The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'A turnip with a face on it, surrounded by people.'
Across the US, the fentanyl crisis is real. The cheap synthetic opioid has been flooding into the country from Mexico for years, contributing to tens of thousands of overdose deaths and endless rounds of street violence. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom recently announced a new partnership between the California Highway Patrol, the California National Guard, and local authorities to combat the fentanyl crisis in San Francisco. Here's an excerpt from an NPR article about it:
Agencies are expected to "crack down" on crimes linked to fentanyl and increase law enforcement presence in public areas. However, Newsom's office vowed that the operation will not target those with drug addictions and instead focus on drug suppliers and traffickers. ... Meanwhile, the California National Guard will offer support in analyzing drug operations, with a particular focus on fentanyl trafficking rings.
The deployment of military forces for domestic law enforcement purposes goes against everything the country is supposed to stand for. And yet, despite obvious issues like the Kent State massacre, it remains perfectly legal in a variety of circumstances. The legal framework governing this use of the military is antiquated. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, "The key pillars of this framework are the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, which have not been meaningfully updated since the 19th century."
Newsom's new directive, while legal, is nonetheless troubling. The best case scenario is that the California National Guard uses its military resources to dismantle some of the largest drug rings servicing San Francisco, though I seriously doubt they have the relevant expertise to do so. This scenario would likely result in the further militarization of law enforcement, leading to all sorts of problems down the line. Trigger-happy police are bad, but trigger-happy soldiers are ten times worse.
The worst case scenario here is that freedom could be reduced while street crime stays the same or even gets worse as violence escalates in response to increased law enforcement pressure. Given Newsom's track record, this scenario would probably be spun as a win in media, even as street level conditions continued to deteriorate. As an added bonus, military surveillance of city residents would probably become a template for military surveillance of other population centers across the country.
Biden's Announcement
On a national level, President Biden has announced that he's seeking re-election in 2024, at which point he'll be 82 years old. I'm having a hard time taking this seriously because Biden is such a joke. I feel like he's only running again because he literally can't find his way out of his office. As a leader, he's a vegetable, yet a strangely large segment of the electorate seems keen on voting for this guy again.
Decades ago, Biden was an architect of the War on Drugs, championing prohibition, civil asset forfeiture, and mass incarceration. This War, over time, produced precisely the kinds of problems we're now seeing in San Francisco and elsewhere, enriching cartels while motivating drug users to avoid seeking help by criminalizing their health difficulties. Today, Biden is a senile old tool of Big Pharma and the military industrial complex. He just keeps bumbling around, making the world worse.
To be honest, I don't know how anyone can say they're voting for Biden with a straight face. He's harmed vast numbers of people and is visibly confused. No sane society puts a guy like that in charge. The worse part is that if something happens to him, like if he falls down, Kamala Harris is the VP, and she's not better. Fortunately, there's still plenty of time before the next election. Maybe some outsider candidate like Robert Kennedy Jr will figure out a way to leverage emerging tech to break the two party stranglehold dominating our politics.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.