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Chomsky is Right

how the drug war shattered my rose-colored glasses

by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher

July 25, 2022



I used to be a good American citizen in the 20th century, one who dutifully ignored the campaign of terror that was being waged by Ronald Reagan in South America against Marxists. Don't bother me with the details, I thought, just keep the price of gas low while quietly taking care of those heretics to the south who do not believe in capitalism . The idea of even reading a book by Noam Chomsky never occurred to me. Surely, he was just an anti-American radical making a reputation for himself out of nay-saying.

But drug-war research is like a kind of gateway drug*. The more one learns about America's dislike for free thought overseas, especially when it questions the eternal march forward of worldwide capitalism , the more one can understand why the powers-that-be would favor a Drug War, for it immediately limits the thoughts and feelings that one's enemy is allowed to entertain thanks to its seamless and worldwide persecution of naturally invigorating medicine -- while meanwhile giving America carte blanche to interfere at will in the politics of its southern neighbors, invading if necessary to install dictators who share America's dim view of true freedom of thought.

When one reads about the bloody real politik of the Reagan administration in South America, subcontracting murder from the White House, (see, for instance, "Noam Chomsky: Ronald Reagan's Secret, Genocidal Wars"), it's easy to understand the staying power of the Drug War: it's a state tool of terror. If a plausible case cannot be made against a recalcitrant former friend of the States, no problem: just call him a "narco-terrorist" and the American people will give you a free pass to intervene militarily to accomplish your goals. But the Drug War is also a spiteful expression of victory on the part of capitalists over workers. Under Reagan, workers would have to go through the humiliation of urinating for their employers -- as a symbolic act whereby these peons acknowledge their lowly position in the new world order and give their humble obeisance to the powers that be, those 1% for whom stealth despots like Reagan were trying to pave the way for new riches in South America, whatever the locals might think of that plan.






The concept of a "gateway drug" is, of course, bogus. Why are gateway drugs bad, after all? Because they might lead to the use of "hard" drugs? But what are these hard drugs? They are the same kinds of psychoactive substances that have inspired entire religions. Coca was considered to be an Incan god and the Vedic-Hindu religion was inspired by the use of psychoactive Soma. Plato got his views of the afterliife from the psychedelic-fueled Eleusinian mysteries1. So why do folks like Biden want us to say no to drugs? Because, apparently, capitalism 2 is the new religion and the world can have no other gods before it.

Therefore drugs that can inspire new religions must be harshly outlawed in a "free" capitalist country -- and not just in the US, either, of course, but worldwide. For the US is in such deep denial about the evils of its own Drug War that it eagerly encourages the world to look at Mother Nature's medicinal bounty with its own Christian Science disdain. And so drug-war America is like a hypochondriac who's not content to pester his own family about his imaginary aches and pains but who wants to teach the entire world that it too should, by rights, feel just as sick as he does. It's a fool's errand, yet the proselytizing works. For if a country founded on natural law does not protect the rights of its citizens to Mother Nature's bounty, less principled countries will be more than happy to run armed interference between their own people and the godsends that grow at their feet. When the US said it was fighting a Drug War, Singapore quickly joined the #metoo movement, thanks to which you can now be executed in Singapore for merely using naturally occurring medicines of which western politicians disapprove.

You'd think Singapore would have at least selected its own set of approved medicines before cracking down -- but they just trusted to the clueless medicinal prejudices of us Yanks. They clicked on all the default options of the Drug War, and then added their own twist by killing the users of medicines that in the past had inspired entire religions.

Finally, something that tyrants and democracies can agree upon: the Drug War is a useful tool for cracking down on free thought.


Author's Follow-up: July 25, 2022





By reading "Who Rules the World?" by Noam Chomsky, one learns of a default core American political belief that is never openly acknowledged: namely, that anti-capitalistic thought and behavior must be punished, if necessary by proxy murders committed on America's behalf.

Is this really the only way America thinks it can survive, is to be a tyrant? I don't believe it. But if politicians think it is, they should admit this and get on with the dirty work of squashing dissent, rather than shamefully pretending to value freedom of speech3 when what they really want is obedience -- obedience to all the relevant capitalist norms and regulations by which the American 1% are constantly enriching themselves at the expense of the underpaid and eternally drug-tested poor.


The Links Police



That's it, pull over to the side of the Web page. No, put your driver's license back in your wallet. I just stopped you to remind you that Brian is not a Chomsky head. Brian's only now rummaging through the octogenarian pundit's musings and he (Brian) will let you know when he finds something that doesn't comport with reason. That said, let's remember why Brian "went there" in the first place, why he started reading Chomsky after a lifetime of assuming that the guy was beyond the pale. He did so because the Drug War has convinced him that the entire world can be profoundly wrong on major issues -- and if the mainstream American view is so deeply flawed when it comes to "drugs," Brian had to ask himself, "what other seemingly common sense views in America do not actually stand up to rigorous philosophical analysis?"

Oh, and your left rear tail light is out as well.
















Notes for essay entitled Chomsky is Right: how the drug war shattered my rose-colored glasses:

1: The Eleusinian Mysteries: A Gateway to the Afterlife in Greek Beliefs (up)
2: What the drug war tells us about American capitalism DWP (up)
3: Speak now or forever hold your peace about drug prohibition DWP (up)




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Ten Tweets

against the hateful war on US




Drugs like opium and cocaine should come with the following warning: "Outlawing of this product may result in inner-city gunfire, civil wars overseas, and rigged elections in which drug warriors win office by throwing minorities in jail."

Check out the 2021 article in Forbes in which a materialist doctor professes to doubt whether laughing gas could help the depressed. Materialists are committed to seeing the world from the POV of Spock from Star Trek.

We live in a make-believe world in the US. We created it by outlawing all potentially helpful psychological meds, after which the number-one cause of arrest soon became "drugs." We then made movies to enjoy our crackdown on TV... after a tough day of being drug tested at work.

Champions of indigenous medicines claim that their medicines are not "drugs." But they miss the bigger point: that there are NO drugs in the sense that drug warriors use that term. There are no drugs that have no positive uses whatsoever.

I knew all along that Measure 110 in Oregon was going to be blamed for the problems that the drug war causes. Drug warriors never take responsibility, despite all the blood that they have on their hands.

In the 19th century, poets got together to use opium "in a series of magnificent quarterly carouses" (as per author Richard Middleton). When we outlaw drugs, we outlaw free expression.

Getting off some drugs could actually be fun and instructive, by using a variety of other drugs to keep one's mind off the withdrawal process. But America believes that getting off a drug should be a big moral battle.

That's how antidepressants came about: the idea that sadness was a simple problem that science could solve. Instead of being caused by a myriad of interrelated issues, we decided it was all brain chemistry that could be treated with precision. Result? Mass chemical dependency.

I passed a sign that says "Trust Trump." What does that mean? Trust him to crack down on his opposition using the U.S. Army? Or trust him not to do all the anti-American things that he's saying he's going to do.

Cocaine is not evil. Opium is not evil. Drug prohibition is evil.


Click here to see All Tweets against the hateful War on Us






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Book Cover

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Book Cover

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Unless otherwise indicated, no AI is used in the creation of site content. These essays represent the original ideas of their author and not the ideas that the author SHOULD have based on an algorithmic parsing of existing data. For more on this subject, consider the AI-related viewpoints to which the author subscribes as delineated in the New York Times opinion piece entitled "What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity" by Rebecca Winthrop of the Brookings Institution.

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