I recently saw an amazing and harrowing film called The House I Live In. It’s a documentary about the “war on drugs” in America and it shows several things very clearly.
A seconds thought tells you it cannot be a war on drugs
1. The war on drugs is a lie. It is, and has always been, a disguised way to persecute minorities.
13% of Crack Cocaine users are African Americans
90% of Crack convictions are African Americans
2. The war on drugs is and always will be a failure.
Since 1971 the war on drugs has cost over $1 trillion and resulted in 45 million arrests. During that time illegal drug use has remained unchanged.
How much fun would that be! – “Shoot him!” – “No way man, I’m making a bong out of this rifle!”
3. The war has distorted policing to the point where it is now more like social extermination.
One expert commented that we may as well just kill the bottom percentage of society, because that is more or less the effect of current drug policy. It is “a holocaust in slow motion.”
4. Politicians know all this but cannot stop the war on drugs.
they have so convinced the voting public that drugs are a cause of evil that any campaign to change the war would see the politician voted out. They are trapped into perpetuating their own lie.
It’s hard to believe that drugs used to be openly available in shops.
Today I open the newspaper to see that experts across the country are telling Osbourne to change UK financial policy because his current actions are likely to cripple the UK.
More recently Gove ignored every experts advice and is now setting about destroying our education system.
All these problems are caused by people believing things which are not true. Just as mercury was once used in medicine, and with the best of intentions the doctor killed his patient, so now we are murdered by those who may even believe they are helping.
Hurrah for moral relativism!
The worst of it is that they cannot be stopped, because the hardest thing in the world to kill is a belief.
With all this error in the world we need something better to believe in, and that’s where you come in. What beliefs can we use to replace the harmful nonsense that currently pollutes the minds of our leaders?
If you could plant one unshakeable belief into one persons head, what would it be and who?
Related Fluff: Beliefs Part 1 – Beliefs Part 2
Just because you are talking the loudest, does not mean you are correct. Hello, workmates, take note, before ye are destroyed.
Cripes – have I ignited a workers revolution?!
Words are powerful. This war will be a valiant one.
Hmmm–one thought in one person’s head? Dammit, that’s so limiting. OK, here we go. I would like to plant the idea that everyone–male, female, gay, straight, black, brown, yellow, pink, purple is a person who has the same rights and needs as he does into the current speaker of our house of reps.
I can go with that – it counts for black and white people too right?!
I would make everyone believe the Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There would be immediate consequences such as hair catching on fire or violent vomiting for infractions.
It sounds good, but I worry what would happen when my bondage obsessed lover of being sodomised friend came to call!
TMI?
At least you wouldn’t be “receiving”…:-)
equality
You’re missing the important profit motive in our “war on drugs”. We have an ENORMOUS private for-profit prison “industry” in this country. We imprison both higher numbers (1.6 million) and at a higher rate than any other country in the world. We preferentially imprison racial minorities and the poor. There’s no one to speak up for them.
he “war on drugs” feeds prison system. Our taxes pay the bill. The private shareholders take home profits.
Please Panda. Write a rant about the rest of this story. Make it sound funny so people will read it. Don’t let your country go down this path.It only gets bigger and uglier.
Oops. I think I just had a tiny rant on your post. Just a small smudge if I wipe it up with bleach.
And yes. I enjoyed your post very much.
Alice
Yes! It is profit driven, as the film so eloquently shows… I had intended to write more deeply about the film and its issues and still may… crikey, how I wish that my writing about it could make a difference, but I fear the UK has already begun its descent.
Rants are always welcome here! Thank you for commenting so astutely, and fulminating so accurately
Rants are one of my specialties. I can even rant in haiku (what a useless job skill).
Thanks for encouraging me. I hope to grow more persuasive ranting skills with practice.
I believe (among other things that may include talking trees) that words create the world. Your writing makes a difference. My writing makes a difference. Especially your comedy approach makes a difference. This slips in the message before the garage door of the listener’s intellect slams shut on you. Keep ‘em laughing with the windows to their souls open to new ideas.
Keep writing. I learn at your furry panda feet.
I’d plant the unshakeable belief in how global warming is REAL. And I’d plant it in the head of whoever needs it most.
That would be all of us I think!
Ooh, a tough one. I tend to bore my kids with phrases like: ‘make sure you put good into the world, not bad’ or ‘doing the right thing isn’t always easy’. But an unshakeable belief? I would probably want people to always shake their beliefs – they’ll either get stronger or something they hadn’t thought of will fall out.
The reason religions and wars go hand-in-hand is that they are both moralizing and seek to eliminate something or someone. Neither are beneficial. A great call-out on the “war on drugs”. Politicians are the masters of deception claiming their policies and actions are for one thing when they knowingly accomplish something else.
You know – more and more I’m coming to think that the problem is less that politicians are deliberate bastards, and more that they believe their own bullshit. There’s a notion that we are famously unable to organise for shit – so why do we assume ‘they’ can organise world-spanning conspiracies? I do think it more likely they are misguided idiots than evil geniuses!
Found one this evening that I think I could plant in everyone’s head as an unshakeable belief (see, I even challenged my own unshakeable belief from earlier): Every problem, except death, has a solution.
Forgot to say earlier how much I too loved this post.
I like the idea of shaking beliefs out of peoples hair (like salt cellars!)
I’m an idealistic idiot – I don’t believe there are problems other than ones we create by being selfish – it’s not about solving problems, it’s about not being greedy, nasty, self-serving, ignorant etc. Clean our own act up and all the other problems go away!
I like that belief even more!
Planting beliefs in people? Sounds like the movie “Inception”.
Ah, but RoS has many more layers I think…
That wasn’t a film, it was a documentary!
Thanks for your post, Panda. What happens to the poorest people in the world is completely heartbreaking.
The unshakable belief I would instill in someone if I could is “I am loved”.
Indeed – would knowing this stop people hurting others? I like to think it would be enough. Thanks for your comment Gabs
I believe it’s not physical abuse, but the absence of love that creates the deepest pain. Physical abuse is the external expression of something much, much deeper and harder to pin-point. How come we can’t arrest someone for emotional abuse?
When people are loved and they know it, they experience a sense of well-being and wholeness and don’t have the need to hurt other people.
I think, instead of fighting our F***ed up system, we could use our vast energy to help others see that they are in fact good enough, they have what it takes and they are unconditionally loved. Regardless of drugs, prison, homelessness, craziness, etc. etc. all those things that make society reject other people….
I agree with one and two – but I think to help people see they are good enough we must fight the system, which operates precisely through the mechanism of telling us we are not good enough!
I agree totally. We must fight:-)
PS– I like the “Gabs”. You must have been taking notes from my good friends:-)
Yes!!! Hurray for moral relativism. You are a satirist of noble degree(s)!
I LOVE you guys!
Captivated by this world, this morning I sat down in my fav yellow chair at my usual coffee shop
Forgot to get coffee.
The house brought me my coffee
For free.
Describes what here at RuleOfStupid and company feels like-an extension of my here and now world of wonder friends.
You bring me coffee, too.
So today
Bring Your Own Mug
Here, You: raw sugar, honey, agave, half and half, milk, skim, soy
*pours steaming coffee*
Beverage much appreciated Way. I will try and rectify my absence from the coffee house soon
*send blove your Way*
Oooh that is a delicious question. I’m gonna have to play devil’s advocate and say that I’d like to remove ALL ‘unshakeable beliefs’ as I think having beliefs that you’re not willing to examine and question and modify when you receive new information is a massive problem that holds us back. People used to have an ‘unshakeable belief’ that the earth was the centre of the universe, and we all know how that turned out! The Westboro Baptists have an ‘unshakeable belief’ that non-heteros are evil and I’m pretty sure anyone reading your blog would feel secretly happy if they all just went up to Heaven without us as they keep threatening!
I like your thinking. Unquestioned belief is a dangerous thing.