Tours and Talks by Phil Goodstein September- October 2014

Saturday, September 13: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo near the equivalent of 12th Avenue and Gilpin Street. The cost is $10. A copy of this schedule and information about Goodstein’s books is at LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods/walkingtours.

Sunday, September 14: The Jews of Curtis Park, 11:00 am–noon
This is a free lecture at RedLine, the south corner of 24th and Arapahoe streets, to mark Phil Goodstein’s new book, Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond: The Heart of Historic East Denver.

Tuesday, September 16: The Taste of Uptown, 5:00 pm–7:30 pm
As part of a tour of houses and restaurants on North Capitol Hill, Phil Goodstein will be talking about his books and selling copies of them, including The Ghosts of Capitol Hill, at the Castle Marne, 1572 Race Street.

Thursday, September 18: Old East Denver, 6:00 pm–7:30 pm
This is a free lecture at the Gardens at St. Elizabeth’s, at the northeast corner of West 32nd Avenue and Eliot Street. (Eliot is one block east of Federal Boulevard. St. Elizabeth’s is the highrise.) East Denver was once the land that is modern downtown. Within a few years, it referred to the sterling Victorian area around the city’s first park, Curtis Park. How the area evolved is the subject of Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond. 440 pages. $24.95.

Saturday, September 20: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Saturday, September 27: Mount Olivet Cemetery, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet by the fence across the road from the Madonna Mausoleum. The main entrance to Mount Olivet is west of Youngfield Street on West 44th Avenue. Go up the hill past the administration building to near where there is a big crucifix. On your left is the Madonna Mausoleum. (Coming from the east take exit 266 on Ward Road from I-70 and go west about a half mile to the cemetery. Coming from the west take exit 265 at Youngfield and go north about a mile to West 44th Avenue and turn left. The cemetery is the first exit on the right.) The cost is $10.

Sunday, September 28: Park Hill Promise, 11:00 am–4:00 pm
Phil Goodstein will be hustling his books, especially Park Hill Promise, at the Park Hill Street Fair. This is a free event. The booth should be near 19th Avenue and Forest Street.

Saturday, October 4: Crown Hill Cemetery, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Gather at the parking lot along the main road of the graveyard, just west of the administration building along West 29th Avenue about two blocks west of Wadsworth Boulevard. The cost is $10.00.

Tuesday, October 7: The Ghosts of Platt Park, 6:00 pm–7:00 pm
This is a free lecture about the spooks and spirits of South Denver at the Decker Library, South Logan Street and Florida Avenue. (Logan Street is four blocks east of Broadway. Florida Avenue is four blocks south of Mississippi Avenue.) It features Phil Goodstein’s book, The Ghosts of University Park, Platt Park, and Beyond.

Sunday, October 12: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo near the equivalent of 12th Avenue and Gilpin Street. The cost is $10.00.

Wednesday, October 15: The Haunts of Central Denver, 6:00 pm–7:00 pm
This is a free talk featuring the city’s ghost lore. It is at the Cherry Creek Library, northwest corner of Third Avenue and Milwaukee Street. (Milwaukee is six blocks east of University Boulevard.) It draws on Phil Goodstein’s volume, The Ghosts of Denver: Capitol Hill.

Saturday, October 18: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Friday, October 24: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Saturday, October 25: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00. It will be repeated on October 24, October 25 and October 31.

Friday, October 31: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Wednesday, November 5: Tall Tales of Park Hill, 6:30 pm–7:30 pm
This is a free lecture about the history of Park Hill featuring the usual and bizarre happenings in the neighborhood. It gathers at the Park Hill Library at the northeast corner of Montview Boulevard and Dexter Street.

Saturday, November 8: Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond, 3:00 pm–4:00 pm
Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond is Phil Goodstein’s latest book. This is a free talk about it at the Broadway Book Mall, the southeast corner of South Broadway and Cedar Avenue. (Cedar is one block north of Alameda Avenue.)

Saturday, November 8: Five Points at Tattered Cover, 7:00 pm
The Colfax Tattered Cover, Colfax and Elizabeth Street (across from East High School, two blocks east of York Street), will host a talk and signing of Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond.

Saturday, December 6: More on Curtis Park, 2:00 pm–3:30 pm
Find out more about Phil Goodstein’s books and Curtis Park in another free lecture. It is at the Book Bar, a combination wine bar/bookstore, at West 43rd Avenue and Tennyson Street.

Phil Goodstein (303)333-1095

Spring Tours by Phil Goodstein

Here is the schedule of spring tours by Phil Goodstein. Note that there are several Park Hill activities.

SPRING 2012
Tours by Phil Goodstein

Sunday, March 18: Bicycle Tour of Montrose, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet in front of Ashley School at the northeast corner of 19th Avenue and Syracuse Street. (Montrose is the eastern section of Park Hill. The tour will also touch on parts of Stapleton.) The cost is $10.00. A copy of this schedule and information about books by Phil Goodstein is on the Web site of WWW.LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods/ walkingtours.

Saturday, March 24: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo along the 12th Avenue loop of the park near South Gilpin Street. (This is a quaint wooden structure just south of the RTD bus stop. Park just east of the bus stop. This tour is $10. It will be repeated on May 6, September 16, and October 13.

Sunday, April 1: Bicycle Tour of Northwest Park Hill, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet in front of Stedman School on the east side of Dexter Street between 29th and 30th avenues. (Dexter is seven blocks east of Colorado Boulevard.) The cost is $10.00.

Saturday, April 7: Quality Hill, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the Zang Mansion, 709 Clarkson Street. (Clarkson Street is eight blocks east of Broadway). The cost is $10.00.

Saturday, April 14: Jefferson Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet in front of the Adams Mystery Playhouse at the northeast corner of West 24th Avenue and Federal Boulevard..

Sunday, April 15: The History of North Denver, 12 Noon
This is a free half-hour lecture at the Gardens at St. Elizabeth’s, 2835 West 32nd Avenue (the highrise two blocks east of Federal Boulevard). It is part of Open Doors Denver, including a chance to peak in the historic chapel and an overview of the neighborhood. The talk will be repeated at 1:00 pm and 2:00 pm.

Saturday, April 21: Platt Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet in front of the Decker Library at the southwest corner of Florida Avenue and South Logan Street. (Florida Avenue is four blocks south of Mississippi Avenue and six blocks north of Evans Avenue. Logan Street is four blocks east of Broadway.) This tour is $10.

Saturday, April 28: The Smiley Neighborhood, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet in front of Smiley Middle School on the east side of Holly Street between 25th and 26th avenues. (Holly is one mile east of Colorado Boulevard and one-half mile west of Monaco Street.) This tour is $10.

Wednesday, May 2: Morgan’s Addition/Congress Park, 6:00–8:00 pm
Meet in front of the Fred Mazzulla House at the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and Race Street. (Race Street is three blocks west of York Street.) This tour is $10.

Wednesday, May 9: Sloans Lake/West Colfax, 6:00–8:00 pm
Meet at the torpedo near the northeast corner of Sheridan Boulevard and 17th Avenue. This tour is $10.

Saturday, May 12: Ghost Walk, 7:00–9:00 pm
Meet in front of the statue of the Indian on the east side of the Capitol on Grant Street between 14th and Colfax avenues. It will be repeated on June 9, July 14, August 25, September 15, October 19, October 20, October 26, October 27, and October 31. The cost is $20.00.

Wednesday, May 16: South of the Country Club, 6:00–8:00 pm
Meet in front of Steele School on the east side of South Marion Street between Alameda and Dakota avenues. (Marion Street is one block east of Downing Street.) This tour is $10.

Wednesday, May 23: Park Hill, 6:00–8:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo of Ferguson Park at the southeast corner of 23rd Avenue and Dexter Street. (Dexter Street is seven blocks east of Colorado Boulevard) This tour is $10.

Thursday, June 7: Park Club Place, 6:30-8:30 pm
Meet at the real estate offices of Leonard Leonard & Associates, 420 Downing Street. This tour is $10.


Phil Goodstein 303-333-1095

THE DENVER HISTORY INDEX by Phil Goodstein

Phil Goodstein.  The Denver History Index.  Denver:  New Social Publications, 2013.  vi + 444 pp.  ISBN 0–9742264–8–3.  $29.95.  illustrations, index. 

The Denver History Index is the ultimate book on the Mile High City’s past.  It is a listing of the terms, people, themes, and events which have made Denver what it is from the founding of the community during the Pikes Peak gold rush in 1858–59 into the 21st century.  The volume provides an instant source of reference about such key issues as the Sand Creek Massacre, the impact of the Ku Klux Klan, the city beautiful policies of Mayor Robert Speer, and the campaign for the 1976 Winter Olympics.  The reader can also learn about how such traumatic national events as World War II and the Panic of 1893 have impacted the Queen City of Mountain and Plain. 

This is but the beginning of the numerous layers of this rich reference work.  While ostensibly it is nothing more than a compilation of the indexes of the many volumes of Denver’s foremost historian, Phil Goodstein, it is something of a barometer of community passions and aspirations.  More than that, it includes a fascinating introductory chapter, “The Quest for an Alternative Denver,” in which Goodstein discusses how he became involved in probing all aspects of the Mile High City.  The essay tells how his books were written and received. 

Though there is undoubtedly an element of ego in The Denver History Index, it also is a place where Goodstein confesses the many mistakes he has made in writing about the city.  He points to the various errors which have plagued his volumes.  Additionally, he tells how he came to issue The Naysayer, a monthly two-page sheet giving a dissident view of contemporary Mile High developments.  A chapter outlining that publication is a reflection of the hopes and turmoils which have been at the center of Denver and Colorado since the mid-1980s.  There is nothing comparable to it is in print. 

Finally, The Denver History Index contains a street index.  This not only provides a reference to the origins of street names, but indicates where a student can go for more discussions about the ups and downs of Colfax, Broadway, Federal Boulevard, and the highways cutting through the community.  That chapter further pinpoints specific locations where crucial events have occurred.  In a word, it and The Denver History Index as a whole reflect Goodstein’s overall writings in providing information about what had made Denver what it is and how residents can work to assure the destiny of their community. 

For more information, contact Goodstein at 303-333–1095, or see his Web page at WWW.LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods/walkingtours.  Information on his books is also at capitolhillbooks.com. 

30 

Tours and Talks by Phil Goodstein

October 2014 through February 2015

Thursday, October 30: Ghost Walk, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00. A copy of this schedule and information about Goodstein’s books is at LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods /walkingtours.

Friday, October 31: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Wednesday, November 5: Tall Tales of Park Hill, 6:30 pm–7:30 pm
This is a free lecture about the history of Park Hill featuring the usual and bizarre happenings in the neighborhood. It gathers at the Park Hill Library at the northeast corner of Montview Boulevard and Dexter Street.

Saturday, November 8: Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond, 3:00 pm–4:00 pm
Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond is Phil Goodstein’s latest book. This is a free talk about it at the Broadway Book Mall, the southeast corner of South Broadway and Cedar Avenue. (Cedar is one block north of Alameda Avenue.)

Monday, November 10: Five Points at Tattered Cover, 7:00 pm
The Colfax Tattered Cover, Colfax and Elizabeth Street (across from East High School, two blocks east of York Street), will host a talk and signing of Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond.

Wednesday, November 12: Clements/Benedict Fountain. 6:00 pm–7:00 pm
The Clements District, near 21st Street and Tremont Place, is among the areas featured in Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond. This is a free lecture about it at Ebert School, Park Avenue West and Tremont Place. Enter on the Tremont Place side.

Saturday, December 6: More on Curtis Park, 2:00 pm–3:30 pm
Find out more about Phil Goodstein’s books and Curtis Park in another free lecture. It is at the Book Bar, a combination wine bar/bookstore, at West 43rd Avenue and Tennyson Street.

Wednesday, January 14: Everything about Denver, 6:30 pm–9:00 pm
This is the first of a four-week set of lectures on Denver history. This session specifically focuses on the founding of the community during the Pikes Peak gold rush and the nature of the city’s street system. The cost is $10 per person. It gathers in a private home at 1330 Monroe Street.

Wednesday, January 21: Everything about Denver, 6:30 pm–9:00 pm
Denver was an instant city in the late 19th century. It was built on mining, railroads, cattle, and tuberculosis. Added will be sensational love scandal stories. The cost is $10 per person. It gathers in a private home at 1330 Monroe Street.

Wednesday, January 28: Everything about Denver, 6:30 pm–9:00 pm
In the early 20th century, Denver was the city beautiful. It was also plagued by political scoundrels and the Ku Klux Klan while a militant labor movement influenced the community. The cost is $10 per person. It gathers in a private home at 1330 Monroe Street.

Wednesday, February 4: Everything about Denver, 6:30 pm–9:00 pm
Since World War II, Denver has repeatedly remade itself. Mayors, newspapers, schemers, and dreamers have been central to its evolution. The cost is $10 per person. It gathers in a private home at 1330 Monroe Street.

Phil Goodstein (303) 333-1095

Tours by Phil Goodstein

Call Phil Goodstein (303)333-1095 to enroll.

Sunday, March 20: Bicycling Tour of Berkeley
Meet in front of Skinner Middle. School, along the north side of West 41st Avenue, between Julian and King streets. (King street is one block east of Lowell Boulevard.) The cost is $10 per person. This area will be featured in Goodstein's forthcoming book, North Denver Story: Denver's Most Intriguing Neighborhood. A copy of this schedule and information about books by Phil. Goodstein is on the Web site of www.LeonardLeonard.com/neighborhoods. Information on his books is at capitolhillbooks.com.

Saturday, March 26: Park Club Place, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at Leonard Leonard & Associates, a real estate office at 420 Downing Street. This tour is $10 per person.

Saturday, April 2: West Highlands, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of Edison School on the west side of Quitman Street between West 33rd and West 35th avenues. (Quitman is the "Q" street in the alphabet west of Federal Boulevard. It is about ten blocks east of Sheridan Boulevard.) This tour is $10 per person.

Sunday, April 3: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo along the 12th Avenue loop of the park near Gilpin Street. (This is a quaint wooden structure just south of the RTD bus stop. Park just east of the bus stop. This tour is $10.

Saturday, April 9: Washington Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the statue of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod at the southwest corner of Exposition Avenue and Franklin Street.(Exposition is four blocks south of Alameda Avenue. Franklin is eight blocks west of University Boulevard.) The cost is $10.

Saturday, April 16: Park Hill, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo of Ferguson Park, the southeast comer of 23rd Avenue and Dexter Street-locals call it Turtle Park. (Dexter is seven blocks east of Colorado Boulevard.) This tour is $10 per person.

Saturday,- April 23: Highlands/North Denver, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of the old Granada Theater, 2917-25 West 25th A venue. It is just west of Eliot Street on the north side of the road. (Eliot is one block east of Federal Boulevard.) This cost is $10 ..

Saturday, April 30: Ghost Walk, 7-9 PM
Meet in front of the statue of the Indian on the east side of the Capitol on Grant Street between 14th and Colfax avenues. It will be repeated on May 21, June 18, July 30, September 10, October 21,22, and 28. This tour is $15.

Sunday, May 1: West Colfax/East of Sloans Lake, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet on the west steps of Lake Middle School at West 19th Avenue and Meade Street. (Take Lowell Boulevard north of Colfax to where it dead ends at 18th Avenue. Meade Street is one block directly to the west.) This tour is $10.

Saturday, May 7: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the gazebo along the 12th Avenue loop of the park near Gilpin Street. (This is a quaint wooden structure just south of the RTD bus stop. Park just east of the bus stop. This tour is $10. It will be repeated on September 18 and October 15.

Sunday, May 15: West Sloans Lake, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the torpedo near the northeast corner of West 17th Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard. A parking lot enters the park at West 17th Avenue and Yates Street, two blocks east of Sheridan Boulevard. The cost is $10.

Sunday, May 22: Harvard Gulch, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet at the benches in the park at the southeast corner of South Logan Street and Iliff A venue. (Logan is four blocks east of Broadway; Iliff is two blocks south of Evans Avenue.) This tour is $10.

Sunday, May 29: Bicycling Tour of West Colfax, 11 AM-1 PM
Meet in front of Lake Middle School at 19th Avenue and Meade Street. This tour is $10.

Wednesday, June 1: Quality Hill, 6:30-8:30 PM
Meet at the Zang Mansion, 709 Clarkson Street. (Clarkson is eight blocks east of Broadway.) This tour is $10.

Proposed New Rec Center Shows Government Deception

Proposed site for new recreation center at 16th and Josephine

Commentary by Phil Goodstein

Plans for a new recreation center at Colfax and Josephine raise questions about the location and funding of the facility to serve “central Denver.”

Charles Woolley II has been a longtime business partner and backer of Mayor John Hickenlooper. Wooley has been among those administering a supposedly “blind” trust of the mayor’s restaurant holdings. Seeing no conflict of interest, the city awarded a subsidy to Woolley’s St. Charles Town Company to redevelop the old Bonfils Theatre on East Colfax into the Tattered Cover bookstore. The owner of Tattered Cover is another close Hickenlooper business associate.

Though the Tattered Cover project has not performed as expected – a cinema as part of the effort quickly closed and another promised business never opened – St. Charles subsequently announced a massive project across the street on the 1500 block of Josephine. That’s where a revivalist church targeting Jews, the Church in the City, occupied a former Safeway.

Read more »

SCHOOL REFORM AND REACTION by Phil Goodstein - The Naysayer - November, 2013

Historian Phil Goodstein

 In 2010, Democratic Park Hill state senator Michael Johnston led a successful attack on teacher tenure in the General Assembly. Unions, he hinted, were the major obstacle to school “reform” and the failure of academies to serve as successful factories pouring knowledge into the heads of students. Such is the ideology of those who have crusaded to transform public schools into an annex of corporate America, complete with intense money-making opportunities. The more they have advanced, the more they have claimed further “reform” is necessary while they have endlessly demonized teacher unions.

This year, Johnston has been in the forefront of a campaign to hike taxes to pay for what he promises will be a uniform, well-financed Colorado educational system. Far from seeing that Johnston’s support is thoroughly ominous, the state’s major teachers’ union, the Colorado Education Association (CEA), signed onto the effort, leading the petition drive to place Johnston’s scheme on the ballot as Amendment 66. In campaigning for the proposal, the labor group has said nothing about Johnston’s past record or the way that more money has not benefited the schools. On the contrary, increased financing has usually landed up in corporate pockets while teachers are treated ever more like wageworkers. If the CEA had the slightest integrity, it would openly say this is what school “reform” is all about, clearly separating itself from the likes of Johnston and his past attacks on teachers.

By collaborating with a man who has viciously attacked it in the past and making Amendment 66 its passion, the CEA obscures why schools are in such crisis. Money by itself will not improve education. It will simply strengthen corporate domination of the schools. Those behind that push, such as Johnston, have a thorough contempt for unions and anything that interferes with their domination of society. Understanding this is the first step the CEA must take if it actually wants to represent its members, improve their lot, and make schools more than drudge-inducing institutions that more resemble prisons than temples of learning.

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Naysayer of the Month - Tom Strickland

by Phil Goodstein

The two best things about Ken Salazar becoming secretary of the interior were that he was no longer United States senator from Colorado and that he took Tom Strickland to Washington with him as chief of staff of the Department of the Interior. The latter move got Strickland out of town. As much as anybody, he was the central cog linking the Democratic Party to development interests. His blatant political opportunism and ineptness in losing to Wayne Allard for the Senate was so great that it eventually led to a break between him and his partners in what had been the firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, and Strickland. Salazar was once also part of Brownstein Hyatt.  Even more than Salazar, Strickland promised to clean house at the Department of the Interior, a place besmirched by another Brownstein Hyatt veteran, Gale Norton.

Reflecting the rest of the Obama administration, the team of Salazar and Strickland has done nothing to change the essence of Bush policies. In particular, rather than cracking down on dangerous offshore drilling, as part of the administration highly supported by “environmentalists,” the Salazar-Strickland Department of the Interior gave oil companies a green light to expand their operations. Then, amidst the Gulf oil spill, rather than taking charge as the department’s chief of staff, Strickland went on a rafting trip, ignoring the crisis as it grew worse daily. Since his return from that expedition, he has been virtually invisible. For so showing his inability to act when necessary, he is the Naysayer of the Month.

Phil Goodstein will discuss Denver history and politics at the Colfax Tattered Cover on Tuesday, July 13, 7:30 PM

A Politician Unfit to be Governor

(Editor's note: Phil Goodstein, author and historian, publishes a monthly print-only newsletter called The Naysayer. He also gives us permission to publish it here, for which we are very grateful as his writing lifts the prose of this site considerably, to say nothing of the benefit of his historical insights. The Naysayers next meet on Saturday, February 6, Enzo's Pizza, 3424 Colfax (between Cook and Madison) 5:30 PM.)


by Phil Goodstein

From the time of the Pikes Peak gold rush, Colorado has been a magnet for financial swindlers, con artists, and snake oil salesmen. Not surprisingly, the state was in the vanguard of the savings and loan swindles. It has produced a rich crop of Ponzi scheme perpetrators. The only reason the recent banking crisis mostly skimmed the state's surface is because Colorado's longtime dominant banks-First National, Colorado National, and United Bank-had previously sold out to Wall Street manipulators. Even so, the collapse of the $1 billion New Frontier Bank in Greeley was the country's largest bank failure in 2009. New Frontier's collapse stemmed from bad management, deceit, and swindling. Colorado bank regulators mostly turned a blind eye to such practices as the financial institution's problems escalated.

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Phil Goodstein - North Side Story: Denver’s Most Intriguing Neighborhood

Aug 22 2011 7:30 pm

Colfax Avenue: Colorado historian, prolific local author, and Denver tour guide Phil Goodstein will discuss and sign his new history of Denver, North Side Story: Denver’s Most Intriguing Neighborhood ($28.95 New Social Publications). Once treated as the community’s stepchild, North Denver has experienced a renaissance since the 1970s. It is filled with distinguished manors, churches, schools, and long-lived businesses. North Side Storydiscusses these developments and institutions, and shows that the area is the epitome of the American urban experience. Request a signed copy: books@tatteredcover.com

Location: 

2526 East Colfax Avenue

Denver

, 

Colorado

80206

United States

HIGH SCHOOL ASSASSINS - by Phil Goodstein - Naysayer - January 2014

Historian and author Phil Goodstein

The idyllic world of suburban safety and church-going righteousness has been punctured again at
Arapahoe High School.
Of course, the coverage of the attack on the school, where a student killed himself while gunning for a teacher, did not mention this. On the contrary, amidst the haze of hideously bad journalism, the message was the same as ever: it is outrageous that people in the suburbs act the same as the federal government and the supposedly violent world of the inner-city.
Time and again, the establishment’s answer to outrageous shootings is to demand the disarming of the citizenry. Simultaneously, special police units have ever more weaponry. The Pentagon stages endless terror bombings and assassinations. At least in some inner-city schools, students know enough to carry arms for self-defense. But fighting back is the worst crime imaginable. It might lead the populace to see that it needs to take the initiative in shaping its own destiny, not relying on an ever more violent, intrusive government.
Besides no mention how official state violence fosters a climate where killing enemies is primary policy, the sob stories about the Arapahoe County shooting have zero retrospection on the nature of places like Highlands Ranch. The real estate industry has sold affluent suburbs as places of escape, planned villages in which residents can seemingly shut themselves off from the mundane concerns of everyday urban living.
Denver suburbs especially surged in the 1970s in response to the coercive school-busing program forced on the city by the federal courts. The latter did so with the support of reformers who believed that equal education would automatically result by mixing together students of all backgrounds. Against the chaos that ensued, bringing down much of the quality of Denver Public Schools, the suburbs touted their excellent academies. As the shootings at Columbine and Arapahoe high schools have shown, there have been more murders at the suburban schools than anything in inner-city schools which Democratic Party “reformers” have done their utmost to destroy.
As if this is not enough, the entire thrust of media coverage is to advertise how necessary it is to instill the system’s guilt and religion onto students. The thesis is that psychological disturbances, not social problems, are at the root of personal violence. Of course, when a defendant in a shooting, such as the Aurora Midnight Movie Massacre, pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, prosecutors mock such an explanation. They say nothing, however, about the seemingly omnipresent role of psychologists in the wake of these murders exposing the exceeding tensions and dysfunctions of a thoroughly brutal society.
Until there is an open debate about the culture of violence, fueled by the country’s murderous foreign policy, the killings will continue. That this is an unmentionable topic reflects both the frustration and repression of everyday living. Time and again, residents realize that an escape to the suburbs has been no escape at all. They are still part of a system that makes everything into a commodity while honing its powers of repression against all challengers. Consequently, far from being an aberration, the Arapahoe High School tragedy is another peek at the hideous foundations upon which everyday existence flounders.

A Nightmare Act

(What better way to start the new year than an editorial by Phil Goodstein? The merry band of Naysayers meets next on Saturday, January 8, at Enzo's Pizza, 3424 Colfax at 5:30 pm.)

Editorial by Phil Goodstein

At a time when ever more bloated military budgets have drained the purses of cities and states, Denver city council has been silent about the country’s criminal foreign adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the contrary, it has been receptive to the Chamber of Commerce with its demands for less regulation and more support of the state’s gigantic aerospace industry, a prime Pentagon contractor. Given this, it is not surprising that council recently went out of its way to endorse a Pentagon scheme, the DREAM Act.

This is among the utopian proposals of those who see injustice, but have no concept of the causes and even less desire for a program of action to bring forth a new order. The DREAM Act stands for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act. Its ostensible purpose is to allow the children of undocumented immigrants to gain citizenship via making their way through at least two years of college. More than that, it encourages such young men and women to join the military: successful completion of service is also a road to citizenship. The Pentagon helped draft the measure in 2008. The proposal comes at a time when many have realized that joining the military is not a means of patriotism, education, and advancement, but a likely path to getting maimed and killed for the most dubious of foreign policy objectives. In this light, the military and Congress have finally agreed that homosexuals too can be cannon fodder.

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Brutal Jailers and Brutal Rulers - from July, 2014 Naysayer, by Phil Goodstein

Note: This video is extremely "graphic", in that it show the dying moments of a mentally ill inmate.


"On March 17, 2013, in full view of most of the Defendants, a shackled and stripped Christopher Lopez died alone and ignored, on the cold concrete floor of a cell at the San Carlos Correctional Facility. His death could have been easily prevented by most of the defendants had any one of them simply picked up a phone and called for medical help. Instead, the Defendants, all employees of the Colorado Department of Corrections, ultimately made what could pass as a documentary film on how to ignore the obvious and serious medical needs of a dying prisoner for hours until the very last breath of life leaves his body." from Westword article here.

from July, 2014 Naysayer, by Phil Goodstein
Under Wellington Webb, the Denver Police Department re­turned to its usual brutal practices. Instead of redressing this, Webb advertised how mean and tough he was, surrounding himself with goons to intimidate one and all. He saw that private employees guarded city buildings. Their primary targets were every­day citizens who had the gall to go into public structures.
On succeeding Webb, John Hickenlooper sought to make cosmetic reforms on the police force. Included was the creation of a toothless independent monitor while the city continued to churn out millions to pay victims of police brutality. Simultaneously, Hickenlooper pushed through a failed Webb initiative, a massive new downtown jail and courthouse. While the administration claimed they came in on time and at budget, they were actually severely delayed, poorly designed, and well above the original price estimates. Much worse, rather than solving problems with the hideous treatment of prisoners, conditions have been as bad as ever at the new jail.
Recently, Federal District Court Judge John Kane had the integrity to do what nobody in city hall has dared touch in years: forcing the police and sheriff’s departments to release their records about complaints and assaults at the jail. Frequently, inmates find themselves far more threat­ened and abused by deputy sheriffs than guarded by them. A whitewash has been the system’s primary response while prisoners filing complaints frequently find themselves subjected to new punishments.
Such a policy begins at the top with the mayor. It filters through the Civil Service Commission, the body overseeing the police depart-ment—city council and the judiciary join the mayor in appointing its members. For the most part, the mayor and commission bless the doings of the police and sheriff’s departments. Far more than serving and protecting the public, their primary roles are to intimate and coerce.
The primary targets are the poor and those who fail to embrace the system. Invariably, crackdowns focus on people at the bottom of society, usually leaving affluent plunderers untouched. Particularly during the hysteria induced by the governor and the mayor over Occupy Denver, the message was blunt: overwhelming force will be used against anybody who questions the essence of the status quo.
While the police perform this duty on the streets, deputy sheriffs take charge once suspects are locked up. Given the hideous way they are treated, not surprisingly, inmates often have most surly, vicious attitudes. The result is an escalating cycle of violence. By failing scrupulously to review official violence, city hall encourages it. Were it not for the action of Judge Kane, the city would simply continue to pay out dollars to plaintiffs as the price of keeping the barbarous system in place. The failure of the mayor, council, and the judiciary to intervene, shows they prefer the everyday operations of this hideous machine and the worst of the system it represents.

Whole Foods Union-Busting - Phil Goodstein - Naysayer - July 2013

Historian Phil Goodstein

When Whole Foods, a national elite supermarket chain, worked out a deal with Sears around the beginning of the 21st century to open a Denver store in Cherry Creek, yuppies went into raptures. The new grocery was their beau ideal, a place which provided top-quality produce and a sophisticated food experience. More than that, patronizing the place and paying high prices made them feel good. It promised to procure its fruits and vegetables locally and from growers who treated their workers with a modicum of respect. Before long, Whole Foods swallowed a local chain of natural groceries, Wild Oats. Today, such fancy markets are a trendy rage. Mile High champions have noted their proliferation. This is especially the case among those who, while being appalled by Walmart’s efforts to get a massive handout to open a store at the site of the old University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, celebrated the announcement of an adjacent Trader Joe’s. Its presence, these affluent individuals were sure, affirms their lifestyle and the success of an enlightened, humanitarian capitalism.

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Associate Naysayer of the Month - Jerry Wartgow

by Phil Goodstein

Jerry Wartgow cannot keep a job. Or so it seems. During past decades, whenever a part of the area’s educational system has been in chaos, he has taken charge. Among other posts, he has been the president of the Colorado Community College System, executive director of the Auraria Higher Education Center, superintendent of Denver Public Schools, and dean of the University of Denver College of Education. He has quickly moved on from each of the posts. The institutions have been in no better shape after he left them than before he took command.

Given this, Wartgow is the ideal man to oversee a most dysfunctional part of the University of Colorado (CU), its joint Denver campus and Health Sciences Center. The latter has particularly been in disarray over the past decade. Instead of emphasizing its primary purposes -delivering health care and training medical professionals - it has been part of the megalomania of Philip Anschutz. In particular, it and its related University of Colorado Hospital abandoned a central location for the new Anschutz campus at Fitzsimons. Problems there have been so glaring that they have been provided numerous exposes for the Denver Post, a paper that goes out of its way to celebrate the establishment and ignore questionable developments in the community. Amidst all this, rather than seeing that the Health Sciences Center needs special handling and leadership, the CU board of regents combined it with the Auraria-bascd University of Colorado-Denver. By having Wartgow, a non-physician, in charge, the Health Sciences Center will not have probing leadership questioning the policies that have led to its current morass. Still, given Wartgow’s past record, he will not be its leader for too long, passing on the problems to others. For being a convenient stopgap, he is an associate Naysayer of the Month.

Phil Goodstein will discuss Denver history and politics at the Colfax Tattered Cover on Tuesday, July 13, 7:30 PM

A City for the Tsar: The parks look terrible

Grasmere Lake in Washington Park Excavated (2007) for Effluent Evaporation Pond Lining (Editor's Note: Phil Goodstein is a Denver historian and author. This commentary was originally published in his newsletter, “The Naysayer,” in August 2008, and is reprinted with permission. While this commentary does not deal directly with closed commercial events in parks, it expresses what the writer sees as the contempt with which the city treats parks and citizens. It is this contempt which leads to the city’s assumption that all the public parks are alternative sources of revenue. By allowing admission-based events in parks to derive revenue, the city prevents free and open access and encourages lucrative sales of alcoholic beverages in parks.) A City for the Tsar: The parks look terrible by Phil Goodstein Last year, voters authorized a massive bond issue. The results have been predictable. Botanic Gardens is using the money to try to build a virtual fortress at the price of public spaces and rights-of-way. The Symphony is more disdainful of listeners than ever while it eagerly seeks to ruin its concert hall. Most of all, the parks look terrible. Some of the pious exponents of good government have lamented the massive brown spots in park lawns. They are especially concerned because the Democrats are coming. Denver, they insist, must present a smiling face to the visitors. In the process, they show their intense hatred of the city and its inhabitants. Such individuals simultaneously show an inability to link cause and effect. No one embodies this more than Jeannie Robb, the woman recently elected president of city council, a representative who disdains answering constituents' letters. Gregory Potemkin is the true inspiration for her and other local boosters. He was prime minister of Catherine the Great in the late 18th century when massive peasant revolts tore through the tsarist empire. When Catherine announced a tour of the countryside to see whether the populace had any reason to be dissatisfied with the status quo, Potemkin led the advance party. He spiffed up towns and saw that workers built impressive facades. Simultaneously, a heavy military presence kept rebels gagged during the tsar's visit. After she left, seeing everything was wonderful, Potemkin allowed the peasants to return to their everyday misery. Denver adopted the policies of Potemkin for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1993. It repeated them when Bill Clinton and company occupied the town in 1997 for the Summit of the Eight. In the process, the police swept the homeless off Colfax. In no time, the masquerades created for the visits of the dignitaries were falling apart. Indeed, proponents of last year's bond issue made their repair, especially at the Civic Center, a prime reason voters had to hike taxes. That ten-year-old "improvements" have crumbled is indicative of the shoddiness of a city administration that emphasizes appearances for wealthy and influential visitors over the amenities and comforts of everyday residents. The more city hall has awarded contracts on the basis of a "public/private partnership" to politically well-connected firms with the proper sexual, racial, and ethnic ownership, the less concern it has had about the quality of work. A scorn of the populace has been at the forefront of many park efforts. During most of this decade, Washington Park users have been confronted with a huge mud hole on the southern half of the greenery, the empty Grasmere Lake. At the behest of the Denver Water Department, crews repeatedly drained the pond in the name of saving water so the city could sell it to the suburbs to enhance sprawl. Now that the lake has again been filled, algae problems besmirch it, espe­cially near its inlet by the City Ditch, another amenity the DWD has done its all to ruin in the name of selling water to the suburbs. Even worse are conditions on City Park Lake. A massive draining and waste water effort have seen it emerge as more an algae swamp than a beauty spot. Much to the surprise of the planners, the recycled water is rich in nitrogen, fueling the growth of algae. Anybody concerned about the appearance of the parks would be asking why the administration never foresaw this most predictable result. Instead of doing so, they resort to banal rhetoric. By insisting the city put on cosmetics for the Democratic convention while failing to redress the endemic incompetent management of city hall, they show their intense contempt of the populace. Given this background, the city has screamed that protesters wish to besmirch the park by camping in it. In the process, the administration has been silent in dealing with those who deceitfully call on national activists to "Do it in Denver!" Those frustrated with the political status quo, but who have little vision and no original thought, have promised "free food, free music, free thought, free political education" in the community. Here they truly wish to recreate 1968: a manipulative deceit of idealistic young people fully worthy of the worst of the establishment. Part of the chaos of 1968 in Chicago stemmed from the arrogant lies of those sponsoring "The Festival of Life," the anti-war protests. They promised lodging and food, making no serious effort to provide them. Mayor Richard Daley and the Democratic establish­ment, in turn, showed they understood only crude physical force and were unwilling to admit that street politics are a full and worthy form of participation in the commonweal. Similarly, those objecting to having these political activists camp in the park have been silent in explaining why the city so fears protest. The administration is ready to close roads to assure the security of the Democrats while complaining about the traffic disruptions of political demonstrations and parades. Seemingly, the Democrats are so fragile that an exposure to dissident opinions would send them into convul­sions and ruin their convention. If the city had any wit, it would observe that the people who really hate protest and a free, full political debate are many of those behind Re-Create 68. This specifically refers to individuals who have readily employed stormtrooper tactics in silencing ltalian-­Americans celebrating Columbus Day. Far more than Hicken­looper or even Daley, they have allied themselves with ideologues in the American Indian Movement who despise reason and cel­ebrate crude physical force and intimidation. Instead of standing up to them by celebrating Denver as a tolerant community that can handle dissent and deal with the deceit of the "Do it in Denver!" promises, city hall has acted to try to make a police state its beau ideal. Consequently, it has turned to the tactics of Potemkin to cloak its essence. At the most, citizens can hope that nothing goes too severely wrong while they wait for conditions to return to their usual shoddiness and decay once the nuisance of the Democratic convention/visit of the tsar has passed. ---------- As a historian, Goodstein prefers postal mail instead of e-mail. He can be reached at Post Office Box 18026, Denver CO 80218.

The Heart of Historic East Denver - New Goodstein book and lecture dates

 Halloween is over! Now Phil Goodstein can get around to the heart of Denver history. His new
book is
Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond: The Heart of Historic East Denver
(Denver: New Social Publications, 2014), ISBN 0–9860748–0–2, vi + 438 pp, $24.95. It probes the areas northeast of downtown, sections amazingly forgotten over the years.
No sooner had Denver started to recover from the bust in the wake of the Pikes Peak gold rush than real estate speculation became its foremost pursuit. This led to the creation of the city’s first park, Curtis Park, near 32nd and Curtis streets, in 1868. Within a few years, as Den-ver bustled, a distinctive suburban destination emerged at the five-pointed intersection of 26th Avenue, Wash-ington Street, 27th Street, and Welton Street. By the early 20th century, the latter enclave started to become the heart of black Denver. Other nearby elite residential areas, particularly Clements and San Rafael, likewise emerged as home of numerous African-Americans. Through the 20th century, the upheavals and transformations of these enclaves, along with Upper Larimer Street, were at the heart of Denver’s ethnic communities and the burgeon-ing preservation movement.
As is his wont, Goodstein looks at all aspects of the area in this extremely well-illustrated volume. He deals with the politics of confrontation and the civil rights move-ments. There are passing looks at alleged ghosts along with examinations of the impact of the 1976 Winter Olym-pics and the economics of the section. The overall im-pact is a panorama giving the reader a full grasp of Old East Denver and the city as a whole.
Goodstein will talk about the book on:
Saturday, November 8, 3:00 to 4:00 PM
Broadway Book Mall, 200 South Broadway (at the corner of Cedar Avenue)
Monday, November 10, 7:00–8:00 PM
Colfax Tattered Cover, Colfax and Elizabeth Street
Wednesday, November 12, 6:00–7:00 PM
Ebert School, Park Avenue West and Tremont Place. (Enter on the Tremont Place side.)
Saturday, December 6: 3:00 to 4:00 PM
Book Bar, 4280 Tennyson Street (southeast corner of West 43rd Avenue)
Curtis Park, Five Points, and Beyond
retails for $24.95. Mail orders, including tax and postage,
are $25.00, from New Social Publications, Box 18026, Denver 80218. Internet addicts can get it from capitolhillbooks.com and who_else@ATT@net. For more information, contact New Social Publications at 303/333–1095.

Prisoners of Lies

 (picture from www.denverinfill.com)

From the March Naysayer by Phil Goodstein

In 2005, voters swallowed the city hall line when they authorized a new "justice center," a massive jail and courthouse adjacent to the City and County Building. They were told it would open by 2009, featuring a signature building designed by a hotshot architect. The man hired to create the primary structure, Steven Hall, bailed out of the effort in October 2006, claiming that the city had vastly and cynically underestimated the costs of the project to dupe voters into authorizing it. The administration replied that it was on the verge of firing Hall for incompetence. Amidst this, James Mejia, an all-embracing city hall hack, left his post as coordinator of the effort to run the city preschool initiative.

From the beginning, the city's numbers about the Justice Center have fluctuated wildly. At the time of Hall's departure, newspapers reported the effort was $34 million over budget. A year later, the projected price was $50 million more than Mayor John Hickenlooper had promised taxpayers. The cost, initially slated at about $213 million was $286.3 million by November 2008.

Amidst this, the city has announced that the effort is finally about to open "on budget and on time." It cites a cost of the jail of $159 million and the courthouse of $136 million-a sum of $295 million. Far from exposing city hall's fabrications, the Denver Post proudly reported them as exemplars of the efficiency of its beloved mayor.

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Tours by Phil Goodstein - July-October 2014 Schedule

Tuesday, July 8: Capitol Hill, 6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Meet at the Capitol Hill Mansion, 1207 Pennsylvania Street. (Pennsylvania Street is five blocks east of Broadway. The cost is $10.00

Tuesday, July 15: Berkeley, 6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Meet in front of the Smiley Library at West 46th Avenue and Utica Street in Berkeley Park. (Utica Street is one block west of Tennyson Street and seven blocks east of Sheridan Boulevard.) The cost is $10.00.

Saturday, July 19: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Tuesday, July 22: South of the Country Club, 6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Meet in front of Steele School on the east side of the South Marion Street Parkway between Alameda Avenue and Dakota Avenue. (Marion Street is one block east of Downing Street.) The cost is $10.00

Tuesday, July 29: Alamo Placita, 6:30 pm–8:30 pm
Meet at the benches at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and Ogden Street in Alamo Placita Park. (Ogden Street is two blocks west of Downing Street. The park is directly north of Speer Boulevard.) The cost is $10.00

Saturday, August 2: The Seamy Side of Denver, 5:00 pm–7:15 pm
Meet by the benches near 21st and Blake streets, right by the First Base entrance to Coors Field. The cost is $20.00.

Thursday, August 7: North Capitol Hill, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Meet at the Castle Marne, 1572 Race Street. (Race is 20 blocks east of Broadway and three blocks west of York Street. This is the stone bed and breakfast at the corner of 16th Avenue.) The cost is $10.00

Thursday, August 14: Platt Park, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Meet in front of the Decker Library, South Logan Street and Florida Avenue. (Logan Street is four blocks east of Broadway. Florida Avenue is four blocks south of Mississippi Avenue.) The cost is $10.00.

Saturday, August 16: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Thursday, August 21: Highland Park, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Meet at the west entrance of the Woodbury Library at the southwest corner of West 33rd Avenue and Federal Boulevard. The cost is $10.00.

Thursday, August 28: Park Hill, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo in Ferguson Park at the southeast corner of 23rd Avenue and Dexter Street. (Dexter Street is seven blocks east of Colorado Boulevard.)

Saturday, September 13: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo near the equivalent of 12th Avenue and Gilpin Street. The cost is $10.

Saturday, September 20: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Saturday, September 27: Mount Olivet Cemetery, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet by the fence across the road from the Madonna Mausoleum. The main entrance to Mount Olivet is west of Youngfield Street on West 44th Avenue. Go up the hill past the administration building to near where there is a big crucifix. On your left is the Madonna Mausoleum. (Coming from the east take exit 266 on Ward Road from I-70 and go west about a half mile to the cemetery. Coming from the west take exit 265 at Youngfield. and go north about a mile to West 44th Avenue and turn left. The cemetery is the first exit on the right.) The cost is $10.

Saturday, October 4: Crown Hill Cemetery, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Gather at the parking lot along the main road of the graveyard, just west of the administration building along West 29th Avenue about two blocks west of Wadsworth Boulevard. The cost is $10.00.

Sunday, October 12: Ghosts of Cheesman Park, 11:00 am–1:00 pm
Meet at the gazebo near the equivalent of 12th Avenue and Gilpin Street. The cost is $10.00.

Saturday, October 18: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Friday, October 24: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Saturday, October 25: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Friday, October 31: Ghost Walk, 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Meet at the statute of the Indian on the east lawn of the Capitol along Grant Street between Colfax and 14th avenues. The cost is $20.00.

Phil Goodstein (303)

333-1095

MARIJUANA DESTROYS THE BRAIN by Phil Goodstein - Naysayer - January 2014

Historian and author Phil Goodstein

There is no doubt about this, at least in terms of public policy. Since the 1930s, the federal government has been particularly hysterical about the substance. Politicians have shown themselves willing to spend limitless amounts to crack down on the drug and imprison its users. Others have so seen marijuana as salvation that they have risked virtually everything so they can consume it. The current debates about legalizing cannabis, moreover, reflect that the mind-warping debate continues unabated.
In part, the war against marijuana in the 1930s was among Franklin Roosevelt’s intense strengthening the forces of federal repression. The president saw the vast expansion of the powers of the FBI whereby J. Edgar Hoover established himself as the nation’s leading policeman. Simultaneously, the attack on marijuana was also a means of social control. Advocates of banning the substance argued grass was primarily associated with blacks and Hispanos. Rather than seeing that racism was firing their revolts against the status quo, the righteous guardians of bourgeois civilization attributed the protests of these victims of everyday discrimination to their use of pot.
Shallow critics of the status quo have since been of a like mind. This especially stood out during the upheavals of the 1960s. At that time, the counterculture emerged. Unlike the civil rights movement or the New Left, which challenged power and offered programs for political and economic change, there was the Timothy Leary crowd. Drugs were its answer and the alternative to a hideous social reality. Potheads saw no hope of changing the world through conscious mass action designed whereby everyday people could collaborate and forge their own destiny. Drugs, rather, were to provide an exhilarating alternative to a thoroughly irrational world.
From the beginning, this drug culture was as shallow as the most avid advocates of the J. Edgar Hoover police state. The embrace of marijuana and other substances was a parasitical growth on movements of social change. More than that, it was quickly part and parcel of a criminal underworld. The government, in turn, seemingly readily encouraged the use and sale of illicit substances. This not only gave it a pretext to target those whom it did not like, but Washington drastically increased the penalties for drug use while vastly enlarging the prison system. In the process, individuals who had embraced marijuana and other substances as their veritable religion became unwitting political rebels and victims of a vindictive government. A protest against the insanity of the war on drugs, consequently, was a protest against the world that both banned drugs and made recourse to them a most logical option in an alienating, repressive, culturally empty society.
The war on drugs also reflected the pompous hypocrisy of those with power. Now that they had the laws, the police, and the prisons, they had no desire to let go of them. Indeed, the more the government warred on drugs, seemingly the worse drug use and abuse became, particularly with the rise of crack cocaine. Increasingly, anybody with the slightest spunk or integrity saw that the drug-suppression machinery was far more dangerous to the health of the body politic than anything banned substances might produce.
Simultaneously, a rich drug lore grew up. At a time when the medical machine was ever more dependent on fancy, high-priced pharmaceuticals, the more hearsay evidence grew that marijuana might have some excellent medicinal benefits. Far from launching the vigorous tests necessary to substantiate whether there was any validity to these assertions, Washington responded with yet more hypocrisy and further crackdowns. In face of this, the legalization of marijuana started to become the center of a movement of revolt against big government. Ever more citizens, including far more than those who found their religion in opium, saw that an attack on marijuana laws was a tiny wedge through which they could protest the increasing coercion of Big Brother. Added to this, they had the wonderful legacy of Populist and Progressive revolts whereby, through the initiative process, they could challenge state laws against marijuana.
Medical marijuana was the spearhead in the effort. Its success, in turn, revealed another of the mind-warping characters of hashish. No sooner did marijuana dispensaries open than it was obvious they were not places to help the ill, but shops profiting from selling weed. This part of the counterculture so showed itself fully in tune with the worst of American capitalism.
Now, with Colorado’s outright legalization of marijuana, the money-making possibilities of the drug seem unlimited. Promoters have openly and eagerly embraced the tobacco industry as their model. In the name of profiting from growing, processing, and selling marijuana, they want to make it as omnipresent as tobacco was in the mid-20th century. In the same way that the tobacco crowd long touted their drug as a healthy, nerve-calming habit, the marijuana entrepreneurs are oblivious to what the health consequences of marijuana consumption might be. They are as ready as the most obnoxious of tobacco consumers literally to blow smoke in everybody’s face.
Nor do marijuana champions, including those touting its supposed medicinal benefits, ponder that a user constantly drawing smoke into his/her lungs could be direly impairing his/her health. This is not surprising. Many of the self-avowed New Age proponents of the counterculture not only had places filled with drugs, but also with tobacco pollution, including self-described healthy dining establishments. They made it clear that they embraced Jim Crow: those not wanting to breath clouds of smoke were not welcome to their thoroughly phony world.
Given this, the debate over marijuana regulation has been as empty as the rest of the discussion of drug policy. It reflects both an empty civil culture and the utter shallowness of the marijuana crowd. The latter have no concern with why drugs have had such a powerful allure; they simply demand the right to use and abuse them. Opponents, in turn, do not even have the wit to realize why many so want to escape from the distress, alienation, and misery of a heartless society. As such, the whole controversy is apropos of people caught in a miasmic cloud of marijuana smoke combined with the fog and confusion spewed forth by those who accept the status quo as so eternal there is no escape from it but in more drugs.