thoughts provocateur on Drug War

https://web.archive.org/web/20091027151906/http://www.geocities.com/libramoon.geo/thoughts.htm

We have been hearing for quite some time about drug abuse and the so-called war on drugs. Governmental interferences in our lives of absurd proportions have been suggested and implemented in this mad campaign. 

In response to those who blame illicit drug users for the growth of the "drug problem" on the demand side, you are entirely missing the point. Look into history or psychology and you will clearly see that people have always used the substances available to them to ease their anxieties, self-medicate for chronic or medically untreatable pain, relax, recreate, celebrate, become more sensitized to art/beauty/relationships, become less sensitized to poverty/ugliness/hunger, search for spiritual fulfillment, change their consciousness in one way or another. For most of history this was an incidental aspect of human behavior. The problem with the illicit drugs (not to be confused with the drugs this society condones, for whatever accidental reason) is the profit motive resulting from their artificially inflated prices (a direct result of the laws and enforcement of same against their use or sale) which lead to bloody battles among those who want to make those profits, and between the profiteers and the law enforcement personnel who harass them. 

What most people who complain about the "drug problem" are afraid of is the violence and street crime resulting from this profit motive. Profit-driven violence is only being exacerbated by law-enforcement's efforts to crack down on drugs. To lower the incidence of serious abuse of drug use, wouldn't it be more practical to control the legal use of these substances? We could heavily regulate sales centers for those substances we choose to designate. Perhaps limit the number of such centers in each given area, regulate their locations (say not within a certain distance of schools or other chosen community facilities), regulate the age of patrons with mandatory ID checks, regulate the amount to be sold per transaction, regulate the prices while still keeping these prices well below those of the current illicit market, include heavy taxation and use tax revenues from the sale of these substances to fund various treatment centers, substance use/abuse education and medical programs (after which any additional tax revenues may be used to help pay for other desired programs), disallow advertising of these products, stringently disallow public use and driving under the influence (along the lines of current policies against drunk driving, we could have laws against driving under the influence of any debilitating substance with stringent penalties like loss of the driver's license and car and substantial fines). Drug bars could be licensed to give people a legitimate place in which to enjoy these substances with others, and regulated to disallow minors, require that sales be only for on-premises use, etc. (We could also require for the staff of these drug bars expertise in controlling and mitigating conflicts, both physical and psychological. It would benefit both the community and the customers of these bars to maintain a positive environment.) 

Through tax revenues our government programs would benefit from those who desire these products, rather than organized crime. Meanwhile, a system of highly regulated legal distribution would allow for the kind of knowledge and control which is impossible under the existing situation of uncontrolled illicit transactions. Educational programs against drug use could be refined and expanded. Minors would not be pressured into drug use or sales by criminals seeking expanding profits or seeking less legally liable dupes to do their work for them, or by their own desires for otherwise unimaginable wealth; and people in general who use these substances would not be forced to deal with profit-hungry, unscrupulous criminals and possibly tainted products. Drug treatment programs could be made much more available; and without legal considerations some secret drug users might be less intimidated about going for treatment. More room would be available in prisons and courts for other kinds of criminals if less were taken up by drug-related crimes; and there would be less violence in our communities without drug-profit related crimes. 

If we like, harsher penalties could be legislated against criminals who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs (including alcohol) to both prevent these criminals from trying to use their drug-induced misjudgment as an excuse for their crimes and increase the general idea of responsible use of mind-altering substances. Public resources now being desperately and ultimately ineffectually thrown into the anti-drug "war" would be available for use against the social problems we all recognize such as homelessness, poverty, intrafamilial violence, lack of quality education, et al., the root causes of addiction. Furthermore, a more enlightened attitude toward drug use might allow for those who do choose to make recreational use of drugs to be better informed about the consequences of their choice and, therefore, allow them to pursue these activities more safely and responsibly. 

eclipse whispers

  

Retreat from

War mentality.

Learn to understand

our social ecosphere.

We can become our own

best friends, join not as

soldiers to hold a line,

expend our energy in fights.

Step back from destructive habit.

Open eyes cleansed of

acrid burning.

Move toward our true desires;

find what peace can build.

 

 

 

 

the dancer and the dance

I see this tiny epiphany awhirl,

like a firefly flight of fire and awareness.

Immanence aroused in a glory of

rhythm and desire.

See us reach invisibly into a wholeness,

a blessed story,

a holy trance, above, beyond, knowing,

yet our closest self.

 

 

 

 

this comment is not about the fragility

of "white allies" but about the true rational goal

-- is what we want to apply our considerable

energies and creativity and time and

human interactions to

making imperfect people feel shame,

or to make a better social structure

in which every person's opportunities

for self realization expands?

 

 

 

we should initiate a citizen's decency

board to bring these police miscreants

before for severe shaming until they

cry in remorse and horror

at their behavior

 

 

 

these "pro-lifers" must hate children

they are all about forcing children

to be born and raised in situations

that don't want them

maybe that was how they got that way

 

 

 

 

all that uproar and legislation to end

Obamacare and it turned out the

people want it -- these Republican

anti-democrat obsessions

are not about reality

 

 

 

 

How can older Jews

who suffered the atrocities of

The Holocaust not feel empathy,

compassion for the Palestinians,

and horror at the Israeli leaders

who torment them?

 

 

 

What, exactly, did you win?

What has the end of your

possibility of honor

bought?

 

 

 

I  developed my nascent

philosophies through science fiction --

that metaphoric narrative view

of our realities.

 

 

 

I get it!

They are mistaking religious mythology

for realpolitik.

 

 

 

Hiding in the park

after dark

under evergreens

seeking forest.

Old ages home

trailing memory

aching to feel, real.

Frail sensations

stored in stories.

Clasp, grasp of

smiling ectoplasmic

audience.

Shadow/light

whisper/thunder

breathe deep ash

of campfire ghosts.

Bubbling out from dense fog

to clear a magic window.

See such a fairy parade

sparkle into ecstasy,

into vast caravans

 

 

 

 

 

 

5/21-26/21

 

Rory and Renata Go to the School

 Rory and Renata Go to the School (excerpt root of desire)

https://windsongmyths.wordpress.com/2020/02/21/root-of-desire-in-progress/

#fiction

 

“We work with a diverse population of the underserved underclass. We find the people we need, and the people who need what we can make happen.
Yeah, it’s a struggle every day, and a surprise that we figure it out and carry on. It’s following a vision that’s always being re-envisioned as we figure out what works,
how to pick up synergistic pieces and keep going because that is what we do.”

Karl and Janna, Marcus and Eddie along with Betty have settled in to their playhouse hotel that Tom River helped them acquire.

Rory is too city, too restless for bucolic creative bliss. Renata needs to expand her mortal experience, learn new skills, try new lifestyles.
They visit the crew when they can, take their part in the theatre. It is better that they bring refreshed perspectives from outside.
Rory has discovered the School through his elusive, randomly distributed contacts. He brings Renata to observe the dance and respond as she will.

Dorothy and Alice are at the core of the project. The have each had excessive lives, developed strong resilience and motivation.
Since they have found each other, they have further developed through mutual support. Their self-assurance and charisma inspire gifted idealists
to commit to a plausibly possible cause.

What is a school? A place to be shaped, to be contused and polished through interaction, to discover, be directed or create your own role and style.
It is an entrance of ignorance into a process into a home, a grounding to grow, produce from seeds and dung and work.
A school, a structure wherein we learn what we learn by lecture, by example, then practice to entice competence, tasks to master, ideas to fester,
projects to test and explore. A school can be much more than a prison for clearing the streets, teaching shame and defeat or for a few fanning ambitions
seldom fit to meet. This can never be that twisted. Rather we envisage a tool for healthy breakthroughs out of misery and flailing infirmity.
We dance. We talk. We teach and learn. We develop the skills we need to be the people we care about. We are put down, but we can care so much,
be so much, just by learning to be who we are.

Dorothy and Alice Gaya – We gave ourselves our surname in a commitment ceremony during our neo-feminist period. Heavily layered in spiritual/political significance.
It’s not that we’re against people using drugs. We’re against unconscious lives bereft of informed choice.

“Neo-feminist?” Renata, quizzical, “What are you now?”

Alice smiles. “Teachers of the oppressed.”

rising Mercurial

   

Not the natural world's rain,

(maybe reign of entitlement's power)

a mockery, a chilling irresponsibility

of bullets, of brutal men casting out

humanity, sanity, possibility of sad

empathy.  Cast out in cascading fire,

damning to true meaning of Hell.

Where is that decent world, kind

community, strength of health and

clarity?  How did this chaos of horror,

casual terror, settle into

normality?

 

 

 

It is a shameful dilution of

the moral force of hate

to show it toward anyone for

any reason other than their own

actual behavior which, purposely

or negligently, harms nonconsenting

others.

 

 

 

 

 

biology/science clearly have shown that

the idea of two sexes is outdated and inaccurate

 

 

 

 

it seems to me that rather than an ethical dilemma,

climate inaction is more about freezing from

existential fear one cannot face leading

to denial of some kind.

 

 

 

 

isn't that the most appropriate means of

paying for our nation's infrastructure,

the necessary environment for businesses

to succeed,

for the structural business community

to pay for these assets that benefit their profits.

 

 

 

Accept?  Give credence to their existence?

People don't need your belief

to self-evidently exist.

 

 

 

We claim to want more jobs created,

yet encourage a culture of overwork,

understaffing for the work to be

effectively done.

 

 

 

 

Shame only carries moral force

against those who value being

seen as good.

 

 

 

I am not so sure that "Hamas"

is not (to some extent) controlled

by Netanyahu, since he has the most

to gain from increasing hostilities.

 

 

 

 

happiness triggers:  being seen/heard

with love; experiencing beauty;

enjoying epiphanies

 

 

 

5/17-20/21

deep spring reflects (no worries, no hurries)

 I tend to think in words and pictures,

to feel in music,

to see pictures, hear words

when in presence of music,

to feel meaningful images,

look for synchronicities,

magic.

 

 

 

I am ready, willing, happy to do

the work, the difficult, detailed,

dirty, eternal work.

I can’t long bear

the slings and arrows,

nastiness,

the assholes.

 

 

 

 

words, when obfuscated by political agenda,

become clumsy as tools for clear

communication.  Perhaps we ought

to indicate when using these words

which meaning we are intending.

 

 

 

 

Capitalism, as imagined by those who

imagined it into existence, is very different

from what we are led to believe by its worshippers. 

When appropriately regulated and companioned

with rational safety net structure, it is a system

for people to be rewarded for sharing their wares

and skills, and through competition to find better,

less resource depletion or other undesirable outcomes,

easier to use and access,

more in line with what people want, good and services. 

The important component is the regulation

to keep the market honest, fair, and safe.

 

Capitalism, like Communism (Marxism) was originally

imagined as an equalizing, community developing,

individual dignity respecing system in contrast to

Feudalism's dependence on aristocracy and clear

class distinctions. 

See how we silly humans take reason

and mangle it with arrogance and jealousies.

 

 

taking responsibility, accountability, away from the

human agent allows for all manner of nasty mischief.

 

 

 

we must disengage from party politics

and learn to have political conversations

based each on our own and our communities'

interests.

 

 

5/15-16/21

meditation and madness

 

slowly, gently,

like a meditation or guided fantasy,

take many long, deep looks at your life,

how experiences have felt, where relationships

have led, what calls to you to complete or

begin, what has meaning, what feels good,

where does your mind go when you go to a

place of escape and restoration. 

Now, read some good science fiction and

think about how a future could be created.

 

 

 

tolerating is not the same as condoning

or encouraging or embracing -- it is just

admitting the reality of what is in our

world and figuring out how to deal with

that without violence

 

 

 

 

Why do we obfuscate our common rules

in elite jargon, legalese, when rationally

what we need is profound fairness of

clarity?

 

 

 

I think the emphasis on competition

as we grow and learn how to navigate

the social world would cause many to feel

resentful of any perceived advantage to

those we see in competition with us

for the good stuff.

 

 

 

 

So many seem to prefer a loathsome view

of humanity, warring savage slaves to greed

and casual meanness. 

I tend to say:  All people suck. 

But, not all the time and some more than others. 

There is that but that can encompass great

kindness, opening to lively adventure based on

joyful celebration of our communion. 

What empowers the positive regard, uplifting,

diminishes the cruel and mean?

 

 

 

 

why do so many people hate their lives so much

and refuse to make them better

instead sending their hate outward?

 

 

 

 

when Earth no longer sustains human life,

what are you going to buy/who are you going

to rule/where are you going to be?

 

 

 

Stop encouraging those working to oppose

our essential values.  Stop acting like their

work is of value to our world.

 

 

 

Cowardly lazy liars

to convince themselves

they are the virtuous

 

 

 

5/2-14/21

healing dance

 

Healing Dance

Laurie Corzett

 

La danse, c'est le mouvement, et le mouvement, c'est la vie.

("Dance is movement, and movement is life.")

--Ludmilla Chiriaeff (Founder, Les Grands Ballets

Canadiens)

 

What is is about dancing, in a group, with an intimate other, or alone, that can give us that mystical rush and promote wellness on so many levels? Is it the pre-cognitive memory of the rhythm of the heartbeat keeping us safe? Is it the emotional-spiritual connection to the natural world we feel when moving pleasurably in our animal body? Is it some atavistic source of healing from our primal days?

This is my quest -- to discover the healing properties of dance and how to best use and promote this simplest and most profound gift of our physical being.

 

Throughout our history, dancing has functioned as a healing and balancing component, a form of social communication and transcendent spiritual ritual. Though patterns and forms vary, expressive rhythmic movement is a very basic means of relieving emotional tension and has from the beginning been associated with religious ritual and healing. We celebrate by dancing at weddings and

festivals, and join others in dance as the quintessential romantic experience. Dancing alone, feeling the rhythmic sway and getting in touch with the extension and contraction of muscles in a pleasurable context, is uplifting, healing. Dancing definitely helps to bring up my mood and promote more sane reflection. When I can get so caught up in the dance that I no longer feel separate from the music and can move within it, it seems to free something very profound within me.

 

I have been working with dance as a self-healing resource and looking intuitively and through on-line research to open my knowledge and understanding into the possibilities and realities of healing through dance.

 

My work is based on the intuitive feeling I have been developing for quite some time about dance. There is something very primal, very basic in regard to our species and dance, involving healing in the holistic sense and the intrinsic energies of life/form/time.

In every culture there has been an emphasis on dance in not only entertainment, but as a healing force. And, then, entertainment is of course part of healing and cultural unity.

 

In my search I am finding a wide variety of healing modalities, spiritual activities and holistic therapies based on our natural expression of energies through dance, as well as community and individual art projects promoting creativity and wholeness.

 

 

 

all is interconnected

each is territorial

life, death, re-emergence in changed form,

a nightmare tarantella

a wiggly microbe dance

re-imaged into macro

by degrees of the eternal

This culture obfuscates

the basics of sex and death --

binds them up in moral outrage

and damnation for the masses

to feed upon in maenad frenzy

We expect subterfuge to fuel salvation

when all we need saving from

is the resultant confusion.

 

 

 

We are all changing all the time.

We look to the crowd to find the security of the same.

Mirrors merely show us what we expect to see.

Look, inside, all around, throughout eternity.

Feel the change.

Dance it into the change you want to be.

 

 

mirror neurons let you dance by watching others

motor neurons let you dance by moving to the music

in whatever way you comfortably can

body/mind connection, ain't it wonderful!

 

 

Wisdom, so common yet so fragile and rare,

peeking out of storybooks, popular lyrics,

offhand remarks.

Days go on and often with little thought

wound up in routine, dance steps to

elevator music, or music only recalled.

Then, on a silent walk to some unsung errand,

bursts of beatific choirs take flight,

circling like mythic birds of joy.

 

 

Maybe put on music that feels good and move with it,

let the images, ideas, memories dance with

you.