The War on Drugs: A Crusade Against Humanity

Learn more about the real agenda behind the War on Drugs and watch the recently released documentary "The House I Live In". 

  

http://www.thehouseilivein.org/

 

War on Drugs

After 40 years, we have to ask ourselves if the War on Drugs has worked.

The House I Live In is a film by Eugene Jarecki. It documents the inception of the drug war, the history and problems we face today. The film boldly stands on the evidence the War on Drugs has been an epic failure.

“The war on drugs has been a failure practically, morally, and economically. The results of this law enforcement approach are stark: today, there are more than 500,000 people incarcerated for drug offenses; billions of dollars are spent annually on narcotics enforcement; treatment is still out of reach for millions of people; and drugs are more available and cheaper than ever before.”

Why People Use Drugs

Regardless of legality, people are going to do drugs. Just because its legal doesn’t mean everyone will run down to the corner market to get their dope. The War on Drugs has created a monster. We’re worse off by paying higher taxes for the incarcerated drug users and dealers and over the course of 40 years drugs are cheaper, more easily available and an epic catastrophe. 

The range of reasons a person uses drugs are vast. Most people want to escape reality because their life situation sucks. To get a moment of nirvana or heaven to escape the hell they are living. They get bored and depressed. Many addicts suppress early childhood memories of abuse and neglect. If one wants to get high, they will find a way. Nothing will deter a drug abuser.

Stop the Prohibition on Drugs to Cure the Sickness

Did the ban of alcohol, Prohibition, work for America? This national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, was in place from 1920 to 1933. It only increased the level of crime, murder, jailing and bootleggers.

People need to take responsibly for their own actions, but throwing people in jail doesn’t make the situation better. Making something illegal makes it seem more desirable so they want what they can’t have.

Legal Drugs the Rising Problem of Drug Abuse in America

The White House publicly claims that prescription drug abuse is the Nations fastest growing drug problem. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified prescription drug abuse as an epidemic. Many pain medications contain low doses of heroine or morphine. Pharmaceutical drugs are legal, and extremely addictive. Many believe they are safer. “Pharming” parties are popular among our youth. They bring pills to place in a bowl to divvy up not knowing which drug they’ve taken as long as they get high.

The War on Drugs is a Profitable Business

We should question the motive behind corporations profiting from the prison industry when private prisons for profit benefit on the stock market. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The War on Drugs has nothing to do with making society safer, but everything to do with making money. Is there a conspiracy to make a profitable business and lock up the bottom half of society?

We need prisons to keep society safe from criminals who harm others. One should not be locked up in prison unless they are a threat to harm others, committing person to person crimes. We can give that individual tools to not use drugs, but if one chooses to harm themselves that is a decision they make. We can attempt to heal the emotional wounds that cause the drug abuse.

Should we really lock up people for smoking pot or even growing it for their personal use? How is pot any different from prescription drugs? How is alcohol any less of a threat than marijuana? Many people die of liver failure and drunk driving, because of alcohol. It’s a mix message when heroine laced prescription drugs are legal when prescribed by a doctor and easily sold on the street.

Class Warfare on Society

We put more money and resources into prisons than in schools. That is a crisis. We’ve been fed fear that drugs are the reason for the collapse of society. In reality, the problem is class warfare. It basically comes down to whether we want to build more prisons, keep people from working since an ex-con must check the dreaded checkbox on a job application that must be answered, but keeps them locked into a cycle where they become unemployable in a poor job market. With the lack of skills, resources, and education the system perpetuates the destruction of the human race which is class based and happening under the guise of a drug war.

The police and correction officers are not purposely inflicting harm. They are doing their job based on their instructions and the lack of resources provided. Kids grow up with drug addicts and gang members as role models. Drug crime is the only functional economy in their communities. The poor and uneducated see the materialism and want nice clothes and even food for their families so they sell drugs.

Open the Dialogue to Find a New Solution

Each side of this paradigm is frustrated, blaming each other for the flaws and heartache. Children grow up with parents in prison. The children of police officers also grow up without their parents if killed in the line of fire. Law enforcement verses the community is a mentality that is detrimental to growth. It creates a divide and conquer organism. Feeding only a parasitical monster that doesn’t offer real solutions. It’s not an easy task to deal with angry citizens or distressed law enforcement as they deal with secondary-post-traumatic stress. It’s a bad situation all around. Now is the time to reexamine drug policy and make changes where the system is obviously broken. It will take a community action as most politicians only care about getting re-elected and not willing to stick their neck out for real change.

Drug War Statistics

• Over the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has cost more than $1 trillion and accounted for more than 45 million arrests.

• In 2009 nearly 1.7 million people were arrested in the U.S. for nonviolent drug charges – more than half of those arrests were for marijuana possession alone. Less than 20% was for the sale or manufacture of a drug.

• Even though White and Black people use drugs at approximately equal rates, Black people are 10.1 times more likely to be sent to prison for drug offenses. Today, Black Americans represent 56% of those incarcerated for drug crimes, even though they comprise only 13% of the U.S. population.

• In a 2010 survey, 8.9% of Americans over the age of 12 had used illicit drugs in the past month.

• Today, there are more people behind bars for nonviolent drug offenses than were incarcerated for all crimes, violent or otherwise, in 1970. To return to the nation’s incarceration rates of 1970, America would have to release 4 out of every 5 currently held prisoners.

• Between 1973 and 2009, the nation’s prison population grew by 705 percent, resulting in more than 1 in 100 adults behind bars today. In 1980, the total U.S. prison and jail population was about 500,000 – today, it is more than 2.3 million.

• The U.S. incarcerates more people than any country in the world – both per capita and in terms of total people behind bars. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet it has almost 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated population.

• 1 in every 8 state employees works for a corrections agency.

• It costs an average of $78.95 per day to keep an inmate locked up, more than 20 times the cost of a day on probation.

Global Intel: Killer Asteroid or Wounded Man

Read my new article on Global Intel. Tell me your opinion. I wrote it in hopes to empower the individual amongst all the reasons to be freaked out of our minds with possible catastrophes.

American Dystopian Striptease

The world seems more confusing each passing day. Too often we retreat into our homes to plug ourselves into the media stream and dinner with the family. If you’re trying to wake up from the matrix you’re realizing that we live in the middle of Oz. It’s crazy to assume there are real people behind the curtain pulling the levers.

Little by little our rights as American citizens are being stripped away. We’ve all heard this rant from both sides of the left and right paradigm. Too many new laws and provisions have been instituted in just the last few years. To highlight a devastating blow to the American Constitution is the NDAA, National Defense Authorization Act that now empowers the President to codify indefinite military detention without charge or trail. The scariest potential is how any future president can order the military pick up of any American citizen and imprison them someplace in the world. The EEA, Enemy Expatriation Act takes away the citizenship of any American that is deemed a threat by our own government. Now the NDRP, National Defense Resource Preparedness, recently was updated to include the right for the President to take away the food, energy, health and transportation resources and “all other materials, services, and facilities” under emergency and non-emergency conditions. To make this all sound like it came straight out of a dystopian horror flick, 30,000 drones will be flying in American skies by 2020 — surveying everything. This bill is called the FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act.

We need laws — basic rules to live by. The Constitution isn’t perfect, but it protects individual rights. As more civil liberties are stripped away the more dangerous it becomes for us. Why aren’t there a million plus citizens at the footsteps of Washington demanding this to stop? What’s really happening — have we been dumbed-down, poisoned with mercury, chemtrails, vaccines, or stressed out to the max so we become apathetic, unable to cope with reality so we tune into the Kardashians on the soap box. Go ahead, tune into the Duck game. Gather your sports stats. Spend all day on Facebook, link into the talking points on the main stream media channels.

We can ignore that we’re all sitting in a pot of water about to boil us alive as the rising temperatures increase, but if you’re trying to wake up, its time to use your creativity and shout out. The choice must be made on whether we choose to follow the orders of a dictatorship or construct a true unified republic. All it takes is to open the curtain and expose the charade that the Wizard doesn’t have any power unless we give them that power. 

If it has been so easy for the majority of Americans to take little notice of the Constitution disfiguring in this way, than what makes us think that our religious documents haven’t been misrepresented by a sinister order to benefit their plot to conspire for more control?

Michael Tellinger, the author of Slave Species and Adam’s Calendar states “If you don’t understand the past than how can you possibly predict the future?” Our deficit isn’t that our future is blurred, but that we cannot presently see the evidence of our past all around us. We might look at a stone and say, “that is a magnificent stone.” All the while the stone is a remnant from an advanced ancient civilization that span’s far back as 200,000 years and more. Tellinger goes on to say that as a species it is important that we know who we are, where we come from and why we are here. When we have lost our memory of our past we loose our sense of humanity and collectiveness. We then are influenced by those we place in power and must trust that “they” have the right information. Looking at society today, we follow predictable programming. We do what we’re told and most people are not allowed to think outside of their social circles unless they are willing to confront some level of shunning.

It’s hard enough to remember what occurred a year ago let alone a thousand years ago. Humans have been designed to bitch and moan and do nothing to change the very thing that is causing the problem. Likewise it is very difficult to make a change when distractions are in abundance. It appears that nobody knows anything and information is compartmentalized. The filtering of knowledge based on a pyramid power structure. The question remains — who or what exists at the top of this formation?

Epic Conspiracy Truth-Seeker

One must be brave to use the word Conspiracy these days. It’s the dirty word of the 21st century. This term has been used to explain the powerful and hidden agendas of the secret military, politicians, bankers, elite family bloodlines that all aim to rule in secrecy and to take freedom from the people. It might be a word used very cautiously, but it’s a term that perfectly describes the complaints many make of the exposed corruption of America.

We see hundreds of conspiracies come to light from history books. Such as the deliberate action to eradicate Native Americans in 1763 by giving them small pox infected blankets. The Underground Railroads became a proven conspiracy as the African slaves escaped through covert routes guided by the Abolitionists in the 1800’s. The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the Federal Reserve Act that was planned in secret on Jekyll Island three years earlier in 1910. The Tuskegee Syphilis study gave poor blacks syphilis without diagnosing them, and Project MKULTRA a code name for the CIA mind-control research program. The very conception that mind-control could be performed covertly without the knowledge of American citizens in our most recent past stirs up the word conspiracy.

The JFK assassination has many questioning our faith in our government. Most recently, the terrorist attacks on the day of 911 and the unyielding wars fought now in the Middle East for the love of profit. It’s unfortunate that many are called a conspiracy nut and ostracized for questioning authority. Something is very wrong when a day is highlighted to celebrate the biggest conspiracy of all — Columbus Day. Christopher Columbus didn’t discover the new world in the late 15^th century. He set out on a voyage funded by the Royal bloodline in Spain to find gold. He was given 10% of the profits. Then Columbus directed the natives to convert to Catholicism and to turn them into “good servants” and when conversion didn’t work the natives were killed. President George W. Bush in 2002 had the flag fly high on every public building in reverence to Columbus and his evil deeds. The confusing underlying message here is that slavery, gold expedition, religious persecution, rape and pillage are acceptable and Columbus is a hero!

The father of spin, Edward Bernays, became well known in 1928 for his work Propaganda. He worked with his Uncle Sigmund Freud seeking ways to manipulate public opinion based on human emotions and the subconscious.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized,” Edward Bernays.

His work presently thrives in the 21st century. Turn on the television and listen to key words being drummed over and over. Our society is hooked into advanced technology that shares information quickly persuading us to trust, buy and conform. The effect of mass media on our youth for example can be explored by the overuse term of the word Epic, the definition pertains to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero. Epic currently means extremely awesome, but this word isn’t trendy to use nowadays.

It’s not favorable to be known as anyone who questions the propaganda machine of the main stream media, but it’s imperative that we do our best to remember the past from all sides and to question why we do things a certain way. That makes us a responsible, aware and awake citizen of planet Earth. Proven conspiracies exist regardless of personal opinion and yet a resistance to the word often presents itself in conversations. Many of us can barely fathom the reality of corruption and greed oozing out of Washington and the Banking Industry. The best line of defense in a world that uses trendy terms and agendas to benefit those with the most money and power is to simply edify the use of the word conspiracy. It’s okay to question and not be called a nut because it doesn’t conform to the main stream point of view. If you question reality and wonder about the hidden agendas of the people in power, then change the trend. Be proud and become an epic conspiracy truth-seeker.

Mayan Calendar End Date: Meter to Measure Conscious Evolution

Just Another Failed Prediction 

The mysterious end of the Mayan Calendar came and went. The Earth still spins. We haven’t blown ourselves up. Meteors or sun flares didn’t roast us. Aliens didn’t attack nor did a rogue planet rip the electromagnetic grid, scorching the atmosphere. Luckily the End-of-the-world fear mongers are dismayed as once again destructive prophecies unsuccessfully came to pass. Doomsday documentaries and Hollywood films such as 2012 only exasperated the anxiety of this end-date prediction. Even disbelievers wondered what could come to pass during this time.

The Mayan Prophecy appears to be just another failed prediction of the end that has come and gone. Although, there are many who believe that something fantastic has occurred. It has been said that it marks the end of a grand cosmic cycle and a new beginning of an age of awakening. The measurement to conclude such an event has unfolded is the fact that doomsday was averted. Sure the end came to those trapped in mudslides, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wars, etc. There is always an end to everything, but with that there is always a beginning after the end. Cycles and patterns repeat over again.

Perhaps a Shift Occurred in Human Consciousness

It appears the indigenous cultures may have known a major shift in consciousness was to arise at the end of this cosmic cycle. Where perceptions and awareness revolutionize the way we think, feel and create.

Black Elk (Oglala Tribe) 1863-1950, once shared his wisdom about the circle. “You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.”

Ian Xel Lungold stated that the Maya did not measure physical cycles, they measured consciousness cycles. It was used as a meter to keep track of the flow, rate and intent of creation. He continued to share that only one law exists in the Universe,“what you pay attention to you become conscious of.”

The Staircase of Conscious Evolution 

The current Gregorian calendar used as the center of our civilization dominates our present consciousness by measuring the physical objects moving through space. Just as the Gregorian calendar ends on December 31 and begins on January 1, so does the Mayan calculation roll over into the next baktun, 394.26 years of 13 baktuns to equal one world age cycle 5,125.36 years. Unless we become a modern Mayan Long Count scholar the calculations can be difficult to grasp the pattern.
Carl Calleman, Ph. D., understood that the Maya knew the world was much older than 5,125 years. That a series of creation cycles exist within the entire Great Cycle and 9 levels of consciousness and 13 periods are in each level. Each cycle then becomes 20 times shorter from the one upon which it was built. Creating a spiral or coil tightening the closer it comes to the 9^th step. Adding to the impression that time feels like it’s speeding up. This is why the Mayan’s built their pyramids with 9 steps. From the base to the top as the steps become smaller. Each step is then subdivided into 13 individual sections of the 9 Underworlds of Day and Night; the waking and sleeping or confusion and enlightenment. The 9 Underworlds are stages in the development of ascended consciousness that shape an ebb and flow of cycles moving consciousness forward to be squeezed tightly and expand outwardly into the next grand cosmic cycle.

“The Mayan calendar is thus a spiritual device that enables a greater understanding of the evolution of consciousness driving human history and the concrete steps we can take to align ourselves with this cosmic evolution toward Enlightenment.” Carl Calleman, Ph.D.

He continues to explain that the 9 steps are like a staircase moving us toward the top of this ‘wave movement’ of conscious evolution. What comes after all the steps have been completed at the end of the calendar is a greater expansion to live more freely. That at the end of the calendar date the future is left a mystery but the shift in consciousness allows more freedom to construct greater possibilities.

Thoughts and Feelings Create Reality

Gregg Braden investigates scientific evidence to explain that the 2012 date is a rare and powerful window to emerge with greater potential. It is our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs that will direct the destiny of another 26,000 stair step of conscious evolution. Greg Braden states:

“Through the connection that joins all things, scientists have shown that the ‘stuff’ that the universe is made of—waves and particles of energy—responds and conforms to the expectations, judgments and beliefs that we create about our world.”

Braden describes that our physical bodies are made of a liquid crystal and acts as a biological computer which programs every cell in the body. The consciousness is the encoding language as thought encodes emotion which influences DNA patterns that entrain light particles. Therefore, emotions shape the reality in which we exist since everything is made out of light at the sub-atomic level. Our thoughts and feelings create the reality that behaves in accordance to thoughts, attitudes and beliefs from the expectations of the observer.

Truth and Integrity Directs the Next Cosmic Cycle

The Maya said that when December 21, 2012 arrives then all things that are not done with integrity would collapse. Religions, governments, schools, institutions, personal life choices would all begin to crumble. Leaving the eye of the beholder to believe if the end is really at hand. The Maya stated that no more secrets could be concealed and what is unknown would be known. The word apocalypse means “the great revealing.” Not necessarily a catastrophe or day of reckoning.

It comes to light that we decide for ourselves how to create with purpose and integrity in order to exist in our personal truth for the next grand cosmic cycle. If the Maya were correct in their calculating conscious evolution than we have been birthed into a reality where the impossible now seems to be possible.

Believe Nothing, Imagine Instead.

Buddha once said, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

The wise person steps back and realizes they know nothing. I wouldn’t consider myself exactly wise, but someone who seeks to understand and value the path others seek for themselves, even though I do not agree.

Ultimately the challenge for anyone on this planet is to understand and perceive truth as it exist. Not how we want it to exist. My comfortable reality is challenged every day. Reality shifts all the time.

What was once believed to be true a year ago often morphs into something else. The leather jacket I had to have as a teenager to define the image of who I wanted to reflect no longer is as important now. My focus on meditation has shifted from hour long sit down trances to meditating by living in the moment, aware and awake. To absorb one moment at a time and appreciating the interactions I have with people, animals and nature seems more appealing to me now.

            It’s interesting how so many of us on this planet blurt out our beliefs and ideas on politics, religion, and how best to live. So very few of us do not have the answers. Yet, we preach that we do.

I’ve come to believe that we are an incredible species with great potential. Even as we live in a world that seems so chaotic and dark.

The only power we do have is to mold our own consciousness. To create something better in this world we have to own our minds. Most importantly, we must respect the paths others seek as long as they do no harm. This is a colorful multi-hued world we live within. Diversity defeats the robotic reality and imagination is the key to unlocking the mysteries within the human psyche. 

How we respond shapes everyday reality as we walk consciously in this world. Unfortunately, so many of us do not own our own thoughts and beliefs. We borrow them from our families, friends, or some quirky know-it-all in the media with a list of credentials. My first step in learning how to live fully is to realize I know nothing, but I sure like to imagine.

New "Con" vert

Norwescon 35 has come and gone. By the time Sunday arrived my feet were swollen, and I felt myself dragging a bit. Yet, I kept going until it was time to take down the booth and pack up the gear. What an incredible experience of learning about the “con life,” short for conference and nothing to do with illegal behavior of course. I spent most of my time working in the dealer’s room, doing what I do best — talk to people. The finest part of the weekend was chatting and getting to know people. Anyone who knows me well understands how much I enjoy a conversation.

            Meeting guest writers, their spouses, and artists from many different mediums to share their knowledge at panels was a delight. Even better was the opportunity to mingle at the DAW party in the Penthouse. Wow, what a treat! Especially to meet Bruce Taylor, Mr. Magical Realism, who writes the genre within Science Fiction and Fantasy of Magical Realism, a term I have identified my writing style. I’ve become inspired by his enthusiasm for the genre and had the most mind expanding and deep discussions with him. Bruce Taylor has taken science fiction to a new “heightened reality.” He explains it as writing through “a symbolic structure, giving us a new way of perceiving the world, as if through a child looking at the world for the first time.” Movies in this genre include “Like Water for Chocolate, the Postman, What Dreams May Come, the Truman Show, Pleasantville, American Beauty,” and I would add my favorite movies such as Avatar and my new screenplay, The Light Warrior. 

            At the party, I picked up a copy of the new anthology of the co-edited book by Bruce Taylor and Elton Elliott “Like Water for Quarks: The Intersection of Magic Realism and Science Fiction.” It features such authors as Ray Bradbury, Ursala K. Leguin, Brian Herbert, Jay Lake, William F. Nolan, Patrick Swenson and of course Bruce Taylor. The included bonus was the personalized autograph of Bruce Taylor and Patrick Swenson. I still need Jay Lake’s autograph. I forgot to ask him before I left the party. I hope to have a chance soon to get it for the book and memories of my time at Norwescon 35.

            I was fortunate enough to listen to a reading by my fellow NIWA member and comrade, Lizzy Shannon. Her story, “Time Travel at the Legananny Dolmen” brought tears to my eyes as she read it. I’m not sure if it was the combination of her Irish accent and the gripping artistry of her words, or the fact that it touched me deeply as I could identify to the subject so closely. Regardless, it was beautiful.

            It was hard to find time to attend a panel. I probably went to four total since my time was needed at the booth in the dealer’s room as we were a little short handed due to members not able to attend. We had a great time overall. Thank you Robert, James, Amanda, Annie, and anyone else I may have missed but not forgotten, for your support of Indie writers.

Each day after standing in heels, I went back to my room for a quick rest to regain blood flow in my toes, and then it was back in the shuttle to the Doubletree to celebrate and have fun with my NIWA comrades and explore the “con” nightlife!

I’m now preparing for my third con in July — Westercon. Hopefully, I’ve learned a sufficient amount and might not be such a “con virgin” as the expert devotee’s call it. Overall, the conference gave me an enthusiasm to continue my writing career for love of the art. I have so much more to learn and hope that this path leads to imparting more magical realist stories.