Forget just "Ban the Box", as leaders of faith, we must shout "Ban the Cup!"

Ban The Cup

Urine screenings, "are you a felon" questions of applications and in interviews, and other behaviors that are antithetical to Jesus message of compassion, human decency and hope.

Can we as leaders of faith remain silent?  No more!

Folks, I/we (the Anabaptist community) have stayed silent long enough.  Your pain is obvious, your sins horrific, and your patience with warmongers, greedy people and those who think they have the right to control others' choices is killing you, killing our communities, killing your own children and frankly, killing the planet.

ENOUGH.

Thanks to the failed and cruel and for-profit "war on drugs", a new and horrific problem has emerged.  Like a chemical warfare agent developed especially to harm our culture, economic welfare and future, these new substances make marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine look like something you should hand out at Halloween.

DESIGNER DRUGS

The brilliant author and philosopher and lifelong addict William S. Burroughs posited a future when people would develop intoxicating substances that would peel the skin from their bones.

He foresaw the truth, as crack cocaine and now synthetics cause mothers to literally put their baby into a car seat on a hot day, and get out, close the door and walk away - never to return.

That baby slowly heating up in that car is the face of American addiction, 2019.

THANKS

We Anabaptist think perhaps many of you preaching and teaching from pulpits are to blame. 

Let me tell you about JESUS

Why?  Because Paulinian (the gospels of Paul) morality, which stands in opposition to the words and life of Jesus Christ, is the only possible excuse for damning our own kids to hell (tough love/zero tolerance) while greedily encouraging donations from monsters who build bombs and bullets for a living.

FOR SHAME.

Well, as my own personal family and faith heritage is now enduring, mistakes do happen.

Cathedral Church and School, West Lafayette, Indiana

We are Roman Catholic - here is a picture of the Cathedral and school where my Grandfather was a janitor.

We Catholics, like you, are horrified by abuse revelations in recent years.

But as Catholic leader, Pope Francis has said, "In a few hundred years if we do rightly, this scandal shall fade."

I think it is much more likely history will forgive a few thousand pedophile priests and a cabal of gay perversion in the RC church than the potential judgement of history on the post WWII regime of war and terror that is modern America.

Do you think the human race will ever forgive us our coups and assassinations, our enforcement at the point of force the "right" of soulless, moralless corporations to bribe and break the backs of any nation so bold as to refuse to sell their precious resources and farm land for paper?

You as an America may actually think we are a good nation...  but you ignore confirmed fact, not opinion, fact.   

We are the bully in the bar, we are a nation that uses force to serve only wealthy interests here and abroad.

Add to that the war on people that is our so-called "War on Drugs."  We incarcerate right now, a greater percentage of our population than any regime, any dictatorship, any nation in the history of this planet.

Freedom to share?  That is laughable!

If you honestly believe being mean to human beings will cure a disease (addiction) that has been part of the human experience for the entire sweep of recorded history, then grab a baseball bat and come on over.

At least if you kill us, you will be honest for once - and it is truly horrific to die (as eleven friends of mine have in the last five years) under a bridge when the temperature is -10 in Northeast Indiana.

You are monsters - who scoop out your own eyes to ignore the truth and the evil you do, often to your own family.

Here's a nugget of real information:  There was cocaine in most Egyptian royal mummies.  Think about that.

A disease.

Now that you're sick I can really ruin your life!   Stop being sick!!

Addiction is a human condition, and once triggered, it instantly becomes a medical one.  

Addiction follows the same progression as most other potentially fatal chronic illnesses.

Addiction is a genetic predisposition no different than those who acquire black lung or dying from lung cancer if you consume tobacco.  It is common, it is statistically significant, and prohibition has never, throughout human history, resulted in anything but lawlessness, violence and the rapid growth of a condition that thrives in darkness and feeds on shame.

Zero-Tolerance Memorial Garden

Hatred and shame are a feast for the inner turmoil and the beast that is addiction.  I know - I have and still endure a 28 year struggle against crack cocaine.

My name is John Edward Charles Hubertz, and I am a scholar, an activist, an educator, a grandparent, a good citizen, a patriot...  and I started using crack cocaine in Mobile Alabama almost 30 years ago.  

I am an addict - an incurable condition based on current science.  Instead of believing it is a "choice", why don't you read some real science from Europe - they are making real progress.

It isn't "enabling", it is accepting the humanity of the afflicted.

Regarding myself, my wife died 4 years ago suddenly.  Problem.

Only constant support and vigilance regarding my cash resources since then keeps me sober.  There is no cure - but I am at this moment in remission, and that is the best I can ever hope for.




The "war on drugs" was generated by a nation and a culture and especially by monied interests to replace the gross injustice we no longer could perpetrate on people of color.

The timing is too fortuitous, the result (unrepentant hatred, human misery and prejudice to the point of death) is identical, and it gives the wealthy powers the tool they most love, an issue to distract from their wealth, their wars, their laws and income-generating prisons and to add a point to the spear, their endless cruelty in the name of "company policy" and "liability reduction" or "insurance regulations".

What a load of crap.

 

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WHY ARE WE ALONE?

I don't see you shouting from pulpits to reject them from table and home, and I sure as hell don't see you speaking out as Wal-Mart piss tests young men and women, fires them, and drives them into the arms of human predators selling poisons as alternatives to pot.

Several hundred millions of dollars were wasted by so-called "Christian Conservative" politicians trying to bribe or buy one scientifically accepted study that marijuana is harmful.

We should note that we are neither pro nor anti drugs, but see them as a fact of existence no different from Ginger Kids and people who have bad breath and icky teeth.  

So, here is a new perspective for your life, your ministry, your hiring and your pulpits:  "If the job is simple and can be done by someone who is impaired, find an ADDICT to do it."

Insurance regulations be damned.  These are human beings, and if we go in with our faith held as a banner and our heads held high, I defy anyone to sue us for the fact Tom gets high on pot at lunch or Sue takes a few painkillers to get through her day.  These corporate excuses are KILLING people - and here is the real issue right now:

Spice (K2) a new potent meth variant molecule called Molly B and especially, fentanyl (one grain of sand can kill 100 users) are horrific, deliberate molecular variants that create a hellish cycle of addiction, withdrawal, madness, violence and death.

Seven instances in the last six years of K2/Spice users going into a frenzy while using and attacking, disabling and eating the living flesh of the faces of their friend or some innocent stranger.

Eating the living flesh.  How's that for a reaction to "tough love" there Doctor Phil?

Molly B, while not yet fully understood, has withdrawal that may simply mean death or madness.  Reports include skin just peeling from your body (death) and hysterical psychosis with paranoia that would make death a sweet release.

There you go, that's your war on drugs.  Now people can piss in your cups with no problem, as long as they die of the effort to do so.

WELL, YOU GET WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU HARM PEOPLE FOR PROFIT OR OUT OF ARROGANT PRIDE. DISAGREE?

If you do not disagree, gather up your true faithful, the compassionate, the decent among us who have known America has been seriously off the rails since WWII. And DO SOMETHING. Something like this:

Fort Wayne Interfaith Initiative on Designer Drugs

Life is not a popularity contest, and neither is faith. Set an example in Jesus' name, or you and your communities will (and already are) pay a very dear price for our deliberate ignorance and neglect of the meaning and message that is Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

John Edward Hubertz at Fort Wayne, Indiana  

Carl Zehr Professor of Moral Economics and Theology, 

New Hope Peace Academy (worldwide)