While some Baltimoreans decried The Wire for highlighting the city’s dingy, drug-fueled side, many others became fervent fans — including, it turns out, Attorney General Eric Holder.
Holder enjoyed the show so much that when he announced a new anti-drug PR campaign, he brought along Kima, Bunk, and Prez (okay, actors Sonja Sohn, Wendell Pierce, and Jim True-Frost). Presumably figuring it was his best chance, the attorney-general (jokingly) tried to throw his weight around: “I want to speak directly to [Ed] Burns and Mr. Simon [the show’s co-creators]: Do another season of The Wire. That’s actually at a minimum… If you don’t do a season, do a movie…. I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power, Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon.”
Presumably, he wasn’t expecting notoriously-prickly Simon’s response: “The Attorney-General’s kind remarks are noted and appreciated. I’ve spoken to Ed Burns and we are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanising drug prohibition.” He went on to deem the war on drugs as “nothing more or less than a war on our underclass” which is “succeeding only in transforming our democracy into the jailingest nation on the planet.”
So maybe soon we’ll have a world where drugs are decriminalized and we’re all enjoying McNulty’s newest antics. Or maybe nothing will change. But hey, we can always hope, right?
Photo by H. Graham Smith
Bravo, David Simon! Once again, Simon speaks the truth.
Eric Holder and his boss are not only continuing the legal enslavement of thousands of people (in our for-profit prison industry), but they’re also going after peace activists and ordinary citizens in unprecedented numbers. This administration is trying to out-Nixon Nixon. When are people going to wake up? We’re allowing our rights to be shredded right before our eyes, the National Security State is growing every day, we’re now involved in more wars, yet the outrage exhibited during Bush’s murderous reign has almost disappeared. Are all these assaults okay now that Obama is in office? Hypocrisy of the worst kind.
http://october2011.org/