• Courtney (she/her/they) @lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    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
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      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
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      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
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        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
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          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
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        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
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        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
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          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
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            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
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              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.