EYE OF A HURRICANE

Today the warm rain falls, but it was hard to tell there was a raging storm only 500 miles away from here yesterday afternoon, it turned out to be another beautiful day in lovely downtown Noho. I forgot there even was a tropical storm until I ran into my old pinball buddy, Steve Jasinski. Hurricane was the name of the machine we used to play. It had a carnival theme.

If I didn't get the weather channel, I would have missed all of the fun. I love meterologists during a major storm. My favorite was always Hilton Kaderly out of Hartford but they were still enthusiastic on this station. I watched some great footage and the familiar drone of the local forecast muzak feels like comfort food to my ears, after all these weeks of ceaseless CSPAN.

I've loved the weather all my life, it's always seemed such a mysterious force in the universe. There's always that potential for some quirky phenomenon to remind us we are not the boss of the planet.

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PAYING THE COST

Photo D.R. Victor Ruíz/Por Esto!
{via narconews.com}

Isabel pales in the ferocity of the political gales of change that just swept through Cancun during the WTO conference last weekend. In a move presaged by Latin American solidarity at the recent OAS meetings involving Venzuela, the third world nations present at the WTO trade conference stood up to the US power bloc and walked out, refusing to play the so-called 'free trade' game with a stacked deck.

Perhaps they were emboldened by the Korean farmer who paid the ultimate price -with his life- to draw attention to the plight of the indigineous people of under-developed countries who suffer under the current multi-national corporate driven trade agenda of the WTO.

The Third World countries have found their power at last. They do after all represent the greater population of the world, the people who have become the exploited work-force of the multi-nationals. They will not be so easily intimidated again. This bodes well for the War on Drugs also. President Lula da Silva of Brasil, who has long been vocal about failed prohibitionist drug policies, led the group exodus in Cancun - striking a victory for democracy that was either ignored or misinterpreted in the main-stream press.

My buddy Al Giordano has the definitive analysis on this new trend of 'globalized resistance' being fostered in Mexico in this piece, Cancún Trade Battle also Turns the Tables on the Drug War. (It's long, but click on it Michael. You'll learn something).

Al notes:

The precedent set in Cancún – of economically weaker nations banding together to resist the impositions of economically stronger nations (a trend noticed by leading U.S. drug policy reformer Ethan Nadelmann in his recent Foreign Policy magazine analysis ) – is precisely the prescription that can finally turn the tables on the US-imposed “war on drugs.”

Sounds like just what the doctor ordered to me.

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OH THE TANGLED WEBS THEY WEAVE...

PINR Dispatch has an interesting look at the parallels of the war on drugs and "free-trade" deceits in this report, Counternarcotics, the 'War on Terror,' and South America''. The report details the real reasons behind these 'wars':

The year of 2003, then, will be seen as a year when the United States increased its already significant military funding and assistance to Colombia. Earlier this year following a bizarre series of small plane crashes in guerrilla held areas by drug reconnaissance flights, including the death of an American working as a government contractor, U.S. special forces were dispatched to help Colombian forces search for survivors and hostages; the number of U.S. civil personnel also increased.

The reasons for Washington's extreme interest in Colombia has always been explained by its desire to fight the flow of cocaine into the United States, but Colombia has geopolitical and strategic significance that make it a keystone state in the Americas.

It well worth subscribing to the PINR Dispatch. They're putting out some of the most comprehensive and least biased analyses on the net.

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THE AYES HAVE IT

Meanwhile in Seattle, the people raised their voice in support of reasonable domestic drug policy and passed a citizen's initiative by a 58% margin, making marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority. While likely to have little practical effect on the police activity in the city where some 400 possession arrests are made every year, City Attorney Tom Carr predicts defense attorneys will now challenge simple possession cases as running contrary to will of the public. Here's hoping they set some precedents out there.

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Last word and quote of the day goes to President Lula da Silva, who made this remark during a speech at the end of the WTO trade conference:

“I learned that nobody respects someone who negotiates with his head bowed. Nobody respects anyone who negotiates as a lackey. With our heads lifted, defending our self-interest, we shall be able to grow and open extraordinary spaces…”

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