David Sirota reports on the successful political strategy used by activist Mason Tvert to help decriminalize recreational marijuana use in Colorado. It demonstrates how a slight shift in the public discourse can lead to large and rapid changes in attitudes towards an issue, and hopefully this strategy will be used in other states and countries currently prohibiting recreational cannabis use. Excerpts from Pando Daily:
“Marijuana has been illegal because of the perception of harm surrounding it — that’s how they made it illegal, that’s how it is illegal currently,” Tvert tells me in the shop’s bustling lobby. “Our opponents’ goal has been to maintain a perception of harm. So our idea has been to get people to understand that marijuana is not as harmful as they’ve been led to believe, and not as harmful as a product like alcohol that is already legal.”
Despite increasingly absurd attempts by the government’s drug-war apparatus to obscure the obvious truth, decades of medical and social science research on everything from physiologicaltoxicity, to domestic violence to addiction has proven Tvert’s point that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol. But it was only a few years ago that Tvert’s colleague and future mentor at MPP, Steve Fox, happened upon a key political revelation in the reams of survey data about drug policy.
“He was looking at the polling and discovered that of those who think marijuana is safer than alcohol, 75 percent think it should be legal,” Tvert recounts as we wait behind a customer who is interrogating one of the shop’s staff members about THC and CBD content. “In other words, the number one indicator of whether or not you support marijuana being legal is whether you recognize it is safer than alcohol.”
From that revelation came the creation of the group headed by Tvert that was entirely focused on drawing the alcohol-marijuana comparison. Aptly named Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (aka SAFER), it was predicated on a two-step strategy.
“Rather than trying to increase the percentage of people who think marijuana should be legal, we simply tried to increase the percentage of people who understand marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, which would naturally produce an increase in the percentage of people who support legalization,” he says.
…In their view, this script-flipping tactic has worked better than any other strategy before it. Not only has it resulted in Colorado legalized weed, but national polls seem to support the larger theory. Indeed, as surveys show more Americans are now viewing marijuana as less harmful than alcohol, they are simultaneously showing a majority now support legalization across the country.
…But even beyond lessons about cannabis is an even larger lesson about how assumptions and frames of reference so often determine the difference between status quo and disruption.
In drug policy, the assumption had long been that prohibition is pro-safety and that legalization is a dangerous experiment. So instead of only amplifying old messages about legalization (it will raise tax revenue, it will end criminal justice iniquities, etc.) Tvert, SAFER and MPP creatively changed the fulcrum of the entire conversation. Rather than portray their fight as one for a brand new, wholly unknown and therefore frightening reality, they used alcohol – a product that most are already comfortable with – to recast their push as one designed to create a new version of current reality. And not just a new version, but a safer reality that doesn’t statutorily encourage people who want to use a mind-altering substance to only use one that is more harmful than cannabis.
…With the rise of social media and the slow-motion fall of a monopoly media that once had complete control over the public policy conversation, there is clearly more opportunity than ever to change the terms of the debate, even on issues that seem utterly intractable.
“Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future” (1985) was a television movie originally broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 and served as a pilot for a series co-produced with ABC in 1987. It’s widely considered the earliest science fiction TV movie and series of the cyberpunk subgenre. Part of the reason for its enduring cult status is the sharp social satire of its vision of the future which remains topical to this day.
The film takes place in a corporate dystopia controlled by an oligarchy of media conglomerates. Like in Orwell’s 1984, television is used as a tool for propaganda as well as mass surveillance. Similar to Winston Smith, the protagonist of 1984, reporter Edison Carter works within the system while questioning the ethics of his employer, but unlike Smith, Carter has enough clout and connections to challenge the system and whistleblow while retaining relative autonomy. He is helped by his producer Theora Jones, computer hacker Bryce Lynch, pirate broadcaster Blank Reg, and rogue artificial intelligence personality Max Headroom.
In Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future, Edison uncovers a conspiracy involving a new commercial technology called blip-verts: subliminal advertising that can cram greater amounts of data into minds of viewers but with devastating side-effects. During the struggle to bring the investigative report to the airwaves, Max Headroom is accidentally unleashed.
This cartoon by Gavin Aung Than of Zen Pencil is a creative visualization of an excerpt of a speech by Erica Goldson, who was the 2010 Valedictorian of Coxsackie-Athens High School. Though it was delivered at her graduation ceremony for fellow students it remains relevant to society and especially those who work for positive change. Below is a video of the speech followed by the complete transcript.
Here I Stand
There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years.” The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast – How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”
This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.
Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.
I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.
John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.
H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not
to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. (Gatto)
To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the notion of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?
This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.
And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.
We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.
The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.
For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.
For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.
For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.
So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.
I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!
Approximately every 11 years, the magnetic field of the sun switches its polarity. This usually occurs during the part of the sun’s cycle known as the Solar Maximum. During the last solar magnetic field reversal in 2003, there were 17 major solar flare eruptions within three weeks including the record setting X-28 flare. In the current cycle the sun has so far had unusually low levels of activity, the weakest in at least 100 years. Since scientists have only been studying solar activity since the 1700s, we don’t know for sure how unusual the current pattern is relative to longer time spans, what it means, or what to expect next.
This video from NASA explains some of the cosmic effects expected to occur:
Being without cable, I occasionally miss out on television’s rare quality offerings. Comedy Central’s Key and Peele seem to be one example, but I’ve been able to catch up through YouTube. These are a few of my favorite skits out of the many I’ve seen so far:
After the Crash 