Pubdate: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 Source: Record, The (CA) Copyright: 2000 The Record Contact: P.O. Box 900, Stockton, CA 95201 Fax: (209) 547-8186 Website: http://www.recordnet.com/ Author: Louie R. Lee WE'RE THE GREATER FOOL The stock market tells us something about people. The much-heralded volatility on Wall Street reminds us of another paradigm: the greater fool theory. There is always a greater fool to make a very bad investment. The greatest fool is the one who hears only what he wants to hear. That is what we do when we expurgate history to accommodate our comfort zone. That is what San Joaquin County supervisors find palatable when they choose to expurgate the coolie caricature from the courthouse mural. It would be better to consign the mural and all related lithos to the Haggin Museum. I am reminded of the furor that Diego Rivera's work elicited at Rockefeller Center. Dario Marenco's notion as what is proper for public places smacks of the distaste that Maplethorpe's photos brought to Cincinnati. The greater obscenity comes from the number of drug-related cases that fill the halls of the courthouse. Part of the legacy of 19th century Chinese in California comes from our approach to the criminalization of drug use. The series "Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way"on the History Channel made a point that relates directly to our local desire to expunge and forget: the first law to specifically ban drug use was enacted to allay public fears that Chinese were using opium to take advantage of women. The Opium Wars forced Indian opium onto the Chinese populace as part of England's solution to its trade-imbalance problems with China, and culminated in the Boxer Rebellion. Our drug laws and the policies that followed have not shown greater insight or success. Our courthouse can attest to that. We should tackle a bigger mural in the halls and in our own backyards. That mural is our failed drug policies, which have destabilized our hemisphere and created a captive market enriched by enormous profit and misplaced resources. We should cease being the greater fool. Louie R. Lee, Stockton - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D