medicineman
New Member
Just Another Victim
by Jay Elias
Wed Feb 21, 2007 at 01:38:16 PM PST
Another week goes by, and another American child is murdered by the government in their own bed, in the name of yet another losing war that Americans refuse to surrender.
This week, the victims name is Daniel Castillo Jr., a seventeen year old who lived in the Houston suburb of Wharton, Texas. He was killed eight days ago, on Feb. 13th, when armed SWAT officers executed a no-knock warrant on his familys home. He woke when his twenty year old sister with whom he shared a room screamed at an officer not to shoot the year-old infant she held in her arms, rose in his bed and was shot in the face by six-year police veteran Don Falks. He was shot in the head in his own bed in the middle of the night, feet away from a crying one year old child, in America. I can hardly bring myself to even write this, since after all, whats the big deal anyways? This story is so ordinary by now, it is hardly even worth the bother.
In the past year, Ive written here about men such as Sal Culosi, Isaac Singletary, and now Daniel Castillo. Over at Stop The Drug Wars website, I read this:
But it doesnt matter when it was written. It could have been written at any time. And as the outrages pile upon the outrages, I worry more and more that no one will ever do anything about this. People become inured to the damages that this war does to our nation, to our fellow citizens. People look away from the most prisoners in the world and the costs of a war on drugs that at $200 billion a year is enough to fund Iraq and Afghanistan at once. Daniel Castillo Jr.s name and face and story melds in with the names of so many others; just another victim in the original war from which the United States has no exit strategy and no plan for victory.
Eight days ago, as a manifestation of our local, state, and Federal government policy, our nation killed yet another boy not old enough to vote for the representatives who perpetuated the system that killed him. As a nation, we are so concerned that we placed the officer who pulled the trigger on paid administrative leave.
What would you do to end this war?
by Jay Elias
Wed Feb 21, 2007 at 01:38:16 PM PST
Another week goes by, and another American child is murdered by the government in their own bed, in the name of yet another losing war that Americans refuse to surrender.
This week, the victims name is Daniel Castillo Jr., a seventeen year old who lived in the Houston suburb of Wharton, Texas. He was killed eight days ago, on Feb. 13th, when armed SWAT officers executed a no-knock warrant on his familys home. He woke when his twenty year old sister with whom he shared a room screamed at an officer not to shoot the year-old infant she held in her arms, rose in his bed and was shot in the face by six-year police veteran Don Falks. He was shot in the head in his own bed in the middle of the night, feet away from a crying one year old child, in America. I can hardly bring myself to even write this, since after all, whats the big deal anyways? This story is so ordinary by now, it is hardly even worth the bother.
- Jay Elias's diary :: ::
Illicit drug use is associated with suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. An estimated 3 million individuals in the United States have serious drug problems. Several studies have reported an undercount of the number of deaths attributed to drugs by vital statistics; however, improved medical treatments have reduced mortality from many diseases associated with illicit drug use. In keeping with the report by McGinnis and Foege, we included deaths caused indirectly by illicit drug use in this category. We used attributable fractions to compute the number of deaths due to illicit drug use. Overall, we estimate that illicit drug use resulted in approximately 17000 deaths in 2000, a reduction of 3000 deaths from the 1990 report.
Seventeen thousand dead a year is quite a bit, of course more than five times the total number of Americans killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That it is only slightly more than 50% of the total number of Americans who die due to adverse reactions to perscribed medications each year (approximately 32,000 hospitalized patients and possibly as many as 106,000 in the USA die each year because of adverse reactions to their prescribed medications) is another one of those statistics that should put our drug problem into perspective but does not. Americans are more than 300 times more likely, according to the CDC, to die of the affects of poor diet and physical inactivity than they are to die of the direct or indirect affects of drug abuse. But I dont like to trumpet that fact; I see too many visions of SWAT teams battering down doors in an attempt to suss out the suppliers of highly addictive and occassionally fatal boxes of Thin Mints.
In the past year, Ive written here about men such as Sal Culosi, Isaac Singletary, and now Daniel Castillo. Over at Stop The Drug Wars website, I read this:
And so it goes. Three men killed for no apparent good reason, one police shooter charged with murder, another fired from his job, and a third facing a grand jury investigation. No police officer has been found guilty yet, but given the track record in the United States, the fact that these cases are getting as far as they have may be a sign of progress. It also shows the power an aggrieved community can wield if it chooses to exercise it.
Except that article isnt about Culosi, Singletary and Castillo. It is from almost exactly three years ago, and it is about Kenneth Walker, Michael Newby, and Rudolfo Cardenas all killed by police officers while unarmed during drug investigations, in a period of less than two months.
But it doesnt matter when it was written. It could have been written at any time. And as the outrages pile upon the outrages, I worry more and more that no one will ever do anything about this. People become inured to the damages that this war does to our nation, to our fellow citizens. People look away from the most prisoners in the world and the costs of a war on drugs that at $200 billion a year is enough to fund Iraq and Afghanistan at once. Daniel Castillo Jr.s name and face and story melds in with the names of so many others; just another victim in the original war from which the United States has no exit strategy and no plan for victory.
Eight days ago, as a manifestation of our local, state, and Federal government policy, our nation killed yet another boy not old enough to vote for the representatives who perpetuated the system that killed him. As a nation, we are so concerned that we placed the officer who pulled the trigger on paid administrative leave.
What would you do to end this war?
