A report on BBC this morning caught my attention. Apparently since the Taliban seizure of power in Afghanistan, the trade in heroin and crystal meth have surged. Whereas previously heroin could only be traded on the black market and traders faced still penalties, now trade occurs openly in the streets. A government spokesman conceded that (1) the people are hard-pressed for money; (2) there is no ready crop substitute to poppies that brings in steady cash; and (3) the government lacks resources to adequately police the trade in heroin and crystal meth.
And yet they have sufficient resources to adequately police the choices of Afghan girls and women?
While I was sitting in my car stewing over this report, it suddenly occurred to me that the problems to which any people devotes its resources is highly flexible. In the US, Republicans have recently voted overwhelmingly not to police white collar crimes, such as money laundering and tax evasion, while doubling down on the removal of tax breaks and supports for working families — thanks Manchin and Sinema. I can just hear McConnell telling his constituents: (1) businesses are hard-pressed for cash; (2) there is no ready alternative to vulture capitalism; and, besides, (3) the government lacks resources to adequately police the business and banking sectors.
Are we witnessing the Talibanization of the US government?
Consider this. Evidently the Holy Prophet is ok with the epidemic of crystal meth and heroin use among poor, hungry, and unemployed Afghans, but is not ok with women taking control of their own lives. The parallel is obvious. (Isn’t it Joe and Kyrsten?) Evidently the Republican god is ok with an unpoliced business and banking sector, but is perfectly ok and equipped to police women’s bodies.
But, of course, nothing happens without value playing its own peculiar role. In Afghanistan, the Taliban needs to raise revenue and trade in heroin is as good — perhaps even a better — commodity for doing just that. In the US, Republicans need to maintain wealth inequality and political power. Women’s bodies is as good a place to wage this war as any. And with a Roman Catholic majority on the Supreme Court — it used to be Protestant and Jewish — the odds are good that women’s bodies will be sacrificed to win tax breaks (let’s call it “freedom”) for the exceedingly wealthy.
Prove me wrong.