In the old days it was about taxes and heaping the payoff of the national debt on farmers who made whiskey out of their corn. In 1790, it was considered an abomination and the farmers rebelled. Abraham Washington or George Lincoln, I think it was, sent troops and eventually the Whiskey Rebellion became a footnote in history.
The song was ended but the melody lingered on.
Miss Marcy doesn’t quite fit the theme, but it involves whiskey stills, illicit sex, murder, dancing, adultery and other dirty stuff, and it’s a good song. I’d be remiss leaving it out.
The Night Chicago Died isn’t precisely historically accurate, but it’s the only song comes to mind encapsulating what Prohibition led to: Gangsters, cops and bystanders being gunned down, speakeasy whiskey nights, corruption, and a lot of richer cops, politicans and gangsters with nobody else better or worse for it except prison guards, more lawyers, judges and cops. Sound familiar?
Even into the 1960s illegal whiskey still brought a smile and tacit approval from a population unaffected by the tiny wars still going on between back-woods whiskey-makers and ‘reveneurs’. Not to be mistaken for Jack Daniels or Johnny Walker. Nobody was getting killed over in the Jack Daniels plant.
Roger Miller’s classic’s just another example the general public attitude as opposed to the governmental enforcement apparatus tactics.
The US Government isn’t a fast learner. They were already controlling and taxing whiskey. They’d have saved more treasure than anyone can imagine it they’d taken that approach to dealing with cocaine. The substance abuse happened, the machinery of justice cranked up to deal with it, the prisons filled, and the taxpayers paid, paid, paid without taking it off the streets. Nor even out of the prisons.
Much the same song, different stanza for the poppy derivative family.
But whiskey and illicit drugs weren’t enough. The only obvious place the government was successful collecting taxes across the board was on tobacco.
But even a lot of whiskey drinkers and cocaine snorters didn’t like smokers. Gradually smokers were eased over there with prostitutes when it came to hammering them out of existence.
I’ve included a lot of different versions of this next song because we’ve needed a lot of jails for the people who get crosswise with moral superiority, barrels full of money, cops, politicians, judges and people who just like to know people they don’t agree with are in jail.
I’ve had to leave prostitutes and prisons for women full of them out of this because nobody cares enough about them to write a song.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
I takes me hat off for all that you’ve put together here. Well done 🙂
Let me introduce an Aussie songwriter…..http://www.judysmall.com.au/
She cares enough to write about women and all forms of oppression….
Thanks eremophila. I’ll give it a listen. Gracias, Jules
Just another way to divide and conquer so we can move on to a one world government. Getting non-smokers against smokers is just one more step. When it isn’t smokers anymore then it will be back to booze, then food because that isn’t good for some, then water maybe and so on. As long as Americans can’t bury the hatchet and come together to stand up to big government (Actually the real rulers that control governments like The FED, and any other banks connected to the world bank) We are screwed! I have a feeling we are screwed because there are too many people with the attitude “I want what I want and screw everyone else.”
tffnguy: Might well be so. Gracias, Jules
The government has to make substances illegal–how else will the CIA fund itself if not through illicit drug trafficking (oh, well, sex trafficking I suppose, and arms, but whose counting.)
I’m with tffnguy !
timetales: Likewise. Jules
great post and really enjoyed the site
peace…safe journeys always
hipiseverything: Thanks for the visit. You as well. Jules
One of the great ironies of the Volstead Act (18th amendment, prohibition, callit what you like) was the way it allowed organised crime to flourish and develop the lgoistical basis (And political connection) that made the trade in illegal narcotics take off so quickly in the United States.
What prohibition alsodid was to bring the law into disrepute. In other words, people just got used to breaking the law when they had a drink, and maybe that made it easier for them to break the law in other ways later on.
Maybe I’m being cynical. (And I should be wary of lecturing an American about American history anyway). But whenever politicians and other professionally righteous people start talking about banning something, I’m always reminded of the mobsters in Key Largo longing for the return of prohibition.
PS I used to work in Social Services and part of my job was to get people into Care Homes. None of my colleagues had any urge to actually se the services we were pushing and I’d have to say that I can only think of about two or three people who definitely benefited from going into care. You’re absolutely right to stay clear of those places.
fekesh: I don’t disagree. Thanks, Jules