The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,400 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.
OUR SHAME
Check out our press release and learn the latest on the Gulf disaster. Then take action to tell the administration to end all dangerous offshore drilling.
LIFE INSURANCE FOR THE PLANET:
There is no life insurance policy for planet earth. The fate of our planet is painful to think about. It is decades since we first became concerned about pollution, water scarcity, wastes, pesticides, overpopulation and erosion. Under Ronald Reagan the country turned away from such problems, but today they are the problems we fear most. They are global and potentially irreversible. They include the build-up of greenhouse gases, the thinning of the ozone layer, destruction of rain forests and accelerating extinctions of other species. Some would say they are impossible to stop. The world’s economy is built into them.
Yet, as Jonathan Weiner writes in The Next One Hundred Years, the changes trouble even those who try to ignore them and worry only about whether the old garage is sagging or the mortgage is due. A question mark curls above our roofs and makes a mockery of our hopes. If the earth is falling apart, there go the plans for summer vacation.
As we locally chop down trees and cover arable earth with concrete, we should bear in mind the ecological limits of what we do. The same is true of the industry we attract and of the population we propose to support in our regional environment. In Multnomah County, Oregon, they plan to add more hundreds of thousands of people by deliberate design, less an act of planning than of whistling while walking through the graveyard.
There are public policy questions that have not been adequately presented and debated. Local media, elected officials, governmental staff and economic development and business communities have consistently pursued the “cutting edge” of the latest “growth opportunities” without equally weighing the adverse impacts potential in each of these proposed, but too often unrelated developments. Never has the time for comprehensive and thoroughly cooperative deliberation and action been more urgent.
Common needs for clean air, clean water and a livable future have been subordinated in the rush to insure our immediate economic well being. While motives may be benign, it is patently obvious to all but the most self deceiving or self serving that we are in the midst of a global crisis which calls for a philosophy which protects, defends and advances the common interest. In the context of a rapidly diminishing resource pool, in the face of rising and conceivably irreversible environmental damage, it is beyond foolishness to persist in an economic expansionism that degrades and erodes the livability of our common home.
All local elected officials should plan from a basis which explores the possibility of sustainability, including revenue sharing to decrease conflict over development opportunities and inappropriate public incentives which pit one community against another. No jurisdiction should function without regard for its neighbors and friends and our shared earth.
Never in world history has humankind been so powerful in its geophysical impact on the planet. As hard as the weaning may be, business as usual no longer makes sense. If we are, as some scientists term us, homo sapiens sapiens, man the doubly wise, let’s prove it before we lose it.
Choices.
LET’S HEAR IT FOR BIOMASS!
“To the massmoss with this wingéd fruitcake!” – The Tyrant, Barbarella.
Hemp biomass for fuel would be cleaner and more economical than any other source. Corn is the least efficient and most costly. Hemp is easily grown almost everywhere, and completely renewable. It is a carbon sink, cleaning the air. 10,000 acres of hemp yields as much paper as 40,000 acres of wood pulp. It gives a far greater yield per acre, and is better for the overall health of the land.
Sources below will tell you what there is to know in great well-documented detail. Plus, you get to “meet” Jack Herer – a man the mystics call a “great soul.”
Emperor of Hemp – narrated by Peter Coyote, VHS, DVD, 59 min. Bill Maher calls it “A triumph for the open-minded.” The story of Jack Herer, author of:The Emperor Wears No Clothes, best selling book that blows the lid off the anti-hemp conspiracy and explains all there is to know about one miraculous plant. Available at the web site: www.emperorofhemp.com; Jack Herer’ web site home is at: http://www.jackherer.com/Both are also available through www.Amazon.com
VIDEO: Obama Preserves Inherited Bush Abuses Friday, July 30, 2010 by The Rachel Maddow Show. http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/07/30-0
"Hell of a job, Brownie!"
Rising CO2 Will Cause Catastrophic Sea Level Rise Finds Antarctic Study by Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentThe Telegraph/UK
Sea levels could rise by up to six metres if the world fails to get pollution under control, according to the latest study in the Antarctic.
The British Antarctic Survey is the latest research to warn of the consequences of increased greenhouse gases on the Earth’s climate. Carbon dioxide is rising at record rates putting the world on a pathway for a 6C rise in temperature, which will cause a sea level rise of up six metres, threatening coastal cities like London, New York and San Francisco.
The recent studies add pressure on world leaders to agree to an international deal on climate change at a UN summit in Copenhagen this December.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/18-6
How Limousine Liberals, Water Oligarchs and Even Sean Hannity Are Hijacking Our Water Supply By Yasha Levine, AlterNet.
A group of water oligarchs engineered a disastrous privatization scheme to make a fortune out of California’s most precious natural resource.
A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they’ve pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without causing much public outrage. The amount of power and control they wield over California’s most precious resource, water, should shock and frighten us — and it would, if more people were aware of it. But here is the scary thing: They are plotting to gain an even larger share of California’s increasingly-scarce, over-tapped water supply, which will surely lead to shortages, higher prices and untold destruction to California’s environment.
California is in year three of a fairly nasty dry spell. And some very powerful forces are not letting this mini-crisis go to waste, fiercely lobbying Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein, paying off corporate shills like Fox News’ Sean Hannity and capitalizing on people’s fear of drought to push a massive waterworks project that will pump more water, build more dams and keep sucking the state’s rivers dry. …This drought hysteria is nothing more than political theatrics, a scare tactic backed by big agribusiness to strong-arm California voters into building a multi-billion dollar system of dams and canals that would not really help small farmers — of which there are very few anyway — but would deliver more water to corporations, subsidize their landholdings, fuel real estate development and enable large-scale water privatization. At its core, it is a war waged for water by California’s megarich on everyone else. READ MORE:
Rachel Maddow Interview with Former Evangelist Frank Schaeffer: Christian Right Is ‘Trolling for Assassins’ AlterNet.
Schaeffer: “There is a crazy fringe [receiving] messages that have been pouring out of FOX News … talking about doing away with Obama, asking God to kill him.” READ MORE:
Shocking Benefits of Legalizing Pot By Ami Cholia, AlterNet.
There are some pluses to legalization that you probably haven’t heard about.
The war on drugs may be a noble intention, but the illegal growing of marijuana is destroying our environment.
Primarily run by Mexican drug cartels California’s illegal growers aren’t your typical peace-loving hippies of the 70s. These men live illegally on farms all summer, putting tons of waste into the soil and water. Pesticides drain into creeks and enter the food chain, sickening wildlife. Each plant also uses about 15 gallons of water per day soaking up a large part of the water resources around.
Organized crime groups who cash in on the drug war’s distortion of supply and demand dynamics have little regard for the environment. Even illegal growers of organic marijuana impact the environment by felling trees in national forests to make room for illicit grow sites. The plants are seasonal, but the environmental damage lasts forever.
There is a serious exception to be made. Many medical – legal – marijuana growers are among the most responsible citizens around. They buy soil in bulk, use rat traps instead of poison, water with timers and drip systems. They have very little physical impact on the land.
Outside of the obvious benefits of hemp — bio-diesel, burns cleanly, soil builder, better cheaper paper, etc. — organic and sustainable practices for growing marijuana would bring in tons of revenue for the states, clean up the environment, and save the government $150 billion on policing and courts, since 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related.
We’re not promoting drug addiction. The positive benefits to the environment by making marijuana legal definitely seem enough to take action.
Even Glenn Beck seems to think this is worth it. READ MORE:
World’s Biggest Polluters Strike a Deal: U.S. and China Agree to Comprehensive Clean Energy and Climate Plan By Joseph Romm, Climate Progress.
The overall plan is much more ambitious in scope and depth than anticipated.
A comprehensive plan for U.S.-China cooperation on clean energy and climate change was announced in Beijing by President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao. The plan contains directives to create various institutions and programs addressing a wide array of cooperation on clean-energy technologies and capacity building, including very important efforts on helping China build a robust, transparent and accurate inventory of their greenhouse gas emissions.
These efforts include cooperation in the following areas:
1. Greenhouse Gas Inventory.
2. Joint Clean Energy Research Center. (Factsheet)
3. Electric Vehicles. (Factsheet)
4. Energy Efficiency. Building on the Ten Year Framework on Energy and Environment Cooperation, government officials of both countries will “work together (Factsheet)
5. Renewable Energy. (Factsheet)
6. 21st Century Coal. The two countries will “launch a program of technical cooperation to …develop clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies.” (Factsheet)
7. Shale Gas. The U.S. and China will “assess China’s shale gas potential, promote environmentally-sustainable development of shale gas resources, conduct joint technical studies to accelerate development of shale gas resources in China, and promote shale gas investment in China through the U.S.-China Oil and Gas Industry Forum, study tours, and workshops.” (Factsheet)
8. Nuclear. The two countries reaffirmed the goals of the Third Executive Committee Meeting of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to promote the peaceful use of civilian nuclear energy, and “agreed to consult with one another in order to explore such approaches—including assurance of fuel supply and cradle-to-grave nuclear fuel management so that countries can access peaceful nuclear power while minimizing the risks of proliferation.”
9. Public-private partnerships on clean energy. A new U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program (ECP) will “leverage private sector resources for project development work in China across a broad array of clean energy projects, to the benefit of both nations.”
The two countries hope that the upcoming United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen will follow this example and focus as much on bottom-up technological strategies for achieving real reductions in emissions as it will on top-down targets for carbon caps. READ MORE:
Push to Curb Credit-Card Rates Fades as Democrats resist consumer outcry by Michael KranishThe Boston Globe
WASHINGTON – Efforts in Congress to cap credit-card interest rates are faltering because of opposition from Democrats and a lack of specific support from the White House, despite growing consumer outrage over a rush by banks to impose rates as high as 30 percent.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama vowed to back a strict limit on credit-card interest rates. But the White House is not yet behind any plan.
The Senate soundly defeated legislation in May introduced by Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont Independent, to cap most credit-card interest rates at 15 percent. Nearly half of the Democratic senators joined Republicans in defeating the measure, 60 to 33.
Consumer groups say the problem of skyrocketing interest rates has worsened since that vote, as banks scramble to boost rates in advance of a new rule scheduled to take effect in February, requiring banks to give consumers a 45-day advance notice of rate increases.
Sanders said many of the credit cards in the hands of American consumers are issued by four banks that received taxpayer bailout money after last year’s economic meltdown: Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
“People are disgusted. We bailed these [companies] out and they then had the gumption to raise interest rates on the American people,” Sanders said in an interview. Sanders said he plans to reintroduce his proposal to cap rates at 15 percent; he predicted it will have more support this time.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/18-7
Thousands March in 3-Day Showdown with Banking Industry By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet.
Tired of bailouts and fat paychecks for those that created the economic catastrophe, marchers made clear demands to tame an out-of-control financial system.
Workers gave pink slips to the country’s top bankers Tuesday morning to culminate three days of protests, billed as the Showdown in Chicago, during the American Bankers’ Association’s annual meeting.
Before a jeering and cheering crowd of 5,000 union members and activists, Armando Robles, president of UE Local 1110 and a leader of the Republic Windows factory occupation last year, attached big, fluorescent pink slips to larger-than-life cutouts of retiring Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis, Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf and JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon.
The three CEOs were probably among the bank officials meeting in the Sheraton behind the stage that featured speeches by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Change to Win Chairwoman Anna Burger, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and workers and community leaders.
After “firing” the bank CEOs, Adam Kader of the workers group Arise Chicago presented a notice that the banks’ $17.8 trillion “loan” in taxpayer-bailout funds is due since, he said, banks have not complied with the conditions placed on the handout by the people. READ MORE:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143547/thousands_march_in_3-day_showdown_with_banking_industry
Tea Party Movement Returns, This Time with Much More Dangerous and Explicit Rhetoric By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet.
It’s not too hard to guess where talk of ‘Judgement Day’ can lead to in the context of a right-wing, gun-loving movement.
According to the “Tea Party” website, Tea Party Express II: Countdown To Judgment Day” is underway. Here’s how their website describes it:
All throughout the recent Tea Party Express national bus tour we kept receiving calls from people around the nation who lived far away from the route our buses took across America. We vowed at the time to keep the Tea Party Express effort alive — and that’s exactly what we are doing.Join us from October 25th to November 11th, 2009 as we tell Congress and the White House: “Enough!” Let’s stand up and stop the bailouts, cap and trade, out-of-control spending, government-run health care, and higher taxes! We’re back and determined to take our country back!
What will happen on their predicted “Judgment Day”?
If you buy the biblical spin of the Religious Right folks — that make up the bulk of the Tea Party movement — the implication is clear: Jesus will soon return, send all Democrats, gays, blacks, progressives, liberals, college-educated unbelievers, etc., to Hell, while saving what Sarah Palin calls “us” “Real Americans” — in other words unreconstructed frightened and resentful white lower middle class Americans.
(As a former right wing evangelical anti-abortion leader who built a good career from these folks — until I quit in disgust with myself, the anti-American nature of the movement and the takeover the Republican Party by extremists — I know of what I speak.)
If you put the secular/right’s “tree-of-Liberty-must-be-watered-by-the-blood-of-tyrants-Timothy McVeigh spin on the Judgment Day scenario; then there will soon be a hoped for bloody day of reckoning for the occupant of the White House.
The Case for Marijuana Legalization and Regulation By Paul Armentano, AlterNet.
An exclusive look at the historic testimony prepared for a special hearing on legalizing marijuana to the California Assembly.
The following is the testimony NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano will deliver on Oct. 28 to the California Assembly Public Safety Committee’s special hearing on “the legalization of marijuana: social, fiscal and legal implications for California.” Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, sponsor of AB 390, The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act, is the chairman of the committee.
By any objective standard, marijuana prohibition is an abject failure.
Nationwide, U.S. law enforcement have arrested over 20 million American citizens for marijuana offenses since 1965, yet today marijuana is more prevalent than ever before, adolescents have easier access to marijuana than ever before, the drug is more potent than ever before, and there is more violence associated with the illegal marijuana trade than ever before.
Over 100 million Americans nationally have used marijuana despite prohibition, and 1 in 10 — according to current government survey data — use it regularly.
The criminal prohibition of marijuana has not dissuaded anyone from using marijuana or reduced its availability; however, the strict enforcement of this policy has adversely impacted the lives and careers of millions of people who simply elected to use a substance to relax that is objectively safer than alcohol.
NORML believes that the state of California ought to amend criminal prohibition and replace it with a system of legalization, taxation, regulation and education.
The case for legalization and regulation
Only through state government regulation will we be able to bring necessary controls to the commercial marijuana market. READ MORE:
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/143558/the_case_for_marijuana_legalization_and_regulation
30 Reasons Fox News Is Not Legit By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America.
Fox News routinely, and blatantly, breaks the code to which ethical journalists are supposed to aspire. READ MORE:
http://www.alternet.org/media/143541/30_reasons_fox_news_is_not_legit
Why Won’t Obama Send Condolence Letters to the Parents of Soldiers Who Have Committed Suicide? By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
The bereaved parents of Chancellor Keesling, a US soldier who took his own life in Iraq, wonder why the death of their son is treated differently than other mortalities. READ MORE:
Apocalypse Soon: Halloween Interview on Overpopulation with Kierán Suckling
Scared of ghosts, goblins, and jack-o-lanterns? None of those are on the Santa Fe Reporter‘s list of the top five environmental horrors. But human overpopulation is. “Apocalypse Soon: Today’s Environmental Horrors Could Lead to a Scary Sci-Fi Future” interviews Center for Biological Diversity director Kierán Suckling. Click below to read the whole article. Here are few excerpts:
“Virtually everything that is destroying wildlife habitat and the environment is driven by overpopulation,” Kierán Suckling, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, says.
“Whether it’s too many people diverting water out of the Rio Grande or too much wood use leading to the logging of old-growth forests, the bottom line is there are too many people using too many resources to be able to have a healthy environment.”
“It’s great to focus on reducing our carbon footprint, but…unless we start reducing the footprints to begin with, we and other species are not going to survive on this planet.”
“The majority of environmental groups avoid addressing overpopulation like the plague. I think that’s largely because they lack the courage of their convictions. They are fearful that in saying that [we are overpopulated] they will be viewed as being anti-human somehow–as if squalor and overpopulation are somehow pro-human.”
Read the Santa Fe Reporter interview and learn what the Center’s doing to confront the overpopulation crisis head-on.
Patriot's Dream
Bill Moyers: Was the Financial Bailout Just a Slick, Friendly Takeover of the Federal Government? By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal. Moyers interviews Marcy Kaptur, a hero of Michael Moore’s latest documentary and former IMF head Simon Johnson on Wall Street’s purchase of our democracy.
4 Supreme Court Cases That Will Say a Lot About the Direction of Our Country By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Would a Human Sacrifice TV Channel be protected by the First Amendment? Answers to this and other key questions will be answered.
As the Supreme Court kicked off its new season last week with a brand new justice on the bench, the cases on the docket provided a fascinating glimpse into the judicial soul of the country.
In the first days alone, there were cases involving dog fighting, a controversial cross on public land, and a number of prickly criminal justice issues.
The months to come will test laws on some of the most controversial issues of our time, including guns, sex offenders and the uniquely American question of whether teenagers can be sentenced to life without parole. The outcomes will tell us a lot about the future direction of the Roberts court, and what it might mean to have Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the bench.
Possible Major Speed Bump on the Way to Legal Marijuana By Stephen Webster, Raw Story. In spite of a law on California books for over a decade allowing sales of pot, L.A. DA Steve Cooley suddenly announces, “The time is right to deal with this problem.”
In spite of a law on California books for over a decade which allows the sale of medical cannabis to properly licensed patients, the district attorney in Los Angeles County is preparing an all-out legal assault against the “vast majority” of dispensaries.
“Hundreds of dispensaries operate under a 1996 voter initiative that allowed medical marijuana use, and a state law that allows for collective growing of marijuana,” NBC Los Angeles reported. “But based on a state Supreme Court decision last year, [LA County District Attorney Steve] Cooley has concluded that over-the-counter sales are illegal. Most if not all of the dispensaries in the state operate on that basis.”
http://www.alternet.org/rights/143208/possible_major_speed_bump_on_the_way_to_legal_marijuana
Republican Senate Sex Scandals Point Back to Secretive Conservative Christian “Family” By Bill Berkowitz, Religion Dispatches. It was a hot summer full of sex scandals for GOP members of “The Family,” the exclusive conservative Christian group with designs on DC power.
Before the Tea Party Express brought tens of thousands to protest in the nation’s capital, and before town hall meetings about health care devolved into shout downs, there was the story of the boys of C Street.
What at first seemed like a series of public sex scandals turned out to have a connective thread. The main protagonists (Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Senator John Ensign of Nevada, and former Arkansas Congressman Chip Pickering) were all one-time residents of C Street and members of the Family, otherwise known as the Fellowship. As the summer unfurled, the “three amigos” gave mainstream media outlets plenty to talk about, and this highly secretive and powerful right-wing group got a lot of exposure. And then, as is the wont of the media, the story of C Street disappeared from the headlines.
Insurers Mount Attack Against Health Reform by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. WASHINGTON — The health insurance industry is warning that a comprehensive Senate bill would increase the cost of a typical policy by hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars a year after lawmakers eased up on the requirement that all Americans get coverage.
The stinging attack came on the eve of a pivotal Senate vote and was a clear message to President Barack Obama and congressional Democratic leaders who have been making headway on overhauling the nation’s health care system. The industry fears that a weakening of the penalties for failing to get insurance would let Americans postpone getting coverage until they get sick.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/12-4
Second Thoughts by Michael Moore. Friends,
Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. “No, I don’t think so,” I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he’s now conducting the two wars he’s inherited. “Yeah,” she said, “but to tell him, ‘Now earn it!’? Give the guy a break — this is a great day for him and for all of us.”
I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack’s big day. Did I — and others on the left — do the same?
We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation — financially and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving too slow for most of us — but he needs to know we are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell?
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/11
War and Peace Prizes by Howard Zinn.
I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace.
Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations – that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he had bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War, surely among stupid and deadly wars at the top of the list.
Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains on that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticised the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/10-3
VIDEO: GLENN BECK’S SECRET FOR CRYING ON CUE: Vicks VapoRub Under the Eyes by Adele Stan, AlterNet
A leaked video of a Glenn Beck photo shoot shows the FOX News host having a substance applied under his eyes, which then begin to stream for the camera. It’s one of those great mysteries: How does Glenn Beck, propagandist and D-list actor, get himself to cry on cue? A rogue video making the rounds of the Internet offers an answer: an eye-watering substance applied under the eyes, which Ron Brynaert at The Raw Story suggests to be Vicks VapoRub.
The Ann Arbor Chronicle (Michigan)
How to Sustain a Local Economy: From PB&J to Regional Currencies by Mary Morgan
When the Chronicle entered the lower level meeting room of the downtown Ann Arbor library, the first things we noticed were three large trays of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut into bite-sized wedges. As public forums go, this was an offbeat gnoshing choice. It turned out that the sandwiches – and apples, soft drinks, potato chips and other food – were all sourced from Michigan, in keeping with the theme of Wednesday night’s event. The panel discussion focused on the state’s economic crisis, and how the community can respond to it. Buying local products is one example. Starting a local currency is another possibility – the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority is funding a study to look into that. Generating electricity locally is also an opportunity – Mayor John Hieftje told the group that he didn’t think the dam at Argo Pond would be removed, in part because it might be used for hydropower in the future.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/01-6
Water Worries Threaten US Push for Natural Gas by Jon Hurdle
PAVILLION, Wyoming – Louis Meeks, a burly 59-year-old alfalfa farmer, fills a metal trough with water from his well and watches an oily sheen form on the surface which gives off a faint odor of paint. He points to small bubbles that appear in the water, and a thin ring of foam around the edge. Meeks is convinced that energy companies drilling for natural gas in this central Wyoming farming community have poisoned his water and ruined his health.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/01-8
Marijuana in America: More Mainstream Than Ever, More Arrests Than Ever By Tony Newman, AlterNet.
Marijuana’s coming-out party is kicking into high gear across America — but way to many people still are getting cuffed for it. Need more evidence that marijuana has gone mainstream in America? This morning on the Today show, Matt Lauer chatted up a piece on so-called stiletto stoners — educated, professional women with killer careers and enviable social lives who favor marijuana as their intoxicant of choice and are increasingly comfortable admitting it. http://www.alternet.org/rights/143005/marijuana_in_america%3A_more_mainstream_than_ever%2C_more_arrests_than_ever
Senator Sanders and Michael Moore Talk Capitalism
By Robert Greenwald.
In this week’s show, director Michael Moore asks Sen. Sanders “what is wrong with American capitalism these days?” Senator Bernie Sanders makes a poignant appearance in Michael Moore’s latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, highlighting, as he does in this episode, precisely the deficiencies of the current political and economic climate and the way the American public is getting screwed in the process. Senator Sanders consistently defends the American middle class from the greed and abuse of the insurance companies, the bank lobby, the drug companies and Wall Street who have taken control of the decision-making within our government and our institutions.
http://www.alternet.org/politics/143040
Congress appears set to ignore President Obama’s proposal that banks be required to offer “plain vanilla” financial products such as 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, giving the banking industry an early victory in its fight with the administration over how to reform the financial-services sector.
Barney Frank Vanilla
Barney Frank (D-MA) chairman of the House Financial Services Committee waits for President Barack Obama to speak about the global financial crisis at Federal Hall in New York, September 14, 2009. (REUTERS/Jeff Zelevansky)
Instead, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank will forge ahead with plans for a watered-down Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) — a blow to the administration’s push for tighter regulations and more control over the banking and financial-service industries.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/23-3
WHOOPS: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud by Ryan Grim.
Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.
The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.
In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/23-0
5 THINGS THE CORPORATE MEDIA DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW About Cannabis By Paul Armentano, AlterNet. Posted September 23, 2009.
Recent scientific reports suggest that pot doesn’t destroy your brain, that it doesn’t cause lung damage like tobacco — but you won’t hear it in the corporate media.
1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia
2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn’t Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco
3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain
4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a ‘Gateway,’ to Hard Drug Use
5. Government’s Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use
Editor’s note: Come see Paul Armentano and many other top marijuana experts and advocates in discussion at NORML’s 38th national conference taking place this week from September 24-26 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more.
Learn even more at: https://johnlegry.wordpress.com/marijuana-papers/ MARIJUANA PAPERS.
WAKE UP CALL:
Dear all,
Wow. Monday’s Wake Up call was unbelievable – 2632 events in 134 countries, tens of thousands of phone calls crashing government lines, unbelievable creativity and diversity of events, directly reaching heads of state and cabinet ministers from Australia to Europe. Words can’t describe it — this video gets close:
The Wake Up call was covered by hundreds of major news outlets and made the evening news everywhere from Germany to New Zealand. Europe’s environment chief praised “the mobilisation of so many people by Avaaz.org”, the UK Prime Minister became the first major world leader to agree to our demand to go to Copenhagen and said that with “the pressure that can brought by organizations like yours…what people think is impossible can become possible”. The Spanish environment minister called the action “extraordinary”.
World leaders have heard us. But as Tuesday’s UN summit showed, one day of action won’t be enough to get real progress on climate. We need to come back again and again, louder and louder, until we get a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty.
We’ll keep the pressure high through the TCKTCKTCK campaign until Copenhagen, with another global day of action on October 24th, and start planning right now for the LARGEST CLIMATE MOBILIZATION IN HISTORY ON DECEMBER 12th, in the final days of the Copenhagen negotiations.
Avaaz is now 3.6 million members strong in 14 languages, in every country of the world. On Monday, our movement took a huge step forward — we showed that we can not only send millions of messages to leaders or donate millions to worthy causes, but that in just a few days we can flood the streets and crash phone lines from Mexico City to Mumbai.
If we stick together, anything is possible.
With hope and excitement for the future,
Ricken, Ben, Paul, Milena, Alice, Luis, Brett, Taren, Margaret, Iain, Pascal, Graziela, Paula, Benjamin, Rajeev, Veronique, Raluca, Julius, Yuri, Saravanan, Vladimir, Tihomir, Sam, Emma and the whole Avaaz team
PS – the video above was made from over 10,000 wake up call pictures and 600 videos uploaded to Avaaz in just 24 hours! There were many tears among people making the video as we saw the amazing dedication of everyone, from the Avaaz community to our TCKTCKTCK campaign partners to people joining the first climate action of their lives. Click here to see the video of this amazing movement in action: http://www.avaaz.org/en/
Want to support Avaaz? We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated online team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — http://www.avaaz.org/en/.
ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Click http://www.avaaz.org/en/ to learn more about our largest campaigns.
Choices.
There are many terrible drug habits. The worst is alcohol, in numbers of users and anti-social effect. It is the leading cause of teenage deaths: 80,000 young Americans a year, 40,000 maimed from mixing drink and driving. U.S. government/police statistics confirm the following:
– 100,000 alcohol-related deaths annually (compared with zero marijuana deaths in 10,000 years).
– At least 40-50% of all murders and highway fatalities are alcohol-related.
– Alcohol is indicated in 69-80% of all child/rape/incest and wife-beating cases.
– Heroin is indicated in 35% of burglaries, armed robberies, grand theft auto, etc.
– The FBI reported over 600,000 arrests for simple marijuana possession in 1997.
Approximately 50% of all drug enforcement money, federal and state, for the last 60 years has been directed toward marijuana! 70-80% of all people now in prison would NOT have been there 60 years ago. In cultivated ignorance and prejudice we put 800,000 of 1.2 million people in jail (1998 – not including county jails) for a minor habit. 80% of them were not dealing. In 1978 there were 300,000 people in jail for all crimes combined.
After wide cultivation for 10,000 years, marijuana was outlawed in America in 1937. Was it because it threatened public health – or certain business interests? Hemp (cannabis sativa) is one of the most useful plants known to man. Its fibers make rope, sails, shirts, paper; it provides clean lighting and lubricating oils, animal feed, and is safely used in medicines.
What happened? In the 1920’s and ‘30s, Americans became concerned about drug addiction – especially morphine and a Bayer Company “miracle drug” called “heroin.” Most Americans didn’t know smoking hemp was intoxicating until William Randolph Hearst began a sensational campaign linking “killer weed” to jazz musicians, “crazed minorities,” and “unspeakable crimes.” His newspapers featured headlines like:
Not all shared their view. The U.S. Siler Commission studied marijuana smoking by off-duty servicemen, found no lasting effects, and recommended NO criminal penalties apply to it.
But, the anti-hemp campaign had results. By 1931, after two years of secret hearings Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. Unsure if it was constitutional to ban it outright, they taxed the plant prohibitively instead. Growers had to register; sellers and buyers were buried in paperwork; noncompliance was a federal crime. The tax was $100 an ounce (“legitimate” marijuana then sold for $2 a pound). The Act ruined the legitimate industry. Medical use was too expensive; doctors and pharmacists turned to chemically derived drugs. Nonmedical uses were taxed to death and farmers stopped growing. No brainer, it still grew wild all over the U.S.; its “illegitimate” use was little affected by Congress.
Going on four generations now, propaganda and lies have relentlessly drained taxpayer’s money to build government’s anti-drug machine and the conditions of a police state. Virtually every state is in the midst of the biggest prison expansion ever in America’s and the world’s history, creating political vultures only concerned for the growth of their prison-related crime-fighting industry and job security. They demand more prisons and more money to pursue this “law and order” madness against an invented crime.
We can moderate society’s problems and reject the police state by simply legalizing marijuana. We can clear the jails, and re-employ police, court, prison and rehabilitation staff to deal with real crime and hard drug abuse. We can put money into our schools and health care without raising anyone’s taxes. We can also stop lying to ourselves, and end a terrible multi-generational injustice. Let’s just say “no” to these anti-marijuana bozos. jl, Portland, 6-05
Just Say Now (Willamette Week article on present efforts to legalize marijuana:
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3535/12786/
Jack Herer (pronounced as in “terror”). Everything you ever wanted to know about hemp, fully documented:
SECOND PAPER:
William Randolph Hearst had a vested interest in protecting the pulp industry. He owned enormous timber acreage and hemp could put his paper-manufacturing division out of business and ruin his land value. He slanted the news to protect his investments. He led a yellow journalism campaign to outlaw hemp. As example, a car accident in which marijuana was found dominated the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related accidents (outnumbering marijuana over 1,000 to one) made the back pages. Hearst popularized the word “marijuana” to introduce fear of the unknown to create a useable hysteria.
The Du Pont Company also had pulp industry interests, patenting a new process for wood-pulp paper. Their own records show wood-pulp products as over 80% of all their railroad car holdings for the next 50 years. Du Pont was also drastically changing its business strategy. Primarily a military explosives maker, they realized after World War I that peacetime uses for artificial fibers and plastics would be more profitable.
Du Pont poured millions of dollars into research to create synthetics like rayon and nylon. Two years before the Marijuana Tax Act outlawing hemp, they developed a substitute for hemp rope. The year after the tax, they brought rayon out in direct competition with hemp cloth. Du Pont assured Congress in secret testimony that they could make synthetic petrochemical oils to replace hemp oil. The millions spent on research, and hundreds of millions in expected profits would be wiped out if newly affordable hemp products hit the market. So, Du Pont worked with Hearst to eliminate hemp.
Du Pont’s point man was Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) (out to make it big like FBI’s Hoover). He was appointed by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, chairman of Mellon Bank, Du Pont’s chief financial backer, and Anslinger’s wife’s uncle. Anslinger used his clout to sway congress. When the American Medical Association (AMA) argued for hemp’s medical benefits, Anslinger led the entire congressional committee to denounce and dismiss them.
Five years after the tax was imposed, the government reversed itself when the Japanese seized Philippine hemp, causing a wartime rope shortage. Overnight, they urged hemp cultivation and made a movie, “Hemp for Victory” – then, just as fast, recriminalized hemp after the shortage passed. While it was legal, it saved the life of a young pilot named George H.W. Bush, who didn’t know when he bailed out of his plane that:
– Parts of his aircraft were lubricated with hemp oil.
– 100% of his parachute webbing was U.S. grown cannabis hemp.
– All the rigging, ropes and fire hoses of his rescue ship were hemp.
President G.H.W. Bush opposed decriminalizing hemp grown in the U. S.
Does the hemp conspiracy continue? Doctors can’t prescribe marijuana for patients as medication for chronic pain, although one judge found, “the record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people and doing so with safety under medical supervision.”
The Anti-Drug Industry continues its ruthless disregard for truth, mercy, and facts. The evidence of marijuana’s benign nature is fully documented. Propaganda and greed fuel the anti-marijuana crowd, not facts or justice.
Just Say Now (Willamette Week article on present efforts to legalize marijuana:
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3535/12786/
Jack Herer (pronounced as in “terror”). Everything you ever wanted to know about hemp, fully documented, with authenticated copies of original materials:
“They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.” – Bill Hicks.
Jack Herer (pronounced as in “terror”). Everything you ever wanted to know about hemp, fully documented:
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