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Wednesday, December 28. 2011

On The Wire

Merry Christmas once again and congratulations to the Packers for lining up home field advantage for the playoff and to Drew Brees for breaking Dan Marino’s single season passing record — at home on Monday Night Football no less! That’s how to do it! And they have home field until that time when and if they meet the Green Bay Packers, which would be for the NFC Championship game.

For the past two nights and wee hours of the morning I’ve been having my own little TV marathon, watching the first season of the best show to ever be on television: HBO’s The Wire. Right now they have the first eight episodes of the first season (2002) on HBO On Demand, which is like having DVR without paying for it.

All five seasons were good, but the first is my favorite. The program grew out of an HBO documentary, The Corner, about the drug trade in Baltimore, MD and the politics of failure inherent in the power structure of that city, as well as the acclaimed TV program Homicide, another show about Baltimore police.

We grew to love many of the characters, like Detective McNulty, the alcoholic neer-do-well who’s lack of civility and respect for authority makes him a driving force behind the special investigations unit. Then there’s his Homicide partner Bunk Moreland, another “natural police” and the often-quoted bad guy, Omar Little. “Omar don’t scare.”

These two nights of The Wire marathon just happened to coincide with the holiday programming on MSNBC, The Squeeze, which was all about cultivating snitches in the drug trade, in and out of prison. The parallels were uncanny. The producers of The Wire did their best to keep it real so we saw snitches as well as the gangs of bad guys doing what they do.

On the MSNBC program, it was real and the snitches were helping police in the Chicago, IL area drop one drug house after another.

One of the parallel messages, a fact that has been known for nearly as long as there’s been a “War on Drugs:” if and when you take out one drug dealer, two more spring up to take his (or her) place. More importantly, the amount of drugs on the streets doesn’t diminish for more than a few days as the dealers set up new distribution points and open new drug houses.

Or, new dealers move in to pick up the slack. On The Wire, the Barksdale Gang was slowly pushed out by the police going after them and then, after the Barksdales were weakened by the police, they were muscled out by a younger, more ruthless dealer by the name of Marlowe.

Then of course stick-up man Omar became the thorn in Marlowe’s side.

Tell you what: if you haven’t seen The Wire but were (are) a fan of Homicide and the earliest incarnation of Law&Order, rent or buy the DVD’s of The Wire. It goes were the commercial and basic cable TV shows can’t go, with graphic language and scenes and the story arc of The Wire first developed over two seasons and then expanded to include the Port of Baltimore and then the diminishing news publishing industry.

Another message of the show: no matter the industry, the drug trade, law enforcement, organized labor and news, they all have a “game.” One of the recurring themes in the show is that as bad guys get killed the others say this was the life they chose when they got in “the game.”

Then we see how law enforcement is managed, all the politics that gets in the way of good police work, some of it fueled by continuing budget cuts that take personnel and resources off the streets and that becomes a game as one police or elected official tries to gain power and territory of their own, just like the drug dealers.

And the politics of managing labor unions and running the editorial staff of a newspaper. All have their own “game.”

What was really interesting, disturbing and ultimately a sad commentary on our present state of affairs, on The Squeeze one drug unit commander spoke about his dwindling budget, the number of officers that were leaving the force and not being replaced, adding to his biggest fear: taking on more responsibilities with fewer officers.

When we couple that with the reality that the drug trade has only expanded in recent years, spreading out from the inner cities into the suburbs, the prospects for the drug cartels looks so much better. For those of us who live in these cities and suburbs, the prospects aren’t so good.

One issue not on the agenda for any of the debates and definitely not in President Obama’s talking points is the legalization of all drugs. For whatever reason, candidates want to stick with the “law and order” mantra about drugs, which is: let’s continue to throw billions into that money pit, doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

Which brings up season three of The Wire. Frustrated with the lack of any progress, real or imagined, with the drug trade, a police major, Bunny Colvin, decides to pursue a strategy outside the box: he makes an area of Baltimore that is nothing but empty, boarded up housing units a drug dealing zone in which gangs and dealers can sell drugs without interference from law enforcement. The only rule: no violence.

It works well, crime is down significantly and everyone is praising Bunny for bringing crime under control in his district. Problem is, no one, outside of his district staff, knows about the drug-dealing zone, called “Hamsterdam” by the drug dealers.

The residents know, but no one is complaining because the dealers are no longer sitting on their porches or blocking the corners of their neighborhoods. All goes well for a while until a reporter from a local newspaper finds out about Hamsterdam. He starts digging and has the story. So, before everyone in the police chain of command gets a surprise in the newspaper, Major Colvin starts introducing everyone, including the mayor and commissioner, to Hamsterdam.

There was a big outcry from politicians and civic leaders — none from the residents whose homes were spared, if only briefly, from all the drug-related crime—the police major is forced to resign and the success of creating the drug zone is hidden behind the façade of law and order rhetoric from politicians using the moment to further their careers.

It’s no surprise institutes that rate television and crime rated this season of The Wire as the best programming ever on television. The John Marshall Law School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Justice Institute, Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson says The Wire is the leading educational tool on the problems facing urban America.

J.M. Tyree of the Film Quarterly said, “The Wire is in the business of telling America truths about itself that would be unbearable even if it were interested in hearing them.”

Even President Barack Obama says it’s his favorite TV program. One more thing he and I have in common.

So, what about the political and social solutions to the blight of America, the decline of our society in the 21st Century? If we listen to Republicans, we just let these micro communities go, cutting back or removing entirely the social systems that keep some of the residents in these blighted areas from falling deeper into poverty and becoming homeless.

Others want to stimulate the economy and put more money, i.e. more police officers, firefighters, nurses and teachers, into the communities, which is actually a good thing. But the complexities of the problem require some serious direction and a drastic shift in strategy.

Number one: stop fighting a losing war on drugs. Start the process of legalization and get conventional distribution of these drugs set up. No doubt tobacco and alcohol manufacturers, not to mention the quasi-legal growers and distributors in states like California, are more than willing to step up to the plate. Collect taxes like we do with alcohol and tobacco.

Set up systems to provide recovery from addiction, including tobacco, for anyone who wants it. It’s been proven over the years by many institutions that education and recovery efforts cost a fraction of drug intervention and work far better than fighting a losing war on drugs.

Because there is one fact that stands out more than any other and is often the elephant in the room: the drug problem isn’t one of supply, it’s of demand. As long as there is a percentage of Americans, maybe 25%, who want to at least smoke pot, there will be a drug trade to meet that demand.

Which means the question for us should be this: Do we want that drug trade to be legal, or illegal?

Posted by Tim Forkes in The Arts at 12:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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