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Binro the Heretic - 2016-03-10

In the 1980s, while rich White executives snorted tons of blow and fueled the drug cartels with millions of dollars, Black, Hispanic and lower-class White people were getting thrown in jail for the rest of their lives because they were caught with a few rocks of crack. Middle class White people caught with crack were considered innocent victims and got rehab. The "Just Say No" campaign spearheaded by Nancy Reagan grossly oversimplified a very complex problem. All the Reagan administration's drug policies were built on the ancient and outdated principle that all forms of addiction were merely a personal failing on the part of the addict, that they lacked willingness to avoid or break addiction and that they therefore deserved any and all punishments they received.

The Reagans were appointed King and Queen of America by the "greatest" generation who wanted America to become the idealized donnareediverse they imagined it should be. An America where a man wore the pants in the family, women stayed in the kitchen and certain people knew their place, too.

This was the generation that refused to let Jews fleeing the holocaust into the country and refused to get involved with fighting the Nazi regime until Germany's Japanese allies humiliated them in the Pacific. This was the generation that fought hard against the civil rights movement. This was the generation that fought hard against equal rights for women. This was the generation that sent their own children into the meat grinder that was the Vietnam war.

This was the generation who benefitted most from socialism in America, first when they were children when labor unions and the New Deal laid the groundwork for middle class prosperity and again when they returned from the war to college educations provided through the GI Bill and jobs with union benefits.

Then they got angry when the next generation rejected their world and wanted to make their own world. How dare they? Through sheer force of numbers, they put one of their own in the Oval office. So the greatest generation chose a president who kept his campaign promises to undo all the things that had made their own lives so prosperous. He smashed unions, made it easier for American manufacturing jobs to go overseas, slashed holes in the social safety net and rigged the system in favor of those who had already got theirs and to Hell with everyone else.

And they didn't just put Ronnie in there. Nancy was one of the most visible and involved First Ladies we'd had for quite some time. I hold her at least somewhat responsible for the injustices of her husband's administration. Had she made even a small effort to learn something about drug addiction and perhaps develop some empathy for those caught in its clutches, she might have been able to persuade Ronnie to adopt better methods for dealing with the issue. But like so many others of her generation, she preferred to see it as an evil to be punished, not a problem to be helped. The lopsided application of justice along ethnic and economic lines made it all the worse.

Granted, the baby boomers did fumble the ball with their rampant voter apathy, but that's blaming the victim. Unfortunately, we of the "X" generation and the Millennials are also paying the price for their lack of effort.


Monkey Napoleon - 2016-03-10

Don't worry... future generations will hate you just as much for begging the government to take all your rights away for no other reason than so you can manage to chug along in complacency.


SolRo - 2016-03-10

What rights? Right to die in the gutter or the right to be jailed for life over a minor drug offense? Which sacred boomer rights are we threatening?


Monkey Napoleon - 2016-03-10

I was thinking more about rights involving due process and privacy, but yeah... to a lesser degree the other, more controversial rights you have a penchant for mocking.

Really, though, it's more of a comment on how ridiculously simplistic Binro's screed is... and how EVERYONE says this type of stuff about the generations that came before them. We'll be no different, only they'll be able to point to how childish and impatient we are for demanding the things we don't like all be fixed right now while simultaneously doing nothing about it.


kingarthur - 2016-03-10

Are you trying to make your statements fit your moniker?


Five for fucking evil.


Monkey Napoleon - 2016-03-10

Yes, imploring pieces of shit like you and SolRo to dial back the hyperbole and rage in favor of a more inclusive and introspective approach is "fucking evil".

I'm on your side dumbass.


Binro the Heretic - 2016-03-10

I and others like me did try to change things, Monkey Napoleon, but we just didn't have the numbers on our side.

And no, not everyone of the pre-WWII generation was a hateful selfish asshole and not everyone in the Baby Boom generation was apathetic and self-absorbed, but those who were did have the numbers on their side.

It's a major fault in our two-party political system that needs to be fixed.


EvilHomer - 2016-03-10

Mr Binro - it's a real stretch to claim that "socialism" was responsible for America's post-war prosperity. I suppose it was, in the sense that the turf war between both camps of European socialists had created a massive void of industry into which America's efforts could pour, but like I said, it's a stretch. Also, you are leaving out a critical piece of drug history: the US government's role in developing, and later pushing, the narcotics industry. It is hard to truly appreciate the genius of how Regan - or rather, his handler, George Herbert "CIA" Bush - managed to grow centralized authority and the casual acceptance of state control over our lives, without first acknowledging the historically-verifiable roots of the crisis they leveraged. (None of which Nancy was responsible for, BTW. As I have said before, Nancy, like Michelle, acted pretty reasonably, and is no more to blame for drug-control than Michelle is to blame for food)

Mr Napoleon - I feel like I am walking in on your conversation very late in the game. Was your reply to Mr Binro made in reference to statements he and Mr SolRo have made in previous videos?


betabox - 2016-03-10

Five of those stars are for Binro. The rest are for the monkey.


Rodents of Unusual Size - 2016-03-10

I know that she was more dumb than evil but god she was so dumb.


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