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Hemp For Ecological Victory!

I spoke at the Hemp Festival tonight at Ohio State University, sponsored by the Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. I’ve never been able to understand why you would outlaw a miracle plant like hemp – that doesn’t even get you high — just because it’s the male cousin of marijuana. It’s a bit like outlawing corn because somebody can make cornmash from it during Prohibition. Or outlawing barley because it’s used to make beer. The famous but ignored Popular Mechanics article from the 1930s called hemp “the wonder product” and talked about 25,000 products that can be made from it. Hemp can be used for multiple purposes: fuel, food products, oils, clothing, paper products or a whole car, as Henry Ford demonstrated.

The war on drugs that Reagan pushed was really targeted against marijuana, after all, the CIA’s assets (like the Contras) were bringing in cocaine by the carload and the Reagan administration told the CIA that they didn’t have to report it to the DEA. Read more

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Airbrushed From History

With the clamor over Bobby Kennedy’s article in Rolling Stone, that has thankfully re-ignited interest in the theft of the 2004 election, I want to make sure that certain people aren’t airbrushed out of the picture. This important grassroots history was left out of the article.

First, let me make it clear that the original Kennedy article included specific references to the Free Press (the paper and website I publish) and my good friend Harvey Wasserman. Harvey and I wrote a piece prior to the 2004 election outlining how Bush was planning to steal the vote. Most of the evidence turned up about Ohio was a result of public hearings about election irregularities held on November 13 and 15, 2004 in Columbus, Ohio under the auspices of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism/Free Press. The co-sponsors of the hearings included: the Alliance for Democracy, CASE-Ohio, and the League of Pissed Off Voters. Cliff Arnebeck of the Alliance and Susan Truitt of CASE played key roles in the hearings and were two of the four lawyers who challenged the election results in Ohio. Amy Fay Kaplan and Jonathan Meier of the League were invaluable in organizing the public hearings where sworn testimony was taken. Read more

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Call To Action: Help Stop David Duke Klan Member Hate Rally Against Undocumented Workers

So the organizers of an Ohio Statehouse rally attacking undocumented workers is being sponsored by a white supremacist hate group. The name of the organization, Americans for America, should have tipped us off that they were fascists. Much like in the 50s, when authoritarians terrorized believers in the First Amendment by creating the House Un-American Activities Committee in the US Congress.

The usual suspects are involved. The organizer is one of David Duke’s boys. You remember Duke’s grand dream of merging the Klan and Nazis into one big white supremacist network. Every election year the right-wing storm troops come out of their bunker to whip up race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic and cultural hatreds. It’s their job. By promoting wedge issues that divide the population along falsely created identity lines, they can get the vast majority of people who work for a wage or a salary to hate the targeted group that changes from year to year.

In 2004, it was gays and gay marriage. Read more

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From Robert Kennedy Jr. And RollingStone – Pollster Lou Harris Said “Ohio Was A Dirty Election” And How 350,000 Votes Disappeared In Ohio

The first thing you should do today is go to the Rolling Stone website and see if the article “Did Bush Steal the 2004 Election?: How 350,000 Votes Disappeared in Ohio” is posted. There’s been other articles, of course I’ve written many in my own publication the Free Press and posted them on the freepress.org, and there was Christopher Hitchens article in Vanity Fair “Ohio’s Odd Numbers” as well as Mark Crispin Miller’s article in Harper’s that was part of his seminal book “Fooled Again.” But the heavily footnoted Bobby Kennedy piece has the most explosive news — the reputable pollster Lou Harris going on the record to announce the theft of the election in Ohio. Bradblog reported yesterday: “Pollster Lou Harris of the Harris Poll — described in the piece as ‘the father of modern day political polling’ — says: ‘Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen.'”

This should finally silence the spineless New Democrats and the hipster progressive de-bunkers at Mother Jones and other outlets like tompaine.com. Once you get the story, immediately email it to your entire list. It’s important that democracy be restored and those who stole the election in Ohio be publicly damned for their actions. 
 

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Bush And Hackwell About To Be Stoned

Check out Leftyblogs.com – the Top 50 Headlines of the Week includes a blog by Cincinnati’s Andrew Warner. He’s asking Strickland to drop out of Ohio’s governor race, so as not to be a “spoiler” for my campaign. Thanks for the insightful analysis, Andrew!

This Thursday, Rolling Stone subscribers should be getting a historic issue of the magazine with one of the most anticipated articles ever written. Voting rights activists are excited about the article written by Stone reporters, as well as an extended piece by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. on the Ohio 2004 presidential election. The article should be on the web by Friday.

We need to buy as many copies as we can get and make sure they’re widely distributed before the Bush White House breaks open one of its secret slush funds to keep this important article from being disseminated.

If you want to get a feel for what might be in the article, my good friends at the Ecological Options Network have now posted all their videos through Google, so enjoy these and let me know what you think:

Here are the Google links: 

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Granny D Arrested In Washington DC Fighting For Clean Government

I had the privilege of having breakfast with Doris “Granny D” Haddock today. Granny D, who lives in the woods between Dublin and Peterborough, New Hampshire, came to Columbus to campaign for clean money in the state and to end the culture of corruption. Granny D is most famous for walking across the country at the age of 89 in support of campaign finance reform. The single greatest problem in our system is the fact that 1% of the population provides 90% of the money for political campaigns and political action committees (PACs). To clean up politics, you’ve got the get the dirty money out, particularly the corporate money, and get clean citizen-subsidized money into the process.

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Everyone Deserves Health Insurance

For the United States to regain its moral stature in the world, we must quit waging illegal wars and instead act like every other advanced democracy by providing universal health care for all our citizens. 44 million Americans and 1.3 million Ohioans lack access to health insurance. In the 21 other western industrialized democracies, the figure is zero.

That’s why in my gubernatorial campaign, I support the Single Payer Action Network (SPAN) initiative to bring single-payer health insurance to Ohio. Single-payer means that one fund, administered by a non-profit government agency accountable to the public (not shareholders) would make payment for all medical services.

By creating universal health care, we would not be socializing medicine. Doctors and hospitals would operate on their own. By covering all Ohioans, we would become a more productive state and a state with a much better business environment. Additionally, I would allow state funds to be used for cities and towns in Ohio to issue bonds to create democratically and locally-controlled health care clinics, and money would go to subsidize doctors to set up practices in communities that are currently underserved.

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Justice for Carol Fisher!

The rise of fascism always begins with the corruption of the police. The recent conviction of Carol Fisher on two counts of felonious assault on two 200+ pound Cleveland Heights policemen must concern all Americans who believe in the Bill of Rights.

Carol’s real crime was posting the World Can’t Wait posters that demanded that Bush “step down.”  The cops, as foot soldiers of the Constitution, should have been defending Carol’s First Amendment right to post fliers. Instead, as thugs of the Repugnican Party, they assaulted Carol.

This is an old game, and I’ve seen more than more cop laugh about testi-lying. In this case, the lie was obvious. They were the victims. They were assaulted. Again, just another pair of lying jackbooted thugs who do the bidding of the Bush junta.

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Earth Day Musings

Today I spent seven hours at the Cleveland Zoo for an Earth Day event. Not only did we collect hundreds of signatures, but we got some of the most politically educated and active people in the state of Ohio.

I am more convinced than ever that we are at a tipping point in Ohio and the United States. People see clearly that we need to develop alternative energy and build urban transit systems and light rail throughout our great state. There are plenty of solutions out there to make this a green and sustainable state. Our problem isn’t with our people. It’s with two decrepit and corrupt political parties that are wedded to the status quo and to the special interests that pollute and poison our planet.

I was asked whether I believed a two-party system can work. Generally, I believe no. We need to hear from many alternative parties and voices on the ballot. But, perhaps if those two parties were the Greens and Libertarians, we’d have a much better chance than the same old ruthless Republicans and spineless Democrats.

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Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The suburban dream came forth on heavy government subsidies, welfare if you will, and the promise of cheap gas. Most are familiar with the story of how General Motors and Big Oil conspired to destroy the mass transit system in L.A. and other major cities. But now that we’re in one long continuous unending war for fossil fuels in the Middle East, the question is what should we do locally here in Ohio?

Planes should be the transportation of last resort, only for long distance travel or absolute necessity. Local, affordable, fuel-efficient mass transit is a must in Ohio’s major cities. The creation of a European or Japanese-style rail system is essential.

Re-thinking suburbia (“sprawlburbia”) and  promoting green architecture, which encourages people to walk instead of driving everywhere, should be accepted goals for all Ohioans.

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