Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Linn Washington, Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
Read How the
Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
January 29 / 30, 2005
Pot Shots
Dennis
Peron May Split the Scene
By
FRED GARDNER
Dennis Peron, the founder of the San
Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club and the prime mover behind Prop
215, is weighing the offer of a job in Dartmouth, England. It
comes from George San Martin, who in the late '70s worked at
the Big Top, a marijuana dispensary run out of Dennis's Castro
Street flat.
It was a place you could come
to, hang out and try Gold in the old days, Colombian, Thai
Dennis had the top floor of
a three-story Victorian. The front room had big bay windows with
lace curtains that let in the light from the West. People sat
on Indian pillows from Cost Plus. The phonograph was always on.
Houseplants -ferns, coleuses, potted palms, spider plants hung
down from the ceiling. On the floor -on a beautiful rug from
the Orient- marijuana of all kinds was piled in oblong wooden
bowls with pre-rolled joints for sampling. You can call it a
hippie dream, I call it self-medication in a therapeutic setting.
Castro off Liberty one night
in July With Eyewitness News just happening by (sure) Ten cops
got nothing better to do Than bust Dennis Peron and his pot-smoking
crew
George was Mexican, small and
wiry with Indian features and thick thick black hair which he
wore long. He moved to London at the end of the '70s and put
his past encounters with law enforcement to good use. A lawyer
hired him to instruct newly arrested clients on their rights
and how to behave in custody. This turned out to be a much-needed
specialty and George created a business of his own. He did well
enough to buy an old hotel in Dartmouth, a beach town in the
southwest of England where the weather is relatively mild. Dennis
is going to make an exploratory visit in February. If he likes
the scene, he'll move there in June and devote himself to breathing
new life into ye olde Agincourt House. "Built in the 13th
century and restored in the 16th century," says the prospective
manager.
Dennis's dog, Pinky Lee, already
has had a chip implanted (proof of a rabies shot, a requirement
for bringing a dog into the UK). In recent years Dennis turned
his house on 17th Street into a B&B of sorts, renting out
rooms (via Craig's list) for $60 a night. Some people may be
surprised to learn that Dennis's vow of poverty was for real.
Not long ago I rode in an elevator with a San Francisco cop who
told me, as if he really knew, "Your friend Peron has a
million dollars buried in a hole in Mexico." I said, "I
sure hope so.")
Wayne's Whirl
Dennis gave us the update at
Club Cocomo, which was filled Sunday night by more than 300 people
celebrating Wayne Justmann's 60th b-day. Wayne's friends include
the poor and the powerless as well as the pols. Everybody had
come to have a good time. Nobody was selling anything. Nobody
was there as a customer or a clerk. There was gaiety in the air,
and mutual respect based on collective political accomplishment.
It's so rare that the class divisions seem to break down, even
for a minute, and it sure feels good when they do.
Three cannabis club proprietors
and a cultivator had picked up the tab for food and entertainment.
Party planner Michael Ramos had made all the arrangements, and
Rush and family of Club Cocomo had donated the space. "Wayne
has done so much for the movement," one of the organizers
explained, "and he's never been in it for the money. When
I first moved here three years ago he trusted me and made me
feel needed and introduced me to people... He's just a great
friend and fun to be with."
Wayne's contributions to the
movement/industry include security at Dennis's Market Street
club; creation of the Patients Resource Center at 350 Divisadero
(urgently needed when Dennis was forced to close); campaign work
for Terence Hallinan and other pro-cannabis politicians; mediating
internal disputes; making useful connections; effective lobbying
at City Hall for a medical marijuana card program run by the
Dept. of Public Health, and now Prop S to involve the city in
cultivation and/or distribution... About five years ago Wayne
made a serious effort to organize club proprietors, growers,
and patient advocates into a political action group. His "consortium"
never coalesced, but the monthly meetings he and Randi Webster
held at 350 Divisadero fostered a sense of community and enabled
people to keep abreast of legal and political developments.
Wayne learned about politics
from some hoods who employed him as a bodyguard back in Cicero,
Illinois. He's a name-dropper and a back-slapper but he does
it like he's playing a part. He's a big man, maybe 6'3, 225,
calm and friendly, like Alex Karras in Victor Victoria. Wayne
was diagnosed positive in 1988 and here it is 2005 and he looks
hale and hearty. The epidemic isn't killing people overnight
anymore. What a good reason for a party.
Dennis had a long conversation
with Ross Mirkarimi, the new supervisor from the Haight/Inner
Sunset and called him "The next Harvey Milk if he does what
he says he's gonna do." For many years Mirkarimi has done
political work in the supportive role (rather than the leadership
role). He ran campaigns for Terence Hallinan and Ralph Nader
(2000 in California) and Bruce Bruggmann (public power) and Matt
Gonzalez, and made his living as an investigator for the DA's
office. Last year Gonzalez chose not to seek another term. Mirkarimi
ran as a Green, with Matt's endorsement, and won big. He was
always a hard-working, devoted lieutenant, but one senses that
he is delighted to be in charge of the office at last, his own
man.
State Sen. Mark Leno read a
proclamation honoring Wayne and Wayne pointed to Dennis in the
throng and called him "the man who opened the door for us..."
The entertainment was anchored by the Extra Action Marching Band
and included a hard-not-to-dance-to rap act, "Los Marijuanos."
When the Field Manager of Americans for Safe Access took the
stage to do a striptease, Grampa Fred said his goodnights.
In Case You
Just Joined Us
It's been seven years since
the state of California declared the San Francisco Buyer's Club
a nuisance and Dennis semi-retired from politics. >From the
sidelines he criticized "the buy-low-sell-high-model"
cannabis clubs that claimed to be emulating him. "This isn't
about marijuana," he would say, "this is about how
we treat each other as people, this is about America." His
morale had been undermined by activists who paid lip service
to his leadership but wouldn't follow it.
Dennis had devoted 25 years
laying the groundwork for the Prop 215 campaign. He came back
from Vietnam in '69 with 2 lbs in his Air Force duffel bag, and
became a San Francisco marijuana dealer. He was busted a dozen
times and always went back into business. He wrote and successfully
pushed a proposition to legalize possession of an ounce or less
in San Francisco. He stopped crusading for legalization and focused
on making marijuana available for medical use as his longtime
companion Jonathan West was dying of AIDS in 1990. The first
cannabis buyers club was launched in a flat on Sanchez Street
in October, 1991. In '93 Dennis rented and decorated a large
space above a bar on Church and Market. The club moved again
in '95, with membership approaching 7,000, to 1444 Market St.,
a five-story building. Dennis began organizing in earnest a statewide
campaign to legalize marijuana for medical use (Prop 215).
In January, 1996, when the
signature drive was coming up short, Ethan Nadelmann -a drug-policy-reform
advocate funded by George Soros and several other billionaires-
offered to hire a commercial signature gatherer on the condition
that Dennis be replaced as campaign manager by a "professional"
from Santa Monica. The initiative was already ahead in the polls
and the professional's only discernible effect was to draft ballot
arguments that ultimately weakened it in the courts. George Soros
et al have received a disproportionate share of the credit (and
blame) for Prop 215; their only real contribution was an infusion
of cash.
Many activists shook their
heads disapprovingly when Dennis generalized, "All marijuana
use is medical." (His accompanying line was "In a system
where they prescribe Prozac for shy teenagers...") They
thought he was being tricky (they were projecting) and they failed
to respect the research he'd done, the real work of listening
to thousands of men and women describing their marijuana use.
Dennis was sincere when he modified his demand in 1990 to "medical
use," and he was sincere in '96 when he concluded that "All
use is medical." But he's no perfect saint. During the Prop
215 signature drive, Dennis exaggerated to a New York Times reporter
the number of people who had already signed. The high number
found its way into print, the article convinced Soros that the
initiative had a chance, and the rest is history.
Fred Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org
|