I woke up with a bit of pain early and decided to read some e-mail from the
List. Now it could be from the pain or just being awake tooo early but I
decided to have a knee-jerk reaction to some of it on this subject.
We need to face facts. The violence is not something new. History says the
same thing happened when we had the "War on Alcohol". Violence and crime
escalated almost immediately. The "War on Drugs" has been a joke also, and has
created more drug use, crime and violence than it has ever prevented.
How do we address the problem successfully then? Well to start WE need to kill
the profitability of selling drugs. The way to do that is to simply allow
marijuana to be used and taxed. That would immediately kill the business of
drug dealing. Let American tobacco, sell the stuff in ready rolled, filtered
cigarettes, and General Foods package it as tea, and Feds, the State, and the
City tax the hell out of it, just like tobacco.
Wellbutren, Zoloft and other mood altering medications are a joke at best and
really criminal at the worst. Replacing a drug that someone wants with one that
they do not (and that have worse side effects) is NOT the answer.
And it is not about "Jobs, and Social Services". Those things mix like oil and
water. When there was virtually NO unemployment and business was searching for
employees, there was just as much or more violence and drug dealing as now,
(probably a little more in Minneapolis). As for "Social Services", give me a
break! The rise of Social Services (and their destruction of the family their
activities have caused has done more to harm than any good it has ever done.
It has created a culture of three or four generations of systemic poverty,
social isolation, and powerlessness that creates the fertile soil where crime
grows. When coupled with this "War" as fertilizer it is guaranteed to grow
generations of criminals and violence. The Cabrini Greens of this world were
designed and created by "Social Services" and their attempts at social
engineering.
These supposed "Scientists" look at simple problems like poverty and say "Its
not rocket surgery, we can fix it". Well these middle class, semi-educated,
usually white, politically correct, do-gooders who could not make it in a real
profession come out of college with their B.A. in hand, get a poverty pimp job
and then self righteously work as hard as they can to perpetuate poverty and
social problems. And they have largely succeeded.
An example - A study several years ago found that when combined almost twenty
thousand dollars($20,000) each for every child in the Phillips Community came
into that community each year for services for those children. Yet it seemed
to have no impact on the quality of life for those children. At the time
sending them to a private school such as Breck, or Minnehaha Academy cost only
about $11,000.
The $20,000 was simply soaked up by the "Social Services" as if it were water
being spread on sandy soil. Leaving not even a trace when it was gone. A
leader of an Indian Community featured in the Star on Sunday once said sending
money to the leaders of agencies supposedly working on Franklin Avenue was
"like pouring water down a rat hole". It may have been one of the wisest
observation he ever made. Community and family make a difference, pouring
money into social services does NOT.
You address crime and poverty successfully in only one way. Stable families!
And you stabilize families through stable jobs and stable housing. Spending
tax dollars on a WPA to rebuild America, and Minneapolis, will do far more to
stabilize families and address crime than all the bank bailouts, "stimulus"
plans, and "Social Services" ever developed or conceived. Recent history has
shown that "Bailouts", "Stimulus", and the "Social Service Industry" does not
work. At the end nothing is left but the memory of failure. Old history has
shown that a program like WPA, and stopping a stupid war on a substance, does
in fact work.
It may not be "rocket surgery", but it is as simple as that. And I believe
Keith Ellison has proposed that very WPA solution thing at a DFL convention I
was attending.
Just a few EARLY morning opinions. Of course everyone else also has a few.
Jim Graham,
Ventura Village