Op-Ed: Politics is flooded with cash. Divert more of it to young campaign workers and political parties.
This week, my wife and I saw the final season premiere of the series The Wire. The last season is full of a lot of things – including a visit to Baltimore and the funeral of a man who’s been at the center of two decades of violence, a love story between an old woman and Michael Torell, the arrival of Royce Middleton – a very, very wealthy man who runs his own criminal empire and has a lot of money in his hands – and a lot of things. It was great. It doesn’t get much better than that.
But one thing it didn’t get was to the point where the politics of it were completely swept under the rug. The show is as interested in the politics of Baltimore as it is the violence and the drug trade.
The show is about the “politics of the drug trade,” or rather, the politics of the drug trade’s business. It’s about two politicians, one of which is a woman, one of which happens to be a man, and the second of which is the drug trade.
The show is full of people who are fighting for the right to do drugs. The show is full of people who are fighting for the right to sell drugs. And, of course, the show is about people who don’t like anyone trying to stop them from doing drugs or selling drugs.
Drug dealing is the kind of activity most families can’t get away from. One of my favorite moments actually came in season two with Michael Torell. In episode seven of Season Two, “The Wire,” Michael Torell’s character, who’s just been arrested for a murder he doesn’t remember committing, was on trial for dealing drugs. He was sitting in jail listening to an assistant district attorney argue that he was a major player in the drug trade. He was actually convicted, sentenced to 20 years in prison, and served 14 years in prison.
The show is more interested in the politics of the drug trade’s business than it is in the politics of drugs. The show is also