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News. Sources. GMM Facebook. US Republicans. Their cannabis war! [37]. Ballotpedia: marijuana and minimum wage. US minimum wage has 35% less buying power than in 1969. [38]. Global billionaires gained $5.5 trillion during pandemic. [39]. Hunger. [40][41]. $70 billion to end global pandemic. [42]. Tax the rich! End drug war!        US Republican states. It's not just cannabis prohibition. Republican states have illegal recreational cannabis, low state minimum wages, high state incarceration rates, high average indebtedness, and increasing voter suppression. [43].
19 Dec 2021: Straight out of Inwood: ‘Legacy’ New York City pot dealers going legit — ‘We got that good work. The best of the best.’   Philippines. Proposed bill to produce and export medical cannabis. Tax the rich! End drug war! The drug war is a control tool of the Republican Party. Nov 2021: 40 under 40 Outstanding BIPOC leaders in Drug Policy - SSDP. BIPOC stands for "Black, Indigenous, and People of Color". SSDP = Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
20 Nov: Oregon raid seizes an epic amount of illegal marijuana. 500,000 pounds. [54][55].   Putin's prisons in Russia. Almost as bad as Syria's torture death camps.  
10 Nov 2021: Senator Warren presses Biden on pardons for nonviolent cannabis convictions. Article: The letter cites the Democratic primary debate in November 2019, during which Biden laid out his views on marijuana reform. "Number one, I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period," Biden said at the time. "And I think everyone — anyone who has a record should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out."
5 Nov 2021: Australia. Mathias Cormann calls for fossil fuel subsidies to be abolished. And: World spends $423 billion a year to subsidize fossil fuels.
4 Nov: 5 more drug convictions tied to corrupt Chicago cop vacated. 110 convictions vacated so far. Ongoing investigation into more cops. Prison terms already served by some cops.
2 Nov 2021: Judge throws out man’s guilty plea after bodycam footage reveals New York City cop planting cannabis in cupholder of car of a couple of color. Racist prosecutors delayed releasing footage. Cop had done this before. Calls for prosecuting the cop.   28 Oct: Here’s how Biden’s Build Back Better framework would tax the rich. [60]. "The IRS would hire enforcement agents trained to pursue wealthy tax evaders, ... It estimates these measures would raise $400 billion over 10 years."
27 Oct 2021: Private Prison Operator GEO Group Must Pay Inmates Minimum Wage, Jury Rules.
25 Oct 2021: BBC UK. Minimum wage for 23 and above to rise to £9.50 an hour ($13 an hour). [66]. "Independent experts maintain there has been little or no evidence of job losses as a result of rising minimum wage levels."
 21 Oct 2021: New York employers are banned from testing most workers for marijuana.
 
20 Oct 2021: Costa Rica congress approves legalization of marijuana for medicinal use. [72].  
13 Oct 2021: Inside The Digital Campaign That May Allow Italy To Decriminalize Cannabis.
  He is a con man for the rich. Repeal Trump's tax cuts for the rich.
2 Oct 2021: "I Am Not A Baby-Making Machine": Thousands March For Abortion Rights In Protest Of Texas's New Law. [79][80]. The many photos and hundreds of rallies across the nation are great. Makes me miss having hundreds of global cannabis marches. Taliban Republicans may be crushed in the 2022 midterm elections due to this. That would be great for cannabis reform, too.
23 Sep 2021: Report: Southern Oregon Hemp Testing Reveals Large Amounts Of Illicit Marijuana. 
13 Sep: Inside Italy’s Push To Decriminalize Recreational Cannabis. [84]. 8 Sep: Selfie of a couple Italian legislators making progress on cannabis. [85]. Wikipedia: Cannabis in Italy.  7 Sep: Poll: Republican Voters Support Florida's Governor DeSantis, But Overall Popularity Declines. Another science-hating, prohibitionist Taliban Republican sinks below 50% approval in the polls.
3 Sep 2021: Malaysia. Sentenced to death on Sep 3, 2021 for 299 grams of cannabis.
  25 Aug 2021: Snoop Dogg Advocates For Marijuana Use In Sports On Jimmy Kimmel Live! Special Edition Hosted By Stephen A. Smith.
17 Aug 2021: Nearly Half of U.S. Adults Have Tried Marijuana. "The percentage of U.S. adults who say they have tried marijuana has ticked up to 49%, the highest Gallup has measured to date. More than 50 years ago, just 4% said they had tried the drug".   Wikipedia: United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time. US drug overdose numbers: Over 99,000 died in 12 month period ending Mar 31, 2021. Contrast with Portugal at around 30 to 50 deaths per year. [93][94]. Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001. [95].
 8 Aug 2021: Study suggests cannabis can induce a psychedelic-like “oceanic” experience. Further study needed to see if this helps relieve depression. 30 July: This article may be premature in saying it helps depression. See: Actual study.  Debt in America: An Interactive Map. 29% of all adults. 24% of whites. 39% of people of color. See the map there, and above. See the astonishing percentages of adults with debt in collection. By county. Especially in the South. The South has been greatly impoverished by low Republican minimum wages, lack of expanded Medicaid, unfair bankruptcy laws, massive evictions (past and upcoming).
27 July 2021: Ohio. Legalized recreational marijuana could return to 2022 ballot.
  See source and comments. 19 July 2021: Marijuana no longer seized at airport checkpoints in New York state.
7 July 2021: Nevada Declares Marijuana Not Performance Enhancing—Legalizes Cannabis Use For MMA Athletes. "The Nevada state Athletic Commission voted Wednesday to lift its longtime ban on athletes using marijuana, opening the door for boxers and mixed-martial artists competing on the sport’s biggest stage to freely and openly use cannabis."   2 July: Seth Rogen, Other Celebrities Denounce Sha’Carri Richardson’s Olympics Suspension: ‘If Weed Made You Fast, I’d Be FloJo’. Thinking that’s rooted in hatred. [97][98][99].
US Republicans Voted Often to Kill Coverage of Pre-Existing Conditions. [100][101][102]. Medicare spends less than 2 percent on bureaucracy. 1.4% to be exact. See chart. We need Medicare for All. Nearly a third of our health care dollars go for something other than health care. Health insurance companies, for example. See also: See: More News. And: Cannabis is safer. CannabisVoter.info - Click your state to see which anti-cannabis Republicans to vote out.
The drug war is a control tool of the Republican Party. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Henrik Vanger: "Isn't it interesting how fascists always steal the word 'freedom'?" Real democracy is ranked-choice voting (instant-runoff). And: Remove Presidential veto power. 2022 Global Cannabis March and 420 map. Event links: 2022 talk. & Main talk. This news feed may have long lapses. Full site / Mobile. To Top or End. See News & 2022 & Categories.
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Top
Contents
- 1 Table top
- 2 Top
- 3 Attorney General Jeff Sessions
- 4 Racism, interracial marriage, public opinion
- 5 Casualties of war. Incarceration by race
- 6 European alternatives to mass incarceration
- 7 Past month illicit drug use by race or ethnicity
- 8 Over 100 years of drug war
- 9 Richard Nixon
- 10 Republican wars on brown people
- 11 Black Lives Matter
- 12 Cory Booker & Quentin Tarantino on Drug War
- 13 Incarceration rates by race, age, and ethnicity
- 14 News
- 15 The new Jim Crow
- 16 Map of U.S. incarceration rates by state
- 17 How Billy Holiday was hunted down
- 18 William Randolph Hearst and Harry Anslinger
- 19 NAACP billboard and ACLU lawsuit.
- 20 Astronomical U.S. incarceration increase
- 21 Incarceration nation
- 22 Minorities under control of US corrections
- 23 Children with incarcerated parents
- 24 The forever drug war
- 25 US Republican states
- 26 Nixon's racist drug war
- 27 Cannabis is safer.
- 28 Site navigation
- 29 Today's far-right Republicans
- 30 $70 billion to end pandemic
- 31 GOP taxes screw middle class
- 32 Republican filibuster equals
- 32.1 US voter suppression
- 32.2 High US taxes on poor
- 32.3 And on US middle class
- 32.4 Low US minimum wage
- 32.5 High wealth inequality
- 32.6 High income inequality
- 32.7 Low quality of life
- 32.8 High household debt
- 32.9 High US medical debt
- 32.10 High student loan debt
- 32.11 Punitive bankruptcy law
- 32.12 Stagnant US wages
- 32.13 Racist law enforcement
- 32.14 Poorly rated healthcare
- 32.15 No universal healthcare
- 33 Single payer costs less
- 34 Portugal's drug decrim equals
- 35 50 drug overdose deaths yearly
- 36 Vs 100,000 yearly US deaths
- 37 President Eisenhower. 1953:
- 38 His 91% top marginal tax rate
- 39 Equaled prosperity for more.
- 40 Republican President Lincoln
- 41 Created first progressive
- 42 US federal income tax.
- 43 Thomas Paine on the poor
- 44 Overpopulation = Warming
- 45 Categories
- Share links: race or racism. This article was written by Timeshifter. See: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. And: Influential black cannabis users. And: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead. And: Vote out most US Republicans and their cannabis war.
7 Oct 2020. Dumping Trump is the only way marijuana legalization will happen | Leafly. From the article:
| rural sheriffs have become legalization’s most vocal opponents, for obvious reasons. ... The imagined “smell of marijuana” offers deputies a pretext to stop and search whomever they choose. And of course they mostly choose Black people ... Civil asset forfeiture laws give cops in rural outposts the power to seize the cash, vehicles, and assets of any citizen based solely on a drug charge. Not a conviction. All it takes is a charge. For these rural sheriffs, marijuana prohibition is a powerful tool of white supremacy |
New York Times article and video on epic fail of drug war. Narrated by Jay Z (Shawn Carter). Sept. 15, 2016. [19][20][21][22].
23 Mar 2017: Let's Reform the Criminal (In)justice System | Ben & Jerry’s. The racism of the Criminal (In)justice System, and the drug war.
KKK's racist holy war.
See 2004 article source. And Wikipedia: Ron Reagan.
| The majority of people incarcerated in prisons and jails in the USA are in due to drug-related offenses, crimes to get money for drugs, or drug-related parole or probation violations. Wikipedia: Drug-related crime. The number of inmates in the USA has increased almost 5 times over since 1980. It peaked in 2008. Obama's Democrat landslide in 2008 turned the incarceration rate around. But the USA still has the highest incarceration rate of any nation (b c). The cost of the U.S. drug war is at least 1.5 trillion dollars. Cannabis is safer! Share link. |
Mass incarceration due to the drug war began in the 1980's due to Republican-led hysteria about marijuana, followed up by whipping up fear of black men and crack cocaine. See: The American Drug Panic of the 1980s. Chapter 12 of Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. See: Drug war, mandatory minimum sentencing, handguns, homicide rates.
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| U.S. adult male incarceration rate is astronomical compared to the rest of the world. For both whites and blacks. But especially for blacks. Rates in the USA peaked in 2008, and declined slowly after that under Obama. Obama became President in January 2009. |
Chart is from: U.S. Has World's Highest Incarceration Rate. 2012 article. Rates peaked in 2008.
New Republican governor of Kentucky removes voting rights of all felons for their entire lives. [104]. A RepubliKKKan dream. Dec. 23, 2015 article.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Attorney General Jeff Sessions Is a Drug War Dinosaur. [105]. And: More than 1,100 law school professors nationwide oppose Sessions’s nomination as attorney general. And: MSNBC Guest: Upcoming Attorney General Jeff Sessions Is a ‘KKK Sympathizer’. And: Sessions: KKK "was O.K. until I found out they smoked pot." [106]. And: Sessions Racism Accusations: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know. [107]. See: Race, ethnicity, and drug war. And: US News & World Report. Activists Roll Joint, Offer Free Pot at Jeff Sessions Office as Threats Swirl to Legalization Framework. [108]. Viral video.
Racism, interracial marriage, public opinion
It is long past time to end Nixon's racist drug war, [109], and the "Southern Strategy".
Interracial Marriage Highest It's Ever Been in the U.S. May 19, 2017. Newsweek. From the article: "Attitudes toward mixed marriages have shifted even more drastically when considering American views on the matter back in 1990, when 63 percent of non-black adults said they would be completely or somewhat opposed to a family member marrying a black person. In 2015, only 14 percent of non-black adults surveyed said they wouldn’t agree with a relative marrying a black person."
Casualties of war. Incarceration by race
- Black men below poverty line have lowest overall survival. By Stephen Feller. July 18, 2016. See also: Canadian single-payer healthcare and Portuguese drug decriminalization.
Incarceration gap widens between whites and blacks. Pew Research Center. September 6, 2013.
- Number incarcerated in the USA peaked in 2008.
- The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race. June 12, 2015. Drug Policy Alliance.
- Race and Prison | Drug War Facts: "Human Rights Watch’s analysis of prison admission data for 2003 revealed that relative to population, blacks are 10.1 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for drug offenses."
- Chart below from: The meteoric, costly and unprecedented rise of incarceration in America. By Emily Badger, April 30, 2014. The Washington Post.
Drug arrest rates by race (per 100,000 population).
European alternatives to mass incarceration
Return to top. See also: Alternatives to Republican-led mass incarceration.
Look at the decreasing crime rates in the G7 countries in the chart to the right. All of the those countries except for the USA have low incarceration rates.
| Where have all the burglars gone? July 2013 article. See chart to the right. In contrast to Republican-led mass incarceration the article explains other methods that are lowering crime rates in countries with low incarceration rates. They also have few handguns. See also Wikipedia: Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries. |
Past month illicit drug use by race or ethnicity
Chart below. Past month illicit drug use. Age 12 or older, by race or ethnicity 2002-2010. Results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality.
Over 100 years of drug war
See: Cost of U.S. drug war.
- Four of the Major Fear Campaigns That Helped Create America's Insane War on Drugs. By Phillip Smith / AlterNet. February 9, 2015. History of racist U.S. drug war since the 19th century.
- Canada: Emily Murphy: A pioneer in the war on pot. By Mark Bourrie. Sept. 30, 2012. National Post. "Emily Murphy ... made Canada the first Western country to launch a war on pot. She convinced the government to ban cannabis by writing a book that, if it came on the market today, would certainly fall under the hate crimes provision of the Criminal Code."
| 2015. 70th anniversary: Victory over fascism in WW2. 35th year: Reagan's cannabis war. Today, Republicans often block cannabis legislation state by state (except low-THC bills). U.S. federal narcotic law enforcement began in 1915. 1915 was also the year of Billie Holiday's birth. 2. The movie, "The Birth of a Nation," came out in 1915. Originally called The Clansman. First blockbuster movie. Roots of hate radio, Fox News, Nixon's racist Southern Strategy, and racist drug war. |
- The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race. See PDF. June 12, 2015. Drug Policy Alliance. See chart from the article:
| Chart is for December 31, 2012. Data comes from: Prisoners in 2013. From Table 14 of the PDF. By Bureau of Justice Statistics. |
Richard Nixon
| Nixon Aide Admitted Drug War Was Meant To Target Black People and Hippies. Intense racial targeting associated with the drug war wasn’t an unintended side effect — it was the whole point. And GOP mass incarceration helps in enforcing income inequality. |
Republican wars on brown people
The "War on Drugs". Why is everything a "war" or a "crusade" to Republicans? The war on drugs is a war on people.
George Carlin: Youtube: George Carlin: "We Like War!" 1992. "Especially if your country's full of brown people." (1 min 20 sec in. Direct link there). Bush's "crusade".
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Black Lives Matter
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- Trump said it was OK to "rough up" black protesters, and sent a racist tweet [110]. And you wonder why the Republican-led drug war is so racist.
- The Man Beaten And Choked At A Donald Trump Rally Tells His Story.
- 'Muslim-Free' Gun Store Now Selling George Zimmerman's Confederate Flag Paintings. 18 Aug 2015. You can't make this stuff up. And: [111].
- There's blatant inequality at nearly every phase of the criminal justice system (charts and article). By Andrew Kahn and Chris Kirk, Slate. 9 Aug 2015. Business Insider. [112]
- Racism and Mass Incarceration in the US Heartland: Historical Roots of the New Jim Crow. 27 November 2015. By James Kilgore. Truthout.
- Alicia Keys released a beautiful video to get 1 million signatures for prison reform. By Erica Williams Simon. 25 Nov. 2015. Upworthy.
All We Want Is Justice: Fighting for Eric Garner [113]. By Erica Garner and Reggie Harris. Dec. 3, 2015. Huffington Post. NYPD cop who killed Eric (I can't breathe) Garner with a banned chokehold is still on the payroll.
Cory Booker & Quentin Tarantino on Drug War
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Quentin Tarantino.
War on Drugs is Like Slavery.
Youtube link. Articles: Tarantino - War on Drugs is Like Slavery. [114]. Wikipedia: Quentin Tarantino. Source video. George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight, and The Young Turks.
[25][26][27][28]. From June 2007. Click links for sources, and more recent quotes. Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey: "I'm going to battle on this," the mayor says. "We're going to start doing it the gentlemanly way. And then we're going to do the civil disobedience way. Because this is absurd. I'm talking about marches. I'm talking about sit-ins at the state capitol. I'm talking about whatever it takes." Quote source.
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Incarceration rates by race, age, and ethnicity
2009 numbers in first 2 charts below. See charts source for more info.
Incarceration rates in the USA peaked in 2008.
2008 chart below is from page 8 of the PDF for a September 2010 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts: Collateral Costs. Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility. Numbers are for 2008.
Chart below has numbers for 2010, and is from:
- Chart of the Week: The black-white gap in incarceration rates. By George Gao, July 18, 2014, Pew Research Center. And: Charting the shocking rise of racial disparity in our criminal justice system. By Christopher Ingraham, July 15, 2014, The Washington Post. And: The Prison Boom and the Lack of Black Progress after Smith and Welch. By Derek Neal and Armin Rick, July 2014, National Bureau of Economic Research.
"On any given day in 2010, almost one in ten black men ages 20-39 were institutionalized". [115]. "Institutionalized" means incarcerated for the most part nowadays: "Few persons under age 50 are in nursing homes, and the populations housed in mental hospitals have declined greatly over the past three decades." [116]. See: US timeline of imprisonment and mental hospital rates. "By 2010, nearly a third of black, male high school dropouts aged 25-29 were imprisoned or otherwise institutionalized." [117].
More 2010 numbers in chart below. It is adapted fron this article: Chart: Black America's incarceration rate is almost 37 times as high as Canada's. By Dylan Matthews on October 16, 2014. Vox Xpress.
The 2010 rates in the above chart are per 100,000 of all ages. Except for black American men which is per 100,000 adults in 2010. More variations of the chart, and more sourcing info:
- Correctional Populations in the United States, 2010. NCJ 236319. Published December 15, 2011. By Lauren E. Glaze. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See appendix table 3 of the PDF.
- Inner-City Violence in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Oct. 30, 2014. The Atlantic.
- Incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment. August 28, 2012. by Peter Wagner. Prison Policy Initiative.
Chart below is US timeline of adult male incarceration rates by race and ethnicity. From this article: Our penal system - Why Nations Fail. By Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
News
- Sex, drugs, and racist policing in Rutland, Vt. By Farah Stockman. 26 Aug 2015. Boston Globe.
- Cops "Smelled Weed", and Raped Woman Publicly in Gas Station Lot [118]. 6 Aug 2015.
- ‘I can’t breathe! I’m choking on my blood': Disturbing video of Black soldier dying in Texas jail. 20 May 2015 article. While serving "A two-day sentence for driving while intoxicated".
- After Rising Dramatically, Marijuana Arrests Are Falling In New York City And Across The Country. 20 Nov 2014. Forbes. From the article: "Low-level marijuana possession arrests by the New York Police Department (NYPD) skyrocketed from about 3,000 in 1994, when [Republican] Rudolph Giuliani took office as mayor, to more than 51,000 six years later. The crackdown continued during Michael Bloomberg’s administration, when the NYPD arrested an average of nearly 39,000 pot smokers each year, compared to 24,487 under Giuliani, 982 under David Dinkins, and 2,259 under Ed Koch". The Million Marijuana March started because of Giuliani. See: 1998 Million Marijuana March.
- Wikipedia: Death of Eric Garner. "I can't breathe". Black man choked to death on July 17, 2014 for selling "loosies" (single cigarettes) from packs without tax stamps. As of December 28, 2014, at least 50 demonstrations had been held nationwide specifically for Garner.
- 2014 New York City: Democrat Mayor de Blasio seeks mail-in payment for pot fines. He stopped Giuliani and Bloomberg's policy of arresting tens of thousands of brown people yearly for cannabis possession. [119][120][121]. See Saturday Night Live video.
Donald Andrews, Jr., owns a smoke shop in Scotia, New York.
- Black smoke shop owner’s surveillance cameras catch undercover informant planting crack at the behest of cops.
- The black/white marijuana arrest gap, in nine charts. By Dylan Matthews. 4 June 2013. Washington Post.
- The War on Marijuana in Black and White. 3 June 2013. American Civil Liberties Union.
- Fabrice Olivet talks to TalkingDrugs about race and drugs in France. By Rupert George, 22 Mar 2013.
- Former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders calls for marijuana legalization. By the CNN Wire Staff. 18 Oct 2010.
The new Jim Crow
- The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste. NORML Blog. By: Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator. See Wikipedia: Jim Crow.
- Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
"At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina." Jim Crow in May 1940. Jack Delano, photographer. Image info.
Map of U.S. incarceration rates by state
Adult rates of incarceration on December 31, 2013.
See Wikipedia article.
| Jurisdiction | Adults in prison or jail |
Incarceration rate per 100,000 adults |
|---|---|---|
| State | 2,012,400 | 830 |
| Federal | 215,100 | 90 |
| U.S. total | 2,227,500 | 910 |
- Above map. Adult incarceration rates by state. State prisons and local jails. Rate per 100,000 adults. Does not include numbers for federal prisons. Click to enlarge. Note the higher incarceration rates in the South. See Wikipedia: List of U.S. states by incarceration rate. See also: Commons: File:US Adult Incarceration Rate by State.svg for sources, and detailed state-by-state data table. The federal rates and counts are listed there too, and can be added to the state rates and counts.
Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the above map. It is the highest rate in the world.
- Louisiana's Republican Governor Bobby Jindal Denies Clemency to Non-Violent Pot Offenders. By Mike Adams, June 22, 2015. "Without a doubt, Louisiana is a veritable concentration camp for marijuana offenders, currently housing more prisoners for petty pot-related crimes than any other state in the nation—with some of these people forced to spend as much as 20 years in prison due to the state’s three-strike rule." See also:
- Petition · Grant Clemency to Bernard Noble, 13 years for 2 joints · Change.org. Louisiana's Republican governor needs to be voted out of office for denying this man's clemency. "Due to two, decades-old prior drug convictions, he was charged under the state’s habitual offender law and faced a mandatory sentence of thirteen and one-third years. ... A father of seven children and he works hard to support them. His youngest child suffers from autism, and another of his young children suffers from rheumatoid arthritis for which there is no cure. To support them he started two businesses, a janitorial service and a restaurant."
How Billy Holiday was hunted down
- How Billie Holiday Was Hunted Down In The Early Days Of The War On Drugs. By Johann Hari. April 9, 2015. From article (emphasis added):
 |
"To Anslinger, this [jazz] was musical anarchy, and evidence of a recurrence of the primitive impulses that lurk in black people, waiting to emerge. 'It sounded,' his internal memos said, 'like the jungles in the dead of night.' Another memo warned that 'unbelievably ancient indecent rites of the East Indies are resurrected' in this black man’s music.' ... 'Please prepare all cases in your jurisdiction involving musicians in violation of the marijuana laws. We will have a great national round-up arrest of all such persons on a single day.' ... But when Harry came for them, the jazz world would have one weapon that saved them: its absolute solidarity." |
| YouTube link [122]. Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit. See lyrics in the Youtube description, or here. | |
William Randolph Hearst and Harry Anslinger
- Worth Repeating: Marijuana Prohibition and Sexual Politics. March 30, 2012. By Ron Marczyk, R.N.. Toke of the Town. From the article:
"The early black jazz musicians of the 1920s and 1930s blended their love of marijuana with sexuality. This music broke through the color barrier, and was enjoyed by both white and black audiences. Marijuana was the driving force for jazz, and it was the fear of the mixing of these races that drove the white elite. ... And who was the 1937 black star who was the model for stealing white women by using the reefer music that Hearst and Anslinger feared? Cab Calloway -- that funny, funny Reefer Man! ... The large number of songs glorifying marijuana use in the decade leading up to cannabis prohibition shows what a large part marijuana played in black culture and music. ... Hearst's hatred of Mexicans and his hyping of the 'Mexican threat' to America likely was rooted in the 800,000 acres of timberland that had been confiscated from him by Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution. The Hearst papers carried paid-for columns by both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, rationalizing his relationship with the two men as one of 'helping to fight Communism.' However, during a continental tour Hearst actually attended the Nuremberg rally of 1934. He later completed a newsreel deal with Hitler during the trip!"
NAACP billboard and ACLU lawsuit.
"Welcome to America, home to 5% of the world's people & 25% of the world's prisoners." NAACP, ACLU File Lawsuit Against City of Philadelphia for Rejecting Criminal Justice Reform Ad. Article by NAACP. Lawsuit filed October 19, 2011 during the period of the Occupy movement. Also see the ad banner article by Courthouse News Service. The drug war and prisons are big business, and a big part of how the 1% controls the 99%. See Facebook comments about the banner. The Republican Party leads the racist drug war.
Incarceration peaked in the USA in 2008. <<--See that article for sources, stats, and charts for the banner. Most inmates are incarcerated due to the drug war.
Image info. See billboard and stats.
- Blacks in Government Say War on Drugs Is Racist. Article on Black Entertainment Television (BET) site. September 2, 2011. By Naeesa Aziz. "Another Black organization has added its voice to the growing number of groups and individuals who are publicly calling for the end of America’s war on drugs. ... In July [2011], the NAACP made a similar move and passed its own resolution calling for the end of the drug war and asking government to shift the focus to substance abuse treatment and education. The call for the end of drug criminalization and drug law reform has also been echoed by other organizations such as the National Black Police Association and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, and is gaining momentum."
- GOP War On Voting Is Most Determined Disenfranchisement Effort Since Jim Crow. By Ian Millhiser. July 7, 2011. ThinkProgress.
- Inactive U.S. Marshal speaks about war on drugs. April 9, 2008. Collegiate Times. In the article Matthew Fogg, a black member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), and former Chief Deputy US Federal Marshal, is quoted: "Drug prohibition helps the US maintain a racial apartheid prison industrial complex."
Astronomical U.S. incarceration increase
| USA and territories. 2,424,279 inmates in 2008. ... |
| In 2008 with less than 5% of world population the USA had 2.4 million of 9.8 million world prisoners (b). See latest numbers and World Prison Population List. The majority of inmates in the USA are in due to the drug war. The number of inmates in the USA has increased almost 5 times over since 1980. It peaked in 2008. |
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Incarceration nation
Number incarcerated in the USA peaked in 2008.
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November Coalition graph. Some Congressmen and police who prosecuted the War on Drugs now believe it caused a large increase in the United States incarceration rate. See Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and larger chart with sources. See template. Incarceration peaked in 2008. |
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  USA: Peak of 7.3 million people in 2007 under adult correctional supervision: On probation or parole, or incarcerated in jail or prison. About 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or 1 in every 31 adults. More info here. See template. |
Minorities under control of US corrections
The number of people incarcerated in the USA peaked in 2008. The number of people in the correctional system as a whole (jail, prison, probation, parole) peaked in 2007.
Charts below are adapted from Race and Prison. DrugWarFacts.org
| U.S. corrections system. Jail, prison, probation, parole | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 2000 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| TOTAL persons in system | 4,346,941 | 6,423,708 | 7,326,734 | 7,319,419 | 7,234,209 |
| Blacks and Hispanics in system | 2,351,516 | 3,309,566 | 3,622,726 | 3,607,341 | 3,611,911 |
| : Blacks and Hispanics % of TOTAL | 54.1% | 51.5% | 49.4% | 49.3% | 49.9% |
| Blacks in system | 1,614,195 | 2,347,066 | 2,446,834 | 2,453,170 | 2,472,920 |
| : Blacks % of TOTAL | 37.1% | 36.5% | 33.4% | 33.5% | 34.2% |
| Hispanic/Latinos in system | 737,321 | 962,500 | 1,175,892 | 1,154,171 | 1,138,991 |
| : Hispanics/Latinos % of TOTAL | 17.0% | 15.0% | 16.0% | 15.8% | 15.7% |
| Percent of inmates that are Black or Hispanic. Prisons and jails | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 2000 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | |
| Percent | 60.0% | 63.4% | 60.3% | 60.4% | 60.5% |
| About the above chart: |
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Table below is from here:
- Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013 (NCJ 248479). Published December 2014 by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, BJS statisticians. See appendix table 5 on page 13 in the PDF, for "Estimated number of persons supervised by adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000–2013."
Children with incarcerated parents
- Collateral Costs. Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility. Sept. 28, 2010. The Pew Charitable Trusts. From page 4 of PDF:
"One in 9 African American children (11.4 percent), 1 in 28 Hispanic children (3.5 percent) and 1 in 57 white children (1.8 percent) have an incarcerated parent."
Above chart is from page 19 of the PDF for a September 2010 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts: Collateral Costs. Incarceration's Effect on Economic Mobility.
Charts below are from page 8 of the same PDF. The numbers are for 2008.
The forever drug war
Republican gerrymandering: will allow the drug war to go on forever. At least in Republican states. Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.
US Taliban Republicans. Their cannabis war.
The Republican Party has used its Drug War as a 50 year distraction. All to serve the rich. See: Republican President Nixon's drug war against blacks and hippies. See Wikipedia: War on drugs. See Race, ethnicity, and drug war. See Wikipedia: Southern Strategy - Keeping poor whites and blacks fighting against each other, instead of the real enemy, the Republican low-tax-paying rich. See Wikipedia: Nixon's Enemies List, of journalists, actors, union leaders, etc. who expose it all. A GOP playbook that has never ended, and played out yet again by billionaire Trump until he was dumped in 2020. |
US Republican states
See article: Republican states. It's not just cannabis prohibition.
| 7 Oct 2021: Reallocation effects of the minimum wage. "In January 2015, Germany introduced a uniform minimum wage of €8.50 [$10 an hour today]. ... boosted wages of low-wage workers, did not lower employment, and induced a reallocation toward more productive establishments." - Why do US Republican leaders hate Americans? Why won't they raise the US federal minimum wage above $7.25? 62% support a $15 federal minimum wage. At the beginning of the year many states increase their minimum wage. In contrast to the clueless Republican states where poor MAGA Trumpists vote in their own slave masters. |
| Wikipedia: List of US states by minimum wage. See: List of states with both Republican governors and Republican legislatures. See map. |
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| Mostly in U.S. Republican states. |
| Percent of adults with overdue debt in collections. By county. See map. |
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| Wikipedia: List of U.S. states and territories by incarceration and correctional supervision rate. Map is for sentenced state prisoners only. No Federal or local jail inmates. See map. |
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Nixon's racist drug war
See: Race, ethnicity, and drug war.
See: Nixon's drug war against blacks and hippies.
Cannabis is safer.
Return to top. See article: Cannabis is safer.
Vote out most US Republicans and their cannabis war.
16 Dec 2019: Majority Of Americans Support Marijuana Legalization, Two More New Polls Show. "Voters who supported President Trump in the 2016 election expressed greater opposition to the policy than Republicans and Republican-leaning independents as a whole."
| 2 May 2019: Time to Admit It: Trump Opposed Cannabis Legalization. He opposed 3 bills for veterans’ access to medical cannabis. |
23 Feb 2019: Trump Continued to Flip-Flop on Medical Marijuana.
See: Reagan's war on cannabis. And: Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.
| Ronald Reagan, 1980 campaign speech: "Leading medical researchers are coming to the conclusion that marijuana, pot, grass whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States, and we haven't begun to find out all of the ill effects, but they are permanent ill effects. The loss of memory for example." |
Share link: Obama.
- Obama correctly said that cannabis is safer than alcohol. See: Cannabis is safer. He also said marijuana should be treated more as a public health issue than a criminal one. And: Obama signals support for legalizing medical marijuana. [123]. See video.
- USA. 1 in 10 deaths of working-age adults are alcohol-related (disease, overdose, car crashes, falls, violence, etc). 87,798 per year, 2006 to 2010. [124][125][126][127][128].
See longer article: Cannabis is safer.
- Imagine if Mitt Romney had been elected President in 2012 instead of Obama.
- Obama on marijuana legalization. [129]. "My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this". The Washington Post. Jan. 22, 2015.
Above quote is from Sanjay Gupta interview of Obama on April 15, 2015. Interview aired on CNN on April 19, 2015. [130][131][132].
- Obama administration asks Supreme Court to reject lawsuit filed by Republican governments in Oklahoma and Nebraska to stop legal marijuana in Colorado [133]. December 2015.
  Obama helped turn around the Reagan-Bush War on Pot, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration. See: US incarceration peaked in 2008. |
- Holder's Legacy: Steering Away From the Drug War and Mass Incarceration. [134]. Attorney General Eric Holder (2009-2015) under President Obama. 25 Sep 2014.
Register and vote for cannabis.
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For info to continue below click the "Full Site" link below. Or go to USA. The state of the nation.
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Today's far-right Republicans
Return to top. See: Happy alternatives to Republican-led poverty, mass incarceration, food insecurity, debt, ill health, intense concentration of wealth, endless wars.
News: Americans want universal healthcare and progressive taxation.
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11 Aug 2021: Billionaires worldwide gained $5.5 trillion during pandemic. [135]. Hunger. [136]. Wealth inequality at levels not seen since just before the Great Depression. Republican tax cuts for the rich. Record low inflation-adjusted US federal minimum wage.
$70 billion to end pandemic
- 11 Aug 2021: Article. "The world’s 2,690 global billionaires saw their combined wealth rise from $8 trillion on March 20, 2020 to $13.5 trillion as of July 31, 2021, ... The cost of vaccinating the world’s adult population was calculated as follows: two doses at $7 per dose for 5 billion people, for a total of $70 billion."
- 12 Aug 2021: One-off emergency tax on billionaires’ pandemic windfalls could fund Covid-19 jabs for all and cash grant to all unemployed workers.
Mask mandates work
29 Aug 2021: CDC: An Unvaccinated Teacher Took Off Their Mask to Read Aloud. Half the Class Got COVID.
28 Aug 2021: Do face masks work? Here are 49 scientific studies that explain why they do.
GOP taxes screw middle class
Trump signed tax law that gave 83% of benefits to the top 1%.
Republican filibuster equals
Return to top. See Wikipedia: Filibuster
- The evil history of the US Senate filibuster, or why the US no longer has simple majority rule. [137].
US voter suppression
Republicans have disenfranchised black, brown, and poor white people via "The New Jim Crow"; the drug war and mass incarceration. See: Holy War on Drugs, Conservative-led global incarceration.
Black votes matter.
High US taxes on poor
The forever war on the poor. Republican filibuster says to Americans: "Heads we win, tails you lose." Democracy? What democracy?
When Democrats have the majority, the Republican minority uses the filibuster to block higher taxes on the rich, and to block lower taxes on the middle class and poor. When Republicans have the majority they use budget reconciliation to use their simple majority to lower taxes on the rich, and increase user fees, sales taxes, and other regressive taxation to increase taxes on the poor and middle class.
This is the whole purpose of the US Republican Party. To serve the rich. Period.
Minimum wage workers crushed while serving the Republican low-tax-paying rich:
And on US middle class
Chart below. 2017 Republican tax and individual mandate repeal bill. Yellow is for an average increase in cost for people in those groups. Higher costs hitting more people each year. Up to incomes of $75,000.
| Republican tax bill hurts the poor more than originally thought, Congressional Budget Office finds. | "By 2019, Americans earning less than $30,000 a year would be worse off under the Senate bill, CBO found. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 or less would be net losers, and by 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be worse off. On the flip side, millionaires and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 would be big beneficiaries". |
| 2 polls: Only 29% of Americans approve of Republican tax plan. 2. | |
Low US minimum wage
Return to top. See: More inequality charts.
17 June 2019: US federal minimum wage has 35% less buying power than in 1969. 10 years since last increase. A record. CNN. [138].
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2 Jul 2019: There’s More Evidence That Raising the Minimum Wage Won’t Cost Jobs.
High wealth inequality
Median wealth is exactly in the middle. 50% of adults have more, and 50% have less. Wealth is all assets (money, stocks, property, etc.) minus all debts. See Wikipedia: List of countries by wealth per adult - From the 2021 publication: The average median wealth per adult for Canada ($125,688) is much higher than that of the former great nation, the USA ($79,274). It's due to Republican trickle-down voodoo economics: Giving tax cuts to the rich instead of to the middle class and poor who actually need them. Low federal minimum wage. Plus predatory mortgage loans and foreclosure. And predatory unforgivable student loans. Google News search: student debt.
Chart below. USA. 1989-2018. Top 1% Up $21 Trillion. Bottom 50% Down $900 Billion.
Republicans wasted $$-trillions on health insurance companies, and ground wars ($5.6 trillion) based on Bush/CIA WMD lies. Instead of paying higher wages, and higher minimum wages. As Canada does.
US middle-class wealth has collapsed. [139]. See chart below.
- Middle class wealth collapsing. [140]. And: Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world. See Wikipedia: Wealth in the United States.
| Median wealth per adult. Credit Suisse. 2021 report. Country links are to Wikipedia articles. Click red column headers to sort. Link. |
per adult.
US dollars
High income inequality
Timeline below of real (inflation-adjusted) average US household income by quintile and top 5 percent in 2018 dollars. Note that the bottom 60% of households (bottom 3 quintiles) have had little improvement in real income. While the top 20%, and especially the top 5 percent, have had large, even exceptional, increases in real income.
Real wages are not just flat, they are falling. 15 Jun 2018. Jeff Stein and Andrew Van Dam. Washington Post.
1 Jul 2016: Income Inequality Is At The Highest Level In American History. By Bryce Covert. ThinkProgress. "Incomes for the 99 percent have only recovered about 60 percent of what they lost. But the rich are doing great. ... They captured more than half of all the income growth in the country."
- Commons: Category: Median income. Charts, graphs, maps
Low quality of life
Germany has a much lower murder rate than the USA. Also, Germany has better health indicators, and its healthcare cost per person is half US cost (all costs, public and private).
High household debt
Return to top. See Wikipedia: Household debt.
US household debt at all time high. Chart below is from the PDF.
Total household debt. From 1st quarter 2003 through recent times.
Total Household Debt by Type:
- Click to enlarge. Timeline is by quarters.
High US medical debt
Return to top. See: Canadian single-payer universal healthcare versus US healthcare.
This doesn't happen in Canada, due to single-payer universal healthcare.
17 Jan 2019: US. 34 Devastating Stories About How People Are Still Crushed By Medical Debt. By Venessa Wong. BuzzFeed News.
High student loan debt
- Student Loan Debt by State. Map, table, and article.
- 15 July 2021: Student Loan Debt Statistics: 2021. U.S. student loan debt totals $1.6 trillion as of March 31, 2021.
Public elementary and secondary school in the USA costs an average of $14,891 a year per student in taxes. The money spent between the ages of 16 to 18 could be set aside for 2 years of full-board-and-tuition college. Look at Scotland: Adult at age 16. Scotland. What can I do at my age? And: Age of Legal Capacity (Scotland) Act 1991. And: Wikipedia: Education in Scotland: "In 2014, research by the Office for National Statistics found that Scotland was the most highly educated country in Europe". See: Wikipedia: Age of majority (by country). Wikipedia: Voting age.
Punitive bankruptcy law
- No Fresh Start: Will States Let Debt Collectors Push Families Into Poverty In The Wake of a Pandemic? US map with state-by-state grades on the fairness of bankruptcy laws. "NCLC surveys the exemption laws of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Sadly, not one jurisdiction’s laws meet basic standards so that debtors can continue to work productively to support themselves and their families."
- Model Family Financial Protection Act. Including fairer bankruptcy and debt laws.
- Debt in America: An Interactive Map. 29% of all adults. 24% of whites. 39% of people of color. See the map there, and below. See the astonishing percentages of adults with debt in collection. By county. Especially in the South. The South has been greatly impoverished by low Republican minimum wages, lack of expanded Medicaid, unfair bankruptcy laws, massive evictions (past and upcoming).
Stagnant US wages
USA. Since 2001, labor’s share of national income has suffered a sustained decline. 11 Sep 2018.
- See above chart source. [141]. And source article.
Chart below: Top 10% of earners receive 50% of all income. When capital gains are included.
- Above graph source. And: Source 2.
| 10 Jul 2018: National (US) Pay Trends. "Since 2006, wages have risen 12.9 percent overall in the US. But when you factor in inflation, real wages' have actually fallen 9.3 percent. In other words, the income for a typical worker today buys them less than it did in 2006." |
2 Jul 2018: An Update for 2018: More Evidence That Half of Americans Are In or Near Poverty. Paul Buchheit. Common Dreams.
For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades. 7 Aug 2018. By Drew DeSilver. Pew Research Center. Chart below is from the article. Bottom of chart says: "Data for wages of production and non-supervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls."
Top line in timeline below is hourly wages adjusted for inflation. It is flat: Bottom of chart below says: "Data for wages of production and non-supervisory employees on private non-farm payrolls."
Racist law enforcement
Return to top. See: Race, ethnicity, and drug war.
The KKK owns law enforcement today in the Republican state of Florida.
27 July 2021: Inside a KKK murder plot: Grab him up, take him to the river. "Even though three current and former Florida prison guards were exposed as klansmen, the state’s Department of Corrections says it found no reason to investigate whether other white supremacists were employed in its prisons."
Poorly rated healthcare
- 6 Aug 2021: Stunning new report ranks US dead last in health care among richest countries—despite spending the most. "The U.S. also had the highest infant mortality rate and lowest life expectancy at age 60 compared with other countries. ... The poor performance is nothing new, as the U.S. has landed in last place in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has released since 2004."
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No universal healthcare
Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security all came from Democrats. You pay the taxes while healthier. Republicans prefer you die. 50% in U.S. Fear Bankruptcy Due to Major Health Event. [142]
Google search: 26,000 Americans die each year from not having health insurance.
Single payer costs less
Portugal's drug decrim equals
50 drug overdose deaths yearly
Vs 100,000 yearly US deaths
There were around 101,300 US drug overdose deaths in the year ending June 30, 2021. 277 per day. Only around 30 to 55 per year in Portugal, a country with universal healthcare, and where all drugs have been decriminalized since 2001. See: Youtube: Portugal’s Drug Laws: Decriminalisation in action. May 16, 2018 video from Australia's Special Broadcasting Service. No one has been arrested for simple possession (under the limits) since 2001.
President Eisenhower. 1953:
His 91% top marginal tax rate
Equaled prosperity for more.
Eisenhower was not a socialist. He did not support state ownership of industries and businesses.
Eisenhower, an economically progressive Republican President, had a 91% top marginal income tax rate.. He participated in one of the greatest eras of economic prosperity-for-more in the US in the 1950s.
That era had lower overall taxes on the middle class.
| There was a higher average effective tax rate on the top 1 percent of US households in the 1950s. It was 42% when totaling federal, state, and local taxes. In 2014 it was 36.4%. See chart below. |
Chart below. See: Highest US marginal income tax rates over time.
- Above chart source. And: Source 2.
Chart below. Timeline of top US federal marginal tax rate.
Republican President Lincoln
Created first progressive
US federal income tax.
Republican president Abraham Lincoln did not believe in state ownership of industries and businesses. So he was not a "socialist". Socialism was not well known at that time. See Wikipedia: Socialism.
| In the United States, the first progressive federal income tax was established by the Revenue Act of 1862. The act was signed into law by Lincoln. It replaced a flat tax. See Wikipedia: Progressive tax. |
Lincoln's economically progressive message below. What a contrast to today's far-right Republican leaders. From a message to the U.S. Congress, 3 December 1861:
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
More sources: [143]. The full speech. See: Facebook image.
Thomas Paine on the poor
Thomas Paine statue below in Thetford, England. See: Paine Wikiquotes. Search for "poor" within those quotes. For example:
When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, then may the country boast of its constitution and its government.
Paine was nothing like today's Republican Party.
Overpopulation = Warming
Politicians need to incentivize more hempcrete construction [144], so that carbon dioxide levels go down. But that is not enough to stop global warming.
Overpopulation equals more global warming via less greenspace removing carbon dioxide.
- Side-by-side photos. Our underwater future: What sea level rise will look like around the globe. High tide could flood 800 million people by 2060s.
- Wikipedia: List of countries by population (United Nations). Shows population increase rates.
- Wikipedia: List of sovereign states and dependencies by total fertility rate.
Many clueless Republican leaders deny it all. They also block free birth control via universal healthcare. See Wikipedia: Single payer healthcare. It costs less per person and gets better results. See:
As countries prosper in a just and fair way their population stabilizes. See median wealth by country:
Migration has to be limited. Countries with low birth control can not dump their overpopulation on others. There must be multinational aid to fund birth control, not unlimited migration.
See crowded beach below and link:
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