Watching Ken Burns' "Prohibition" and laughing my ass off.

[BlueIris]

Although I was not totally ignorant of the Volstead Act and its consequences, this film is cracking me up. I cannot believe anyone in the anti-alcohol movement ever believed such paranoid things as Burns mentions in the film--including the idea that it could cause spontaneous human combustion. And I just can't figure out how politicians ever, ever came to believe the actual legislation could be enforced.

While I have been (justifiably) accused by some of being a modern day prohibitionist myself, this documentary has made even me critical of the idea of banning substances (even those I hate.) Seriously.

[liberal N proud]

1. There are some parallels to today with all the corruption

The bought congress and hypocrisy that existed sounds so much like today.

[boston bean]

3. I'm suprised there isn't a constitutional amendment for prohibition of cigarettes.

We might be on the first step with the temperance movement against smoking.

[MindPilot]

13. There would be a frightening number of people behind that.

I heard that the City of Boston was trying to ban e-cigs. Is that true?

[liberal N proud]

19. What keeps that from happening is the money

the tobacco companies pump into Congress, or at least used to.

I am not a smoker and while I do appreciate the smokeless restaurants, I in no way would ever support a total ban.


I think the lessons from prohibition will keep the anti smoking groups from getting an amendment.

[hunter]

29. If there was a prohibition of tobacco...

... the cigarette smugglers would be as violent as the drug gangs.

They'd be bigger and more profitable than the drug gangs and might very soon initiate an extremely hostile takeover of the entire drug smuggling business.

It'd also be very profitable for the prison industry if we could put people who sell cigarettes or commit crimes to support their tobacco addictions in jail.

[JCMach1]

2. They were DEADLY Serious

Think what would happen today if folks from Occupy Wall Street showed up like this!

[progressoid]

8. And deadly crazy.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MindPilot]

14. Yeah but she did end up being the unwitting creator of NASCAR.

For that, I am grateful.

But it did seem like the temperance movement was more opposed to the existence of the saloons, than the booze itself.

[Marblehead]

4. there is more

money in illegal drugs. The banks launder billions and own private prisons, it's a win win for them. The banks were most likely involved in prohibition as well.

[Upton]

5. Lot of parallels with the War on Drugs..

particularly the misinformation and outright lies spread about pot. The rise of gangs too.

Unfortunately, we're always going to have authoritarian types trying to legislate morality..

[Major Nikon]

16. Everyone knows pot causes black men to rape white women

Even worse, it causes white women to WANT to have sex with black men!

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and many others."

“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

“In the year 1090, there was founded in Persia the religious and military order of the Assassins, whose history is one of cruelty, barbarity, and murder, and for good reason: the members were confirmed users of hashish, or marihuana, and it is from the Arabs’ ‘hashashin’ that we have the English word ‘assassin.’”

-- Harry J. Anslinger, Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner, 1930-1962

[calimary]

35. Oh my! Gives you a whole new way of looking at ginni thomas, doesn't it?

[Major Nikon]

39. Somehow I can't see Clarence as a jazz muscian

Besides, I still can't get the memory of Orrin Hatch saying "Long Dong Silver" on the floor of the Senate out of my head.

[Brigid]

38. That's funny.

I always heard that pot makes you hungry, not randy.

[The Wizard]

21. As I recall

the Bush Administration was promoting the idea that pot sales funded terrorism. Or was it communism or Islamofascism, or was it the vapors?

[FarCenter]

24. There were a lot fewer convictions under the Volstead Act

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/graphs/volstead8.htm

Nowhere near as many people were imprisoned by prohibition as are imprisoned under drug laws.

[Major Nikon]

42. The ones who did go to prison were regarded as heros

Interesting how race changes everything.

[JHB]

6. You're just not thinking of the modern parallels...

...like thinking the institution of marriage will be undermined by letting gays get hitched.
...like all the ills of our society come from teaching about evolution.
...like smoking a joint is a gateway (read: beeline) to life as an addicted drug fiend.
...like corporations can regulate themselves and they won't cheat.
...like the notion that the national debt is mostly due a vast army of able-bodied people lazing about on the government dole laughing at the hard-working RealAmericans footing the bill -- and that the layabouts are poor (and usually brown-skinned) people, not lobbyists and wealthy people buying politicians.

[LeftinOH]

7. And the same people who supported prohibition were against raising taxes to enforce

prohibition- as if outlawing something will make it stop happening. Both my grandfathers made some extra money running booze during this time ..and they were proud of it.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

22. Did you miss the part were progressives also heavily supported it in Part 1

Saying alcohol was bad for the working people.

[RZM]

23. Not to mention its connection to the women's suffrage campaign n/t

[Archae]

10. I liked the guy who's Dad delivered illegal booze to congress.

Same sanctimonious preachers on the House and Senate floor were regular customers.

[RebelOne]

11. He is on Washington Journal right now. n/t

[MindPilot]

12. What has always bothered me is that it was an AMENDMENT!!

The Constitution is not an instrument to restrict individual behavior. For that, representatives make laws. The Constitution grants powers to, and the BoR limits the powers of the government. The BoR specifically enumerates those rights which are so important they need to be spelled out.

It is a very interesting documentary.

[littlewolf]

15. lots of people got very very rich ..... much like illegal drugs today

[meow mix]

17. just as ludicrous reasoning behind MMJ prohibition.

it would be nice to have laws which were not based on superstition, hatred and lies.. over science.

im my opinion this is what makes the mmj laws illegal.

[noel711]

18. Again a warning...to us.

Ken Burns is doing us a favor...
Reminding us of how our freedoms can be hijacked by
fringe groups, and we can be undermined by the
power of the votes of low information people
who don't bother doing their homework.
AND by legislators who care more about being in power
than doing the difficult work of being responsible.

Altho this is riveting to watch (and listen! The music is phenomenal)-
this is both scarey and depressing.
Can people be that stupid?
Oh yes.
And.. the fact that women's suffrage was tied to the temperance
movement.. is ironic. Lots to see and glean from this
visual feast and scholarship. But lots of caveats too.

[etherealtruth]

54. Listening to the interviews with Ken Burns ...

You've done a good job of summing up the messages he hopes this documentary will convey.

The parallel is not the legality of pot ... it's the power of wedge issues and the catering to wishes of "fringe' (and not so fringe) groups for the sole purpose of political expediency.

As is much of Ken Burn's work ... Prohibition is a thoughtful masterpiece.

[Uncle Joe]

56. There are quite a few parallels between the illegality of pot and Prohibition.

1. The use of ridiculous propaganda, whether it be spontaneously combustion in the case of taking a drink of alcohol or "Reefer Madness."

2. The conservative motivation to outlaw both as a means to oppress minorities and/or political opposition as I posted down-thread, the KKK supported Prohibition for that reason, the same can be said for Nixon/Reagen's; motivation to wage the "War on Drugs" aimed at the Hippies and the overwhelming preponderance of minority prosecution and sentencing.

3. The financial windfall to and empowerment of organized crime from both Sisyphean tasks.

4. The ongoing corruptive influence whether it be to police, judiciary, banks and/or other institutions.

5. The overall criminalization of millions if not tens of millions of Americans.

6. Both endeavors opted to strip away individual freedom, not enhance or protect it.

I totally agree with Burns re: the power of wedge issues and political expediency but many of the motivations, symptoms of and basic social dysfunctional-ty apply to both endeavors.

[immoderate]

20. Laughably, Burns insists there is no parallel between pot laws and prohibition.

It's funny because he goes through this same denial in every interview. He's not a politician so no one calls him on it.

I heard him say we can't legalize pot because we don't know what to do about heroine. :wtf:


--imm

[etherealtruth]

55. Watching the series ...

There appears to be great parallels between abortion and "prohibition." He's done a great job of exploring wedge issues and pandering to block voters (born of fringe crazies).

[sarcasmo]

25. The same way they think it's a good idea to keep enforcing the marijuana laws.

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. The fundamental takeaway: the public became convinced that it was a good idea.

Nothing is too stupid for congress: provided the unwashed masses think it's a good idea.

[starroute]

27. The spontaneous combustion theory may be wrong but it's not wacky

It was a pretty standard 19th century belief, since in many -- although not all -- cases the victims had been drinking or were alcoholics. The only wacky part is using something so rare as a reason to ban all alcoholic drinks.

I haven't seen the Burns film, but my understanding is that the strongest arguments against alcohol had to do with its intimate association with poverty, domestic abuse, and a whole host of social ills. The flaw in the reasoning was that alcohol wasn't the root cause of those problems, but I wouldn't laugh at the people who believed it was.


http://www.castleofspirits.com/shc.html

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a phenomenon where a living person suddenly bursts into flames for no apparent reason. The first reported case was thought to have been in 1763. A Frenchman named Jonas Dupont published a collection of Spontaneous Human Combustion cases. The belief in SHC continued on well into the 1800's, Charles Dickens used SHC in his novel "Bleak House" to kill off a character. It was generally believed in the 1800's that SHC was caused by alcoholism. They believed that the accumulation of alcohol in the body tissues would dramatically increase the combustibility of the body. It was also thought that the body metabolized alcohol to produce hydrogen and other inflammable gases which were then stored in the body tissues. A spark produced by the body's own electricity would then ignite the body. However as more knowledge of the metabolism of the body was discovered this theory was soon dismissed as they discovered that you would die of alcoholic poisoning before you would get to the stage of being saturated with alcohol.

[unblock]

28. we take our shoes off to get on a plane because ONE guy tried something bad involving shoes.

we can't carry 3.1 ounces of shampoo onto planes because that much liquid is scary.

we're still at war in two faraway countries because once, a decade ago, 19 people did something really, really bad -- and no one has been able to come close to doing anything like that again.


people go off the rails over many things, for a variety of reasons. sometimes there are ulterior motives at play, sometimes there's something in the water, or sometimes it's just a bunch of people with nothing better to do. idle hands and all.



on the other hand, it's easy to forget that not everyone has or had identical beliefs, and not all of the prohibitionists, or at least the people who didn't strongly oppose them, believed every last crazy fear about alcohol. it's certainly easy for a documentarist to pick out whichever arguments suit his purpose. if only for entertainment value, movies and tv shows often like to show the extreme cases and points of view, giving the false impression that such views were anything close to majority views.

[SwampG8r]

33. i went thru customs in canada and put

my shoes on the conveyor
the lady looked at me like i whipped it out and then she.....laughed at me and said..."american eh?"
canadians laughing at americans in the open!
i remember when america had the respect that meant this stuff only went on behind your back!
canadians......laughing.....the sting of endless shame

[Brigid]

36. Aw, come on. Where's your sense of humor?

Seriously, I would have just about fallen over laughing, as I'm sure you did. :rofl:

[SwampG8r]

62. yeah i did

[Brigid]

30. My favorite part?

Grape growers selling blocks of frozen grape concentrate with labels saying "Do not add water and store in a dark place. Product will ferment." :rofl:

Seriously, the temperance movement really did have a lot to gripe about as far as the harm alcohol caused society (hence its support among progressives). Their mistake was in scapegoating alcohol for all of society's problems. The banning of alcohol only created a whole new set of problems to add to them.

[kittykitty]

31. Part 3 is tonight-- dealing with the repeal. nt

[saras]

32. You got suckered - it's an awesomely biased, one-sided story

[zipplewrath]

34. Heck of conclusion

That's a heck of a conclusion, considering it hasn't finished yet.

I suspect, without knowing, that it is heavily based upon a book " Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" by Daniel Okrent. Like most books that are put on film, there is alot missing. But we may be getting to some of that by the end.

The book is very clear, Prohibition didn't arise from nothing, there were real reasons that large numbers of people were supportive. And despite the strong reaction from many sectors of society, overall the level of drinking per capita went way down. Furthermore, it has never risen back to pre-prohibition levels.

It permanently changed the way alcohol was treated, handled, and viewed in this country. And the movement to ban it also was involved in the Women's Suffrage movement.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. You're still mad about repeal?

Good grief. People need to run their own fucking lives, not try to run everyone else's.

[Throd]

52. I don't drink with you!

[Uncle Joe]

53. How is it one sided?

[Odin2005]

37. Many of the Prohibitionists were women sick of being abused by drunkard husbands, I've read.

[Brigid]

41. Yes, that was part of it.

The temperance movement was not just a bunch of Carrie Nations and Billy Sundays spouting off. They actually had a lot of legitimate concerns. It's just that prohibition was not the way to address them.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. prohibition doesn't work

unfortunately, the urge to run other peoples' lives seems almost as equally ingrained in (some members of, at least) the human race as the urge to alter one's own consciousness for personal enjoyment.

[Raine]

45. Yes that's what I've read too but that legitimate reason seems to get lost in the uproar

unfortunately.

[Warren DeMontague]

46. perhaps the answer was and is domestic violence laws

instead of another ridiculous, doomed and futile attempt to tell consenting adults how to run their own lives.

[Uncle Joe]

40. Prohibition made for some ironic alliances, women's suffrage movement and the KKK both supported it,

for different reasons of course but it still blew me away.

I didn't know about the KKK's support of Prohibition.

Thanks for the thread, BlueIris.

[Warren DeMontague]

48. funny, how the urge to ban assorted activities by consenting adults ALWAYS

seems to make for 'strange alliances'. :shrug:

[Uncle Joe]

50. Another irony in the program was the story about a bootlegger making mega-bucks delivering alcohol

to the Congress.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. "My Body, My Business"

think how much cultural shit-flinging we could avoid if we simply adopted those 4 words as the philosophical baseline ideal to work off of. :shrug:

[Major Hogwash]

49. A Nation of Drunkards

The statistics are staggering.
Almost 40% of the country was alcoholic, or at least that many had tendencies leaning towards alcoholism.
Consumption was 5 to 6 times higher on average than it is today.
Amazing documentary.

[Uncle Joe]

51. Which in fact was a scream for legitimate education as opposed to mindless propaganda, combined

with medical and alcohol industry reform.

Cold Prohibition turned the "Nation of Drunkards" into a "Nation of Scofflaws."

Prohibition's corruptive influence produced shootouts between Revenue Agents and Sheriffs; protecting the bootleggers and the first governmental invasion of privacy via wire-tapping.

As I posted up-thread the KKK supported Prohibition, they did it because they thought it could be used to suppress African Americans, I believe many of the same motivations in the modern "War Against some Drugs" applies today.

It will be interesting to see tonight's conclusion when organized criminal activity and gang warfare reaches its' peak.

[Romulox]

57. Wait...this documentary on "prohibition" isn't going to mention the War on Drugs???

Way to engage with the real world, Ken Burns. :eyes:

[Uncle Joe]

58. This is a great program but I believe he's missing the boat on that aspect as well.

:hi:

[BlueIris]

61. Well, it's focus is only on prohibition in one era.

But fear not, Burns and almost everyone in the film condemns the idea. Kind of hard for me to believe they are only speaking of "the" prohibition era, because of how heavily almost every historian condemns the concept. They could easily have been talking about war on drugs issues.

[JVS]

59. Volume 2 has extensive discussion of illegal wiretapping

[JVS]

60. It segues into "right of privacy" which is the hinge of nationally legal abortion