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Cannabis Is Forever
by Doc Zombie
posted at DrugWar.com September 23, 2002
(originally published at Marijuana.com Sept. 22,
2002
http://my.marijuana.com/article.php?sid=4434&mode=nested&order=0&thold=-1
reprinted with permission )
Prohibition of the Superplant as protection of a certain global
monopoly.
What could Oil, Diamonds, and Marijuana possibly have in common?
Answer: A global Campaign of Lies. Not one of them is presented
truthfully in the mass media.
Defined by an ability to simply rake in the bucks, each appears
to be highly desirable. Only 2 are actually valuable, as defined
by their essence as a means of production, two are finite
and depletable, and only one is renewable. By the very fact we
are all born here, all naturally belong to all of us. However,
laws have been crafted by a handful of wealthy men to keep the
bulk of the human race from touching 2 of them, leading us all,
oddly enough, to be over-reliant on one of them, one that is running
out.
Cannabis is more useful and valuable than diamonds, more on par
with oil in terms of its overall potential as a means of production.
It has been totally repressed, defamed as an Evil Weed by a massive
campaign of lies, stifiling the people's interest in and access
to it, and wiping it from the public record for 3 generations.
Diamonds, conversely, simply are not that valuable. They are not
a means of producing much of anything, but because people have
been convinced they are unique symbols of love that they simply,
must have, they generate mind-boggling amounts of money. This
belief was created with a massive campagin of lies.
Cannabis prohition is simply not about "marijuana".
Cannabis prohibition makes "pot" or "marijuana"- the popular "drug"
part of the cannabis plant - artificially more valuable than gold,
which in and of itself is a truly ridiculous thing.
What one is supposed to believe and endorse is that "pot smoking
is bad, so laws providing penalties for touching it are good:
they will help people - and send the right message to children.
It is but a sanctimonius veneer on a policy that, stringently
enforced, creates a billion-dollar black market industry, and
a massive nightmare for law enforcement. 750,000 people were arrested
for cannabis-touching in 2001. That is more than the number of
people arrested for all other (real) crimes combined. That is
a nightmare of squandered resources (money) and effort in our
"New America". Despite a $20 billion-a-year prohibition effort,
people smoke pot every hour of the day, and lots of it @ 4:20.
Might as well prohibit the wind - it does more damage than pot
smoking.
The total suppression of industrial and medicinal applications
of cannabis is where cannabis prohibiton earns it's coffee and
donuts. It's outstanding accomplishmnent is the fact that people
aren't using it to make paint bases, or distill
biofuels, or make fiber, or research medications, or make cereal.
This is what's important.
Cannabis prohibition is NOT about pot smoking. You don't get arrested
for smoking it. You get arrested for touching it (possession),
growing it (manufacturing), moving it (trafficking), trading it
(trafficking), selling it (trafficking); talking about it on a
telephone is conspiracy to traffick and is treated worse than
rape in the eyes of the law. Law-abiding business -the good kind
- is out of business.
If it ever really was about "gettin' high", it isn't any
longer and hasn't been for decades.
It's about Oil.
"No matter how advanced our economy might be, no
matter how sophisticated our equipment becomes, for the foreseeable
future we will still depend on fossil fuels."
- Presidential candidate George W. Bush, Pontiac, Michigan, September
13, 2000
**************
A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open
a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq,
scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other
countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according
to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition.
Although senior Bush administration officials say they have not
begun to focus on the issues involving oil and Iraq, American
and foreign oil companies have already begun maneuvering for a
stake in the country's huge proven reserves of 112 billion barrels
of crude oil, the largest in the world outside Saudi Arabia.
Washington
Post 9.14.2002
"The problems that we face will not be solved by the minds
that created them"
- Albert Einstein
Oil is the dominant means of production at this time, partly
due to being so concentrated and powerful, partly because of the
repression of natural alternatives. Oil is innately valuable in
that things can be done with it: This is what is meant by the
term "means of production".
Oil has no perfect substitute. Neither solar cell,
nor coal, nor plutonium can run trucks or airplanes. There are
theoretical substitutes, but not one shows any promise in the
near term of even being developed. It is the lifeblood of the
entire global capitalist system, and has been for 100 years. If
oil prices go beyond a very operational price of no return, so
to speak, the economy will most certainly be contained, very likely
to the point of collapse. Imagine the consequences today, for
example, if oil prices jumped a mere 50 percent. But if best predictions
are correct, and we are entering the era of post-peak production,
a steady and accelerating increase in the price of oil is inevitable,
and soon.
So capitalism itself, utterly dependent on this single finite
substance, is faced with a very real and very threatening energy
crisis. Progressive (as in gradual) change is now producing an
abrupt step-change. We may not perceive it as such yet, because
U.S. capitalists are very adept at commodifying the mass-intellect,
and making its assertions appear both upright and noble, as we
can see in the ubiquitous display of American flags.
The
Infinite War
[See also The
End of Oil.]
Oil has been formed from solar power trapped and stored in hydrocarbon
runoff collected into vast pools and stored under intense heat and
pressure for hundreds of millions of years, pre-dating human evolution.
Thus I say all the oil in the World belongs to everybody.
It is a massive effort to aquire, extract, transport, refine, re-transport,
etc... I cannot go out and pump oil myself. I'd just blow myself
up trying to make gasoline. All other things being equal (which,
of course, they aren't), Im not terribly opposed to paying a fee
per gallon to get gasoline.
However, it is also going to run out soon, in terms of human generations.
No more can be made. Hasta la Vista 93 octane unleaded.
There are alternative energy choices - the pryolitic
reactor, which makes fuel out of biomass, , the diesel engine, which
was developed to run off biodiesel and seedoils, in addition to
the potentials of solar
and wind. These alternatives are choices essentially denied
to us in the USA, still "pooh-poohed" in the highly controlled mass
media, either as primitive tools, or as futuristic "pie-in-the-sky".
"Theoretical Substitutes".
The Oil companies developed a diesel fuel out of petroleum and managed
subsequently to monopolize petroleum as the primary fue for the
20th century. This was done by stifling alternative energy research,
and to no small extent demonizing the cannabis plant. Even the article
above, The Infinite War - written by a retired Army General - as
well-researched as it appears, doesn't mention the issue with biofuels
(even the spell checker didn't recognize it!). All in all, alternative
fuel technologies are thoroghly suppressed. Oil's running out and
people don't seem to want to discuss them. What's up with that?
[See: Table:
Decline in oil production and International
Workshop on Oil Depletion]
Diamonds
Similarly, diamonds are the by-product of evolutionary forces, transpiring
over a billion years, and percolated to the surface by volcanic
and tectonic forces. Diamond mines are largely excavations into
deceased volcano cores.
Aside from the fascinating fact of being pure carbon, they are merely
sparkely rocks with little use outside of some tool-making (drill
bits/saw blades) and jewelry. They can't build houses or keep us
warm, weave fabrics, feed people, light our homes, or make fuel-oils.
"You certainly can't smoke 'em", says a friend of mine (He's a pothead...)
They suck in brownies...
While not plentiful as sand, diamonds are so plentiful that their
awesome value has to be based upon and maintained by lies, deciet,
and prohibition, not on any innate worth. Diamonds, therefore, are
NOT a means of production.
The Scam
Both diamonds and oil have thier respective values artificially
maintained by different applications of laws prohibiting people
from touching certain specified naturally-occuring things:
- by suppressing alternative means of production, not just
alternative fuels, the value of OIL is kept artificial. OPEC
raises or lowers production to increase or decrease its price.
Suppression of cannabis protects this monopoly by preventing
development of cannabis industries as a competitive means
of production. Just as prohibition is not about "pot smoking",
the monopoly is not just about fuel oils or gasoline, but
fiber, plastics, paper, celluose, as well as medicines. Fuel
technologies are just one aspect of a means of production.
- Diamond values are kept artificially high by thorough control
of mines and supplies, limiting production and maintaining
the image of diamonds as valuable, desirable, and rare. And
also by legislation: by the Precious Stones act of 1927 which
prohibits touching "unregistered diamonds".
There are 2 points here: the first is that each of these items
is handled in a way that "legally" prevents 99% of the human population
from sharing in the innate wealth that can apparently be generated
and funnels it into the pockets of the 1 %.
The second is that the market is not truly free. It's somewhat
similar to allowing "microgiant" to petiton the government to
prohibit "macfruit computers", and then vigorously make sure all
these competing computers are confiscated. Computers are primarily
tools, not means of production though - the stakes are exponetially
higher. The market is vastly unfree.
It is often argued that this process exacerbates the presence
of poverty on planet Earth. This policy, though, is vigorously
defended as good and desirable - even righteous - by those who
profit from it and they have convinced a large number of people,
off of whom they feed, to participate enthusiastically in it.
The rise of the consumer society is submitted as sufficient evidence
of this.
Manifest Destiney and the origin of the Consumer Society
[This is an excerpt from a document credited as the beginning
of the Manifest Destiny concept. I can't read more than a couple
sentences at a time without treating my nausea. Forgive me for
including so much, but I felt it was essential to drive home how
full of themselves these people were. Think of how the author
may have percieved the 2000 Election Circus.]
America is destined for better deeds. It is our
unparalleled glory that we have no reminiscences of battle fields,
but in defence of humanity, of the oppressed of all nations,
of the rights of conscience, the rights of personal enfranchisement.
Our annals describe no scenes of horrid carnage, where men were
led on by hundreds of thousands to slay one another, dupes and
victims to emperors, kings, nobles, demons in the human form
called heroes. We have had patriots to defend our homes, our
liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the
American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked
ambition to depopulate the land, to spread desolation far and
wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy.
We have no interest in the scenes of antiquity, only as lessons
of avoidance of nearly all their examples. The expansive future
is our arena, and for our history. We are entering on its untrodden
space, with the truths of God in our minds, beneficent objects
in our hearts, and with a clear conscience unsullied by the
past. We are the nation of human progress, and who will,
what can, set limits to our onward march? Providence is with
us, and no earthly power can. We point to the everlasting truth
on the first page of our national declaration, and we proclaim
to the millions of other lands, that "the gates of hell" --
the powers of aristocracy and monarchy -- "shall not prevail
against it."
John
L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839
See also: Manifest
Destiny Discussion.
Manifest Destiny is a concept, "born" in the early 1800's, that
grossly simplified says the Earth, not just North America,
was put here by God for White People's use. It's philosophy and
values set the stage, so to speak, for the modern American Society,
which I often call the "Consumer Society" because of its single-minded
devotion to aquiring things as a measure of personal success.
Occuring roughly at the dawn of the Industrial Age, this "philosophy"
promoted the perspective that the earth is "ours for the taking",
a resource essentially to be claimed, plundered and commidified.
The industrial revolution chugged on, spreading "progress" far
and wide, oblivious to and without regard for environmental or
social impact. It constantly proclaimed it's rightousness - and
hasn't stopped.
Along the way it developed the concept of mass production and
reinforced the "disposable, one-use, single-serving" values that
sort of identify modern Consumer Society. This is due in part
to the belief that, ultimately, they are going to be whisked from
this life soon to be with God. The Earth will be empty, except
for "sinners" and others God doesn't like.
Manifest Destiny, somewhere deep in it's flowery descriptions
of its high and mighty ideals, supported slavery, and the concept
of lessor peoples. Pollution is a non-issue, global warming is
a non-issue, species exstinction is not an issue - and the suffering
of non-whites is not an issue - because God put all this here
for white people, anyway. People have become commodities to be
exploited just like oil or diamonds or water. I think this is
called "class structure".(I argue that lingering vestiges of this
are manifested in the racial disparity of all drug law enforcement.)
Again grossly oversimplified, what I refer to as the "Consumer
Society" grew out of this milieu, America's experience with slavery,
and with the ethnic cleansing of Native Peoples. [1]
After slavery was "abolished", the Peonage System rose essentially
maintaining the "best part" of slavery:
One of the most striking features of the economy
of the South in the early 20th century was the extent to which
its farms, plantations, mines, and mills availed themselves
of a system of forced labor known as "peonage." This system
developed from the practice of holding laborers in debt and
forcing them to remain on the premises of their creditors to
work off the debt. Peon laborers were thus bound to their masters'
firms or plantations, often by means of violence and intimidation.
Because the overwhelming majority of peon laborers were black,
the system served to entrench racial as well as class divisions
throughout the South. Peonage
Files of the US DOJ
The firms and plantations have been replaced by huge national
and transnational corporations. Their goal is to get control of
commodities as cheaply and as exclusively as possibly, then try
to get each human being to cough up as much money as possible
for each unit as they buy them back. They need a constantly flowing
pipeline from your pocket to thiers in order for it all to run.
The underlying market structure and values are basically like
the board game Monopoly, except that it's administered very aggressively
like war: lying, cheating, stealing , and killing people are all
necessary parts to sustain it. Tobacco and Enron are a wonderful
examples. Water Privatization is the next huge scam. Violating
the rights of the little guy and the Laws of Nations is all in
a days work.
(See: The
Infinte War and exceprts from
The Grand Chessboard)
Slaves to the Grind
The Consumer Society of Modern America (you can also call it the
rat race) would not be what it is without millions of people being
able to both consume mass produced things and get easily into
debt. Credit historically made it easy to buy cars and homes,
but monopolies needed people to consume frequently, regularly
- daily, impulsively.
The introduction of the "credit card" completed the transformation
of American Society from a nation defined by family farms, small
business, and self-reliance - and all those radiant concepts glorified
by Mr. O'Sullivan - into a massive peonage system. The credit
card is really a "debt card": your portable gateway to extended
peonage. No need to remain on the plantation, "feel free" to come
and go as you please, but you gotta pay the man. (at least once
every 30 days.)
People work longer and longer hours, 2 and three jobs sometimes,
to" make ends meet". They buy more and more, tricked into believing
material consumption and material possessions reflect success,
stautus, wealth, and taste. The best dressed, most comfy slaves
in history, they believe this so blindly many Americans are in
serious credit card debt.
In 2001, between 2 million and 2.5 million people
nationwide felt the need to seek assistance from a credit counseling
agency, which may come as no surprise given recent statistics
on consumer debt. According to the Federal Reserve, non-secured
consumer debt rose from $1.2 trillion in 1996 to $1.65 trillion
in 2001. Consumer bankruptcy filings jumped from 1.2 million
in 2000, to 1.5 million in 2001. Credit Card debt now averages
$8,562 per household.
Luthern
Social Services Press Release
(See:
The Overspent American and Redefining
the American Dream and 1998
Predictions of VISA)
This is one huge way "capital" - as well as "life" - is sucked
out of people. Like a sort of handout, people get hooked on
credit and leverage themselves deep into debt - peonage, essentially.
This is exactly where massive transnational corporations want
and need the 99%. It keeps people dependent on seeking work,
going to work or going home to sleep. Those that work have funds
to pay thier bills. Those that don't eventually get labled as
"sponging off the system", or as "surplus population". Again,
it's all legal and good, and evidence of the progress of man,
I'm told.
And it's going global.
Advertising and Reefer Madness
"gotta have a jones for this, a jones for that
I wonder who got her thinking like that...
This runnin' with the Jones just ain't where it's at..."
Boz Scaggs - Dirty Lowdown
Advertising is what pulls this stunt off so well. Advertising
is what enabled, aided, nurtured, and abetted the romanticization
of "the Stone" and demonization of "the Plant".
American Corporations spend something in the neighborhood of $250,000,000,000
on advertising their stuff each year. People are bathed in hi-powered
advertising all their waking hours, at least in populous areas
with electricty and media. Advertising blares incessantly from
the radio, the TV [2], billboards, newspapers, magazines,
on the sides of busses and trucks to the back of taxis. People
or machines call you on the phone. Somebody is always wanting
to interrupt your stream of consciousness in a rude attempt to
make you buy something you seem to have done well-enough without
thus far. They are the ones "who got her thinkin like that".
Randolph Hearst sold newspapers basically as a way to make money
off wood pulp - he didn't give a damn if people could even read
them. However, newspaper stories used to sell these pulpy papers
had long been used to demonize the Native Americans, and justify
America's brutal ethnic cleasing of the entire continent. The
stories have mostly turned out to be distortions of self-defense,
terrible misunderstandings, but not least - heinous fabrications.
(I often wonder how badly things would have gone if the Internet
and mass media had been around then to counter all the lies told
about natives. See: Native American Testimony by Peter
Nabakov - a book - if you are unclear on exactly how badly the
Natives were screwed, or if "Trail of Tears" doesn't ring
a bell.) [1]
Anyway, a man named Harry Anslinger - an agent of the US Federal
Government - and Hearst, already fond of demonizing Natives and
Mexicans, made up outrageous and infamous lies. Anslinger crafted
the template for all future prohibitonist propaganda with the
bizarre claim that smoking pot would turn you into an instant
insane ax-murderer....and people bought it! Ugly story after ugly
story - all lies - went to print in the Hearst Papers. People
simply believed it (possibly leading to the phrase "hey, they
bought it").
They loved it at the theaters when" Reefer Madness" was released,
bringing Anslingers mega-lies to the silver screen. 65 years -3
generations - later the masses still buy it even though there
isn't a lot of credible evidence that pot is much more harmful
the the questionable act of inhaling smoke, and numerous well-done
and Government-commissioned studies fully refute Anslingers poisonous
mythology.
[Look up "yellow journalism" on your favorite search engine.]
It is worthwhile to note that despite all the horrible things
Anslinger did to create Reefer Madness, he did make specific effort
to see that hemp seed and fiber was NOT included in all the prohibition
efforts. He intended for the hemp industry to continue unmolested.
That was fully suppressed after the end of WWII.
[See the movie Grass.
It is billed as "entertaining", and it is, but it is an outstanding
cataloging of the evolution of cannabis propaganda.]
Reefer Madness and Protection of Corporate Monopolies
Advertisers livelihood, all $250 billion of it, is to craft ways
to make people believe a certain thing about a product (or person)
and attempt to "make" people want to have/get/consume that item
(or vote for that person): to effect a desired behavioral follow-thru.
Sure some things we need, but they don't need hi-priced, hi-power
ads to make us want them, but it is needed to make us buy the
brands the pay the advertisers. There's nothing wrong with brands,
either. Business is life.
But there is a massive ethical abyss one falls into using high-powered
advertising to make people believe and buy things that are not
true, or cover up heinous acts. "Advertising" becomes "Propaganda"
when that happens. And it happens all the time.
Speaking of propaganda.... the Partnership for a Drug-Free (marijuana-free)
America is made up of Pharmaceutical companies("pharms") and by
Advertising Agencies. Pharmaceutical companies are among the biggest
clients of advertisers, pushing a kaleidescope of medications
and drugs, not all of them necessarily effective or safe, often
with just a slick TV ad and the blurb: "Ask your doctor if "such-and-such
pill" is right for you". No need to even ask what the pill is,
just ask your doctor, and buy the drug. Many of them have potentially
serious side-effects and are quite expensive. But don't smoke
pot!
[Watch the nightly News on commerical television - particularly
CBS. Count the medication commericals in the 30 minute period,
listen to how side-effects are presented.]
While nobody suggests the legalization of cannabis would undermine
the solidity of the massive petrochemical industries (that is
apparently what CEO's are for), they would lose "a little off
the top" to genuine competition in a free market. That happens
to be totally unacceptable though, and nothing is too extreme,
unlawful, or unethical, when it comes to profits.
For example - Pharms could see cannabis-based medicine take perhaps
10% of its profits upon leglization, based on the number of people
who have access to the usual medications who state over and over
those drugs do not work for them. They could lose a lot more once
real research is allowed, unless the Pharms did their own. Verifiable
knowledge of the cannabis plant is prohibited as well, at least
in the USA - other countries are forging ahead with medical and
industrial research. Pharms would continue to research and develop
important medicines and treatment. (The US is also the only member
of the G8 that doesn't have an industrial hemp industry.)
[see: G.W. Phamaceuticals]
Unfriendly Fire
All
will pay who disagree with me...
- Steppenwolf
Note that the US Federal government doesn't just refuse to recognize
medical marijuana. It is so hostile towards medical cannabis it
wages a war against states that have made legal recognition of
it. They are so serious about this no exception whatsoever is
made between serious criminals who grow for profit and those who
run bona fide clinics and hospices, even in model compliance with
state laws.
The DEA has dramatically stepped up its raids on medical cannabis
facilities in California and Oregon since September
11th. They have dynamited clinic doors, pointed shotguns at people
in wheelchairs, and destroyed thousands of highly evolved medical
cannabis plants. They have recieved an outpouring of angry responses
from powerful state officials and commissioners of numerous cities
but keep on kickin'.
[See: WAMM
Raid before and after photos]
They have arrested more than 25 persons in these raids on medical
cannabis facilities in California, but only 1 "terrorist": an
ugly show of Federal priorities and hatred. Terrorists even get
more leeway in court.
This is because Medical cannabis is a bigger threat to the Pharms
than drug traffickers. Pharms are part of the petrochemical industry,
which is part of the oil monopoly. The Federal Government is run
by in large part by longtime oil corporation insiders, including
the President and Vice President. There even was, until recently,
a Chevron oil tanker named the
"Condaleeza Rice" for crying out loud. Hint, Hint...
(See also: cannabisnow.org
and Americans for Safe
Access for more information about the Federal war against
medical cannabis.)
The biggest lie advertisers push, aside from "a diamond is forever",
where "advertising" is really "propaganda", is Reefer Madness
- the massive lie that cannabis is "mean and evil, wicked and
nasty" and socially unacceptable: bad for you, with no known uses
outside of making ax-murderers and funding mean old terrorists.
This is to make people continue to de-value cannabis's potential,
slander it in the mass media, to make discussion of it impossible
to take seriously, especially when news of that potential explodes
from around the world and is still dredging up buried history
of its use through the ages.
It's all smugly presented as "caring about the children" or "saving
lives", or "patriotism" but it's quite clear the few who benefit
from the results of all this propaganda and prohibition (often
referred to colloquially as "they") couldn't care less about you
or me. We're surplus population, commodities to pump money into
their off-shore accounts.
Sparkley Rock Prohibition
Retail sales of diamond jewelry totaled 56 billion
dollars last year worldwide. And nearly half of all the diamond
jewelry in the world is sold in the United States.
Of those diamonds destined for the U.S., all but a few of them
pass through the Diamond District in New York. This district
includes the blocks surrounding 47th Street and Fifth Avenue
in Manhattan.
De Beers practically invented diamond marketing: a diamond is
forever is the most recognized ad slogan line of the 20th century,
according to Advertising Age. Ninety percent of all Americans
know it.
ARW
Once I started reading the history of diamonds, how sparkley rocks
have become the embodiment of Love, I understood where much of
the concept for James Bond came from. The history of diamonds
is better than fiction. It's wild. When one looks at, it is seen
that "they" will do anything, will go any distance to screw humankind
out of what rightfully belongs to everybody. And shining a light
on how rocks bring in $56 billion a year sheds light on how 3
generations of people could have had proper information about
cannabis expunged and withheld from it.
Diamonds are worthless, actually: they are basically sparkely
rocks. Really cool rocks - no doubt; cool and a dollar gets you
a cup of coffee (donuts are extra). But they way they have been
made so valuable is exactly the same way that cannabis has been
demonized - huge lies backed with powerful, pervasive advertising
campaigns deliberately intent on changing the beliefs and values
of whole countries. A light shined on diamond history shows how
powerful advertising can be and how global monopolies are built
and maintained. Like the construction of hot dogs, it's not a
pretty sight. It would make great TV.
Until the 1860's or so diamonds were only valuable because they
were thought to be extremely scarce.
Then diamonds were discovered all over South Africa. In deceased
volcano cores - called diamond pipes (snicker, snicker) - along
hundreds of miles of river beds and lying openly in the sand dunes,
as in Sierra Leone. Diamonds were, of course, immediatly devalued.
Since then, one company has controlled almost all
the diamonds on the planet - the De Beers Corporation, founded
in South Africa by Cecil Rhodes. But the De Beers people haven't
mined only diamonds; they've mined the American psyche to create
a marketing juggernaut.
"The first effect of discovering kimberlites was that it converted
diamonds from a rare gem to an industrial product like copper
or any other product that you can mine," said writer Edward
Jay Epstein, whose 1982 book The Diamond Invention cast a sharp
light on the diamond trade.
Epstein says the discovery of kimberlite mines touched off a
frenzy that propelled thousands of prospectors into fierce competition.
And when the kimberlite gems hit western markets in the late
1800s, diamond prices plummeted from 500 dollars to ten
cents a carat.
*******
In 1910 Ernest Oppenheimer wrote 'Common sense
tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds
is to make them scarce, that is to reduce the production.'
An uncontrolled flood of diamonds from the small mines onto
the world market threatened the Syndicate's control of the market.
So, in the interests of the diamond syndicate, Anglo American
and De Beers, the South African government prepared new legislation.
The Precious Stones Act of 1927 made it illegal to be found
in possession of any diamond not registered with the police.
[note: I have searched for more text on the Act, but have found
just what is included. I originally heard it on PBS Frontline's
"The Diamond Empire". It was an excellent program. Search for
it now and you find a 2 paragraph blurb. It seems Frontline
was "talked into" (coerced) into removing it. Read The
Diamond Investigation for a bit more about that.]
******
In South Africa, most diamond mines were volcanic pipes,
which could be isolated behind electrified ten-foot high barbwire
fences. In central and west Africa, however, most diamonds were
"mined" from streambeds that meandered over tens of thousands
of miles of jungle. To recover these diamonds, natives needed
only a shovel and a pan. Even though the governments had granted
concessions to various diamond mining companies associated with
De Beers, and had in theory banned anyone else from digging
for diamonds, it was in practice impossible to enforce these
regulations.
So you can't grow a common plant and you cannot touch diamonds
laying on the ground in your own country.
Ain't Law grand?
The Diamond Invention
The diamond invention was an ingenious scheme for
sustaining the value of diamonds in an uncertain world. To begin
with, it involved gaining control over the production of all
the important diamond mines in the world. Next, a system was
devised for allocating this controlled supply of gems to a select
number of diamond cutters who all agreed to abide by certain
rules intended to assure that the quantity of finished diamonds
available at any given time never exceeded the public's demand
for them. Finally, a set of subtle, but effective, incentives
were devised for regulating the behavior of all the people who
served and ultimately profited from the system.
The invention had a wide array of diverse parts: these included
a huge stockpile of uncut diamonds in a vault in London; a billion-dollar
cash hoard deposited in banks in Europe; and private intelligence
network operating out of Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg and
London; a global network of advertising agencies, brokers
and distributors; corporate fronts in Africa for concealing
massive diamond purchases; and private treaties with nations
establishing quotas for annual production.
***********
The sights in London thus are not merely occasions for major
gem manufacturers to select the uncut diamonds that they wish
to purchase but an integral part of the mechanism through which
De Beers establishes and maintains the value of diamonds. Through
these ten events a year De Beers extends its control from the
diamond mines of Africa to the cutting factories of Belgium,
Israel, India, and the United States. And through its clients-whose
fortunes depend heavily on the contents of the shoe boxes they
receive-De Beers is able to monitor and regulate the flow of
diamonds that pass through the world pipeline into the retail
market. The stakes are undisputably high in this game.
***********
The invention is far more than merely a monopoly for fixing
diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals
of carbon into universally recognized tokens of power and romance.
For it to ultimately succeed, it must endow these stones with
the sort of sentiment that would inhibit the public from ever
reselling them onto the market. The illusion thus had to be
inculcated into the mass mind that diamonds were forever-- "forever"
in the sense that they could never be resold.
Basically, the Debeers people crafted the most effective propaganda
campaign ever with "a diamond is forever". This campaign equated
love and individuality with something inherently worthless and
masterfully exploited it for commercial gain. It caused people
to fully believe something easily demonstrable as meaningless.
There is nothing illegal about it. Ethics, again, are another
story. (We don't need no stinkin' ethics!)
If a toaster doesn't toast, you can take it back. Complain. If
it sets your house on fire, you can sue.
If you get divorced, Can you sue DeBeers? No. Do we get our 2-months
salary (plus court costs) returned? No.
A diamond is a lie. The meaning is simply made-up. It doesnt mean
"love" at all - unless you and your significant other decide it
does. But have you decided because that is what you 2 want? or
have you simply bought into the lie?
A handful of people 80 years ago decided to make hundreds of millions
people believe something untrue and wanted them to feel on the
wrong side of public opinion if they didn't go along.
De Beers and Ayer set out to create a new myth
that would make the diamond engagement ring a necessity for
every couple. It quickly proved so profitable that De Beers
spent about half a million pounds every year of the Second World
War, a vast sum in those days, to ensure this myth was believed
by all Americans. An Ayer report of August 1940 stated that
it had prepared and placed in 9 months 3,500 diamond movie stories
and 16,500 diamond news stories. Diamond stories were placed
in all high circulation magazines, including in Readers Digest,
in the New York Evening News, in Brides Magazine and in
teenage periodicals
******
De Beers ran a series of 'patriotic advertisements' explaining
every gem diamond purchased helped fund the production of industrial
diamonds. This wasn't strictly true. De Beers already had
in its vaults nearly all the gems it was marketing. It had closed
the mines that produced the best gems and tool diamonds at the
outbreak of war, leaving open only the Congo mines that produced
at the cheapest cost the poorer quality industrial diamonds
it was supplying to American industry...
*******
... The American Justice Department fumed: 'This form of profiteering
is the more obnoxious because it involves a most vital war material
and because it has been accompanied by pious public professions
of sacrifice... they are making a profit of 200 to 300%'...
Sparkle.com
First the US, then Japan -
In Japan, the matrimonial custom had survived
feudal revolutions, world wars, industrialization and even the
American occupation. Up until the mid-1960s, Japanese parents
arranged proper marriages for their children through trusted
'intermediaries. The ceremony was then consummated, according
to Shinto law, by the bride and groom both drinking rice wine
from the same wooden bowl. This simple arrangement had persisted
for more than a millennium. There was no tradition for romance,
courtship, seduction and prenuptial love in Japan; and no tradition
that required the gift of a diamond engagement ring.
Then, in 1967, halfway around the world, a South African diamond
company decided to change the Japanese courtship ritual. It
retained J. Walter Thompson, the largest advertising agency
in the world, to embark on a campaign to popularize diamond
engagement rings in Japan. It was not an easy task. Even
the quartering of millions of American soldiers in Japan for
a decade had not resulted in any substantial Japanese interest
in giving diamonds as a token of love.
Until 1959 the importation of diamonds had not even been permitted
by the postwar Japanese government.
When the campaign began in 1968, less than 5 percent of Japanese
women getting married received a diamond engagement ring. By
1972 the proportion had risen to 27 percent. By 1978, half of
all Japanese women who were married wore a diamond on their
ring finger. And, by 1981, some 6o percent of Japanese brides
wore diamonds. In a mere thirteen years, the fifteen-hundred-year
Japanese tradition was radically revised.
Edward J. Epstein
[go read the entire page of this link -I was tempted to include
the whole thing.]
I hope the point about the immense power of advertising and propaganda
is fairly clear.
The Once and Future Superplant
Modern technology was about to be applied to hemp
production, making it the number one agricultural resource in
America. Two of the most respected and influential journals
in the nation, Popular Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering,
forecast a bright future for American hemp. Thousands of new
products creating millions of new jobs heralded the end of the
Great Depression. Instead hemp was persecuted, outlawed, and
forgotten at the bidding of W. R. Hearst who branded hemp the
Mexican killer weed, marijuana.
[Further].....in light of subsequent developments (e.g., biomass
energy technology, building materials, etc.), we now know that
hemp is the world's most important ecological resource and therefore,
potentially our planet's single largest industry.
Electric
Emperor.com
The full weight and power of the advertising industry has been
brought to bear on it, whether about Hemp, or medical usage, or
personal, to defame it's character, to slander it's potential,
and demonize it's existence and supporters.The same effort that
went into lying about diamonds, if not more, has been expended
by government and private corporations alike to cause generations
of Americans and other nations to forget about the commerical
and medical potential of the cannabis plant. Because it can't
be patented or monopolized, it is suppressed. Now that Oil is
on the wane, this issue is merely going to become more important.
Among modern reform efforts Cannabis is often presented as "just"
a natural and renewable resource, or it's "just" for medical reasons,
or just for food. This is quite true, but the intent is to "compartmentalize"
cannabis as one thing or another is a means of "sanitizing it",
justifying it in terms laid down by the Overseers of Consumer
Society.
The Hemp Industry, for example, tries hard to avoid the "marijuana"
label, to the point of saying they are actually 2 separate plants
("Hemp: marijuana's cousin" or something like that.) Without the
hell of prohibition foist upon us everybody but fools would know
hemp has no joyous recreational properties. And they wouldn't
have to bend over backwards to promote their industry. Or provide
the DEA with its GPS coodinates, so they can watch it by satellite.
Your taxes hard at work.
The point I wish to drive home is that cannabis must be looked
at "synergystically": it simply transcends the sum of it's myriad
uses. It is more than just "medicine" or "soap" or "fiber", or
"herb". It is a complete Means of Production - just like oil -
but without oil's 3 main drawbacks: pollution, pollution, and
pollution.
Cannabis is the "Superplant" - an environmentally (and socially)
friendy, low-cost, sustainable, renewable well-spring of a natural
resource, capable of producing many, many very different things.
It belongs on every farm, right along with corn and soybeans.
Both those plants can be made into a myriad of things as well,
but cannabis simply and handily outdoes either in terms of ease
of growing and variety of by-products.
Imagine banning corn or soybeans. After all, corn makes whiskey,
a dangerous and addictive (and flammable) drug that often is used
by children. Bizarre concept, yes? Same issue with cannabis really.
It's Crop prohibition. Farm Prohibition. Self-reliance -and- autonomy
prohibition. Free market prohibition. Consume and be dependent
on the products of an artifical monopoly, squandering your innate
worth in pursuit of shiny things.
Since somebody invaribly annoys us with what is technically a
non-sequiter of a question: "what about these rumors of
marijuana being much more potent"?, let's look at that now. This
is one of the single biggest ploys used to derail "drug and non-drug"
discussions of cannabis reform, aside from "What about the children?".
A number of factors play into this appearence: The pure propaganda
of the Federal Government, the absence of meaningful "THC Data"
from the 1960's, improper growing and storage, but not the least
being intentional breeding of desired qualities. Just like corn,
pigs, beans, tomatos, lab mice, etc...cannabis can be easily manipulated
to produce desired strains. All of these factors have combined
together to make current testing of thc levels probably fairly
meaningless. With all industrial and medicial applications vehemently
prohibited, only the recreational growth and research aspect has
been able to flourish, and yes, it has improved.
Cannabis can doubtlessly be bred to produce not only better and
more potent marijuana, but also diverse fibers, specific medications,
specific qualities of hempseed oils, and so on are possible. Aside
from jet fuel and gasoline- and engagement rings - cannabis appears
to be able to fabricate what ever one wants to imagine. That's
why it's suppressed.
Cannabis as a means of Production
Gimme fuel, Gimme fire, Gimme that which I desire!"
Metallica
Iso-chanvre (chanvre is French for hemp),a rediscovered
French building material made form hemp hurds mixed with lime,
actually petrifies into a mineral state and lasts for many centuries.
Archeologists have found a bridge in the south of France, from
the Merovingian period, built with this process.
Hemp has been used throughout history for carpet backing. Hemp
fiber has potential in the manufacture of strong, rot-resistant
carpeting--eliminating the poisonous fumes of burning synthetic
materials in a house or commercial fire, along with allergic
reactions associated with new synthetic carpeting, which may
outgas volatile toxic fumes for months or even years, endangering
human health.
Plastic plumbing pipes (PVC pipes) can be manufactured using
renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical feedstocks, replacing
nonrenewable coal or petroleum-based chemical feedstocks.
So we can envision a house of the future built, plumbed, painted,
and furnished with the world's number-one renewable resource--hemp.
******
A cotton shirt in 1776 cost $100 to $200, while a hemp shirt
cost $0.50 to $1. By the 1830s, cooler, lighter cotton shirts
were on par in price with the warmer, heavier, hampen shirts,
providing a competitive choice, thanks to government subsidies.
People were able to choose their garments based upon the particular
qualities they wanted in a fabric. Today we have no such choice.
Conventional cotton growing, which depletes and pollutes
our nonrenewable resources, is still heavily subsidized by the
government, masking the true costs of production and costs to
the environment, whereas hemp is not allowed to be grown at
all in the US (hopefully this is changing, for our planet's
sake!).
The role of hemp and other natural fibers should be determined
by the market of supply and demand and personal tastes and values,
not by the undue influence of prohibition laws, federal subsidies
and huge tariffs that are designed to keep the natural fabrics
from replacing synthetic fibers.
Sixty years of government suppression of information has
resulted in virtually no public knowledge of the incredible
potential of the hemp fiber or its uses.
By using 100% hemp or mixing hemp with cotton, you will be able
to pass on your shirts, pants, and other clothing to your grandchildren.
Intelligent spending could essentially replace the use of petrochemical
synthetic fibers such as nylon and polyester with tougher, cheaper,
cool, absorbent, breathable, biodegradable natural fibers such
as hemp and flax.
Rawganique.com
In the early 20th century Rudolph diesel invented an engine specifically
designed to produce usable - serious - power off of farm
by-products. Biodiesel was that product. By the early 1930's it
was largely perfected for the time and was state-of-the art. In
the late 1930's an oil-based diesel fuel was developed and biofuels
were shelved. I have grown up with people desparaging the diesel
engine:I think I now know why.
The more I think about all this the more I am interested in a
certain reputable 24 valve DOHC inline 6 turbodiesel engine. Imagine
engines like that and plentiful fuel to run them. No scare stories
about decaying into a post-industrial stone age. No need to push
ahead with an unjust and unwanted war.
Also in the 1930's was when cannabis was fully demonized, morphed
by wealthy men from agricultural staple and emerging Superplant
into an Evil, insanity-producing Weed and it remains viciously
repressed to this date. Oil was to be the dominant fuel, indeed
the dominant means of production, of the 20th Century, causing
a billion people to purchase and become dependent on vast spectrum
of products from a handful of people and nothing was gonna cut
in on that gig.
We believe that the main reason hemp is
illegal today is because of biodiesel's potential. The first
diesel engines (by Rudolph Diesel in 1894) were invented to
run on hempseed oil; petroleum wasn't synthesized to mimic hempseed
oil for over a decade. Therefore hempseed oil was the primary
fuel for automobiles for over 30 years after the invention of
the first internal combustion engine.
Entry into the biodiesel market has very low capital entry requirements
and is, therefore, not centralized. Among the benefits of using
biodiesel:
- Start an economic boom!
- Use vegetable seed oil (biodiesel).
- Run any diesel engine with no engine conversion at all.
- Make biodiesel from hemp, soybean, rapeseed/canola and
safflower seed oil
- Save family farms. [3]
- Return economic control to the people!
- Naturally decentralize wealth.
- Stop global warming.
- Stop A lot of toxic pollution.
- Create a useful byproduct: food.
CRRH
[See also: Popular
Mechanics "Billion Dollar" Crop Article from 1938]
The Sacred Hoop
Now, my friend, let us smoke together so that there
may be only good between us.- Black Elk
So, the primacy of oil, the value of diamonds and the uselessness
and evil of cannabis are all gigantic lies perpetuated by a few,
vast corporations, via the application of hi-powered advertising,
in concert with government laws specifically prohibiting people
from touching cannabis and diamonds. This results in hoarded wealth
and control over the masses. Kept in debt, constantly giving money
to the 1% one way or another, we are talking about millions of
people in peonage to a few. People die for these lies hourly.
Lives are ruined, whole peoples oppressed, countries destabilized;
being global, it doesn't get any bigger or uglier. America under
G. W. Bush is going to attack Iraq to get at 112 billion barrels
of pure power and profit.
Sooner or later though, Iraq or no Iraq, Colombia or no Colombia
(it's about oil too), Oil will become so expensive the consumer
society won't work. We will not go sliding into the stone age
as oil propanda would have us believe. Things will change, probably
be re-arranged. Worse things could happen, says dear old Dad.
But when the monoply is dissolved the hoarded wealth will begin
to be re-arranged.
Tied deeply to the demonization of cannabis is the idea that people
legally growing it could be growing "money", essentially. Cannabis
could continue to be sold for "drug" purposes" - though
I would expect the profits to fall sharply upon legalization.
The only reason marijuana is currently valued more than gold,
ounce for ounce, is because of prohibition which increases the
risk of transporting it. If I could grow my own - without fear
of ruination, imprisonment, forfieture of my home, or being shot
to death by Federal Pot-NAZIs (No pot for you!) - I'd not be giving
money to people for it.
More likely is that legal cannabis would jump-start America's
near-dead family farm. [3] Industrial hemp demand should
far outstrip demands for recreational cannabis, and medical-grade
cannabis for smoking is already healthily established in North
America, despite the guerilla war being waged by the DEA. Unlike
diamonds, no lie needs be concocted, no advertising bought. Cannabis's
innate value as a potent means of production would take care of
that.
The aversion to this sort of freedom seems basically unchanged
from the time white culture despised the successes of the native
way of living.[1] The notion one can live owing little
or nothing to someone else, free to do as one sees fit and necesasary
is simply heresy in the context of the consumer society. The Spirit
of Freedom - living in harmony with the earth, living sustainably,
even the rebirth of the Native People's Sacred Hoop to include
all peoples - is deeply tied into this whole scenario, but beyond
the scope of this article.
And again, Jack Herer is totally correct - I always thought he
was overstating the case: Cannabis can essentially save the world.
See: The
Emporer wears no Clothes in pdf
Just the ending of cannabis prohibition will save countless lives,
help throw a wrench into this sinful massive hoarding of wealth,
and maybe, just maybe, tip the scales back towards "Fair" a little
tiny bit. Just a bit - there's still lots of ways to screw humankind,
so there's no need for the fat cats to get all sweaty.
Combine cannabis legalization along with unsuppressed development
of solar and wind, and oil is reduced to it's proper place - an
important but not dominant means of production. Since it is running
out it would seem smart to try and use it as wisely and sparingly
as possible. Instead of depleting oil and polluting the atmosphere
and poisoning the environment, allowing cannabis to do its thing
would be a more conservative and harmonius way of addressing the
uses of multiple means of production. I hate to use such heretical
languge, but it's Natural.
Ending the monopoly of oil would be a step towards more equitable
and natural distribution of world "capital". As long as cannabis
is prohibited, markets are not free. It would let Light shine
in on the Dark Age of Petroleum Man, to intervene in and
halt its crimes of greed and excess. To turn the world back from
Infinite War. To snuff out the fire of "terrorism". Address poverty
and starvation at home and abroad. To rebuild the Sacred Hoop.
It is an opportunity to do something massively harmonious. The
natural flourishing of multiple sustainable means of production
whose technologies are here, in conjunction with efficient use
of oil, offers a future of plentiful energy and material necessities
to be spread around.
The resources of the Natural World can be shared with everybody
in peace, not hoarded by a tiny handful of people and secured
by lies, razorwire and armies.
xxdr_zombiexx
9.22.2002
Footnotes and dangling ideas:
- Ever see the footage from Africa with the massive herds
of water buffalo spanning across the panorama? Bison during
the Native's Time were the same way: huge mobile seas of robust
animals. The Native Peoples, in additon to "living of the
land" specifically lived off of the bison, and the deer. Meat,
hide, sinew for stitching to make clothes out of hide, fat
for soap, bone for needles, etc... All of it contributed to
the succes of the native lifestyle.
White society, full of Manifest Destiny and covetous of Native
Terrirtories, devalued and despised the freedom and self-reliance
of the Native people. It's very clear this sort of living
off nature for "free" would not be tolerated in the Modern
Consumer America. As slavery morphed into the peonage system,
white man had decided to end the Native way of living by eliminating
their means of production - the bison.
The bison were slaughtered by the millions. The Natives faced
the choice of capitulating to the Reservation System or starve
and be hunted by soldiers. What they called the Sacred Hoop
was smashed by the " Progress of Man". With the reservation
system came depedence on the government for handouts - death
to their free lifestyle - and the slow suffocation of the
remains of their culture. Read Peter Nabakov - Native American
Testimony See also : Healing
the Sacred Hoop, which is really good.
The native people's historic lifestyle, as well as the lifestyles
and cultures of "primitive peoples' around the world, have
invaluable knowledge and tremendous wisdom to share with the
so-called "modern" world in terms of developing a sustainable
and rich way of life without burning a million barrels of
oil each day. There is apparently a lot more to life than
a great lease on an SUV.
- The TV is in a class by itself. It is, essentially, a very
powerful drug: addictive, hypnotic, narcotic, seducing people
into suspending their reflective thought in order to simply
passively recieve any and all messages broadcast. TV is so
powerful that "if it's not on TV is ain't real: and If I saw
it on TV it must be true". People really do buy into this.
I cannot stress enough how important I think it is for people
to have an extremely critical eye towards TV and TV advertising.
The Power of TV elevates advertising and propaganda to something
as close to "mind control" as we'd like for these sorts of
people to get. Just my perspective.
- Small versus large farms... According to a 1992 U.S.
Agricultural Census report, relatively smaller farm sizes
are 2 to 10 times more productive per unit acre than larger
ones. The smallest farms surveyed in the study, those of 27
acres or less, are more than ten times as productive (in dollar
output per acre) than large farms (6,000 acres or more), and
extremely small farms (4 acres or less) can be over a hundred
times as productive.
In a last-gasp effort to save their efficiency myth, agribusinesses
will claim that at least larger farms are able to make more
efficient use of farm labor and modern technology than are
smaller farms. Even this claim cannot be maintained. There
is virtual consensus that larger farms do not make as good
use of even these production factors because of management
and labor problems inherent in large operations. Mid-sized
and many smaller farms come far closer to peak efficiency
when these factors are calculated.
It is generally agreed that an efficient farming system would
be immensely beneficial for society and our environment. It
would use the fewest resources for the maximum sustainable
food productivity. Heavily influenced by the "bigger is better"
myth, we have converted to industrial agriculture in the hopes
of creating a more efficient system. We have allowed transnational
corporations to run a food system that eliminates livelihoods,
destroys communities, poisons the earth, undermines biodiversity,
and doesn't even feed the people. All in the name of efficiency.
It is indisputable that this highly touted modern system of
food production is actually less efficient, less productive
than small-scale alternative farming. It is time to reembrace
the virtues of small farming, with its intimate knowledge
of how to breed for local soils and climates; its use of generations
of knowledge and techniques like intercropping, cover cropping,
and seasonal rotations; its saving of seeds to preserve genetic
diversity; and its better integration of farms with forest,
woody shrubs, and wild plant and animal species. In other
words, it's time to get efficient.
"The
Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture"
Other references used:
Kind thanx to Logos of Marijuana.com for "spiritual
feedback, not otherwise specified".
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