By Walt Zlotow
“You’ve saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you’ve blown up in the Caribbean.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem proclaimed that at a December 2 Cabinet meeting praising Trump’s mass murder of folks in small, unarmed boats off Venezuela. She echoed Trump’s claim that he was only murdering those boaters to save American lives from the cocaine they were bringing into America to satisfy our cocaine craving.
The actual number of deaths saved is zero, zilch, nada, none.
Couple of reasons. Since the boats were all obliterated, along with their hundred plus sailors, we don’t even know if Trump’s bombing spree prevented a single ton of the 300 tons of cocaine brought into the US annually from many countries.
Secondly, even if every one of the 30 boats was bringing in cocaine, the law of supply and demand would simply raise the price to users. Their response wouldn’t be; “Gee, cocaine getting too high… better quit getting high on it today.” Nope. Reduced supply would simply increase crime by both suppliers and users to replace the shortage and meet increased price.
We can still see film from a century ago of feds using sledge hammers to smash in illegal barrels of booze. Today we see tape of feds using bombs to blow up boats claimed to be carrying cocaine from Venezuela. Big difference? The feds a century ago weren’t smashing in the heads of the bootleggers along with the barrels. Today they’re blowing up everyone on board along with the alleged cocaine.
Neither an alcohol user during the 20th century prohibition, nor a cocaine user in the 21st century was saved by America’s squandering billions in its deranged war on illegal recreational substances.
If Trump wanted to save lives from drugs he’d be investing those billions in mental health services, education, uplifting the 40 million in poverty most susceptible to drug abuse. Reducing the desire and need will work infinitely better than a murderous, futile campaign to reduce supply.
At Trump’s December 2 Cabinet meeting Noem would have been a tad more accurate to have said, regarding Trump’s foreign policy, “You’ve killed tens of thousands with your support of Israeli genocide in Gaza and bombing 7 countries.”
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL
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One of his own sons visibly spends most of every day as high as the ISS on cocaine but, sure, he’s genuinely trying to reduce drug dependency …
btw, how can anyone watch even one of these vomit-inducing sessions and say to themselves “Yes, this fine, this good, this is the person who should be leading the western world?”
Frankly, Madam K. Noem is a one woman bordellobrained aberration of civilised behaviour, with a well known record and background of fundamental savagery and animal aggression. She has been a “success” in life in family business and projects pettiness to inflated grand attitudes of oppressive triumphal outlook.., she is just great, look at her and listen in fear, how Assyrian. Trumpery shittery spreads like runaway diarrhoea. Defying gravity and honesty, they stand and lie.
I always wonder whether Leavitt and Noem ”earned” their places in the TACO administration as part of Trumpery parade of paramours. Certainly there is little evidence to date that they have any of the generally recognised skills of government for a competent democratic state.
But then, this is the post-truth realm of the demented POTUS, so everything is possible.
The ugliest and most revulsive woman on the planet. A ten bucket job.
Hard to figure Kirsty Gnome or the other dolt, Leavitt.. also so the male dolts Trump has raisedfrom obscurity, like the Veep. Enough of sitcom!
The yanks really do themselves immeasurably more damage with these imposed nonsenses.
Walt Zlotow nails it.
How I dream of such concision!