I was going to see "American Gangster", until I started researching

[CatWoman]

drug dealers and the enormous damage they did to their very own communities.

BET is running a special entitled, "American Gangster"; check out some of the segments: http://www.bet.com/OnTV/BETShows/americangangster/ag_gangsterguide.htm??Referrer={626141EB-9CF7-463E-92C7-6F31C8698895}

I never really thought about the devastation until now -- why I don't know.

Whole generations have fallen to the drug trade. Whole families destroyed by a drug trade which run by ruthless, greedy -- yet brilliant -- men.

Some of those guys couldn't even read or write - take Frank Lucas for example. Yet they had keen, razor sharp business and organizational skills.

I must admit it pains me to admit this.

The whole thing has left me saddened and bewildered.

[rockymountaindem]

1. Organized crime is a fascinating topic

There's no reason to stay away from the movie though, is there? I'm planning on seeing it myself, but it'll probably become the next in the long line of movies I really meant to see but never got around to.

But on the whole, delving into organized crime research, as I've done a little bit in my time as a political science student, is a very interesting way to look at society as a whole.

[DS1]

2. I watched it

but didn't um, support Hollywood ;-)


It's a good movie, and does show the damage done to the community. I looked up Frank Lucas after watching, too, never had heard of the guy until this movie.

[CatWoman]

3. a ha!!!!

you're like my daughter -- buying BOOTLEGS!!!!

:hi:

check my link to learn more about Frank.

he was one smart, fascinating, brutal man.

[JDPriestly]

4. How right you are!

The pain that drug and alcohol addiction inflict on families and on our society is horrible. The sad thing is that the children of addicts pay the greatest portion of the price for the addiction of the parents.

[Swamp Rat]

5. I stopped watching BET when they got rid of Tavis Smiley.

I liked watching BET (BET Tonight) because of people like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.

[CatWoman]

7. To be perfectly honest, I've never watched BET

Go figure :shrug:

However, my boss recommended this series to me, after she had seen the movie

:hi: Swampy

:loveya:

[Swamp Rat]

10. I forgive you.

:hug: :D :loveya: :hi:

[steve2470]

6. It did show in one scene a dead heroin addict with his infant son crying by his side

That was a very very powerful scene. I didn't think the movie glamorized drugs at all. I think every wannabe drug dealer needs to see it.

[CatWoman]

8. Frank Lucas says that during his trial, an elderly woman testified

about finding her son dead on the commode, with a needle in his arm.

He had overdosed on Frank's "Blue Magic".

That actually made him cry -- and convinced him to turn state's evidence against the dirty police and politicians who were his enablers.

[Warpy]

9. Yeah, part of what got me to walk away from the 60s drug scene

was knowing what kind of weasels were ending up with the money. I'd met some up to the mid level and I was negatively impressed. I doubted the calibre of human being improved farther up the chain.

Another thing people seem to miss is that the drug economy is the ghetto economy. People who are denied access to other opportunity but who have the gumption to succeed are going to latch onto whatever they can find. Some of the ones who managed to learn the retail trade without sampling too much of the stock have been remarkably successful if they've managed to escape the law. This is the reason why we have a whole generation of black men with prison records and/or actively incarcerated. Lacking other opportunity, they did the only thing offered them.

These guys are not stupid even if they were left behind by an indifferent educational system, as Frank Lucas shows.

Ending the nanny state, especially the drug war, will do so much for all of us.

[unpossibles]

11. sadly, imo the drug laws create as much if not more damage than the drugs alone do

yes, I am aware of the negative aspects of the actual drugs, but often the black market created by their prohibition is what creates the real crimes and much of the death (including from tainted drugs cut with other things). Our war on drugs does us all a grave disservice.

Check out the book Natural Mind for some interesting insight into this.

[shadowknows69]

15. Cool someone else who has read "Natural Mind"

What was the author's name on that?

[unpossibles]

17. Andrew T. Weil

I loved that book.

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Mind-Investigation-Higher-Consciousness/dp/0395911567

For those who have not read it, the book discusses the very human and natural desire to alter consciousness through various means, from drugs to spinning around to meditation, and the effects that has on our culture.

[americanstranger]

12. In their own words: Frank Lucas & Nicky Barnes

This interview was in New York Mag a couple of weeks ago.

http://nymag.com/guides/money/2007/39948/

While I agree that they pretty much destroyed the black community in New York City with their dealings (a destruction from which the community is in some ways still rebuilding), but I found the interview fascinating.

Interesting side note - both Lucas and Barnes think that Hillary Clinton will be our next president.

- as

[Bobbieo]

13. Are there any current presidential candidates even vaguely connected to this scene?

[CatWoman]

18. thanks for the link, AS

:hi:

I remember seeing this interview with Rapper Cam'ron, and being equally disgusted:

NB: No, man. When I realized they left me on the battlefield to die, I said, “Fuck it!” … I said, “I’ll pull those motherfuckers in, let them see what it’s like.” I would rather be out here in the witness program than to be in jail with them. Why would I wanna be in there with them kinda niggers? I don’t regret it. I saw this show on CNN, with Anderson Cooper. Cats were talking about “Don’t snitch, no matter what happens.” Well, I can’t see how a guy can be considered strong if he lets a bunch of assholes walk all over him and he doesn’t respond, just because of some code that a bunch of idiots have cooked up. Anderson Cooper asked this rapper, “Suppose a child was molested and you knew who this molester was. Would you tell the police?” He said, “No.” So that’s what I’m sayin’—the street guidelines are just moron bullshit.

Is that a dumb loser ass attitude, or what?

[blm]

14. WORSE, Cat. One segment deals w/the TONS of cheap IranContra cocaine Poppy Bush

was having his operatives DUMP into black communities all over the country in the 80s and 90s, triggering the crack epidemic.

Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Gary Webb helped unravel the CIA drugrunning operation from the info uncovered by Kerry's investigations into IranContra and BCCI. His report came out in 1996 and he was quickly targeted by official Washington as a fantasist and he was derided by other newspapers doing their bidding. Clinton sided with protecting Poppy's secrecy and privilege.

BTW - The movie about Lucas just confirms how long our country has officially been involved in drugrunning.

The movie about Ricky Ross's situation and Poppy Bush's illegal operations will NEVER get made. And I still can't believe that so many in the black community have been so gentle with Clinton considering that it is a certainty that Clinton protected Poppy on this story and cooperated in the takedown of Webb.

[CatWoman]

19. B,

several AA leaders have been making that claim for years (among them Sharpton , Jackson, and even Farrahkhan), only to be ridiculed and dismissed.

cheap IranContra cocaine Poppy Bush was having his operatives DUMP into black communities all over the country in the 80s and 90s, triggering the crack epidemic.

[blm]

24. Well, WHO had the access to documents and the bully pulpit to let the truth

be known to ALL at the TIME the report came out in 1996? Instead - the stonewalling of access and the documents was continued.

In the documentary on BET there are TWO lawmakers who showed interest in the story getting fuller attention - Maxine Waters and John Kerry.

It DISGUSTS me what has been done in ALL OF OUR NAMES.

[americanstranger]

20. Heya, blm!

Hope all is well with you.

Check that NYMag interview - one of them talks about smuggling heroin into the US aboard Henry Kissinger's State Dept. plane!

- as

[CatWoman]

21. that was Lucas

he cut out the middleman, and got his stuff straight from SE Asia -- mainly in the coffins of deceased soldiers.

[blm]

23. I know - I saw it.

And all us good Germans in the Dem party are supposed to keep up the pretense that it's all just conspiracy theory, and never really happened.

Smooches to you, old buddy.

[americanstranger]

30. Back atcha!

I'd ask how Baby blm is doing - but I'll bet she's not that much of a baby any more ('cept maybe in mum's eyes, eh?).

Good to 'see' you.

- as

[KG]

16. actually drugs aren't the real problem. the problem is drug laws and

and criminaliztion of drug addiction instead of treating it as the public health issue it is.

[Le Taz Hot]

22. A point I used to tell my parolee students.

All those brains. All that talent. All those creative thinking skills. Wasted on dealing drugs for money so rich people can get richer while you end up in prison. Absolutely tragic and such a waste of great potential.

[sandnsea]

25. Italian, Irish, Jewish

all had gangs. I think it's peculiar that they are glamorized, but black and Mexican gangs are villified. I haven't seen the movie, it's just a random observation.

Did you watch either 20/20 or Extreme Home Makeover, about the poverty in Camden NJ. Bobby showed us the poverty. Why won't any Democratic candidate go near the real poverty in this country. My husband, who grew up on welfare food stores and food his grandmother brought home from her waitress job, never saw poverty like they have right now in Camden. I'm sure it exists in most major cities. When you're sleeping on the floor, how are you ever supposed to believe you can live the way they do on the television.

A lot of things have caused the devastation. It's really the biggest crisis this country has and will not face.

[applegrove]

26. I love both Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington on the screen. But I agree

I don't want to see a film about drug dealers. They do destroy masses of people.

[blm]

28. I want to see a film about Poppy Bush's drugrunning that funded global terror networks

throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Check out what's happening in Afghanistan now that the US has it back under its thumb. Record breaking opium and heroin output.

Gary Webb had the story of the decade and an honest Dem administration would have facilitated the access to the documents revealing the truth instead of siding with Poppy Bush and his secrecy and privilege.

[NOLALady]

27. Prohibition led to the rise of organized crime.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1596.html


"The rise of gangsterism

The Prohibition era of the 1920s gave rise to the organized crime syndicate in the United States. Federal efforts to enforce prohibition, including raids on speakeasies, were countered by well-organized bootlegging operations with national and international connections. A particularly notorious gang of the times was Al Capone's mob in Chicago. There were also gangs in Detroit, New York and other cities. Wars among gangs, producing grisly killings, frequently made headlines."

[fishnfla]

29. I read the novelette

I dont know if it was true pr not, but they had this drug dealer guy, Lucas rubbing shoulders with Joe Louis and Mohammed Ali, like they were his friends. I was saddened to think that true