Suggested Discussion Outline

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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Suggested Discussion Outline

Post by johnkarls »

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Suggested Discussion Outline


Part I – Our Focus Book “The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business” by Prof. David Courtwright

It is respectfully suggested that we focus for approx. 5 minutes or so on each of the chapters –

x. Introduction
1. Newfound Pleasures
2. Mass Pleasures
3. Liberating-Enslaving Pleasures
4. Anti-Vice Activism
5. Pro-Vice Activism
6. Food Addictions
7. Digital Addictions
8. Against Excess


Part II

It is respectfully suggested that we discuss any important points raised in the First Short Quiz not already covered in Part I.


Part III – The Second Short Quiz – “The Crack Cocaine Epidemic and America’s ‘Wrong’ Response”

1. Differences between powder cocaine and crack cocaine

2. The crack cocaine epidemic begins in the 1980’s

3. The national Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 – 100:1 criminal sentencing disparity

4. The national Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994

4a. Funding for 100 thousand new police officers, $9.7 billion for new prisons, etc., etc.
4b. The “Three Strikes and You’re Out” Mandatory Life Sentences
4c. 28 states follow suit with their own “three strikes and you’re out” laws

5. Consequences of this ALLEGED “wrong” turn

5a. Destruction of inner-city families whose husbands/fathers are incarcerated

5b. Inner-city children know by age 5 that they are NOT eligible for their dreams and that their only realistic career objectives are pusher or pimp, or girl friend of a pusher or pimp graduating to whore

5c. Accordingly, aren’t all the criminal provisions nothing but punishment for the only professions effectively permitted members of America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste???


6. Addictive substances have been used historically BY GOVERNMENTS – (A) opium to numb Chinese coolies, (B) wine to numb Roman soldiers, (C) gin to numb the English working class after the advent of the industrial revolution, (D) cigarettes included with the K-rations of WW-II U.S. soldiers, (E) alcohol in India causing Ghandi to campaign against it.

7. So if the U.S. government, in effect, drugged its 30% Permanent Under-Caste with cheap crack cocaine in order to drown their sorrows, why did the U.S. government (UNLIKE THE FIVE EXAMPLES IN THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH) incarcerate the users/victims???

8. Why not, instead, try to solve the problem of America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste by providing a decent education for its children???

9. And why not, instead, try to provide decent jobs for American workers rather than exporting their jobs 1993-2016 to China, et al., via so-called “free trade” agreements???

10. And why not refrain from destroying inner-city families by incarcerating their males for the only two professions that they are effectively permitted to enter (pusher or pimp)???


Effective Action

Is our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign following our June 3 meeting (re Federal Magnet Schools which admit/retain suburban children on condition that they and their families tutor/mentor their inner-city classmates) sufficient?

Or is there something additional that we should be doing?

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