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In an article entitled “Canada’s ‘Prince of Pot’ at war with US drug war“, the Associated Press portrays Marc Emery’s extradition case as being all but over. The other two defendants have already pled guilty, and Emery himself expects to be in a U.S. cell by August. The article even includes a statement from Emery concerning what would happen were he to die in U.S. custody. Thankfully, the AP also gave Mr. Emery the final words on the subject:
Although this particular article does not give Emery credit for defeating the U.S. “War on Drugs”; its title implies the author is well aware that our nation’s decades-long war was officially terminated not long ago. As consensus begins to emerge that drug abuse is not as dangerous as unenforceable drug laws, top officials in our government have now declared that there is no longer any U.S.-sponsored “War on Drugs.” In fact, here is a direct quote from our newly appointed drug czar; which is also the title of the article: “I’ve Ended The War On Drugs.”
Although there have been no major policy changes yet; articles such as the ones above and below offer proof that change is now immanent. The solutions have not yet been clearly defined, but thanks to the efforts of people like Marc Emery–and charitable organizations like, for example, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition–we now have a much better understanding of the problems we truly face.
How Serious Is Obama About Ending Failed ‘War On Drugs’?
“..Regardless of whether one is a ‘drug warrior’ or a ‘drug legalizer,” writes Bob Barr in the May 25thAtlanta Journal Constitution, “it is difficult if not impossible to defend the 38-year old war on drugs as a success.” That’s because, “Illicit drugs are every bit as easy to score on America’s streets and in her schools now as they were more than three decades ago. Last year, just under 84% of the 12th graders considered that marijuana was ‘very easy’ or ‘fairly easy’ to obtain; virtually the same as in a 1975 survey…”
“..Gloria Killian, of Pasadena, founder and executive director of ACWIP, estimates “Eighty percent of (the 11,600) women in California’s prisons are in there for nonviolent drug offenses. Most low-level drug offenders are addicts and need treatment. It’s a medical problem. It’s a mental health problem…”
The article makes a number of good points, but for Marc Emery and cannabis users throughout the world; “it” is a far safer alternative to alcohol or tobacco. For cancer patients, “it” can be life-saving and/or life-giving medicine. And for followers of Judaism,Hinduism, Buddhism and practically every major faith; “it” has been the vehicle of divine inspiration and celebrated healing.
Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, John Lennon, Bruce Lee and countless other celebrated artists were known to enjoy the herb; as were the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and many other “founding fathers.” And, try as they have–with our tax dollars, of course–the National Institute on Drug Abuse(NIDA), DEA and many other acronyms receiving public funds have never even proven cannabis use to cause cancer. Or to impair driving, for that matter: At least one study found the cannabis-influenced drivers to actually be safer than the sober drivers, much like the study which showed that cannabis use in the workplace had a “protective effect.”
Yet our government’s official stance regarding the plant, cannabis sativa, is sill unchanged: marihuana–a Mexican slang term originally adopted to confuse those familiar with cannabis–is a Schedule I Narcotic, which implies that the drug be both chemically addictive and have absolutely no medical use. Of course all scientific studies and government statistics run counter to these claims, but apparently such inconsistencies matter not to those in charge. Or rather, they didn’t used to.
Beyond the promises made by our new Pres., the Supreme Court has done such things as allow the use of DMT for spiritual purposes and deny a case brought against medical marijuana in two California counties. At least three justices have also compared our current prohibition to alcohol prohibition (in the sense that it has produced more harm than good), indicating that they already understand the broader implications behind the above mentioned rulings. Some of which are laid out in the article quoted below, “Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke it.”
“..The decision has vast implications, considering that 12 other states have similar laws and efforts to completely legalize marijuana are increasing. This decision was a significant step because it acknowledges that marijuana has possible medicinal benefits, establishes state authority and indicates increasing popular acceptance of the drug…”
“..The decision backs the power of the state. Marijuana laws at the federal and state levels conflict, and this time the Supreme Court’s action favors the state of California. This gives California, and other states in a similar situation, the chance to allow medical marijuana use.
The more power the states have, the more likely the legalization of marijuana will become. With increased independence, California will be able to pass a legalization bill allowing the taxation of marijuana sales to people above a certain age. The country will watch as the first working model of a state with legal non-medical marijuana comes into focus. The speculation will finally end. People who have always said that legalizing marijuana will cause drug use to skyrocket will see that the state will not crumble and the world will not implode. In the meantime, crime and violence surrounding marijuana sales will be drastically reduced and the state will gain billions in tax revenue. A more regulated system will also reduce the dangers of getting marijuana laced with undesired substances…”
To the Victor Go the Spoils
According to a quote from Antonio Mara Costa, Director of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime, “We must have the courage to look at a dramatic, unintended consequence of drug control: The emergence of a criminal market of staggering proportions.” (emphasis is my own)
At the same time certain factions of our government are spending all of their (our) resources to bring down Marc Emery for selling seeds, Mexico has gotten far worse than previously imaginable. Not that we aren’t sending plenty of U.S. guns and money down there to combat the problem, which is exacerbated immensely by that very same flow of U.S. guns and money…
For these reasons and many others, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy has recommended the decriminalization of all drugs. Like the brave, heroic men and women of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; the Latin American Commission–which includes 17 prominent, respected leaders from both Central and South America–has declared the use of addictive drugs not to be a criminal issue, but rather a health concern.
Marc Emery has long been a champion of cannabis, but it is important to note that his battle has been against the infamous War on Drugs in its entirety. Unlike so many industrial hemp and medical marijuana activists who refuse (for whatever reason) to look at the bigger picture, Emery and a growing number of experts from various fields and backgrounds have come to the same simple conclusion: the War on Drugs has gotta go. And so it finally has, according to no less than the drug czar himself.
Should we not expect that the methods of this war be done away with now that the ‘battle’ is over?
This mean there will no longer be millions of non-violent drug users sitting in prison eating three squares a day while I (and way too many others) struggle just to pay our taxes and put food on the table. This means that the production of industrial hemp will no longer be against the law, but instead will be the poster child for a worldwide movement towards sustainable energy, construction and healthy food production. This also means that our men and women in Law Enforcement will be able to protect and serve the citizens far more effectively, instead of spending trillions with absolutely no long-term results.
Although it is easy to get carried away discussing the endless negative consequences of this (failed) war, it is far more important to focus on the benefits of learning from common sense. Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that this beast was the outcome of Eisenhower’s (and FDR’s?) dreaded “Military Industrial Complex.” But a number of the questions this type of thinking can often lead to are daunting to say the least.
For starters, if so many of us (myself included) can actually be convinced that a plant is somehow “evil”, then what else have we fallen for? Where else has this government of ours gone terribly astray? Of course there are far too many possibilities for this to be anything but a rhetorical question for the purposes of this article, however our recent victory should yield a number of clues for identifying other problems and implementing effective solutions through cooperation and grassroots efforts. Once President Obama and Congress acknowledge the facts, this failed war becomes a resounding affirmation of both democracy and the American spirit which politicians love so dearly to remind us about in their speeches.
Addiction, however, is not such a straight-forward problem to address. A person can be effectively addicted to any number of bad habits which have nothing to do with ‘drugs’, such as: television, video games, sports, driving (which I also consider a sport) and of course caffeine–which is a drug that has serious effects, especially on kids. Yet it is nearly impossible to find anything marketed for children that is not loaded with either caffeine and/or sugar (perhaps the most addictive drug of all, other than the opposite sex, of course…)
As far as clinical addiction goes, it is worth mentioning a forthcoming book from a Harvard psychologist–which claims that “New research suggests it’s a choice.“ Not that I agree completely with the author’s stance, but it proves what anyone who’s ever been addicted to nicotine (or petroleum) knows all too well: some choices are much harder than others.
Global Civilization on the brink (The Dominant Animal, Paul R. Ehrich and Anne He. Ehrich)
–prioritizing environmental issues… what’s happening on Wall Street, “that’s trivial crap…”
The Dominant Animal by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich from Island Press on Vimeo.
Thanks to technologies which have developed extensively in the past few years–like blogs and YouTube; I have the privilege of passing along interesting and even useful links such as the one below.
Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) Designs
Along with good general information for anyone looking to take advantage of wind energy, there is also a link to the following video:
“It’s About Time“
Seven years ago, I graduated from a well-respected state school with a B.S. in engineering. My goal had originally been to design cars, but after reading Lee Iacocca’s autobiography and studying the methods of the “big three” versus their competitors…I decided that green energy would be a much better option.
The plan after graduation was to build myself a career in an emerging green, or ‘clean’ energy technology. So I took a job selling electronics and started to study things like wind, solar, biofuels. and what I now refer to as living structures. A living structure collects energy via solar and wind technologies which have been incorporated into the design, and either stores the energy on premises or feeds it into the grid for future use and/or profit…
The problem was, none of the various emerging technologies looked all that promising. Solar and wind had too many downsides; biofuels seemed to be using at least the same amount of energy that was created, and the forests destroyed to make this possible were not even taken into account.
Nuclear is hugely expensive, absurdly dangerous and produces tons of extremely toxic waste which we have no way to reasonably dispose of. And I’m sorry, but hiding it inside a mountain while praying that nothing happens is not a responsible solution. It is a slap in the face–or possibly an ugly death sentence–to our future generations.
My point is that things looked pretty bleak at first. However, as time progressed and my ability to access high-value information increased I began to notice that there are actually groundbreaking technologies creeping up from all corners of the globe.
The false perceptions due to the fading influence of old power structures (i.e., corporate media giants) will inevitably be overtaken by the social and information revolutions currently under way. So, as I’m sure lots of people have said: “it’s about time.”
Long before the days of blogging, news feeds and the like; my personal god was the daily newspaper. Growing up, my parents always had a newspaper on the table in the mornings. Reading that paper every day got me in the habit of wanting to keep up on the news. Although I did my best to avoid reading anything of literary value or required for school, I became obsessed with the ‘news.’
(It is also worth noting that I delivered said newspaper to 160 houses every morning, even during the long and cold Montana winters…And if you still think that what FOX and CNN broadcast is actually news, look up the word Infotainment.)
Nowadays I can scan headlines from all over the world in seconds, and search for any topic with ease. For example, thanks again to the internet and its related communication tools I recently found out that President Obama has asked Congress to send him legislation reigning in the credit card companies by month’s end.
If this had happened ten years ago (and I’m not saying it didn’t), there is almost no chance I would have heard one word about it. At least not while legislation is still pending. I also would not have the following quote, taken from the above article:
“Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. “But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties and hidden fees that have become all too common.”
What’s touted as a “credit cardholder’s Bill of Rights” is now being discussed in Washington and, according to another related article:
Sadly, the proposed legislation does little to combat the overall problems. A few of the unfair penalties and sudden rate hikes are addressed, as are a number of other blatant abuses; but there is still nothing to stop them from charging 30% or more interest on balances accrued under much lower rates, like 10, 5 or 0% APR. So, then what about the President’s complaint and request of Congress which I mentioned at the beginning?
Either we have somehow elected a lame-duck president, or Congress feels beholden to other interests–which do not appear to be in line with the welfare of the citizens who elected them.
Crazy Is as Crazy Does
The famed inventor, Nikola Tesla once said: “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” Part of the general thesis of this paper is that practically all of us frequently exhibit insane behavior. Often we have no idea it is happening because we have been brought up to view this as acceptable behavior; but it is happening nonetheless.
According to the history which I was taught in school, Mr. Tesla’s biggest contribution to society was the Tesla coil and he was most likely insane when he died broke at the age of 86. But I was also lucky enough to have a physics teacher with a personal interest in Tesla’s inventions, which likely contributed to my interest in him many years later.
What my public schooling neglected to mention was that Dr. Tesla also invented the AC motor, radio and television transmission; even wireless power. He is rumored to have displayed the use of wireless power in the 1930s by powering a car–with an electric motor and no battery–at speeds up to 90 mph. The reporters reportedly (?) accused him of black magic and made a farce of the event.
Despite his great hopes for a world powered by wireless–and therefore extremely efficient–energy, he eventually gave up and shut down the demonstration. According to what has now become an underground legend, he died before completing his research or publishing any further papers. Thanks to the now infamous excuse of a ‘threat to national security,’ our government seized all of Tesla’s research and documents upon his death.
They eventually released what was claimed to be everything, however ‘they’ also like to pretend the ionospheric heater in Alaska (HAARP) is a benign research tool for scientists–instead of being part of the strangest and most secretive branch of our ever-expanding military industrial complex ever to be exposed widely in public circles.
And therein lies the crux of the problem: It has now become glaringly apparent to anyone who is paying attention that our government and major media outlets are lying about and/or ignoring the ugly facts which our tax dollars have helped to create.
Luckily, these major institutions of a failed 20th century pseudo-empire will soon be forced to capitulate to reason–and, perhaps more so, to technology.
“No More Lies“
With a newly elected president calling for greater transparency in government, there has never been a better time to hold our leaders accountable for the promises they make.
Transparency and our government have sadly not gotten along very well in the past. However, thanks largely to technologies pioneered by Nikola Tesla, we now have the ability to hold our elected officials and “news” outlets accountable for their actions. The internet has come to save us from ourselves, but only if we are willing to take a good look in the mirror.
In the past decade, marijuana use has roughly doubled according to some estimates. Despite our best efforts, we cannot stop the flow of drugs–we can arrest traffickers and kill growers, but the demand requires that someone always take their place. Yet, what if we no longer needed to traffic marijuana or other plant-based ‘drugs’? Better still, what if it was no longer such a profitable business because people could easily grow their own? Well, whether anyone approves or not, those days are finally here.
Thanks to technologies such as LEDs and aeroponics, anyone with a bit of capital can grow any plant they want, anywhere they want. And with almost no chance of getting caught (if for some reason the plant you choose to grow is currently illegal…)
The movie, “Rat Race” is a comedy about how far people will go and what they will do when a large amount of money is at stake. Many of the antics appear over the top–but when compared to the real stories which regularly make the news, they are conservative and lame. Bernie Madoff, Jack Abromoff, Enron, Fannie, Freddy, Lehman Brothers and a growing list of other examples prove how easily greed can undermine progress. Yet their crimes are still somehow pale in comparison to those of ‘terrorists’ and others who benefit from the current black market.
In our current society, there is little doubt (in my mind anyway) that money is seen as an all-powerful god. And we are the countless minions begging for its sweet, blissful mercy. We are taught to want what the elite have, even as we bemoan the system which they have built on our willing backs.
In many of our own minds, success is still judged on the false criteria implanted by these tragic fools. Individuals who are obsessed with accumulating money and power are mentally ill, which is ironically something that their high-priced psychiatrist may have already told many of them. This is not to say that all successful people are mentally ill, which is clearly not the case; but it’s usually pretty easy to spot the ones who are addicted to power.
For instance, does anyone really think that Dick Cheney is happy and lives a full, rewarding life? And yet, this bitter old man–who happens to be guilty of many war crimes and heavily invested in the prison industry–is widely seen as a pillar of success.
Our new President is also not immune to this lust for money. He recently declared that “The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal, although we have our own home-grown problems in terms of dealing with a cheap energy source that creates a bit carbon footprint.” Therefore, his only issues are the money it brings in and the best way to tax it; just like a typical politician.
Once again, where is the change we were promised? And how do we actually hold our leaders accountable for said promises? Perhaps most importantly, how long can we afford to wait–or is that even a reasonable question anymore?
With the ongoing economic meltdown threatening to turn into a full blown depression (whatever that means), many people are beginning to reconsider their long-term investments and future security. Gas prices are low today, but could easily be skyrocketing in the coming months–or as soon those setting the price feel we can endure the rising cost without breaking the entire system (yet again.)
Food is still readily available for most at a (somewhat) reasonable rate, but there is rising concern that a global famine is imminent. All, or at least most, of the systems around us which have been established to supply our everyday needs rely on unstable resources (including oil, degrading soil and extremely cheap, inhumane labor.) This all may sound frightening, but it is also the perfect opportunity for a truly positive and profound change. As John Lennon once said: “there are no problems, only solutions.”
It has also been stated that 3% of the population grows all the food for the other 97% of people living in the United States. On average, the food we consume travels 1700 miles “from farm to fork.” Most of our produce comes from California and Florida while corn and grains are harvested throughout the midwestern plains, but recently more and more of our produce, grains and even meats are coming from South America or Africa. It is easy to attribute much of this to the ( hideous) push for E85, but there are many other contributing factors such as the Acai berry from Brazil which is currently all the rage in health circles.
We are very effective consumers, just as we have been groomed to be; but our appetite is now destroying what’s left of the rain forests–which function as the planet’s lungs, our best pharmacy and much more. Not only are we cutting down the rain forests, we are mismanaging and destroying forests throughout the continental United States. Lumber has been crucial to most ‘western’ construction for hundreds of years, but never have we figured out a way to make it sustainable–or even terribly profitable for all but a few.
Unfortunately, the loss of forests to croplands and ever-increasing world population are not the extent of our problems being created by our current methods. Much of the deforested land starts off fertile, yet will be worthless after less than a decade of typical use. Our current methods of commercial farming are unsustainable (and therefore suicidal), but sadly they pale in comparison to so-called ‘meat production.’ Which, incidentally, is now being blamed for the spread of so-called swine flu.
WHO takes a page from Michael Crichton Novel
“The problem, he and other critics of CAFO pollutants stress, is not just normal pig waste, but waste combined with staggering volumes of antibiotics and toxic chemicals used by Smithfield Foods and similar industrial CAFO operations to maximize ‘efficiency.’
Tietz notes, ‘A lot of pig shit is one thing; a lot of highly toxic pig shit is another. The excrement of Smithfield hogs is hardly even pig shit: On a continuum of pollutants, it is probably closer to radioactive waste than to organic manure. The reason it is so toxic is Smithfield’s efficiency. The company produces 6 billion pounds of packaged pork each year. That’s a remarkable achievement, a prolificacy unimagined only two decades ago, and the only way to do it is to raise pigs in astonishing, unprecedented concentrations.’11
The degrees of concentration in the Smithfield Foods vertically integrated pig meat concentrations have little to do with traditional hog farming. In facilities now spread around the world, Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around.
As Tietz notes, ‘Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs — anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.’12″
But, as this article hopefully demonstrates, our culture is undergoing fundamental technological changes which are bound to have a much wider and more beneficial impact than expected. For a perfect example, consider the rumors of a new approach to drug education and abuse treatment.
Here is what the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy concluded last year after more than a year of discussions among 17 former and present Latin American leaders: “Toward a Paradigm Shift“
And if you want to see what happens when an FBI Director is forced to display his ignorance of reality, check out the following clip:
For more information and tools for activism, please visit www.SchoolsNotPrisons.com
Public outrage against the current drug war (specifically cannabis prohibition) continues to be felt by Kellogg Co. after the Michael Phelps scandal, and the press has taken notice. And many, it would seem, have finally sided with the far more progressive public sentiment. Try typing “Phelps marijuana” into Google’s news search engine if you are skeptical, or check out the following article:
Arrests in Michael Phelps marijuana case unconfirmed, but outrage at Kellogg Co. is plain
Phelps has once again shown that cannabis users can be healthy and successful, becoming a catalyst for a movement already well underway. Our economic crisis has already provided plenty of fuel for those advocating change (unfortunately unlike our new Pres.) The overwhelming support of Phelps and condemnation of Kellogg Co. has been like icing on the cake, but will it finally be enough to put an end to this atrocity? Or is our current government even capable of such a fundamental shift away from its bedrock of corruption? Let’s hope not.
On Feb. 4 of this year, a professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Cynthia McClintock, who is also a Foreign Policy in Focus contributor, had the following to say about the subject of drug control:
“U.S. drug-control policy has failed. Despite recent annual expenditure of about $20 billion on domestic law enforcement and supply reduction, U.S. drug use hasn’t declined significantly since the early 1990s and the price of cocaine has fallen. In part due to draconian drug laws, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Under the program Plan Colombia, more than $6 billion was spent with the stated goal of cutting coca cultivation in Colombia (the major producer) by 50% from 2000 to 2006, but in fact coca cultivation rose slightly. In the Andean region as a whole, coca cultivation in 2007 was at a 20-year high. Not only has U.S. policy failed to achieve its objectives, but the methods used to try to reduce supply — in particular, aerial fumigation — endangers and alienates nearby communities.
What should be done? Top Democratic Party analysts agree on several important recommendations, including this one: the United States should try to stop arms smuggling from this country to the region. About 2,000 guns cross the border every day and they constitute roughly 90% of the guns used by Mexico’s drug traffickers. In particular, the United States should ratify both the UN protocol against illegal firearms and the Inter-American convention against firearms. There is also consensus that chronic use should be considered a public health, not a criminal, problem, and that drug courts and drug treatment programs should be expanded. (The cost of incarceration for one year is about $34,000, versus $3,300 for one year of substance abuse treatment.)”
The full article can be found here.
With over 7,000 drug war-related deaths in Mexico since January 2007, it’s no surprise that our failed drug prohibition is the subject of foreign policy discussions. What may seem shocking to many is the following statement: “There is also a consensus that chronic use should be considered a public health, not a criminal problem…” These are the top Democratic Party analysts we’re talking about, and the amount of money which could be saved is staggering–meaning they have a whole lot of incentive to implement change.
Since 2002, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc) has been advocating precisely the message that drugs should be a health concern, not a crime. Thankfully, that message has finally gotten to those who have the power to do something about it–and through a source that they cannot simply ignore. Sadly, Mexico’s Drug War has already become such a vast topic that the Los Angeles Times has devoted an entire web page to its coverage: ‘Mexico Under Seige’.
Currently on the site there is speculation that Mexico has become a ‘failed state’, an article about a man who claims to have dissolved over 300 people and, along with a database full of bad news, a headline named “Phoenix, kidnap-for-ransom capital.” However, the only logical and rational solution to this growing crisis–ending prohibition in the U.S. and abroad–is a topic seldom broached by the L.A. Times or most other major publications. Even as three former Latin American leaders have formed a commission which asking Obama to end the hideous war, most media outlets continue to ignore reality.
There are a substantial number of widely distributed and reputable newspapers which have published editorials declaring that the War on Drugs has failed. Demanding accountability from our elected officials has, sadly, been a very different story. Despite countless studies which have proven cannabis safer than either alcohol or tobacco, there is a deeply ingrained (and heavily reinforced) stigma which makes an open, honest debate nearly impossible. Or maybe it’s just that people are naturally afraid of change, even when they’ve proven to themselves that it’s beneficial.
Could it be that our Senators, Representatives and newly-elected President are simply afraid to take their medicine–or rather, smoke it?! Obama is certainly not the only elected official ever to partake, but why are they so afraid to send the message to their children that it’s better to learn from your mistakes than to ignore or exacerbate them? Why in the world would you want to teach children that heroin is anything like cannabis? Are you deliberately trying to create a “gateway drug” out of one of the safest medicines known to man? (yes, cannabis; despite the official lies we all know so well.)
When so many of your friends and constituents are employed by this (failed) system, it might be tough to see things this way–and, therein lies the heart of our problem. Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of a Military-industrial complex in the sixties, as did the author Aldous Huxley and many others. Noam Chomsky now offers the proof that this insidious creature is an ever-growing reality, which has also spawned and helped to nurture our wonderful new Prison-industrial complex. Instead of investing in renewable energy or domestic manufacturing, we continually dump billions upon billions into a system well all know does not work.
If Obama and friends want to get us out of this mess then they should concentrate on fixing the problems we already have, instead of creating more by printing money for their biggest supporters. But if the media corporations are also tied to those supporters then how do “we, the people” demand accountability? And if we can’t trust the government or media to tell us what’s going on, then how do we figure it out?
What if drugs are not necessarily evil?
It’s been well over a decade since Terence McKenna published his theory that magic mushrooms played a part in the history (and future) of human evolution. He gave thousands of lectures, published a handful of books and captivated an audience which continues growing to this day. Thanks to the internet his ideas have spread like wildfire, but to this author’s knowledge (please correct me if I”m wrong) no one attached to the government has attempted to prove his theories incorrect. Like endless studies proving that cannabis and other naturally occurring entheogens are far safer and more useful than pharmaceutical concoctions, the questions and theories proposed by McKenna have simply been ignored. A study at Johns Hopkins University concluded in 2006 with extremely positive results and earned limited press attention, but discussion of what this means about our laws or our gods was not exactly encouraged by the L.A. Times and the Drug Czar.
There are now rumors that Obama will appoint the Seattle Police Chief as the next Drug Czar, leading to speculation that marijuana prohibition may actually end–but does this mean that our elected officials are now willing to listen to what scientific researchers have documented? Dr. Rick Strassman conducted research on dimethaltriptamine (DMT) in the nineties, performing the first government-approved clinical testing of a schedule I drug in decades. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, this field of research is now in full swing. Strassman has recently published his second book, in which he and his well-respected co-authors discuss Inner Paths to Outer Space: Journeys to Alien Worlds through Psychedelics and Other Spiritual Technologies.
Our new president said in his inaugural address that he wants to”restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” Given the huge potential that ayahuasca tea has in addiction therapy, would it not be in our collective best interest to help this research in any way possible? That is precisely the goal being championed by the Cottonwood Research Foundation (founded in part by Dr. Strassman). But when the good doctor explains to our elected officials that the DMT-containing tea grants one access to a new dimension, how will they react? Given our current education system, how could they express anything other than shock and disbelief? Yet, in many professional circles these mind-boggling facts are well established. Frankly, I’d be quite interested to hear what any government official (or anybody else, for that matter) has to say about the below excerpt from a website called the gaian mind:
“Now, why it is that when we dose ourselves with a human neurotransmitter like DMT, why we then encounter armies of elves teaching us a perfected form of communication, this is a very difficult question. When you go to traditional cultures, shamanistic cultures in the Amazon and put this question to them, they answer without hesitation when you ask about these small entities, they say “Oh, yes, those are the ancestors, those are the ancestor spirits with which we work all of our magic.” This is worldwide and traditionally the answer that you would get from shamans if you were to ask them how they do their magic – it’s through the intercession of the helping spirit who is a creature in another dimension. Well, we may have imagined many different scenarios, a future technological and social innovation, but I think very few of us have imagined the possibility that the real programme of shamanism would have to be taken seriously, and that shamans are actually people who have learned to penetrate into another dimension, a dimension where, for want of a better word, we would have to say the souls of the ancestors are somehow present. It isn’t, you see, as though we penetrate into the realm of the dead, it’s more as though we discover that this world is the realm of the dead and that there is a kind of higher-dimensional world with greater degrees of freedom, with a greater sense of spontaneity and a lesser dependency on the entropic world of matter, and that that other universe is attempting to impinge into our own, perhaps to rescue us from our historical dilemma, we don’t know – perhaps shamans have always had commerce with these magical invisible worlds and it’s only the sad fate of Western human beings to have lost touch and awareness with this domain to the point where it comes to us as a kind of a revelation. You see, I believe that the whole fall into history, the whole rise of male dominance and patriarchy really can be traced to a broken connection with the living world of the Gaian mind, and there’s nothing airy-fairy about this notion; the living world of the Gaian mind is what shamans access through psychoactive plants, and without psychoactive plants that access comes as an unconfirmable rumour.” –Terence McKenna
There is little doubt among scholars that humans have been using psychoactive plants for spiritual purposes for a very long time, but in western society we have convinced ourselves that this is uncivilized. Meth junkies, crack fiends and alcoholics are an accepted part of life while a tangible form of spirituality is deemed evil. If we are to have any chance of creating a sustainable society and regaining our self-respect, ackowledging that drug prohibition does not work is essential. The watershed effect this will have may even help catapult us to new heights previously undreamed of. The alternative, however, is a growing number of crises with the same underlying cause–and no American Hemp Industry to save us.
The U.N. is holding a drug summit in Vienna next month, and reportedly there is a Rift with EU as US sticks to Bush line on ‘war on drugs’. According to the article:
“Drugs policy experts expressed concern at the stalemate. “It is troubling that, despite clear global evidence of the effectiveness of harm reduction in reducing HIV and its acceptance in every other UN body, that the US is still resisting its inclusion,” said Mike Trace, chair of the International Drug Policy Consortium and former UK deputy drugs tsar. “We are sure the incoming administration will take a different view but they will have to move fast or this will be the position for the next 10 years.”
Ten more years of our failed drug war is beyond comprehension, and not just for those living near the U.S.-Mexico border. Every facet of our society is affected by the racially-motivated and morally corrupt drug laws of the twentieth century. The sooner that Congress and the Obama Administration embrace this, the beffer off we will all be. Please do your own research and come to your own conclusions on this subject, and if you want change then take the time to Write Your Representative or call your local news provider.
The following is from Dr. Lester Grinspoon’s website, Marijuana Uses. Dr. Grinspoon has been employed at Harvard Medical School for over twenty years, in the Department of Psychiatry; he has also been studying cannabis since 1967, and has published two books on the subject. This particular quote comes from a letter written to Dr. Grinspoon.
“What is kundalini?
According to the teachings of Yoga, there exists a latent spiritual force in the body said to reside at the base of the spine coiled like a serpent three and a half times. The goal of Yoga is to awaken this sleeping serpent and make it rise up the spine to a center in the head. When awakened, it is said to produce genius, psychic powers, spiritual enlightenment , and even Cosmic consciousness. This dormant energy has been known to yogis in India for some five thousand years.
Knowledge of kundalini remained virtually outside the purview of Western science until Gopi Krishna, an ordinary Indian householder, published the story of his own kundalini awakening in his autobiography, Kundalini, the Evolutionary Energy in Man. Despite this book and several others written by Gopi Krishna on the subject of yoga and kundalini, the phenomenon has received little attention from Western scientists. I believe this is a great mistake. To ameliorate this ignorance, therefore, I would like to share with you my own experience of the spontaneous awakening of kundalini.
At the age of twenty-six, I took up yoga. I did not take it up for a spiritual practice because, at the time, I was unaware that it was a spiritual practice. I took it up because I had a kink in my back. I saw yoga as simply a system of stretching exercises that might help me get rid of it. It worked, and I was freed of the kink–but I found the exercises gave me such a feeling of well-being and relaxation that I continued doing them for their own sake.
At this time, after practicing yoga for about six months, I happened upon some excellent cannabis. It was my habit then to smoke a little cannabis and then to write poetry. The effect of cannabis was not to produce revelry in me but a reverie in which the doors of the imagination were opened and inspiration flowed freely.
One day, as I sat to write poetry after smoking this excellent cannabis, my attention was forcibly drawn to an exquisite sensation at the base of my spine. As my attention fixed upon it, it grew stronger yet, and my mind was drawn to it–irresistibly–like iron to a magnet. So intensely pleasurable did the sensation become that, involuntarily, it brought my sex organ to a powerful erection. The sensation grew yet more blissful to the point that I felt I would faint or proceed to have a spontaneous ejaculation. Just when I thought I had reached the point of imminent ejaculation, however, I felt as if a thin thread snapped at the base of my spine from where the sensation originated. Instead of having what I felt would be an inevitable orgasm–suddenly, with the snapping of the “thread” an energy erupted from the base of my spine and began racing around inside my body seemingly on some path already known to it.
Its immediate effect was to paralyze me. Unable to move, or even speak, I watched now in amazement as a luminous ball of light moved rapidly within me racing like a serpent from organ to organ. Adding to my amazement and consternation was the realization that my breathing had stopped, and I seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. All the while there was no diminution of the bliss I experienced, for instead of being localized at the base of my spine, it now suffused my whole body. While held captive now to the energy in a catatonic state from which my will was powerless to release me, I could now see extending out from my head several feet a halo of light similar to the aureoles shown in paintings of saints and religious figures. I say I saw it, but not with my physical eyes, for I could not move my head. I saw it with a faculty that was beyond my ordinary senses, and made self-evident by the luminous energy now circulating within me…”
http://www.marijuana-uses.com/essays/082.html
Here is another:
“I was twenty years old when I first smoked marijuana. I figured that I had already beaten the statistical odds, that I had jumped over the top of the bell curve, so there would be little harm if I took the plunge. The seed for my long-standing interest in drugs and non-ordinary states was planted early in my life, when I became a fan of Pink Floyd. I read volumes and volumes of literature about this band, particular information related to their enigmatic and tragic founder, Syd Barrett. He was, in the parlance of the day, an “acid casualty.” Reading about Pink Floyd I was exposed to a great deal of writing concerning LSD and other psychedelic substances. As a youngster I was especially intrigued that one could ingest a minuscule amount of some simple chemical and have perception and cognition change so dramatically. Years went by and my interests became deeper and broader. When I encountered the writings of Terence McKenna, I simply knew this was the “path” (well, at least part of it) for me. Although to be frank, the thought of “altering my consciousness” was pretty frightening, there was still something drawing me towards psychedelics.
A very understanding friend of mine promised to help me out, but only with a slight qualification. He would procure some LSD for me, but only if I smoked marijuana first. He was NOT trying to push the drug on me. As he explained it, psychedelic states were almost unimaginable for those lacking the experience, but doubly so if one had never before chemically altered their consciousness via any means. The more I thought about it, the more sense his conditions made. I must qualify this by stating that throughout my youth, ingesting marijuana was not something I ever desired to do. Once, when I was in Tangier, Morocco, a young boy walked up to me and said “hashish?” I shot the boy a dirty look and he quickly scuttled away. For much of my life I probably equated it with snorting coke or shooting heroin. It seemed tacky, dangerous, and I just wasn’t interested. After openly discussing marijuana with my friend, as well as others who actively smoked it, and after reading some non-political literature on the matter (such as that of Dr. Grinspoon) I realized my perception of marijuana was slightly askew, that this was not just another “demon drug,” but a relatively safe plant, if used properly. So, one night I drove over to my friend’s house with a pillow and a change of clothes, and we smoked marijuana.
Nothing happened that night. I was told to expect this, so I grudgingly accepted my friend’s offer to try it again. Well, there was no mistaking it this time around. Needless to say, my second experience with marijuana got me high for the first time in my life, and I experienced it as a beautiful sensation, touching on the magical. I felt as though I was melting into not only whatever object I happened to be touching, but the environment as well. We were listening to the Harmonic Chant of David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir, and as I melted into the seemingly eternal flights of melody, I felt as though I had transcended time. It was amazing. The next morning I felt great, and we spent the day walking around the Mall in Washington, DC (sober), visiting many of the museums of the Smithsonian.
For the next year or so, I used marijuana approximately once a month, perhaps less. I still abstained from alcohol and tobacco, and I had yet to take the plunge with psychedelics. “Turning on” with marijuana made me hyper-aware of the different brain states I could potentially experience with different chemicals, and I realized I was still not ready for psychedelics. Eventually a time came when I felt ready to immerse myself in the ocean of mind, and when my first psychedelic experience was over with I graciously thanked my friend for his wisdom.
Over the years I’ve used marijuana, different patterns have come and gone. At times I would smoke it two or three times a month. At other times maybe once every two or three months. There were periods of three to four months during which I simply didn’t smoke it. Period. I’ve had such a rich variety of experiences with marijuana that I could never fully describe them all.
Marijuana opened me up to the realm of the mind, of deeply experiencing and exploring the dimensions of consciousness available to me. In that regard, it has, with differing degrees of directness, led me into explorations of transpersonal psychology, mysticism, Sufism, shamanism, bodywork, and a host of other experiential/philosophical pursuits. When I got over the novelty of being stoned, I soon explored its effects more fully. I was amazed at what I found. Initially I would explore internal imagery, sharpening my visualization skills. Sometimes I would concentrate on feeling music more deeply. Other times I would simply think about the emotional and intellectual reactions of certain people to certain phenomena, particularly those reactions I found difficult to understand. Whilst stoned, I found it easier to put myself in the place of others. I could understand how people might believe any number of seemingly “irrational” or dense, impenetrable ideas. Marijuana opened me up to the existence of so many different views of the world, views I need not share to fathom and empathize with. I worked with my own feelings of sensuality/sexuality. I explored techniques of focusing my mind. I would meditate (in the Western, pre-Buddhist use of the word) upon religious/spiritual matters, clarifying things that seemed to make little to no sense in “sober” states of mind. How might this work? I don’t know, but I have one idea that I often espouse. Our normal state of awareness is good for certain tasks, not for others. For example, one typically does not produce works of art in the same state of awareness that we use when driving about in our cars; an artist is instead focused inward, and on the outward projection of his/her internal state. In much the same way, such an internally-oriented state would be of little value in a sexual experience, in which humans exchange energy, moving and flowing together in a state of emotional and physical sympathy. What I find marijuana does is to shift the loci of my attention away from the mundane experiences and concerns that I, as an often automaton-like human, find myself dwelling on a moment-to-moment or daily basis. Instead, my mind is centered on matters that touch more on the extraordinary, those topics and experiences that are perhaps better left unexplored while driving along I-95 or working out my finances for the year. Those that view all of this as simply drug-induced illusions are sadly blind.
The greatest thing to come out of all of this is that I found these “stoned” experiences aren’t as state-dependent as I initially believed. In the wake of my introduction and exploration of “stoned-mind awareness” I find that my appreciation for sensuality, aesthetics, and philosophy in “normal waking consciousness” (to quote James) has deepened greatly, almost to the point that I feel that the pre-drugs “me” was noticeably worse-off…”
http://www.marijuana-uses.com/essays/023.html
and another:
“..This was my first curiosity – why would extraordinarily intelligent and creative people smoke cannabis when we were taught in health class that it was so dangerous, deleterious, and immoral? I couldn’t resist knowing the answer. Just before graduation I tried marijuana for the first time, cooked into brownies – I ate four.
In retrospect I consumed a quantity of marijuana that potentiated its mild psychedelic qualities. What I discovered was astonishing. All the colors and sounds of that warm May day seemed more saturated. The present moment took on an extra dimension as my mind cascaded with thoughts that poured out in phrases and filled every moment with humor and insight. What was happening? I was basking in some kind of previously unknown but instantly likable euphoric glow, and I felt as though I was getting acquainted with myself and maybe my very existence for the first time. Or was it the second time? Had I ever considered my ‘existence’ before? It was hilarious and profound, exotic yet familiar, with a paradoxical but somehow obviously logical quality to it. The most shocking conclusion I drew from the experience was that despite general societal disapproval (and its harsh illegality)…I really liked it.
Being the disciplined, overly deliberate person that I am, I didn’t try it again for another 4 months. I needed to consider what I’d learned from the first time. But upon trying it again, and enjoying it again, I found myself completing the transition from hanging out with an athletic drinking crowd to a more intellectual smoking crowd.
My circle of friends enjoyed marijuana as a creativity enhancer. We would get together and smoke, and go for hikes, as well as draw, paint, play music (I learned how to play a musical instrument during this time), discover philosophy, or just collapse in fits of hysterical laughter. It felt like an incredibly safe, fertile, adventurous, expansive time. It was as though I’d hit a switch that made life seem more tangible, real, precious. My association with marijuana was solidified then as being a catalyst for aesthetic and spiritual reflection. For example, though I’d always been fascinated by the night sky, looking at the stars while high filled me with a kind of awe I’d never experienced before – the wonder of a human being facing the present, eternal, dynamic cosmos. I wasn’t seeing anything that wasn’t there before, or seen before. On the contrary, it was this feeling of connection to the race of humanity that preceded me, looking up at the stars with similar awe, that brought such an indescribable warmth to this reverie. I was seeing and feeling reality through a greater bandwidth. Marijuana didn’t filter the world; it unfiltered the world.
Artistic pursuits went from being perceived as an entertaining adjunct to culture, to being indivisible from the definition of culture. Suddenly art and music represented humanity’s highest aspirations and deepest traumas. Everything became more profound, and everything became lighter at the same time.
I believed that if more people smoked marijuana and drank less alcohol (or no alcohol), the world would experience a kind of renaissance of peaceful artistic and philosophical pursuits.
In other words, typical idealistic tendencies that the media and politicians love to hate about the 1960s. The only difference was that this was the 1980s. My friends and I used to laugh about the self-righteous Baby Boomers who smoked marijuana like peaceful spirits in the Sixties, probably enjoying similar revelations, then grew up to become the most vicious drug warriors of all time, destroying the lives of millions of people the world over. I guess one thing that’s changed is that no one laughs about that anymore. Well, that’s the past, what about the present? How would I describe my current relationship to cannabis? After all, following the Boomers’ example, shouldn’t I confess my past use, profess an infinite contempt for the plant, and beg forgiveness? In a word, no.
These days, when I smoke a small amount of marijuana, my body feels both relaxed and enlivened, active and content. My mind and my body feel quenched inside a visionary moment with a warm glow of serenity. It feels like a kind of cerebral sexuality, like a sixth or seventh sense, suddenly come animate. I feel like a spiritual animal…”
http://www.marijuana-uses.com/essays/035.html
If the information exchange that is currently taking place on the web continues along roughly the same trajectory, it seems impossible that our country’s failed War on Drugs will continue much longer. To the uninformed reader this may sound like a pipe dream; but in light of articles like the Rolling Stone’s “How America Lost the War on Drugs” and with the critical success of books like “Drugs and Justice“, change seems immanent. Even a few of the current presidential hopefuls have embraced drug policy reform, but there has been little focus on the actual effects of decriminalizing drugs; proponents of reform are often so reserved as to say that there would be little effect felt by the majority, but in-depth analysis proves this to be quite false.
Without a doubt most crime committed in this country has ties to the black market which is bankrolled by drug trade and governed by terrorist groups; our nation’s own drug laws are a necessary precursor for the current war on terror. My question is not the intention of people to enforce laws or to try and persuade young people away from addiction; this is my question: where is the benefit of declaring war against a particular list of chemicals, or worse still, against your own citizens? The only real effect of the drug war has been to make some terrorist groups very powerful and very rich. If the intention is to help people, then help people with addiction; do not destroy their lives because the chemical they used was beyond cultural acceptance. Furthermore, there is no logical argument against my desire to smoke any mixture of herbs I may desire; afterall, isn’t that the heart of the Constitution(a document authored and signed by numerous smokers and hemp farmers). So when the laws change, what do you suppose will become of all the drug warriors? What will they do?
Prisons will go from overflowing to being overstaffed and entire divisions of the police force will no longer have a job to do; billions of dollars of federal funding will be freed up, and street cops will be able to focus on crimes like rape and burglary (which now typically go unsolved due to an often cited lack of funding.) What other potential benefit to society can the drug warriors of yesterday have tomorrow?
There is a vicious rumor circulating the internet that the real reason that hemp is illegal is because it is a cousin of the marijuana plant; in actuality, it is marijuana that just happens to be illegal because it is associated with hemp. Hemp was the target of a vicious propaganda campaign back in the thirties, one that seems to set the tone for American politics today; it is a good old-fashioned tale of greed, deceit and the manipulation of millions of people who did nothing more than trust the news media to report facts instead of pointed fiction. If you are unfamiliar with the truth about marijuana, then you may want to read ‘ten things every parent, teenage and teacher should know about marijuana.‘ Further information can be found in ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes‘ by Jack Herer, who was kind enough to publish the book that started the revolution on the web, for free!
Part of the truth is that in the early thirties hemp gained the ability to enter the industrial revolution here in America thanks to advances in mechanized harvest equipment; when Popular Mechanics published their article “New Billion Dollar Crop,” Henry Ford was planning to grow our transportation and eventually even fuel these hemp cars with hemp fuel. In the magazine, there is a picture of him hitting a prototype hemp vehicle; apparently the material was much more durable and stronger than metal or plastic. Hemp farming would have given our farmers a sustainable income while supplying the industrial revolution with a versatile building material, textile, food and even fuel source. Without the drug war, we could be manufacturing children’s toys here in America made out of a quality material that actually combats global warming by trapping CO2, we could also be funding our children’s education instead of building prisons and burning crops that will always continue to be grown no matter what the laws, thanks to the supply/demand nature of our capitalist society.
As is shown by the statistics compiled by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition(LEAP), drug prohibition simply does not work; furthermore, the black market that results from this ill-founded policy funds terrorism and works to fuel violence and disrespect for law everywhere. As bad as it sounds, this is not the worst result of our failed drug policy; the real tragedy is the prohibition of hemp farming, the real tragedy is all the environmental damage that has been done as a result of not integrating hemp into our culture. We could get our paper, cars, houses, clothes, food and much more from this plant which also happens to be very good for the soil and requires no pesticides or fertilizers.
With recent attempts to use bio-fuels expanding like crazy, we need to be very cautious about caring for the land and our water supply; corn-based ethanol production is currently depleting our soil and contaminating our groundwater with a myriad of chemicals, while supplying a small amount of sub par fuel and using large amounts of fossil fuels in the process. This practice is going to be the death of this country if the politicians and our mass media continue on their current trajectory, just try to imagine eleven acres of corn for every driver in the U.S. (by the way, that same land would feed at least seven people for a year.)
Consider this, hemp plants grow sixteen feet in three months and absorb CO2 at a rate much higher than competing crops; the absorbed CO2 will stay trapped in the house or the car or the children’s toy or the shirt that is manufactured domestically. Not only will we be helping the environment but we will also be building the backbone of a sustainable society, our farmers will have a useful crop and manufacturers will have high-quality materials. I was trained as a mechanical engineer and there were three things that I learned which seem appropriate to pass on here: 1. “if it can’t be grown, it’s gotta be mined.” 2. “when you assume, it makes an ass out of u and me” and 3. KISS (keep it simple, stupid.) In my humble opinion, fighting a war against drugs is just about as dumb as fighting a war against terrorism (which is a method, not a group or even an ideal; but I guess it does sound scary.)
Consider the following quote regarding the book ‘Drugs and Justice’: “Battin and her contributors lay a foundation for a wiser drug policy by promoting consistency and coherency in the discussion of drug issues and by encouraging a unique dialog across disciplines. The contributors are an interdisciplinary group of scholars mostly based at the University of Utah, and include a pharmacologist, a psychiatrist, a toxicologist, a trial court judge, a law professor, an attorney, a dietary specialist, a physician, a health expert on substance abuse, and Battin herself who is a philosopher.” There is no way that the Supreme Court can continue to blindly ignore this issue any longer; academics across all ranks are speaking out, Judges and Prosecutors are continually being asked to disregard federal policy with respect to the changing cultural views towards these ‘illicit’ substances on the local level, and in some states drug treatment facilities are even beginning to establish a new precedent for dealing with addiction instead of punishing the ‘abuser.’ Now twelve states have had to go to the lengths of enacting legislation to bypass federal bans on hemp farming, in spite of clear evidence that the two crops are clearly distinguishable and any inter-pollination would leave the farmer with a bunch of worthless hybrids. In spite of our federal ignorance, it seems that cannabis will soon be growing again here in the U.S. (Never mind the fact that it has been our biggest cash crop for the last umpteen years anyway…) If any of the current Presidential hopefuls has the courage to champion this worthy cause, the American Cannabis Revolution may soon be in full swing; who knows, maybe our dollar will someday be worth even more than our Canadian friends that are currently reaping the rewards of a blossoming cannabis culture.
Beyond the industrial uses of this plant, the spiritual significance of the plant in cultures all over the world is worthy of a study in itself; how many people know that cannabis was mistranslated out of the Old Testament, or that the Hindu Goddess Shiva is depicted as being in a divine dance with the spirit of cannabis? Buddha lived for six years on cannabis alone, after which he attained enlightenment; who has the right to deny me the same opportunity? Furthermore, what does it say about our society that we made this plant illegal because it is dangerous yet we spend all our resources building bigger, more advanced weapons with which to kill each other? Here’s a better question: can logic and common sense still prevail over fear and ignorance in this country, or have they ever?
Drug laws are only the beginning of the problems we have in this country, but changing them is a huge step forward that will finally give us the tools (money, credibility, prison space for real criminals and a booming agricultural/manufacturing industry) to deal with the problems we now face; collapsing the black market fueled by drug trade will do nothing short of leaving most terrorists flat broke, and we will finally have a free country to be proud of again. In this age of information, ignorance can’t hold out forever; I’ll even bet someone is singing about revolution right now, on corporate radio no doubt. “You can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time….Get up, Stand up, Stand up for your right; Get up, Stand up, Don’t give up the fight.”-Bob Marley
In this country, why are we still fighting for our basic freedom?
