Traffic

Traffic is a movie which supposedly takes a cold hard look at the drug problem, including targeting the "demand" for drugs by those of us in the United States. It is a very sophisticated movie that is sucking a lot of people in.

This movie was nominated for five academy awards and is being upheld as a brave criticism of U.S. drug policy. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) allowed the producer to shoot the film inside their high security El Paso centers along the U.S./Mexico border. When a customs official complained about the script, the producer let him rewrite it.

So why is the government eager to have you watch this movie? The war on drugs has been going on for 15 years. Millions of Black and other oppressed people have been profoundly affected by the war. There has been much exposure of the role of the CIA in the drug trade, in the last few years documented in Gary Webb's book: The war on drugs has been exposed as a war on the people-yet one Black character is a "good cop" and the other is a pusher who hooks rich white women. The Mexicans are shown as corrupt and the Drug Czar as some na•ve nice guy. In the real world drug czars are like General Barry McCaffrey-a war criminal responsible for massacring defenseless Iraqi soldiers after the cease-fire in the Gulf War.

This movie takes secondary aspects of the drug trade and twists them to support and promote racist and chauvinist ideology and ultimately the government's war on drugs.

A career politician is shown resigning in disgust at what is he called upon do as the "drug czar". His moment of truth, supposedly when he realizes that he is being called upon to wage war against his own family (his daughter is hooked on drugs). As vets we can distingush fantasy from truth-this movie is pure fantasy.

The movie makes two basic points: 1) Mexicans are responsible for the majority of drugs coming into the U.S. and 2) the people, in this case, young Americans, are equally responsible for creating a demand.

The movie completely lets off the hook anyone remotely connected to the U.S. government. These high officials are the ones who allow, profit from and promote drug trade and use. If massive drug profits disappeared tomorrow, whole countries would collapse and with them many of the rich who feed on the third world. Who seriously believes that those in Washington don't factor this into their real view of drugs? Missing here also is any of the historic role of the CIA in drug trade in Laos or the flying of hundreds of cocaine shipments to finance the contra war against Nicaragua.

This movie is a reminder that the answers this system proposes to the outrages it manufactures are no answers at all - but recipes to continue the carnage.

"In the world today, all culture, all literature and art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines."

Mao Tse-tung, Talks at the Yenan Forum