a warning to his neighbors, and 
in a year or two people will have the sense to shun the danger. Those who have 
not, let them die, too, and save the state. Moral weaklings are a danger to 
society, in whatever line their failures lie. If they are so amiable as to 
kill themselves, it is a crime to interfere.
     
You will say that while these people are killing themselves they will do mis-
chief. Maybe; but they are doing it now.
     
Prohibition has created an underground traffic, as it always does; and the 
evils of this are immeasurable. Thousands of citizens are in league to defeat 
the law; are actually bribed by the law itself to do so, since theprofits of 
the illicit trade become enormous, and the closer the prohibition, the more 
unreasonably big they are. You can stamp out the use of silk handkerchiefs in 
this way: people say, ``All right: we'll use linen.'' But the ``cocaine 
fiend'' wants cocaine; and you can't put him off with Epsom salts. Moreover, 
his mind has lost all proportion; he will pay anything for his drug; he will 
never say, ``I can't afford it''; andif the price be high, he will steal, rob, 
murder to get it. Again I say: you cannot reform a drug fiend; all you do by 
preventing them from obtaining it is to create a class of subtle and dangerous 
criminals; and even when you have jailed them all, is any one any the better?
     
While such large profits (from one thousand to two thousand percent) are to be
made by secret dealers, it is to the interest of those dealers to make new 
victims. And the profits at present that it would be worth my while to go to 
London and back first class to smuggle no more cocaine than I could hide in 
the lining of my overcoat! All expenses paid, and a handsome sum in the bank 
aat the end of the trip! And for all the law, and the spies, and the rest of 
it, I could sell my stuff with very little risk in a single night in the 
Tenderloin.
     
Another point is this. Prohibition cannot be carried to its extreme. It is im-
possible, ultimately, to withhold drugs from doctors. Now doctors, more than 
any other single class, are drug fiends; and also, there are many who will 
traffic in drugs for the sake of money or power. If you possess a supply of 
the drug, you are the master, body and soul, of any person who needs it.
     
People do not understand that a drug, to its slave, is more valuable than gold 
or diamonds; a virtuous woman may be above rubies, but medical experience tells 
us that there is no virtuous woman in need of the drug who would not 
prostitute herself to a rag-picker for a single sniff.
     
And if it be really the case that one-fifth of the population takes some drug, 
then this long little, wrong little island is in for some very lively times.

The absurdity of the prohibitionist contention is shown by the experience of 
London and other European cities. In London any householder or apparently 
responsible person can buy any drug as easily as if it were cheese; and London 
is not full of raving maniacs, snuffing cocaine at every street corner, in the 
intervals of burglary, rape, arson, murder, malfeasance in office, and 
misprison of treason, as we are assured must be the case if a free people are 
kindly allowed to exercise a little freedom.
     
Or, if the prohibitionist contention be not absurd, it is a comment upon the 
moral level of the people of the United States which would have been 
righteously resented by the Gadarene swine after the devils had entered into 
them.
     
I am not here concerned to protest on their behalf; alloowing the justice of 
the remark, I still say that prohibition is no cure. The cure is to give the 
people something to think about; to develop their minds; to fill them with 
ambitions beyond dollars; to set up a standard of achievement which is to be 
measured in terms of eternal realities; in a word, to educate them.
     
If this appear impossible, well and good; it is only another argument for 
encouraging them to take cocaine.