Me personally, I find the EZLN fascinating. (if there is anything bad about them, let me know because I do not know much bad things about them)
They are one of the few movements that anarchists praise that I actually think are based, although the Zapatistas have told westerners to stop calling them anarchists, communists, or anything else.
They also fight against drug cartels and seem to have created one of the most stable territories in the Chiapas region.
However, they are too small to do anything big like overthrowing the Mexican government. They would be crushed quickly.
Give me your thoughts on the EZLN and/or, as the title suggests, any non-ML movements that you support.
Probably one of those wandering libs.
Or mistook it for the anti-alcohol one. I know I did, until I read your comment
If I remember right prohibition was actually pretty based. Alcohol was a tool of oppression whether in sedating factory proletarians or getting indigenous people drunk to make it easier to steal their land.
Manhattan for example means “the place where we all became intoxicated.”Source I vaguely remember:Yeah, but prohibition was absolute garbage since everyone was STILL drunk, just now the alcohol supply was owned by the Mob.
Per one journalist’s study, it took a maximum of 10 minutes for a “tourist” “out of towner” in any city in the US to find alcohol. The record was a 30 seconds when the cab driver of one city immediately pulled out beer from a compartment in the cab when asked where to get alcohol.
Sure, alcohol wasn’t eliminated, but it was progress. Back before prohibition people drank alcohol like water, and the fact that most don’t anymore is good (not that there aren’t widespread substance abuse problems of other types). I suggest you listen to the Gastropod episode.
I have before, but the reduction in alcohol drinking primarily came from the restriction, rationing, and lack of ingredients during WW1 and WW2 as opposed to Prohibition. It had a worse inverse effect, all it did was force drinking underground and made it a taboo topic to discuss.
Prohibition increased alcohol stockpiling which allowed most people to “ride out” the initial wave, and by the time many stockpiles ran dry, the mob and local moonshiners has established a strong enough network to maintain supply.
Funnily enough, one bar stockpiled so much alcohol prior to prohibition, that they were able to legally sell and advertise their alcohol for the entire prohibition since it was legal to sell Pre-Prohibiton alcohol.
I guess prohibition didn’t really succeed, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth supporting.
I’d rather support the prohibition of advertising alcohol. That alone would probably destroy the market in a generation.
Exactly. Target alcohol as the cigarette industry was targeted.
Don’t ban it, but associate it in people’s minds with cancer, pain, alcoholism, drunk driving, death.
Agreed. This the best way to go.
I feel like any sort of prohibition is one of those things that sound incredible on paper, but rarely have any logistical or material chance in succeeding, and end in an ultimate failure.
It’s better to undermine the societal and cultural mechanisms that purport the problems posed by things like drugs, sex, and alcohol; rather then trying to magically ban it and create a criminal element out of a portion of the population.
sex is a problem! Volcel gang!!
Volcel Police Vs the Sex Workers Union
A battle for the ages.
Doesn’t Manhattan mean “The place where we get our bows from” in Munsee? I don’t know if your meaning is correct
That’s weird, I swear I heard that in the podcast. Shoulda checked.
Same with coca in the Latin American gold mines in the 16th and 17th centuries
Prohibition definitely is something I would support overall though I think the specifics of the way it was done in the US needed work even if it were positive overall
Prohibition never worked and never will work. You just incentivize a black market and criminal element.
Look at the war on drugs, which is essentially drug prohibition. It’s a complete and abject failure, and now you have many extremely powerful and dangerous gangs, syndicates, organizations, and cartels raking in billions of dollars a year.
It’s a questionable claim to say prohibition didn’t work. It reduced consumption and reduced hospital visits related to alcohol. Same thing with drugs. Many countries have taken a hard line stance against drugs and have made them harder to get and less used (China for instance in relation to many types of drugs). The increase in crime can’t just be noted for alcohol. There were also major economic issues during that time. Plus it would reduce it anyway as the vast majority of people are not so addicted to alcohol they would risk jail time for it but it would reduce “incidental” drunk driving
It reduced consumptions and reduced hospital visits because who is going to admit to breaking the law? Fun fact, criminals usually don’t go to the hospital for injuries sustained from their crimes, or report their crimes to the authorities.
Further the major economic issues came after the prohibition. The Great Depression started in 1929 and prohibition started in 1919.
Also banning alcohol absolutely did not reduce crime. Alcohol sales increased by several thousand percent before prohibition was enacted as people stocked up. Moonshining was a massive career and pastime. The mafia was making a killing off of created, moving, and selling alcohol, speakeasies we’re extremely common and everywhere.
Also again; who would report their illegal drug usage to the authorities??? Of course consumption would “decrease”. And if the police does not hunt down or prosecute drug users, then of course the “crime rate would decrease”, in the example of China. Do you think Chinese police are scouring the lower levels of Shanghai and Nanking and doing massive drug sweeps every Tuesday?
Banning things has never, and will never be an effective solution. This has been shown time and time throughout history.
Banning this alone doesn’t solve them. But banning along with other changes can. The issue in the case of the police not being active enough is making them active. Having common drug checks, inspections, drug tests etc etc
Do you think that’s that easy? I’m so surprised that China hasn’t thought about that.
You have just described the US war on drugs positions. Do you know what that creates? You over police drug users and create a permanent underclass that is trapped by police action, criminality, and poverty.
Criminalizing will never have positive results. Remove the systemic barriers that create drug addicts and don’t throw the addicts in prison.
Your solution again is a magical and utopian solution that has no material basis for succeeding.
You are right. Thank you for your logical pragmatic responses, comrade.
The material reasons for people importing drugs to be traffickers isn’t always done because of poverty in the cases of large traffickers. The issue was the way the US handled stopping drugs. They didn’t do a good job. That doesn’t mean drugs can’t be stopped