Legalize It!

When do we finally legalize marijuana? I think soon. It used to be legal in this country from whenever it first started being used, probably the early 17th century, until the early 19th century. By the 1930’s it was completely illegal. Almost 80 years later it’s returning to being legal, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

It’s a plant! The idea that the government can tell us what plants to grow strikes me as outside the purview of government. Maybe I can get some Republicans to agree with me on this on the basis of limiting big government. In any event, governments are beginning to pass laws recognize the rights of plants and animals, and I think it’s high time, as it were, that we do the same. Plants and powders are not the same thing. Let’s let people and plants coexist!

But the main reason to legalize pot is that keeping it illegal is feeding a horrible war with the mafia that we are losing every day and will continue to lose. So many innocent people are being killed, and terrorism is beginning to flourish on our borders. I know people had their reasons to oppose Prop 19, but this is a real sick thing that is happening, and the war is just going to get closer and closer until we're in it. We have to own up to our own natures, and certainly not criminalize acting on needs that, even at their worst, amount to sadness, lack of love or loneliness. Prohibition does not work. Transparency and compassion do.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101104/wl_nm/us_mexico_usa_drugs

I know that many who opposed Prop 19 were persuaded that it wouldn't cut into cartel profits because of the other drugs they traffic in. I disagree. Others erroneously pointed out that the Feds wouldn't allow California to do this. Come on. With the present administration, the DEA would not be encouraged to mix it up here. Then of course, some of our friends up Humboldt way were afraid of upsetting the status quo and losing their illegal income, and I don't blame them, but the only way to change the ridiculous and archaic pot prohibition is with baby steps like prop 19.

Conservatives must have been in a quandary over this one. Fiscal conservatives would have to have known that it would have brought a new agri-business into the legitimate market place and provided a built-in tax base (meaning, it would help to mitigate the need to raise other taxes.) But cultural conservatives see drugs as drugs and many make no distinction between the occasional toker and a heroin addict of 20 years. The growers would not have lost much business, if any at all. Prop 19 allowed for small quantity growing and possession. Most smokers do not want to be saddled with the meticulously demanding task of growing. And Prop 19 did NOT allow for people to grow pot for sale except for medical marijuana growers. I think it was a mistake for the backers of Prop 19 to introduce it in a mid-term election when the turn-out of likely voters in support of legal pot would be lower than during a presidential election year.

Anyway, my suggestion: Try again in two years. I bet the result is different. Indeed, maybe it's good Jerry Brown doesn't have to deal with this on his plate on top of everything else. He could really show himself a consensus builder now. Legal pot is going to be a huge public mess, and it can't help but tarnish the credentials of the guy in charge. And if that guy is governor moonbeam, even worse. Anyway, the above is my two cents, and after this election, I think everybody now knows it's a question of when.

The Real Slim Shady

Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? Please! Yes, I know there is quite a bit on his plate, and he's clearly not afraid to bite into everything. But something is missing, and it’s come to the point that everybody kinda knows. What's missing is an overarching expression of what all these bites add up to. Ironically, he came into office promising radical change, but we're less clear from him than almost anybody of: What does a world that works look like so we can all do our part? We crave, and need to hear, from his perspective, what's broken and how it might get fixed. Without an articulated vision of where we are all going, the sum of these parts will remain elusive.

Jerry's Back!

Jerry Brown Wins for governor of California!

Tonight he said: "I see a California once again leading in renewable energy, and public education, and an openness to every kind of person, whatever their color is. I mean, we’re all gods children. And, while I’m really into this politics thing, I still carry with me my sense of kind of that missionary zeal to transform the world. And that’s always been a part of what I do. So I understand the political part, but I also understand what it’s all about: the vision. And I’m hoping, and I’m praying, that this breakdown, that’s gone on for so many years in the state capital, and we’re watching it in Washington, that the breakdown paves the way for a breakthrough. And that’s the spirit that I wanna take back to Sacramento 28 years later."

Jerry Brown rocks. Let's get behind him and help transform California into the world leader it rightfully is.

Strangest Dream

I dreamt our President gave this speech last night:

My Fellow Americans

This is the fourth time I have addressed you from the oval office of the White House. I speak to you this evening about an issue of great national importance, which is what our priorities are as a nation. I'd like to get us all on the same page about what our focus is, so let me review what I've been focusing on so far.

As your President, I have striven to provide you with, first, the best defense money can buy. And that money can't buy too. That only 232 years of democracy can provide. And our 3 million men and women in uniform are a testament to that. Despite the fact that I might place a greater emphasis on diplomacy than perhaps my predecessor, I nonetheless have not skimped on defense, and honestly believe we need to be strong to be free, and that sometimes the threat of war can keep the peace.

Next I've tried to get the economy working. I don't think anyone who didn't have an inside view understands how great the threat of total collapse was as I was entering office. And it was my job to make a decision at a very early phase in my presidency. I saw us sinking fast and I chose to bail us out. Now, sometimes government has to be activist, as _both_ parties in recent times have proved. Or, at least tried to prove. The problem is that when you can avoid smashing against the rocks, it's hard to argue that if we hadn't acted we would have smashed. Because the only record we have now is of having avoided the rocks. So it's easy for people to say: how bad could it have been? But if you got to talk to who I got to talk to, well, you would've seen that we came this close to another great depression.

Third I've tried to make government actually and practically work, so that it can work for you. Our administration has an unprecedented record of low level changes that really make a difference. Even though a lot of this work goes unreported, I can tell you tonight that the government is running smoothly, that we have streamlined a great many processes, and that we have carried out a number of initiatives that make a big difference to a lot of individual people.

Now we face a challenge to our best efforts. Does it come in the form of a right wing conspiracy? No. Does it come in the form of a left wing conspiracy? That dog won't hunt either. It just comes from this idea of the other side as other, as not us. And so my fourth goal, to bring us together, now becomes my top goal. Because if we can't work together, freedom easily becomes freedoom. I challenge every member of government to remember the words of JFK and stop asking what your country can do for you, and ask what you can do for your country.

I invite every american, and indeed every world citizen, to consider the model we are now offering. It is not one of weakness, but it is one of compassion. It is not lame, but it doesn't need to prove it's not. It's not soft; it's sensitive. Because lives hang in the balance. I think it's really important in these times to be calm, reasonable and measured. The vision is there. You can see it if you're willing to look.

It's of an America where tolerance is a very high value. And of a vision where tolerance is transcended by acceptance, and who knows, maybe even welcoming!

My goals for the next six years, yes, I am in it for the long haul, is to not just protect us, which I can do and am doing, but it is to go after the enemy in a different way, in a way where we can actually declare victory by 2016, because we've given the real human lives who live behind who we call "the enemy" a way to live without wanting to kill. Yes, it's fun to have an other, an enemy, but I'm here to tell those guys those days are over. Because they have to be.