Drugs on the streets

I was once interviewed by someone that asked me what I thought of Kate Moss taking drugs; I rememeber a journalist on the radio explaining The Tsunami of money Western drug consumption brings to developing countries and the bloodshed that inevitably follows.

The BBC annoys me in many ways for its waste of money and the overpaid, underworked faces that peer out from the television seeming to exude self satisfaction, however, from our correspodent is a little gem of a program opening your eyes to the pain and change flooding the world. Recently they had a journalist in Ciudad Juárez one of the most violent cities in the world where the drug cartels rein supreme and the Mayor struggles to keep the grim reaper at bay by surrounding himself with body guards and sending his family far away.

We struggle to grasp complexity we were not created to deal with it, our minds are instinctively lazy wanting to see small details we can easily grasp, yet the complexity and suffering of the drug problem is mind boggling. We watch Opray Winfrey not simply because she is good but because she takes us to a place of security and certaintity that harks back to a less complicated world - a homeliness. The modern world is truly scary in its interconnected complexity and no man is capable of truly grasping how it functions.

We have the natural world that governs us, the climate the patterns of the stars, food, but layered on that are the myriad interconnections that exist around us. The large complex social, economic and political networks we have built.

A Tsunami of money hits the third world and bloodshed rains on the streets corrupting the local societies. Capitilism's dirty undercurrent something distasteful we have exported, that services our stars who we cheer at sporting and music events. We should be telling them to hang their heads in shame for the suffering they inflict by their purchasing habits. Yet what are we to do, we seek security in our backyard, food for our children, we may occasionally reach out financially to help those less fortunate but they are distant and remote our own immediacy cannot be felt by others.

Haiti pains me as i reach for my credit card, i have to give yet i am aware that just giving the money not paying attention to how it is spent, not monitoring, not commiting people to assist in the management can mean needless waste and just featherbed the aid agencies and high ranking officials. Yet if we do what is really required and manage we have to avoid taking over. The solutions are complex they are always are but they must have basic principles. We have to ensure the money is well spent, not corrupting, we look at the short term and the long term and we commit for a considerable length of time.

The solution is to manage until the locals can take over, put in audit committess to make sure the money is well spent and honestly look at long term solutions by using people with significant understanding of the local environment and to be brave when required. The drug problem, oh the drug problem.

The simple principle is we should not leave these cities to rot with the money Tsunami of our creating, we should have an advertising campaign highlighting the damage the stars inflict humiliating them, we should look at long term how to assist and we should be brave. We should help with building schools, training people but they only work long term with appropriate family planning. Extreme wealth how it can make people suffer and complexity how we struggle thinking about it. How can we teach ourselves to deal with complexity? I truly don't know i shout out in anger when i read the newspapers, but it is simply frustration because the very thing that is most important we so struggle with. Everywhere we like to look at one factor, we like to simplify.

We have to move from big picture to detail, we have to simplify and then complicate we have to think around the problem, so, so difficult and we are largely failing, that is at the root of our present issues. Our inability to deal and think about complexity in the appropriate fashion and our innate short-term selfishness - we are a naked ape.

I answered the interviewer with a,

"Kate you should hang your head in shame I don't care what you do to your body but i care about those people gunned down in a developing country and so should you. Being cool, looking good suddenly has no meaning when you are laid in a pool of blood, your parents lamenting the could have been!"