communist immigrants
In Desiree's upmarket gated community the unthinkable has happened. Her new neighbors are immigrants raised in China under Mao's regime and while they've obviously overcome their dear leader's preaching in relation to austerity they still have hangups about smoking and treat her residence as if it were an opium den and its smoking occupants like white trash.
"They turn up their little noses in undisguised disgust when they see my husband or I smoking," says Desiree, "and while I don't want to single them out on racial grounds, I need to point out that our other neighbors don't smoke, and don't like it, but treat us with the utmost respect as we do them whatever habits or beliefs they have that we don't like."
"In the wider community, of course, there are rabid anti-smoking idiots," says Desiree, "but I just didn't expect this sort of blatant intolerance to hit close to home. We're hard hitting civil libertarians around here, not conforming communists."
"As I understand it, within three years of Mao coming to power in 1949 he successfully solved China's massive problem of opium addiction by shooting the dealers and any addicts who refused to quit their habit," says Desiree. "That former opium addicts then took up smoking tobacco -- turning China into the world’s largest tobacco producer and consumer -- was not exactly an accident because Mao had a thing about opium, not tobacco."
"I guess my neighbors remember those days and see all smokers as former opium addicts," sighs Desiree. "And if more and more Mao-raised Chinese immigrants are coming into our country to escape China's tobacco fuelled economy then the anti-smoking idiots in the wider community are going to welcome their intolerant attitudes with glee."
"You see, just like Mao had a thing about opium, not tobacco, our current leaders have a thing about tobacco, not alcohol, and it's no accident either that drinking has increased under their regimes," says Desiree. "I'm not just making the point about people being placed in a position where they simply replace one drug with another -- meaning that their problem with addiction is never addressed -- I also want to point out the dictatorial and arbitrary nature of enforced social changes like the anti-smoking campaign."
"Mao could very well have turned the Chinese into a coffee rather than a tea drinking nation," says Desiree. "That he actually liked drinking tea, and preferred it to coffee, was the sole criterion upon which the tea industry in China was spared annihilation."
"The opium industry had a checkered history in China, wars were fought over it and it had western links, particularly with the capitalistic British, and this is what Mao hated about it," says Desiree. "He wasn't interested in promoting the health benefits of giving up opium smoking, he just wanted to obliterate all traces of a western capitalistic trade upon which so many of his people were dependent."
"Also, by shooting the opium dealers and any addicts who refused to quit their habit Mao didn't have to resort to the sort of tactics that the current anti-smoking campaigners use," laughs Desiree. "No doubt there was a negative campaign against opium smokers being decadent capitalist scum worthy of social scorn and humiliation -- just as there now is about smokers -- but there was obviously no need in his regime for a proliferation of new industries and organizations catering for the needs of people wanting to quit their habit."
"With their lives on the line, and their supply cut, opium addicts gave up their stuff cold turkey without opium replacement patches and counselling -- and took up smoking tobacco," says Desiree, "and while I am most certainly not advocating that any government should repeat Mao's solution for any addiction, I am most definitely demonstrating that the current proliferation of new industries and organizations catering for the needs of people wanting to quit cigarette smoking are SCAMS and that most smokers who quit do so cold turkey by replacing one drug with another -- usually alcohol."
"As in Mao's time, the problem of addiction remains unaddressed," explains Desiree. "What makes us addicted -- if not to opiates, then to tobacco, alcohol, food, sex, gambling, fringe religions or whatever?"
"Personally, I believe that addiction is perfectly normal on the spectrum of normality," says Desiree. "It makes sense to me that people should maximize whatever makes them feel good. Chocolate makes me feel good, but eating too much gives me a headache and makes me vomit so I stick to whatever makes me feel good without bad consequences -- and that's smoking. If that makes me an addict, then that's okay with me, but I guess my Mao-raised neighbors would prefer that I stick to chocolate."
"I most certainly do not believe that addiction is a crime requiring punishment," says Desiree, "and I also find it difficult to believe that addiction is a disease-- brain wiring gone wrong or whatever --and needs a new industry and a new government department to be built around it."
"And I find it particularly disingenuous that alcohol addiction -- alcoholism -- is put on a pedestal above all other addictions and given a special, almost holy status," says Desiree. "Because alcohol is the drug of choice of most of our current politicians -- and some of them would have the liquor industry to thank for their positions -- it is understandable (not applaudable) that they would want to make it everyone's drug of choice -- on tap 24/7 -- but to separate the worst aspects of alcoholism from the worst aspects of other addictions and make out that alcohol is somehow more acceptable is crazy."
"All addictions, if taken to extremes, have nasty consequences," says Desiree. "Come to think of it, doing anything to extreme -- even drinking too much water -- can kill you."
"I don't believe Mao deliberately promoted tobacco smoking by banning opium in the same manner that our current masters are blatantly promoting alcohol over smoking -- but maybe he did," says Desiree. "Anyway, already in China the effects of the opium embargo are taking shape in the enormous growth of other drug addictions which, in good communist fashion, are receiving an appropriate draconian solution -- brain surgery to remove the pleasure centre."
"Okay, heroin addiction eradicated, too bad that your ability to derive pleasure from anything else has also been removed."
"In promoting addiction as a disease this is exactly the path that our government is leading us to, aided and abetted by Mao-raised immigrants" says Desiree. "Is this what we want?"
"Most addicts -- of whatever substance -- are 100% functional, leading mainstream lives, performing delicate operations in hospitals, debating points of law in courts and governments, and delivering the mail," says Desiree. "To put it bluntly, we are all addicts. Some of us are better at handling our addictions and their health consequences than others, some of us have easily concealed addictions and some of us have addictions -- like smoking -- that aren't easily concealed and, as such, annoy others."
"So, guess who gets to decide when an addiction is so horrible that its addicts deserve a hate campaign, a lobotomy or the firing squad?" asks Desiree. "The addicts of other substances, that's who!"
"I've always been amused by the righteous drunks and coke heads who sit in judgement of others on medical boards, legal courts and government benches," says Desiree. "It reminds me of Mao himself who, unbeknown to the millions who practised the austerity he preached in his little Red Book, was stimulating his pleasure centre to the max in every conceivable way, 24/7."
"Bearing in mind that my Mao-raised neighbors most certainly didn't earn their fabulous wealth toiling in the rice paddies -- and are likely to have a myriad of strange addictions," adds Desiree, "the next time they turn their little noses up at me or my husband for smoking, I might overcome my dislike of snooping and ask them some very prying questions about their past life in communist China."
Desiree's story first appeared as mao's addiction solution
"They turn up their little noses in undisguised disgust when they see my husband or I smoking," says Desiree, "and while I don't want to single them out on racial grounds, I need to point out that our other neighbors don't smoke, and don't like it, but treat us with the utmost respect as we do them whatever habits or beliefs they have that we don't like."
"In the wider community, of course, there are rabid anti-smoking idiots," says Desiree, "but I just didn't expect this sort of blatant intolerance to hit close to home. We're hard hitting civil libertarians around here, not conforming communists."
"As I understand it, within three years of Mao coming to power in 1949 he successfully solved China's massive problem of opium addiction by shooting the dealers and any addicts who refused to quit their habit," says Desiree. "That former opium addicts then took up smoking tobacco -- turning China into the world’s largest tobacco producer and consumer -- was not exactly an accident because Mao had a thing about opium, not tobacco."
"I guess my neighbors remember those days and see all smokers as former opium addicts," sighs Desiree. "And if more and more Mao-raised Chinese immigrants are coming into our country to escape China's tobacco fuelled economy then the anti-smoking idiots in the wider community are going to welcome their intolerant attitudes with glee."
"You see, just like Mao had a thing about opium, not tobacco, our current leaders have a thing about tobacco, not alcohol, and it's no accident either that drinking has increased under their regimes," says Desiree. "I'm not just making the point about people being placed in a position where they simply replace one drug with another -- meaning that their problem with addiction is never addressed -- I also want to point out the dictatorial and arbitrary nature of enforced social changes like the anti-smoking campaign."
"Mao could very well have turned the Chinese into a coffee rather than a tea drinking nation," says Desiree. "That he actually liked drinking tea, and preferred it to coffee, was the sole criterion upon which the tea industry in China was spared annihilation."
"The opium industry had a checkered history in China, wars were fought over it and it had western links, particularly with the capitalistic British, and this is what Mao hated about it," says Desiree. "He wasn't interested in promoting the health benefits of giving up opium smoking, he just wanted to obliterate all traces of a western capitalistic trade upon which so many of his people were dependent."
"Also, by shooting the opium dealers and any addicts who refused to quit their habit Mao didn't have to resort to the sort of tactics that the current anti-smoking campaigners use," laughs Desiree. "No doubt there was a negative campaign against opium smokers being decadent capitalist scum worthy of social scorn and humiliation -- just as there now is about smokers -- but there was obviously no need in his regime for a proliferation of new industries and organizations catering for the needs of people wanting to quit their habit."
"With their lives on the line, and their supply cut, opium addicts gave up their stuff cold turkey without opium replacement patches and counselling -- and took up smoking tobacco," says Desiree, "and while I am most certainly not advocating that any government should repeat Mao's solution for any addiction, I am most definitely demonstrating that the current proliferation of new industries and organizations catering for the needs of people wanting to quit cigarette smoking are SCAMS and that most smokers who quit do so cold turkey by replacing one drug with another -- usually alcohol."
"As in Mao's time, the problem of addiction remains unaddressed," explains Desiree. "What makes us addicted -- if not to opiates, then to tobacco, alcohol, food, sex, gambling, fringe religions or whatever?"
"Personally, I believe that addiction is perfectly normal on the spectrum of normality," says Desiree. "It makes sense to me that people should maximize whatever makes them feel good. Chocolate makes me feel good, but eating too much gives me a headache and makes me vomit so I stick to whatever makes me feel good without bad consequences -- and that's smoking. If that makes me an addict, then that's okay with me, but I guess my Mao-raised neighbors would prefer that I stick to chocolate."
"I most certainly do not believe that addiction is a crime requiring punishment," says Desiree, "and I also find it difficult to believe that addiction is a disease-- brain wiring gone wrong or whatever --and needs a new industry and a new government department to be built around it."
"And I find it particularly disingenuous that alcohol addiction -- alcoholism -- is put on a pedestal above all other addictions and given a special, almost holy status," says Desiree. "Because alcohol is the drug of choice of most of our current politicians -- and some of them would have the liquor industry to thank for their positions -- it is understandable (not applaudable) that they would want to make it everyone's drug of choice -- on tap 24/7 -- but to separate the worst aspects of alcoholism from the worst aspects of other addictions and make out that alcohol is somehow more acceptable is crazy."
"All addictions, if taken to extremes, have nasty consequences," says Desiree. "Come to think of it, doing anything to extreme -- even drinking too much water -- can kill you."
"I don't believe Mao deliberately promoted tobacco smoking by banning opium in the same manner that our current masters are blatantly promoting alcohol over smoking -- but maybe he did," says Desiree. "Anyway, already in China the effects of the opium embargo are taking shape in the enormous growth of other drug addictions which, in good communist fashion, are receiving an appropriate draconian solution -- brain surgery to remove the pleasure centre."
"Okay, heroin addiction eradicated, too bad that your ability to derive pleasure from anything else has also been removed."
"In promoting addiction as a disease this is exactly the path that our government is leading us to, aided and abetted by Mao-raised immigrants" says Desiree. "Is this what we want?"
"Most addicts -- of whatever substance -- are 100% functional, leading mainstream lives, performing delicate operations in hospitals, debating points of law in courts and governments, and delivering the mail," says Desiree. "To put it bluntly, we are all addicts. Some of us are better at handling our addictions and their health consequences than others, some of us have easily concealed addictions and some of us have addictions -- like smoking -- that aren't easily concealed and, as such, annoy others."
"So, guess who gets to decide when an addiction is so horrible that its addicts deserve a hate campaign, a lobotomy or the firing squad?" asks Desiree. "The addicts of other substances, that's who!"
"I've always been amused by the righteous drunks and coke heads who sit in judgement of others on medical boards, legal courts and government benches," says Desiree. "It reminds me of Mao himself who, unbeknown to the millions who practised the austerity he preached in his little Red Book, was stimulating his pleasure centre to the max in every conceivable way, 24/7."
"Bearing in mind that my Mao-raised neighbors most certainly didn't earn their fabulous wealth toiling in the rice paddies -- and are likely to have a myriad of strange addictions," adds Desiree, "the next time they turn their little noses up at me or my husband for smoking, I might overcome my dislike of snooping and ask them some very prying questions about their past life in communist China."
Desiree's story first appeared as mao's addiction solution
Labels: addiction, alcohol, china, civil libertarians, communism, drugs, immigration, mao, neighbors, opium, politics, race, red book, smoking, social change, tobacco
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