Juju lounge; peaceful revolution

The only good nation, is imagination

Vilarejo de Pipa. Tibau do Sul, Rio Grande do Norte - Brasil

Best thing I've read in ages ... "Get a rat and put it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or ...cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction. Bruce comes along in the ’70s and said, Well, hang on a minute. We’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do. Let’s try this a little bit differently. So Bruce built Rat Park, and Rat Park is like heaven for rats. Everything your rat about town could want, it’s got in Rat Park. It’s got lovely food. It’s got sex. It’s got loads of other rats to be friends with. It’s got loads of colored balls. Everything your rat could want. And they’ve got both the water bottles. They’ve got the drugged water and the normal water. But here’s the fascinating thing. In Rat Park, they don’t like the drugged water. They hardly use any of it. None of them ever overdose. None of them ever use in a way that looks like compulsion or addiction. There’s a really interesting human example I’ll tell you about in a minute, but what Bruce says shows that both the right-wing and left-wing theories of addiction are wrong. So the right-wing theory is it’s a moral failing, you’re a hedonist, you party too hard. The left-wing theory is it takes you over, your brain is hijacked. Bruce says it’s not your morality, it’s not your brain; it’s your cage. Addiction is largely an adaptation to your environment. We’ve created a society where significant numbers of our fellow citizens cannot bear to be present in their lives without being drugged, right? We’ve created a hyperconsumerist, hyperindividualist, isolated world that is, for a lot of people, much more like that first cage than it is like the bonded, connected cages that we need. The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. And our whole society, the engine of our society, is geared towards making us connect with things not people. If you are not a good consumer capitalist citizen, if you’re spending your time bonding with the people around you and not buying stuffin fact, we are trained from a very young age to focus our hopes and our dreams and our ambitions on things we can buy and consume. And drug addiction is really a subset of that." ~ Johann Hari For more ... https://www.ted.com//johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_ - ** About the work of Bruce K. Alexander

On this day, 25 June 1942, the French collaborationist press denounced the Zazous: young people who embraced African American swing and jazz music and style and... fought against fascists in the streets. More info in our podcast episode about the group, and other similar anti-fascist youth movements at the time: https://workingclasshistory.com//wch4-anti-nazi-youth-mov/ See more

On this day, 20 June 1967, boxing legend Muhammad Ali was convicted for refusing the draft for the Vietnam war in Houston, Texas. Ali had been a vocal opponent ...of the US war, saying Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs? To try to quell the escalating resistance to the war, Ali was given the maximum sentence of five years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine. But their efforts were unsuccessful, and the anti-war movement continued to grow. Despite the Nation of Islam beginning to distance themselves from Ali, demonstrations supporting him took place around the world, from Egypt to Guyana to London to Ghana. Four years later his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court. But Ali had no regrets: "I wasn’t trying to be a leader. I just wanted to be free. And I made a stand all people, not just Black people, should have thought about making, because it wasn’t just Black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war. Then, after the rich man’s son got out of college, he did other things to keep him out of the Army until he was too old to be drafted." Learn more about the Vietnam war in our podcast series. We have a new miniseries about the anti-war movement coming soon as well, including about draft resistance, so subscribe today to ensure you don't miss it: https://workingclasshistory.com/tag/vietnam-war/ See more

I ain’t draft dodging. I ain’t burning no flag. I ain’t running to Canada. I’m staying right here. You want to send me to jail? Fine, you go right ahead. I’ve ...been in jail for 400 years. I could be there for 4 or 5 more, but I ain’t going no 10,000 miles to help murder and kill other poor people. If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fightin’ you, if I want to die. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. Want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for my right here at home. - Muhammad Ali | #MuhammadAli See more

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A man was asked to paint a boat. He brought his paint and brushes and began to paint the boat a bright red, as the owner asked him. While painting, he noticed a... small hole in the hull, and quietly repaired it. When he finished painting, he received his money and left. The next day, the owner of the boat came to the painter and presented him with a nice check, much higher than the payment for painting. The painter was surprised and said You've already paid me for painting the boat Sir! But this is not for the paint job. It's for repairing the hole in the boat. Ah! But it was such a small service... certainly it's not worth paying me such a high amount for something so insignificant. My dear friend, you do not understand. Let me tell you what happened: When I asked you to paint the boat, I forgot to mention the hole. When the boat dried, my kids took the boat and went on a fishing trip. They did not know that there was a hole. I was not at home at that time. When I returned and noticed they had taken the boat, I was desperate because I remembered that the boat had a hole. Imagine my relief and joy when I saw them returning from fishing. Then, I examined the boat and found that you had repaired the hole! You see, now, what you did? You saved the life of my children! I do not have enough money to pay your 'small' good deed. So no matter who, when or how, continue to help, sustain, wipe tears, listen attentively, and carefully repair all the 'leaks' you find. You never know when one is in need of us, or when God holds a pleasant surprise for us to be helpful and important to someone. Along the way, you may have repaired numerous 'boat holes' for several people without realizing how many lives you've save. Make a difference....