The REAL Coup D'eTat...

The Trump party is determined to take away our voice and our rights. WTF is up with that? I thought the GOP was for smaller government and states rights? We Progressives/Liberals have been demonized and insulted on a daily basis, He goes as far to say to his followers that Liberals want to "kill them", (FL a couple of months ago), and they seem to be doing the best they can to instigate a civil war (divide and conquer). They no longer have any shame and McConnell tells us there will be no fair trial in the senate, the decision has already been made to acquit. They brazenly ignore our Constitution when it suits them, and Trump is acting above the law, using the Attorney General as his personal lawyer and henchman. He has also recruited various congressmen  to do his dirty work. GOP congressmen are all in, or all out. They are too afraid to speak against Trump for fear losing their “jobs”, or they just resign and say nothing so Trump  doesn't attack them.

Being elected to public office is NOT supposed to be a “job”! It's supposed to be a public service. You serve your constituents until your term is over and you go back to your life. You would never know it today with all the career politicians in office. They start campaigning the day they are elected. It used to be that we had a break between elections, now it's campaigning 24/7/365.

If that wasn't bad enough, the Trump republicans have broken their oath to abide and defend our constitution, and have pledged loyalty to known con man and thief. They are dismantling our government right before our eyes. Trump leaves advisory positions vacant because he is so full of himself, he ignores the ones that are left because he imagines that he has all the answers and needs no advice from anyone. He claims he knows more than the Generals, Climate and Environmental scientists, economic an policy experts. He even thinks that he's "the chosen one" or the "second comming of Jesus" The truth is, he's not even qualified to be a dog catcher.  If he's the second comming, we're doomed Indeed, everything he touches, dies.

This may be why his followers are so dedicated. The really believe he was chosen by god, because Paula White, Franklin Graham, Pat  Robertson and Creflo Dollar, say so. These people claim they're in direct contact with 'God' and have had 'visions'. I have a LOT more to say about this, but that will be my next post. (Watch "The Family" on Netflix)

His trade war has devastated agriculture, killed many small farms, and lost markets that took many, many years to develop. Turkey is now supplying the extremely popular Golden Raisins to China, and  California growers are sitting on 100's of tons of them. Also, the grapes they planted to make the raisins are next to worthless. They also have silos and barns filled with last years Soybean crop. These farmers will have to sell them below market value or they will spoil. That transfers to industries like processors and Truckers. They are going out of business all over the country as produce rots in the field because there is no one to tend and pick. This is “winning” and “making America great again”? It turns out that was only meant to be great for the top 10%.  Instead of food stamps, the poor get a wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for and a bunch of shiny new weapons, and rising prices at the supermarket. 

Trump gets on his bully pulpit and Twitter, then lies straight to our faces telling us that China was paying for the tariffs, everything is better than ever, and he's the best thing since sliced bread. "Everybody says that, everybody knows that, and you know it too", so you can believe it...//s The new USMCA is nothing but a slight revision of NAFTA that Trump proclaimed the worst trade deal "ever in the history of the world".

(...only a Sith deals in absolutes.) 

The Republicans seem to be incapable of creating their own legislation, unless it has to do with tax cuts for their friends, financing their pet projects, or adding loop holes to the tax code, that only a few know about, or would even understand.  It's been at least 10 years since they said they had a great new healthcare bill to replace Obamacare. So far the only thing it says is 'dont get sick'. Their favorite thing to say is that Obama lied about keeping you old doctor/insurance. Unfortunately he didn't realize how many people had insurance plans that weren't worth the paper they were printed on, and Doctors that didn't really care about their patients. If they really lied you that much, they can figure a way to keep treating you,or if a privet practice they can choose to accept your new policy. There is always a way an nothing is written in stone. You would think that Obamacare exposing junk healthcare plans and sleazy Doctors would be a good thing, eliminating the suprise of getting hurt and not being covered, but no, the GOP spun it as Obama lied to them. The republicans were the liars, but their base ate it like popcorn.

They did it again when Obama was talking about business and entrepreneurs in Roanoke VA .The sentence "If you've got a business—you didn't build that" was taken completely out of context and cut to." you didn't build that!". Obama was  referring to our infrastructure, not they didn't build their  businesses. What he said, was that business get most of the benifit from infrastructure, and they should pay more. Mitt Romney came out with the lie that Obama was saying the THEY didn't build their businesses(manufactured outrage is a favorite tactic). The lies about this and Obamacare persist to today, and Trumper's will not accept the truth, and think Obama should be arrested, for what they will never say.

His followers who have had their jobs lost to automation, laid off due to closures because the big corporations used their massive tax cuts to buy robots and move operations to foreign countries,...and buy some new boats and vacation homes, instead of creating jobs. The money they give to him is considered an investment and they expect a return, regardless of who it hurts. We now have more homeless than ever before and most people need to work 2 jobs, and are still one paycheck away from the street.

We all know that trickle-down economics does not work. AKA "Horse and Sparrow" economics. The theory is that if you feed the Horse enough grain, there will be plenty left for the Sparrows when it comes out on the other end. Unfortunately economics are not that simple and it doesn't work that way. Reality is the Horse eats all the grain, they eat the Horse and, the Sparrows get only the bones. This is what the Trump admin is doing again, promising the workers plenty of grain, and only giving us the bones.  When the first tax cuts for the rich took effect,  big corporations CUT millions of jobs worldwide. What they also did to the remaining workers was change peoples deductions from zero or 1 to 3 or 4 or 5...giving the workers what seemed like pay raise and bonus! When the Horse took a shit at tax time, lot's of Sparrows who expected a bumper crop of grain (refund), discovered that they actually OWED 100's even thousands of dollars. They got shit on. It was so profitable, and made Trumps wealthy donors (investors) so happy as well as a boatload of cash. Trump is gonna do it again.  I'm sure a lot of the GOP base didn't even realize what happened. Ignorance is bliss!

Trump appoints people to positions like the EPA head, who have absolutely no business in that office or government  period. The old EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, a trump appointee, spent  his time rolling back environmental laws, spending money like a drunken sailor( ie, private jets, demanding 1st class travel, a condo) and firing anyone who complained about it.  ” says Rhea Suh, president of NRDC, which launched a Fire Scott Pruitt campaign in March to fight the astonishing slew of environmental assaults by the EPA administrator. “Pruitt failed miserably on both counts.”

The name of the man who replaced him is Andrew Wheeler. He is just as bad or worse  than Pruitt, Wheeler is an attorney and lobbyist for the Coal and Energy Industry and he believes that the government should own no land. He is currently lifting logging restrictions in the Tongass National Forrest in Alaska, so Proctor and Gamble can turn 1000 year old trees, into Charmin Toilet paper! The Tongass is the last intact temperate forest's left, and sequesters incredible amount's of CO2. Cutting it will also release 650 million ton's of CO2 back into the atmosphere, raising the temperature 2 to 5 degrees Celsius. Already it's getting so hot in Australia, Wyoming, Montana, parts of Europe and Russia during the summer, we are seeing  asphalt roads melt and buckle from the heat of summer, and that too hot to grow food as well. It's a lot easier to get warm when it's cold, than to get cold when its warm. 3 degrees rise in temperature would be catastrophic.

Wheeler, like Barr, McConnell is a Federalist as are all the judges McConnell is appointing. Many are completely unqualified like 'Bart” Kavanaugh and worse if possible, McConnell is appointing judges who have not even tried a case or deposed a witness They were picked simply because they are young and heavily addicted to Red Kool-aid./Pills. The only requirement is to have pledged fealty to Dear Leader, and do what they are told. McConnell is now ignoring the Bar Association recommendations since they are now deemed 'too liberal' to have an opinion on court appointees. 

Trump has thoroughly embarrassed us on the world stage. World leaders openly joke about what an idiot he is. In his zeal to get close to the worlds despots, who have also made a complete fool of him. His love affair with Kim Jung un ended very badly and he's now threatening to nuke us again...and he can. Kim tried to get him to lift sanctions by showing him what  a swell guy he was, and it was an accident when his Uncle and 12 musicians were obliterated with a WW2 anti-aircraft gun! Kim's people love him so much that they are willing to starve so Dear Leader can live in luxury...//s

Fun Fact: Due to Kim's threats and nuke capability, Trump had a brainstorm and suggested that they evacuate Seoul South Korea, in case Kim decides to nuke it. Such a brainiac! How have we survived without him!

We have lost the little moral authority we once had and are no longer a beacon of freedom and justice for the worlds oppressed, instead we are now an oppressor. We turned our backs on our allies the Kurd's causing the loss of life of 100's and the homes of 1000's because of something to do with Trumps Hotels in Istanbul (it looks like at least). He was also trying to pursued Edogan to buy our arms instead of Russia's. They decided to call it a 'trade deal' to get around the US/UN/EU sanctions, on arms sales to Turkey. This is one of the "drug deals" that pissed off John Bolton. Amazingly, Liz Cheney has sponsored a bill banning arms sales to Turkey.  I have read her daddy is not to fond of Trump for selling out the Kurd's.

Another disturbing observation I have made is that Evangelical/Dominunist  Christians are going full bore on what brought many Christians to America in the first place, and fueled the genocide of Native Americans----Manifest Destiny--- The Christian belief that ALL of North  America was given to white Christians (Canada and Mexico included), by God, has once again become their guiding principal. It appears that Trump followers are encouraged to beat and intimidate minorities using innuendo at Trump's speeches, rallies, and even at his  news conferences and tweets. People who Trump has thrown under the bus have verified Trumps code talk. Many violent actions by trump supporters have been linked to things he has said. His staff is well aware of the code talk when he wants them to do something illegal or unethical (ie. he could say something like, "why are all the cages Obama built on the border empty?").  This is how he can maintain  plausible deniability. He seems to care less about that now since he was crowned as king and now says, " yeah, I did it, so what. I can do anything I want". He would have been in jail long ago if he didn't have so may people willing to do his dirty work. We have never found out how he was able to commit tax fraud in the 90's and get away with it. My guess is that he owned(s) one or more higher up's at the NY IRS.

 Getting back to Civil War, the last time I checked, instigating the overthrow of a government was called , sedition (another impeachment article). That goes for the #IMPOTUS as well. The marching orders for this were relayed in code as well. He thinks that there are a lot more people into this than there really are. White nationalist's,  'Militia' members (Meal Team Six), the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, Proud Boys and  Patriot Prayer. In reality, they don't really amount to a lot of people and any Civil War action, if any, will be limited to the south east, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and Idaho. Maybe the Bundy ranch in Nevada too. I really can't see anyone going out of their way to fight them, and I don see farmer Jones down the road coming to shoot me, or Meal Team Six laying waste to 19th and Castro in San Francisco.

For me the worst part of the Muller, FISA and Impeachment hearings has been watching Doug Collins, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy and all the other Trumpublican congressmen, scream and spew Russian created  talking points in our congress, lying and creating their own facts that are not even close to being based in reality. It seems that to trump supporters, it's true only if you can yell really loud, and whine when it's their turn to speak, or Trump declares it true. They do nothing but attack the procedure and the Democrats, but avoid addressing the very real and serious charges against him.  We can not trust ANYTHING that comes from this administration and it's usually the exact opposite of the truth. Employment and economic reports are not to be trusted, because trump will not allow any negative info to come out of his administration. If it does, he throws a tantrum like an spoiled brat and fires anyone responsible for hurting his delicate ego/feelings.

I just found out when watching Washington Journal a few days ago that the Fed has cut interest rates as much as they could (Trump demanded it ignoring expert advice) to prop up our flailing economy, and are now back to printing new money to cover debt. That is going to eventually devalue the US dollar, and interest rates are supposed to increase in January. There is another proposed tax cut coming too. I'm no economic genius, but when you're in debt, losing part of your income is a bad thing. You either find a new source of Income, cut expenses or find a 2nd or third job. They can't cut social programs for the poor anymore (I hope) so I don't know how that is gonna work. That will usher in the coming rescission that can't be avoided. Of course it will be President Obama's fault, or the Democrats. I hope this will prove that trump is a economic and financial idiot. A man capable of losing money on a casino was a big red flag. (the house always win's!)

All of this has really made me angry, and I even contemplated moving to another country, like a lot of people have done already, but I'm not gonna surrender to them. I love my country too much to just let them have it. This is my home and I remember being in Europe, as cool and fun as it was, it wasnt long until I really missed home. Trump is saying that he is not gonna step down regardless of the election results. He has already been saying if he loses, the election is fixed, even though that is exactly what they're doing as we speak! His remaining supporters are not willing to admit they were wrong about Trump, and are gonna support him until the bitter end. They are refusing to believe what is certifiably true if it doesn't jive with their confirmation bias, and they just tune it out. You can read ta paragraph and a Trump supporter will see the exact opposite of what it  truly says, thanks to the advent of ”alternative facts. Word's no longer have the same meaning to all of us. Reading comprehension and critical thinking is lost to the majority of Trumper's.

I found a fake Trump website the other day and I shared it with some hard core Trump supporters and I asked them what they thought. The page was created by an offshoot of the Epoch Times, and it is called "BT". I was reading a story at the LA times and  this presidential survey caught my eye. Something about it didn't look right. My BS detector was right again. I followed the trail.

I researched it and the first thing I found was a Snopes exposé  that had discovered that 'BT'  had created MILLIONS of fake Facebook user profiles and pro Trump pages. What i found on Facebook was called patrotsfortrump2020 that turned out to be administered in Vietnam!  I started to follow fake profiles that led to 1000's more fake profiles and fake pro trump Facebook pages that had made up stories on them, There seems to be no end to these fakes. The next day I read that Facebook had deleted something like 50 MILLION profiles and pages. They had posts that said the Obama's were now Trump supporters, and that lots of Democrats were were turning into Republicans to support him. If you are up on current events you know the truth is the opposite.

Most pages said that there were 1000 to 1/2 a million followers. 99% of the were fake, of course. Some had no comments, others had quite  few real people who had bought it and were commenting. Back my trump supporting friends. When I asked them what they thought, to my suprise that thought the page was great and very balanced reporting! --- *o* --(that's my really surprised look) Even though I told them everything there was a fabrication,  they refused to believe me.

So this is what were up against. If we let them let away with this, say goodbye to our  Constitutional Republican Democracy, and hello Christian Evangelical Dominunist Theocracy. True story.

We are the victims of a bloodless coup by the Russians, Saudis and the energy industry and other corporate interests and Military Industrial Complex,  and have thrown us into a Plutocracy.This is the "New World Order they were talking about. For instance The only reason we are in the Middle east at all is because we're protecting the oil fields, refineries and shipping routes. If you missed it, the Bush 43 admin admitted via Colin Powell that the reason we invaded Iraq was for oil. We have been in Afghanistan for 18 years now, not because of Osama Bin Laden (who coordinated the 911 attack from Saudi Arabia) but because of a mother-load of minerals, and they want to run pipelines through it as well. Unfortunately they forgot that they don't call Afghanistan the “Graveyard of Empires”, for nothing. Afghani's are some bad ass MFR's

They,  the plutocrats, have been using the blood of our sons and daughters to protect corporate interests, not to defend or promote Democracy and Constitution. They have done this to us since Vietnam. Vietnam was just a proxy war between the US and those that threatened US global hegemony. It had been planned for years before we invaded. It was a civil war and it should have been left alone. That cost us something like 58,148 sons and daughters. They died for nothing. Notice how most congressmen who are 'War Hawks' were never in the military, nor their children? They usually had a Doctors would  diagnose them with BONE SPURS or something so they wouldn't have to enlist.

Never give in to these traitors. Their time will end soon. Trump is gonna bankrupt our country like he has himself 4 or 5X to date. The GOP have created a monster and have to continue backing him or be removed from power. History will not be kind to them.

Lastly, make sure to mind your voting registration status, they are actively trying to purge minorities, democrats and Independents. We outnumber them by at least 3 to 1 and probably more than that. There are millions of new young voters that like our country and Constitution the way it is, or the way it was. President Obama won by 10 million votes in 2007. It seems that most have had enough of listening to Trump and his supporters whine and cry every day, and they act as if they're the victims. Because Trump says so...and Liberals are just a bunch of big meanies. 

Don't Boo-Hoo, Vote!

Markus 12-22-2019

Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country...Revised 1/10/2020

I just read a blog from a woman who left her church because of their support of our fake president there is and article and an link here:
Disgusted’ Christian woman explains why she left her church over its support for Trump

This is me before I became an atheist! When I finally discovered that the truth comes from real life experience and not some of book written by a bunch of unknown authors, some with dubious motives, and put together by some truly evil people.(KJB)

The people who are drumpfs base, are what drove me from the church and helped me to see that God and Jesus are just myths from the human tragedy...A tool to control the masses.

What I did take from religion was to be my brothers keeper, respect the planet and life on it, do good and try to leave things better than you found them. This is just common sense and I get sick to my stomach when I look around and see where my country has gone.

I can't sympathise with people who were so upset when Obama won. This is a completely different situation. For some unknown reason people were really upset because he tired to fight for our environment, feed the poor and make sure we all have equal rights and affordable health care.

 That will be another post.

Truth and justice have lost their meaning. And oligarchs, plutocrats et al, have taken our leadership and are gonna rape our natural resources. I'm not gonna just sit around and let it happen.

I think the main reason we're in this situation is we got apathetic and we put too much faith in the idea that all people are basically good and our leaders, lead because they want the best for us all. Unfortunately that's another myth.

We are seeing the people who want to lead because they want what's best for themselves, and not for the people. These people are pushing the people who should be leading out of the way. They can do this because of the same reason they became wealthy. They will do and say whatever they have to do to get more power and money. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

There are no Senators and only a few Representatives who are not worth over a million $. A person's ability to make money by any means necessary is not the best people to lead. Being born to into wealth is even worse. These people rarely have honor, integrity or compassion for anything. I saw how it making was done when was really young. I came to a crossroads and had to make a choice that would radically change my life.You have to be willing to screw over your best friend or even your family if you want to be wealthy, and I couldn't in good conscious do what was required.

I would do it all over again, and I can't say I wouldn't change my life if I could, because like us all we have done things we're not proud of. But then again, every experience you have builds your character, good and bad. I like to think I came out of it all a good person.

The people who are the most unfit to lead are those who were born into wealth. You can't convince me otherwise. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely on every level of society. From the police the the POTUS.  They were raised in a bubble and have never had to sacrifice or been through adversity, hardship, sacrifice, the building blocks of becoming a good person. The most traumatic experience they lived through  is when the Limo broke down on the highway. How can a person like that possibly be a leader of everyday, diverse, hard working people? Their whole perception of normal life is only what they see on TV.

We need to get to a place where the best people to lead, want to do it. Drumpf and his entire cabinet are a caricature of bad leadership, and those kind of people should never be in positions of power. They should have never been allowed to be in those positions. They are there because of our apathy, and the fact that our government is for sale.  To forward that, we have gerrymandering, political office for sale, states for sale,lobbyists, think tanks, people who consider their political donations an investment, religious groups and Citizens United (doublespeak for 'unlimited funds to take over the government'). I think you get the idea.

I see a big change,  and I see many who feel just as I do and are taking action. This is just the beginning. I hate to brag but I am usually ahead of the curve. The marches and demonstrations you see happening are just the seed of something really big, but don't just watch, get in there and make it happen.

We are smarter and more creative than these usurpers, and that is why we will prevail.

All we need is that intention.

 Wake up and live, Bob Marley:

Life is one big road with lots of signs
So when you riding through the ruts
Don't you complicate your mind
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy!
Don't bury your thoughts
Put your vision to reality, yeah!
Wake up and live, y'all!

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Update<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
As I predicted when I wrote this in 2017, the big change happened at the 2018 midterms. People were outraged enough to get off their butts and vote. You ain't seen nothing yet. My next prediction is that trump will lose by a popular landslide, and still refuse to leave office...because unfair. He has been hemorrhaging supporters with every vindictive ,vengeful, and unconstitutional thing he does...and he even knows it. For anything he says, we have seen the opposite is true. To him andy negative press or criticism is written off as fake news, and his supporters will  believe anything he says. They had to surrender their BS detectors long ago.

Now my Perceptors still have not picked up who will go against him because of data manipulation and corruption, but they do tell me that Biden, or Sanders will not be the ones. I think Biden 'popularity in the polls is artificially created. Remember, trump WANTS to run against him. That is a really big tell where trump is concerned. Remember, the opposite of what he says is 99% of the time, the truth. I won't be surprised if Klobuchar ends up being the nominee, but for now I support Elizabeth Warren. I will vote for anyone going against Trump. She is the smartest one in the room. It's unfortunate that-that one never wins.

I will have more to say about all that in my next post. #BeWorst #PurpleTsunami #Resist #Occupy #ArrestTrump #ArrestBarr

DON'T BOO-HOO, VOTE!  (Modified Obama quote)

How industrial hemp and pot became illegal.

This also explains why we're dependant on foreign oil. I found this, and reposted it. Written in 1998, I tried, but could not contact the author. I have checked the info, and it is accurate.


Yeah, and that's one of the things that happened in 1937. Cannabis Hemp was one of history's most widely used plants. Tincture of Cannabis was the basis for almost every patent medicine prior to the discovery of aspirin. Hemp was used for rope, twine, and cloth. Sailing ships were loaded with hemp. The word "canvas" is derived from "cannabis", because that's what canvas was. Sails were made of hemp because salt water deteriorated cotton. Old sails were made into wagon covers and ultimately original Levi's Jeans. And the pressed oil from hemp seeds was used for paints and varnishes. Everyone knew what hemp was. But nobody knew what marijuana was.

Basically, it came down to this. America in the 1900's saw two powerful rivals, agriculture and industry, faced off over several multi-billion dollar markets. When Rudolph Diesel produced his engine in 1896, he'd assumed it would run off of vegetable and seed oils, especially hemp, which is superior to petroleum. Just think about that for a second. A fuel that can be grown by our farmers that is superior to foreign oil. What a lot of history would have been rewritten!

Ok. So we have an elite group of special interests dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and it's major financial backer and key political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon was a banker who took over Gulf Oil Corporation. In 1913, Henry Ford opened his first auto assembly line, and Gulf Oil opened its first drive-in gas station. In 1919, with ethanol fuel poised to compete with gasoline, Alcohol Prohibition descended on the nation. Lucky Mellon. When President Harding made him Secretary of the Treasury, he was considered the richest man in America. In the 1920's, Mellon arranged for his bank to loan his buddies as Du Pont money to take over General Motors. Du Pont had developed new gasoline additives and the sulfate and sulfite process that made trees into paper.

In the 1930's, Ford Motor Company operated a successful biomass fuel conversion plant using cellulose at Iron Mountain, Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch ethyl-acetate and creosote from hemp. The same fundamental ingredients for industry were also being made from fossil fuels.
During the same period, Du Pont was developing cellophane, nylon, and dacron from from fossil fuels. Du Pont held the patents on many synthetics and became a leader in the development of paint, rayon, synthetic rubber, plastics, chemicals, photographic film, insecticides and agricultural chemicals.

From the Du Pont 1937 Annual Report we find a clue to what started to happen next: "The revenue raising power of government may be converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization".
Ok, enter William Randolph Hearst. Hearst's company was a major consumer of the cheap tree-pulp paper that had replaced hemp paper in the late 19th century. The Hearst Corporation was also a major logging company, and produced Du Pont's chemical-drenched tree pulp paper, which yellowed and fell apart after a short time. Fueled by the advertising sold to the petrochemical industries, Hearst Newspapers were also known for their sensationalist stories. Hearst despised poor people, black people, chinese, hindus, and all other minorities. Most of all he hated Mexicans. Pancho Villa's cannabis-smoking troops had reclaimed some 800,000 acres of prime timberland from Hearst in the name of the mexican peasants. And all of the low-quality paper the company planned to make by deforesting it's vast timber holdings were in danger of being replaced by low-cost, high quality paper made from hemp.

Hearst had always supported any kind of prohibition, and now he wanted cannabis included in every anti-narcotics bill. Never mind that cannabis wasn't a narcotic. Facts weren't important. The important thing was to have it completely removed from society, doctors, and industry.

Around 1920 or so, a new word arose - "Marihuana". Through screaming headlines and horror stories,"marihuana" was blamed for murderous rampages by blacks and mexicans. Hearst continued to use his power of the press to impress on his readers the dangers of the "marihuana" plant.

When the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed in 1932, Mellon's nephew Harry Anslinger was appointed its head, a job in Mellon's treasury department that was created just for him. Treasury agents were beginning to operate on their own agenda. Deep in the throes of the depression, congress began to reexamine all federal agencies. Anslinger began to fear that his department was in danger of emasculation. Although worldwide, hemp was still big business, in 1935 the Treasury Department began secretly drafting a bill called The Marihuana Tax Act. The Treasury Department's general counsel Herman Oliphant was put in charge of writing something that could get past both Congress and the Court disguised as a tax revenue bill. Congress wasn't all that interested in the matter, seeing as all the information they had to work with was what was provided to them by Anslinger. They deliberately collected horror stories on the evils of marihuana pulled primarily from the Hearst newspapers, called Anslinger's Gore Files. Crimes that had never happened at all were being attributed to marihuana.

So, in 1937, Anslinger went before a poorly attended committee hearing and called for a total ban on marihuana. He stated under oath "This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured". Bureaucrats planned the hearings to avoid the discussion of the full House and presented the measure in the guise of a tax revenue bill brought to the six member House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Du Pont ally Robert Doughton of North Carolina. This bypassed the House without further hearings and passed it over to the Senate Finance Committee, controlled by another ally, Prentiss Brown of Michigan, where it was rubber stamped into law. Once on the books, Anslinger would "administer" the licensing process to make sure that no more commercial hemp was ever grown in the United States. Clinton Hesterm assistant general counsel for the Department of the Treasury, explained to the House Committee " The leading newspapers of the United States have recognized the seriousness of this problem and have advocated federal legislation to control.. marijuana ..The marijuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities."


  At the last minute, a few pro-hemp witnesses showed up. Most of the confusion came from the using of the word "marihuana". Most people had no idea that "marihuana", merely a slang word taken from a drinking song celebrating Pancho Villa's victory, "La Cucaracha", was the same thing as cannabis hemp, a plant which had been an important crop since the founding of the country. Ralph Loziers of the National Oil Seed Institute showed up representing paint manufacturers and lubrication oil processors, and stated that hempseed was an essential commodity. Dr. William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association spoke in defense of cannabis medicines and in protest of the way the bill was handled. Woodward complained that there was no certain data that marihuana use had increased, and stated that if it had, the "newspaper exploitation of the habit had done more to increase it than anything else". Asked point blank if he thought federal legislation was necessary, he replied "I do not .. it is not a medical addiction that is involved." Woodward went on to criticize the way the word "marihuana" had been used to deliberately confuse the medical and industrial hemp communities. "In all you have heard here thus far, no mention has been made of any excessive use of the drug or its excessive distribution by any pharmacist. And yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of the country, and may I say very heavily - most heavily, possibly of all - on the farmers of this country... We can not understand yet ... why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any initiative, even to the profession, that it was being prepared ... no medical man would identify this bill with a medicine until he read it through, because marijuana is not a drug, ... simply a name given cannabis."
A few days later, Representative Fred Vinson of Kentucky was asked to summarize the AMA's position. He lied to the effect that the medical group's legislative counsel (Woodward) "Not only gave this measure full support, but also the approval from the AMA."

The act passed without a roll call vote. Now we can see why it was prepared in secret - passage of the Act put all hemp industries firmly under the control of the very special interests that most benefited from its repression over the years - prohibition police and bureaucrats working in collusion with the petrochemical companies, the timber companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries, the pharmaceutical drug companies, and today, the urine testing, property seizure, police and prison industries.
In that same year, 1937, Du Pont filed its patent on Nylon, a synthetic fiber that took over many of the textile and cordage markets that would have gone to hemp. More than half the American cars on the road were built by GM, which guaranteed Du Pont a captive market for paints, varnishes, plastics, and rubber, all which could have been made from hemp. Furthermore, all GM cars would subsequently be designed to use tetra-ethyl leaded fuel exclusively, which contained additives that Du Pont manufactured. All competition from hemp had been outlawed.


The historical essay above was written by Bud Fairy and originally published on SF Net, the coffee house network. The HTML version - with emphasis, pictures and minor editing - was done by Hogeye Bill.

My $0.02 on digg...

...So...after three almost 3 years of loyalty to digg, i was unceremoniously banned...forever...i would digg between 30 and 80 subs a day and shout between 3 and 5 of those to my 350+ mutual friends, and the script that i used for make those shouts allowed me to easily shout from 1 to 200, and ten minutes later i could select 201 to 350 without manually selecting from them from the list... a real time saver!..this should have been a feature!...i also had a mirrors script installed...i would digg my friends stuff 90% of the time unless i thought it was REALLY lame,and if they kept sending me lame stuff, i would De-Friend them...I would at least skim it before digging it, and digg up my friends comments...i mean hey!...i had a good rep and wanted to keep it that way..blind digging and digging lame shit is not good for ones reputation!...I remote administer 5 small business networks, and that allowed me to spend quite a bit of time on digg, so apparently spending too much time digging is forbidden and construed as "egregious violations of the Digg.com TOU", and to top it all off "Due to the nature and severity of abuse, your account will not be reinstated. This decision is final and irreversible."...pretty harsh...especially since i hadn't abused anything!..what was even more confusing was when friends of mine that didn't even know what a script is, started dropping like fly's, saying they were banned for the same reason!...something is rotten at digg and it has little to do with script usage and more to do with politics and suppressing free speech is my conclusion...it's cool though, i live at Mixx now and i am really starting to like it...it has features that digg should have adopted long ago, not to mention they actually care about what the users have to say...hopefully it will stay that way ...and to all my digg friends and enemy's, if you want to get in contact with me, feel free to email me at markusgarvey13@yahoo.com, or at the Anti_Zionist group on Mixx where my user name is...you guessed it!...MarkusGarvey...keep up the good fight!...and...Kevin, Jay and Jen...suck my balls!...