Global
The headlines tell it all: “The Campaign To Decriminalize Pot,” “Marijuana As Medicine Will Continue,” “Marijuana Decision Does Not Solve Issue,” “Ohio Group Writes Bill Proposal On Medicinal Marijuana,” “Marijuana Use Gets A Boost.” These summarize a few of the stories about marijuana that appeared in Ohio’s newspapers this year according to the Media Awareness Project (MAP) of DrugSense at http://www.mapinc.org.
Just three years ago, the headlines read: “Marijuana Harvest Brings Out The Authorities,” “Police, Marijuana-sniffing Dog Sweep Through Madison High,” “Deputies Arrest Man after Finding 5,000 Marijuana Plants,” and “Medical Marijuana Law Dumped.” What happened? Why has reporting focused on law enforcement shifted to reporting focused on medicine?
A strange thing happened on the way through the millennium. The media got it. A quiet revolution has occurred in the way Americans and others worldwide view this much-maligned plant.
Behind this shift lie facts like these, again from MAP:
As the nation recovers from the carnage of September 11, we might do well to refocus on the many Americans, including innocent women, who are daily falling sick and dying, not from terrorism, but from lack of health care.
Lack of Health Insurance:
An August 2001 report from the mainstream Commonwealth Fund shows that American women are losing health coverage at an alarming rate. Some major findings:
Insurance rates of women are falling below that of men:
- The numbers of uninsured women has grown 3 times faster than the number of men over the past 5 years. Nationally, the numbers of uninsured women is growing fast and could surpass numbers of men by 2005.
- Low-income mothers represent 3 out of 5 low-income uninsured parents and one-quarter of uninsured women.
- Women 55-65 are more than 20% more likely to be uninsured than men.
The Commonwealth Fund also reports that women have more trouble accessing care than men:
As the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center toppled and with the Pentagon in flames, Attorney General Betty Montgomery battled on almost alone, as the rest of the nation sought to comfort the wounded, tried to rescue survivors and mourned its dead.
Montgomery was not on a mission of mercy, but yearned for more death that day. She wanted Johnny Byrd dead. Reports of Supreme Court justices hidden away in undisclosed bunkers to safeguard them from terrorists attacks, did not deter her from filing a motion to kill Johnny Byrd.
Byrd’s scheduled execution date of Wednesday, September 12 at 10 a.m. was stayed by the Sixth Circuit Court late Monday evening. Numerous questions remained surrounding the killing of suburban Cincinnati convenience store clerk Monte Tewksbury. While Byrd was convicted of actually stabbing Tewksbury during a robbery, his trial was a farce. Byrd’s attorneys failed to investigate his claims of innocence, offer evidence or mount a defense during the trial. The state’s only direct evidence against Byrd was the perjured testimony of a violent and notorious jailhouse snitch, Ronald Armstead.
Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, California was the lone voice of conscience when she had the courage to stand up firmly against the resolution to authorize U.S. military action to respond to the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The following is a text of her dissent.
Rep. Barbara Lee: “Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Only the most foolish or the most callous would not understand the grief that has gripped the American people and millions across the world.
This unspeakable attack on the United States has forced me to rely on my moral compass, my conscience, and my God for direction. September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.
Rep. Barbara Lee: “Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Only the most foolish or the most callous would not understand the grief that has gripped the American people and millions across the world.
This unspeakable attack on the United States has forced me to rely on my moral compass, my conscience, and my God for direction. September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.
The militarism and political intolerance displayed in the Bush administration’s response to the September 11th attacks created a natural breeding ground for bigotry and racial harassment. For the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the recent tragedy was God’s condemnation of a secularist, atheistic America. The attacks were attributed to “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and the lesbians,” according to Falwell, “the ACLU (and) People for the American Way.” Less well-publicized were the hate-filled commentaries of journalist Ann Coulter, who declared: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.”
Similar voices of racist intolerance are also being heard in Europe. For example, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently stated that “Western civilization” was clearly “superior to Islamic culture.” Berlusconi warmly praised “imperialism,” predicting that “the West will continue to conquer peoples, just as it has Communism.” Falwell, Berlusconi and others illustrate the direct linkage between racism and war, between militarism and political reaction.
Similar voices of racist intolerance are also being heard in Europe. For example, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently stated that “Western civilization” was clearly “superior to Islamic culture.” Berlusconi warmly praised “imperialism,” predicting that “the West will continue to conquer peoples, just as it has Communism.” Falwell, Berlusconi and others illustrate the direct linkage between racism and war, between militarism and political reaction.
A consensus now exists across the American political spectrum, left to right, that everything fundamentally changed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. To be sure, there was an upsurgence of patriotism and national chauvinism, a desire to “avenge” the innocent victims of the Al Qaeda network’s terrorism.
I would suggest, however, that the events of recent weeks are not a radical departure into some new, uncharted political territory, but rather the culmination of deeper political and economic forces set into motion more than two decades ago.
I would suggest, however, that the events of recent weeks are not a radical departure into some new, uncharted political territory, but rather the culmination of deeper political and economic forces set into motion more than two decades ago.
A consensus now exists across the American political spectrum, left to right, that everything fundamentally changed in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. To be sure, there was an upsurgence of patriotism and national chauvinism, a desire to “avenge” the innocent victims of the Al Qaeda network’s terrorism.
I would suggest, however, that the events of recent weeks are not a radical departure into some new, uncharted political territory, but rather the culmination of deeper political and economic forces set into motion more than two decades ago.
I would suggest, however, that the events of recent weeks are not a radical departure into some new, uncharted political territory, but rather the culmination of deeper political and economic forces set into motion more than two decades ago.
Some reckon that the provision of any sort of historical context
is an outrage to the memory of those slaughtered in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Here's Christopher Hitchens, writing in the current Nation: "Loose talk
about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful
garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same
intellectual content."
Hitchens seems to be arguing that Osama bin Laden and his Muslim cohorts are so pure a distillation of evil that they are outside history and any system of overall accounting. So all you can tell your kids is that the guys who planned and carried out those Sept. 11 attacks are really bad guys.
This isn't very helpful, particularly since among those kids to whom we are trying to explain Sept. 11 are America's future leaders and policymakers. Don't we want them to understand history in terms more complex than those of flag-wagging at the moral level of a spaghetti western?
Hitchens seems to be arguing that Osama bin Laden and his Muslim cohorts are so pure a distillation of evil that they are outside history and any system of overall accounting. So all you can tell your kids is that the guys who planned and carried out those Sept. 11 attacks are really bad guys.
This isn't very helpful, particularly since among those kids to whom we are trying to explain Sept. 11 are America's future leaders and policymakers. Don't we want them to understand history in terms more complex than those of flag-wagging at the moral level of a spaghetti western?
Back in 1988, the father of our current president was bedeviled by
what media outlets called "the wimp factor." After eight years as vice
president, George Bush was making a run for the Oval Office. But quite a
few journalists kept asking whether he was a tough enough man for the job.
Newsweek even headlined the "wimp" epithet in a cover story about him.
That image problem faded in late December of 1989, when U.S. troops invaded Panama. The commander-in-chief drew blood -- proving to some journalists that he had the right stuff. A New York Times reporter, R.W. Apple, wrote that the assault on Panama was Bush's "presidential initiation rite" -- as though military intervention in a Third World nation was mandatory evidence of leadership mettle.
But even later, while still ensconced in the White House, the senior Bush remained notably stung by the epithet. He couldn't always keep the pain of it under wraps. "You're talking to the 'wimp,'" President Bush commented on June 16, 1991. "You're talking to the guy that had a cover of a national magazine, that I'll never forgive, put that label on me."
That image problem faded in late December of 1989, when U.S. troops invaded Panama. The commander-in-chief drew blood -- proving to some journalists that he had the right stuff. A New York Times reporter, R.W. Apple, wrote that the assault on Panama was Bush's "presidential initiation rite" -- as though military intervention in a Third World nation was mandatory evidence of leadership mettle.
But even later, while still ensconced in the White House, the senior Bush remained notably stung by the epithet. He couldn't always keep the pain of it under wraps. "You're talking to the 'wimp,'" President Bush commented on June 16, 1991. "You're talking to the guy that had a cover of a national magazine, that I'll never forgive, put that label on me."
The Bush administration has vowed that it will not aim the
Pentagon's firepower at civilian targets in Afghanistan. Such assurances
are supposed to make us think that innocent bystanders will be spared when
the missiles fly and the warheads explode. Don't believe it.
Back in early August 1945, President Truman had this to say: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians."
Actually, the U.S. government went out of its way to select Japanese cities of sufficient size to showcase the extent of the A-bomb's deadly power. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hundreds of thousands of civilians died -- immediately or eventually -- as a result of the atomic bombings.
In the past several decades, presidents have routinely expressed their reverence for civilian lives while trying to justify orders that inevitably destroyed civilian lives. Denial is key to the success of public-relations campaigns that always accompany war.
Back in early August 1945, President Truman had this to say: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, in so far as possible, the killing of civilians."
Actually, the U.S. government went out of its way to select Japanese cities of sufficient size to showcase the extent of the A-bomb's deadly power. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hundreds of thousands of civilians died -- immediately or eventually -- as a result of the atomic bombings.
In the past several decades, presidents have routinely expressed their reverence for civilian lives while trying to justify orders that inevitably destroyed civilian lives. Denial is key to the success of public-relations campaigns that always accompany war.