Let’s Chopper Out’a This Baby!!

As our life becomes a meditation it becomes more and more an experience of Simple Reality. Then, we are also able to see what is really happening rather than being blinded by the illusion of what seems to be happening in P-B. We are no longer persuaded by the inertia of the old story just because it is accepted by the vast majority of the people on the planet. We can see the need for change that most people cannot because they are mesmerized by their conditioned habits and their fear-driven stubborn resistance to change.

Suppose some typical people were trapped in a clearing surround by a roaring forest fire and faced imminent death by asphyxiation or fire; and furthermore, that they were only ten feet from a helicopter prepared to lift them to safety. But, and here’s the catch, they regarded the change in environment (flying in the air as opposed to standing on terra firma) as too radically different (something that they had never experienced) and the movement toward the helicopter as a choice too fraught with risk. They stood paralyzed by indecision as the fire and smoke raced toward them.

These people would be experiencing the same type of paralysis that is common among the people of the global village today who are and have been for some time surrounded by a raging inferno with the helicopter of Simple Reality standing by. I know my analogies are a bit of a stretch but I am getting desperate to connect with my fellow human beings and to start a dialogue that makes sense. My tolerance for the madness that surrounds me is wearing thin. Let’s “chopper out’a this baby!”

We humans are the animal that reasons, right? If we have the facts and the logic is persuasive, we will choose to do the rational thing—right? We can make changes if those changes make sense. Not so fast bucko! After reading the following, you will have a hard time defending the superiority of “the creature that reasons.”

I have used the example of the “war on drugs” in Chapter One in my book Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, to illustrate the irrational behavior of the false self. It is such a striking manifestation of how hard it is for humanity to change direction even though the evidence is overwhelming that we are heading for a cliff.

How much evidence is needed to persuade a rational person that Federal policy, for example, has failed? First, columnist Neal Pierce makes the indictment and sketches the context: Friday [July 2011] marked the 40^th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of an American “war on drugs”—a struggle opponents say has cost $1 trillion, countless ruined lives, an eruption of dangerous crime rings, gross racial injustice and precious little success in reducing drug use or addiction.  We would have to say that’s a pretty strong description of failure over a long period of time. No rush to judgment here.

Members and signatories of the Global Commission on Drug Policy reports that “the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies [and that] vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption [and finally that it’s time to] end the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.” 

The war on drugs strategy seemed logical enough to the woefully limited American intellect in P-B. The first of a three-pronged strategy was “eradication” but it “destroyed lives and families [of] poor farmers desperate for any source of income.”

“Interdiction” was the second prong of the strategy.  It resulted in “the arrest and incarceration, in the United States and globally, of literally millions of people at the lower ends of illegal drug markets—petty sellers, “drug mule” couriers,” without reducing drug availability or the power of criminal organizations.  Nor did it reduce the insatiable demand on the part of addicts in the U.S. in the thrall of one of their survival strategies that enabled them to cling to the illusion that they could escape their existential suffering.

And finally, “criminalization” makes it so dangerous to smuggle drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border, we’ve spurred creation of a rash of Mexican drug gangs now responsible for an appalling 40,000 murders. (July 2011)

Now we come to those people classed in that broad category we call in P-B “the other.” Racism rears its ugly head. Jesse Jackson writing in the Chicago Sun-Times noted: “The war on drugs turned, early on, into a new Jim Crow offensive against people of color.  Although whites abuse drugs at higher rates than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated at 10 times the rate of whites for drug offenses.  Millions have been deprived of the right to vote for being convicted of nonviolent crimes.” 

Art Way in his article in The Denver Post helps us understand the enormous negative consequences of failing to make rational responses to a problem that is really a symptom of a deeper human reaction. Since 1980, the Colorado state population grew by 59 percent while our prison population grew over 500 percent. Our Department of Corrections’ budget grew exponentially, nearly tenfold.  Being out of touch with reality can lead to drug use. Drug use is a reaction of human unconsciousness, a problem of self-destructive beliefs, attitudes and values. We need a change in narrative and until then the war on drugs can create human suffering for another 40 years and the problem will only get worse. Isn’t that obvious?

There is only one way to escape the raging inferno of P-B madness. For those who don’t want to be consumed by the flames of the false self or asphyxiated by the smoke of human self-destruction, look to the helicopter of Simple Reality. Follow me, let’s chopper out’a this mess my friend! I’ve got some stuff I wan’na talk to you about.

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References and notes are available for this article.
For a much more in-depth discussion on Simple Reality, read Simple Reality: The Key to Serenity and Survival, by Roy Charles Henry, published in 2011.