The War at Home

It seems the American press prefers to exercise its freedom of the press by informing the public of Michael Jackson’s court case or a runaway bride’s reasons for running out on a wedding providing the public an opportunity to sit in judgment and denying (in some cases with intent) that same public the opportunity to know what is really going on in Iraq and how we got there based on evidence without spin.

But what Michael Jackson did or didn’t do and why the runaway bride ran away ultimately has a minimal affect on my existence today and how many tomorrows I may yet experience. On the other hand, the deceit and deception that led to all that death and destruction in the birth place of civilization will have a profound affect on the rest of my life. And I have more than a gut feeling that this distinction applies to most of the 6 billion people that inhabit this planet.

Yet it is the very American press which provided me the opportunity to once again remember that there is a war here at home - the war on drugs – which was relegated to the back burner after 9/11. An increasing amount of troublesome articles are beginning to appear once again in the press which are intended to continue to deceive the public into supporting the erosion of the bill of rights at the cost of 34 billion taxpayers dollars a year. These manufactured stories with government spin can no longer be dismissed or ignored if we truly believe in a free society.

The war on drugs was/is many things – none of which is positive – indeed it puts American citizens against American citizens by attempting to the legislate the morality of a cult which crumbled an earlier empire. For history buffs, the great fire of 64AD was set by Christians who anxiously awaited the world to end by fire – they were prompting god so to speak.

Indeed there exists a factual basis to support the conclusion that Christianity led to the fall of the Roman Empire and Christianity had more to do with the dark ages than any other particular cause because it denied women’s spiritual significance and forbade goddess worship, the church thus alienated both sexes from their pagan sense of unity.

It is also worth remembering that pagans used herbs including a byproduct of hemp in their religious ceremonies which were conducted by women. The Christian world associated any use of herbs with paganism and as such its use was considered to be a form of witchcraft banned by the church. In 1484, pope innocent viii even proclaimed that cannabis, among other herbs, was central to satanic worship.

In fact Christians said one of the diabolic symptoms of the oncoming end of the world was “the spread of knowledge” thus began the book burnings of the dark ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. In the American empire we have advanced from book burnings to spin as we enter the dark ages of the 21st century. And the official spin smacks of an undeniable similarity to the intolerance of the early Christians. One would have to be in a coma not to realize that this reactionary right wing of Christianity is in the process of destroying yet another empire from within.

In an msnbc.com article dated March 17, 2005 from Rockville MD “experts” said a higher percentage of children ages 12 to 13 used inhalants e.g. hair spray, deodorant, nail polish remover , etc. rather than marijuana in the past year. Nothing unusual about that since one in four teens is taking a pill produced for profit by Eli lily, Glaxo, Pfizer, et al.
And I remember reading recently that in addition to alcohol; teens are now stealing their parent’s medications - hydrocodone for instance.

What is unusual is that not only did the study neglect to mention how many teens have died from inhalants and prescription drugs it failed to report that no medical evidence exists of any teen who ever died from marijuana in and of itself.

But what really caught my attention was when the director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Westley Clark, said that the studies show children who use inhalants move on to marijuana as they get older. But so do kids who drink milk, then coffee, and smoke cigarettes without trying inhalants or prescription drugs. The good director was implying marijuana would be worse but neglecting to say why – therein lay the lie.

Those who want to legislate their morality mask it as the state’s concern for the health of its citizens but my personal addiction to and ill effects from caffeine and nicotine which I can purchase 24 hours a day compels me to point out the contradiction. The criminalization of marijuana in our country today can be traced to one cult imposing its morality on another by whatever means necessary with no regard for the human suffering it causes. It’s the same cult which attached itself to government like a cancer to attack science and knowledge in our society and social institutions on a daily basis.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave we represent five percent of the world’s population. At the same time we also represent 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Statistically speaking we really aren’t that free and definitely not more free than most other nations who don’t claim such honors. And we really can’t be that brave because the constitution of the United States had to be violated without objection for years for such injustice to occur and become legitimized. And whatever happened to those “right to bear arms” fanatics – I thought the reasoning was in order to protect ourselves against all enemies – foreign and domestic?

While we can and must continue to address our grievances to our elected officials and demonstrate against the immoral and unjust war in Iraq we should not fail to express our outrage against the 34 billion dollar war at home, the war on drugs which is being waged by those who want to impose the same values that led to the dark ages of the past. We can follow the course into the abyss or find out what “freedom of speech” really means and determine if it exists any longer in this country which now exists under the influence of intolerance.