Author Archive
Smoking Weed and Watching the West Wing
It’s my new favourite thing
I’ve watched it before, of course but then it was sporadically, just as I managed to catch it. This time, though, I’m going through religously, episode by episode and there are more than 20 episodes in each season.
It’s hypnotic. The characters are wonderful. It’s production values stand up very well for a show that is 20 years old. It has that great appeal of being about real life, real issues and events that I remember clearly but all woven into a gripping fictional narrative. The TV equivalent of a ‘page turner’.
But the thing that has really hit me, assisted by the insight that cannabis facilitates, is that this is a fantasy. A wild, outrageous fantasy that has very little relationship to real life. It portrays politicians and those who work in politics as noble, with great integrity, high ideals, wonderful ambitions, most of all, principled. And this, of course, is nonsense.
It’s taken me more than 40 years working with politicians, mostly in the UK but the last seven or eight in Ireland as well, to finally accept the truth. With a handful of exceptions from the hundreds that I have met, they are sordid, self-serving and worthless. Our political system in the West is a waste of time and resources. It has created terrible wars, injustice and achieved very little. Any good that mankind has achieved is despite politics, not because of it. I see this more clearly now than I ever have before.
A Hate Preacher at the Top of UK Government
The disgrace and shame that Suella Braverman has brought on Britain is without parallel. Some have compared her words to Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech but she is far, far worse. Powell was talking about his rather hysterical fears for the future. Braverman directly incited hatred and violence on our streets. Yesterday her wishes were fulfilled by gangs of hard right thugs desperate to create violence as more than half a million people in London marched for peace in Gaza.
The Metropolitan Police deserve great credit for their management of yesterday’s events. The person they now need to arrest is she who is inciting hatred and violence. The most disgraced and disgusting politician Britain has seen in a hundred years.
Remembrance and Peace in Gaza are the Same Cause
The despicable criticism of the Palestine peace marches exposes the true character of our politicians.
Suella Braverman’s description of them as ‘hate marches’ is to be expected from her. It is she who is expressing hate. Rishi Sunak’s failure to sack her for such disgusting words demonstrates his weakness, compounded by his own attack on the marches as “provocative and disrespectful”.
In fact, there is no more appropriate day to protest for peace than on Remembrance Day.
The Israeli Psychosis. Its Biggest Threat is Itself.
Both Israelis and Palestinians are suffering extraordinary pain and trauma right now, yet one people’s suffering does not erase the suffering of another. Express horror at the Hamas atrocity and one is accused of defending Israel, a state that is undoubtedly engaged in war crimes. Or express horror at the Israeli massacre of more than 400 children every day in Gaza and one is accused of defending Hamas, a terrorist death cult.
Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians are equal and deserve justice. Similarly, both the Israeli state and Hamas are engaged in mass murder and both deserve the strongest condemnation. Both must be stopped.
But there can be no doubt that the Israeli response is disproportionate. It seems crass to keep score but it cannot be avoided. 1400 Israeli deaths fom the Hamas atrocity. 8,000 Palestinian deaths from the Israeli response. Prior to these events, since 2008, 251 Israeli deaths from the conflict, 5,590 Palestinian deaths. These disproportionate outcomes cannot be ignored.
But ignoring or denying them is a common response from people defending Israel’s position, probably because it is indefensible. But it goes further than that because it’s not just this time, it was the same in 2014 and 2009 and every time the Israeli state goes on a murderous rampage. It extends into every aspect of Israeli politics and is seriously delusional. For instance, a complete failure to accept that the activities of the ‘settlers’ in the West Bank are terrorism, exactly the same as Hamas.
I do wonder whether this is now a condition, a type of psychosis, that needs to be codified. I know there are many Israelis and Jewish people that do not suffer from it but there’s a hard core that is seriously affected and they are driven by the behaviour of Netanyahu and other zealots in the Knesset.
This continuing behaviour is incompatible with Israel continuing to be recognised as a functioning state. It has failed.
Israel was created by the Western powers after World War II as a homeland for the Jewish people after the Holocaust, the greatest ever crime against humanity. But the land for the new state was cleared in 1948 by the violent expulsion of at least 700,000 Palestinians who already lived there. There is no easy way to say this but that the British and Americans who were principally responsible, placed less value on the lives of Arabs than Jews. It is this racist crime that continues to echo strongly after 75 years and is why the UK and the USA keep compounding it by unconditional support for Israel. It’s like a murderer who thought they got away with the crime but new witnesses keep on turning up who also have to be murdered.
Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is the mantra that has dominated its conduct since 1948 and understandably because many Arab states are sworn to destroy it. But its greatest threat is itself and it is precious close to forfeiting its right to exist because it cannot comply with international law and reasonable standards of civilised behaviour, even in war.
Everything depends on how long Israel can sustain the support of the USA and even that must have its limits. I can see it withdrawing its supply of weapons and the time for that is now.
There have to be some standards in civilisation. We know that death cults such as Hamas and theocracies such as Iran have no respect for such ideas but if Israel want to continue to be part of the family of nations then it has to rein in its murderous revenge and abuse of power. It must stop the reckless killing of civilians.
Voting at the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use was Rigged
Just a few hands raised to support the voting process
With discontent growing in the room, the chair Paul Reid called for a vote to confirm that the process had been clearly explained. About five hands were raised in agreement. A majority of about 94% were against. Reid did nothing about this. He moved on and continued to force through an increasingly complicated series of votes. Some were by a simple majority. Some were by a single transferable vote. Few people understood what was going on.
To begin with the voting had started with a simple majority vote where over 95% had voted against maintaining the status quo in drugs policy. By the end of the voting, Reid had effectively reversed that vote and the end result is a recommendation barely any different from the health diversion policy that is already supposed to have been in place for five years but which the government has failed to legislate for.
Contrary to widespread misreporting in the media, the recommendations which Reid has manipulated through do not decriminalise anything. Even personal possession of small amounts of drugs would remain a criminal offence.
The confusion started when Reid presented a series of options to vote on which had never been seen before. They were certainly not prepared by or with the support of the Assembly. They were ambiguous, contradictory, confusing and clearly designed to split the vote on measures for decriminalisation or legalisation.
Throughout the Assembly’s meetings, there has been dreadful bias in the selection of presentations and evidence. Apart from government departments and government-funded organisations, not a single expert on drugs policy was allowed to give evidence. Despite the strong interest in regulation from the members, out of 200 hours of evidence, just seven minutes was allowed for a presentation on regulation of cannabis. Nothing was permitted on regulation of any other drug.
Neither have any of the 800 submissions to the Assembly been published. A statistical summary of their content was published, showing well over 90% argued for substantial reform. They were supposed to have been published as part of the Assembly process but they have been kept secret and the meetings are now over.
Discontent and protest continued to grow in the room but Reid would have none of it. There were suspicions from the very beginning as to why an establishment figure, closely associated with the drugs policy failures of the past, had been appointed as chair. These appear to be confirmed. It seems that Reid has done as instructed and manipulated a conclusion that maintains the status quo.
If Britain had responded to IRA terrorism as Israel is to Hamas, then the RAF would have carpet bombed Belfast, Derry and Dublin.
Israeli jet bombs civilian targets in Gaza
The Terrible Error of Unequivocal Support for Israel
The slaughter, rape and capture of Israeli civilians by Hamas is a crime of dreadful proportions. It warrants unreserved condemnation and those responsible should be hunted down like rabid dogs.
Yet the rush by Western politicians to offer unconditional support to Israel is an awful mistake. The monster that is Hamas is the product of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. Though much Israeli blood was spilled over the weekend, it is a few drops compared to the gallons of Palestinian blood that Israel has been responsible for.
Already, Israel is enacting brutal, disproportionate revenge. Half of Gaza’s densely packed population is children and the IDF is raining down missiles, bombs, artillery shells on them, including banned phosporous munitions which cause agonising burns, even to internal organs.
Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron gave the go ahead for this. They and other Western leaders have encouraged it. The spectacle of Downing Street being lit up with the blood-drenched Israeli flag sickens me. These vile, self-serving, craven hypocrites are beneath contempt and they place themsleves in the same category as Netanyahu. As far as I am concerned they are war criminals and they should be taken to the Hague, locked up and put on trial.
This will never happen, although if he lives long enough, Netanyahu might be the exception. A few days from now these same politicians will be urging restraint on Israel but it will be too late. The beast has been unleashed and it will turn Gaza into an abbatoir.
Israel is the aggressor in this conflict. In 1948, the Western powers led, to our eternal shame, by Britain, forcibly expelled over 700,000 Palestinians from their own land to create the state of Israel. From that moment on, Palestine has been acting in self-defence.
This forced explusion was an act of genocide, a war crime, yet the culprits stitched-it up into an international agreement to give it a fraudulent legitimacy. Ever since they have tacitly and sometimes explicitly supported Israel in its unlawful oppression of Palestine.
I suppose the hope was that eventually Palestinians and Israelis would live together peacefully and most do. For decades the ‘two-state solution’ seemed to be the conclusion that would bring conflict to an end. It is primarily extremist Israelis who have sabotaged this, the religious extremist Zionists who believe God gave them the land. In recent years, when most reasonable people were expecting the situation to improve, they have made it worse. Under Netanyahu, an apartheid system now exists where Palestinians are the lowest of the low. Through all this the West has sat on its hands. Much blame lies with Republicans in the US Congress but Britain and the EU cannot escape responsibility.
Where this goes now I cannot predict. Too many devious actors are at play but it is going to get much, much worse before, if ever, it gets any better. The mix of Iran, Russia, the Ukraine war and now this could lead to a final conflagration.
Within my world, those who I was entitled to rely on for prudent statesmanship, British politicians, have disgraced themselves yet again. There are no great leaders anymore. There are no leaders of any worth. They are small, contemptible rats in the failing experiment of humanity.
Ireland’s Best Chance Ever for Effective Drugs Policy Reform
As the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use meets for the fourth time (2nd, 3rd September), it is at a crucial point which will determine its usefulness. Either it will move on to examine the broad range of drugs use and wider policy or it will continue to ignore and exclude 90% of its subject from consideration, focusing only on problematic use and treatment services.
Whatever recommendations the the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use makes, it is up to the government to decide on them. Same-sex marriage and abortion rights achieved legislative reform through this route but response to the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss has been very different. The government and our political leaders have failed to implement any its 150 recommendations to protect nature. It was almost certainly a mistake to make so many recommendations and this has given politicians the excuse they need to turn away and fail to act. It could well be the same on the difficult and controversial issue of drugs.
Yet nothing demands more immediate and urgent action. All the violence, disorder and anti social behaviour about which there is so much concern is driven by criminal drugs markets. Demand for drugs comes from within our communities. It is our families, our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers that are the customers of these criminal gangs. While in 90% of cases their drug use causes no harm to themselves or others, they enrich and empower the gangsters and government has done nothing to regulate these markets to reduce all the harm they cause.
While politicians refuses to acknowledge and provide sensible and safe legal access for drugs, particularly cannabis, all they do is turn the forces of law enforcement against the communities they are supposed to protect and add to the power and wealth of the drugs gangs.
It is the criminal markets that cause so much harm and only a small proportion of drugs users that suffer health harms. Street dealing, violence, child exploitation, debt intimidation, human trafficking, modern slavery, all these evils stem from the criminal markets which bad drugs policy has allowed to proliferate. And the health harms of drugs are maximised when criminals control their production and distribution, when there is no regulation, quality control, age limits or harm reduction infomation and education provided.
This is Ireland’s best chance ever for effective drugs policy reform and huge responsibility now rests on the shoulders of Paul Reid, chair of the Citizens’ Assembly. In the remaining three meetings, will he encompass the broad agenda which the issue demands or will we continue only to hear about one, narrow aspect?
Clearly, problematic drug use has a terrible impact on those involved and their families but we already know that the answer is properly funded treatment services. Also, problematic drug use drives violent and acquisitive crime as users have no option but to access drugs from criminals at high cost. The answer here is also properly funded treatment services but also regulation of markets, so that legal access is possible but in controlled and safe circumstances.
We need properly funded treatment services, safe consumption rooms, decriminalisation of the user, legally regulated access for adults at least to cannabis, MDMA and possibly cocaine, drug testing services, education and harm reduction services.
Such intelligent, evidence-based and progressive drugs policy will drive the gangsters off our streets. It will stop the violence, the mugging, the anti social behaviour of feral youth, It will reduce health harms, overdoses deaths and all sorts of crime. But it requires courage. It needs politicians to take decisions that will attract the fury of the older, reactionary, authoritarian wing of society but unless we takes these steps then Ireland’s drugs problem is only going to get worse. The demand isn’t going away and unless we find a sensible way of meeting it in safe, regulated fashion then the violent gangsters and everything that flows from their activity will continue.
Peter Reynolds 