Due Process, What Due Process?

Residing in Fresno these days, makes a person wonder if he's living in the USof A, or has he timewarped into another place at another moment in history. It's been almost 20 years since California was the first state in the union to legalize marijuana for medicinal use, allowing patients to grow their own medicine. Now the county of Fresno is actively working to obstruct the law that we citizens enacted.

The County and City of Fresno have conjured up a mythical marijuana growing ban in direct contravention of the peoples wishes and Prop 215. Taxpayers who defy this illegal action will not have their cases heard in a court of law, but rather before the board of supervisors who ramrodded this highly questionable bit of legislation through. Conflict of interest much Fresno?
This my friends is a direct attack on your Bill of Rights. As guaranteed by this hallowed document, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or PROPERTY, without due process of law.


In the simplest terms possible, just for you Chief Jerry Dyer, Sheriff Maggie Mims, and the Stooges who sit on the board: You cannot take peoples property unless you charge them with a crime in court, and they are found guilty. Unless you're the IRS, they're omnipotent.

These are the same fools who decided it was in the county's best interest to steal the belongings of the city's homeless people, remember the outcome of that debacle?
Fresno city and county ended up paying millions to the agencies supplying shopping carts to these citizens, as well as compensating individuals for their lost belongings.

In essence what we have running this community are a group of Nazi's whose only wish is to run rough shod over your rights.

Law enforcement in Fresno acts as if all the crime they fight is rooted in pot; that if there were no marijuana grows, they would be living in fat city. Reality is, crime was rampant before, still is, and has little or nothing to do with marijuana growing. Or when it does, the authorities just want to cast a harsh light on pot as the cause. "This house would have never been targeted if not for the grow activity..."
What about home invasions that have nothing to do with weed? Car thefts? Murder?
When did crime with a hint of herbal essence become so much worse than the ones that just stink?

Don't people who live and work in the community, also pay taxes that support law enforcement? Even if they grow weed, legally? In other more simplistic terms, one more time so the meaning stays at the level this team works on; just go do the jobs you're paid to do. If a perp does a B&E on a grow house, that crime scene should be treated as any other. Arrest the aggressor, return the property to it's owner, and move on to the next case.

People of Fresno, the hardest working, straightest talking folks I've ever known; whether or not you support medicinal marijuana in your town; you have to ask yourselves a few questions.
With the rest of the nation now following, and in some cases surpassing California's lead on the issue; of course we're talking about straight up legalization in Colorado and Washington:
Are we willing to allow our elected leaders to sink our city/county in yet another ACLU law suit?
Wouldn't it just be better to follow Colorado's lead, and start making money; rather than flushing it down Maggie and Jerry's enforcement toilet?
Do we really prosper as a community with leadership that lives in the last century?

Think about it Fresno.

Mendocino County vs. Feds, Reality Strikes

Source: Google Images

While most of America sullenly slogs through a sixth year of recession, the likes of which we haven't  seen since the 1930's, several groups of forward thinking citizens have tasked themselves with continuing the battle against backward thinking government.

With an eye on opening an old industry to new players, while adding taxes to the treasury through entrepreneurial know how, and job creation right here at home; America has been profoundly blessed with a new generation of business and civic leaders eager to tackle two of our society's most glaring deficiencies.

First, the role marijuana plays in society; it's medical, moral, and recreational use.

Second, the elimination of the criminal cartels we allowed to take root in all of North/South American society; their continued spread to Africa in search of new consumers, and trans-shipping routes to Europe.

Suffice it to say, the troglodytes in Federal bureaucratic positions have made these endeavors harder by the moment; every time they lean back on laws promulgated by thieves (Nixon), and enforced by followers of Don Quixote (Holder, Haag). I mean what the heck, if you've got a model that's clearly dysfunctional, wasting money and lives as though they were only words, wouldn't any sane person believe that's the right path? Really?

Source: Google Images

It's the path well worn by our government; head planted firmly in a very dark place while at the same time chanting "If I can't see it, it's not true."

How refreshing would it be if we all had local leaders standing up to the Feds; as the leaders of Mendocino County are to old misguided unenforceable models of prohibition that our  retrograde relics in federal power cling to?

Get a clue Barry, instruct (with crayon stick figure drawings if need be) Herr Holder and his henchwench Haag to find more meaningful ways to blow the hard earned tax dollars they throw at the unachievable, and redirect that energy to ending the corruption that permeates our government. 

Like you've said before there are far bigger fish to fry.

Get your oil boiling brother, we want to see some action that resembles reality rather than the tragic comedy that's defined governmental position since the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act.

What an Em'Barry'sment

So Barry, a new biography coming our way detailing the high school exploits of our current and future President while a member of the notorious "Choom Gang". Smoking weed, drinking beer, doing all the things kids do at that age. All while attending the privileged Punahou School in Oahu with the islands' wealthy elite.

Source: Google Images

Do tell us Barry, if it was OK for you to partake without penalty; why are you suddenly persecuting those of us who use marijuana for medicine legitimately while under the protection of medical marijuana laws you did not have the benefit of?

Barry allow me to shed a little light for you; those people who elected you, the people who are tired of war, who fear the pendulum's continued swing to the right, are now wondering why you're pushing that pendulum further to the right than Bush?

You've successfully suspended Posse Comitatus, directed the FAA to allow drone flights in civilian airspace. The next logical step in this progression would be to foment public unrest, allowing for the occupation of America's cities under martial law. Considering the ham handed tactics unleashed under your watch, used  with your blessing to quell the Occupy protests; might these be the beginnings of or the training sessions for, the implementation of martial law?
Will the troops coming home be discharged, or will they be dragooned into service here as imposers of martial law?

Thankfully our troops are ending their overseas commitments in two wars whose outcomes will not be known for probably another generation. America re-opened Pandora's Box of interfaith war that the despots of the region had kept a lid on for decades. Clearly these governments we've overthrown were not our friends, nor did they serve their citizenry. However when we endeavor to transplant our way of government on others who have neither the desire nor training to sustain the effort, we get what we have in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dysfunction, corruption, ineptitude, and a patronage system akin to Tammany Hall.
Different yes, but better?

Reality is America, regardless of who we think we're voting into office, that person does not exist.
He or she is nothing more than an amalgamation of disparate words and deeds, pandering to the elite who control our lives. If you want change, real change, it's not going to happen at the polling place controlled by corporate interests. Look to your past for your future America, the solution lies there.

Marijuana Myths: The Danger

Mythology; a collection of exaggerated stories intended to sow misinformation, with the goal of promoting propaganda in the face of reality. Sound familiar? No I'm not referring to the never ending election cycle, though I clearly could be. What I'm talking about is this tool your government has been using since 1937 to demonize a medicinal herb used for millennia.

William Randolph Hearst, and his national network of newspapers; cast the spark that sent this nation down an endless path of "Wars", with a new "Czar" appointed to oversee every social engineering failure our nation embarks upon. Ostensibly Mr. Hearst sought to save the nation from the evil scourge of "marihuana"using his publishers pulpit to pounce on a problem of his own creation. Much in the way Rupert Murdoch's papers and news outlets "created" one titillating story after another by illegally tapping phones. Mr. Hearst though had another motive; if he made hemp paper impossible to produce in this country, he and his sycophants would then have free reign to clearcut their federal lease and privately held forestry holdings to feed new paper mills using wood pulp. Thereby allowing Mr Hearst the ability to profit on two fronts, newspapers and newsprint.

Prior to this campaign of deceit, and the invention of the cotton gin, hemp was our nations primary source of fiber for paper, rope, and textiles. Benjamin Franklin wore clothing made of "homespun" hemp fabrics during his time abroad representing our nation as a diplomat. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are both printed on hemp paper. Renewable, cost effective, and far more versatile than wood pulp or cotton; hemp was the fiber that built this nation. From the paper used in our most revered documents, to the rope that rigged the USS Constitution, the very history of America is written in and on hemp.

So why are we still fighting this "war"?
Why is it that everything the government does has to wear the "war" moniker anyway?
We all know that hemp and marijuana provide the raw material for many superior products, including medicine, so why does our government cling to hidebound fallacies of the past?

Reality is, the only dangers associated with marijuana are the ones our government inflicts upon us.
Those dangers include but are not limited to: arrest, prosecution, and incarceration.
Loss of employment, savings, social status, and assets seized by the government even when they can't prove they originated from a crime.

Last but certainly not least is the larger more ominous danger corresponding to the rise of the 'cartels', whose very murderous existence was brought to you by the government of the United States of America.

Now you all understand how marijuana became dangerous, and why.

All Poster Sourced: Google Images