I watched Moonfall last night. Or rather I watched most of it. I cut the film off in disgust when the know-it-all clone of astronaut Brian Harper's six-year-old kid Sonny started a pedantic and self-congratulatory discourse about how his own society had transcended war. Yeah, it seems that the alien's 'peeps' were living together in perfect harmony, thank you very much, unlike certain other societies that the little ET could mention. (Hint: the hate-filled creatures in question live on a planet that starts with the letter E!)
'Not bloody likely,' I said to myself, as I indignantly closed the PC window upon which I was watching the film on Vudu. If the humanoids of which the tweenager speaks are anything like we Homo sapiens from planet Earth, they would destroy themselves 20 times over rather than condescend to use psychoactive medicine to bring about world harmony, and let's face it, that's the only way such a utopia is ever going to come about for any species even remotely resembling spite-filled and self-interested Homo sapiens and their penchant for blind nationalism and the eternal demonization of 'the other.'
Now, if the self-satisfied clone had told me how his alien world had abolished the Drug War and learned how to use substances wisely to promote world peace, then I would have gladly watched the film to the end. I could easily believe that a society could transcend violence in that way. We have proof that it works. Look at the Ecstasy-fueled British rave scene of the 1990s, where there was multiethnic peace on the dance floor, an El Dorado of lovey-dovey diversity completely unprecedented in human history -- until Drug Warriors in Parliament cracked down on MDMA 1 , that is, based on one single raver death, which was itself the fault of the Drug War for suppressing the research and education that would have resulted in safe-use guidelines for the drug. Turns out ravers have to remain hydrated while using the substance! Who knew? (Answer: no one, thanks to the Drug Warriors, who ask us to fear and demonize psychoactive medicines rather than to understand them.)
So Earth to the alien know-it-all: Don't tell me that a species resembling drug-hating humans has transcended war -- unless maybe you've got the population so doped up on highly addictive Big Pharma 23 meds that no one has the gumption to fight anymore.
Oh sure, humanoids will tell you that they want peace, but if they're anything like us purebred human beings, peace comes in a distance second to their real priority, a priority before which every other goal must give way (including everything from curing Alzheimer's 4 to saving humanity from extinction): namely, the goal of demonizing godsend psychoactive medicines in a racist and unscientific war on the politically created boogieman called 'drugs.'
May 28, 2022
'Moonfall' was not one of those Drug War movies 567 in which Drug Warriors give medicine users the Nazi treatment. Nevertheless, like so many movies today (and books, and TV shows 8 ) its plot reads problematically when considered in the light of America's unscientific war on mind medicine. In this case, it begs the question, how did a human-like species learn to live with itself without the aid of empathogenic psychoactive medicine, given the fact that we 'purebred' human beings are busy shooting up schoolyards and preparing for armageddon 9 thanks to our criminalization of the same? The only plausible answer is that the humanoids 'did drugs' (as the demonizing Drug Warrior would put it). But if that's the case, then that self-righteous six-year-old clone should have said so, rather than observing the usual politically correct silence on the topic of mood medicine.
Incidentally, look at that favorite Drug Warrior phrase: 'did drugs.' Anyone who uses that trope without irony has been brainwashed by drug-war propaganda. For 'did drugs' is to 'used mind medicine' as 'did the nasty' is to 'made love.' The purpose of the phrase is to disparage the activity that it describes. It is a political way to talk, as well. When John F. Kennedy and his wife used doctor-prescribed methamphetamine, we feel like they used mind medicine. When a bum on the street uses the same stuff, we say they 'did drugs.'
Author's Follow-up: August 28, 2022
It's worth reminding the reader here that there are no such things as 'drugs,' as that word is defined by the Drug Warrior. To them, the word 'drugs' means, 'substances that have no valid use: not here, not there, not anywhere; not now, not ever.'
In fact, there are no such substances on planet earth. No substance is bad in and of itself. Even the highly toxic Botox can be used safely if we put our minds to it.
But so-called scientific America starts with the premise that certain substances are evil incarnate and makes it illegal to actually study them, thereby blocking possible cures for Alzheimer's and autism, not to mention society's one and only realistic hope for world peace: namely, the widespread use of entheogenic substances that literally teach the user how to feel compassion for their fellow human beings.
Author's Follow-up: December 3, 2023
Nor is it just entheogenic drugs that can help save the planet. Viewed psychologically, it is a mere commonplace to say, and say correctly, that drugs can give folks the ability to 'stay the course' and to thereby achieve self-actualization in life, notwithstanding their innate or nature-learned proclivity toward procrastination and unproductive loafing. Those who achieve self-actualization in life typically have no desire (or time for that matter) to shoot up grade schools or plot hideous revenge on a lover. In fact, that's basically the definition of self-actualization: that one has time only for making their life work, not for lashing out at others because they feel like a failure. This is psychological common sense, or at least it would be, if the field of modern psychology was not under the sway of Drug War ideology, which insists that no happy ending can ever be ascribed to the use of the modern scapegoat called 'drugs.'
Of course, the Drug Warrior will make sure that we see lots of movies (and news reports) about such drug use going awry -- but then they are literally spending billions of dollars a year to make sure that such attempts end in as abject a failure as possible.
Trump is the prototypical drug warrior. He knows that he can destroy American freedoms by fearmongering. He has seen it work with the Drug War, which got rid of the 4th Amendment, religious freedom and is now going after free speech.
I might as well say that no one can ever be taught to ride a horse safely. I would argue as follows: "Look at Christopher Reeves. He was a responsible and knowledgeable equestrian. But he couldn't handle horses. The fact is, NO ONE can handle horses!"
If Fentanyl kills, then alcohol massacres. The problem is drug prohibition, not drugs.
UNESCO celebrates the healing practices of the Kallawaya people of South America. What hypocrisy! UNESCO supports a drug war that makes some of those practices illegal!
Mayo Clinic is peddling junk. They are still promoting Venlafaxine, a drug that is harder to kick than heroin. The drug is only a problem, though, because of prohibition. It would be easy to get off of with the help of other drugs!!! WAKE UP, MAYO!
The U.S. government created violence out of whole cloth in America's inner cities with drug prohibition -- and now it is using that violence as an excuse to kick the people that they themselves have knocked down.
Psychedelic retreats tell us how scientific they are. But science is the problem. Science today insists that we ignore all obvious benefits of drugs. It's even illegal to suggest that psilocybin has health benefits: that's "unproven" according to the Dr. Spocks of science.
When psychiatrists write about heroin, they characterize dependency as enslavement. When they write about antidepressants, they characterize dependency as a medical duty.
"Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death." -Jean Cocteau
We should hold the DEA criminally responsible for withholding spirit-lifting drugs from the depressed. Responsible for what, you ask? For suicides and lobotomies, for starters.
Trump is the prototypical drug warrior. He knows that he can destroy American freedoms by fearmongering. He has seen it work with the Drug War, which got rid of the 4th Amendment, religious freedom and is now going after free speech.
