random thoughts and ramblings

The war on drugs is a fraud. There is no war on drugs, it is a war on American mindset. Americans have been the subject of intended brainwashing by their government for most of a century. The interesting thing about this, is that even as they have continued sending piles of money to the incinerator of "drug interdiction" they have done nothing to actually hurt the giant drug lords and traffickers. The drug business itself takes it's toll on the people who make the most money. It is a business of greed, and greed is the biggest motivator in it. When there is no longer huge profits to be made, it will begin to diminish. Drug lords are killed by their rivals. new drug lords take their place. They make tons of money and live like kings. They get killed in the next coup. The drug trade in America is the modern equivalent of slavery, and just like in Africa the black man enslaves his own race as does the white man and the yellow man and the brown man. Take what little money that your fellow man has, and get him addicted to your product. Then make him work for it when he can't afford it. Eventually he will never have a chance to have anything that is his own, and then he is no more than a slave, either to the dealer or to the product. The saddest part of the cycle is that eventually the user dies, or with a little bit of luck, kicks the habit, and then the dealers must find new clients or he will go out of business. What is the solution? I am not smart enough to say for certain, but one thing I do know is that drugs should be treated like alcohol, regulated and taxed. The United States government learned over the decade of the 1920's that prohibition is useless and only makes the criminals rich. The real change needs to be in the public perception, of course that won't happen over night, and the crazy conservatives will scream that "their money" will be supporting drug addicts. Guess what? It already does in a myriad of ways, but by ending the criminalization of most drugs and their users, the money being wasted now on the "war" can be funneled into education and rehabilitation. This is the only way to break the cycle. And eventually the need for less money to be spent in this field.

I recently read an article in the newspaper about the the loss of religion in the United States. This was followed a few days later by a flurry of letters to the editor from both sides of the coin. On the pro religion side was the general status quo, that without God in our lives we are destined to be worthless and useless people who will never amount to anything and at the same time will suffer for eternity because they have not been "saved". One writer even went so far as to blame all crime and discontent in the world on the lack of God in the lives of the perpetrators. How in the world do they make this connection? Keep drinking the Kool-Aid! I see it as quite the other way around. It continually fascinates me when these knuckleheads really believe this crap that they are fed. Just because I do not subscribe to the same belief system that these poor freaks do, I do live in the same society and live by the same rules of conduct as these religious nuts, but I have the decency to let them go about their business without continually thrusting my distaste for their life choices in their faces and I truly wish that they could quit doing it to me. I was raised in a manner that taught me to reason and think about the consequences of my actions. Every boater is taught that they are responsible for their wake. It is a great metaphor for life. We are all responsible for our wakes. In life we create a wake wherever we go and the things that we do all have consequences. Because I don't subscribe to a specific set of written down beliefs, I am able to take each action as it happens and apply the result to my next action. It is called reason and logic. The definition of insanity, in the popular saying, is to repeat an action over and over again expecting a different result. To me, this describes Religion. More and more it looks like the followers are insane, they repeat the actions that they have been repeating for the last millenia and still expect different results. A small sidebar of this same original article was a bit of research that showed that the more religious a person was, the more likely they were to be afraid of dying, or letting anyone near them die. These are the people who keep loved one on life support for years after their brains have died, on the hope of a "miracle". They keep pets alive while they suffer the pain and indignity of osteo-arthritis and incontinence, GI problems and the loss of their teeth. Animals can't tell us that they don't want to suffer this way, but because they are our pets and they love them they try extraordinary means to keep them with us long after they should have moved on. They deserve a dignified passing as much as a human does. Meanwhile those of us who consider themselves to be agnostic or atheist, we'll have no or little problem when our time comes, we are more curious than scared, because we haven't been living a hypocritical existence. We live as we feel life should be lived, we don't hate people for arbitrary reason and we don't believe that we know all the answers to the questions of life and death. I am sure that I will hit this subject again some day.

Again on the recent news front, there has been much about the drug toxin levels in fish. Anti-depressants getting into the water tables and being absorbed by the critters living in the water. SO now the fish are Happy!! Now I am not against the use of anti-depressants. I understand that there are people who truly need these beneficial drugs. It keeps them balanced and in many cases alive. I am however against the OVERUSE of these drugs. In far too many cases they are prescribed by doctors too lazy or inept to find the real cause of the depression. I do know that there are some cases where there is a chemical problem in a persons brain and they just don't make the right chemicals to find happiness. I don't believe that this is as prevalent as the doctors and drug companies would have us believe. I think that it is often much more inherent in the western lifestyle. The TV shows us people who are deliriously happy. We expect that we will be deliriously happy. When we aren't we think that there is something wrong with us. We worry. Then the TV shows us people who are depressed and they get deliriously happy with drugs. They are walking on the beach, laughing at parties and holding hands with their great looking, happy spouse. If we don't have the happy spouse, the beach vacation, and the party invitations, well there must be something wrong with us and we don't feel happy about it. Are we depressed or are we just chronically unhappy that we aren't the greatest people on the planet? Westerners spend their life wired and plugged into everything and wanting everything. In the last half of the last century, Americans especially, elevated their overall way of life above just about every other nation in the world, and in doing so they set standards of living that they expected their children and grandchildren to at least achieve and in many cases to exceed our parents standards. In most of the world parents expect that their children may be lucky to do the same that they do. The same job, in the same place and for the same pay.They will live in the same town, and maybe even in the same house. They don't expect so much out of life, but to live it the best that they can, the same as their parents. There is not the pressure to achieve. ( I said in MUCH of the world, now all we all know a few over-achieving Asians!) Even in the Asian countries it is mostly true, but the citified masses always have their educated elite, and they are expected to achieve just like western kids, and they show the same signs of stress that the western people show. They have their heart attacks, and their ulcers, and their suicide rates too. But the truth is that they are far fewer in those places per capita, because the pressured portions of society are much smaller than in America. Our own competitiveness is our biggest downfall, and the obsessive need to have all the same stuff that our friends and neighbors have is where our insane depression rates come from. If we lost TV and Madison Ave. for a generation I bet we would see a steady decline in them. Sure I want my MTV, but it's gonna kill me just like them Marlboros will too. There is a whole industry that is dedicated to making us want what we can't afford or don't need , but we are sure willing to try and do whatever it takes to get it. Then we instill this same mindset in our children and wonder why they aren't happy. Add to that the "everybody wins" method of child-rearing that has become so popular and it is like pouring battery acid on a paint job. It just eats away at the mind and happiness is the first thing to go.

That's all I got today. I am sure that I will have more soon. Enjoy your day and don't spend it all wishing for what you don't need. Live the life you have and don't worry about what everyone else has.