Elon Musk is Right; "What the hell is going on?"

SpaceX aims to launch its first Mars cargo
missions in 2022 and the first crews in 2024.

This is where the jobs are. We have the opportunity being waved right in front of our noses but are too complacent to take advantage of it. While visionaries like Elon Musk push forward, other industrial behemoths wallow in last century ideology. We need jobs! Not only here, but globally.

The endeavors such as the moon and Mars colonization should be providing a lot of these jobs. Instead, we have industrialists moving facilities around the globe in search of the cheapest labor and leaving formerly employed (skilled) craftspersons competing for service jobs like phone tech support, restaurant, or department store floorwalkers. The end result of that is an overall lowering of the national skill base. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Jobs, my brothers, and sisters, jobs. NASA's FY 2011 budget of $18.4 billion represented about 0.5% of the $3.4 trillion United States federal budget during that year, or about 35% of total spending on academic scientific research in the United States. In 1965 NASA had a peak employment of 411,000 persons working on the Apollo program. Mr. Musk is totally right when he said, ""It's 2017; we should have a lunar base by now...What the hell is going on?" We should have all the jobs created too!

Jobs in manufacturing and the support jobs created for goods and services can be had. Right now there are roughly 10 million people working in the aviation industry. Before the Wright Brothers, there were none. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. People recognized the utility of this, and a paradigm shift in our civilization began to occur. Steamships and railroads were supplanted by aircraft as the preferred mode of transportation. Thus a new industry emerged employing many millions of people. Our new paradigm shift and the new jobs created by it are within our grasp. All we have to do is grab on.

Our government, and all the other space-faring governments, are not putting enough resources into outer space expansion of the human presence. Our government putting a mere 0.5% of the federal budget into NASA is laughable. It is doubly laughable when compared to the military budget. The budget for NASA is far too little and the military budget is far too much. If our government raised the amount devoted to space expansion to 5% it would usher in a new era for humankind.

All that space hardware has to have skilled hands to build. Hands and minds have to be brought to bear in order to accomplish the goal of raising our species to the level of multi-planet status. Design and engineering, planning and logistics, manufacturing and production all need to have a massive input of human talent. Talent that is now sitting idle, underused, and some in abject poverty.

Merlin rocket engine

We can turn all that around and employ all of those people in a new endeavor. "We (should) set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 90 years ago, fly the Atlantic?

We choose to go to the Moon! We choose to go to the Moon not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ..."

The last few paragraphs were borrowed and modified from the JFK moon speech of 1962. They are appropriate words because JFK too was a visionary. Now we have the tools at long last to carry out his vision. If we do, we will indeed be the winners. All of us will win in many ways. Just like during the years of Apollo, many hands will have to be employed to assemble the spaceships required to make the dream a reality. Just like in WWII when free people were fighting fascism by building thousands of ships, planes, and tanks, free people again would be tasked in mass to manufacture the new 21 Century multi-planet human civilization. If humans can muster the political will to devote the resources required to make this a reality, it would usher in a Golden Era of prosperity for humanity and the renewal of our biosphere.

New lands and territory could be opened up for the settlement of our people. New unlimited and clean energy sources would be harnessed. New unlimited sources of raw materials could be harvested without the damaging effects of Earthly resource gathering. New technologies would be created for our society. New wonders and adventures could be marveled at. New stories of adventures by intrepid explorers can be ours.

Don't listen to the neigh sayers! Don't allow them to stifle the push for off-world expansion by their short-sighted diatribe. Don't be frightened by imagined monsters or deadly risks. The monsters are all invented, and the risks can be overcome by human's clever inventions. Even the notion of overcoming deadly risks smells of more jobs. You can not touch on any aspect of moon and Mars colonization without the creation of more jobs. Indeed let your ears go deaf to the people who say we must solve our Earthly problems first. Ultimately, we will not be able to solve our problems on Earth unless we begin to utilize the resources of our planetary neighborhood.

We all need to get excited by the prospect. Think of yourself, or of one of your children, working in a manufacturing plant like SpaceX assembling rocket bodies. Contemplate the prospect of you or one of your children working on a CAD/CAM designing space hardware. Imagine yourself or one of your children piloting the spacecraft closing in on a multi-trillion dollar platinum asteroid. Picture your descendants owning land and a house in a thriving Martian metropolis or moon colony.

Falcon 9 Stages

All of this is entirely possible. We have human talent. We have the technology. We just need the will, and we have to put more than a paltry 0.5% of our federal budget into it. We have to pour our hearts and souls into it as a national priority project. We have to make it a matter of national pride. We have to work on the expansion of our species to the moon and Mars as urgently as we did in the work to defeat the axis powers in WWII.

There is even a comical aspect to this human cosmic expansion. We can finance it with borrowed fiat money, Then pay back the loans with precious metals mined from asteroids. I can see opportunities for helping the finance already. Let's use our imaginations. It is early in the outer space expansion endeavor years. I'm standing at the counter at the local convenience store buying soda pop. On the counter is a display holding small vials of moon rocks or dust for only $9.99 each. I buy one on impulse. It is things like that, and more, that will help to raise our economy to the next level. Prosperity for all.

From Capitalism to Socialism: the Why and How to Obtain Equality, Liberty and Fraternity

There are two ways to get there, revolutionary and evolutionary. We all know how the revolutionary works. Some people know how evolutionary works. The revolutionary works with the spilling of a lot of blood and evolutionary works by getting votes. I prefer the latter.

In either case the goal is the capture of the state. Then the power of the state can be used to implement the socialist agenda. I don't mean the 19th century version that Karl Marx envisioned either. I think he was partly right, but couldn't get the full formula to bring about the goal of Socialism, which is Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. Mr. Marx was unable to see the total solution because of the times in which he lived. During the era Marx was studying Socialism and postulating about it, there was a lack of knowledge compaired to today. That lack of knowledge caused Marx to be unable to see the total picture.

The Socialist idea evolved into a notion that all of the means of production be owned by the proletariat or the working class. The managers and the production personnel in cooperation decides what to produce, how much of it to produce and what everyone is getting paid. If the board of directors of any company was half composed of production workers, I doubt they would be voting to give managers gigantic paychecks while the production workers are paid barely enough to survive. There would be a more even distribution of wages.

The addressing of the worker in relation to the managers is not an end solution. It is only part of the path to achieve the end goal of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. The goal has always been Equality, Liberty and Fraternity, but people like Stalin had muddied the waters. Stalin, after they had captured the state didn't go the full mile in achieving Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. The Russian people had suffered so severely, he was unable to tell them that they would have to suffer some more to get to the goal of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. So instead, after the revolution he proclaimed "This is Socialism." when in fact he had instituted "State Capitalism".

So we still have the question of how to obtain the end solution of Socialism, which is Equality, Liberty and Fraternity? The prevailing notion is that through total automation, total freedom can be had, which would enable Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. At present automation is being used to maximize the profits/paychecks of the managers, and the result is displaced workers who find themselves with no paychecks. Automation provided them with total freedom, but not Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. Freedom isn't worth much if you are struggling to obtain basic necessities while other people with freedom suck up all the benefits of the automation.  

The solution to the proletariat's dilemma, which is poverty caused by displacement through automation, is a universal basic income or stipend. The source of the funds to provide that basic income should be the natural resources of energy and materials. The private ownership of natural resources, i.e. privately held mineral rights, would have to be abandoned in favor of public ownership of all resources that are in their natural state. The nationalization of all natural mineral and energy resources would have to be instituted. Then through the sale of these resources to enterprises, both private and collective, we could fund the basic income of them who have been displaced through automation. Yet a problem still remains. The scarcity of resources and the destruction of the natural environment on which we depend for survival.

The scarcity of resources and the destruction of the natural environment point to the last piece in the equation which would provide Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. That last piece of the puzzle would be unlimited abundance of natural resources. We are not going to have that as long as we confine ourselves to one planet.

Obtaining total automation, and unlimited supplies of natural resources, which can be had without destroying our natural environment, which also would lead to Equality, Liberty and Fraternity, we have to go beyond a closed system. That's where we are today. We are living within the closed system of the Earth, but trying for unlimited growth. The problems with that are already causing real problems for hundreds of millions of people.

Environmental degradation and resource depletion is causing the physical displacement of people and violence between groups of competing people. As the displaced people move into areas already occupied by other people, resentment builds because the displaced people are competing for the resources available in the places which are already occupied into which they move. Violence is employed by the people against the displaced in an effort to get them to move along, not come at all, or to eliminate them wholesale. 

The nations get into conflict over natural resources as well. We are seeing this effect intensify as the natural resources are depleted. Wars break out, which causes even more people to be displaced, further exacerbating the problems created by displaced people competing for limited resources wherever they move. All of this shows why the final piece of the puzzle is unlimited resources. If there were unlimited resources, people would not be motivated to go into conflict over them. The conflict wouldn't happen thus people wouldn't be displaced by war.

Karl Marx was unaware of this factor as far as I can tell. If he was aware of it, he didn't know where to obtain these unlimited resources. During his times the resources seemed to be unlimited because they didn't know that there was a limit on Earth to the resources that could be extracted. Because of exploration, and scientific advancement and discovery, we now know that the Earthly supplies of resources are limited and we also know where there are unlimited supplies of resources. Those supplies lay off world.

It is required that humans begin the harvesting of resources in places other than the Earth. We humans have got to break out of the closed system in which we evolved. We have to start an effort to mine the planetary neighborhood for material wealth and energy resources, which are unlimited in nature. Then through the effort to mine these off world resources automation would further advance. The combination of unlimited resources and total automation, coupled with the capture of the state, would allow human beings to have total freedom, which would foster Equality, Liberty and Fraternity.

Total automation would have to be advanced to a state in which the machines would be able to design themselves and build themselves with resources they discovered, extracted and refined without the benefit of human intervention. In the beginning (now), the humans would be required to set up mining operations and colonies off world in places like the asteroid belt, the moon and Mars. We would also have to set up grids in space to collect the energy coming from the sun and beam it to wherever it is needed. This would be the source of the unlimited supplies of energy and materials.

So in order to sum things up, these are the factors in the equation which would allow people to obtain the goal of Socialism, which is Equality, Liberty and Fraternity. First, the capture of the state. Second, the nationalization of all natural resources on and off the Earth. Third, the utilization of resources which lay off the Earth. And finally, total automation.

Until humans do those four things, they will continue to suffer the degradation of the environment, a scarcity of resources, war between the nations, famine, mass migrations of people and the problems caused by these displaced populations. Unless we humans break out of the closed system of the Earth, we will continue to suffer the degradation of the environment, and endanger our species existence.

Good Ideas For Fixing Our Broken Elections System

I got some good input from a friend on Facebook about my ideas concerning the problems we have with elections and reforming our political system outlined in the following two articles.

How the Democratic Primaries Were Rigged

Corrupt U.S. Political System Badly Broken, Needs Reform

Ded's comment was extremely helpful. She brought up a really good point about C-Span. The following is my reply, which attempts to solve another problem. May the universe grant me presence of mind enough to help out with these very important issues.

"Deb Johnson, I believe the manipulation has gone on since Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic party, and probably even before the Revolution. I believe the things of which I spoke, which I seen in New Mexico, are common practice in all states. I also believe that most if not all, and certainly both the two major parties, do pretty much the same thing. All this has only came out this year because of the people's massive involvement in the political process last cycle, which was fueled by social media. People started seeing something was seriously wrong with the system. Many of them really didn't know what to do except sound the alarm. Many of the citizens had an idea something was wrong, but couldn't put their finger on it. The broken system has helped the Russians with their efforts at meddling. Commercial media hasn't been helpful either.

Speaking of commercial media, they created a circus atmosphere fostered by the motivation to cash in on the political process. In an effort to bring interesting stories to the fore, in an effort to get viewers, which translates into sold commercial air time, they looked for the sinsational. Some of the sinsational was right out of the Kremlin.

Because of the way our media has ruined presidential debates with sensationalism and the way they all salivate over political dollars, selling commercial airtime for commercials to anyone who will pay, and helped out by Citizens United on that, I had come up with the solution of C-Span to air all debates, and political campaign commercials having to be produced in C-Span studios. It hadn't occurred to me the issue of not all people being able to view these things if they couldn't afford cable TV or internet. A remedy comes to mind that some people (media) will not like. They probably wouldn't like any of these proposals about C-Span anyway because their political money well would dry up.

The remedy would be to commandeer commercial airtime for the airing of these C-Span hosted debates, and the airing of the C-Span produced candidate commercials, during a time when the most people could view them. The electromagnetic spectrum has been deemed to be the property of the people so the FCC licenses bandwidth to media companies. Part of that license should mandate that the holder provide the time necessary. The precedent has already been set.

"In 1990, Congress enacted the Children's Television Act (CTA) to increase the amount of educational and informational programming for children available on television. ... The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted rules and guidelines to carry out the CTA's educational programming mandate." https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-educational-television

Also public broadcasting would be employed for the airing of these C-Span produced political products.

Thanks for pointing that out. I wish more people would point things out like that. We need things like that pointed out by people who recognise a problem. Then they or other creative people can attempt to find a solution. We need creativity and insight more than ever now."

How the Democratic Primaries Were Rigged

A person asked me on Facebook "How is it that the democratic primary was rigged?" The answer got rather lengthy so I placed it here in my blog.

____________________
Deb Johnson thanks for asking this question. I'll tell you how they were rigged, and hope you tell other people. Please bare with me because this will take some time.

I was a delegate in New Mexico. I became a delegate by an odd process. I stumbled onto a thing called a "ward meeting". I forget how I learned of the time and place. I can not forget what happened when I got there. I was going to vote for someone to be a delegate at the ward meeting and take video for my James Parks Youtube channel. When I walked into the building I was surprised at how few people were there.

There were 4 people from my ward in attendance and I was one of them. There were 4 spots open for delegate. Because of that I ended up nominating myself and voting for myself. Thus I became a delegate in the Democratic party.

In New Mexico there were several superdelegates in powerful positions in the Democratic party. They had planned on backing Clinton years before the election. In fact at the Democratic Party of New Mexico SCC Meeting 4-25-2015 ( https://youtu.be/zMHM7yJXSgo ) Tom Udall endorsed Hillary Clinton to be the party nominee. Everyone cheered. The party was all in for Hillary at that point, including the superdelegates. I figure because of things I heard from delegates in other states that something like that was repeated in most states, if not all of them.

Democratic Party of New Mexico SCC Meeting 4-25-2015
Remember what Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who at the time was the DNC Chairperson, said that Superdelegates exist to protect party leaders. https://youtu.be/w5llLIKM9Yc There were restrictions placed on how many debates there would be, with a much lower number of them than last election. She ended up being removed from the DNC Chair because of the charges of bias towards Clinton.

DNC Chair Says Superdelegates Exist to Protect Party Leaders

Getting back to New Mexico, at every single party meeting or convention during the primaries there were always more Sanders supporters than Hillary supporters. At all DPNM conventions and meetings hostility was directed at Sanders supporters. There was the apparent attempt to manipulate public perception about this lack of Hillary support. A prime example would be at the convention at the Isleta Casino. There was to be a straw poll to see who had greater support. They handed out a playing card to each delegate who attended. At the end of the meeting all the delegates were supposed to place their playing card in a box marked either Clinton or Sanders. It was plain to see that the Sanders supporters outnumbered the Clinton supporters by at least a 2 to 1 margen. The straw poll was canceled by the party leadership. I still have my card, an 8 of Clubs. The Clinton supporters were pleased that the poll was canceled. The Sanders supporters figured that it was an attempt to hide the fact that more people were supporting Sanders. The DPNM didn't want it on the evening news that Sanders beat Hillary in a straw poll of delegates.

James Parks Jr at the April 2016 DPNM SCC Meeting

Then the party done something never done. They called for a 2nd election of delegates in New Mexico. Ward meetings were scheduled and meeting places were picked. The place for the meeting of my ward was in a rather odd place. The meeting was not held within the boundaries of my ward. My ward's meeting was held at a high school on the southwest side of town. The ward meeting was 1 mile from the nearest bus stop, and it was all uphill from that bus stop. This was an attempt to limit the number of people who would attend. The word was getting out about ward meetings and the party knew that more people would show up at this 2nd ward meeting than the 1st. They were hoping that more Clinton supporting delegates would be elected this second time around. So a meeting place 1 mile away from a bus stop, and all uphill would have been an extreme burden on someone who relied on public transportation and/or who were disabled. Going that distance uphill under the hot New Mexico sun would have placed a person in a wheelchair in danger. It would have been impossible for some elderly folk who rely on public transport to go that mile. I called the DPNM Albuquerque headquarters and complained about this arrangement. Only after that did the County Chairperson assure me that if anyone need transport, they would provide it.

Second Ward Meeting to Elect Delegates

Furthermore at that 2nd meeting the Ward Chairperson tried to influence them in attendance to allow him to cast their vote for them. He was a diehard Hillary supporter, and wanted to use the proxy vote to vote for people who were not even at the meeting. When I and other persons objected to it, the proxy voting was not allowed. The Ward Chair became very angry about it and was fuming. Then he proceeded to try to convince the newcomers in the group of about 8 people to cast their vote for these absentees. I and other persons in the know advised the newcomers about the rules, and that they could nominate anyone they felt was a good choice, including themselves. The Ward Chair was visibly angry about our interference in his plan to rig that delegate vote. He and I never got along after that. I made darn sure to inform people of how to remove the biased ward, precinct chairpersons. He lost his position even though he said it would never happen.

This issue with the wards and elections for delegates is very important. It is these delegates who are the real base of the party. They are the ones who write the party rules. They are the ones who elect the party nominee. Even though these delegate election ward meetings are a vital part, and a basic function of the party, very few people have ever heard of them. I spent months riding the public transport asking 100's of people "Have you ever heard of a ward meeting?" 99% of the time the answer was something like "No, what's a ward meeting?" Even people who had been Democrats all their life never heard of them. So why the big secret? Why didn't the party put out as much effort to inform party members of these ward meetings as they did getting out the vote for a candidate?

Have you ever been in a party phone bank? A candidate will form phone banks to get up the vote. The party encourages phone banking, and supports that effort when getting out the vote for the party candidate. Not so when ward meetings come up. The way the party informs people of these important meetings is with an ad on the party website or in the paper. If the party really wanted the people to participate in the party business they might do some phone banking and canvassing to get out the word on ward meetings. One might think a proper political party would want every member of their party in attendance, but that's not what happens. What happens is you get nothing but party insiders who have been at many of these ward meetings, and vote for the same delegates as they always do. Delegates who will tow the party line and vote the way the party tells them too. Just by the very nature of the delegate election process the vote gets rigged, and it has always been that way.

There were stories coming out of other states, by delegates, who told of other things the party did in order to try to assure Clinton got the nomination. I am not going to try to verify the veracity of their stories because I wasn't in their state. Because of what I personally witnessed in New Mexico, I am inclined to believe them.

The Establishment Admits DNC Rigged The Primary...Then Backpedals

I hopes this enlightens people as to some of the ways the DNC tried successfully to rig the primaries. As far as the presidential election and the Russian's involvement, that is an entirely different matter. Regardless, I am no longer a member of the Democratic party. I re registered as "No Party" the day after Sanders caved in Philly. All of the happenings in the 2016 election cycle has caused me to disapprove of party politics and favor game changing reforms. Every congressperson or diehard Democrat I've mentioned these reforms has vehemently opposed them. The following are the reforms I believe are necessary to place the power into the hands of the people, not return it. No indeed not return because the people never really had the power in the first place. The parties have used the people as a pawns in their chess game. The rank and file of the party has only two functions as far as the DNC is concerned. Register and vote is the only thing they care about you doing. After that your roll is over.

REFORMS:

1. Overturn Citizens United.
2. All political donors identities must be publicly disclosed.
3. All states must use a federal system of uniform voting laws.
4. Grant the FEC the power to enforce a federal Uniform Voting System.
5. Form impartial committees to draw unbiased voter districts.
6. Elections must be federally funded.
7. All political debates must be hosted by C-Span, who will assign unbiased inquisitors.
8. All political commercials must be produced by C-Span.
9. Unlimited donations may be made to the Federal Campaign Finance System.
10. Donations to individual political campaigns shall not exceed an amount set by the FEC.
11. All political parties are dissolved.

Reading Comprehension is a Big Problem in the United States

I get pretty amazed at people sometimes. They can do some awesome things! They can do some pretty silly things too. That gets me amazed at them going both ways on the amazement scale.

One thing that amazes me is when people read and interpret what they read. One person can read something and get one meaning, while someone else can read the exact same words and get an entirely different meaning. I wager that even now there are people who are getting totally different meanings from what I am writing right this very minute. That is even while I sit here and think what I am writing is pretty easy to understand.

The writer produces a piece while thinking a thought. The writer knows what they are attempting to convey with the written word. The writer has a responsibility to write their thoughts in a way that can be understood. The reader also has a responsibility when reading to try to comprehend what is being conveyed by the writer.

All too often though I see people take things out of context, put things in that are not even there or fail to understand the writer's meaning. I am beginning to believe that a lot of people need to develop their reading comprehension skills. It is very important to understand the meaning of a text if one wants to have a conversation about the merits of the text, or idea being conveyed. Otherwise we may as well go outside and howl at the moon. At least everyone can understand that.

Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it, and understand its meaning. The definition of comprehension refers to your ability to understand something, or your actual understanding of something. An example of comprehension is how well you understand a difficult math problem.

I think one of the things that get in the way of comprehension is the internal voice. You know the little voice in your head. The conversation you have with yourself almost constantly. You probably having the conversation in your head as you read this. How can anyone understand anything if they are being distracted by the little voice.

You should try an experiment. Pick up a book and start reading it. At the same time, have a person stand behind you and read aloud the news paper. I think anyone would have a real hard time remembering or comprehending anything about what they are reading unless they are a master at shutting everything out. That is what it is like when you read and that little voice is going over the script.

I chose the word script because that is what the vast majority of the people have. They have a script of things going through their mind that seldom changes. Most people think the same thoughts every day. Most people have built up a script of thoughts they use to understand the world. When someone utters a sentence, or when someone reads a sentence, the listener or reader is attempting to match up what is being conveyed with the script in their head. When it doesn't match up with the script, the comprehension starts to suffer. The little voice starts running through the script.

I've done it myself, and battle it all the time. I can be reading something and thinking about something else at the same time. I have to backtrack and reread sometimes because of it. That little voice in my head will be going on about something, and sometimes something unrelated, while my eyes are scanning the words of text. Focus is key. I have to focus and not allow myself to become distracted by the little voice. The script.

Take an article I wrote the other day. I tried to explain why a person is wrong about something. The title said so. I think the title is the place that some people allowed the little voice to take over. That beginning was where the script started being played out in the reader's head. They read "They are Wrong" while the little voice played out the script of "They are Right". I think from that point on the script was running. Instead of reading and attempting to comprehend or understand the writer's meaning, they instead while reading were going through the script in their head telling them why everything they read was wrong.

The problem come in with the person standing behind you reading the newspaper aloud while you try to read a book. Your eyes are scanning the words, but your mind is not focused on them. Your mind focuses on only a few hot button words. Then your little voice with the script fills in the blanks created by distraction with misunderstanding. When people have a lack of information, they fill in the blanks with their imagination. When people are only getting pieces of an article because they are being distracted by the voice going through the script, they have a lack of information.

That's why I believe people can read the exact same words, but walk away with two completely different meanings. In the Christian Bible there is a passage that might be of use here.

Jeremiah 15:16 "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy ..."

That is what we need to do every time we read. Not necessarily the "joy" part, but the "I ate them" part. That means paying attention to what we are reading. Shutting down the script and quiet the little voice. Focus on what you're reading so you can understand the author's meaning. Then after you have finished reading the thought, you can do your critique from a position of understanding.

Reading is truly fundamental, but without comprehension it is an exercise in futility. Without comprehension we may as well howl at the moon.

Logic and Reason is Winning Out for Cannabis

If alcohol, tobacco and some OTC drugs were given the scrutiny that cannabis is, they would be illegal. That tells me the legality or illegality of a substance isn't entirely determined by its safety when consumed. It is partially determined by something else, like morality.

There are taboos that are grounded in real danger, but others are grounded in personal preference. The thought processes may go something like this, "I tried it and don't like it. Because I don't like it, it must be bad. If it is bad, no one should use it." The problem is, the same logic could be used to ban chocolate cake or rocky road ice cream.

That's the kind of thought processes some of our legislators have. Some of our government officials are totally ignorant about any aspect of cannabis use. One time in the Indiana state house they were in committee discussing the possibility of wider availability of naloxone. One of the gentlemen on the council asked the witness if naloxone could reverse a cannabis overdose. In my opinion that question showed a total lack of knowledge of the subject matter. It is illogical to depend on lawmakers to make good and proper laws when they are ignorant of the subject of the law.

With cannabis that ignorance was fostered by lies and racism. The United States during WWII was all into people growing hemp for the war effort. Then the tide turned and hemp was supplanted by manmade materials in rope making. Illegal immigration was seen as something taking away jobs from Americans. So marijuana was used as a tool in the enforcement of immigration laws. It was made illegal so people who liked it, mostly Mexicans and black folk, could be charged with its possession, jailed then deported.

The USA went totally overboard thanks to a man named Anslinger. All cannabis in all its forms were banned. Instead of cannabis being used as something good, it turned into a hammer to beat minorities over the head with. Nixon was notorious in using cannabis against black people. He even said as much and the conversation was recorded onto the famous Nixon tapes.

The tide is finally turning again and thanks to knowledge. All the old myths and lies about cannabis are being exposed showing what they really are. Logic and reason are finally winning. Now we have states where cannabis is perfectly legal for consenting adults as it should be. The states who have legalized cannabis are reaping the rewards in fuller state coffers too! That motive of gaining more tax dollars is an improper motive, but I'll take it. The motive should have to do primarily with human liberties and truth. The tax dollars will follow.

Have no fear of cannabis. Do have a fear of the person who over indulged in other legal substances, like alcohol.