Pharmaceutical Nicotine and the State: Defining and Segregating Sacred

Only atheists, infidels, and barbarians chew Nicorette or suck synthetic coal tar derived nicotine replacement "therapies." Only unhealthy and injured people need therapy.

True believers, those that have seen beyond the veil inhale tobacco, a natural green plant that supplies nicotinic acid the natural way.

If the State Health Departments and the synthetic nicotine manufacturers are going to define tobacco as "sacred," for use only by native peoples, or rather, a few select Indians within each tribe who are deemed by the State as sacred enough to inhale for the rest of their nation; then why would anyone want anything other than the sacred stuff?

By defining tobacco as sacred, when up until recently it has been called "dirty" or the "devil's weed," or "the nation's number one health issue," the pharmaceutical industry, health departments, and religious groups that have fought so hard to make tobacco use illegal are actually saying that tobacco is holy, safe, and natural. How is it that these tobacco haters say tobacco is immoral, evil, and dangerous yet at the same time holy, sacred, and even spiritual?

In describing "sacred tobacco" these groups say it is non addictive, has no toxins, and no nicotine -- as long as it's used by a specific genetic, cultural, and religious group. How is it that tobacco smoke used by Indians, or rather a select government minority within the tribe suffers no addiction, health risk, and gets no nicotine?

And how is it sacred when used by one person or group but not another?

If tobacco is sacred and natural, then synthetic nicotine gums, candies, and patches are the dirty and sinful corruptions of greedy corporations. These products have had all the sacred sucked out of them and may need someone to light a bowl of sacred tobacco over them in order to enrich them with what they are lacking -- spirit.

By defining tobacco as sacred for the select, this confers a high status upon tobacco and implies that synthetic nicotine is for the unwashed masses, the lowly. Everyone wants to be part of the select rather than the secular and anti-people, anti-tobacco gum chewers and lozenge sucking children afraid of smoke signals rising to the heavens.

In saying that tobacco is sacred, this implies that the groups of people standing around with pipes, cigars, and cigarettes are actually initiates into a sacred group. This implies that these people are engaging in a religious gathering, communing with each other and with God. Banning these people from a daily ritual and claiming that only those with the correct genetic markers and cultural heritage may partake, may "pray" and gather peaceably is highly suspicious.

When does a company or the local state get to define which group may worship or gather, or participate in certain rituals? I suppose it does all the time. The U.S. government prohibits certain practices such as polygamy, which it doesn't need to in my opinion, as most men cringe in fear at the thought of more than one wife at a time, and most free women would rather not share their home and other resources with another woman or her children. Sarah sent Hagar out, and Rebekah and Leah weren't pleased with their arrangement either. It doesn't generally work unless a man is a king, and even then it can be a failure.

What if the government told us that only descendants of Brigham Young could practice polygamy because for them it was sacred and not harmful? Or what if the government told us that only genetic Jews or genetic Catholics could drink "sacred wine" at Passover or Easter because it is used differently than for non adherents and isn't harmful? What if bread were banned from the general population, reserved only for Baptists in their "sacred bread" ceremonies?

The pharmaceutical industry and its department of health will say that these are ridiculous examples. There is no second-hand or third-hand danger posed by wine or bread, or other cultural and religious practices such as kosher preparations or dietary restrictions. Everything has so-called second and third hand effects if we want to look hard enough, hate hard enough.

What happens if one day it is decided that corporate gasoline is deadly and the number one health issue in the country because, according to the ethanol industry and health departments funded by them, it causes all the cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, low birth weight babies, and decreases productivity due to drive time? Will the ethanol industry ban gasoline, make it prohibitively expensive, imprison people that use it, and then declare it "sacred gasoline" reserved only for the elect in Washington D.C.?

Either tobacco is sacred and doesn't have nicotine or it is evil and does have nicotine. Perhaps, the tobacco is only as sacred and non toxic as the person smoking it. What the pharmaceutical nicotine industry is saying is that it is the people it hates for not using its synthetic and empty trash. The tobacco user must be banned and hated into using a product so far inferior to tobacco that they never would have voluntarily switched over of their own free will.

This is what happened when Mohammad swept through to force conversion to his new religious product. Under ordinary conditions a people like to convert of their own free will and because they are moved by some unseen spiritual pull. People generally like things as natural and easy-going as they can get it. Ideally, people prefer religions that allow for celebrations, communion with each other such as at potlucks and thanksgivings. People like a perfect mix of tradition that doesn't overwhelm spontaneity and joy. Each of us has a preference in religion which we think superior to all others. Preference is fine, but forced conversion from one religion or product to another is an act of violence and subjugation. And the anti-tobacco movement uses nearly all of the same arguments and reasons as a forceful religious movement.

In Islam, the government does not operate separately from the religious leaders. Our pharmaceutical industry is behaving like an Islamic nation, as if it is the religious head with its scientific clerics declaring what the holy writs say and sending out its terrorist converts to spread hate and fear and hardline law upon the ignorant people and State. The anti-tobacco movement is one of the most religious movements I have ever seen, and may actually be more harmful to American security, sovereignty, and health than radical Islam. If we were to tally the souls harmed by Chantix, job loss and land loss, and loss of 1st Amendment rights, the cost to society and the "pursuit of happiness" would be exorbitant.

The fact that the health departments and pharmaceutical activists are saying tobacco is sacred, says very clearly that this is religious and that the desired goal is not all that different from what radical right Islam seeks: Complete subjugation and annihilation of all adherents to other religions and products.

And tobacco smoke doesn't have any nicotine in it. When tobacco is burned it converts the nicotine to harmless nicotinic acid. This is why sacred tobacco doesn't have nicotine and isn't addictive.

And as far as not inhaling the sacred tobacco is concerned, that is a bunch of State and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation myth and homogenizing of a practice that is unique to each individual and Indian nation. As some churches don't "inhale" the wine by serving up grape juice, some Indians don't inhale the tobacco. Some Indians inhale, some don't. Some Indians smoke outside of the ceremonial use and have for time immemorial. And as there are many Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish denominations and sects, so are there many unique religious practices amongst American Indians across the continent. If an Indian didn't inhale the sacred tobacco either directly from the pipe or in the air they wouldn't know of its smell which is sweet to the Creator.

If Indians are going to allow a few nosy women to line their pockets with so-called non-profit and state "health" department money while telling everyone else how and when to use tobacco, then they will further corrupt and cut the ties with their Father who gave the people tobacco along with other nicotine containing plants, namely potatoes, corn, beans, and tomatoes.

Over and over I see that the pharmaceutical industry claims it's against "corporate tobacco," not "sacred tobacco." They hide nearly nothing. Propaganda never lies, but frames the truth in such a way that it creates a response that is destructive of the audience's own best interests. What the pharmaceutical industry is engaging in is called a coercive monopoly, which is when it engages the government legal process in prohibiting competition from other sources through law. My state runs a "Quit Line" which is designed specifically to profit the pharmaceutical companies by doling out synthetic nicotine currently "marketed as" smoking cessation aids.

Already, Nicorette is changing the marketing of its products as "therapy." Yes, Nicorette wants tobacco users to quit, but it wants the tobacco user stuck on their expensive and empty product. Nicorette is spending $30 million this year, not counting the millions in advertising spent by our state anti-tobacco campaigns, to push its products, especially the new quick-dissolve mini candy lozenge (Laurie Burkitt, "Nicorette puffs $15 Million into Ad Blitz," Forbes.com, 7 Dec. 2009). I would guess that this new product is not the traditional slow-release nicotine, which many find unsatisfactory and sickening, but a rapid-release nicotine more akin to a cigarette. Are these products monitored and taxed the same way as cigarettes? They should be.

Another question I have not researched properly is how the nicotine in nicotine replacement therapies is converted to nicotinic acid, as it's not oxidized through burning. If nicotine is not oxidized or alkalized it can't be freed for use by the neuronal and muscular nicotinic receptors. If nicotine is not oxidised or alkalized it is toxic, which is why the anti-tobacco people can say it's a pesticide, which it is when in its pure nicotine form. All plants have varying degrees of built in pesticide management. According to the research I've seen so far, the nicotine used in nicotine replacement "therapy" is freebase derived from pyridine, an extract of coal tar.

The nicotine replacement companies and anti-smoking campaigns are in reality giant advertising arms of a pharmaceutical monopoly that sees people as money, and has lost nearly all sight of health or cures. Proof that this is not a health issue but a coercive monopoly issue is the outrage against such products as smokeless tobacco, and products such as Camel Dissolvables which are similar to pharmaceutical dissolvables currently "marketed as smoking cessation aids" (Bill Godshall, "Urge FDA to make NRT products more consumer friendly," SmokeFree.net, 15 Aug. 2008)). And that e-cigarette really annoys them because it looks like a cigarette, is inhaled and the vapors are harmless. If this were really a health issue the anti-smoking advocates would love such products and encourage them, rather than pushing their products as the only alternative. Even quitting smoking without using a pharmaceutical nicotine product is not encouraged by these groups.

If these fake pharmaceutical products worked, everyone and their mama would have switched years ago. If these products worked and supplied nicotinic acid in a form that doesn't cause ill side effects the pharmaceutical companies and their non-profit arms wouldn't need laws passed against their competitors. Obviously pharmaceutical nicotine is lacking and our bodies know it. If pharmaceutical nicotine were equivalent to tobacco it would have an effect upon the paranoia and hate within the anti-tobacco movement, reducing its fears of social gatherings and death.

When a person is deficient in nicotinic acid they are prone to dementia and display fear of persecution, and think in terms of apocalypse. Evidently, the nicotine gums these people are chewing aren't healing the deficiency and only causing constant head ache and tension from TMJ. These people are confused and uneducated. They simply can't comprehend anything sacred or unregulated by their monopoly as this quote from Linda Lee of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services illustrates:

"'There is no real reason to use an unregulated product [e-cigarette] that could be dangerous'..[F]DA-approved products such as patches, gum and lozenges are already available, she said" ("Montana health officials discourage use of e-cigarettes to avoid Clean Indoor Air Act," Missoulian, 9 Jan. 2010).

These people don't understand. It's like telling people that there are all kinds of alternatives to good food such as pills and supplements which supply the necessities in food. Why on earth would anyone want to sit down with their friends and family for a good meal when they could swallow a pill, chew gum, or put on a patch? This is how it is with tobacco and the e-cigarette. People want the process, the tradition, the involvement, the experience, and the shared time together. This is why people try to use the e-cigarette, because they are trying to create the image of the original thing that they love.

Take the human desire for communion, thanksgiving, and remembrance away and there is nothing left. Take everything from wine, leaving only the alcohol and not many will want it. There's more to wine or beer and other creations of mankind than "addiction." What are all of the other ingredients to a fine wine that make it desirable? First, there is the love and labor of growing the plant, watching it grow in the sun, worrying about its exposure to bad weather and insects. Then, there is the process of fermentation which I know nothing about. Finally, there is the act of drinking it, which people do for the exact same reasons they smoke tobacco.

People drink wine at Easter, at Passover, at dinners, and other places where opening the channels of relaxation and socialization are desired. People relax alone with a glass of wine, with a book, or even to aid sleep. It is not the wine that makes one an addict. Addiction is something that cannot be defined because it lays in the spirit and soul of a person. Alcohol and other substances that people use are like guns -- benign and only servants of the person using them. If one wants to use a gun or alcohol to harm another they will. It is the person, not the object or substance that is dangerous. A gun can be a weapon used to harm others, or it can be used as a form of defense against evil or to provide food.

Who is behind the cigarette and what are they using it for? Is the tobacco user burning babies or killing people? Or is the tobacco user thinking of ways to make the world better? Who is behind the glass of wine, behind the wheel of a car, behind the science, behind the money, behind the philanthropy? Each of these things is nothing without the person behind them. Money is nothing until a person makes it work for good or for bad.

We each are a force and we each make the objects and foods we consume either holy or cursed. And what is coming out of the pharmaceutical cartels and health departments is cursed because the people behind these entities are like vampires in search of blood to feed upon. These people don't see anything other than money and numbers. They hate freedom, they hate people, they hate people not addicted to evil. These people think that health is a healthy monopoly over the lives of people.

Addiction sells its soul, it doesn't function and think. It sits alone and is dark. Addiction destroys lives. Tobacco users out on the job, in college, filing taxes, buying homes, having children, serving in the military are not addicts. These people are highly functioning individuals that contribute billions of dollars and other assets not counted in monetary terms.

It is the monopoly pharmaceutical industry that is unsacred and addicted. What they accuse the common person of is not something most of us suffer from. The pharmaceutical industry behaves as a deranged meth addict, destroying the lives of children and family. It robs and murders to get its fix. The largest health issue in America is not tobacco or food, but the giant corporations that create a society so prohibitive and stressful that people die of stress-related disease due to unhappiness. If there are gifts upon this earth that can ameliorate and offer small respites from the stress, sadness and ignorance left for us after the wolves have torn apart our feast, leaving a decrepit and decayed carcass, then these gifts should not be despised or feared.

All tobacco is sacred and traditional. All synthetic pharmaceutical nicotine gums, patches, and candies are freebase and devoid of tradition. These products are anti-American and have tossed out everything good, including joy and happiness; leaving nothing but fear, hatred, poverty, and subjugation.

image: August Macke, Franz Marc, 1910

Arizona's New Law: A Strike Against Slavery and Corporatism?

Several years ago my boss returned from a business trip in sunny California, most of which he spent golfing with a business owner there. The California businessman had a thriving business and didn't have to work much. My boss was impressed by his wealth and by the fact that the man could hire two employees for the wages he had to pay one employee in my state.

I remember standing there with my fellow employee who had run the business while the boss was away, listening as the boss was saying how easy it is in California to hire Asians and Mexicans to work for next to nothing. All of this was to insinuate that we were damn lucky to be getting such good wages. I was irked, but at the same time I understood the boss, a generally great guy.

The boss was barely making it sometimes. He wasn't rich. His house was small and plain, set in one of those new subdivisions where every house is cheaply made and doesn't have a yard. His cars were old, really old. Finally, his wife's little econo car from the 1980s died and he went out to get her a new one, ending up getting himself one too.

And so, it must have hurt a bit and made my boss jealous to see how easily one can hire employees in California, make them work so hard and pay them nothing, and make enough money to golf in the sun all day.

I wonder if this is how those in the 1850s felt when they saw plantation owners living the life while their slaves worked diligently, making the money? Even if one didn't believe in enslaving a fellow man, it must have made them jealous when they saw how small and simple their own life was, how small, and how expensive labor and time was.

We are living in interesting times, a combination of so many other times. The states and politicians are arguing and boycotting in regard to the Mexican worker issue. This doesn't seem entirely dissimilar to the arguments between slave states and free states that began broiling in the 1850s, eventually ending in the Civil War, fought to bring the Confederacy back into the Union.

There is a bit of a difference from the 1850s and 1860s in that the Mexican workers don't seem as afraid or sedate as the slaves of the Confederacy. They don't quite seem to comprehend that they are being used as the frontal assault to fight a battle for their "masters," who send them out to protest and ask for rights, rile them up and send them in to take the blows. The Mexican Marxist movement has no idea that they are slaves. They really believe they are free. If they are so free why don't they stop the drug cartels that make them look so bad, why don't they go home to Mexico?

If the Mexicans are free enough to gather in protest why are they not free enough to gather in protest against the inhumane and dangerous working conditions their fellows often work under? Who exactly are these protesters? Are they who they say they are or do they get paid to protest? I ask this, because, historically in the United States of America slave revolts are rare and are failures. This causes me to question whether these groups of angry Mexicans are Mexican or enslaved at all, or only paid provocateurs.

In the United States of America minority groups don't simply rise up and change culture with anger. It takes time, and is done in a very intelligent, educated, and legal manner. It takes time because the minority group has to break ground, rise above the odds and show that it is part of the culture, not separate, not less entitled, not more entitled. Most importantly, even though each of us is individual and unique, we each are part of this country called America and assimilated to it. All civil rights movements have tried to prove this: that we are all part of the same culture, that we are not separate, not different.

Racism is founded upon the belief that another group of people is different, separate, not assimilated. And here, in our time, we have lost sight of this and of the older civil rights movements. Now, the many groups crying for equal rights in America claim that it is equal rights to not assimilate, not be part of the greater culture, and continue being separate--yet equal. Now, people wear religious costume as badge of pride that tells everyone they are not part of the community, nor do they want to be. And Mexican protesters spout words such as "Latina" and speak in another language to show how separate they are.

Modern civil rights movements actually want "Separate But Equal" laws reinstated. This is an insult to those that worked so hard, who lost their lives to achieve equality and acceptance everywhere based upon individual character and merit, rather than on appearance and religion.

And so I question the honesty of the modern Mexican worker movement. There really are enslaved immigrants in this country. There really are abuses, but I doubt these people have any voice and that they have much to do with any of the current anger in the streets. I doubt the street marchers care too much about the down trodden who have no energy or freedom to march anywhere.

It's as if someone is trying to wind the American watch backwards, back to the beginning before Martin Luther King, Jr, before the Civil War, before the American Revolution. It's as if the fabric, the great patterned and stared and striped fabric of America is being unraveled.

People actually want to be defined as separate, as foreign, as slaves. We are banning certain groups, separating them out as less humans; and then demanding that other groups be given the right to be citizens, yet kept separate. Before the American Revolution British colonists brought slaves into America to work the land because they were easier to deal with than indentured servants who had to be housed and fed, then released, not to mention hard to keep from running away. A black slave was marked as different by skin color, making it hard for them to run away and assimilate into the general population.

In the years leading up to the Civil War when new territory was being settled, the slave question began tearing up the nation because one settler would move in with his family and work the land on his own, while another would come in with his slaves and set up a giant operation and get rich without putting as much into the local economy. The slave owner could make a profit hiring his slave out for wages to another too. But the land owner who owned no slaves had to pay someone to work his land. The settler that owned no slaves and needed extra money or work couldn't find work when it was taken by a slave. It wasn't fair to the settler who owned no slaves. It felt as if he was being stolen from and paying more for everything.

If one has grown up in an area where there is no cheap labor, where there are no slaves, it is very difficult to change that sick and dishonest feeling in one's stomach and buy a slave or to hire someone to work for less-than honest wages. It's not a good feeling knowing that your employee is starving because you don't pay them enough to get by. And so, the northerners moving into the new territories of America couldn't accept slavery because it was not honest and didn't make one proud of themselves as a provider.

Finally, the Civil War broke out because the spineless politicians in Washington had compromised over and over again, not wanting to say one way or the other that slavery was right or wrong. Too afraid to step on Southern toes they had drawn a geographic line, making slavery legal below, and illegal above. They had compromised with the Southern landowners, criminalizing anyone in a free state from aiding runaway slaves as they traveled to Canada. A family caught harboring a slave could lose everything they owned. This is why it was called The Underground Railroad, because it had to go underground to protect the property of the Operators. This law, criminalizing what had formerly been a fairly common and open act, caused an uproar amongst the Free States and lead to the writing and popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. When a person's property and livelihood are threatened it activates people.

There were many factors that lead the Southern states to secede from the Union. One was slavery, but there were other issues too. In a way, it was a war for monetary power. The North was where the money, population, banks, and manufacturing were located. The South was agricultural and old fashioned. The South felt that the Northern money was monopolizing things a bit and wanted out.

Abraham Lincoln eventually declared emancipation for the slaves, although it was more an act of weakening the power base of the Southern plantation owner than anything. The slaves were "free," but had no rights. And instead of being valuable property to an owner, they were now no one's property, and free to be abused by any and all with no loss to anyone other than to loved ones. The competition with Northern powers was broken, and a group of people found themselves indebted sharecroppers, manual labor, factory workers, and strikebreakers. The newly freed slaves were perhaps, more enslaved than before. It took another hundred years for them to be accepted as part of American culture, not separate.

Now, there is a lot of talk about "freeing" the Mexican immigrants and about amnesty, whatever that is. This is talk. President Obama will neither control the border, nor will he give full citizenship to the Mexicans. The reason for this is that his administration is funded and friended by large corporations and others who cannot afford to lose their cheap labor, either to citizenship or deportation. These illegal immigrants must be left in limbo, in a place where they have no rights, but don't leave the country. It's also important to keep the Mexicans in limbo because they make a great bone of contention in this country and keep us riled up against each other.

There are cities such as Los Angeles, California that have boycotted Arizona. And the Catholic priests are riled up, saying this is racism and not different than Nazi Germany. I think, it is actually more similar, at least right now, to the time between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. There is money, not love of mankind, behind much of this rhetoric. What exactly has Arizona done? They have threatened a monetary power base. Arizona's stricter immigration policy may not be perfect, and may lead to abuses, but it may have been a kick in the pants to quite a few greedy and dishonest power interests.

People don't get angry and stirred up until their money and property are threatened. The Catholic church has a large Mexican attendance. If Mexicans leave the state, or the country, so too does the money in the offering plate. Now, why is California threatened by tough immigration laws? And why are they willing to risk money to boycott Arizona? Why is Utah telling Mexicans to stay within it borders where they're "safe" as non citizens? Because these states are "slave" states and Arizona has essentially announced that it's not.

If a Northern state had announced more stringent enforcement against illegal workers this would not be as big an issue. But Arizona is a border state, a corridor for illegal non-citizen workers, as well as an entry for illegal monopoly drug mafias who are the modern slave drivers that push the bodies. The pre-Civil War slave drivers were the lowest of the low, cruel and heartless criminals, and black themselves, which made them more despicable to whites and blacks. The modern slave drivers are generally Hispanic, but the cruelest of the cruel, loving only to destroy the lives of their own people. The slave owners hated their slave drivers, but depended upon them and the fear they instilled in the slaves.

If one has ever traveled in Utah and California they will see that these states rely heavily upon non-citizen workers. These people allow business, state, and corporations to reap huge amounts of money and to keep things looking pretty as a southern plantation. While the giant corporate and government monopolies get rich by using these bodies, the citizens pay taxes into this false economy and get poorer.

California is like one of those American territories where one person earns and sweats for everything they have, while the guy next door has a perfect and easy life because he has 50 slaves out doing the work for nothing. Contrary, to what people say, California government makes a "profit" off of non-citizens. Each non-citizen equals a new Social service worker, new teacher, new bureaucracy that needs more money. The government keeps itself busy with all these bodies, never really doing anything to help them, and pockets the taxes taken from the citizens. It's a transfer of wealth, from the citizens to the State.

California needs non-citizens to work the fields, service industry, and whatever else. The State needs them for employment. If every Mexican was made a citizen and properly educated in English, the language that the laws and Constitution are written in, California and its corporations would soon be in trouble. They already are. The other solution is to send the non-citizens home and close the border. Mexicans are big business in California and Utah.

Why do you think California and other states don't teach Mexican students in English? It's not because they care about the students. It is actually to prevent them from becoming assimilated to American culture and from being able to learn their rights as American citizens. It's extremely important to read and write in the language of one's country. Before the Civil War there were laws on the books preventing slaves from reading, and especially from learning to write. This kept the slaves separate and unable to realize their power as humans. In America of the early 1900s there were a great deal of children born to foreign immigrants that never spoke English until their first year of school, and somehow, they caught on quickly with barely a problem.

It is wrong to prevent people from speaking their native language, but it is also wrong to keep them ignorant of the common language of the land, which is the language of laws and business and rights and literature. All people need to know how to get along with and understand the culture they live in or be outcasts and despised. It would be disrespectful to move to Japan or Russia and never learn the language or the social rules of the culture. Language is power.

Arizona has provoked a kind of war, a first shot. And the opposition is sending out the troops--the very people they enslave, because those with the power are too good to dirty or bloody themselves. And so, they make movies like "Machete" to invoke the slave troops into violence against the "enemy." And they pay a few loud voices to rally the troops, telling them to pick up their hoes, shovels, toilet brushes, and hamburger flippers and revolt.

There are only two solutions, neither perfect. Give the Mexican workers full citizenship, or prohibit them from working in the country. Arizona could not give them citizenship, and so made it a law that they cannot work without proper proof of permission. I'm not sure this is a solution either. Those in the slave states and in the federal government may make it easier to get papers. And how will this be enforced? Perhaps, it is the message that matters more than the actual enforcement.

What Arizona has done is similar to what Abraham Lincoln did when he freed the slaves. He pulled the rug out from underneath the power structure of the Southern land owners. Arizona has threatened the power structure of the neighboring states and business. Soon, we will see more states choosing sides in the same manner as Southern secession. Instead of seceding to be a slave state, the states will "secede" to be Free States. And like the slaves during and after the Civil War, the average Mexican will be caught in the middle. Do they go back to their slave master in Mexico, which has essentially hired them out to the U.S.?

I myself, am inclined to make most Mexican workers full citizens and encourage assimilation into the culture. If their country would rather hire them out, and gain corporate payoffs, then I'd rather cut Mexico off from its source of income. If I could prohibit money from going back into Mexico I would. And if I could cut off Mexican trucking, drivers, dirty diesel, and untrained drivers I'd do that too. But there is no easy solution, and it will take more than Arizona's law to solve this. I hope we don't have to go through another Civil War.

At any rate, this is contentious, and I hope that Americans can see past the mobs and that this is like North versus South, American money versus giant Corporate and State money. Perhaps, America could have avoided the Civil War by allowing escaped slaves to be full citizens in Free States, until the South was completely cleaned out of cheap/free labor. Compromising, being neither hot nor cold, leads to war and death of innocent people.

Carry A. Nation: Addicted To Spirits

"Ignorance is not innocence, but it is the promoter of crime" (Carry A. Nation, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation).

And darling Carry, "your loving home defender," would know all about the way ignorance promotes crime.

Carry A. Nation was as drunk as they come, a violent whiskey drinker at heart. She was so obsessed with spirits, and with "dives" that she made a career and reputation out of finding every hole-in-the-wall bar, then tearing up the town, leaving the business owners to clean up and pay for her barroom brawls, and intoxications. She was as intemperate as they came and damn proud of it. She'd think about going to town for days before setting out on one of her binges which she called "hatchetations."

Sometimes, the urge would begin as a soft voice telling her to "Go to Kiowa," rip it up girl! And she'd quietly begin collecting bits of brick and stone, wrapping them in paper and placing them in a box. These were her "smashers." Without them she couldn't have a proper good time. Then, when she could stand it no longer, she'd hitch up the wagon and head to town and get higher than a kite. As time went on, she found that the hatchet worked as good, or better than the "smashers." But the best tools of all were the Bible, the female body, hymns, and sobbing.

"I have never had so light a heart or felt so well satisfied as since I smashed those murder mills," Carry declares in chapter 7 of her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation.

The first time she painted the town red was June 7, 1900 at Dobson's and two other "dives" in Kiowa, Kansas. It was wonderful. She broke as many windows, and mirrors as she found glaring at her. When she was finished there was beer running in the streets. After that, she was addicted and no man was going to stop her. If there was any alcohol to be had, she was entitled to every last drop, and as God was her witness, she'd prevent those greedy men from drinking it all.

Carry admitted she was a bit of a nuisance, leaving steaming piles of refuse in the wake of her hatchetations, saying she was "a bulldog running around about the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn't like," but that didn't stop her. As far as she could tell, from her readings, Jesus doesn't mind wiping feet, and even enjoys this task. She was doing Him a favor, giving Him something to do.

"I would rather have my son sold to a slave-driver than to be a victim of a saloon. I could, in the first case, hope to see him in heaven; but no drunkard can inherit eternal life" (Nation, ch.1). That's why Jesus made wine at the wedding and served it up at Passover--to prevent them from eternal life, since they wouldn't submit to slavery on earth.

Carry A. Nation, had a daughter (not a son) that she dearly loved. Of Charlien she writes endearingly:

"My precious child seemed to have taken a perfect dislike to Christianity. This was a great grief to me, and I prayed to God to save her soul at any cost; I often prayed for bodily affliction on her, if that was what would make her love and serve God. Anything for her eternal salvation.

"Her [Charlien] right cheek was very much swollen, and on examination we found there was an eating sore inside her cheek. This kept up in spite of all remedies, and at last the whole of her right cheek fell out, leaving the teeth bare. My friends and boarders were very angry at the physician, saying she was salivated. From the first something told me this is an answer to prayer" (Nation, ch. 4).

Evidently, Charlien's cheek falling off when she was 12, leaving her deformed and with a jaw locked shut was a wonderful sign of God's mercies upon the "infidel" little creature. Really, Charlien's problem was her father, Charles Gloyd, who passed down a curse: "Oh, the curse that comes through heredity, and this liquor evil, a disease that entails more depravity on children unborn, than all else, unless it be tobacco" (Nation, ch. 4).

Somehow, and modern geneticists will agree because science has advanced so much since the late 1800's, Charlien's suffering and dislike of Christianity was due to her deceased father's liquor drinking, which contaminated her DNA. If only he had lived long enough to experience real intemperance with Carry. But alas, he left that to another, David A. Nation.

Carry A. Nation had a real soft spot in her heart for black citizens, a "kindly feeling":

"The race question is serious one. The kindly feeling between black and white is giving place to bitterness with the rising generations. One reason of this seems to be jealousy of the whites for fear the negroes will presume to be socially equal with them. The negro race should avoid this, should not desire it, it would be of no real value to them. They are a distinct race with characteristics which they need not wish to exchange. When a negro tries to imitate white folks, he is a mongrel. I will say to my colored brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus; Never depart from your race lines and bearings, keep true to your nature, your simplicity, and happy disposition--and above all come back to the 'Oldtime' religion, you will never strand on that rock" (Nation, ch 2).

That's right. Whenever anyone tries to "imitate" the freedoms that others have, when one forgets their place and forgets to fake a "happy disposition" to their superiors, rises above "simplicity" and irks the jealousy of another they are "a mongrel," not a bulldog.

Carry A. Nation right into hell and intemperance on a level never seen before. Thanks to women like her, unafraid to tear up the town, America got the Mafia and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Now, that's what I call real intemperance.

Americans Prefer the Taste of Corporatism (Fascism) to Communism

"Generally, fascism has come to mean a military dictatorship built on racist and powerfully nationalistic foundations, generally with the broad support of the business class (distinguishing it from the collectivism of Communism.)" (Kenneth C. Davis, "Boom to Bust to Big Boom," Don't Know Much About History:Everything You Need to Know about American History but Never Learned).

"It was rather easy, especially in the case of Germany and Italy, for demagogues to point to the smoldering ruins of their countries and the economic disaster of the worldwide depression and blame their woes on foreigners" (Kenneth C. Davis, Don't Know Much About History).

I see a very interesting repeat of history occurring in the United States of America, which has been steadily growing in size and becoming clearer in shape. The U.S. is steadily moving towards fascism, but the parties doing the moving don't see it that way, and most often believe they are fighting against fascism.

America's ruling classes have nearly always divided themselves into two factions: the liberal-progressive Marxist/Communist; and the conservative-right Socialist/Fascist. The rest of us, down on the ground are neither one or the other, but are easily and often gulled into leaning one way or the other and labelling ourselves as such and arguing all of the points of what we've been taught to say honestly and passionately, believing we are right and everyone else is wrong.

It cannot be helped that, generally, we are ignorant and unaware pawns. We're all guilty and have no idea of having ever committed a crime because we're told that we are on the correct side of things and that we are righteous and care for others. And we do, but those who lead us don't really give a damn about anyone other than themselves and their position of power. Because we are ignorant, and most of all, because we do care about others; these two qualities are used to guide us to think, say, and do things we would never have thought of left to our own devices. We only want to be free.

America has gone right of right. We have gone far right and are in the land of fascism. A liberal, Marxist movement only goes so far in the United States. It burns bras, protests on colleges campuses, has free love, and works in communes and fights for equal rights, then fizzles out for lack of substance. And one day, the equal rights Communist wakes up and looks in the mirror and sees they are old, bitter, and tired of free love. In fact, it's rather annoying that the free love turns into a free for all with all kinds of people wanting a piece of your love. The kids, the ex, the state, the gas pump, the church offering plate and everyone else wants a piece and it feels as if one is being taken advantage of.

Someone, something must be blamed for all of this giving away of one's self, which increasingly feels like taking, grabbing, and stealing.

And this is when the tough love fascist voice steps in and tells the people that the cure is found in limiting everything. All of that free love and pleasure must be replaced with good solid child-bearing wives, good religion, lots of kids, cleanliness, order, discipline, genetic purity, and ridding the government of poorly run programs that waste money on trying to help those that are burdens upon society.

In essence, fascism is a change from spineless political correctness to the opposite: harsh cruelty. It becomes a harsh, Spartan-like world, where only the fittest are deemed worthy of life, where babies are laid out in the elements after birth, where a mother's love is weakness, and men worship men. Fascism loves to use hard-core, fundamentalist religions. It doesn't care what the religion is: Islam, Christian, Jew, Mormon, etc, etc. Fascism hates all religions, and will bend them and twist them to serve its purposes. It has no regard for them other than as tools twisted into righteous skewers for disseminating austerity and hate.

Truthfully, neither Fascism or Marxism love anyone, and neither is able to operate responsibly with our money or time. They each fail on different levels. The Marxists go overboard with their political correctness and over complications, while the Fascists go overboard on their oversimplification and exterminations. Both are sure they're right. Both are wrong and harmful to the happiness and dignity of a people. They travel down different paths which always end up intersecting at the same place: Death and destruction.

Somehow, people forget that an earthly utopia is not a place where everyone thinks, looks and acts alike, or perfectly, or correctly. Ah, if only everyone would get along with us. What's wrong with everyone else? Why are they so dumb and blind to the "truth"? Why are they making my life so hard? Why are they so irresponsible, and why don't they work as hard as me? Why must I foot the bill for them?

It is easy to get angry at another group when one is unable to accrue any kind of wealth or happiness due to a government demanding more and more of an individual. This leads to jealousy when it is perceived or pointed out that another individual or group seems to never work while they receive welfare or, conversely, are very wealthy. If we were not so burdened by our governments we could not be made to hate others as easily. We may even say, "Ah, who cares if they're getting handouts. I've got plenty to go around."

And so, the United States is having a dramatic pendulum swing due to the years of allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of. We are swinging right. So far right that if events don't alter the movement we may knock ourselves out, sending the works out of the casing.

The thing about Fascism in America is that it has more power and popularity as a force than Communism. America considers itself a Christian country, although it is often decried from the pulpits that it is godless and needs saving. America is not godless. We have many gods, all claimed by their adherents as the ONE, the right one. If anyone seriously studied their Bible, rather than listening to others, they would find that the One God is nothing like what they've been told and doesn't very often go to church. If we knew this God, we wouldn't be so easily moved by Fascist leaders or Communist leaders, nor be so arrogant as to believe we can make the earth a utopia, free from evil.

But we don't often know this God, and so believe in angry and self-righteous movements against other angry and self-righteous movements, or against the defenseless. And this makes those at the top of the power class laugh in delight as they pull our strings and make us hop across the stage where we collide in violence against another puppet. Rather than looking up and getting angry at the person holding the strings, we focus on the other puppet and want to destroy or ban them for hitting us, when it is not their fault that they are being manipulated against us.

Another interesting sign that America is moving far right, mirroring Germany of the 1930's and 1940's is our fear of foreigners, our fear that they are invading our lands and taking our livelihoods, and will cover the land with their children, "tainting" our culture. America, along with most of the Western industrialized world, is at a zero or less population growth. We simply aren't reproducing, and many populations are predicted to decline dramatically in the next hundred years. This is also what was occurring in Germany when the Nazi Party took power. Somehow, subconsciously, we are aware of this and feel threatened by those of different races, cultures, and socioeconomic status who are having children.

The Nazi Party encouraged good, "pure" men and women to have more children and was obsessed with the health of mothers, and that they not contaminate their unborn children's lives (Utah, earlier this year tried to make it murder if a woman miscarries and is a tobacco user). There is most definitely an undercurrent in America that is pushing for women to live as nothing more than breeders, and that castigates them if they don't spend every moment serving this higher purpose. This idea of the woman, born brainless and only to serve the man and the breeding program is everywhere in pop culture.

The vampirism of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books and movies is born of an odd spiritualist fundamentalism usually seen in fringe cults. These books are touted as a return to good morals and purity. The idea behind them is that a woman is nothing until she is impregnated by a good vampire male, thus gaining eternal life, apotheosis through male worship. When vampires and morality are mixed and sold as good for young women, a culture is sick, no matter how polite the vampire is. When a culture adopts fundamental fringe cult beliefs, making them mainstream, they have become fascist.

There is a growing obsession with reality T.V. programing that features mega families with perpetually pregnant, smiling, over-achieving mothers and fathers. Notice, these are all very wealthy and often "perfect" Americans. But if a less wealthy person, a less perfect person has too many children it is a grave sin against the country and should be outlawed. Sure, it may be irresponsible for some to have more children than they can care for, but our media attacks them, as inferior genetic stock, while fawning over the perfect and good-looking wealthy that help replenish good American stock.

Another sign that we are going far right is our obsession with food and health rules, and penalizing as a crime all who don't live like religious fanatics under sharia law. Again, Utah, comes up, here with its mandatory electronic scanning of I.D.s at bars and clubs. It's as if they're collecting a list of who and where the sinners are. This also means, that a person that went out to a club can be accused of D.U.I. even before they get into their car. This means that a patron that only drank water is guilty by association.

We are nearly back at Prohibition where it was legal to drink alcohol, but not to procure it or have it anywhere on one's property. It is technically, illegal, in my state to even have one's car keys on their person if they have had a beer. It is even possible to get a D.U.I. while walking home or sleeping in one's car. It doesn't matter if one is a public nuisance or not, it only matters who is on duty and what kind of mood they're in when they cross a person's path. Where I live, every driver is actually considered guilty of being drunk the moment they get into their car. One must prove they are not. It's the law.

In my state, they want to put those who have harmed no one, but have been caught for multiple D.U.I into the state mental institution. Do you know what this means? It means an expensive, fascist pharma experimentation program that will only grow, requiring more money and more souls. A country has moved far right when it ships downtrodden alcoholics to the infamous state mental institution, in the middle of a desolate part of the state, away from friends, family, and anyone able to defend them from strange crimes. I don't understand alcoholism, but I also don't believe these people are expendable, or that they should be sent to the insane asylum. If they've committed a crime against the community, such as violence, murder, theft put them in prison; which is an excellent rehab program.

Thank goodness, most are ignorant of the laws. Even laying a pack of cigarettes on the bar or smelling strongly of tobacco smoke is enough to levy a large fine upon a bar around here. But most aren't aware of this and haven't snitched on offenders yet. Soon, it will be illegal to smoke outside. First, the Pharmaceutical industry gods are implementing outdoor bans at the Holy Shrine of Our Hospital, then the Pharma Seminary/University, then they will move into town. It's nice to see the women standing on the street, looking like hookers, because they can't smoke in the parking lot for fear of contaminating the holy asphalt and hygienic air.

America is moving far right. It's in the air. I've been sniffing it for a few years now, but the odor of it has grown stronger and quite foul. It was more difficult to smell it before the smoking bans and near Prohibition took place because the smoke covered up the smell and the alcohol made one too tipsy to notice or care.

Arizona's strict law that targets illegal immigrants has helped to expose the growing fears and ignorance of Americans and illegals. Whether the law is right or wrong, it is laying bare the battle between Communism and Fascism. Those that are not legal citizens of the U.S. are being controlled by the Communist power faction, while those that fear them are being controlled by the Fascist power faction. Both are wrong and so busy hating each other that they will cause death before they fix anything. Summer is nearly here. And historically, heat, cities, media, and racial tensions don't mix when that tried-and-true rumor of the woman being brutally raped spreads amongst the masses.

Are Mexicans really threatening American stability, or is it our version of the Taliban, the drug cartels that are the danger? Are Mexicans threatening us, or is it the dealers in human bondage that hold them prisoner in countless houses across the country? Are Mexicans a danger to our way of life, or is it the giant foreign-owned corporations that use them like disposable labor because Americans are still free enough to turn our noses up in disgust at such slavery?

Remember, the Nazis blamed the Jews for Germany's economic problems. We're doing the same to the Mexicans. It's claimed they don't pay taxes and send all their money back to Mexico. It seems nearly impossible not to pay taxes in America unless one has an expensive attorney or accountant. Everything we do in this country is taxed. And how do they send all their money back to Mexico? How do they send their money back when they don't make any? The average American doesn't have money left over after paying the bills to send anywhere. If a Mexican can figure out how to get past the American system, then U.S. citizens must be idiots, because we haven't figured out how to beat the system after all these years. Maybe, we need more Mexican accountants and legal professionals to help us.

If a mass of Mexicans can really topple the American economy, close hospitals, and slip past taxes and surveillance; then it means that a mass of Americans can topple the dishonest corporations funding our government into fascism, that we too can shut down hospitals and universities that become arms of Big Pharma, rather than places of healing and learning; that we too can cut down on over taxation, and surveillance. If the Mexicans have so much power, then we do too.

If Americans would take the same fear and hatred of Mexican illegals and turn it against the giant monopoly corporations that influence our governments, universities, scientists, and non-profits nearly every problem we have with illegal immigrants would be solved. And our problems with employment in general would automatically go away. And the MexAmerican Taliban drug cartels would disappear, because there is no profit in crime, drugs, or people when a culture is content, happy, and FREE. Drug abuse decreases of its own when the people are intoxicated on freedom and liberty. When a people are free they have fewer health and mental problems and have no desire to numb themselves, or to induce sensations because they have been numbed by a fascist culture. When people are free they work harder, they produce more, they employ more, pay more, and are free enough to forgive others.

If we'd let Lady Liberty loose to trample out the grapes of wrath and pour her cup of indignation upon the fascist corporations, most of whom descend from Nazi Germany's IG Farbenindustries or are joined by "marriage," we'd have more than enough room in our land and in our hearts for as many immigrants as we could seat at our Thanksgiving table.

Fascism is also called Corporatism. This is what happens when a government and a few giant corporations unite to dictate to a country. Communism is when everything is owned and operated by the government.

This time, rather than a lone Hitler preaching over the country, America has many voices of Hitler. We are being dictated to by very charismatic and seemingly religious and patriotic people on a daily basis. They spout Samuel Adams and Ben Franklin. They spout the Bible and other trusted sources. Lest we forget, a great deal of Nazi literature and preaching also espoused Christian ideals, and supported Christian morals, using the word "Christian" all the time. If something was "Christian," then it was a good thing and the reason for cleaning up the country. Communism is godless, Fascism appeals to every god fearing person it can. A Corporatist state has to appeal to religious rightness in order to sell itself and motivate the masses into buying its product of mass death in order to save itself. Fascism thinks "Christian," "Muslim," and "Jew" are brand names to slap onto a product. Fundamentalist religion loves the idea of sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Money must be sacrificed, freedom must be sacrificed, lives must be sacrificed. Everything must be sacrificed to redeem the country and save its soul.

American talk radio has taken the opportunity of the dissatisfaction and corruption of our political system to begin a daily seminar of fear and religion. Glenn Beck, in particular is a dangerous orator. He cries, he talks religion, he has revivals, he's had revelations and messages from God. He pretends he speaks to the American Christian ideal. He talks revolution, yet says he doesn't. He authors poorly written books and paints. All faux intellectuals delve into art. This fact has fascinated me for years. Dictator types are jealous of artists and writers. They can't understand them and wish they could be them. They write horrible books and paint. It's a time-worn pattern.

Glenn Beck is what could be called "White Propaganda." This is when a person seems to be on the same side as the target audience and says what they think, or what they think they think. "Black Propaganda" is when it's obvious to the audience that the message is from the enemy. "Grey Propaganda" is exactly that, a bit blurry as to who it comes from and what the audience is supposed to think.

Glenn Beck is anti-Christian and warps the Bible every time he talks about it. For several years he has aired an Easter special with Pink Floyd's agonies screaming in the background while Beck narrates the crucifixion of Christ. Over and over he has crucified Christ, always stopping short of what happens after the crucifixion. The Romans and the Jews only crucified Jesus once. Beck does it every year and never lets Him conquer death. This is because it is a belief within his religion that one must pay for their own sins with sacrifice, and must work their own way to Heaven, and if they are good enough they will get to Heaven and be made a god. In Beck's world, in his religion Corporatism is a good thing.

Propaganda never lies. It always tells the truth. It is the intention behind the propaganda that lies. Any Christian that doesn't get the creeps after listening to Beck, may need to reasses their understanding and knowledge of God. I listen to him now, only for "inside" information. I use to listen to him regularly, but now, I find him a symptom of America's sickness, and he's always sick, always spouting fear.

Fascism loves religion, it loves conservatism and it has twisted these things into barbed weapons. Religion isn't bad. But when it lets hate and fear run it it's dangerous. When a religion teaches that one can become a god and have many wives in heaven, then it's dangerous (Islam, Mormon, and others espouse the harem teaching). When a religion teaches that certain genetic groups are inferior and collects a massive database of ancestry and genetics history it needs to be questioned.

When we have orators like Glenn Beck preaching and crying for our souls then it's time to get real and wonder where we are in history and how easily duped we can be. And people sure do get angry when their Beck is threatened. Why would anyone get angry, unless they really do believe in a world in which freedom of speech only applies to them?

Sure, America has quite a few illustrious orators right now. President Obama is said to be one of them, but he's not on the radio for hours and hours every single day. Obama lets the radio talk, kicks back with Big Pharma nicotine gums and candies, listens, and laughs to himself. All he has to do is make a speech and let the media voices work it out and stir up the masses. Viva la revolucion! It doesn't matter to our elected officials and their corporate backers how many Tea Parties are held. It only matters that they vote hard right in the coming elections, rather than investigating the donors to the political campaign--all of the donors. It only matters that the Tea Partiers are riled up, distracted, and manipulated for the purposes of further destroying freedom. It only matters that there is a massive movement to bounce the far left movements off of, in order to create a "Big Bang," and create the ultimate fascist security state in which everyone is enslaved.

So far, the Tea Party movement hasn't followed in the footsteps of their namesake event. The Boston Tea Party wasn't aimed so much at the political system and government officials as at the corporate monopoly money behind them. The Boston Tea Partiers were a small group of men dressed as Iroquois Indians because they admired the ideas of self-governance that the Iroquois had been encouraging the colonists to pursue. The orginal Tea Party was an attack upon the trade monopoly of the British East India Company control, against corporatism. The colonists understood the root of the problem. It doesn't look so good for our modern Tea Party. They haven't tossed out one monopoly product yet.

And as an aside....And how long has it been since we've had a President in office that knew how to use tobacco properly? Clinton banned tobacco in the White House, and had no idea what a cigar was for. Bush inhaled Laura's 2nd hand, and Obama thinks it's all about the addiction to free-base nicotine, rather than for pleasure. He really likes the gum. That's for kids hiding from Mom and Dad! Why doesn't he be the adult President and light up? Does he think he'll get banned from the Oval Office?

If I were President....If I were President the Oval Office would look like the Inklings at the Eagle and Child tavern. Being President is like having the Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings. Good people with good intentions can be turned evil by such power. So, really, I'm not sure I could be trusted with such power. If the red phone rang at 3 in the morning would I answer it?

America and much of the world is moving far right into fascism. Fascism is Corporatism. Fascism is a religion. Fascism has many names and many hiding places, but it always has the same patterns. Fascism is like one of those multi-armed gods of the far East. It has one body, and many writhing arms. It is Sharia law, it is puritanical, it is Mormon, it is the Great Wall of China, it is the pater familias of Roman culture, it is the Spanish Inquisition, it is a ban upon everything that makes us human.

Fascism likes to remove citizenship from certain select groups of people, many of whom are native-born. Germany removed citizenship rights from the Jews and others. Many of the Jews in Germany were native-born. Many of Jewish ancestry had fled to Germany from other countries, such as Russia during its Bolshevik purges of Jews. There was a mix of native-born Jews and immigrant Jews, as well as many other groups of people displaced by the atrocities taking place around eastern Europe in the first years of the 20th century.

In America, we have in the past made certain native-born peoples into more or less non-citizens: Blacks, Indians, women, and others. Blacks, Indians, and women were not permitted to vote, freely travel, participate in business, own guns, go to schools and universities, and places of public gathering.

It must be wondered if the Mexican illegal issue is again going to create a way of making select groups of native-born Americans into non-citizens for the use and abuse of the fascist State. An identification system will have to be worked out in order to prove one's citizenship, to prove one is really an American citizen. It won't be adequate to prove one's family came over on the Mayflower and was the first to set foot on Plymouth Rock. No, the only way to prove one is a citizen will be to submit to being scanned, tracked, and branded. If one does not accept the identification system designed to keep non-citizens out, one will not be permitted to travel, work, shop, vote, or have legal representation.

And as in Nazi Germany, many native-born Americans will become non-citizens with no rights and will be the new slaves rounded up to work the jobs that citizens won't work. The German people rarely complained about this arrangement. I doubt American citizens will be any different.

America won't control the border or encourage Mexico to harness its resources to create wealth and jobs. America won't stop the MexAmerican Taliban drug cartel, nor the real foreign and native terrorist threats to security: Monsanto, Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline and others that love fascism and want us to use their products religiously.

America's great symbols: The Statue of Liberty, The Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution, tobacco (the American Revolution was also known as the Tobacco Wars), open roads for free travel, the automobile, the farmer, the rancher, the immigrant starting new from nothing, rock'n'roll, and Paul Bunyan the greatest of loggers have all been derided as sinful and outdated symbols. Liberty, Independence, basic Constitutions, Tobacco, Travel, Farmers, Ranchers, Immigrants, Joyful Music, and Loggers are only destructive and harmful to the environments and morals of evil despots. And as long as we remember and know of these symbols and the meaning behind them, as long as they run in our blood America will live.

We do not choose the time we are born in, but we can choose who we will be in the time we have been alloted. Look at history, at myth, at fiction and decide who the heros are and why. Very often, that hero is a small, single person. Often, that person has no name, such as the silent operators along the Underground Railroad.

"In Germany, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) made scapegoats not only of the Communists and foreign powers who he claimed had stripped Germany of its land and military abilities at Versailles, but also of the Jews, who he claimed were in control of the world's finances. The long history of anti-Semitism in Europe, going back for centuries, simply fed the easy acceptance of Hitler's argument" (Kenneth C. Davis, Don't Know Much About History)

"Prior to the American entry into the war, the Nazi treatment of Jews evoked little more than weak diplomatic condemnation. It is clear that Roosevelt knew about the treatment of Jews in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and about the methodical, systematic destruction of the Jews during the Holocaust. Clearly, saving the Jews and other groups that Hitler was destroying en masse was not a critical issue for American war planners" (Davis, Don't Know Much About History)

Tolkien, Tobacco, Censorship, and Liberty

I recently received a very nice hard back edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings as a gift. I last read this work when I was 13 years old and have wanted to read it since the film versions came out, but never got around to it.

I like to do a little research upon an author following a reading of them. It is helpful to understand a little of the private interests and passions of an author to understand why they care so much about their literary creations, and work so hard upon them.

I found it interesting that Wikipedia's biography of J.R.R. Tolkien had to use a picture of him from 1916 in military uniform, when he was an unknown and only 24 years old. The only other picture of him on the Wikipedia bio was of Tolkien in 1911, when he was 19.

The probable reason that Wikipedia could not, or would not use a more appropriate picture of J.R.R. Tolkien, one that showed him during the time he became known to the world outside of the University of Oxford for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is because there aren't many close-up photos of him without a tobacco pipe in or near his mouth.

Usually, a Wikipedia entry displays, or should display the first defining photo as the one that shows the person as they are most known and recognized by the world, not as they looked in childhood or as a teen. The childhood photos, should be relegated to the section pertaining to childhood. If the bio is describing Bette Davis or some movie star known for her good looks, the defining picture should be one that shows her at her peak, not one that shows her as an old hag. A picture of the youthful Albert Einstein would not be the defining image the world has. It would look out of place and odd when we all know he had unkempt white hair. Perhaps, Einstein carried his pipe a bit lower than Tolkien which allowed for the illusion that he was a tobacco-free thinker.

J.R.R. Tolkien was born in 1892 and died in 1973, which means he lived to be 81 years old. If he hadn't smoked he would've lived forever and The Lord of the Rings would look quite different (although, in the literary world one's creation is considered to make one immortal). I wonder if writing about Hobbits smoking tobacco qualifies as 2nd or 3rd hand smoke? And why does he look so much happier with the pipe than without it? He's probably glad he's not stuck on a piece of our modern PhrankenPharma nicotine gum.

Unlike the film version, which depicts the victorious Hobbits returning to their peaceful and untouched home in the Shire, the book shows an entirely different picture. Tolkien shows that the last battle is the one closest to home.

In the final chapters of the book, the Hobbits; Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry return home to the Shire after having gone to Hell and back, saving the earth from the dark evil of Sauron by tossing the Ring of power into the depths, forever cutting Sauron off.

The Hobbits return home to find gates across the roads, Rules which dictate the lives of the Shire; preventing the inhabitants from lighting fires, freely travelling, sharing food or home with strangers; and that beer and tobacco are no longer allowed for use amongst the common folk, being reserved only for the few who lord over them. Anyone that breaks a rule or speaks up is confined in the Lockholes by the Shirriffs who enforce the Rules.

There is general poverty amongst the people and the land. The homes have been burned down and ugly row houses line the road where once beautiful trees grew. The gardens have gone to weed, and the new mill belches out dirt that pollutes the river and air. The wizard, Saruman, has decided to set up a monopoly over the lives of the Shire Hobbits, which began innocently enough with a prohibition upon beer, but escalated to every aspect of life.

Merry wonders "What's the matter with this place?" ("The Scouring of the Shire," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

One of the native Hobbits explains: "We grows a lot of food, but we don't rightly know what becomes of it. It's all these 'gatherers' and 'sharers', I reckon, going round and counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"[O]n every wall there was a notice and a list of Rules. Pippin tore them down. There was no beer and very little food, but with what the travellers brought and shared out they had a fair meal; and Pippin broke Rule 4 by putting most of next day's allowance of wood on the fire.
"'Well now, what about a smoke, while you tell us what has been happening in the Shire?' he said.
"'There isn't no pipe-weed now,' said Hob; 'at least only for the Chief's men. All the stocks seem to have gone.....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'No welcome, no beer, no smoke, and lots of rules....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

"'There's hundreds of Shirriffs all told, and they want more, with all these new rules'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

Sounds a bit like my town and the rest of the country. The bigger the jails, the larger the police force the more criminals are invented. In the United States of America one is lucky if they have never been arrested or jailed. At least, 1 out of every 25 people is jailed in their lifetime, far exceeding Russia or China.

Many good people are sitting in our jails and prisons at this moment, some for traffic or parking tickets. In a jail not far from me sits a grandfather who loves his grandchildren and became their guardian when the children's mother (his daughter) became a neglectful drug addict. He protested Social Services constant and intrusive visits to his house to make sure he was taking care of the children and was arrested for standing up for his rights and family. He committed no crime other than doing the right thing and for telling Social Services to stop coming to his house.

"'So things went from bad to worse. There wasn't no smoke left, save for the Men; and the Chief didn't hold with beer, save for his Men, and closed all the inns; and everything except for Rules got shorter and shorter, unless one could hide a bit of one's own when the ruffians went round gathering stuff up 'for fair distribution': which meant they got it and we didn't....'" ("The Scouring of the Shire").

The four Hobbits, returned from battles, set about "raising the Shire," and waking the inhabitants from their sleep and powerless condition. They route out Saruman's thugs, although not without some loss of life. The Shire was ready to overthrow the Rules and those that forced them to live in a world "fair" only to the greedy. When we hear the words "fair" and "unfair" we need to ask what exactly is meant by these words, for most often they are employed by mean misfits of society.

After freeing the captives from the Lockholes, Frodo is appointed Deputy Mayor until the Mayor is properly recovered from his time in prison. Frodo promptly lays off the majority of Rule enforcement:

"The only thing that he did as Deputy Mayor was to reduce the Shirriffs to their proper functions and numbers" ("The Grey Havens," The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien).

Not only did the Hobbits save the earth from Sauron, an equivalent to our Satan, but they introduced Middle-Earth to tobacco smoking. The Prologue of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings details a bit of the history of this "art" in the section entitled "Concerning Pipe-weed":

"There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called pipe-weed, or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. A great deal of mystery surrounds the origin of this peculiar custom, or 'art' as the Hobbits preferred to call it....

"And certainly it was from Bree that the art of smoking the genuine weed spread in recent centuries among Dwarves and such other folk, Rangers, Wizards, or wanderers, as still passed to and fro through that ancient road-meeting. The home and centre of the art is thus to be found in the old inn of Bree, The Prancing Pony....

"Hobbits first put it into pipes. Not even the Wizards first thought of that before we did. Though one Wizard that I knew took up the art long ago, and became as skilful in it as in all other things that he put his mind to."

How much longer before this book is banned for its universal message of liberty and of overcoming evil? How much longer before it is censored and conveniently forgotten, along with so many other great works of literature? Will our children and grandchildren find this book, complete and as its author wrote it? Already, its author's image is being censored, in a way typical of Soviet Russia, when it commonly erased images of those no longer politically correct. And pipe-weed is nearly banned in favor of Saruman's Phake Pharma Nicotine monopoly of patches, gums, lozenges, inhalers, and other patented "therapies" for those that enjoy life too much.

images: J.R.R. Tolkien