Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Western Banks 'Reaping Billions from Colombian Cocaine Trade'

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, June 11, 2012

Western Banks 'Reaping Billions from Colombian Cocaine Trade'

Click here to access article by Ed Vulliamy from The Guardian.

Notice the introduction to the article provided by the liberal British media source:

While cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits, a study claims

Even when capitalist media report some real news about elite crimes, they go out of their way to frame these reports in such a way as to distort their meaning. If you ignore this framing by a careful reading of the report, you will see that the study done by two Colombian economists clearly indicates that large US and British banks are the ones profiting from this drug trade while drug enforcement agencies largely look the other way. Clearly when major banks such as Wachovia are caught using drug money, nothing whatsoever happens to them. The banking drug profits do not benefit the developed economies to any great extent, they create huge problems for countries such as Columbia and Mexico, and they only help the banks that are owned and controlled by ruling elites.

The economists surveyed an entire range of economic, social and political facets of the drug wars that have ravaged Colombia. The conflict has now shifted, with deadly consequences, to Mexico and it is feared will spread imminently to central America.

Those who suffer are the poor and desperate customers who look for some escape from their misery and the low level drug pushers who are jailed. Enforcing drug laws only against the latter constitutes the widely ballyhooed "war on drugs" that has served to equip local police forces with military grade weapons and pass onerous laws permitting stop and frisk actions against minority populations and the poor. In the US these laws have greatly contributed to warehousing the largest prison population (on a per capita basis) in the world.

Of course, this is not news to people who follow alternative media and read books. Gary Webb (Dark Alliance), an outstanding journalist with the San Jose Mercury newspaper, was hot on the trail in the 1990s examining the involvement of the US government in drug running before his findings were trashed by ruling class media led by the Washington Post and the NY Times. He lost his job and career, and ultimately died under rather mysterious circumstances that was ruled a suicide. (Another excellent source of information is The Blood Bankers by James S. Henry.)