tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-819711698688655785.post4416073134463164492..comments2023-10-30T00:44:05.942-07:00Comments on Governing through Crime: Vietnam and Bad HabitsJonathan Simonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15217567476776700363noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-819711698688655785.post-49471013185646270232012-01-03T10:26:10.040-08:002012-01-03T10:26:10.040-08:00A heroin addict craves a drug derived from poppies...A heroin addict craves a drug derived from poppies. A heroine addict craves reruns of Xena and Wonder Woman. [grin]<br /><br />I realize this is a trivial item and does not speak to the central point of the essay, but proper spelling does aid concentration on that central point.<br /><br />I would like to address your question as to why society so thoroughly ignored the findings about low relapse rates. In my experience, societies need their villains to be both irredeemably evil and utterly "other" in order to excuse the excessive measures brought to bear against them. <br /><br />Such excesses serve the interests of the oligarchs in two ways - they provide a steady stream of "bread and circuses" to distract the public from their real concerns and they provide a mechanism for accumulating more power & wealth through the expanding prison-inductrial complex. <br /><br />It is only now, when society is collapsing under the weight of the burdens these excesses place upon it, that more and more people are beginning to see that the evil others aren't so evil and aren't so other and that, perhaps, they were not the greatest threat all along.Zothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00815325068082443907noreply@blogger.com