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Ruinous Prohibition for full statement, see foot of webpage |
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Renewing participatory democracy Multiple Differential Uncertainty |
Week 42 Thursday Tory and Labour Party Conferences have come and gone, but if you want to catch up with my notes of Labour at Bournemouth, check Special Conference Supplement Vive la Commune!
Today's the Day! Today, I set out for Brittany, seeking to negotiate new communal relations with the commune of Hennebont, near Lorient. The 36,000 communes of France are a glory of that great country. And those communes have powers of independent initiative which would make the eyes water, of every UK Parish, Town or Community Council. In our thinking about constitutional reform we should start at neighbourhood level and ask "What governmental functions can be performed each local community, for itself?" Once that has been satisfactorily defined, we should move on to more distant agencies of government.
Cannabis: US Supreme
"Drugs prohibition" was the invention of an American President, in 1919. And it has remained a central strand of Presidential power, under Bill Clinton and George Dubya. The Supreme Court has now refused to allow the President to extend drugs prohibition, and to interfere with those States that have liberal medical cannabis laws. “States rights” should be affirmed, the Judges concluded. And that is bound to encourage other States to move towards a more liberal, treatment-oriented system.Property
Development 
This political sermon all started at a wedding. A chartered surveyor friend of mine, Alistair Gibson, and I were discussing the parlous state of the housing industry - as you do, at weddings. And we shared a common anger, as denizens of the property development world, at three great lies - deceits, dishonesties - which plague the UK development process. Alistair challenged to me to try and explain these wrongs. This is my attempt. Each of these represents a grave distortion of our planning system. And in each case, I am ashamed that my Labour colleagues reinforce Tory misjudgments. I confess that it is heavy going - it would be easier for you to turn the other way. Are you up for it? Global campaigning Look out for a new form of political action. The new move against the small-arms trade, by a network of UK and international charities, seeks to launch a new international negotiating round, for presentation to a UN Conference in 2006. The "lobby" is initiating a long process of international negotiation. Their plan is to replicate the international campaign against landmines, which culminated in the 1997 Ottawa landmines treaty.
Remember
My imaginary chat with TB struck a chord with my old leftwing friend and sparring-partner Michael McCarthy - but not the right one! He accuses me of failing to understand the true issues between Labour and the Meeja, of being gullible and naive - at least that's how I feel, when confronted by those, like Michael, who can see sophisticated political deceits in every corner, in every shadow. I think I favour cock-up theories, bumbling incompetence, ill-considered half-baked strategies - they seem to me to be the norm...
Blunkett
& me
You all know how much I deplore the baleful influence of the Blunkett Home Office. David Blunkett has, as a politician, fallen victim to those repressive and atavistic forces that have always roamed the corridors of the Home Office. But his record on asylum does have certain redeeming features, and I should acknowledge them. Because there are signs that he may be doing... November Revolution
My political obsession is not with "analysis". It is with action - the hard grind of finding practical political ways ahead, in a gradualist, non-revolutionary manner. My November Saturdays will be taken up with with political experimentation. Everybody is welcome to join in! What are you doing with your November Saturdays?1 November: Confer with Labour colleagues in London to plan international lobby for a new Corporate Control Treaty, furthering the theme of Tame the Corporations. 8
November: Work with Cardiff Labour colleague to draft amendments to the
the Labour Party Constitution, to create new Party structures, new roles
for the
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Smacking
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Ruinous Prohibition 
Drugs prohibition is ruining our society. The damage is being done, not by drug consumption itself, but by the fateful consequences of its criminalisation. Our society, having sown the wind by deciding to prohibit a fundamental human trait, a basic human liberty, is reaping the whirlwind. The network of illegal high-profit dealing interpenetrates every neighbourhood, every street, fuelling local fears, provoking local disorder. Gun usage is spreading rapidly throughout the country, as drugs gangs compete for the illegal empires we have created. Gun killings proliferate, particularly among young adult men. Our civil liberties are being steadily eroded, homes invaded, private life violated, invasive Court procedures extended, public corruption encouraged, by the official pursuit of the “war on drugs”. Generational distance, between the young and their "elders" is increasing, the gulf of misunderstanding becoming more disruptive, more destructive. The moral ambivalence of prohibition inhibits the processes of public education and therapy which ought to be our principal concerns. Jury trial is under threat, because of the perceived need to counter the risk of juror intimidation, principally from the growing network of drugs gangs. Illegal drugs dealing continues to fuel and finance a thousand other illegalities, terrorism and all forms of political extremism. The profitable UK illegal drugs market continues to attract vicious foreign gangs – Yardies, East European, Chinese triad. The massive administrative burden of prohibition saps our enforcement agencies, Police and Customs. All these awful consequences flow from the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and its predecessor the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920. As a society, in 1920 we made the awful mistake of mimicking the Americans, and we have never found the courage to correct that mistake. As a society, we continue to make the awful mistake of prosecuting the American-inspired “War on Drugs”. As a political community, our leaders continue to make the awful misjudgement of curtailing a fundamental human liberty, by the full apparatus of the criminal law. And we all share the guilt of their continuing misjudgment. The remedy is in our own hands. We must find the courage to repeal “Prohibition”, to organise legal supplies of all psychoactive substances, and to inaugurate throughout society of a coherent, remedial network of treatment for addiction, in those minority of cases where it arises. Nothing less will do. To express support for the repeal of Drugs Prohibition, sign in at the Angel Declaration
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Created by GMID Design & Communication COPYRIGHT NOTICE
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New
Try
BBC News, the
Memories
of October 2002 - then, as now, I had attended the Labour Party Conference
at Blackpool - and looked forward to the recommencement of the political
joust at Westminster, for all its disappointments...
Isn't this gorgeous?
I
owe a special thank-you to the French intellectual Emmanuel Todd. For his ideas, published
here by a quirk of internet imitation on my part, have brought hundreds upon hundreds
of readers to this website for the first time, and some of them will stay.
His thesis (Apres l'Empire) is that the "American Empire" is already in decline, and is
destined for further disintegration.
