Welcome back to the HempFarm and our semi-monthly HempFarm Reports. http://www.HempFarm.org "Even when you're a minority of one, the truth is the truth." - Mahatma Gandhi "Stop talking about what a good man is like, and just be one." -Marcus Aurelius Between the sniper stories and breaking news about Diana's butler, you may have heard that there is a congressional election tomorrow. If your first question is: "Why bother voting when they don't even count the ballots anymore?" And your next question is: "What's the difference, none of the candidates or congressmen give a damn what I think unless I'm stuffing millions of corporate dollars down their bloated throats." Then this is the election for you. It's time for us to fight back. We must make this election a popular revolution, united in ending the tidal wave of corporate corruption that is quickly destroying our country. To the Bush Junta, you and I are simply factory slaves. They work us to death and give our tax money to their business partners and campaign investors, then they all smile at us and tell us to shut up and trust them because they know what's best for the business (I mean the PEOPLE) of America. The examples are endless, but you won't find the them anywhere on the network news. Why won't the mass media tell us the truth about the Bush administration and their corrupt business partners? Because the mass media IS Corporate America. They aren't on the side of Big Business, they ARE Big Business. Their primary job is to protect the profits of Corporate America by telling us what to think, and how to act, regardless of the damage it does to the people of this country. If weak Labor Unions and expensive Health Care are good for profits, then that’s the story they will feed us day and night. NBC will never tell you the truth about war, because they are owned but GE, one of the biggest weapons manufacturers in the world. And that's the way it is. But time is short, so I will only give one example of the radial, right wing Bush administration's twisted priorities when it comes to the people of America. Several months ago, the people of Nevada were forced by the Federal government (over their over-whelming objections) to become America's official toxic waste dump. Those money-hungry politicians in Congress were not interested in the health and safety of the people of Nevada, or the fact that the Yucca Mountain facility was directly above their fresh water table. They didn't even care that the area was built on an earthquake fault line that could destroy the entire facility and release that toxic waste into the air for the whole world to enjoy. They also didn't care that radioactive waste from all over the country would be transported to Nevada by the unprotected railroad lines running through your city . . . which of course NEVER have ANY accidents. To the Bush administration this is all "Good for America" because it's good for the Nuclear Power and Weapons industry. They make the toxic mess and overcharge us for the energy from the power plants we helped build, then the politicians give them more of our tax money so they can keep poisoning us and our children at a bigger and better profit. This is what the Bush-Cheney oilmen call "National Energy Security," and all the people who die during the radioactive half-life of that toxic waste (about 10,000 years) are simply playing their part in the Corporate American Dream (of corporate welfare and high profit for the industrial elite). As our Enron-administration tells us (over and over again until we believe it): What's good for business is good for America. Besides, all the cancer and birth defects will be great for the bottom line of Bush's pals in the pharmaceutical industry. If toxic waste is good for you, and the Feds are going to put it in your air and water whether you like it or not, what does the Bush administration consider a REAL threat to the people of Nevada? What do they spend $50 billion a year to eliminate forever? Is it poverty and malnutrition? Are they going to protect social security and guarantee a living wage? Are they going to provide free healthcare for our children? Do they think the birth defects and illiteracy are a threat to our future? Do Bush and Ashcroft believe that the greatest threats to our freedom and security are rampant corporate corruption and environmental pollution? No, they think it’s a dried flower. In order to "protect us" they are renewing the war on marijuana by arresting more sick people and minorities than ever before. That's right, according to the Bush administration's brain trust: Cannabis, a flower that grows wild all over the world, and has been known as a natural medicine for thousands of years, is the real threat to your children. Apparently, if you use medical marijuana to help keep you alive, or (god forbid) just smoke it because it makes you feel good and is much safer than cigarettes and alcohol (which kill 750,000 people a year combined), then you are evil and deserve to be thrown in prison and have your life destroyed by the Federal government. More important, the blatantly racist ban of Marijuana also eliminated Hemp, the ONLY renewable natural resource that can end our dependence on foreign oil FOREVER. An almost unlimited supply of renewable resources grown at home by American farmers would make protecting Saudi Arabian terrorists, and starting a wars in the rest of the Middle East, completely unnecessary. Incase you're not quite sure where Bush and his oil-sucking buddies stand, let try to simplify things: Toxic waste in your water, and Wars for Oil are GOOD, because they raise the profits of the corporations who put el Presidente Bush into power, BUT, a renewable natural resource that can be grown for food, clothing, medicine and fuel is BAD because It would end our forced dependence on toxic and expensive petrochemical products, and destroy the profits of the elite oil-men who currently control of government. Yep, that sounds like freedom and democracy to me. Instead of talking honestly about the road to a better, safer, cleaner, sustainable future, we the people are being lead down the same road of Imperialism and Corporate Oligarchy that created this hell on earth in the first place. We must unite and put and end to this insane Petroleum War cycle, before more innocent lives are ground to dust by the Military-Industrial Machine. Peace through Hemp! Zed B. Starkovich http://www.HempFarm.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Some New Stuff: The Pot War Boiling http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Pot_War_Boiling.html By William F. Buckley Jr. - 10/29/02 As often as not, democracy sucks. But on the question of marijuana laws, the good sense of the people is doing yeoman work. Time magazine explores the marijuana question in a cover story, which ends by saying that in America, "politics has leaped well ahead of the science, meaning voters will decide long before physicians whether medical marijuana is an oxymoron." The Enemy Within http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/The_Enemy_Within.html By Gore Vidal - 10/27/02 Gore Vidal is America’s most controversial writer and a ferocious, often isolated, critic of the Bush administration. Here, against a backdrop of spreading unease about America’s response to the events of 11 September 2001 and their aftermath, we publish Vidal’s remarkable personal polemic urging a shocking new interpretation of who was to blame. The Bin Ladens’ Great Escape: How the U.S. helped Osama's family leave the country after 9/11. http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/The_Bin_Ladens'_Escape.html By Byron York, National Review Online - 9/11/02 Bill Carter, the FBI spokesman, is adamant. "We were given full access to the individuals on that plane," he says, "and we were satisfied that we did not believe any of those individuals had anything to do with the 9/11 plots." The plane to which Carter refers was an aircraft chartered by the Saudi government in the days after the terrorist attacks. The individuals were two dozen members of Osama bin Laden's extended family who had been living in the United States. Saying they were afraid that family members might suffer retribution in the U.S., the Saudis asked for American assistance in getting them out of the country. Iraq Report Cited by Bush Does Not Exist: Agency Disavows Report on Iraq Arms http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Bush_misrepresents_Report.html By Joseph Curl, The Washington Times - 9/27/02 The International Atomic Energy Agency says that a report cited by President Bush as evidence that Iraq in 1998 was "six months away" from developing a nuclear weapon does not exist. "There's never been a report like that issued from this agency," Mark Gwozdecky, the IAEA's chief spokesman, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Mad ambitions: Why Bush's "National Security Strategy" is wrong, wrong, wrong http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Mad_ambitions.html By Ann Rose Thomas, The Online Journal - 10/3/02 It's called "The National Security Strategy of the United States," but a more appropriate name would be "The National Security Strategy of the United States Empire." The document detailing the Bush administration's national security policy may well be the single most frightening document I have ever read. It is, as Geov Parrish of WorkingforChange puts it, "28 pages of arrogance that answer better than Osama himself ever could the question of Why They Hate Us." U.S. Appeals Court Okays Suit Against Unocal for Abuses in Myanmar By Jim Lobe, OneWorld US - 9/19/02 http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Unocal_and_Slave_Labor.html In a major boost for human rights and corporate accountability activists, a federal appeals court has ruled that oil giant Unocal can be sued for forced labor, rape, and murder committed by government soldiers in charge of security for a major gas pipeline project in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). The Troubling New Face of America http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Troubling_New_America.html By President Jimmy Carter - 9/5/02 Fundamental changes are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process -- largely without definitive debates (except, at times, within the administration). Some new approaches have understandably evolved from quick and well-advised reactions by President Bush to the tragedy of Sept. 11, but others seem to be developing from a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism. The Last Defender of the American Republic?: An interview with Gore Vidal http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Gore_Vidal_Interview.html By Marc Cooper, LA Weekly - 7/3/02 He might be America's last small-r republican. Gore Vidal, now 76, has made a lifetime out of critiquing America's imperial impulses and has -- through two dozen novels and hundreds of essays -- argued tempestuously that the U.S. should retreat back to its more Jeffersonian roots, that it should stop meddling in the affairs of other nations and the private affairs of its own citizens. Bush Administration Rule Could Increase Air Pollution http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Bush_and_air-polution.html By Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service - 10/24/02 Air pollution from refineries and factories would increase under new air pollution rules being prepared by the Bush administration, two studies suggest. The studies were commissioned by the Environmental Integrity Project, a group headed by former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enforcement chief Eric Schaeffer. U.S. Air Pollution Raises Cancer Risk http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Air_pollution_cancer_risk.html Environment News Service - 10/4/02 Americans face a one in 2,100 risk of developing cancer in their lifetimes from breathing pollutants in the outdoor air, a new report warns. Outdoor air pollution is almost 500 times greater than the health protective standard established in the Clean Air Act, according to an analysis of EPA air toxics data released Thursday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG). About 89 percent of this added cancer risk is from the soot released by diesel powered trucks, buses, and construction and farm equipment, the report shows. Melting Alaskan Glaciers Raise Sea Level http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Alasken_Glaciers.html By Maggie Fox, Reuters - 7/19/02 Alaska's glaciers are melting so badly that they are raising the world's overall sea level more than any other single source, scientists said on Friday. Cosmetics Full of Suspect Chemicals, Group Says http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Cosmetics_and_Chemicals.html By Maggie Fox, Reuters - 7/10/02 Cosmetics ranging from perfume to hair gel contain chemicals shown to cause birth defects in animals, a group that lobbies on health issues said on Wednesday. Books of the Month: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How we got to be so hated By Gore Vidal http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Perpetual_War_BOM.html From the back cover: The United States has been engaged in what the great historian Charles A. Beard called "perpetual war for perpetual peace." The Federation of American Scientists has catalogued nearly two hundred military incursions since 1945 in which the United States has been the aggressor. In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11,2001 (deemed too controversial to be published in America until now), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following both September 11th and Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City: these were simply the act of "evil-doers". (Does the phrase: "War is Peace" ring any bells?) Barry & 'the boys': The CIA, The Mob and America's Secret History By Danial Hopsicker http://www.HempFarm.org/Papers/Barry_and_the_boys_BOM.html "This is the story of Barry Seal, the biggest drug smuggler in American history, who died in a hail of bullets with George Bush's private phone number in his wallet. . ." So begins this mind-blowing book on the deep and sordid history of American "counterintelligence" and the secret wars for guns, drugs, and oil played out by a revolving cast of politicians and businessmen since World War II. It seems the CIA's primary job since its creation has been the arming, training, and financing of right-wing dictators who protect our oil, but later become our "NEW WORST ENEMY!" Ever heard of Saddam Hussein? Manuel Noriega? Fidel Castro? Augusto Pinochet? Ho Chi Minh? Or the terrorist breeding-ground of Saudi Arabia? As this and other books show, George Bush and the CIA know them well. In fact, they go WAY BACK. With friends like these, who needs enemies?