Pepper,

Thank you for proving my point. I see that you have learned well from your
conservative teachers-of-rhetoric. Instead of working to unite people with
our common goals, you have been taught to recoil in fear from the truth, and
separate the people you don't understand from your cozy little world on The
Hill.

Instead of discussing the facts and doing a little research about the world
we live in and how to make it a better place for our children, the
politicians of today are more interested in wasting our time with irrelevant
personal attacks that make good TV, but ignore the root problems of our
society. They offer inane sound bites instead of serious solutions. They
don’t discuss the facts, they point their finger and declare: "He's one of
THEM and must be ignored."

Instead of discussing the known facts and how they affect the people of
America, well-trained conservatives react with fear-induced derision ("If we
ignore global warming and laugh at the Hippies than everything will be
fine.”) Personally, I don't think the ice caps breaking into chunks the size
of Rhode Island is a laughing matter, but I'm glad you do. Didn’t somebody
once say Ignorance is bliss? (Or was that Ignorance Is Strength?)

I'm sure the idea of a spherical planet was hilarious to the people who
thought the Earth was flat and huddled in their huts for fear of falling
over the edge and being eaten by monsters.

Since you brought up California, I should mention that we were doing just
fine until Enron decided to rape us with the blessing of their frat buddies
in the White House and the typical corporate conservative doublespeak of
deregulation.

The right-wing mantra is always the same: They preach small government then
take everything they can grab. They say the same thing over and over again
in ever more blustery voices: Hemp - Bad, Guns - Good. Welfare Mothers –
Bad. Corporate Welfare - Good. School Lunches - Bad, Chemical Weapons -
Good.

This fear-induced corporate ideology encourages division instead of
cooperation. We have been taught that there aren’t enough natural resources
for everyone on this planet, so some people have to die and its better THEM
than ME. This paralyzing fear of the unknown keeps people huddled in their
homes praying that somebody will protect them. Meanwhile, we the people are
told to stand aside and let the professionals take care of things.

Unfortunately, today’s "professional politicians" protect our "National
Security" the same way they always have: They sell weapons to right-wing
dictators who protect corporate profits from poor Communists. This conscious
decision to fight Socialism by embracing Fascism is at the heart of today’s
anti-American right-wing rhetoric. Project Paperclip, and the CIA’s
well-documented history of protecting Nazis is just one of many disturbing
examples.

A popular right-wing extremist once declared: “If you say something loud
enough and long enough, people will believe you.” Pretending that Hitler was
just a good public speaker ignores his murderous rise to political power,
and the fact that he was financially backed from the beginning by the
military/industrial giants of the world who thought Fascism and slave labor
were great ways to control the population and keep down the costs of
production.

While we’re on the subject of Oil-based Geo-Politics and ignorance, you
might want to do a little research into the history of the Bush family,
their business partners, and the CIA, in propping up right-wing terrorists
like Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Noriega, Pinochet, and Hitler (to name a
few).

Maybe then we can begin to talk honestly about Prescott Bush, the Dulles
brothers, and how they helped the giants of American industry rebuild and
rearm the Nazi war machine through business deals with IG Farben: Before,
during, and after World War II. Let’s talk about George Bush Sr. arming
Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, and being business partners in the Unocal
pipeline with the Bin Laden family through The Carlyle Group (which also
makes the Crusader Tank system, and is represented internationally by George
Bush Sr. and James Baker).

Does anybody remember The Iran-Contra scandal? “Of course not,” you gasp,
“What does trading weapons for drugs to fight Communists have to do with the
price of oil in Afghanistan?”

Those ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Since before World War
II, American foreign policy has been based primarily on protecting
multi-national oil interests by giving weapons and training to right-wing
terrorists who protect the business interests of the worlds richest 1% by
keeping the local populations desperate and starving, by whatever means
available.

What has this cycle of violence brought us? Pearl Harbor, the Sept. 11th
attacks, and a permanent war economy. Are we from terrorist attacks? Of
course not, we are the constant victims of the insatiable greed of their
business partners. We work their factories for slave wages and wave flags
while they send our children around the world to die for oil we don’t need.

Is that the Free and Democratic America you believe in?

I could go on for months about the not-so-secret history of US Covert
Operations to control the Middle East and South America, but before I could
say “Operation Condor” your eyes would glaze over and you’d mumble the
typical Forest Gump-esq reply that "If I ain't seen it on TV than it must be
a lie".

So I beg you: PLEASE DON’T BELIEVE ME.

LOOK IT UP FOR YOURSELF! Do your own research! Ask your own questions! Find
the answers for yourself instead of regurgitating the lies you’ve been
taught by well-financed corporate “lobbyists”.

Only then can you truly understand and rationally discuss the consequences
of Geo-Politics. Everything else is meaningless until you understand the
real history of the corporate-greed driven war against the poor and huddled
masses yearning to be free. It’s not a secret conspiracy of oppression, its
just good business . . . Enron-Style. Like the Savings and Loan Scandal,
which was also brought to you by the Bush family. How much did that glowing
example of conservative deregulation cost us?

Despite the predictable blowback of illegal Covert Operations and Shadow
Politics, we STILL buy oil from Iraq and Saudi Arabia while they laugh in
our faces and kill our families and friends. Do you really think oil is
worth the lives of the people who died on Sept. 11th? And the people who
continue to die for the Unocal pipeline in Afghanistan? Or the hundreds of
thousands of children who have died in our embargo of Iraq while US
corporations continue to pour money into the Iraqi war machine and our
military prepares Desert Storm: 2?

When John McCain was asked when we will stop buying oil from the Saudi
regime that continues to protect and train right-wing terrorists, he
answered honestly: "When we are no longer dependant on Saudi oil."

Is the Ideology of Oil so ingrained in your brain that you refuse to even
look for a better way? Why are you and your fellow “conservative”
politicians so willing to freely sacrifice our future for oil without the
slightest question or second thought? Don’t you have the slightest twinge of
doubt when the oil industry experts declare that: “America needs oil to
survive, and without it we will all die!”

Unfortunately, it’s a lie, and as Frank Zappa said: “Our children our
victims of the lies we believe.”

It all comes down to Hemp: The most versatile renewable natural resource
know to man for more than 12,000 years. Hemp, grown by American farmers and
processed by local workers, could supply us with all the food, clothing,
shelter, and fuel we need to survive and thrive as a nation. Hemp is also
cheaper, cleaner, stronger, and safer than the petrochemical products forced
on us by the same industrial giants that you and your congressmen now
obediently protect.

Amid the cries of National Security, and plans for our future of “limited
civil rights”, have any of the Bush people suggested ending our dependence
on Saudi oil? Of course not, they have investments in multinational oil
companies to protect (with our blood and money).

How did Ashcroft and the Bush administration decide to best protect our
future? They declared Hempseed a dangerous substance, then threw out our
constitution and declared that all those gun laws just aren’t fair to them
nice folks who like guns and give money to conservative politicians.

We begin World War III and what’s at the top of their National Security To
Do List:

1) Ban health food.
2) Put more guns on the street.

Frankly, I don’t care how many guns a person owns. They’re more likely to
shoot themselves or someone in their family than me. So, I say stock up and
blow your socks off!

However, while you’re sandbagging the doors and loading your shotguns with
buckshot to fight off Communists, Terrorists, and the invading King of
England, ask yourself why the seeds of the most versatile natural resource
known to man would be banned in a “Free Country, where every vote counts!”

Everyday, one family after another is destroyed in our $50 Billion Drug War
simply because they are in possession of a dried flower. That is not a war
on drugs; it’s a war on the people of America.

In quiet whispers throughout the country, we all agree that hemp would be an
economic boom to every state in this nation and every continent on the
planet, so why is it still illegal in our perfect democracy? Simply put,
because our government is filled with corrupt corporate lawyers who are paid
to protect the profits of their business partners instead of the American
people. Do any of us really believe that our smiling, oil-soaked politicians
are doing everything they can to protect the future of our children?

For pointing out these self-evident truths, conservative pundits declare
that I am nothing but a Village Idiot.

Somebody once said: Ignorance of the truth is sad; being proud of your
ignorance is simply stupid.

Jesus said: "For those who have ears to hear, let them hear." Jesus also
wore hemp clothing and read his Bible in the light of a hemp-oil lamp.

What would Jesus do if he were here today preaching against the hypocrisy of
greed and oppression like he did two thousand years ago?

He would be nailed to the tallest available TV antenna and denounced as a
fool, just like he was two thousand years ago.

I guess some things never change.

For me, "Candidate 2012" was never about the delusions of personal grandeur.
I was only interested in generating an honest debate about the world we live
in, and finding the best way to help as many people as possible. When we
look down and see the brink to which this narrow band of "mainstream
political debate" and “spectator politics” has brought us, any sane person
has to ask if another step in the same direction is really the best way to
go.

Whoever ends up on the show, my only hope is that they offer more than
mindless patter about how “things were better once upon a time” and a photo
op from the parking lot of “America’s Oldest McDonald’s”. I hope the show
goes into the by-ways of America’s forgotten towns to see the hopeless and
ignored people of America who live each day in the desperate hope that the
cost of living will go down so they can feed their children and then send
them to a decent school.

I hope the viewers of HBO are allowed to see the crumbling schools packed
with thousands of children force fed Ritalin and Prozac being taught to sit
down, shut up and stop asking questions. Maybe then the people of America
will begin to understand that the trickle-down theory of conservative
economics is turning us into a third world country with thriving class
warfare, a puppet dictator, and a government subsidized military-industrial
system that works us to death, drops our bodies on the side of the road,
then stuffs a fresh factory-slave into the Industrial Machine.

Democracy is based on the consent of an educated public, not the ceremonial
casting of an uncounted vote for the lesser of two evils.

The only important question is how to bring the people of America together
and build a better future. Do we do that by arming more terrorists and
bombing more children to perpetuate our dependence on Saudi Arabian Oil?

Or, do we open our eyes and take the path of enlightenment?

Only the truth can set us free.

Peace through Hemp,
Zed B. Starkovich
HempFarm.org


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Few Books for Further Reading (NOT burning):

Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of IG Farben. New York: Barnes &
Noble Books, 1997.

Bowen, Russell S. The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed.
Carson City, NV: American West Publishers, 1991.

Brewton, Pete. The Mafia, CIA & George Bush. New York: S.P.I. Books, 1992.

Brock, David. Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative.
New York: Crown Publishers, 2002.

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1992.

Chomsky, Noam. Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order. New York:
Seven Stories Press, 1999.

Chomsky, Noam. Secrets, Lies, an Democracy. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1994.

Chomsky, Noam. 9-11. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.

Cockburn, Alexander and Jeffrey St. Clair. Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the
Press. New York: Verso, 1998.

Conrad, Chris. Hemp: Lifeline to the Future. California: Creative Xpressions
Publications, 1993.

Engler, Robert. The Politics of Oil: Private Power & Democratic Directions.
Chicago: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1967.

Hatfield, J. H. Fortunate Son. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2000.

Herer, Jack. The Emperor Wears no Clothes. Van Nuys, Ca: AH HA Publishing,
1998.

Higham, Charles. Trading With the Enemy: The Nazi American Money Plot. New
York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995.

Hopsicker, Daniel. Barry and 'The Boys'. Eugene, Oregon: Mad Cow Press,
2002.

Loftus, John and Mark Aarons. The secret War against the Jews. NewYork: St.
Martin'sGriffin, 1997.

Loftus, John and Mark Aarons. Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and
the Swiss Banks. NewYork: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998.

Lisagor, Nancy and Frank Lipsius. A Law Unto Itself. New York: Paragon
House, 1989.

Nader. Ralph. Cutting Corporate Welfare. New York: Seven Stories Press,
2000.

Nader, Ralph. Crashing the Party. New York: St. Martins Press, 2002.

Marcheti, Victor and John D. Marks. The CIA and the cult of intelligence.
New York: Dell Books, 1975.

McCoy, Alfred W. The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug
Trade. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.

Phillips, Peter and Project Censored. CENSORED: The news that didn't make
the news. New York: Seven Stories Press, published yearly.

Prouty, L. Fletcher. JFK. New York: Citadel Press 1996.

Prouty, L. Fletcher. The Secret Team.

Robinson, Rowen. The Hemp Manifesto: 101 Ways Hemp Can Save Our World.
Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press, 1997.

Roulac, John W. Hemp Horizons: The Comeback of the Worlds Most Promising
Plant. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1997.

Sausly, Richard. IG Farben. New York: Boni & Gaer, 1947.

Sloman, Larry. Reefer Madness: A History of Marijuana. New York: St.
Martin's Griffin, 1998.

Spence, Gerry. From Freedom to Slavery: The Rebirth of Tyranny in America.
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1993.

Stinnett, Robert B. Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. New
York: The Free Press, 2000.

Stitch, Rodney. Defrauding America. Alamo, CA: Diablo Western Press, 1998.

Sutton, Antony. Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler. England: Bloomfield
Books, 1976.

Tarpley, Webster G. and Anton Chaitkin. George Bush: The Unauthorized
Biography. Out of print. Available on the Internet.

Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine
Explosion. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998.

Wiener, Jon. Gimmie Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files. University of
California Press, 1999.

Zinn, Howard. The Twentieth Century: A Peoples History. New York: Harper
Perennial, 1998.

Zinn, Howard. The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy. New
York: Seven Stories Press, 1997.