Chapter 15
	Still focusing on the negative aspects of the 60's, I realize many people may not know what I meant when I referred to partial truths, spin, lies, and coverups in the previous chapter, and how that has affected our society.  Let's start with our intervention in the several democracies we toppled in Central and South America (the Southern hemisphere) when we thought they were too liberal or might make problems for our continued exploitation of their national resources or both.  So we had Chile's Allende killed.  Before this in 1954, we had the liberal President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala removed by a coup and we sent the overthrown dictator, Somoza's army against the Sandanista's in Nicaragua.  These were all popular leaders and governments in their time, supported by their people--the poor and working class and much of the tiny middle class--and violently opposed by the tiny but powerful upper class, the controlling wealthy oligarchy and in all cases the real narco-terrorist drug lords.  Their underground economy was the primary method of financing these violent terrorist movements posing as revolutionaries or what President Reagan called "Freedom Fighters."
	Our government, through its covert programs, carried on by the CIA, DEA and other secret intelligence units of U.S. foreign intervention, in every case worked with and protected this source of covert funding (drug trafficking) from being interfered with.  The biggest, richest, most notorious drug lords, if they would only support our imperialist policies, would be protected and free to rake in the money as long as they shared it with these so-called "revolutionary" terrorists, like the Contras for example, who murdered and raped their way through Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador.  This was an alliance of drug lords, the very wealthy, organized crime, corrupt national governments, their military, and the military industrial complex of the U.S.A.  The instrument for covering up all this illegal activity was the so-called "War on Drugs" which is actually a "War on the Poor."
	In many cases, the top leadership of the anti-narcotics agencies protected the biggest traffickers, even going so far as to store tons of drugs, destined to be shipped to the U.S., in the warehouses of these supposed anti-narcotics enforcement agencies.
	You may say, "Oh how could this be true?!  What would be their reason for this?"  As for its truthfulness, these facts have all been very well documented in scores of books by credible authors and years of research.  Some of this material was written by former DEA officers and other officers from various enforcement agencies, as well as voluminously researched books by many leading university professors.  One such book that I am currently reading is perhaps the best, most verifiable work of all I have read so far.  I would recommend you to Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall's "Cocaine Politics," published by the University of California Press.
	Why did they do it and why are they still doing it?  Because it's easy money, because they can, because an underground covert operation has to follow smugglers' rules.  In this the drug traffickers are the experts.  Also, even though they bust you for doing drugs, many in our government want you to do them.  The bigger the market, the more money there is, the more people who are involved and living in fear of being busted.  These people are also fearful of expressing anti-government political opinions, fearful of organizing, fearful of political activity and political action.  More than a million and a half penal inmates are currently being denied their right to vote.  So the drug trade, along with the "War on Drugs" creates a subtle but effective suppression of our political freedom, and we the tax payers are paying for it, to the tune of 200 billion dollars or more a year.  This is a political conspiracy, because we know the government and enforcement agencies are aware of all of this.  A big part of their job is to hide this truth, this action, this reality from the American people.  This process has been going on for a long time.  It has been gaining power over our daily lives slowly, incrementally from the inception of Prohibition until this very day, but in the 60's this struggle against the people's freedom came to a head and eventually resulted in the slaughter of our strongest leadership.  In all four of the major assassinations of the 60's, these four leaders came out against the war in Vietnam shortly before they were murdered.  Although the pro-war hawks like to blame the Peace Movement for the Communist victory in Vietnam, in fact it was actually the TET offensive of the Viet Cong that drove us out of Saigon and the rest of Vietnam.  The Peace Movement was, however, threatening the establishment here in this country.  In each case a popular leader was murdered in an effort to control the people's demand for peace, freedom, and justice.  Now we live in the aftermath of this deadly policy.  Whenever someone seemed to be able to galvanize the people to take decisive peaceful political action, they were simply done away with, murdered.  This violent pattern was spread to the rest of the continent south of us.  It started with the murder of President Allende in Chile and through his replacement, General Pinoche, a reign of terror was ushered in and spread through South and Central America, supported by the U.S. and drug money.  Financing this fascist movement and covering it up has been the main function of the "War on Drugs."  It has also become a taxpayer subsidy to organized crime.