Tag Archives: racial intolerance

Whites Only After Dark

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Not too many years ago several towns or communities were known as Sundown Towns where blacks were not welcome after dark. Mostly by reputation some were even known to post signs declaring the unwelcome visitors should leave by sundown or else. One such town was Vidor, TX. Racial intolerance was so prominent that in 1993 the federal government actually moved several black families into subsidized housing in Vidor which resulted in a Ku Klux Klan demonstration. It’s kind of reminiscent of the old western movies where one cowboy would declare that there is not enough room in this town for both of us and one would leave or a shoot out in the street would ensue.

The war against marijuana is also similar in that marijuana users are not welcome in society. Although their drug of choice is far safer than the legal alternatives, they are denied gainful employment and subjected to arrest and confiscation of property and in some cases even having their children removed from their custody. The heavy disparity associated with prosecution of marijuana crimes along racial and class lines makes it a racial issue as well.

As bad as that is, the fact that this war on a peaceful class of people is perpetuated by the federal government makes the situation much worse. We can’t just get out-of-town because the federal law is valid in all states and territories and also pushed on foreign governments as well, such as Columbia and Mexico. Violence and corruption are epic in those countries that are part of the supply line in America’s hunger for marijuana. Mostly I see that prohibition is ignored and unwelcome by marijuana users, but for those unlucky few that catch the eye of authorities, the punishment is horrible, hateful and unjustified.

The biggest problem I have with prohibitionists is the adamant insistence that the only places for us in society are unemployed, homeless, in jail or forced into rehab to correct our errant behavior. Any resistance to that must be met with the force of law, up to and including a lethal response. It can’t be that there is not enough room in this country for people like me. I am an American and it’s my country too.

Randy Johnson

Who Will Win The War On Drugs

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The present trend in the legalization of marijuana would seem to indicate that the Feds are losing the war against marijuana. With two states legalizing the drug for recreational purposes and twenty states, plus our nations Capitol, legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes and the latest Gallup poll now showing 58% of Americans favor legalization you would think so. But I am not so sure. I still think the Feds have a few cards up their sleeves. Recently Reason Magazine reported that the NSA has been sharing information with local and federal law enforcement about illegal drug activity obtained through their advanced surveillance of our internet and phone usage and then telling the law enforcement authorities not to reveal the source. This alone is disturbing, but those we elected to protect our freedom through legislation don’t seem to believe we have the right to be left alone and have any privacy and there has been very little public outcry about it. Like I have said before, they view silence as approval and that only makes them more bold. There has not been much in the news about the new laser powered molecular scanners that can tell what you had for breakfast from 50 meters away but I am sure they are being improved and made more portable. Now the IRS will have access to all of our medical records because of the affordable health care act. Privacy is becoming a thing of the past and those we have elected to represent us increasingly see everyday Americans as a threat. Remember how the Department of Homeland Security has been stockpiling ammunition. I am not sure what the intentions of this administration are but so far they seem to tell us one thing and then do another, like when President Obama said that he would leave medical marijuana alone and then escalated the raids on state legal distributors. Soon the government may have what they need to enforce the war on drugs successfully but I don’t know if people will tolerate that level of oppression. I do know that the government has a long memory and they are not very forgiving. The Gallup poll showing 58% approval of legalization does give me hope though. No matter how much the Feds want to control our lives, they still have to get re-elected.

Randy Johnson

The House I live In

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“The House I live In” is a documentary about the war on drugs, from producers, Danny Glover, Brad Pitt, John Legend, and Russell Simmons and directed by Eugene Jarecki. It is a very informative, critical and honest assessment of the drug problem in America and shows different aspects of the war on drugs from a variety of viewpoints. This is a must see for anyone wanting to know more about the drug tragedy facing all Americans, especially the poor and people of color.

Randy Johnson

If Obama Wants To Combat Racism He Should Start With The War On Drugs

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The Justice Departments insistence on pursuing an investigation into George Zimmerman on the basis of a racial hate crime is misguided. The jurors who struggled with the verdict about the guilt of Mr. Zimmerman claimed they did not believe race was an issue in the actions of George Zimmerman and the double jeopardy clause in the fifth amendment of our Constitution should allow their verdict to stand. If the Justice Department wants to combat racial intolerance, they should start with the war on drugs, where people of color and the poor are far more likely to be searched, arrested and incarcerated than whites or wealthy Americans.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/15/obama-wants-you-to-respect-the-Zimmerman

http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/17/4-reasons-to-reject-federal-charges-agai

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/18/judge-napolitano-on-double-jeopardy

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/us/justice-department-to-restart-hate-crime-investigation-in-trayvon-martins-death.html?ref=us&_r=0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/16/george-zimmerman-juror-b37_n_3608057.html?ref=topbar

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/16/justice/tale-of-two-trials/index.html

http://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/12/dc-cops-criticised-for-black-ew

Randy Johnson

NSA Surveillace Is Unacceptable

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There are a large number of our elected officials in Congress and The President who believe that they are justified in maintaining the surveillance of our electronic communications and internet searches along with our banking records and medical records. Their justification seems to swing on the premise that they are protecting us from terrorist threats. My question is what is going to protect us from them?

A majority of them seem to believe that continuing the blatantly racist and useless war against marijuana is a good idea. I’m not saying that marijuana should not be regulated, but the Federal Government has a long history of favoring rich industry in its actions and that is what I believe is the primary motivation for continuing their failed marijuana policy. I want the Federal Government out of the business of ruining people’s lives over marijuana. Let states decide how marijuana should be regulated.

There is sufficient evidence now showing that marijuana is far safer than alcohol or tobacco and it has a very promising place in future medicine, yet those we have elected to lead us regularly ignore and suppress any evidence showing marijuana to be beneficial to society. Their action only serves to protect industries that would be negatively effected by legal marijuana and hemp. Most Americans would benefit from a well-regulated marijuana and hemp market when considering how useful the marijuana plant can be. Hemp for instance is one of the best plants to make biofuel and petrochemical products and is carbon neutral. It can also be made into building products such as beams and sheathing to replace lumber and is a fine source of fiber for paper. It can also be made into clothing and hemp seeds have all the essential oils and nutrients for human health and have been used for human and animal food for thousands of years. The medicinal uses of marijuana alone should be enough of a reason to change the restrictions on marijuana use in the Controlled Substances Act, but Congress and the President seem bent on protecting the pharmaceutical industry and others. States that have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes have seen a 9% reduction in traffic fatalities, likely due to people substituting marijuana for alcohol. If marijuana was available for recreational use those traffic fatality reduction statistics would likely be even more dramatic.

Even if all this were not true, allowing adults to celebrate with a libation different from alcohol should not be illegal as long as it caused no more harm to society than alcohol. Alcohol causes far more harm to society than all illegal drugs combined and the harm from marijuana is a miniscule part of that harm to society. When the overwhelming racial bias in the prosecution of the war on drugs is factored in, I believe our freedom is in serious jeopardy. Until our government has a long history of protecting our freedom, instead of selling us out for profit, I for one want the surveillance stopped.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/house-committee-holds-hearing-on-nsa-surveillance-programs/2013/07/17/ffc3056c-eee3-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html

http://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/16/marijuana-legalization-kids-parents/2519339/

http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Other/ALC_INT.HTM

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/08/a-group-of-drug-war-profiteers-are-askin

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6630507.PN.&OS=PN/6630507&RS=PN/6630507

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/VRITHED.PDF

http://www.jackherer.com/

http://www.ccguide.org/young88.php

http://ftp.iza.org/dp6112.pdf

Randy Johnson

Racial Intolerance Is Alive And Well

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Reading news of the demonstrations concerning the Zimmerman trial verdict, I was reminded of the return trip from our youngest son’s graduation and winging ceremony from helicopter training school at Whiting Field NAS near Pensacola, Fl. We were driving across Louisiana on Interstate 20 late in the evening and needed a break. I spotted a sign directing us to a nearby McDonald’s. After following signs about 8 miles north of the interstate, we finally found the restaurant, parked and went inside. I noticed we were the only white people there but didn’t give it much thought until several people who came in after us were waited on. After a few minutes I heard the manager say, “somebody better wait on the white folks”. I am somewhat hearing impaired but I still heard the words cracker, honky and Oreo whispered several times. We got our food and left and I remember thinking I could stop and get some spray paint and return to the sign on Interstate 20 and write “blacks only” on the McDonald’s sign but I quickly dismissed that idea and it was soon forgotten.

The demonstrations and vandalism about the Zimmerman trial verdict are somewhat similar to the riots following the trial of the police who beat Rodney King and were acquitted. King eventually sued and received a large monetary award in a civil trial but the riots did nothing to dispel racial intolerance, if anything it only made matters worse and punished people who had nothing to do with the verdict such as the truck driver, Reginald Denny who had his head bashed in with a concrete block by Damian Williams, who also attacked Fidel Lopez with a car stereo. In all 53 people were killed and 2000 were injured in the riots. What do you think their opinion of black people is, as a result of their encounter with that mob? I know juries don’t always come to the right conclusion in trials but I have to think it is better than a lynch mob where uninformed public opinion is the deciding factor. Now Eric Holder is looking into the Justice Department filing charges against Zimmerman, in what I believe is the Obama administration trying to win black votes at Zimmerman’s expense. Our Constitution says that no one can be put in jeopardy of life and limb for the same crime twice, but often our justice system just comes up with another law governing the same action and tries people again to make sure no one goes unpunished. Zimmerman may still face a civil wrongful death suit in Florida, but I really didn’t see this trial as a racial issue. The only racial comments I read about in the news, were from Trayvon Martin, when he referred to Zimmerman as a “weird ass cracker”. This is a tragic event that unfolded as a series of terrible misunderstandings and mistakes on both parts. Zimmerman is guilty of a strong prejudice against criminals and that is likely what led him to volunteer as a neighborhood watchman. Whether he over stepped his authority in that role and whether his actions were justified as self-defense, is what the jury had to decide, but I didn’t hear of any testimony that would indicate his actions were racially motivated. Had the two met in a verbal confrontation, instead of a fight, they might have avoided this tragic event and Trayvon might still be alive, but that is not what happened. Regardless of the outcome of the trial, if you believe in God, you must believe that no one escapes judgment. Trayvon Martin was created in the image of God just like the rest of us, and God will be the one who decides if justice has been met. George Zimmerman will either stand forgiven with Jesus as his advocate or stand accused and face judgment. But today Zimmerman’s troubles are far from over. Both George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin’s family could use our prayers as they try to live beyond this tragic event. The bible says that if we do not forgive, we cannot be forgiven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King_riots

Randy Johnson

President Obama and Congress Should Stop This War

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The war against marijuana should end immediately and here is why. The laws against marijuana use were first proposed under the guise of racial intolerance and trumped-up fear of an imaginary plague of harm to society. Horror stories were given prominence in Randolph Hearst’s national array of newspapers, largely because of his hatred of Mexicans and to protect his vast holdings of timber land for pulp and paper production from competition with hemp. The Dupont empire was also in favor of marijuana prohibition because it was competition for their newly developed synthetic fiber, Nylon. Nylon could be used as fiber in the production of explosives which was the mainstay of Dupont at that time. The cellulose fiber in explosives had previously been hemp. Also in favor of prohibition was Rockefeller and Standard Oil, because it was a competition for the new oil and gas industry as hemp oil could be replaced in most applications with petroleum products. The cotton industry also profited by the elimination of hemp as a source for fiber to make clothing. http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-four/

Newly appointed head of the Bureau of Narcotics, Harry J. Anslinger would testify before Congress of the horrors happening across the country associated with marijuana use. He would read the stories from Hearst’s newspapers aloud before Congress as testimony of the need for federal intervention. Largely unknown or ignored was the fact that cannabis patent medicines and elixirs had been a large part of the pharmacopeia in America for almost 100 years without any health problems arising from its use. If any problems were associated with cannabis they were not mentioned in the medical journals of the time. Hemp had been a mainstay for agriculture and society for thousands of years with a myriad of different uses from food and shelter to clothing. Remnants of the propaganda of that era, such as the classic film Reefer Madness can be seen at web sites like.

http://archive.org/details/reefer_madness1938

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_madness

http://www.druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults4.htm

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm

http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/

Fear gained traction as an unwitting public who were unfamiliar with the name marijuana were being told horrendous stories of crime and violence against white people by marijuana crazed minorities. It was an easy sell to America, which was still deeply mired in racial intolerance at the time and women had just acquired the right to vote barely two decades before. As America became entrenched in this fear of the marijuana plague, the propaganda campaign continued and even today our government refuses to acknowledge any benefits associated with marijuana use, only acknowledging the studies and anecdotal evidence that support the belief that marijuana is harmful to individuals and society. While I don’t believe that marijuana is harmless, it is certainly not as harmful as the two legal recreational drugs alcohol and tobacco. The harm to society and to individuals from marijuana use has been grossly overstated by our government which has poured over a trillion dollars into this failed and unjust war against Americans to protect big business from loss or competition with marijuana and hemp. This racially biased, unjust war against us continues today and it should end immediately. It is still supported by the same industries and now others such as the prison industry, the drug testing industry, the alcohol industry and the vast array of drug treatment centers across the country that are asking Congress to crack down on Colorado and Washington for allowing legal marijuana within their own state. And let’s not forget the DEA, with its multi-billion dollar annual budget and all the power and influence that money can buy. It is hard to surrender that much power and influence to a kinder and gentler society, after all the drug war is a very large employer. Laws that were voted in by free people are still forbidden and enforced by federal mandate.
That gets me to the next issue.

I mentioned in a previous article that all members of Congress take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. Well they have failed miserably at that task. The Constitution lays the foundation for a nation of states to govern themselves under a guiding law that preserves basic freedoms and human rights. Our Declaration of Independence describes rights granted by God that are unalienable by man and the Constitution goes further to list some of our rights in the Bill of Rights. The Federal Governments job or function was to provide for common defense and regulate interstate commerce to prevent states from unfair advantage over other states. Its other function is to protect our rights as defined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic which is where they have failed. As far as marijuana prohibition is concerned, The right to self medicate and the right to celebrate life had been a legal right for thousands of years before marijuana and alcohol prohibition. While the unjust war against alcohol was wisely abandoned, the war against marijuana users and their supply continues under the guise of public safety. We have been persecuted with denied employment and government assistance for housing and education, denied the right to adopt children. We have also been prosecuted and punished by Congress with laws mandating drug testing by employers, incarceration and fines and we were stripped of our 2nd ammendment right to keep and bear arms without trial or justification. Our 4th ammendment rights against illegal searches as described in the Constitution, about a search warrant being issued by a judge of law have been circumvented to allow game wardens, housing inspectors and child welfare officers the authority to search without warrants and now the Supreme Court has given that authority to dogs. Am I the only American that finds that troubling?

What our 5th and 6th ammendment rights, the right to appear in a court of law and face our accusers and the right to a speedy trial with a jury of our peers. Our President now believes he has the authority to use drones to kill Americans without trial and to detain Americans indefinitely without trial.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/31/obama-defense-bill_n_1177836.html

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/20/looks-like-shifting-the-cias-drone-progr

How about our right to keep and bear arms. That is our 2nd amendment right and yet the Federal Government has and allowed states to make a mockery of that right. Our right to keep and bear arms should be the same in any state or territory of these United States just like our right to worship and our freedom of speech. Congress, The President and The Supreme Court should insist on the same. Another basic right that our government has failed to protect is our 5th ammendment right to own property. Never should the government be able to take property from an individual and sell it to another individual for profit in the name of eminent domain. Only real public needs such as right of ways or military needs should be secured by eminent domain laws. Taxes beyond the sale of property are a direct assault on that right as the Government believes they own the land and everything on it. Having to pay a periodical tax to continue to own property gives credence to the thought that all property belongs to the government.

http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/Property-owners-protest-eminent-domain-in-Kensington-.html

https://www.legalzoom.com/us-law/supreme-court/supreme-court-series-i-eminent

What about our 4th ammendment rights of privacy, where government surveillance of our e-mail and cell phones has become common? We are on the verge of surveillance capabilities that most Americans never even dreamed of and our freedom is in serious jeopardy. Our freedom should not now or ever have been for sale to protect the profits of the rich. Marijuana prohibition is on the front lines of this war against freedom waged on Americans by our own governmnet. Lets get back to the task of preserving freedom and the Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States

http://www.marijuanahistory.org/history-of-marijuana-prohibition-in-united-states

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/vlr/vlrtoc.htm

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/

http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-bloom/legalization-or-bust-a-br_b_775684.html

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/05/totally-disinterested-drug-warriors-dema

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/08/a-group-of-drug-war-profiteers-are-askin

Randy Johnson