Chris
Floyd heeft een aangrijpend artikel geschreven op
CounterPunch, waarin hij over zijn levenslange vriendschap schrijft met een man die niet ontkwam aan verslaving, niet in de laatste plaats daar hij in zijn jeugd
regelmatig werd mishandeld door zijn aan alcohol (harddrug!)
verslaafde vader en waar zijn moeder een chronisch patiënt was die
in feite weinig voor hem kon betekenen.

Het
steekt Floyd vooral over hoe men in de reguliere media en politiek
over aan drugs verslaafde personen spreekt en waar men deze
mensen op een smerige manier neerzet als waren het onmensen…..*
Eén voorbeeld is al helemaal om totaal ziek van te worden: een
sheriff durfde te zeggen dat een verslaafde, die als ‘draaideur
crimineel’ (zonder meer een zieke Nederlandse aanduiding) zijn ziekte
wilde misbruiken om eerder vrij te komen en tevens behandeld te worden…… Volgens de sheriff
heeft de gevangene zijn kansen verspeeld……. De crimineel in kwestie zat in het vierde stadium
van darmkanker, waarbij ook zijn lever al was aangetast, ofwel deze mens
was terminaal ziek en had nog maar kort te leven en alsnog kon hij het vergeten eerder te worden vrijgelaten….. De sheriff in kwestie durfde te zeggen dat de gevangene zijn ziekte misbruikte om eerder vrij te komen, ofwel een terminaal zieke misbruikt zijn dodelijke kanker als ‘excuus’ volgens deze hufter >> kortom deze Sheriff is een totale inhumane psychopathische ploert……

Lees dit
(nogmaals) aangrijpende artikel en geef ook commentaar als men mensen
wegzet als een vals dier of als vuilnis, alleen omdat ze verslaafd zijn, vaak het
gevolg van een vreselijke jeugd en dat in een ijskoude inhumane
neoliberale prestatiemaatschappij, waar men geen tijd heeft voor psychische
problemen (en in de VS geldt dit nog sterker als men niet verzekerd is en geen geld heeft…)…. Bovendien ziet het gros van de mensen niet dat alcohol een dodelijke harddrug is, waaraan alleen in ons land gemiddeld 12 mensen per dag sterven, echter daar het om alcohol gaat trekt men de schouders op en gaat door met de bezigheid waarmee men bezig was……

Als we onze maatschappij niet hervormen en de ‘neoliberale god’ (duivel) blijven eren, zullen nog velen psychisch ziek worden en /of verslaafd raken en zich het leven benemen….. De hoogste tijd voor een ministerie van geluk, gebruik daarvoor maar het meer dan belachelijke hoge budget voor oorlogsvoering (wat uiteindelijk velen het leven kost, terreur creëert en mensen in groten getale op de vlucht doet slaan): 

February
19, 2020

Which
Side Are You On?

by
Chris
Floyd

Photograph
Source: Jobs For Felons Hub – CC
BY 2.0

My best friend from high school was
in and out of the prison system the last two decades of his life. He
was a drug addict. This was before the opioid epidemic; his poison
was crack cocaine. His father had been a raging, violent alcoholic
and his mother was a broken woman with chronic illnesses. My friend
spent most of his adult life trying to take care of her.

His addiction put him in dire need
of cash all the time, even as it made it impossible for him to hold a
steady job. It drove him to do stupid things. He once stole my car
and sold my son’s schoolbooks, which were in the back seat, to get
some cash. He would bang on my door late at night, asking for some
money to keep the dealers he owed from giving him a beat-down. He
finally ended up stealing items from his mother’s house and pawning
them. 

He went to jail for that, then for the next several years kept
going back to jail for various probation violations: often for
getting caught drinking in public somewhere.

He eventually did a 13-month
stretch in state prison, where he danced a fine line between the
violent, racially polarized gangs that the prison authorities allowed
to run amok. He refused to join the white racists but was regarded
warily by the black gangs. He got beatings from people on both sides
but was also able, sometimes, to act as a peacemaker between them.

When he got out of the pen, his
life continued largely as before. He tried to set himself up as an
independent contractor, doing house repairs, roofing, carpet laying,
yard work. His mother died. He had long lost custody of his only son.
He still struggled with crack, but dulled his psychic pain mostly
with alcohol. He died at some point in his fifties, found in his
cheap apartment two or three days after his death, corpse bloated in
the sweltering heat of a Tennessee summer.

That’s it. That was his life.
That’s all he had. He was a dope addict. He was a convicted
criminal. He was a repeat offender. He was a desperate liar and a
thief. He was a lost soul of no use to the society he lived in and
then he died. That’s it.

He was also — without
exaggeration or nostalgic sentimentality — the kindest, most
sweet-natured, open and gentle person you could ever meet. He loved
music with a passion so deep it touched the core of the earth. His
failings tormented him like hot coals. He couldn’t understand what
had happened to him, why he couldn’t escape addiction, why his mind
was so muddled, why it wouldn’t stop roaring long enough for him to
ever gather himself and be real, be whole, be normal.

He was beaten and threatened all
through his boyhood. Even in high school he was a nervous wreck. He
used to sneak down to our house in the middle of the night after a
row with his father and try to sleep in the hedgerow of our yard, or
else on our back porch. 

Fortunately, the dogs would always alert us,
and we’d find him and bring him in, make a bed for him on the
couch. He loved my family with a searing love that never abated for
the 50 years he knew us.

I think of my friend whenever I
hear some bullshit-bloated politician or commentator dismissing the
humanity and dignity of criminals and prisoners. I thought of my
friend today, when
I read a story about Jonathan Faircloth, a 33-year-old prisoner in
Alabama dying of colon and liver cancer that’s being left
untreated by the authorities. He too was back in prison for probation
violations — another drug addict who, while trying to make a normal
life for his wife and children, got slam-banged by his addiction
again.

I thought of my friend when I read
the reply of Etowah County Sheriff Jonathon Horton after the
Alabama media asked him about this human being left to die without
treatment:

“He’s using his
sickness as an excuse to get out of jail over and over again. In
layman’s terms, he just ran out of his chances. So the judge
revoked [his probation] and says he has to serve his days,” Horton
said.

He is using his sickness — his
Stage 4 colon cancer which has now spread to his liver and will kill
him by next year if not before — as an “excuse.” An excuse.
Stage 4 cancer as an excuse.

I read these words, and I think of
the countless sons of bitches across the country — the dimwitted
bulls in their stupid, prissy knit uniforms like this Etowah goober,
the tee-shirted assholes pounding out inhumane bullshit on Twitter,
the sleek politicians in designer suits, and the millions and
millions of people committing spiritual suicide by attending to the
brutal, barbaric blather of these walking, rotting husks.

I think of them, and I think of my
friend — a parole-violating drug-addicted repeat-offending criminal
of no use to the society he lived in — and I know — by God, I
know! — which side I’m on.

More articles by:Chris
Floyd

Chris Floyd is a columnist for
CounterPunch Magazine. His blog, Empire Burlesque, can be found at
www.chris-floyd.com. His
twitter feed is @empireburlesque. His Instagram is
www.instagram.com/cfloydtn/.

================================

* Waar het woord ‘junk’ in Nederlandse vertaling staat voor rommel, rotzooi of zelfs vuilnis…….