• storm_shadow@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    1 day ago

    They’d rather throw more money at law enforcement/fascist paramilitaries and make laws that criminalize everything up to and including breathing.

      • Courtney (she/her/they) @lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        30
        ·
        1 day ago

        It’s crazy to me that “the CIA sold drugs to poor and minority communities to keep poor people down” is still treated like a conspiracy theory.

        They FULLY ADMIT TO IT!

        Like MKULTRA it doesn’t matter what the truth is.

        • wyldrstallyns@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          To be fair, they created crack cocaine, etc., and facilitated numerous other addiction crises both in the US and abroad. 🤢🤬

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 day ago

          The conspiracy theory is that it was to keep poor people down.
          The reality is that they didn’t directly sell drugs, they just protected people who did to financially support terrorists, or prevented interdiction to protect traffickers who gave them information that could be used to stop drug trafficking.

          This was acceptable to them because they considered poor minority communities unimportant.

          It’s kinda worse, but it wasn’t an attack on the poor. They weren’t considered important enough to attack.
          They were just an acceptable loss if it meant some people had the money to machine gun Nicaraguan civilians.

          • Courtney (she/her/they) @lemmy.blahaj.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            1 day ago

            I mean, selling for profit during Iran-contra, sure.

            But to pretend the CIA wasn’t directly attempting to hurt working class people and furthering class warfare is far too forgiving and naive.

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 day ago

              I’m not sure it’s forgiving to say that they killed them out of expediency.

              We have literal recordings of the motivations behind much of it, or cases where they documented the decision plainly. Poor communities don’t have the political pull to get a serious response, so directing traffickers they want to have continued funding there is a way to protect that trafficker.
              The war on drugs was structured to target black people and anti-war groups.

              Is it really better to say they weren’t trying to hurt them, they just didn’t view them as people so were entirely unconcerned with what happened to them?

          • freagle@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            They didn’t sell drugs on the street. But they did take over the British cash-cropping system of opium production in Asia and ran large scale trafficking operations.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            1 day ago

            The conspiracy theory is that it was to keep poor people down

            Which it was, however directly or indirectly.

            The reality is that they didn’t directly sell drugs

            Yeah they did. Bought drugs too.

            they just protected people who did to financially support terrorists

            And right wing foreign governments, and right wing guerillas. And to combat left wing governments, and left wing guerillas.

            it wasn’t an attack on the poor

            Yeah it was. A coordinated worldwide mission to oppress the left wing is a coordinated worldwide mission to prevent the poor from rising up and taking what’s rightfully theirs from their rich oppressors.

            • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              1 day ago

              The implication was that they sold drugs to poor communities in America to keep poor communities in America surpressed. Recasting it by saying CIA activities in opposition to anything left of Pinochet are a directed attack on the poor is both shifting it to where I don’t think the statement was intended, and also reducing the complexity of their objective.
              They didn’t give a shit about poor people. They cared about supporting the power structures that employed them. Hurting poor people was just an expedient means towards that end.
              Yes, the power structures they supported were largely aligned with financial means because obviously they were, this is America.

              I lumped right wing dictators and guerilla groups under the umbrella of terrorism. If the shoe fits and all that.

              Citation needed on the CIA directly buying and selling drugs.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 day ago

                The implication was that they sold drugs to poor communities in America to keep poor communities in America surpressed

                They did that too.

                CIA activities in opposition to anything everything left of Pinochet

                Fixed it for you.

                are a directed attack on the poor is both shifting it to where I don’t think the statement was intended, and also reducing the complexity of their objective.

                On the contrary. I’m saying that attacking the poor was one of many goals of a multifaceted strategy, not the only one.

                They didn’t give a shit about poor people.

                That’s not quite true. They had no love for them, but they were not stupid enough not to fear them.

                They cared about supporting the power structures that employed them.

                And to do so is to actively suppress dissent from and agency of the poor

                Hurting poor people was just an expedient means an absolutely crucial factor towards that end.

                Fixin’

                Yes, the power structures they supported were largely aligned with financial means because obviously they were, this is America.

                Yet you refuse to acknowledge that this necessarily means that they were opposed to poor people, or you’re just denying their awareness of it.

                Citation needed on the CIA directly buying and selling drugs.

                Here’s an overview

                • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  Do you have anything more specific than a category page, or did you intend to link to a general pile of vague references that generally surmise

                  Their investigations have generally noted that there is no clear evidence CIA itself had ever directly engaged in drug trafficking, although there may have been instances of the organization being indirectly complicit in the activities of others.

                  Or from one of the journalist pieces the spurred more investigation:

                  In most cases, the CIA’s role involved various forms of complicity, tolerance or studied ignorance about the trade, not any direct culpability in the actual trafficking … [t]he CIA did not handle heroin, but it did provide its drug lord allies with transport, arms, and political protection. In sum, the CIA’s role in the Southeast Asian heroin trade involved indirect complicity rather than direct culpability.

                  Which is a whole hell of a lot of “exactly what I said”.

                  The cutesy correction of someone else’s words isn’t persuasive, and is nonsense when you don’t even change the meaning.

                  You see money as the source of an entrenched power structure. I see money as the side effect. It’s an efficient way to exert power

                  They don’t need cocaine to surpress the poor in America.