The Dark Alliance
Gary Webb
"I chose to read Dark Alliance maybe in 1999 or 2000. Having grown up listening to a lot of hip-hop, the references in this whole period of sort of whole crack epidemic loomed very large for me, and I was very aware of it from an early age. I think this was supposed to be sort of insightful to me how this kind of came about, and it was.
It's mainly about how crack cocaine became an epidemic in the United States and who had a hand in that, who benefited and who really suffered. I learned a great deal from the book. I mean I would say the newest things were really what seemed to be the direct relationships to very international situations like that funding of the Nicaraguan Contras, with issues going on in Afghanistan in the 80's, and things that were very local like LA and San Francisco drug culture. So growing up in the 70's, I was sort of aware of a positive almost influence of cocaine in culture, and that because very negative in the 80's when crack came about.
The reason there was such an abundance, I found out, in the 70's was just because there was this huge influx of cocaine, and a lot of that was to move money that you couldn't account for in the government. So CIA wants to move money; they sell cocaine or they move it and transport it. Contras, same thing. What was the precursors to the Taliban and other sort of groups, the same thing. Sort of moving drugs was a means of having a black market for money. So that to me, the scope of that was really new to me.
It's very clear about a history of all the different players and where they sort of arise into that moment in history. I think having an interest is important because it is nonfiction; and so if you weren't otherwise curious about movement of money or cocaine in the academics of the United States, it might not be as engaging; but it's definitely if you're sort of government-minded, if you have a radical bent and you're interested in understanding how this works, it's good.
I would give it four out of five stars for being comprehensive and very descriptive."
RSS feed 
