New
Living Diary
Index

New  participatory democracy

Taming the Corporations

My Welsh socialism

My New Socialist Settlement

Globalise the left!

Bevan  re-visited

848   15 October 2003   

McCarthy strikes back...

Roger

I suppose we can't all be Jeremy Paxman - but some of us would have had a
good deal more to say to Tony Blair if he had tried to pull that tired old excuse about "the pressure of the Tory media on Governments" being so awesome.

Anyone who is aware of the history of the newspaper press in this country
knows that we once had a powerful radical Press, which succumbed to
commercial pressures because Governments found it convenient to minimise
criticism of their policies, and chose consequently not to protect the
radical Press in the way that governments have so far resisted pressures to
throw public service radio and television wholly to the commercial wolves.

The Tory-dominated Press which Blair pretends to bewail is not an inevitable feature of the political scene.  It is a standing affront to any meaningful conception of democracy for large swathes of the Press to be owned by right-wing businessmen who exploit that ownership to peddle opinions and values which do not correspond with those of the majority of the electorate.
It is also a considerable public scandal that very few mainstream politicians are prepared to express the elementary truth contained in the previous sentence.

The Tory bias in the Press could be rolled back by a process of
democratisation led by a determined government.  It is implausible to
suggest that the kind of Government that Blair leads - which has not scrupled to launch a criminal war - could not if it chose take on the Blacks and the Murdochs, and restructure the ownership and control of newspapers (and commercial radio and television).   If it were prepared to mobilise public
opinion on behalf of the elementary democratic project of extending
the range of fact and opinion which citizens can access in
newspapers, and of facilitating the exchange of opinions by citizens by giving them far better access to the media, political life in this country would gain immeasurably.

But such an extension of democracy is the last thing which Blair wants, as
it would jeopardise his project of endlessly compromising with the wealthy
and powerful in our society and in the wider world, with whom he has no
fundamental quarrel, while pretending to serve the interests of ordinary
people.

Regards

Michael McCarthy

849  15 October 2003  

"Drugs prohibition" was the invention of an American President.  And it remains a central strand of Presidential power, under George Dubya. 

President Woodrow Wilson, attending the Versailles Peace negotiations in 1919, persuaded leading European states to criminalise “narcotics”.  We diplomatically did so, enacting the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920.  And that awful historical mistake has never been rectified.

Now, Presidential power has suffered a setback, and the cause of common sense robustly asserted.

Seven States have local laws which permit the medical prescription of cannabis. But the President considered that even that “medical concession” was unacceptable, and had sought to legislate federally to remove the practising certificates of medical practitioners who do so prescribe, thus setting Federal law against States law.  The States involved are Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. 

The Supreme Court has now refused to allow the President to intervene.   “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.

This is a famous victory for drugs reformers. The Supreme Court refused even to listen to the Presidential case. This is a setback for the aggressive authoritarianism of the White House.   For in a federal system, in which the powers of the President are constitutionally limited, successive Presidents have sought to capitalise on the “War on Drugs”, as one of the few planks of their power base.  Fighting wars, combating terrorism, and pursuing drug-dealers – these are all “Presidential” functions.  They represent, for the White House, the sinews of power. 

• That is a chilling thought.

Created by GMID Design & Communication

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
The originating content of this website is my own work, and subject to my copyright. But on one condition only, I hereby give my consent to its unrestricted reproduction for any purpose: the condition is that its source is subject to proper acknowledgment, giving my name, my assertion of copyright, and the name of this website as its source, namely: www.warrenevans.net - is that a deal?  Roger WE