Graffiti’s historical value

Columnist Nicholas Deshais alerts us to an effort to improve the utility of some downtown alleyways (“Discovering cultural and artistic value in alleyways,” Aprl 1, 2019), while preserving their culture, history, art, etc.

Please preserve some of the graffiti. It expresses the culture and history of our time; a time of merciless drug wars.

Did you hear the following, or was this information suppressed by the pro-war side?

On March 15, 1915, the U.S. Treasury Department began enforcing its drug prohibition which it created by administrative code; a code which the U.S. Supreme Court found to be unconstitutional, but which the department continued to enforce, nonetheless. It’s all about the money (budget justification).

It began as a war on doctors and their patients, and has widened to include the general population. Drug use is pushed hard by prohibition’s tax-free, regulation-free, monopoly-price-powered black market.

Future generations will be curious about this insane period of America’s history, so let’s preserve some artifacts.

Like Simon and Garfunkel said, in their anti-war song, “The Sound of Silence,” “…And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement walls [and alleyways], and whispered in the sound of silence.”

Wiley Hollingsworth

Pullman