(no subject)
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/04/mandatory_drug_testing_to_analyze_students_hair_3_area_catholic_high_schools_to_start_practice_this_fall.html
Welcome to The End of Freedom. Oh, Freedom started dying a long time ago, even if you can reasonably argue that it was just a myth and has never really existed except for those who are either rich or outlaws. There have been brief moments in time and locales where it showed up for a little while, before the jack-booted thugs of Authority rushed in to stomp it out as quickly as possible. These days the thugs have two heads-Authority and Corporate Interests. Oil companies pushing for taxes on people who have the nerve to think that they’re entitled to get energy for free from the sun. Corporations buying up all the water on Earth that they can and poisoning the rest so that they can sell it back to us for $1.99 a bottle.
And now, drug testing. Which is not new, don’t get me wrong. I had to take a drug test in order to get my job. However, there’s a big difference between taking a drug test for a job that involves handling sensitive personal data that, for someone with a serious drug habit in need of more money than a paycheck provides would be a Temptation that would make the Tree of Knowledge look like a sapling, and drug testing every single student in a high school. That’s right, every one. Not just ones who show signs of substance abuse or who show changes in behavior, etc., but every kid. (And to the bleating morons who say that as private schools they’re within their rights to do so, you’re technically correct but a long fucking way from being right.)
School officials claim it’s a “wellness initiative” (which tips one off immediately that this is Corporate Nonsensespeak) meant to reach students “who are using or abusing illegal drugs and prescription medications with the appropriate assessment, counseling and treatment - and to keep other students from experimenting.”
They also claim it’s because of the “heroin epidemic in Northeast Ohio” (which, Richard Pryor reminds us, means that it’s affecting white people). I wonder indeed just how many hardcore heroin addicts they estimate are in the ranks of well-off, white Catholic high school students.
Another claim, that it will “give students a useful tool to wield against societal and peer pressure.” That it “gives a kid a legitimate chance to say no.” As if kids aren’t perfectly capable of telling their friends to fuck off without having to use a drug test as a shield.
In addition another school district is considering testing all students who drive to school. Because why not? It’s not as if that would be a complete overreach into the private lives of their students; in this, the Ill Year of Our Lord 2014, students don’t have any rights, on or off school grounds.
This is of course what our owners want us to think. “It’s all for the children, for the good of the children, children children children. Give up your rights and the rights of your progeny into perpetuity for the illusion of safety and the empty promise that if you do these things nothing bad will ever happen to you.”
If you’re one of those Americans who is perfectly okay with giving up civil rights and personal privacy in the name of “safety” this probably seems like no big deal, or you’re thinking “if you object to this you must have something to hide,” or “it’s worth it to protect the children.”
And if you believe it, you must truly be on some magnificent drugs yourself and if you are I want some of them.
It’s not about drugs. It’s about control. That’s it. That’s what our owners want-control over everything and everyone, and they know it’s wisest to get people started younger and younger to get them used to the increasing invasions of their rights, liberties, and bodies at the demand of the state (which, these days tends to be corporations as much as any government as the line between the two continues to blur with alarming rapidity).
A few of the things that make this obvious:
1. “This is about deterrence - it’s not about catching anybody.” The cognitive dissonance in this one phrase is staggering and George Elder should be ashamed to have uttered it. By the simple fact of testing you ARE “catching” people. And anyone who’s been at least moderately conscious for the last forty years knows that drug testing is USELESS as a deterrant, as useless as abstinance-only sex ed. The schools would be better off spending their money (side note: this hair testing is apparently very expensive, moreso than other kinds of drug tests) on educating kids with useful information about drugs and their effects and consequences. But that would be effective and wouldn’t let the schools catch kids so they can “help” them, and also wouldn’t justify the money going to the drug testing company, whose president is brothers with the principal of one the schools in question, CONFLICT OF INTEREST MUCH??? Not to mention that their claims that it’s not about punishment is as empty as some of their heads; testing positive creates a paper trail and could lead to the very consequences these morons claim they’re not interested in.
2. “We got less than 1 percent [positive tests] the first year and every year after.” So why this sudden move to test everyone if the number is tiny and remains tiny? They even pointed out that they’ve drug tested in the past at the request of concerned parents-so would that not make it completely unecessary to test everyone?
There are mixed reactions to all this, but the willingness for even some of the students and parents to go along with this rubbish is dismaying to say the least. One would hope for a better world where parents and students would absolutely refuse to submit, but this will never happen. Americans’ heads are too full of the crap that Authority has been shoving in there, trying to see just how far they can go, whittling away at liberty by increments until the next assault seems to make sense.
Welcome to The End of Freedom. Oh, Freedom started dying a long time ago, even if you can reasonably argue that it was just a myth and has never really existed except for those who are either rich or outlaws. There have been brief moments in time and locales where it showed up for a little while, before the jack-booted thugs of Authority rushed in to stomp it out as quickly as possible. These days the thugs have two heads-Authority and Corporate Interests. Oil companies pushing for taxes on people who have the nerve to think that they’re entitled to get energy for free from the sun. Corporations buying up all the water on Earth that they can and poisoning the rest so that they can sell it back to us for $1.99 a bottle.
And now, drug testing. Which is not new, don’t get me wrong. I had to take a drug test in order to get my job. However, there’s a big difference between taking a drug test for a job that involves handling sensitive personal data that, for someone with a serious drug habit in need of more money than a paycheck provides would be a Temptation that would make the Tree of Knowledge look like a sapling, and drug testing every single student in a high school. That’s right, every one. Not just ones who show signs of substance abuse or who show changes in behavior, etc., but every kid. (And to the bleating morons who say that as private schools they’re within their rights to do so, you’re technically correct but a long fucking way from being right.)
School officials claim it’s a “wellness initiative” (which tips one off immediately that this is Corporate Nonsensespeak) meant to reach students “who are using or abusing illegal drugs and prescription medications with the appropriate assessment, counseling and treatment - and to keep other students from experimenting.”
They also claim it’s because of the “heroin epidemic in Northeast Ohio” (which, Richard Pryor reminds us, means that it’s affecting white people). I wonder indeed just how many hardcore heroin addicts they estimate are in the ranks of well-off, white Catholic high school students.
Another claim, that it will “give students a useful tool to wield against societal and peer pressure.” That it “gives a kid a legitimate chance to say no.” As if kids aren’t perfectly capable of telling their friends to fuck off without having to use a drug test as a shield.
In addition another school district is considering testing all students who drive to school. Because why not? It’s not as if that would be a complete overreach into the private lives of their students; in this, the Ill Year of Our Lord 2014, students don’t have any rights, on or off school grounds.
This is of course what our owners want us to think. “It’s all for the children, for the good of the children, children children children. Give up your rights and the rights of your progeny into perpetuity for the illusion of safety and the empty promise that if you do these things nothing bad will ever happen to you.”
If you’re one of those Americans who is perfectly okay with giving up civil rights and personal privacy in the name of “safety” this probably seems like no big deal, or you’re thinking “if you object to this you must have something to hide,” or “it’s worth it to protect the children.”
And if you believe it, you must truly be on some magnificent drugs yourself and if you are I want some of them.
It’s not about drugs. It’s about control. That’s it. That’s what our owners want-control over everything and everyone, and they know it’s wisest to get people started younger and younger to get them used to the increasing invasions of their rights, liberties, and bodies at the demand of the state (which, these days tends to be corporations as much as any government as the line between the two continues to blur with alarming rapidity).
A few of the things that make this obvious:
1. “This is about deterrence - it’s not about catching anybody.” The cognitive dissonance in this one phrase is staggering and George Elder should be ashamed to have uttered it. By the simple fact of testing you ARE “catching” people. And anyone who’s been at least moderately conscious for the last forty years knows that drug testing is USELESS as a deterrant, as useless as abstinance-only sex ed. The schools would be better off spending their money (side note: this hair testing is apparently very expensive, moreso than other kinds of drug tests) on educating kids with useful information about drugs and their effects and consequences. But that would be effective and wouldn’t let the schools catch kids so they can “help” them, and also wouldn’t justify the money going to the drug testing company, whose president is brothers with the principal of one the schools in question, CONFLICT OF INTEREST MUCH??? Not to mention that their claims that it’s not about punishment is as empty as some of their heads; testing positive creates a paper trail and could lead to the very consequences these morons claim they’re not interested in.
2. “We got less than 1 percent [positive tests] the first year and every year after.” So why this sudden move to test everyone if the number is tiny and remains tiny? They even pointed out that they’ve drug tested in the past at the request of concerned parents-so would that not make it completely unecessary to test everyone?
There are mixed reactions to all this, but the willingness for even some of the students and parents to go along with this rubbish is dismaying to say the least. One would hope for a better world where parents and students would absolutely refuse to submit, but this will never happen. Americans’ heads are too full of the crap that Authority has been shoving in there, trying to see just how far they can go, whittling away at liberty by increments until the next assault seems to make sense.