Do you deplore the violence in Mexico and on the border? Hopefully not a single drug user will dare to answer that question with a 'Yes'.
The raging violence and systemic corruption in Mexico, the murders of innocent citizens on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border, is the product of the American drug user. Each and every drug user, from the homeless junkie to the elites in Hollywood and corporate America, can hold their hands before their eyes and see the blood of the border war trickling down. The corruption and violence that exist in Mexico are the products of the American drug users' ravenous cravings to feel good. It turns out that the price of drug use is measured not in dollars, but in human lives and the suffering experienced by surviving family members of those who bear the title 'casualty' in the overall equation of making rich Americans 'feel good'. (And for the record, if you can afford to purchase drugs, a non-essential luxury item, that is the new definition of rich.)
The darkness and emptiness of America's soul craves filling. A gnawing sense of hunger and want, misguided and unchecked, has morphed into a sensuous craving for euphoria, for heaven on earth. Seeking a utopia where hardship, suffering and despair are shoved to the furthermost recess of our collective mind. For all our wealth (now being revealed as the illusion that it has always been), Americans are restless, dissatisfied, always on the prowl for 'more', be it possessions, food, luxuries, or just plain pleasure, we are relentless in our hunger. But because we are seeking to fuel a dying fire not with oxygen and timbers, but with water, the craving only grows.
Wealth and status do not impact drug use; emptiness does. The advantage of opulence, prestige and materialism is insufficient to prop up even the icons of the privileged world. The root of drug use and euphoria is selfishness: it is extreme preoccupation with self and the pleasuring of self. It is narcissistic and toxic, as evidenced by the unchecked hunger for drugs in this country in spite of the desperate consequences it has for those in an economically underdeveloped country. The impact of drug- affiliated corruption on poverty levels in Mexico is simply the compounded interest of the destructive investment made by drug using Americans bent on retreating from the real canvas of life into a make believe world of amusement and pleasure. And so they flee into a cave of neurons and synapses and there they suckle the nectar of self-indulgence, momentarily escaping the reality that stands ready to confront them when they dare leave the honey cave.
Americans are long on possessions, on fluff and bling and other perishable 'assets', but far too short on spiritual vision and substance. Bankrupt comes to mind. Principles, values and virtues are vanishing from the life accounts of Americans, and America the Nation can be no greater than Americans, the human beings of the nation. A nation comprised of soulless, selfish people cannot through some strange alchemy become a Nation of stalwart fortitude and a beacon of hope for the huddled masses across the globe. Afterall, what can the cowering lost offer to the one who has learned through hardship and trial that intangible principles and abiding faith are the foundation upon which a life, a meaningful life, is built.
